Newsletter Archives

• Unconscious bias and hiring

  Posted on July 13, 2020 at 01:45 CDT by Jamie • Comment in the Forums
  

  ---

  Diversity

  Unconscious bias and hiring

  

  By Amy Babinchak

  One effect of the protests that followed the death of George Floyd is that the term “unconscious bias” is now pasted into the consciousness of most people.

  This includes your clients. Last week, a client called me out after I used the terms “whitelist” and “blacklist” in a blog post about changes to email quarantine that we were rolling out.

  My use of those terms was in no way racially motivated, yet she was right to draw my attention to it. It’s one of many cases where white is used to represent good, and black is bad. We don’t mean it in a racial sense when we use those terms, but that’s where the unconscious part of unconscious bias comes in.

  But what I really want to talk about is how bias affects hiring. I served on the CompTIA Advancing Women in Technology board for four years, and during that time, I was awakened to the bias that causes women to not apply for job openings, to be passed over for interviews, and to leave IT for some other career.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.27.0 (2020-07-013).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Other Unconscious Bias

• Patching printers

  Posted on July 13, 2020 at 01:30 CDT by Jamie • Comment in the Forums

  ON SECURITY

  Patching printers

  The June bugs in Windows 10 that caused all of my PCL 5 printers to not print reminded me that there are several ways that printers need updating. The days when we could install a printer and never worry about it again are over.

  By Susan Bradley

  If you haven’t updated your printer lately, the first thing to review its printer driver. The older the printer, the more likely you will need something like a universal PCL 6 driver in order to have it work with Windows 10.

  Last and certainly not least, even in a home setting, I often have very good luck by setting up the printer on the wireless or wired network to determine the IP address assigned to the printer.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.27.0 (2020-07-013).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Security, Updates AskWoody Plus Newsletter, patching, Printers

• ‘Moving house is great fun,’ said no one ever

  Posted on July 13, 2020 at 01:15 CDT by Jamie • Comment in the Forums

  BACKUP & RECOVERY

  ‘Moving house is great fun,’ said no one ever

  By Fred Langa

  The Langas’ home and office relocation hits some snags, including fatal damage to 5TB of backup files.

  But after some detours involving both high and low tech, things are finally getting back to normal.

  Testing, testing … is this thing on? Aha, it is!

  Moving mishaps are inevitable, but I didn’t expect this: the destruction of my 5TB, daily-use, primary backup drive — a three-year-old, spinning-platter, external Seagate unit that was stuffed to the gills with incremental backups, my Win10 File History files, my software archive, and gigs and gigs of family photos.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.27.0 (2020-07-013).

  AskWoody FREE Newsletter, LangaList AskWoody Plus Newsletter, LangaList

• Freeware Spotlight — Jarte Plus

  Posted on July 13, 2020 at 01:00 CDT by Jamie • Comment in the Forums

  FREE SOFTWARE

  Freeware Spotlight — Jarte Plus

  

  By Deanna McElveen

  

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.27.0 (2020-07-013).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Freeware AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Deanna's Freeware Spotlight

• Tech insights from relocating home and office

  Posted on July 5, 2020 at 02:45 CDT by Jamie • Comment in the Forums
  

  LANGALIST — SPECIAL EDITION

  Tech insights from relocating home and office

  

  By Fred Langa

  We Langas are midway through a major relocation. Here are a few things I’ve learned from tearing down, moving, and rebuilding my office and home computer setups.

  Among them: another reason to love solid-state drives, and 5G is for real.

  Moving home and office is never fun …

  … but it can let you see some things in a new light.

  We just relocated home and office 48 hours ago and are still awash in boxes. I’m sitting here in a straight-backed dining-room chair, waiting for the Verizon tech to arrive to get us back online with a dedicated private connection, and typing this column in Gmail on my underpowered, emergency-use-only Chromebook because I haven’t yet found the box my Win10/Office laptop is in, and my standing desk and office chair are buried in unpacked stuff. Yikes!

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.26.0 (2020-07-06).

  5G, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Hardware, LangaList AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Fred Langa

• What’s the best way to lock your Android phone?

  Posted on July 5, 2020 at 02:30 CDT by Jamie • Comment in the Forums

  Android security

  Security vs. convenience: What’s the best way to lock your Android phone?

  By Lincoln Spector

  You want your smartphone to be locked down so that no one but you can find your secrets. But you want to unlock your phone quickly and easily.

  You can’t have the best of both worlds. You must choose between the best security and the easiest entry. But with the right precautions, you can have reasonable security without constant annoyance.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.26.0 (2020-07-06).

  Android, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Security Android, AskWoody Plus Newsletter

• Getting the perfect domain name

  Posted on July 5, 2020 at 02:15 CDT by Jamie • Comment in the Forums

  THE BRAND

  Getting the perfect domain name

  

  By Will Fastie

  Visit a registrar, buy a domain name, and you’re done, right?

  Not quite. Those are the last steps.

  Before getting to that point, it’s important to understand what you are buying, whom you should buy it from, why domain-name registrars are important, what you need from a registrar, and — most important — what your brand will be. Your domain name will be with you for (hopefully) a long time, and giving the decision the time and thought it deserves can pay dividends into the future.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.26.0 (2020-07-06).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Internet, Small Business Computing AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Domain names

• Buying a refurbished computer can save you money

  Posted on July 5, 2020 at 02:00 CDT by Jamie • Comment in the Forums

  HARDWARE

  What to look for in a new-but-old computer

  You have to look closely at the offerings, and they aren’t ideal for every use case, but refurbished machines can be the way to go.

  By Susan Bradley

  Unless we have a specific need for an overpowered gaming computer, most of us can get along just fine with a machine that is a few years old. But one thing we should always look for is ample hard-drive space.

  A recent article from Ars Technica showcases what I’ve said for years: never purchase a laptop that has a super-small hard drive; you will immediately and forever regret the decision and fight with that small hard drive for the rest of the time you have it. For example, when I want to upgrade my 32GB ASUS laptop, I have to attach an external USB hard drive. It will still not do a proper feature-release install without it.

  But you don’t have to pay an arm and a leg for a decent computer. Machines that the vendors call “refurbished” can be perfectly fine for what you and I do on a regular basis. Furthermore, if you don’t mind a bulky machine, you can get what I consider to be a bargain with an old-fashioned desktop computer.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.26.0 (2020-07-06).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Hardware, Small Business Computing, Windows 10 AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Refurbished Equipment