This series of posts will walk you through the process of figuring out whether or not you can cancel your cable or satellite subscription.
As much as cable and satellite providers would like you to think they're the only ones with the good content, you do have other options.
These devices take content from the Internet to display on your TV.
We're not giving up the fight! These links take you to resources supporting the campaign to get Google to bring back Classic Maps.
While none of these alternative sites are perfect replacements for Classic Maps, they're what we've got for now. I haven't checked most of these out personally yet, but I'm linking to them anyway in case you find them helpful for your purposes.
Yeah, I hate 'em too... But if we're going to be stuck with them at least for the foreseeable future, I'll be working on some tutorial posts to try to make them a little less painful.
Welcome to Tech for Luddites, providing tips and tricks for navigating the technological world we’ve all come to depend on—whether we like it or not!
The purpose of this blog is not to teach you how to write computer programs; it’s to help you solve real-life problems and find better ways to work with the tech products and services you use—or think you should be using—every day. Mixed in with the “how-tos,” I’ll also be including some general musings, rants and raves, and links to other sources of helpful information.
Are you a Luddite?
Being a Luddite doesn’t mean you can’t understand technology. It just means you’ve had problems with it before, and in most cases, I venture to guess it was probably for one of these reasons:
- Poor interface design. This is, by far, my biggest pet peeve and one I’ll be addressing a lot on this blog, pointing out where important functions are hidden or finding workarounds when they’re not there at all.
- Incomprehensible documentation. Whether it’s a product manual that was obviously not written by a native speaker or online “Help” files that are anything but helpful, technology companies have made a real art out of making it difficult for their customers to successfully use their products.
- Fear of looking dumb. No matter how many times we’ve heard the expression, “there are no stupid questions,” nobody really believes that. That’s where this blog comes in. Hopefully you’ll find some of your questions answered without even having to ask them. And, if not, I encourage you to send me your questions, and I’ll answer them here—anonymously!
- You just don’t like it. This may not be a global feeling about technology. For example, while I enjoy learning new computer skills, I can’t imagine ever text messaging somebody on my cellphone. (Of course, the fact that I don’t like cellphones in general probably doesn’t help.) But while we can probably get away with not using some things, there are certain areas where we have no choice. (Few people can get away with not using e-mail these days.) So if one of my tips or tricks makes you hate your tech nemesis just a wee bit less, that will be good too.
Of course, you don’t have to be a Luddite to get something out of this blog. In fact, the people I know who are the most tech-obsessed often are the ones most excited to learn some little trick they’ve never heard of before. So if you’re a non-Luddite, I hope you’ll stick around as well. And please send me your own tips, which I’ll be glad to credit you for when I share them with the rest of the community.
Now that you know what this site is about, I hope you’ll find tips that will help you with your own technology issues.