Technology

A new species of palm tree

General Musings

Drive around the Phoenix area for awhile, and you’ll notice we have many different types of palm trees. King, Queen, Pygmy, Date, Majestic, Fan – just to name a few. But there’s one species of palm tree that’s relatively new to the Valley, and I’ve been seeing it more often lately: the Cell Phone Tower [...]

8 April 2008 Read the full article →

Can a computer virus infect a person?

General Musings

Yes it can, interestingly enough, and here’s how it happened: Somehow a computer virus snuck through our McAfee subscriptions and Microsoft protection, and infected both my wife’s and my computers. It was one of those viruses that waits until a specific date, and then springs into action. I know this because I had spent a [...]

19 February 2008 Read the full article →

My new computer – a blessing and a curse

Technology

I got a new computer this week.  Well, actually I reassigned our computers to different duties around the house. My laptop is getting close to 3 years old, and it’s gotten to the point where you can tell by the look in its eye that it’s tired and burned out.  I’m going to let him [...]

8 February 2008 Read the full article →

Zillow’s accuracy falls short

Buyer Help

If you’re an individual home buyer or home seller, and you’re using Zillow to help estimate the value of a particular home, I have some advice: don’t. Zillow’s accuracy of data would struggle to earn a passing grade in all but the most generous of schools. And Phoenix is listed as 4 Stars – their [...]

4 February 2008 Read the full article →

Google knows a good Chris Butterworth web site when it sees one

General Musings

Back in 1997, I thought I’d get a head start on the internet trend and buy my own domain name. Trouble was, somebody else beat me to it. Apparently there’s a Chris Butterworth living in England (with quite an extensive list of accomplishments, I might add) who owns the dotcom version of my name, and [...]

31 January 2008 Read the full article →

Proper disposal of old computers

Green Living

We’ve had an old computer sitting on a shelf in the garage for a long time. To give you an idea of how old, it was an IBM PC (remember when people actually had IBM brand computers?) which ran a high-tech operating system called Windows 98. (who knows when that came out…?) At some point [...]

19 January 2008 Read the full article →

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