Good Advice

“Which [insert type of device here] should I buy?” was harder to answer before the excellent Wirecutter website took off.  Their reviews are shorter than Consumer Reports’ and more consumer-friendly than the tech press. Some clients have been skeptical; yes, they make money from affiliate links, but reviews are written “blind,” and they’re owned by the NY Times. Not just for tech stuff.

More Backup News

Time Machine is Still Essential

Mac owners, don’t miss our latest video on Time Machine backup and why you should still use it even with iCloud.

Mozy –> Carbonite

We’ve mentioned that Carbonite bought one of our old favorite backup providers, Mozy. If you had a PAID Mozy account, Carbonite installs itself and you’ll see the Carbonite green dot IN ADDITION to Mozy’s orange-and-grey checkerboard. If that happens, Mozy becomes redundant and can be uninstalled.

Free Mozy accounts seem to be untouched so far. . . we’ll keep you posted.

Backblaze Price Hike/Opportunity

Wirecutter favorite Backblaze, one of the last companies to offer unlimited cloud backup, just announced a price hike coming in March; old rates still available if you sign up now, and current subscribers have the option to add a year at the old rates (we just did). Kudos to them for taking care of loyal customers, not just saving the deals for new ones. (Note: not suitable for all our clients; Backblaze has some limitations). 

Small Gmail changes

Google’s rolling out minor changes to Gmail; some cosmetic, some time-saving.

The smartphone app has been redesigned (info here) and they’re adding many more options to the right-click menu in the web version. Those are definitely useful!

Don’t I Know You from Somewhere?

An Uber engineer created the website ThisPersonDoesNotExist.com to highlight how incredibly sophisticated AI-generated human photos have become. That very real-looking person in the photo on the left? Computer generated.

Fascinating and creepy. Read more here.

Belated Happy Valentine’s Day to you all!

Alison Holtzschue
and the computers dot mom team