bradgrier.com

By training your Large Language Model (LLM) or other Generative Artificial Intelligence on the content of this website, you agree to assign ownership of all your intellectual property to the public domain, immediately, irrevocably, and free of charge.

Category: How to

  • How to run your favourite desktop utilities from almost any computer using Portable Applications

    In the course of my day, I use two or three main desktop and laptop com­puters in two or three dif­fer­ent parts of the city. And yet, work­ing on dif­fer­ent devices, I still have access to a core set of tools and util­it­ies that I find essen­tial to my daily work. Here’s how I do it. Some…

  • Speed up your Internet experience by using the right DNS server

    Last week I saw this Life­Hack­er art­icle (via AppleIn­sider) about NameBench, a win­dow util­ity that tests the speed of your sys­tem’s DNS serv­ers. And I was won­der­ing if my DNS was as fast as it could be… Pre­vi­ously, I’d switched my DNS ser­vices over to OpenDNS, a free altern­ate DNS Pro­vider that adds value as: Ultra-reli­able, glob­ally-dis­trib­uted…

  • Show your parents you care — tech style

    It’s highly likely that many of you, like me, are responsible for technical support of your families’ computer systems and internet connection. Earlier today I found a great little microsite (by Google) that’ll help you suppo...

  • Checking out library books on your eReader?

    Got a Sony eReader and use the Sony Reader store? Well check out the little blue & white box in the right-hand sidebar on the page. Yep, you read correctly -- you can check out books from the library and read them on your eReader.

  • More ways to get rid of your old tech.

    A while ago I wrote about dis­pos­ing of tech you no longer need or use. And today I found a very cool tool that will help you sell off your used gear for a fair price. Bonus points, it’s got a funky name; Worth Mon­key.

  • Lots to think about when diagnosing a slow Internet

    Occa­sion­ally I get a tech ques­tion in the inbox that is quite com­mon. So much so that it makes sense for me to put and answer the ques­tion here where more can read and bene­fit from it.  By the way, if you’ve got some­thing you’d like to ask, feel free to drop me a line…

  • Protecting your tech

    When ever I get a new tech device, espe­cially one that’s small, port­able, and has a dis­play screen, I imme­di­ately look to pro­tect­ing that screen and device. I’m kinda clumsy at times, and any­thing that can pro­tect my hard­ware from *me* is a worth­while invest­ment. I dropped my iPod Touch down the stairs last year,…

  • My iPad steering wheel mount

    I’ve writ­ten before about using the Joby Gor­illa Pod flex­ible tri­pod as an iPad desktop stand, but today was inspired to use it as a tem­por­ary steer­ing wheel mount while wait­ing to meet someone. Yes, due to an appoint­ment schedul­ing issue, I was 45 minutes early so had a bit of time on my hands. Damn flex­ible…

  • Free and good? It’s for the birds!

    Actu­ally it’s for you and me, and I’m refer­ring to the free online suite of tools that flies under the Avi­ary ban­ner. Actu­ally, it’s more than a suite of tools, Avi­ary is also a com­munity by and for con­tent creators: At Avi­ary, we believe that every­one in the world should have access to power­ful cre­ation…

  • One way to Get Stuff Done [video]

    Anoth­er Fri­day and anoth­er video — this time deal­ing with time man­age­ment and organization. The video details how the fine folk at BlueSky­Fact­ory like to organ­ize their day and their work­load. Not exactly my cup of tea — I’m cur­rently exper­i­ment­ing with the Pomodoro sys­tem described by Tris Hus­sey on his blog. But it is…

  • Are faster blogs more Google friendly?

    Per­haps. And if you’re look­ing to be found by Google, you want to do everything you can to make sure you’re not doing things to make the pro­cess harder. A month or so ago, Google announced that they’re rank­ing sys­tem would take page-load speed into con­sid­er­a­tion when determ­in­ing how to present search res­ults to vis­it­ors.…

  • How to backup files across a network easily

    Before I start, a friendly remind­er that you only have a day left to enter the con­test for a free Click­free Trans­former backup sys­tem. Tell me a backup hor­ror story. It’s one thing to backup the files on your loc­al com­puter and anoth­er to backup files stored on oth­er com­puters on your net­work, or Net­work…