I think we all know that constant access to the internet and social media on our smart devices is rotting our brain cells. It's easy to pick up your hand-sized digital dragon as it burns the hours out of your day. Don't get me wrong, these little miracles are a useful tool and I would be lost without mine, but some...

Before committing to yet another subscription model, I always want to check out the offering, or have access to a demo. I'm currently looking at email providers. I love everything about FastMail, apart from one element. Although they are an Australian company, they use data centres in the USA. I have untangled my...

Tonight I'm feeling rather flat. I'm normally a happy, cheery, efervescente kind of guy, but tonight nothing interests me. There's no specific reason. I'm just listless. I always have so many little projects and activities on the go, but I can't find stimulation to do any of them tonight. I'm not posting this for...

Yes you! It's time to reach out, be nice, and say hello to strangers. It costs nothing and can make someone's day. Me, I'm a chatty person. Not all the time. However, people make the world more interesting. Back to the point of this!When I am reading someone's website, I am often moved to reach out to them. It can...

Scotland has a good population of native red squirrels. The rest of the UK is all but bereft of them, with the grey having overthrown them in their own habitat. Scotland, is developing pockets of reds, as the greys approach. However, where I live we are lucky to have a vibrant community of reds. This video is one of...

Don't forget to take regular backups of your blog. You've put a lot of effort into writing your content. Don't rely on your blog provider to take backups for you. If you self-host, the backups should be part of your regular backup routine. If you are relying on a third-party blogging platform you should keep your...

Recently I was asked about the the ForkingMad logo, and what it meant. Not that it's much of a logo -- let's call it an emblem. I thought I'd write a few words to explain it! I started the ForkingMad blog thirteen years ago. I had already been writing a technology blog for a number of years; competition was tough...

I think I have made it to Linux. It's now my desktop of choice 99.9% of the time. I've experimented in Linux for centuries! In the early days there was always something major holding me back from getting serious with our penguin friend. It was often a driver problem -- unable to recognise my display, sound card,...

Question for the audience: Do you tell people you blog? I was reflecting on this recently, after I inadvertently mentioned to a colleague that I had blogged about a topic a few days earlier. That, of course, started the questioning from them: Oh, what's it called? What do you write about? Can I see it? I reluctantly...

I was sad today! I love discovering, and reading new, personal blogs. I'm always interested in people and opinions. Imagine my sadness when I stumbled onto a new (to me) blog, only to discover that the author had an AI Generated Summary at the top of each post. In my opinion, this is devaluing the work. All that...

Forty years is a long time, and I am guessing that some of you were not even born all those years ago. For me, this year is my fortieth with technology. Hard to believe. One: that something captivates you for so long, and Two: that there was accessible technology all those years ago! haha I was inspired by a post by...

If you have not discovered Bubbles yet, then I suggest you go and have a look. In the Bubbles Team's very own words: Somewhere out there, someone wrote a really good blog post today. You'll probably never find it. Bubbles tries to surface it. Community voting applied to thousands of personal, independent blogs, with...