Jan42015

Hemingway App for desktops review: Promising, but probably not worth your money

Hemingway App (hemingwayapp.com) is an intriguing idea that drew quite a bit of attention to itself upon its launch as a web app. In the spirit of its namesake, Ernest Hemingway, the proofreading text editor aims to keep writing clear and concise. Of course, some have pointed out that even Hemingway’s prose doesn’t usually grade well on the app. Nonetheless, there is some useful core functionality with Hemingway App. Capitalizing on their good press and recognizing the limitations of being browser-based, the developers of Hemingway released a desktop version of the software.

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Nov212014
Zotero workflow

A Zotero workflow with ZotFile

I’ve talked before about why you should use Zotero, but for many people, it takes some guidance to get it really working for you. This is especially true if you’d like to use a Zotero workflow that involves managing your documents and research more generally. Here’s our primer on using Zotero to organize your documents in addition to using its citation and bibliography-building capabilities. The Zotero add-on called ZotFile will help out, too.

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Jul242014

How to opt out of ad tracking online: the complete guide

We often talk about privacy here at Getting Things Tech and one of the things we are talking about when we say privacy is the massive data collection that goes on as a means to sell more effective advertising. There are pros and cons to this and we generally consent because we are assured that it lets things stay free.

However, when we know the extent to which the NSA and other intelligence organizations are gaining access to any stores of data, it might just make sense to disallow anyone from gathering personal information online, even if it is “just” to target you with ads.

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Jul202014

How Bitcoin works: an introduction to cryptocurrency

Bitcoin is currently at the stage in its development where you won’t find people who have never heard of it, but very few know much about it. In fact, it is one of several digital currencies that are based on complex cryptographic methods. We’ll glaze over those methods for simplicity’s sake so you can figure out how Bitcoin works.

Another thing to note is that there are now several “copycat” or otherwise similar digital currencies to Bitcoin, collectively known as cryptocurrencies. These are known as such because they use cryptography to make an all-digital currency viable in terms of its security. While each has its differences, this introduction will teach you enough that you’ll be well on your way to understanding how other cryptocurrencies work as well.

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Jun292014

Speed up your Windows PC by disabling Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS)

Does your Windows PC (XP or higher) ever suddenly slow down to a standstill, despite the fact that you weren’t doing anything different than before? Well, this can be due to a variety of causes.

One of them is the Background Intelligent Transfer Service (aka BITS). This process will start using a great deal of your disk usage and CPU, seemingly out of nowhere. Let’s look at how to diagnose your problem, disable that process, and get your PC speed back.

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