Start out this New Year by reviewing your passwords. You probably have heard “make each one unique” but hate those very random suggested passwords. I find it easier to pull together six words by looking around my office and if I have to add special characters, numbers, capitals, I do so. I always write down the password first, before making the actual change and I date each new one. If your passwords can fit on one sheet of paper don’t worry too much about learning a password manager. I love password managers, they ensure you won’t enter a password on the wrong site, but I haven’t found the perfect flawless one to recommend for all people and all uses. To “encourage” you to start, look for your email address at DataBreach.com and start changing passwords for those sites that DataBreach.com indicates passwords may have been leaked. To further strengthen any site, turn on two factor authentication, 2FA, if available. That will trigger a second one time use code to be sent to you when a site doesn’t recognize where you are logging in from or thinks something major has changed about how you are logging in. It further complicates someone else using your password, if they guess or steal it.
Consider using Signal for small group video meetings (up to 50) as it has no time limit, unlike Zoom, and it is also one of the best securely encrypted messaging apps. It feels easier to make a call link, especially one that you can re-use for recurring meetings. Signal is available for iOS and Android, along with desktop app version for Windows, macOS, and even Linux. Because of how Signal works, to use the desktop version you will have to install either the Android or iOS version on your phone first. This is just like WhatsApp, if you have used that one.
Since I am not likely to make it to Europe very soon, I love the increasing ability to explore those places I will not otherwise ever see. Now there is the World’s First 3D Replica of St. Peter’s Basilica at https://virtual.basilicasanpietro.va/en. That project has used AI to stitch together all of the digital data captured over a four week process, quite an amazing guided tour.
I am sure fabric and paper maker know that mushrooms can be used as dye sources, I didn’t and I love looking through MushroomColorAtlas.com seeing the variety
When you are searching for those converter sites to change miles to inches or meters, try CalculatorSoup.com for a no mess collection of probably any calculator or converter you might need. The best part is that there are no ads getting in your way unlike so many other sites.
The site, baby-names.jetpack.ai, gives a fun way to see how a name’s popularity has changed over time, presented as the name with the letters becoming the graph.
Brush up on your historical maps knowledge at https://www.oldmapsonline.org/ where you can explore a plethora of maps pulled from a variety of scanned sources with information pulled from Wikipedia.