technology

Grammarly is discontinuing desktop apps

This entry was posted in Commentary News and tagged Grammarly software technology on by

It’s been a bad February for desktop applications. Two that I use a lot are going away. Twilio Authy, used for two-factor authentication, will not be supported on the desktop after March 19, and it may or may not work at all after that. People who don’t plan for it may find themselves temporarily locked out of accounts that use it for 2FA. On Macs with the Apple processor, the iOS version of the application apparently works, though Twilio hasn’t certified it for the Macintosh. I got it running on my Mac without problems, and I’ve used it for a few days. It works, though its user interface is distinctively inferior on a computer with a keyboard and mouse.

Be careful, though. There are fake apps taking advantage of the confusion; as I’m writing this, there’s a app called “Authhy” (with two h’s) on the App store, which I’m effectively certain is a Trojan horse. I can’t find any way to report it to Apple.

More relevant to readers of this blog, Grammarly is discontinuing its desktop application. According to the notice when I run my app, it will stop working on March 18. It suggests that users go to its website to check their writing.
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Who will check the fact checkers?

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged law technology writing on by

Does US federal law mandate a “kill switch” for alcohol-impaired drivers in cars made in the future? According to several fact checkers, no. However, an article by Jon Miltimore for FEE shows that it does.

The issue isn’t one of what the law contains, but of terminology. In claiming there is no kill-switch mandate, USA Today refers to the very text that mandates it:
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Writing German words in English text

This entry was posted in Techniques Writing and tagged German language technology writing on by

English-language articles sometimes need to use foreign words. Most languages require more characters than the 26 letters of the English-language alphabet that ASCII supports. This shouldn’t be hard, since Unicode provides characters for almost every important language in the world. When you sit down to enter foreign words at your computer, though, you run into issues.

I’ll talk here about German text, since it’s the language I know best next to English.
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Dissecting clickbait stories

This entry was posted in Techniques Writing and tagged Internet research technology writing on by

When you report or comment on a news story, the first step is to understand what it says. Low-quality websites have ways of appearing to say more than they do. They aim to create a panic and attract links. A careful reading may show there isn’t much substance to what happened.

Let’s look at a Daily Mail article claiming that an application called “New Profile Pic” “hoovers up your details.” A careful reading shows that doesn’t mean much.
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Book Discussion: Tech Panic

This entry was posted in Book discussion Reviews and tagged Internet politics technology on by

Robby Soave is making a name for himself among the younger generation of libertarian journalists. His Tech Panic addresses many of the overblown concerns and bad recommendations about social media. The attacks come from both the right and the left, and they’re disturbingly similar even though the two sides hate each other. They’re often attacks on free speech as such. Tech Panic cover

I should mention that I don’t like the big social media platforms very much. Rather than go off on a major rant, I’ll just leave it at that. I make minimal use of Facebook and have given up on Twitter, and I’m not biased in their favor.

Politicians often demand the repeal of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The bulk of the CDA was declared unconstitutional, but Section 230 remains as protection for hosting companies and their users. It says, basically, that websites aren’t responsible for user-posted content. There are some exceptions; for instance, hosts have to take down child porn as fast as they can. But if a user violates a copyright or libels a person, the liability falls on the user, not the host.
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The target=_blank security issue

This entry was posted in Tools Writing and tagged HTML Internet technology writing on by

There’s a little-known security risk built into the design of HTML. It concerns links that open in a new tab or window. You make it happen by specifying target="blank" in an anchor (a) element. For example:

<a href="something.example.com" target="_blank">

The trouble is that when you do it, you put the page containing that link at risk. For some bizarre reason, the designers of HTML decided that the destination page should gain access to the window.opener property of the source page. This gives the target page — the one run by someone else considerable control over your page. For instance, it can redirect your page to another URL.
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HTML for blog writers

This entry was posted in Techniques Writing and tagged HTML technology writing on by

If you write for websites, you need to know the basics of HTML. Even if you do your writing in Microsoft Word, Open Office, or a Web editor, it will get turned into HTML (or, less often, PDF). You need to understand how it will work in its final form.

HTML is a markup language. It’s text which contains plain human language plus tags that tell the browser how to render it. The tags are more guidelines than rules. They indicate an intent rather than dictating an exact appearance. In different browsers, or even different settings in the same browser, you might see differences in fonts, spacing, colors, and so on.
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