Data Visualization

It’s hard to believe Facebook’s been around for over a decade. Sure, ten years isn’t all that long, but in the short history of the Internet a decade is quite a long time. Not many social media networks can boast that kind of longevity. Back in 2004 when Facebook was launched, AOL, Hotmail, MapQuest, and […]

Trying to save space on image files, but not compromise quality? It can be tough to know exactly which filetype is the best to use. If you save your image as the wrong type, you could end up blurring a beautiful photo, losing all the detail of your logo, or turning a transparent background black. On your […]

We all have our secrets. From minor indiscretions and bizarre fears, to serious sins and outright crime, every person on this planet has something they’d rather keep others in the dark about. Even if you think you have nothing to hide, you probably still appreciate your right to privacy. After all, even someone with no […]

Computers have probably been around longer than you think. Charles Babbage began to theorize about computers in the early 1800s, imagining a machine that could automatically calculate basic arithmetic and print out the results. After reading about his “Analytical Engine,” Ada Lovelace not only wrote the very first computer program, but predicted the future of […]

Think you could strike it rich by starting your own company? You’re not the only one. It’s no surprise many entrepreneurs dream of becoming millionaires. After all, the startups we always hear about are the wildly successful ones. Mark Zuckerberg is now one of the top 20 richest people in the world after starting Facebook […]

What’s your very first memory of the World Wide Web? Maybe you searched the web using Excite or AltaVista, or typed in an AOL keyword you’d heard in a TV commercial. Or maybe you vividly remember your first personal home page on Geocities, complete with frames, animated gifs, and a blinking marquee in Comic Sans. […]

Facebook’s still growing in popularity every year. In fact, it now has almost as many users as there are people living in China! You’d think such a popular program would be well-loved, but it still has quite the reputation problem, mostly stemming from its apparent lack of respect for individual privacy. It makes sense: Their […]

In the beginning of the World Wide Web era, not many people realized the potential of this new technology. The first six domain names in history were registered in 1985, but it took another ten years after that for domain registrations to really start to pick up. Many of the world’s first dot com websites […]

Picture a successful billionaire tech entrepreneur. What kind of person do you imagine? Maybe you’re imagining someone who looks like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. A middle-aged man, probably brilliant, creative, and driven. In most cases, you’d be spot-on. Successful entrepreneurs do seem to share a lot of the same key traits that led them […]

Pets.com, TheGlobe.com, Kozmo, Geocities… If observed the explosive growth of the Internet in the 1990s, those names may dredge up nostalgic memories of dial-up modems, dancing “under construction” gifs, and the sudden proliferance of dot-com startups. The rise of the World Wide Web opened up a whole new world of opportunity, and entrepreneurs lost no […]

Your password has expired again! Time to come up with a new one. Be sure to use at least one capital letter, lower-case letter, a symbol, and a number. And don’t use anything that can be easily guessed, like the name of your street, child, or pet. Random strings of letters, symbols, and numbers are the […]

Thanks to the Silk Road’s notoriety, Tor has quite the sinister reputation. The online black market is famous for facilitating the sale of anything from illegal drugs to murderers for hire. But there’s much more to Tor than just a black market: The real purpose of the Tor network is to keep your browsing habits anonymous […]

How often do you use your smartphone? If you’re like nearly 80% of smartphone users, you have your phone with you nearly 24/7. Many of us can’t sleep without them by our sides, and they’re the first thing we check when we get up in the morning. Almost a third of us can’t imagine living […]

With all the news about NSA and other government organizations around the world, it seems like everything we do, whether physical or virtual, is being watched by somebody. We now know that our phone calls, texts, emails, and online activities are all being recorded and monitored, and who knows what else? Some may say that if […]

How easy a target are you making yourself for hackers? You may think you’re being careful with your online data. You take all the recommended precautions and carefully configure your privacy settings on Facebook, go by a pseudonym on Twitter, and only connect with people you’ve actually met in person on LinkedIn. You may think […]