The Off-Key Bard

The Bard's Desk

Technology

Practical guides, gear sense, and making modern tech less mysterious.

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How Does Your Phone Get Notifications When the App Isn't Open?
How Does Copy and Paste Actually Work?
Why Do Games Take Up So Much More Space Than Movies?
What Is a File Format, and Why Does It Matter?
Why Isn't My 1 Gig Internet Downloading at 1 Gigabyte Per Second?
Why Do I Have Wi-Fi but No Internet?
Why Doesn't Every Charger Charge at the Same Speed?
Why Does My Phone Get So Hot?
What Is BIOS, and What Happens Before Windows Starts?
What Is a Passkey, and Is It Really the End of Passwords?
What Is Phishing, and Why Are People Still Falling for It?
What Is a VPN, and What Does It Actually Do?
USB-C Is a Connector, Not a Capability
What Is a Driver, and Why Does My Computer Keep Asking for One?
What Is Encryption, Really?
What Is a Backup, Really?
Why Do Websites Keep Asking If I'm a Robot?
How Do QR Codes Actually Work?
What Does HTTP vs. HTTPS Actually Mean?
What Is Cache, and Why Does Clearing It Sometimes Fix Problems?
What Does "404 Not Found" Actually Mean?
What Happens When You Click "Print"?
Why Does My Browser Keep Asking to Save My Password?
What's the Difference Between RAM and Storage?
How Does Face Unlock Know It's You?
How Does Tap-to-Pay Actually Work?
How Does GPS Know Exactly Where You Are?
What Is Bluetooth, Really?
Why Doesn't More Megapixels Always Mean Better Pictures?
What Is an Operating System?
What Actually Happens When You Type a Website Into Your Browser?
Why Does My Phone Know Things I Never Told It?
Why Does Every Website Want Me to Download an App?
What Is Artificial Intelligence, Really?
Do You Really Need Gigabit Internet?
What Does Your Router Actually Do?
Does Closing Apps Actually Make Your Computer Faster?
What Happens When You Delete a File?
SSD vs. Hard Drive — Why Does One Feel So Much Faster?
What Does the GPU Actually Do?
What Does the CPU Actually Do?
What Is RAM, Really?
Why Do Software Updates Take So Long?
Why Doesn't My New Phone or Computer Have All the Storage It Promised?
Frames, Hertz, and the Soap Opera Effect
LCD, LED, OLED, QLED, Mini-LED — What Do They Actually Mean?
Can Someone Hack Me Just Because They Know My IP Address?
Why Does My Wi-Fi Work Everywhere Except Where I Am?
Why Does My Internet Get Slower at Night?
Does My Computer Have a Virus?
Do Expensive HDMI Cables Actually Make a Better Picture?
More Bars Doesn't Always Mean Better Service
Why Does My Phone Battery Die So Fast?
Why Does Everyone Keep Telling Me to Use Two-Factor Authentication?
Why Does Every Website Ask About Cookies?
What Is "The Cloud" Actually?
Why Is My Computer So Slow?
Why Aren't All My Speakers Working?
The TV Isn't Broken (Probably)
Why Does Everything Need an Account Now?
Why Does Restarting It Actually Work?
Why Is My Wi-Fi Acting Like a Goblin?