For me (Well, my grandmother) it was Family Tree Maker.
To cut a very long story short - after Windows 10 restarted on her, and changed default browser and application settings too many times she was going to completely give up using the computer.
I built a new machine (a Dell AIO workstation) for her with Ubuntu, FTM and a few other things.
I do this, too - but I've been running into more and more companies that block you from using their company name in the email address.
It also results in awkward conversations if you have to talk to staff. I had ordered some pet supplies online a while ago registered like this.
Then I go in store more recently and they ask "Do you have an account with us?", I give them that email when asked, which causes them to pause. We went around a few times of them asking what my email was, before getting a manager who thought I was doing something dodgy and decided to try looking up my account by phone number instead of email.
Same experience, but a different perception. I’ve always found it to be a great conversation starter when I did this with my business domain. Of course, it’s mainly about spam control, but some people even felt flattered to have their own personal email address. Then there was that one time I tried to open a new bank account using bankname@mydomain - it ended up involving three levels of management. On the bright side, though, they now greet me by name whenever I walk into the building.
I think having a mail just seperately for bank can be good thing instead of having it on your own @mydomain I suppose?
Also can we have things like 2FA in banking apps? I am pretty sure...
Like my idea of thinking is to create a new proton account just for banking and doing the thing as in the article and not really ever linking the two of them or maybe even having a google account if proton causes any issue for my banks.
> "Smart Local Control" home devices work as expected until the electronics fail
Recently one of my Zigbee-controlled thermostats started pumping cold air constantly. To fix it, all I had to do was open and examine the board; one of the varistors got some battery acid on it when I had an alkaline battery burst in the unit. Because it was a no-name with an actual PCB, I was able to solder a new varistor in place, and it works good as new.
So I would say that "Smart Local Control" isn't the problem, but rather the ability to repair the thing. Also, the thermostat was $45 when I purchased it 5 years ago, so it was a good investment IMO. I think that's why everyone is upset about the Nest gen 1 and 2 sunsetting; there should be no reason that these devices should be breaking now (no failing electronics) but they die anyway because the company is too cheap to keep an extra endpoint running.
2. That the electronics were designed with appropriate thermal management so they don't fry themselves quickly. Smart bulbs are the most notorious offenders here, but the problem is widespread.
> I think it's close to impossible to "fix" Visa without government intervention (e.g. limit fees to a fraction of a percent), but I'm still grateful to anyone who tries.
I'm interested to see if that works out, and curious what it means for international cards with lots of perks. I imagine, for example, it wouldn't change anything right away for a Chase Sapphire card issued in the US, but if more countries followed suit there would eventually be a tipping point and card benefits would be reduced.
I guess the issuers all have complex models that take these things into account. In any case, I think it's a good move.
I thought about Improv Everywhere recently - they had some great things in the early 2000s.
Re watching this, at about 1:16 one of the agents looks familiar. "Huh, she looks kinda like Aubrey Plaza". Then the credits come on: It was actually Aubrey Plaza.
The government where I live has a no-interest loan scheme for installing energy efficient appliances. Handy, so I used it to fund heat pumps and insulation.
The scheme is administered by Brighte. I signed up on their website. Everything going well for 6 months or so.
Then out of the blue, an email from them: "We just launched our app". Yeah, no, not interested.
A few weeks later, another "You should use our app, it's so convenient!". No, the website works fine. Can I unsubscribe from these notices? Customer service says no.
A few weeks after that: "Switch to our app. We are removing the website".
I email them to complain: I don't want or need their app, just let me use the website. No,they say, it's definitely being removed. I ask how people who don't want to or can't use their app are supposed to interact with them now? "you can always call us instead".
The idea of removing a perfectly functional website just to force everyone onto an app is insane.
But agreed the push to apps sucks, I just assume in these cases it's so they can spam you with notifications about "new products" they're offering, like my bank likes to regularly offer me loans at terrible interest rates
Yeah I'm assuming it's because they want to sell me more.
I'm probably not earning them much with the no-interest scheme. But their approach has guaranteed I won't use them for anything else - I was looking at financing the solar and battery system but this just put me off.
