At this time of year I like to look back over the past 365 days and pick out the stories that really got my attention. Now if you have something that you think that should be on this list, leave a comment with your thoughts. Now on to the top stories of the year:
Cars Get Pwned: Given the news about GM and Chrysler having had their cars hacked from a distance, it’s beyond time for car companies to take the security of their vehicles seriously before something really, really bad happens. Perhaps they need a Patch Tuesday like schedule to keep the bad guys in check?
Hacking Just Got Personal: The Ashely Madison hack brought home the fact that hackers can really affect you personally and not just big corporations. It also made a lot of people very nervous as their “activities” became public. Included on the list of the nervous were the people who ran the site as they got exposed for being totally clueless and deserving of getting pwned. And you can bet that the fallout from this will continue in 2016 seeing as there are several lawsuits out there that are yet to be resolved one way or the other.
Hacking Hits Your Kids: Both Hello Kitty and Barbie got pwned this year. That suggests that maybe your kids should be playing with PlayDoh rather than Internet connected toys.
Das Uh Oh!: Volkswagen got caught cheating on emissions tests by having software in their cars that could tell if they were being tested for emissions. The car company took a beating before claiming that it wasn’t as bad as everyone thought. I’m not sure that’s going to help their sales in 2016 and beyond.
The IT Nerd’s Car Troubles: My wife and I had a Toyota Matrix that burned oil and Toyota wouldn’t fix it because it wasn’t bad enough as far as they were concerned to fix. After hopping through hoops on that front, we decided to dump Toyota for Hyundai. While the Hyundai experience wasn’t perfect, it’s a lot better than having a car that burns oil that the manufacturer won’t stand behind. So far, we’re happy that we made the move to Hyundai.
Adobe Flash Given A Death Sentence: Adobe Flash was proven to be horribly insecure and Adobe has been unable to fix it. Thus it came as no surprise when major websites started to shy away from Flash along with browsers getting more aggressive about you having an up to date copy of Flash. I’ve even dumped it off my system. Clearly, Flash is doomed. It’s just a matter of when.
Windows 10 Ships, And All Hell Breaks Loose: The good news is that Windows 10 is the best effort that Microsoft has made towards its OSes in a long time. The bad news is that you give up control and your right to privacy on a variety of fronts, including the fact that Microsoft is force feeding this OS down your throat. That just rubbed many the wrong way.
The IT Nerd Travels: I traveled to India and Australia this year and got to document my use of technology along the way. It was an interesting trip and I am glad I got the chance to do it.
Rogers Drops Off My Radar Screen: I have to admit that it feels weird to go almost an entire year and not say anything negative about Rogers. Perhaps that means that they are changing their ways?
Reviews, Reviews, And More Reviews: This year was a busy one for me as I did 78 product reviews this year. That includes doing reviews of cars including 4 car reviews in 4 weeks which was exhausting. On top of all that, I did the second annual IT Nerd Awards. Without giving too much away, you can expect to see much more of that in 2016.
The IT Nerd Is Back On Radio: I did another radio appearance this year on the Greg Carrasco Show. That helped the traffic to my blog increase by 30% year over year which gives me a much higher profile. That’s something that should continue next year.
Speaking of traffic, here’s the top five most popular stories of the year based on my statistics:
Some things really jump out at me. First, a lot of people came to my blog looking for a review on the Asus Transformer Pad, Rogers NextBox 3.0, and DiskWarrior 5. Clearly those products are top of mind with my readers. Plus I also note that a lot of people are having printer problems with Windows. Perhaps Microsoft should do something about that? Another thing to note is that some of these posts are a year or two old, so it clearly means that my posts have long term relevance.
Finally I noted from looking at my stats is that people from 197 countries visited my blog in 2015. Most visitors came from The United States, but Canada & U.K. were not far behind. That’s amazing to me. Also, most people found me via Twitter, Reddit and Facebook. Though I also got a lot of hits from mazda6club.com and Ashley Madison’s media page. Read into that what you will.
Here’s to 2016 as for better or worse, the tech world is really going to get very interesting. And I will be here to comment on it.
Happy New year!
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This entry was posted on December 31, 2015 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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2015: Year In Review
At this time of year I like to look back over the past 365 days and pick out the stories that really got my attention. Now if you have something that you think that should be on this list, leave a comment with your thoughts. Now on to the top stories of the year:
Cars Get Pwned: Given the news about GM and Chrysler having had their cars hacked from a distance, it’s beyond time for car companies to take the security of their vehicles seriously before something really, really bad happens. Perhaps they need a Patch Tuesday like schedule to keep the bad guys in check?
Hacking Just Got Personal: The Ashely Madison hack brought home the fact that hackers can really affect you personally and not just big corporations. It also made a lot of people very nervous as their “activities” became public. Included on the list of the nervous were the people who ran the site as they got exposed for being totally clueless and deserving of getting pwned. And you can bet that the fallout from this will continue in 2016 seeing as there are several lawsuits out there that are yet to be resolved one way or the other.
Hacking Hits Your Kids: Both Hello Kitty and Barbie got pwned this year. That suggests that maybe your kids should be playing with PlayDoh rather than Internet connected toys.
Das Uh Oh!: Volkswagen got caught cheating on emissions tests by having software in their cars that could tell if they were being tested for emissions. The car company took a beating before claiming that it wasn’t as bad as everyone thought. I’m not sure that’s going to help their sales in 2016 and beyond.
The IT Nerd’s Car Troubles: My wife and I had a Toyota Matrix that burned oil and Toyota wouldn’t fix it because it wasn’t bad enough as far as they were concerned to fix. After hopping through hoops on that front, we decided to dump Toyota for Hyundai. While the Hyundai experience wasn’t perfect, it’s a lot better than having a car that burns oil that the manufacturer won’t stand behind. So far, we’re happy that we made the move to Hyundai.
Adobe Flash Given A Death Sentence: Adobe Flash was proven to be horribly insecure and Adobe has been unable to fix it. Thus it came as no surprise when major websites started to shy away from Flash along with browsers getting more aggressive about you having an up to date copy of Flash. I’ve even dumped it off my system. Clearly, Flash is doomed. It’s just a matter of when.
Windows 10 Ships, And All Hell Breaks Loose: The good news is that Windows 10 is the best effort that Microsoft has made towards its OSes in a long time. The bad news is that you give up control and your right to privacy on a variety of fronts, including the fact that Microsoft is force feeding this OS down your throat. That just rubbed many the wrong way.
The IT Nerd Travels: I traveled to India and Australia this year and got to document my use of technology along the way. It was an interesting trip and I am glad I got the chance to do it.
Rogers Drops Off My Radar Screen: I have to admit that it feels weird to go almost an entire year and not say anything negative about Rogers. Perhaps that means that they are changing their ways?
Reviews, Reviews, And More Reviews: This year was a busy one for me as I did 78 product reviews this year. That includes doing reviews of cars including 4 car reviews in 4 weeks which was exhausting. On top of all that, I did the second annual IT Nerd Awards. Without giving too much away, you can expect to see much more of that in 2016.
The IT Nerd Is Back On Radio: I did another radio appearance this year on the Greg Carrasco Show. That helped the traffic to my blog increase by 30% year over year which gives me a much higher profile. That’s something that should continue next year.
Speaking of traffic, here’s the top five most popular stories of the year based on my statistics:
Some things really jump out at me. First, a lot of people came to my blog looking for a review on the Asus Transformer Pad, Rogers NextBox 3.0, and DiskWarrior 5. Clearly those products are top of mind with my readers. Plus I also note that a lot of people are having printer problems with Windows. Perhaps Microsoft should do something about that? Another thing to note is that some of these posts are a year or two old, so it clearly means that my posts have long term relevance.
Finally I noted from looking at my stats is that people from 197 countries visited my blog in 2015. Most visitors came from The United States, but Canada & U.K. were not far behind. That’s amazing to me. Also, most people found me via Twitter, Reddit and Facebook. Though I also got a lot of hits from mazda6club.com and Ashley Madison’s media page. Read into that what you will.
Here’s to 2016 as for better or worse, the tech world is really going to get very interesting. And I will be here to comment on it.
Happy New year!
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This entry was posted on December 31, 2015 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.