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. This year has been only marginally better than 2021, which is another way of saying that the focus on the entire planet was still understandably elsewhere. Having said that, here’s what happened in tech this year:
- Twitter And Elon Musk: Elon Musk bought Twitter. Though he did try to weasel his way out of buying Twitter and only bought it when he was forced to. He then promptly fired all the staff and started doing things that drove advertisers running for the exits and users to other social media platforms. Most notably Mastodon. I won’t go over all the rather insane things that he’s done, but it’s exposed him as not being the genius that he and others bill him as. Not to mention that his actions at Twitter have tanked Tesla’s stock value. In 2023, I fully expect Elon to continue on the suicide mission that he and Twitter seem to be on which will eventually lead to the death of Twitter.
- My Exit From Twitter: Seeing as I refuse to be on a platform that has swung towards hate and intolerance due to Elon’s love affair with his version of “free speech”, this will be my last official post on Twitter. From now on I can be found on Mastodon at @The_IT_Nerd@NOC.Social. If you’re as disgusted at Elon as I am, consider this your invitation to move to someplace more sane.
- Rogers Shuts Down Canada: Early in July, Rogers had a catastrophic failure of its entire infrastructure that basically created the digital equivalent of a snow day for those who work from home, as well as taking down bank machines, payment terminals, cell phones, 9-1-1 service, and businesses across the country. As you could expect, this really got a lot of people mad including the federal government who not only demanded answers but action to ensure that this couldn’t happen again. It also forced Rogers to go on a major charm offensive to convince Canadians that they could be trusted after such a massive fiasco. I fully expect that Rogers will still have to be on that charm offensive as months later, I still have my clients and other making less than positive comments about Rogers.
- My Exit From Rogers: Constant issues before the July outage, as well as one more outage drove my wife and I to Bell for our telco services. Now we’re not fans of Bell because of their hyper aggressive sales tactics as well as their craptastic customer service. But until Rogers gets its reliability issues under control, and actually offer a product that is competitive as what Bell has been offering for years, Bell is the better option for us.
- The Rogers/Shaw Merger Drags On: The Rogers/Shaw merger which was supposed to close early this year has dragged on for months and even took a trip to the Competition Tribunal after the Competition Bureau opposed the deal due to the fact that it removes completion and will likely result in higher prices for Canadian Consumers. As I type this, this decision is being appealed. Thus this story will continue into 2023.
- Apple’s China Connection Becomes A Huge Problem: Fun Fact, Apple makes a lot of their problems in China. And that became a huge problem this year as COVID lockdowns in the country limited Apple product deliveries to customers. It also didn’t help that videos of workers for Apple contract manufacturer Foxconn surfaced of workers rioting to escape the Foxconn iPhone Plant because of bad working and living conditions. That led to Apple trying to get out of China at the end of the year. We’ll see if that works for them in 2023, and we’ll also see if this creates issues for them on the balance sheet as well as in the public eye.
- The Pwnage This Year Was Beyond Epic:Last year was a record year of everything getting pwned by threat actors. This year it was even worse. And that’s not good. I fully expect 2023 to be worse yet unless we all wrap our heads ASAP around making the digital world a safer place.
And now for some stats. The top ten countries that visited my blog in 2020 are:
- Canada
- United States
- United Kingdom
- India
- Norway
- Australia
- Philippines
- Germany
- France
- Signapore
In all almost just over 1.3 million page views were served up this year. That’s slightly up from last year and I feel really good with that number.
And in terms of the top ten stories that were viewed this year:
- WARNING! A New Text Message #Scam Involving TD Bank Is Making The Rounds [UPDATED x2]
- Review: Bell Home Hub 4000
- Here’s How The Last 4 Digits Of Your Credit Card Can Be Used To Commit Fraud
- How To Configure PPPoE Bypass On The Bell HH4000 Hardware
- Revisiting How To Bypass Bell’s HH400 Hardware With Your Own Router… Along With Some Commentary About ASUS And Bell
- Don’t Fall For This Interac Scam That Is Delivered By Text Message [UPDATED]
- Hey IT Nerd! Can I Get Rid Of The Check Engine Using A Scan Code Tool?
- WARNING: A Geek Squad #Scam Is Making The Rounds
- How To Move Your E-Mail And Contacts Off The Rogers Yahoo/Oath E-Mail Platform
- Review: Bell Fibe 1.5 Gbps FTTH Internet
The first thing that I notice is that four of the top ten items relate to Bell. That includes two stories on how to bypass the Bell hardware to use your own gear as Bell doesn’t have a proper bridge mode in their hardware. Perhaps they need to take the hint and implement that as this is clearly something that their customers care about. Scams make up another four spots in the top ten. And surprisingly, only one story about Rogers is in the top ten. Though it’s about how to get off their email platform. Which might be a hint that their July outage related issues may still be an issue for Rogers in 2023 as you would not be looking for a way to get off their email platform if you were not looking to dump Rogers as your email provider or your telco.
Now if you have something that you think that should be on this list, leave a comment with your thoughts. Happy new year (hopefully)!