Welcome To The eComputerZ Monthly Newsletter

Historical Moments In Computing History

Welcome to the July 2021 edition of the eBits n ByteZ newsletter. I hope you are all doing very well.

This month we'll cover the new technical articles added to the site and the articles I plan to write up in July, based on your census feedback. There's also a couple of national days to tell you about.

The last 4-5 weeks have been busy with work and home improvements, so I've only managed to complete one new article this month; well, two - sort of.

The new article continues on the theme of reviewing historical moments in computing history. The Edward Snowden Leaks in June 2013 caused quite a stir when he released over 1.5 million NSA classified documents relating, in part, to U.S. Government mass covert surveillance programs.

This included information such as the President instructing plans for cyberattacks, and operations such as those to protect U.S. drones from being shot down in the Middle East.

The article reads like something out of the movies, from the XKeyscore program the NSA used to access private e-mail and Social Media accounts, to Ed Snowden fleeing to Russia and claiming political asylum. Jack Bower, eat your heart out!

The consequences of Ed Snowden's actions can still be felt nearly a decade later. The article is quite the journey. Take a look.

National Days

On July 17th, it is #WorldEmojiDay, the successor to the Emoticon (remember those?).

Emoji is a Japanese expression which roughly means "picture word", and was created by Shigetake Kurita in 1990. He would design these picture words as a feature on his employers pagers (old technology) to make them more appealing to teens. Any we know today, some teens only communicate in Emoji! :).

Emojipedia.org tracks all Emoji updates. Being slightly older *cough, I quite like the descriptions because for some Emojis I wouldn't have a clue what they mean.

Although not quite Emojis, I'll mention now before I forget that I've removed the Alt Code table from the How To Make Alt Codes and put it in its own page, called All Alt Codes and Symbols. This is because I thought the How to Make Alt Codes page was loading a little too slow for my liking.

I'll also briefly mention #CellPhoneCourtesyMonth. I'm sure we've all experienced that annoying person talking loudly on their phone in the Library or on the train, and we may have been the perpetrator occasionally. A little common sense is all it takes to be courteous.

Census Update

Thank you, everyone who has responses so far. The results to date are interesting, and clearly signal that you generally want to see more technical content, and especially around the mechanics of how computing components work.

Therefore, I will look to expend on this in the coming weeks and months. I would like to complete this part of the computing history section, but I'll work that around the new technical content I'm planning.

What I'll do, is start thinking about how to simplify what can be complex to understand, and I'll start with the CPU; the brains of the outfit.

We'll look at the control unit and logic unit, clock speeds and multi-core processors. Should be fun!

Final Thoughts

Thank you for taking the time to read this month's newsletter. If you need any help or support, or would like to get in touch for any reason, please do so.

I still have plans to release the tool that checks your Internet Speed. Hopefully, I can make some progress on that this month too.

Until next time, take a moment to review my social media platforms. You are welcome to like or follow.

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