Between Snowden, Greenwald, and the NSA, encryption is in the news. But what is it? And how can you, a mild-mannered student at an American university, use it? And why should you? You’ve got nothing to hide, after all. In this latest SocketHop, Conor Skelding (no tech genius himself) tries to lay that out. Something […]

In the latest installment of SocketHop, Minister of Miracles, Marcus the Magn(et)ificent Levine, answers why your headphone-covered ears ring when you walk through the Butler detectors?  Don’t let the tranquil, seldom broken silence of the reading rooms fool you—Butler is a very loud place. Not just Butler, but practically everywhere in the modern world is […]

After you’ve bounced around College Walk amiably signing up for several dozen club listservs, there comes a point when you regret reckless innocence. Now you have 40 extra emails a day that you might have read during NSOP, but now you just don’t have time to care about capoeira or Parliamentary Debate. Department listservs can be […]

Welcome back to SocketHop, where Bwog locks the few engineers on staff into a room and makes them explain things. We’ve covered tools to help you be more productive and new operating systems for your computer before, and today we take a look at a new Columbia app for your Android smartphone. That’s right, our […]

Columbia is no stranger to website redesigns, but here comes an overhaul that will actually matter. As CUIT so eloquently phrases it on the CourseWorks home page, this fall “CourseWorks Begins Transition to New CourseWorks.” The current CourseWorks is based on the Prometheus course management system and has been around since 2001—to put that in […]

If you don’t switch over to using Columbia’s new secure wireless, you will be hacked. Accept that as a simple definitive statement. Breathe it; live by it; tattoo it onto your upper thigh. Security is a real issue, and until recently, hackers with a fairly limited skill-set could trivially camp out in Butler with an […]

A proposed secret international treaty would greatly heighten penalties for copyright infringement, some threatening civil liberties.  SocketHop, the technology decoder for the literature-minded, takes a look. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when it was announced one year ago that the music industry would stop its broad lawsuits against alleged file sharers.  Since about 2003, […]

SocketHop explains technology affairs to the technologically-impaired. Today marks the public release of Microsoft’s new operating system, Windows 7.  There’s a lot of information and a lot of technical details flying around the web, so we’ve tried to distill it down into a chunk of need-to-know information. What is Windows 7? Windows 7 is the […]

Hiding in Butler, you’ve got six papers due in ten hours but you’re engaged in a poke war on Facebook.  It’s time to buckle down and get some real work done.  SocketHop is here to help.    Image via Flickr Lose the Clutter There’s a million ways to have distraction-free word processing, but Bwog has […]

Nothing stings quite as much as that whirrr-click-click-click sound when you try to boot up your newly-purchased laptop.  Blank screens and corrupted data have sent many Columbians into hysterical fits.  Do yourself a favor; spend an hour and earn permanent peace-of-mind.  Photo via Typepad   Backing up up your files is as essential to mainstream […]

 Image via terriemiller.com Waiting for lab computers to (eventually) log you on so you can print that rightfully-forgotten graduate Kant dissertation is a relic from days past.  It’s very easy to set up your own computer to print to lab printers.  In fact, you can print to any printer on campus from any computer you […]

Welcome back to SocketHop, a newish, occasional feature in which we seek to help you with your technology.  This week, we take Gmail and make it even better.  A horrifying example of an outdated electronic mail message client. Just say no.  To drugs, unless it’s Adderol; to sex, unless you paid for it; to Cubmail, […]

Welcome to SocketHop, in which we bring you free (but useful) mini-apps and major (but relevant) headlines from the world of technology, hopefully demystifying the subject along the way.  Flood our inbox (bwog@columbia.edu) and tell us what you think and what you want to see.  Be not afraid of technology! Snazz Up Your Desktop: Exposé […]