By Mark McNease

I can remember when ‘the cloud’ was a new thing, and most people didn’t know what it was or what it meant. Now it’s an inescapable part of our technology landscape. Everything, it seems, is in the cloud, and the cloud itself is spoken of as a singular, godlike place – maybe even heaven – where everything resides and nothing is forgotten.

I still don’t trust it completely, and it requires an internet connection. Its name fits it: the cloud does not exist on our computers, smartphones, or laptops. It seemingly lives ‘up there’ somewhere (keep reading for more on that), and it’s apparently limitless.

I keep my files  and photos on my desktop, laptop and phone. Some of them are backed up, which is especially helpful with all the Word and Excel documents I create. Photos? Not so much. They take up a lot of space, and space isn’t free. I don’t really need six pictures of the same thing, the way we tend to take them now with our phones, or even most of the ones I accumulate by the thousands.

So what, exactly, is this cloud? And where did it come from? Can it rain on me? Can it make my life difficult? (Sometimes the answer to that depends on a reliable WiFi connection.) Let’s dive in …

By Mark McNease

Sometimes reaching for our phones results in immediate overload: all those emails! Important ones, not-so-important ones, and the spam that manages to get through our spam filter. Add to that the ‘string’ setting for most providers now that gives us 16 replies to a single email. It’s maddening, and even a little depressing if we let it get to us. This week is about finally taking control of email instead of letting it control us.

Whether you use Gmail through Google or Outlook through Microsoft (my service of choice), the core problem is the same: email was never designed to handle the volume we throw at it today. Newsletters, shopping alerts, social notifications, work messages, and pervasive junk all land in the same place, competing for our attention. Fortunately, there are tools more powerful than most people realize, and with a few smart tweaks, we can turn chaos into something manageable.

The first step is understanding and trusting filters. Gmail and Outlook both do a decent job of sorting mail into categories like Primary, Promotions, and Spam, but they work best when you actively train them. When you move an email out of your main inbox into a folder or category, you’re teaching your email system what matters and what doesn’t. Over time, this dramatically reduces clutter without requiring daily micromanagement.

Passwords are maddening, and now it seems every app I use on my phone wants me to set up facial recognition. I keep putting that off, since it reminds me too much of the vast surveillance state we live in getting even more intrusive. I will admit to liking it at the cruise terminals, when we now simply smile for the camera at customs and zip through. If I start seeing it more as a very effective form of security I’ll slowly but surely surrender. Maybe today’s the day.

Most of us are terrible at passwords, in part because we don’t like having to deal with them. We know we shouldn’t reuse the same one everywhere, but we do. We know “Password123!” is a bad idea, but we’ve probably used some version of it. And when a website demands one uppercase letter, one lowercase letter, one number, one symbol, a blood sample, and the name of your first pet, we sigh and write it down on a scrap of paper we immediately lose. Or, if you’re me, you add to an insanely long list of passwords on your phone’s Notes fuction or a varation of it. Then I had to scroll through 50 passwords looking for Chase Visa, or eBay. So let’s clear this up, calmly and with a minimum of frustration.

Why passwords are such a mess

Most of us now have dozens of online accounts: email, banking, shopping, streaming, social media, medical portals, travel sites. Remembering a unique, strong password for each one is basically a part-time job.

Reusing passwords feels easier, but it’s also risky. If one site gets hacked, criminals often try that same email-and-password combo everywhere else. That’s how a small breach turns into a big headache.

By Mark McNease

One of the things I’ve done to keep from being completely at the mercy of my iPhone is to never have it in the bedroom at night. During the day, maybe, but when dinner is finished and we head into the bedroom to watch Jeapoardy and whatever else we can fit in before sleep takes over, my phone gets left on the kitchen counter. Always.

I’ve also tried not looking at it before 8:00 am, but that hasn’t been successful. Just not having it near me at night has been a great help. I’ve told people that if they text me after 7:00 pm, they won’t get a reply until the next day. You know how many people are texting when they should be asleep or paying attention to their  lives outside a smartphone? Too many.

It’s undeniable that our smartphones are incredible little machines. Handheld computers, and even more expensive than a desktop. They keep us connected to family, news, community, and entertainment. But sometimes it feels like the phone is running us, buzzing, dinging, flashing, and demanding attention all day long. How else are we supposed to doomscroll through the headlines? We want to be alerted if life as we know it has come to a screecing halt.

This week’s we’re looking at how to take back some control. No advanced tech skills are required, and no artificial intelligence will be harmed. Just a few simple tweaks that can make our phone lives calmer, safer, and less demanding.

🔔 Tame the Notifications (This One Matters Most)

If your phone interrupts you constantly, it’s not rude, it’s just badly trained. My personal peeve: the vibrations.  But I keep my phone on mute, so I need to have some to know when I’m getting an important text. The downside is that it shakes against me in the belt holster I’ve always used, and 80 percent of it is spam.

Mark McNease

Why technololgy can feel overwhelming, and how to approach it calmly and confidently.

If technology sometimes makes you feel like you’ve missed a class everyone else showed up for, you’re not alone. For many of us, tech didn’t gently enter our lives—it barged in and changed the rules, often in what seems like a daily basis. This continues to happen regularly to me: AI is everywhere, and now even my bank app wants me to submit to facial recognition. I’m putting that off, but eventually it will just be another requirement of using apps and websites, at least on our phones.

The truth is, most modern technology isn’t difficul, it’s poorly explained. As someone who’s pretty tech savvy, I sometimes lose patience with people who aren’t, but I know better. I’ve put off learning things myself, and I’ve sometimes declared a learning curve too steep for me to climb, at least for now.

Devices assume you already know the basics, apps change without warning, and updates arrive with cheerful messages that tell you nothing useful at all. And they seem to change the entire look and fuction of our phones. No wonder it feels overwhelming.

Here’s the good news: we don’t need to “keep up.” We only need technology that serves our lives, not the other way around. Unless you’re like me and you crave learning new things and playing with every tool in the box, you really don’t have to take master classes in any of  them. At the same time, it’s coming, it’s been coming, and it’s going to keep coming. At some point I just have to sayy “I surrender” and get on the bus.