Tag: Apps

Technician Tuesday: A Wi-Fi analyzer from Matt Hafner and some things I like about his website

How I got there.

The December 2022 issue of Maximum PC magazine (link takes you to magazine subscription page, Maximum PC does not have online archives at this time) recommended the Wi-Fi signal analyzer program from Matt Hafner, at MattHafner.com.

(A side question: I know periodicals like Maximum PC get their titles italicized when cited, but I’m not sure about personal websites. That is something for me to look up another time.)

I’ve downloaded and installed his Wi-Fi analyzer on one Windows 10 PC already. I like it. It works. I can already see my current 2.4 GHz router channel setting might be too close to another nearby network’s channel.

Why I lingered.

I’m also impressed by Matt Hafner’s own website.

It is easy for me to navigate.

His affiliate link was marked by an asterisk with “* Affiliate-Link: I earn from qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you!” as an explanation below. That is very elegant in my opinion. For someone who knows what an affiliate link is they can quickly see that it’s an affiliate link. And for someone who doesn’t know what an affiliate link is, he’s provided a clear explanation and the name so they’ll know what affiliate links are the next time they run across the term.

His photos and videos seem to be the main focus of his website. He doesn’t crowd the page with zillions of each, but presents enough I can get an idea of what his work looks like. There’s clear links to find more videos and photos if I want.

I’ve started reading privacy policies and terms and conditions on websites and programs. His website privacy policy is one of the clearer and more straightforward website privacy policies I’ve seen in a while. The privacy policy on the Wi-Fi analyzer app is also easy to read and answers my questions.

I came to his website to download the Wi-Fi analyzer app. I browsed through most of the website, and I’m writing about it now, because the design was that nice to look at and interact with. That’s really good web design.

Mindset Monday: What is being accomplished?

How it started

The other day I was talking to a small business owner and a couple of the small business’s employees. We were discussing local business, small business, and business in general.

I said that when it comes to technology and people with technological skills, I think there’s a question which is impolite but still important.

How many apps do we actually need?

Not as individuals, but rather as users existing within a technological system. Specifically smartphone apps, which seems to be most of what programming and company announcements and startups are focused on currently, “and we created a new app for that,” how many apps do we actually need?

The small business owner replied that he has about fifteen apps to run his business and it seems like each one has its own associated fee.

How it’s going, now that I’ve thought more about this

Fifteen apps, which I’ll use as a starting point. Fifteen user IDs, fifteen passwords, fifteen apps to keep updated, fifteen apps which can break if an update goes wrong, and so on.

No, I’m not advocating for one-stop-shopping all-in-one apps that contain everything and do everything. Those work wonderfully until that one things breaks and then everything breaks. That’s why I stopped using PDAs back in the Palm Pilot days.

What I am advocating is for all of us, myself included, to stop and look at the technology we use from time to time. How much of what I use or have downloaded or installed is to monitor or fix a potential problem created by something else? Or if the potential problem isn’t directly created by something else, how much of it is created by my bad habits using something I already have?

What is actually being accomplished?