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Private Browsing is Not Private... but there are some things it's good for
Everyone who browses the internet

While private browsing is anything but private, there are some good reasons to use it, but none of them are related to hiding your activities, as you aren’t going to hide anything by using private browsing. Every site you visit is logged by your ISP and most of the time by the site you’re visiting. Your IP address is being logged; private browsing does not hide your IP address. Yet many people think they’re skulking around the Internet anonymously when they are using private browsing, but alas anonymity requires a lot more than using a browser’s private browsing mode. If it’s not private, then what good is it?

1. Use Private Browsing when you don’t want cookies or temp files from sites you’ve visited stored on your computer. Using private browsing doesn’t store cookies or the site URLs you visit on the local computer. If you’re a lady looking for a new husband, you don’t have to worry about your husband looking through your temp files and finding photos of your new prospective husband or cookies from www.soyourelookingforanewhusband.com – or EB’s favorite www.sugardaddy4ubaby.com. I only know EB frequents that site because I snuck up on her while she was perusing a gaggle of shirtless, fat, rich, old men.

2. Logging into multiple accounts from the same computer: If you’re logged into, let’s say one of your Gmail accounts and you try to log into another it will make you sign out of the account you’re logged into (there’s a way around this but that’s for another issue). If you want to open another Gmail account, etc. just open private browsing, and log into the other account. If you want to log into 5 Gmail accounts, for example, at one time just open 4 private browsing windows.

3. Search without cookies that identify you: You can search Amazon or PayPal etc. from a private browsing Window without seeing it come up on searches you perform when you’re logged into a site. Since cookies are not carried over from a private browsing session, sites cannot use them to identify you when you search using private mode, and then log into the site to purchase. This also provides you with a means whereby you can check the contents of a site as a new user and compare prices to make sure aren’t getting better prices than members. Hey, it happens all the time.

4. Checking email or browsing from someone else’s (or a public) computer. When need to check your email, check an account, or browse on someone else’s computer may want to use private browsing for that because browsing history, email provider, and accounts are not saved to the computer. Private browsing never saves web history, cookies or web data.

So private browsing is useful for a lot of things, but not for hiding your identity from your ISP, the FBI, the NSA, the famous super-sleuth, EB, or the websites you visit, I tells ya.

Oh, and we almost forgot – here are some keyboard shortcuts for launching a private browsing session:

Firefox and Microsoft Edge: Ctrl+Shift+P launches a new private browsing window.

Chrome, Brave, and Opera: Ctrl+Shift+N is the shortcut to open a new private browsing (incognito) window.

And there you go – everything you ever wanted to know about private browsing but were afraid to ask. 

How to Stop Windows from Tracking Everything You Do
Windows 10 / Windows 11

Yep! Windows Tracks Everything You Do?

Did you know that whether you’re using Windows 10 or Windows 11, Windows tracks everything you do. It’s called Timeline and Activity history in Windows 10 and Activity History in Windows 11.

If you don’t want Windows tracking everything you do on your computer here’s how to turn off Activity history and clear history already recorded.

Windows 10

Open Settings (Windows key + i ) and click on Privacy

In the left-hand pane, click on Activity history.

Under the “Manage your activity history” section, you’ll see two options:

Store my activity history on this device: Toggle the switch to Off if you don’t want Windows to store your activity history on your device.

Send my activity history to Microsoft: Toggle the switch to Off to prevent Windows from sending your activity history to Microsoft.

Disabling both options will completely turn off Activity history

To clean up what Windows has already recorded, scroll down a bit further, and under “Clear activity history” click the “Clear” button.

Windows 11

Open Settings (Windows key + i)

In Settings click on “Privacy & security”

Under “Privacy & security” scroll down find “Activity history” and click on it.

In the “Activity history” dialog, toggle the switch next to “Store my activity history on this device” to the Off position.

And next to “Clear activity history for this account”, click on “Clear history”.

The Quickest Way to Clear Your Brower's Cache
Firefox, Edge, Chrome, Opera, Brave, and more...

Clearing your browser cache and history is something you should do at least once a month. And if you're having issues with your browser, clearing your browser's cache is the first thing you should do.

So with that in mind, here's a quick tip that will save you time when it's time to clear your browser's cache and history. Instead of opening the browser's settings, the following shortcut works on all major browsers.

With your browser open use the following keyboard shortcut to open to go directly to the dialog where you can clear your browser's history and cache.

CTRL+SHIFT+DELETE

You'll be able to choose how far back you want to go and what you want to clear. Once you've made your choices you can clear your browser's cache and history.

Above: Firefox's "Clear Recent History" dialog. You can choose a time range to clear, from the last hour to everything. Most browsers have similar options.


Above: Chrome's "Clear browsing data" dialog.

Above: The Clear browsing data dialog from Microsoft Edge.

So, whenever you want to quickly clear your browser's history & cache, whether for the last hour, the last day, or for all time, just open your browser, and use the CTRL+SHIFT+DELETE keyboard shortcut. It will save you time, we tells ya! 

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Three (and a half) Great Christmas Sites

At this festive time of year, EB and TC like to do festive things, like reminding everyone that Christmas is coming. It seems each year, Christmas comes and goes so quickly. So, before Christmas has come and gone, we’d like to (hopefully) add to your Christmas joy by sharing some unique and fun Christmas websites. You’ll want to bookmark one or more of these sites if you have kids or grandkids, or if you’re like us, kids at heart.

These sites are not listed in any particular order – so the first one listed is not necessarily the best and so forth and so on.

Without boring you to tears, I am going to get started now.

---

NORAD Tracks Santa

If you have kids or grandkids, or if you still believe in Santa Claus, as I do, then you’ll want to visit this site on Christmas Eve.

Dear Santa,

All I want for Christmas is for EB to quit flogging me.

Your fan,

TC

OK seriously – this is from the NORAD site by the official NORAD people, who you don’t want to mess with because they have their fingers on the buttons that launch nukes. Don’t write and criticize them.

For over 60 years “…NORAD and its predecessor, the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) have tracked Santa’s flight.

The tradition began in 1955 after a Colorado Springs-based Sears Roebuck & Co. advertisement misprinted the telephone number for children to call Santa. Instead of reaching Santa, the phone number put kids through to the CONAD Commander-in-Chief’s operations “hotline.” The Director of Operations at the time, Colonel Harry Shoup, had his staff check the radar for indications of Santa making his way south from the North Pole. Children who called were given updates on his location, and a tradition was born.

In 1958, the governments of Canada and the United States created a bi-national air defense command for North America called the North American Aerospace Defense Command, also known as NORAD, which then took on the tradition of tracking Santa…”

Visit NORAD Tracks Santa.

---

WhyChristmas?com

We would write an intro for this site, but since the developer of the site is so verbose, we’re just going to let him entertain you.

“About WhyChristmas?com

WhyChristmas?com is one of the largest Christmas information sites on the web and answers your Christmas questions! It was launched in November 2000 by me, James Cooper a Christmas loving web designer from the UK.

I’d always loved Christmas (yes, I’m a very big kid!) and had wondered about the ‘whys’ of Christmas; such as why do we have Santa/Father Christmas, why we have Christmas Trees and send Christmas Cards to each other?!

The site was originally created for some friends who were teachers in a local school. Knowing that I was a web designer, they came to me complaining that they couldn’t find a site that was child friendly and “wasn’t trying to sell the kids something”! So with the help of ‘Bruce the Spruce’ (the site’s Christmas Tree logo!) I made a little site for them to use with their classes.

The site has always had a ‘no ads’ policy (although I’ve had plenty of offers!). As the site has become more and more popular the hosting costs have also increased! If you really like the site, you can help to keep the site online.

As a Christian, the most important part of Christmas to me is the Christmas Story, when we remember and celebrate that Jesus was born in Bethlehem 2000 years ago.

I’m also an all round ‘Christmas Nut’ listening to Christmas Carols and songs throughout the year! And to really get me into the Christmas spirit, I have to watch ‘The Muppets Christmas Carol’! Through researching and creating the site, I’ve also become a Christmasologist…”

It’s a fun site for adults and kids – get on your sleigh and hitch up your reindeer and…

Head on over to WhyChristmas?com.

---

Northpole.com

I love it! Another verbose developer! I’m on a roll – and so are you. Here to tell you all about Northpole.com is the developer himself…

“About Northpole.com

Northpole.com celebrates the holidays with dozens of activities for children and families. A child-safe, award-winning holiday site, northpole.com promotes a traditional look at Santa’s Secret Village at the North Pole, but with high-tech, creative features to keep children and adults entertained—all for free.

The northpole.com site premiered in 1996 and has been delighting children ever since. Its creators wanted to provide a family-oriented, traditional Christmas site for children and their families to enjoy, and showcase it as a site steeped in both tradition and technology. As a result, visitors enjoy animation using Adobe Flash, JavaScript, Webmail, and conversation simulators using artificial intelligence—all on Web pages richly illustrated with hundreds of original, detailed, hand-drawn artwork.

The site opens with a panoramic view of Santa’s Secret Village?, the fanciful home of Santa, his elves, and reindeer. Visitors click on different ‘buildings’ to enter, leading to a variety of activities or stories. Buildings include Santa’s Mailroom, Santa’s Workshop, Gift Shop, Craft Cottage, Elf Clubhouse, Santa’s Reindeer Barn, Santa’s Den, Mrs. Claus’ Kitchen, North pole Weather Station, Elf Pal Academy, and Toy Shop.

Letters to Santa arrive by the thousands each day during the holiday season and are processed in Santa’s Mailroom. There, children have a quick, secure, and certain means to write Santa AND get a free, keepsake-quality reply letter within days. In Santa’s Workshop, children can read short creative stories about elves and toys. In the Reindeer Barn, the stories are about Raymond the playful reindeer. All stories on northpole.com are original, and many offer a gentle and upbeat lesson for children. Personalized, original stories await children in Santa’s Den and are created by the child (or parent) answering a few short questions, such as the child’s first name, hometown, and a favorite activity. These answers are woven into the story to personalize it for the child, and pages can be printed out as a keepsake or gift.

After discovering that teachers were using the site in classrooms to teach computer skills, reading, and writing, site creators added the Elf Pal Academy, offering mind-challenging games, puzzles, mazes, math riddles, an interactive coloring book, even Santa’s favorite Rubik’s cube. A favorite is the Good Deeds Calendar that children can print and record their good behavior for Santa.

Need a special recipe for the holidays? Mrs. Claus’ Kitchen has thousands! Also, at northpole.com there’s ElfChat?, animated holiday postcards, and an ‘elf-run’ weather station that gives updated North Pole weather reports.

While December brings the largest numbers of visitors, the site receives millions of visits year-round. What began as a venture into Internet technology has grown into a truly happy holiday tradition for many families all over the world. Whether it’s tradition wrapped in technology, or technology wrapped in tradition, a visit to northpole.com is a holiday gift…”

Let’s put on our coats, hats, boots, and scarves and head to the Northpole, shall we?

---

Eightball & Thundercloud’s Christmas Graphics

It is with bittersweet emotions that we mention the site that started it all. From our rise to the top as the biggest stationery site on the web and one of the top 500 websites in the world to the demise of stationery with the introduction of Windows 7 to our current incarnation – geared to helping people all over the world with their Windows computers. In our 23 years working on the Internet, we’ve seen the web grow and change so much - and not always for the good.

There’s a lot of innocence and naiveté in our first collaborative effort. Looking back, it looks so simple and out-of-date. And whenever we revisit our first Web site, it brings tears and smiles. You’ll notice the midi (music) that used to play in the background does not play in Chrome, Firefox, Edge, or other modern browsers. However, you’ll see that it downloads the small music file in the background. They are all beautiful Christmas midis. 

Looking back is bittersweet. It hardly seems like it’s been 23 years since we built our first Web site.

Hop in Darcy and TC’s time machine, and let’s go back to where it all began. 

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We Are The Keepers of Christmas

It's a wintry mix kind of day. The sky is obscured with an unending blanket of gray that will never brighten and yield to an increasingly earlier sunset only to be swallowed up by the long winter darkness.

It’s always windy this time of year, and that makes the dead cold of winter even more foreboding. The winter solstice has yet to come yet winter surrounds me. The once vibrant trees which were bursting with life just a few weeks ago, now stand brittle, dull, creaking skeletons swaying under the mournful gray of nature’s sky-canvas. That canvas will stay with us until spring decides to appear from the barren frozen ground.

Christmas is only days away now, and of course, some still refuse to call it Christmas — as if saying the word somehow entangles them in some religious denomination or organization.

Christmas is not “Happy Holidays”, it’s Christmas. If someone does not want to call it “Christmas” they should not be taking time off work, exchanging gifts, or celebrating…

Read the rest of this essay here. 

What is ghosting?

EB has tons of money and blows it on stuff like wild parties, yachts, fancy cars, and vacations. Another thing she does is buy up old haunted houses so she can go ghosting... you know, looking for ghosts.

No! No! No! Just kidding...

Ghosting is a term used to describe the act of abruptly ending all communication with someone without explanation. This can happen in any type of relationship, but it is most commonly used in the context of dating. Ghosting can be very hurtful and confusing for the person who is being ghosted, as they are left with no closure or explanation.

There are many reasons why someone might ghost someone else. Some people ghost because they are afraid of confrontation, while others do it because they don't want to hurt the other person's feelings. Still, others ghost because they are simply not interested in the relationship anymore.

I've thought about ghosting EB since she overworks me and underpays me. But I'm so poor and destitute -- every penny counts. Maybe someday soon she'll realize my worth and I'll get a huge bonus. Hope springs anew!

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Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a great weekend too... be safe!



Darcy & TC
Cloudeight InfoAve Weekly - Issue #1106
Volume 22 Number 9
December 20, 2024 

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