Decoding Cryptocurrencies

By now, you’ve probably heard of Bitcoin which means you’re on the spectrum ranging from heavily invested to totally spooked.

If you’re closer to spooked, allow me to share some simple facts.



Bitcoin is the first decentralized, unregulated, most popular, most valuable, cryptocurrency, sometimes call digital currency.  Bitcoin is the first, but far from the only cryptocurrency.  Other popular cryptocurrencies include Namecoin and Dogecoin (commonly referred to as ALT coins).

Unlike traditional currency, cryptocurrencies rely on cryptography and blockchains.  Even kids in primary school use basic cryptography to pass secret notes to each other in class.  However,  blockchain is a term more familiar to hardcore coders than casual internet users.  In this case, a blockchain is a distributed network of verifiable, updated, encrypted and synchronized ledgers.

Blockchains are maintained by “miners” who receive a reward and/or transaction fee for updating, maintaining, verifying the blockchain.  There are a fixed number of bitcoin, 21 million to be exact.  And “mining” bitcoin requires an increasing amount of time and computing power.

Cryptocurrencies are virtually impossible to counterfeit, hack, duplicate or accidentally “double spend”.  It’s these remarkable features that help bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to retain their value.

The trifecta of features including anonymity, security and potential reward combine to make cryptocurrencies very attractive to criminals, failed Governments and legitimate investors.

Are you ready to jump in and invest?  Well then, you’ll need some money (which kinda goes without saying) and you will also need to set up a “wallet” on an “exchange” such as Coinbase.  It also goes without saying that you should always backup your data including your private and public key.

We can thank Satoshi Nakamoto for the invention of bitcoin back in 2008.  I’d like to tell you who Nakamoto is, but no one really knows.  We don’t know if Nakamoto is a person or a group.  Like bitcoin itself, the Nakamoto’s true identity is secure and anonymous.

Tech4Life airs every Wednesday morning on @RJR94FM at 8:15 AM

Tech4Life: Clean Your Drive

It is time to toss the junk you’ve been (unknowingly) hoarding inside your PC’s hard drive.

Over time, your PC will get cluttered.  Even the best machines will find that duplicate files and large files litter the PC hard drives, will find an obscenely large accumulation of redundant DLL files and unused programs and appalling large collection of old cookies and internet history files.



This collection of productivity busting files can lead to a host of problems from the annoying to the unsafe.  Machines that have been bogged down with digital gunk perform poorly, respond slowly, fester viruses and create openings for hackers.

Do not pass “Go”.  Do note collect $200.  Immediately download and run CCleaner.  This free software is arguably the best utility program available for Windows based machines.

Running the programme, from the PC or external drive (more on that anon) can remove unused, unnecessary and unhealthy files in addition to scrubbing the registry of dead file references.  CCleaner, with one pass, will remove cookies, browsing history and cashe; the programme will clear the Recycle Bin; it will dump the thumbnail cashe and update log files.  Forgotten, expired and useless programmes can be easily uninstalled.

Best of all, the compact and highly efficient utility allows users to tweak the configuration of their Start Up Programmes.

The result: a faster, leaner, healthier machine that has more hard drive space.  Even better, the free programme works with just about every version of Windows.

To further boost the functionality of CCleaner, the developers have included a 'run from drive' feature which means that it doesn’t even have to be installed to reap the massive benefits touted above.  Users can opt not to install CCleaner but rather run in from a jump drive.

Can you imagine borrowing a friend’s laptop, running the program from a jump drive, cleaning their machine and surprising them with power boost?!  Talk about a great gift!  Gift yourself first by downloading CCleaner here.

Of course, it should go without saying, back up your system both before and after this process and schedule regular cleanings.

Tech4Life airs every Wednesday morning at 8:15 AM on RJR94FM.