The Cheapskate's Guide to Computers and the Internet







You need not spend large amounts of cash for decent computers and reasonable Internet services. If you know how, you can get them cheaply. This site is dedicated to showing you how.

Toward a Technological Cage for the Masses

For about two decades, beginning roughly in 1995, the average resident of the developed nations was given a gift, an unprecedented opportunity for free speech. This opportunity was made possible by the personal computer and the ability it provided to access an open, relatively unregulated Internet. Never before had the common man or woman had opportunities to express his or her views to large audiences unhindered by gatekeepers--whether they be newspaper editors, book editors, television programming directors, judges, or other government officials. The fact that this situation lasted as long as it did is astounding. But now, the natural order of things is returning. Now, the brief window of free speech is closing, and it is closing quickly... Read More



Raspberry Pi 3: A Cheap Desktop Computer for Children Learning to Program in BASIC

In the early 2000's, parents began noticing that educators were no longer interested in teaching their children about computers in ways that would lead them to get excited about pursuing computer-related careers like computer science and computer engineering. The problem was explained in a famous 2006 essay by the well-known astrophysicist and science fiction writer David Brin, Why Johnny can't code. As the essay mentions, Brin could not find a modern computer and modern software capable of teaching children the BASIC computer programming language at a level they can understand... Read More



How Advertisers Manipulate Consumers into Buying Computers

In this article, I will discuss how advertisers use our feelings about ourselves and our lack of knowledge to manipulate us into buying their products... Read More



Cheapskate's Guide's New Policy on Robots and RSS Feed Readers

Cheapskate's Guide has instituted a new policy on web-scraping robots and RSS feed readers. You can read it here. A link to it can also be found at the bottom of the home page. Basically, the policy says that those who use web-scraping robots or configure their RSS feed readers to automatically search for new content on this website too frequently will be blocked from accessing this website. If you would like to know how the new policy affects you and how to ensure that you are not blocked, keep reading... Read More



Hunting the Nearly-Invisible Personal Website

The personal website is a somewhat mysterious animal that lives mostly unobserved in the jungle of the Internet. A few inexperienced Internet users who live completely within the golden-walled gardens of Facebook and Google may not even be aware of the species' existence. Other inexperienced users may consider the personal website to be either extinct, like brontosaurus, or a myth, like... Read More



A Review of the Logitech K400 Plus Wireless Keyboard

Cheapskatesguide.org does not do many hardware reviews, primarily because this website is about saving money by making due with less. It shows readers how to buy better used equipment and make it last as long as possible. However, a relative gave me a Logitech K400 Plus wireless keyboard about two years ago. Since then, I have been using it mostly to control my Netflix computer. I have found that I really like the K400, and it is also reasonably priced ($24.99 on Amazon, as I write this). So, I thought, why not write a review?... Read More



On Becoming an Internet Savant

Many people are satisfied with using the Internet to shop on line, talk to their friends, and watch cat videos. But the Internet is so much more valuable than that. In motivated hands, the Internet can be used to find more useful knowledge than can be assimilated by a single person in a thousand lifetimes... Read More



Ten Commandments of the Small Internet

If you haven't heard, a grassroots Internet movement is afoot. It is called "the small Internet". This movement is primarily about recognizing that today most individuals can safeguard their free speech on the Internet by running their own inexpensive, efficient websites. The small Internet movement also acknowledges that web designers should be sensitive to the fact that not all Internet users on the planet have access to the latest computer hardware and software and super-fast broadband Internet connections... Read More



Basic Tips for Debugging Home Internet Connections

A few weeks ago, I wrote an article about computer self reliance that shows how to make basic fixes to hardware and software on your computer. That was for anyone who, thanks to Covid-19, may be stranded at home and having difficulty finding the help they need to get their broken computers working again. This article will give readers the knowledge they need to address basic problems that could take their computers off line. This knowledge could save you from having to call your ISP to request a visit from a technician, and risk contracting Covid-19 from him, or receiving an unwanted service bill... Read More



A Random Sampling of Internet Service Prices around the World

I have always heard that Internet Service Providers in the United States charge more for their services than ISP's in most of the rest of the world. Since I was curious about the veracity of that claim, I decided to do some research of my own this week... Read More



My First PC

I bought my first PC in the Spring of 1993. It was not the first computer I bought, but it was the first useful one. Between contract engineering jobs at the time, I wanted to spend my time productively by learning the increasingly-popular C++ computer language. So, I responded to a want-ad placed in the local newspaper by an individual selling a several-year-old personal computer clone with an 80286 CPU... Read More



Developing Computer Self-Reliance

I think Covid-19 has re-emphasized the value of self-reliance to many of us. During this pandemic, we have been through periods when we couldn't simply pick up our phones and call repairmen to come to our homes. We may also have been unable to go to local shops to get help. Since so much of our personal business must now be conducted on line, finding inexpensive computers and making basic repairs to our own computers are becoming important life skills. Without them, we may be unable to stay connected to the world, to attend school, to work, or even to buy food without risking exposure to a potentially deadly disease... Read More



Nine Tips for Surfing the Internet Faster and Downloading Less Data

I still remember the frustration I felt surfing the Internet back in 2004 on a 56 Kbit/s dial-up modem. Even then, website creators were insensitive to many of their users. Some of their web pages contained so much unnecessary clutter that they took over two minutes to download. The amount of unnecessary data on web pages has only grown since then, despite the fact that many around the world still have slow or metered Internet connections... Read More



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