Protect yourself
For you
Practical, plain-language ways to protect your own data, accounts, and privacy. No jargon and no scare tactics, just the steps that actually keep you safer.
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How to rescue an email from your spam folder
You signed up for something you wanted, and the confirmation landed in spam. Here’s how to find it, rescue it, and tell your email provider to let future messages through, in Gmail, Outlook, Apple Mail, Proton, Yahoo, and Thunderbird.
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How to Read E.M. Forster for Free on Your Kindle
E.M. Forster’s major novels are in the US public domain. Here’s where to download them free, how to get them onto your Kindle, and how to use your library card for the titles that aren’t free yet.
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Version Control: How Linus Torvalds Built Git Because He Was Annoyed (And Changed Development Forever)
Linus Torvalds built Git in 10 days because BitKeeper revoked its license. Then GitHub made it mainstream, Microsoft bought GitHub, and Forgejo forked from Gitea when it went corporate. Here’s why it matters where your code lives.
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How to set up Proton Pass
If you’re using Proton Mail or Proton Unlimited, you already have a password manager built in. Here’s the three-step setup to get it in your browser and start using unique passwords everywhere.
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Emailing your list the right way: consent, the law, and tracking
Sending email to a list comes with real rules and real choices. Here’s consent, unsubscribe, the law, deliverability, and the two kinds of “tracking” (only one is the creepy kind), in plain language.
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I have nothing to hide. Why should I care who reads my email?
“No one cares what I’m doing” is the most reasonable-sounding reason to stay on Gmail, and the easiest to take apart. Here’s the honest answer, with real cases, and the one argument that matters most: the people who actually are targeted.
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What your booking platform actually costs: the three-year math
Over three years, a per-booking platform costs roughly twice what a self-hosted system costs, and you own nothing at the end. Here are the real numbers for three common setups, with honest assumptions.
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We helped a travel business escape a $60K-a-year booking platform
A family-owned travel business was paying over $60,000 a year in booking fees and couldn’t leave. A venture-backed firm tried and failed. Here’s what was keeping them, what it took to leave, and what they have now.
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Self-hosted booking: what actually works
After Cal.com went closed-source, the self-hosted booking landscape shifted. Here’s what’s genuinely ready for real use: Easy!Appointments, WordPress plugins, custom builds, and when each one makes sense.
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What a booking system actually is (and which parts create lock-in)
A booking system is four things bundled together: a calendar, a customer database, payment processing, and a website. The calendar is the part you think you’re paying for. The customer database and the website are the parts that keep you.
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Who owns your booking system?
Most booking platforms have been bought by online travel conglomerates, private equity firms, or digital holding companies. The names stayed the same; the ownership, pricing, and data flows changed. Here’s who owns what now, and what it means for you.
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Web app security in plain language: the OWASP Top 10
Most of us learn web app security the hard way, after something breaks. Here’s the short, honest version: the free list that names the ten most common risks, a free tool to find them, and why awareness is the real protection.
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Is Square safe for your small business? A conduct check
Square is the easy default for selling in person, but its conduct record is specific and some of it hits your cash flow: a habit of freezing seller funds, nine figures in 2025 regulator fines, and a big data breach. Here’s how to take cards in person without it.
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Who actually owns your mailing list?
A newsletter is really two jobs: holding your list and delivering the mail. Whoever holds the list controls it. Here’s how to keep your subscribers yours, and the setup we chose ourselves.
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How to judge a tool by its conduct, not its logo
A familiar logo tells you a company spent money on marketing, not how it will treat you. Four plain questions, privacy, lock-in, labor, and independence, let you judge any tool by its conduct.
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What actually makes a password strong
Most password advice is backwards. Length beats complexity, a password manager beats memorizing, and two-factor beats everything. Here’s the short, honest version of what keeps an account safe.
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We don’t recommend what we haven’t run ourselves
Free resources · Article We don’t recommend what we haven’t run ourselves A lot of people will tell you to leave Big Tech. Fewer have actually done it. We run Desk Ready on the same independent tools we recommend, so our advice comes with real lessons, including the ones that didn’t work. A lot of…
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Who actually owns your mailing list?
Free resources · Guide Who actually owns your mailing list? A newsletter feels like one tool, but it is really two jobs: holding your list, and delivering the mail. Let one company do both and you quietly hand over something you didn’t need to. Here’s how to keep your list yours. Short answer: whoever holds…
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Is Zoom safe to use? What its privacy track record actually shows
Free resources · Article Is Zoom safe to use? What its privacy track record actually shows Zoom works, and you don’t have to quit it tomorrow. But its privacy history follows one pattern worth knowing before your next call: ship fast, get caught, fix after backlash. Here is the receipt trail, so you can decide…
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Why I advise you to switch to Signal
The honest case for Signal from someone who advises small organizations on tech: why it’s the messaging app I recommend, the real tradeoffs, and how to start.
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Private messaging: what to use instead of texts, WhatsApp, and Messenger
Texts, WhatsApp, and Messenger feel private but mostly aren’t. A plain-language chart comparing Signal, SMS, WhatsApp, Messenger, Telegram, and iMessage, plus why Signal is the one worth switching to.
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Switching your team to encrypted email
Email is where your most sensitive conversations live, and most of it is wide open to the company that runs it. Encrypted email is more approachable than it sounds. Here’s how to switch without disrupting your team.