Is AI relevant to me?

Curious about AI?

Remember the very first Internet search engines—Altavista, Yahoo, and AskJeeves? It was hard to imagine anything better until Google came along and blew them out of the water. Another big leap forward is upon us with AI (artificial intelligence) tools revolutionising the way we do research and access information quickly. It’s an exciting time!

Four popular AI tools at the moment are Chat GPT, Perplexity, Anthropic, and Google’s Gemini (formerly Bard). Instead of going to the old-fashioned Google, typing a question, and getting a list of websites that might have the answer (and a bunch of ads), these new AI search engines simply GIVE you the answer. They summarise the available information in an easily understandable way.

Some questions recently asked and helpfully answered in our household include:

• Which colour wires are for ADSL in the UK

• Is “shitpoke” a nickname for a cormorant or a heron?

• Find an easy recipe for chickpea curry.

Click on the examples above to see the answers and source links. I encourage you to give it a try!

Undeliverable Emails

Over the past six weeks, I’ve had a surprising number of calls about undeliverable emails. The reason is that major email providers such as Google and Yahoo recently introduced new email authentication requirements. Those experiencing the problem are people who own their domain, the part of the email address that comes after the @ symbol. (For me, it’s heriz-smith.com.)

If you have your own custom domain and use it for email, you may be encountering similar difficulties. Please reach out if you need my help to make sure you are in compliance with the new standards.

Scamalot

Email scams continue to be an issue. Please stay alert for email addresses that don’t match the organisation they purport to be from, grammatical errors, a sense of urgency, and the mention of financial transactions you don’t recall (or are unlikely to have made). If an email seems wrong or causes alarm, there is a very good chance it’s a scam.

If you need help with any of the topics above, or something else regarding your Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, AppleTV, printer, network, or any related software, please email me at hugo@heriz-smith.com or text/call me at (207) 691-7788 (US) or 07943 199484 (UK).