Dave McKay

Dave McKay first used computers in the industry when punched paper tape was in vogue and he has been programming ever since. His use of computers pre-dates the birth of the PC and the public release of Unix. He has programmed in everything from 6502 assembly to Lisp, and from Forth to C#.

Don't let his six years at two different Universities fool you. He isn't a theoretical academic sheltered from the stark realities of the modern digital world. He has over 30 years of front-line experience working with IT in demanding business and industrial settings. His first IT technology article was published in Personal Computer World in 1985.

Dave has worked as a freelance programmer, manager of an international software development team, and an IT services project manager. Latterly he was the Data Protection Officer for a managed services provider, responsible for the data protection and regulatory compliance of businesses ranging in size from tens of users up to multiple thousands of users.

He is now a technology journalist and independent Data Protection and Compliance consultant.

Dave is a Linux evangelist, an open-source advocate, and an inveterate tinkerer.

What RF Attacks Are and How to Defend Against Them

Firewall and rules are in place, intrusion detection systems are running, and all industry best practices are being followed. Great, but what about Radio Frequency attacks? They nimbly sidestep...

What is a Spear Phishing Attack?

Spear phishing is sending illicit emails to someone to make them do something to the threat actor's benefit. What is a spear phishing attack? It's a one-on-one scam, and...

ExpressVPN Review: How Does It Perform (and How to Install) on Ubuntu?

ExpressVPN is considered one of the top-tier VPN products. We install it on Ubuntu 21.04 and use it from the command-line and from within a browser. How does it...

Latest posts

Small business owner reviewing security checklist.

A Practical Guide to Small Business Network Security in 2025

This article provides a clear roadmap for implementing crucial cybersecurity measures to safeguard your company's digital assets.
What is BTRFS file system linux kernal

What is Btrfs? The Better (than most) File System

Btrfs may be a "better" file system next to everything except ZFS, but what Btr actually stands for is not "better", or "butter", but...
Mac floppy disks

A Brief History of the Floppy Disk

Ah, the floppy disk. How I miss thee. How I don't. There was a certain tactile pleasure to inserting you into your drive, and...
hard drive showing platter and read write headread-write-head

How to Install ZFS and Create a ZFS Pool on Ubuntu

ZFS is a stable, robust, and fault-tolerant file system with built-in RAID-like properties and drive pools. We show you how to create a ZFS...
UnRAID array with parity and caching drives

What is UnRAID? Outstanding Capacity with Parity

There are a number of NAS operating systems out there, including several based on the BSD (Berkeley System Development) operating system. Most are proprietary...