Preface This should be the introduction where the author talks about how great our world is right now and how we can have a bank account (almost) without even leaving our phone, and all that. This review covers the free versions of both services. What Both Services Have in Common Ability to create an account from your phone. The option to make deposits and earn better interest rates than at your own bank. The ability to exchange currencies more favorably than at your bank. A higher risk of losing money compared to your bank. Let’s be honest, it all looks a bit scarier, right? Cards Both services offer physical cards. These days, everyone who can offers this option. With both services, ordering a card is a one-time payment (as long as you order it), around five euros. ...

As companies increasingly shift some of their work onto consumers, we find ourselves having to create accounts on various company websites. And now, we have to register on more and more websites. It’s not easy to remember all these passwords because each site has its own security requirements: some require you to use your email address as a login, others prohibit it; sometimes you need to add special characters like $&!#, while on other sites, this isn’t allowed. Some sites prohibit the repetition of characters in a password (e.g., no “111”) or force you to change your password every six months. ...

Many people consider cryptocurrency just another Ponzi scheme, while others believe that Bitcoin (BTC) will save the world. There are always a lot of different opinions about what is happening in the world, and often, people express these opinions just to draw attention to themselves. The Idea The idea is simply beautiful — giving control over funds directly to the holder, without the need for a middleman who needs to be trusted. At the same time, everyone is on their own, and if someone loses access to their assets, no one can help them recover them. As always, there are both positive and negative sides. I won’t tell the story of BTC here. ...

Many people have likely gone through a period in their lives when life started demanding more than before. To meet these new demands, you need different tools for managing time and tasks. People start buying various task management, project management, and note-taking apps, and so on. What’s the result? Burnout. Sound familiar? Collecting Everything We Can. Why Does It Feel Like a Burden? Have you read David Allen’s book GTD (Getting Things Done)? It’s possibly one of the first books recommended by bloggers for becoming a productivity guru. There’s a piece of advice in it about the Inbox—recording everything that comes to mind in the “Inbox” folder to deal with later. Then, during the weekly review, we distribute tasks into folders, dates, and labels. The tasks pile up so much that it becomes overwhelming, and a slight sense of anxiety creeps in as soon as we open our task vault. Adding a task to the system is very (too) easy, but deleting it? Not so much, because there’s always a reason to come back to it later. ...

Please keep in mind that I am not an IT specialist (maybe just a little experienced) and I write philosophical stuff on this topic. Something Like an Introduction Lately, VPNs have become increasingly popular. It’s becoming more “trendy” and youthful to think about your privacy online. Especially after it was revealed that the NSA could secretly turn on users’ webcams. But is VPN really as great as it seems? VPN is Not a Panacea Yes, a VPN can provide partial privacy. But where’s the guarantee that the service providing it isn’t collecting your data, even if it claims not to? It might even turn out that your privacy is compromised and your browsing data leaks online or gets sold somewhere. If you’ve read that our ISPs and others are monitoring us—forget it, it won’t get any better. You might as well switch to pagers and stop using Google and its maps. ...