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What the heck is an electronic ecosystem?
An electronic ecosystem, which is definitely not a phrase I just coined ten seconds ago, is much like a natural ecosystem. Your computer (the one you're viewing this page on right now, even) is like an environment. It contains software, an analogue to natural life, which can be broadly classified into two categories: data (e.g. text documents, videos, pictures), and applications/apps (e.g. web browsers, games, chat programs). Data are like animals, and apps are like plants; the data relies on the procedures and such provided by the apps (and sometimes by other data) to exist and to change and be changed.
Your computer-ecosystem can influence and be influenced by other computer-ecosystems if it is connected to the Internet, in much the same way that different hamster cages can allow for the transportation of hamsters and hamster byproducts if there is a tube connecting them.
Anyway uh. This is a guide about how to enrich your electronic ecosystem, i.e. protecting your data, planting good apps, safeguarding against invasive species, and the like.
Some caveats regarding my personal biases:
- I'm not a computer scientist. I know only the basics of programming, very little about software, and even less about hardware. Most of what I have learned about the electronic ecosystem I have learned via stackexchange, Reddit, Github, Wikipedia, asking friends, and goofing around with app and device settings.
- I'm very big on privacy. Some things should remain between you and God (and possibly those whom you can trust). Like your geographic coordinates, for example. And your fingerprint. Which are both things that a lot of modern computers will request for certain features to function as intended. Which greatly concerns me.
I'm going to use computer as a general term covering phones and tablets as well as PCs and laptops, because a) modern smartphones are fully-functional computers in their own right, and b) it's easier.