The moment of stepping into a pool with your phone in your pocket is a moment we all dread. The same goes for if your phone falls into the snow, or your laptop accidentally sits in your trunk overnight in freezing temps. With the latest tech advancements, this moment doesn’t necessarily mean your device is toast … but it doesn’t mean it’s completely safe, either. Keeping your beloved technology safe is easier than you think. You just need to follow a few precautions to keep your tech safe during the winter season.

As the ball drops and the clock strikes midnight, we enter a new year of experiences and opportunities. But it wouldn’t be the New Year without resolutions. Many people around the world make New Year’s resolutions, only to completely forget about them a week into January. But there are many apps, websites, and online services that can help you actually keep your resolutions. Here are my 2023 New Year’s resolutions and the technology that will help me stick to them.

Ahh, the fall semester is over, and it’s time to kick back and relax. Whether you’re visiting family across the state, hitting the slopes on the West Coast, or flying overseas for some fun, taking care of your tech and considering cybersecurity while traveling is a must.

Just like the clockwork, the end of the year marks the beginning of the holiday season. We all get a little time off to enjoy with our loved ones and get some much-needed R&R. And, of course, giving and getting some fun gifts! Our Ultimate Tech Gift Guide has options for everyone on your list … including yourself! Even some that are free!

For the Cinephile

Kanopy

Price: Free

The work world was flipped on its head in March 2020 as world health experts declared a global pandemic. Students were sent home, buildings were closed, and everyone was left trying to figure out how to live and work remotely. Over the next year and a half, we have emerged from our houses to engage in person again.

Those first few days and weeks at Pitt are a whirlwind. So much information is thrown at you during Welcome Week, when you were most concerned about finding your classes and getting moved into your residence hall. Now that you know what you’re doing, it’s time to take your Panther prowess to the next level with the Pitt Mobile app. It’s the only app you need to keep track of everything going on at Pitt!

Every fall, thousands of Pitt students complete an application for graduation, eagerly anticipating donning their caps and gowns to receive their diploma in front of friends and family. After working hard to earn their Pitt degree, with only a single semester to go, all that remains is for their academic advisor to sign off that they have met their degree requirements.

Back in the day, nearly all faculty and staff worked almost entirely in a campus office with a Pitt phone extension, while residence hall rooms had campus phones installed — until cell phones made residence halls phones obsolete and the pandemic introduced wide-spread remote work. Many faculty and staff still work one or more days a week from home … and away from their office phone. They now use their home or cell phone to make work calls or use the Teams app from their laptop to talk with coworkers.

OneNote is Microsoft’s electronic note-taking app that help you organize your notes, edit and annotate them, and share them with others. It is available to all Pitt students, faculty, and staff at no cost as part of Microsoft 365. I asked some OneNote devotees what they loved about it. Here's why it’s their go-to app and how they use it.

With Cybersecurity Awareness Month coming to a close, it would be a crime not to mention one of the most common scams: phishing. No, I’m not talking about that thing you do on the weekends during the summer at the lake, but rather sketchy emails. Whether it’s an unknown professor asking you to be a part of their research team, “Amazon” asking you to verify a purchase you didn’t make, or an announcement that you’ve won a cruise to the Bahamas, phishing has become trickier to spot and affects more people each day than you’d think.