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• Win 10 Bug
• Blackmail Emails
• Daylight savinG time in Nov
• Your Website- YOU can see if it’s set up right to be found!

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For a couple of months, the audio of today’s show is here. Recent shows are here.

The intro & outro music was by Pentatonix.

 

Both Glenn and Paul were in the studio today.

 

Glenn said he’s not yet updated his iPhone or iPad with the latest (version 12) of the IOS operating system. The main reason is that he hasn’t run his Mac Mini to backup the 2 devices before updating them — a step he stressed is very important.

Paul has done the update and said it’s doing well. But it’s really a subjective observation. If you replace the operating system and it seems to go faster, it may be due more to the fresh reload rather than changing the version of the OS. Reloading the older version might have made it run faster too, if not much faster than the new OS. This is similarly true of other devices and their operating systems.

Paul said that much effort is put into reducing battery drain when smartphone operating systems are designed. He repeated what he’s said before, a smartphone battery drains faster when you’re further from the cell tower and have fewer ‘bars’ of signal strength.

So subjectively, he thinks he’s getting 10% to 20% more battery life now with approximately the same use. Also, it shuts itself down without warning less often now.

Paul said his iPhone needs a new battery and asked Glenn to explain the battery replacement offer by Apple. Glenn said that until the end of this year, you can take the phone in and get the battery replaced for $29, in some iPhone models. The iPhone has to be in perfect condition — no chips or cracks in the screen, Glenn said. Amending what he just said, Glenn said that they will replace the battery but they will require the damaged glass be replaced.

Paul’s sister in Spain had a refurbished iPhone with a non-Apple screen. When she took it in for the new battery offer, they did replace the battery, but they also replaced the screen and charged her for it, without prior notice. Paul thought the laws in the US are different. If the cost of service is 10% or more than the estimate, the shop is required to get your permission.

Paul mentioned that there is a recall of Macs with the 5K Retina Display. There is currently a class action lawsuit for the defect in the manufacture of that screen.

Paul talked about a bug in the latest rollout package of Windows 10. If you double click on a .zip file, it would ask you if you want to extract the contents, and if you continue you can encounter problems. If an extracted file has the same name as an existing file, it would overwrite the existing file without warning.

The bug got fixed but that created another one. It would ask permission to overwrite an existing file, and if you say OK, it would NOT extract some of the files because there were no existing files to overwrite. <That’s my understanding of what Paul said.>
<Here are some links to recent bugs in the Windows updates…
Windows 10 October Update Deletes User Documents
Windows 10 Bug Silences Sound Cards
Windows 10 Hit By Second File Deletion Bug
MS: Win10 Bugs Fixed; October Update Rolls Out Again>

About the battery replacement offer from Apple, Glenn wasn’t sure about the oldest model it applies to, possibly the 5SE. He thought it was a good deal to take advantage of because it’s so hard to replace the battery yourself. He’s never been able to put an iPhone back together after replacing the battery. Paul said Apple has robotic equipment to take their phones apart.

Glenn looked up more info about the battery replacement offer. It applies to “5SE, 6, 6+, 6S, 6S+, 7, 7+, 8, 8+ and the 10”. But then he said the offer is good for the iPhone 6 or later models. Glenn read, “After December 31st the fee will change to $49 and all other products except the iPhone X will change to $69”,

Paul said you can get a third party to replace your iPhone battery but it’s extremely difficult to find a reliable manufacturer of lithium polymer batteries. They may work OK for a while but they don’t survive the number of charging cycles that Apple batteries do. Paul said “the Apple spec is that after 1000 charge & discharge cycles thru the 50% mark, the battery is supposed to retain about 80% of its capacity.”

Paul said, “there’s an app for the Mac called Coconut Battery and you can look at your cell phone with it”. It’s supposed to tell you about the condition of the iPhone battery. He’s seen the app report that the third party battery has lost half of its capacity in 6 months, after only 100 cycles.

Ross called. He thought the 5S was to be included the battery replacement offer. Glenn went back to the website to read again that the offer was good for the model 6 and later. He sent me a link to his source. But Paul chimed in to say that a closer look showed that the iPhone SE *is* included.

Glenn thanked new members from the recent membership drive and reminded listeners that they can become contributing members of KVMR by calling the office number 530-265-9073. Or call the studio when the DJ is not talking on the air at 530-265-9555. <You can also go online at kvmr.org.>

Paul talked about video made by the CEO of Apple (Tim Cook) about recent new product releases, in particular the iPhone XS & XR. The camera in the XR quite extraordinary, Paul said.

It’s not OK to call it digital photography any more, it is now computational photography. There is a scary feature that Paul & others are not happy about. The XR has an infrared laser dot projector in the part of the phone facing the user It sends out a series of dots that measure the distances to an object (different parts of your face) and uses that data to identify the user. That provides extra information (the depth) that can be combined with what the camera sees. <He didn’t say how this applies to the front camera> but you can control the depth of field in the image after you’ve taken the picture.

Other things computational photography can do…
– The main object can be in color and everything else can be in black & white.
– The camera is always receiving an image and the moment you press the shutter button the image is captured instantaneously — there is no delay.

In the video, Tim said the XS has a neural network. The chip aboard makes intelligent decisions about what exactly to do with the image.

Paul introduced the concept of secure enclave. The latest Mac Books are difficult or impossible to service by anyone but Apple. There are a series of chips on board that are bound together with encryption in such a way that you can’t easily see the information in that secure enclave. The iPhone is the same, he said.

California has a law that requires products be serviceable by a third party. How Apple will side step that, Paul wasn’t sure.

Marilyn called. She uses Windows 7 and when she does a virus scan, she gets a warning that she hasn’t updated for over a year. She then clicks on “check for updates” and gets a message “Windows updates cannot currently check for update because the service is not running. You may need to restart your computer”. She restarts but she ends up in the same situation with the same warning.
– Windows 7 is a current product and should be getting updates. It’s not that Win7 is no longer supported.
– If you do a search for those very words, you will likely end up on the Microsoft site with a button that says “fix it”. She said she did that and got to a page that would guide her to change things in the Registry.
– Paul said that’s the wrong place. Do the Google search again and add the word “fix”.
– Be sure your search results take you to a Microsoft site, not a site that just claims to be Microsoft.
– Try using Crap Cleaner (Ccleaner). Sometimes that gets Windows Update working again.

Marilyn’s other question was about a VPN service. She takes her laptop to meetings and uses the available wi-fi, and someone suggested she use a VPN. She’s found many VPNs and wanted suggestions.

– Her computer already has a reliable firewall so people can’t readily connect back into your machine if your machine is in good shape.
– If you’re just typing notes at the meeting, you’re not going onto the internet so you’re OK.
– If you go on the internet, the majority of sites are encrypted by default. You can tell by the “https” (not http) in the address of the site.
– If you want to use a VPN, you’ll need a level of trust in the VPN service that *they* won’t steal your data. Paul suggested tunnelbear.com. They give you 500 meg of data/mo for free to try it out. The installation is easy.
– The other use for the VPN is to make it appear you’re actually located in another country. “Someone” uses it to access content on the BBC that’s only available to BBC subscribers in the UK, for instance.

Marilyn has been receiving ransomeware emails that have made her nervous. Paul said such mail is bogus but it’s a good wakeup call to change your password. Some of these emails may say they have your password and may even display it while they threaten you for payments. Paul said he doesn’t know how they get the passwords but it maybe at spoof sites. The webpage may seem like you are where you want to be but when you type in your password, they redirect you to the correct site while keeping a record of your password.
<How to Fix: Hackers Hacked My Email, Demand Bitcoin (Scam)>

Paul said that there is a public database somewhere where you put in your email address and it will tell you any stolen passwords were associated with it. He’s not sure how reliable it is.

Paul said if you have a website, there are 2 thing to test it for. If these 2 thing don’t work, change it or you will not be found. Your website should “come up with a secure certificate”. It doesn’t have to be associated with a name. If you have a pizza company, it doesn’t have to say Joe’s Pizza, it just needs to have lock on it — a domain certificate. Otherwise “Google no longer likes the site”. <More about secure certificates in the 1-31-18 show notes>

The 2nd thing is that when you go to joespizza.com add to that /sitemap.xml (joespizza.com/sitemap.xml). Google and other search engines use the file sitemap.xml at joespizz.com to simplify their work. Without that file, your search ranking will be downgraded.

Last Updated 1:17 AM 11-22-2018

changelog:
added link to article w/r hackers show they have your password & demand payment
added on 11-22-18 link to article Windows 10 update corrected & rolls out again