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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.

 

This time it was Paul with co-host Mikail Graham who were in the studio. Glenn was the one who called in.

 

Steve Baker came to the mic and talked to Pascal, a reporter from YubaNet about the Ponderosa fire in Butte County. She said officials found and arrested a local guy from Oroville who allegedly started the fire. It started because of carelessness with a campfire. 10 house & 20 outbuildings are lost, more loss is expected. The fire covers 2500 acres. 1200 people have been evacuated and 400 are sheltering in place. An optimistic estimate of containment is on Sep 6, Steve added.

Pascal said there is a new fire of 5 or 6 acres near Placerville. She used satellite pictures to pinpoint its location at Highway 49 &∓ Diamond Springs. The highway hasn’t been closed yet, but that may change if the fire expands.

Listeners were reminded that campfires must never be left unattended and are thoroughly extinguished before leaving. And there are areas where campfires are not permitted, like the South Yuba River Canyon and in state parks. BLM allows only a cooking stove on their lands and only if you have a camping permit. Also, be aware that discharging firearms can set a fire. Bullets carry enough kinetic energy to convert to heat when entering a substance like a tree, or set off sparks when hitting something hard like a rock. The Mariposa fire resulted from target shooting.

Paul noted that drones should not be flown near wildfires. They can interfere with flight operations of the tanker aircraft. And if you’re caught, there is a significant fine and jail time, Pascal added. Paul said his drone just received a software update that’s supposed to keep it from flying in restricted airspace.

Pascal is amazed by the satellite pictures coming from GOES-16, even though it hasn’t been declared fully operational. The pictures are animated and show the progress of the fires. Yubanet has links to the fire news on their home page.

Paul had some equipment set up when he was in Oregon for the solar eclipse. He said he’ll put a link on the Zen Tech site to the video he shot. You can also go to his Facebook page. To find eclipse images, google the words: eclipse 2017, then click on ‘images’

He briefly mentioned the Mavic Pro Quadcopter made by the Chinese company DJI that he got for around $1000. He had a $60 quadcopter before, but the more expensive ones are more stable and easier to fly.

If you’d like to talk to the guys during the show, call 530-265-9555.

On Sep 12 at about 10am, Apple is expected to announce the new iPhone 7S, 7s Plus and the iPhone 8, which is rumored to start at $999 for the base model. <You’ll find little more about it in the 8-23-17 show notes>. It’s rumored that there’s a 4K Apple TV coming, though Apple is having some trouble “getting their movies locked in to be able to show them and sell them”.

Mikail has seen some of the “views” of the AR Kit <actually ARCore> by Google, which is not yet released. One of the apps for it is called Giphfy. It allows you to create a video and overlay on it items in your house. So suppose someone is house sitting for you, you can designate that it’s ok for them to eat the bananas but not the chocolate in your kitchen. Presumably, they will be able to point a smartphone camera at the kitchen and next to the items is a note or a thumbs up/thumbs down indicator, on their screen.

Ikea has an app that lets you measure your room. Then for example, as you shop for a chair using the app, it will place an image of the chair into the image of your room to see how it will look.

While looking up ‘giphfy’, Paul found giphy.com, the largest database of animated GIFs. These are short videos of a few seconds each that usually repeat in a loop. This is an old format dating from the 1990s that are becoming popular again.

Lorraine called to thank the guys for the help she received on a recent show.

Lora called. She has a 2009 iMac whose display got progressively worse and is now showing stripes. She’s talked to some techs who thought it might be the video card or possibly the display.
– Mikail is almost certain the problem is with the graphics processor.
– You may find some people on Ebay who can service it.
– Take a picture of your screen to better communicate your problem with a technician.
– If you send it in for repair you’ll be paying for the shipping and about $149 for the repair.
– Mikail suggested a shop in Sacramento run by Ed Barnes:
Computer Hub on J str
916-441-1880
2612 J St Ste 8
Sacramento, CA 95816-4345
saccityhub.com

Lora was thinking of getting a newer iMac but thought her old version 5 of Adobe Creative Suite won’t run on it. She doesn’t want to get a new version because Adobe only offers it on a rental basis, where you pay for a subscription and run it on the internet. Mikail said version 5 sort of runs on the newer Sierra operating system. It’s a little buggy but there may be some workarounds.

Her other thought is to buy a refurbished 2015 Mac that can run Creative Suite 5. Paul told her to carefully check out what she’s buying with regards to the warranty, and if there is anything at all wrong with it, send it back. Paul suggested powermax.com and macofalltrades.com for refurbished Macs.

And another concern is that the newer Macs don’t have CD drives to read her Creative Suite disk. Mikail said she can get an external CD drive for about $30. Be sure to get one that’s “M disk” compatible. It can take disks that last a 100 years.

Listeners were invited to write to the guys with their questions or comments at zen at kvmr dot org.

Lorraine called again and related her experience at having bought a $200 version of Apple Care at Mikail’s suggestion. When she had to take in her Mac Book Pro for service, which she bought some 3 years ago, she got a new replacement.

Mikail explained that when you buy a new Apple product you can get Apple Care for the computers and Apple Care Plus for the IOS mobile devices. For the computers, you can wait up to 1 year to buy Apple Care for $200 to $300, depending on where you buy it. You can buy it cheaper from a third party than you can from Apple — check Ebay. Apple Care for a Mac Book Pro costs $350 from Apple but about $230 elsewhere.

Mikail told about the experience he had where he needed his laptop serviced and thru Apple Care he got a quick replacement.

Mikail said if you’re buying a used Mac, for example, get the serial number and go to “manage my device” on Apple’s site and you’ll be told if it’s stolen as well as other info.

You can listen to Glenn host the Flea Market tomorrow.

Changelog:
added link to Paul’s Facebook page

Last Updated 5:01 PM 8-31-2017

∓p