Oct 11, 2017
Pascale of YubaNet.Com & Steve Baker, KVMR Program Director in studio about fires
HTTPS now in Common Use for CMS etc.
IOSs slows down previous & older iPhones? No.
Additional notes
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For a couple of months, the audio of today’s show is here. Recent shows are here.
The intro music was by Pentatonix.
Both Paul and Glenn were in the studio today.
For the first 14 minutes or so, KVMR program director Steve Baker and Pascale Fusshoeller of yubanet.com talked about the fire situation in northern Calif. There were no important warnings. Listen to the audio if you need details. The more notable items in the report include…
– Fire fighters are working hard to contain the Lobo fire. The head of the fire is in the Deer Creek drainage and is headed toward Lake Wild Wood. A north wind is expected this afternoon that may whip up that fire.
– Stay inside to avoid smoke and set your air conditioning to recirculate the air, not to bring in air from the outside.
– Put out water for the wildlife in your neighborhood.
1
Glenn got a new tablet from Fry’s in Sacramento. Called Naxa Core it comes from China and was only $35. It has a 7″ screen with a front & back cameras and a 30 day return policy. It comes with Android 6.1, which I believe is Marshmallow. The guys were wondering if it has GPS.
Paul has a Nexus tablet he bought in 2013. It’s still “working like a champ”. He recalled that there’s a an app that can scan a tablet and determine its features. He couldn’t remember the name of the app and did a search for it at the Google Play Store. Google the words: playstore android hardware diagnostic.
This time he found an app called “phonetester”. It’s presumably the one he has on his Nexus, but there were a bunch of others in his search results.
<This might be the app>
When he searched previously, he ran across an article that said Android has a built-in hardware diagnostic test. It’s mostly used by customer support for those times you call in with a problem.
Some of the hardware you might expect to find in an Android tablet:
– An accelerometer, which measures changes in motion.
– An inclinometer, which indicates the angle at which the tablet is held.
– A magnetometer tells you which way is north.
– A GPS chip picks up signals from navigation satellites so you can tell your location on earth.
– At least one if not more temperature sensors. The tablet needs to know if it’s over heating.
– A barometer to tell you the atmospheric pressure. It’s usually pretty accurate because the GPS provides altitude info, which is used to apply a correction to the barometer.|
– A light meter (lux meter), which may work in conjunction with the camera lens.
– All tablets have a speaker.
– Most have a microphone. The accuracy is usually pretty good for doing sound level checks — within a few percent of a professional unit used by sound engineers.
Glenn encountered a problem with his new tablet. He wasn’t able to use the apps until he truned on the location services. Paul explained that location services can help with things like Google searches. If you search for fish & chips, for example, you don’t have to say where you are, Google will already know that and complete the search for your particular location.
Glenn knows someone with a Samsung phone who discovered that saying “hey, Google” activated voice input. When he went into the settings for that option, he was told the microphone will always be on if he wanted to take advantage of that feature. That led to a realization that the phone is always listening. The same is true with the iPhone if you want to be able to summon Siri with a voice command. Paul said he has that option turned off and instead touches a button to manually activate voice input.
Glenn invited listeners to email their questions or comments. Send email to zen at kvmr dot org.
Google & other places are beginning to insist that websites be secure. Chrome and to some extent other browsers pop up a warning if you’re filling in a form on a website that’s not secure. You have a secure connection if the address in the address bar starts with https rather than http.
Paul recently changed the way the Zen Tech site works. People going to http://zen.kvmr.org were supposed to be automatically redirected to using https://zen.kvmr.org. He didn’t set it up right and the Zen Tech site wasn’t working right until some time yesterday (Tue).
WordPress, the software running the Zen Tech site and large proportion of the blogs on the web, is expected to start enforcing the use of secure connections.
The patent for the use of secure certificates has run out. Issuers of the certificates used to charge for their service and in return went to the trouble to insure those applying for them are who they say they are — that https://secure.kvmr.org was really going to be used by KVMR. Free or low-grade certificates are available now where this check is not made, but they still insure that the data between your browser and a website is encrypted. Unless you’re doing something like a financial transaction or revealing personal information, the authentication hardly matters, only the data encryption.
Paul noted that those who administer websites shouldn’t use the login name ‘admin’. It’s been commonly used for many years and is now one of the first things hackers try when they want to break into a site.
Bongo called with a complaint. He said that many websites like the US government, the VA, AARP and a few other places don’t properly warn Apple users that their devices aren’t supported. He’s found that after a long session of filling out forms, it’s only at the end that he’s told Apple devices are not supported. He wants them to say that at the beginning. Paul suggested hitting the submit button before filling out a form. That may generate the error message to keep you from wasting your time.
Bongo also said he’s irritated with the requirement that location services be turned on. He doesn’t know why people use Google instead of DuckDuckGo, which doesn’t require your location. Paul said that it’s not the websites but the browser that wants the location service turned on. Going back to Glenn’s tablet problem, he suggested Glenn use a different browser like Firefox or Opera. While Paul was talking, Glenn turned off location services and had success using Firefox.
James called. He’s been aware that Paul has promoted the Firefox browser and Thunderbird mail programs in the past, and he wanted to know how he feels about them now.
Paul said he still likes Firefox. He’s been avoiding Chrome because “it tends to store your information, save it and present it to others is a very insecure way”. He’s found Firefox to be very compatible and have few problems. Website designers try to stay compatible with Internet Explorer and secondly with Firefox. He quickly caught his error and said he was looking at a 2004 browser rankings The current worldwide ranking has Chrome as the most popular followed by Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer trailing.
Glenn managed to inventory the hardware on the tablet. <He didn’t say which app he used>. It looks like his new tablet doesn’t have GPS — the app kept searching without a result.
Glenn noted that Paul’s Nexus tablet has wireless charging. Paul said it uses the Qi standard. <Mentioned during the 11-26-14 show>. He said the price for the Nexus at that time was $240. He had tried some cheap tables by Pandawill for $99 but found they were of poor quality.
Paul said the latest version of Google maps has an option in the upper left to download a rectangle of maps for offline usage. It’s useful for people who go for a period of time unconnected to the web. The maps are cached for 29 days. It’s assumed you’ll get back online within that time. Obviously, it won’t show traffic and current events.
Glenn thanked those who have become supporting members of KVMR.
Glenn reminded us that the Flea Market will be on tomorrow (10-12-17) at 1pm.
Paul warned listeners not to use Kaspersky anti-virus. The Israelis tried to subvert the product to make it snoop on those who use the program. And it was found that the Russians had already done just that.
<Kaspersky Labs Accused of Working for Russian Spies>
Last Updated 12:32 AM 10-12-2017
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