Sep 26, 2018
Glen will Call In; Paule Castro back from extensive travels- a bit about this On the Air.
Latest Google Chrome quietly forcing you to Log In– HOw to Fix.
Or– Use Something Else! or, nothing at all
Lightning Connector (iPhone 5 and up, Etc) Corrosion Issues. USB C any better? Dunno.
MacOS “Mojave” (10.14) up from High Sierra (10.3.x) released today Sep 24 2018.
Read More Here do you need or want this? YOU decide. But– patience!
It Won’t Run on anything older than about 2012, rather than approx 2010 for its predecessor.
Notifications of new show notes and edits are tweeted at: twitter.com/ddhart.
– They’re tagged with #Zentech.
– When what’s said is unclear to me (or I’m unfamiliar with a topic) I tend to quote (” “) verbatim.
– Editor’s comments are delimited by < >
For a couple of months, the audio of today’s show is here. Recent shows are here.
The intro & outro music was by Pentatonix.
Paul was in the studio today. Glenn called in.
Paul started off by noting that many old TV ads, commercials and shows have been digitized and now reside on Youtube.
Talk quickly turned to web browsers. “It’s virtually impossible to use Chrome without logging in”, Glenn said. That’s not a big problem. But not logging out can be a problem because, if you don’t, the next person using Chrome on the same machine is able to “see your information, see your account”. He said he’s never been clear on how to log out.
Glenn had tried Chome some time back on his 32bit notebook, but said the latest version of Chrome is only for the 64bit machines. Paul said you can find out what version you have by clicking on the icon with 3 horizontal bars -> Help -> About.
The new version of Chrome is 69 and prompts you to log in or log in as a guest, but doesn’t let you continue unless you do. One way around it is to create an anonymous profile on every machine you use. But creating a guest account limits its function in a number of ways. Chrome is the most popular browser “from the point of view of the number of people, in general, using” it, Paul added.
Mentioned on previous shows is the website oldversion.com. Apparently, you can get an older version of Chrome, but Google doesn’t want you to do that. “It’s quite possible that Google will stop talking to you if you’re not nice to them by [not] using what they want you to use”. It’s also possible that “some things may stop working”, Paul said. Glenn added that older versions won’t have the latest security fixes, and security is one of features driving Chrome’s popularity.
Paul said that different brands of browsers have varying degrees of security. The lowest in rank is Internet Explorer & Edge, which comes with Windows 10. You should do some research to find the browser that’s best for what you do. It’s less the case now that websites will refuse to talk to certain browsers for security reasons, but if you do banking with an older browser, you may still find that’s a problem. Paul said he’ll continue using Firefox.
Paul started suggesting the use of an ad blocker call Ublock Origin, it’s the most effective blocker at this time. But if you sign in as a guest with Chrome, it won’t work, You’ll “have to then add Ublock Origin back to the guest profile”.
<There’s more about Ublock Origin in the 2-8-17 show notes.
The Wikipedia article is here>
Having to sign in to Chrome has some advantage — you get back your settings from the previous sessions when you use it again. There is also a separate synch setting which stores the settings that you used before, so if “you sign in *and* synch somewhere else, all your bookmarks go too”, Paul said, and he doesn’t like that. So far, signing in and synching are kept separate, but it may be only a matter of time before they are combined. See the “How to Fix” link at the top of this page. It talks about changing the configuration settings of Chrome, which may not carry over the next time you update Chrome.
Glenn reminded listeners that they can send email to the show with questions or comments by using zen at kvmr dot org.
Paul talked about his recent European trip. He spent 2 weeks in Budapest Hungary. And the 8 hour flight that took him thru Stockholm & Sweden interested him in going to visit those countries.
He took his drone aircraft on his visit to Iceland and took a lot of aerial footage. He said he might post some of it to his Youtube channel. Glenn wondered if he had any trouble traveling with a drone. Paul said there were no problems because security personnel are used to seeing them. He just had to be sure it met the dimension requirements for carry-on.
He flew to Iceland from England on a Hungarian airline called Wizz Air for about $45. And for less than $200 he flew on Wow Air from Reykjavik in Iceland to San Francisco.
If you want to know if the discount airline you’re about to use is safe,
federal & European regulations require that on the door jam, as you go in, is a prominent plate with the manufacturing date of the plane. <as I surmise from his fragmented sentence>. All of the planes he flew on were A320 & A330s less than 18 months old
The airlines hold down costs by not serving food and discouraging luggage handling. They try to fill up all of the seats with online booking. The airlines lease just a couple types of planes so pilots need to be trained only on them, allowing the pilots to be easily reassigned routes. The planes are new and therefore fuel-efficient. They often use second tier airports, avoiding much of the tax paid to airports. Contrary to myth, leg room is not cramped.
Paul noted that cell phone service in every country is cheaper than in the US. Glenn asked about using SIM cards in other countries.
Paul said you can buy SIM cards at giffgaff.com. If you buy a card in a particular country, you get a phone number in that country. If you get a card in a country that’s part of the European community, you can call any number in another country in the European for free as long as you don’t call from the country where you bought the card. E.g. you bought a UK SIM card and you’re calling from Iceland, you can call another EU community country for free, but it will cost you to call from the UK. The remedy is to use the data part of the account with apps like Whatsapp or Skype or Facebook Messenger — all of which allow free calls.
The SIM card Paul got from Giff Gaff cost him about $20 and took about 3 minutes to setup. Be sure you have an unlocked phone — one that’s not under contract to AT&T, for instance. Paul got 8gig of data, unlimited calls & text with the SIM card he bought.
The guys talked about corrosion issues with the Lightning connector on the iPhone. Glenn bought a magnetic connector to avoid the problem, which worked fine until the magnets picked up some metal shavings from being on the floor of his car. Paul too has had problems with Lightning connector, even using Apple branded cables. He said there is a temptation to wiggle the cable to get a better connection. But be careful, the socket on the phone is expensive to replace if you ruin it, whereas the cable itself is relatively cheap.
Paul said that people expect gold plated connectors would not have connection problems. But if you charge at a high current rate (2 Amps or so), as he does, you can, if you look with a magnifier, get some corrosion in the gold plate. Gentle use of a pencil eraser (not Emory board) on the gold plate can restore it. Also look for cords with a braided sheath, not cheap plastic.
Brian called. He said he called the show a couple of month ago about a problem with his printer/scanner. The suggestion he got fixed his problem. His new problem is that his computer, with Windows 7, shuts itself off a lot — if he stops using it for about 15 minutes.
– It may be trying to save power and is not able to recover itself. Go to Settings -> Control Panel -> power options and turn off all of the power saving options (the ones that tell it when to shut the screen down or when to shut down the hard drive, etc.)
– Use a program called Speedfan, which looks at the speed of the cooling fan, the voltages on the motherboard, the temperatures of the CPU and motherboard. Anything over about 60 C may cause the computer to shut down. You can also put your nose next to the vents to “smell heat” or feel with your hand if it’s uncomfortably warm.
– The manufacturer may have an update for the BIOS.
– The sleep options used to be called State 1, State 2 and State 3. Google the words: s1 s2 s3.
Apple has released the Mojave operating system, version 10.14. It requires the Mac to be of 2012 vintage or newer. The previous version, High Sierra (10.13), can be installed on machines from around 2010. Paul suggested waiting to do the upgrade while you read the reviews at apple.com/macos/mojave.
Glenn thanked the supporters of KVMR. <If you’d like to become a contributing member, you can call the business office at 530-265-9073 or go to the KVMR website>
Last Updated 10:08 PM 9-26-2018