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SDR USB radio: GWRX. Cubic SDR

Linux: MINT 19!

Sprint Contracts & more..

DIGOO, SONOFF Remote…

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 and outro music was by Pentatonix.

Both Paul and Glenn were in the studio today.

Paul mentioned that archive.kvmr.org has the audio from recent KVMR shows and that one can listen to a live stream of the shows by going to kvmr.org click on Listen Live.

Forgetting that there was a Community Calendar to present, Paul continued to explain that over the air digital broadcasting <not over internet, but similar to digital TV> has a sub-carrier to carry information such as station ID, weather info, amber alerts, etc.

Paul said he’s had experience as a radio amateur in his teen years when enthusiasts would often build their own radios transmitters. That’s not done much anymore as there are many inexpensive off the shelf transmitters. One lowest cost 2-meter transmitter is from a Chinese company called Baofeng with a digital display and keypad.

The test for a basic level 3 amateur license is no longer about constructing a transmitter, but more about what frequencies you can transmit on, how antennas work, what to do about interference or an emergency, etc.

Paul said he’s thinking about getting back into amateur radio by getting a license, He’s already found a radio for $22 <he gave no details>. Generally, no license is required for listening to radio broadcasts, he added.

Paul bought a Chinese USB device called an SDR, software defined radio. You can plug it into a PC, Linux or Mac computer with one end, and plug an antenna into its other end. The SDR takes the analog radio signal that comes in over the antenna, converts it to digital and then sends it to the computer. It’s the computer that decides what to with it. At this point, Glenn insisted on doing the Community Calendar, which took a few minutes.

After the Community Calendar, Paul announced that Sierra Roots is opening up a cold weather shelter this Sunday and Monday at 4pm at the veteran’s building located at 415 North Pine Street Nevada City.

Paul continued talking about SDR, software defined radio. He said he was aware of 2 SDRs — google either GWRX or Cubic SDR. He thought GWRX can work on PC, Linux and the Mac computers. The documentation that comes with it will get you started.

For radio, the antenna is cheapest part and the weak link, he said. It’s worth the trouble and attention you give it. For shortwave listening it’s simply a spool of wire strung out in such a way so as not to lose current down to ground. This is done by insulating the ends at the point of suspension. It’s not necessarily true that the longer the wire the better. The direction the wire faces and how it’s connected is more important.

GWRX will show you a spectrum of what’s being transmitted, on your screen. You can see all sorts of weird stuff depicted by bumps along the spectrum. He found that 121.5 FM is a frequency used by a local airport.

Paul clarified that no license is required to use an SDR because it’s incapable of transmitting. It’s only a receiver. You “hack and freak and do anything and tune anywhere” with an SDR.

Paul tried to receive the station WWV, which provides precise time signals. It’s the oldest continuously transmitting radio station in the US.

Call letters for radio stations West of St Louis generally start with a ‘K’ (KVMR) and those East with a ‘W’. It got started in the East, around Washington in the 1920s. It’s now in Colorado but retained the ‘W’. Funding for WWV is being threatened in part due to new technology — computers & mobile devices get their time synched over the internet.

Glenn mentioned that he bought a refurbished iPhone 8 (a late 2017 model) with 64 gigs of memory. He found that it’s exactly the same size as his iPhone 6S and fits into the Otter Box that he is currently using.

He said iPhone 8 from Oct 2017 and later models have Qi (chee) charging, meaning it can charge wirelessly. The charging is done inductively.
<More info about Qi here.
Qi was first mention during the 11-26-14 show>

Glenn bought a charging case for his iPhone 6, which does not use Qi charging. It’s from Patriot called a Fuel Ion and it’s $5 at Fry’s. It’s still on sale, he said. When the iPhone 6 is plugged into the case, the case itself can charge the phone. <At first I thought he meant it uses the Qi charger. But Paul pointed out, in a way I couldn’t follow, that it uses some concentric gold plated circles to do contact charging, it’s not inductive.>

When Glenn turned on his iPhone 8 and it got past the ‘language greeting’, it said “if you would like to change over from your previous iPhone to this iPhone, put the two of them next to each other.” Paul said you have to be using at lest IOS 11 to migrate one to the other. Glenn said it did an excellent job with the settings, alarms and the pre-entered wi-fi information. And it was quick. It didn’t migrate the apps. He had to use iTunes for that.

Paul said there’s some indication that Google is trying to change Android into a platform independent OS so its apps will work on more platforms.

Paul mentioned that SSDs (solid state drives) are replacing the spinning drive market. Their price keeps coming down and one day soon, if not already, the number of machines sold with SSDs will exceed those with mechanical drives. Glenn noted that they use less electricity. Paul said it’s typically 1.5 to 2 watts, judging from the one he bought. And they work much faster. If Paul has to repair someone’s computer, he’ll often replace a spinning drive with an SSD. Paul said he tends to stick with brand names for SSDs like Samsung, Sony or San Disk. <SSDs were mentioned on the 8-9-17 show.>

Glenn spoke more about the refurbished iPhone 8 he just bought. It comes with a 1-year warranty. And you can buy Apple Care for it for $130, which adds an additional year. But Glenn contacted customer service for his Citi Costco Credit Card to ask about, what he thought, a 1-year extension on the warranty. He found out that they now offer a 2-year extension. So he didn’t get the Apple Care. However, Paul pointed out that Apple Care covers more than his credit card would.

Glenn invited listeners to call 530-265-9555 with their questions and comments.

Ellen called. She had to get a new phone along with a new number, and ported her old number to Google Voice. Her phone now rings “when it comes in to the other number”, but when she answers it, the call is cut off. Glenn said that he also has Google Voice and he’ll have Paul call him to see if he has the same problem. He’ll report the results in the show notes.

Paul said there are a bunch of setting for Google Voice. Go to google.com/voice. One of the settings Paul likes requires the caller has to say their name. He thought she might have it turned on in her settings and it’s causing the problem. She can test it, but not by using her own phone — she should call her Google Voice number from an unrelated phone line and see what happens.

Scott called about the 121.5 airport frequency that Paul talked about. He said it is the emergency frequency. He thought that particular frequency might soon be decommissioned. The aircraft band goes from about 108 megahertz up to 135. The lower half, up to about 118, is generally for navigation. The rest is for voice. And it mostly uses AM, not FM.

Scott expressed his surprised that it’s taken so long for inductive charging to come to phones. His toothbrush uses it, and it’s 10 years old. Paul said the reason might because of the need to insure the rest of complicated phone circuitry isn’t adversely affected.

Glenn had been charging his iPhone 8 inductively during the show. He reported that it just now hit 100%. It took 53 minutes to go from 81% to 100% charged. The iPhone 6S, where he “added the inductive charge”, it went from 78% to 95% charged.

Paul said induction charging side steps the potential problems of using a large current of around 2 amps to charge a phone, which can shorten the lifetime of the battery and possibly damage the contacts.

Battery life can also take a hit if it’s much above room temperature — nearing 90 degrees F. Battery “age stars to degrade and the number of cycles available decreases with temperature over time.”

Paul said he’s been using Ubuntu Linux for many years. Others have espoused Mint Linux. He’s now found out that Mint is based on Unbuntu and uses the same upgrade path. It’s much more lightweight and uses the Cinnamon desktop. The Cinnamon desktop is also very lightweight and it’s “the most efficient distribution of Linux” Paul has seen for old machines with limited hardware. It should be a good replacement for Windows XP. It’s also available for 32bit machines. If you’re about to turn you computer over to the recycler, give Mint a try.

Paul mentioned an internet of things (IOT) alarm system for around $50-$60 from China. The Nest thermostat learns your behavior, Glenn added. There’s a potential to save energy and money as products get smarter.

Last Updated 12:29 AM 11-29-2018

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 and outro music was by Pentatonix.

Both Glenn and Paul were in the studio today.

Before the guys did the community calendar, Glenn mentioned that he finally updated his iPhone and iPad to IOS 12.

Paul talked a bit about top level domain names (.com .net .org .coop). Glenn wasn’t sure if .coop had a dash in it. Paul said the domain names are case insensitive — Kvmr.ORG is just as good as kvmr.org. Most punctuation marks, like the dash, cannot be included in the domain name.

Originally, there were just a few top level domain names: .com .net .org [.gov]. Now it’s been opened up and people can bid on the names they want to use such as .xxx .mobile .world .mob. <By ‘people’ I think he meant those who will later resell (register) the use of the domain names.> Go to Wikipedia and search for the words: top level domain naming.

.com was the first and most popular domain in use. At some point, maybe more than 10 years ago, there was a claim that every word in the Oxford and Webster’s dictionaries has been registered to use with .com (color.com elephant.com banana.com cheeseburger.com etc.) Eventually, many foreign words were also claimed.

Two letters is the least you can have (ab.com). The exceptions are the x.com, y.com and z.com. y.com is owned by Yahoo and x.com by Paypal. The maximum number of characters allowed went from 64 to something like 254 (Paul couldn’t remember exactly).

Paul went on to say that some people, though not so much now, would ‘park’ a domain name like harvard.com because it doesn’t cost much to register a particular name. The hope is that Harvard (harvard.edu) would pay to take over harvard.com to prevent abuse of its name. And then there’s the incidental collision of names like Apple using apple.com to the dismay of Apple records. That was not such a problem until Apple started selling Beatles music on iTunes. There was some litigation about that, which was eventually settled. <There’s more about top level domain names & registering for one in the notes for the 7-11-18 show>

Paul mentioned a Stephen Colbert show that talked about how televangelists can get away with soliciting funds in the name of religion to pay for things like private jets. Because religion is such a touchy subject in this country, the IRS doesn’t even try to crack down on them. The concepts Paul came away with are that freedom of speech doesn’t mean you have to tell the truth and you should never confuse opinions with facts

Glenn cited the disclaimer:
Our opinions are not necessarily those of our staff, our broadcasters, our underwriters or contributors to the station.

As Glenn mentioned at the beginning, he has upgraded his Apple devices to IOS 12 but noted that the current version is now 12.1. Paul said there is an improvement in Facetime in 12.1 that allows the user to talk to multiple people at once. The downside, Paul said, is that if you’re talking to someone and you want to flip the screen around, you have to do 3 things: touch the 3 little dots that pops the menu up, “go flip to turn it around the other way” which you don’t actually see happening and then “drag it back down again”.

Paul encountered a problem with his Mac. He was listening to music playing on his Mac using Airplay which was sending it over to his stereo. When Glenn called him, it showed up on the screen of the Mac. He then used his phone to answer the call, but the Mack stopped playing the music and Glenn’s voice came out of the speakers instead. Paul said he’ll have to look into why that happens.

Paul talked about the problem I’m having with logging into the Zen Tech website, which uses WordPress. The trouble is with the Google captcha that requires me to provide the correct answer to a graphical challenge — picking which of several images have a particular object like street signs or cars or store fronts. The idea is to prevent bots from logging in and creating mischief.

As far as we can determine, the web browsers I’ve tried are out of date and it’s getting increasingly difficult to get a newer browser that will run on an older operating system and still work with Google’s captcha system. <I’ll have to do some experimenting and hopefully find one that works.>

Next, Glenn talked about the Camp Fire, one of the biggest and most deadly fires California has ever had. He’s tried to find a website that has satellite pictures of the area but was unable to. Butte County has announced a service that will allow people to search for an address and get the status of the property.

Paul asked listeners to suggest authoritative sources that provide information about the fires. Glenn mentioned that buttecounty.net has some info, including a status map of the structures in the area of the Camp Fire. Paul thought that yubanet.com might also have some info.

Paul talked about google.org, which is a nonprofit side of Google that provides free service to people who want to use their mapping and search engine. In particular he found google.org/crisismap/us-wildfires. It’s overlaid with data that’s provided by fire services of various places around the country. He said you can zoom in on the maps provided there. Also check out google.org/crisismap, which is has a broader category of subjects including weather. And google.org talks about the work they do.

Glenn invited people to call in to 530-265-9555 with questions and comments.

Paul noted that whitehouse.com used to be a porn sight. Apparently, when the government website whitehouse.gov was created, no thought was given to reserve the name in other domains. Whitehouse.org is a political parody website.

Laurel called from Sacramento to say that looters and others with nefarious intent can use the fire mapping services to facilitate their crimes.

Paul said the US Postal Service lets you register with them to get advanced notice that a letter is coming to you. They take a photo of the outside of the letter and email it to you. The problem is that they can’t be sure that the person registering for the service is the one who actually lives at that address. Someone with criminal intent can use the service to tell if a credit card <or maybe a check> is on its way and intercept it. Someone looked into the method used to verify that the address belongs to the correct resident and found it severely lacking.

Robyn called. She says that she’s getting notifications on her Android LG phone that she’s getting low on space. She has a bunch of apps but uses only 3. She wanted to know how to tell for sure which apps she won’t need and can safely delete.
– Put your finger on the app [icon] that you want to delete and then start to drag it. The uninstall “target” will then appear and you finish by dragging to that target.
– You can use the free app called Clean Sweep to free up the scratch and temporary files that are taking up the memory space. Then it will ask you about old photos you haven’t looked at in a while. Then it will do the same with messages. It may try to get you to install other things you don’t need — ignore all of that. <There’s also CleanMaster>
– Paul said that apps generally don’t take up much space. The Facebook app is only about 300 Kbytes to 400 Kbytes. But it will bring in a lot of Facebook content and store it on the phone. If you delete the app, the data will be cleared out. You can then reinstall the app and start fresh.
– If you delete an app and then find you need it, you can usually reinstall it.
– Some apps come preinstalled by the phone maker and you’ll have to make a special effort to uninstall them. <Typically you’ll have to ‘root‘ the phone.>
– Go to Settings (the cogwheel) -> Storage and check how much memory is being used and how much is available. Also check the storage used by each app. Look for the applications you don’t use but take up a lot of space.
– Write down which apps you delete so if you discover you can’t do something you used to do, you’ll know which apps to reinstall. Usually it’s the Play Store that has the apps you’ve deleted, <though it’s possible to get them elsewhere>.

Last Updated 12:00 AM 11-15-2018

5th Wednesday of the month– Halloween!
Have Some Spooky Sound Track for your Haunted House!
Like Here
Then there is always Thriller by Michael Jackson from 4m:10s

Ancient but worthy slide scanner or flatbad?
Try these 3rd party non-free solutions:
There is This from Amazon under $300
Then these actual softwares; SILVERFAST
Then there is my preferred software VueScan
All work fine on newer MACOS & handle ICE scratch removal..
Demos to Download. Final Cost: About $100 for a license key.

Google Project FI for use Abroad- Needs a Compliant Phone such as the $250 Moto X4 (Cheapest) More HEre

BOKEH! New Words To Learn!

Additional notes

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 music was by Michael Jackson. The outro music was by Pentatonix.
More info about the music is here.

Both Paul and Glenn were in the studio today.

Glenn recently switched to IOS 12, the operating system for Apple’s mobile devices, So far, he likes it but found a problem with the ringtones. The ringtones reverted to the default tones that came with the iPhone, except in a couple of instances. He said this has been a problem with previous IOS updates, but it hasn’t affected him until now.

Paul said that in the early days of cell phones there was quite a market in the sale of ringtones and the companies made it deliberately difficult to create your own.

He went on to distinguish the difference between ringtones and the ringing sound the phone company provides. There are different ringing sounds, like 2 quick rings, that a company such as Verizon can provide you for a fee. There is also an optional sound (e.g. music) that a caller hears before those being called answer the phone, but implementing that is not straightforward, Paul said.

To fix the ringtone problem, Paul did some googling and found some advice that said “just plug your phone in to iTunes and resynch it, that’s supposed to fix it”.

Paul talked about spooky sounds for Halloween. There’s a link at the top of this page to what he found. To find more sounds, go to youtube.com and put in [to search] ‘spooky music sound track’, he said.

Paul was given a piece of equipment that was state of the art 15 years ago. It’s a Nikon LD40 slide scanner that takes 35mm slides and negatives for digitizing. Nikon stopped making the scanner, the drivers and software for it a long time ago.

He talked a bit about how it scans in the primary colors and then recombines them in the final image. He said there is a huge section about color in Wikipedia, just search for ‘color’.

One of the colors it scans is in the infrared because it’s strongly absorbed by surface defects like scratches. Using this extra information, the software can later subtract the artifacts that got onto the slide’s surface.

Paul used a Linux driver with the scanner and it worked to a degree. It did the basic scan but couldn’t take advantage of the advanced features like the infrared information to remove dust & scratches. You can use photo editing software like Photo Shop to remove the defects manually but it’s tedious, he said.

However, there are scanning software packages that may help you out. He mentioned Silverfast and VueScan for the PC & Mac, See the links at the top. The packages are not free but they have demo versions. The demos produce images have the words ‘demo version’, but you can at least judge if the software does a good job. If you like it you can buy a license key to unlock it for about $100.

Paul said he likes VueScan because, once you have the key, it will talk to any scanner. Silverfast is much more advanced & professional but it will work only with the hardware you register for.

Paul said he found some slide scanners on Amazon, and one that doesn’t involve a computer — it scans the slide and saves the image directly into a USB drive. See the link at the top.

He also suggested going to a second hand store and getting a slide projector. While projecting the image from the slide on a screen, you can use a [digital] camera on a tripod to take its picture.

Also, there is a scanner for $179 that will digitize your 8mm or 16mm movies. Then you can use open source software to remove blurring, jittering and grain.

Colter called. He has a Mac desktop computer running the Mojave operating system. He can’t get it to go completely asleep and it keeps waking up on its own.
– There is a facility called ‘wake on LAN’. If there is something on the network that needs to talk to it, then it can wake up. Also, it’s possible the Mac is misinterpreting such messages when they’re not even meant for it. To test this, turn the wi-fi off and unplug the Ethernet.
– Check for consistency in its waking up. Is it done in a cycle. This may give you a clue.
– Check the power options under ‘Settings’.
– Go up to the Apple logo [on the screen] and check for updates.
– Also try unplugging the keyboard, in case there’s something wrong with it. <It may be sending a signal to the Mac as if a key had been pressed.> Similarly, check the mouse.
– Or it may be waking up to do a Timemachine backup. To test this, “Unplug your Timemachine”.
– Some peripheral may be trying to talk to the Mac. Unplug one thing at a time to see if the problem goes away

Douglas called to say that his machine has a similar problem with waking up. It can happen when the refrigerator comes on or a truck drives by.
– It can be due to EMF spikes due to a bad voltage regulator.
– A surge protector will not correct the problem, but a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) will “take care of what you describe”.

The reason Douglas called had to do with his cell phone getting text (txt) messages. He had upgraded to the iPhone 5 from a 4. He had been exchanging messages with a friend but then wouldn’t receive any for a while. Suddenly, there would be a bunch of unread messages waiting for him.
– Are these green messages or blue, Paul asked. Douglas said he gets both. Blue means the message was delivered via the internet, not thru the cellular service via SMS (short message service).
– Glenn had seen a similar problem with a friend’s phone when he helped her change cell phone providers. He had to go to ‘Settings’ -> ‘Messages’ and turn iMessage back on.
– Paul told Douglas to look on the older iPhone 4 to see if any of the messages ended up there. It can receive messages even though it no longer has a SIM card in it. If it’s still connected to the internet, it can still receive iMessages.
– Try texting with that friend in the same room. You may just have a weak internet connection. Or use the app called Speed Test. Don’t just depend on the number of bars to tell you the connection is good.
– Back up your phone to iTunes and then reload and refresh the operating system. Paul said he’s so many problem corrected with this procedure. So, back up, then press ‘restore’ to wipe the phone clean, then reload the latest operating system, and finally restore the data you just backed up.
– Paul asked that listeners call in if they have suggestions
– As a last resort, use a messaging app other than iMessage — Whatsapp, for instance.

Continuing, Paul asked what phone company he uses. Douglas said it’s H2O. That made Paul recall problems Glenn had with that company. He then suggested turning off MMS (Multi Media Service). If the friend tries to send Douglas a picture and “it doesn’t go with iMassage” it will try to use a data service over the cellular service called Multi Media Service which doesn’t work with H2O on the iPhone. Under ‘Settings’ -> ‘Messages’ turn off MMS

Nick, an electrical engineer, called about the symptoms Douglas experienced when the refrigerator came on or a truck drove by. Nick said its a sign of something that should be investigated and corrected because it’s highly likely the wiring in the building (the power wiring) has loose or inadequate connections. It’s a fire hazard, he warned.

Buzz, the KVMR engineer, came into the studio to offer a tip in finding the faulty wiring. He said, take an old AM radio and tune it to a blank spot on the dial where there is no station broadcasting. Then walk around the house waiting for the phenomenon to occur. When it happens, you’ll hear a bunch of static on the radio. Wander around to where the static is the loudest. Then take apart the AC outlets in the wall or tighten the joint in the circuit breaker panel. Wherever the static is the loudest is where the [electrical] arc is happening. If there is no static, chances are the problem is not in your house, Buzz said.

Nick said all of this may be beyond the average person’s ability but this is stuff that can hurt you and light your building on fire. Get it checked out.

The disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed on KVMR are those of the speaker only and not necessarily those of KVMR management, staff or underwriters.

Finally, Paul added, powder fire extinguishers are fairly inexpensive. The last thing you want all over an electrical fire is a bunch of conductive liquid.

Last Updated 12:07 AM 11-1-2018

Hello!

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

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.

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

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.

Both Paul and Glenn were in the studio today.

Glenn reminded listeners that they can call in with their questions or comments during the show. The number in the studio is 530-265-9555. Or they can send email to zen at kvmr dot org.

Glenn read a message saying “my iPhone contents may have been lost in the IOS 12 upgrade”. Paul has already done the upgrade on his iPhone but Glenn hasn’t. Glenn said there are 2 or 3 ways to do the upgrade and Paul went into some details.

Paul said it’s often quite hard to go back to an older version of IOS, after you’ve done an upgrade on an iPhone and realized you don’t like it.

When the iPhone first came out, you had to cable it to your computer to do the upgrade. Now it is capable of doing the upgrade thru a wireless connection. An iPhone as old as the 5S can be upgraded to IOS 12.

If you’re using iCloud, it will backup your contacts, reminders, tasks, etc. but that doesn’t mean you have a legitimate snapshot of your machine”, Paul said.

Paul did the IOS 12 upgrade on his iPhone 6 with 16gigs of memory most of which was occupied. 2gigs of free memory is needed to do the upgrade. He tried to free up enough memory but in the end decided to cable it to his computer and use iTunes to do the upgrade.

Doing it this way requires the latest version of iTunes. If it’s an older version, “strange things will happen” and you won’t be warned that your iTunes is too old. Paul said that he doesn’t think this is the reason the listener lost her data.

So, start with the latest iTunes (on either a PC or Mac), a reliable cable and the phone to be upgraded. If you connect the iPhone and iTunes doesn’t open automatically, you’ll have to start it up manually. It then will show a popup telling you an upgrade is available.

If there is no popup, look for the logo representing your phone on the bar. There may be logos for your other devices, so choose the correct logo. When you click on that, it will give you the chance to back up your device onto iCloud, which you don’t want to do according to Paul, or to back up to the computer (do tick that check box). You are then asked if you want to encrypt the backups — Paul doesn’t encrypt the backups because “it causes problems”.

At that point it will go thru a long process to take a snapshot of just about anything that’s on your iPhone. It can take 10 to 15 minutes. If it then says your phone was successfully backed up and tells you the name & date of the backup, you’ll be given the option to “restore” the phone, which wipes the phone clean. This is what Paul chose in his case because there was too little free memory.

Paul thought that the listener who wrote in might have gotten to this point, where the phone was wiped clean. After the upgrade, you can then restore your backup from the computer, if you did the backup there, or at least restore from whatever had been backed up on iCloud.

Glenn previously helped someone to change their cellular carrier and he had to go back and turn on iMessage and a few other things. Paul said some things get turned off when you upgrade the iPhone, get a different iPhone or change the carrier by putting in a different SIM card.

Paul threw in a seemingly unrelated but useful tip — you can take a screen shot on the iPhone by pushing both the home & power buttons.

As he said before, it’s more desirable to use cable, whether for backups or network connections, rather than wi-fi, for security and other reasons. Pre-cut Ethernet cables are pretty cheap and are more reliable than making them yourself with a crimping tool.

Paul talked a bit about IOS 12. It has the feature called Screen Time, which shows you the percentage of all your time spent that went to social media, work applications, etc. And it has parental control settings to limit use of social media. IOS 12 will ask you if you want to set up Screen Time. Paul said he would answer ‘no’ to begin with. He said that even if you answer no, it’s “still logging stuff”.

With IOS 12, that really long list under ‘Settings’ now has a search box to help find the setting you’re looking for.

Paul noticed his iPhone 6 runs a bit faster with IOS 12. However, he put it in there by “reloading and refreshing the iPhone, which may in itself have sped it up”. Apple claims better battery performance and Paul seem to think it’s true, but he hasn’t done rigorous testing.

Android is up to version 9, which they call “Pie”. Upgrading your Android device varies by manufacturer because each vendor makes changes to customize it for their devices. Paul pointed out that just because you can upgrade doesn’t mean you should. His old Nexus tablet is running version 6 and it’s working just fine.

Gary called. He heard on last show about recharging batteries at 2amps and pointed out that lithium polymer batteries will last the longest if they are charged at the lowest rate. It’s the heat from the charging that limits the battery lifetime, Paul said. Lithium polymer are older that lithium metal hydride batteries and didn’t reach the mainstream until complex regulatory chips were put onboard that kept track of current, voltage, temperature and the time of charging. Paul agreed with Gary that charging at lower amperage will help prolong the battery lifetime.

From China you can get a USB device that goes between a 5volt wall charger and the USB cable that will show you what current is coming thru, but it doesn’t let you control the amount of current. Some chargers do let you change the current. For example, Paul has a charger with 2 2amp sockets and 2 1amp sockets.

The other tip to prolong the battery life, if you storing it or just not using it much, is to keep it half charged, not fully charged or fully discharged. The other thing is to keep it in a cool place but not in a fridge and definitely not in a freezer.

Glenn was at Costco in the Bay Area and saw a Sky Phantom Wi-Fi FPV Drone for $30. FPV stands for first person view or first person video, meaning “you see what it sees”. That’s opposed to being able to only record the video into memory and then to read the memory when the drone comes back.

Paul said Wi-fi can be interfered with easily and doesn’t have a big range so you need to find out what happens when you lose the wi-fi connection. The quadcopter Paul has will throttle back and slowly descend when its wi-fi gets out of range.

Paul suggested people avoid buying drones that are controlled only by a smart phone. The one Glenn saw has a hand controller to which you can attach a phone for viewing the images the drone is sending.

Scott called to say that according to an email from Tech Connect Daily <maybe it’s this>. Apple is forcing users to buy Apple Care because, if something goes wrong and you try to fix it yourself, it will shut down a Mac Book and not allow you to restart it. Paul vaguely recalled hearing something like that regarding the latest Mac Books — they are not third party serviceable. Paul thought it’s nominally illegal to make things that only the company can fix. Paul thought it might have something to do with security, not allowing you to “monkey with any of the parts of it to get into anything”.

Paul suggested that people find out just which models are subject to this new policy and avoid buying them. Instead, get refurbished or recycled Macs.

Paul left us with something to be paranoid about. The Chinese are making what Paul calls snoopy chips, which are tiny bits of silicon that fit into the plug of an Ethernet cable and draw power from it. The chips watch for certain types of signals and, when the right time comes, send the data to predetermined internet address.
<China used tiny chips on US computers to steal secrets: report>

Also,motherboards have been found with embedded chips the size of a grain of rice.

Finally, there’s a hack that can compromise a hard drive. Every hard drive has a 4-pin J-tag connector or 5-pin firmware connector that developers use to monitor and control what happens between the bus signals and the hard drive. It’s possible to change the firmware in such a way that it will snoop on the traffic and send it out.

The disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed on KVMR are those of the speaker only and not necessarily of KVMR management, staff or underwriters

Changelog:
added link to article about Chinese ‘snoopy’ chip

Last Updated 12:45 AM 10-12-2018