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 < >

I had a terrible time capturing the audio from today’s show. I managed to get about 26 min of the show with about 15 min of actual tech talk, after excluding the Community Calendar announcements.

Both Paul was in the studio today. Glenn called in while on the way to Albuquerque for a wedding on Saturday.

Paul had suggested that Glenn turn on “show location” in his iPhone. As a result, when Paul looked at “information” for a text message he got from Glenn, he was able to see his approximate location along highway 40. Paul explained it’s not obvious on the iPhone that you can go to the upper right, while composing a text message, to where it says “information” and set it to share location for the length of time you desire.

Paul said he’s been getting an increasing number of bogus phone calls coming from the local area code. Glenn has too, but he just lets them to go to voice mail if he doesn’t recognize the caller from the caller ID.

Paul said that on cell phones there’s no way to block numbers. Continuing, he said that there are 2 components to caller ID — the calling phone number and the associated caller’s name. The name is optional but modern smart phones will normally display the name too “if you’ve ever dealt with them before” and they are in your contact list. But you can’t block calls from valid caller IDs that you don’t know.

Glenn jumped in with a clarification. He said that when the caller ID number is being displayed, you can click on “information” next to the number and choose “block this caller”. Paul said you can block that particular caller but, though not likely, it’s possible to spoof a known number. The fraudsters can pick a number belonging to someone you know.

Paul went on to say that he has had calls originating from an 800 number that identifies as the IRS — the IRS says it never calls anyone back, you have to do the calling. You can get their phone number at irs.gov. Glenn added, the IRS might contact you with a postal letter. And Paul said, if there is an IRS phone number in that letter, ignore it. Use the number on their website.

Paul said there were 2 recent upgrades issued — iOS 10 for Apple mobiles and Sierra (version 10.12) for the Mac. Paul said he doesn’t like [iOS] 10 though he doesn’t think there’s anything particularly wrong with it. Glenn said he upgraded his 4-year old iPad to iOS 10 and experienced a significant slow down, and that some apps close without reason — e.g. email and the Safari browser.

Last week Glenn upgraded his iPhone 6S to iOS 10 and he says he likes it. Paul said he’s not convinced that particular upgraded is worth it. Furthermore, if you want to go back to the older OS, it’s “not possible in any easy way”, to his knowledge. Generally, the oldest models that qualify for any upgrade tend to suffer performance problems. The iPhone 5S is the oldest model that can use iOS 10. And be sure you have plenty of free memory to do the upgrade. You’ll need about 2 gig of “spare free space”.

Glenn said he was at a Shell station/Subway/Diary Queen with 4 Tesla charging stations with 1 occupied. He wasn’t sure if other types of electric vehicles, besides Tesla, can use that type of charging station, or if each car has its own proprietary plug. He said he’ll do some research on the matter.

Paul noted that in the last 8 to 10 years the average cost of the battery stack for a car has dropped from about $7,000 – $10,000 down to $3,500 – $4,000. The old lead-acid car batteries are 98% recyclable but he’s not sure how recyclable the rechargeable car batteries are. He thinks they last 6 to 7 years. Glenn said the battery in his hybrid car is warranted for 10 years.

<There was more to the show that was lost to the ether >

Last Updated 9:47 PM 10-12-2016

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.

Both Glenn & Paul were in the studio today.

One of the computers at the KVMR office was installed with Windows 10. Paul didn’t think anyone there deliberately initiated the process. The KVMR staff had trouble accessing the community calendar, public service announcements and broadcast schedules, as well as the Firefox browser, after the upgrade. It was speculated that the upgrade happened automatically.

The staff could access the community calendar with the Edge browser, (the new browser that comes with Win10). Paul said Internet Explorer browser is still available with Win10 but you have to use the Run command and type in ‘iexplore’.

Glenn recently talked to someone shopping for a computer who asked if they should get one with Win10 or a Win7. Glenn enthusiastically suggested Windows 7. Glenn said some people with Win7 have expressed concern about being nagged by on-screen notifications to upgrade to Win10.

Paul said that those people who didn’t choose the Win10 upgrade before the free offer expired (at the end of July) shouldn’t be getting the nagging notification. Some people who had the free Win10 downloaded to their computers but not yet installed, pending their approval, will continue being nagged.

The next iteration of Win10, called Windows Anniversary Edition, was released sometime around the middle of August. Two of Paul’s clients had problems after installing it. When you have serious problems after installing Win10, you may have to start up in Safe Mode and then go into Rescue Mode, Paul said. In Rescue Mode there is an option that says, in effect, go back to the version before this latest update. But be careful not to select ‘Recover System’ — that will make it go back to the factory default condition and you will lose EVERYTHING.

Later in the show Paul said that if you paid to have your Win10 machine serviced and the tech said the problem was due to the Windows Anniversary Edition, get it documented on the invoice in case there’s a law suit against Microsoft.

Around the time the Windows Anniversary Edition came out, Microsoft said there were some problems reported by people with solid state drives (SSD). Paul didn’t elaborate.

Both of the guys said they really tried to like Win10. Glenn explicitly said that he doesn’t like it. Paul said you have 30 days to back out of the upgrade, if you don’t like it.
<Here are some articles about upgrading to Win10. There are links to a couple more articles in the 8-10-16 show notes…
So Now You Want Windows 10
Which way with Windows? Here are your options. Among Windows’ bewildering array of versions, builds, rings, updates, branches, and editions, here’s what you should consider.
How to: Properly Prep, then Force Install Windows 10 Anniversary Update
Windows 10 Installation Superguide>

Paul said Apple has issued an update to its Mac operating system. The latest is called Sierra, replacing El Capitan. If you’re wondering whether to do the update, Paul said it won’t make much difference unless you can appriciate the new features. El Capitan and Yosemite were about 10.6 gigs in size, Sierra is 4.5 gigs. If your hardware ran well with the 2 older versions, Sierra won’t run any slower, Paul said. Also, Sierra comes with Siri.

Paul said don’t “try upgrading your machinery to fix a problem”. “If your machine is behaving kind of squirrelly and ratty and rough around the edges and hesitating” an upgrade to the operating system probably won’t help and might make it worse. Try to figure out what’s gone wrong with your machine before upgrading. On the other hand, updates are a good way to resolve problems. Going from El Capitan (latest version 10.11.6) to Sierra is an update.

Sierra doesn’t come to you thru the normal update process. You need to visit the app store and in the upper left corner you’ll see the offer to get Sierra. The updating process shouldn’t slow down network too much but it’s a good idea to wait until you need to walk away from your machine.

Paul talked about a utility for the Mac called coconutBattery. Besides telling you the serial number of your Mac and its age, it tells you the percentage of the battery capacity that is currently available. The percentage displayed on top right of the bar on your Mac only tells you the battery capacity, not the power. If the battery has lost half of its life and the battery indicator says 100%, it means 100% of its diminished capacity. <As I understand it, it may be charged to 100% but it can’t deliver the power it used to>. So, coconutBattery has a graph to tell you “how far gone your battery is”. Use it when you get an error message on your battery icon that says ‘check battery’ or ‘service battery’.

CoconutBattery will also tell you the current rating for the charger that’s connected to your battery. Apple has 45, 60 and 90-watt chargers. If you connect a 45-watt charger to a Mac, like the Power Book Pro, that consumes a lot of power you may end up overheating the charger. It’s ok to go the other way — to connect the 90-watt charger to a Mac, like the Mac Book 13″, that doesn’t require as much power.

According to Apple, after 1000 cycles <charging cycles, as I understand> your battery should have about 80% capacity left. There’s a serial number on the battery and a manufacturer code that indicates its age. Paul’s had some Chinese battery’s fail while under warranty. He sent a printout of the page generated by coconutBattery to the manufacturer along with the failed battery.

Paul said a charge cycle doesn’t mean a going from a 0% charge to 100% charge and back to 0%. And it doesn’t mean the act of pluging and unpluging the charger. In general, it means is “there has been a period when the battery went over at least 80% full and another period when it went below 20%, no matter how often you plugged and unplugged it”.
<A Health Checkup for Your Laptop Battery>

Glenn has a friend with a 3 year old HTC phone that’s worked well for him when he was using Verizon, It has a SIM card and Glenn was thinking he might switch over to H2O Wireless as the cellular provider.

Paul explained that there used to be 2 types of the iPhone 3. The CDMA version worked with Verizon and had no SIM card slot. The GSM model did have the slot. With iPhone 4 Apple started putting both GSM & CDMA on board. This occurred about the time when Verizon went to 4G LTE technology, which requires SIM cards (at least for the date portion of the service — 3G, voice & text don’t require it).

Paul said the chances are good that the HTC phone Glenn was looking at can take a SIM card from an MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) <which was discussed in the 8-24-16 show>. These companies resell the cellular service provided by the major companies like AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile.

Some of the alternate cellular providers that the guy mentioned were H2O Wireless, Pure Talk and Google-Fi.

Paul said that if you’re ready to replace a phone, try check online for trade-in offers, don’t just throw it in the trash. Samsung and iPhone models have respectable trade-in values. For example, you can go to Ebay and search for ‘sell my phone’.

Paul upgraded his iPhone to IOS 10 last week. Last weekend Glenn upgraded his 4-year-old iPad to IOS 10 and noticed a significant slowdown as well as some other problems. Paul said there doesn’t seem to be a way to go back to a previous version on the Apple products.

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.

5 weeks ago Glenn had cataract surgery on his right eye and 3 weeks ago the same was done on his left eye. The surgery was done in a couple of hours without the use of lasers. He anticipates not having to use glasses eventually.

Paul talked a bit about hard drive failure. Hard drives have onboard electronics that map out a faulty sector so it’s not used anymore, if it no longer can reliably hold the data. As more sectors fail, you eventually get the “spinning wheel of death” on a Mac. Computer problems often result from hard drive failures “approaching critical mass” and also overheating. Laptops are especially prone to overheating problems due to accumulation of dust. Use cans of compressed air to blow out the dust. And use SMART hard drive utilities to check the condition of your hard drive. Many modern hard drives have SMART technology built in that monitors its status.
<Here are someSMART monitoring utilities I found online…
PassMark DiskCheckup
S.M.A.R.T. Monitoring Tools — open source tools from sourceforge. The download page is here
How to See if Your Hard Drive is Dying with S.M.A.R.T. — mentions CrystalDiskInfo and has a tip to use the ‘wmic’ command without downloading anything:>

Gary called. He has a Mac Pro with 4 hard drives in it. He wanted to know if the “spinning wheel of death” only happens with the boot drive. And, he said, he was told that the spinning wheel meant he was running out of RAM memory.
– It could be any of the drives are having a problem, even an external drive.
– It’s true that the wheel can be caused by a low memory condition. But if you have only a web browse running, it’s not a memory problem.
– There’s a program found in the applications folder -> utility folder called something like “Activity Monitor”. It tells you what each program is doing and how much memory is being used. If the running programs aren’t using much processor time and you get the spinning wheel, look for a hard drive problem.
– Use the SMART utilities to check the hard drives first. If it says all is ok, then look for other problems.
– On the PC use Alt + Cntrl + Del to bring up Task Manager to see what’s going on with your running programs and the processor time they’re using. On the Mac the key combination is Command Option Escape.
– On the Mac the Finder may start to act up and may need to be relaunched.
– The Mac has maybe 15 or 20 temperature sensors in various locations. The spinning wheel can appear if any of the sensors indicate overheating. Paul said there’s a utility for that but couldn’t remember the name.

Glenn thanked the listeners who support KVMR. If you’d like to become a supporting member, you can call the KVMR office at 530-265-9073 or visit kvmr.org. If you’d like to talk to the guys during a Zen Tech show, call 530-265-9555

Changelog:
Added link to an article about checking a laptop battery here
Added link to a few articles on upgrading to Windows 10 here

Last Updated 4:29 PM 10-2-2016

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 will be here. Recent shows are here.

Both Paul & Glenn were in the studio today.

Glenn brought up recent news about lithium battery safety issues affecting both Toshiba and Samsung. Just one model of Samsung is affected, the Samsung Galaxy Note 7, for which a recall has been issued. Of the millions sold, 35 have caught fire. There have been warnings not to use the Note 7.
– If you’re looking online for recall info, be aware of scam sites, Paul said. Ideally, go to the manufacturer’s web site (samsung.com in this case).
– Under a recall, you should not have to pay anything, though you will have to make the effort to contact the company and then return the product.
– Glenn suggested that people contact their cellular provider to find out what to do about the recall and to avoid interruption of their phone service.
– Paul said the warning not to use the phones comes down to indemnity. “They’re not telling you you can’t use it. They’re just saying we’re telling you you can’t use it. Which doesn’t mean don’t use it, it means we told you to not use it. In the same way as on this show, we never tell anybody ever to do anything. We just go — I don’t know, here’s some information.” <I guess he meant the warning is mainly to cover their butts, so to speak>

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.

<For more info about lithium batteries and the Samsung recall check out these two articles…
The Science behind Samsung Phone Battery Fires; How the Galaxy Note 7’s lithium batteries can go awry:
Samsung’s Recall: The Problem With Lithium-Ion Batteries. The type of battery used in smartphones is lightweight and powerful, and it has a troubled history>

Paul said there are a sequence steps to take when you experience an equipment failure.
– Take it back to the store you bought it from, typically within 15 days.
– Most equipment these days has a 1 year warranty. Usually you need to request a RMA, a return merchandise authorization, from the manufacturer before sending it back.
– If it’s out of warranty, check if your credit card offered an extended warranty.
– If the above options don’t apply and you have to pay to get it fixed, there’s a law saying that if you paid more than $100 for the original equipment, spares and reasonable repair service must be provided. If that can’t be provided, the manufacturer has to offer an equivalent or better replacement or refund your money. This comes from automobile lemon laws — parts have to be available for 7 years from when the product first comes into production.
– Paul added Honda or Toyota will replace frayed seatbelts for free, according to a trustworthy source — but don’t quote him on that.

Paul said his old Toyota Corolla is getting close to its end. And he noted that there’s a California program that offers to buy back old cars for up to $1500. Glenn said the program is promoted by the Bureau of Automotive Repair thru the DMV. Paul first thought it was thru the Dept of Consumer Affairs.

Glenn mentioned that gift certificates cannot expire unless the company issuing it goes out of business. Even if the company is bought out, it’s still valid as long as the company retains its name and function. Gift cards, as opposed to certificates, have a different set of rules.

Paul said that you can go to safercar.gov to find out if a particular model of car has been recalled for whatever reason or if it doesn’t meet the standards of merchantability. Just enter the vehicle’s ID number, which you can find by looking thru the front windshield at the driver side of the dash

Safercar.gov started out as nhtsa.gov. That site still exists and offers somewhat different info — it deals more with highway safety and infrastructure (bridges etc.).

A few years ago Toyota had a safety issue with the floormats interfering with the gas pedal. Glenn offered a tip he had learned — if the gas pedal sticks down, shift the car into neutral and then pull off to the side of the road while using your brakes.

Paul warned listeners about something he learned the hard way. One time he wanted to see how far he could go down hill with the engine off. He turned the ignition switch to the fully off position, without realizing that meant the steering wheel would become locked in place and he could no longer steer. <Of course, you can unlock the wheel by turning the key one click away from the full off position>.

Glenn thanked the listeners who support KVMR. If you’d like to become a supporting member, you can call the KVMR office at 530-265-9073 or visit kvmr.org. If you’d like to talk to the guys during a Zen Tech show, call 530-265-9555

Paul said that if you go to a website ending in .gov, you can be reasonably certain that you’re looking at a government website. As with safercar.gov and nhtsa.gov, noaa.gov and weather.gov offer similar but not the same info. He seems to like the weather info at these two sites.

Paul noted that the dept of motor vehicles for California can be found at http://www.dmv.ca.gov <not https…, I’ve noticed>. But if you google for the DMV you may wind up at dmv.org. It’s a privately operated site and has nothing to do with the government. It doesn’t appear to be a scam site but they make money by showing you ads that the government site doesn’t.

Glenn said state government websites typically end in .ca.gov (Oregon would be .or.gov, etc.). Paul noted that the postal service is not strictly a government organization and their website ends in .org. Correcting him, Glenn said it’s usps.com. Paul said that the various branches of the military have websites ending in .mil.

Mesako <my guess at the spelling> called. She’s been having trouble listening to the content at archive.kvmr.org, which is where past KVMR shows can be found. When she tries to listen to something, after a few minutes it stops and she’s taken back to the show on Jul 8 10pm. She uses the Safari browser.
– Paul suggested that she clear the browser’s cache. Glenn looked at his iPad to find how to do that. He said go to Settings -> Safari. Near the bottom, above where it says ‘Advanced’, you’ll find ‘clear history and web data’.
– Paul also suggested she update her iPad’s operating system. The latest is IOS 10.
– Glenn said there was another complaint about the archive, that it timesout after 1 minute.

Erin called with a comment about the post office. On the outside of their building it says post office but when you go in it says postal service. The postal service is a private corporation run out of England, Erin said.

Terry called. She missed some of this show and wanted to know the name & model of the recalled Samsung phones. Glenn said it’s the Galaxy Note 7. Though it’s not the model she has, Glenn suggested she go to the Samsung website to check if hers in under recall.

Paul said that it’s not legal to sell items under recall. This applies even to items that are being sold for parts.

Eddie called to say he’s having a similar problem with the KVMR archive as Mesako, when he uses his iPad. Paul said the iPad can’t use Flash to play the content but uses HTML5, which he speculated may be the problem. He’s going to talk to KVMR’s engineer about it.

Eddy’s other question was about Windows 7 that he has on his Pentium 4 computer. He’s been experiencing severe slowdowns. He wondered if reinstalling Win7 would help.
– Paul said that’s a drastic thing to do but it may help somewhat.
– Glenn suggested Spybot Search and Destroy.
– Paul thought his problem that the Pentium is a single core processor. Win7 doesn’t like single core processors, he said.

Last Updated 10:49 PM 9-14-2016

This show is being relayed from the national Forest in Oregon near Hells Canyon

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 will be here. Recent shows are here.

Glenn was in the studio. Paul called in from the national Forest in northeast Oregon, south of Hells Canyon near a town called Half And Half. Paul’s audio was very crappy; I did the best I could to decipher.

They were joined by Adam Brodel of Smarter Broadband, an internet service provider. A few years ago, Smarter Broadband acquired Full Spectrum, which continues doing business under that name by providing DSL, email, web hosting and dialup.

Today is Adam’s birthday, and tomorrow Paul celebrates his own.

Adam said his business of providing internet connections is growing well with over 2000 customers. It currently covers the area from 5 Mile House down to northern Auburn, and 80 <the highway, I guess> to Browns Valley. He said this is one of the worst areas for wireless broadband because of all the trees and hills blocking the signal.

Paul said he posted a photo of his current location as part of today’s show notes. Glenn went to have a look but didn’t see the picture. They’ll try to make it available before the next show. <Presumably, you’ll be able to see it at the top of this page.>

Paul has a 100-watt solar panel on his RV that runs a few things except his refrigerator. But he said propane provides the most efficient source of energy. An 8-gallon tank of propane lasts him about 10 days. He uses it to run the refrigerator, a small stove and a water heater.

Paul doesn’t have cellular service at his camp and he had to hike a couple of miles to the top of a hill before he could call in for this show. He wondered if there’s an app that will alert him when cell service becomes available <as he’s hiking>. Adam said he hasn’t heard of anything like that.

Paul mentioned augmented reality with the ability to point the phone’s camera at the landscape and to get surveying data (elevation, distance, bearing, etc.) projected on the screen overlaying the natural objects. He then asked Adam what he uses when he’s surveying the path of a wireless signal. Adam said he uses a computer app called Radio Mobile. <This might be it>

Glenn did a search for the words: virtual reality glasses, and came up with a Samsung product called Next Generation Gear VR, for $99. It’s powered by Oculus. The goggles work in conjunction with an attached Samsung phone. Headphones are included.

Adam did some traveling recently. While in England he bought a mobile hot spot with a one month service and “tied” his phone to that. The hot spot unit was about $50 and the service cost about $20 or $30. He then used a UK Skype number for his outbound calls.

Paul noted that Skype calls are encrypted but you can’t conceal who you’re calling or when you made the call.

Glenn asked Paul if having location service turned on consumes extra power. Paul said that it does because the GPS is working. If you want to conserve your battery, turn down the screen brightness and turn off unnecessary functions like location service and push notification.

The iPhone 5 & 6 have a low power mode that comes on when the battery is low, Paul said. But it returns to normal automatically when the battery is charged up over 20%, but Paul would like it to stay in low power mode all of the time. Glenn noted that you can issue a voice command to switch to low power.

Paul asked Adam if solar power is sufficient to run the wireless broadband equipment. Adam said the units used on a house draw about 7 watts and solar is able to handle that. By comparison, incandescent house lights are in the 40 to 75 watt range, the compact fluorescent bulbs are about 23 watts and LED bulbs are about 7 to 9 watts.

Glenn recalled that the compact fluorescent bulbs had a flicker to them and thought the LED bulbs don’t. But Paul said that the dimmable LEDs do flicker at about 16000 times per second. That’s how the brightness is controlled — if it’s off for longer than it’s on, it gets dimmer. However, those bulbs have to be designed to prevent radio frequency interference. Paul said you might be able to notice the flicker if you shake them while in a dark room.

Gene called to ask if there are any new batteries coming on the market. Glenn said a new lithium metal battery is expected in about a year. For a battery half the size of today’s lithium it’s supposed to have twice the energy.

The cheapest battery for off grid use is the lead acid. Paul thought they’ll give you the most bang for the buck. They have limitation about the way they’re charged, maximum current and so forth. On the plus side, they are recyclable.

Paul said the most spectacular batteries are the lithium polymer, which are used in radio controlled aircraft because they are light for a given amount of energy.

Gene asked for thoughts about an inverter. Paul said the though his RV has a 100 watt solar panel and a 20 amp charge regulator, which cost him $15 from a Chinese manufacturer, a house will require something larger. You have to consider what your maximum power consumption will be.

Gene is planning to go off grid and wanted some info about hot water solar panels. Will a special water heater be required? Paul suggested getting steel or copper radiators from a recycler, painting them black and put them inside a glass window casing. The glass will trap the heat to boost efficiency. Then run water thru the radiator to heat it up.

Kalab called. He keeps getting “kicked” off the KVMR audio stream. He uses an Apple with iTunes. All other stations work ok except for KVMR.
– Glenn suggested using the KVMR app but wasn’t sure if it was available for the Mac.
– Go to kvmr.org/player. There you’ll find some alternative streams. Try the one titled 64k AAC. The AAC and mp3 streams come from different servers.
– Make sure you have the latest updates for your machine.
– There might be a setting in iTunes to keep it from skipping to the next station on the list when KVMR drops out. That might force it to reconnect to KVMR. <Or, create a playlist with KVMR listed many times, so when it skips to the next station, it’ll still be KVMR>
– Call the KVMR office at 530-265-9073 and talk to the station engineer Buzz.

Scott called. He’s had the same problem as Kalab. He “power cycled all of my front end equipment” to fix the problem.

Scott also had a suggestion for an off grid water heater. He knows someone who took 3 water heater tanks, without the jackets, and put them in a box with a glass top. He now has 90 gallons of hot water.

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.

Last Updated 11:24 PM 8-31-2016

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 will be here. Recent shows are here.

NOTE: There will be one more Zen Tech show this month on 8-31-16

Glenn was in the studio. Paul is on vacation and called in from just over the Oregon border in a place called Summer Lake.

Paul said he’s been encountering people coming from the north who are headed to Burning Man, which Glenn said starts this weekend and goes thru Memorial Day.

Marilyn sent in an email asking the guys about saving money on cell phone data and calling plans. Paul has a plan from H2O Wireless with unlimited talk and text (txt) with 3gig of data for $40/mo. But it lags by 72 hours in reporting how much data he’s used. So, on his phone he goes to Settings -> Cellular where it tells him “in this period” how much data he’s used and which apps used the data. But he’s not clear what is meant by “this period”.

Glenn uses the Pure Talk $45/mo plan that includes 2.5gig of data. He’s thinking of switching to their new plan for $35/mo that comes with unlimited talk & text and 2gig of data. What he likes about his current plan is that if he goes over his data limit, it just stops. It doesn’t automatically switch to a very high cost premium rate for the data.

Paul said some plans charge $10 per 100meg of additional data, if you exceed the data limit; that’s $100 per gigaByte. In Paul’s case with H2O Wireless, if he exceeds his data limit, he’s normal 4G speed of about 2 or 3 megaBytes/sec is throttled back to 2G speeds (120 KBytes/sec). He said one should be aware of throttling when shopping for plans that advertise unlimited data. The H2O Wireless plan that Paul has doesn’t allow him to buy an incremental amount of data if he goes over his data limit for the 30-day period. He speculated that MVNOs <Mobile Virtual Network Operator>, like H2O Wireless, buy large chunks of data and don’t want to spoon out small amounts to their customers. With PureTalk you’re allowed to buy small chunks of extra data, Glenn said.

Looking at an email from Marilyn, Glenn noted that she has a GoPhone and pays $25 for 90 days with 10 cents/minute for phone calls.

Dave “Buzz” Barnett joined Glenn in the studio and Paul told him that he’s getting a strong cellular signal, stronger than he expected for such a remote area. He noted that the cell service depends, more than anything, on the number of people using it. Buzz said that it might just be that the antenna is at a high elevation.

Glenn told Paul he’s phone call is coming in on iMessage thu his cellular data. He asked Paul if iMacs can handle iMessage. Paul said they could if you use an app called Messages. If you have an iMac and you only have a text plan on your cell phone, “the iMac will see those text messages because they’re relayed to you from your phone. As long as you’ve got an iMessage account it will work on a Mac”. iMessages won’t work on a PC.

There are 2 things that work on a Mac that won’t work on a PC. One is Facetime, which won’t work on Linux. The other is iMessage, Paul said.

Paul mentioned that there was a meeting at Nevada City Hall concerning the Verizon cell repeaters, but nothing came of it. Buzz said one member of the planning commission had to recuse himself because he owned property nearby. It ended up with a 2 to 2 vote. They’re supposed to try again in about a month. This was a topic in the 8-10-16 Zen Tech show.>

Glenn thanked those who support KVMR with their membership. If you’d like to become a member, you can call the station at 530-265-9073 or go to kvmr.org. If you’d like to join the conversation during the Zen Tech show, you can call the studio at 530-265-9555.

Paul said that it’s not hard to get your phone away from AT&T and use it with another phone company. But there might be some confusion about what access your new company needs at AT&T to port your phone number. In Paul’s case, H2O Wireless needed his PIN number (called the security code), not his password, to his AT&T account.

Jeff called about the ambiguity Paul found with the phrase “in this period”, earlier in this show. He said that refers to the billing period. Glenn said on the iPhone if you go to Settings -> Cellular and then scroll to the bottom, you can reset the data counters back to zero. He said he’ll be doing that every month <billing period> to see where his data is being used.

Glenn offered a tip to reduce you cellular data usage. Use wi-fi at places that offer it for free: Starbucks, McDonalds etc. Usually, you can use it even if you don’t go inside. <Coffee shops often make it available.>

Glenn went on to say that if you’re a Xfinity or Comcast internet customer, you can use Xfinity Hot Spots to get on the net over wi-fi for free. <It shows up on your list like any other wi-fi connection. On the login screen they offer 2 hours/mo for free to everyone, just to try it out.> However, Paul said that though he was able to use the hot spots when he had a business account with Comcast, his domestic account now says it “not available to your tier of service”.

Buzz says he uses the MVNO called PagePlus for his cellular provider. He pays about $31/mo with 1gig of data. To find how much data he’s used, all he has to do is send them a text message with the word: bal.

Paul said that CDMA cellular providers like Verizon will, nevertheless, use a SIM card for the data portion of their service. After the iPhone 4 the same phone can be used with either a CDMA or GSM network. Just be sure to unlock the phone before you switch providers so it won’t be tied to a particular provider.

Paul said that he might experiment with the Facebook Live Stream and stream the next Zen Tech show.

Glenn looked at the PureTalk website and noticed another plan at $24/mo with unlimited talk and text, 200meg of data and 200 MMS messages. For 1gig of data & unlimited MMS it’s $29. And there’s a plan with 4gig of data at $50/mo.

Johnny called. He has an AT&T iPhone 6 that coming to the end of the contract. He asked for tips to switch to another carrier.
– Unlock it first. Google the words: att unlock.
– If you’re unhappy with the service at AT&T and switch to a MVNO like H2O, it’s not going to work any better. <H2O uses the AT&T network.>
– See what provider people are using in your location to find which works well.
– Note what the trial period is so you have time to check out the new service.
– Though he stands to be corrected, Paul believes that the cellular providers don’t give you phones anymore. now they’re leased.
– Port your number to the new provider before your current contract ends or you’ll loose the number.
– Buzz said to google the words: mobile virtual network operator. You’ll find a Wikipedia page listing the MVNOs in the US.
<A list of MVNOs and from whom they buy access.>

Bob called from Brazil. He said he makes phone calls for free using Skype. He asked what the guys know about Republic Wireless for phone service. Glenn said he’s heard it mentioned on the Clark Howard Show, and referred Bob to the website clark.com.

Last Updated 10:16 PM 8-24-2016