TODAY!

• Slide Scanners– Any Good?
• Cheap Cine Film Converters– any good? Consider Provenance AND “ICE”
• See: Chinese company WOLVERINE
  

  ---

  iPhone pList Hacking- for Tethering AND to Allow FaceTime over Cell!

• Glenn return a non upgradeable Mac Mini.
• Google Drive App as backup??

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.

Both Glenn & Paul were in the studio today.

If you want to contact the guys by email use zen at kvmr dot org. Glenn said he’s not sure the email issue mentioned on the last show has been resolved. <I think they’ll get the mail eventually>.

Glenn reminded listeners that there’s a KVMR app for both Android & Apple devices that lets you listen to the live broadcasts <and offers additonal features.>

Glenn thanked those who support KVMR. There was a membership drive last week that was a great success.

Paul warned listeners about popups or even audio recordings in their webpage warning them that their computer has been compromised and that they should call an 800 number. When you call, they might say they’re from a well-known company like Microsoft, but they can be anywhere in the world. They tell you that you can’t continue until you give them access to your computer to fix it, for a price. Paul said, Mac users are more likely to fall for the scam because they don’t encounter these types of scams as often as PC users, who have learned to be more suspicious.

When asked what he would do in such a situation, Glenn said he would call his computer technician. Glenn went on to say no major company would call you to say they’ve detected a problem with your computer. It’s always a scam. You might get a similar scam in an email. Paul said that webpages themselves might be subverted as was the case with the Zen Tech site 2 weeks ago when someone broke in because Paul didn’t do a timely update of WordPress. <See last week’s show for more details>

Paul went on to say that LexisNexis & the New York Times web sites have been broken into in the past. You might not notice it right away but eventually a malicious page would popup that might be hard to close of because it won’t have a close button. He said Firefox had tried to deal with such pages but it reduced usability.

When you don’t see a way to close the offending webpage, try the following. On the Mac use the key combination Option + Apple + Escape and kill the browser you were using. On the PC you can do essentially the same thing, but use the keys Control + Alt + Delete to bring up the task manager. You can even shut down your computer, “in a orderly way”, Paul said. <You might try closing just the tab in your browser that has the bad webpage>. 99% of the time your machine is not infected, it’s just displaying a scam page, he said.

Glenn suggested to talk to a computer technician and discuss the situation, if you are already paying someone who initiated this ploy. Remember you might have 60 to 90 days to dispute credit card payments you’ve already made to the scammers.

Paul said Ublock Origin, mentioned on last show, will help prevent these popups. It uses a database of places that originate ads & popups. But the database, by its nature, is always a little behind so it won’t include the newest popups. It works in Chrome, Safari, Firefox and, with a bit of work, in Explorer.

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

On the 1-25-17 show Glenn talked about the Android smart watch he bought, At that time, he forgot to say he paid $14.99 for it. He bought it off a Chinese website called newfrog.com.

He said it’s pretty useless. About all he can do is use Bluethooth he can answer his iPhone, but it has to be so close he might as well just pick up the iPhone. Everything else requires a data source. But without built-in wi-fi, he’ll need a SIM card and cellular service to go online and get apps. <Last week’s show mentioned a cheap cellular plan>.

Paul noted that these sorts of devices get such wide distribution that communities form to hack them <to add functionality>.

Paul mentioned that the internet of things (IOT) devices, which includes watches, have been used to launch denial of service (DDOS) attacks. But, he noted, if you can’t get on the internet, the problem doesn’t occur. <There was some discussion about IOT on the 1-11-17 show.>

Paul bought a knockoff of the Fitbit device for about $15 and it works pretty well, he said. It has an has accelerometer to detect movement and keep track of his sleep/wake cycles and count his foot steps. Some of these devices (but not his) can record heart rate and other “activity”. At the end of the day, it can send the data it’s recorded to an Android or Apple device for further inspection.

Tony called. He said Siri can tell you what planes are now flying over head. The guys tried it in the studio and Siri came back with the website www.rsvlts.com. <Maybe this> The search site used by Siri to find the website was bing.com.

Paul said he doesn’t like Bing. He said he discovered how get Siri to use Google instead — put the word google in front of your search terms.

Paul said the tail numbers on an aircraft can be looked up to get info about it. You can find out the history of the plane you’re about to board.

Tony said a friend of his had to upgrade to the Sierra operating system to get the latest version of Final Cut to work. When he did that he was also required to buy a $9.95 iCloud account for more drive space that Sierra required. Normally, you get 5 gig on iCloud for free. Paul’s solution was to use the properties (the cog icon) to find the iCloud settings. There are check boxes you can set to specify what gets synched. You can uncheck what you don’t want to be backed up. With fewer things to back up, Sierra won’t require the upgraded iCloud account.

Paul said it’s ok to buy the extra storage but be aware of how it’s being used. It may be unnecessary and, if you don’t keep track of what’s going on, you may eventually need even more storage space. Consider storing your data locally, not on iCloud. To see how much of iCloud you’re using, on the iPhone go to setting -> iCloud -> manage.

Glenn went online to get more details about the extra iCloud storage and found it’s 99 cents a month for 50 gig.

Glenn also suggested looking at the settings in Final Cut and seeing if it can be set to store its data locally and not on iCloud.

Paul had encountered the problem of not having enough free memory on his iPhone when trying to install the 1.6 gigs of the IOS 10 upgrade. He removed about 2 gig of data to gain back some space but the free space only changed from .5 gig to about .75 gig. He discovered he had to do a factory reset of the phone to gain back the space he thought he should have. The steps are…
1) Back up the phone. Plug the iPhone into iTunes and choose the option to “back up to this machine”.
2) Do a cleaning of unwanted data & apps and back up again.
3) Reset the phone completely by going to settings -> general -> reset and pick “erase all content and settings”. It will then ask you for your Apple ID and password.
4) Plug it back into iTunes and choose the option to “restore it from a backup”.

Glenn said not everything is backed/restored. Personal preferences like font size & accessibility have to be set again.

Paul said he avoids using iCloud for backing up pictures thru Photo Stream because they won’t be deleted from the phone. Instead, he plugs it into a Mac to pull the pictures off. The Mac itself has a Time Machine backup. <I assume he then deletes the photos from the phone>.

Donna called. She bought a Mac to replace and older one and is having problems she hasn’t encountered before. When she has her mouse cursor over a link, the link will open without being clicked. She’s used to clicking on links.
– Glenn vaguely recalled that there is a setting in Safari to tell it to open a link if the mouse is over it for a specified amount of time
– Be sure the Mac is up to date. Go to the Apple logo and check for updates. You may have to go to the Apple logo -> About -> updates.
– You can also go to the app store and get the Sierra operating system.

Donna uses a trackpad and Paul thought there might be a problem with it. He suggested trying an external mouse and see if the problem persists. Or go to preferences and reset the trackpad settings or maybe experiment with different settings. Paul said command + shift + 3 on the Mac will take a screenshot of what you’re looking at, <Presumably to keep track of your settings so you can put them back>.

Paul also mentioned a $99 slide scanner and a cine film scanner for $200 from Wolverine. The link is at the top of this page

Last Updated 12:10 AM 2-23-2017

http://www.gotenna.com/ For when there’s No Cell Signal- Range up to 2 miles.. BlueTooth Plus VHF

We Got Hacked:
WordPress 4.7.1 Retained Vulnerability How we found out and how it happened
WordPress Security …

Thanks Ryan for: the Ublock Origin Plugin for FireFox, Chrome, Safari and why these things are Free.

Two more: AdBlockPlus (Banners, Animations)
VideoDownload Helper  ..Use this last in combination with VLC Media Player for great results

Cable Modem Lore.Background here and what to expect

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_cable

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.

Paul was in the studio. Glenn called in from Davis.

Paul keeps all of the music he likes on his iPod and a long time ago he sent his entire collection to Google Music. You can send, over a period of days, 140 gigs of music from an iPod classic up to the cloud, Paul said. He previously talked about it on the 11-25-15 show.

Once Google has your music, it looks thru your collection and will “offer you things which are more of what you like”. But the problem with that is “it makes you more like what you are” <the so-called filter bubble> and you’re less likely to explore other genres of music.

The Zen Tech web site was hacked on 2-6-17. They changed the page for today’s show notes by posting the flag of the Peshmerga and a profane word followed by “death to ISIS”. Paul fixed the site yesterday.

The Zen Tech site runs on a content management system called WordPress. Something like 40% of websites run WordPress, Paul said. Such a large proportion makes it a low hanging fruit for those intent on mischief.

The attack was done by a “script” <essentially, a program> which can originate anywhere. The hackers can send out a “crawler” that purports to be, for example, Google and the Zen Tech site can’t tell that it’s not Google except maybe by the IP address.

Being an automated process, the script tries breaking into many websites. The script doesn’t care if the WordPress is an older and more vulnerable version; it tries an exploit and moves on — like a burglar trying doorknobs until one opens.

It turns out that Paul was just 10 days behind in updating WordPress from version 4.71 to 4.72. After fixing the site, he installed a plugin that automatically checks the other WordPress plugins and WordPress itself to be sure they’re up to date.

There are 3 ways to compromise WordPress.
– WordPress itself, which is bunch of software with a data base running behind the scenes, which is usually MySQL.
– The themes
– The 3rd, and most likely way, are feature plugins, which are enhancements to improve the functionality of the website. The plugins are developed by individuals who may make money (but usually don’t) and the plugins are abandoned. With no security updates they become vulnerable.

Glenn called in and told us that he’s used Xfinity wi-fi for the first time <while away from home, I guess>. Apparently he’s recently subscribed to Xfinity’s internet service (internet only). He can now use any the nation-wide Xfinity Wi-fi Security Recommendation hotspots <access points>. Paul asked if one needs a valid cable account to have the access and Glenn confirmed that it’s true. Glenn said he just chooses the Xfinity network in the wi-fi settings and logs in with his name and password.

Both Glenn and Paul got an ad for the [Xfinity] cable service offering a 1 year contract for $30/mo and an optional $10/mo for the cable modem, if you don’t have your own. It’s strictly for internet service, not TV. You can add a TV package that includes your local channels and HBO or Showtime.

The guys bought their own modems from Amazon. Paul just did a search for the words: comcast compatible modem. The thing to look for in a modem is that it decodes a number of channels. The old modem Paul had would decode only 1 channel, which was good up to 30 megabits/sec. If you buy a modem, make sure it says 8 by 4 — 8 channels down and 4 up, for a total capacity of 350 megabits/sec. Though you won’t use the full bandwidth, you get better performance when other people using some channels. The Aris modem/router costs $69 and comes with a 2 year warranty. Note that some credit cards add an additional year to the warranty.

Paul offered a tip for those looking for wi-fi service. He said to look at wi-fi signals in your area, using the network menu of whatever device you have. Find a neighbor whose connection shows up in the menu and offer to share and split the cost of their service.

Paul was sent a link to the free Ublock Origin Plugin that works in the 3 major browsers — Firefox, Chrome and Safari. <See the link at the top of this page> It keeps a table of places that are known to farm out banner ads and Flash ads. It keeps track by address and domain names. It blocks ads based on where the ad comes from rather than the type of ad. If you hover the mouse over the Ublock tool bar item, it tells you what sites are blocked and the sites you’ve visited. Ublock allows you to unblock banners at a particular site, if you want to see them.

Ublock collects statistics on how you use your browser. They aggregate the data but don’t identify you specifically. Also it’s open source software so the code is available for all to see. Many eyes make for better security.

Paul went on to mention Adblock Plus, which blocks Flash animations from running automatically, If you want to see the animation, you can start it with a click.

Then there’s Video Download Helper, which allows you to download Youtube and other videos.

And finally, VLC Media Player (Video Lan Converter) that runs on PC, Mac, Android (but not iPhone). It’s a multi-standard video player that will play just about anything including video, audio and Flash .flv files, which you might get from Youtube.

Paul talked about gotenna.com. When you want to communicate but don’t have a cellular signal, e.g. in the wilderness, you can use this VHF transmitter/receiver box. It uses FRS BRS frequencies, which don’t require a license. These frequencies are also used by walkie-talkie products, which have a similar range and may actually be more practical to use. You use your phone to connect to this box via Bluetooth and you can send encrypted text (txt) messages and make voice calls.

.

Glenn invited listeners to visit the Zen Tech website at zen.kvmr.org. You can also send email to zen at kvmr dot org, He thought email might be having problems right now, but the mail will eventually get thru.

Glenn mentioned the Mac Mini he bought recently with 4gig RAM, 500 gig hard drive and an I5 processor. He had thoughts of boosting the RAM to 8 gig but found out the RAM is soldered onto the motherboard and can’t be upgraded. He’s thinking about getting a version that comes with 8 gigs, instead. He noted that the newer versions of the Mac operating system come with Siri, which requires 8 gig to avoid serious slowdowns.

Paul noted that some Apple products can’t be upgraded. The iPhone comes with a fixed amount of memory and the Mac Book Air has a solid state drive that’s soldered-in. Reliability may be the reason they’re made that way, but it may be that Apple wants you to buy an upgrade. Paul also speculated that this latest version of the Mac Mini will be the last one made with a spinning hard drive. He expects a move to solid state drives (SSD).

Glenn said there is a version of the Mac Mini with a 1 terabyte fusion drive. He thought it might be a combination solid state drive and spinning platters. Paul mentioned some advantages of such a drive. <See show notes from 11-30-16 & 1-25-17 for a better discussion>.

Paul said more about the Zen Tech website. There are over 1,000 links from 10 year of use. Some of the links aren’t valid anymore. Though there is a plugin that checks for outdated links, Paul said he doesn’t have the time to go back and correct them.

Paul mentioned that archive.kvmr.org has the audio to recent KVMR broadcasts. The audio for music content is no older than 2 weeks, for copyright reasons. Talk shows are up to 2 months old <and are usually downloadable>. Also, there is a “subscription system” at audio.kvmr.org/podhawk.

The broadcasters at KVMR use Spinitron to log the music that’s played, for the purpose of paying royalties to the artists. Some other stations are automated and keep track of what’s played with their own equipment. <You can see for yourself what’s been played at kvmr.org/playlists>

Last Updated 11:55 PM 2-8-2017

Glenn’s NEW WATCH hahahaha!

Ubiquitous! the Word! http://www.dictionary.com/browse/ubiquitous
Firrrrrreeeeeefoxxx! — Broadcaster CAnnot Help It!

Finally: Interoperability, Antidisestablishmentarianism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antidisestablishmentarianism

Note how many innocuous sites now use SSL by the way!
Arrrghhghghg!

Extra Download of for example Sierra!

Puppy Linux NOOO Hard Drive!

MAC Recovery Mode, and Monkeying Needlessly…

Funky New Top Level Domain Names and how to find them. Total currently 1500+ TOP level names, not all listed here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top-level_domains
nic.whatever- Illlustrating a Problem of Google Search of ‘Currency’ or rather ‘recency’
FULL IANA DataBase- of Upcoming and Current
http://www.iana.org/domains/root/db

UniCode Domain Names! Pretty. http://www.unicode.org

Fun World Wide RAdio Tuner, illustrating new Top Level Names Dot-GARDEN.
NOT ALL can be used by the Public, and maybe are not needed anyway.
http://radio.garden

Lose Cable? http://www.sling.com

Addtional 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.

Both Paul and Glenn were in the studio today.

Glenn upgraded from his iMac to a Mac Mini. His old machine couldn’t be upgraded to anything newer than OS 10.6.3. [Newest updates to] many of the programs he uses would no longer run with the older OS. He considered changing the microprocessor to one with a dual core. That would have allowed going only the next OS update. So instead, he bought a new Mac Mini, which was on sale. He said it’s a lot less expensive than buying a new Mac or Mac Book.

Apple hasn’t changed this model since 2014. It came with Sierra 10.12 OS and he updated it to 10.12.2, which took about 1 hour. He then restored from the Timemachine backups of his old computer, which went smoothly.

The Mac Mini comes with no screen, no keyboard and no mouse. So he also bought a Specter 24″ LCD screen for $99 from Ebay.

The Mac Mini came with an Intel Core I5 processor running at 1.6 gigaHertz with turbo boost up to almost 3 gigaHertz and 4 gig of RAM. It also came with Siri. Siri taxes a computer with less than 8 gig of RAM, Glenn said. Paul suggested going to preferences and unchecking the box for Siri. You can always run Siri manually when you need it.

Paul said that Macs and PCs leave things running in the background just in case they need to start running quickly. Each program uses up a few percent of processor’s time, which can add up. On Win10 machine you use the “startup control” to turn things off. For older Windows versions, Paul uses the startup control within Spybot Search and Destroy — a free program.

Paul noted that a Mac Mini is not the cheapest way to go. “If somebody wanted a Mac and they had nothing else, a Mac Book Air is the cheapest way to go” at $800. Someone going from a PC already has a screen, keyboard and mouse. And the Mac has a utility call Migration Assistant to help bring in the data from a PC running Windows versions as far back and including XP.

Glenn added that the Mini came with a 500 gig hard drive and a HDMI out port for connecting directly to the monitor, no adapters required.

Paul said he has a nice app for his Android tablet called Pinouts. It has many pages of references of the names, types, purposes and electronic functions of DVI, HDMI, SVGA etc.
<There are a bunch of apps for pinouts. Search in Google for: site:play.google.com pinouts>

Glenn’s Mac Mini has an odd name for its memory — LP SODIMM It’s physically shorter and meant for a laptop. He thought LP might stand for either low profile or low power or maybe both. He’s thinking of adding another 4 gig of RAM.

Paul thought this Mac Mini will be the last Mac with a real hard drive <with spinning platters>. Increasingly, Macs and PCs are being sold with solid state drives (SSD). Most computers made in the last 10 years have a SATA hard drive interface <for the spinning drives>. SSDs are housed in the same physical package as the spinning drives. mSATA is a circuit board with the flash drive on it and an SATA interface. But it’s not in the same format as would plug into an SATA buss <connector on the motherboard>.

You can upgrade your laptop by getting a mSATA drive quite inexpensively from Ebay. Paul found one that’s 64 gigs for $20. And, Paul said, “for $5 from China you can get a SATA enclosure to an mSATA adapter”. You put the mSATA circuit board (with the drive) into the enclosure and put the enclosure into your SATA-compatible computer <replacing the spinning hard drive, as I understand it>.

Another upgrade you can do to your computer, if you have little use for the CD/DVD drive, is to put in a second SSD. With the power off, you can extract the CD/DVD drive of your computer and then get, again from Ebay, a Chinese CDROM-carrier-to-SATA converter. <He implied that you then add a mSATA circuit board (with drive), as before>. You end up with a second SSD in your computer’s CDROM slot. It’s important to pull the power plug and laptop battery and wait several minutes for the charge to dissipate before you do any work.

With this dual drive setup you can keep your operating system on one drive and data on the other. This will simplify replacing the operating system drive if it crashes — you won’t trash the data. You’ll also see a speed boost.

Glenn got a new watch, which doesn’t do a lot unless you get a SIM and make it a phone. It does synch with his iPhone via Bluetooth and he was able to bring all of his contacts into the watch. WhatsApp, Twitter and browser can’t access his iPhone because it <the iPhone?> can’t act as a hot spot.
– You can add a micro SD card for external memory where you can store the photos you take with its camera.
– It has a touch sensitive screen that’s about 1″ square, which is quite functional given that both Glenn and Paul have ‘fat’ fingers.
– It records sound.
– It has Bluetooth.
– But it can’t go on the internet on it’s own. You’ll need a SIM card and a cellular plan.
– The Easy Go plan from H2O wireless is $4.99/mo plus 5 cents/min for talk/text and a 1 meg of data.
– It has a micro USB charger for its lithium battery
– Paul said you can use the watch and a cheap cellular plan as an emergency phone or to run a remote control.
– He paid $14.99 for it at newfrog.com.

You can get a remote control for about $29. You then put a SIM card in it, so it can connect to a cellular network, and you can send it text (SMS) messages. The text commands can turn lights on/off or open/close gates, for example.

Glen reminded people that they can become a contributing member of KVMR by calling the office number 530-265-9073. You can also donate your old used vehicle to the station by calling 1-877-411-3662 (1-877-411-donate).

Paul noted that Wikipedia has a link at the top of its pages labeled ‘Say it’ that will pronounce words for you. See the link at the top of this page.

Paul noticed that a lot of connections to the KVMR audio stream are coming from radio.garden. The site has a web crawler that checks the viability of radio streams. <I guess people are using it to see if the KVMR stream is working>.

Bob called. He has an HP 1010 printer that uses USB 1 and a Windows 10 laptop with USB 3. He sometimes gets a warning that the two are not compatible and nothing prints. If he waits long enough, it does prints.
– Paul said the versions of USB are backward compatible and should work.
– Glenn did a search for the problem on the HP website and came up with this.

John called. He’s using Windows Vista on a 10-year-old laptop and is getting security warnings from Microsoft’s Security Essentials. Paul said that particular anti-virus program is no longer supported and should be uninstalled. Instead, use avast.com.

Also he was shopping for a computer and wanted to know the difference between Windows 10 and 10.1. Paul said 10.1 is the latest and he should get that if possible.

Bob also has an old computer running Windows 7 and he wants to run Autocad. Paul told him that though Win7 itself will be supported thru 2020, program developers are discouraged from developing software for Win7. If you go to puppylinux.org, you can create a bootable CD (or USB stick) with the Linux operating system. You can do the same with other versions of Linux but Puppy Linux is more suitable for old machines.

Bob also asked about the difference between Office 365 & Office 2016. Paul said Office 365 is a subscription product, either $70 or $99. If you really want to save money, go to libreoffice.org for their office suite. It’s free and if it doesn’t meet your needs you can uninstall and then buy Microsoft Office.

Berry called. He has a 2009 24″ iMac and sometimes he gets a warning that another device is using your IP address. He also has an iPad and a printer.
– Shut down the router (the box that gets the internet into your house).
– Then shut down everything else — the Mac, iPad and printer.
– Start them up again starting with the router followed by the Mac and other devices. But wait a few minutes between shut down and startup.
– If you still get the message after turning on the Mac, there may be other devices on the internet like Apple TV.

Nick called. He had a tip for people not everybody knows about. You can search images on Google. For instance, if someone sends you a picture and you want to know the location, Google can often figure it out for you. You send the image to Google and it returns a text description of the location.

Glenn reminded us that the guys reached by sending email to zen at kvmr dot org

IANA DataBase (link at the top) is a database of domains like .energy, .engineer, .engineering, enterprises, .equipment. You can find out how to register for one (for example .generic) by putting ‘nic’ in front of it (nic.generic).

Last Updated 12:22 AM 1-26-2017

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antidisestablishmentarianismp

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 and Paul were in the studio today.

Paul is going for his 3rd dental implant. Dental implants are titanium posts attached to the jaw. Their price has come down a lot and have become pretty common. He learned that they can contain a serial number, which can serve as another kind dental record for identifying a body, if necessary.

Glenn thanked the listeners and supporters of KVMR. If you’d like to become a supporting member, you can call the KVMR office at 530-265-9073. If you’d like to talk to the guys during a Zen Tech show, call 530-265-9555 or send email to zen at kvmr dot org.

Paul talked a bit about the internet of things (IoT). There are probably more ‘things’ on the internet than computers such as…
heart monitoring implants
biochip transponders on farm animals
“electric clams” in coastal waters
autos with built-in sensors
DNA analysis devices for environmental food and pathogen monitoring
field operation devices that assist firefighters in search and rescue operations
River depth monitors are especially useful with all of the rains we’ve had lately. You can argue if this is true IoT because the data flows only in one direction. But electric sluice gates both monitor water flow and get commands back telling them to open or close.

A lot of things for the home that use infrared controls — garage door, a gate opener, TV remote, the door for your pet. There is an IoT thing called a broadband IR gateway, aka an IR blaster.

The equipment in your house can be reached by the internet in 2 ways.
1) A hole in the firewall. <He didn’t elaborate>
2) The IR blaster. When it’s connected to the network in your house, but not visible from the internet, a wireless signal is sent to the blaster <from your router I assume> and is converted to infrared which is then sensed by the various appliances that use infrared. The appliance then acts according the instructions it receives.

Paul then explained how an app on your phone can issue commands to an IoT device. He said that the IoT device logs into a server on the internet belonging to the company that made the device. The phone app also talks to the same server. <The app was made by the same company. The server mitigates the flow of data between the phone & IoT device>. You have to have some trust that the company will not gather unnecessary information about you.

Paul recently got a cloud server <a hard drive that’s accessed thru the internet, I assume>. It’s a 1 terabyte Western Digital domestic server (network access server). The $119 he paid is at the lower end of what you might expect for such a unit. This gives him storage accessible thru the internet as well as his local network. ‘My Cloud Live’ is an app that lets him access the server from anywhere on the internet. The server uses a virtual private network (VPN) to connect to the Western Digital company and the app connects to them too. Again, the server mitigates the flow of data, as in the previous description. Supposedly, nobody else can see the data when using a VPN, but Paul said you’re trusting those who designed the system.

There much discussion about how secure IoT devices are. “Because there are thousands of these devices, if you subvert one of them it can actually reach out and grab the other ones and form what you might call a gang of collaborative things”. Dyn DNSwas recently subverted by a bunch of IoT devices that were infected by malware.

Paul noted that the [control] board that’s used in the KVMR studio is actually a network device. Instead of running cables, everything is connected with Ethernet. But it’s not connected to the internet.

Glenn said that news provided by Yubanet discloses that as of 9:34am today, there’s no estimated time of restoration [of power] for 1,130 homes on San Juan Ridge. And there’s a bolder 1 mile north of North San Juan on Highway 49, which is closed between Nevada City and North San Juan — use Pleasant Valley Road as a detour. Also, Highway 49 in Sierra County from Yuba Pass to Satley is closed due to rocks and mud slides. <I mentioned only those things that may not have expired by now>.

There was some chit chat about driving in foul weather..
– How to clear fogged windows.
– Some cars always turn on headlights when you drive. Some cars warn you when you leave the lights on when you park the car.
– DMV’s attempt to outlaw high intensity headlights that use Xenon discharge tubes because of their blinding brightness.
– An old model car that had a device that sensed oncoming headlights and dimmed your lights automatically. Apparently there’s nothing like it now.
– Old cars that had a headlight dimming switch that you worked with your left foot. Glenn liked that better that having the switch on the steering wheel, as with modern cars.
– Perhaps most importantly, Glenn noted that when it’s raining, state law requires you turn on your headlights.

Paul mentioned new state laws. A couple of years ago it became illegal to make phone calls or text (txt) while holding your device. Paul has used a suction cup attachment to avoid holding his phone. But a new law makes it illegal to operate it with your hand, whether you’re holding it or not. If you have it mounted on your dash, you have to complete what you’re doing with no more than one finger push or swipe, Paul said. And he asked, is it that important that it can’t wait until you’re stopped?

Of course you can activate the voice control on your smartphone and then make calls. But Paul said that Siri doesn’t work as well in his car as outside because of the engine noise and other noises.

Glenn noted that the new law is much more strict and applies to distracted drive in general — putting on makeup, shaving, eating something etc. And a ticket is pretty expensive — $20 for the 1st offense but state, county and city fees are added to that and can total over $200.

Paul talked about a Bluetooth control that you can put on your steering wheel to control the radio. You can get one for $15 or $20 for a basic unit. He said that not all Bluetooth controls work with all radios. There is a standard being implemented but Paul couldn’t think of its name.

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.

Gary called for guidance on calculating the capacity of a UPS (uninterrupted power supply). Paul noted that a UPS does more that provide power, it’s also a powerline conditioner that cleans up the current spikes, brownouts, etc.
– Paul recently had to get a 1,000 VA (volt-amps) UPS for himself for $119.
– Paul suggested getting a power meter that can be plugged into a socket, something like a Killa.Watt. Plug it into a wall socket and plug your appliance into the meter.
– If it’s only for one computer you can get an inexpensive UPS rated at 250VA for about $40.
– The difference between watts and VA has to do with whether the appliance has an inductive load (has coils of wire, like a motor).
– A typical desktop computer has a VA of about 100 and you need to double that to get the suitable size for a UPS. So a 250VA unit would be good.
– The goal is to shut down your computer in an orderly way, preserving your work & data when the power goes out. Don’t expect the UPS to keep working as if nothing has happened.
– A cheap UPS will likely not be ‘smart’. A smart UPS runs software on the computer that watches the battery and triggers a series of shutdown signals and keeps the computer off. That will prevent the computer from coming on when power is briefly restored only to go out again.
– The 1000 VA unit Paul got can run 1000 watts for about 5 minutes, he said.

A UPS takes the direct current from its battery at a low voltage and steps it up to 110 volts alternating current. It synthesizes the sine wave with a stair-step of discrete changes so it’s not a smooth sine curve. A lot of computers don’t like that. They may refuse to boot up. And the most modern computers with PFC (power factor conversion) may have a problem <he didn’t elaborate>. So you may have to get a UPS that generates a very smooth sine wave and end up spending up to 4 times more than the cheap units.

When you use a UPS, the computer is constantly running on the current produced by the UPS, with the dirty sine wave. It doesn’t run on AC and then switch over to the UPS when the power goes out. So you can test whether the UPS is right for your computer just by plugging the computer into it. An additional test is to disconnect the AC line.

Paul said it’s wise to get a UPS that has more power than you need. And look for one that has warranty that pays for your computer in case it gets fried.

Donny called. He said the advantage of laptop is that it’s battery acts as a backup to the power supply. If the AC goes out you don’t lose your work.

He also said his AT&T router has been going out regularly — 3 or 4 times a day. He thought it might have something to do with the weather.
– Paul suspected power surges might have damaged it. It’s fairly inexpensive so just replace it.
– He has solar that kicks in when PG&E goes out and that may cause spikes in the current.

Last Updated 1:13 AM 1-12-2017

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For a couple of months, the audio of today’s show is here. Recent shows are here.

Both Paul and Glenn were in the studio today.

Glenn thanked the listeners and supporters of KVMR. If you’d like to become a supporting member, you can call the KVMR office at 530-265-9073. If you’d like to talk to the guys during a Zen Tech show, call 530-265-9555 or send email to zen at kvmr dot org.

Paul was impressed by a device being used at a hospital where he was with a friend who was getting some blood drawn from her hand. It’s a hand-held device 6″ to 9″ long weighing about 9 oz. It has an infrared camera that scans the hand looking for temperature differences. It then projects an image back onto the hand showing black tracks where the veins are.

The device was made with off-the-shelf components — the infrared camera, a digital signal processor and a red LED with a lens on it. A Google search revealed that the device costs $6000.

Paul said a little know fact is that at the US patent office you can download most patents. You can copy the patent without violating the law, as long as you don’t make money from it. He noted that some people will get a patent and release it to the public. Jonas Salk did that with his polio vaccine and Tim Berners Lee with HTML (the structure for webpages).

Glenn reminded us that he was in the hospital about a year ago and had a device similar to what Paul talked about. But this one had a screen and was able to show the depth of his veins. They were looking for a vein because he had to be rehydrated. He said he’s back to normal now.

Paul wanted to find the vein-scanning device on Ebay. He found something advertised for $27 that looked like the right thing but was completely different. He used search terms that included the actual name of the manufacturer but still got steered to something different. He said to beware of such tricks that sellers use.

Paul said he enjoyed watching a documentary from Netflix called ‘Minimalists’ about a couple of guys with well-paid jobs who wanted for nothing. Apparently documentary had something to do with wanting things just to have them.

Paul briefly talked about Microsoft’s Surface. 8 to 10 years ago Microsoft had a project called the Surface Operating System. It was to work with different surfaces — kitchen table, office desk — to make it a “conscious surface”. If you put something on the surface, the operating system would recognize it.

Quite often technology consists of great solution in search of problems we didn’t know we had, Paul said. An example is the laser. When it was invented back in the 60s it didn’t seem to have many uses. Now, they’re used in many things including surgery where it both cuts and cauterizes the flesh.

Paul said there was a remarkable advance in cancer surgery. Someone thought of combining a laser knife and a gas chromatograph. Smoke from the burning flesh is fed into the chromatograph, which then analyzes it and tells the surgeon how the job is progressing. The inventor indicated he will patent it but then release it to the public for the greater good.

Paul talked a bit about magical thinking, which, to paraphrase, is assuming causal relationships. People have tendency to make connections between events that have nothing to do with each other. If you get a phone call about your aunt dying as you’re about to change a tire, you’re slightly more circumspect about changing a tires.

He thought females are less prone to magical thinking than guys when it comes to trouble shooting. Guys tend to “pre-fix” the problem by unjustifiably speculating about its cause. Paul said he sometimes has to catch himself at magical thinking when he would “assume I know what’s wrong because of what it looks like, not because of what it is”.

An example is when people assume they have a computer virus when their mouse pointer seems to move by itself on the screen. Changing the pointer’s position puts a surprising load on the system when it’s doing something else — the pointer has to be redrawn thousands of times to show movement. When the system finally is free to attend to the pointer, it seems to move by itself. A similar situation can occur when you’re typing into a document. You hit a bunch of keys and nothing happens, and a bit later the letters suddenly appear.

Glenn said he helped a friend who had a Windows 10 laptop with a problem by installing Kubuntu. He said the Linux operating system is bulletproof from virus. Paul interjected saying the virus problems are vanishingly small.

Glenn warned listeners, as he’s done before, not to open email from an unknown source. And if you do, don’t click on any links in the email. The links can take you to malicious places. You can end up on a site that looks authentic but is totally bogus. Paul said it can be hard to tell from the URL in the address bar if you’re on a legitimate website. For instance, you may think you’re on the Paypal site but the link may be something like www.paypal.com.xy.me/securitycheck. If you need to go to Paypal, use a link that’s worked for you before <from your bookmarks or personal notes>, don’t use the link in the email.

Also, Glenn said bogus email tends to be addressed “dear customer” instead of your name. Paul added that Mac users tend to be more careless than PC users because they think their platform is secure. There is no security from clicking on a bad link.

Saxon called from Fair Oaks. A while back he called about offline storage for his photographs. Paul suggested a solid state drive that plugs into his USB port. Using that along with Lightroom, his photos come off the camera and onto the drive. He said that’s been working great. He paid $65 for a 1 terabyte Segate SSD. The guys were incredulous about such a low price — one can expect to pay that for a spinning drive, not a SSD. They asked Saxon to send them a link to it.

He also has 4-year old 15″ Mac Book Pro and asked what he might do for routine maintenance. Paul said he can try the utility called Drivedx to check the integrity of the hard drive. He highly recommends it. It comes with a 15-day trial. It probably won’t work on drives connected to the USB, just SATA or M2 interface.

Another tip is to run “drive utils”. But, Paul recently worked with a Mac that had a problem when dragging a folder across the desktop, it would slow it to a crawl. He eventually found that the home directory folder had the wrong permissions. “Disk utilities” could not fix it.

Also, Saxon has a 4-year old iPhone full of data. He had trouble regaining some space so he did an erase and restore and it freed up some space. Additionally, Paul suggested emptying the cache of the Safari browser. Paul said he’s never been able to find an app that cleans out cached data. On Android there’s Clean Sweep. Paul asked listeners if they’ve found such an app for iPhone. Paul did a quick search and found an app called Phone Clean, but wasn’t sure what it’s all about.
<I couldn’t find Clean Sweep but I see some people refer to CleanMaster as Clean Sweep. I suspect that’s what he meant, since he’s mentioned it before>

Paul noted that one shouldn’t depend on iCloud to backup everything. It backs up a lot of the important stuff but not everything. Glenn said using iTunes to do the backup to your computer is the way to go.

Paul said the Mac OS and IOS are quite orderly and prevent people from getting at its guts, frustrating people who like to take control of things like the “library”, which stores the profiles.

The guys warned listeners who use H2O Wireless, which uses AT&T network but is cheaper. They perform monthly billing by sending out a text message. Glenn got a text message from them promoting a two-for-one bundle. It had the link h2owireles.com (missing an ‘s’). The email was indeed from H2O but someone there missed the ‘s’. Then, one of its subscribers noticed this and registered the domain h2owireles.com. So a mistake at H2O led to someone exploiting it by creating a bogus website.

John called. He has a Mac desktop computer on which he installed the Sierra operating system. It slowed down a lot and he can’t figure out why. He couldn’t get Apple tech support to resolve the problem.
– Turn off Siri. Go to Preferences and uncheck the box that says ‘use Siri’.

Paul related a quick anecdote. He was in a restaurant with a friend and they wanted to know the origin of the phrase “something’s rotten in the state of Denmark”. His friend used Siri and got the correct answer. When Paul used his iPhone and asked Siri the same question, Siri replied “Sorry?”.

Last Updated 12:13 AM 12-29-2016