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 < >

Both Glenn & Paul were in the studio today.

Paul posted some audio to test the podcasting system he put together for KVMR. He played a snippet of it on air. It’s open source music from a video game and it’s called Frozen Bubble. You can find it here.

Paul went on to say that the podcasts of KVMR programs you find at kvmr.org won’t contain music because the Digital Millenium Copyright Act prohibits it. The exception is music in the public domain, such as Frozen Bubble.

Paul changed the content management software that the Zen Tech website runs on.
– The site had been using Joomla 1.0 for about 9 years. At that time it was old software — it hasn’t been upgraded or otherwise supported since 1999.
– He found some software that allowed him to import all the old show notes into the new system called WordPress.
– Listeners can now post relevant comments, now that we’re using WordPress. The comments are moderated — someone checks them out before they’re made public.

Paul talked about TechSoup that makes popular software available at a discount. The KVMR workstations needed Windows 7 and Microsoft Office products that would have cost over $100 per station. TechSoup made them available at about $20 per copy. KVMR needed compatibility with Microsoft Office because that’s what’s used by much of the rest of the world — their underwriters, listeners, etc.

Initially, LibreOffice and OpenOffice were installed at KVMR, and they generally worked fine. But apparently, Microsoft Office has fewer compatibility issues. For instance, one of the staff uses Peach Tree accounting software, which expects Microsoft Excel when its data is transferred by the object link interface.

Glenn said he uses Microsoft Word and Excel for much of his work. He noted that the KVMR studio computer has LibreOffice and it looks similar to Word, but he hasn’t been able to find how to ‘Set Print Area’ as in Word, to create PDF documents. Paul said these MS Office suite look-alikes tend to mimic some of the quirks of Office because people have gotten used to them. Another place people may see a difference is in the formatting — fonts, spacing, margins, line intervals, etc.

The guys talked about how automation isn’t always a good choice for solving a problem. For instance, setting up a mail merge in a word processor may take longer than it would to make individual changes for each printout, if there are, say, less than 100 pages to print.

This was not the case when Paul tried to replicate in WordPress the SQL database Joomla uses. He wanted to use the same data but the layout was different for WordPress. He figured that many people have encountered this problem and that someone had found a solution. He did some searching and found a Frenchman had written the script <program> to do it. The result was that all the show notes are still available.

Paul said it’s easy to check a website, like Zen Tech, for links that don’t work anymore — because they’re old or the website was modified (e.g. converted to WordPress). After changing over to WordPress, he went here and generated a list of the bogus links.

You can also check the formatting of a webpage. This is to be sure the tags and style sheets are working the way they’re supposed to. Search engines don’t like invalid HTML code and will give your website a lower ranking because of it. Go here and enter the site you want to check. Be aware that it will aggressively access the website you’re testing and some webservers don’t like that. It’s like a stress test and you may want to limit it to your own site, assuming your host doesn’t mind.

You can also do a security check. Again, this check can be intense so limit it to your own website. Paul didn’t give any details.

If you want to see websites as they were in the past you can go to archive.org. It doesn’t always store an entire website, but usually a substantial portion. The first instance of zen.kvmr.org it has dates back to Dec 15, 2004.

Archive.org is not allowed to archive webpages if robots.txt forbids it. “It turned out to be a legal problem because individuals can have evidence used against them based on stuff their website said some time ago”.

Robots.txt is a text file telling search engines which parts of your website you don’t want scanned. Archive.org had to purge its archive (for each site) to comply with what robots.txt said when it first began to be used a few years ago, but much was retained. Paul said they’ve also archived a lot of audio, too.

Paul asked Glenn what he does for TV. Glenn said he’s still looking at his options. He has a smart Sony Blue Ray player that provides Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Crackle, etc. He’s been thinking about Apple TV.
– With your Apple ID, everything you’ve purchased will be available thru Apple TV.
– If the Apple TV is on the same network as a Mac, iPhone or iPad, the Apple TV can display what’s on the screen of those devices.
– It allows you to use your iPhone or iPad as a remote control.
– But then Glenn said when he was using a friends Apple TV, he couldn’t find Amazon Prime. Paul thought it might have something to do with competition, because Amazon tends to favor Google and Android.

Paul said he’s had a Roku 1000 for many years. It allows you to add apps. One of which is the TED app that allows you to browse and play TED talks. Several thousand apps are available for it.

Paul got a Chomecast unit for about $35. It’s a tiny unit about the size of large flash drive. It has an HDMI port on one end and a micro USB port on the other. You plug it into your TV’s HDMI port. All you need to do then is download the Chromecast app to your PC to be able to send your entertainment media to the Chromecast unit.

On the Mac you have to use the Chrome browser, download an app that runs on the Mac and provides the link to the Chromecast unit thru the local network, and then add a plugin to the Chrome browser. Having done that, you can then send to the Chromecast unit any tab you have open in the Chrome browser. You can also send Netflix content to the unit. If you’re watching a Youtube video, you can send that to Chromecast.

Glenn said he’s seen a Chromebook on a stick called Chromebit. It too is about the size of a large flash drive. It has 1 or 2 gig of RAM and 15 gig of storage. You just plug it into your TV. He said he doesn’t know how you attach a keyboard and mouse to it, but you end up with a computer using your TV screen.
<Google’s Chromebit turns any TV into a Chrome PC for under $100>
<Intel Compute Stick, a $150 HDMI dongle that does the same thing.
It has Window 8.1 with a 64bit quad core Atom Baytrail CPU and 2gig of RAM.>

Paul mentioned that Google is trying to converge the Chromebook operating system with Android. Chromebooks don’t have a lot of apps, just the basic stuff — email, browser and word processor. Android, on the other hand, has well over a million apps. Paul thinks this will be a “game changer”.

Paul mentioned that Microsoft might give away their next operating system, Windows 10. He thinks the value will not be in the operating system but the stuff they’ll be able to sell you thru the operating system. They plan to have their own app store.

Paul again mentioned Lubuntu as a replacement for older versions of Windows on older hardware.

Paul said Stan Freberg died yesterday at the age of 88. He played an excerpt from a CD of Stan doing a sketch about Alexander Graham Bell and the invention of the telephone.

Glenn thanked Zen Tech’s benefactor Quietech Associates. They’ve been providing local tech support since 1985. They’re at 465 South Auburn Street Grass Valley.

David called in from the Valley of the Moon near Sonoma, He has an old Acer Aspire 1 netbook with an Atom chip, a 10.5″ screen and Windows XP. The drivers need updating and he wonder if that was worth it.
– With XP it becoming significantly out of date and vulnerable to a virus.
– Some people have hacked the Android OS to run on netbooks.
– Glenn has seen a cut-down version of Windows 7 that runs on netbooks but it’s not sold retail.
– Try the Acer web to see if there’s a way of getting Android to work on it. <The forum section is often a great place to pick up tips>
– Keep using it as is. Just don’t keep information on it that you don’t want stolen.

Last Updated 10:40 PM 4/8/2015

– The site had been using

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 < >

Both Paul & Glenn were in the studio today.

Glenn said the check engine light in his car came on and he went over to Paul's house to borrow his OBD2 code reader to diagnose the problem. After some research and finding the right software, he discovered the car had a problem with the emission control system. He cleared it of the error state and decided to wait and see if it comes back, before fixing the problem.

OBD stands for on board diagnostics. The device works with cars made since about 1999 that have a socket for it to plug into. Garage mechanics have an expensive diagnostic tool that plugs into the socket to determine the condition of the car.

The software Glenn found for his iPhone communicated with Paul's OBD2 to find out what error codes his car was sending. His iPhone connected to the OBD2 using wi-fi. He wanted to use Bluetooth instead so he could then use wi-fi to get on the net and search for the meaning of the error codes. But he couldn't get his iPhone to talk to the OBD2 via Bluetooth, though Paul's Nexus tablet, running Android, had no problem connecting to the device. Glenn was not able to find similar software for his iPad.

Bluetooth has gone thru at least 3 manifestations since it appeared some 12 to 15 years ago, Paul said. But he had trouble believing that the OBD he got from China has Bluetooth so advanced that the iPhone can't talk to it.

The OBD operates in 2 modes. It stores any error codes that indicate problems and it can continually send dynamic info such as engine rpm, inlet vacuum, fuel consumption, etc.

Glenn mentioned that freight trucks here in the US have barcode on them and that weigh stations along freeways have barcode readers deployed a couple of miles before a truck gets to the scales. As a truck approaches the scales, its barcode is read, allowing the scale operators to decide if they want the truck to be inspected or to bypass the scale facility.

Paul had his Nexus 7" tablet with him. It's the 2013 edition <2nd edition as I recall>. They're now up to the 4th edition and is made by ASUS. It's the only Android tablet with the Google name on it and the one that developers tend to use. All of the editions are eligible for the latest operating system update — version 5.1 called Lollipop. Google staggers the updates so only a certain percentage of users will get the update on a given day. The updates tend to become slimmer (take less memory) and use less power to minimize battery drain.

Paul is grudgingly getting used to using the touch screen. Glenn took to it quickly but still prefers a full keyboard if he has much typing to do. If he uses the iPad in landscape mode (held horizontally), he can type pretty well, but the iPhone is just too small, Glenn said.

Always looking to reuse and recycle, Paul has settled on Lubuntu (a version of Linux) as a replacement operating system for computers currently running Windows XP.
– It doesn't have a great demand for hardware resources and is therefore more suitable for older computers. Be sure to get the 386 version, Paul said. <I think he meant the 32bit version>.
– It doesn't look like XP but it's familiar enough that people should be comfortable with the transition.
– He said it comes with Open Office or its offshoot Libre Office. Both are replacements for Microsoft Office.
– Glenn helped a computer illiterate friend install a version of Ubuntu and she's been getting along with it just fine.
<About Lubuntu (see "External links" on that page)>

Windows 7 & 8 are not, strictly speaking, multi-user systems. They are single user systems with multiple logins. To run some updates, like for the anti-virus, requires an administrator privilege. Ordinary users have a lower privilege. At KVMR there's software that runs as an administrator to do the updates while an ordinary user is also logged in and browsing the internet. This situation opens a computer to being exploited by malware, which elevates its privilege to administrator. This is less likely to occur on Linux and Mac machines.

Glenn said Apple services like iTunes do not let people with AOL email addresses to login. The same is true if your email ends in @me.com.

Ellen called. When she was working for a particular company, there was no company email so she used a her personal email to get an Apple ID <for company use, I guess>. Once she left the job, "the Mac continues to default to the old Apple ID". She changed her email address but she still gets notifications when the user of that computer tries to do something that involves Apple. She asked, "is there a way to disconnect the Apple ID from the computer".
– You need to log in to your Apple ID on a web page using a browser.>
– On that page click the button 'Manage your Apple ID' and use your former email address and the associated password.
– Then change the password on the account so that Mac can't log in as you any more. Or you can change the email address. But she said she's already done that.
– Paul asked if there's another device that uses that Apple ID, like an iPhone. She said no. She added that the notification she gets comes to a backup email address.
– Eventually Paul realized that what's happening is that the notifications come when the current Mac user tries to log in and fails. If they try that often enough, they'll be blocked, he said.
– "In order to get around this, would be to change the email address itself so that email address is no longer valid, so neither the email address nor the password is valid on that Mac", Paul said.
– Again, she said she's changed the email address. Paul said "it shouldn't be notifying you".
– The person currently using the Mac should create their own Apple ID at that website.
<It seems like she should change the backup email address, if that's where she's getting the notifications.>

Richard called. He's a former Windows XP user who switched to Linux (to Mint 16 Cinnamon). He likes it so far and it's pretty stable. He wants to know how to determine what hardware works with Linux. In particular, he'd like to get a sound card.
– If the hardware is pretty mainstream, Linux should work fine with it.
– At the command line issue the command 'lspci' <maybe ls pci> to get a list of devices plugged into the motherboard that it recognizes. Similarly, 'lsusb' <maybe ls usb> will list the devices using USB.
– Most stuff works without additional software. Typically you don't have to download drivers.
– Alternately, go to Ebay and get a USB sound card for $3 or $4. It should work without additional drivers on both Windows & Linux machines.
<New features in Linux Mint 16 Cinnamon
You can download it here>

Richard also said he hasn't been able to update the Flash player on his machine.
– Somewhere in the Mint menus, look for where it says update or upgrade Mint. That will usually get the newer Flash player, too.
– Get Chrome, the browser made by Google, which uses HTML5 — websites are gradually replacing Flash content with HTML5.

Richard asked if it's possible to run iTunes on Linux.
– No but you can use WINE to run some Windows programs. Then use iTunes for Windows.
– For more info, search for the words: mint wine.
<This webpage gives some guidance.>
<A little more about Wine here.>

Finally, Richard asked about listening to audio on Linux. Paul said try VLC (Video Lan). It's a great program that plays various formats and video too. It's available for Windows & Mac.

Last update 12:07 AM 3/26/2015

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 < >

The intro music was by Pentatonix.

Paul was in the studio. Glenn called in from the Bay Area. There were other KVMR personnel in the studio who remained pretty quiet during the show.

March 14 from noon (maybe 11am) to 4pm will be the official celebration of the new KVMR facility at 120 Bridge Steet. The public is invited

The Zentech show is made possible in part by Quietech Associates. They've been providing local tech support since 1985.
They're at 465 South Auburn Street Grass Valley

Glenn is still using IOS 7.1 on both his iPhone & iPad and has not upgraded to version 8.1 yet. His iPad is continuing to do updates but the iPhone has stopped updating because it's not using IOS 8.1.

Paul got a PCI diagnostic board (link above) from China for $13. PCI is a hardware standard specifying the way in which cards (circuit boards) are inserted into a slot in a computer's motherboard.

The diagnostic board, when put into one of the PCI slots, will display error codes generated by the computer when there is a problem. You can then look up the meaning of the codes online. It can report errors even if the computer is largely dead — as long as there are signals on the PCI lines. It also indicates the state of the power supply voltages.

The ATX power supply, that's widely used in today's computers, has a special line along which it sends a signal to the motherboard telling it that the power is good. Only then does the motherboard "fire up".

Lyle called. He accidentally lost the contacts on his iPhone. He also has an iPad where a copy of the contacts is still intact. And he's using the cloud <presumably iCloud>.
– On the iPad go to the settings (cog-shaped icon) and check to see if you have only one account on iCloud. Both iPhone & iPad have to be using the same account <as I understand it>.
– The iPhone may have "disconnected" from the iCloud account.
– Be careful. If you synchronize the iPhone without its contacts, it may clear the contacts off the cloud. Paul didn't explain further.
– Glenn suggested he call Apple for help to be sure he doesn't lose his contacts altogether.

Glenn said he was surprised to find out that Bluetooth speakers are not stereo. Paul said he's read up on Bluetooth recently and it "doesn't have a lot of facilities to make high quality audio". That's mainly because it's subject to "interference and fade". But he has indeed seen Bluetooth stereo speakers.
<The transmitting device & speakers must both have the A2DP profile for stereo to work>

Paul mentioned KVMR's podcast. Go to kvmr.org and click the 'Listen' button. You'll find podcasts of various shows, some going back about 5 years. <They are mostly talk shows. There are copyright issues with music shows, so you won't find many podcasts for them>

Paul talked a little more about the diagnostic board he bought. Unlike his old PCI board, this one displays the actual voltages coming from the power supply. The ATX power supply of the computer does a self-check after the voltage has some time to stabilize. "The on/off switch of the computer is not actually a power switch at all. It's a signal to the power supply: "we're good to go"". When you plug the power supply into the diagnostic board, the board itself gives the go ahead signal for the power supply to power up.

Paul then talked about smart meters — the kind used for domestic gas & electricity monitoring. He saw a $99 offer by PG&E for an in-home device to show electricity usage. That set him on learning adventure about the wireless technology used by smart meters.
– They use a protocol called Zigbee. The word comes from the dance honey bees use to tell the other bees where the nectar is. The bees learn the information and pass it on from one bee to the next.
– The Zigbee is a mesh network where each power meter relays information to a nearby meter, and that one to the next one. Somewhere in your neighborhood is a master router.
– The Zigbee protocol use encryption to keep the info secure.
– The protocol consumes little power, transmits intermittently (not continuously) and very little data is transmitted. So there should be no concern about the effects of radio frequency radiation from the meters.
– The information gleaned from the data allows power companies to monitor for voltage spikes, brownouts, outages, etc.
– There are units using Zigbee for other types of in-home monitoring — e.g. monitoring the temperature of the butter in your refrigerator. One such proprietary device is called Nova sold by Home Depot.
<A Zigbee tutorial here.>

Ross called to ask Paul if he actually got the $99 unit from PG&E. Paul said he didn't and that he's been trying to find a cheaper way to do it.

Ross also said that a SIM card maker in Holland was hacked by the NSA and a similar agency in England. The codes that allow the SIM cards to generate a cipher were stolen. He didn't hear anything more about it since the initial report and wondered of Paul knew anything about it. Apparently this is the first Paul's heard of it.
<NSA helped British steal cell phone codes from Gemalto, the world’s biggest manufacturer of SIM cards, a couple of articles here, here and here >

Ross said that someone in <our> government said there had been a ten-year effort to create an X code <OSX I guess> to mimic the Mac computer code <operating system>. Supposedly they were successful and now they are able to insert bogus apps that spy on people. Paul thought he might have been talking about the MAC address.

Ross also mentioned a "shark device" that can spoof a cell phone tower. Using it, the police can make a cell phone think it's connected to a legitimate tower while spying on people by recording the data being transmitted. <Sounds like he was talking about the Stingray aka IMSI catcher >
– Ross heard that the Stingray collects data even if the phone is off.
– Paul said that in standby mode a cell phone still communicates with the tower. If you turn the phone off completely they won't be able to intercept your data, Paul said.
<Some articles about the stingray devices here.>
<An app to detect a Stingray device
The download link for the app>

Last update 10:37 PM 3/11/2015

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 < >

The intro music was by Pentatonix.

Both Glenn & Paul were in the studio today.

This afternoon, between 3 & 4pm, KVMR will move into their new studios across the street..
– The email addresses will remain the same.
– The fax number will be the same. The station uses the Myfax service, which for a small fee, up to 100 incoming faxes per month are distributed to a maximum of 5 email addresses as .pdf files.
– The phone numbers will also stay the same but the extension numbers have changed. The new system has 4 digit numbers, though the last 2 digits will still be the same, for most extensions.
– The new phone system is largely voice over IP (VOIP).

Paul mentioned a curious thing about phone numbers. "A long time ago, if you were dialing an area code somewhere else, you'd put a 1 in front of it. In the days of manual exchanges, 1 would attempt to make an automated call. If you put a 0 in front of it, the operator at the other end would receive the phone number you made and route it for you".

The guys reminisced about the days of rotary dial telephones. In Britain they have STD (Subscriber Trunk Dialing). And their emergency number is 999 (the equivalent of our 911). The higher digits were to prevent misdialing on rotary phones (with pulse dialing), if you had a sporadic line or interference.

Marilyn called. She bought an anti-virus program and it came with a bonus tune-up disk. She had some reservations about running it and wanted an opinion first.
– Just because it came with the anti-virus program doesn't mean the company endorses it. The disk could be from another company partnering with the 1st one.

Marilyn said her computer is starting to slow down and wondered if a cleanup is what's needed.
– A proper tune-up will make it go faster, in Paul's opinion. Whether it's worth the cost & effort is not always clear.
– The longer it's been without a tune-up, the bigger difference it will make.
– Glenn agreed but said proceed with caution if you're going to use an online service.
– The Microsoft Security Essentials anti-virus is no longer recommended for protection.
– A suite of programs that Paul likes for a tune-up includes Ccleaner, Eusing, and Ntregopt.
– Ccleaner is donation driven and donations have been dismal. "So they're strongly motivated to do something I really don't like, which is they sometimes deliver a newer version with a payload, which will be a toolbar that you don't want", Paul said. Then, when you install it, there'll be a tiny button <or check box> to skip the installation. But it may not be clear if it's to skip the installation of the toolbar or the program itself. <Paul didn't explain the advantage to the company in doing this and the only thing I can think of is that someone is paying them for including the toolbar>
– Paul, as well as KVMR, is using Avast as an anti-virus. "It's quite good at spotting these silly toolbars".
– Ccleaner is used widely and has a reputation to maintain.
<Not as important as the other two, Ntregopt does registry optimization for Windows NT/2000/2003/XP. Here's one place you can get it

Read where it says "BleepingComputer Review:" before using the program>

Tim called. He has a friend with an email problem on a Mac. When she uses a free wi-fi service, the email can be sent ok. But she can't send email while using her in-home wi-fi.
– Many years ago the standard port for sending email was port 25. The problem is that the port "allows unauthenticated or unverified emails to get out", so "it was exploited and used in evil ways". If she's had this account for a long time, the odds are high it was set up to use port 25 to send the email. Some providers no longer support this port — e.g. AT&T or Comcast.
– Contact the free wi-fi provider. Explain the situation to them and they may be able to make a quick change to resolve the problem.
<Here's what Comcast has to say about no longer supporting port 25 for email. It lists other providers who don't use port 25>

Michael called. He uses a Windows XP Professional, which Microsoft no longer supports, and he wondered if there's after market support for it or should he be thinking about getting a new computer.
– You'll have to get a new computer when this one gives up the ghost or becomes unstable.
– Up until a few weeks ago, many of the computers at KVMR were running XP, even though support ended in April 2014.
– Again, don't use Microsoft Essentials on it. Avast & Avg are good anti-virus program and are still available for XP.
– Don't use the Internet Explorer browser. It's always had problems. Michael uses Chrome and Paul said it sometimes doesn't update itself. Go to settings and initiate the update manually. Paul thinks Chrome may be more secure and leaner than Firefox.
– Getting back to his question, Paul knows of no after market support for XP.
– Consider refurbished computers. You can get them with Windows 7 for well under $200 and you can use your existing keyboard, monitor and mouse. It should have a 1-year warranty and you can add a year by using a credit card.

Michael said that recently his XP has had trouble booting to Windows. It goes to the Dos like screen with the options for 'recovery', 'console' or 'Windows XP'. It does this a few times in a row even though he keeps picking 'Windows XP'.
– Paul said back up the computer right away, it may be close to dying completely.

Michael asked about using the drive from his old machine with the new one.
– Glenn said you can get an enclosure costing $15 to $40, put the drive into it and use it as an external hard drive.

Paul said you can install a version of Linux from a bootable CD on an old machine. That should overwrite and sensitive data and you'll end up with a useable machine. <First, make sure you've transferred or backed up the data>.

Evan called. He recently moved to a new location in Grass Valley and the only internet he can get is with a satellite service, which he thinks is terrible. There is a good signal in his area from AT&T wireless and he's seen people selling their own unlimited data plans <for AT&T> on Ebay. Paul was surprised that AT&T allows people to transfer these old and no longer available data plans to another individual. Evan said this is true of similar Verizon data plans, which go for about $1000 on Ebay (and then you take over the monthly contract). Evan plans to check the speed of the AT&T wireless service using his sister's phone, when she comes to visit him. Paul said there's an app called Speedtest he can use. Check the speed in the evening too, when many people use the service at the same time.

Other terrestrial wireless services near Nevada City to consider: Smarter Broadband; Spiral Internet and Digital Path. Expect there to be a cap on the data, except with Digital Path. Also check out ColfaxNet.

Anama called to say she has the Smarter Broadband service and likes it alot. "they're wonderful", she said.

Last update 11:01 PM 2/25/2015

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 < >

Podcasts of some Zentech shows are here.

Both Paul & Glenn were in the studio today

Paul talked about how the internet has made it easier to find gifts for the holidays. Some people say it's too easy. We quickly spend our money rather than spend the time shopping. "The thing of value, which is time, has been replaced by the thing of indifference, which is money", he said.

Paul went on to tell us one of the most profound things he's learned on the internet. He talked about a hospice nurse who, for 20 or 30 years, had been helping people at the end of their lives. She conveyed what she learned was of value to her patients. There were 2 things the patients considered valuable — love and relationships. And there were regrets that most shared…
– People said they wish they hadn't worked so hard.
– People wished they had told those close to them that they loved them.
– They wished they had used their time better.
– And they wished they had spent more time with those who mattered to them.

On this last point Paul opined that we've made such an effort to make our lives so efficient that our lives have gotten cluttered up with trivia <to the exclusion of spending time with loved ones>.

Glenn had an update about his Ring.to phone service <mentioned on the last show >. It doesn't transcribe incoming calls, like he had thought. However, it does send him a text message with the voice mail audio attached.

One of the reasons he went to Ring.to was to maintain ownership of his phone number when he terminated his NetTalk account. The services Ring.to offers are free for now. On the next show, Glenn plans to explain how they can offer the service for free.

Paul noted that viral marketing could be the reason companies give things away for free. Word-of-mouth is worth a lot in terms of advertising.

Paul mentioned that he was unhappy with Freedom Pop <mentioned on the 10-9-13 show>. The company sells you a mi-fi unit for about $20 so you can have a wireless hotspot to use with a laptop or tablet. In his case they couldn't activate it because there was no 4G cellular service in his area. They said if he wanted to use it with 3G, he'd have to pay $3.95/mo. He decided to give it a try, but 2 problems came up.
– He took the unit to San Francisco, where 4G was available, but couldn't use the 4G because the plan he was now paying for was only for 3G.
– The 2nd problem was that they started charging him $10/mo for some mysterious reason, in spite of the check mark on their website that said "do not auto-decrement my credit card". He eventually got the money back.

Betsie called to let us know about youmail.com. The service sends your phone's voice mail to you as an audio file. The service is free and their webpage has mobile apps available for Android and Apple devices. The company tries to sell you related services, which you're not obligated to buy.

Paul talked about having Coryon Redd on the show previously and he had suggestions for promoting yourself or business on social media sites. The key sites were Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin.
– Facebook is like going to the pub or bar where you have your familial clan relationship with up to maybe 160 people. Facebook reflects a clan structure where you have a reasonable familiarity with up to 160 friends.
– Linkedin is your professional network, though it's lost some relevance lately.
– Twitter's structure is more like people around the water cooler where you hear about the latest news or gossip.

Paul talked about a trip to the bay area and his experience with the tolls on the various bridges. Going South on the Golden Gate there was no one collecting a toll. But about a week later he received a notice in the mail asking him to pay the toll.

That got Glenn talking about the FasTrak.
– As long as you have some money on deposit, $25 he thought, it doesn't cost anything to use.
– When you use a toll bridge, the toll is deducted from the account.
– Some places in southern California allow you to use the HOV lane with the FasTrak.
– FasTrak can be used anywhere in California.
– There are no toll takers on the Golden Gate at all. You can use FasTrak or a picture is taken of your license plate when you pass thru — as Paul found out.
– If you go thru in a rental car without a FasTrak, the rental car company will charge you about $25 — for the toll + service fee.
– The FasTrak is a transponder that you can get from Costco.
– The down side is that your location can be tracked <and used against you in court>. Some Bay Area residents have proposed using Bitcoins, instead of credit cards, for anonymity.
– You can associate 1 or more cars with a FasTrak so if, for some reason, it malfunctioned at a toll plaza, you would not be penalized for a violation.

While talking about the anonymity of Bitcoin, Paul said people have been putting "wheresgeorge.com" on $1 & $10 bills. If you go to that site, you can see where these dollar bills have been.

Neil called in. He had called a couple of months ago about getting a blank screen for some websites when using Internet Explorer. At that time, it was suggested he restore the IE settings to their factory defaults. <See the notes for the 11-26-14 show>. He said the suggestion worked.

At that time it was also suggested he use a different browser. He tried Firefox but didn't like it. He tried Chrome and it was working fine. But then he went back to using IE and it was loading pages like he was on a bad dialup connection <slow>.
– Having used Chrome would not cause such a problem.
– There are 2 ways to check additional settings in Internet explorer: using either the Control Panel -> Internet Options, or using Internet Explorer -> Tools -> Internet Options -> Programs -> Manage Addons. There you'll find other addons that got installed. "Anything you don't understand, kill it". You can't remove the items, just click the 'disable' button.
– If you use Spybot Search and Destroy, you can kill 'browser helper objects'.
– Neil said he had done a system restore to get it to work right.

William called. He had been using Ccleaner. <They talked at the same time so I couldn't make out what his problem was>. Paul seemed to hear him ok and the problem had something to do with passwords.
– Ccleaner can remove saved passwords from websites, but there is a check box to stop it from doing that. Your main goal is to clear out the cache and you can use the check boxes to specify what else you want to clean out or keep.

William also asked if there are alternatives to using Ccleaner.
– Though Ccleaner cleans your registry, you can try Eusing for that.

On the 1-28-15 show William called about transferring iTunes to a new machine and wanted to clarify what folder he's supposed to transfer.
– It's not the iTunes folder in the Media Library folder. The folder you want is the iTunes folder in the Music folder.
– Just copy the folder, don't delete it on the old machine, in case something goes wrong.
– Paul said if you're going to mess with the iTunes library, it's important you go to Google and search for the words: consolidate itunes music. Some of the music may reside outside of the library.

Last Update 10:16 PM 2/11/2015