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 limited time, the podcast of today’s show is here. Recent shows are here.

Both Paul & Glenn were in the studio today.

Glenn started off by thanking the loyal listeners & supporters of KVMR. If you’d like to become a supporting member, please visit kvmr.org.

Paul noted Beatles music producer George Martin has died at age 90.

He went on to say that session musicians were hired to add orchestral music to the Beatles albums. These days sampled music can be bought and mixed in as needed. Apparently, copyright issues are worked out for each use, according to Paul.

Paul went on to say that you no longer have to write ‘copyright’ on what you create — you just have to “make sure it’s witnessed in some form”. The law changed some years ago and using the letter c in a circle along with the date doesn’t have the legal weight that it used to.

Paul brought up the question of “who has the right to your face if your picture is taken in public”. Common law says you must reasonably your picture to be taken in public “even if it’s a compromising picture, as long as you’re not doing something illegal”. Paul clarified that if the picture shows you doing something illegal, you’re out of luck. <Sounds to me like you have no rights to your public photo.> Paul disclaimed legal expertise.

Paul talked about Getty Images where webmasters go to obtain images to adorn their websites. The images come with a variety of limitations on their use. In the Free Web Art portion of their website, they have images that are free for you to use.

Paul said there are companies that scour the net looking for images that are used with out permission. A friend of his was caught using such an image and was sent an email trying to impose a penalty of $500. But it’s hard to know if an email like that is legit or a scam. Paul said that on the internet you’re supposed to get cease & desist order first with no threat of a fine, and you’re given a chance to delete the image. <He didn’t say what his friend did next.>

Glenn mentioned a website called Webshots that makes images and screen savers available. Paul said that they were very popular about 10 years ago, and were rated #5 in web traffic. Webshots lets the public submit pictures for a chance to win prizes, but the pictures become the property of Webshots.

The guys speculated that Webshots’ screen saver will work with the latest operating systems Windows 7 and Windows 10. Their program is called webshots.scr. Paul was impressed by the beauty of their images but he doesn’t use it anymore.
<What is webshots.scr?
More info about it here>

Ron called. He’s experienced theft of images from his website by entities in India that pass them off as their own. He wanted to know what he could do short of spending a lot of money on an attorney.
– Paul didn’t think there are readily available resources to deal with this on an international level. If it were just in the U.S., it would still be expensive.
– You can try to find out who is behind the Indian website with a whois search. You can also use domaintools to get similar info.
– The next step is to find out who is hosting the Indian website and complain the he hosting service that one of their clients has copyrighted material.
– You can also ask Google to not display that company in their search results. Do Google search with the words: google dmca take down.
<I found a couple of webpages to get you started.
Removing Content From Google
Legal Removal Requests
How to Remove Copied Content From Google Search using DMCA>

Glenn gave out the contact info for this show.
You can call during the show at 530-265-9555
Or write to zen@kmvr.org
The website is zen.kvmr.org

Originally InterNIC was a government entity that registered domain names. Registering is done to associate the URL <like xyz.com> of a website with an ip address <so, for example, New York Magazine (nymag.com) will have the ip address 23.235.33.204.> Now, there are many companies that can register your website — such as namesheet.com and godaddy.com. Sometimes, as with godaddy.com, the process is complicated.

Paul said that Google is a good choice for registering your domain name. It’s $12 per year and there’s blogging service that comes with it. To check them out, go to googledomains.com or google.com/domains.

In the last 3+ years since he got his iPad & iPhone, Glenn hardly uses a desktop computer anymore, except if he has to do a lot of typing. Paul noted some of the differences between a traditional computer and a tablet…
– Not all applications run the same way on both.
– The tablet has less horsepower because the emphasis is on saving weight and energy.
– The tablet has less storage capacity and fewer choices for external media (like a CDROM drive).
– Some tablets lack an external port, though Android tablets generally come with a USB port. If it’s a OTG (On The Go) USB, you can get an adapter that allows you to plug in a USB memory stick <and other USB devices — keyboard, mouse, etc.>. So the USB, normally used for charging and transferring file, becomes like the familiar USB slot on your desktop computer. <Many Androids come with a microSD memory card slot, too — very handy>.
– The only way to know if a tablet will work for you is to get one.

One problem Paul’s found with iPhones is if people want to synch their contacts and calendar, they generally have to resort to the Outlook program on the PC, which he called a nightmare.

People may not generally be aware that if they have data on iCloud, it can be accessed from any computer.

Paul said Flickr will let you store up to 1 terabyte of photos for free. Be aware that it can take a long time to upload a terabyte of pictures.
– Other services that offer varying amounts of free storage include Skydrive from Microsoft, Google Drive, iCloud from Apple, Dropbox, Evernote and Flickr.
– If you want 1 terabyte on iCloud, it costs $10/mo.
– Paul likes Google Drive, he gets 15gig of free storage and the ability to edit files of different formats — like .pdf.
– Flickr offers you so much storage because it wants to sell you other services — hard copy prints of your photos, Christmas cards with your images, etc.

Microsoft came into the tablet market rather late with their Surface tablets. The RT version of the Windows operating system, which ran on an ARM prcessor, is officially dead, Paul said. The Surface tablets with RT can still be found for sale. You can replace the RT operating system with Linux.

Latest generation of LED flashlights put out a pleasant white light rather than the fluorescent blue light of older models. The truer white light due to the phosphor coating on the lens. The bluish light of the LED source hits the phosphor, which gets excited and reemits a longer, more pleasant wavelength of light.

Paul wondered how dangerous LED lasers are <laser pointers I assume>. His research turned up very few injuries from shining these 35miliwatt lasers directly into eyes (but don’t try it). However, he did discover that there is a chance of eye injury from the LED flashlights because they use a higher wattage. You may want to at least keep them away from children.

Karen called. She tried saving pictures from her iPhone to her PC and ended up with hundreds of folders with a couple of pictures in each. The photos were automatically deleted from the iPhone.
– First, backup the pictures, maybe to a flash drive, before trying to correct the situation.
– Manually go into each folder and drag each photo into one destination folder.
– Or, google for the words: windows utilities. It can automate the copying process.
– When you plug in the iPhone, Windows is supposed to treat it like a camera and offer to import the photos. It may not have done that in her case. Paul suggested she google the words: import pictures and videos using windows, to find out how to configure windows to do it automatically. <See Peter’s tip below>

Neal called. He has a PC and a Mac on a network and a printer directly connected to the Mac. He wants to know how to make the PC use the printer.
– Check to see if the printer can be connected to the router — does it say Ethernet or wi-fi on the front?
– The less preferred method is to share the printer from the Mac. Go to preferences on the Mac (the gray cog) -> printers icon (you should see a printer that says USB interface) -> click on the printer (the name of the one attached to the Mac) -> tick the check box that says “share this printer”
– Then on the PC look for the network printers and you should see it there if it’s been turned on.

Peter called with a tip for Karen (above) to make copying the pictures easier. He said go to the folder that has those hundreds of folder and do a search (control+F or F3 or whatever Vista OS uses). Search for just a ‘*’. That should bring up all of her photo files onto one screen. She can then select and drag a bunch of pictures at a time, instead of going into each folder individually.

Gina called. She got a 2007 iMac from a friend recently and wanted to know how usable it is and if it can be upgraded. She managed to find the serial number and would like to know more about it. Paul suggested she go to appleserialnumberinfo.com. Enter the serial number there and it will tell you all sorts of things, including whether there are any recall notices.

Last Updated 12:01 AM 3-10-2016

/p

There was no show on 1-27-16 due to a membership drive

On 2-10-16 Paul & Glenn were out of town and again there was no show. In its place, an interesting Radiolab show was played. It was about the experience of a woman who had to pay a ransom to have the files on her computer returned to her control. The second half was about how these and similar scammers operate. This segment was about 40 min long. There was an interview at the end to fill out the hour.

The audio to the entire show should be available for about 2 months here. After that, you can go here for the Radiolab segment.

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 limited time, the podcast of today’s show is here. Recent shows are here. For podcasts of other KVMR programs go to archive.kvmr.org.

Paul was in the studio. We didn’t hear from Glenn.

The intro music was “Start Me Up” by The Rolling Stones. It was used by Microsoft for the ad campaign with the rollout of Win95. Paul misremembered when he said it was for Windows 3.1.

Paul talked a bit about the effort of the FBI to gain entry into an iPhone used by a suspect in the San Bernardino mass shooting. A request was made of Apple for help. Given enough time, the FBI can probably break into the phone, Paul said. The FBI wants Apple to replace iOS 9.2, the operating system of the phone, with a version that will allow the FBI to try an unlimited number of passwords until they guess the correct one. The way it works now is that with each guess the time interval between allowed guesses is progressively increased.

Later generations of iPhone & iPad have a fingerprint scanner built into the home button. When a finger is scanned, the print isn’t directly compared to fingerprints stored in some database. Instead, the data from the print is encrypted in such a way that it can be matched up only with another one like it — it’s the uniquely encoded data that’s compared.

Paul related a story about a journalist who dropped his iPhone and caused the home button to come out. He had the button replaced at a 3rd party repair shop with a button from China. He originally got his iPhone 6 with iOS 8 on it. After the repair, when the phone was upgraded to iOS 9, the new operating system noticed that the button was not part of the original hardware and locked the phone. The journalist wasn’t even using his fingerprint to secure the phone. The lesson is, have Apple do such repairs. If you’re interested in how the hardware and software in iPhone’s security works, Paul suggested searching for the words: secure enclave.

Fingerprints are not hard to fake. Ironically, the prints from your handling the phone can be lifted off. Some time back the Mythbusters showed how it can be done. The sensor is not able to tell if the print it’s seeing is part of a finger or fake or even from a dead person.

A caller, who’s name I couldn’t decipher, with a Mac Pro said it has trouble reading CDs.
– The lens may have dust on it. There are CDs made specifically for cleaning, Paul said. The caller said he’s tried that with no improvement.
– You can try a can of compressed air to clean the lens. The caller said he’s tried that, too.
– Buy an external CD drive for about $30 — ideally one that uses a Firewire connection. Be sure to get the correct type — with either a SATA or parallel interface.
– From the caller’s description, he has the older parallel interface. Go to Ebay or Amazon and search for the words: parallel cd rom drive. You may have to settle for a used or refurbished unit, as new ones are no longer made. Try to get one with a warranty.
– If the Mac has a PCI slot, you may be able to find an adapter card that provides a SATA interface. However, you may be pushing your luck with this approach.
– Try to disassemble the errant drive to clean it.

Brian called to say he’s heard that the iPhone in the San Bernardino case will destroy the data it contains after 10 failed attempts to guess the password. He asked Paul if that was true. Paul said he believed it’s true.

Brian’s other question is how does a smartphone lock us out? What actually makes that happen? Paul said, basically, it’s the firmware — the iOS operating system that does it.

Brian than asked if the firmware can be accessed to gain entry. Paul said, the iPhone has a hard-wired interface that can be connected to a computer and can communicate a certain amount of information. This can be exploited. This is what’s used to jailbreak an iPhone.

Paul raised the possibility that the FBI already has the information it needs and that its pursuit of Apple’s cooperation is to hide from the public its ability to crack the iPhones.

Paul talked about steganography. This is a way of hiding information in the data that comprises a picture — gif, jpg, png, etc..

“Fred Flintstone” called. He’s using an XP computer and is ready to go to a new PC. He’s currently using Outlook Express and wants to know how to transfer emails to a new machine, likely running Win10.
– Paul doesn’t recommend using the email programs that come with Win7 or Win10. Use Thunderbird, he suggested
– First download Thunderbird onto the XP machine, Paul said. Fred said he gets an error message when he tries. The message implies his machine is too old.
– Paul said he can get an older version of Thunderbird that still supports XP.
– Once you have Thunderbird installed, it allows you to import emails and contacts from other email programs, like Outlook Express
<Old versions of Thunderbird can be found here.
Article: Go back to an old version of Thunderbird
Support forum posting on how to revert to an earlier version of Thunderbird:
Windows Easy Transfer for transferring from Windows XP (32 bit) to Windows 7:
Transfer files and settings from another computer
>

After you have your emails in Thunderbird the next step is to get folders and settings and a other files from XP onto the new machine by using “Windows Easy Transfer“, This program was not shipped with XP but it is in Win7, Win8 and Win10. Easy Transfer creates a file containing all of the files that can be transferred. You can save this file on a USB drive that you then plug into the new machine. The Easy Transfer on Win7 or Win10 will then populate the new machine with all your old files. Paul also said to double check that all of the Thunderbird mail got transferred — there’s sometimes an issue with that, and you may have to search for other methods to to get the Thunderbird data to the new machine.

Paul noted that when searching for programs like “Windows Easy Transfer”, make sure you end up on a microsoft.com site.

Fred also said he tried using Windows Live some time ago and it pulled email out of Outlook Express — which he didn’t want to happen. Paul didn’t have a solution for that but suggested he switch over to Thunderbird.

Paul admonished those still using XP to avoid using Internet Explorer and to use some sort of anti-virus like Avast or AVG.

Those using Win7 or Win8 may have seen an icon in the lower right that says “upgrade to Windows 10 now”. If you haven’t upgraded yet, Paul suggested you first look at someone’s machine that’s running Win10 to see if you can get along with it. Also, the free Win10 upgrade offer MAY end in April — Paul didn’t know for sure. This upgrade method is not as straight forward as buying a disk with Win10 on it. Paul hasn’t found a reliable way to do the upgrade without following the steps provided by Microsoft. Remember to back up your data before doing the upgrade and to verify the backup by trying to install it on a different machine.

A caller with an Android phone asked how to get Google calendar to set off an alarm when a particular time is reached.
– There are apps to add features to the calendar. The caller said he tried a bunch of them but didn’t find a solution.
– Paul asked listeners for any tips they may have.
<There IS an audible alarm in Google Calendar, Maybe he has the volume set too low to hear it. Or, maybe he’s using a very old version of the program that didn’t have alarms.>

Lee called. He has an older Win7 machine on which he did the Win10 update. It didn’t work out very well. It kept shutting down because it was making the processor work too hard and over heat. He had to revert back to Win7.
– There may be something wrong with the hardware. Paul uses the programs called Speedfan and Crystal Disk Utility from Japan. They tell him about the state of his computer.
<I guess Paul meant CrystalDiskInfo>

Last Updated 11:22 PM 2-24-2016

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 limited time, the podcast of today’s show is here. Recent shows are here.

Paul was in the studio. We didn’t hear from Glenn but he should be back soon.

Paul said he’s still trying to implement his project to install Linux on older computers for people in the vicinity of Nevada City.

There’s a particular distribution of Linux called Debian. Paul said Ian Murdock participated in producing that distribution. He died at the age of 42. The Debian name is the mashup of his wife’s name, Deborah, and his. The Ubuntu version of Linux, and a few others, have their roots in Debian. Their distribution files end in .deb. He read about this at theregister.com.

Paul has seen refurbished computers with Windows 7 for as little as $99. Maybe not real fast game-playing, video-editing machines, they do come with reasonably useful software and 1 year warranties. The best deal he’s seen was a 4 or 5 year old off-lease computer at overstock.com. If you want a new computer, you wouldn’t go wrong at paying about $250 for what Paul called a “domestic grade” computer — one that’s not a slouch but still not great for more demanding video games.

Christy called. He has a Mac running El Capitan. He got a popup offering the download of the latest version the Flash player. As per previous warnings on Zen Tech, he didn’t want to download. The other option he was given was to delete Flash. He chose to delete it and now can’t play some media. He wanted to know if he could use HTML5 instead.
– Increasingly, websites are switching to HTML5. Flash is being phased out.
– If you use the Chrome browser you ‘usually’ don’t need Flash. Chrome handles most of the job. Christy uses the Safari browser.
– Paul had him go to Youtube and Ctrl-click (maybe Command-click) on any video to find out whether Flash is required or whether HTML5 is being used. Paul said you can do this on any site that’s trying to show you a video.<Momentarially forgetting Chris uses a Mac, Paul first said right-click on the video, so maybe that’s what to do if you have a PC.>
– HTML5 is so prevalent that if you get a message that says Flash is required, be suspicious.

Kim called. She’s happy with her Dell PC running Windows 7. She keeps being prompted to upgrade to Windows 10. She wanted to know if that’s a good idea.
– If you’re happy with Win7, don’t upgrade. Paul said he doesn’t see a compelling reason.
– Since about April, Microsoft has suggested people upgrade. They have become progressively more insistent.
– If you’re using Win8 and are not happy with it, many people aren’t, then go ahead and do the upgrade. It takes a couple of hours.
– Paul said he hasn’t seen the Win10 upgrade cause many problems.
– Win10 is very similar to Win7 but has remnants of the Metro interface that Win8 had. Metro allows Microsoft to sell apps to go with it.

<Here are some articles about the Win10 upgrade. Some may be a bit dated.
Get Windows 10? Microsoft’s push comes to shove
Microsoft to Force Windows 10 Download by Default
Shield yourself from coerced ‘Get Windows 10’ updates
Get ready for Windows 10 as an Automatic Update (how to turn off update nags)>

Kim also said she uses Avast for an anti-virus and keeps getting popups saying “everybody can see what you’re doing. You better upgrade now for privacy”. Paul talked about it later in the show, see below.

Preston called. He doesn’t have good internet options near Loma Rica Airport and wants suggestions for getting a service at a good price — maybe in the $50 range. There is no cable or DSL service in that area.
– See if any of your neighbors have wireless service and if they’re willing to split their bill with you for letting you use their connection.
– Preston looked into terrestrial wireless service but it was $114/mo.
– Another choice is a mi-fi unit. It’s a small box that connects to a cellular phone service and converts it to a local wi-fi connection. It’s a data only service, no voice, and typically costs about $50/mo.
– Costco sells mi-fi at membershipwireless.com. Click the ‘mobile hotspots’ link. You can get plans from all the major cellular providers.

Uncle Nick called to encourage people to do the Linux upgrade Paul talked about earlier. A variety of free Linux software is available to meet most needs.

Nick said he’s done an number of upgrades to Win10 for his clients and has notice significant glitches with some applications. In particular, the email program that comes with it has had many complaints when used with Usenet (a service for discussing many topics). Paul said the Thunderbird mail program works fine and can import the data from Outlook Express, which the guys don’t think too highly of.

Nick thought that development for Thunderbird has or will stop. Paul said it’s not the development that will stop, but that new features will no longer be added.

Nick suggested slipstick.com as a resource for import, export and conversion issues with Outlook and Outlook Express.
<Their site says: Our major activity is researching and solving problems with Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Exchange Server>

Nick said there is a local newspaper whose website automatically plays Flash videos when the user just wants to read the news. He wished there were something that stopped Flash from playing.
– Paul said there is a free plugin called Flashblock that works with Firefox and does just that. Do a google search with the words: firefox plugin flashblock.
– Blocking the videos helps reduce data usage for those with limited data plans because you’re not downloading the videos you don’t want to watch.

Getting back to Kim’s concern about the Avast anti-virus, Paul said Avast and AVG are among the better programs out there.
– An anti-virus is not the way to go to protect privacy, as the Avast popup implied.
– Instead, use the incognito mode of your browser to prevent a track record of where you’ve been going or doing on the internet. This mode is available in many modern browsers. <Also known as private tab or private browsing.>
– Incognito mode won’t retain the history or the cache from your browsing activity. It will keep bookmarks and “several other things”.
– It’s not “private or secure” Paul said. Your internet provider can still know where you’ve been. It does not make you anonymous.
– What Paul looks for in an anti-virus is just virus protection. He’ll choose to do a ‘custom’ install to avoid installing more than he wants.

Paul said KVMR is open to visitors, during normal business hours, who want to see what goes on in the studio. Contact the particular broadcaster you’re interested in.

Bruce called. He wondered if upgrading to Win10 would improve anything if you’re running Win7 and it’s working poorly.
– Paul wasn’t sure but “it would not be a bad move. Just make sure you’re backedup”.
– The resources required by Win10 are equal to or less than for Win7 or Win8.

Bruce also said he has a Linux partition and he deleted a file he thought was unnecessary and now Linux won’t start.
– Just reinstall the Linux. First reformat that partition.
– Then choose the “something else” option during installation. Linux will find the previous partition.
– After installation Bruce be able to dual boot again. On bootup he’ll be given a choice to run either Window or Linux.
– Linux has a great memory tester. Paul has been known to run it over night so it has time to go thru many iterations of the test.
– You can find the memory tester, by itself, at memtest86.com

Marilyn called. She’s been shopping for a laptop and noticed that one would say it has xxx bytes of memory and yyy bytes on the hard drive. Another would say yyy bytes of ‘storage’ (instead of ‘hard drive’). What’s the difference?
– Storage will probably refer to SSD, a solid state drive. A lot of laptops now come with flash memory for storage — no moving parts.
– SSD drives are expensive — up to 10x that of hard drives.
– Some come with hybrid drives that use a combination of flash memory and a spinning disk hard drive.

Joey called to say he finally got his Mac working. He had called on 12-9-15 about a problem he encountered after upgrading the OS to El Capitan. He spent about an hour and a half with an Apple tech and after tweaking port numbers and other minor things they got it working.

The other problem Joey had was that his Safari browser sometimes crashes. His brother in-law had the same problem with his wife’s Mac. It was determined that the Invidia video card in the computer is not compatible with El Capitan. It worked well with the previous OS, Yosemite. Joey doesn’t have a backup of the previous operating system so he can’t go back and undo the operating system update.
– Paul said there’s no big reason to stay one version behind the latest operating system.
– Paul will do some research on this issue.

Last Updated 11:27 PM 12-30-2015

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 < >

For a limited time, the podcast of today’s show is here. Recent shows are here.

Paul was in the studio. We didn’t hear from Glenn.

The hidden features inside of movies as well as software are called easter eggs. Paul mentioned eeggs.com as the site he uses to discover these easter eggs.

A particular type of ransomware virus called Cryptolocker has gotten Paul’s attention recently. This is a bit of software that gets on your computer and encrypts your valuable files, making them inaccessible to you. Then comes a demand for money, the ransom, in return for the key that unlocks the files.
– If you’re a victim, you’ll notice some of your filenames will have a different extension (e.g. familyphoto.jpg.XYZ). A plain text file will be placed in the same directory giving you instructions on how to regain control of those files.
– If you have backups of your files you should be ok except the ransomware will look everywhere including any backup drives you have connected to your computer. Keep your backup drives (like flash drives) separate and disconnected from your computer until you remove the ransomware virus.
– Don’t be hasty in removing the virus. You may be cutting yourself off from ever decrypting your files, even if you then pay the ransom.
– An FBI report notes that there is no known way of independently decrypting your locked files.
– The ransom demanded doesn’t involve a credit card and can’t be easily traced. The instruction will have you use a Tor browser and pay by bitcoin, an anonymous payment system.
<Here are a couple of articles to get you informed…
CryptoLocker ransomware – see how it works, learn about prevention, cleanup and recovery
CryptoLocker: A particularly pernicious virus>

What can you do to protect yourself against ransomware?…
– Anti-virus software is not perfect. It may catch about 95% of the malware. Don’t depend exclusively on an anti-virus.
– Be especially careful of email attachments. They can be an executable ZIP file, typically ending in .exe. Being a zip file makes it difficult for and anti-virus program to detect them
– Gmail typically catches these things. It looks inside of zip files and warns you.

The Flash media player and the Java plugin can let in ransomware, too.
– If you must use Flash, the Chrome browser does Flash rendering that is somewhat more secure. Most websites, like Youtube, are starting to use HTML5 to play video and don’t need Flash.
– Search using Google for Plugin Check, if you’re using Firefox. “That will tell you what to do. If you use Internet Explorer you can do Plugin Check and it will actually check that the thing is up to date”.
– Beware of popups telling you that your Flash player needs updating. The popup itself may lead you to installing a virus.

Scarewareis another type of fraud but don’t confuse it with ransomware. You may get a popup telling you that you have a virus or that you need to renew the license to your anti-virus software. And you’ll often see Better Business Bureau and FBI logos in the popup to gain your trust.

Another type of fraud affects Mac users more than others. It involves bogus domain names. It takes advantage of typos when entering a web address. Warning, just because Paul talked about this doesn’t mean you should do it. Don’t do this he said. Don’t go to facebook.cm <not .com>. If you do, you’ll get what looks like the Facebook website except your address bar will have a different web address, if you’re careful enough to notice. From there you can be asked for all kinds of personal information or induced to download malware.

Paul knows someone who was a target of a Craig’s List fraud. She was asked to make a payment up front for a Mac computer. Be careful of using an untraceable payment like Western Union. Such payments can be negotiated immediately, whereas a personal check can have a stop payment put on it.

Paul moved on to talk about shopping locally. If you go to local.google.com you’ll get local search results. Google will figure out where you are and suggest things close to you. If your machine is set up not to reveal your location, you can type in your zipcode, or postal code in foreign countries. If you run a business and you’re not already in Google’s business database, you can register with them as a local business.

Paul mentioned the website freecycle.com. If you subscribe to their newsletter, you’ll be informed of items being given away for free. Locally, there is a Freecycle group for Auburn & Grass Valley.

Christian called. He got a virus on his HP laptop and had trouble getting genuine HP tech support. Apparently seaching Google for tech help (and not just from HP) can lead to third party or even fraudulent websites. So he tried to fix it himself. He tried Fixme Stick, which seemed to help but his machine still wouldn’t run. He then tried to reset his computer to factory condition and got some warning about a [hard drive] partition.
– Christian has been backing up his important files, so trying to do a system restore was the proper thing to do, Paul said.
– Go directly to hp.com and look on that site for help or support. Get an 800 number that you can call and get a CD with the system restore files. You’ll be charged a nominal fee of about $10. You can then reload your operating system from the CD.
– There are 4 or 5 local computer shops in the Nevada City area to service the laptop. This is a good time to use local.google.com and type in the words: computer repair
– Get Combofix to do a general cleanup. Be sure to get this program from bleepingcomputer.com.
– Once you get your computer cleaned up, get the anti-virus program called Avast.
– You can switch to a different operating system. When we’re past the holidays, Paul will try to arrange a community service to put Linux on machines that are old or misbehaving <or still running XP>. If you’re interested send an email to zen@kvmr.org with the word linux in the subject line.
– Paul said he’ll put information about dealing with viruses on the Zen Tech site.

Paul said he just got an iPhone 4s, an upgrade from 3gs he’d been using. He went on to say that when you get an iPhone from someone leaving their service and giving it to you, don’t lose track of that person. If their phone has “locate me”, you (or they) have to log with their Apple ID and disable “locate me”. And if it’s off its contract, get the former owner to communicate with AT&T to get the phone unlocked. It’s a free service.

Last Updated 12:24 AM 12-24-2015

Around noon today 12-9-15 KVMR was notified of 2 lost dogs.
– 2 Doberman male & female
– Lost near Tylerfoot(?) Road and North Columbia School House
– These are service dogs. Please don’t touch them
– If found call 265-4356

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 limited time, the podcast of today’s show is here. Recent shows are here.

Paul was in the studio. We didn’t hear from Glenn.

Paul reminded listeners that this show is about technology in general, calls and comments don’t have to be about just computers.

Paul asked the listeners what they use as a home page and also what browsers they use. The home page is the first page your browser goes to when you start it up. <Reply to zen@kvmr.org, I suppose>

Paul used to use news.google.com for his home page. This site aggregates news from various sources and presents it in one place. It can be customized to focus on the subjects you’re interested in — e.g. more technology news, less business news.

Paul likes the android app that streams KVMR radio shows.
<This looks like the app>

Paul noted that websites like Facebook know a lot about their users. When he first joined Facebook, he used a fake name so he wouldn’t be associated with the content posted there.

One of Paul’s favorite podcasts is by Radiolab, where a social media expert was interviewed about the techniques used by Facebook to gather information about their users. One of the experiments run by Facebook was to measure the likelihood users would click on news items with happy words vs. sad ones. Later, the participants were asked their feelings about being unwitting subjects. Paul wasn’t surprised that some objected, but Facebook is free and you don’t have to use it. The usefulness of a site like Facebook has to be weighed against giving up some information about yourself.

Your internet activity reveals more than you might think. Algorithms used to gather info about you are surprisingly good. You might innocently post a picture of a kitten somewhere but an algorithm can tell something about you from the context around the picture. For instance, the picture might be on a pet rescue site or a site devoted to animal smuggling. Or if you reshare a picture already on Facebook, that can put you in a particular demographic of people who Facebook already knows have shared the picture — you’re likely to be of certain age, live in urban areas etc.

Paul took some time to disparage Donald Trump and noted that his favorite homepage site at the moment, theregister.co.uk, reported that enraged British people have demanded that Donald Trump be forbidden from physically entering the UK on the basis of hate speech. There is an associated site in the US called theregister.com.

Paul’s technical roots go back some 20 years when he worked with an operating system called Linux, an open source version of Unix. These 2 systems run on servers that underpin much of the internet.

Under the hood of Mac computers is Unix-like operating system known as Darwin. It ‘evolved’ from BSD Unix (Berkeley Software Distribution). Unlike the past, when Apple tended to keep things secret, they published the source to the El Capitan/Darwin, the operating system. <Source is the more or less ‘english’ readable code before it gets put into 1s & 0s that the computer needs>.

You can see some of what’s going on under the hood of the Mac if you go to the upper right corner where the searchlight is and search for the word ‘terminal’ and then hit GO. You’ll then get a black screen with a prompt where you can type in commands like ‘date’, ‘time’ and ‘ls’. The risk of doing any damage with the commands exists but is quite low. If try to do something serious like delete some system files, it will ask you for a password.

Recently Paul went from using the Firefox browser to using Chrome. He’s noticed Firefox slowing down from continually added features and frequent updating.

Raymond called. He had contacted Paul before about upgrading a old Sony Vio. <I think he was talking about the upgrade to Lubuntu mentioned on the 9-23-15 show>. Paul said he’d like to have access to the computer to personally do the upgrade and asked Raymond to come to KVMR tomorrow. However, he’ll send the CD to Raymond so he can do the install himself if need be.

Joey called. He upgraded to El Capitan (version 10.11) and then started having problem getting emails into the Apple email program (that’s running on the Mac) from the email server (on the internet) (he uses Westhost). He’s noticed that the “incoming line” (account name) of the account settings is grayed out and can’t be changed.
– You can switch to another mail program like Thunderbird.
– Paul asked if he’s using IMAP or POP. Joey said it’s POP.
– You can try to reestablish the account. But if you use POP and delete and recreate the account, it may delete all of the locally stored mail, which may not exist on the server and will then be lost. Use the Timemachine facility to do a backup.
– In the last few years, most mail providers have allowed the use of IMAP, the preferred method. The providers don’t especially like doing it because they end up storing more mail on the servers.
– Use the web version of their service (using a web browser) and enable IMAP on the server. This is true of Gmail too. You have to go to your Google account, turn off POP & turn on IMAP.
– Do a Google search with the words: westhost imap. Paul did this and found instructions for setting up an IMAP account.
– Paul has noticed that with each incarnation of the Mac operating system there tends to be a problem with the Apple email program. He’s tempted to recommend just going to Thunderbird.

Lisa called with a tip for Joey’s problem. She said Godaddy has a discussion about this problem but didn’t give a web address.
– The fix was to go into the mail -> preferences -> advanced settings. Unselect “automatically enable this mail and account settings”, then quit the mail program and restart it. Then go back and reselect the item you had just unselected. This works for some people, but didn’t work for Lisa. What eventually did work for her was to go into the Apple tools settings (the gray cogwheel) and go to mail settings and reenter her password to the errant POP mail account. Do not recreate the account, just reenter the password.
– Paul added, if POP isn’t configured right, mail will be deleted on the server as it’s transferred to your computer. If you then try to read the mail from the server using another computer, you won’t see it. There should be a setting in your computer’s email program to tell POP to not delete mail as it’s being read (leave the email on the server).
– Lisa asked if it’s possible to use IMAP and POP with the same mail server. Paul implied that you can if you choose to ‘leave the email on the server’.
– If you want to use IMAP with a dialup connection and you have a lot of mail on the server, take your computer where you can get a high-speed connection. Then choose the ‘synchronize folder from server’ in your local setting. The first synchronization will be done high speed. When you’re back on dialup it will only have to synch any new mail, which should be manageable at the slower speeds.

Marilyn called. She’s been using MalwareBytes for a long time but recently has been annoyed by windows that keep popping up and scans that start by themselves, slowing things down. She thinks that it’s because she’s using the free version that she can’t get to setting that will change the behavior.
– The company might have just started doing things differently and it’s behavior may have changed with the last update. Paul suspected the company had been sold and the new owners decided to make some changes.
– Ditch this program and go with something else.
– Avast is both an anti-virus and anti-malware (malware as in foistware)
– Each brand of anti-virus can catch about 95% of the viruses (each usually a different 95%). Microsoft Security Essentials catches only about 70% <as suggested before, avoid Security Essentials>.

Last Updated 12:12 AM 12-10-2015