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 Glenn & Paul were in the studio today

Glenn's been having a problem synchronizing the contacts <address book> between his iPad and iPod. He deleted a particular contact on the iPhone that existed only there, not on the iPad. And there's a contact on the iPad that's not on the iPhone. Both were for the same person, though one was created earlier. He deleted the older one and waited a while for the synching to take place, but it didn't. He plans to go to the Apple store again for help. He had talked to them earlier and they suggested he delete the duplicate contacts in his iCloud backups.

Paul tried feeding a podcast of one Zentech show into Dragon Naturally Speaking, a speech to text converter. It did a fairly good job, he said. Naturally Speaking is available for some mobile devices (Android & iOS), he thought. It works with an internet connection by sending the audio to a server that then converts to text and sends it back.

Also, Android tablets have their own speech to text app. Paul said it works the same way — sends the voice audio to Google, which then sends the text back. <I just tried it on my newly acquired droid tablet, and the speech was converted without being online. So cool!>

Glenn said he's seen email where the first & last character of each word is preserved and the middle characters are blank, and people can still comprehend the content.

Paul mentioned that Jim Baird of Parc Xerox was on the show and he claimed that using a keyboard is the worst way of getting data into the computer. Paul said that words are the least efficient way to communicate because they can have so many different meanings. We have to determine what's meant by the context.

Years ago, the Tech Museum in San Jose had an exhibition of a research project showing a method that helped people read faster. Words were flashed onto a screen in a way that didn't require your eyes to move. You kept your eyes looking at the center, which would be the center of the word, as the words went by. You could control the size of the word and their speed. Because your eyes didn't have to scan thru the sentence your reading speed improved by about 2 times.

Paul talked about cyclic redundancy check and error correction, which is found in hard drives and other storage technology. These are techniques used to insure data is written correctly to the drive. A trivial way to do this is to count the number of bytes in the data before sending and again after it's written to the drive. If the counts matched, it would be a necessary but not sufficient condition for not having an error.

There are 2 techniques for error correction. One is to keep resending the data and doing the error check. The other way is to use a "mathematical algorithm where you only send across a small piece of information that pinpoints that the error was in the last word somewhere", for example — so you don't have to resend all of the data again.

Hard drives an flash memory have chips onboard that address defects in manufacturing as well as defects that appear thru wear and tear. Satellites have chips that can be damaged by cosmic rays and they too need to use error checking and correcting.

Glenn finally got rid of NetTalk and he no longer has a paid VIOP service. He still has Google Voice, which is free. He also uses the Obihai device, And he ported his phone number to ring.to. Paul noted that Glenn achieved the ultimate objective "you've actually got it for completely free". <Of course, he had to pay for the Obihai device>. Ring.to will forward calls and text (txt) messages, transcribe calls, etc. <Check their site for features>. Glenn asked ring.to to be sure their service was free and was assured it was, though they reserve the right to start charging at a future date. Right now they don't charge to port your number to them or away from them. Paul noted that you can't get a (new) phone number from them; you need to have an existing number and then port the number to them.
<Obihai was mentioned on the last show and the 7-30-14 show >
<Android's ring.to app>
<Obihai with ring.to>

During the show, Glenn tested ring.to by successfully calling themselves in the KVMR studio and they played the audio of the incoming call. Paul noted that there was no feedback noise because there was a delay between the sound of Glenn speaking into his phone and the sound eventually coming in to the studio's switchboard.

That led to talk about in-ear monitor speakers that stage performers use to hear themselves performing. Monitor speakers have become so unobtrusive that they're barely noticeable or not noticeable at all from a distance of 50' or so.

Ron called. He as iMac and is using an app (Adobe Go Live) that can only be used on Snow Leopard OS or earlier. And he has apps that can only run on newer versions of the OS. He'd like to upgrade to a newer OS and he wondered of it makes sense to have different versions of the OS on different hard drive partitions.
– Paul said, "if you can possibly avoid it, I would".
– Ideally you can get a small external Firewire hard drive and put the app on that drive. <He implied that the drive should be made bootable with the alternate OS>. When you boot the Mac, hold the Option key and it will allow you to choose which drive to boot from.
– When you boot the alternate OS you'll generally be able to access the data on the other drive. But Paul said it may be a concern "operating systems can change their attitude to where thing are as far as your application libraries are".
– You might even try a 64gig flash drive instead of a hard drive.
– Glenn wondered if Ron knows for sure that Adobe Go Live won't work on an newer OS or it's just not supported, and therefore he just assumes it won't work.
– Glenn recalled that when Windows Vista and Windows 7 came out, some of the XP software wouldn't work. But if you right-click on the program -> properties, you could change the compatibility mode. There's nothing similar for the Mac.
– Paul speculated that after Snow Leopard, Apple started using a 64bit OS exclusively — no more 32bit mode. That might be the reason Adobe Go Live won't run in the newer OS. It used to be you could force the computer to start in 64bit mode by holding down the '6' & '4' keys when starting it up.
– Paul quickly looked up a message in discussions.apple.com that suggested Mavericks OS can be forced to start in 32bit mode. He said he'll explore the issues some more.

William called with 3 questions. First, he wants to uninstall a program from a new PC he just got. It wasn't installed correctly and isn't working right. When he tries to uninstall it, it says it's being used by another program. Ron heard that AVG Anti-virus might be interfering with it.
– Start machine in safe mode by repeatedly tapping on F8 while booting (don't hold F8 down or it may think there's a problem with the keyboard). Then try to uninstall the errant program.
– Try to disable AVG by right-clicking on its icon in the system tray (lower right corner).
– Paul likes Revo Uninstaller. Google the words: revo free
– iTunes has been known to install incorrectly sometimes.

William then said he used the Easy Transfer facility to transfer iTunes from one machine to a newer one, but the ratings didn't transfer. <I think that's the meta data about each song — genre of music, star ratings & other attributes>
– Easy Transfer is known to fail in transferring everything — like iTunes and the Thunderbird data folder.
– Try to manually transfer the iTunes folder that's in the Music folder on the old machine to the Music folder on the new machine (after deleting the existing iTunes folder on the new machine.) You'll be moving just the data not the iTunes program itself. It's a big folder but you can use a big flash drive — 64gig should do it.

William also asked the guys what they thought about anti-malware programs like MalwareBytes. Paul didn't seem be familiar with it, but Glenn said he's used it after using Combofix for a particular virus he encountered. Also try adwcleaner, it does pretty good job on browser addons and "extra programs that pop up nonsense on your screen and so forth".
<One place you can get adwcleaner>

Lastly, William asked about the trackpad on the Lenovo laptop. The left/right click buttons are above the pad. <It wasn't clear if he didn't know how to use them or he didn't like where they were positioned.>
– Paul said, if you don't like it don't use them.
– You can go to the Control Panel and you'll find "Lenovo trackpad". "Then just reprogram it".
– Use an external mouse.
– Just get used to it.

Glenn said he's heard one report that Windows 10 will be good.
<
– The newest hidden tricks and fixes in Windows 10
– What you'll love and hate about Windows 10
– 12 things to know about Windows 10
– It's Official: Windows 10 Free For Many Users:
– Pogue reviews Windows
>

Marilyn called. She likes the used computer she was given but can't get it to play any audio. When she goes to Sound -> Audio Devices it says "no audio device".
– You need to "have something plugged in to the correct audio socket which then gets discovered by the software." It used to be if you didn't have speakers plugged in and you tried to play something, you just wouldn't hear anything. Now, apparently, the computer detects if the speakers are plugged in.

Last update 11:53 PM 1/28/2015

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.

Glenn, back from his hiatus, joined Paul in the studio today.

KVMR will be holding an open house this weekend.
Sat 10am to 4pm
Sun 10am to 2pm
120 Bridge Street, across from the Miners Foundry and at the back of the Nevada Theater.

Paul gave some tips for searching on Google.
– Paul thinks that using more than 4 words in a search will start to diverge the query and add a chance of getting more false positives.
– Don’t use extraneous words like “if” “and” “by” “to” “for” and “under”. Google tends to exclude them anyway.
– Google will sometimes substitute words for what you entered. If you typed “motor bike”, it will show results for those words first but will also show search results for “motorcycle”.
– Google knows to look at British websites, for example, when you enter words that tend to be used in that country. The example Paul gave: trunk latch on a Hillman Imp — a British car.

Some internet services will bias what they do based on where they think you’re located. It’s not that difficult to figure out where you are using IP addresses. The IP address is a unique address assigned to you when you browse the internet. There is an organization called ARIN (American Registry for Internet Numbers) that doles out IP address across nations.

If you’re in the USA and you try to view or listen to broadcasts created by the BBC by going to bbc.co.uk/iplayer, you’ll be denied access. The British pay a fee to the BBC for the privilege of using it. Those in the US and elsewhere haven’t paid and are excluded. The BBC can tell if you’re in Britain by inspecting your IP address.

You can get around such restrictions that are based on the IP address by using a proxy server. On a PC or a Mac you can install a small piece of software that creates a tunnel (like a wormhole) that makes it appear you’re somewhere else.

Paul was trying tunnelbear.com. It’s available for the PC, Android, Mac, iPhone and iPad.
– PCs and Macs, in their own right, can use VPN (Virtual Private Network) to do the same thing.
– People in the Nevada City area who work for firms in the Bay Area often use VPN to connect to their company. It secures the data they exchange.
– When you install TunnelBear you’ll be asked to create an account. You can use a throwaway email account for the purpose verification, if you’re suspicious.
– You’ll get 500 megabytes of data traffic for free, from them.
– You’ll have a choice of about 15 to 20 countries to choose from as your bogus location.
– You won’t be able to fool all systems all of the time. When Paul tried to view content from the BBC it worked most of the time — a couple of times it didn’t because…
– Many content providers have a blacklist of IP address that appear to be right (in the UK) but are known to be somewhere else.
– As Paul recalled, the base subscription rate to TunnelBear is $5/mo, if the 500meg is not enough for you.
– Strictly speaking, using a tunnel is not a good way to hide who you are or what you’re doing. You can hide the data going thru the tunnel but you’re not hiding the fact that you’re using a tunnel, thus raising suspicion.

There is a similar issue with using the Tor browser. And he noted that after Microsoft bought Skype, they created nodes to handle its traffic but has allow the government access to those nodes. So the origin & destination of Skype calls can be traced and, Paul said, probably their content.

Paul briefly mentioned local weather stations run by private individuals, often using Oregon Scientific weather stations. There are about 15 in the Nevada City area.

Glenn got a rose gold iPhone 6s for the holidays. He’s still using Pure Talk as his cellular provider.

He’s had relatively few problems with the new iPhone but has a question or two that he’s going to pose to Apple tech support. Otherwise, Paul has helped him figure out the new operating system — 9.2. It’s not too horrible, Glenn said.

Glenn installed 9.2 on his previous phone, the iPhone 4S, and now he struggles using Siri (the voice assistant). <As mentioned on previous shows, older Apple hardware has trouble keeping up with newer software and operating systems.>

Paul talked about the newer CPU (Central Processing Units) with multiple cores. They can process instructions out of sequence to improve overall processing speed. They can pretty much keep up with Moore’s Law by clever processing rather than continually making smaller and more numerous chip circuits.

Paul has been trying to get a good sense of the differences between Intel I3 I5 I7 processors and has discovered there is no simple answer, each comes in different flavors. About all you can do is use benchmark tests to determine how fast each can complete various tasks — how fast can it perform a calculation, how fast can it draw a on the screen, etc. You may have to look around bit, but there is free benchmark software at cpubenchmark.net that uses 15 or 20 types of tests to see how your CPU performs.

The test results from the benchmark test are then uploaded to cpubenchmark where they keep the “real world” statistics from many users. <Presumably, the results are available to the public — Paul didn’t say.>

Benchmark tests run you computer very hard and can reveal overheating problems. Paul uses cpubenchmark in conjunction with speedfan (another piece of software) that monitors the actual temperature in your computer. If your laptop overheats, Paul said to take it out side and blow the dust out with compressed air. Be careful not to damage the laptop’s cooling fan — keep the compressed air to 60psi or lower. If you don’t have a compressor, you can buy compressed air in a can, he said. Some Mac laptops were designed with marginal cooling ability and may need more frequent blowouts.

Paul’s been having fun with gadgets from China. The latest is a USB device that measures the current and voltage going thru a USB cable. It’s about $5

There’s another similar device for your car, which additionally shows if your car’s battery is charging.
<There’s an app that displays the current, voltage and internal temperature of a phone or tablet that I like. You can find it here.>

Greg called to warn people about air compressors. They tend to accumulate water internally from condensation because compressing air wrings moisture out of it. Be careful not to blow water into your computer. There’s usually a valve on the lower part of the compressor to bleed the water out. At least blow the air gun in a safe direction a few times before using it.

Glenn said another way to clean out your computer is to use a fine brush to dislodge and a vacuum cleaner to suck up, the dust. That’s OK if the dust is held on by static charges, but if you use the computer near your kitchen the dust may be held on by grease particles, Paul said.

John called. He said he’s more interested in hearing Paul talk about how data is processed rather than the psychological and sociological aspects of computing.

The guys mentioned that Apple’s iPad has split into 2 branches: iPad Pro and iPad Air. The Air economized on some features but definitely on space and weight.

Paul suggested that people who’ve never thought about using an Apple product visit an Apple Store and be evangelized by the Apple zealots. He said that in spite of his recent visit to the Roseville store where he was told to use Photo instead of iPhoto. Taking their advice he still wasn’t able to email photos out of Photo. He was then told to use the Apple Mail Program, but it still didn’t work. The Apple techs finally admitted there is a problem. Paul didn’t say how he eventually resolved it, if at all.

Paul talked a bit about the iPad Pro.
– It can do 5-point multitouch. You can use 5 fingers at once on the screen.
– “You have a lot of gesture based stuff” that makes it look a lot like the operating system used in the computer in the movie Minority Report.
– It recognizes how fast and how hard you hit the screen with your finger. This can be useful if you’re a graphic designer or artist.
– The price for the 13″ iPad is somewhere in the $900 region.
– You can get a keyboard for it. It attaches using physical contacts along the edge rather than using Bluetooth.

Pat, a local musician, called. He currently uses 5 computers and uses an artist’s airbrush to blow out the dust. He said to be careful not to use metal tipped air guns/brushes close to the electronics, especially capacitors. Just because you turn off the computer or pull out the power plug, that doesn’t mean all of the electricity has gone away. <For good measure, ground yourself to eliminate static electricity.>

Paul explored the world of DJ-ing software for the Mac and mentioned 2 that he found: DJAY and Pacemaker. Pacemaker allows you to take your iTunes playlist and mix and match the beats and “do that stuff”.

The other thing Paul said about the iPad Pro is that it has an unbelievable sound system. It has 4 tiny speakers, one in each corner. The sound rotates with the movie you’re watching if you happen to rotate the tablet. It also has Dolby stereo.

Paul noted that the audio of many of KVMR’s shows, as well as Zentech, is now available. Follow the ‘archive’ link at kvmr.org. <See the top of this page for the link to todays show and more info>.

Last Updated 12:30 AM 1-14-16

br /

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.

Paul gave us a public service announcement. A dog has been found on 1-12-15 in the Alt Sierra and Wolf Creek Road area. He's a friendly young black male cattle dog with gray markings. Call (530) 346-6250.

Paul was in the studio. Glenn called in

Paul talked about circuit boards made using surface mounted components (SMC). This is the technology used to make cell phones, for instance. The tiny electronic components are soldered to the surface of a circuit board. The leads of the components are not inserted into circuit board holes, as they were with the older technology. This requires special tools like the SMC workstation from China that Paul bought for $60.
– It has a temperature controlled soldering iron that goes up to 500 degrees C. Temperature control is important for this technique.
– It also has a heat gun that delivers a steady flow of air heated up to 500 degrees.
– Paul uses what he called "helping hands". It has a heavy iron base and a vertical stem that branches off horizontally and has alligator clips on the ends for holding the project that he's working on.

A magnifying glass of about 10X is required because the working area of the circuit board is so small.
– Professional equipment to solder SMCs can cost thousands of dollars and is designed to be used over many hours. It can feature motions sensors to tell when you're handling the soldering iron so it's temperature can be increased when actually being used and reduced when it's not, thus preventing the tip from burning out prematurely.

Glenn called in from somewhere between Flagstaff and Kingman Arizona. He's on vacation and plans to take in some of the sights — the Grand Canyon and Sedona.

Glenn hasn't yet upgraded his iPhone to IOS8. As mentioned on the 12-24-14 show he needs to deletes a bunch of photos to make room for the upgrade. In the mean time, he got a suggestion that using iTunes to do the upgrade would circumvent the need to delete so many files. This would entail connecting the phone to a desktop running iTunes. He has yet to try it.
<"Trying to Update an Overloaded iPhone">

Paul thought, though the upgrade would be faster thru a wire connection, the iTunes trick wouldn't help, if he has insufficient space on the phone. However, he said you can use iTunes Synch to select which photos you want to bring back to the iPhone after you've backed them up and cleared the phone. You can also synch photos from other sources — not just the ones you backed up.

Paul mentioned Photostream, which he says he doesn't fully understand and is not reliable. The way it works keeps changing with each release of iOS and he thinks it's neither secure nor a "good idea to mess" with it.

Paul also said that Glenn's iPhone 4S will slow down after the IOS8 upgrade because it will be "pushing the horsepower that's available". Also, it's difficult to downgrade it, if you don't like IOS8.

Glenn said he's considered jailbreaking his phone but realized that would void Apple's warranty. Paul added that the advantage of jailbreaking is to be able to use apps not approved by Apple. But that's not so much an issue anymore because Apple has "taken mainstream" many of the apps.

People wonder what their iPhone is worth when they decide to get the latest model. AT&T will offer $200 for your end-of-contract iPhone 5 in trade for the model 6. But Paul said you can get a better price if you have AT&T unlock the iPhone 5 and then you sell it on Ebay (or other markets). Paul has heard you only need to have the phone on contract for 60 days to qualify for unlocking — you're obliged to pay to complete the contract, anyway. Glenn said the advantage of unlocking is being able to use it in other countries or with a different cellular provider.

Once a phone is out-of-contract and unlocked, you can often save yourself a bunch of money by shopping around for a cheaper carrier. You can also take your phone number with you for use with your new provider. <porting was discussed on the 7-30-14 show>. This is easier to do now that the FCC has clamped down on the major carriers to keep them from stonewalling and preventing you from leaving them. Glenn has been happy with PureTalk USA, his current carrier.

Nick called. His wife is using a phone service that begins with A and ends with T. She thinks they are scum-sucking weasels and wants to find another carrier. They are about to try OOMA server that provides a phone service over the internet (VOIP). Nick wanted some opinions. They're using Smarter Broadband for their internet — a terrestrial wireless service.
– A wireless service like Smarter Broadband can be somewhat uneven compared to wired. This can be evident in the evening when your neighbors come home and start using the internet, "sucking up all of the bandwidth" and causing problems.
– Use speedtest.phonepower.com to test your connection speed. It will check the sustained bandwidth and not just the burst (max) bandwidth.
– In fact, it will test for latency, jitter and speed <see the 1-25-12 & 7-11-12 show notes for more info>
– It's important to run the test at various times of the day especially the evening, when usage tends to increase.
– VOIP "doesn't actually use that much bandwidth", it's a matter of whether you're happy with the sound quality of the voice — latency & jitter.
– Talk to the people at Smarter Broadband. See what they say about using VOIP.

Ron called. He wanted to know the cheapest place to get a surface mount circuit board made. Paul hasn't gotten that far yet. He's been playing with kits that already include pre-made boards. Listeners were invited to call with suggestions. <See below for the caller who had some advice.>

Eddie called. He got his daughter a Dell Inspiron laptop with a touch screen and Windows 8. Every time she signs on to her computer, it insists she enter her email address and sign on to her Microsoft account.
– Microsoft does this because they want you to go to their site & by apps from them.
– Google for instructions on how to create a LOCAL account.
– When the machine is first used, it insists you create a Microsoft account. In small print further down is the option to create a local account. That's what to choose when you start it for the first time. It's too late for Eddie to do this.
– He'll have to go to the Control Panel -> Users (and maybe -> Accounts) and create a local account (with or without a password).
– You can try to google the words: window 8 direct login — for a way to avoid having to enter the Microsoft password. But it may be better to just create a local account.
– Now you'll have 2 accounts. When you boot up you'll pick the local one to login. You can then change the Microsoft account so you don't have to use it to login in with. But this is not an easy process.

Michael called. He's had the OOMA box for 7 years and it's worked well for him. His answering machine doesn't pick up an incoming call sometimes and he doesn't notice that OOMA picked it up. That's his only complaint.
– Glenn noted that even the slowest internet speed from cable companies is fast enough for VOIP.
– Paul looked at their website ooma.com and their box was available for $129.99, a one-time fee.
– Michael said their support had been very helpful the couple of times he's had to use it.
– Glenn had tried NetTalk in the past and was unhappy with them. <see the 7-30-14 show>

Bruce called with some info about SMC boards.
– Boards less than 4 square inches are $3 per board with a 10 board minimum + shipping.
– Boards of 20 square inches – $8 per board <10 board minimum, I think>.
– You send your circuit design to the company as Gerber file. That's a file generated by the software you use to create (draw) the layout of the board.
– Many people use a program called Eagle to do the layout. Bruce uses P-CAD to do his layout.
– Bruce said Michael (see above) can call him for more info at (530) 270-9214.

Paul noted that the Obihai VOIP device, at about $39, can use your Google Voice phone number. With it you can call a number in the U.S. for free and in a foreign country for about $.01 per minute. He said you can hunt around (or email zen at kvmr dot org) for a discount code and pay only $29. It's very easy to set up after you sign up on their website and enter the information on the box it came in. <More about Obihai on the 7-30-14 show>

The disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed on this show are those of the speakers only and are not necessarily those of KVMR, its board, management, staff or contributors.

Tony called using his OOMA box. He asked Paul how this call sounded. Generally it sucks, Tony said. Because he's so far away from the service box, his broadband connection is only 248 kilobits down and 54 kilobits up. <We were hearing him talk at 54Kbps and I thought he sounded pretty good, just a little break up but not bad>

Last Update 10:47 PM 1/14/2015

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.

NOTE: According to Glenn, there will not be a Zentech show next week on 12-31-14

Happy holidays everyone!

Both Paul & Glenn were in the studio for today's show

Glenn has been trying to update the operating system on his iPad to version 8 and found that he'll have to delete a bunch of files to make room. Some of his apps aren't updating either.

Paul has a 3GS iPhone, a model that's 4 or 5 years old. He hasn't had a problem updating the apps he's using, but the phone is noticeably bogging down. The 3GS model can't be upgraded beyond version 6 (iOS6). Some of the newer apps require iOS7, at least.

Paul had some suggestions for offloading files from an iDevice.
– Use a cable or wi-fi to connect to a Mac and use iPhoto on the Mac to bring in the pictures from the iPad.
– Plug the iPhone <iPad too, I guess> into either a Mac or PC. Then, launch iTunes and tell it to backup the iPhone. That will back up the data and settings.
– Next, press the 'restore' button on the iPhone to wipe out all of the data, but first try to insure your backup can be restored.
– Finally, upgrade to iOS8 and restore what you've backed up.

Paul said if you have Yosemite (version 10.10) on your Mac and iOS8 on your mobile device, they will cooperate nicely.
– You'll get Drivespace — Apple's attempt to mimic Dropbox or Google Drive for storage in the cloud.
– You can start doing your emails on one device, quit part way through and continue on another device.

Marilyn called with a question concerning her brother's 3-year-old Apple computer. Up until recently he's been able to play videos from Youtube, but now he's getting a message saying "go to the library and delete the older version of Adobe Flash player".
– Apple is sending down what's known as killbits that prevents the particular version of Flash from working because it's "defective" <vulnerable to hacking, I guess>.
– On the Mac, search for the words: download flash. Marilyn said he's been updating Flash, but Paul said updating won't work, you have to download a newer version of Flash.
– "There is no upgrade path anymore on the Mac for the very simple reason that's another path that virus writers use to break into your computer". The hackers would cause a popup to appear saying you need to update your Flash player. When you click on the popup, a virus would download.
– So be sure you download a newer Flash directly from Adobe at get.adobe.com/flashplayer. That webpage will determine if you're using a PC or a Mac and send you the correct version of Flash.
– Be careful of using a search engine for finding the webpage. Virus writers are able to get their bogus websites to display in the search results.
– Adobe will offer additional software with the Flash download. If you don't really need it, uncheck that option.
– The new version of Flash will overwrite the old version. You shouldn't have to delete it. The 'library', which was in the message Marilyn saw, is hidden. Paul the 'library' is hidden and you have to hold the Option key when you access the file menu. He couldn't quite remember the exact procedure but suggested it's best not to mess with it — it's hidden for a reason.

Aaron called. He has a ZTE smartphone that doing some strange things, like the photos not being displayed. He wanted to know how to reset the phone and start from scratch.
– A reset should be the last resort. Try other things first…
– Go to the Google Play store and find applications that clean an Android device. This should free up memory. Operating systems, in general, start to act up when there's less than about 10% space left.
– Not all of the cleaning apps do a good job. The one Paul used before worked well but he couldn't remember its name. It was a free one that had some 10 million downloads. Search for the words: android cleanup. An app with that many downloads is generally safe to use. Paul said he'd find the name of the app and post it to this page.

Aaron also wondered if there was a way to charge his flip phone from a smartphone's battery, in the same way he uses a laptop to charge the phone.
– Glenn didn't think that was possible. Smartphones aren't designed to send power out.
– There are battery packs available just for this purpose. They range in price from $5 to $30.
– Paul implied there are charging units that work off a car's battery to charge cell phones. <From the cigarette lighter, I guess>

William called. He finally bought a PC, with Windows 7, after 25 years of using a Mac. He needs the PC because of the programs he uses. He wanted to know how to transfer data from another Win7 PC to the one he just bought.
– Don't try to transfer the apps themselves (Microsoft Word, Firefox, Thunderbird etc.). Do a fresh installation of the programs on the new machine.
– Google the words: windows Easy Transfer. Go to the Microsoft site that tells you how to use the Easy Transfer app. That website will have the program for you to download, but it's meant only for Window XP & Vista. Win7 has the program built in, so you only need to read the instructions.
– When the program runs, it guides you thru the process and offers alternatives — like transferring to a hard drive.
– Using an Ethernet cable to connect the machine is preferred. Wi-fi can have dropouts. And don't interrupt the process once started. It may take several hours for the 70 gigs he needs to transfer.

William asked about transferring the data from the Thunderbird email program.
– The data and settings for Thunderbird are stored separately from the program itself, and will be transferred together.
– After the data transfer, do a fresh install of Thunderbird. After the installation, Thunderbird will find the data and start using it. But you have to do the data transfer before installing Thunderbird.

William next asked about getting the data from the Chrome browser on the old machine to the new one.
– He has a Gmail account so Paul suggested he sign in, using those credentials, on the old machine when using Chrome, creating a Chrome account. Then, when he signs in using Chrome on the new machine, the data will download from the internet. <Google stores your bookmarks, passwords, etc. I guess>
– Alternately, using the Easy Transfer program 'should' also transfer the Chome data to the new machine from the old one.
– You can tell if you're already signed in with Chrome if you see your name in the upper right corner of Chrome, just below the 3 horizontal lines.
– Do a Google search for how to sign in to Chrome. It's Chrome you want to sign into, using your Gmail account info. You want to create a Chrome account. <As I understand it>

Lastly, William said he's having trouble getting used to using the Left/Right click buttons next to the trackpad on his new laptop.
– Glenn suggested he use a wireless mouse instead of the trackpad.
– You should be able to tap the pad itself to click or double click.

The guys tried to gave away a pair of tickets to the Tech Museum in San Jose. They were to go to the first caller, but no one called for them.
– The tickets expire on 12-31-14.
– Check the museum's website for holiday hours.
– At the end of the show they said they would give the tickets to the first one who emails them at zen at kvmr dot org.
– Don't do it if unless you have a good chance of using them.

Aaron called again. He said he's having problems with some of the apps on his smartphone. In particular, he can't get Firefox to remember the pages he tries to bookmark.
– Paul said he likes Firefox but it doesn't work so well on an Android machine. He said Chrome works very well.
– If you use Chrome on both a desktop & mobile, they will synch their data.

Pam called. Her daughter got her a laptop and put Panda Free anti-virus on it. She heard mention of malware, spyware & other stuff, so she wondered if Panda Free will take care of all this threats.
– Most anti-virus programs cover different types of malware but Paul isn't familiar with the Panda brand.
– The guys suggested using AVG and Avast anti-virus programs. Both have free versions.
– Ask your daughter. She put Pand on the machine, she may know more about it.

Other security tips:
– Don't expect protection from phishing attacks.
– Remember, no anti-virus is 100% effective.
– Emails are notorious for infecting machines. Don't open emails when you don't know the sender. Don't click the links in an email.
– Even when the email looks like it's from someone you know, it may not be. Yahoo accounts get hacked often. The bad guys may be using your friend's account to send you email.
– Paul suggested that people close their Yahoo accounts so no one can hack it and spam your friends <from your contact list>. Don't just abandon the account. Pull the email off of it and kill it.

The guys mentioned the Sony hack. Paul thought it might have been facilitated by a disgruntled employee or someone at Sony who got paid off. Paul also said that most security breaches are not high tech but result from theft of equipment.

Haphazard called. He has an iMac and ever since a DVD was put in it, nothing works and the DVD is stuck. <There was a Mac with a stuck disk on the 11-26-14 show. See below for the resolution>
– Shut it down for an extended period of time and pull out the power plug.
– Hold down the mouse button as you put the plug back in and as you power it up. That should send an eject signal to the DVD drive before the operating system boots. If it doesn't eject, then it's physically stuck in there. Try this first before resorting to what's described below or before taking the drive apart.

They eventually figured out what went wrong with Connie Coale's Mac, which had the stuck CD. When she reached for the last CD in the stack to burn data to it, she also picked up the protective plastic sheet below it, which was the same shape as a disk. She inserted both the disk and the sheet into the drive and that caused the jam. The slot in the Mac is designed to the width of 1 disk and a bit more. That little bit more was enough to accept both disk & sheet. They had to use a long paper clip with a loop formed on the end to pop the disk off the spindle.

Changelog:
added links to: Thunderbird, Chrome, Easy Transfer, Tech Museum, Firefox, Panda Free, the 11-26-14 show

Last Update 4:49 PM 12/26/2014

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 Glenn & Paul were in the studio for today's show

Next Zentech shows are on the 24th & 31st of Dec. There may be changes and I'll tweet them out if I'm notified in time.

The show started with talk about small tags that can be attached to items like keys so you can easily find them. Glenn thought that batteries powering these tags can be problematic. <Adding bulk to the tag and limiting the time you have to find the object, I guess>

Paul said that they do require batteries. The one he found at thetileapp.com, which started as a Kickstarter project, is white, about 1 square inch, and uses Bluetooth. Bluetooth allows it to communicate with a mobile device like a cell phone. You can then use a phone with Bluetooth to make the tag emit a sound, making it easy to locate.

iCloud can be used to locate an iPhone. The iPhone will submit it's location to iCloud and, when you login to iCloud, it will show you the phone's location on a map. You can then do a number of things.
– If the battery on the phone has run out, you can see, on the map, its last location before the battery quit.
– If the battery still has juice, iCloud will tell you how much battery life is left.
– If you've lost the phone and it's nearby, you can make it beep so can locate it. It will override the mute setting.
– You can send a text message to the phone, even if the screen is locked. So, if you left it at a friend's house, they will still get the message.
– If it's been stolen, you can delete all of the data on it remotely.
– You can send it a command to lock it. And you can change the lock code.

A similar service is available for Android phones. On both types of phone, the GPS location service has to be turned on.

Paul said he's not heard of law enforcement using the GPS location information as evidence to convict anyone. He said you can always argue that just because the phone's location is known that doesn't mean you were there using it.

Nick called. He had more info concerning what the police know about where your cell phone is. He had been perusing the county website and had been reading police dispatcher notices. He found that the police have access to a service, which gives the location of cell phones. <The location of the phones that call the police, I assume>.

Paul tried to remember the name of the service. It has a mysterious name, something like E9. It lets emergency dispatchers locate the caller using cell tower triangulation. It's not especially accurate, like GPS. But it can locate phones that don't even have GPS, like the flip phones, reasonably well. So, be aware that you (your phone) can still be found, even if you turn off your GPS location services.

If you don't want to be found by your phone, wrap it in tin foil or place it in a can or a wire mesh bag — a Faraday cage.

William called. He wants to replace his Toshiba laptop and wondered how hard it would be to replace or downgrade from Windows 8 to Windows 7.

– Glenn said it could be a challenge and might not even be possible if the machine has the newer BIOS. And you would lose and bonus software that came with the new Windows 8 machine. <I think he was talking about UEFI OR Unified Extensible Firmware Interface BIOS>
– If you're going to downgrade, consider having a professional do it.
– Considering the cost, you could be better off buying a machine that comes with Windows 7.
– If you get a Windows 8 machine, you can try software from classicshell.net. That will make Win8 seem more like Windows 7.
<More about UEFI on the 3-13-13 show>

William also had a question about web cameras when he's shopping for a machine. He sometimes sees that a webcam is listed in the specs for a computer, and sometimes not. He wondered how careful he has to be to insure the camera is included.
– It's uncommon for a laptop not to have a webcam. Paul said. Glenn said he doesn't know of a machine that doesn't come with one. Just because it doesn't say it has one doesn't mean it doesn't.
– Contact the seller and ask if it has a camera.

Next, William asked about how much RAM is adequate. He sees many laptops are coming with 4gigs but some people say they're happy to have gone with 8gig.
– Glenn thought 4gigs is plenty.
– Keep your options open by buying a machine that can be upgraded with more memory.

Finally, he asked about solid state memory (SSD). <This is a hard drive that uses a chip instead of spinning platters.> A lot of machines are coming with SSDs now.
– A 128gig SSD is more than enough for most people if they're not going to store a lot of photos, movies or music. This is becoming more the case as cloud storage (storage on the internet) is being used more. Paul has put much of his music collection online and uses Google Play to pull down a subset of it thru a playlist.
– If you get a machine with a SSD you won't be able to replace the SSD with a conventional hard drive — not enough room inside.
– SSDs are very expensive if should later want to upgrade it to a larger size.
– SSDs have no moving parts and transfer data very fast.
– SSDs do 'go wrong'. When they go wrong, they do so completely and without warning — no noises or bad sectors.
– There are hybrid drives — a smaller SSD and a large platter hard drive combined. They are a compromise between speed; storage capacity and price. But they won't fit a laptop meant to take only an SSD
– If you have (or bought) a laptop with a conventional platter hard drive, you should be able to replace the drive with a hybrid drive.

Glenn mentioned the HP Stream laptop that's selling for $199. It comes with a modest size SSD, 1 year of Microsoft Office 365 and 1 year of 1 terabyte of cloud storage. He said the trend is to have software programs like Microsoft Office and Photoshop run in the cloud and charge the user 'rent' to use them.

James called to suggest that those who use a Faraday cage test its effectiveness. He said to put the phone in the cage (or tin foil) and then try calling it. If it rings, the cage is not adequate.

James also said that he's used the "locate my iPad function" with his cell phone and he was shown a satellite map of his house with the cross hairs at a spot that was within about 3 feet of it's actual location. Paul said the function is executed a few times and an average is taken to improve the accuracy.

Pam called. She has a Windows 8.1 laptop that her daughter bought for her. She had been using dialup internet on her old XP machine but it's extremely slow on the Win8 machine. She had been doing updates for Win8 using wi-fi when she came into town an thought they all finished. Paul determined the setting for her updates was wrong. There are 3 settings 1) Automatic updates 2) Download the updates but ask me before installing 3) Don't download updates, I'll do it manually. She had option 2 set and there were still more updates being sent to her. That's what was slowing it down when she was on dialup. He said to use option 3 until she gets back to a wi-fi hotspot, and only then do the updates. Paul suggested she set her anti-virus software to manual update, too. Anti-virus programs try to update frequently.

Pam also asked about accelerators to speed up her connection when she's on dialup. Paul said he's seen a review of these services, they do work but they're not worth the trouble. The accelerators compress the data before sending it to you and decompress when you receive it. <I've used an accelerator provided by basicisp.net along with their service and it more than doubled the throughput on non-binary data — general web pages but not things like .zip files or music>

Paul recalled that there's a program that monitors the data coming to you and displays the speed as a graph. He thought it's called Netstat.
<This MIGHT be the program Paul mentioned. It's called NetStat Live: (I can't vouch for this program. I know nothing about the company):
Download it from this page:

I also found NetWorx Free bandwidth monitoring and usage reporting (again, I can't vouch for it).

There is also the netstat command line program that comes with XP. Here's some documentation:

Here are some tweaks you can use to improve performance for both dialup & DSL (Probably more than you want to know):

Pam mentioned she uses Yahoo. Paul suggested she use the Yahoo version meant for mobile devices m.yahoo.com. This should bypass a lot of the graphics and advertising and will speed things up.

Janet called. She has an expired Flash player on her Mac Air and has tried to update the player. At the end it tells her to close the following programs: Safari and Google Chrome. She's tried clicking on the 'X' thinking that would close the program. But Glenn pointed out that closes only the window, not the program. He said go to the File option at the top and then click on Exit or Close. Paul said a different way to do it is to use the keys Option + AppleKey + Escape. That will give a list of the running programs that you can then kill.

Paul said most of the virus invasions now days are coming thru the Flash player. Flash is being updated frequently and you'll often see a notification that the player needs to be updated — ignore that, Paul said. Do not rely on websites or emails that tell you to update. Do a Google search for Plugin Check and use that to check all your plugins for updates.

The disclaimer (paraphrased):
The views and opinions expressed on this show are those of the speakers only and not necessarily those of KVMR, its board, management, staff, contributors, or broadcasters. Furthermore, we provide information and suggestions but are not recommending anything.

Ross called to clarify which version of Plugin Check Paul was talking about. Paul said it's the one at mozilla.com/en-us/plugincheck. He said it works with browsers other than Firefox but wasn't sure which ones.

Ross said his Silverlight plugin is updated but Plugin Check keeps saying it needs to be updated.
– Note the name of the plugin and then do Google search for: download Silverlight. Then go to Microsoft site to download it. Sometimes doing the update directly from the Plugin Check screen is faulty.
– Get the latest Mac operating system your computer can take. Ross has been using 10.68. That will insure you'll be allowed to get the latest Silverlight update.

Ross was concerned that the latest Mac operating system will use up a lot more of his hard drive space. Paul said it shouldn't use up much more space and is worth it.

Last Update 11:32 PM 12/10/2014