Most Viewed Technology Blogs (217)

..w/ notes...
To daze x ray... yesterday once more..
....make this go ON ..For ever .} ..snow patrol
.b...play @ your own risk .} .planet patrol..
C......pop quiz.| . guess who .?.
..2. .stwy 2 heaviness .) .landing Zone.
1...all the Above. } Maino.ft. T pain
...also ran.} .please stand by. | .the outer . limits...
.. Parkinson bumps into Color. Ordinates...pt.2
( Despite simplification, technical gain improves...
....gold. .} . Interference...[ .dan..7:1
Daniel ./ Elton John.....
C.............{ ..dan.6:2....
2... Listen, learn..read On.} .deep . purple
1...Leap of faith. } .I Q.
...daniel says it's the best place he's ever seen...he
. should know, he's been there enough....
... having convinced my self it's a live Exercise, eYe now remind you. ) .. evidence screams continuously that the Recording Industry cannot let go of bible stories..) ..and the reverse Engineering thereof...
Isis & Osiris./ Ayreon.
The statue got me high .) .they might be giants.
Secret history of the human race.) Blood Incantation
..also ran.) Standing on the shoulders of giants.) Oasis
..Liner note. see. Enoch book one.

The computer mouse is an important tool in my daily life.
I've tried lots of different brands of 'mouse-like' products including trackballs, joysticks, stylus pens and touch screens.

Depending on the setup there are 4 workstations in my condo plus a laptop and 3 workstations at my office. All of them were using the 'old standard' Microsoft wired mouse.
I like the shape, buttons and way it tracks. Wireless mouse? No thanks.
They are cheap... $10
Some products are in the $40 to $60 range so I'm getting a bargain at $10.

Actually, I prefer the accuracy of the old style mouse with a ball. Yeah, cleaning lint every other day didn't bother me. They are dinosaurs... no more are available on the planet.

The Microsoft mouse has a textured finish and after months of use I notice the left button would turn shiny. No problem, but I'm having to replace them when the wheel starts to skip.
Maybe there has been a change in manufacture as in 'they don't make them the same' and I'm replacing them in months and not years later.



Looking for a change, I've found a Logitech mouse for $10 that has a very similar shape and feel as the Microsoft mouse.

I bought 4 of them and put them into my main computers and will replace the others when the wheels begin to fail.

20 years ago I had a computer monitor go bad while under warrantee.
I returned it to the manufacturer's repair center and rather than wait for the repair, I was offered a refurbished unit they could ship the same day.
Not knowing what refurbished meant (exactly) the manager said all their new monitors go through a 24 hour burn-in test. Unfortunately, a small percent fail in the field. Those are repaired and returned.
The refurbished units not only get repaired, they go through extensive testing to find out what caused the problem in the first place.

Electronic components usually have a manufacturer's tolerance of 10% on resistors and diodes that are allowed to pass their standards for specifications. In the chance too many components are close to being out of tolerance (yet still acceptable) other components in the circuitry may fail due to the tolerance.

Guitarists may test out a few different amplifiers and pick one that sounds better. While they are wired with parts that pass standards, there are some that all the parts are ideally 'on the money' and exactly in tolerance.

I took that monitor he offered and used it for many years until it was time for something larger.

I've been shopping for a cellphone. My phone is maxed out on the SD memory with more than 5,000 photos and videos. I do monthly backups and purge old photos no longer needed. It's roughly 4 or 5 years old and the battery won't make it a whole day.
New models are around $1,200 and one drawback to many is you cannot add/extend memory as they don't have a slot for SD memory.
Samsung is offering 'refreshed' models that are a few years old. They have been thoroughly checked out, new batteries installed and screens, cases replaced if they have signs of wear. The operating systems are updated, unlocked and serial number with ID's are all new. One year warranty (same as a new phone) included. Priced about half of a new phone.

Some of the other models have dropped off the sales page and no longer available. Rather than risk the model I want to disappear, I made the purchase and expected it to arrive in 10 days or less.

I'll be cloning my old phone to the new phone and a few hours of updating apps and passwords should get me into another phone for a few more years.

I was reading an old novel ... The plot was based on the background of 80's or before ...
It was a crime thriller , and the turning point of the whole thriller was a "Technical error" !!

You all probably remember that , before Mobile Phone , there used to be Land Telephones , through which people used to communicate with each other ... As the Telecommunication Technology was in it's primitive stage , many "Technical Errors" used to interrupt the service ...

One of such error was "Cross Connection"...

Well... As I never had any personal experience of this , so I can only try to understand and describe it as it was narrated in the Novel...

During a Phone Call between Two Caller through Land Telephone , sometimes some Third Party accidentally get access into the ongoing conversation ... Then it called as "Cross Connection" ...

As I am not a technical person , so I can't really say why this used to be happened !!

The closest thing I can relate to this , is "Wrong Number" !!!

As many times we get calles from unknown people and find out that it's nothing but a "Wrong Number"...
Though , many times , those "Wrong Number" calls look suspicious ... Like it was more of some kind of "Human Error (Preeplanned)" rather than a "Technical Error" !!

But anyway...
This idea of "Cross Connection" seems very interesting and dramatic to me (Though some may consider it as a serious Privacy issue) !!

Just imagine !!!
You and your Love , in the middle of an intimate passionate conversation over the phone , and suddenly you guys hear the sound of a deep breathing from an unknown unexpected source !!!!!

We Are Inside A Videogame (Simulation Theory)

Today at 3:30 PM EDT (12:30 PM PDT) from Cape Canaveral in Florida, with live stream expected to kick off around 3:15 minutes prior, SpaceX is putting 60 broadband satellites into orbit as part of their Starlink service to a total of 418 satellites making them the world's largest private satellite operator.
Later this year, Starlink broadband service will be online for customers in the northern U.S. and Canada.

Today is the official day that Microsoft discontinues support for Internet Explorer in Windows 10. Hard to believe, but IE has been around nearly 27 years and now and it's fading away.
Microsoft Edge has been the replacement for some time now. To help with a few compatibility issues, there is an IE mode in Edge that will be supported until 2029, so if you really need IE on a site where Edge doesn't function, a working version is in the background.

Rarely did I need IE and have been using Firefox for years. Although it's buggy at times, I'm most comfortable with the interface. I tried Safari, but it lacked features. Except for a zoom magnification feature I liked, I stopped using it.
If you are using Google products, I would expect you to be married to Google Chrome, simply because it goes hand-in-hand with many of the Google add-on products, especially things used in business. It's operation is seamless, especially with cloud based applications.

In the event it removes a file (or files) I may need in the future, I don't plan to uninstall IE. I'll only delete it from my taskbar. Out of sight, out of mind.

I used to work for a company who manufactured upholstered furniture. They processed raw lumber to make the sofa and chair frames. Deliveries came by flatbed trailers and stored outside under the cover of an aluminum roof. 20-30 boards were brought into the wood shop as needed and cut to size to fit the specifications required to make each order.

My boss found that a new delivery had insects living in the wood and sent a letter to the supplier to pick up the material and deliver a fresh load that didn't have 'wood borers' nesting in the lumber.

That was the first time I had heard the term wood borers and as a resident of South Florida being a hot and humid climate, termites were the main insects found eating wood. There are also some variety of beetles that manifest themselves in lumber and appear years later... sometimes after the wood has been made into furniture.

A client of mine found a beautiful grand piano in a warehouse and had it delivered to her home and set up. Not long after, she noticed mounds of fine dust-like particles appearing on the carpet... that was the work of termites. The piano had to be removed and taken to an exterminator with a fumigation chamber designed for furniture and large items.

I have my house tented for termites every 6 to 8 years as that is recommended because whatever brought hungry termites into the house is still there. The wall construction, roof trusses and planking is raw wood. It's on my 'do list' of things for this year.

Every time it's fumigation where they cover the house in heavy tarp and fill the space with gas that displaces the oxygen killing the bugs... all the bugs.
Soon after fumigation, carpenter ants come to eat the dead termites. According to the exterminator, they don't eat wood. Their only interest is the termite dinner.

I found another company who does a different type of extermination where they spray the wood with a chemical coating to create a barrier. If the termites eat that, they die. The process requires them to drill holes in obscure places to spread the chemical, but they guarantee 100% kill.

The negative part of tent fumigation is termites can return within days as there is no poison to stop them and the chemical process stops their return and is cheaper.

After all these years of conventional termite treatment, I'm inclined to try the new technology method.

So much for a boring blog!

Thanks for reading...

I inherited the family photo albums and scrapbooks. My brother does the genealogy and sometimes asks for scans of old photos. With the camera my parents owned, all the photos were square so it didn't matter which way the camera was held. Later on, they purchased a different camera that shot rectangular photos and it came with a neck strap and a top viewfinder so all the photos ended up in the portrait mode. Tall shots and not wide ones.
Fast forward two generations and wide screen TV's are the norm. Landscape. Cellphone videos shoot wide screen but people normally hold them vertically. If you've seen videos posted to social media, the majority are in portrait mode.

TV news stories often add some enlarged blurred images in the background of the original video filling the empty space on the sides.

Depending on the subject, I rotate my phone to landscape mode so all the image comes through a normal TV (or computer monitor) and you don't have to twist your head to see the video.