Last Viewed Technology Blogs (217)

I got a call this afternoon informing me there was an attack on a gas pipeline creating a shortage. My response was: "I didn't know we were pumping gasoline through pipelines"
Checking online there is conflicting information but Florida Governor Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergence following a temporary shutdown of the Colonial Pipeline - a major US fuel pipeline operator.

One news story stated it was a cyber attack that forced Colonial to shut down operations.
It also reports this is affecting the Northern part of Florida... 8 hours drive from here.

Gas is available in South Florida but panic buying has already this area and people are hoarding gasoline creating a shortage. Some stations being reported for gouging where average prices were $2.85 now jumping over $4 a gallon.

I'm headed to Miami on appointment Wednesday morning and filled my tank before sundown Tuesday. That should get me nearly 300 miles and get me into the weekend.

Cyber attack? Obviously, Colonial got short-changed on internet security.

Four years ago, I went shopping for a Smart TV. The salesman explained (at the time) the current Smart models had a processor/engine that was slower than some models that weren't Smart. I asked if I buy a non-Smart TV, how do connect it to the internet and his reply was with an add-on device called CHROMECAST.

His whole focus was, I should get a TV with a faster engine. The analogy was watching a golfing event and the ball streaking across the screen. Did I want to see the ball clearly or or a with a tail like a comet? The slower engine has limitations on fast moving objects.

So, I bought the TV with a faster engine and a Chromecast. It was great. Easy hookup and I was able to 'cast' YouTube videos to the TV from my desktop computer!

My son-in-law complained that he had to rent another 'box' from the cable company so he could watch Netflix on the TV in the bedroom. I bought him a Chromecast for Christmas and he said it was the BEST gift he ever received.

He preferred to control it via his cellphone. iPhone to be exact.

It's been months since I moved and we hooked up the 4 year old TV via the cable box as part of my HOA package, but... I didn't get around to connecting the Chromecast.

Last week, we purchased a new TV for the living room... yeah, Smart TV. This time, we had the option of one with a faster engine, much better than the older models. It's not that I wanted to watch golf balls streaking across the screen, I wanted something new. So far, I only hooked up the cable box and bypassed the setup routine.

The old TV got moved to the bedroom and this weekend, I got around to connecting the Chromecast on it. What a pain. Google Chrome for desktop no longer supports Chromecast. I've got to link everything to a phone (or tablet) to make things work now. That involves logging in to create an account as the new app that connects to Chromecast is Google Home, as 'we' now have to power to connect any smart device to other smart devices via this app. I say, f'king great...

Third time's a charm... Chromecast was willing but Google Home failed. It's amazing how I b*tch and send out service tickets and 'right after' it miraculously works!
Anyway, I have it connected to an old phone using Wi-Fi. What I didn't experience on my desktop is advertisements. I'm unable to play YouTube videos in Chrome, it routes to the YouTube app that not only plays commercials before each video, it's got them jumping up around the selections. One wouldn't go away until I made a selection.


Next time around I'll be looking to download ad blockers for YouTube and Chrome.

This topic get me interest to write over here,”The topic connected but alone”. Technology is broad in our society to rely on and use every time to make our work convenient and fast. As a millenial the digital technology becomes high tech and useful to to communicate your love ones ,friends and etc...these days , those phones in our pockets are changing our minds and hearts because they offer us three gratifying fantasies .one, that we can put our attention wherever we want it to be; two, that we will always be heard ;and three that we will never have to be alone.I want to make a call .Now it’s :I want to have a feeling, I need to send a text .the problem of this regime of I share therefore I am that, if we don’t have connection ,we don’t feel like ourselves .so what do we do? We connect more and more but in the process ,we st ourselves up to be isolated.how do u get from connection to isolation? You end up isolated if u don’t cultivate the capacity for solitude ,the ability to be separate,to gather your self .solitude is where you find yourself so that you can reach out to people and form real attachments.when we don’t have the capacity for solitude , we turn other people in order to feel less anxious or in order to feel alive . When this happen ,we are not able to appreciate who they are.It’s as though we’re using them as a spare parts to support our fragile sense of self .we slip into thinking that always being connected is going to make us feel less alone.when I went to fast food I saw a family gathering instead they are meeting up to had a conversation all of them it seems they don’t know each other because they aren’t talking nor to share any topic to be talked .all of them are using cellphone ,I said to myself is that a family gathering? Not even talking each other ,no attachment ,might they came coz of they are connected as family ...most of us 24/7 using mobiles , even doing laundry, cooking, cleaning house , we keep fidget and feel bored without phones but always bare in our mind we must to give time our family to talk to and to treasure the time were you are together....those little devices on our pocket are so powerful that they don’t change what we do but change who we are....

My computer did 2 updates yesterday. Virus protection and Firefox.
Now, all the websites are hesitating to load.
In the bottom corner of the Firefox window I see: Performing a TLS Handshake...
Searching Google I see there is an issue with the TLS Handshake causing it to 'hang' when loading pages. So, I opened Google Chrome and I'm getting the same delay.
Explorer has the same issue.
Three different browsers and they are all acting the same. I suspect it's related to the virus software update and since I have it installed on a few computers, I'll go around and check to see if they are all running with the same update.

Like I have time to troubleshoot computers this week...

Google has this to say about it "The Transport Layer Security (TLS) Handshake Protocol is responsible for the authentication and key exchange necessary to establish or resume secure sessions. When establishing a secure session, the Handshake Protocol manages the following: ... Authentication of the server and optionally, the client."

Males, no spoilers please.

Kasih, no fair telling the other women.

The US and UK are placing either restrictions or bans on 'Huawei's' development of 5G phone coverage in those countries. Are those actions to ultimately protect their network security or will the impact be far greater for the UK with the erosion of further trade development with China?

My desktop computer goes through phases of hanging or buffering for literally minutes on end, but not all the time. It starts, usually, about 10 minutes after I boot up, and lasts up to an hour - lately it has started doing it around 8 pm for, again, up to an hour. It is a Windows 7 so I don't think it is hidden updates.

I did find when I switched to Safe mode that it absolutely flies, all the time. Anyone else experienced anything like this, any suggestions? Safe mode is great but obviously limited - no watching online videos, for example, otherwise I'd just stay in it all the time.

I bought my first personal computer in 1975. It was made by Commodore and the programs had to be typed line by line and saved to a cassette. Soon after I joined a club that would send out monthly games and utilities on cassette. We didn't have internet then and I bought a modem where you could put the telephone handset into a cradle used as an acoustic coupler to transfer data at the rate of 300 baud. That allowed us to connect with other computer users and mainframe with other means of connection.

For me, It didn't do much more than keep records, low resolution images, basic word processing and a scientific calculator.

One of the guys in the club owned a car dealership and took courses in computer programming. He created a finance package that calculated car loan details of interest, payments and contracts. He connected it to an electronic typewriter and the contracts were printed on 4-part carbon copy forms. All of the records were save in his floppy disk system. After perfecting his 'finance package' he sold his software and hardware a complete packages to other dealerships and supported training, service and tax code updates. He had access to control all the dealerships and their client lists.

About 10 years later IBM computers became available. That was the time where people were using low speed connectivity via phone lines. I remember going to an electronics trade show to see companies had lots of business software and I recommended a package to get one company I worked for to use computers and get away from 100% manual bookkeeping. Part of their packages required subscription and their ability to access clients records.

A few years later and IBM clones were sold at a much lower cost than the original computers. Some of the reasons to buy cheap is they used cracked software.
A brief explanation is someone got into the original program and changed (cracked) the parameters so you didn't need an activation code or registration to use the programs.

The bad thing about cracked programs is who did the work and want 'gains' did they crack it for? I would guess (of the people I knew) half were using cracked software. In a hobby environment it wasn't so bad, but in a business environment, it was a no-no.

A friend told me the engineering firm next to his business had people using cracked versions of a popular design suite called AUTOCAD. One new employee didn't know his workstation had a cracked version and tried to do an update. The company information was in the cracked software and the update didn't match a registered serial number. If I recall, they had a few installations (seats) all using the same fake serial numbers.
Not long after, they were visited by police with a search warrant to seize all the computers using the cracked software. Along with the seizure were heavy fines for using unlicensed software. The company had to 'pay up' to stay in business.
They were lucky as I've heard other companies using cracked software had their data pirated that included bank account information giving access to the people who controlled the cracked software.

While some top level software prices have gone up, there are alternatives. Subscription, software is available. For example, If you cannot afford $4,000 to $5,000 for a purchase, you can access fully workings versions online without a large cash outlay.
I use PDF's in my business. Adobe was the original. It's expensive and I don't need to use all of it's capabilities, so I found a few competitors with fully licensed software at a fraction of the original. That works for me and no cracks!

On Friday, I got to visit the Carillon Historical Park, with some of the oldest buildings in the Dayton area. There were a few hundred displays of things & photos of the made here. NCR cash registers, DELCO automotive parts, Huffy bicycles, Frigidaire refrigerators for example. The Charles Kettering display had a moving mannequin describing some of his inventions and experiences.
The main attraction was the Wright Brothers National Museum where they had recreations of the bicycle store and workshop where they started propeller design and testing models that eventually lead to the building of their aircraft.
A small auditorium was playing movies with actual film footage of their experimental aircraft. I had no idea of the number of failures they experienced getting a working airplane and how they went to Europe to demonstrate it's flight and dispel the rumors as other inventors were very close in their attempts of manned flight.

I scanned an old photo to send to my brother last night and my computer wasn't connecting to the email server. I tried to access the main website and it too appeared to be offline.
They sent messages a few days ago about upgrading to an entirely new system!
So much for the improvement.

The main page was functioning this morning but most of the links didn't work and the email doesn't respond. Hopefully incoming messages aren't lost while this issue gets resolved. I'll send some test messages from my corporate account.

No doubt some heads are going to roll by this foul up.