Last Commented Technology Blogs (217)

I check a site called giveawayoftheday that offers free software each day. Typically, it's less known authors looking for feedback to better their products. Usually the products are offered without technical support or updates, some are only free licenses good for a year and after stop working or continue with less functionality. I avoid about 98% of these offers and uninstall the trial ones if they don't suit my needs. Over the years, I've found lots of nice free programs, mostly in the music, graphics or utility areas.

Being free comes with a catch as they usually have a nag screen to get you to upgrade to the paid version. Some try to sell you on other selections they offer. I make it a point to uncheck other free offers when installing the one I want to try as many installations have rogue software that mysteriously come with the package. I'll go back to the original offer and give a bad review explaining the unwanted software bundled in the package.

Three months ago, I installed a basic program that saves YouTube videos to disc. Works great and doesn't leave it's name (watermark) on the video it saves. Now ads are popping up when I boot my computer as this selection is in the startup of Windows. I close the program and all is well... except this morning a few minutes after I closed the program, a browser window opened with an offer to upgrade to their latest paid version. If this nag upgrade becomes habitual, I feel a divorce will be sooner than later.

The 1962 cartoon series The Jetsons is a look at what family life could/would be in the future where every family had their own flying vehicle. YouTube has dozens of videos of experimental one-man drones labeled eVTOL. Vertical Takeoff and Landing.
While they all make lots of claims like no-license, ultra-safe, long flight times, I haven't actually seen any production models flying around my neighborhood.

This morning another eVTOL popped up on my technical radar. It's called the Jetson ONE. At a cost of $92,000 production for 2022 is already sold out and they have taken lots of orders for 2023.

All but one or two of these concept flying vehicles have the rotor blades at knee level and my first thought is they fail miserably with regard to safety.

While they have a cool 3 minute video of the Jetson ONE, it's promoted as a fun vehicle.
The website calendar shows they booked one per month in 2022 and a list of more than 100 orders booked for 2023. Yeah, maybe lots of people have $92,000 to spare.




Official site:

This week, I've gone back to watching YouTube videos about the life of Nikola Tesla and the common thread is he gave too much of his talents away... so much that it drained him. He died at the age of 81 after being hit by a taxi. Many years Tesla had been living alone in hotels leaving behind unpaid bills.

As a young man coming to America, Tesla had worked for Thomas Edison. This was a double edged sword as Edison had cheated him of money and inventions. However, Tesla had the chance to grow and expand his experiments in the laboratory environment.
Edison's idea was to power homes by direct current (DC) generators. The problem with direct current was the limitation of traveling long distances. Thick wires and power stations every few miles were needed to conduct this type of electricity.
Tesla didn't agree with Edison and had invented motors and generators that worked with alternating current (AC) so he could run much longer distances with thinner wires.
His use of alternating current was less expensive and was gaining in popularity. He partnered with George Westinghouse to provide AC power distribution.
This was affecting Edison's business to the point where Edison started a smear campaign of fear mongering the dangers of alternating current. In retaliation, he began to use alternating current and horrified spectators when he publicly executed animals.

Anyway, I find it ironic that the most famous electric car in America named Tesla, is powered by batteries that supply (DC) direct current.

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.

What do y'all make of it? I think it's a scheme to try and stop more people waking up and questioning what's going on in the world. The Metaverse, in essence, is a virtual world which can be manipulated by those running it to present any set of ideas they wish. The goal seems to be to get more people invested in and plugged in to this metaverse. But why would this be? A control mechanism i think is the obvious answer (outside of obvious profit motives) - offer people a virtual 'safe space' where they don't have to worry about that big nasty (REAL) world, and where they'll be told everything they want to hear. Is it based in reality? No! Of course not! But if the reality is rife with corruption on the part of various people currently running it, wouldn't it make sense for those people to want to stop a mass awakening lest they be actually held accountable?? Yes, i think that is the point.

Tell me what YOU think

Technology moves forward. Maybe you remember when FM radio was broadcast entirely on an analog signal. Then stations added a digital band of information was simulcast along with the digital signal. The FCC changed all that and stations are fully digital sending streams of digitally encoded signals. The same thing happened with TV. If you were receiving broadcasts from an antenna on an old TV set, you had to add a digital receiver to convert the new digital signals.
The purpose for that was to send more data over the same bandwidth. Effectively adding more stations on the same channel.

Cell phone services are all switching to 5G, but the majority of customers are still using 4G. Surprising there is a small percentage of devices that can only work on a 3G signal.
If you are using an old style flip-phone, chances are it's on 3G. Lots of communication devices like tablets require 3G service.
Depending on your carrier, some of the major companies will be phasing out 3G. That change affects many old-style life-alert systems and discount carrier cellphones used only for 911. Unless they upgrade, they will be totally useless.

I'm reading the phase-out could happen as early as the first quarter 2022.

Yesterday and today I upgraded my Windows 10 laptop to Windows 11. I started the upgrade yesterday at 11:30 AM and it was still downloading and installing when I went to bed last night at 9:30 PM. 3 more hours this morning of installing and I finally got the computer to operate about 1 hour ago. Desktop looks the same. Very few visible changes.

A lot of time for a little nothing.

Sounds like The Don's gearing up to campaign in the '22 Mid-Terms ... And '24??

Back when everyone started to carry a camera on them (cell phone)....the skeptics of UFOs would say, why are we not getting any pictures of them? Today, there are many pictures of them taken. Now what?

What is the next move for society?

Do we continue to just go on with life living literally in our own little bubbles.....or....our big bubble (the planet)? Or, do we now look beyond ourselves....our own species....and start to acclimate ourselves to others out there? What would that even look like?

I seen one documentary where they were saying that they want to understand their technology....harness it...and put it to use to protect our environment when it came to developing new energy. My thoughts to that was.....why?....so they can send us a bill in the mail for something that now cost them something even cheaper to make....to make a larger profit?



Perhaps if people could live free....not where government controls you....but where one can have access to the basic elements to life without being a slave to the powerful.

Apparently, the release from Microsoft will start tomorrow, but will be done in waves.
This means that it might not be available for your machine until later.
The free upgrade should be complete by mid 2022.

For more info see;