Last Viewed Technology Blogs (218)

I have an old laptop that only gets used when I'm outside, usually on a jobsite and I need to review drawings that I don't have printed copies of. The battery would only work for a short time, so I replaced it. The hard drive was slow so a friend suggested I upgrade to an SSD (solid state drive) that works faster with less power drain.
Good idea. I bought the drive, 500 gigabyte. The problem is the drive on the laptop is 1 terabyte. While I'm only using a small part of the capacity, the conversion software won't compress what I have to the smaller drive. No problem. I bought a 1 terabyte SSD but I haven't gotten back to the project. It's in the box on my desk collecting dust and the laptop is somewhere in the living room, also collecting dust.

I have a computer simulator for learning to fly model aircraft. It does airplanes, drones and helicopters. I used it religiously and the cord at the top of the controller wore out. It doesn't work reliably. No problem said I, as the plan was to cut a few inches of the worn wire off the cord and reconnect it.
There is a coil (interference filter) where it exits the controller that I snipped off. One problem is 6 wires come from the USB side and 5 wires come from the inside of the controller. Something gets changed in the coil. It took a few days of searching for my test meter. I gave up and bought a new meter. It's been a few months and the opened controller is on the shelf.

While looking for something else, I found the test meter that I couldn't find earlier. So now I have 2 meters and the project isn't finished.

I bought a new controller but it doesn't work with the older software, so I had to buy the newest version simulator and I'm undecided if I will go back complete the project.



The thought now is to pay my friend who suggested I do the SSD upgrade. His business is technical electronic repair. Changing the drive and repairing the controller is something he could easily do.



Projects I don't complete.


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The one eyed splitting trowser viper. Sure, the creator designed 'em, probably with a lot more smarts than any of us, no? And estimates are that fully 6% of the male population ( puffters) absolutely adore the little fellers. But what about you ladies. I've heard that some of you actually don't like the things, or maybe it's the way they look, operate, or that they come attached to us men, mostly. From time to time they certainly have brought some folks misery, but joy as well, no? A similar percntge of dyky ladies, and perhaps many more of the straight type, like the hard inanimate ones, for a variety of reasons and to various purposes. And most of these don't look at all like the live item. What gives here?

Lots of talk these days about releasing the Kraken.

The wind is down and I'm charging batteries to catch a few model aircraft flights this morning. The batteries I use are lithium polymer or Li-Po for short. They develop lots of power for a short time, so I have several when I go flying.
It's important to monitor the flight time because draining a battery below 3.8 volts will shorten its life. Batteries are pretty expensive, around 25 to $30 a piece for the style I use.
Depending on batteries deserves a Blog of its own!

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.

SAMSUNG is to start work on the first ever smart TV that can be controlled by the user's mind, according to reports.

The software will allow people to change channels and the volume using only their brain.



Samsung are to start testing first smart TVs that can be controlled by your mind, according to reportsSamsung says it is developing the technology with the help of a team in Switzerland to help those with disabilities.

The research, called Project Pontis, wants to enable "users with physical limitations to change channels and adjust sound volume with their brains".

Brain-monitoring sensors and eye-tracking hardware are currently used to identify what selections the individual intends to make.

But they hope to make so advanced it will be able to work on brain commands alone.

That means you’d only need to think about changing the volume for it to happen.

The company predicts new prototype testing in early 2019 and there is not any suggestion it would be commercially available product.

It is currently aimed at specifically helping those with severe disabilities.

Rights activists, journalists and lawyers around the world have been targeted with phone malware sold to authoritarian governments by an Israeli surveillance firm, media reports say.

They are on a list of some 50,000 phone numbers of people believed to be of interest to clients of the company, NSO Group, leaked to major news outlets.

It was not clear where the list came from - or how many phones had actually been hacked.

NSO denies any wrongdoing.

It says the software is intended for use against criminals and terrorists and is made available only to military, law enforcement and intelligence agencies from countries with good human rights records.

It said the original investigation which led to the reports, by Paris-based NGO Forbidden Stories and the human rights group Amnesty International, was "full of wrong assumptions and uncorroborated theories".

But it added that it would "continue to investigate all credible claims of misuse and take appropriate action".

The allegations about use of the software, known as Pegasus, were carried on Sunday by the Washington Post, the Guardian, Le Monde and 14 other media organizations around the world.

Pegasus infects iPhones and Android devices to enable operators to extract messages, photos and emails, record calls and secretly activate microphones and cameras.

What do we know about the people targeted?
Media outlets working on the investigation said they had identified more than 1,000 people spanning over 50 countries whose numbers were on the list.

They include politicians and heads of state, business executives, activists, and several Arab royal family members. More than 180 journalists were also found to be on the list, from organizations including CNN, the New York Times and Al Jazeera.

Many of the numbers were clustered in 10 countries: Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Hungary, India, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Morocco, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, according to the reports.

When contacted by the outlets involved in the investigation, spokespeople for these countries either denied that Pegasus was used or denied that they had abused their powers of surveillance.

It was not clear how many of the devices on the list had actually been targeted, but forensic analysis of 37 of the phones showed there had been "attempted and successful" hacks, the Washington Post reported.

This included people close to Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was murdered while visiting the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, in October 2018 and his body dismembered.

The investigation found that spyware was installed on his fiancée's phone days after his murder, and that his wife's phone was targeted with spyware between September 2017 and April 2018.


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Anybody know about a dating site call Mingle2.com? Two weeks ago I sign with that site and now I can't delete my account. The site is full of scammers and spammers.

....links and nodes... Sure, concepts such as like sorts with like (homophily), contagion and resilience, she who has tends to beget more, falsehoods spread faster than truths, etc., are with us. But here's the surprise, they have always been. They underlie everything from Martin Luther's anti Pope reformation, to the fake news on the internet. And, the early idealists of the latter foresaw a totally decentralized non commercial world wide web. How'd that turn out, folks? Our dad's were glued at day's end to every word and page of the local fish wrap. Our kids can't sit for a family meal without phone in hand. Who could dream this stuff up, peebles?

Early in my relation with Amazon, I made the mistake of buying several items in my cart, just after a price increase. Apparently the algorithms decided that price increases were the way to get me to buy, because pretty soon most of the items in my cart were getting their price bumped up. I found that annoying……and expensive.

So I moved items up from my "saved for later" list to my cart; I kept at least 6 items in my cart. Because most purchases are from WANT and not NEED, I am in no hurry. Each time one of them got increased in price, I deleted it from all lists. It only took Amazon about 10 days to notice. Now, when Amazon wants to encourage a purchase, they >decrease< the price, with no more bumping up the price.

Yes, Amazon algorithms study your buying patterns, and price accordingly. Depending on shopping and buying habits, different people get different prices on the same item. You Amazon addicts out there, if you are not in a rush, and if you want to pay less, you might want to give my method a try.