Messages

1

Tech / Re: DuckDuckGo browser

« on: December 27, 2021, 09:10:50 AM »

I use the Opera browser a lot and often with DuckDuckGo.  I find the search results to be a little on the light side; there are search engines that are better at searching but of course they are "very" nosy!  I might try the DuckDuckGo browser and see how I like it; but if the searches are light on the search I'm probably not going to like it much!

2

Tech / Home Mac Repair!

« on: November 17, 2021, 08:55:13 AM »

I'm thinking Apple finally did something right!

"Here’s a pleasant — and frankly unexpected — update from Apple. The company just announced Self Service Repair, a new program designed to let users perform common repairs on devices at home. Through the program, users with damaged devices will be sent “Apple genuine” tools and components — same as the ones they use at the Genius Bar.

The company will also be offering up online repair manuals (text, not video), accessible through the new Apple Self Service Repair Online Store. The system is similar to the one the company rolled out for Independent Repair Providers (of which there are currently 2,800 in the U.S. plus 5,000 Apple Authorized Service Providers), beginning with the iPhone 12 and 13, focused on display, battery and camera fixes. A similar service for M1Macs will be launching “soon” after.

“Creating greater access to Apple genuine parts gives our customers even more choice if a repair is needed,” COO Jeff Williams said in a release tied to the announcement. “In the past three years, Apple has nearly doubled the number of service locations with access to Apple genuine parts, tools, and training, and now we’re providing an option for those who wish to complete their own repairs.”


https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/17/beginning-next-year-apple-will-mail-you-parts-and-tools-to-fix-your-iphone-and-mac-at-home/

I know the iPhone would be pretty difficult for a lot of people to repair.  Imac's I've done and had them work afterwards!

3

Community / Re: limitless human stupidity

« on: November 04, 2021, 08:16:58 AM »

They had enough hope to float a boat; but it didn't float after all! 

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Tech / Re: Do you need a VPN?

« on: October 14, 2021, 08:07:10 AM »

I use Opera's built in VPN and it is fine except that the my bank has some issues with it sometimes when I try to do some sort of remote transaction!  It's free although I think I would pay for it if I used it more!

5

Tech / Re: What printer do you use?

« on: October 14, 2021, 08:01:50 AM »

I recently spent some ill-gotten gains on a Canon Color Laser printer that I really like but the model number I can't recall here at work!  It works wirelessly
just fine and it is an All-in-One so it does all of what I ask it to do.  The only issue I have is that it times out pretty quickly after I turn it on but I suppose there is a setting for this somewhere in the manuals!

It's a Canon Color imageCLASS MF641Cw!

https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/portal/us/home/products/details/printers/color-laser/color-imageclass-mf641cw

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Tech / Re: Do not use AVG antivirus

« on: May 12, 2021, 12:45:57 PM »

I have used, and have paid for, AVG on my home Windows machine for many years.  I don't ever think I ever said anything about a MAC version because I have never thought to try it!  Thanks for the info!

7

Tech / Re: Hope You've Never Heard any of These Sounds!

« on: April 21, 2021, 11:05:43 AM »

I always liked people's reactions to the broken glass sound! I remember one teacher had just started up a laptop and then was moving it when she heard that sound and thought she had broken it!

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Tech / Watching Us Sleep?

« on: March 17, 2021, 10:49:03 AM »

Google is not going to be watching me sleep anytime soon!  What about you?

Google's got a new smart display, and trust me, it is new. The second-generation Nest Hub looks virtually identical to the original product, launched in 2018 as the Home Hub. This new device still lacks a camera, but it does have a Soli radar sensor for sleep tracking. Yes, the new Google smart display will watch you sleep, but the company stresses that it designed "Sleep Sensing" with privacy in mind. It also costs less than the first-gen display did at launch.

Owners of the OG Hub won't notice any major external changes — there's still a 7-inch display with a middling 600p resolution, a rear-facing fabric-covered speaker, and the device sensors poking through the otherwise uniform bezel. The only real visual difference is the lighter sensor window. Google says the speaker now offers 50% more bass, so I'd wager we're talking about a Home Mini to Nest Mini-style audio upgrade.


https://www.androidpolice.com/2021/03/16/googles-second-gen-nest-hub-will-watch-you-sleep/

9

Tech / Re: Buying a printer

« on: March 11, 2021, 08:28:01 AM »

I'm also in the process of buying a printer and like the Brother's I've seen around my schools!  Good value!

10

Tech / Re: We have met the enemy and he lives in our browser!

« on: March 05, 2021, 09:07:44 AM »

This seems to be tools to let you be the enemy yourself!

https://developers.googleblog.com/2021/03/announcing-flutter-2.html

11

Tech / We have met the enemy and they live in our browser!

« on: March 05, 2021, 09:05:47 AM »

I'm certain I'm getting too old for this stuff, the arms race to sell us stuff is heating up!

"Google is leading the charge to replace third-party cookies with a new suite of technologies to target ads on the Web. And some of its proposals show that it hasn’t learned the right lessons from the ongoing backlash to the surveillance business model. This post will focus on one of those proposals, Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC), which is perhaps the most ambitious—and potentially the most harmful.

FLoC is meant to be a new way to make your browser do the profiling that third-party trackers used to do themselves: in this case, boiling down your recent browsing activity into a behavioral label, and then sharing it with websites and advertisers. The technology will avoid the privacy risks of third-party cookies, but it will create new ones in the process. It may also exacerbate many of the worst non-privacy problems with behavioral ads, including discrimination and predatory targeting.

Google’s pitch to privacy advocates is that a world with FLoC (and other elements of the “privacy sandbox”) will be better than the world we have today, where data brokers and ad-tech giants track and profile with impunity. But that framing is based on a false premise that we have to choose between “old tracking” and “new tracking.” It’s not either-or. Instead of re-inventing the tracking wheel, we should imagine a better world without the myriad problems of targeted ads."

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/03/googles-floc-terrible-idea"

12

Tech / And you think you have problems with the end of Adobe Flash!

« on: January 25, 2021, 10:01:35 AM »

The railroad system in Dalian, northern China, collapsed citywide on Tuesday for up to 20 hours after the Adobe Flash programing software stopped running.

Adobe had announced as early as 2017 that it would cease support for the multimedia software on Dec. 30 last year. The American software company eventually ended the operation of all Flash content on Tuesday.

Tuesday’s chaos arose after China Railway Shenyang failed to deactivate Flash in time, leading to a complete shutdown of its railroads in Dalian, Liaoning province. Staffers were reportedly unable to view train operation diagrams, formulate train sequencing schedules and arrange shunting plans.

Authorities fixed the issue by installing a pirated version of Flash at 4:30 a.m. the following day.

https://hk.appledaily.com/news/20210117/FLXATT4LKVBGVEBRLAECJPTCHM/

13

Tech / Re: Are you a digital hoarder?

« on: January 22, 2021, 08:11:48 AM »

I'm sure I still have an old style mac laptop in my basement and I still use a G5 Powermac for music in my bedroom!  Probably should've sold the Kaypro's
when I had a guy that actually needed them but he had a nasty attitude!

14

Tech / Re: External Hard Drive options

« on: January 05, 2021, 08:57:20 AM »

Raven, that seems like a logical way of going about it!  I'm sure others must have other opinions! 

I usually back up my boot drive to an external drive that is entirely separate from my daily process and I have separate drive partitions for my important data.  My main boot drive is a SSD and the data backup files are generally regular drives on discrete partitions based on function! Anything is better than not backing up and the alternate daily/weekly makes sense if you can maintain it easily!

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Tech / Bad Time To Join the French Army?

« on: December 10, 2020, 08:04:51 AM »

There is a member / former member of TS that was interested in body mods and other things that could be labeled Transhumanism. That's interesting to me
in a purely intellectual science fiction way but this from CNN is going way beyond:

(CNN)The French armed forces now have permission to develop "augmented soldiers" following a report from a military ethics committee.

The report, released to the public on Tuesday, considers medical treatments, prosthetics and implants that improve "physical, cognitive, perceptive and psychological capacities," and could allow for location tracking or connectivity with weapons systems and other soldiers.

Other possible interventions considered by the armed forces ethics committee include medical treatments to prevent pain, stress and fatigue, and substances that would improve mental resilience if a soldier were taken prisoner.

The committee said that France needs to maintain "operational superiority of its armed forces in a challenging strategic context" while respecting the rules governing the military, humanitarian law and the "fundamental values of our society."

As a result, it has forbidden any modification that would affect a soldier's ability to manage the use of force or affect their sense of "humanity."
Further examples of banned modifications include cognitive implants that would affect the exercise of a soldier's free will, or changes that would affect their reintegration into civilian life.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/09/europe/french-army-soldiers-technology-ethics-scli-intl-scn/index.html

Does this frighten everyone else as much as it frightens me?  I'm also sure if the French are doing it then other countries are probably wading in as well!