Tehachapi's Online Community News & Entertainment Guide
Tehachapi's Online Community News & Entertainment Guide
Sorted by date Results 126 - 150 of 194
What's a Chromebook? A Chromebook is an inexpensive laptop, designed to be used while connected to the internet. Most of your applications and all of your files are stored online. Why are they inexpensive? Chromebooks don't run on a Windows or Mac operating system, so they don't have to pay the Microsoft or Apple "tax." Chromebooks run Chrome OS, Google's operating system. Chromebooks run just fine on hardware that either Windows or macOS would struggle with. Naturally, things made by Google lik...
Addiction. There, I said it. People, Americans in this case, are addicted to their smartphones. Not you and me, though; we're fine. Other people, probably someone we know, is addicted. How smartphone-addicted are Americans? • People use their phones for an average of three hours and eight minutes a day and check their phone 110 times a day. • 50 percent are uncomfortable when they leave their phone at home, have no service, or have a broken phone • 61 percent say they sleep with their phone...
Smartphones running Android by Google, or iOS by Apple, have borrowed (or stolen, see Apple Inc. v Samsung) so many features and design elements from each other that most phones look basically the same. So if you're buying your first phone, which should you choose? If you've already got a smartphone, you've already chosen either Android or iOS, but is there any reason to switch? Here are a few things to help you decide. Security Security in iOS vs. Android is about the same as it is in Macs vs....
Technical stuff can be complicated, so I use analogies to help explain technical stuff in ways non-technical people can understand. CPUs, hard drive space and RAM, browsers and home pages CPUs CPU stands for Central Processing Unit, your CPU is the "engine" in your device (computer, smartphone or tablet) that does work. CPUs are also called processors, because hey, let's make all of this just a bit more confusing, shall we? Companies make different processors for different devices. For...
Email, as we know it, was invented by Ray Tomlinson in 1972 while working as a government contractor on the U. S. Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET). He used the @ symbol to separate the name of the recipient from the computer holding the recipient's emails. OK, here are some email facts: • Today, there are 3.7 billion email accounts, worldwide. • 269 billion emails are sent every day. • More than 60 percent of all email is read on mobile devices like phone...
There are more crooks than ever running fake tech support scams. First it was phone calls, then poisoned pop-ups and hijacked advertising networks, and now social media. When (if) people start to catch on to the scammers' schemes, they'll go back to making random phone calls and start the cycle over again. All to try and scare people into giving them money to "fix" a computer that had nothing wrong with it in the first place. How many more scammers are there? In 2017 the number of reported fake...
Hey, congratulations; you've got a new phone. You (or the helpful people at the store) activated your new phone and you're all logged in and ready to go. Before you go out and use your phone to shoot a video of your nephew jumping onto a trampoline from the roof, let's talk about settings. All Android and Apple phones contain a dizzying array of settings. From a security and privacy standpoint, here are the ones you may want to change. Lock it down You probably covered this already while...
In spite of the "ms" in the name, "mshelper" is malware that runs on a Mac "mshelper" is designed to hog all the resources (processor time, memory and hard disk) on a Mac. This can cause your Mac to run hotter and louder and will definitely put a dent in your battery life. No one is completely sure what "mshelper" is doing with all of your Mac's resources, but it might be turning your Mac into a cryptocurrency mining rig. This is known as crypto jacking. It's easy to tell if "mshelper" is on...
I cringe whenever complicated technical information makes it to USA TODAY and other mainstream media outlets. Not that there's anything wrong with USA TODAY or the other guys, they're just not equipped to handle the technical stuff. Kardashians? Sure. Router firmware infections? Mostly not. So I'm here to answer your questions. Q: What's going on? Back in April, security companies in the U.S. and the U.K. warned that "foreign actors" are infecting networking equipment with malware called...
To use your computer, you need to use either the Dock (macOS) or Start (Windows.) The Dock and Start are how you interact with your operating system and your applications. By default, they both work pretty well, but there's always room for improvement, right? Windows We've had a Start menu in every version of Windows since Windows 95, and it's changed a lot in the last 23 years. The current version of Start strikes a nice balance between the functionality of the Win7 Start menu and the new...
Network activity The network icon we've had since Windows 7 is useless because all it does is tell if you're connected to the internet or not, which you probably figured out because you've been searching Google for 55 Chevy alternator brackets. But man, Windows XP had a network icon that did something. Like what? Oh, it blinked in time with your network traffic, and you could right click on it and see how much tractor-parts-related (or whatever) data you've used. Fear not, we can fix this, and...
Without turning this column into a link-fest, I'll try to summarize this whole kerfuffle about Facebook for you and give you some options. In 2014, a developer created a personality quiz for Facebook. More than a quarter of million people installed the app. Just like any other Facebook developer, this guy had access to data about the people that installed the personality quiz, and all of their friends. The developer's app collected the data from the users and all of their friends and then...
Part of being a grown-up is facing the fact we won't be here forever. Most people are familiar with wills and family trusts as instruments of helping your loved ones know what to do when you die. Wills and family trusts make it clear what your wishes are. You do have a will, right? If not, get one. While you're at it, set up an advanced healthcare power of attorney. OK, now when you're gone your will or family trust makes it clear to whoever you appointed as your fiduciary (the executor of your...
Something old #1 – Fake tech support scams I know we've talked about this before, but the fake tech support scammers are still out there. You know that Microsoft, Apple, HP, the FBI or anyone else will NEVER call you about your computer. You know that when, not if, someone does call you it's a fake tech support scammer trying to take your money. You also know that while you're on the internet, any screen or web page that comes up telling you about terrible things going on in your computer and y...
How do we tell if a computer is fast or if it's faster than that computer over there? What's fast anyway? We need an objective way to measure a computer's speed overall, and it would be nice to break down the major parts of a computer and get ratings for them, too. That's where benchmarking comes in. Gamers have used benchmarks to rate their computers for years-both for bragging rights and also to make sure their computer can play specific games. Even if you're not looking for bragging rights or...
I've been a fan of Google's Chrome browser for years. When it first launched, it was fast and very configurable. The sync feature made it easy to have the same bookmarks on both my desktop and my laptop, and there were lots of extensions that made it better and safer than browsing without them. Lately, though, Chrome has started helping itself to more and more of my system's RAM. Because Chrome is currently the most used browser worldwide, websites are starting to show up that are 'optimized'...
It's unusual when extremely technical problems make the news, but by now you've probably heard about Meltdown and Spectre. Multiple teams of independent researchers have discovered (and named!) these design flaws in computer processors. Meltdown and Spectre are in the news because these flaws result in vulnerabilities in every computer chip made in the last twenty years. The Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems running on desktops, laptops, tablets, and phones are all at risk from Meltdown...
Here are four things you can do to give your new gadget, whether it's a laptop, smartphone, tablet, or desktop computer, a long life. Keep it clean and protected Keeping dirt and grime out of your devices helps keep them running. Getting your computer up off the floor will help it breathe cleaner air and last longer. Getting a sleeve or carrying case for your laptop will help keep it clean and secure while traveling. Getting a case and a screen protector for your tablet or phone may save your de...
These websites do one thing and do it well. You won't need them every day, but when you do, they can really save the day. GIPHY GIFs are those short video animations you see on the internet, GIPHY (giphy.com/create/gifmaker) will let you make GIF file from an online video or a file on your hard drive. Once you've made your file, you can save it to disk or share it. How fast is your internet? The speed of your internet connection determines how fast pages load in your browser and also how long...
During this busy Christmas season, it can be more important than ever to protect your personal information. Whether you're shopping online, making travel arrangements, Uber-ing (is that a word?) around a different city visiting family, your data can be attacked from different angles. While you can't control the security practices of major corporations (cough, Equifax, cough), you can minimize the chances of the bad guys getting your data. Here are some things you can, and should, check. Check fo...
Are you still using Internet Explorer (IE)? If so, we need to talk. Are you tired of seeing "Web page not responding" errors? Tired of seeing "Could not connect to secure page" when you try to connect to your bank's website? How about "An error has occurred in a script on this page," tired of that one? You can fix all of these errors by not using IE anymore. Here are a few more reasons to quit IE: • IE is more "hackable" than any other browser. Any. Other. Browser. IE has been banished by IT d...
With apologies to Monty Python, I'm taking a break from the doom and gloom of tales about security breaches and giant corporations collecting and selling our data and identity theft. Let's start with a question. Why do smartphones get bigger every year? Seriously. In the beginning, smartphone screens were about 4" (measured diagonally, like TVs – for some reason). Then we moved up to screens between 4 and 5 inches, then between 5 and 6 inches, and now there are phones with screens more than 6 i...
Smart speakers are voice-controlled WiFi-connected devices that can be used as virtual asistants. They can look like a hockey puck, a large air freshener or a regular speaker. Amazon started things off with their Echo line and was successful enough that Google has entered the market with their Google Home devices. The speakers work by listening for their wake word ("Alexa" for Echo and "OK, Google" for Google Home) and then do what you ask. Smart speakers can do things like check the weather,...
So, the time has come to replace your computer. You're ready to start looking at the Best Buy ads and checking out Costco and Amazon for deals. But deals on what? Computer descriptions often include something like Intel Core i5 - 8GB Memory - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 - 1TB Hard Drive, which can be confusing. The things you should pay attention to are the processor, amount of memory or RAM, graphics capability, and size of the hard drive. Ready? Let's dive in. The computer's central processing...
What is it? From the middle of May through the end of June, a data breach at Equifax allowed thieves to steal 143 million people's names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses and, in some instances, driver's license numbers. They also stole credit card numbers from about 209,000 people and dispute documents with personal identifying information for about 182,000 people. While they were in the system, they grabbed personal information of people in the UK and Canada, too. Am I...
