Tehachapi's Online Community News & Entertainment Guide
Tehachapi's Online Community News & Entertainment Guide
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Whether it's water, soda, wine or coffee, liquids and laptops don't mix. At least, not successfully. If you spill some liquid on your laptop, the first thing to do is turn it off by holding down the power button for at least 10 seconds and unplugging it from the wall. If you can remove the battery from your laptop, do that. Now, open the computer and put it upside down like a tent. If you're lucky, you'll get a mini rainfall or possibly a less-spectacular leaking around the edges of your laptop....
Remember when we were young and innocent, and the only thing we had to be on our guard about was phishing emails? You know, the emails from scammers trying to get your login credentials, social security number, credit card info, or some other personal information? Did you ever wonder why it's called phishing or spelled that way? Way back in the '90s (that's the 1990s, not the 1890s), hackers developed a method of stealing passwords and credit card info from America Online (AOL) users. The...
For years, it has seemed that when we bought the latest, fastest computer or phone, as soon as we got it all set up and working, there was suddenly something newer and faster than what we just bought. It happens with smart speakers, too. When you get a new computer or phone, you need to remove all your personal information from your computer or phone before you sell, donate or recycle it. The same is true of your smart speakers, too. Here's how to remove your data from Amazon Echo and Google...
Remember Internet Explorer? There were eleven versions of Internet Explorer from 1995 to 2013. Since it was the default internet browser in the most popular computer operating system, Internet Explorer was the most used browser in the world for many years. Eventually, Internet Explorer had competition, first from Mozilla's Firefox browser and then from Google's Chrome browser. Both Firefox and Chrome supported new web standards that Internet Explorer didn't. In 2015, Windows 10 shipped with...
Do you need (or want) a new Windows computer but don't want to spend a bunch of money? If you mostly use your computer to check email, do some shopping and stream videos, you don't need a whiz-bang computer that's capable of landing a man on the moon. Mainstream computer manufacturers like Dell, HP, ASUS, Acer and the rest all make Windows computers for under $500. But what about Chromebooks? You can buy a Chromebook for way less than $500. If you spend all your time online and don't need an...
The first half an hour passed quickly. Oh, what fun we had. The job of removing the old computer gave way to the excitement of opening boxes and setting up the new machine. Turning the computer on for the first time, marveling at how fast it boots up. Seeing how much smaller it is than the old computer and how fast! How quiet it is! And just look at that big new monitor. The picture is so crisp and clear. But now, the fun is over. I asked a simple question, and now my clients look at each other...
Retail - purchase A boxed copy of Office Home and Student 2019 retails for $150 and includes Word, Excel and PowerPoint. If you need Outlook or Publisher, pick up a copy of Office Professional for $439. Either way, you get a boxed copy of your version of Office for installation on one computer, with a DVD install disc and everything, just like old times. What you won't get is free version upgrades or the ability to share your copy of Office. Subscription Microsoft offers a subscription plan for...
Whether you're treating yourself to a new computer (yay for you!) or your old computer is old and slow (are you getting calls from the Smithsonian about donating to the museum?), you have a decision to make. Windows or Mac Operating System (OS). For most people, it's not a tough choice; stick with what you have and know. But maybe, just maybe, you're looking over the fence at that green grass on "the other side" of the Windows vs. Mac debate and wondering...should I? Most of the stuff we do...
In the old days (a couple of years ago), if you forgot your password for your email or social media account, you could prove you were you by answering some security questions. Then you could reset your password. But there were problems with that method: 1) many people didn't remember the answers to their security questions (who was my second-grade teacher?), and 2) some of the information was easily looked up by people that weren't you but maybe wanted to be. Today, sites prefer to send you a...
How long can the COVID-19 virus live on surfaces? Studies are complete on how the virus survives on surfaces ranging from cardboard to granite, and so far, each study has reached differing conclusions. But the current best guess is 72 to 96 hours on nonporous surfaces like glass, plastic and aluminum. You know, the stuff all our gadgets are made from. The CDC reports that it may be possible to contract COVID-19 after touching a surface that has the virus on it and then touching your nose or...
We're all spending more time at home these days, and for many people, that means spending more time online. Whether on Zoom conference calls, Google Classroom assignments, trying to level up in your video game or some quality binge-watching, we're online more now than we were last year. Here's how to make sure you're getting the most from your internet connection. Go get your latest internet bill and look up out how much speed you are paying for. In Tehachapi, internet plans range from 1-3...
If you spend any time online or get your news via social media, you have probably run across conspiracy theories about 5G cell towers causing COVID-19. Not true, bucko. 5G technology uses electromagnetic waves, while COVID-19 is a biological virus. Whole different things. When most people talk about 5G, they are referring to the current fifth-generation mobile broadband technology that companies are rolling out worldwide. Okay, not in Tehachapi, yet. But someday. All mobile broadband technology...
Breaking the internet With more than 100 million people globally working from home, school closures forcing online classes and just generally staying home instead of meeting face-to-face, internet traffic over broadband and mobile wireless is at an all-time high. The strong point of the world's internet capability is in the main connections – the undersea cables and the continent-spanning fiber optic backbones. Call it the "information superhighway" if you must, but there are plenty of lanes, a...
Are you stuck at home? Now is the perfect time to revisit your data back-up strategy or, you know, to create a data back-up strategy in the first place. One back-up is better than nothing, but to keep your data safe, follow a 3-2-1 back-up plan. The old school style 3-2-1 back-up meant you'd keep three copies of your data in two different formats and one copy offsite. Here's how an old-school 3-2-1 might look. Buy an external hard drive and run the built-in back-up software on your computer and...
I'm sure it seemed like a good idea at the time, letting websites show notifications about new messages and emails, even when the browser is closed. But somehow, somewhere along the way, websites started abusing the notifications feature. If you visit a web page just once, to read an article or check on a sale, that site can pop up notification messages to you. Honestly, it can be, best case, annoying and, worst case, unproductive. But we do have tools to manage those pesky browser...
Did you know that your Facebook photos can, and are, being used by facial recognition software from companies like Clearview AI? Clearview AI sells its facial recognition software to law enforcement agencies and a big selling point is the more than three billion images in their database. Many if not most of those three billion images come from social media posts. Clearview AI is probably not the first company to figure out how to "scrape" images and information from web sites, but they may be...
The internet. Billions and billions of devices loosely connected by copper wires, fiber optic cables, satellites, microwaves and radio frequency networks. All these devices, whether doorbells, smartphones, thermostats, desktop computers, security cameras, laptops, streaming devices or tablets, send and receive digital information through these networks. We know about wires in our neighborhood, WiFi routers and modems where we live and work and cell phone towers. We may even know that the term...
Windows 7 has become the new Windows XP. Since Microsoft has retired support for Windows 7, it's suddenly become the best operating system ever. As a technical person, I appreciated the better stability and hardware-integration-without-exploding that Win7 brought us. The menus were faster, and people seemed better able to navigate and get work done. Windows 8 (shudder!) brought even better stabilization and device integration but ruined the desktop and user experience, making it harder to get...
Before we get started with how much Random-Access Memory (RAM) you need, let's talk about what it is. There are two types of storage in your computer, permanent and temporary. Your hard drive or solid-state drive is permanent storage, and RAM is your computer's temporary storage. Your computer uses RAM for loading and running programs and temporarily storing and using data. The contents of your RAM are lost when you turn off your computer. 1GB RAM 1GB is Microsoft's minimum requirement for a 32-...
Maybe you don't want to watch any more of those "how to replace a toilet" videos you had to look up last summer, but YouTube is still recommending them. Or maybe you listened to "Macarena" by Los Del Rio on Google Play to prove a point, but now you're over it. How do you make Google forget? We know Google collects lots of data about how we use their services. Google separates that data into three categories: YouTube search and watched videos; Maps/GPS location info and Web & App Activity. Those...
Twitter, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, and even plain old text messaging use slang and acronyms to reduce our character-count and save us from mistyping what we meant to say. Here's your Rosetta Stone to online slang. DM: Direct Message. Initially used on Twitter to send private messages between users. When you want to share something privately, you send a DM. AMA: Ask Me Anything. Made popular on Reddit, in an AMA, a person or group answer questions posted in real-time to the AMA session....
Maybe it was after the turkey and the stuffing and cranberry sauce (homemade,) or maybe it was the pecan and mincemeat and Dutch apple pies with ice cream. Or any of the other pictures you took with your phone on Thanksgiving. Or maybe you downloaded "Elf" to keep your nephew/niece quiet during your traditional post-dinner food coma. Whatever triggered it, your iPhone now greets you with a "Storage Almost Full" message every time you look at it. Let's manage your iPhone storage. Before we dive i...
Technical debt is a term used in the software industry. All the trade-offs, shortcuts, and patched-up mistakes made by the folks working on software are called technical debt. It's called a debt because the cost of getting that software done quicker or cheaper creates a need to fix it later and that fix-it-later part is the debt. The United States, and indeed the world, has massive amounts of technical debt built up in our infrastructure. Whether we're talking about water systems, roads,...
Wi-Fi is a technology that uses a high-frequency radio signal to connect devices without wires. Because WiFi uses public radio frequencies, there must be standards and specifications. In 1997, a committee at the International Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) created the technical standards for a section of public radio bandwidth. The numerical designation of these standards was 802.11. In 1999, a trade association formed to hold the many patents needed to make WiFi work. This...
If you want to loosen the leash Google has around your neck during your online activities, consider using Duck Duck Go (DDG) as your search engine. It's a silly name, but a serious company with a serious purpose. DDG doesn't track you, collect or share any of your information, or store your search history. You can search for something like "Philco TV parts" on either Google or (DDG), but DDG won't store your search and use it for targeting ads to you. The results from DDG do vary slightly from...
