Physical security and tracking - laptops

A laptop is stolen every 53 seconds in the United States. To put that in perspective, one out of every ten laptops will be lost or stolen. 

So how do you prevent your device from joining these horrifying statistics? Beyond keeping your portable gadgets under your constant supervision, there are a few simple tools you can use.

Cables

Almost all laptops now have an industry-standard security slot. Cables that hook into that slot can anchor the laptop to a table or desk. The average cost for one is $35 to $50. The real benefit of these locks is in shared or well-trafficked spaces like dorm rooms or cubicles where a stealthy thief could slip an untethered laptop into a bag in just seconds. Cables don't provide 100% fool proof security, as the cable can be cut, but they work more of a deterrent.

As tablets become more popular, there are cases that lock onto the tablet and then hook into these standard laptop cables for similar protection.

Alarms

Another option is a laptop alarm which are about the size of a deck of cards. It attaches to the laptop and plugs into the USB port. If you need to leave your device for a few minutes (or hours) you can arm the alarm. Then, if someone tries to move it, a loud piercing alarm goes off, so loudly obnoxious that a thief would abandon his attempt in a hurry.The only problem I see is that one could just plug the USB.

Tracking Programs
If your laptop has been stolen, you can track it's location using tracking software.
Lojack costs about $40 a year, there is a free version of Prey available.
Find My iPhone offers free tracking services for iPhones, iPods, iPads, Macs and PC laptops. Lookout provides a free tracking program for Android devices. These programs will let you clear your device data remotely so that the thief can't raid your information to steal your identity.

Data Back-Up
One important note: think about the value of your data. For most people, it's worth more than the device itself. Backing it up means that all the hours of work won't be lost along with your hardware. Automatic backup programs like Carbonite or Mozy cost about $60 a year and, in combination with a physical back up of media (purchased music), they can fully protect the time, information, and media on your device.

orig posted on 9/6/2012

What Are NVMe Drives, and Should You Buy One?

The biggest upgrade you can make to your old PC is faster storage. 

Back in 2016, I wrote in an earlier blog about Advantages of SSD over HDD. Since that entry the storage technology has advanced in leaps and bounds. We went from Mechanical Hard Drive storage to Solid State Drives to NVMe (Non Volatile Memory Express)

"Non-Volatile" means the storage isn't erased when your computer reboots, while "Express" refers to the fact that the data travels over the PCI Express (PCIe) interface on your computer's motherboard.

By attaching the storage directly onto the motherboard you've increased the data access speed bypassing PCI and USB data limits.

NVMe drives are much,much faster than the SATA drives that have been around for years.

Lets check out a comparison: 

SATA SSD:
One of the fastest SATA SSDs---the Samsung 870 EVO---tops out at read and write speeds of about 560MBps. Nothing really to write home about here.

NVMe Drives:
The speed of these drives are dependent on the PCIe slot it uses. 

The maximum speed for an NVMe PCIe 3.0 (aka Gen 3) SSD is up to 3,500MB per second, while a NVMe PCIe 4.0 (aka Gen 4) SSD can hit up to 7,500MB per second.

Because of the bandwidth used, these little sticks are perfect for gaming and video editing.
NVMe drives come in a couple of different form factors. The most common of these is the m.2 stick, shown above. You can compare them to the size of a stick of gum.

 

The're 22 mm wide and can be 30, 42, 60, 80 or 100mm long. These sticks are thin enough to lay flat on a motherboard, so they're perfect for small form factor computers and laptops.

 

Installing a NVMe drive is very simple but keep in mind that some SATA SSDs use this same form factor, so you'll want to pay close attention and make sure you don't mistakenly buy the slower drive. The Samsung 970 EVO is an example of an m.2 NVMe drive.

If you have the extra cash and the motherboard has the m.2 slot available, I'd recommend getting a NVMe drive. This will upgrade the performance of your PC and blow past the 600Mbps of the old SATA limits.

How To: Resolving Printer Issues

 

I have a love/hate relationship with technology.

I love the next coolest gadget, but I find that sometimes these things have minds of their own.

Take printers for example. A printer can be a dependable machine making copies, scanning to your PC and printing one day, and the next day you end up getting an error. And you didn't even touch it!

What exactly does 'Error 11' mean on that HP printer mean? And if the paper is out, why doesn't it just tell me that!?? (This is the hate portion of the relationship)
Figuring out the issue is half the battle, the other is trying to figure out a solution to get it working properly.

Here are a few troubleshooting steps to resolve printer issues.
1. Check your printer error lights; Most manufactures nowadays have lights on the front panel that indicate what the issue is. You may have to refer to the manual to determine what lights mean what. If you no longer have the manual you may have to go online and search the manufactures website to download the PDF version.

2. Clear the printer queue; Often the holdup in being unable to print is previous documents in the printer queue which failed to print. Documents are printed in the order the Queue receives them. It's much like a traffic jam. If the front car doesn't move, no other cars go forward either.

     a. Click the Start Menu, and in the Search Bar type "Printers & Scanners'
     b. Select and click on your printer, and click 'Open Print Queue' - if there are documents listed, click the menu 'Printer' and click 'Cancel All Documents' 

3. Run the troubleshooter; Windows provides excellent troubleshooter programs for situations like this. 
     a. Under Settings, 'Printers & Scanners', click on your printer. 
     b. Click 'Run the Troubleshooter'. 
This is an automated process which goes thru certain steps. It checks the connection to the printer (wireless or USB), that Windows is communicating to the printer, stops and restarts the printer spooler (a small application that manages documents being printed), checks the network and others steps involved.

These three steps alone should get your printer back up and running. But is that's not the case you may need to reinstall the printer software and drivers.

Tech News: Is Windows 12 around the corner?

Thats the big question running around the PC industry speculating if Microsoft has a big surprise that's soon to be released.

Corporations likes to keep secrets until the last moment, and Microsoft is no exception with rumors swirling around that the software giant is working on Windows 12.

According to some reports, the next major version of Windows is going to launch at some point in 2024, roughly three years after Windows 11's debut. 

That's all the info that's out for now, and it might be a while before there's any more information. If past releases are any indication, Windows 12 should arrive in the fall, or at least the second half of the year, but that's not set in stone.

(By the way, Windows 10 support officially ends in 2025......Time flies, right?)

So how did this all come about? It started with a leaked document from Intel, referencing their CPU Meteor Lake chipset compatibility on the Windows platform and it mentions Windows 12 in the compatibility list.

Microsoft has denied the reports that it's working on Windows 12 but considering we're still some time away from its launch, the company could simply be holding its cards close to its chest.

If you're in the Windows Insider Program, you might see Windows 12 features, including a very intelligent AI model called Microsoft Co-Pilot, to show up gradually over the next two years.

Microsoft will likely keep labeling them as Windows 11 features until we're much closer to the release date.

Not every feature in the Insider Program will be part of Windows 12, though, as many of them roll out via smaller updates, but some of them may be looking further ahead. After all, Windows 11 was a fairly well-kept secret until it was almost finished.

In the meantime, enjoy the newest features released in Windows here.

How to: Task Manager - how to use it

If you find that your system is running slow, before assuming that you have a virus or spyware, first examine what programs are running in the background.

 While it is true that a computer that is slow or freezes may be a possible indication of viruses and/or spyware, let's not jump the gun and assume that automatically.

Lets just open up Task Manager first.

Task Manager is a Windows utility that's been around since Windows 2000. It provides detailed information about background programs, processes, users logged in, services currently running or stopped, network activity as well as CPU and memory usage.

Yeah...it's a pretty decent tool.

Windows Vista Task Manager

Windows 10 Task Manager

1. How exactly do you open it up? 

There are various ways, but the easiest is holding down CTL+SHIFT+ESC. 

True, some will use the CTL+ALT+DEL, but that open up a menu with several selections including Task Manager. 

Lets just keep it simple shall we?..... CTL+SHIFT+ESC

2. When you open Task Manager up, you'll see 6 tabs....Applications, Processes,

Services, Performance, Networking, Users.

3. Click the Processes tab

4. This tab will show you what programs and processes are running in the background.

5. You can end/terminate one by RIGHT clicking and selecting End Process.

Win 11 Task manager

Now you may ask, "That's great, but which ones can I end... and why would I want to end a process?"

Those are good questions. If your computer is running slow, you may end a process here to free up memory.

Which ones should you end? 

It takes a keen eye to determine which ones exactly to end, however the ones listed as a System or Administrator process should NOT be stopped such as 'explorer.exe', 'winlogon.exe' or 'services.exe'.

'Spooler.exe' is a safe one to end only if you do not plan to print anything.

Ones like 'iTuneshelper.exe', 'Jusched.exe' or 'iPodservice.exe' are pretty safe to end as well.

The ones listed as a (your user name) usually are safe to end.

If you find any strange named processes such as "xtshbysa.exe' or 'yzghwtr.exe' chances or that you either have a virus or spyware (or both).

You'll see 'Svchost.exe' likely ALOT. This is a small executable that allows DLL's (Dynamic Link Libraries) to communicate with Windows. Many programs will use this file, however if you see one using excessive memory, end it.

One word of note: Ending ANY of the processes will not damage your computer. End any of these processes and you'll likely free up memory. At worst you 'll have to restart the computer. Ending processes in the task manager is only a temporary way of freeing up memory.

For a more permanent solution use System Configuration. I'll cover that in my next entry.

Originally Posted 03/06/2020

How to: Four simple ways to speed up your Windows PC boot up time

So you turn on the power button to your computer....waiting for Windows to boot.....you see the Manufactures screen......then you see the Windows 10 screen.

Waiting....waiting........you go decide to make a cup of coffee.
You come back.....your desktop has appeared.....but the hourglass is showing....meaning programs are running in the background. 

OMG!! Two minutes later....."finally!!"

How often have we gone thru that?
Well....it doesn't really have to be that way. In fact, the following steps will trim your Windows boot time from a slow snail's pace to a quick rabbit on caffeine.

Disabling certain startup programs

It's a well-known fact. The longer you have a PC, the more you'll end up downloading programs and software. Some programs that automatically get stored into memory as Windows starts up, slowing the boot time. Printer programs and drivers, antivirus software...and other software.
By disabling some of these programs you can speed up Windows boot time.

1. Right-click (not left click) on the Start Menu, and click "Task Manager"
2. When the Task Manager appears, click on Startup - here is where the current programs assigned by Windows to startup automatically.
3.  Right-click on the program you don't want to start automatically and select Disable

Upgrading your hardware

A second way to speed up your Windows startup is to upgrade your system's hardware.
With desktops, your options in doing this are a little more than if you have a laptop. First, try upgrading your memory. If you have a desktop or laptop running 4gb of RAM, look into possibly upgrading to 6 or 8GB.

To see the status of your memory usage, right-click the taskbar, and select Task Manager. Click the Performance tab: In the lower-left corner, you’ll see how much RAM is in use. If under normal use, the Available option is less than 25 percent of the total, an upgrade may do you some good.

Crucial and Kingston are major PC memory providers and Crucial has a memory diagnostic tool to determine what kind of memory as well as Kingston Memory scanner.

Upgrade from a Hard Drive to a Solid State Drive

As SSDs work with flash memory (the kind that are in USB drives) they can be up to 8 times faster than standard hard drives. This speeds your Windows boot time tremendously.

See my Advantages of SSDs to Hard Drives article for more information on this.

Use Sleep instead of Shut Down

When you have finished with whatever you're doing on your PC, select Sleep instead of completely shutting the computer down.

If you choose Shut Down Windows closes all apps, programs, logs you off and closes the Windows session, and shuts down the computer.

Sleep keeps the Windows session open and uses a low power state (not shutting the PC completely) thereby starting Windows instantly.

Originally posted 4/16/18

How to: Creating and using a System Restore Point

System Restore Points give you the option of going back in time. Since Windows ME (yes...it goes back that far), Microsoft has made it available to users to create System Restore Points in Windows.

Call it an insurance policy if your system starts to go buggy and doesn't work as expected. There are two options for creating Restore Points - Automatic and Manual.

Enabling Restore Points:

1. Choose Start→Control Panel→System and Security.
Under the System link, click Create A Restore Point. You can also get to the System page by typing “System” in the Start menu’s Search box and selecting System from the results list.

2. Click the System Protection link in the left panel and ensure that the C drive Protection is turned on.
You can adjust how much disk space you want the Restore Points to use. You also have the option of Deleting a restore point. if you find you don't have enough disk space and you need to create another one.








3. Click Apply afterwards. Once you click Apply you enable Windows to create a Restore Point anytime a significant change in the operating system occurs. IE - new drivers or a Windows update is installed.

4. IF you need to create a Restore Point manually, simply click Create and give a name to the Restore Point.

Going Back In Time

Now lets say your system goes all weird on you. It's slow or certain programs freeze since your last update. You could use the "Reset This PC" option within Windows 10, but that would take some time. Instead use a System Restore Point to undo the changes that have made a mess with the Operating System.

1. After clicking Next, you'll be shown available Restore Points listed by date created and whether they were created by the system or manually.

2. You can also select Scan Affected Programs. This gives a list of all programs that have been installed since the creation of the last Restore Point.












4. Select the Restore Point and click Next and the click Finish.
Windows will then uninstall any drivers, programs, updates or registry entries after the last restore point was made.
Restore Points do not touch the User folders within Windows. All your music, photos and/or documents are not saved nor deleted. If you need to back those up, I would recommend a USB drive.

Originally posted 2/12/18

How to: Improving laptop battery life

Your battery on your laptop is a precious commodity. After all without it, you would have to keep your laptop plugged in constantly, defeating the purpose of 'mobility. 

And all too often users find themselves at a local Starbucks with 8% battery and no available plug! 

Here are a few steps to increase your laptop battery life.

1. Adjust your battery performance. 

This is probably the quickest and easiest way to increase your battery time.

On Windows 10 PCs clicking the battery icon will display the battery performance slider.

* The Best Performance mode is for people willing to trade off battery runtime to gain performance and responsiveness. 

In this mode, Windows won't stop apps running in the background from consuming a lot of power.

* The Better Performance setting limits resources for background apps, but it otherwise prioritizes power over efficiency.

Better Battery mode delivers longer battery life than the default settings on previous versions of Windows. (It's actually labeled "Recommended" on many PCs.)

* Battery Saver mode, a slider choice that will appear only when your PC is unplugged, reduces the display brightness by 30 percent, prevents Windows update downloads, stops the Mail app from syncing, and suspends most background apps

2. Simplify your workload:

Time is money and multitasking is wonderful, but having several programs open at once can cause the processor to work harder. Closing out unnecessary apps and programs keeps the load off the processor, and saves on battery juice.

Overheating is the biggest cause of battery drainage. The next two steps insure fan operation is efficient in cooling your laptop. And also prevent laptop shutdown due to overheating.

3. Clear the way

The most simplest is insuring your laptops fans have clear opening for air flow. No air flow means no cool air getting to the components causing the fans to work harder and places a strain on your laptop battery. Usually intake fans are on the bottom of laptops and exhaust ports on the sides. Insuring these ports are free and open for air flow will increase your battery lifetime overall.

4. Clean out your processor fan:

Overtime cooling fans gather dust. The more dust & dirt the fan accumulates, the less efficient the fan is,and it has to work harder to cool the internal components.

A fan that runs continuously full power trying to cool your laptop will kill your battery in a matter of minutes.

A simple temporary fix is to use a small hand-held vacuum to suck out the dirt from the port. (Do NOT use a household size vacuum as this may dislodge components or cables within the laptop)

For a more thorough job, this step is a little more advanced, however it's one of the most efficient to solve overheating issues.

A. First - remove the laptop battery.

B. Using a small screwdriver remove the back panel of your laptop (screw locations vary by laptop models)

C. Locate the CPU fan. Using a QTip or cotton swab, carefully clean the fan blades.

D. Using a can of compressed air, blow the excess dust from the area.

E. Replace panel and screws, replace battery and DONE!

5. Upgrade from a hard drive (HDD) to solid state (SSD). 

Hard drives contain mechanical moving parts. The spindle, the armature and the spinning platters (at 7200 rpms) actually create alot of heat. This requires the fans in your laptop to work harder thereby draining precious juice from your battery. Upgrading to an SSD can increase your battery life up to 15%. See my Advantages of SSD over HDD article for more info on this.

There you have it. Following these steps can save your laptops battery lifetime and keep your peace of mind knowing you have a little more juice left. 

Tech News: Artificial Intelligence - OpenAi ChatGPT

 There's a whole lot of buzz in the news today concerning Artificial Intelligence models.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence demonstrated by machines, think chess games that you play against a computer. Over a series of chess games, the computer "learns" about the moves you make in the previous games and then "thinks" about the next move you're going to make and makes its own moves accordingly.

Example tasks of AI is done include speech recognition, computer vision, translation between (natural) languages, as well as other mappings of inputs.

A rudimentary form of AI is in chatbots. 

Chatbots have actually been around for decades since A.L.I.C.E was developed in 1995, and back then it can be considered rudimentary in every sense of the word by today's standards.

Chatbots today have evolved into more refined programs and apps. Think "SURI" on an iPhone or Google Assistant on an Android device. Yes, these "Assistant" apps can be considered Chatbots. They can organize your day, make a shopping list, schedule appointments, tell jokes and stories and even sing to you.

However, a company called OpenAI has been making headlines in the tech industry with ChatGPT and GPT4.

GPT4 is an advanced version of ChatGPT.

This AI model has the potential of doing a limitless number of tasks.
Create a mortgage calculator.
Get advice on creating a business.
Create a marketing plan of your business.
Create a webpage for your business.
Use the AI to correct coding errors for you.
Create slogans for brands.

Create legal letters or Last Will & Testament

Create employment contracts.

Create a story.

Create a 7 day meal plan.

Write a best man wedding speech.

Write a Facebook post.

Get advice on Stock market investments.

Turn an email into a text.

And the list goes on and on!

Head over to ChatGPT | OpenAI to dive into this world of Artificial Intelligence.

You need to create an account first which is free.

There's plenty of online tutorials on using ChatGPT, however I found Santrel Media on Youtube a very useful tutorial on how to be a ChatGPT "power user" within 30 minutes. 

So what's the future of Artificial Intelligence? 

Will we have a robot child in our homes like in the movie "AI", maybe fall in love with our AI assistant like in the movie "HER" or will the future be more menacing such as Terminator 3 Rise Of The Machines where "Skynet" becomes "self aware" and starts a nuclear war.

One thing is sure.... as AI systems and neural networks expand, ChatGPT and similar AI software will likely play a major role in shaping the future of homes and businesses alike.

How to: Task Manager - how to use it and ending processes

Processes are programs or pieces of programs running within Windows. It's normal to have a great many of them. As I write this, I have only seven running applications, but 120 processes. And Windows is running just fine.
To examine your processes, right-click the taskbar and select Task Manager (Start Task Manager in Windows 7), then click the Processes tab.
It's easier to study the long list if you sort them. To do so by name, click the Image Name column header.

You may want to sort by other columns. Click the CPU heading to see what's hogging most of the processor's attention.
You'll notice that most of the processes aren't hogging anything (or at least not enough to register). That's why you can have so many of these running and still get good performance.












If you're using XP, you may notice an outrageous hog named System Idle Process, taking up almost 100 percent of your CPU cycles. Don't worry. System Idle Process isn't actually using anything. It's just a placeholder for unused cycles. Vista and Windows 7 don't have this misleading process.

You can also sort by Memory to identify a different kind of hog.
Want to know why a particular process is up? The Image Name and Description columns should help. To make the Description column readable, expand the Task Manager window by dragging the right side of it further to the right. Then expand the Description column by dragging the edge of its header to the right, as well.

If the Description still doesn't help, visit ProcessLibrary.com and search there.

Before you kill a process, make sure that everything you're currently working on is saved to the hard drive. Then select the process and click the End Process button (Or Right-Click).
After you've read the scary warning, click the other End Process button.

Be warned: This may crash a program, but it likely will not.
If you want to keep a process from loading in the future, you'll have to identify what program loads the process, and uninstall that program.

The differences between adware, spyware, viruses and hijackware.

Viruses, adware, spyware and malware. 

Those terms can be confusing at times and even mind boggling when purchasing a product to remove malicious code from your computer. 

So what's the difference? And does it really matter?

Let's get down to what each does and how they work, then determine how to remove them.

Adware: Adware in itself is typically not harmful. In a broad sense it's the annoying pop-up ads. Adware often is bundled with free software downloaded from the internet and there's usually an option to opt out of the adware during the installation after the user accepts the EULA. (You know...the small print nobody ever reads while installing software)

An EULA which includes accepting the toolbar and advertisements/pop-ups before installing the software.

Adware is not malicious, and it does not spread to other computers/systems, however it can be annoying and sometime aggravating especially when you are unable to close the advertisement/pop-up window. 

Spyware: Spyware is any code written specifically to gather information and data about a person without their knowledge. That data can be anything from web surfing habits, pages which they visit, login information, banking websites, credit card information, and personal information.. Spyware can be deemed even worse than viruses as it is aimed to obtain personal information which can be used for identify theft. As more people or using online banking and email using spyware to gather personal information is a real concern.

Malwarebytes scan resuts of spyware

Spyware may be installed by clicking on an option in a pop-up or as a "drive by download".

Viruses: 

Malicious code that causes havoc on one system, then spreads to another. The code is written to duplicate itself either in the boot sector of the hard drive, in a program, or by email. Viruses can be activated by opening a certain program or lay dormant and activated on a certain date.A virus that spreads itself by a network message or email attachment are known as "worms".

Hijackware:

Hijackware is software that essentially takes over your browser in order to display a pop-up that advises the user their system is infected with a virus. It redirects the user to spam laden websites to download bogus antivirus software, when in fact the user is actually downloading spyware/viruses.

Hijackware popup

Hijackware may change the browser settings, such as the homepage, add a different search engine, add extra unwanted toolbars and change or add bookmarks.
Hijackware usually comes bundles within free software. Once the user installs the free software the hijackware is activated with it.

Antivirus Security Pro is an example of hijackware presenting itself as authentic "antivirus software". 

My next post will explain what types of software to use to remove viruses, spyware and malware in general.

Orig posted 1/11/16

Have Alexa call during an emergency, but not 911

Back in 2020, during the first week of April, a Michigan nursing home patient asked her Amazon Echo smart speaker for help dozens of times before she succumbed to COVID-19.

"Alexa, help me. ... I am in pain. I have to find a way to relieve it," LouAnn Dagen said in recordings found by her sister, Penny Dagen.
Penny found more than 40 recordings on her Amazon Echo that showed LouAnn asking for help in her final days.

She reportedly asked her Alexa device "How do I get to the police?" In response, the device gave directions to the nearest police station. 

Amazon Echo devices cannot contact 911 on their own.

Alexa devices can't contact 911 as they do not reliably transmit location data and a callback number in the way phones do, per FCC requirements and regulations, however there are workarounds.

Call Local Fire and Police
One way is to find out the local numbers of your police and fire departments, enter them into your contacts on your phone.

Install the Alexa App on your phone and allow it to have access to your contacts and to make calls.

When you need help and are unable to reach your phone have Alexa call your local fire dept saying the command "Alexa.... call the (your town) fire department". It may offer several phone numbers if your city is large enough, however getting someone on the line would be priority.

Install Noonlight
This is a good option if you don’t have contacts close enough to help you physically in an emergency. With this skill enabled, if you say "Alexa, tell SafeTrek to send help,” a Five Diamond Certified SafeTrek agent will send help to your home.

For more information see the website Noonlight.com

In any case, it's best to be prepared and know how to contact emergency services before the need arises.

Orig posted on April, 11, 2020

Tech news: "The great tech layoff"

Last week all the major players of technology; Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Meta have all announced huge layoffs of workers. When we say huge, we're talking in the thousands.

Google laid off 12,000, Microsoft 10,000, and at Amazon 18,000.

According to layoffs.fyi and Insider's calculations, more than 65K workers have lost jobs so far in 2023.

Over at Apple, it's looking slightly brighter for the employees as Tim Cook took a 40% pay cut to avoid the layoffs.

On January 20, Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google parent Alphabet, announced layoffs that equal to about 6% of the company's total workforce.

https://blog.google/inside-google/message-ceo/january-update/

So why the gauntlet of employee cuts?

Most industry watchers speculate that the pandemic had a major effect on the way consumers spend. 

During the Covid lockdown taking your wallet out for travel, restaurants and entertainment were off the table. Many industries were directly impacted by the pandemic, especially restaurant, airlines, cruises, media production, manufacturing, retail, oil, and gas.

So instead of the usual spending habits, people began looking at alternative ways of spending their dollar with the majority of purchases done online.

One source reported that in less than a year, from February 2020 to January 2021, the percentage of online sales to total retail sales nearly doubled, going from 19.1% to 36% boosting sales for major tech companies including Amazon, Google and Zoom. 

In fact, in 2021 the New York Times reported, the five tech superpowers — Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft and Facebook — had combined revenue of more than $1.2 trillion!

Major tech needed major workers to fill in needed positions quickly!

So here we are January 2023, almost 3 years since the lockdown began in the US. Retail stores, restaurants, and malls have long since reopened and consumers have since reverted back to their pre-pandemic spending habits. The sharp influx of online shopping has slowed down dramatically.

So now the major tech firms that had fattened their workforce now need to trim the fat. Mind you these tech firms aren't going anywhere, and some foresee a slow hiring trend in the next two years but as Sundar Pichai stated they're all "bound to go through difficult economic cycles."

Tech History: How the term 'debug' came about

Today, the term 'debug' means to identify software or hardware errors. 

But why the word 'debug' and what do bugs have to do with computers anyways?

Well, history shows what really happened.

Back in September of 1947 the US Navy was testing it's newly built Mark II Aiken Relay Calculator for ballistic tables.

Located at Harvard University, this electromechanical computer was nothing to what we use today. The machine over 20ft in length and weighed over 5 tons.

It was an electromechanical behemoth!

Physicist Dr. Howard Aiken and Dr. Grace Hopper worked together to design, build and program the machine.

Dr Aiken and Dr Hopper worked well as a team. Grace would write the technical manual and assist Howard with maintenance and hardware of the Mark II. 

Both Mr Howard Aiken and Mrs Grace Hopper were working on the machine when she found a moth stuck in one of the relays, impeding the operation of the machine.

So now you know "the rest of the story" ;-)

Originally posted 10/29/16

How To: Receive text for an appointment on your Google Calendar

Years ago when you made an appointment on your Google Calendar and you had SMS notifications enabled, you would receive a text on your phone of that appointment .

This was the best thing since sliced bread in my opinion.
For some unknown reasons in 2015, Google decided to no longer offer SMS notifications for appointments on your Google Calendar. Bye Bye SMS notifications.
It was a "Why did you do that?!" moment.

But not to fret. The world is not ending....and you can still receive SMS/text messages of any appointments on your calendar.
You just have to go a round about way of setting it up. 

Basically we forward the calendar appts to Gmail.... then forwarding the Gmail as a SMS to your phone.

We'll be working on the Desktop version as it's the easiest working while in Gmail.

Phase 1

First, we want to have Google Calendar send notifications to Gmail. 

This is straightforward.
1. Inside Google Calendar, click Settings (it's the gear in the upper right)

2. Now, scroll down to your calendar and click 'Share with specific people'

3. Here you want to enter your email address.....
4. Right below you want to Add Notification.... and using the drop-down menu, select email... and then select the number of days out you want the notification to occur.

Okay... so now you're set for having Calendar forward notifications to your email. Now lets log into your Gmail where we'll forward the email you receive from Calendar as an SMS message to your phone.

Phase 2

1. Within Gmail, select settings (The gear in the upper right corner)

2. Click 'Settings' (ironic I know)

3. To add a forwarding address, click 'Forwarding And POP/IMAP'

4. Click 'Add A Forwarding Address'...

5. In the box here is where you enter your email address OF YOUR PHONE.

AT&T                 10digitphonenumber@txt.att.net

Cellular One      10digitphonenumber@mobile.celloneusa.com

Sprint                 10digitphonenumber@messaging.sprintpcs.com

T-Mobile             10digitphonenumber@tmomail.net

US Cellular         10digitphonenumber@email.uscc.net

Verizon               10digitphonenumber@vtext.com

Virgin Mobile      10digitphonenumber@vmobl.com

Follow the prompts to complete adding a forwarding address.

6. Select 'Filters And Blocked Addresses' (we have to create a filter first in order to forward it)

7. Scroll down to the bottom and click 'Create New Event'

8. In the 'From' field in the new window type  calendar-notification@google.com 

(This lets Gmail know to filter and fwd any email you get from this address)

9. Click 'Create Filter' 

10. In this window is where the magic happens..... you have several options here, but the most important is the 'Forward To' line. Use the drop down to select your forwarding phone email (We created that in Step 5)

11. Click 'Create Filter' and that's it. 

Your appointments that are in Google Calendar will be forwarded to Gmail. There Gmail will forward it to you phone as an SMS/Text message.

You may want to test it out. Create an appt within Google Calendar and open Gmail to view the email from calendar-notification@google.com. 

In a few minutes you should receive a text of the appointment. Trace the steps again if you don't get the text.

Originally published 2/18/20