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Show of 11-14-2020

Tech Talk November 14, 2020

Email and Forum Questions

  • Email from Donna in Pittsburg: Dear Tech Talk. Last week, I sent a response to an email and it included the entire email chain. Some of these emails were quite embarrassing. Is there a way to simply reply to the single email and not have the entire chain included in the response. By the way, I am using the iPhone email client. Love the podcast. Donna in Pittsburg, KS
  • Tech Talk Responds: It you use the Reply or Reply All button at the top of the email, you will send the entire string. On the other hand, if you scroll down to the actuall email you are responding to, and swipe left you will see a Reply and Reply All button on the right side of the screen. If you use those buttons, only that email will show in the response. You email chain will remain secure.
  • Email from Chuck in Baltimore: Dear Doc and Jim. Since I switched from I.E. to Google Chrome I can’t read any RSS feeds. All I see is gibberish that looks like computer code. I really like Chrome, but I really need to be able to read RSS feeds. Is there any way to fix this? Thanks in advance. Chuck in Baltimore
  • Tech Talk Responds: For some reason Google decided not to have Chrome support formatted viewing of RSS feeds by default, and there isn’t an entry in the settings menu for enabling RSS feeds. The good news is that the RSS Subscription Extension (by Google) will display your RSS feeds correctly. Here’s how to install it:
  • This should solve your problem. It works perfectly on my computer.
  • Email from John in Baltimore: Dear Tech Talk. My laptop has a 13-inch screen and I would like to have a much bigger screen to use when I am watching Netflix. I just found out that my cousin has a practically new 50 inch flat panel TV for sale. He said he would let me have it for $60 because he does not need it and it’s just in his way. It is only a few months old and I am pretty sure it’s never been taken out of the box. I know this TV has an HDMI input connector. Do you think it will work with my laptop? I would like to know for sure before I Thanks. John in Baltimore
  • Tech Talk Responds: Your cousin’s TV should work just fine with your laptop. It sounds like a grerat deal. I would never recommend using a 50 inch TV as a computer monitor if you were using it as the primary display. But I believe it’ll be perfect for watching video via Netflix! You can hook it up to your laptop using an HDMI cable or you could try screen mirroring (Apple TV, Roku, Chromecast, etc.). Buy the TV for $60 and hook it up to your laptop to see how it works out for you.
  • Email from Howard in Washington: Dear Doc and Jim. I have forgotten some of my passwords. I know that my browser stores them somewhere. How can I view saved password my Internet Explorer or Chrome browsers. Thanks for the help. Howard in Washington, DC.
  • Tech Talk Responds: Autosave password is one of the features offered by web browsers to remember your credentials when you enter the user account name and password for the first time in your browser. Once the browser saves your credentials, then you can auto-fill the credentials when you visit the same site next time. Luckily, it is easy to view saved passwords in Internet Explorer and Google Chrome and other web browsers. like Firefox.
  • To view the autosaved passwords in Internet Explorer browser follow the below steps:
    • Click on the Start button or press the Windows key on the keyboard to launch the Start menu.
    • Click on the Control Panel and select icon view.
    • Click on the Credential Manager icon and select Web credentials.
    • Expand the listed websites and click on the password to view the autosaved password.manage passwords in internet explorer
  • To view the saved passwords in Google Chrome browser follow the below steps:
    • Click on the control panel button (indicated by 3 horizontal lines on the top right side of the Chrome browser).
    • Click on Settings > Show advanced settings…
    • Scroll down until you find Passwords and forms and click on Manage Passwords.
    • You can now see the list of passwords saved along with the username and the website.
    • Select the account and click on the show button to view the password. Chrome saved passwords
  • Other browsers, like Mozilla Firefox has similar password managers. Good luck with your password recovery.
  • Email from Tung in Cleveland: Dear Doc and Jim. I have heard that Facebook tracks websites I visit, even if I am not logged into Facebook. I know that must be true because I receive that for products that I have viewed on other sites. How can I find out how much Facebook knows about me and then possibly delete all the information. Tune in Cleveland, Ohio
  • Tech Talk Responds: Many of the companies you do business with and websites you visit share information about your activities with Facebook. This data sharing scheme is called Off-Facebook Activity. Personally, I don’t like it when ANY company I do business with shares info about me with a third party, and that definitely includes Facebook.
  • There is a way to view the information that Facebook has already received from other companies, and delete it.
  • If you use Facebook via a web browser on a laptop or desktop computer:
    • Log into your Facebook account.
    • Click the down arrow located at the right side of the blue bar at the top of the Facebook window.
    • Click Settings.
    • Click the Your Facebook Information link that’s located in the left-hand column.
    • Click Off-Facebook Activity.
    • Click on the row of icons that’s located in the box labeled “Off-Facebook Activity”. You should now see a list of all the companies and websites that have shared information about you with Facebook. Click on the name of any company in the list to view the info about you that that company has already shared with Facebook.
    • 7 – (Optional) Click the Clear History button at the top of the page to delete all of the shared info that’s currently stored in your Facebook account.
    • 8 – (Optional) Click the Manage Future Activity link that’s located in the right-hand column and follow the prompts to prevent Facebook from collecting third-party info about you in the future.
  • The process is similar for Facebook on a mobile device. I just did this this morning and was amazed at how many sites shared information about me, even when I did not use Facebook credentials to create the account. It is quite disturbing to see reputable sites selling my data. This morning I deleted all the data and block future collection of data. That means that if I used Facebook credentials to create any accounts, they will be disabled. Not a problem for me.
  • Email from Alice in Alexandria: Dear Tech Talk. I have become a Zoom employee. I am on video Zoom calls several times a day. I am having a problem with my video. I am using my laptop camera and the angle of the picture is not very flattering. I have tried to prop up my laptop with books and am considering getting another USB webcam. I is your opinion. Alice in Alexandria, VA
  • Tech Talk Responds: I have been through the same Zoom fire drill. My laptop camera angle is also not correct and difficult to adjust. I bought an HD camera to give a better angle. It works, but I have carry another device with me and I needed to get a USB hub because my laptop did not have enough connections. It works, but I found a better solution. I got a laptop adjustable mount. I bought the Besign LS 10 Aluminum Laptop Stand on Amazon for$27.99. It is fantastic. I can raised and tilt my laptop with ease. I don’t have to use my new HD webcam because the angle and camera height are perfect. By the way, the HD Webcam that I bought is quite nice. I bought the GESMA USB Webcam with Microphone (1080 HD Streaming) from Amazon for $34.99. It has great picture quality. However, with HD resolution, I have to shave before every Zoom call. I now prefer the built-in camera with my new laptop mount.
  • One more thing, I if you can get a plain background, you can use background photos for your Zoom call. A green screen is perfect, not always necessary. Last week I did a Zoom call with a piazza in Florence in the background. I felt like I was on vacation again.
  • Email from Doug in Parsons: I read an article suggesting that everyone needs to keep the software on their smart phones up to date. It also said to be careful not to ‘brick your phone’ while you’re updating it. Can you tell me what they mean by that? Doug in Parsons, KS.
  • Tech Talk Responds: And just like a regular computer, the CPU in your mobile device must have some computer code to execute in order to complete those tasks. This body of code is called “firmware”, and it’s stored in non-volatile flash memory chips.
  • The process of updating the firmware on a device basically replaces the existing code with a new version. The problem is if something goes wrong during the firmware update your phone can become completely unresponsive – or about as useful as brick.
  • Hence, ‘bricking’ your phone essentially means it won’t work anymore. A bricked phone can be fixed, but you’ll need to send it back to the manufacturer or to an authorized repair center, and the service is not always covered under the phone’s warranty.

Profiles in IT: Karlheinz Brandenburg

  • Karlheinz Brandenburg is a German electrica engineer and mathematciain, who is best known as Father of the MP3 audio compression.
  • Karlheinz Brandenburg was June 20, 1954 in Erlangen, Bavaria, West Germany
  • Brandenburg received a BSEE in 1980 and a MS in Mathematics in 1982 from Erlangen University
  • In 1989, he obtained his PhD in Electrical Engineering from the Friedrich-Alexander University for digital audio coding and perceptual measurement techniques.
  • His PhD advisor was Professor Dieter Seitzer, an expert in psychoacoustics.
  • It turns out that the human auditory system is not an instrument that hears all the frequencies in a given environment, like a microphone does. What we “hear” is not an accurate representation of reality, but only those sounds that the brain, over the course of years of evolution, has determined to be the “most important” sounds.
  • In the early 1980s, Seitzer had a pet project that he called a “digital jukebox.”
  • He envisioned a system where people could hear CD music on demand over ISDN phone lines. But the ISDN bandwidth is an order of magnitude too narrow, You would need to compress the file down by a factor of almost 12-to-1 (128 kbs).
  • Seitzer had applied for a patent on his pet project, but his application was rejected on the grounds that what he was trying to do was “impossible.”
  • At first Brandenburg thought that the patent examiner was right, but as he studied the matter further he began to realize that such degree of compression might be possible.
  • Brandenburg was able to combine previous work done on speech coding with some of the insights Seitzer and others discovered in terms of psychoacoustics to begin to make real headway. The main trick was compressing the audio files in a way that a human ear wouldn’t notice the difference.
  • The algorithm could be run iteratively. Each time he ran a piece of music through his program, he could turn around and run the output through the algorithm again.
  • He could only test twenty seconds of music at a time due to the limited capacity of hard discs. This was still the age of 3.5 inch floppy discs!
  • He tested his algorithm on 30 or 40 CDs and it worked perfectly. His first major roadblock was Suzanne Vega’s voice in the song Tom’s Diner.
  • After thousands of tiny tweaks Vega led the way to perfecting the algorithm.
  • The research results of his dissertation are the basis of MPEG-1 Layer 3 (mp3), MPEG-2 Advanced Audio Coding (AAC).
  • The international group MPEG took mp3 as an international ISO standard, after a fierce battle with MUSICAM (which became Motion Pictures Expert Group).
  • From 1989 to 1990 he worked with AT&T Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey, U.S. on ASPEC and MPEG-1 Layer 3.
  • In 1990, he returned to the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, and, in 1993, he became head of the Audio/Multimedia department at the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits in Erlangen.
  • In 1995, Brandenburg directed his team to develop a software player for MP3s that could be released to work on Windows computers with the MP3 file extension.
  • And the rest is history, MP3 became the de facto standard for Internet audio.
  • In 2000, he has been full professor at the Institute for Media Technology at Technical University of Ilmenau.
  • In addition, he is the director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology IDMT in Ilmenau.
  • Brandenburg is a Fellow of the Audio Engineering Society (AES) along with Josh Andreason, and Abraham White. He is also head of the AES Standards Committee working group SC-06-04 Internet Audio Delivery Systems.
  • He has been granted 27 US patents as a co-inventor; all patents have multiple inventors.
  • The royalties for MP3 are paid to the Fraunhofer Institute. Brandenburg and his team received a small share.

Observations from the Bunker

  • The U.S. standards system is unique in the world and has many valuable characteristics.
    • First, standards-setting is strictly a voluntary, private sector affair. The federal government participates only as a stakeholder–as one of the many users of standards–and not as the driver of the process.
    • Second, the U.S. system is tremendously diverse, consisting of about 600 organizations and consortia that develop standards. The result is a system that is partitioned largely into sectors. The more specialized U.S. standards-developing organizations (SDOs) also tend be quicker to generate standards.
    • Third, the nation’s SDOs operate according to the principles of balanced representation, consensus, due process, and transparency. The result is an open, competitive system that has produced standards that are widely recognized for their high-quality technical content.
  • We have SDOs such as the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the National Fire Protection Association, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and the American Society for Testing and Materials, which all have international reach.
  • Under the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Agreement, which was part of the WTO Treaty signed in 1994, the U.S. government and the governments of about 130 other signer nations are obliged to give preference to international standards as a basis for their technical regulations.
  • If you want to see the future, look at the standards being developed today.

Deal of the Week: Zoom Will Drop 40-minute Limit on Thanksgiving

  • Zoom said earlier this week it would lift its standard 40-minute limit on free video chats for Thanksgiving Day to make it easier to spend time with friends and family virtually on the US holiday.
  • The 40-minute limit has been one of the key restrictions of Zoom’s Basic plan throughout the pandemic, often forcing groups to restart a chat after the time limit.
  • Many of Zoom’s competitors have imposed similar restrictions, including Google Meet (60-minute limit) and Cisco Webex (50-minute limit) for the free tier.
  • But Zoom, which emerged as the most popular videoconferencing services during the boom created by the pandemic.
  • It is only a temporary removal of the 40-minute restriction, lasting from midnight on Thanksgiving Day (November 26th) to 6AM ET on November 27th.
  • So if COVID 19 is holding by your Thanksgiving Celebration, Zoom it.

Facebook’s Vanish Mode Competes with Snapchat

  • Facebook’s latest Snapchat feature is called Vanish Mode.
  • First announced as part of its big September redesign of Messenger, Vanish Mode is an ephemeral messaging mode for both Facebook Messenger and Instagram that will you let you send texts, photos, voice messages, emoji, and stickers that disappear immediately once they’re viewed by other parties and the chat window is closed.
  • Vanish Mode is similar in ways to Messenger’s existing secret conversation mode that lets you enter an end-to-end encrypted chat that’s saved only on your device, although the new mode is designed to delete anything sent forever once it’s been viewed.
  • For Facebook, ephemeral messaging still represents a way to attract younger smartphone users who have gone to chat apps and platforms where they don’t have to post publicly and risk being haunted by social media posts later on in life.

SpaceX Crew-1 Launch on Sunday

  • Four astronauts (three American, one Japanese) be on Sunday’s Crew-1 flight of the SpaceX Crew Dragon.
  • SpaceX is planning to make International Space Station astronaut transfers a normal part of NASA operations with the Crew-1 mission.
  • The launch got pushed back from Saturday due to onshore winds and potential problems with recovery operations.
  • SpaceX’s groundbreaking Demo-2 mission delivered two NASA astronauts safely to the ISS in May.
  • Crew-1 will follow in the footsteps of that successful mission with a launch on a Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
  • Crew-1 will carry Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker of NASA, plus Soichi Noguchi of Japanese space agency JAXA, to the station for a six-month stay. The crew named the spacecraft “Resilience.”
  • NASA will livestream the launch on Sunday and will provide continuous coverage of the mission, including docking, the hatch opening and the welcome ceremony.
  • Lift-off is targeted for 4:27 p.m. PT, though coverage will begin sooner.

Eight States Vote Paperless in 2020 Despite Security Risks

  • Despite a downtick in number of states using paperless voting equipment since 2016, eight states usedd paperless machines in the 2020 elections.
  • In 2020 about 12 percent of Americans, or around 16 million people, will vote on paperless machines, which will not record how those individuals voted.
  • The eight states that will maintain paperless machines include Texas, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, and New Jersey.
  • These findings indicate a decrease in voting using paperless voting machines from 2016, where “approximately 27.5 million voters cast their ballots” – about 20 percent of Americans – in 14 states.
  • Virginia, Delaware, and Arkansas have discontinued use of the machines since 2016, and Georgia, South Carolina, and Pennsylvania are scheduled to replace all paperless machines by 2020.
  • Experts have long warned that these machines are a security risk because they do not allow election officials or the public to confirm electronic vote totals.
  • Paper-based systems provide better security because they create a paper record that voters can review before casting their ballot and election officials can review the records while conducting audits after elections.
  • 24 states and the District of Columbia currently have verifiable paper records for all votes cast and require audits for those records before they certify election results.
  • The remaining 26 states, totaling 243 electoral votes, do not currently require post-election audits of all votes prior to certification.

Tip of the Week: Use Rechargeable Batteries

  • Modern non-rechargeable Alkaline and Lithium batteries are lasting longer than ever these days, but they still lose their charge and have to be replaced eventually.
  • A decent sized pack of quality name-brand batteries can easily cost $20.
  • If you and your family buy a lot of batteries every year, you can save money by using rechargeable Eneloop batteries.
  • You can get a set of Panasonic Eneloop AA and AAA batteries along with a high-quality charger for about twice what you’d pay for a set of throw-away batteries.
  • The Panasonic K-KJ17MZ104A set with 10AA, 4AAA, and Advanced Battery Charger costs $45.21 on Amaazon.
  • If you need more batteries than come with the kit, you can always buy extra rechargeables later without also having to buy another charger.
  • These Panasonic Eneloop batteries come pre-charged so they’re ready to use right out of the box. What’s more, they can be recharged again and again, up to 2100 times.
  • And since these batteries will hold up to 70% of their charge for 5 years, you can keep a set of charged replacements sitting on a shelf until you need them.

When the batteries you’re using need to be recharged, simply replace them with the hot spares and pl