Fones, Computers and Other Technical Junk

#126

The IPhone Nerds are updating my IPhone tonight while I sleep! Stealthy bastards. Will they move my most used icons AGAIN so I can't find them? I know these nerds have an emotional age of a 13 year old boy and revel in causing old folks to suffer!

#127

RTH10260 wrote: ↑Mon Feb 21, 2022 12:01 pm To note.

In the last few years a number of password saving apps have come to the market. Apps save usernames and passwords and recall it for c&p. Most (all?) newer ones generate a random complex password for the user. Usually tailored to some website url. Some will fill in the username and password if they can correctly identify the request (not all are successful). The recent app versions have a means to store the info in the cloud (encrypted) from where it can be used with various devices at the same time. Difficult choice: which provider to trust, what if they disappesr over night and take down the only record of your web access

Keypass. Its FREE. It is basically the industry standard. Most of the commercial apps use the Keypass database and API.

Keypass has native apps for Windows and MAC. FREE 3rd party apps support android, iPhone and iPad and Linux variants and damn near any other opsys you might come across. The Keypass website has links to certified apps and other utilities.

You choose your own cloud if you want. I use Microsoft and it works great.

#128

I have a desktop from HP, two laptops from Lenovo, a laptop from Asus, and a tablet by Samsung. Which phone should I get? Oh wait, too late, I have a Google Pickle 5a 5G. My wife has two phones, a desktop, and a laptop, all by different manufacturers.

Whoa, I'm gettin' dizzy.

#129

whittakerturbeville wrote: ↑Thu Mar 10, 2022 5:37 am If you have a computer or other devices from a manufacturer, I recommend having a phone from the same manufacturer.

RTH10260 · #130

The sound of Music for computer geeks

The Sound of Sorting - "Audibilization" and Visualization of Sorting Algorithms

Posted on 2013-05-22, last updated 2014-05-15
by Timo Bingmann

Sorting algorithms are an essential chapter in undergraduate computer science education. Due to their easy to explain nature and fairly straight-forward analysis, this set of algorithms offers a convenient introduction to the methods and techniques of theoretical computer science and algorithm analysis.

This web page presents my own demo program for sortings algorithms, called "The Sound of Sorting", which both visualizes the algorithms internals and their operations, and generates sound effects from the values being compared. See below for YouTube videos created with the demo.

The demo is implemented using the cross-platform toolkits wxWidgets and SDL, can be executed on Windows, Linux and Mac, and runs in real time.

All of the sorting algorithms are implemented in the SortAlgo.cpp.

Since November 2013, there is also the SoS-CheatSheet.pdf SoS-CheatSheet.pdf, which contains pseudo-code of a small selection of the algorithms.

On 2013-10-24, the viral YouTube video infected the front page of my current employer: the Department of Informatics at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), which is of course whom I originally made the demo program for. See the blog post about this occasion for another more technical description of the sorting demo program. [Added 2013-10-25]

https://panthema.net/2013/sound-of-sorting/

#131

Those were fun.

#132

bill_g wrote: ↑Mon May 09, 2022 2:22 pm

Those were fun.

RTH10260 · #133

done most of this (less the 33kbps) and still have the modems to show off

#134

RTH10260 wrote: ↑Wed May 11, 2022 10:10 pm done most of this (less the 33kbps) and still have the modems to show off

woah, Jimbot never saw/heard anything like that before.

#135

My first modem attached to my Commodore 64. Oh, that was so long ago! You could dial into local bulletin boards. Maybe Compuserve too? We had bought a Commodore 64 for my mom in 1984 and she would send emails to her cousin who was visiting her daughter in South America at the time.

#136

MN-Skeptic wrote: ↑Wed May 11, 2022 11:37 pm My first modem attached to my Commodore 64. Oh, that was so long ago! You could dial into local bulletin boards. Maybe Compuserve too? We had bought a Commodore 64 for my mom in 1984 and she would send emails to her cousin who was visiting her daughter in South America at the time.

Did you splurge for the 5.25" external disk drive (cost as much as the main unit, I thinks) or did you just use an audio cassette tape player/recorder for "storage"?

#137

neonzx wrote: ↑Thu May 12, 2022 2:43 am Did you splurge for the 5.25" external disk drive (cost as much as the main unit, I thinks) or did you just use an audio cassette tape player/recorder for "storage"?

I’m pretty sure we had the external disk drive.

I think our modem for the Commodore was 300 baud. I think the 1200 baud modem we got was for an Epson computer which was an IMB XT clone.

Reality Check · #138

Are we playing "my modem was slower than your modem"?

Not a modem but a serial port .... back in the early 80's when I was the only EE at a refinery we were just getting into using computers and one of the first thing that was automated was our gasoline truck loading rack. Our IT guys hired a contractor to install a minicomputer, I think it was a VAX. The tanker drivers had to use magnetic badges to log in and get their loads of gasoline or diesel fuel.

The weak link in the system seemed to be the badge readers. We had no good way of trouble shooting them to see if they were reading the badges. I figured out that they talked to the VAX at 110 baud using a serial connection. We had a Radio Shack portable computer. I think it was a TRS Model 100. It had a 40 character wide LCD screen and a serial port that would slow down to 110 baud. With a null modem adapter we could hook it up to the badge readers.

If the badge readers were working correctly they would send a data string in ASCII that included the badge number. We could read that on the TRS-100 in terminal mode. The instrument techs were pretty amazed when I showed them how to do that. Most of their time was spent rebuilding control valves and working on 3-15 psig control instrumentation.

Reality Check · #139

MN-Skeptic wrote: ↑Wed May 11, 2022 11:37 pm My first modem attached to my Commodore 64. Oh, that was so long ago! You could dial into local bulletin boards. Maybe Compuserve too? We had bought a Commodore 64 for my mom in 1984 and she would send emails to her cousin who was visiting her daughter in South America at the time.

Yeah I recall dialing into some local bulletin boards at either 1200 or 2400 baud. That was in the early 90's before internet.

Amateur radio operators ran BB's on 2 meter FM using packet radio and may still yet as far as I know. It was developed using the same protocol that Ethernet uses called X.25 except it was named AX.25. You could also send email. It worked through nodes that were stations set up to repeat and relay traffic. You had to buy a packet controller/modem to go between the PC and the 2 meter radio. On 2 meters (144 MHz) everyone ran 1200 baud. If you turned up the volume you could hear the packet bursts going back and forth. I kind of liked listening but Mrs. RC would have none of that.

#140

So I think y'all remember that I fix computer issues for an old lady in the neighborhood, and she had a weird one, but she couldn't remember what triggered it. I don't even remember how I met Helen, but she's a super nice lady. So here's what happened to her:

She had a screen on her new all-in-one that said, basically, we've taken over your computer. And she was unable to get rid of it. She isn't an expert, but she knows enough to get rid of an unwanted screen. But she couldn't remember what she did just prior. Anyway, so it forced her to read the message, and it said she had to call this phone number and let them connect to her computer in order to regain control of it. And if she turned off her computer while they had control of it, it would permanently damage the computer.

See how clever that is? She has to call and let them install something on the computer, but if she tries to reboot or just turn it off, boom.

Helen, however, was trained by the poor ol' rooster who everybody loves to kick around whenever they're bored or havin' a bad day.

She tried to call me. Apparently, for whatever reason, I wasn't available.

She thought about it for a spell.

And ...

God bless her, she turned it off.

Which didn't cause any damage, except somehow she claims she had to log in to her router from AT&T, which I don't understand but she did it.

I finally got over to see her yesterday, and the machine is fine, I fixed a number of other problems. I just wish I had been there and been able to see it for myself.

#141

PKZip had a flaw in it that I exploited a few times on people did not like back in my BBS days. You could make a self expanding zip file that never stopped extracting. It could fill up a 300mb hard drive (which were really common back then) in no time flat.

I had a lot of users on my board, mostly mail, and some had to be blocked. They caused "issues" and accumulated complaints from upstream. I'd give them a timeout, and if they persisted, I set a flag to send them the file the next time they logged in. The file itself is small, and the transfer happened automatically as part of their mail fetch and extract. No one ever noticed it until their machine turned to stone. They did the bye-bye trick for several days until they eventually returned with tales of computer glory how they had to rebuild their entire system, blah blah blah.

I had a keyboard reassignment file for the real hard heads.

#142

Foggy wrote: ↑Thu May 12, 2022 9:45 am So I think y'all remember that I fix computer issues for an old lady in the neighborhood, and she had a weird one, but she couldn't remember what triggered it. I don't even remember how I met Helen, but she's a super nice lady. So here's what happened to her:

I had something like that happen a few times, ages ago.

In my case, I THINK it was a html page that basically took over the whole screen and reloaded itself if you tried to kill it. It was some kind of early popup window vulnerability. I remember the first time it happened I just powered on/powered off, but after that I had figured out what was happening and just used ctl-alt-del to get to the task manager and kill the browser. And then tried to stop misspelling domain names.

No way to be sure thats what happened to your friend, of course, and I think most browsers know how to defeat that kind of popup crap.

#143

Yeah, I'm sure it was something like that, but we couldn't reconstruct what the sequence of events was, and she's 85 or so, she did a great job without me, I told her it was a pleasure to work with her.

The thing is, I fixed a number of other problems, and I had been expecting them, she bought a new computer based on my recommendation, BUT since we couldn't reconstruct and I couldn't find any active problems related to the scam anywhere on the machine, we aren't sure it won't happen again.

And she has McAfee antivirus, the big package. I don't like McAfee, but whatever. She was using the browser that comes with AOL Gold, and I told her, using AOL has a reputation for being used by noobs, but it's still around after all these years, for a reason. I don't think either AOL or McAfee have ever been successfully hacked.

Whatever the problem was, I didn't fix it, she did. That's actually worrisome, but what can you do?

#144

I bought four Apple AirTags before we went away. I put them in four pieces of luggage. The jury is still out. They did, for the most part, work, but they were a little quirky. I got my only piece of luggage that went into the baggage car checked in a little late as I didn't see anyone behind the closed baggage claim office here. I got on the train and the one that was in the baggage car consistently read that its location was in the Union Station address in Pittsburgh. I was a little nervous until the luggage came off the train in East Glacier National Park station. Otherwise, they worked fine. When we left the rental car behind in Port Angeles to go to Victoria, we only took a few small pieces of luggage on the ferry. They were accurate in assuring me they were in the parking lot.

Now that I'm home, they all say they are at home with me.

Edited to add: Just found this up on WaPo:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/t ... -tracking/

Reality Check · #145

I have an ATT cell phone plan with an iPhone XR. ATT has been running an upgrade deal that gets you a new phone for just the sales tax on a trade in. My son got a new folding Samsung on this deal. I decided to look at upgrading my XR to an iPhone 14 pro. I waited until after the holidays and then got sick.

Yesterday I decided to look at the deal again. ATT says yep you can upgrade for $0 month with trade in. However, when I went through the selection process and get to choosing memory they now tack on a monthly charge for even the base memory choice (128 GB for an iPhone 14 pro). Those sneaky bastards changed the deal. Before you could get the base memory at no charge. I think the minimum monthly charge was $26/month. So the free upgrade is only for phones with no memory I guess.

#146

I finally gave up in DSL last fall. When I was just doing basic internet stuff with it, it was fine. However, I added YouTube TV four years ago, and with the pandemic I was trying to do Zoom meetings. But my DSL service was getting worse. The speed would occasionally drop to 0 for several seconds, then come back.

So I said Enough! I went to Verizon and upgraded my cell plan to unlimited minutes, etc. and got the $25/month internet access. The Verizon gateway was a piece of cake to set up and my speed was consistently in the mid-40s Mbps. Yay!

I decided to run an internet speed test this past weekend. It came back as 249 Mbps. Huh? When I got my Verizon gateway, the salesman said that my address - I'm in a huge suburb of Minneapolis - did not yet have 5G service. However, my gateway could handle 5G when the service became available. Apparently, it's now available! What a nice surprise!

I'm not a huge iPhone user, so it's not a big deal that my iPhone 8 can't handle the higher speed. Sort of. If I do a speed check using cellular access, it uses 4G speed. But if I have it use my wi-fi, it's getting the higher speed from the Verizon gateway. So I'm very pleased. Apple is still providing updates for the iPhone 8, but I'll get the latest phone when the upgrades cease.

#147

The FBI is warning people to not use public phone charging stations, which have become increasingly popular in places like airports and shopping malls.

The problem is that hackers have found a way to introduce malware and other software onto devices through the public stations, the FBI said.

“Avoid using free charging stations in airports, hotels or shopping centers,” the FBI’s Denver Twitter account said. “Bad actors have figured out ways to use public USB ports to introduce malware and monitoring software onto devices. Carry your own charger and USB cord and use an electrical outlet instead.”

The warning on social media mirrors guidance the bureau offers on its website.

https://thehill.com/policy/technology/3 ... tions-fbi/

Dr. Ken · #148

MN-Skeptic wrote: ↑Mon Jan 30, 2023 2:36 pm I finally gave up in DSL last fall. When I was just doing basic internet stuff with it, it was fine. However, I added YouTube TV four years ago, and with the pandemic I was trying to do Zoom meetings. But my DSL service was getting worse. The speed would occasionally drop to 0 for several seconds, then come back.

So I said Enough! I went to Verizon and upgraded my cell plan to unlimited minutes, etc. and got the $25/month internet access. The Verizon gateway was a piece of cake to set up and my speed was consistently in the mid-40s Mbps. Yay!

I decided to run an internet speed test this past weekend. It came back as 249 Mbps. Huh? When I got my Verizon gateway, the salesman said that my address - I'm in a huge suburb of Minneapolis - did not yet have 5G service. However, my gateway could handle 5G when the service became available. Apparently, it's now available! What a nice surprise!

I'm not a huge iPhone user, so it's not a big deal that my iPhone 8 can't handle the higher speed. Sort of. If I do a speed check using cellular access, it uses 4G speed. But if I have it use my wi-fi, it's getting the higher speed from the Verizon gateway. So I'm very pleased. Apple is still providing updates for the iPhone 8, but I'll get the latest phone when the upgrades cease.

Damn DSL i didn't know anyone even had that anymore. I know when I had it years ago it was always the worst connection ever shit sucked.

#149

Dr. Ken wrote: ↑Mon Apr 10, 2023 5:44 pm
MN-Skeptic wrote: ↑Mon Jan 30, 2023 2:36 pm I finally gave up in DSL last fall. When I was just doing basic internet stuff with it, it was fine. However, I added YouTube TV four years ago, and with the pandemic I was trying to do Zoom meetings. But my DSL service was getting worse. The speed would occasionally drop to 0 for several seconds, then come back.

So I said Enough! I went to Verizon and upgraded my cell plan to unlimited minutes, etc. and got the $25/month internet access. The Verizon gateway was a piece of cake to set up and my speed was consistently in the mid-40s Mbps. Yay!

I decided to run an internet speed test this past weekend. It came back as 249 Mbps. Huh? When I got my Verizon gateway, the salesman said that my address - I'm in a huge suburb of Minneapolis - did not yet have 5G service. However, my gateway could handle 5G when the service became available. Apparently, it's now available! What a nice surprise!

I'm not a huge iPhone user, so it's not a big deal that my iPhone 8 can't handle the higher speed. Sort of. If I do a speed check using cellular access, it uses 4G speed. But if I have it use my wi-fi, it's getting the higher speed from the Verizon gateway. So I'm very pleased. Apple is still providing updates for the iPhone 8, but I'll get the latest phone when the upgrades cease.
Damn DSL i didn't know anyone even had that anymore. I know when I had it years ago it was always the worst connection ever shit sucked.

Worst than ISDN?

#150

somerset wrote: ↑Mon Apr 10, 2023 5:50 pm
Dr. Ken wrote: ↑Mon Apr 10, 2023 5:44 pm
MN-Skeptic wrote: ↑Mon Jan 30, 2023 2:36 pm I finally gave up in DSL last fall. When I was just doing basic internet stuff with it, it was fine. However, I added YouTube TV four years ago, and with the pandemic I was trying to do Zoom meetings. But my DSL service was getting worse. The speed would occasionally drop to 0 for several seconds, then come back.

So I said Enough! I went to Verizon and upgraded my cell plan to unlimited minutes, etc. and got the $25/month internet access. The Verizon gateway was a piece of cake to set up and my speed was consistently in the mid-40s Mbps. Yay!

I decided to run an internet speed test this past weekend. It came back as 249 Mbps. Huh? When I got my Verizon gateway, the salesman said that my address - I'm in a huge suburb of Minneapolis - did not yet have 5G service. However, my gateway could handle 5G when the service became available. Apparently, it's now available! What a nice surprise!

I'm not a huge iPhone user, so it's not a big deal that my iPhone 8 can't handle the higher speed. Sort of. If I do a speed check using cellular access, it uses 4G speed. But if I have it use my wi-fi, it's getting the higher speed from the Verizon gateway. So I'm very pleased. Apple is still providing updates for the iPhone 8, but I'll get the latest phone when the upgrades cease.
Damn DSL i didn't know anyone even had that anymore. I know when I had it years ago it was always the worst connection ever shit sucked.
Worst than ISDN?

Worse than a 300 BAUD acoustic coupler on the PSDN? (I used to have to occasionally boot up an IBM/370 over such a connection).

Fogbow