Wednesday 9^th November 2016

News

File Explorer Crashes on Paste

A recent problem I encountered was an Acer system where File Explorer crashed when attempting to move/copy a file.  On selecting ‘Paste’, FE crashed.  This only started to happen on Windows 10 after a recent update.  This turned out to be a strange interaction between update KB3123862 and a program called MyWinLocker.  MyWinLocker is a free utility provided by Acer which allows files to be stored in encrypted form.  If MyWinLocker is not required, the simplest solution is to uninstall it by going to Programs and Features in Control Panel.

Little Book of Big Scams

Cheshire Police have produced this booklet which covers a range of scams and gives advice on how to protect yourself or to report a fraud if you fall victim:-

https://cheshire.police.uk/advice-and-support/fraud-and-scams/the-little-book-of-big-scams/

We had some discussion on staying safe and secure, including:-

• Checking for secure web sites by looking for "https" or the locked padlock symbol.
• Being very cautious, especially if you are being offered money for nothing!
• Keeping software up to date.
• Running anti-virus software such as Windows Defender on Windows 10.

You can register with Cheshire Police Alerts at https://www.cheshirepolicealert.co.uk/

Once registered, you can choose which of the following organisations you would like to receive information from:-

• Crimestoppers
• Fire & Rescue Services
• Local Authority
• Neighbourhood & Home Watch Network
• Police & Crime Commissioner
• The Police
• Action Fraud

CAPTCHA

Many sites where you register for an account (e.g. gmail, Cheshire Police Alerts) check that you are human, rather than an automated system.  CAPTCHA stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart. The test consists of identifying distorted characters or pictures containing certain images - a computer would find it very difficult to do this. The Turing Test was proposed by Alan Turing, the now famous Bletchley Park code breaker, in 1950. He suggested that the test for Artificial Intelligence with truly human-like capabilities would be for a human to hold a conversation with a hidden entity and be unable to distinguish whether that entity was machine or human.

Are We Living In A Simulation?

This topic, which combines technology with philosophy, came to prominence earlier this year when Elon Musk, founder of the Tesla car company, Space-X and PayPal, answered a question on the subject from a member of the audience at a conference. Here is one of many reports on this, including a video:-

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/elon-musk-simulated-universe-hypothesis

This is an article on the subject from Scientific American in April this year:-

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-we-living-in-a-computer-simulation/

The hypothesis is that we might just be existing in a world simulated on the sophisticated computer system of some higher beings. This idea was discussed by Nick Bostrom, a Swedish philosopher at the University of Oxford, back in 2003 in this original paper:-

http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html

A Question About Windows Updates

Is it normal for Windows Updates to perform some updating during shutdown and then continue with further updating when powered back on again? The simple answer is yes, this is the normal process. Some very big updates may even reboot several times to complete the update process.

Broadband Speed

We had some discussion on this topic. In particular, the connection speed of the router is initially set when the router is switched on. You will see the DSL light flashing during this process. Packets of data are sent to and from the telephone exchange at increasingly faster rates until there are errors, to determine the maximum reliable speed. If there are subsequent errors, the speed may be reduced further and it can take some hours for the speed to be allowed to increase, even if there are no further errors. Generally, it is best to leave the router switched on most of the time.

Ipconfig & Ping

The above discussion led to discussing pinging.  On a local network, there are a couple of useful things you can do in Windows Command Mode. In Windows 10, right-click on Start and select Command Prompt. Type ipconfig and press Enter. This will display a list of information. Look for Wireless LAN adapter Wi-Fi. Here you can find the IP address of the PC itself (labelled IPv4 Address) and the Default Gateway address which is the IP address of the router. While in Command Mode you can type Ping followed by a space and then an IP address - you could try using the router address as found above. For example:-

ping 192.168.0.1

This will try to send 4 packets of data which should be returned - the results will be displayed. This is a useful way to establish that two devices on the network can communicate on the most basic level.

Web Site Advertising

We had a brief discussion on how web sites are able to deliver adverts which relate to your previous browsing activity. Esentially, this is done through the use of third-party cookies stored on your hard drive. Note that cookies are stored separately by each web browser (e.g. Edge, Chrome, etc), i.e. cookies stored by one browser will not be accessible to another. This site explains more on targeted advertising:-

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/advertiser-custom-ads.htm

PC Not Connecting To Internet After Update

Margaret's Windows 10 laptop is not connecting to the Internet after a Windows Update. I took the laptop away for further investigation and will update this blog if I find a solution and report this at the next meeting in December.
UPDATE:- This turned out to be a very simple solution - I just rebooted the laptop! Obviously the laptop had only been put into Sleep mode since the update rather than being shutdown and restarted.

Next Session

Wed 14^th December 2016 1:30 to 3:30pm.