Wednesday 11th January 2017
News
The Blog
I have made some small changes to this blog, including the addition of a
printer-friendly button (at the bottom of each session) and a search function (in the right-hand column).
10th Birthday of the
iPhone
The iPhone was essentially the birth of the smartphone as we now know it. With more than 2 billion smartphone users in the world (https://www.statista.com/statistics/330695/number-of-smartphone-users-worldwide/) it seems incredible that the iPhone was only announced on 9th January 2007 at the MacWorld
convention in San Francisco. The iPhone was not released
until later in the year on 29th June 2007. And the iPad, which launched the tablet computing revolution, was not announced until 3 years later in January 2010.
Epson Printers Power Cycling
The issue I reported on last time, where Epson printers continuously
re-start, appears to have been resolved. This was apparently triggered by a change to
Google’s Cloud Print service and resulted in many Internet-connected Epson
printers repeatedly power cycling. My printer (an Epson WF-2530) received a
firmware update on 21st December and is now working as normal.
Tech Support Scam Browser
Messages
Brian G sent me a copy of one of these fake messages which looked
like a genuine Facebook page. However, similar messages have been reported on
fake Microsoft pages. The cause is simply clicking on a link to the fake page.
The fake page claims your computer has been blocked due to a virus infection
and urges you to call a free-phone number. If you call the number, the scammers
will try to persuade you to download some software which they say is required
to 'fix' your PC. In fact, it would allow the scammers full access to your PC and
they will then demand money to release control of your computer.
If you see such a web page, immediately close the browser. If it will
not close in the normal way, press Ctrl+Alt+Del and click on Task Manager. On the Processes tab you will see currently
open Apps. Click on your browser (e.g. Microsoft Edge) and click the End Task button in the lower right
corner.
Power Button
The physical Power Button on your Windows laptop or desktop computer will usually initiate a shutdown, but it can also be configured to put the computer into, say, Sleep. To configure this behaviour in Windows 10, right-click on the Start button and select Power Options. Click on Choose what the power buttons do on the left-hand side. You will see that you can configure the Power Button and also what closing the lid on a laptop will do. The options are Shutdown, Sleep, Hibernate or Do nothing. On a laptop, I usually configure the Power Button to perform a shutdown, and closing the lid to perform the Sleep function. Sleep means that all your currently open programs will remain in memory (RAM) and, although the display and the hard drive will be powered off, the processor and memory will remain active. When you 'wake' the computer by opening the lid or pressing a key, the display and hard drives will switch on and you will be back where you where within a couple of seconds - it does not have to reboot from scratch. Note that the computer will be consuming some power, potentially running down the battery on a laptop, while it is in Sleep.
Locked Padlock Symbol in Browser
Ray asked about the meaning of this symbol which all browsers (e.g. Edge, Chrome, Firefox) show for certain web pages. It means that the web site is 'secure', that is all communication between your computer and the server providing this web page is encrypted and cannot be intercepted. If you can see the full web address (aka URL) in the Address Bar, you will see that secure pages begin with 'https' rather then just 'http'. On some browsers, the full URL is only shown when you click on the address.
There is a trend, which Google are actively encouraging, to make all web sites secure in this way. For the technically inclined amongst you, here is a Google page giving advice to web developers on this topic:-
A Second Browser Can Be Useful
Brian S raised a question about a web page that did not work correctly in one browser but did work in another. This is a useful point and shows that it is always worth having at least two browsers on your system. On Windows 10, you have two browsers built in - Edge and the older (obsolete) Internet Explorer. The other commonly used browsers which you can install for free are Chrome and Firefox. If one particular web page is not behaving as you would expect, try accessing with another browser. You can have as many browsers installed on your system as you like, and there is no problem with running several of them simultaneously. However, note that cookies, the small files which web sites store on your PC, are stored within each browser.
$10M Tricorder XPrize
The mission of this research prize is to create a medical diagnostic
device inspired by the Tricorder used on the Star Trek TV series 50 years ago.
The devices have to accurately diagnose 13 health conditions in a non-invasive
fashion and weigh no more than 5 pounds. The final 2 teams will put their
devices through consumer testing at the University of California, San Diego
early this year and the winner will be announced this summer. You can find more
information of the 2 finalist teams here:-
How Stuff Works!
Ray suggested it might be interesting to look at how some aspects of technology actually work, rather than just how to use them. I would welcome further suggestions on this. In the meantime, if you want to know more about how the things around us work, this site
has a lot of answers:-
In particular, it covers computer technology:-
Email Security
Ray asked about strange-looking emails which often appear to be from a known sender, but the email just contains a web link or has an attachment. These are spam emails. Usually, the 'sender' does not know about this and it is unlikely that their email account has actually been hacked (i.e. that someone has obtained their password). Usually, these sending-address have been harvested by various means such as the ones suggested here:-
The basic rules are:-
- Never click on a link in an email unless you are absolutely sure who it is from and never click a link to a financial site (e.g. your bank) whether you think it is genuine or not.
- Never open an attachment unless you are absolutely sure who the email is from.
What Are RSS Feeds
Linda asked about RSS Feeds, which you sometimes see reference to. I think this site probably offers a reasonable explanation:-
And here is an explanation from the BBC:-
Home Page in Edge
We discussed how to set the starting page which opens when you first launch the Microsoft Edge browser. First, go to the page you would like to be the starting page and right-click on the address in the Address Bar and select Copy. Then click on the 3-dot symbol (top right) and then Settings. Click on the drop-down arrow in the box labelled Open Microsoft Edge with and select A specific page or pages from the list. In the box labelled Enter a URL, right-click and select paste to enter the address of your desired web page. Click on the disk symbol to the right of this box to save this address. You can then click on + Add new page to add another address if you wish. If you specify more than one web address, each one will open in a separate tab when you launch Edge. You can return here and add pages or click the cross to the right of an existing page address to delete it.
This and other settings in Edge are covered in my Windows 10 and Edge document which you can find at:-
Next Session
Wed 8th February 2017 at 1:30 to 3:30 p.m.
