18 July 2024 - NSC Website & Scambusters

The NSC has a new website at https://newarkseniorcenter.com/

There are links for the current Newsletter, Lunch Menu, Calendar and Special Events.  The "Member Portal" is also new, https://newarkseniorcenter.my.site.com/s/login/

Note that any previous accounts you may have created or used at the NSC before 2024 are no longer active and you need to establish a new NSC account.

To see most of the events in the member portal, one has to click the "Register" button.  Due to a glitch in the matrix, multiple clicks of the register button will be required to actually register for any free or paid session.  :-)

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And excellent weekly email newsletter is available here:  https://scambusters.org/   Click the three-line "Hamburger" icon to see the menu.  The current article is a re-visit of various election scams, https://scambusters.org/electionscam3.html 

I was amazed at the number of fake news websites that have been identified and listed here in Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fake_news_websites  It is easy to see how one can be taken in by fraudsters.  A quote from the newsletter:

"There are many good fact-checking sites. Where politics and elections are concerned, two of the best ones are FactCheck.org and Politifact.com."

11 July 2024 - News & Comment & Backup & Stuff! - Bob Bloom

Topics and Links of the Day:

• Zoozve
• The RadioLab Podcast that named it: <link>
• The Space.com article about it:  <link>
• Its original name "2002VE86" from Wikipedia <link>
• The Silver Ships is a great (and cheap) Kindle book:  <link>
• You don't need a Kindle to read Kindle books:  <link>
• But if you want a Kindle, which one is for you?  <link>
• How to put free books on your Kindle:  <link>
• How to manage all the stuff on your Kindle:  <link>
• The Boeing Starliner is *not* "Stuck in Space" or "Stranded" or "Marooned!"  <link>
• Want something Cheap but still good?  PC Mag has 100 buys for you:  <link>
• Why Microsoft Recall is a bad idea <link>.  The Recall stuff starts on page 11 of this PDF, but there is lots more security information on the other pages.
• Kaspersky banned from selling anything in the US <link>
• Google not trusting Entrust any more! <link>  Certificates are important, here's why <link>
• All Rare Earth materials in China are now state owned.  <link>
• "I just told my kid that' I'm older than the internet and he thought i was joking."
• Backup Software  (Saved by Assets when 'Snow' would not boot.)
• Acronis <link>
• Macrium Reflect <link> Free edition <link>
• EaseUS ToDo <link> Free edition <link>
  
• Others:  IDrive, Carbonite, Windows File History <link>
• Free Software
• Ccleaner <link>  See the presentation on how to 'neuter' it!
• CloneSpy <link> If you want to manage lots of duplicative files

That's gotta be a record for me on one of these posts for the number of links!

6 June 2024 - Bob's Bytes - Listen up!

Sorry about this, but this presentation was much more personal than I originally planned.  But as they say, 'Stuff Happens' and it happened to happen to me.  So read and watch on if you'd like to avoid some of the things that happened.  (Is that enough happenings for you?  :-)

Topics of the day ...

• Some rules of the Internet, Betteridge's Headlines, Rule 34, and Godwin's Law.
  
• Windows 11 has ads in the Main Menu, this is how to turn them off
• Boeing's StarLiner flew for the first time with astronauts aboard and successfully docked with the ISS a day later.  But it's Boeing so drama is involved; hopefully the three (3!) helium leaks will not affect their return in a week.
• SpaceX flew their StarShip rocket for the 4th time a day later than the StarLiner.  For the first time the Super Heavy booster accomplished a return to launch site and a soft landing.  (That landing was out in the Gulf of Mexico just in case it didn't work.)  And for the first time the StarShip itself sortof survived re-entry and accomplished a soft landing in the Indian Ocean.  Sorta = there was damage.  Amazing video is available.  <link>
  
• Communications with the most distant man-make object, Voyager 1 was re-established last week.  The 1,500 people working on the Voyagers is now done to just 11 people.  Watch their 2020 story in “It's Quieter in the Twilight” Video {Amazon Prime} or with ads on Tubi.  The 2024 story continuation is here:  <link>  Lastly, I'm always moved by this passage from the Book of Carl, <The Pale Blue Dot>
• It can happen to anyone, we got 'hacked' by a scammer over our bank accounts.  Don't let it happen to you.
• My 20 year old wonderfully simple, clean and efficient Wayne-Dalton iDrive garage door openers ... got old.  One became too sensitive and frankly I broke the other one mistakeningly trying to fix it.  Replaced both with "Genies" by Precision Garage Door <link>.  Phenomenal service - worked to 9pm on a Sunday to install the new ones at no extra cost.  On the other hand, there is a cost to phenomenal service.
• Spent a half day and night at Kitty Hawk, the Outer Banks, North Carolina.  To late to visit the Wright Bros Memorial as planned, but nothing else bad happened.  (That didn't last.)
• The next four days were in Myrtle Beach South Carolina.  Other than backing into a concrete pillar in a very dark parking garage and smashing a tail light and bumper ... it was a nice trip.  :-/
  
• On the way home, caught a stone in the wind shield which caused a small, less than 1" crack.
• To close out this tale, SafeLight came out to our house to repair the crack.  The repair failed, a 1 in a 1000 occurrence according to the tech.  The small crack is now 2 feet in to different directions and the wind shield needs a complete replacement.
• We've been on a music theme lately, so decided to close with a tribute to the GrimeThorpe Brass Band of "Brassed Off." In the movie, the band director, Danny, was in the hospital with an uncertain survival, more than one of the band members facing serious personal problems, and gathered together for what may be the last performance of the band.  The still existing (!) GrimeThorpe Brass Band, during Covid, recreated the scene with "Oh Danny Boy."  With inserts of the band and clips from the movie.
  

 Ever have a spell in which everything you touch seems to break?