Friday, December 9, 2016

The Last One (from bb in 2016)

Topics of the Day:
  • External HD Compatibility
  • Nextdoor Spam
  • Customizing Window 10 Settings:
    • Desktop, start menu, file explorer
    • Browsers – home page, search, new tab
  • Millions of Free Books
  • HP Envy Part 6 – SSD Efficiency
  • UK Privacy Law, Dark Matter, EM Drive results
As it turned out, most of the presentation's time was spent doing a live demonstration of customizing the Windows 10 Desktop, menu, and browsers.  By rough count from my notes, I showed about 80 different settings for those items.  There was a handout!  You can download it from <here> which were the notes of where all these things are.  (There are probably twice that number of customizations available, but these are the most important and/or used.)

I've kept in the slides on Free Books and SSD Efficiency even though we ran out of time for these.  They are self explanatory if interested.

Other links of the day:

Really cool nighttime city photographs: http://twistedsifter.com/2016/11/air-book-by-vincent-laforet/ 
Next door neighborhood social site: https://nextdoor.com.  Good idea, poor execution.  I'd recommend using Facebook groups instead.  Review:  
As it says:  http://askbobrankin.com/wow_millions_of_free_ebooks.html  Yes, really free, and hot just those that you've never heard of.
The "Snooper's Charter" new law in the UK:  
http://www.zdnet.com/article/snoopers-charter-expansive-new-spying-powers-becomes-law/  Short version: All UK Internet Service Providers (ISPs) must record and save every customer’s web history for a year.  Unbelievable breech of personal privacy.
New theory of gravity might explain dark matter:  http://phys.org/news/2016-11-theory-gravity-dark.html
Has Newton's Third Law (Every action has an equal and opposite action) been broken?  http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/researchers-conduct-successful-new-tests-of-emdrive/  The "EM Drive" *does* produce thrust (NASA has confirmed it) but nobody knows why.

Full Story: Our HP Envy Desktop

I've given up trying to present the last and final part 6 of the HP Envy Desktop build.  It kept getting pushed down to the bottom of the presentation topics and after ~5 times I need to wipe the slate and start over.  But never fear, I don't throw presentations out just because they're not given - they take too long to prepare to toss.
So, for your enjoyment and education, here is the complete - all 6 parts together - of our HP Envy decision, purchase, build, configuration, and deployment:

Saturday, December 3, 2016

Microsoft Potpourri

December 1, 2016
Elaine Drain - Presenter

Handout Instructions for Creating a PowerPoint Show