A Sorta Open Q&A

Topics of the Day:

• News and Comment
• Apple’s new M1
• More Windows 11 <sigh>
• Facebook’s very bad day
• VPNs
• Einstein's Blunder

Recommend subscribing to ScamBusters: https://scambusters.org/

Bob's Bytes #280 - A little about a lot (of things)

Given 14 Oct 2021 

Things: Cataracts, Office 2021, Delaware Property Taxes, Download a Virus, Driver Updater, EICAR, "2nd Place!", WHS2011, Acronis, Bing Search, Windows 11, and Win10 Mail (People?). And saved for later: Facebook's bad day, VPN Myths, China bans Cryptocurrency. 

Links and explanations: 

• "The Newfangled Four" is a comic barbershop quartet. On their first year of competition, they finished 11th. That's significant because the 11th place finisher gets to do the "mike check" for the rest of the competition. Here is that pre-show video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjcIpSSk30E. Read the comments to understand the inside jokes.  There will be lots more of their stuff in the recommended column.
  
• Fred Astaire dancing at the 1970 Oscars at 70 year old:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Opqm1q85nfY
• Where to find the assessed value of your house (NCC only): http://www3.nccde.org/parcel/search/
• Links to articles on Delaware up-coming Property Tax Reassessment:  <NewsJournal>, <TylerTech>, <Calculator>
• To test your Anti-virus system, try to download "EICAR" from here: https://www.eicar.org/?page_id=3950
•  Good Deal on Acronis True Image Backup 2021, just $18/each if you buy the pack of 5:
  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08KP52M6S?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2_dt_b_product_details.  There will not be a 2022.
• Guess what the most popular thing is to search for on Bing.com?  <link>
• Download Windows 11 legally from here: 
  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows11  Here's the easiest way to install or upgrade a computer that *doesn't* meet the Windows 11 "requirements"
  https://tips2fix.com/how-to-install-windows-11-to-unsupported-pc-released-version-october-5/  Probably can do a free upgrade to any Windows 10 computer with this, but I find nothing compelling in Win11 and several things I hate.
• The best 100% free alternative to Microsoft Office is LibreOffice:  https://www.libreoffice.org/ 
• The best 100% free alternative to Microsoft Outlook is Mozilla's Thunderbird: https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/
• Windows 10 Mail does not have distribution lists or contacts.  That's dumb.  Here is a 'hack' that one can use if you want to email to groups:
  https://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-to-manually-set-up-groups-in-the-windows-10-mail-app/ One of the many reasons I don't like 'Mail' - use Thunderbird instead, it's better all around.

Bob's Bytes - a Misc Catch-up Session

 For 23 Sep 2021:

Topics of the Day:

• My Trip out West: Stats, Itinerary, Observations, video
• Inspiration4 flies
• Norton buying every free AV?
• It’s a scam if …
• Windows 11 release
• Beginners: PDFs to JPGs
• My Computer is dead!
• Starlink
• … plus odd bonuses on the way!

This just released: An explainer by Joel Hruska from ExtremeTech on Microsoft's terrible explanation of whether Windows 11 will or will not work on unsupported PCs:  https://www.extremetech.com/computing/327410-microsoft-needs-to-clarify-its-windows-11-update-policy-before-launch.  As he says, "From our {viewpoint} it looks like an excellent reason not to bother with Windows 11 in the first place" - which is my position at the moment.

Links of the Day:

• Mark Rober's Epic Elephant Toothpaste Party for Brody <link>
• My thrown-together video of our Trek out West <link>
• The Netflix trailer for "Countdown", the Inspiration4 space flight <link>
• Bo Burnham's "Welcome to the Internet," slightly terrifying accurate description <link> - a few ignorable  obscenities, but this is the Internet.  :-)