Nerdoboy

New marketing video http://youtu.be/mJ7UBj7-f-w

Samsung is taking the brunt of this story about your tv spying on you but really any smart TV or other device (smart phones included) can record your conversations and deliver them to 3rd parties. The 3rd party in many cases is an info interpretation service that can help understand your requests and enable the device to react accordingly. So you and your wife are watching a movie and discussing deep family secrets. Is the TV listening? Yes. Is it sharing? Yes. I guess it's time to consider just how "smart" we want our world to be.

So it starts. I have downloaded the WIndows 10 ISO preview file and am installing it. I think this will be interesting. Microsoft claims to have charted new development practices in this product. That would be a good thing as their old paradigm has not provided many wins in the last few years.

So what should we love or hate about Windows 10? Most if us who had an experience with Windows 8.1 were very unhappy. Microsoft decided in their own little universe that they would just forget about people who do not use touch screens and built their interface accordingly. What a stupid mistake in a long list of stupid mistakes that Microsoft has made. So basically Windows 10 is an attempt rectify that problem and try to bring people back in to the fold. Nothing Microsoft do...es these days breaks any ground or shatters any barriers. Ever since Windows 7 they have failed at phones, browsers, app stores etc. We think the reason is that they were Emperors of the technical world for so long they completely lost touch with their customers and the pulse of the tech world. Then they put Balmer in charge and he was no forward thinker. He was more like an enforcer. So under his dynasty (he did put the Nasty in dynasty) Microsoft really lost ground in PC and business markets. So we are now at the point where Microsoft may finally be listening to the customer again and this may actually manifest in Windows 10. Some of the changes will address the user interface and bring back the things that people loved about Win 7 and XP. Other improvements will include giving you more choice in when and how your computer is updated. We are trying to obtain a beta copy so we can start checking it out and report back to you what we find.

Wait! What happened to 9?? Microsoft is going to succeed Windows 8.1 with Windows 10. They are skipping the Windows 9 designator altogether. Why? Because they have written routines that try to sniff out what the current operating system is and "9" was used as a shortcut for Windows 95 and Windows 98. They felt this would cause a lot of problems so they just passed over 9 and went straight to 10.

Do you know the Unilever company? They make VO5, Lipton Tea, Dove soap and Ben And Jerry's amongst many other brands. Ever wondered about their logo? I did. Check this link http://www.unilever.com//intro/ourlogo/ouricons/index.aspx

Show of hands. How many of you who have Google accounts have completed the 2-Step Verification process? If you have, good for you. If you have not, you should. If you want a tutorial on how to do it I will make one. Clicking "like" is the same as raising your hands.

Hello. Been awhile since we had a post here. We are developing a series of educational videos. Little short lessons for people with novice skills. This first one is about Facebook and that video autoplay setting. A little while ago I scrolled over a video that was absolutely disgusting in content and saw things that i could not un-see. So I wanted to turn that auto play feature off. Another reason is that if you are on a limited bandwidth connections you do not want to waste your precious bytes on video you do not care about. So here is how you turn off autoplay for videos in Facebook.

So this company is out there offering the service of providing you with a complete cheaters resume which includes fake or enhanced resume, a fake website with a fake email for a fake company that you never worked for. Someone to answer the phone when they call for references and fake letters of support from three former bosses. I thought Ashly Madison was bad. Well, Ashly Madison is still the worst but this is a close second. http://www.careerexcuse.com/

XP is dead. Long live XP. So April 8th has come and gone and gone with it the end of an era of computing. XP was the long awaited answer to abject failures delivered to consumers by Microsoft. I know becuase I lived and worked through each and every incarnation that was developed. I started using computers way before windows. I started with a Radio Shack system that was cassette based and you had to type in all instructions. Nothing was held in memory. Then I used a Sony CP/M... system that was totally awesome in its multimedia capabilities. Then came the game changer called Windows 3.1 A mouse driven graphical user interface. It was such a new and different way of using computers and paved the way for the mass appeal and consumer buy in to the world of computing. Then came Windows 95. A disaster. Followed by Windows ME, a bigger disaster. Finally, for business anyway, Windows 2000 came about and we had a relatively stable platform to work from. We still could not use more than a few thousand colors or do music and video on these computers. (note: There was an system called Amiga that was 15 years ahead of windows at this time and we nerdos migrated to it as teh platform of choice for a long time) Then in 2001 XP was released. This was something special. While not fully stable it was very useable and for the first time could be used by everyone to do many things. Microsoft added 3 service packs that finally rendered the operating system stable and reliable. It was the OS that saved Microsoft. Peripheral devices exploded. Software development exploded. Home computing exploded. It changed everything. So now 13 years later we are supposed to eulogize and bury our beloved XP. We suffered through the release of Vista which was horrible and made us cling to our XP machines even more. then Finally, with Windows 7, we had the replacement for XP. Windows 7 was is great and is the proud grandson of XP. But how many people are still using XP and how vulnerable is it now that it is dead to Microsoft? Well the truth is that we are not sure. Here is my advice if you are going to continue to use XP. Keep you anti virus up to date and turned on. Do not use McAfee or Norton at anytime. Get into a password changing routine and change those passwords regularly. Be vigilant. Be smart. And probably the most disturbingly scarey thing we need to worry about is that over 90% of our ATM machines are still running XP and our cheapskate banks have no plan to immediately change those computers. Your money is never safe but now its even more at risk. I urge you to rattle your backs cage and demand they upgrade and defend their ATM with new software. If anyone needs personal help or advice with your old and faithful XP computer please contact us. We feel your pain.

A Royal Air Force Typhoon pilot flies up to the back Door of a C-130 (Hercules) for a photo opportunity. He radios, "How much closer do you want me?" ... They radio, "How much closer can you get?" Pilot radios........."Close enough?" ". . . Or do you want me to come in?" You have to be a tad mad to be a fighter pilot in today's world but, even crazier to be a photographer looking into those big air intakes!

I thought of this comparison today after reading that Jimmy Fallon is not doing very well as the host of the Tonight Show. I would liken Jay Leno to XP Pro. Then he retired and Conan came in. Conan was like Vista for sure. So they brought Leno back and that was like Windows 7. But then Leno left again and we are stuck with Windows 8, or Jimmy Fallon. Sorry but I do not believe Fallon has a wide reaching audience. I prefer to watch my Andy Griffith reruns instead of watching Fallon. I gave him 2 full weeks but he just leaves me flat.