respublica

There is something maniacal about printers

We've owned quite a few printers over the years and each new one we get is harder to set up and use than the one before. Early on they were fairly simple, attach the cord from the computer to the printer and plug it in, turn it on. Now the advance of technology gives us more compact and wireless printers which should be fantastic, but the set up is ridiculously hard.

We bought a new one on Sunday, a very small, simple printer to use for small jobs like printing off Dale's class notes. We didn't want all the bells and whistles like a fax (who faxes these days) or much in the way of a scanner. I studied the reviews on many printers that had what we wanted and went off to Best Buy and bought the HP 3755 wireless printer. It had good reviews and it was indeed small which is perfect.

I read the instructions and followed them to a T. But the darn thing would not communicate with the computer. I tried again, this time with the website set up as opposed to the cd. Nothing. It was great at printing out the set up information but would not communicate for printing what we needed. Frustrated I took it upstairs to my computer and tried again. Same thing. It would not communicate with the second computer.

What I find odd is that I was never asked for our wireless password. You'd think that would settle everything. How can the two things communicate if one does not know how to get online?

I googled this issue and found many people with the same problem and the answers were gibberish or no help at all. I just don't get why it should be so hard.

A much needed new laptop

I've been struggling with my computers for some time and happily got a new laptop for Christmas. I spent most of Christmas Eve day setting it up, it's not as simple and quick as you might think. For every program or file or app I had to download them and then find and re-enter all the user names and passwords. Not hard but time consuming. I'm just so happy to have one that works fast. Here is a pro tip: Put all your user names and passwords in one place.

My desktop computer no longer has an internet connection because it is fairly old and did not come with the capability to use wireless. It had been hooked up to the cable internet but when I went out and bought the Google wireless system the cable line went into the first of the three routers. It's a great wireless system, it comes with 3 modules, the other 2 can be set out in different spots in the house without plug ins. But that made my desktop useless. I used Dale's laptop for a while to get his Meyer Minute sent out, but it is so slow, slower than the old dial up.

So I'm happy with the new one, it just takes time to adjust to the new features. I was surprised there is not a slot for an SD card which I use to download photos from my camera. It seems SD cards are not part of most new laptops. I did learn there is a flash drive/memory stick I can buy which has a USB end and slots to hold SD cards and other USB flash drives. They're not sold everywhere, but I hope to find one. I use a camera more often than I take pictures with my phone.

Cable substitute a big nothing

This product report came from KSDK's Matt Granite for a local news segment. He tested a HK1 box which purports to be the solution to those who want to get rid of cable and the large bills which come with it. Granite made it sound so marvelously perfect I wasted some time checking into it.

"Do you feel like you're overpaying your cable company for channels you never watch and sub-par customer service? Looking to cut the cord? You'll want to check the top-rated new streaming box from HK1."

"Simply plug the HK1 box into the back of any available HDMI port on your television and in seconds it unlocks hundreds of free movies, TV shows and Google Apps in beautiful HD quality. Equipped with a remarkably fast computer chip and processor, this TV box out-performed Apple TV at a fraction of the price. It also supports Airplay if you have an iPhone or iPad as well as instantaneous connectivity with Android devices to stream content you already watch.

HK1 streaming box apps aggregate movies, TV shows and ad-supported content including live feeds for this TV station. You can also use it to enjoy live sports."

Sounds good until you try to get a half way decent review from someone who has one, or even finding the HK1 online. I checked Amazon since Granite mentioned that company as selling them and couldn't find anything like he described. And, since it is dependent on internet speed there is often a lot of buffering. Comments on this story on Facebook were all negative.

What this looks like to me is an ad for Dealboss and Livebox, not news.

Bigger, pricier iPhone

Today the Apple people will be unveiling 3 new model iPhones and at least one is expected to be the biggest and most expensive yet.

I won't be overly interested in their news conference since I just recently got a new iPhone after my 6 fell into Ferdie's water bowl and died. I switched over to the iPhone 8 plus and am quite happy with it. It has a bigger screen than the 6 which, honestly I appreciate, and has a lot more memory. The 6 had 16 giga bytes of memory and the new one has 64! Plenty of room for the photos and apps with much to spare. But, any bigger and I doubt it would fit in a pocket and be awkward to handle.

For people who use their phones almost exclusively this may be fantastic.

We're too controlled

Honestly some days I could just tear my hair out waiting for our laptop to get going. Every program takes forever to load, tick tick tick. I sit and watch the screen waiting and waiting and waiting.

There are just too many programs with too many built in security things attached and all are either updating or scanning for whatever issues the mysterious whoever thinks may be in there.

How slow can the computer go? We're going to find out. I tend to use my iPad much more often since it moves right along. But there are times when I really need the computer for its ease of typing.

Just what we needed

after a really busy week with orientation and the dedication of the library and the grandsons' cross country meet and Katie arriving for meetings in St Louis, we thought maybe Sunday would ease things. But this morning after filling Ferdie's water bowl, I stood up awkwardly and my iPhone fell out of my pocket and into the water bowl.  

I did all the recommended things but it is completely dead. I debated how to broach this with Dale and in the end he said to go replace it. Katie and I went to the Verizon store on Brentwood where we set the new phone buy in action. Now this was about 2:00, ground zero for shopping in that area. But of all things we were in and out with a new phone in, seriously, 10 minutes. 

We were amazed at how quick it was all the way home. In past years it seemed to take forever. So a toast to our salesperson, Tiffany, for being so good. 

Hete are the first two pics I took. 

Bigger phone, wireless charger. I'm happier than I was this morning 

Re-boot your router and beware of other programs

All of a sudden we're getting a spate of warnings about privacy concerns and malware. The problem is the solutions to these issues on our computers and devices is often confusing and sometimes even a false flag. A personal tech column in last week's New York Times gave a warning about not ignoring emails regarding privacy concerns. These emails are coming from companies which explain their new privacy rules, written after Europe passed the new General Data Protection Regulation law which went into effect last Friday. Since many companies are international, they must send out warnings about what to do to protect yourself to us in this country too.

You may have received an email from, say, Google or Apple or any other site which explains how to go about protecting yourself and most often the emails are asking your permission or consent for something. For example you may be asked to ok Pop-up ads. Or something else. The problem I have with these emails is it is hard to tell if it's the actual company or a hacker who seems to look like the real thing. I got one supposedly from Apple today and I'm pretty sure it isn't really Apple. By consenting to something from a possible hacker could be bad news. In any event, going through all the social media platforms and finding where their privacy policies are and how to handle them is exhausting.

All of which brings me to another issue. Tech news stories yesterday related a message from the FBI which advised, Re-boot your router. It seems Russian hackers have been able to slip malware into our routers and re-booting (unplugging and then re-plugging) should stem the malware.

Should you? According to the tech site, CNET, it won't hurt and we've often had to do this when we've had an outage or connectivity issues. CNET does however say that only a small number of routers have been seen to be infected and mostly some models of older routers. The router companies that found malware are Linksys, Netgear, Mikrotik, QNAP, and Tp-link. But again only a dozen or so models from those companies have been known to be affected.

It's kind of a crap shoot these days. I have no problem re-booting my router although it's not on the list, its the new Google Wifi mesh which is fairly well received and respected. But it's all the other things coming from company emails that concern me as to whether they are real emails or hackers. And, do I want to sit around all day and plow through all the steps for privacy protections.

A backpack scooter

Business Insider has a story on an electric scooter which can fold up and fit into a packpack. Your iPhone will also monitor speed and  battery life on this thing which is most like very handy for people who have to navigate college campuses or other places where you don't want to deal with a car.

Here's the story with a video showing how this works.

Do wireless extenders really work?

I'd like to know the answer to this. We have really low wireless signal on the first floor of our house, some days are better than others, but it got me to wondering if the extenders actually work and are they hard to set up. Or, would it be better to buy a newer, stronger, wireless modem instead.

Where is my mail?

Since I changed over to gmail I've had issues with mail not being delivered to the inbox on my computer. gmail gets to my phone rather rapidly, but does not go to the gmail page on the computer. This is a problem when I get mail from Dale with his Meyer Minute document attached. That is when I really need to be able to use the computer so that I can download it and send get it onto his email list servers, his Facebook page and his blog. I've googled this problem and it seems other people have had this issue as well and none of the suggestions work for me.

What I end up doing is just forwarding the email from my phone to my old AOL account where it shows up immediately.