COMPUTERS, THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY

[Tripps]

Bad day with the gadgets yesterday. the phone played Rock my Soul when someone rang, but I was unable to answer the call. Long story, but having tried all sorts I went on Youtube, where an Indian chap told me what to do. It looked a lot like what I'd been doing, but it sort of works now. No swiping right or left now, just a window at the top saying answer or reject. It'll have to do. May have been self inflicted - we'll never know.

I've been invited to join a Zoom call later - that'll be a first, and should be interesting.

[Tizer]

We look forward to your report!

[plaques]

No swiping right or left now, just a window at the top saying answer or reject. It'll have to do. May have been self inflicted - we'll never know.

With Moto it all depends on your starting point. If its on standby with the widget thing showing (time date & battery) then when you get a call its the up or down swipe. If your standby shows your home page ( some wallpaper + quick entry app buttons) then its answer or reject. Why do I know this gem of information? because I was daft enough to bugger about with some of the settings until the penny dropped.

[Tripps]

Thanks for that, I didn't know most of it. I''ve had another play, and I think I've tamed it. Changed the wall paper to a very modern and fashionable grey. Didn't know you could do that.

Now - 'leave it alone'.

[Stanley]

David, something stirs in the back of my mind that Big Harry once told me. He said that the action that controls wallpaper is at the front of the queue when booting up and you had to be very careful if you modified it in any way. So I simply kicked wallpaper into touch and have never had any trouble. Seems to have worked!

[Tripps]

Mobile phone didn't connect this morning.

Asked Plusnet, and they say due to local mast maintenance by the carrier EE. Should be back in 9 hrs, and they'll update me with text messages as to progress.

How will you do that? says I - if the phone isn't connected. Oh OK would you prefer emails? Yes says I.

Tried to contact nearest and dearest with the reserve mobile - no go - that's on 1P, and still uses EE so also not working. Time to review my disaster recovery plan I think.

[Stanley]

Carrier pigeons David?
[Or landline?]

[Tizer]

This was put out a month ago but is coming into operation now. I'd never heard of `redirect trackers' and it shows how web designers work get to bypass blocks and track us...
`Latest Firefox rolls out Enhanced Tracking Protection 2.0; blocking redirect trackers by default' Mozilla

[Stanley]

It rings a bell Peter. Did we get a new version not long ago? I trust Firefox and enable all their protections as soon as I am aware of them. One of the advantages of Mozilla is of course that they have no vested interest in collecting data and are open source. More power to their elbow!

[Big Kev]

One of the advantages of Mozilla is of course that they have no vested interest in collecting data

Not true I'm afraid, they collect technical and interaction data by default. You do, however, have the option to turn this off.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/sh ... ve-firefox

[Tizer]

But at least they make it easy, just by going into the security menu, and once you've made your selection it stays that way until you ever change it again. You can delete all your cookies and it doesn't affect the settings. Not like Google - if I change security settings there they get put back to default every time I delete cookies in Firefox.

[Stanley]

True, I've noted that since I altered the cookie setting I have to go through the hoop with their security check every time I use some applications.
Kev, do they have a big filing cabinet somewhere for all this data?

[Big Kev]

True, I've noted that since I altered the cookie setting I have to go through the hoop with their security check every time I use some applications.
Kev, do they have a big filing cabinet somewhere for all this data?

One would assume so, they wouldn't be collecting it otherwise

[Tizer]

My cousin's daughter and her husband Mark are both self-employed working from home and therefore very dependent on their PC. They needed a new one and asked our advice, knowing Mrs Tiz had recently got a new one. We recommended the one we bought from eBuyer recently, they ordered, together with a new screen, and now it's arrived. But last night Mark phoned me to say he'd been `trying to get it to work all evening with no success', so he's going to ring eBuyer this morning.

I haven't seen the PC (we haven't been spending time in each other's homes) but he says when he boots it the PC doesn't go into the usual Windows screen. Instead it wanted him to select a language but only offered about 4, the only English being US English. He responded to a couple of other things but then nothing happened - he couldn't get any further.

The one we bought, of course, is now on Ubuntu installed by me, but I did view the Windows when it arrived and had no problem it just booted straight into it as far as I recall.

Does Mark's story ring any bells?

[PanBiker]

The PC is likely to have an OEM image of Windows installed on the machine. It will have been cloned as such during the software installation. These versions are designed to boot at the geography and other personal settings that the OS needs to complete the install. I would accept the US English from the languages offered and when completely installed go in and change it to the one you actually want. I take it that it is running Windows 10 in which case once it has negotiated its internet access etc it will just update from the web.

In school I used to auto clone dozens of PC suites at once over the network and they finalised installation when next switched on. It's a common way for suppliers to deploy OS versions and any cutsomised software packages required.

[Tizer]

He said he clicked on US English and answered other questions but then it wouldn't proceed any further. I wonder if it was downloading and updating but that wasn't visible on the screen?

Later...He was onto eBuyer first thing and they've sorted him now. It sounded much like you said, so he's probably OK from now on. Thanks for your comments!

[Stanley]

This probably should be in Mobile Phones but I know Peter has the same model. My Moto wonder phone asked me the other day if I wanted to upgrade to Android 10. I said yes, via wifi and nothing happened so I logged off. When I switched it on yesterday it told me it had downloaded and told me what to do. I was treated to a wonderful display of coloured screens and eventually it told me to restart. I did and everything seems to be the same apart from one thing I noticed, an Emergency button. I see in the phone menu I have the option of putting in my emergency information. I haven't done it yet but wondered if anyone has done it. Otherwise everything is working as before. No loss of data.

[PanBiker]

My Motorola is a few years older than yours Stanley and is now past major Android version upgrades. I occasionally see it optimising apps at boot up which will be as a result of minor security updates. All basically done in the background. Mine is getting short of core memory now despite moving all I can to the SD card. I reckon it owes me nowt now and I could probably do with an upgrade. I'll give that a coat of thinking about.

[Tizer]

Stanley, our phone did the same thing and Mrs Tiz will be adding some basic details into the Emergency Information page. We found it in the Settings menu. We also got a new icon on the home screen at extreme bottom right to do with a new method for navigating the phone functions. We tapped it and were shown the feature and then given the option to proceed or delete it. Mrs Tiz chose Delete because we're content with the way it works and don't want to have to learn another load of swipes!

[Stanley]

Thanks Peter. I'll go and explore...

[Stanley]

The word this morning is that Oracle have beaten Microsoft in the bidding for Tik Tok but nobody is quite sure what they have got. Rumour is that the algorithms that drive Tik Tok aren't included.

[Big Kev]

The pitfalls of video conferencing when working from home, one of my sons works for the same company as me and he had some help from my grandson

Conference call.JPG

[Stanley]

Kev, I heard a news item yesterday that more parrots than usual are being given to animal charities for re-homing. The theory is that they are interrupting zoom calls and video conferencing.

[plaques]

Kev, I heard a news item yesterday that more parrots than usual are being given to animal charities for re-homing. The theory is that they are interrupting zoom calls and video conferencing Did it say how many came from No 10 Downing St. ???

[Stanley]

Hee hee!
I doubt it Ken, listening to Priti Patel this morning convinces me that parrots are just what they favour there.
Yes, I have no time at all for that woman......