Listen to the Podcast
13 Nov 2020 - Podcast #719 - (19:03)
It's Like NPR on the Web
If you find the information TechByter Worldwide provides useful or interesting, please consider a contribution.
If you find the information TechByter Worldwide provides useful or interesting, please consider a contribution.
Nir Sofer is a software developer who spends his free time creating useful utilities for Windows. So far he has more than 100 of them, and you might find some of them to be quite useful.
Clearly I can't describe each of them at length. Just naming them all would probably consume all the time available, so let's look at a few of them. Most of the applications do not need to be installed. Just extract them from their zip file and run them. You can narrow the scope from well over 100 to a more manageable group by selecting a category: password recovery, network monitoring tools, web browser tools, video/audio related, internet utilities, desktop utilities, Outlook/Office utilities, programmer tools, disk utilities, system utilities, and other utilities.
The utilities are provided without charge or obligation, but you can make a donation if you find one or more of the utilities useful.
Click any of the small images for a full-size view. To dismiss the larger image, press ESC or tap outside the image.
How many USB devices are connected to your computer? I thought there might be a dozen or so, but there are 38 active USB devices attached to my computer.
USB Device View shows all of the USB devices that are currently connected and devices that were previously connected.
Yes, it has information about devices that are no longer connected. Device View displays each device's description, type, connection state, serial number, information about when it was connected and whether it's save to unplug, firmware and driver version, and more.
It's also possible to specify commands that should be run when a USB device is attached or detached, and to have the application create a record of when devices are connected to the computer or disconnected.
Use What in Startup to see a list of all applications that are loaded automatically when Windows starts up. For each application, you'll see the startup type, command-line string, product name, file version, company name, location in the registry or file system, and more.
The startup type is helpful because there are many ways to start an application when Windows starts. Applications can be started by the Registry as machine run, machine run once, user run, or user run once. There can also be references in the startup folder for the user or for all users. If an application starts and you don't want it to, figuring out where to look for the launch command can be time consuming.
To disable an unwanted application, choose Disable or Delete. Before deleting a startup application, disable it, restart Windows, and run the machine for a while. If disabling the application creates no problems, you can leave it as disabled or go back and delete it. The safer method is just to leave it disabled so that you can enable it again if you change your mind later.
When your computer is just sitting there, you might think that it's idle. That's not the case, though. The CPU is busy. You probably knew that. But other components are busy too. Components such as the disk drives, even when you're not actively working on anything.
File Activity Watch lets you keep an eye on what's happening. Run it and the main window displays all read/write/delete operations made by running applications. The Options menu makes it possible to watch only read events, write events, or delete events. For a fresh view, click Ctr-X to clear the screen.
Color coding can be enabled or disabled. Green designates a read operation, yellow is for writes, red shows combined read/write operations, and lines shown in blue reflect delete operations. Each line lists the name of the file affected; the process ID, name, and path; read and write counts; the number of bytes written or read; and the times of the first and last read and write actions.
The Bluetooth Viewer utility watches for nearby Bluetooth devices. For each detected Bluetooth device, it displays the device name, Bluetooth address, major device type, minor device type, first detection time, last detection time, and more.
If you allow the application to run in the background, it can also notify you when a new Bluetooth device is detected by displaying a balloon in the Taskbar or by sounding a beep.
The utility allows you to connect to a Bluetooth device. It doesn't send any information to the device, but only attempts to connect for testing, then closes the connection. The Bluetooth device should then ask if you want to accept data from the new device (your computer). If you approve the request, no data will be sent, but the test will be shown as successful.
Device drivers are the most troublesome of all Windows software components. Outdated drivers can cause no end of problems, and Driver Viewer is a useful diagnostic tool.
The main window displays the list of all loaded drivers on the system. You can then select one or more drivers from the list, and copy the details of these drivers to the clipboard, save them to text or HTML file, or view them as HTML report in your browser.
Double-clicking one of the entries displays a pop-up box with the driver's name and description, beginning and ending addresses in memory, size, load count, type, version, company and product name, driver file location, the create and modification dates, and more.
Optionally the program can hide Microsoft drivers, highlight non-Microsoft drives, or do both.
If you need to recover a product key from Windows or any Microsoft application, you'll find a NirSoft utility that does that. There's a utility that collects information about all installed applications, one that scans the registry, one that helps diagnose the cause of blue-screen failures. You'll find apps for nearly every web browser that can show the browser's cache and cookies. There are password recovery tools, a variety of utilities that developers will find useful, network sniffers and diagnostic tools, Wi-Fi analyzers, and utilities that can reveal network problems.
Nir Sofer is one of the dwindling number of developers who create small, useful utilities and distribute them for free. Sofer has been operating his site since 2001 and has created many worthwhile utilities. If you find them useful, toss a few dollars his way.
When Microsoft released Windows 10, we were assured that updates would be provided without charge for the life of the machine. That means we don't have to pay for every new update and hope that it works.
This policy is good for everyone. Users will always have the current version of Windows and Microsoft will have to support only the latest version. Some people are still using older versions of the operating system, some all the way back to Windows 95. Perhaps a few computers are running even earlier versions. That's not a good choice for several reasons, safety and security being the top two.
But what happens if you want to update an existing computer that's running Windows 10?
In most cases, you won't have a problem if you add memory or replace the hard drive. Even updating the CPU usually won't cause a problem. But if you replace the motherboard or more than one primary component, Microsoft may tell you that the operating system hasn't been activated.
Now what?
The process of reactivating Windows on an upgraded computer usually isn't difficult or even very time consuming, but you do need to follow Microsoft's procedures.
When installing Windows 10, the digital license associates itself with the device's hardware. If you make significant hardware changes, such as replacing the motherboard, Windows may no longer find a license that matches your device, and you’ll need to reactivate Windows to get it up and running.
To reactivate Windows, you'll need either a digital license or a product key. To find out which you need, Microsoft recommends that you start by reviewing the activation process.
It's wise to plan ahead. If your computer is currently running version 1607 or later, be sure to link your Microsoft account with the Windows 10 digital license. Doing this allows you to reactivate Windows using the Activation troubleshooter whenever you make a significant hardware change.
To check, go to Settings > Update & Security > Activation. You should see "Windows is activated with a digital license linked to your Microsoft account." If you don't see that, make sure that this problem is resolved before you replace any hardware. If you have a version of Windows 10 that's earlier than 1607, update the operating system.
After updating to a more recent version of Windows and confirming that the current version is activated, it's time to proceed. If the current version isn't activated, check out Microsoft's activation troubleshooter.
Before adding the new hardware, link the installed version of Windows to your Microsoft account. If you haven't set up a Microsoft account, now would be a good time to do so. The Microsoft account offers a new email address (@outlook.com) that you can use for email if you wish or ignore. Using this account for all of your computers makes synchronizing the computers easy, but another key advantage is making the process of reactivating Windows after a hardware change easy.
If you used a product key to activate Windows, make sure you have that key before continuing. Microsoft explains here how to obtain the product key, a 25-character string with a dash after every fifth character: XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX.
Install the new hardware and reboot the computer. Make sure the computer is connected to the internet.
If you have problems at this stage, see Microsoft's troubleshooting steps.
Chromecast with Google TV is the latest iteration of Google's entry in devices that can make a dumb television smart and a smart television smarter. The big difference in the latest model is that it comes with a remote control.
Previously I had used an Amazon Fire Stick, and when I switched to a Chromecast device I missed having the remote control even though it was possible to cast video from my phone or computer to the television.
The new device ($50) costs less than the 4K version of the previous model, comes with a remote control, and offers an on-screen menu -- features that the earlier version lacked. For reasons known only to Google, you have a choice of colors (blue, pink, or white). Google has its own names for these colors, of course: sky, sunrise, and snow. Does the color really matter? After all, the device will hang behind the television. Oh, all right: The remote control will be in plain view so maybe the color matters there. And in a world where all remote controls seem to be black, Google offers three non-black colors.
For $30 more, you can buy a special Netflix version of the Chromecast with Google TV. It includes a 6-month Netflix subscription, so you'll save about $24 if you don't already have a Netflix subscription. Don't expect to have the device in hand anytime soon, though. You can order now, but it won't show up until just before the end of the year.
A USB-C port can provide power from the included power adapter, or from a USB port on the television of one is available. The live-TV option supports only YouTube TV, but the remote control offers a voice option. The Chromecast takes advantage of a new user interface for Google TV, and content searching includes recommendations.
Zelle Network, the online payment system adopted by many banks, reports an increase of more than 30% in the third quarter compared to the second quarter.
More than one billion payments have been made through the system in the past 12 months: 323 transactions in the third quarter for $84 billion. That gives the company insights into a lot of financial information. For example, concerns about the risk of being targeted by financial scams or fraud continues to increase, from around 40% to about 50% in August.
Early Warning Services, the network operator behind Zelle, says consumers have increased their use of of the service significantly in the past 12 months. The latest Zelle Consumer Payment Survey shows that nearly three-quarters of consumers surveyed were most likely to use P2P services to provide financial aid to friends and family since the onset of the COVID crisis.
Chief marketing officer, Rose Corvo, says the pandemic increases the importance of helping consumers who are new to digital banking. "This year, we continue to invest significantly in consumer education on how and when to use Zelle, which has helped with adoption but, more importantly, safe banking behaviors."
To read the full survey results, visit the Zelle website (PDF).
Districts in which more than 25% of students are eligible for free and reduced-price lunch use education technology (EdTech) at half the rate of their more affluent peers according to new analysis from LearnPlatform.
Research by LearnPlatform, which is used by US school districts and state education agencies, analyzed online usage across more than 8000 EdTech products used by 2.5 million students in more than 250 districts in 17 states from February to September 2020. The data confirm significant gaps in EdTech usage between more affluent and higher-poverty districts. The results also suggest that digital learning equity gaps, first reported in the spring, have carried over into the fall semester.
"These data provide troubling confirmation of what educators and district leaders already knew and feared. The pandemic has exacerbated the digital divide, resulting in a stark contrast between affluent districts and those serving a higher percentage of low-income families," said Karl Rectanus, CEO and co-founder of LearnPlatform. "While engagement is up overall, and we certainly see districts improving their individual EdTech effectiveness, the double-digit gaps that we saw emerge in the spring are still evident this school year."
According to LearnPlatform's latest report, districts in which more than 25% of students are eligible to receive free or reduced-price lunches (FRPL) saw deeper and more persistent EdTech usage drops than districts serving more affluent student populations. Interestingly, districts with less than 25% FRPL saw increased usage during remote learning last spring, while most others decreased sharply.
The full report is on the LearnPlatform website.
As I wrote back then, "This is the week that Bill Gates surprised a lot of people by stating the obvious: That third-world countries don't need to have classrooms wired for computers. First they need classrooms. Before they get to classrooms, a steady supply of food would be a nice touch."
Gates was no longer the CEO of Microsoft then. He had founded the Gates Foundation and the foundation has spent $200 million on health issues, half of that for children's vaccines. In Gates's (2000) words, "The world's poorest 2 billion people desperately need health care, not laptops."
What's amazing, I said, is that some people are seeing this as a major transformation. Those who see technology as being useful and appropriate in countries such as the US, Canada, and France might actually have the intelligence to understand that many people in Rwanda might have more pressing needs than prompt on-line access.