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Just a simple remark. I do use DuckDuckGo, but I also use Vivaldi. Vivaldi is ‘friendlier’ IMO.

I was bitten by Byte,too long ago to recall.

Thanks Fred, enjoy not being Fred Langa.

Barry Mahon, France

As a Vivaldi user for some time I am disappointed at the tone of this article. Within the first para there is an apology for selecting a VERY limited subset of the features of the browsers.

The original PCMag review quoted selected the ‘best’ for ad blocking and avoiding other annoying features is Vivaldi.

I would wager that a lot of Woody readers would be looking to avoid being hassled. After years of browsing, starting with very obscure Scandinavian apps, and graduating through Opera and the like I have opted for Vivaldi for their ad-blocking prowess and the myriad of selectable options.

Give it  try, a proper one, studying the options and I think you will be satisfied.

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OscarCP, cesmart4122, Tom

I had forgotten that Fred’s name was familiar to me when I first came  upon Woody. I was a very early subscriber Byte.

Was Fred there when Jerry Purnelle arrived? For many years Jerry was my goto first read in Byte. He died, was it last year, and it evoked many memories for me. I marvelled at where he got the time to buy (I  presumed) install and implement the very latest technology, warts and all.

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wavy

Is it only me?

I didn’t find PingStatus on OlderGeeks. I tried searching but it didn’t appear so I looked in the listings and found PingAlert and several others under ping but no pingstatus.

I then tried looking for it under the name .exe and found http://www.pingstatus.net by Bakidok in spanish……

Where do I find the version you indicated pingstatus 3.3.0

Thanks, Barry

Enjoy, but don’t be tempted to not poke your pithy comments in whenever you feel like it.

28 years is a long time, long enough to have learned that in many ways nothing changes, I still keep my access on metered

Best, Barry

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woody

Not sure if this has been quoted somewhere but some interesting comments, imo.

https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/26/micrsoft_in_brief/

https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/01/windows_10_2004_rollout/

Not specifically about the June rollout, but relevant?

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woody

I sent this to Ask Woody and they suggested I repost it here –

Hi,

My settings for updates is paused.

However, the other day I restarted my pc and it said it was loading updates and carried on; I have the following version status now….

So, in your opinion, what was the update? If it was a hack, I haven’t seen anything unusual.

Not a solution, unfortunately, but I have a variation –

When I start, W10 starts and various things happen (haven’t found any way to REQUIRE a password for example) but –

I have a prog called Mailwasher which checks what is in the inbox and lets me remove spam.

In W10 it starts fine, but there is no Internet access. On checking, Ethernet is up and running but no Internet. Router is there and access starts if I click the Ethernet option in Network and sharing.

Irritating….

Well while I understand all of these changes for the reason’s that are obvious I’m not a fan of this. When independent entities start combining forces for the betterment of all it often often doesn’t work out the way people hope it will. Getting combined into a large business, while hoping for the same independence, often doesn’t happen. These decisions are made primarily for monetary reasons.

Agree

I’ve been a paid member for years here and will continue to, this is a great place.

No decision on this, yet, depends on the deal.

Hopefully these changes will be smooth and not veer into something that gets away from the original intent, from Langa to Secrets to…..

Again, agreed

Thanks for all that, we Europeans travel between countries a good deal. My advice, get a local (European) cheap handset and SIM, (or even dig out one of your old handsets), if you intend to be around here for while. You can find ones with good roaming deals and then divert your calls to it.

Remember also, foreigners don’t (all) bite….;)

B

Here is a link to a recent article about WiFi security, may contribute something to this discussion –

http://www.howtogeek.com/132348/dont-have-a-false-sense-of-security-5-insecure-ways-to-secure-your-wi-fi/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=020113

B

Thanks Fred for a great article. Just hit on it as my Tosh L650 (a discontinued model) just shut off the other day. On examining the event log I came across a reference in the reboot sequence to “thermal” sequence or something like that (created a wordpad file but it got lost in another crash) – which made me consider overheating, hence arriving at the article.

Anyway, I down loaded Speedfan and it showed core temps as around 100, a little high.

I had a search about and decided to try a mild vacuum as a first step. Now down to the upper 70s. Which seems to be in line with requirements, and the fan is not running all the time, so far so good.

In my searching I found a suggestion that many laptop cases don’t ‘open’ all the vents and I noticed that your pics showed a round vent near the fan. My Tosh has a similar circular feature but it is ‘blanked’ i.e. is not cut out, I wonder is this because in my PC the fan is not in that place or there are other vents, and there are, along the side of the case nearby.

Anyway, I’ll carry on as we are for the moment and maybe open the case if there are future problems.

BTW, two other things – if the vacuum cleaner head is plastic is there static buildup? and I had to replace the HD a while back, following some ‘hiccups’ in its operation, I wonder if I had had speedfan would I have had a warning?

Last item, I suspend the PC on a small piece of wood to allow better air circulation under it.

Bye, Barry, France

The number of data centres concentrated in a small number of locatons is surprisng, as is the lack of 100% redundancy.

I understand the need to have centres near the clients, but why not have full mirrors in less vulnerable sites?