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How much would I pay to keep my iPhone 11?  I pay $180/mo for two phones and three lines (don’t ask – it’s complicated). You will have to pry my smartphone from my cold, dead hands. The ubiquity of the phone and what it does for me is deep and profound. It is integral to my work life and has changed many parts of that for the better. I’m a Boomer.  I still have a rotary dial phone that will still work on my copper landline. But on this, I won’t back down.

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Jim, wavy

Here in Canada (and I am going to assume it is similar in parts of the US) distance learning has shown up the massive rural/urban divide and multiplied the haves and the have nots.

In my predominantly rural school district there are any number of families who don’t have a cell phone, a smart phone, a tablet or a computer nor even the financial means to acquire one, not to mention those who do not use computers for religious reasons. 10% of our population is Amish or Mennonite who attend public schools but do not use computers for religious and cultural reasons. On top of that, many live in areas with poor to mediocre internet service or none at all, in spite of provider maps which suggest otherwise. Signing in to Google Classroom or any distance learning system might as well be like talking to Mars. Then there are data caps and usage fees. The roadblocks are significant.

Until we reach the point of universally accessible, affordable basics for distance learning, we will not have replaced our existing pedagogy. To think otherwise is delusional.

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RockE, wavy, geekdom, woody

Moving to a Cloud-centric model takes a large number of computer users out of circulation. There are still many parts of North America (not to mention the world) where an internet connection simply does not exist. That any company could be so stupid boggles the mind.

[WSDKS01]

I fully understand the frustrations of moving offices and installing tech. For the last twenty years I have acted as sole support technical for my health care professional spouse who requires reliable internet, fax and print services on a network. This has allowed me lots of fun experiences to explore tech (as well as having my spouse pay for something new which might improve things!).

My experience with powerline networking  has been the complete opposite to yours.

Five years ago we moved from a house with wired Ethernet into a house built in the 1950’s and with 100 amp electrical service. Some, but not all of the wiring was new, with three prong grounded outlets. The rest were as installed over 60 years ago. My spouse’s office was set up in a bedroom at the far end of the house from the telco DSL modem, a distance of about 60 feet. It had two prong outlets, original to the house. The main service panel was upgraded after we moved in. All powerline networking went through the main panel. That was critical, I believe.

Briefly, nothing worked to connect the computer and printer reliably.

Hard wired Ethernet was not possible. I tried WiFi repeaters with little success.

Powerline networking was an even more spectacular failure in terms of reliability and speed. I got really tired of hearing on an almost daily basis, “Internet’s down again!” or “My stuff won’t print!” yelled down the stair to my basement office.

The fax machine had a direct copper line connection so it was completely reliable.

I believe the original wiring and the powerline connected through the service panel made the installation a failure. I could get a reasonable connection if the powerline adapters were on the same circuit breaker, but not if they went through the service panel to another breaker and house circuit.

About a year ago I decided to try the Plume pods offered by my telco (Bell Canada). Simple setup. Instant success. Domestic tranquility has returned. I never hear anything about the internet being down or the printer not working. Wifi repeaters and powerline networking are no longer options. They are technology, given my experience, I won’t recommend. Plume pods? Absolutely. They just work.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by WSDKS01.

An excellent article that raises important points. All one can do is make changes within our own sphere of influence and that which we control. As an employer, it is good to see reality recognized. keep it up.

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Elly, satrow

b wrote:

Tracey Capen wrote:

WOODY’S WINDOWS WATCH By Woody Leonhard

The 2004 carrot

Notepad becomes a Store app, too

Notepad is not a Store app in version 2004.

That requires Insider Preview build 19541 or later in the Fast Ring:

Get Windows Notepad – Microsoft Store (System Requirements)

With all respect, Notepad is still installed but it can be removed from the Start menu (Windows accessories) in 2004. What you replace it with is up to you. And yes, Windows Notepad is available for free in the Microsoft Store in 2004.

Yes, I saw the “It’s ready but not for you” notice on one of the critical computers in this house (there are four in total) for the May 2020 Update. But having one computer on the Windows Insider Fast Ring and having no problems with Build 2004 19640.1 (most recent build released last week) and having little else to do this past weekend, I downloaded the May 2020 Update using the Microsoft Media Creation Tool and installed it on two non-critical computers. The result?  Very little drama. The sky did not fall. Yes, some display settings were reset to default, but ten minutes later all my preferences were in place. Yawn. Now back to my Zoom meeting life this week. BTW, Zoom did another update over the weekend. No problems there, either.

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rsegal2, woody

[WSDKS01]

Tracey Capen wrote:

SAFETY By Nathan Parker Over this recent Easter weekend, major storms and tornadoes raged across the United States. The southern regions were hit espe
[See the full post at: Simple ways to receive severe-weather alerts]

For Canadians, Environment and Climate Change Canada’s WeatherCAN app is an easy and simple way to keep aware of current weather, radar and alerts for your area. It’s free (free is always good), gives you localized forecasts as well as alerts. It can also provide information to saved locations. It’s available for iOS and Android in their app stores here. WeatherCAN

ECCC runs an experimental listserv for PC users but you have to have a reason to use it (Media, emergency services, trained and registered CANWARN Severe Weather Spotter)

• This reply was modified 5 years ago by WSDKS01.

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Nathan Parker, woody

As my system has Intel SSD drives, I use Intel’s free SSD Toolbox utility. It also reports the SMART information of platter-based drives. I have confidence in the information from the SSD drives, at the very least.

I agree with JoeP517, who has summed it up nicely, and I can say for a fact that the lady’s messages now going out in HTML format are no longer causing a problem to the recipients I mentioned.

Microsoft support is confused on the issue. This one says that using HTML (or Plain Text) will resolve the issue, and that is so in practice.

Which is, at the core, what we have all said. It applies to Outlook as both a standalone client and when used in an Exchange Server. Switch to HTML or, as I believe the modem gods foreordained, switch to plain (DOS) text. There are, at the end of the day, multiple solutions and the right one is the one which works best for the end user.

Thunderbird also has an extension to allow their client to decode winmail.dat files. There are other freeware programs out there, too. I can’t testify to how well they work, though. The real solution is to use plain text, as the DOS gods intended.

Nah, don’t think so. I use Outlook 2013 to send email messages to several different distribution lists. Those users are PC users, mac users, people who use the installed Outlook client (some before the 2013 version) and others that pick up their mail using a browser based logon.

None complain that my emails cannot be read. If what you say were really, the web would be inundated with messages complaining about this.

K

I can assure you it is the problem. In fact, I am certain it is. I have had it happen and dealt with it repeatedly over the years, going back to Outlook 2003. The web is indeed having this issue. The ubiquity of Mictosoft’s Outlook does mitigate things a bit, but it’s still an issue. I can’t, for example, read any Outlook formatted messages on my iPad in Apple’s mail client unless they are in plain text. Same with my iPhone. If you want more info, just search for “winmail.dat”. Here is Microsoft’s own response to the issue, which they do acknowledge:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/278061

Apple’s response:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201773

Here is another set of technical solutions, one involving a registry hack (which I wouldn’t recommend to a novice user).

http://www.slipstick.com/problems/outlook-is-sending-winmail-dat-attachments/

The fault is in Outlook and the fix is simple. Non-MS e-mail clients can’t read Outlook messages. It’s not that they are in HTML or RTF format, it’s the pesky winmail.dat files which are in TNEF format, proprietry to Microsoft. There are add-on openers for other e-mail clients, but the easist way for the non-computer literate person to resolve this is to format and save the contents of the newsletter in .pdf format (use word processing software and save as .pdf). Then send the .pdf file as an attachment to a plain text e-mail, NOT in HTML. I send all my e-mails in plain text (either selectable as a default or when composing the e-mail in Outlook) and use attachments. Everyone can read them.

I had the same problem appear last night after Patch Tuesday. I uninstalled the patch and all is back to normal. MS says the patch is no longer available.

People who choose to use RealTemp for CPU system temperature monitoring might find it helpful to know that if they have a newer Sandy Bridge processer, the release version of RealTemp, 3.60, gives erroneous readings. The 3.69.1 beta version, available here, http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/System-Info/Real-Temp.shtml , among other places, works just fine.