Category: ‘Whatchamacallit’

FreeOCR – Originally Published March 2017

March 12, 2017 Posted by Tiny

Some Lagniappe for You
by Tiny Ruisch

la·gniappe (lnyp, ln-yp)
n. Chiefly Southern Louisiana & Mississippi
1. A small gift presented by a store owner to a customer with the customer’s purchase.
2. An extra or unexpected gift or benefit. Also called regionally boot.

For the past couple of months, I’ve been working on my latest club project in my spare time.  I hope to get all of the club newsletters scanned and posted on the web site. It is a time consuming job, but I think it is an important part of the clubs history.

I could just scan each page, combine into a PDF file and post to the website.  The problem with using that simple, easiest method is that the files would not be indexed by the Google web site search engine.  I spent so much time setting up the web site custom search that this became an untenable alternative.  I needed some good optical character recognition software (OCR).

I’m a scanning rookie.  By that I mean I have never used a scanner for anything but scanning old pictures and the occasional document.  This whole project has been a learning experience for me.  I hope everyone thinks the results are satisfactory.

The first thing I learned is that many of the OCR scanning programs use the same engine, Tessaract OCR.  Tesseract is a commercial quality OCR engine that was originally developed by HP.  It was open sourced in 2005.  Click this link for An Overview of the Tesseract OCR Engine.  There are many OCR software packages (both free and paid) using Tesseract.  All of them are just “wrapper” interfaces.

After a thorough search of reviews, a few test downloads and several second thoughts, I did what I often do: go with Gizmo’s recommendation.  I downloaded and installed FreeOCR.  FreeOCR is a free Optical Character Recognition Software for Windows.  It supports scanning from most Twain scanners and can also open most scanned PDF files and multi page Tiff images as well as popular image file formats.  The interface is intuitive and the program is easy to use.

FreeOCR processes only one image at a time, but it will OCR multi-page PDF files.  There is no limit on file size.  FreeOCR can create Word and RTF documents from the text it extracts, but it’s just pasted text.  There is no attempt to reconstruct the document or place images.  Most importantly, text scanning conversion is excellent.

There is an Online Help Menu, but you will likely only have to look at it once or twice.  To use the program, simply open a document by scanning, opening a file or opening a PDF.  You can either select the entire page or draw a box around part of the image.  Then press the OCR button to process your selection.  The original image is on the left panel and the OCR text is on the right.

The left panel has nine menu items (the small icons on the left of the pane).  From top to bottom, you can select next page, previous page, fit image to screen, fit width to screen, enlarge, reduce and rotate either counter or clockwise.  The bottom icon (the little square) is the most used and the most useful.  Clicking it opens the selection menu allowing you to crop the image to your selected area or copy the entire image to the clipboard.

Similarly, there are seven menu items in the text panel on the right side. From top to bottom, you can clear the text window, save text, remove line breaks, copy all the text to the clipboard, export text into Microsoft Word, export text as RTF or change the font size.  In my setup, I copy the text to the clipboard and then paste into Scibus.  Most of the text editing required is deleting extra spaces, changing the number 1 to a lower case letter l or changing the capitalization of the x.  The program doesn’t reliably convert some fonts.  After about fifty edits it got much easier as I learned what errors to look for.  When I am done editing the text, I select images and copy them to the clipboard.  Then I paste them into the document.  I don’t spend a lot of time making them perfect because I think the important part of the newsletters is the articles and being able to search them on the club website.

FreeOCR is freeware OCR & scanning software and you can do what you like with it including commercial use.  The included Tesseract OCR engine is distributed under the Apache V2.0 license.  I recommend downloading the program from the home page.

If you like the program, just tell everyone that you’ve got a SWLAPCUG extra, a bonus perk, a small gift, a present from the club: a little lagniappe.

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Tiny Inventions II – Originally Published March 2017

March 12, 2017 Posted by Tiny

A Pain in the Whatchamacallit
By Tiny Ruisch

Way back in June 2013, I wrote an article describing many of the things that I was going to invent.  Unfortunately, due to time constraints, I never did get around to marketing the tonocle, the T-belt, the CORdrive or the other great ideas I had.  Since then, I’ve thought of more inventions to market.

How many times have you meant to throw something in the trash can and missed it because the darn thing was just out of reach?  That will never happen again when I start selling the TINYtrasher.  This remarkable machine will be a modified trash can on wheels.  It will be WIFI enabled and can be summoned to wherever you are by pushing the trash icon on your phone or other WIFI enabled device.

The TINYlet is going to be a modern day, useful replacement for the toilet in any bathroom.  Seat up or down arguments would be a thing of the past.  The TINYlet seat would always lower itself two minutes after a flush.  When a user enters the bathroom, the seat would always be down.  If it needs to be raised a simple step-lever would change the seat to the proper position.  The super, duper, custom TINYlet will be the only toilet in the world that would never plug up and need to be plunged.  An installed garbage disposal would grind up any blockage.

Tiny’s ClearVue toaster will easily toast your bread with infrared rays.  The traditional metal sides of the toaster would be replaced with a clear acrylic plastic.  The advantage of a ClearVue is simple.  You can see the progress of the toasting bread.  Each slice would be cooked to the perfect shade of brown for each individual user.

Ten years ago, I almost invented the TINoller.  This was going to be a modified baby stroller.  My initial thought was to attach a motorized wheel chair to the back of my grandson’s stroller so that I could easily push him.  Realizing that this idea would prevent me from getting any actual exercise on my daily walk, I thought about attaching a scooter.  This would enable me to push and ride at the same time.  He outgrew the stroller before I could build it, but the idea is still valid.

The TINY Paper Roller is the invention that will ensure that the toilet paper is always placed correctly on the dispenser roller.  The dispenser would have a small lip at the back of the dispenser under the roll.  If the paper is placed on the roll backwards, the paper would catch on the lip and bunch up.  The dispenser would only work if the toilet paper is properly installed so that the paper rolls off the top towards the user.

Don’t you hate it when you’re driving down the road and hit the occasional, rare, pothole, causing your coffee to spill out of the cup and into your car’s cup holder?  If you’re like me and don’t like using lids or only filling your cup half full, you will need to buy the TinyUnSpill cup.  This cup will have a small Geo-sensor embedded in the bottom “spring” plate.  Whenever your vehicle hits something like a speed bump, the sensor will react to the rising cup and automatically open a hydraulic valve which will raise the cup and prevent the liquid from splashing over the side.  Hitting a pot hole will have the opposite effect.  This cup will not spill your beverage, unless you slide sideways.

Remember the Pet Rock craze of years past?  I’ve been thinking of creating the “Tiny Pet Mouse Registry” or TIPEMORE.  Almost everyone in the world has an old computer mouse laying around.  For a small registration fee, people can register their mouse on TIPEMORE.  After their mouse becomes an official pet, they will be able to spend more of their money on buying things like care and feeding instructions, how to play with your pet, showing off your pet, etc.  This could be a great money maker.

I had better quit writing now and go get my Kickstarter applications filled out.  I’m certain that with my great ideas I will have no problem raising millions of dollars in funding.

Thanks for reading.

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Cruising 2017 – Originally Published February 2017

February 5, 2017 Posted by Tiny

A Pain in the Whatchamacallit
By Tiny Ruisch

I hope y’all don’t think I’m getting redundant in this monthly Whatchamacallit article.  Once again, I’m sitting on a cruise ship writing about the consumer technologies of cruising.  After all, this is the third time I’ve written on the topic.  You’d think that in eight years I could write about something new.  Oh well, if you’re bored, just turn the page and see what the other club members have submitted for the newsletter.

Still here?  The past week, I’ve been reflecting on how technology has changed some of ways I cruise.  The Mrs. took me on our first cruise ship in early 1990.  I don’t remember much about it except for some concern that the airplane wouldn’t be able to take off for Miami because of all the snow on the ground and the bad weather.  We finally left late.  Our luggage left even later and didn’t catch up to us until we were on the ship for two days.  There wasn’t a lot of personal tech back then.  A few people were getting desktop computers, laptops were almost unheard of and the internet was in its infancy, mostly restricted to universities, governments, military services, etc.  The World Wide Web and America On Line was still a year or so in the future.

Fast forward to March 2013.  I was on my eighth cruise with the boss (this time, she didn’t have to force me to go).  On this cruise, I didn’t take my laptop.  Instead, I used my new Archos 70IT tablet.  It was running Android 2.2 (Froyo).  Paired with a Bluetooth keyboard it made an excellent machine for shipboard cruising.  I used it to write an article for the club newsletter.  I just recently retired that tablet from my tech arsenal last month.

Two years later, I did basically the same thing for another newsletter article.  Same equipment, except for adding my first “smart” phone.  It was the Galaxy Note II.  I liked that phone, but it had enough quirks that I’ve never gotten another Samsung.  In both of those articles, I discussed the high cost of internet connectivity at sea.  I’ll just mention here that for seventy-five cents a minute, I didn’t have any connectivity.

Now it’s 2017.  What’s new?  This trip, I’m carrying more equipment.  I’ve got my new seven inch tablet (see my review in this newsletter), my year old Moto X and my ten inch Nextbook Windows 10 convertible.  I brought a Bluetooth keyboard for use with the tablet.  I haven’t yet used it and probably won’t.  My reason for taking the extra laptop was that I would be spending a lot of time putting together this newsletter.  I’ve since changed my goal to spending SOME of the time editing it.

The other biggest change is that I bought the Satellite data plan.  Surprisingly, upload speed is faster than download.  Of course, faster is a relative term.  Speeds average between 1-1/2 to 2 mbps.  The good news is that I’ve got plenty of time to watch people and to practice my thumb twiddling.  I’ve mostly been able to download and play the podcasts that I like to listen to.  A few sites are extremely slow.  Unfortunately, the club’s website is one of them, so I haven’t been able to do my daily check.  Although fairly slow, the connection has been mostly reliable.  I haven’t found any area of the ship where I haven’t been able to connect.  You’ve got keep using it though.  If my screen saver comes on, the connection goes off.  The only other aggravation is that you can only go online with one device at a time.  I had to delay downloading a major security update for my phone until I could shut down my laptop for an hour.

The satellite data plan is a little pricey, $120 for the entire cruise.  I justify it by telling myself it is free because I use the cruise credits I get for being a frequent cruiser.  My guess is that is as good a story as any other fairy tale.
Many other things have remained the same.  I’ve had a few discussions with other passengers and showed them ways to make their electronics easier to use.  There are also a few that can’t wait to get back home to check if their local library subscribes to Overdrive, Hoopla, Zinio, etc.  I met one person that thought I was an electronics wizard when I plugged a flash drive into my phones USB to watch a video.  The weirdest thing I saw was a fellow that came to the table where I was writing this article.  I was there because that was where one of the few plugins were.  He plugged his phone in and asked if I would watch it for him.  Then he just walked off and was gone for a half hour or so.  Maybe, I look trustworthy?

Life is good.  Thanks for reading.

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Dumb Predictions? – Originally Published January 2017

January 11, 2017 Posted by Tiny

A Pain in the Whatchamacallit
By Tiny Ruisch

Happy New Year!  It’s that time again for everyone to make their annual predictions about what will happen in the future.  Not me.  You all should know by now how I am usually a little different.  After all, people with much more intelligence than me can probably predict the future with much more accuracy than I could ever hope to achieve.

For instance, the following prediction: “There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable.  It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will.”  This prediction was made in 1932 by none other than Albert Einstein.

Is there anyone who hadn’t heard about Steve Jobs predictions on a stylus pen, smaller tablets and larger phones?  That puts him in the same league as Thomas Watson, IBM chairman in 1943, when he said there was a world market for maybe five computers.  IBM predictions improved in 1959 when they told Xerox that the world potential for copying machines was about 5000.

There are many other examples of brilliant people making the same types of accurate predictions.   In 2005 Steve Chen, the co-founder of YouTube claimed that the platform couldn’t survive.  He said, “There’s just not that many videos that people want to watch.”  A year earlier, Bill Gates predicted that SPAM e-mail would be solved within two years.  He also stated that his company, Microsoft, would never make a 32 bit operating system.

I could go on and on for pages about other people who made tech predictions that didn’t quite come true.  How about these other predictions?:
1) Subsidized cell phones will continue to decline and maybe even join floppy disks in the “I remember when” category.
2) Smart watches pass out of the what is it good for stage and replace cell phones the same way that automobiles replaced the horse and buggy.
3) Windows 7 will hang on as long as XP did.
4) Apple will invent wireless charging.
5) 3D television will make a comeback.
In case you might be interested, those are all predictions that I made in my January 2016 column.  You can see that my accuracy isn’t any worse (or better).  I’ll only make one prediction for this year: 2017 will bring some great computer club meetings, a lot of information on the club’s web site and some excellent monthly trips to Texas.

Thanks for reading.

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Bah! Humbug! – Originally Published December 2106

December 4, 2016 Posted by Tiny

A Pain in the Whatchamacallit
By Tiny Ruisch

I was looking over my past articles that I’ve written in December for the club newsletter.  Out of seven of them, all but one started with “Bah! Humbug!”  Almost immediately, a little guy sitting on my shoulder in a white suit whispered in my right ear, “That isn’t very Christmas like.  You should get in the spirit of the holiday.  Why don’t you write something positive for a change?”  Then another little man in a red suit sitting on the other shoulder whispered in the left ear, “Start with the Bah! Humbug!   You don’t want your reading audience to think you’ve changed your focus.”  A conversation between those two little guys followed:

Little Guy in White (LGW): You should write about how Christmas is giving and not receiving.
Little Guy in Red (LGR): The readers would rather know about how to write a computer virus.
LGW: How about a nice story of the great food you can eat at Christmas time.
LGR: They would probably like a story about “passing gas” apps you can download from the Play Store.
LGW: You know you shouldn’t listen to that red guy.  Write an article on how to get free programs.
LGR: That’s what I said.  Most of the gas apps are free.
LWG: You’ve done so many of those kind of stories in the past.  This year you should write about Christmas joy and harmony.
LGR: You know that it is so much more fun to make up something out of your imagination.
LGW: Maybe you could write an informative story about how Facebook and Twitter manipulated their new feeds to get that guy with the orange hair elected.
LGR: That’s actually not a bad idea.  You could talk about how stupid users are to believe that stuff.
LGW: I’ve got it.  Write a funny story about Christmas shopping on Black Friday.
LGR: That’s got some possibilities.  The crowds, the deals that really aren’t so great, the greediness, etc.
LWG: You should try writing something that will make people laugh.
LGR: Are we back to “passing gas” apps?
LGW: Whatever you decide to write, do it quick.  It’s almost deadline time.
LGR: We finally agree on something.
LGW: How about another one of those informative articles on how to use the clubs web site?
LGR: Now you’re hallucinating.  Nobody will use an article like that.
LGW: Bah!  Humbug!
Thanks for reading.

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Brand Loyalty – Originally Published November 2016

November 6, 2016 Posted by Tiny

A Pain in the Whatchamacallit
By Tiny Ruisch

Four years ago, in October of 2012, I wrote an article about companies that I won’t do business with if I can avoid it.  You might recall my vitriol towards the Sony Corporation for the evil they did by installing a root kit on my computer.  I still haven’t forgiven them and likely never will.  I’ll just smirk when they get hacked again.

Instead, I’m going to talk about some other companies that haven’t done a very good job of retaining customer loyalty.  Some have a long track record of errors and I’m surprised that they have stayed in business.  Others probably will not go out of business but probably should.

Yahoo! has recently been sold again (maybe) to Verizon.  This is a company that once was once the most popular website in the U. S.  Once worth over $100 billion dollars, it started to decline about fifteen years ago.  Verizon is reportedly going to purchase it for about $5 billion.  Over the years, Yahoo! Missed out on chances to buy Twitter, Facebook, Google and YouTube.  The latest news is the hack of more than 500 million user accounts.  Rather than inform customers, the company didn’t do anything for two years.  They must be lousy hackers, since Yahoo! has between 2 and 3 billion users.  I think we’ll be hearing more in the future.  I don’t have to worry.  I deleted my account about five years ago.

Another company recently in the news is Samsung.  If you haven’t heard about the Galaxy Note 7 problems, I hope you’re enjoying your vacation on Mars.  I think that Samsung initially did a great job of responding to the exploding battery reports by recalling all of the phones, no questions asked.  Now it appears that the replacement phones are having the same problem.  As I write this article, Samsung has ceased sales of the device.  I don’t think the story is over yet.

I could write several pages on how badly Sony has treated their customers over the years.  If you are interested, feel free to do a search on my website and review my past thoughts.  They haven’t changed.

There are many companies that unfortunately are able to stay in business even though they don’t give a rat’s you know what about their customers.  I’m mainly thinking of communications companies.  Have you heard of any positive customer service stories about ComCast, AT&T, Verizon, etc?  I have.  They almost always get a lot better whenever some competition enters the market.  Often they end up buying the new companies, take a market loss and then return to their past ways.

It is beginning to look like we might soon lose other organizations.  Both of our major political parties are in danger of putting themselves out of business.  Neither bear much resemblance to their roots.  Maybe it is time to resurrect the Whig or Federalist Parties.  We could also turn to the Dixiecrats, the Progressives or the Natural Law Party.  The Know-Nothing Party could be the most appropriate choice.

Thanks for reading.

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Sometimes I Wonder – Originally Published October 2016

October 4, 2016 Posted by Tiny

A Pain in the Whatchamacallit
By Tiny Ruisch

Sometimes I have a hard time deciding what to write about in this monthly column.  There are so many things that I wonder about.  Many of them are big enough that I can write a whole page on the subject.  Others are so minute that I occasionally need to write a potpourri column like this month.

As I write this, the iPhone 7 is about to be released.  I long ago quit wondering why people would sit in a line outside the Apple Store for weeks to buy a phone.  This time I’m wondering about the missing headphone jack.  Personally, I think that is really the future.  I hardly ever plug into the jack on my phones.  I’ve used the one on my current phone twice.  Once when I first bought the thing to make sure it worked.  I also used it one time when I forgot to charge my Bluetooth headset.  The thing I’m curious about is what the new iPhone owners will do when they fly on an airplane.  Bluetooth isn’t allowed on many airlines because of interference with the aircraft’s navigation equipment.  I’ve got a feeling that the rules will soon be changed.

Sometimes I wonder if I should buy a dedicated e-reader.  I must admit that I was pretty envious when Tom showed off his new Koby.  Every time I think I’m about to pull the plug, I realize that my tablet(s) are really sufficient for my reading needs.  I’m at the point where I’ve got so many of them that they’re scattered around my house like bread crumbs from an old sandwich.  I’ve even got my first tablet, an Archos 70.  I got it back in 2011.  I use it for videos and reading.  Someday it will probably be just another picture frame.  Soon, I’ll be wondering if I should buy the new Nexus 7 that is supposed to be released in October.  It probably will depend on the price.

Almost every morning when I open my Facebook account, I wonder why I don’t just close the darn thing.  Then all of a sudden, among the obviously false political claims and impossible to believe factoids, I see some information about a relative, make a silly comment and log out.  Thankfully, I’ve avoided all other social media.  You can’t Twit me a Snapchat or Google+ me an Instagram.

Sometimes I wonder how long it will be before there isn’t any disk drives at all in our computers.  Long gone are the days of having stacks of floppy disks sitting alongside our machines.  After they disappeared, CD drives soon followed.  Hard drives are slowly giving way to solid state drives.  Someday in the future, all of our computers will have their operating system stored in flash memory.  Every thing else will be stored on remote servers.  I’ll be long gone, but the hobbyists of the future will be the only one that use local storage.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve wondered if the major Operating System manufactures will ever play nice with each other?  The main reason I don’t buy any Apple Products is that they don’t play nice with my other technology.  Long ago, I quit using Microsoft Outlook because it was too difficult to synchronize with Android.  Unfortunately, it is getting worse instead of better.  Have you ever tried to video chat with an Apple product with Android, or vice versa?

Over the years, I’ve wondered about lots of little things.  For instance, why does Windows always make you click on start to shut down the computer.  I wonder if I will ever get all the old newsletters scanned and uploaded.  I wonder if I’ll get a good gift at the club’s Christmas exchange.  I wonder if people like the monthly Mindbender puzzles.

One last thing I wonder about.  Should I end this article?

Thanks for reading.

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Apple’s iOS 10 Claims – Originally Published September 2016

September 4, 2016 Posted by Tiny

A Pain in the Whatchamacallit
By Tiny Ruisch

“San Francisco — June 13, 2016 — Apple today previewed iOS 10, the biggest release ever of the world’s most advanced mobile operating system.”  That is a direct quote copied from the Apple website announcing the release of their new operating system, iOS 10.  According to the company and many of the fans web sites, this is the greatest thing since the invention of Hostess Twinkies.  I’ve been griping about Microsoft and Windows 10 so much that I thought I should point my keyboard in a different direction for a change.  Let’s review the latest claims.

Siri, iMessage, and Maps Open to Developers.  This might be the single biggest change that Apple has ever made.  They have opened up some of their apps to third party developers.  Siri can even reserve an Uber car.  I think this is the biggest change that I have seen Apple do.  Third party development is one of the reasons that so many of their competitors products have outpaced them in usefulness.  Of course, this also means there will be an increase in personal data collection.  It will be interesting to see how Apple handles that.

The Maps app is getting a boost with Map layers, smarter and proactive assistance as well.  The Maps also supports extensions.  It can help you throughout your day by offering the fastest routes by following all the traffic around you and suggesting places nearby.  It can also make reservations.  I guess they are finally recovering from the dumb mistake made in 2012 when iOS 6 dropped Google Maps.  Maybe they will finally catch up in another four or five years.

The iMessage app has been enhanced.  It supports live GIF and video playback right within the app.  You now get quick access to your photos and live camera feed without leaving the app.  The Emojis are now three times bigger and you can replace words with Emojis by just tapping on them.  The Bubble Effects different personalty to your messages.  The app now supports handwritten messages, digital touch and tickers.  With the app open to developers, I’m sure there will be no end to the innovation.

Photos & QuickType Become More Intelligent.  Apple has ramped up the capabilities of the Photos app with a feature it calls advanced computer vision.  The Photos app recognizes what’s in your photos and automatically groups them into categories, creating albums of similar photos.  Additionally, the app has a new feature in the Memories tab that not only uses the artificial intelligence of Photos to bring together images and movies according to events and places, but will automatically create a video montage of select photos and video clips with music, titles, and transitions.  You would think that is something Google would have thought of first.

Home App Controls HomeKit Devices.  The new iOS 10 comes with a new app which lets you control all your HomeKit accessories.  You’ll also be able to create and control scenes and use Siri to interact with them.  Depending on the accessories you have, from your iPhone you can control lamps, bulbs, doors and locks, cameras, air conditioners, fans, outlets, humidifiers, doorbells and many others.  I’m not qualified to comment on this as the only smart equipment in my house is me and I haven’t been electronically modified yet.

Apple has also redesigned or updated the lock screen, Apple Music, Apple News, the quicktype keyboard, the control center and other things.  I believe that the company is in dire need of some more “new and exciting” releases, especially in their hardware.

The MacRumors Buyer’s Guide has nicely summarized things.  The iOS Devices Page recommends “don’t buy” on four of seven items, the Macs Page a “don’t buy” on six of seven items and the Other Devices Page a “don’t buy” on one of three items.  Of the seventeen products, they recommend “buy now” on only one.  Almost all of the “don’t buy” recommendations are due to the fact that there haven’t been updates in several years.

I guess I’ll never understand how Apple can be so revered by consumers and only have around ten percent of market share while Microsoft is usually reviled while retaining about ninety percent of the market.  Sometimes they kind of remind me of our political parties.

Thanks for reading.

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Things I Won’t Be Spending Money On – Originally Published August 2016

August 7, 2016 Posted by Tiny

A Pain in the Whatchamacallit
By Tiny Ruisch

I was watching television when an advertisement was aired for My Clean PC.  My first thought was that this might make a pretty good Whatchamacallit topic for the club newsletter.  I opened a virtual desktop and went to the My Clean PC website.  Bravely I ignored the Web Of Trust warning and enabled all scripting.  I downloaded and ran the free diagnostic tool.  Oh No!  My computer has a dangerous start up item, 110 registry irregularities and 12 repairable security vulnerabilities.  My internet settings aren’t optimized and there is 38.61 MB of internet clutter.

I restarted my computer and ran Wise Registry Cleaner and CCleaner.  Then I opened another virtual desktop and downloaded the diagnostic tool again.  This time there were only 109 registry irregularities.  I wonder if Wise isn’t as good as I thought?  It looks like CCleaner did a fine job.  My internet clutter is all gone.

The dangerous start up item was HPservice.exe.  The diagnostic tool didn’t tell me how it would improve my internet settings.  All of the security vulnerabilities were related to Internet Explorer.  Not only would I never spend money on the technology, but I’d advise you not to purchase any of these types of programs you might see advertised.

My Clean PC isn’t the only technology that I’ll probably never spend my money on.  I haven’t had a land line telephone for more than ten years.  I don’t know how much telephone service costs these days, but I’m sure I’ve saved thousands of dollars.  I know I’m missing out on enhanced 911.  E911 wasn’t mandated until 1999, so I’ve lived most of my life without it.  I know I’m missing out on crisp, clear calls that don’t get dropped, even though I seldom talk on the phone.  The only thing I really miss about a land line is the satisfaction of slamming down the phone when I’m really mad at someone.

I will probably never spend any money on a 3D printer.  I really like the technology and think it would be cool to be able to print some items.  Then I get realistic and realize that I really haven’t any practical use for it.  I seldom print anything any more.  After all these years I still haven’t any need for a laser printer.  Maybe when three dimensional print advances enough that I can print a cheeseburger, I’ll rethink the issue.

If you’ve read any of my previous articles, you already know that I won’t be spending any money on Sony technology of any kind.  I won’t bore you again with my reasons, but will just restate Sony is not very reliable in their security.

Even though qualify as a senior, I won’t spend any money on technology that is designed specifically for “seniors”.  I have found that most of this stuff is mostly overpriced and outdated.  If I find I should need a keyboard with big lighted keys, I know I’ll be able to find one on Amazon or Newegg for about a third of the price.  I still haven’t figured out why anyone would buy a computer just to keep up with what their grandchildren are doing.  The answer is that they are probably busy hacking their grandparents computer.

I doubt if any of my dollars will ever be spent on a “smart” watch.  I just can’t see the need for having technology that doesn’t really do anything.  All that a smart watch really does is interface with a computer.     It is more of a small monitor on your wrist than anything else.  How many do you actually see whenever you are in a crowded area.  I don’t even need one for telling time.  When I retired from the Navy in 1989, I took off my watch and I never put one back on again.

Now that I’ve saved all of that money my by not buying useless technology, I can finally afford to buy that new computerized toilet seat.  Do you know the one I mean?  It connects to your phone via Bluetooth and you can adjust the temperature of the seat.  There are a couple of speakers built in to the seat lid so you can listen to your favorite music while sitting in the bathroom.  I’m pretty sure that future updates will feature technology that will tell you when it is time to change the paper roll.

Thanks for reading.

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Is Windows 10 Really New? – Originally Published July 2016

July 3, 2016 Posted by Tiny

A Pain in the Whatchamacallit
By Tiny Ruisch

Is Windows 10 really a new operating system?  If it is why do new security updates apply to all versions of Windows?  Shouldn’t they either only have to update older versions or just Windows 10.  I’m starting to believe that Windows 10 is really Windows 8,  7, Vista, Millennium and maybe even 98.  Could it be that all they’ve done is change the interface and add some new features?

From the Microsoft website: “Windows 10 is full of new features and improvements.  Take a look at the highlights!”  This is where we first find out that the Start Menu is back.  It was removed for the last version.  Is it a feature that has been restored, or is it really new in Windows  10?

The next paragraph lets us know about the great apps in the Windows Store.  There isn’t any mention of the Store being released with Windows 8.  Might be improved, but it sure isn’t new.

Next up on the new list is something that is actually almost new.  Cortana is Microsoft’s personal voice assistant.  New might or might not be the right description.  You might remember several years ago when I gave a demonstration on voice recognition in Windows.  Dragon’s Naturally Speaking has been around since 1997.  By the way, Cortana is only available in seven countries.

“Microsoft Edge is the first browser that lets you take notes, write, doodle, and highlight directly on web pages.  Use the reading list to save your favorite articles for later, then read them in reading view.  Hover over open tabs to preview them, and bring your favorites and reading list with you when you use Microsoft Edge on another device.  Plus, Cortana is built in to Microsoft Edge to help you do things faster and easier.”  Don’t you think it is kind of amusing that the company is extolling a web browser as the best thing about a “new” operating system?

Next on the whats new list is Windows Hello.  You can use facial recognition or a fingerprint reader to log into Windows.  Once again, a new feature that isn’t new.  Yawn.

Microsoft is telling us that we can use the enhanced Photo App to create photo albums, organize photo folders and sub-folders, share them in e-mail and post them to social media.  Once again, nothing new in the operating system.

King Solomon said “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again.  There is nothing new under the sun.”  It seems to me that he was right.
Thanks for reading.

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