If you use AOL and have saved a link to AOL on the desktop or elsewhere before installing Windows 10, or you purposely use Internet Explorer 11 and browse to a web site that should display a video
AND
the video doesn't display, then it is probably not a Flash Player problem.
I've seen this a couple of times and I thought I should document it here, maybe saving some of you AOL holdouts some grief. The solution is to go into the Internet Explorer options gear in the upper right and register the web site giving you problems in the Compatibility View.
Details are here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/17472/windows-internet-explorer-11-fix-site-display-problems-compatibility-view https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/17472/windows-internet-explorer-11-fix-site-display-problems-compatibility-view
Tuesday, December 20, 2016
Sunday, December 18, 2016
Your Laptop Says Only About 60% charged, but it isn't charging. What is wrong?
Usually this is due to a setting you have that says "Maximize battery health". The idea is to only keep your battery partly charged; apparently that maximizes battery lifespan; ie how long until you have to replace the battery. So... you have to turn that feature off.
From an old Lenovo Forum:
"When you select "maximize battery lifespan," the software changes what the system sees as maximum battery capacity. In one of your screenshots, you can see that it says the remaining charge is higher than the full charge capacity. So right now, your battery is 100% charged (94 Whr). The next time you use the system on battery and then plug it in again, it will only charge up to 87 Whr. As long as you have maximum lifespan mode on, the identified full charge capacity will always be less than the battery's actual full charge capacity. Windows and Power Manager will recognize that as 100% charged, even though it's actually 92% charged. And as a result, the battery will get less wear because it's not sitting at full charge.
On my year-old W530, the actual full battery capacity is now 87 Whr, and maximum lifespan mode reduces that to 77 Whr (88% of actual charge capacity). 77 Whr will show up as 100% charged unless I switch the battery mode to maximum runtime, at which point the capacity switches back to reading as 87 Whr."
So the "Maximize battery lifespan" aka "Maximize battery health" is deceiving. It doesn't mean make your battery charge last the longest.
The problem is to figure out where that setting is located. I looked on my desktop and I couldn't find it. Hah. It's a desktop. But that says something about where to find it. It is probably in a special power manager utility that comes with your laptop. I looked on my Lenovo and remembered that the Lenovo utilities were such a hassle that I had blown them away. So I downloaded a bunch a files to get to the point where I could download the Thinkvantage Power Management Driver, where I suspected the undesirable setting lived. Once the driver was downloaded and installed, this is what I did:
From an old Lenovo Forum:
"When you select "maximize battery lifespan," the software changes what the system sees as maximum battery capacity. In one of your screenshots, you can see that it says the remaining charge is higher than the full charge capacity. So right now, your battery is 100% charged (94 Whr). The next time you use the system on battery and then plug it in again, it will only charge up to 87 Whr. As long as you have maximum lifespan mode on, the identified full charge capacity will always be less than the battery's actual full charge capacity. Windows and Power Manager will recognize that as 100% charged, even though it's actually 92% charged. And as a result, the battery will get less wear because it's not sitting at full charge.
On my year-old W530, the actual full battery capacity is now 87 Whr, and maximum lifespan mode reduces that to 77 Whr (88% of actual charge capacity). 77 Whr will show up as 100% charged unless I switch the battery mode to maximum runtime, at which point the capacity switches back to reading as 87 Whr."
So the "Maximize battery lifespan" aka "Maximize battery health" is deceiving. It doesn't mean make your battery charge last the longest.
The problem is to figure out where that setting is located. I looked on my desktop and I couldn't find it. Hah. It's a desktop. But that says something about where to find it. It is probably in a special power manager utility that comes with your laptop. I looked on my Lenovo and remembered that the Lenovo utilities were such a hassle that I had blown them away. So I downloaded a bunch a files to get to the point where I could download the Thinkvantage Power Management Driver, where I suspected the undesirable setting lived. Once the driver was downloaded and installed, this is what I did:
- Open Control Panel (https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-open-control-panel-2625782 https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-open-control-panel-2625782
- Left click and open Power Options, one of the selections in the Control Panel.
- You will see one of the radio buttons under "Choose or customize a power plan" is selected (button is black). Click on the "Change plan settings" link to the right of that button.
- Click on the "Change advanced settings" at the bottom of the window.
- The resulting window has two tabs. (By the way, before I installed the Lenovo Power Management driver, there was only one tab.) Select the "Lenovo Energy Management Tab".
Another version of the Lenovo Power Manager does not show a separate tab on power options. Instead, you have to search for the program in the Lenovo folder under the list of programs. If you click on the icon that has the word "power" in it, then something should pop up that you can work with. In my experience, what came up was this:
In this case, the meter on the left was set to 59% and the label above the meter, which now shows "Charging," showed Conservation Mode. I clicked on the round icon to the top right of the big meter and out popped a bunch of selections. I clicked on Settings, as you can see, on the top right. The resulting top entry, as shown in the picture, is "Conservation Mode." This was set to "On". So I slid the slider to the left, turning Conservation Mode "Off" and the battery began charging again.
- If there is a button on that tab's display called "Enable Lenovo Energy Management, click it. Either way, the following should be displayed. It is the Lenovo Energy Management interface.
The key frame in this window is the Battery frame, the red one. There are three symbols below the big battery symbol. From left to right: - Battery mode: This is the culprit setting. There are two radio buttons. One is maximum battery life and the other is optimized battery health. If the second option is selected, the computer will not charge the battery past some limit, as described at the beginning. If you want a battery charge to last as long as possible, you want to select the first option, maximum battery life. I know it is confusing.
- The second symbol is important if you changed the selection in the first option from optimized battery health to maximum battery life. The text for that symbol says "Battery gage reset will perform... (blah blah)." You want to click the start button at the bottom of this. Your computer will charge up to 100% and then completely discharge. This will reset the battery limits that might have been set when your computer was in the optimized battery health mode. Now you are done and can close out.
- The third symbol is battery information and is not important here.
Saturday, December 17, 2016
Your computer adapter will not connect to the internet: It's a driver problem, not your router
A recent Windows update has left many computers in a state where the computer can no longer get an IP address from the router; so you can't get on the internet. The short of it is that a Windows or driver update, not 100% sure which but suspect the Windows update, has busted your driver. You can't just update the driver. The quickest way to fix the problem is to go into Device Manager. https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-open-device-manager-2626075 https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-open-device-manager-2626075 , find the Network Adapters entries, click to open all entries by clicking on the > in front of Network Adapters, and left clicking on the ethernet or wifi adapter that you are using. Click on "Uninstall". Restart your computer. Should be fixed! If not, let me know in the comments, along with the name of the adapter.
Friday, December 9, 2016
Charter Thoughts
About the Charter offering for our communities, here are my thoughts and some "findings:"
The connection from one of those light green columns to your house will be coax, similar to the wiring used for Dish or DirecTV. So the installers will have to route the coax to some place in your house where they can connect the existing satellite inside coax to their run from the outside. In my case, the satellite coax connection is outside right next to the phone and power boxes, near the ground, so this is not a problem. It could get complicated if the satellite provider ran the coax from a roof-mounted antenna to someplace deep in your house, without an external ground level connection.
The price for the first year for TV/Phone/Internet is, for me, about 1/3 of what I am paying now. Your savings might be greater.
According to our representative, the modem model Charter provides is the Cisco DPC3216: outputs are 2 phone jacks, one ethernet jack. So you can plug your wireless phone base station directly into the modem. This modem is included in the wifi bill; you don't pay for it like you do for a wifi router.
The router/wifi they provide is supposed to be the Netgear AC1750. This is a $117 router and is very good. I don't have an opinion on renting vs buying. I have another router I will use.
My wife is concerned about the DVR. She records a lot of live news-oriented shows. She doesn't like commercials. I understand that the current DirecTV DVR is technically far superior to the one that will be offered by Charter. On the other hand, as mentioned in the meeting we had recently, you will have access and the technical capability to download and stream real time a number of programs that you currently record on the DVR. The question will be: how do I get around the commercials? OR are there no commercials? I hope someone can help me out on this by commenting below on whether or not it is easy to get around the commercials. (Update: some streaming shows include commercials. And it is interesting that the providers of the show have a way that prevents you from "fast-forwarding" over the commercials. There is another solution that involves setting up your own DVR using an old computer. And I bet there is a way to use your current computer to record the program as it streams and then play it back on your big screen. But that is too technical for everyone.)
Looking through all the On-Demand offerings, I found that most of the shows I watch I can get "on-demand." I do have a question about the various PBS offerings, since we watch a lot of the PBS series, both drama and documentary. The issue will always be: will we miss programs because the DVR can only record one program at a time and it only has a capacity of about 500 G? (2G/program hour) I don't think it is an issue, especially since PBS runs most programs multiple times during the week. But you might be skeptical.
Finally, we have about a hundred shows stored on the DVR now. Will we ever get to all of them? Probably not. But as soon as we switch over, all those recorded shows will be lost, unless I can find a way to transfer them to my PC. My wife is not happy. Oh well.
The connection from one of those light green columns to your house will be coax, similar to the wiring used for Dish or DirecTV. So the installers will have to route the coax to some place in your house where they can connect the existing satellite inside coax to their run from the outside. In my case, the satellite coax connection is outside right next to the phone and power boxes, near the ground, so this is not a problem. It could get complicated if the satellite provider ran the coax from a roof-mounted antenna to someplace deep in your house, without an external ground level connection.
The price for the first year for TV/Phone/Internet is, for me, about 1/3 of what I am paying now. Your savings might be greater.
According to our representative, the modem model Charter provides is the Cisco DPC3216: outputs are 2 phone jacks, one ethernet jack. So you can plug your wireless phone base station directly into the modem. This modem is included in the wifi bill; you don't pay for it like you do for a wifi router.
The router/wifi they provide is supposed to be the Netgear AC1750. This is a $117 router and is very good. I don't have an opinion on renting vs buying. I have another router I will use.
My wife is concerned about the DVR. She records a lot of live news-oriented shows. She doesn't like commercials. I understand that the current DirecTV DVR is technically far superior to the one that will be offered by Charter. On the other hand, as mentioned in the meeting we had recently, you will have access and the technical capability to download and stream real time a number of programs that you currently record on the DVR. The question will be: how do I get around the commercials? OR are there no commercials? I hope someone can help me out on this by commenting below on whether or not it is easy to get around the commercials. (Update: some streaming shows include commercials. And it is interesting that the providers of the show have a way that prevents you from "fast-forwarding" over the commercials. There is another solution that involves setting up your own DVR using an old computer. And I bet there is a way to use your current computer to record the program as it streams and then play it back on your big screen. But that is too technical for everyone.)
Looking through all the On-Demand offerings, I found that most of the shows I watch I can get "on-demand." I do have a question about the various PBS offerings, since we watch a lot of the PBS series, both drama and documentary. The issue will always be: will we miss programs because the DVR can only record one program at a time and it only has a capacity of about 500 G? (2G/program hour) I don't think it is an issue, especially since PBS runs most programs multiple times during the week. But you might be skeptical.
Finally, we have about a hundred shows stored on the DVR now. Will we ever get to all of them? Probably not. But as soon as we switch over, all those recorded shows will be lost, unless I can find a way to transfer them to my PC. My wife is not happy. Oh well.
Thursday, December 1, 2016
Security for Android Smartphones- Developing...
I am working on this blog entry for my spring Furman Olli course on home and small business security. It is obviously incomplete, but I thought I should publish it now and due to the serious nature of the problem discussed in the following section. I'll continue to work on the page.
Check Point has published an online tool to check if your Android device has been infected with the Gooligan malware. Just open ‘Gooligan Checker’ and enter your Google email address to find out if you've been hacked.
If you found yourself infected, Adrian Ludwig, Google's director of Android security, has recommended you to run a clean installation of the operating system on your Android device.
This process is called 'Flashing,' which is quite a complicated process. So, the company recommends you to power off your device and approach a certified technician or your mobile service provider in order to re-flash your device.
I've used the Gooligan Checker (https://gooligan.checkpoint.com/) and it is legit, although, from the methodology, it probably isn't definitive, since it uses your email address to check.
What is Developing:
The Android "Gooligan" hack. ( https://thehackernews.com/2016/11/hack-google-account.html, and http://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2016/11/30/gooligan-android-malware-1m-google-account-breaches-check-point-finds/#6158e8d0470d, among others). This is malware that provides access to all Google apps, including GMail, GSuite, Google Drive, Google Photos, etc: a critical problem. The referenced thehackernews link provides an overview. How do you get it? The usual way malware is inserted today: the user installs 3rd party software from a 3rd party (not trusted) store or the user clicks on a link in an email or on a hacked (or intentionally constructed) web page. From the thehackernews article:Check Point has published an online tool to check if your Android device has been infected with the Gooligan malware. Just open ‘Gooligan Checker’ and enter your Google email address to find out if you've been hacked.
If you found yourself infected, Adrian Ludwig, Google's director of Android security, has recommended you to run a clean installation of the operating system on your Android device.
This process is called 'Flashing,' which is quite a complicated process. So, the company recommends you to power off your device and approach a certified technician or your mobile service provider in order to re-flash your device.
I've used the Gooligan Checker (https://gooligan.checkpoint.com/) and it is legit, although, from the methodology, it probably isn't definitive, since it uses your email address to check.
Security for android includes the following topics:
- Malware
- Phone loss
- Identity Loss (2 factor)
- Stealing information in real time (privacy protection)
- Pop Up Ads
Tools for Malware
- Malwarebytes, Android version- the old standby for malware- free
- CCleaner, Android version- the old standby to clean your smartphone of unnecessary files, which picks up malware- free
- Lookout Security and Antivirus (Suite)- This was developed for smartphones. I've used it since it was released and have no complaints- free and low cost versions
- Norton, mobile version- free
- Kaspersky mobile version- free
- Avast Mobile Security
- 360 Security- this is top rated, but its advertising methodology of pop up ads suggests it is borderline nefarious
Tools for Phone Loss
- Android
- Lookout Security- this is a component of the Lookout Suite
- Lastpass password manager
Tools for Privacy Protection
Tools for Popup Ads With Security Warnings
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