Blog posts

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Developments (generally rather expensive) in Digital TV display technology

In my breathless tour of Digital TV this week, I didn’t mention developments (generally rather expensive) in display technology – I should have. Along with 4K/UHD resolutions increasing the number of pixels on your screen, LG, Panasonic and Sony are introducing anew display technology called OLED whilst Samsung are promoting their alternative rather confusingly called QLED.

The article below explains the difference between the two technologies, and if you’ve got the dosh, you could trot along to John Lewis and buy one …

https://www.johnlewis.com/browse/electricals/televisions/view-all-tvs/oled/qled/_/N-6srfZ1z0rgkwZ1z03a2e

https://www.howtogeek.com/327047/whats-the-difference-between-oled-and-samsungs-qled-tvs/

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Problems with Two-factor authentication on a Mac during a recent upgrade

John raised the problem he’d had with implementing Two-factor authentication on his Mac during a recent upgrade (to High Sierra, I think). Now Two-factor authentication is generally a good thing when you’re talking about access to cloud based services, eg OneDrive, eMail, Google Drive, iCloud – but it seems a bit OTT when you’re talking about an operating system as protection to prevent access to services running on the hardware. But Apple doesn’t make this clear.

When I was doing my High Sierra and iOS upgrades the other day I was prompted to ask whether I wanted to implement Two-factor authentication, but was also advised that some of my devices wouldn’t support it and I would lose access to services if I chose to implement it. That was enough to warn me off, so I didn’t. John was not scared off – possibly because he didn’t get the warning that I got – and has had to make a trip to the Apple Store to try and get it sorted.

Two-factor authentication is a “good idea”, don’t get me wrong, but Apple’s implementation is a bit clunky it would appear.

https://www.macworld.com/article/3130566/security/the-apple-two-step-my-disastrous-attempt-to-use-apple-s-two-factor-authentication.html

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Protecting a USB stick

The subject of protecting a USB stick came up – I’d forgotten to provide the solution! As I suggested, in an earlier post, the answer is to create a Folder on the USB stick and protect the folder, not the stick.

Two articles here I think provide the solution. The first one proposes encrypting the contents and is probably the easiest, you must remember the encryption key though!!

A number of other alternatives are also provided in the second article …

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/password-protect-folder-windows/

… for me. I’d prefer to put stuff I’m worried about on a USB Disk (not a stick) and use the security software provided by the drive manufacturer, eg Western Digital.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/faq/id-3114794/password-protect-folder-windows.html

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Spams and scams

In the meeting yesterday the quite common topic of spams and scams came up, as did the enquiry “Can I find out whether one of online accounts could have been compromised” – these are the ones that you should consider changing your password, if you haven’t already.

Martin Lewis’ website – Money Saving Expert provides a comprehensive guide to all things scam, and includes a link to the “Have I been Pwned” website which tells from your email (account) address whether there are any websites you subscribe to which have been hacked. Try it … hopefully you’ll get a null result!! If you don’t, don’t panic. Look at the date of the compromise. It could be that you’ve already changed the Password.

https://haveibeenpwned.com/

The second article is from Which? Always a good resource to check, even its “free” pages …

http://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/l/internet-scams?gclid=Cj0KCQjwvabPBRD5ARIsAIwFXBkjRe6ivtypKkT59hf_S5LAGat1qxrZgu8YVaxOVVExq_WFZtDErwQaAnnEEALw_wcB

Finally, Martin Lewis mentions the use of a Password Manager to remember your passwords and even to generate secure passwords – I don’t use that facility with LastPass – the password manager I use, rather preferring to use the “template” approach I describes a couple of weeks back.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/shopping/stop-scams

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Difficulties/problems of running Google’s Backup and Sync as a Service

I shared with the Tuesday group some of my difficulties/problems of running Google’s Backup and Sync as a Service which runs at Start-Up. It appears that this is not a problem, but a design feature – no doubt created by Microsoft. You can do this on the Mac, but apparently not on a Windows 10 machine.

The article below explains how you can get round this difficulty. For myself, I’m just going to have to remember to right-click the Backup and Sync Icon and run the application as Administrator every time I login. Sometimes, the simple solutions are the easiest!!!!

https://www.coretechnologies.com/products/AlwaysUp/Apps/RunBackupAndSyncWindowsService.html

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Which External USB drive would I recommend?

Which External USB drive would I recommend?

That was a question from the last meeting that I promised to answer. Well, I read a number of reviews and I was pleased to see that my favoured choice is still amongst the highest rated.

I would recommend any of the Western Digital My Passport drives. They are supplied with security software so that you can password them as well. I would also recommend buying a carrying-case for any that you intend to carry around. The one I use is from a company called Case4Life. Both can be obtained from Amazon – which is where I bought mine from – the disk itself is c.£55 for 1Tb, but you can get 2Tb, 3Tb and 4Tb versions.

http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/storage/1405456/best-external-hard-drive-the-best-portable-and-desktop-drives

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Windows 10 Backup and Restore

Having fumbled around for a couple of sessions, learning a lot more about Windows 10 Backup and Restore, and Recovery and Reset, facilities in the process, I’ve found this article that I think explains it all quite well.

In attempting to get Google’s Backup and Sync working on the U3A laptop this morning, I also, eventually decided to do a System Restore to before the Tuesday Group session … it’s just finished, having taken probably an hour for a relatively unchanged system. Be warned and prepared (I checked the web for info on why it was taking so long) … this could take a very long time and would probably be best done overnight!!!

https://www.howtogeek.com/220986/how-to-use-all-of-windows-10%E2%80%99s-backup-and-recovery-tools/