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THE ICON-Newsletter of the Interactive Computer Owners Network March 2019

WHAT’S INSIDE Page

March and April..…………... 2

Word of the month ………… 2

Interesting Sites to Visit on the

Internet……………….…...… 3

Smartphone Purchase.....… 4

32 Bits, 64 Bits……….……...5

Ask Leo—Crank Your Pass-

word………………….……… 8

Flu Season on Computers….9

FileMenu Review….. ..….. 10

New Tech Year….…….…. 11

Windows 10 Update…….. 13

Cards Sent ……...….……. 14

Basic Computer Classes ... 14

ICON Membership.

Applications …….………… 15

ICON Officers ………...….. 15

Announcements ……......... 16

Mission Statement …...….. 16

Andrew Cummins President, ICON Computer Users Group

[email protected]

Greetings

I hope you’re still keeping to your New Year’s resolutions. That might be eating better and getting more exercise. It should include keeping your PC in good condition. With Windows 10, this is a lot easier than it use to be, as Windows 10 does a good job taking care of itself. But,

you still need monitor Windows 10 warnings. These are pop ups and icons with exclamation points imposed on them, in the bottom right of your screen.

In addition to following Windows 10 instructions, you need to keep

your software up to date. Some software automatically updates for you, including the operating system and all popular browsers. But, check other software to see if it’s on the latest version. Software is so complex that developers are always fixing bugs and closing security

holes. Windows 10 itself frequently updates and has a major update once or twice each year.

Sometimes a newer version of your software isn’t good enough. Sometimes you need to change your software. For many of you, this means changing your web browser.

The Google Chrome web browser has won the Windows browser wars. Microsoft has given up trying to develop a web browser that is all theirs. Future versions of Microsoft’s Edge browser will be basically Chrome with a Microsoft paint job. (There still exists Firefox and Safari

browsers, but these are primarily optimized for Linux and Apple oper-ating systems, respectively.)

I am going to repeat my recommendation of the Brave web browser. This is also Chrome-based browser, but it has ad-blocking built-in, along with some other nice features. If you’re still using Microsoft’s old

Explorer browser, you really need to move on. If you’re using Mi-crosoft’s Edge browser, it’s also a good idea to move on to Chrome or Brave.

After you address Windows 10 warnings and update your software,

you can work on old-fashioned upkeep. Uninstall programs that you no longer use. Run utilities designed to optimize your system. I like to occasionally run Malwarebytes (download the trial version and run in free mode) to find unwanted software Windows built-in antivirus has

missed.

A clean system runs smoother and is more stable. A clean system give you a more enjoyable experience. As always, if you have ques-tions how to do these things, ICON is here to help. And, if you can

help others, ICON gives you the opportunity.

Andrew Cummins ICON President

THE ICON March 2019 PAGE 2

Be sure to check the website before leaving home for any last minute changes

Program Preparations for March 2019 Saturday, March 9, The Library Station (Frisco Room)

10:30 a.m. SIG —

11:30 a.m. Brown Bag Lunch and 1-on-1 Help Desk

12:30 p.m. Mini–Seminar

1:45 p.m. General Membership Meeting

Saturday, March 23, The Library Center ( Room A)

10:30 a.m. SIG —


12:30 p.m. Mini Seminar

1:45 p.m. Advanced Technology Forum

PROGRAM PREPARATIONS FOR APRIL 2019

Saturday, April 13, The Brentwood Community Room

10:30 a.m. SIG —


12:30 p.m. Mini–Seminar

1:45 p.m. General Membership Meeting

Saturday, April 27, The Library Center (Community Room A))

10:30 a.m. SIG —


12:30 p.m. Mini Seminar — Drone demo

1:45 p.m. Advanced Technology Forum

Technology Word of the Month

“XML”


THE IRS JUST CALLED!!

Have you gotten a call from someone at the IRS to demand that you pay them what you owe RIGHT

NOW? Or maybe it’s good news. You have a refund but they need more information from you. Only it isn’t. These scammers are out in full force since it’s tax season and you need to be aware of them. Check out this TechTalk article. https://techtalk.pcpitstop.com/2019/02/20/the-two-biggest-tax-

scams-you-must-be-aware-of/

ROADSIDE HELP

If you’re stranded on the road somewhere and you’re not a member of AAA or some similar assistance plan, what do you do? HONK is an app that you might want to add to your phones. You call them only

when you need them and pay by the service they give. It might not be cheaper than a plan, except if you have no need for it for a year. It can just reside idly on your phones, just in case. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.roadstruck.mobile&hl=en

A GREAT GEYSER!

This has nothing much to do with the digital world except we couldn’t watch it if we didn’t have those abil-ities. You can see a geyser erupt from just over it with the help of a drone and then look at it with heat and cold cameras and then learn a lot from a cute little man. It’s a pretty good YouTube video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sb7D BlQxfM

CASH BACK WHEN YOU SHOP

Frugality is a good thing to understand. It’s even better when practiced! Here’s an article from the CNET Cheapskate that details some ways to use it to your advantage. https://www.cnet.com/how-to/free-money-ways-to-get-cash-back-without-even-trying/

FREE INTERNET? IT DOES EXIST

If you ever feel a need for a backup internet access, there are ways to get one with little or no cost. If

you travel to out of the way areas you may have difficulties, but having a back-up is always a good idea.

Bob Rankin explains Freedom Pop

and Net Ze- ro plans in this article.

https:// askbobrankin.com/

Thought for the Day

“Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you focus on what you don’t

have, you will never, ever have enough.”

——Oprah Winfrey

Interesting Sites to Visit on the Internet

Nancy Preffitt ICON Member

Ngpreffitt (at) juno.com


Smart Phone Purchase President, ICON Computer Users Group [email protected]

Recently, my phone was “bricked” by an upgrade. Bricking is when something makes

your phone unusable, usually a reference to a software change rather than physical damage. If this happens, you can try to reset your phone to factory settings. When this didn’t work, I sent my phone in for a warranty repair and eventually received it back, in working order.

While my phone was out for repair, I spent some time looking at new phones. The most remarkable new feature coming out are phones with foldable screens. Typically, the phone normally looks like a common

phone with a normal-sized screen. But, unfold the phone and now you have a phone with a much larger screen. For now, these phones are very expensive, but in tech, all good things come down in price.

There are many new features being introduced to phones, such as cameras and fingerprint scanners hidden in the screen. These are nice, but nothing I need. Even most modestly priced phones with at least 32 GB of storage have the speed and features to satisfy most people. Given that most phones are

now great for most people, with plenty of features, my top search criteria is a large screen. If you mainly want a phone for phone calls, then maybe a bigger screen isn’t important to you.

If photos are important to you, look for a phone with a highly rated camera. Many new phones are now coming with multiple lenses, up to a half-dozen lenses, for different purposes. For zooming, very few

phones have optical zoom lenses. Most phones just have digital zoom which simulates a zoom by ex-panding the image. There are some phones with optical zooms and some phones that can take zoom attachments.

If you get a phone with at least 64 GB of storage, you’re getting a nice phone, feature-packed and speedy, with plenty of storage for many apps and photos. But, if there’s a feature in particular that you’re

looking for, check for it. Some of the most expensive phones leave out features you may want, like an earphone jack.

After you get your new phone, get a couple of accessories. Cases to help protect your phone are popu-lar. I think a small portable bluetooth speaker is a great addition, as all phones come with such anemic speakers. Enjoy your phone, it’s far more than a phone.


32-bits, 64-bits – How many do I need? By Phil Sorrentino, Contributing Writer, The Computer Club, FL January 2019 www.scccomputerclub.org Philsorr (at) yahoo.com Over the past few years, Personal Computers have been moving from 32-bit Central

Processor Units (CPU) to 64-bit CPUs. (Actually, 64-bit CPUs were first introduced way back in 2003, but it takes time to get new CPUs through the design/manufacture/produce cycle to finally provide “affordable products”.) So it’s not a matter of how many you need, it is a matter of what is on the market. From a user’s point of view, the main difference between 32-bit

and 64-bit CPUs is performance. Performance is basically the speed at which the CPU can com-plete tasks and is measured in calculations per second: the faster the CPU, the higher the perfor-mance. Additionally, 64-bit CPUs can come in dual, quad and eight core versions which can provide further improvements in performance. Another difference is the maximum amount of RAM memory

that can be accessed. 32-bit CPUs can access a maximum of 4 GB, whereas a 64-bit CPU can ac-cess far beyond 4 GB, which is necessary if you are using software to accomplish things like video editing or graphic design. In general, the more bits you have, the better the processing performance and capability, and therefore the better your computing experience.

The CPU defines the architecture. A 64-bit CPU is used in a 64-bit architecture and a 32-bit CPU is used in a 32-bit architecture. Today, almost all PCs are built around the 64-bit architecture, giving you the best possible computing experience if you only consider the number of bits. (Other contrib-

uting factors to your computing experience might be Internet connection speed, display size, hard drive size, and the number and speed of USB ports.) The Operating System (OS) software is inti-mately connected to the hardware architecture. That said, keep in mind that a computer with a 64-bit architecture can have a 64-bit OS or 32-bit OS installed; however, the 64-bit architecture with a 32-

bit OS installed will not provide the 64-bit architecture’s full capability. Also note that the 32-bit archi-tecture can only run a 32-bit OS. Windows 10 is built for the 64-bit architecture as was Windows 7, unlike Windows XP and 95 which were built for the 32-bit architecture.

A quick look in the rear-view mirror shows the original PC that was released in 1981 by IBM. This early PC was built around a 16-bit architecture which was quite a bit less capable then our current 64-bit or 32-bit CPUs. (The initial CPU was an 8088 which actually used 16 bits internally, but had an 8-bit Input/Output (IO) interface (possibly to keep costs down and possibly to interface to certain

peripheral devices), making it a hybrid of sorts, 16 bits internally for calculations and 8 bits external-ly for I/O.) PCs that followed used the 8086 CPU which was a true 16-bit processor. 32-bit comput-ers started to appear as early as 1985 with the Intel 386 CPU. Improvements in the 32-bit architec-ture continued from the mid 1980s till the 64-bit processor arrived in 2003. The 64-bit architecture

has been improved over the past 15 years and the cost has been reduced to the point where almost every PC produced today has a 64-bit CPU in it. If you are looking for a new computer, definitely go for the 64-bit architecture. (You can find the architecture and OS information in Settings-System-About. In this window, “System type” will show the number of bits for the processor, and also the

number of bits for the OS.) The number of bits in a particular PC architecture indicates the number of bits used in calculations and the number of bits used to address an item in memory. So, a 64-bit architecture has a 64-bit

Arithmetic/Logical Unit at the heart of the CPU and can address up to 2^64 or 16 exabytes in memory. (Note, not all PCs are built to take advantage of this large memory space, in fact most are limited by their hardware design to less than 512 Gigabytes.) An Exabyte is a very large number it is a million-million Terabytes. To put it in perspective, see the following table:


Continued on page 6

Continued from page 5 32-bits, 64-bits – How many do I need?

On top of the hardware limitation, which is not really very limiting, the Operating System in use plac-

es some limitations. The following table shows the limitations for some of the popular versions of Windows 10:

So, considering the number of items or bytes that we currently concern ourselves with, 4 to 32 giga-bytes of RAM memory, and maybe 4 to 12 terabytes of hard drive space, the 64-bit architecture will

probably take us pretty far into the future. If one were purchasing a new computer, the best situation would be a 64-bit hardware architecture with a 64-bit OS and all 64-bit drivers. You would probably get this if you bought a middle to high end PC from a popular company like HP, Dell, or Lenovo. Low end or economy models might have

a 32-bit or a 64-bit architecture. Note that if the amount of installed memory was over 4 GB then it would have to be a 64-bit architecture. If one did purchase a PC with a 32-bit architecture it would probably have a 32-bit OS installed. Knowing what OS is installed on your PC is important if you are

installing new software. If your new software is built for a 64-bit OS, it will only run on a 64-bit OS; it will probably not run on a 32-bit OS. If your new software is built for a 32-bit OS then it will probably run on a 32-bit OS or a 64-bit OS. Sometimes a software vendor will make two versions available, one for the 32-bit OS and a different one for the 64-bit OS. So, if you can find it in your price range,

a 64-bit architecture with a 64-bit OS,12 GB of RAM and a 1TB hard drive would probably satisfy almost everyone’s needs, except maybe for a few very serious gamers.

Crank Your Password Strength Up to 11!

In a world where we measure things (like speaker volume) from 0 to 10,

it’s time crank your password strength up to 11. Take whatever you think a strong password might be — and make it stronger. Unfortunately, too many people still have their password strength firmly planted at zero.

And the most popular password is…. Splashdata recently released its report of the 100 most common passwords. Analyzing over five million

hacked and leaked databases of passwords, they tallied up the most popularly used passwords, and the

The results are in for last year's most common pass-words. The implications are depressing, but important.


Continued from page 6 Crank Your Password Strength Up to 11!

Not only are they simple, easy to guess, and clearly on the list of the very first passwords hackers try, but they also suffer from the greatest sin of all, in my opinion.

They’re short.

Length matters When it comes to passwords, length trumps everything. For example, let’s take that #1 offender above:

123456

A six-character password. Ugh. But adding a simple pattern to turn it into a 20-character

password makes it a pretty reasonable choice:

A six-character password. Ugh. But adding a simple pattern to turn it into a 20-character password makes it a pretty reasonable choice: ****** 123456 ******

A six-character password. Ugh. But adding a simple pattern to turn it into a 20-character password makes it a pretty reasonable choice:

****** 123456 ******

All I did was add six asterisks before and after, separated by a space. And yes, as simple as that pat-

tern appears to be, it’s a strong password. Much stronger than 123456, and just as easy to remember. (Caveat: it’s a weaker password in that it’s been published, here, as an example. Don’t use this exact password; use it as an example of a simple technique to lengthen otherwise poor passwords.) Again, length trumps everything.

Long doesn’t mean hard I’ll admit just throwing asterisks before and after a password doesn’t feel secure, even though it is. It

just doesn’t feel like we did enough work.

But, to build on perhaps the most quoted XKCD comic of all time — Correct Horse Battery Staple1 — combining unrelated words can be both strong and memorable.

I recently set up an account for a friend and did exactly that. When it came time to generate a pass-

word, I looked around my desk, picked three random items I saw, and combined them with a fourth item this friend and I had in common, and — poof — a password that was long, strong, and easy to re-member.

To repeat my exercise, here’s another: SpeakerCoffeeMixerFacebook

A 26-character password. If you need special characters, add spaces, or an exclamation point in what

for you might be a “standard” location, like at the end, or after the first word.

Password managers make it even easier As easy as that password is to create, and as memorable as it may be, if you have a lot of different

passwords (and who doesn’t), it can still be difficult to keep ’em all straight. Enter the password man-

ager, which remembers them for you. That way, you need remember only one password — presuma-

bly also of the long and memorable variety — and the password manager does the rest.

Related: Next to strength, the next most important characteristic is that it

be unique. I explain why in Why Is It So Important to Use a Differ-


Continued from page 7 Crank Your Password Strength Up to 11!

That’s 20 characters of completely random alpha-numeric data. If I need a special character, I’ll throw one in somewhere, making it a 21-character password.

I couldn’t tell you most of my passwords. Not from memory, anyway.

Just do it I talk about passwords and password strength a lot because, like it or not, passwords are here to stay. They’ll continue to be an important part of your online and account security for the foreseeable future.

Even adding two-factor authentication — as you should if it’s offered — you’re still relying on the strength of your password as your first line of defense.

Review your passwords and replace short ones with something longer and more secure.

And if you’re using anything on this list, don’t delay a moment longer. Go change that password now.

Footnotes & references 1: Which I did not have to look up — it’s that memorable.

Posted: January 2, 2019 in: Passwords

Women’s Day


Computer Flu Season on Windows By Jim Cerny, Forum Leader, Sarasota Technology Users Group, FL January 2019 issue, The STUG Monitor www.thestug.org jimcerny123 (at) gmail.com

Did you get your flu shot this year? It’s always good to protect your health from those nasty germs and viruses – and the same is true with your Windows computer. In this short overview we will cover some essential basics of computer protection.

There are many FREE anti-virus protection programs (apps) out there, and almost all of them offer an “upgraded” version for a monthly or annual fee. I really have no experience with what the upgrades ($) versions offer compared to their free version, but I have used the free Windows Defender for quite a few years now and so far, so good. Windows Defender comes with Windows and it may already be ac-

tive on your computer. Just left-click on the little Windows icon in the lower left corner of your screen and you will see an alphabetical list of all your apps. Left-click on “Windows Defender Security Center” and you will see if this program is running on your computer.

You do need an active “running all the time” virus protection program on your Windows computer to protect you from the nasties. If you use another virus protection app, remember that only ONE virus protection program should be active or running, do NOT try to run two at the same time – they will inter-fere with each other and bring your system back to the stone age of slowness. I think it is wise to delete

all other virus protection apps from your computer except the one you are actively using. On my com-puter, if I delete an active virus protection program, Windows Defender steps right in to protect me right away. That’s very nice of them. Whatever virus protection app you are running, check the options for “automatic updates” and turn that “on”. That way it will update itself without you having to do anything.

Like they say on TV – “But wait, there’s more..” and there is. Besides active virus protection, you also should use some free software that will SCAN your system for problems. In my case, I use “CCleaner” (note the two-letter C’s) and “Glary Utilities.” There are probably a least a dozen more you

can pick from. These apps are not “always active” type of virus protection – you have to run them. I usually run both of them every day, it only takes a minute. Of course ALL of these apps have multiple options, tools, and things you can do with them. For exam-

ple, Windows Defender has an option to scan your computer for problems too – a “quick,” “full,” or “custom” scan. Whatever app you choose, please take some time to learn about it by searching YouTube – “How to use Windows Defender” for example. You do not have to learn all the options – there are way too many anyway – but only the basics.

As another example, Glary Utilities can also tell you what software upgrades you need and install them for you – a very nice option. Please ask your friends and relatives – “What do you use to protect your computer?” And searching the internet for the “most popular” apps is always a good idea too. I am sure

you are aware of how great it is to use Google or YouTube to find very helpful videos on how to use whatever apps you pick. If you run ANY app, it is always a good idea to watch a ten-minute video about it. You will learn not only how to use it for the “basics,” but also will learn some of the popular options that may also be helpful to you. Most of the options or choices offered are way over my head so I just

stick with the basics.


FileMenu Review By Tiny Ruisch, Member, Cajun Clickers Computer Club, LA February 2019 issue, CCCC Computer News www.clickers.org tsa70785 (at) gmail.com

Computers make excellent and efficient servants, but I have no wish to serve under them. ----- Mr. Spock in the “Ultimate Computer” Mr. Spock was right. Computers can be really

efficient if you have the proper programs to do the job. I’d like to tell you about a real-ly efficient utility program that I’ve been using for more than ten years. FileMenu Tools lets you customize the right click menu of Windows Explorer. The program adds utilities

to perform operations on files and folders and adds customized commands that let you run external ap-plications, copy or move to a specific folder or delete specific file types. With the built-in commands you can:

Run With Parameters - Runs a program with parameters you input in a dialog box. Command Line From Here - Opens a command line window. Copy/Move - No need to cut and paste. You can also use filters in file selection. Duplicate Files - Make a copy in the same folder.

Pack to Folder - Moves all the selected elements to new subfolder in the current folder. Copy Path/Name/Content - Copies the selected item(s) to the clipboard. Attributes - You can view and change them without opening a properties dialog box. Find and Replace - Lets you find or replace a text for all the files in a selected folder.

Advanced Rename - With lots of options. Change Icon - Quickly and easily change folder options. Advanced Delete - lets you delete specific file types in a folder. Synchronize Two Folders - Lets you synchronize two folders quickly and easily.

Shred Files - Overwrites several times so it is impossible to recover the file in the future. Send to Mail Recipient - Lets you send an e-mail with selected elements as attachments.

These are about half of the FileMenu commands you can select from. In the configuration menu, a sim-

ple check mark will turn off the commands you don’t want to use. If you can’t find the FileMenu function you need, then just add a customized command to run external applications, copy/move to a specific folder or delete specific file types.

FileMenu Tools lets you configure the "Send to" submenu. You can add new items, change the proper-ties of the existing items or delete them. You also can disable existing “Send to” items in order to hide them from the menu.

FileMenu Tools will also let you enable/disable the commands which are added to the context menu of the Windows Explorer by other programs. This is the only function that is not one hundred percent relia-ble. When it works, it works well, but it doesn‘t catch all of the programs that add to your right click.

FileMenu Tools is a 7.3MB download and runs on all Windows platforms. Did I mention the price? This program is freeware and costs nothing. I’m pretty sure that Mr. Spock would say, “Fascinating is a word I use for the unexpected. In this case, I

should think ‘interesting’ would suffice.”


Happy New Tech Year By Greg Skalka, President, Under the Computer Hood UG, CA January 2019 issue, Drive Light www.uchug.org president (at) uchug.org Another New Year is upon us. As we start 2019, I wonder what new technology we

will see this year, and how it will affect our lives. It seems we can’t swing a corded mouse (better for our times than a dead cat) without hitting some piece of technology in our lives. So many things we take for granted today were not around 20 years ago, or even 10. Smart phones, smart homes, smart cars, smart TVs - everything is becoming smart through technolo-

gy. How did we ever survive with only dumb stuff around us?

We have just concluded another busy holiday shopping season. Remember when that meant spending

the month of December in the shopping malls, standing in long lines? Now with online shopping (especially Amazon.com) and all the tech that enables it, we can do all our shopping from home. With our smart phones, we can even shop while on the go. This trend has resulted in big changes in our be-haviors, as well as in our local and global economics. Brick and mortar chains that were once the pow-

erhouses of commerce, like Sears, are shrinking or going out of business. Almost all businesses fear Amazon, as it has transformed the shopping experience in many categories. How will Amazon next change our lives?

The concept of two-day delivery of products used to be exceptional and/or expensive, but now it is commonplace (and the default for all those Amazon Prime subscribers). Will 2019 finally be the year that Amazon makes good on their plans to deliver products the same day using drones? Amazon CEO

Jeff Bezos claimed in December 2013 on “60 Minutes” that drones would be delivering packages within five years. Where are our drone deliveries?

There are plenty of drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) out there now, of all kinds. They pro-tect our borders, launch strikes against our enemies, photograph and film our events and monitor our real estate, crops, forests and construction. They can also provide entertainment, through personal use and drone racing. Unfortunately, misuse of the technology has also occurred, requiring new regulations

for their use. From interfering with fire-fighting efforts in California wildfires to the recent shutdown of the Gatwick Airport in England due to drone overflights, we have seen how these useful devices could be misused by vandals, criminals and terrorists. Some aviation experts believe it is just a matter of time before a drone causes a commercial plane crash.

Another technology that didn’t exist ten years ago is personal DNA analysis. Companies like Ances-tryDNA, 23andMe and MyHeritage claim to provide ancestry information and ethnicity breakdowns.

Some claim to provide genetic health information and predisposition to inherited conditions. Some can match you to others that may be relatives. These are home kits that allow you to provide a sample that is analyzed and potentially matched to the samples of others. Many of these kits were discounted for the holidays and advertised as great gifts.

These tests may be entertaining and can provide useful, though perhaps vague, information on your ancestry and genetic health. There are some concerns about privacy and accuracy, however, and you

may learn things you might have wished you didn’t know. One company’s test reportedly failed to iden-tify that a submitted sample was actually from a Labrador retriever. Some have learned from these tests that their parentage is not as they were led to believe, or that they had half siblings unknown to their families. Submitting your sample puts your DNA information in the test company’s genetic data-

base, which could be used for things you didn’t intend. One example is in identification of suspects in law enforcement investigations. These genetic testing companies could also share or sell genetic infor-mation to insurance or pharmaceutical companies.

Loss of privacy seems to be a common risk with a lot of the new technology we have adopted in the


last decade or two. In the best case, our personal information, preferences and habits (such as for trav-el and consuming) have become a commodity that companies we deal with can use, buy and sell, with

Continued on page 12

Continued from page 11 Happy New Tech Year advertisers looking to improve their sales to us, the consumers. In the worst case, criminals are trying

to gain, through tricks or theft, our personal information, especially that dealing with our identity and ac-count passwords, in order to steal from us, or sell to others that will. Somewhere in the middle is the threat posed to the individual by a police state that has accumulated detailed information on its citizens, with the goal of tracking and controlling them.

In addition to the information that we provide online with our computers, or in using our smart phones, we now have to worry about the data collected by our connected cars. Automakers are collecting ever

more information about how our cars are running and how we use them, and that information is often accessed wirelessly. While older cars are still safe from this, about 3 in 4 of the cars sold by 2020 will be online. This information may be able to help track your car servicing more easily, update safety sys-tems and provide emergency services, but it also could be sold to insurance companies eager to study

your driving habits or provided to law enforcement to determine where you have been or when you have been speeding.

Self-driving cars have seemed to be on the verge of introduction to the consumer for a few years now; perhaps 2019 will finally see a service generally available. Many companies have been testing autono-mous vehicles for years, mostly with human back-up drivers. Autonomous trucks, taxis and cars could be revolutionary forces in our society, economy and labor market. These technologies could reduce

transportation costs greatly and help provide greater freedom for the disabled, and likely would reduce vehicle accident rates.

Technology appears to be finally allowing humans to once again make real progress towards space travel. Christmas Eve 2018 marked the 50th anniversary of the first flight to the moon, where Apollo 8 orbited the moon and took the first photo of Earth as a distant object. Following the final Apollo moon landing, however, human space flight never left low Earth orbit. Now that many commercial companies

are competing with NASA to fly cargo and ultimately people to the International Space Station and be-yond, progress in space is accelerating. Several companies, including Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, have successfully demonstrated the recovery (landing) of a rocket first stage, allow-ing reuse and a lower cost for future launches. Musk has a plan for SpaceX to be able to launch people

to Mars within six years. I feel for those that watched the moon landings as fifty-year-olds and then died disappointed that humans never again did anything so dramatic. With luck my 82-year-old parents will see people on Mars.

National Geographic has created a TV series called ‘Mars’, which is very inspiring, yet brings some concerns with the human colonization of that planet. It portrays some of the issues we could face in the development of space technology by private companies, rather that government entities, a road we ap-

pear to be going down now. It shows the parallels this could have with the commercial development of resources here on Earth in the arctic. It is a series well worth watching.


The Winter 2019 Windows 10 Update

By Rosita Herrick, Forum Moderator, Sarasota Technology Users Group, FL January 2019 issue, The STUG Monitor www.thestug.org hrosita (at) aol.com By now, some of you have already updated to the current version of Windows 10 and, if

not, you should soon receive the update on your computer. Once your PC is updated, the Windows version will show as Version 1809 (OS Build 17763.134) Listed below are five additions that come with this update and that I found useful for the average user

A new Snip and Sketch app (that will eventually replace the Snipping Tool) was added that supports

the use of a stylus and the option to start it with the shortcut Win key + Shift + S.

Change Sys- tem

font size Using a new slider, it is easy to adjust the font size for the Start menu, titles, message boxes, and tool tips for all apps. Select Settings and en-ter Make text bigger in the search box. To increase the size of text on

your screen, adjust the slider under Make text bigger. To make every-thing larger, including images and apps, choose an option from the dropdown menu under Make everything bigger.

Cortana The display that pops up when the user clicks on the Cortana search box has changed. As you can see below, you can click on any of the blue boxes to limit where Cortana looks for

the search argument. Also, below the boxes the links dis-played are the items the user had worked on previously. As you can see, the first item is the title of the Word document that I am preparing for the Monitor, so I can pick it up later if I

have to stop at any time.

There is now a new keyboard short cut to start a second screen of an active app. The shortcut is Ctrl + N. For

example, in the picture below I have an open File Ex-plorer screen . Pressing the shortcut Ctrl + N gave me a second screen. This is very handy when you want to copy or move either a file or folder from one place to

the other. The pages can be separated by clicking on the blue bar of the active screen and dragging the page.

The new Cloud-powered clipboard introduces a new interface (which you can invoke using the Windows key + V shortcut)

to view your history, paste previous content, and pin items that you may need to paste in the daily basis.

Search experience


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Please submit articles for the April issue of THE ICON by March 15, 2019 to Mary Phillips at [email protected]

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