The Strange New World of Crypto

From l to r: PolkaDot, NEM, Crypto.com Coin, Tezos and Bitcoin

For now, it seems strange, but crypto could become the way that most people will conduct business in the future. Even now, I’m happy to accept crypto for my services. For a flat rate labor charge of 52,000 satoshis (one satoshi is 0.00000001 of a Bitcoin), I can fix your cracked laptop case and optimize it for speed.

It’s not really easy to even define the term cryptocurrency, but here are a few things to know:

(1) There is no central authority like a bank that facilitates the transfer of crypto from one person to another. Bitcoin, for example, is based on a shared public ledger that is distributed across a large number of networked computers. The ledger keeps track of every transaction. If Bob paid Mary .0002 of a Bitcoin, it’s in the ledger and the ledger is immutable.

(2) You can keep your crypto on an exchange like Coinbase or Nexo.io. Nexo even offers you a line of credit based on the amount of crypto that you store on their system.

(3) Many crypto currency networks have special functions. The Ethereum network, for example, is the home of smart contracts which are contracts written in computer code that do not require a middleman to execute. Ethereum is often used as ‘gas’ to pay for a transaction or to execute a contract. You can store data on the Ethereum network. Artworks known as NFTs (non-fungible tokens) reside on the Ethereum blockchain.

(4) You can also store various crypto currencies in an electronic wallet on your phone, iPad, desktop computer, etc. Incredibly, if you were to lose your phone, iPad, etc., you can recreate your wallet on another computer often by using a sequence of 12 words that you had received for just such a case.

(5) eToro is a fun way to trade crypto similar to the way people trade stocks. You can set a stop loss value and also a value to take profits.

(6) You can send money to anyone with a smartphone – anyone in the world. See Celo.

An offline wallet with some TRON crypto.

(7) There’s so much more.

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Zcash, Dash, Ethereum, Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ripple, …

Digital Depot is located at 104 East Century Road, Suite H in Leesburg, Georgia and is open from 5:30 PM to midnight Monday through Saturday. We can be reached at 229-883-3996.

Extra Memory is Often the Key

Oftentimes, a computer just needs some extra memory to handle extra tasks. This applies to old computers as well as new ones. If you’d like to upgrade an older computer to a newer operating system, here is a brief guide based on memory recommendations alone:

Windows XP……….1 Gigabyte
Windows Vista…..2 Gigabytes or more
Windows 7…………2 Gigabytes or more
Windows 8…………2 Gigabytes or more
Windows 10……….2 Gigabytes or more
most Linux…………2 Gigabytes or more

If your computer seems reasonably fast, but then slows down with a lot of hard drive activity after you load Office and a couple of internet browser windows, then you might benefit from some extra memory. Keep in mind that memory is not the same as hard drive space. Typical hard drives range from about 60 Gigabytes to 2 Terabytes. Conventional computers never have terabytes of memory.

If you really want to be able to handle a massive number of tasks, then you might want a fast processor on a new mainboard with 8 Gigabytes or more of memory and a large hard drive. Sometimes, this amounts to a new custom computer (our specialty). You may be able to take all of your old computers and move them into one of these new fast computers with lots of memory. See the image below.

The Magic of a Live USB Flash Drive

A live USB flash drive is just a regular USB flash drive with a full bootable operating system on it. Linux is the usual choice of operating systems. With a live USB, you can plug it into your notebook or desktop, turn it on, press F12 and choose to boot from the USB device in the displayed list. In just a short while, you have full control of your system even if you otherwise had serious booting problems (a crashed hard drive, a virus infected Windows system, etc.). It’s a great way to do several things. You can use it to access files on a crashed system (this is more difficult on systems that boot with Windows 8 or 10, but still doable). You can use it to upgrade your experience online if the system you are using had been booting from a system with outdated browsers. For example, many banks will refuse to allow you to log in if you are using an older version of Internet Explorer or Firefox. Your bootable flash drive can be using Firefox v50 instead of Firefox v3 (released in 2008). You can also use your bootable flash drive to provide you with an extra level of security. Since the flash drive doesn’t automatically write to your hard drive during use, then passwords, bookmarks and browser cache are not saved to your hard drive. Here are a couple of screenshots of a flash drive I used this afternoon.

If you’d like to try something similar on one of your computers, just bring me a flash drive and I’ll configure it as a live USB for just $35.

Alternatives to Twitter, Reddit and Wikipedia

Things are always changing on the web and here are a few examples:

Twitter alternative : gab.ai

Reddit ” : voat.co

Wikipedia ” : infogalactic.com

Firefox ” : brave

and something completely new: Periscope

Why do these alternatives exist? Twitter, Reddit, and Wikipedia have been plagued by censorship issues and Brave just promises to be a faster and safer browser. These are just a few new things to try out. Vid.me also deserves a mention. It’s similar to Youtube, but there isn’t much content there yet. Certainly, you can always use it upload your own content. Periscope is interesting. It’s connected to twitter and allows you to share live content with your followers. In fact, if you have a twitter account, you can just log in with your twitter credentials.

Why Is My CPU Hot Enough to Boil Water?

Oftentimes, a laptop computer will just suddenly shut down due to to a CPU that is overheating. What causes the overheating? Sometimes it’s a problem with the heat pipe. Other times, it’s a fan that isn’t working, and sometimes it’s just a huge layer of dust blocking the airflow!

After cleanup, the temperature has dropped from 100 degrees Celsius to 43 degrees Celsius.

Opting Out of a Windows 10 Upgrade

In the past couple of days, there have been many calls from customers who were seemingly involuntarily upgraded to Windows 10. On occasion, important software doesn’t work with the new OS. Other times, people just don’t have the extra hours to wait for the upgrade to complete. If you prefer to stay with Windows 7 or Windows 8, here is the current method for avoiding a Windows 10 upgrade.

It seems obvious. Click the X in the upper right corner… right? That’s the universal method of opting out… right? No! Not according to Microsoft – If you click the X in the menu pictured above, Microsoft assumes that you agree with their decision to upgrade you to Windows 10. The only way to opt-out in this case is to click the word here where you see the text ‘Click here to change upgrade schedule or cancel scheduled upgrade.’  And yes, this is very deceptive.

You may want to download a program called ‘GWX Control Panel.’ It’s a legit 3rd party app that allows you to control Windows 10 upgrades. Here’s the link: http://ultimateoutsider.com/downloads/.

Uses for an Obsolete Hard Drive – Part 1

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and someone misspelled ‘Maxtor’

 

The Push to Upgrade to Windows 10

Here’s something I’ve been seeing since December.

It’s a prompt from Microsoft asking the user to do one of two things: upgrade now or upgrade tonight.

Here’s the latest (screencap from March 21, 2016):

Someone must have told them that they were being a little pushy with the ‘Upgrade Tonight’ thing.

Sometimes, the upgrades to Windows 10 may be involuntary. A couple of customers called recently to tell me that their Windows 7 computer was now running Windows 10 and they had not authorized the upgrade. Unfortunately, this can shut down a business when there is software that is not compatible with the new OS. See the photo below. It’s from one of the computers that had been upgraded to Windows 10 without the owners approval and the Corel software it had been running was not compatible with the new Windows 10.

The above was fixed by re-installing Corel in Windows 7 compatibility mode.

Here are a few of my Windows 10 related services for the computers recently upgraded to Windows 10:

(1) Making incompatible programs work in Window 10
(2) Backing up all data, then re-installing and re-activating Windows 7
(3) Making Windows 10 more aesthetically pleasing for customers who prefer a cleaner interface without the gyrating advertisements.
(4) Removing the annoying Microsoft Windows 10 upgrade pop-ups.
(5) Forcing the computer to decline the upgrade and stop wasting bandwith with Windows 10 related downloads
(6) Installing a Fedora Server on the network and making image backups of all computers just in case of a problem resulting from an involuntary upgrade to Windows 10
(7) Converting the computer to Linux

Finding Live Events on Youtube and other sites

Earth Live From the ISS

These days, there are plenty of options for cord cutters. There’s Amazon Prime, hulu, Netflix, the many free services available on a Roku box like Youtube, Sky News Live, PBS, Crackle, Smithsonian, Fox News and many others. Sky News is completely live, but only the Fox News audio is live. Youtube, fortunately is very convenient because it’s available in many forms and thankfully it’s available on a regular computer browser as well. So, if you need some live news and you only have access to your regular desktop or notebook computer, here are some links that you may find useful:

Newsmax TV Live News

Sky News

France 24

i24 News Live (English) from Israel

Veetle – Entertainment

Veetle – Shows

Live Youtube Events #1

Live Youtube Events #2

Livestream News Network

Finding New Themes For your Windows 7, 8 or 10 Computer

If you’re bored with the default themes included with your Windows system, here’s a quick way to add some new ones.

1) First, think of a keyword that describes the theme you want. Let’s try ‘Hawaii.’

2) Right click your desktop screen, but click in a blank area and not on an icon.

3) Choose Personalize from the drop down menu.

4) Then click Get more themes online

5) Type your word into the grey box in the upper right and press [Enter].

6) Choose the item that is an actual theme. In this case it is the 3rd item from the top.

7) Click Download theme on the theme page that displays next.

8) Choose the option to open the theme and voilà!

You now have a new theme!