TechByter Worldwide (formerly Technology Corner) with Bill Blinn

ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence applications are responsible for a lot of questions about the future. Will AI help us humans, create insurmountable problems, or be no big deal? In Short Circuits: Music lovers who have trouble finding a local station they like will be happy with StreamWriter, a free application that not only plays music from thousands of radio stations but also makes it easy to record streams for later listening. • It's easier than ever to run Android apps on a Windows 11 computer, so let's look at how it's done. Twenty Years Ago (only on the website): Before Microsoft captured desktop computers with Word, a small company in Utah built Wordperfect into a world class application. By 2003, the battle was essentially over.

Many businesses issue two or more computer monitors to each employee because they've discovered a modest hardware investment improves productivity. Maybe it's time for home users to have more than one monitor, too. In Short Circuits: Users of Adobe's Creative Cloud can download and test beta versions of more than a dozen applications. The betas run alongside the installed release versions. • A handy utility application from McAfee leaves behind some software that may slow your computer and how to get rid of the extra app isn't obvious. Twenty Years Ago (only on the website): Although most computers purchased today come from China, in 2003 the change was just beginning.

Version 2 of Affinity's Photo, Designer, and Publisher apps give users surprisingly powerful features at a modest cost. In Short Circuits: PortableApps, one of my favorite programs, has recently added more applications including a lot of useful utilities and the ability to use specific typefaces wherever you are. • T-Mobile continues to be the poster child for accidentally exposing information from its clients -- this time 37 million of them. Twenty Years Ago (only on the website): In 2003, broadband was available to only about 10% of US families. Now it's around 80%.

Until now, Adobe's Lightroom and Lightroom Classic offered no way to add more than a single mask to an image. That's no longer the case and the change gives users the ability to make modifications that would previously have required using Photoshop. In Short Circuits: Netflix has been trying to find a way to limit password sharing and is testing one option in South America. • How long will the disk drive in your computer last? There's no way to tell for sure, but the annual disk drive report from cloud backup company Backblaze offers some useful clues. Twenty Years Ago (only on the website): In 2003, airlines were just beginning to introduce electronic tickets, but it wasn't until 2008 that the conversion was nearly complete.

The internet has lots of rabbit holes that are good for passing time, enjoyment, and (sometimes) education. Let's take a look at a few. In Short Circuits: An email that appeared to be from a high school classmate asked for a favor. It's been several decades since we graduated and the request seemed odd. Then it got odder. • If you prefer to maintain a clean Desktop, you might find Microsoft's repeatedly adding an icon for Edge a bit annoying. I'll explain how you can make it stop. Twenty Years Ago (only on the website): Adding a photo to an email today is trivial, but 20 years ago it wasn't and a $40 program offered to help.

Microsoft OneNote has been around since 2003 and it's one of a small set of applications that I use every single day. OneNote stores all kinds of information and makes finding it easy when you need it. In Short Circuits: This seems to be the year of the phony prize. All you have to do is fill out a quick survey and you'll receive a $100 gift card or a $200 set of tools or the latest model IPhone. Sadly, they're all scams. • And speaking of scams, when 16TB solid-state drives are selling for more than $2000, you may be delighted to find one for just $60 on Amazon. You will regret that purchase, though. Twenty Years Ago (only on the website): How about a computer that could run Windows XP and still fit in your pocket? That was big news in 2003.

After one too many breaches at LastPass, I started looking for a new password manager and decided to give 1Password a try. It works well and there's one feature that every password manager should have. In Short Circuits: DOS commands are old, many dating back to the early 1980s, but many are still useful. Spending a bit of time with the antiques now might save time later. • Although password managers are essential, the real solution to the password problem is eliminating passwords. It's been nearly 40 years since that was proposed and we're still not there. Maybe in another 40 years. Twenty Years Ago (only on the website): Many people had to format the hard drive and then reinstall Windows about once a year. In my case it was usually two or three times a year. I do not miss that little exercise in futility!

Having "enjoyed" an extended hospital stay late last year and an even more extended period of starting the recovery process, I learned that hospitals have changed a lot in recent years and that one absolutely essential possession to take along is a smartphone. Sometimes system updates cause problems for users. Such was the case with an update for my Samsung smart watch, and it's apparently not the first time Samsung has pushed out a flawed smart watch update. • When Microsoft released Windows 11 version 22H2, tabs finally became a part of the File Explorer. While this is a welcome new feature, my preference is still for the third-party file explorer, Q-Dir. Twenty Years Ago (only on the website): Once Microsoft was a software company. Then they started making add-on devices such as keyboards. Today's Microsoft hasn't gone all-in on hardware, but it's a much larger part of the operation.

In addition to a search engine that doesn't track users, DuckDuckGo offers email protections such as the ability to provide someone you may not trust with a one-time address that can be eliminated. In Short Circuits: Being able to send an encrypted email message is helpful when you need to send sensitive or proprietary data, but the process is challenging. ProtonMail makes it much easier. • Microsoft eliminated the ability to boot to Safe mode by pressing the F8 key at boot time in Windows 8, but there's an easy way to restore that functionality. Twenty Years Ago (only on the website): An information manager called Chandler looked promising in 2003, but the application never really caught on.

Two-factor authentication isn't yet the new normal, but it should be. Some businesses that should provide better security for their customers are lagging, and many users seem more interested in saving a few seconds than in securing their finances. This must change. In Short Circuits: I've described my backup system so often that you may think recovering a file isn't a big deal, and that's true until it isn't. I'll tell you about the cause of my close call. No significant files were at risk, but I did manage to annoy myself. • Then I'll explain how I recovered some files and describe the steps I've taken to close a small hole in the backup system. Having an image backup of the boot drive is important, but it's not sufficient if you might need to recover individual files quickly. Twenty Years Ago (only on the website): Today we send and receive email with ease on our smart phones. That could be done in 2002, but it was much more difficult.