TechByter Worldwide (formerly Technology Corner) with Bill Blinn

Don't expect to do any heavy-duty editing or spreadsheet development on your smartphone or tablet, but now several Office 365 apps let you work with Office suite documents wherever you are and on whatever device you have. In Short Circuits: Maybe you think you've seen the Taskbar and Desktop refresh repeatedly, but thought you're halluciniting. You're not. It is. And there's a way to fix it. Maybe. In Spare Parts (only on the website): Recognizing that a smartphone camera serves as the primary camera, and possibly the only camera, for a growing number of people, Adobe continues to add features to its Lightroom Camera app and the June update included a new application called Photoshop Camera. • Covid-19 has created a demand for computers, but it has also limited the supply of computers and components that are made in China. • Twenty years ago: PC Expo was about to get underway in New York City, where home networks would be a hot topic.

The latest Ipads from Apple can be bought with an overpriced keyboard and an overpriced pencil. If you add the extras, you'll almost have a computer, and it might replace your portable computer. We'll take a look at pluses and minuses. In Short Circuits: When you're looking for the cause of a problem or considering an upgrade, you may need to find out what's under the computer's hood. Speccy, HWInfo64, and Crystal Disk Info are three tools that provide insight, and you'll want at least two of them. In Spare Parts (only on the website): Adobe's big mid-year update was delivered to Creative Cloud users this week, and the additions range from fun toys to highly desirable new and improved features. • Facebook launched an initiative to register voters this week, and will offer some new capabilities: One allows users to hide annoying political ads and a second reveals how much is being spent on Facebook ads for presidential and congressional races. • Twenty years ago: Online shopping was just beginning to be something people thought they might be willing to trust.

If you encounter a computer problem that can't possibly be happening, it's important to realize two things: First, it is happening, and second, there is a reason it's happening. Finding the reason and fixing it are the entertaining parts, if you have a warped sense of "entertainment". In Short Circuits: Thunderbird is an email application that will probably never see another major update, but it's full of useful features and a great solution for those who don't like Outlook. • The latest version of Firefox has added some worthwhile features while expanding its efforts to keep users and their data secure. In Spare Parts (only on the website): Some Facebook scammers aren't even trying to appear legitimate any more. • Keeping employees safe has exposed some companies' networks and proprietary data during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. • Twenty years ago: Maxtor was about to introduce enormous disk drives that could hold up to 60 gigabytes of data, but you would need deep pockets to buy one.

Just like cars, trucks, airplanes, furnaces, and bicycles, hardware and software can fail even if you perform all the suggested maintenance. Maintenance does allow you to find upcoming problems and fix them before they happen, though. Routine troubleshooting is easy and doesn't take much time. In Short Circuits: Portable USB solid-state drives were once a luxury for those who needed lots of fast external storage while on the go. The drives are still a bit pricy, but they're a lot more affordable than they used to be. • Offices are reopening, but many people are still working from home, and may be for a long time. Maybe permanently. Too many companies neglected to secure equipment used for office work and now they're in danger. In Spare Parts (only on the website): You know not to open email attachments from strangers, but what if somebody you do know replies to an email from you and includes an unexpected attachment? • If you've ever wondered which antivirus application is best, the answer is easy: None of them. AV Comparatives can point out the relative strengths and weaknesses. • Twenty years ago: Plans were afoot to put Congressional hearings online. This was another groundbreaking effort that didn't quite make it.

Your internet service provider has a domain name server, but you don't have to use it. There are good reasons why you might want to ditch the provided service and use a better one. The change is easy to make, you'll get better service, and it won't cost anything. In Short Circuits: Computers that run on MacOS are less of a target than those running Windows, but threats do exist. Let's consider some protective measures. • Those who miss the variety that radio used to provide can use a clever service to find and listen to radio stations all over the world. In Spare Parts (only on the website): COVID-19 is forcing many changes. Among them: Making security systems at financial institutions stronger, ways for people to enjoy an at-home vacation, expected changes in work-from-home policies by companies, and huge increases in at-home data consumption. • Twenty years ago: The trial to break up Microsoft was nearing an end with an order that broke Microsoft into two pieces, except that it didn't.

Zoom was poised to sweep all other online meeting applications away, and then security concerns surfaced. Big ones. Zoom has moved quickly to resolve the issues, but now the company is facing an up-hill battle against competitors. In Short Circuits: If you'd like to download videos from YouTube and other services, you may have noticed that it's not a straightforward process. Downloads are legal as long as you're downloading for your private use, and several applications make the process easier. We'll look at some. • In a post-COVID-19 world, commerce will look a lot different. Apple is one organization that's preparing to lead the way. In Spare Parts (only on the website): About one third of workers feel that a machine might take their job. Let's look at some of the details. • COVID-19 misinformation and disinformation abound, but it's easy to find honest information, too. I'll list eight reliable resources. • Twenty years ago: After selling WebObject Java for $50,000, Apple suddenly cut the price to $700. This did not delight those who had paid the full price.

Apple and Google plan to allow their smart phones to talk to each other. The goal is to help with contact tracing for those who may have been exposed to COVID-19. It seems like a good idea, but it also seems doomed to fail. In Short Circuits: The creeps among us on the internet have shifted into high gear with links to bad websites and malware-laden downloads. If you've ever wished that you had a backup for your computer's protective applications, I have a suggestion. • Microsoft continues to work on the new Chromium-based version of the Edge browser. Now might be a good time to take a look. In Spare Parts (only on the website): The lowly Windows File Explorer has some hidden tricks that can make file management easier. • The market for wearable health devices is seeing explosive growth that isn't expected to end anytime soon. • Twenty years ago: Kodak was desperately seeking relevance in a world where film was becoming irrelevant.

For almost 20 years, TechSmith's Camtasia has been the go-to application for instructional videos. The 2020 version of Camtasia strengthens its capabilities for that market and also adds more powerful video editing functions. In Short Circuits: Depending on how often you send images from Lightroom to Photoshop for pixel-level editing, making a small change in the workflow could save a substantial amount of disk space. • Scammers have spotted a big opening because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but many of the old subject lines still attract mouse clicks that lead to trouble. In Spare Parts (only on the website): Google and Apple say they want to work together to provide technical assistance for identifying people who may have been exposed to COVID-19. • If you lose access to your Google account, there are automated recovery procedures that are easy. That's good because recovering an account manually isn't easy or fast. • Twenty years ago: Many of us might have been excited by a $180 device that played CDs and DVDs full of MP3 files. Suddenly we could take a lot of music with us wherever we went.

Although Google is the most used search engine and Bing is a distant second, an even more distant Duck Duck Go has several advantages. In Short Circuits: Research that shows company security is more at risk when employees work from home is no surprise to security experts. The risk to corporate data is substantial. • A lot of applications start with Windows. The operating system needs some processes and you've probably added some, but there may be others that you didn't request and may not even know are running. Needless applications can cause problems, and we'll consider how to find them and remove the ones you don't want. In Spare Parts (only on the website): Improvements for Firefox's search function makes finding something faster and easier. • The COVID-19 pandemic continues and will likely worsen as states begin to loosen regulations. Now's a good time so surveil yourself. • Twenty years ago: I loaded a virus onto the office computer -- the first and only time I made that mistake. It taught me a most important lesson.

If you think Windows users need the VLC Media Player to view DVDs, you're right, but that's only part of the story. VLC does a lot more and it's an open-source application. In Short Circuits: High-resolution screens are great, but users often say the tiny text and icons are hard to see. If that describes you, I have good news: These are easy fixes. • Mac users are sometimes distressed by the lack of ports on Macbook Pro machines. A cleverly designed dock not only provides more ports, but also adds a lot of disk space. And it can be used on any computer or portable device that has a USB-C port. In Spare Parts (only on the website): Technology may be able to help track new COVID-19 cases as states relax some of the restrictions we've been dealing with. • If you're trying to find out when your stimulus check will arrive from the IRS, the IRS website may be able to help; beware of rogue sites, though, because more than 4000 new domains exist and they all want to "help" you. • Twenty years ago: The MP3 revolution was moving right along, but we still had to deal with unknown new terms such as "rip".