TechByter Worldwide (formerly Technology Corner) with Bill Blinn

The Bat, an e-mail program that's popular in Europe continues working to find a following in the Americas. High temperatures are a threat to your computer, so you might want to add a couple of free utilities that monitor how hot it is in there. In Short Circuits: Adobe's InDesign now offers a preview feature that makes it possible to publish a document on-line and if you're a Windows Insider in the Fast Ring, you received a new version of Windows 10 this week. In Spare Parts (only on the website): Microsoft has published a list of Windows 10 shortcuts that every user should know about, US Internet users show an interest in European Union legislation that forces websites to remove information if people ask to have it removed, a Spanish company claims to have solved a World War II mystery, and night-time surveillance from the air is surprisingly good.

Turning a brown camel into a purple camel is just one of the things you can do with Xara Photo and Graphic Designer. Microsoft will release the latest version of Office next month and this month I've been looking at LibreOffice. In Short Circuits: A couple of city council members in Munich say Linux and LibreOffice are too hard to use and Windows 10 has surpassed 75 million installations in less than a month. In Spare Parts (only on the website): A hackathon is coming up this week in Punjab, if you wonder how important photography is in understanding the past, take a look at some motion pictures of New York City from around 1900, a look a security risks in the Internet of Things, and a way to find out exactly where the sun and moon will be in the sky.

Adobe's new and updated free mobile applications bring more power to your Apple phone or tablet and to your Android phone. In Short Circuits: No, Windows 10 isn't perfect and I'll describe some of the problems you might see; additionally, I'll tell you about a method I've found to leverage the Task Bar, Start Menu, Live Tiles, and All Applications to create a highly usable working environment. In Spare Parts (only on the website): Auto theft investigators say they think "mysterious devices" are being used to steal cars; Acronis launches a new version of True Image, including cloud-based backup; Western Digital makes it possible for users to have up to 96TB of network attached storage at home (but I suspect the main users will be businesses); and Underwriters Labs says that a bunch of its serialized holographic approval labels have been stolen.

If you already have Windows 10 or expect to have the upgrade soon, you might find a dozen or so terrific tips (and a dud or two) useful. In Short Circuits: How to find out if your Android device is vulnerable to the Stagefright bug, using a checksum to verify a file's integrity, and Google now wants the entire alphabet. In Spare Parts (only on the website): The history of photography in 12 short videos, Sony tries to capture the world's runners, changes in the health-care industry lead to a high-tech scramble by pharmacies, and bringing technology to bear on fraudsters.

Combining multiple images allows today's photographers to create panoramic views and maybe even to outdo Ansel Adams (or is that blasphemy?); updating a computer to Windows 10 worked well for me, but occasional failures are being used to drive traffic to "Panic NOW!" websites. In Short Circuits: PayPal splits from Ebay and it's about time, a new website makes it easy to type in non-Roman alphabets, and Republicans plan to update their voter management system. In Spare Parts, only on the website: A technology program scheduled for Moscow in October sounds a lot like PC Expo in 1997, Epson has released lots of tiny printers that will be used in restaurant settings, Subway says you can now order and pay on-line, and wearable cameras are becoming very big business.

I'm a fan of applications that are provided without cost and I'll share a short list of some of my favorites. The best way to make a computer faster used to involve adding memory, but now maybe you should swap out the hard drive. In Short Circuits: Windows 10 launched this week and overall the upgrade process seems to be going well. Brian Krebs questions a new Windows 10 feature, but it seems to me that his concerns are largely without merit. In Spare Parts, only on the website: An on-line service can help you understand auto financing, why more large companies are moving to open-source applications for software development, and one of the big providers of high-quality optical disks plans to shut down by the end of the year.

OnOne's Perfect Photo Suite 9.5 makes this a great time to be a photographer and at last there's a version of Linux that might be right for users who don't have a degree in information technology. In Short Circuits: Central Ohio is about to get an overlay for the 614 area code, something that's coming to most metro areas, and with the Windows 10 upgrade scheduled to start installing in just a few days, I have the final (obligatory) pre-release story. In Spare Parts, only on the website: Weather reports are about to be crowd-sourced. Does this mean clouds from crowds? If you're dumb enough to read and send text messages while driving, now there's an app that can call for help when you're in a crash. And RetailMeNot continues to walk a fine line between serving buyers and serving sellers.

If you're looking for a reason to enroll in Adobe's Creative Cloud for Photographers, just take a look at what's new in Lightroom and Photoshop; if you haven't checked your Google and Facebook privacy settings recently, now would be a good time. In Short Circuits: The FBI and other law enforcement agencies have whacked another mole, Amazon's Black Friday in July received less than stellar reviews, and after having only a minor presence at Germany's IFA trade show for several years, Microsoft will have the keynote slot at this year's show. In Spare Parts, only on the website: Microsoft is essentially giving up on phones, at least the hardware part; in July of 1948, Bell Labs announced the "transfer resistance device", which we now know as the transistor; a company in China says it has a battery that can be ready to use after just 6 or 7 minutes of charging; and if you're looking for medical marijuana, there's a app for that.

Website designers, both pro and amateur, will find lots to like in the latest version of Xara Web Designer; with just weeks to go before Windows 10 is released, Microsoft has pushed out the last preview build and it about ready to release the code to manufacturing. In Short Circuits: Hackers have been hacked and the information released reveals the dirty secrets of a company that has tried to position itself wearing a white hat and if you're tired of bloatware on your smart phone, look for support from China. In Spare Parts, only on the website: The developer of new software claims that it can create a sketch of a criminal or a victim based on the person's DNA, 7-Eleven will deliver to your home or office (if it's in San Francisco or Oakland), and with more large companies pushing backup to the cloud, Veritas says that the latest version of its backup software is designed to work with nearly all online storage systems.

A pair of Microsoft HoloLens devices were destroyed this week when a SpaceX rocket exploded, but NASA astronauts will still probably see the HoloLens before you do; instead of depending on the Windows search function, take a look at what Agent Ransack can offer; In Short Circuits: How to plan for reinstalling Windows (and whether you need to) and Microsoft seems to be planning to return to the chip manufacturing business it abandoned 10 years ago. In Spare Parts, only on the website: Computers you can kick down the stairs, an update for Malwarebytes AntiExploit application, and why AOL is (astoundingly!) still relevant.