TechByter Worldwide (formerly Technology Corner) with Bill Blinn

We don’t run out of disk space as often now as we did in the early days, but you might wonder about discarding some old junk even if space isn’t a significant problem. Several utilities are available to help you identify the junk. In Short Circuits: Scammers work hard to earn your trust and then steal your money. A Washington Post article about a retired federal scientist who was bilked out of her life savings is a cautionary tale, and we all need to be on the lookout for thieves. • Microsoft’s built-in screen capture tool has improved, now including the ability to capture video sequences, but it still lags behind both commercial and open source applications.

Microsoft’s new PC Manager takes the place of some other utilities such as CCleaner and offers quick, easy access to built-in Windows functions that are often several layers deep in Settings or the Control Panel. In Short Circuits: If you’ve ever wished you could unsend an email because you forgot to add an attachment or make an important point, SendLater will save the day, but only if you use Thunderbird. • Stardock’s SoundPackager makes it easy to add, change, or delete sounds that Windows plays to notify users of specific events, and it cost just $5.

Artificial intelligence allows easy manipulation of photos, even by people who would be unable to make such changes without AI. This has led to discussions about the ethics of photo editing. In Short Circuits: AI can also plan your vacation, but should it? Roam Around makes suggestions, but they feel generic because the service doesn’t ask about who is traveling and what interests them. • Stardock’s Cursor FX modifies the appearance of the Windows mouse cursor. This may seem trivial, but the utility has options that can make the computer more usable. Twenty Years Ago (only on the website): Three weeks ago, I repeated an article from 2003 that considered what a Microsoft elevator would be like and what an Apple elevator would be like. The obvious follow-up would involve a call to Microsoft elevator support.

Because digital photographs are free, we take a lot of them and that can be a problem when we want to find one particular image among tens of thousands on the computer. A new version of Excire Foto adds artificial intelligence that helps a lot. In Short Circuits: Anyone who operates a web domain on one of the big hosting services may occasionally have trouble with email messages being rejected as spam or just being quietly deleted. Using a separate, dedicated SMTP service can eliminate the problem, possibly without cost. • Stardock Software has applications that can make your Windows computer look better, some that can make the computer work better, and some that do both. We’ll take a look. Twenty Years Ago (only on the website): Was the 2003 version of Microsoft’s office suite just another pretty face? Compared to what we have today, the office suite was small and plain, but the growth pattern was obvious.

It’s easy to overlook the one step that can eliminate frustration with a computer and make the device more rewarding to use. Operating systems and applications can be modified so that they work the way you want them to, but it’s up to you to do the modifications. In Short Circuits: If you empty the Recycle Bin immediately after deleting files, or if you never empty it at all, you’re missing an important benefit. It takes only a minute or two to implement a change that picks the middle path between those two extremes. • When you’re looking for a particular type of entertainment on Netflix, you’ll probably get faster results if you use a category ID number. It’s easy to find the codes. Twenty Years Ago (only on the website): Until late 2003, moving from one cellular service to another meant that you would have to change the phone number. Portability finally arrived.

Like the Windows 11 Start Menu or hate it, Start11 from Stardock can make it better. Maybe you’d like the start menu to work the way it did in Windows 7, 8, or 10. Maybe you like the Windows 11 approach, but would like to add some features. That’s the point of Start11. In Short Circuits: Python is a popular programming language. It’s powerful, but the basics are easy to learn. If you’ve looked at Python because it’s now supported by Excel, you’ve already started. Maybe this is a language most computer users should be familiar with. • The TechByter website was down for several hours on 8 November and getting a straight answer from the hosting service turned out to be much more difficult than it should have been. Twenty Years Ago (only on the website): Numerous “If Microsoft Made Automobiles” and “If Apple Was An Airline” pieces have circulated on the internet. In late 2003, I received a copy of “If Microsoft|Apple Made Elevators” and I included it on Technology Corner. Enjoy!

Playing DVDs and Blu-ray discs on a computer can sometimes be better than watching them on a television, but Microsoft doesn’t include a player with Windows, and the Media Player app is quite limited. Other options exist, but some are pricey. One is free. In Short Circuits: Even if you use just a single chat application, taking a look at Beeper is a good idea. And if you use multiple chat applications, I consider it essential. • Has your Facebook account ever been cloned by a crook? There’s one simple change you can make to your Facebook account that strongly discourages data thieves. Twenty Years Ago (only on the website): In 2003, Apple was beginning the long transition from 32-bit processors to 64-bit processors with its new G5 Dual CPUs.

Development cycles for large applications once were frequently 18 months. Now it’s a rare day that we don’t receive a bug fix, security update, or feature release for at least one application. Keeping up is a challenge. In Short Circuits: Heat is the enemy of electronic devices and notebook computers are highly vulnerable. I recently added a device that places cooling fans below my primary notebook computer and it helps even more than expected. • I’ve been seeing articles about how to get Microsoft 365 for free. Although some of the suggestions will be successful, most of them seem like just too much work. Twenty Years Ago (only on the website): AOL, in my estimation, did something right in 2003. What I offered was kind of a back-handed compliment, though.

Artificial intelligence is something Adobe has been working on for several years and this year’s advances mark the beginning of what seems likely to be an explosion of advanced capabilities. In Short Circuits: Adobe pointed to some of its plans for future products at the annual Max conference in Los Angeles. The sneak peeks could easily be mistaken for pure magic. • If your Windows computer hasn’t yet updated to version 23H2 and you’d like it to, the process is both quick and easy. Twenty Years Ago (only on the website): In 2003, Apple released another of its big cat operating systems, Panther, and I was quite impressed by what it could do.

AeroAdmin is an excellent choice if you need to help friends or family solve problems with their computers and when you want to log onto your computer when you’re not in front of it. In Short Circuits: Artificial intelligence can create text for you, and it can paraphrase your text. Is it worth trying an application such as QuillBot to see how good an editor it is? • We’ve been able to synchronize the Windows clipboard between computers for a while now, but you can also synchronize the clipboard with your Android phone. Twenty Years Ago (only on the website): Most of us occasionally think about “The Good Old Days”, but if we really stop and think about it, it’s clear the the good old days really weren’t that good.