Browser Add-ons: Firefox

Recently, one of those know-it-all sites said that we didn't need 'Better Privacy' any longer, because most of its features were now built into the Firefox program. Not entirely. I just installed this into Firefox in Windows 10, and it immediately showed me dozens of these hidden LSOs ("supercookies") on my system. And it promptly removed them for me. I suggest you continue using it.

"What are 'supercookies'?" you ask. Supercookies are similar to regular cookies except they aren't detected by regular cookie-handling programs, and they are much larger than ordinary cookies, and they never expire, and they can perform executive functions just like ordinary programs do. So you want to know about them, and you want to control which of them are active on your system. Some of them do useful and necessary tasks related to websites you regularly visit, but others are just invading your privacy and snooping for personal information you may not wish to share. So I suggest you get this add-on and use it. You can choose which ones are kept and which ones removed from your system, or you can remove them all every time the browser is closed if you wish.

This is what the Options Manager looks like in Better Privacy. It shows you things you never knew you had until now.

This is something else you shouldn't go surfing without. It shows a red, yellow or green icon in the toolbar to indicate safe or unsafe sites.

Hillary 2016...

Hillary may be just what the country needs to tell the Koch brothers what we think of butt-smooching politicians for sale to the highest bidder.

Flappers - The Roaring Twenties

"They're B-a-a-a-c-k!"

And today's Question Everything is: "How do they spell 'YouTube'?"

Things we used to have to look for on Pirate Bay, and then wait an hour or so while downloading slowly are now freely available on YouTube. Thanks, Google!

But if you're into this, the best torrent program is uTorrent, available here.

Windows 10: Some extra protection...

Windows 10: Windows Update....

Here's what Windows Update looks like in Windows 10. It is accessed from:-

From the Start flag, > Settings > Update and Recovery, as above.

Please Note:
Those desktop gadgets you see on my screen are part of 8GadgetPack, found here.

Windows 10: Running Stellarium...the Planetarium on your PC

In case you missed my earlier rants about Stellarium, this is a really fun program. You can not only visit other planets, but you can set the program to use one of those as your home base for viewing the rest of the universe. Want to visit Mars, and see what we look like from there? Just get Mars on screen and selected, and then use the keyboard shortcut CTRL + G and your view of the sky is now from Mars. Who needs a spaceship? And this is much faster! You can get back home quicker too. Here's where to get your free copy.

Anything Goes Flash Mob

A little 'this and that' from 'Oldest Living Blogger'

It's the end of the first month of 2015, and the new increases to our pensions for the cost-of-living adjustments are in. I got a whole $28.76. With Prime Rib Ground Beef at $7.32 a pound, that's enough for 3.9 pounds. And speaking of Prime Rib Ground Beef, can anyone tell me when they started grinding up good Prime Rib for hamburger? It's really tasty, but so is Prime Rib, and being the suspicious type, I wonder if some smoothie is simply renaming Lean Ground Beef and making a bit extra on it. 

Anyway, the annual fixed income got re-fixed this month, and it's a year to the next one. And that $28 won't even buy a tank of gas. Ain't we got fun?

That golden oldie from the beginning of the Roaring Twenties makes we want a little more from that era. I've always like that music...

Cole Porter singing his own stuff...

This last one is the first old 78 rpm record I can remember playing on an old wind-up RCA Victor Victrola in our garage when I was a little kid, and it's still one of my favorite tunes. Some things, you just don't forget.

YouTube Videos....

How it looks as a Desktop Background...

And here's a 'cleaned-up' version of it, with a little less gamma, and more contrast and saturation....( like mine above).

Desktop Background: The Sierra Nevada Red Fox in the park

This was featured on Rachel Maddow's Show the other night, and it's great. To make this the proper proportions for a background on the PC, I had to crop some of the width, but the main features remain. Please copy!

Broadband: Faster than a speeding bullet....

Here's the poop....

And here's mine, testing between Vancouver, BC and Seattle, WA.....

  One of the things that affects your broadband is the number of 'hops' it makes as it is handed from one set of servers to another along the Internet, and sometimes, if it is a really long distance, there will be built-in delays (latency) in the transmissions. Your basic broadband speed can't help that.

Today's Top Ten...

Sometimes, stuff happens...

Sometimes, the system springs a leak. That bottom item was one of those. It was for a new build meant only for the Microsoft staff, not us Windows Insiders in the testing program. Fortunately, no problems because of it.

Today's 'Question Everything' is: "Could I use Windows 10 Technical Preview just like I would if it was my regular operating system?" And the answer is: "I am, and it's performing beautifully!" I have to remind myself to switch into my other Windows systems periodically to keep them updated. If you haven't joined this Windows Insiders testing program yet, you really should. You can try out the next Windows, and offer your suggestions or your impressions in the Feedback system, which has a handy icon in the Taskbar. (That should be 'Standard Equipment' I think... it's a great idea!)

And I'm disobeying Microsoft's cautions about using it as an everyday system because? Because, we can't find out how it works in the 'real world' unless we give it some testing under everyday conditions. It's working just fine, just like I thought it would. 

Cubitat: 10 x 10 x 10 feet...

Could you make do with something like this? And today's Question Everything is "Hey Dude, where's my car?" - And who has ten-foot ceilings?

Really Amazing: A must watch for all aviation maintenance personnel -Boe...

 

Uncle Ron sent me this, and it's really interesting how they assemble these.
Thank you, Uncle Ron.

I think she has the right idea....

I think Hillary has the right idea - let the public find out who was bought by the Koch brothers, and let the 'also-rans' kill each other off, and then do her thing.
We've had the first black President, and now it's time for the first woman to take the office, because the men spend too much time fighting among themselves to get anything done.

"Sex Sells" = Old News...

This video clip is from the 1934 movie "Tarzan and His Mate" starring Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O'Sullivan, and this is a good example of "sex sells".
It isn't new. We've known about the popularity of sex for a long time. That's why there's over seven billions of us now. And it didn't involve football...  

More Windows 10: Reset the Screenshots Counter

Open Registry Editor by pressing the Windows key plus 'R' to open the 'Run' box, then type in 'Regedit.exe' and press 'OK'. Then, in Registry Editor, navigate to HKCU (Current User)\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Explorer in the left-hand pane. Then, in the right-hand pane (the 'values pane') look for the following DWORD: ScreenshotIndex, and right-click on it....

Choose 'Modify' and in the little 'values' window that opens, change its value to read '01' (no quotes!)....

  ....then click on the 'OK' down at the bottom of that little editing window, and close Registry Editor. Your numbering sequence for screenshots is now reset to one again.

American politics fascinates me...

Mitch McConnell says he doesn't see any threat to democracy from the fifth and sixth richest men on the planet putting together almost a billion dollars to buy their own butt-smooching politicians for the 2016 election. That puts his powers of observation on a par with an unwashed turnip. He probably thinks 'manual labor' is a Mexican obstetrician. How do guys like this get into positions like his?

Between the Koch brothers and Lockheed Martin, the only real freedom left in America is the freedom to shut up and do what you are told.

Tonight's sunset from KatKam

My thanks to KatKam downtown for this nice sunset image a few minutes ago.

And this is the view from my place, looking over Georgia Strait at Vancouver Island in the distance. There's a whisper of Spring in the air today....

Something every Windows user should have....

And you can download your free copy here.

I'd rather not show a screenshot of everything this shows you about what is in your computer, because some of it, like your Windows Key Codes or IP Address or similar information is best kept to yourself - but this shows you everything you ever wanted to know about what's on your computer, including telling you if your security updates are all up to date, and you will find this very helpful.

Remember those gold cursors from XP?

I've always liked the gold ones from XP, especially the mouse pointer with the shadow on one side to give it a 3D effect. I saved those on a CD, and the good news is, they still work in Windows 10. Just add their folder to the folder in C:\Windows\Cursors.

And then, to change "Normal Select" to the XP version, select that item, and then go to "Browse" down below the selection box, and navigate to the item in the file, and choose it. There's now the XP cursor in place of the original... and I've got my gold mouse pointer back. The bad news is, I don't know where you could find that on the web, and I've looked.  But you can use the same methods for installing and using other cursors that you may wish to have. Add them to the Cursors folder in C:\Windows, and then browse to them to make a selection to replace the default one.

Koch Bros. to spend $889M: What it means / Koch Brothers, Election 2016

 

American politics fascinates me. It's one of the most dog-eat-dog take-no-prisoners battles around, and there's more action under the table than on it. And it's all about 'The Golden Rule' - "He who has the gold makes the rules" and that's why those Koch brothers scare the hell out of me. They ought to scare the hell out of you too, because it looks like America is for sale and they're buying.

Tweaking Windows 10....

There's a program for that....

But before you start, go into Control Panel > Programs and Features and up on the left side, look for "Turn Windows features on or off" and open that little window, and activate the first item ".NET 3.5 and 2.0 and 3.0"....

...because the Ultimate Windows Tweaker needs those older .NET versions to do its thing for some of its tasks. And it can do lots of different things, so read the directions before you wish you had....

Superantispyware: Program updated today

It now shows more information while it is doing its thing...

Today's Top Ten....

Windows 10: Another add-on...

Here is where you can find this...

After you install it, it adds an item to your right-click menu, so that you can use it to resize any image or batch of images (using "select all") in your folder. And if this seems familiar, it is - it's based on the Image Resizer Powertoy from XP, and it has been improved and still works great.

Windows 10: Windows Update

As previously mentioned, in Windows 10, Windows Update is no longer found in the Control Panel listings. As shown above, it is now in Settings > Update and Recovery > Windows Update.

Windows and Keyloggers: A solution

Recently, on one of those sites where experts find problems with Windows, they mentioned that keyloggers have found a vulnerability in Windows. So I got looking for an answer, and here's what I found.

And since we're now testing Windows 10, I'm pleased to report it works on here, and I'd even go one step further and suggest Microsoft talk to these folks, and see if this could be included as a part of Windows. You should try it.
 

Windows 10 with its own Theme...

Students fight to expose Koch influence / Nick Confessore, Elections, K...

More Windows 10: Cortana Search Box on Taskbar

Are you in a region where you cannot use the Cortana feature, because it isn't yet available? Would you like to change or remove that big box on the Taskbar?
Here's how..... and it's really easy.

If you look at my Taskbar in the second image above, you'll see it works fine!
 

Windows 10: More fine-tuning...

If your screen suddenly goes black, and you haven't done anything, that's the problem right there - you haven't done anything, and Power Options has turned out the lights on you.

So go into Control Panel, to Power Options, and configure it to stay on...

And right after a fresh install of the system and some of your own programs, the drive will be fragmented, and you should use a program like Auslogics Disk Defrag to connect all the pieces again. I hasten to add that lately, that program comes with a bloatware installer which adds other stuff from an outfit called 'Spigot' and you need to be careful to uncheck some boxes and choose the Custom Install to be able to prevent all that from taking over. But the Disk Defrag itself does a great job.....

...and it found 1,971 fragmented files in my newly-installed Windows 10 - and that's why you need to do this. These portions of files need to be reconnected with their main parts if the system is to function properly. And as you notice, this program will look at and defrag any operating system on your drive, and you can select that by adding or removing the checks in front of each listing.
I like to do one at a time, but if you left all of them checked, it would start with the first, and go through the list one after another until finished. And it's fast.
 
 

Windows 10 Security: Purchased programs...

This one (above) didn't find any problems, but this one (below) did....

And now you know why I have more than one security program. These above scans are the first on this system since its installation last evening, so it shows what came with it, "right out of the box", so to speak.

Windows Defender returned a clean scan.

Windows 10: How good is it running older programs?

And the answer is: "Very!" This is my favorite old photo-editing program from 2003, which I also need for accessing the Canon Scanner, and it's still very much 'alive and well' in Windows 10. So is Winroll, the little program that will roll up a window into its title bar, also from 2003. Look at the yellow title bar near the top of this next image - it's a collapsed version of Internet Explorer to demonstrate how this works....

And when I right-click on that yellow bar, it restores Internet Explorer's window again, and you can see the full window about Winroll. This is a real 'keeper'.

This next isn't an older program - Irfan keeps it right up to date - but it's also one of my favorites, because it does a lot of things with images and some of those might surprise you...

Suppose I would like to edit this image.... What choices are there? ....

Plenty! Here's the list. And under 'color corrections' for example, you can even adjust the gamma for more or less light. This is a wonderful program, and you can find it right here, and you should.