Showing 1 - 10 of 12
How YouTube fails its creators
Life, James Hein, Published on 08/04/2026
» YouTube is failing in customer protection, especially in certain categories. As a case study, consider YouTuber Davie504. Unless you are a bass player or interested in bass lines, you probably haven't heard of him. He spends time practising and demonstrating bass playing in a proficient and sometimes amusing fashion. He is unassuming and obviously works hard to present good content. In general, if you are playing any musical selection in a teaching presentation, particularly if you are playing it yourself, or if the section is short and not the full song, then this should be all covered by "fair use". Enter the music industry. When you think about overbearing corporate control, this is the perfect example. Within this, some artists are worse than others, with the absolute worst being whomever represents The Eagles.
Microsoft put on the naughty step by Aussie regulator
Life, James Hein, Published on 05/11/2025
» Microsoft has been at it again. The Competition & Consumer Commission in Australia has started a legal process against the Redmond giant for apparently misleading users of the policies for its Microsoft 365 bundle. Microsoft advised users with a Personal and Family plan that "to maintain their subscription they must accept the integration of Copilot and pay higher prices for their plan, or, alternatively, cancel their subscription".
A new low in online scams
Life, James Hein, Published on 17/07/2024
» According to the Australia's Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), scammers are now targeting scam victims with fake offers to help them recover from scams. The con is to use information from those scammed in the past and approach these people with an offer to recover the funds they have lost for, of course, an up-front fee.
What is an AI PC?
Life, James Hein, Published on 19/06/2024
» Last week I suggested that you would need something like a PC to run deep AI on your device. At Taiwan's recent Computex, there was the claim that they will sell tens of millions of "AI PCs". The problem is that the definition of an AI PC and what specs it needs is still vague.
What would you do without internet?
Life, James Hein, Published on 12/04/2023
» India recently blocked all internet, phone and SMS access to the state of Punjab for four to five days as they search for a Sikh separatist. I had a friend who was there at the time and they told me how eerie it was to see no one on a phone for a few days. Someone would occasionally pull out the phone to see if service had returned but apart from that, there were no people talking loudly on phones in restaurants or on public transport. This impacted 27 million people, which is more than the population of Australia.
Colour e-ink phones are here
Life, James Hein, Published on 31/08/2022
» It seems like it has taken forever, but colour e-ink phones are finally starting to arrive. Enter the Hisense A7 CC, with a 6.7-inch screen that can display 4096 colours at 100ppi.
Beware of scammers
Life, James Hein, Published on 25/05/2022
» As things in the world get worse, such as inflation, along with a lack of basic goods and services, there has been a corresponding increase in overall malware and scammers. It is sadly the nature of some to take advantage of those who are more vulnerable and less informed about this subject. Adding to the issue is the massive amount of data sharing that is passed or sold to bad actors. Governments seem to be heavily involved in this. I recently had to fill out some material and within a day I received a scam call relating to that activity. I have no way of knowing if there was some kind of active hack or if someone regularly sold the data, but it happens very fast these days. Sign up for just about anything now and you will probably receive an email or phone call relating to that, not from those you signed up with, but from people pretending to be.
Good things come in small packages
Life, James Hein, Published on 25/11/2020
» - I received a tiny Windows 10 based computer I had supported a while back on the Indiegogo site called the GMK NucBox 4K. Not having looked too closely at the specs apart from the ports and memory, the first thing I noticed about it was the tiny size about 2 inches by 2 inches and 1-and-a-bit inches tall. Literally pocket sized.
Happy birthday, Windows 95
Life, James Hein, Published on 02/09/2020
» Exactly 25 years ago on Monday, Aug 25, Microsoft launched Windows 95. This was a pivotal time in computer history. At that time in the US, only about 20% of households had a computer and most of them were either techies or nerds. The World Wide Web was just starting to grow and the word processor and spreadsheet were also in their early days. Windows 95 changed the landscape from the earlier 16-bit technology to a 32-bit operating system and added a bunch of new features and extensions. It was the first time we saw the start button, long filenames, right-click context menus and the recycle bin along with Plug and Play technology. For those that had a drive, there was a CD for installing programmes and of course the FreeCell game, which I still play today. The marketing campaign, which featured The Rolling Stones, actually had people buying Windows 95 without even owning a computer.
SA follows CCP's lead?
Life, James Hein, Published on 19/08/2020
» The South African government is working to pass the Films and Publications Amendment Bill. Any quick read will give the conclusion that South Africa wants to be like China, i.e. they can censor anything they don't like from animated GIFs to non-commercial bloggers. Basically, anything that can be streamed, written or posted online will be subject to review. The strange thing about this story is that I have yet to see even the tiniest mention of it in the usual media sources. Instead I found it in a Parler post echoed by a blogger I follow there. Covid seems to have overrun all the other world news.