Showing 31-40 of 76 results
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An English-always app workaround
Life, James Hein, Published on 30/01/2019
» On a recent overseas trip I noticed that some of my Android phone Google-related apps would change language settings and feeds based on the country I was in. Unless you can read in multiple languages this is really annoying. Even more so is that this behaviour is the default one and apparently unchangeable. If you are using Google as a browser you can at least stop this when browsing by using the URL google.com/ncr where the "ncr" stands for No Country Redirect. The result is an English always result regardless of where you may be in the world at the time.
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You can forget HAL 9000
Life, James Hein, Published on 05/12/2018
» It has been over five years and it was time for a new PC. It took a while to pull together, required an eclectic set of carefully chosen components, and I paid someone to put it together for me, having done that myself too many times in the past.
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Next-gen Wi-Fi technologies on the way
Life, James Hein, Published on 07/11/2018
» The fixed line versus Wi-Fi debate continues to be a popular one. And with technologies like Wi-Gig and Wi-Fi 6 in the pipeline, the debate will only intensify. Current Wi-Fi technologies work inside the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands; they also have user-friendly version numbers now. Wi-Fi 4 came out in 2009 under the name 802.11n, Wi-Fi 5 arrived in 2014 as 802.11ac and Wi-Fi 6 is due in 2019 as 802.11.ax. In the near future, you'll see these numbers start to appear on your devices, but not every manufacturer will bother to use the new designations. Wi-Fi numbers 1-3 represent even older, now mostly unused versions.
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A lot of money for fairly little phone, Apple
Life, James Hein, Published on 26/09/2018
» So, the news of the week, or at least as I write this, is the release of the new Apple iPhone range. There are three models ranging from the 5.8 and 6.1 inch models up to the XS Max at 6.5 inches. The latter is a real departure from the early days of Apple declaring that no one needed a large-screen phone. Compared to the latest phone specs across other brands, the features in the new iPhone range are not so special. They do all have very special prices and the bottom of the line starts at US$749 (Thai prices are TBA) and goes up from there topping out at $1449, which would make the whole range easily the most expensive phones per feature on the market today. For this you get no fingerprint reader, no headphone jack, average pixel density and cameras, no expansion memory port but dual SIMs, wireless charging and face detection. Even my most ardent Apple-lover friend will not be forking out their cash for those kinds of prices. I don't expect this range to sell anywhere near as well as earlier models. Seriously, what were they thinking?
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Liberal fascism is destroying social media
Life, James Hein, Published on 29/08/2018
» In general I try to keep out of politics but the issue of what is currently occurring on the most popular social media platforms is a critical one to consider, for everyone. I've briefly touched on this subject in an earlier article.
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Best to avoid FB's Onavo Protect VPN
Life, James Hein, Published on 28/02/2018
» If you use Facebook, you may have seen an option in the Settings menu under Protect to download the Onavo Protect app for Android and the iPhone. Don't. It is basically an app that allows Facebook to spy on you, even more than it already does. The app is a Virtual Private Network or VPN. In simplest terms this will encrypt and route all your network traffic through a server in addition to the one your ISP provides. This allows you to appear to be somewhere else, so you can watch, say, local content there for free and it will stop most agencies from spying on what you might be doing.
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Protecting your privacy
Life, James Hein, Published on 05/04/2017
» Internet privacy is dead, at least in the US. This will trigger a rush to VPN's, the use of Tor browsers and advanced encryption, for some. In the US, new legislation allows your ISP to collect and store all of your browsing history. This will include length of time spent on sites and pages visited. The information will be at the mercy of the ISP to keep or use it to apply social engineering in terms of recommended sites and marketing. While the point seems to be to allow ISPs to make more money, the scary part for some will be that hackers seem to be able to regularly hack into ISPs and grab stored data.
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A very taxing problem for all
Life, James Hein, Published on 08/03/2017
» Every government wants taxes. It is, after all, how the salaries get paid, and how funds are raised for re-election and looking after the country, often in that order. Consider the UK as an example. Starting in April, there will be a new set of tax regulations based on the IR35 guidelines. With the uncertainty surrounding this change there has been a rush of IT contractors leaving government positions, in many cases over half, halting a wide range of projects. This has been happening for over a year now with, as an example, the Ministry of Defence losing 30 out of 32 contractors last year. When the process of government is stopped because of taxes imposed, you're probably doing something wrong.
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Password ain't a password
Life, James Hein, Published on 01/02/2017
» How many people do you know, including yourself, who are avid Facebook users? Be honest. You will know that your account contains a large amount of information, much of it quite personal, that data thieves would be happy to mine and use. A solution is to protect this information.
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Apple Store frustrations
Life, James Hein, Published on 11/01/2017
» I was wondering how to start my first regular article for the year when I visited an Apple Store with a friend. He was planning to drop off an iPhone with a cracked screen for repair. The store was large, filled with rows of tables holding Apple gear. There were lots of customers and many Apple "Geniuses", each with a tablet to assist customers. I was carrying my Samsung Galaxy S5 and no lightning bolt had struck me. So far, so good.
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