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FPCUG Notes for September 2015 Editor: Frank Fota

SEPTEMBER EVENTS (7 PM -- Falmouth Fire House, Butler Road): -- Tue, Sep 1: Technology SIG (Josh Cockey) -- Thu, Sep 3: Internet SIG (Ray Pollock) -- Tue, Sep 8: BoD Meeting (Rick Conte, Presiding) -- Thu, Sep 10: General Meeting. Mr. Dave Shotwell and members of the Commonwealth Governor's School Kilroy Robotics Team will demonstrate one or more of the robots they have constructed. The public is invited and refreshments will be served. -- Tue, Sep 15: Windows 8 & 10 SIG (Ed Alexander) -- Tue, Sep 22: All About Your Computer SIG (Kay Pollock) -- Thu, Sep 24: Windows SIG (Jim Hopkins) AUGUST GENERAL MEETING RECAP

Gabe Goldberg

Mr. Gabe Goldberg, regional representative to the Association of PC User Groups, spoke on Thursday, August 13 about the Amazon Fire TV Stick (for streaming movies and TV over the Internet) and the iPad (describing an evolving use of the device). Mr. Goldberg demonstrated many device features. His presentation was enjoyed by all in attendance. SAMSUNG’S SOLID STATE DRIVE (SSD) 850 EVO - 2TB Samsung has become the first SSD manufacturer to break the 1 terabyte (TB) barrier for drive capacity. Usually such breakthroughs come at a steep price for consumers. Samsung was able to keep the price increase linear (increasing in proportion to capacity) by using high-density 3D Vertical NAND (3D V-NAND) memory.

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WINDOWS 10’S CORTANA There are many things you can do with Cortana, Windows 10’s voice activated personal assistant. Brad Jones, writing for the weblog Makeuseof.com, highlights 6 of the coolest things you can do with Cortana. You can: search the web, open programs and apps, dictate an email message, control your music, schedule a meeting and turn off your WiFi. Cortana has lots of

competitors to include Apple’s Siri, Google’s Now and Facebook’s M. WINDOWS 10 DOWNLOAD BUILD 10532 ARRIVES BUT CHROME BORKAGE CONTINUES Note: Borkage = Damage or malfunction, usually relating to computer hardware Chris Merriman, writing for the Inquirer, says that the latest build of Windows 10 (10532) offers some needed improvements to include context menu consistency, expanded use of the Windows Feedback Button and language pack support. However, the 64-bit version of Google Chrome remains borked (i.e., problematic) for many Windows 10 users. Older builds of Google Chrome (e.g., Canary) and the 32-bit version apparently function. See the video at link. THOUSANDS OF POTENTIALLY MALICIOUS ANDROID APPS UNEARTHED IN GOOGLE PLAY Freelance writer Jai Vijayan writing for Darkreading.com, reports that security researchers from Indiana University, Bloomington have discovered that over 7.5 percent of the Android applications in Google's Play store are potentially harmful. They note that the apps collected user’s private data, installed app list, locations, contact lists, and photos -- all without the user’s consent. RECHARGEABLE BATTERIES WITH ALMOST INDEFINITE LIFETIMES COMING, SAY MIT-SAMSUNG ENGINEERS

Researchers from MIT and Samsung have developed a long-life rechargeable battery less likely to catch fire or explode and greater power density (the amount of power stored in a given space). The battery uses a solid electrolyte, rather than the liquid used in today’s most common rechargeable batteries.

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THE FPCUG SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS (SIGS) I consider myself to be an advanced user and troubleshooter for most hardware and software problems. This doesn’t mean that I know everything and can’t learn from others. The FPCUG SIGs are interesting, informative and timely. For example, I recently attended the “All About Your Computer” SIG lead by Kay Pollock and learned of a myriad of Windows shortcuts that I was previously unaware of. The web site Kay referred to had shortcuts for a myriad of other Windows and Linux programs as well (for Windows see link or for Linux see link). Check out our monthly scheduled SIGs! You may learn something.

CATCH-22 RULING FOR NSA SPYING LAWSUIT A three-judge panel from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Larry Klayman, consumer advocate, lawyer, and founder of Freedom Watch did not prove standing in a lawsuit against the government’s controversial spying program. To put it simply, Mr. Klayman could not prove that he was spied upon, and demonstrating harm (i.e., spying) was necessary to have standing before the court. For Mr. Klayman to prove his case, he would need access to the information the National Security Agency (NSA) was collecting; this information was secret (Catch-22). The case was not dismissed. It was referred back to the lower federal court for further deliberation. The decision affects the validity of the lawsuit and the prospect that Mr. Klayman will prevail in the lower court. It will also make it more difficult to file similar lawsuits for privacy invasion by the NSA. For more information, see the link. Note: A Catch-22 is: a requirement that cannot be met until a prerequisite requirement is met, however, the prerequisite cannot be obtained until the original requirement is met. GOOGLE REBUFFS EUROPEAN UNION ON ANTITRUST CHARGES Almost all of us are old enough to remember the antitrust lawsuit leveled against Microsoft concerning the bundling of the Internet Explorer browser with the Windows Operating system. The lawsuit threatened to break up or bankrupt Microsoft. The European Union (EU) claims that Google’s control (i.e., Market Share) of web searches has harmed website competitors that facilitate internet comparison shopping (e.g., Nextag and LeGuide). The EU demands that Google change the way its search engine operates. Google recently rejected these demands; a move likely to result in a lengthy legal battle that will dwarf the Microsoft antitrust case. If Google loses, they could be fined $7 billion! MIT CREATES FILE SYSTEM THAT SURVIVES SYSTEM CRASHES Have you ever restarted your computer after a crash and found that data was corrupted? Data corruption is typically limited to files that were open at the time of the crash and these files are often too new to have been backed up. Chris Merriman of the Inquirer

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(online) reports that the new file system uses a mathematical algorithm know as, “Formal Verification” to calculate the acceptable parameters of programs and won't let programs exceed them. The trade-off for this increased data integrity is speed. UNITED STATES COMPUTER EMERGENCY READINESS TEAM

Ever wonder whether your computer is under attack or what computer security threats you’re up against? The United States Computer Emergency Readiness

Team (US-CERT) Current Activity web page is a regularly updated summary of the most frequent, high-impact types of security incidents currently being reported to the US-CERT. Note: The FPCUG does not endorse products or services of any kind. EVENTS IN COMPUTER HISTORY (paraphrase and additions to the Iceni Technology Blog by Iceni Technology Contributor Rebecca Coe and historical data from the website http://www.computerhistory.org/tdih/) -- Sept 1 --

The first TRS-80 Model I computer sold. Radio Shack, with its own factories and distribution network, began shipping TRS-80 (Tandy Radio Shack) computers in September, 1977. The TRS-80 cost $399 (or $599 with a 12" monitor and a Radio Shack tape recorder as data-cassette storage).

-- Sept 1–2 -- A solar super storm affects electrical telegraph services. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859. Named after English astronomer Richard Carrington who documented the event; the “Carrington Event” was the largest geomagnetic storm ever recorded. A coronal mass ejection from the Sun caused aurorae to be seen in the northern hemisphere as far south as the Caribbean. Gold miners in the Rockies reportedly began preparing breakfast because they thought it was morning. Those who happened

to be awake in the northeastern US could read newspapers by the aurora's light! Telegraph systems all over Europe and North America failed, in some cases giving telegraph operators electric shocks and/or starting fires. Telegraph pylons were observed throwing sparks. Some telegraph systems continued to send and receive messages despite having been disconnected from their power supplies! Fortunately, the Earth was not in the path of a similar coronal mass ejection recorded in July 2012. Researchers from Lloyd's of London and the US Company, Atmospheric and

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Environmental Research used data from the Carrington Event to estimate the damages from a similar event to the US at $0.6-$2.6 trillion. See a video of the August 31, 2012 coronal mass ejection at link. -- Sept 3 --

The multi-billion dollar eBay Inc. auction website was founded in 1995. eBay, originally “Auction Web”, was created by Pierre Omidyar who

built the site as a hobby. Pierre had no idea how big the idea would become. The first ever product sold on Auction Web was a broken laser pointer. Puzzled by the sale, Pierre contacted the buyer to ask why he bought it. The buyer said he collected laser pointers. Pierre then realized that people were buying all sorts of items and the real potential for his business. -- Sept 4 --

Google Inc. was founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin in Menlo Park, California. Google set out to organize the world’s information and make it easily accessible and useful. The founders

had no idea how rapidly the company would grow into one of the biggest companies in the world. Before Google, the name PageRank was used because the company sorted and analyzed the relationships between websites. It then became Backrub as it checked backlinks to estimate the importance of websites. The Name Google came from a misspelling of “googol” (1.0 E100 or 1 followed by a hundred zeroes). -- Sept 7 -- In 2011, the multi-billion dollar computer hardware company Seagate released the world’s first external 4 Terabyte hard disk drive. Originally known as Shugart Technology, Seagate was established in 1979. 1 terabyte is the equivalent to 1 trillion bytes. The first ever hard disk drive (HDD), introduced in 1956 and was the size of two refrigerators. -- Sept 9 --

The 1st "bug" in a computer program was discovered by Grace Hopper. A Moth found trapped between points at Relay # 70, Panel F, of the Mark II Aiken Relay Calculator while it was being tested at Harvard University on September 9, 1947. The operators affixed the moth to the computer log, with the entry: "First actual case of bug being found". They put out the word that they had "debugged" the machine. The log, with the moth still taped by the entry, is in the Naval Surface Warfare Center Computer Museum in Dahlgren, Virginia.

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-- Sept 9 -- George Stibitz pioneers the first remote operation of a computer. A bronze plaque located in McNutt Hall at Dartmouth College reads, "In this building on September 9, 1940, George Robert Stibitz, then a mathematician with bell telephone laboratories, first demonstrated the remote operation of an electrical digital computer. Stibitz, who conceived the electrical digital computer in 1937 at Bell Labs, described his invention of the "complex number calculator" at a meeting of the Mathematical Association of America held here. Members of the audience transmitted problems to the computer at Bell Labs in New York City, and in seconds received solutions transmitted from the computer to a teletypewriter in this hall." -- Sep 13 --

The IBM RAMAC 305 is introduced on September 13, 1956; the first commercial computer that used magnetic disk storage. The RAMAC 305 was one of the last vacuum tube computers that IBM built. It weighed over a ton. The RAMAC 350 disk storage unit was 16 sq ft in size and stored 5 million 7-bit (6 data bits plus 1 parity bit) alphanumeric characters (5 MB). It had fifty 24-inch-diameter disks. Two independent access arms moved up and down to select disks, and in and out to select recording tracks, all under servo control. Average time to locate a single record was 600 milliseconds.

-- Sept 14 -- The Microsoft Disk Operating System (MS-DOS) was discontinued in September 2000. MS-DOS was originally named 86-DOS as it was made for x86 based computers, but it wasn’t made by Microsoft. It was written by Tim Paterson and Microsoft bought it for $75,000 because it was the only system that ran on the Intel 8086 processor introduced in 1978. Microsoft hired Tim Paterson to improve the 86-DOS but renamed it, "MS-DOS." -- Sept 14 --

The same day that Microsoft discontinued MS-DOS, they released the Windows Millennium Edition or Windows ME. Windows ME was bundled with digital media software (e.g.,

Windows Media Player, DVD Player and Movie Maker).

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-- Sept 16 -- Apple Computer, Inc. names co-founder Steve Jobs temporary CEO (1997). Rejoining the company he founded in 1975 with childhood friend Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs was immediately named temporary CEO. The position became permanent until his death in 2011 and Steve Jobs presided over one of the most extraordinary company turnarounds in business history. For more information, see:

Steve Jobs Resigns as Apples CEO Names COO Tim Cook his Successor? -- Sept 18 --

The NeXTSTEP operating system was released in 1989. NeXTSTEP was based on the Unix operating system and was very similar in appearance. It was also developed using the C programming language. Although the developer of the Unix operating system created the C programming language, software developers found it easier to write programs in the C programming language using the NeXTSTEP operating system. The modern Apple OS X operating system is based on NeXTSTEP.

-- Sept 20 -- 1st FORTRAN (Formula Translating) computer program run occurs (Sep. 20, 1954). The FORTRAN language was born when IBM computer scientists lead by John W. Backus were looking for a more practical alternative to assembly language for programming mainframe computers. FORTRAN became the dominant language for engineering and scientific applications. Excerpt from edn.com/electronics-blogs/ -- Sept 23 --

Mozilla released the web browser Firefox in 2002. With over 450 million users around the world, Firefox has approximately 21% of the worldwide web browser market share, just behind Google Chrome and Internet Explorer. Firefox is especially popular in Indonesia, Germany and Poland and has approximately half the browser market in those countries.

Originally named Phoenix, it was renamed because of trademark issues with the company

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Phoenix Technologies. Renamed as Firebird, the company again ran into trademark issues because a database software company shared the same name. Firefox has received awards and recognition as the safest and best secured web browser. -- Sept 23 --

Google’s Android operating system for mobile phones and tablets was released in 2008. The company initially developed the operating system for smart digital cameras but diverted their efforts to smartphones to compete with Symbian and Windows mobile. To counter Apple's domination of the smartphone market, Google Android

teamed up with many mobile phone companies including Samsung. Samsung now dominates with 64% of the smartphone market. To date, over 900 million android devices have been activated world-wide and 48 billion apps have been installed. -- Sept 24 -- CompuServe Information Service (CIS) began operations September 24, 1979. It was the first major commercial computer information service in the United States. It dominated the field during the 1980s and remained a major player through the mid-1990s, when it was sidelined by the rise of services such as AOL with monthly subscriptions rather than hourly rates. Since the purchase of CompuServe's Information Services Division by AOL, it has operated as an online service provider and an Internet service provider. The original CompuServe Information Service, later rebranded as CompuServe Classic, was shut down July 1, 2009. The newer version of the service, CompuServe 2000, continues to operate as an internet portal. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CompuServe -- Sept 30 --

The world’s first Apple computer, the Apple I, was released in 1977. The Apple I was discontinued just 17 months later. Each Apple I was designed and hand-built by Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple.

Steve Wozniak and close friend Steve Jobs sold their possessions to fund the project. The computer went on sale in July 1976 for $666.66 because Steve Wozniak liked repeating numbers. The screen capture (left) might cause you to regret

trashing that obsolete hardware and software you have laying around the house…