How to tell what carrier your cell phone is on:

Dial 611 to find out what carrier a cell phone is on.

Or, you can sometimes tell by the home screen, as seen here on this StraighTalk iPhone5:

(TFW = TrackFone Wireless, a.k.a. StraightTalk)

How to Tell if You are Connected to a Verizon Femtocell (Network Extender)

You probably have seen stories like this:

Hack Turns Verizon Femtocell Into Spy Tool

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2421782,00.asp

But there is a simple way to know if you are connected to a real Verizon cell tower, or someone's Verizon femtocell (what Verizon calls a "Verizon Wireless Network Extender", link).

Simply dial #48.

From Verizon's own documentation:
"How do I know my phone is connecting through the Network Extender? When dialing #48 on your wireless phone, an an­nouncement will tell you if you are within range of the Network Extender. In addition, you will hear a short double tone on your wireless phone whenever making or receiving a call. The tone is played at the beginning of the call."

So also watch-out for (well, "listen"-out for) those short double tones too. That's a dead giveaway that you're on a femtocell. If you were not expecting to be on one, and don't trust the new unknown one; then it's time to "go sheilds up!" - set your phone to airplane mode, until you're clear of the area.

Be careful who you connect with!

Happy Tech'n,
-J

How to default HTML render of a Google Calendar on a web page to Week view:

I personally find that the Week view of Google Calendar is more helpful. This is also the case because I have so many calendars and events shared with my account that it just runs out of space trying to fit events into the small squares of a monthly calendar. Furthermore, you don't get the time-block perspective in Month-view that you do in Week-view, where you can easily see where events are double-book or overlapping.

Recently I wanted render a Google Calendar on a web page, and it (of course) defaults to Month-view:

...with options to change it to Week-view, or Agenda-view. I wanted it to default Week-view:

...and optionally display Month-view or Agenda-view.

To do this, you need to add a tiny snip of code to the iframe embed code URL.


For example, your URL probably looks something like this:

src="http://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=[your_domain].com_[GoogleAuthKey]%40group.calendar.google.com&ctz=America/New_York&amp"


You just need to add to it:

src="http://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=[your_domain].com_[GoogleAuthKey]%40group.calendar.google.com&ctz=America/New_York&mode=week"

That's it! Now the default view mode = week.


Happy Tech'n,
-J

Will people one day answer their phones with CAPTCHA phrases?

"What's three plus four?"

Robo-calls are getting "smarter". Recently I've noticed a trend in robo-spam-calls to awkwardly answer the phone, then "introduce" themselves ("oh, hi, this is George...") and even go on to ask you how you are, and "politely" wait for a reply, before launching into their sales spiel.

It makes me want to answer any call from an unknown number with a CAPTCHA like the above. In fact I need my smart phone to go ahead and field my calls from any unrecognized number, and filter out the spambots from the humanoids, then let only real people ring through.


UPDATE (20150811):
Coming full circle on this, it's now rumored that Apple will make Siri available to answer incoming calls in a future update of iOS. So robo-calls may one day be answered (and filtered) by your robo-assistant. I love the irony of that. ☺

Questions on Old and New Laptops

I recently received an email from a daughter of a friend of mine, and it's a common question and topic that I often field for people. I wrote her back, and thought I'd share the content of the dialog, and additional questions, with others, as it might help. In fact since then, two other people have asked similar questions; so I hope this helps!

This is for informational purposes only. Name(s) have been changed to protect their identity. This information is current as of June 2013, but as you know, technical specifications can and do change rapidly in our field.

Hi Anna,

...

 

I am saving up money right now to buy a new laptop. Mine is ready to retire. I can't really do my school work on it, it gets me aggravated.

 

I just wanted to ask you for advice. What kind of laptop should i get, I have been looking online but it all sound the same to me, and most of it i don't understand. I just need something where i can use the full Microsoft Office package.I work with Excel and Word a lot, and at times use the other programs. For some of my online classes i have to watch videos.

Have you considered a Mac? I would get a Mac Book Pro, if you can afford it.

What's your budget?

 

A lot of my business courses require me to download trial versions of certain programs such as SPSS and PHStat.

Some of those might not have Mac versions... do you (or your course work) require it to be a Windows PC?

Are you looking for a laptop only? Or are you also considering desktops too?

 

So i am guessing i need a computer with a lot of space.

You want a minimum of ¼TB of space (250GB).

Solid State Drive (SSD), if you can afford it.

 

Right now i have an Acer, but it has become very slow and gets hot very very fast even with a fan under it.

Open it up &/or blow it out with compressed air. Not the canned air- it loses pressure too fast as the liquid boils off (cooling the can) to fill the void. Get to a real air compressor with 70-100 psi and get all the dust out of your PC - or as much as you can. Although it doesn't seem like it, dust - especially the soft light fluffy dust that accumulates over a long time, is a very good insulator of heat - this means that it acts like a blanket over all your PC's components and heat sinks - unfortunately helping to hold IN the heat that the PC is trying to expel into the ambient air.

This can cause your PC to run hotter than it should, use more energy trying to compensate, and even scale back the processor speed as heat levels exceed tolerances. If it gets too hot, it can permanently damage some parts of your PC, &/or cause it to spontaneously reboot for no apparent reason (among other things).

 

It is on its fifth year of serving me :)

That's a LOOOONG time - even for a home PC.

My recommendation for the average machine is 3 years in business, 5 years tops for home.

You're at the end of that useful life-cycle on this PC. I would not spend any $$ to fix or upgrade it. (Time, on the other hand, like to [software] clean it up, or [hardware] blow it out, is probably worth it in the meantime while you're looking for a replacement.)

 

I would like to have something that has an easy way to organize all my school work as well as other documents + pictures.

Use Dropbox. It's safe (not malware), secure (encrypted), easy, and works/runs all the time; backing up and updating your files to the cloud. For example, I had my daughter organize all her school work in a folder (with sub-folders) in her own Dropbox account. And I had her share that folder with me (my Dropbox acct), so that I had a real-time instant back up of her work, should something happen to her PC.

This is something that you CAN and SHOULD do now- on your slow machine- so that when you DO get a new PC, install Dropbox, and enter your account info - all your files will automatically start downloading and populating your new PC.

It will also get you a ready-made easy way to shuttle files from one PC to the other. Though, if you're going to need to move a lot (1GB+), a thumb drive or the like would be faster.

 

If you have anything in mind could you please help me with this decision.

If you're on a super tight budget, and want PC over Mac, then here's the laptop I recommend to folks:
http://jayharrison.blogspot.com/2012/08/best-current-deal-on-laptop-pc.html

For (right now) less than $300, you get a business class notebook "Lenovo ThinkPad R400 14" Notebook - Refurbished - Intel - Core Duo 2.2GHz - Black - 4 GB RAM - 160 GB HDD - DVD-Reader - Genuine Windows 7 Professional 32-bit."

Cons: Slim on HDD space; regular HDD - not SSD; Optical drive is READ only (no burning).

 

 

Thank you,

My pleasure. Let me know if I can ever be of assistance!

Thank you,
Jay Harrison

The Cost of a Watt

Thought:

As a[n easy] rule of thumb;
Every watt a device consumes, costs me ≈10¢ per month.

So, if I have a 2watt LED porch light, that I leave running 24/7, it will cost me ≈20¢/mo to operate.

Actual Math: (0.002kw * 0.1125/kw * 24hrs * 31days) = 16.74¢
Granted, this is a rule of thumb, as a general guideline, for easy on-the-fly estimates, with room for the cost of electricity to go up a bit too.

Git Rid of Java!

A friend of mine, David, recently sent me a link with this question:

Is this something to do or worry about?

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/01/12/us-government-advises-computer-users-to-disable-java-software/?test=latestnews

The answer is yes. Java is problematic, especially in the browser, and is the number one vector of disease for computers. If you don't actively use Java, you should get rid of it from your browser.

My recommendation is to use Firefox as your main browser for all general web-surfing, and disable Java from Firefox. Then IF you have a site that requires Java, and you trust that site, run that site only in MSIE and all your other browsing (Facebook, Google searches, etc) in your security hardened Firefox.

To disable Java in Firefox (for Windows PCs): open Firefox and click Tools menu --> Addons. Click the Plugins tab, locate each of the Java plugins, and click the Disable button for each. Restart Firefox and you're all good!


Mon 20130114 Updates:

• http://www.scmagazine.com/java-zero-day-infections-pick-up-steam/article/275818/?DCMP=EMC-SCUS_Newswire
• https://www.securelist.com/en/blog/208194070/Java_0day_Mass_Exploit_Distribution

NON-sugarless Gum

A while back a friend asked me about finding a non-sugar-free gum.
I finally had time to do the research on this.
Apparently the only good way to find a real sugared gum is to go with vintage gums.
Three options are:


Clove Gum

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002268MA/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&tag=intellections-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B0002268MA



Clark's Teaberry Gum

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0007IR288/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&tag=intellections-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B0007IR288



Black Jack Chewing Gum

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000EEK4OO/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&tag=intellections-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B000EEK4OO


Happy chewing!
=J

Karma

"Karma is simply Justice, misattributed."
-Jay Harrison, 20130107

Fracuum (flash game)

Fracuum is an 'old school' style flash based maze game, with an interesting infinite zoom playing field. Worth a look!

http://cache.armorgames.com/files/games/fracuum-13222.swf