Greg's Electronics
3139 Inwood Road N0N1K0 Brooke-Alvinston, ON, Canada

Have you received an email from Standard Bank, starting out with "A payment has been made to your account."? Well, the attachment is a zip file which contains the Nemucod trojan. This trojan horse can install one of those lovely ransom demands on your computer. As always, think before opening any attachments, and run good anti-virus software.

Did Windows 10 force itself on your computer? If you have Windows Automatic Updates set to install "Recommended updates" on Windows 7 or 8.x, it installs a little update called KB3035583. This puts that little "Install Windows 10" nagging icon in the bottom right system tray. Microsoft's policy on this is that you can only say no for so long before they install it anyway. Evidently, with Microsoft, "No means yes", so your best option is to just try to shift positions and pret...end to enjoy it. The end result is you're getting it (Windows 10) whether you want it or not. The other kick in the stomach is that often while installing 10 against your will, it will remove your antivirus program, especially those McAfee or Norton's products, leaving you unprotected!!! And to finish it off with a sucker-punch on your way to the floor, Windows 10 routinely deletes the original restore partition from the hard drive, so there's no quick way to "Hit F11 to recover to factory settings" and reinstall your old version of Windows! So here's what you do if you want to evict Windows 10: Open the Start menu and select Settings. Click the Update & security icon and select Recovery. Look for something that says Go back to Windows (7 or 8, or 8.1, whichever you had). Click the Get Started button to get rid of your Windows 10 install and restore your previous version. Be prepared for Windows 10 to get extremely angry and jealous and start breaking things on its way out like a crazy ex. Besides having to reinstall your antivirus, you may find you have to reinstall printer drivers or other such things. In at least one case, I saw it actually deactivate the original Windows 7, leaving a "Your copy of Windows is not genuine" message and a pending shutdown of the old Windows 7! Microsoft's answer was to purchase a new copy of Windows, even though they were aware of that bug and admitted fault. Then once you're back to 7 or whatever, open Windows update, click "change Settings", and uncheck "Install Recommended Updates" as these are pretty much just for Bill Gates, not you. Then go to Programs and Features in the Control Panel, click "Show all installed Updates" (something like that) scroll through to find one labeled KB3035583 and delete it so that it doesn't start trying to force Windows 10 on you again.

I have been doing this for a while, but still cool to see how others do it. I use pretty much the same setup, just a different USB sampling adapter. A while back, people were tossing those VCR/DVD combo machines left and right, and I grabbed every one. I have a nice HiFi stereo JVC one that has a wrecked DVD player, but the VCR side had maybe played one movie so it was like brand new. It has now played hundreds of tapes onto my computer for converting to DVD or AVI, and it's still going strong.

Well, Windows 10 officially sucks rocks worse than Windows 8! Don't accept the free upgrade thinking it will "be better". Here's what I've found about Windows 10 so far: Perhaps most important are the security and privacy concerns with Windows 10, where Microsoft has become like "big brother", listening and watching you all the time your computer is on. Reading their Terms & Conditions, you will find that Microsoft reserves the "right" to use your computer's microphone to rec...ord any and all conversations they see fit (purely to enhance Cortana and make your life easier, of course) and send any number of those recordings to Microsoft for voice analysis (to "fine tune" Cortana for your benefit, of course). They reserve the right to *key log* your computer, and send anything you type to Microsoft for analysis (purely to assist in spelling and grammar correction, of course), but are you really comfortable with them key logging the following: www.cibcbanking.ca 4779552663418 smokeybear Take a few seconds and think about what that is, and what it means. Not too cool with that? Better rethink that Windows 10 "free upgrade" then. Next, they reserve the right to copy any files from your computer to their Microsoft backup servers without notifying you (just in case you have a computer crash or theft, of course) and keep those files as long as they see fit. (Gotta love those incriminating selfies that you deleted after 1 day, right? - Whoops, Microsoft may have kept them!) And finally, they reserve the right to provide any and all your private information that they have harvested to authorities, not if they get served a warrant for it, but simply if they see fit to do so! From a technical standpoint, Windows 10 still falls flat. 1. It has stability issues that make Windows 8 look good: as revolting as Windows 8's interface and skin is, at least it is relatively stable. Windows 10, however runs into frequent "Critical Errors" where the "Start Menu and Cortana aren't working". Often this leaves you in a vicious circle of reboots while 10 tries to "fix it the next time you log in", again, and again, and again. 2. Windows 10 also has frequent performance playing streaming video, where a green box will replace the video while the audio stays normal. Microsoft is still trying to identify and fix these two very common problems, and their support forums are filled with discussions about them. Me, I'm doing more *downgrades* from Windows 10 back to 7 and 8, and adjusting 10 so it isn't spying than I am doing upgrades to 10. Once they know the truth, most people don't want 10, and I don't blame them. I can see a class action lawsuit in the works for Microsoft.

Taught the local Pathfinder girls how to read resistor colour codes, what basic electronic components do, and how to solder. All the girls got an electronic Christmas Tree kit and put it together in the evening. Afterwards, it was theirs to take home. Surprisingly, they all enjoyed the project and all the trees were flashing at the end of the night!