CALL US
Saturday 9 am – 11 am Pacific
Sunday 7 pm – 9 pm Pacific
775-241-3571
Click for More Info
- CrystalDisk Info
- CrystalDisk Info MS-Store
- MemTest86
- SDI – Snappy Driver Installer
- Credit Freeze
- Mapquest
- Organic Maps
- OpenStreetMaps
- Private Maps (Archive)
App no longer available - bbtl.ink/stats for more links
Breakmaster Cylinder composed and performs our theme music.
Carson City Linux User Group – Meeting third Saturdays at ComputerCorps in Carson City – carsoncitylinux.org
One on One Tech Help at the Carson City Library Wednesdays 3-4 pm Techbusters
Everything Is Fighting Me Today
Bette has had it with Google Maps, Steve’s machine crashes the second he hits play, but George brings the rare piece of good news.
Steve’s Windows 10 computer runs fine until he plays a recorded show through Dish Anywhere, and then it drops to a blue screen and restarts, over and over. Even without the actual blue screen text we figure it out.
George has handled a couple thousand of the M.2 format solid state drives, the ones shaped like a stick of gum, and he settled a question we have been repeating for decades: magnets no longer matter, static electricity still does, and the packaging you were about to throw away is the best protection you own.
Bette has had enough of Google Maps and wanted to know what else is out there. We talked about what happened to MapQuest’s ad free option, who owns MapQuest now, and how Organic Maps and OpenStreetMap will keep working past Fallon where the cell signal quits, as long as you download the map before you leave.
Along the way: the Chrome update everyone should install today, the smart TV settings worth turning off tonight, why it is time to freeze your credit again, and a good word for the paper map in your glove box.
Now about that medical release form: When a provider hires a vendor to handle patient information, that vendor is a business associate and is bound by HIPAA through a required contract. What the form was almost certainly asking for is separate consent, which is a different thing from the vendor being unregulated.
About the TV watching you: Security researchers at Gamers Nexus, working with Level1Techs and independent researchers, took apart several LG smart TVs this month. They found the sets cataloging every device on the home network, and they demonstrated that a TV which has been broken into can record audio through its microphone even when it looks like it is off, bank that audio while it is disconnected, and send it along once it is back online. That last part takes a compromised television, not a factory fresh one, which is exactly why the firmware updates matter. Turn off ACR and voice features, install updates, and if your router supports it, put the TV on a guest network. Video by Gamers Nexus and Reported by Malwarebytes
We are often in the studio Saturdays 9 am to 11 am and Sundays 7 pm to 9 pm Pacific. Have your smart phone or speaker remind you to call! Call direct to studio then or anytime at 775-241-3571 and set up a time to battle your tech!
“SFC…take two aspirins and call me in the morning”
“Joe goes into MRIs covered with aluminum foil”
“You’re information is out there.”
“Do we still have sticks of gum?”
“All they are is a bunch of transistors”
“In computers, advice has expiration dates. Don’t be quoting me in five years.”
“Grab it by the edge”
“He is so grounded that GPS satellites call him for directions”
“Break like an app in beta on a road trip.”
“Well, there’s always tomorrow.”
“Diabolical”
“Lithium ion fires are nothing to be messed around with.”
“I’m upset with these name changes in Google…it’s stupid.”
“Download before you go and then you can use it on the go.”
“When the TV watches you.”
AI assisted to make us sound more human.
Battle Born Tech,
where the Wi-Fi is strong,
the fonts are good-looking, and the passwords are above average.
BATTLE PLANS
with help from Claude.ai
ARP – Address Resolution Protocol
Address Resolution Protocol, the routine bit of housekeeping a device uses to ask “who has this address?” on a local network. The answer reveals the other devices on the network, which is why a smart TV can quietly build a list of everything in the house.
ARC – Automatic Content Recognition
Software built into most smart TVs that takes rapid snapshots of whatever is on the screen and matches them against a database to identify what you are watching, whether it arrived by antenna, cable, streaming app, or game console. The TV maker uses that record to target ads and often shares or sells it, and on most sets you can shut it off in the privacy settings.
Preferred Search Source
A Google Search setting that lets you name the websites you trust so their stories appear more often and more prominently in the Top Stories section. You add them with the star icon next to the Top Stories header, and it does not hide everyone else, it just gives your picks better seats.
Help | About Google Chrome
The menu path for checking which version of Chrome you are running: click the three dots at the top right, choose Help, then About Google Chrome. Simply opening that page makes Chrome check for an update and download it, and a relaunch finishes the job.
Windows Memory Diagnostic
Windows Memory Diagnostic is a built-in Windows tool that tests your computer’s RAM for errors that can contribute to blue screens, crashes, freezes, corrupted files, or unexplained restarts. It runs outside normal Windows after a reboot and reports whether it detected memory problems.
Search for Windows Memory Diagnostic or press Win+R, and type
mdsched.exe
then press Enter.
STOP code
The short all capitals phrase at the bottom of a blue screen It is the single most useful clue on the whole screen.
Restore Point
A saved snapshot of Windows settings and system files you can roll back to if an update or a driver install goes wrong.
Driver
The small piece of software that lets Windows talk to a specific piece of hardware, such as the graphics chip. When the driver falls out of step with Windows or with an app, the result often looks like a blue screen.
Hardware or Graphics Acceleration
A browser setting that hands video and animation work to the graphics chip instead of the main processor. Turning it off is slower but sidesteps a bad graphics driver.
ESU October 2027
Windows 10 stopped getting normal support on October 14, 2025, and ESU is the extra innings program that keeps critical security patches coming to eligible home PCs. Microsoft has extended consumer coverage through October 12, 2027; it delivers security fixes only, not new features or general tech support.
Blue Screen
The full page stop error Windows shows when it hits a problem it cannot safely recover from, so it halts instead of risking your files. Long known as the Blue Screen of Death, or BSOD, though Microsoft repainted it black on current Windows 11.
Hopper
Dish Network’s whole home satellite DVR, the box that records your shows and feeds them to smaller Joey boxes on the other TVs in the house. With the free Dish Anywhere app it also sends live channels and recordings out over your home network and over the internet to a phone, tablet, computer, or streaming stick.
SFC
A repair tool already built into Windows that scans the protected system files and replaces any that are damaged or missing from a cached copy on your own drive. You run it from an administrator Command Prompt or Terminal by typing
sfc /scannow
DISM
The heavier repair tool that fixes the underlying Windows image SFC draws its replacement files from, pulling fresh copies from Microsoft when the local ones are corrupted too. The usual order is
DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth
first, then SFC again.
HIPAA
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, the federal law whose privacy rule limits how doctors, hospitals, insurers, and the contractors working for them handle your medical information. It binds those health care organizations and their business associates, not every company that happens to learn something about your health.
Open Source Software
Software whose underlying instructions, called the source code, are published so anyone can read them, change them, and pass them along. That openness means outsiders can inspect it for flaws or bad behavior, and while most open source software is also free of charge, the openness is the defining part, not the price.
Fork
When someone takes an open source project’s code and starts their own version. CoMaps is a fork of Organic Maps.
Paper Maps
Printed road maps, the kind that folded badly and lived in the glovebox. They need no battery, no cell signal, and no account, they do not report your location to anyone, and in much of rural Nevada they still work where a phone will not.
We are often in the studio Saturdays 9 am to 11 am and Sundays 7 pm to 9 pm Pacific. Have your smart phone or speaker remind you to call! Call direct to studio then or anytime at 775-241-3571 and set up a time to battle your tech!
Tuesdays 8 PM Pacific 95.1 FM Carson City, Nevada
Streaming LIVE on at KNVC.ORG
Battle Born Tech is a
Registered Service Mark of Christy Ramsey
775-241-3571 or [email protected]