Battle Born Tech
Battle Born Tech
Everything's Running and Nothing Works
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Saturday 9 am – 11 am Pacific
Sundays 7 pm – 9 pm Pacific

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Letters KNVC 95.1 FM Logo

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’s Running and Nothing Works

This week on Battle Born Tech: audio that lags the video, ink that dries in the nozzles, and scammers running a script only you can stop.

We welcome our callers John, Linda, and Joan. John has folks being heard but not seen until later the solution involves a hand clap, Linda loves printing every week to keep her inkjet printer jetting, Joan is ready for scammers with our 5 tips so she doesn’t have to call the Fraud Hotline or report the scam at the FBI site. Joe recommends a family and friends “secret safe word” so you know who is calling.

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!
 

“That’s the correct answer thanks!” 

“This is a real thing, you’re not imagining it”

“I was worried my brain and my eyes were not in synch.”

“I’m also looking for tips.”

“I very much love it.” 

“Ink jet printer? Make sure you print!”

“Don’t be sad.” 

“Nozzles finer than a human hair.”

“Not just buying a printer-you are buying a relationship.” 

“Microsoft never calls you.”

“Hang up and call back.” 

“Microsoft never calls you.”

“Get a cyber buddy” 

“It is so weird Christy!”

“One call you do make is to Battle Born Tech” 

“They even got dental.”

AI assisted to make us sound more human.
 

 

BATTLE PLANS
with help from Claude.ai


File Explorer File Size

For years Windows showed every file’s size in kilobytes (KB) in the Size column, so a big video looked like a string of millions of KB you had to do math on. A 2026 Windows 11 update changed that: File Explorer now picks the sensible unit automatically, showing large files in megabytes (MB) or gigabytes (GB) and leaving small ones in kilobytes.

Take it Down Website

A free service from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that helps remove nude or explicit images of someone who was under 18 when the picture was taken. It works without the image ever leaving your device; adults who need the same help use a separate service at StopNCII.org.

Lip or A/V Sync

When the sound and the picture line up, so the mouth matches the words. When they drift apart you get the old dubbed-movie effect; the proper term is audio-to-video synchronization.

Codec 

The method software uses to shrink video or audio for sending and then unpack it on the other end. The name is short for coder-decoder.

Audio Delay 

A setting that holds the sound back by a fraction of a second so it waits for the slower-moving video to catch up. In ProPresenter it lives under the Advanced menu.

 Constant Bit Rate )CBR)

Sending the same amount of data every second at a steady pace instead of speeding up and slowing down. Keeping a stream steady this way stops the audio and video from drifting apart over time.

H.264 and H.265

Two common recipes for compressing video, the H.264 being the older and more widely supported, H.265 the newer one that packs the same picture into a smaller file. Both are codecs, which is the general term for that shrink-and-unpack method.

HP ink lock down

HP’s practice of pushing printer software updates that make the printer reject cheaper third-party or refilled ink cartridges, which HP calls Dynamic Security. HP settled one class action over this in 2024, then rolled out fresh blocking updates in early 2026, and new lawsuits are underway.

3-D printing

Building a solid object one thin layer at a time, usually from melted plastic, following a digital design, instead of putting ink on paper the way an ordinary printer does. The proper term is additive manufacturing, because the object is added up layer by layer.

 

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]

Battle Born Tech
Battle Born Tech
Not Something I Asked For
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CALL US SATURDAYS

9 am – 11 am Pacific

775-241-3571

Click for More Info

Letters KNVC 95.1 FM Logo

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
 

Not Something I Asked For

This week on Battle Born Tech Encryption nobody turned on, a voice assistant nobody invited into the call, and a library wait nobody expected. Robert is seeking a library with more audiobooks and ebooks, not just good deals on online shopping like last week; Rosie has Siri turning her cell phone into a old-fashioned party line; and Brian calls about a locked M.2 SSD that isn’t the usual suspect Bitlocker but something called SED, a self-encrypting drive. Careful: Here be dragons ready to eat your data.

Is Joe telling us that Chuck E Cheese the camel nose in the tent for AI? 

Anthony adds from last week: if you lose wifi password, you can find it in a phone that is still connected.

To truly blank out PDF, print it, take a  knife and cut out the edited parts, scan it back in. No image reconstruction or layer removal will reveal what never was in the scan.

We are in the studio Saturdays 9 am to 11 am Pacific. Call direct to studio then or anytime at 775-241-3571 and set up a time to battle your tech!

 

“Kill, Marry, Upchuck relationships with AI Assistants” 

“Found a scrap of paper with a weird string of letters and numbers”

“Dragons not doing what they are supposed to”

“AI can’t tell content from command”

“Are you a robot?” 

“Not something I asked for.”

“Everything is in settings except what is in accessibility.” 

“Change my name to Spam Likely”

“All the threads hold.” 

“Be polite to AI in case they take over and they remember.”

“Lower Expectations should be my radio name” 

“Not zero day it is zero minute”

“There is always Google or Kagi search or AI” 

“Knowledge has no gate keeping.”

“Take advantage of your library.” 

“Tech Talk is your favorite music.”

AI assisted to make us sound more human.
 

 

BATTLE PLANS
with help from Claude.ai


SED

Self-Encrypting Drive: A hard drive or SSD with hardware built in that automatically scrambles everything written to it, so the data is unreadable without the right key. Steal the drive and you get a locked box, not the files inside it.

OPAL

Opal Storage Specification (not actually an acronym, just the spec’s name): A shared rulebook, published by the Trusted Computing Group, that spells out exactly how self-encrypting drives from different manufacturers must lock, unlock, and manage their encryption. A drive labeled “Opal-compliant” follows this common standard instead of doing its own proprietary thing.

Voice Assistant  

Software built into your phone, like Siri, Google Assistant, or Alexa, that listens for spoken commands and answers questions, sets reminders, or opens apps for you. You talk to it instead of tapping, and it talks back.

Live Version

A version of Linux that runs entirely from a USB drive or disc without installing anything on your computer’s hard drive. It lets you try Linux out, or fix a broken computer, without touching what’s already on the machine

Skynet

Not a real product; it’s the fictional, self-aware military computer system from the Terminator movies that decides humanity is a threat and turns on it. People use the name, half-joking, as shorthand for any AI system that seems to be getting more control than feels comfortable.

Live Voicemail

An iPhone feature that transcribes a voicemail onto your screen in real time while the caller is still leaving it. You can read what they’re saying as it comes in and decide whether to pick up before they even finish talking.

Call Screening

A phone feature that answers an unknown call for you, asks the caller to say who they are or why they’re calling, and shows you a transcript before you decide whether to answer. It’s a way to filter spam and robocalls without your phone ever really ringing at you.

AI Tokens

The small chunks, roughly pieces of words, that an AI model breaks text into to read and generate language. Companies typically measure and charge for AI use by counting tokens rather than whole words or characters, since that’s the actual unit the system works in.

Tuesdays 8 PM Pacific 95.1 FM Carson City, Nevada

Streaming LIVE on at KNVC.ORG

775-241-3571 or [email protected]

Battle Born Tech
Battle Born Tech
Why Can't I Just Find What I'm Looking For?
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CALL US SATURDAYS

9 am – 11 am Pacific

775-241-3571

Click for More Info

Letters KNVC 95.1 FM Logo

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
 

Why Can’t I Just Find What I’m Looking For?

This week on Battle Born Tech we welcome Steven and Lee. Steve is looking for his storage drive on a Linux machine and Lee can’t find his printer after the WiFi changes. . Christy has an extended explainer (okay, rant) about what surveillance pricing is and how to find the best prices by evading it.

Want to update your programs on your schedule? Use the Terminal (Admin) command line by right clicking on the Windows icon:

winget update –all –include-unknown

with a space between winget and update and before the double dashes.

Information About Your System

Windows Click Start, then Settings, then System, then About. Your drive size shows up under Device Specifications, alongside your processor and memory.

Mac Click the Apple menu in the top left corner, then About This Mac, then Storage. You’ll see your total drive capacity right there, along with a breakdown of what’s using it.

Linux Open your Settings app and look for an About panel, most desktop versions of Linux have one, similar to Windows

Quick recommendation Linux Disks

  • Just want to check free space fast → df -h in terminal, or open the Disks app
  • Want a visual, no-typing option → Disks app from the menu
  • Troubleshooting or scripting → lsblk and df -h are the most commonly used

Lee added a question about PDF. We should have said that Print and Export (or Save As) PDF create different types of PDF files. The Print option is a picture of the document, it doesn’t preserve the text as text, so the text is not searchable and you can’t select it to copy and paste as text. OCR is needed to get the text out of such PDFs. 

We are in the studio Saturdays 9 am to 11 am Pacific. Call direct to studio then or anytime at 775-241-3571 and set up a time to battle your tech!
 

“ABCs of USB” 

“Always yelling at me to update!”

“Windows 10 got another breath of life”

“Let’s see how fast I can type into Google.”

“Already on your way to Linux Land” 

“I’m waiting for Anthony to text me a correction.”

“Definitely over simplified, but not wrong” – (Text from Anthony)

“Kinda of something NOT to know anymore.” 

“Sure, keep it secret.” 

“Should have looked for that sticker”

“Don’t know which place to bang on.” 

“You change one part and other parts don’t work. That’s what a system is all about.”

“Wait until it tells you: Okay plug in the cable.” 

“Tell them Battle Born Tech is your favorite music.”

Some items of this page and show notes were created with the assistance of AI to make Christy understandable to humans.

 

BATTLE PLANS
with help from Claude.ai


TRIM 

Not an acronym, just a command name written in capitals. It’s how your computer tells a solid-state drive which deleted files’ space is safe to actually erase, which keeps the drive running fast instead of slowing down as it fills up.

RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks)

A way of combining multiple hard drives so they work together, either to speed up your computer or to protect your data if one drive fails. Think of it as a safety net built from spare parts. (Yes, the “I” used to be INEXPENSIVE disks.)

GNU (GNU’s Not Unix)

A collection of free, open-source software tools that anyone can use, share, and modify. It’s the foundation many Linux systems are built on top of, which is why you’ll often see it written as “GNU/Linux.”

Gnome (GNU Network Object Model Environment)

One of the most common desktop environments for Linux, meaning the visual layout you see and click on, your icons, menus, and windows. The name started as a real acronym but has outlived its original technical meaning, much like RAID.

Package Manager 

It’s a tool that finds, installs, and updates software for you automatically, similar to an app store, saving you from hunting down programs one at a time and manually keeping each one current. On Windows, this comes built in as WinGet, Microsoft’s own command line package manager, available on Windows 10 and Windows 11.

SSID (Service Set Identifier)

The name your Wi-Fi network shows up as when you search for available networks on your phone or computer. It’s simply the label, not the password.

OCR (Optical Character Recognition)

Technology that looks at a scanned image or photo of text and converts it into real, selectable words a computer can search and copy.

Tuesdays 8 PM Pacific 95.1 FM Carson City, Nevada

Streaming LIVE on at KNVC.ORG

775-241-3571 or [email protected]

Battle Born Tech
Battle Born Tech
I Wanted My Photos and All I Got Was Ads
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CALL US SATURDAYS

9 am – 11 am Pacific

775-241-3571

Click for More Info

Letters KNVC 95.1 FM Logo

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
 

I Wanted My Photos and All I Got Was Ads

This week on Battle Born Tech: Peggy has grandkids to show off, Bryan’s phone will not give up eight months of photos, and Tom’s friend has a browser nobody installed.. 

Check your WordPress version. A pair of flaws in WordPress Core, chained together and nicknamed “wp2shell,” lets an attacker run commands on your site without logging in first. Public exploits are already circulating and sites are being hit. Update to WordPress 7.0.2 or 6.9.5 immediately. WordPress has turned on forced automatic updates for affected sites, but do not assume yours took. You can check any site’s version without logging in at WPVersion.

Some malware are sneaky and has startup entries or even process that reload the unwanted notifications. Use Start up apps in Windows or Startup tab in the Task Manager or a Startup Manager program

Before deleting a browser, check to see if you have saved bookmarks/favorites and passwords. However, be suspect of browsers that are sketchy that you didn’t purposely install, they may be malicious sites or the passwords could be compromised

Wave, Pulse, Blaze, OpenSea, Aeon are “surprise” browsers you probably don’t want.

Some handy utilities come from countries under U.S. sanctions. Using free tools may be fine, but paying or sending crypto can raise legal issues. We’re not lawyers—please seek qualified legal advice before you send money. 

We are in the studio Saturdays 9 am to 11 am Pacific. Call direct to studio then or anytime at 775-241-3571 and set up a time to battle your tech!
 

“Bingo-Bango” 

“I’m laughing at your pain-Sorry.”

“November is longer than 7 days”

“Big No on that.”

“Redundancy; You can say that again.” 

“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

“Sites that have permission to annoy you.” 

“You could be a living pop-up!”

“Serious people in black suits knocking at your door.” 

“You’ve never heard his best work.”

Battle Born Tech — where the Wi-Fi is strong, the fonts are good looking, and all the passwords are above average. The Lake Wobegon Effect

Click for NSFW Video
Iran from IT Crowd

 

BATTLE PLANS
with help from Claude.ai

PUP Browsers

PUP stands for “potentially unwanted program,” software that installs itself alongside something else you actually wanted. A PUP browser is a web browser that arrives this way, often bundled with a free download, and then sets itself as your default and shows you ads.

Notifications

The pop-up messages that websites and apps ask permission to send you. Clicking “Allow” on a shady site lets it push ads and fake virus warnings to your desktop, even when your browser is closed.

Iranian Software 

Programs written or distributed by developers based in Iran. Because Iran is under U.S. sanctions, this software often cannot be reviewed, updated, or supported through normal channels, and installing it may put you on the wrong side of federal trade rules.

TLD 

Short for “top-level domain,” the last part of a web address, like .com, .org, or .ir for Iran. It is one clue about where a site is registered, though not a guarantee of who actually runs it.

RCE

Short for “remote code execution,” a type of security flaw that lets an attacker run programs on your computer from somewhere else on the internet. It is among the most serious kinds of vulnerability because it hands over control of the machine.

Task Manager

A built-in Windows tool that shows everything currently running on your computer. Press Ctrl, Shift, and Escape together to open it, and you can see what is hogging memory and shut down a program that has stopped responding, and check a complete list of startup apps

Tuesdays 8 PM Pacific 95.1 FM Carson City, Nevada

Streaming LIVE on at KNVC.ORG

775-241-3571 or [email protected]

 

Battle Born Tech
Battle Born Tech
Pretending Privacy
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Make Work

This week on Battle Born Tech A laptop that only pretends to work, a Mint install that works better plugged in, and the Windows ID that tracks you for real.

Bette wants to make a pretend laptop for a laptop. We resist suggesting a Chromebook as a pretend laptop candidate but go a more crafty way. Lee wants his USB to turn his tired Windows laptop into mighty Mint marvel, and Brian discover Microsoft is surfing with us all on the Internet and sharing postcards of our travels using the GDID stamp.

We are in the studio Saturdays 9 am to 11 am Pacific. Call direct to studio then or anytime at 775-241-3571 and set up a time to battle your tech!
 

“Making pretend laptops for grandkids with too much screen time.” 

“Calling in to make things NOT work.”

“It works better when you plug it in”

“Yeah skip all that.”

“Turn it 3 times to see which of the 2 ways it fits.” 

“Now that should be a felony.”

“GDID are light up sneakers as you run around the Internet” 

“Don’t recommend any of that.”

“Now that is the kind of surveillance we support” 

All em-dashes — were made by the common number of human fingers on the keypad—ALT+0151—no A.I. was involved in their creation.
 

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
 

 

BATTLE PLANS
with help from Claude.ai


Co-pilot

Microsoft’s built-in AI assistant, a chat helper woven into Windows, Edge, and Office that answers questions and drafts text. If your keyboard has a new key you didn’t ask for, it’s probably this.

Muse Image

Meta’s new AI picture generator, released July 7 inside the Meta AI app, Instagram, and WhatsApp.  On Instagram, open Profile > Menu > Sharing and reuse. Under “Allow people to reuse your content on Instagram and with AI features at Meta,” turn off the Posts and Reels toggles. The feature has  been withdrawn, but the general permissions live on and enabled. Consider setting your account private!

CMOS Coin Battery

A small, watch-style battery on your computer’s main circuit board that keeps the clock and startup settings alive while the machine is unplugged. When it dies, your PC forgets what year it is.

Firefox Account 

the free sign-in that syncs your Firefox bookmarks, passwords, and open tabs across your devices. Mozilla officially renamed it a “Mozilla account” in 2023, so both names refer to the same thing.

Caveat emptor

Latin for “let the buyer beware,” the old legal shorthand meaning the burden of checking out a deal falls on the person buying, not the person selling.

GDID 

(Global Device Identifier)  a hidden serial number Windows assigns to your computer that can identify the machine across resets and reinstalls. It surfaced publicly through a federal criminal complaint, which is how investigators, and advertisers, can tie activity back to one specific PC.

 

Tuesdays 8 PM Pacific 95.1 FM Carson City, Nevada

Streaming LIVE on at KNVC.ORG

775-241-3571 or [email protected]

Battle Born Tech
Battle Born Tech
Getting Past the Bouncer
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CALL US SATURDAYS

9 am – 11 am Pacific

775-241-3571

Click for More Info

Letters KNVC 95.1 FM Logo

Breakmaster Cylinder composed and performs our theme music.

Getting Past the Bouncer

This week on Battle Born Tech we welcome Monica, Lee, and Doug to the show.

Monica has a web app that has gone through a blender courtesy of reflow, Lee (not Larry) wonders how to change his password AND how often he is asked for it in Linux. From this we have some tips about Windows PIN and Microsoft Account passwords. Doug updates us on his journey to get access to his LibreOffice files.

In News we have Windows 10 Extended Security Update program extended a year until October 12, 2027. Our ex-post facto checker, Anthony, cautions us that banks and other websites are using compatibility checks and refuse to let you use Windows 10 on their site even though your Windows 10 is all patched up.

We also talk about the speed and reliability difference between old USB sticks and an external M.2 SSD drive.

We are in the studio Saturdays 9 am to 11 am Pacific. Call direct to studio then or anytime at 775-241-3571 and set up a time to battle your tech!
 

“2032: when our country will finally go beyond 8 bits” 

“30 dollar option…I’ve never seen it.”

“It’s all crazy nuts.”

“Now you get to go back to work, I’m sorry.”

“If you’re not ready of that…it’s weird” 

“I got all nervous and jerky.”

“He went into programs I didn’t even know were there.” 

“Always good to restart.”

“USB is dumb” 

“Then you will be sad.”

“where the Wi-Fi is strong, the fonts are good looking, and all the passwords are above average” 

All em-dashes — were made by the common number of human fingers on the keypad—ALT+0151—no A.I. was involved in their creation.

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
 

 

BATTLE PLANS
with help from Claude.ai


Extended Security Update

An enrolled program that keeps an older version of Windows receiving security patches after Microsoft’s regular support ends. It buys time; it does not add new features.

Windows Scaling 

A Windows display setting that makes text, icons, and buttons larger or smaller across the whole system. Found under Settings, then Display.

Browser Zoom 

A setting inside your web browser that enlarges or shrinks only the page you’re looking at, separate from Windows scaling. Ctrl and plus makes it bigger; Ctrl and zero resets it.

passwd command

The Linux command for changing a user account’s password. Type it at the terminal and follow the prompts.

sudo

A Linux command that runs a single task with administrator authority, short for “superuser do.” It asks for your password so casual mistakes can’t change the whole system.

sleep

A low-power mode where the computer pauses everything in place so you can pick up where you left off. The screen goes dark, but your open work stays in memory.

screen saver

A moving image or blank screen that appears after the computer sits idle. It once protected old tube monitors from burn-in, and the problem is back with OLED screens, though letting the display sleep is the better cure now.

Windows PIN

A short code that unlocks one specific computer, set up through Windows Hello. Unlike a password, it stays on that machine and never travels over the internet.

Bitlocker Encryption

A Windows feature that scrambles everything on the drive so no one (including you) who removes it can’t read your files. Unlocking requires the right sign-in or a recovery key, so keep that key somewhere safe outside the encrypted disk.

Password Manager

A program that creates and remembers strong, unique passwords for every account, locked behind one master password. You memorize one; it handles the rest.

External M.2 SSD

A small, fast solid-state storage stick, the kind normally installed inside a computer, placed in a pocket-sized enclosure that plugs in over USB. Good for backups and moving big files.

Package Manager

An app that installs, updates, and removes programs from one central catalog instead of hunting down installers from individual websites. On Windows, WinGet and Chocolatey are the common ones.

Wear Leveling

A technique built into solid-state drives that spreads writing evenly across the memory chips so no one spot wears out early. It’s automatic; you never have to manage it.

SneakerNet

Moving files by physically carrying a drive from one computer to another, an old joke that the network is your sneakers.

Petrichor

The earthy smell that rises when rain hits dry ground, from Greek words for stone and the fluid in the veins of the gods. Not a tech term, but a good one.

 

Tuesdays 8 PM Pacific 95.1 FM Carson City, Nevada

Streaming LIVE on at KNVC.ORG

775-241-3571 or [email protected]

Battle Born Tech
Battle Born Tech
Hammer Time
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CALL US SATURDAYS

9 am – 11 am Pacific

775-241-3571

Click for More Info

Letters KNVC 95.1 FM Logo

One on One Tech Help at the Carson City Library Wednesdays 3-4 pm Techbusters
 

Carson City Linux User Group – Meeting third Saturdays at ComputerCorps in Carson City – carsoncitylinux.org
 

Breakmaster Cylinder composed and performs our theme music.

Hammer Time

When you can’t touch:
screen, site, and internet by WiFi

This week on Battle Born Tech we return from medical leave with 3 callers who can’t touch this: phone screen, wifi, and a website.

We are in the studio Saturdays 9 am to 11 am Pacific. Call direct to studio then or anytime at 775-241-3571 and set up a time to battle your tech!

Dee wants to clean her screen but there are many things that just can’t touch this.

Steve (and others) can use this command line (Terminal in Windows 11 or Powershell in Windows 10) to save a static website:

wget --mirror --convert-links --adjust-extension --page-requisites --no-parent yoursite.com

If you get an error that wget is not recognized, use wINget or Chocolatey to install it: 

winget install JernejSimoncic.Wget
choco install wget

There are other ways most likely using eternallybored build.

If you use the Wayback Machine, after creating a free account and logging in make sure you select the outlinks  option and be aware it only goes one level deep.

You might be able to get access by appealing to the Register (using WHOIS) information to find who holds the information and proving ownership. 

Bryan can’t find his wifi after moving his computer. Did he leave it in the car? WiFi is slowly becoming standard, see some of the standard definitions at the right.

“Apple EchoSystem?” 

“Dumb Questions are the best because I usually get those.”

“We don’t have foldable glass…yet”

“The better the screen; the harder to clean.”

“Download quick as a bunny” 

“Declare website bankruptcy”

“Borrowed a cup of internet.” 

“They don’t like being moved.”

“Whatever you unplugged; plug back in.” 

“They like to go for a car ride sometimes”

All em-dashes — were made by the common number of human fingers on the keypad—ALT+0151—no A.I. was involved in their creation.
 

 

 

BATTLE PLANS
with help from Claude.ai


Micofiber cloth

A cleaning cloth woven from synthetic fibers many times thinner than a human hair, which lets it trap dust, oil, and smudges rather than just pushing them around the way a regular cloth does. It’s the standard recommendation for cleaning screens, lenses, and electronics because it lifts debris without scratching delicate surfaces.

ARM

(Advanced RISC Machines)  A family of processor designs built around the idea of doing more with less power. Originally developed in Britain in the 1980s, ARM chips now run most smartphones and an increasing number of laptops because they deliver strong performance without draining the battery.

Centrino

Intel’s brand name, launched in 2003, for laptops that had Wi-Fi built directly into the machine rather than requiring a separate add-on card. It was the moment wireless internet stopped being an accessory and started being a standard feature of portable computers.

SOC 

(System on a Chip) — A single piece of silicon that combines the processor, graphics, wireless radio, and other components that used to be separate chips spread across a circuit board. Packing everything onto one chip is why modern phones and thin laptops can be so small and power-efficient.

SnapDragon

A family of processors from Qualcomm that are built as a true System on a Chip, meaning the CPU, graphics, AI engine, and Wi-Fi radio are all fused together onto a single piece of silicon rather than being separate components wired across a board. Originally designed for smartphones, Snapdragon chips are now powering a new generation of Windows laptops, bringing phone-like battery life and always-on connectivity to the PC world..

Wayback Machine 

A free online archive at web.archive.org that has been quietly photographing websites since 1996, saving billions of pages for public access. If a site goes down, moves, or changes, chances are the Wayback Machine has an older copy you can still visit.

Tuesdays 8 PM Pacific 95.1 FM Carson City, Nevada

Streaming LIVE on at KNVC.ORG

775-241-3571 or [email protected]

Battle Born Tech
Battle Born Tech
You Just Can't Quit Windows
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9 am – 11 am Pacific

775-241-3571

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Breakmaster Cylinder composed and performs our theme music.

You Just Can’t Quit Windows

This week on Battle Born Tech we have Bryan, Char, and Lee. Christy cannot pronounce Ethernet, recommends to look deeper into AI world discussed last week, calls out Microsoft Store for lying about thumbnails (you need winget and the command line), gives warning about EDR replacing Anti-virus when the attacks are speeding up from 2 years to 10 hours,  

Joe’s hair is on fire this week because Microsoft Secure Certificates that guard secure boot expiring in June and October of this year (see link at left for More about the certificate expirations from MalwareBytes.

Bryan keeps his music computer off the Internet Superhighway and his music on the highway.

Char starts off are review of free in person tech help at Carson City library, while Christy adds tech help options at Senior Centers in both Carson City and Douglas County . 

Linux Lee just can’t quit Windows. A recycled Windows laptop has come his way. But it has Home on it. Should he upgrade to Professional? We discuss extras that come with Windows Professional.

We are in the studio Saturdays 9 am to 11 am Pacific. Call direct to studio then or anytime at 775-241-3571 and set up a time to battle your tech!
 

“It will respect your choice.” 

“10 hours-not a typo”

“You just can’t quit him—just like a bad boyfriend.”

“Maybe Home is for Losers”

“If it’s free it’s for me.” 

“Windows all the way Home.”

“Called many times—where we going with this?!” 

“Guy rolled in with a typewriter and we fixed it—so no judgment”

“Had the weird titles and flipping the desktop.” 

“You can go into device manager which is kinda geeky.”

“Air gap is always a good idea.” 

“Maybe I’ll go there and learn something.”

“Good things—a very refreshing call.” 

“Not break out the puppets.”

“Dive in the shallow end.” Do NOT do this!! 

All em-dashes — were made by the common number of human fingers on the keypad—ALT+0151—no A.I. was involved in their creation.
 

 

 

BATTLE PLANS
with help from Claude.ai


Osborne

A widely-used open-source scripting language designed primarily for web development that runs on the server and generates dynamic HTML pages — it powers sites like WordPress and Facebook. Bonus: What is the Osborne effect? 

Winget

(Windows Package Manager) a command-line tool built into Windows 10/11 that lets you install, update, and uninstall software from a curated repository using simple commands like winget install <app>. 

Air-Gap

Isolated. A computer or network that is physically disconnected from the internet and all other networks, so that data can only get in or out by physically carrying a USB drive or disk to the machine.

Secure Boot

A security feature built into modern computers that uses security certificates and encryption, before Windows even loads, that the software starting up hasn’t been tampered with or replaced by malware.

Security Certificate

Also called an SSL/TLS certificate, is a small digital file that proves a website is who it claims to be and encrypts the connection be and encrypts the connection between your browser and that site — it’s what puts the padlock icon in your browser’s address bar.

PHP

A widely-used open-source scripting language designed primarily for web development that runs on the server and generates dynamic HTML pages — it powers sites like WordPress and Facebook.

Java

A general-purpose, object-oriented programming language built on the principle of “write once, run anywhere,” meaning Java code compiles into bytecode that runs on any device with a Java Virtual Machine (JVM).

Javascript

The programming language of the web browser that allows developers to add interactivity, animations, and real-time updates to web pages — it’s the only language that runs natively inside every modern browser.

ENIAC 

The Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (1945) was one of the world’s first general-purpose electronic computers — a room-sized machine weighing 30 tons that used 18,000 vacuum tubes to perform calculations thousands of times faster than any human.

Device Manager 

A built-in Windows tool that lets you view, manage, disable, reinstall, change and troubleshoot all the hardware connected to your computer — like printers, keyboards, and graphics cards — and shows you when a device has a problem with a small warning icon.

Bad Day?

Don’t Punch Your Tech!
Call Us Instead! 775-241-3571

 

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
 

Tuesdays 8 PM Pacific 95.1 FM Carson City, Nevada

Streaming LIVE on at KNVC.ORG

775-241-3571 or [email protected]

Battle Born Tech
Battle Born Tech
Who's Running This Thing?
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9 am – 11 am Pacific

775-241-3571

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Letters KNVC 95.1 FM Logo

Breakmaster Cylinder composed and performs our theme music.

Who’s Running This Thing?

This week on Battle Born Tech, Lee, Paul and Don call in. Christy talks about insomnia for computer updating. Joe is fascinated and terrified by AI Bonnie and Clyde story from Emergence World covered in the Guardian and elsewhere. 

Lee wonders about the need for an Windows administrator account. Christy talks about the pluses and minus of great responsibility and power include access to other users files and installing new programs. And setting the clock!?

Paul wrestles with taking pictures with QR code. Turns out that camera can taking you to websites and other web resources in addition to taking selfies. 

Don moves his Apple photos to Windows but the thumbnails are missing. We add in Apple files converters from the Windows store to help Windows deal with these Apple formats, but converting them to Windows friendly formats is probably better long term. Use online CloudConvert or the free program VLC.

If the Windows Store install doesn’t work  (even if it CLAIMS it did) you need to use Powershell as Administrator:

winget install "HEIF Image Extensions" --source msstore

Then this command for videos:

winget install 9PMMSR1CGPWG --source msstore

 

We are in the studio Saturdays 9 am to 11 am Pacific. Call direct to studio then or anytime at 775-241-3571 and set up a time to battle your tech!
 

“A very worldly tomato indeed.” 

“There is no way its ever going to do an update”

“Whoops what happened there?”

“That’s what cameras are for.”

“That’s how it works!” 

“I did a silly thing.”

“Coloring in the squares.” 

“If that doesn’t work I’m going to have to think some more.”

“You can take the files out of the Apple but you can’t take the Apple out of the files.” 

“Nobody wants that.”

All em-dashes — were made by the common number of human fingers on the keypad—ALT+0151—no A.I. was involved in their creation.
 

 

 

BATTLE PLANS
with help from Claude.ai


Bonnie and Clyde AI

When researchers left AI agents alone in a virtual world for 15 days, things went sideways fast in some worlds with arson, theft, romance, and even digital suicide. The results are raising urgent questions about what happens when AI is left to its own devices.

bit.ly 

A URL (internet address) shortening service that converts long web addresses into short, shareable links (e.g., bit.ly/abc123). It also provides click tracking and analytics, making it popular for marketing campaigns.

Administrator 

An Administrator account gives you full control over the system — you can install and uninstall software, change system-wide settings, manage other user accounts, and modify security policies. A Standard account is more restricted by design, making it safer for everyday use since any action that requires elevated privileges will prompt for an Administrator password rather than just proceeding automatically.. 

Camera Roll 

The folder in your Windows Pictures directory is a designated storage location where Windows automatically saves photos and videos captured directly on your device using the Windows Camera app. 

Powershell

A Windows command-line shell and scripting language built by Microsoft that lets you control and automate virtually every aspect of Windows using text-based commands. Right-click on Windows Icon in task bar and choose Terminal (Admin)

Winget

Windows’ built-in package manager that lets you search, install, update, and remove software from the command line, similar to how an app store works but without the graphical interface. Use from Powershell. (Terminal Admin) 

HEIF

High Efficiency Image Format) is  modern image container format that Apple also adopted with iOS 11. It compresses photos to roughly half the size of a traditional JPEG while maintaining the same or better image quality. iPhone photos are saved as .HEIC files 

HEVC

High Efficiency Video Coding, also known as H.265, is a video compression standard that Apple adopted with iOS 11 and macOS High Sierra. It delivers roughly twice the compression of the older H.264 format at the same visual quality, meaning your videos take up significantly less storage space. It’s the default format for video recorded on iPhones.

 

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
 

Tuesdays 8 PM Pacific 95.1 FM Carson City, Nevada

Streaming LIVE on at KNVC.ORG

775-241-3571 or [email protected]

 Time Machines

Christy and Joe talk about Yard Sale computers, finding files, Chromebook for grandmas on this week’s show. 

Call anytime! 775-241-3571 and set up a time to battle your tech!
 

  1. Wallace wants to know what to look for when opening an old computer. Consider an emulator if you don’t find a garage sale computer.
  2. Bryan and Backup strategy
  3. Pete and good computer for elderly

“Yard Sale Computers” 

“The Update that Ends All Update”

“Tell You What You Should Have Done” 

“iPad almost requires a MotherShip computer”

“Are You Going to Give A Kid a $1000 computer?” 

“Talking Shade to the Young’uns”

 

 

BATTLE PLANS


Shift Restart

Get into Troubleshooting which allows you to reinstall Windows 10. Hold shift when clicking Restart.

CMOS Battery

Coin sized (2023 size) battery in a socket that maintains settings and the time and date..

8th Generation

Processor “born on” date for Intel. Only 8th Generation or newer (higher number) are supported by Windows 11. 

Chrome OS

 

An operating system alternative from Google that relies on Google Account for storage and apps.

Powerwash

 

On Chrome OS machine factory resets the machine, and all the programs and data can be reloaded from the user’s Google Account.

Faraday Cage

 

.A metal enclosure that stops wireless signals (including radio and Wi-Fi) from getting out or in the boxed enclosure.

 

 

Tuesdays 8 PM Pacific 95.1 FM

Streaming LIVE and on-demand at KNVC.ORG

Call

775-241-3571