1

FPCUG Notes for August 2019 Editor: Frank Fota (fotafm@gmail.com)

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS (7:00 PM - Falmouth Firehouse, Butler Road): -- Tues, Aug 6: Board of Directors (BoD) Meeting (Patty Davis, Presiding) -- Thu, Aug 8: General Meeting. Mr. Matt Green will discuss the Internet of Things (IoT), how he has used it, and the evolution of the IoT industry. Mr. Green is Vice President of Product Management for webMethods Business Events at Software AG in Reston, VA. He has more than 33 years of experience working in software development, specializing in emerging technologies. The public is invited and refreshments will be served. -- Tues, Aug 13: Windows 10 Workshop (Ed Alexander) -- Thu, Aug 15: Experimac Workshop1865-106 Carl D. Silver Parkway -- Thu, Aug 22: Windows All Workshop (Jim Hopkins) JULY GENERAL MEETING RECAP

John Hennesey, Chief Historian/Chief of Interpretation, Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, presented: “Technology, Progress (or not), and War in the Fredericksburg Region.” Mr. Hennesey discussed the useful and futile use of technology in the Fredericksburg region during the Civil War. The presentation was informative and entertaining.

5G IS COMING TO FREDERICKSBURG! If you are in the market for a new cellular phone, you might consider a 5G capable phone as 5G service is coming to Fredericksburg very soon. According to the Editorial Staff at the Freelance Star, “…the City Council unanimously gave preliminary approval to a deal that gives Cox Wireless Access LLC a 10-year, non-exclusive franchise to install suitcase-size 5G transceiver boxes on city-owned rights of way.” Installation of the transceivers will begin soon but the service will not be widely available until 2020.

So why should you care? 5G service is fast: so fast that some say it could replace Wi-Fi. Writing for Tom’s Guide, Caitlin McGarry says, “5G is already up to 10 times faster than 4G in our testing.” If you are considering a new phone or changing service providers, don’t confuse 5G with 5G E (i.e., 5G Evolution). 5G Evolution is simply the logo AT&T uses for its

LTE Advanced “4G” network. 5G E is faster than 4G but it is not as fast as 5G.

2

ANNUAL MEMBER’S APPRECIATION DINNER The FPCUG held its Annual Member’s Appreciation Dinner at the Red Lobster in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Nearly 100% of our members turned out for great food, fellowship, and fun.

Photos courtesy Frank Fota

3

FACEBOOK FINED A RECORD $5 BILLION The fine resulted from Facebook’s management of user data following the Cambridge Analytica security breach. $5 billion seems like an awful lot to most people and for most corporations. To Facebook, however, $5 billion is a drop in the proverbial bucket and represents less than 10% of Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth. Writing for the Business Insider,

Troy Wolverton says, ” The FTC's $5 billion fine for Facebook is so meaningless, it will likely leave Zuckerberg wondering what he can't get away with.” “…Put another way, Facebook is such a profitable company that it generates $5 billion in cash — even after accounting for all its day-to-day operating expenses — every 49 days. The company will be able to pay its $5 billion fine and still have money left over to put in the bank at the end of the quarter — that's how meaningless this fine will be to the company.” After the proposed settlement was announced, Facebook’s stock actually rose 2% [see Facebook climbs after the FTC approves the company's $5 billion privacy settlement (FB)]. INTEL RACING TO CATCH AMD

Intel says it won’t catch up with AMD’s 7nm chips until 2021. Writing for TechRadar, Matt Hanson says, “The revelations come from Intel CEO Bob Swan…” who spoke at Fortune's Brainstorm Tech conference in Aspen, Colorado. In an Press Release dated July 7,

2019, AMD said, “Today, AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) announced the global availability of its new leadership PC gaming platform based on AMD Radeon™ RX 5700 series graphics cards and 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen™ Desktop Processors, as well as AMD Ryzen™ 3000 Series Processors with Radeon™ Graphics (APUs). Together, these offerings take gaming performance, immersive experiences, and visual fidelity to new heights.” AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT and RX 5700 graphics cards are priced at $399 and $349, respectively. 3rd Generation Ryzen CPUs start at just $99. Mr. Hanson adds, “So it looks like we’ll finally see 10nm chips from Intel this year, while 7nm will have to wait until 2021.” Both AMD and the telecommunications company Qualcomm are producing 7nm processors. They are unlikely to rest upon their laurels while Intel catches up. TrickBot MALWARE IS STILL INFECTING COMPUTER SYSTEMS TrickBot has been infecting computers since 2016 and may have infected 250 million email accounts. Lee Mathews, Senior Contributor at Forbes says, “Researchers at Deep Instinct have been tracking TrickBot activity. In recent years they've seen the malware evolve and add new capabilities that have made it even more dangerous.” TrickBot is distributed in spearphishing email messages. Spearphishing emails target specific individuals, organizations or businesses. Deep Instinct discovered a TrickBot database with about 250 million email addresses. TrickBot is more disturbing because these email addresses were not associated with previous data breaches. In an interview with TechCrunch, Deep Instinct said that many of these new email addresses are associated with government employees at the Department of Justice, Department of State, Homeland Security, the Postal Service, as well as the FAA, ATF, IRS, and NASA. Email addresses from Canadian and Brittish agencies were also found in the TrickBot database.

4

DAN’S DESK -- APPLE V WINDOWS PCS By Dan Douglas, President, Space Coast PCUG, FL; May 2019 issue, The Space Coast PC Journal www.scpcug.org / datadan@msn.com This month I’ll take a look at the differences between Apple and Windows based PCs from the perspective of a repair guy such as myself. Most people will agree that Apple has enjoyed a better reputation for well-designed devices compared to comparable ones from Dell, HP, etc. Sometimes these differences are truly in the eye of the beholder, however. What is well designed to be attractive on the outside, as an iMac is, can be a chore to take apart on the inside. The estimates below are based upon the All-In-One (AIO) formats that are most iMacs, and many PCs from Dell and HP. Let’s take a look at a few standard common repair scenarios. Hard Drive Upgrade or Replacement – The need to replace the hard drive happens to every PC sooner or later, either because of mechanical failure or the need for more storage capacity. With the recent dramatic price drops of solid-state drives (SSDs), now there is a third reason to upgrade, which is to greatly improve the performance of the PC. Rather than spend the money required to replace a PC, the cost to upgrade the hard drive is less than a hundred or so. For this upgrade to a typical Windows PC, the drive can be easily cloned (copied) to the new drive and then swapped with the current drive. The steps to take the Windows PC apart are typically: 1) remove the case cover (5 minutes) 2) disconnect the old drive and connect the new drive (10 minutes) 3) replace the case cover (5 minutes) To perform the same drive swap after cloning on an Apple iMac requires: 1) Remove the memory from the iMac (5 minutes) 2) Remove the front glass shield (5 minutes) 3) unscrew the LCD panel from the back of the iMac (10 minutes) 4) remove all connections to the LCD panel and remove the LCD (10 minutes) 5) disconnect the old drive and connect the new drive (10 minutes) 6) replace the connections to the LCD panel and put back in place (10 minutes) 7) reattach the LCD panel to the back of the iMac (10 minutes) 8) replace the glass cover (5 minutes) 9) replace the memory in the iMac (5 minutes) Power Supply Replacement – The need to replace the PC power supply happens to many PCs either due to age and an internal power supply component failure or because of damage through power surges. Essentially the steps and time required to replace the power supply are the same as for the hard drive as listed above. The main difference is the cost of the part – where the PC power supplies are pretty well standard sizes, given some differences in the variations of the case dimensions and wattage requirements, expect the cost to be between $25 - $85. iMac power supplies typically range from $80 - $135. Reloading the Operating System (OS) – When the existing OS is not recoverable or required to be moved, the iMac provides an easier recovery experience in many cases. Through the use of key combinations pressed during the boot up process, most iMacs can actually reload the Mac OS through the internet, without the use of recovery media. A Windows PC on the other hand will usually require the installed version of Windows to be booted from a DVD or USB drive containing the fresh version of the OS. If the Windows PC is reset using the recovery partition located on the hard drive, there is a fair chance that it will be an older version that what is currently in use and will not be appropriate to use. If you have suggestions for other topics like this, that you would like to see explained, please let me know!

5

FORGED COURT PAPERS COMPEL GOOGLE TO REMOVE SEARCH RESULTS Short of a court order, getting Google to remove negative content from the internet is nearly impossible. Reputation management companies have formed to assist consumers and businesses to get their reputations back. These companies counter negative search results by flooding the internet (e.g., review sites and social media) with positive comments. This pushes the negative results lower in the search order, where few bother to read them. This trickery is not foolproof and some companies resort to illegitimate methods to force Google to remove negative data. Writing for CNET, Sarah Jacobsson Purewal says, “Reputation management companies are forging court documents in an effort to have Google permanently remove links to unflattering information about their clients from the search giant's results, according to a new investigation by CBS News.” The practice is risky as forging a court document is criminal. CBS News hidden cameras captured a meeting with John Rooney, who runs the reputation management firm, Web Savvy, LLC. Fraudulent court orders were identified that were associated with a client of Mr. Rooney’s. Mr. Rooney denied forging documents, saying, “I didn't file that. I've never seen it before.” NEW CORTANA APP FOR WINDOWS 10 Cortana was originally developed to compete with the digital assistants Alexa, Siri, and Google. Tom Warren, Senior Editor at The Verge says, “Digital assistants make far more sense as part of a dedicated device like Amazon’s Echo, than they do on a desktop PC, and Microsoft is finally admitting that.” Cortana was separated from Windows 10 search as part of the May 10, 2019 update and Cortana will soon show up in the Microsoft Store as a separate app. Microsoft appears to have ceded the digital assistant high ground to Amazon, Apple, and Google. Mr. Warren suggests in The Verge article, “What is Microsoft doing with Cortana?” that Microsoft will integrate these third-party digital assistants into Windows 10 so that “Alexa and Cortana can talk to each other.” In other words, the new Cortana will be more conversational when responding to voice or text queries. The focus of the redesign appears to be Microsoft 365 subscribers, but Microsoft envisions Cortana becoming a cross-platform skill that can be run on multiple products. The new Cortana app is expected to roll out to consumers in the first half of 2020. IRS SENDING WARNING LETTERS TO CRYPTOCURRENCY OWNERS The IRS considers cryptocurrency transactions taxable and they began sending “educational letters” to warn of penalties for failing to report income and pay tax on these transactions. In an IRS news release, Commissioner Chuck Rettig said, "Taxpayers should take these letters very seriously by reviewing their tax filings and when appropriate, amend past returns and pay back taxes, interest and penalties," and "The IRS is expanding our efforts involving virtual currency, including increased use of data analytics. We are focused on enforcing the law and helping taxpayers fully understand and meet their obligations."

6

EVENTS IN COMPUTER HISTORY (Paraphrase and additions to the Iceni Technology Blog by Iceni Technology Contributor Rebecca Coe and historical data from the websites www.computerhope.com/history/, dayintechhistory.com and www.historyorb.com/)

-- Aug 1 -- Microsoft Office is introduced for the first time (1989) as a bundled set of applications including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

-- Aug 1 -- The US Navy recalled Captain Grace Murray Hopper to active duty (1967) to lead in the development of the programming language COBOL. With a team drawn from several computer manufacturers and the Pentagon, Hopper -- who had worked on the Mark I and II computers at Harvard in the 1940s -- created the specifications for COBOL (COmmon Business Oriented Language) with business users in mind. These early COBOL efforts aimed at creating easily-readable computer programs with as much machine independence as possible. Designers hoped that COBOL would run on any computer for which a compiler existed with only minimal modifications.

-- Aug 3 – Radio Shack introduced the TRS-80 computer (1977). Twenty-five existed and within weeks thousands were ordered.

-- Aug 3 -- The Mozilla Corporation was founded in Mountain View, CA (2005). -- Aug 4 --

Only a few seconds before ignition, a computer halted an engine test in preparation for the launch of the space shuttle Discovery (1988). The shuttle engine's computerized controllers determined that a valve was not closing fast enough and sent a major component failure command from the computer to all three engines, telling them not to fire. The test and computer system were part of NASA efforts to ensure the safety of Discovery, whose flight would be the first since the Challenger explosion in 1986.

-- Aug 6 -- In an effort to save Apple Computer and possibly deflect criticism in its own anti-trust trial, Microsoft Corp. bought $150 million shares of Apple Computer (1977). Apple, which had been struggling to find direction and profits, agreed to the boost in funding with terms that dictated cooperation in the design of computers as well as shared patents. Microsoft agreed to continue supporting MS-Office for the Mac for another five years as well.

7

-- Aug 7 -- IBM president Thomas J. Watson Sr. formally presented the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (ASCC) to Harvard University (1944). One of the earliest digital computers, known at Harvard as the Mark I, this giant relay-based machine was the result of Professor Howard Aiken's research into computation. The Mark I was a curious mixture of punch card technology and simple electronics which became out-of-date almost as soon as it was completed. It was 51 feet long, 8 feet high, and weighed 5 tons.

-- Aug 7 -- The first all-computer chess championship was held in New York on (1970) and won by CHESS 3.0, a program written by Atkin and Gorlen at Northwestern University. Six programs were entered to compete. The tournament was sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). -- Aug 10 --

The Opera Mini Browser (Opera Software ASA) was released for PDAs, smartphones, and mobile phones that would normally be incapable of running a

Web browser (2005). -- Aug 12 -- IBM introduced its first Personal Computer (PC & PC-DOS version 1.0) on August 12, 1981.

-- Aug 15 --

Microsoft decided to incorporate an Internet browser into its upcoming Windows 95 operating system (1994). Programmer Benjamin Slivka sent an e-mail to his coworkers suggesting a World Wide Web browser as a feature for Windows 95. Microsoft has subsequently faced legal challenges for the way it bundled Internet Explorer with Windows software.

8

-- Aug 16 -- The US Census Bureau announced the U.S. population of 62,622,250 (1890), determined for the first time by using an automated method, the Hollerith Census Machine. The Hollerith machine sorted returns by completing an electrical circuit wherever a hole existed in a punch card and could process almost 10 times the number of census data than a human clerk. Census

workers used the Punch Pantograph to enter data. Hollerith formed the Tabulating Machine Company in 1896. This company merged with two others in 1924 to become the International Business Machines Company (IBM). -- Aug 17 -- The National Bureau of Standards dedicated its Standards Western Automatic Computer (SWAC) at the Institute for Numerical Analysis in Los Angeles (1950). Rather than testing components like its companion, the SEAC, the SWAC endeavored to compute using relatively off-the-shelf technology. It used a Williams Tube -- a modified CRT capable of modest (256 word) electrostatic bit storage -- and a magnetic drum (4,096 words) for storage. The word length was 37-bits and it could add two operands in 64 microseconds. The SWAC performed very useful work, including searching for Mersenne prime numbers, X-ray crystallography, and linear and differential equation solving, and operated until December 1967.

-- Aug 18 -- Hewlett-Packard (HP) was incorporated in California (1947). Hewlett-Packard was founded in a garage (left) in Palo Alto, California. The facilities have certainly changed but HP remains in Palo Alto (right).

-- Aug 21 --

William S. Burroughs received a patent for his calculating machine and within a year had produced 50 machines (1888). They proved to be difficult to use but he soon improved on them and went on to become a force in the developing calculator industry.

9

-- Aug 22 -- Following a Los Angeles symposium hosted by IBM, a group of representatives from seventeen groups that had ordered the IBM 704 mainframe computer met at the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, California (1955). The outcome of the meeting was the first Computer User's Group, SHARE. The name was chosen to promote the idea of

sharing information and programs between installations. The group grew quickly, eventually producing new software and documentation for their IBM computers. Note: In the past, the FPCUG received a box of computer "goodies" from IBM each quarter under the SHARE program. -- Aug 23 -- Pyra Labs launched a program called “Blogspot” in 1999 that would let people run their own blogs (1999). The program was bought by Google in 2003 and changed to Blogger in 2006. BlogSpot ushered in the age of social media -- Aug 24 -- Windows 95 was initially released worldwide (1995). -- Aug 24 --

Windows XP was initially released worldwide on August 24th, 2001.

-- Aug 25 -- Netscape Communications Corp. announced it had created a software company to enter an alliance with IBM, Oracle, and four Japanese electronics companies: Sony, Nintendo, Sega, and NEC (1996). The new company, Navio Corp., would compete with Microsoft by creating a new operating system. Netscape and Microsoft were locked in a bitter battle over Microsoft's linking of its Internet Explorer World Wide Web browser with its Windows operating system, taking customers away from Netscape's Navigator browser. -- Aug 26 --

The Recording Industry Association of America went after Pamela and Jeffrey Howell for copyright infringement back in 2006. They claimed Kazaa, a peer-to-peer file-sharing program, was used to make copyrighted files available for download. Jeffrey then tried to cover his tracks by erasing the hard drive of his computer. The judge, in this case, did not take kindly to this act of obstruction.

-- Aug 27 -- Compaq Computer Corp. announced its Presario family of personal computers, intended to be user-friendly and cheap (1993). For $1,399, the Presario included a monitor, modem, and software to access the recently popularized online world through Prodigy and America Online.

10

-- Aug 27 -- Using a Mac Portable aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis, the first e-mail from space was sent to Earth (1991). Two astronauts on the spacecraft, James Adamson and Shannon Lucid, wrote, “Hello Earth! Greetings from the STS-43 Crew. This is the first AppleLink from space. Having a GREAT time, wish you were here, ...send cryo and RCS! Hasta la vista, baby, ...we'll be back!” The message was transmitted to the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

-- Aug 27 -- The British Computer Misuse Act went into effect (1990). One of the earliest laws designed to address computer fraud, the Act resulted from a long debate over failed prosecutions of hackers -- in one well-publicized case, two men hacked into a British Telecom computer leaving messages in the Duke of Edinburgh's private mailbox.

-- Aug 27 -- Jeffrey Lee Parson was arrested from his home in Minneapolis MN. He was suspected to be the developer of the b. variant of the Blaster virus. The virus would turn infected computers into a unit that would give windowsupdate.microsoft.com a Denial of Service by simply flooding it with requests. The Secret Service worked by tracing the virus to the source via the Internet. A federal judge in Seattle sentenced Parson to 18 months in prison, three years of supervised release and 100 hours of community service -- Aug 31 --

Aldus Corporation and Adobe Systems Inc. finalized their merger (1994). The two companies hoped to combine forces in creating powerful desktop publishing software, building on the field Aldus founder Paul Brainerd had created in 1985 with his PageMaker software. Pagemaker was one of three components to the desktop publishing revolution. The other two were the invention of Postscript by Adobe and the LaserWriter laser printer from Apple. All three were necessary to create a desktop publishing environment.

11

Who's Who in the FPCUG

Officers Office Name Email Address

President Patrice Davis president@fpcug.org Vice President Roger Schirmer vicepresident@fpcug.org Secretary Frank Fota secretary@fpcug.org Treasurer Rick Neil treasurer@fpcug.org

Directors and Trustees Office Name Email Address

Directors Josh Cockey directors@fpcug.org Ed Alexander Robert Monroe Trustees Johnny Creech trustees_@fpcug.org Kay Pollock

Bill Williams "Agent of Record"

Chairmen & Representatives Office Name Email Address

APCUG Representative Frank Fota apcug_rep@fpcug.org Newsletter Editor Frank Fota newsletter@fpcug.org Webmaster Josh Cockey webmaster@fpcug.org Publicity Representative Carolyn Fota

Special Interest Workshop Leaders Office Name Email Address

Technology Josh Cockey technology_sig_leader@fpcug.org

Windows Jim Hopkins windows_sig_leader@fpcug.org

Windows 10 Ed Alexander windows10_sig_leader@fpcug.org