Computer Handyman

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Facebook has announced that it will introduce the Libra cryptocurrency, which will be pegged to several international currencies and will be backed by several well known financial organizations, including Visa and Mastercard.   It appears to be something like a cryptocurrency dollar.   Bitcoin is more like cryptocurrency gold.   It has no set value, but it does a limit on how many Bitcoins can ever exist, making it more like gold, something whose supply is limited and that has a value depending mainly on how much people are willing to pay for it.   Thus, the value of the Libra should be fairly steady, while the value of Bitcoin may vary wildly.   A story in the Verge examines some of the downsides of Libra.   One of the first questions is whether the Libra will work at all.   It seems likely that it will, but its blockchain technology is different from Bitcoin’s.   Bitcoin’s chain is basically open to the world, allowing anyone to create a...

The excitement over bitcoin and blockchain is overblown.  Blockchain may be a relatively secure way of storing information about transactions, but it is not cost-free.  The electricity and computing power used to create blockchains is expensive.  If you are tracking something that is very valuable, it may be worthwhile. but otherwise, the expense of creating the blockchain may it unreasonable to use blockchain. Several sources ( Morgan Stanley ,  CNBC )   say the breakeven point for mining Bitcoin is about %8,000 to $8,600.  Currently, the price of Bitcoin would not cover the cost of mining it in most places in America.  It may still be profitable in some places where electric power is really cheap. Another  Bitcoin-friendly site  puts the cost at just under $5,000.  Where power is cheaper, the cost is much less; in Venezuela, it is only a little over $500. Blockchain works by creating codes that are hard to break.  The co...

t I am disappointed that Microsoft Windows has dropped gadgets.  For a while in some version of Windows Microsoft offered gadgets.  Then they dropped them when Windows 8 came out.  Then someone offered gadgets that would run on Windows 8.  The 8gadgetpack was very nice; it looked good, worked well, and had the functions I was interested in.  As new versions of Windows 10 came out, they often disabled the gadgets, saying they were a security threat.  More recently there were reports that Russian hackers were targeting Microsoft Windows.  So, I decided to remove the 8gadgetpack, but I looked for a replacement. The main replacement I have found is rainmeter .  There are many “skins” available for rainmeter that provide many of the same functions as the 8gadget pack.  My question is, however, whether rainmeter opens the same security holes for hackers that the 8gadgetpack does? From discussions on the Internet, it looks like some server farm...

I was going to update an iPhone, and I got a notice that iTunes needed to be updated.  iTunes displayed a connection to the iPhone.  After I downloaded and installed the new version of iTunes, it no longer recognized the iPhone.  It would only connect to the the Apple Store.  This is not an improvement.  Apple messed up my evening. This operation restored the driver, but then iTunes said it wanted to update again.  Crazy! Connect your idevice to computer the go to device manager, expand other devices, you device should be listed there, right-click it the select update driver, click on search my computer for drivers, then browse to C/Program files/Common files/Apple/Mobile Device support/drivers click on Ok..... From https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5803142?tstart=0 There is lots of bad advice on the web about how to fix this problem.  At least those fixes didn't work for my problem.

The Windows 10 anniversary update appeared to kill my wifi network.  I tried many suggestions which I found on the Internet, but none worked until I tried this one to reset the network adapter .   After you run it, you have to log into your wifi network again; so, you need your password for the wifi connection.   http://pureinfotech.com/network-reset-fix-wifi-windows-10/

None of my Apple devices would connect to iTunes on my Windows PC.  Apple help on the PC and the official Apple help sites on the web were also of no use.  This site, however, had the solution to my problem, which was to install the Apple USB driver. http://www.syncios.com/fix-itunes-not-recognize-iphone-ipad.html As it suggested, my Apple device was improperly located under Mobile Devices in the Windows Device Manager. It should be been under the USB list. I followed the instructions and it worked. Thank you. I did later find it in an Apple discussion here https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4066236