The Spam Thread!

[huckleberrypie]

I'd be more than eager to read about your progress.

[cpd2009]

I'd be more than eager to read about your progress.

Part one is done. It's in the Computers Games & Tech subforum. Since I'm about to go on a weeklong road trip, I can't order parts until the first full week of July.

[cpd2009]

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/mi...too-often/

So there's an issue with the latest Windows 10 update of course. SSDs are being defragged too often due to a bug with automatic drive optimization. I'd suggest turning this off for SSD's until the fix makes it into a future Windows Update.

[cpd2009]

Do you ever get bothered by the occasional Wikipedia donation banners?

They have a donate link on the sidebar, but at least one or two days a month, they get in your face with these huge banners at the top of the page, begging you not to scroll away and read their plea. Sure, you can close it, but scroll a bit further down, and a slide in pop up appears either on bottom or the side asking you a second time.

it's days like that when I don't use Wikipedia at all. I understand they need the donations to keep the lights on but does it have to be so intrusive?

There's a solution. But only if you have a Mac, sadly. Mac OS has a built in Dictionary app which, well, ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin, but it has Wikipedia search as well. Articles are displayed nice and clean with no distractions.

If there's a Windows equivalent of a Wikipedia browser or reader, then I'm not aware of it.

[cpd2009]

There's an old Facebook Messenger scam making the rounds again, but it's new to me.

I have this friend on Facebook who I'm also friends with in real life. Earlier today, he sent a video link entitled "This video is yours?". The link looked official, and since he was posting the usual things he posts a day earlier, I clicked. What happened next was not what I was expecting.

After a bit, I ended up at another Facebook login page. Red flags were apparent to me right away. First off, I was already logged in to Facebook and it never asks a second time for a login. Secondly, and most important, the URL was not a Facebook address. It was a phishing attempt and I got the hell out of there.

My friend's account got hacked. Whoever is running it is now sending this fake video link to others as to try and get their login details, and unfortunately, they are more likely to actually "log in" to the fake site and give their account details away. Even I partially fell for it, only realizing it was a scam when the so called "log in" page didn't add up. And it could have been worse. Doing a bit of research, some links will try to install malware on your device. I was using Safari on the new MacBook, and I don't think any malware was installed, but I am going to run a Malwarebytes scan out of caution.

So if you ever get a link from a friend that says "This video is yours?" and it shows a video thumbnail, don't click on it.

[huckleberrypie]

There's an old Facebook Messenger scam making the rounds again, but it's new to me.

I have this friend on Facebook who I'm also friends with in real life. Earlier today, he sent a video link entitled "This video is yours?". The link looked official, and since he was posting the usual things he posts a day earlier, I clicked. What happened next was not what I was expecting.

After a bit, I ended up at another Facebook login page. Red flags were apparent to me right away. First off, I was already logged in to Facebook and it never asks a second time for a login. Secondly, and most important, the URL was not a Facebook address. It was a phishing attempt and I got the hell out of there.

My friend's account got hacked. Whoever is running it is now sending this fake video link to others as to try and get their login details, and unfortunately, they are more likely to actually "log in" to the fake site and give their account details away. Even I partially fell for it, only realizing it was a scam when the so called "log in" page didn't add up. And it could have been worse. Doing a bit of research, some links will try to install malware on your device. I was using Safari on the new MacBook, and I don't think any malware was installed, but I am going to run a Malwarebytes scan out of caution.

So if you ever get a link from a friend that says "This video is yours?" and it shows a video thumbnail, don't click on it.

Knowing how gullible some people are especially the elderly and tech-illiterate, they're prone to fall for these scams.

[cpd2009]

So I got a new smartphone. The two year old LG Rebel 3 was starting to get extremely slow even with simple web browsing. Could have just needed a reset, but the welcome screen seemed slow even after reset.

I got a Motorola Moto E6, the Tracfone version. $49 at Dollar General, and was able to transfer my existing service to the new one. The LG Rebel 3 had a quad core Snapdragon, the Moto E6 has a octa-core Snapdragon at 1.4ghz. It's not the highest end Moto, but it's already much better at browser and app performance than the LG Rebel 3. It's running Android 9.0, and I was even given four security updates when setting up the phone. I believe the LG Rebel 3 is stuck at Android 7.0.

I was considering going all in and save up for an iPhone, but with Apple moving to ARM, the day will come when iOS apps can run on macOS. Plus, I don't use a smartphone enough anyway to justify a $299 phone. The $49 Moto will do just fine.

Now if Apple could just bake MTP support into Finder so we Android users don't have to deal with the kludgy File Transfer app...

[huckleberrypie]

So I got a new smartphone. The two year old LG Rebel 3 was starting to get extremely slow even with simple web browsing. Could have just needed a reset, but the welcome screen seemed slow even after reset.

I got a Motorola Moto E6, the Tracfone version. $49 at Dollar General, and was able to transfer my existing service to the new one. The LG Rebel 3 had a quad core Snapdragon, the Moto E6 has a octa-core Snapdragon at 1.4ghz. It's not the highest end Moto, but it's already much better at browser and app performance than the LG Rebel 3. It's running Android 9.0, and I was even given four security updates when setting up the phone. I believe the LG Rebel 3 is stuck at Android 7.0.

I was considering going all in and save up for an iPhone, but with Apple moving to ARM, the day will come when iOS apps can run on macOS. Plus, I don't use a smartphone enough anyway to justify a $299 phone. The $49 Moto will do just fine.

Now if Apple could just bake MTP support into Finder so we Android users don't have to deal with the kludgy File Transfer app...

Well given your use case I don't see how you'd need too much from a smartphone. In my case as long as it can run emulators half-decently, a hundred dollar unit will do just fine for me; anything more expensive would be a little too overkill unless either I save up or the tech trickles down to less expensive devices.

[cpd2009]

Crap...

Looks like my TV capture card has bit the dust. I've uninstalled and reinstalled the drivers, but I get no video signal at all, and eventually, Vista BSOD's. The OS still detects the card and shows it in device manager as working, so I can't tell if it's an OS issue or if the card is on it's last legs. It was working fine a few weeks ago, but I did install some security updates from MS.

I may try reseating the card, and reinstall Vista again, but if that doesn't work, I'll have to dig out my old Dazzle USB device. I won't have to use this workaround for very long. In my search for an almost-perfect method of doing VHS transfers, I came across this particular trick.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZC5Zr3NC2PY

TL;DR: You need an analog composite to HDMI upscaler plus an HDMI capture device. The upscaler does the heavy lifting (scaling, deinterlacing, etc), so you don't need to do much post processing outside of compression and editing. I have the upscaler already purchased, and the HDMI capture card is in the mail, in particular, this one below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daS5RHVAl2U

I don't know if the old P-IV Dell would be up to the task of capturing a 720p HD signal, so I may have to use the MacBook Pro or the Dell gaming rig until I can locate a dedicated capture PC or Mac.

[huckleberrypie]

Crap...

Looks like my TV capture card has bit the dust. I've uninstalled and reinstalled the drivers, but I get no video signal at all, and eventually, Vista BSOD's. The OS still detects the card and shows it in device manager as working, so I can't tell if it's an OS issue or if the card is on it's last legs. It was working fine a few weeks ago, but I did install some security updates from MS.

I may try reseating the card, and reinstall Vista again, but if that doesn't work, I'll have to dig out my old Dazzle USB device. I won't have to use this workaround for very long. In my search for an almost-perfect method of doing VHS transfers, I came across this particular trick.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZC5Zr3NC2PY

TL;DR: You need an analog composite to HDMI upscaler plus an HDMI capture device. The upscaler does the heavy lifting (scaling, deinterlacing, etc), so you don't need to do much post processing outside of compression and editing. I have the upscaler already purchased, and the HDMI capture card is in the mail, in particular, this one below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daS5RHVAl2U

I don't know if the old P-IV Dell would be up to the task of capturing a 720p HD signal, so I may have to use the MacBook Pro or the Dell gaming rig until I can locate a dedicated capture PC or Mac.

Well it does happen sometimes. I mulled about setting up some way to capture footage off my desktop using my laptop, but eh, that'll do later.