PC Community Main Meeting
7:30 - 10 pm September 9, 2016
Calvary Baptist Church 28924 Ruus Road, Hayward California
President Chuck Horner called the meeting to order at 7:30 pm. Get at least one $5 raffle ticket for this month’s raffle prize, CCleaner Pro for PC.
If you have printer cartridges you don’t need, bring them for fund raisers for the childcare facility where we meet.
Don’t be an early adopter. The Samsung Galaxy 7 Note battery can overheat and burn the user.
Presentation: R.J. Walker, of R.J . Walker Computer Consulting, answered member questions. R.J. and Chuck met at a Chamber of Commerce mixer.
R.J. was an electrician in the Navy. He started as a programmer. He went to The Learning Company as tech support in the early ‘90's and fell into desktop support, which he enjoyed, and moved to network support. He has many certifications, including ITEL certification. He has been working for himself since 2004. He is concerned about cybersecurity and is studying for WhiteHat certification.
R.J. notes that Java has a lot of vulnerabilities, but it is a good web tool.
R.J. provides a services that goes to homes and small businesses. He provides service contracts for a specified number of hours. These are accompanied by free tech telephone support for the systems that he becomes familiar with. His goal is to enable his customers do more on their own. Several people noted that GeekSquad does not provide thorough solutions.
In answer to a question, R.J. said that his favorite antivirus is the Norton suite. Symantec is a strong company. You can customize the suite to help improve performance. He also mention Kaspersky and Avast.
Another member ashed, "What is SATA?" It’s a type of drive connection. The cable allows a faster data transfer rate than was previously possible.
Does R.J. recommend the same thing for Mac? The Mac uses a different kind of chip, so it’s not as vulnerable. A Linux machine, properly set up, is almost invulnerable.
One attendee has heard that the internet is going to the UN. R.J. was not sure what that means. The internet is based on US servers, and there has been international interest in expanding the base.
Be aware of security, and make your friends aware. A secure password is long, has upper and lower case letters, numbers, and special characters. Do not use personal information such as birthdates.
A router can be set up to add either a white list (allowed addresses) or a blacklist (specific addresses to quarantine or delete). R.J. recommends a firewall between the router and your system.
Any time you click on a link, you are giving your system permission to open up. Look in emails to be sure they follow familiar patterns, such as greetings or signatures. When in doubt, don’t open it. Anything can be hacked, any site can be faked.
The dark web is real. Most folks never even find it. But be very careful.
To clear ransomware, you often need Bitcoins. But buying Bitcoins leaves you vulnerable because of the kinds of sites you must use.
An attendee asked, "Can you update my XP computer?" R.J. said that there are no more upgrades, and an attempt to fix it might break it. But if it still works, keep it.
Going back a topic, an attendee asked, "With Bitcoin I’ve heard the term 'blockchain'. Can you explain it?" R.J.'s understanding is that it’s a way of storing information.
There are simple ways to protect yourself. R.J. tries to give his customers commonsense tools and practices, such as creating secure passwords. It’s the smart customers who get into trouble. Their heads are too full of what they think they know for him to easily add information.
Someone else wondered, "How can I manage a contact list of thousands?" R.J. suggested OnTime, a CRM that you can buy off the shelf. It will help you find duplicates and manage groups. If you have Comcast business service, you can send any amount of email, avoiding your provider's accusation of spamming when you try to contact a few thousand of your closest friends.
Note: late at night, Comcast may slow way down as everyone on the same cable in your neighborhood is online, either gaming or streaming movies.
Does R.J. recommend leaving your computer on? No. Shut it down nightly to clear the cache.
Any recommendations from R.J. for backups? Carbonite offers online backup. He recommends a portable external hard drive–USB or external drive. Western Digital makes a good drive that has a good backup program built in. Most of the other drives have built-in backup software. Store the backup drive at a distance from the computer.
The Mac delegation wondered, "Why don’t I have to defrag my Mac like I used to have to with my PC?" Because the Mac is working in the background.
"If I get a suspect email, can I safely read it?" At the least, you’d need another mail program to send it to in order to start verifying the email.
Is there a way to make Siri spell better? Unknown. R.J. speaks to his Apple Watch, and the recognition and it is getting better with use.
Do we need to be concerned about electromagnetic waves? There are trade-offs. All electronic devices in the US must be open to EMF control by the government. Cars can be hacked and controlled. By the same token, OnStar can call for help when you have trouble on the road.
Any insight about what happened to Sony? RJ thinks it was an inside job because of the size of the breach.
Because of security controls, there are many environments now, such as hospitals, where you cannot insert a USB drive into a computer without raising an alarm.
Contact R.J. at 510-860-6217. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. or Www.rjwalker.net.
Door Prizes
Tool kit--Mimi Tse
D-Link 5 port desktop switch--Michael Wong
Sun glasses--Andrew Tews
Otterbox phone case--John Codorniz
Document/book holder--Chuck Horner
Sonic Wall internet security appliance--Bob Dunn
Church key--George Kornbluth
Otterbox case--ayle Emlein
Telephone--Alex Korbuchin
OUSD water bottle--Lola Hunter
Raffle Prize
CCleaner for PC Pro--John Codorniz
Yorkman is giving away Oakland-Berkeley-Alameda phone books at the meetings. Please let him know if you’d like one.
Oracle World is coming up soon.
Thank you to George Kornbluth for coordinating refreshments and to both Yorkman Lowe and Mimi Tse for the special contributions to the refreshment table.
The meeting was adjourned at 9:22 pm.
The next meeting: October 7, 2016. Respectfully submitted,
Bayle Emlein, Secretary
