SALT Bytes. They ARE listening.. We just don t know it!

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1 July 2018 Volume 30 No. 7 SALT Bytes Published bythe Central New York Technology User Group A Volunteer, Non-Profit Organization They ARE listening.. We just don t know it! Our next meeting is TUESDAY the 24th!!! Lets talk about Computer, phone and Laptop spying. Who is looking at us and listening to us without our knowing? You would be surprised! July s meeting, at the Dewitt Library, will present TV and Tablets Who s spying on who? Also somethings on Alarm Systems and Freedom Act RS-34! Don t forget our Picnic on Monday August 6 th Please notice that our June meeting will be held in the Dewitt Public Library, Downstairs Room INSIDE Cover Page Credits & Info. VP s & Nimrod s Message Picnic Notice Articles Recipes Optical Illusion Calendar Schedule Pg 1 pg 2 pg 3 pg 4 pg 5-8 Pg 9-10 pg 11 Pg 12 Pg 13

2 President Rod Stubbs Vice President John Driscoll (315) Treasurer David Gregg / treasurer@cnypcug.org Secretary secretary@cnypcug.org Directors Dave Cooper davec@cnypcug.org Derek Currie derek@cnypcug.org Rick Nash r.nash47@gmail.com Past President John Driscoll pastpresident@cnypcug.org SALT Bytes SALTBytes Staff Publisher/ John Driscoll & Derek Currie Editor/ John Driscoll & Derek Currie Graphics/ John Driscoll & Derek Currie Editorial Staff/ Derek Curie, Rod Stubbs Advertising/ Rick Nash Columnists/ Derek Currie Webmaster/ CNYPCUG 118 JULIAN PLACE PMB 915 Syracuse, New York CNYPCUG Website Don Ristagno don@cnypcug.org The CNY Technology User Group meets at the Dewitt Community Library 5110 Jamesville Rd, Jamesville, NY Articles, advertisements, and other submissions should be made only in RTF or MS-Word format, unless prior arrangement has been made. Margins, double spaces at the end of sentences should be removed before submission. A single hard return should occur at the end of paragraphs, not at the end of each line. Send all submissions via to newsdesk@cnypcug.org. You are encouraged to submit articles for publication in SALTBytes. Due to space limitations, the Editorial Staff reserves the right to restrict publication to articles offering the greatest benefit to CNYPCUG or its readers. We encourage articles which educate and entertain our readers. Commercial advertising is best supplied as cameraready art, to size, screened at 85 lines or less. SALTBytes reserves the right to reject any advertising and is not responsible for typographic errors. We cannot guarantee that an advertisement will appear in a specific issue or its placement if it is submitted after the 5th of the month. Ads that do not conform to the proper sizes will be re-sized and a production charge may be applied. Unless specifically stated otherwise, the opinions expressed in any article or column are those of the individual author[s] and do not represent an official position of, or endorsement by, the Central New York Personal Computer Users Group, Inc. CNYPCUG is an independent, non-profit agency and is not affiliated with any vendor or manufacturer. Entire contents Copyright 2018, the Central New York Personal Computer Users Group, Inc., except as noted. All Rights Reserved. Permission to reproduce articles in part or in whole is given to other user groups for internal, non-profit use, providing the author and SALTBytes are given credit for reproduced item[s]. All brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

3 Nimrod s Message Editor: Cat News Vice President s Message By John Driscoll Oh there he goes again. Talking about stargazing, the weather, and who knows what else. It s a good thing cats can t talk; just type. Oh com on, you ve seen cats walking across keyboards.. that s typing. I know it s looks like gibberish, but run it thru the cat-eeze translator and there you have it.. Cat News! The last couple of weeks have been pretty clear and warm. We even set some records for high temperatures. Yes, even a record for consecutive days over 90! It was nice to go out later in the evening and have a chance to do come serious stargazing. A gentle breeze, clear skies, and the promise of seeing several astronomical events. What you say? Star gazing in Syracuse? Can t happen. OK, so one would think. But it does happen if the gods are with us. Right now we are fortunate to see a nice planetary lineup. Mars is the highlighted celestial body for the next few months. Today we might see a sky with Mars, Saturn, the Moon, and Jupiter lined up. All that talk about a picnic. To me that just brings up images of Kitty Treats. I know that, while I am not allowed to come to the picnic, I will partake of some very tasty leftovers. So, I plead with you to not eat all the hamburgers. On the other hand, do you know what goes into Hotdogs? The name should give you a hint Dogs? Anyway, I am especially looking for the leftover deviled eggs! Yummmmm. Well, guess I am going off to do what I do best, Nap. Don t laugh, it s a talent! However, remember we are still in Central New York and the forecast is for rain all week. As fate would have it, we have three stalled Low pressure areas right over the Eastern Seaboard which is swooshing warm and wet air off the Atlantic right into our CNY area. Oh well, imagine what a snowstorm that would be!! Don t worry, we will get to the snow soon enough. I have one wish; it doesn t rain on August 6 th. That s our CNYTUG (remember, Central New York Technology User Group) 11 th annual picnic. Again, we will be picnicking at the Camillus Erie Canal Park & Sims Landing Museum. We have had excellent luck with our picnics in the past and I fully expect this year s Picnic to be another success. Those of you who have gone to the other picnics know that the food is good (I might even say exceptional) the comradery is fantastic, and we might even get in a boat ride down the canal. August 6 th is only two weeks away so be sure to put it on your calendars. Ok, I am hungry just writing this. I m going out for a snack.see you at the July meeting and especially at the ANNUAL PICNIC!!! 3

4 We will supply the Hamburgers, Hot Dogs and Drinks You can bring a dish to pass. Large or small. Home made or a bag of chips.. Or just you good looks! We set up at 5:00 PM and go till it s over. Mark your Calendar August 6, :00 PM we start to setup We will be in the Sim s Store Picnic Area; same as last year. Hopefully we will be taking a boat tour of the canal.

5 Saying Goodbye to Cable By Paul Stackhouse, Member, Central Kentucky Computer Society On the subject of cutting loose of cable TV, CKCS long-time member Paul Stackhouse found there was a full house of members and guests interested in the subject. It is clear that the climbing cost of cable service has caused hundreds, or maybe thousands of Lexingtonians to look for lower cost options. Paul offered four questions one should answer to decide if leaving cable TV is for you. 1. DO YOU WATCH NON-BROADCAST CHANNELS? 2. WHAT CHANNELS DO YOU WANT TO KEEP/LOSE? 3. WHAT STREAMING SERVICE SHOULD I CHOOSE? 4. DO YOU (ALREADY) HAVE A STREAMING DEVICE? To cut costs, Paul primarily suggested two options to consider. (1) Getting an antenna and watching TV over the air or (2) Paying for a monthly streaming service using internet from your internet service provider, delivered through your smart TV or another device. In answering question 2, if you generally watch just local TV channels for news, local sports, and network programs they offer, and you are not into national sports or specialty channels, then watching over the air is for you. Best, it is the least expensive. Remember the days of rabbit ears to receive TV signals? Newer and better antennas that you can hang almost anywhere can easily access 25 plus local channels in the Lexington area (more or less depending on your location) will provide you high definition signal on modern TVs. It involves a onetime cost about $30 for the antenna, and no monthly bills. If, however, you watch lots of sports, cooking and home improvement shows, cable news, movies, or other cable-only networks you can still save money by getting your TV over the internet. There are three things you need. (1) You still must purchase your internet connection from a local provider such as Spectrum, Windstream, etc. Super high-speed internet is not necessary, in most cases 15 Mbps (megabytes per second) or higher is sufficient. (2) You need to subscribe to a streaming service like Hulu, YouTube TV, SlingTV or others to provide you the channel package that includes the channels you commonly watch. There are about a dozen of these, so some homework will be required. (3) If you don t already have a smart TV, or network connectable Blu-ray player, you ll need to purchase a device to convert the internet (network) signal back into a TV (HDMI) signal. This selection requires some shopping to get the unit you like to match the streaming service that carries the channels you want. Like offering from Apple (AppleTV), Amazon (FireStick TV), Google (Chromecast), or the platform agnostic Roku just to name a few of a dozen or more out there to consider. All of the devices are just a one-time purchase; any ongoing costs are for the streaming service to which you subscribe to watch TV through the device. If you wish to record shows to watch later, many services offer the ability to record your programs in their cloud which you can pick a time to watch. It s like having a cable box DVR, but they have the box, not you. Do the research: Choose the channels you want to watch, choose the streaming service that offers those channels, and choose a device that allows you to run that streaming service. Note: Firestick (an Amazon device) won t play YouTube TV (a Google brand) and Chromecast (a Google device) won t play Amazon Prime video; while Apple or Roku will play either. When you cut the cable, you should find it simpler and less expensive than you might think. Choosing a service that carries the channels you want: -services/best-tv-streaming-services.html Deciding among various streaming devices Comparing Smart TVs: best-smart-tvs

6 Organize your Apps on your iphone and ipad By Jim Cerny, Instructor, Sarasota Technology Users Group, Florida Are you enjoying your iphone and/or ipad? bottom for a row of dots. One dot will be white, and the other gray dots indicate the number of screens you have that contain app icons. The farthest screen to the LEFT is really a control or notification screen and it does not contain app icons. When you have moved the app icon(s) you want to different places, press the Home button and that will stop the apps from vibrating and you will be good to go. Remember, you can only move the apps around when you are in vibrate mode. Please practice this a few times and get used to being able to move an app icon to a different screen. You can also move it down onto the bar at the bottom of the screen. This bar, called the dock and the apps on it, are always on top of any app home screen. The dock can only hold a few apps. When you download a new app, it will appear on the first screen that has space for it. Once you find it, you can drag it anywhere you want. Quite amazing devices and they offer so much. Going to the App Store and downloading a free app (game, news, entertainment, whatever) can be fun. But what happens when you have several home screens on your device with too many apps? Well, you can organize them onto different screens and into folders or groups! This is a great way to keep those apps you need handy. Let s begin with the basic ways to move your app icons to different home screens. Pick an app, any app, touch your finger to it and hold it there for a moment and ALL the app icons on your screen will start to wiggle. (Most will have a little X in the upper left corner of the icon). Now touch and hold on any app and you can DRAG it with your finger to any other location on that screen or to any other screen by dragging it to the left or right edge. Your device can have several screens of apps. When you are on a screen, look toward the Now here is the helpful fun part you can put several app icons into a FOLDER. To do this, perform the above, but instead of moving or dragging the app to another place, drag it ON TOP of another app! This will open and create a new folder on that screen which will now contain BOTH apps. Do not let up with your finger until you see that gray folder appear. While the apps are still shaking, touch the text in the rectangle above the folder, and you can change the folder name to anything you want. This is a great way to organize your apps. You can now drag apps into and out of that folder. If you want to change the folder name, touch and hold on any app to get them to vibrate, then go to the folder and touch on the name to change it. And, to really give you lots of room for many apps, each folder can have multiple screens as well! To delete a folder, simply move all the apps out of it. So, by using these simple moves, you can organize many apps into named folders on the screens any way you want. Now that you know how to organize them, you can download more free apps!

7 Gmail has a new interface Matt Batt, President, The Computer Club, Florida Gmail is now the most popular service with over 1 billion users. Google has recently released a new modern on-line interface for Gmail usage. Users can switch to the new Gmail interface via the gear icon on the top right corner of the old interface. Mat brought it up to review what it looked like and found himself using it more than the Microsoft Outlook program he usually uses for . It has new security features, a convenient design and lots of new capabilities. In the security area, Google claims it has improved security against scams and malware and can prevent more than 99.9% from reaching your inbox. You can set expiration dates for s by sending a link to a message that won t work after a certain amount of time. You can prohibit the copying, forwarding and printing of your s. related functions. If you hover over any in your inbox, you ll see icons that let you Archive, Delete, Mark as Read or Snooze the so that it is hidden from the inbox until you are ready to reply to it. When you have an open, icons for functions such as Archive, Report as Spam, Delete, Print and Mover are conveniently placed by the top of the display. Reply, Reply All and Forward are at the bottom of the . Attachments will also display as small and easily accessible tiles below the . There is a new feature called smart replies, which allow users to choose from suggested responses to an . Gmail is analyzing your incoming and framing an answer you can use as a short answer with just a click. You can set reminders to respond to certain s. Matt uses Google Tasks as a To Do List and Google Calendar as his electronic calendar. He is especially impressed by new side panel in the Gmail interface that lets me drag an into the Tasks Side Panel. When he drags it, it is immediately added to his Tasks List as a Task. If he puts a date on the Task when he drags it over, it is also automatically added to his Calendar. Now that is very useful and convenient integrations of , calendar and tasks. The new design provides quicker access to Be sure to give it a try! He hopes you like it as much as he does. 7

8 Gnome Maps by Cal Esneault, Cajun Clickers Computer Club gave the map below. This was a less dangerous route, but I think I would make a few adjustments. Anyone who has used Google to search for an item would not be surprised to soon receive numerous advertisements for similar merchandise. For privacy reasons, you could switch to a less invasive search engine, such as DuckDuckGo. To minimize tracking of your travels, an alternative to Google Maps is Gnome Maps (it is based on information from OpenStreetMap). I downloaded the software for my Linux Mint system directly from the Mint Software Manager. It was installed in the "Accessories" group under the "Maps" name. Below is a screenshot of a section of Baton Rouge as displayed by the Gnome Maps program. Zooming and scrolling around was very smooth. Details emerged as you drill down to smaller and smaller areas. It has an icon which will generate a side panel where you can enter end points of your travel to get a preferred route. It gives the estimated time and distance as well as step-by-step route points. I did not see an easy way to print out the route by itself, so you either have to write it down or crop the path instructions to other software for printing. Gnome Maps also gives you the option to view the maps in photographic view (see below for the area around our club site). You have three choices by which it will choose a route (done by graphhopper): driving, bicycling, or walking. The above route was for driving from LSU to the Cajun Clickers, so it chose a route using the Interstate. When I switched to a route for a bicycle, it Overall, I found Gnome Maps to be a very simple and clean program that did exactly what I wanted without having to go through Google. Although the OpenStreetMaps application has more options, I found it had many extra features which seemed to make it less responsive than Gnome Maps. Since Google maps are tagged, use of either Gnome Maps or OpenStreetMaps gets you away from issues if you distribute directions to the public and if you are unsure of "fair use" limitations.

9 Basic Macaroni Salad SERVES 10 COOK TIME 15 Min Recipies Lasagna Stuffed Shells Botto SERVES 6 COOK TIME 50 Min What You'll Need 1 pound elbow macaroni 5 hard boiled eggs, chopped 1 cup chopped celery 1/2 cup finely chopped red onion 2 cups mayonnaise 1/2 cup sour cream 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder 1 teaspoon salt 3/4 teaspoon black pepper What to Do 1. In a large pot of boiling water, cook macaroni over high heat 7 to 9 minutes, or just until tender. Drain, rinse, and let cool. 2. Place macaroni in a large bowl, add remaining ingredients, and mix well. Cover and refrigerate at least 1 hour before serving What You'll Need 1 (32-ounce) container ricotta cheese 3 cups (12 ounces) shredded mozzarella cheese, 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese, 2 eggs 1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley 3 garlic cloves, minced 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon black pepper 1/2 pound cooked Italian sausage, crumbled 1 (28-ounce) jar spaghetti sauce, divided 1 (12-ounce) package jumbo pasta shells, cooked according to package directions, drained What to Do 1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Coat a 9- x 13- nch baking dish with cooking spray. 2. In a large bowl, combine ricotta cheese, 2 cups mozzarella cheese, 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, the eggs, parsley, garlic, salt, and pepper; mix well. Stir in sausage until well combined. 3. Spread 1 cup spaghetti sauce evenly over bottom of prepared baking dish. Spoon 1 to 2 tablespoons cheese mixture into each shell; place filled shells in baking dish. 4. Pour remaining spaghetti sauce over filled shells, cover with aluminum foil, and bake 40 minutes. Remove foil from dish, and sprinkle with remaining mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses. Bake 10 to 12 additional minutes, or until shells are heated through and cheese is golden and bubbling. Let sit 10 minutes before serving. 9

10 Grandma's Macaroni and Cheese Honey Pepper Sirloin (2) 7 ounce sirloin steaks salt & black pepper, to taste vegetable oil SERVES 6 COOK TIME 35 Min What You'll Need 1 (16-ounce) package elbow macaroni 2 (10-3/4-ounce) cans condensed Cheddar cheese soup 2 cups milk 6 cups (1-1/2 pounds) shredded sharp Cheddar cheese, reserving 1 cup for topping 3 tablespoons butter, melted 1 1/2 teaspoons dry mustard 1 teaspoon salt 3/4 teaspoon black pepper What to Do Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Coat a 9- x 13-inch baking dish with cooking spray. Cook macaroni according to package directions; drain and place back into pot. Stir in remaining ingredients except reserved cheese. Pour mixture into prepared baking dish and sprinkle with reserved cheese. Bake 35 to 40 minutes, or until heated through. Honey Pepper Sauce: 1 Cup Teriyaki Sauce 1 Cup Water 1/2 Cup Honey 1/4 Cup Brown Sugar 1/4 Cup Red Wine Vinegar 2 Dashes Tabasco Sauce 1 Pinch Cajun Seasoning 1 tablespoon Black Pepper To make the honey-pepper sauce, combine all but honey and pepper in saucepan and heat to a light boil. Stir in honey and mix well. Add pepper and remove from heat. Thicken slightly (till just lightly coats a spoon) using slurry (cornstarch & water). Pre heat the grill. Rub the sirloin with vegetable oil, then season with salt and pepper. Grill the sirloin for 2 to 4 minutes per side or until done. Serve sirloin with some honey pepper sauce poured over it. Serves 2

11 Optical Illusions Stare at the 4 dots in the center of the picture for 30 seconds. Then, stare at a blank wall or piece of paper and see what you see, or shall I say who do you see? 11

12 CNYTUG Calendar For Info Call Visit the web site at: Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Board Meeting :00 P.M. Annual Picnic 6:00 P.M. Monthly Meeting August

13 This month it s Who s listening to us! Next Month, August, it the Annual Picnic! Member Door Prizes & Giveaways every month at meetings Our meetings are at Dewitt Community Library ADDRESS CNYPCUG 118 JULIAN PLACE PMB 915 Syracuse, New York IMPORTANT NOTICE TO MEMBERS Please be aware that we would like you to register for EACH month s meeting! CNYPCUG requests that all members and nonmembers register to attend our monthly meetings at Dewitt Public Library. The registration form is available online at - /reserve. Feb 19 Mar Meetings DOOR PRIZES Here s a partial list of some of the items we have lined up for future meetings: Virtual Private Networks VPN, Security, Tax Pgm, April 16 Election, APCUG on Zoom May 21 June 18 July 24 August 6 Video Conference Pgms Rise of the Robots Cell Phones & Tablets Annual Picnic Air Ultra Duster ipad Hardshell Case Wireless Mouse Kaspersky Security Software HP 32 GB Flashdrive DVD Movies Vibe Acoustic Speaker PNY 16 GB Micro SDHC Card PNY 16 GB USB Flash Drive And many more valuable prize items! 13