COMPUTERS & THE INTERNET – Page 2

HEIC / HEIF IMAGE FILES

Apple has been using the HEIC file format for images for a while now, but I recently saved my first one to a Windows PC.

The image was sent iPhone to iPhone via text message and, as I wanted to save it, I forwarded it to my PC via Email. This is the first time I have had to deal with a HEIC image on a PC as, even though my iPhone camera format (camera capture) is set to “High Efficiency”, my iPhone seems to always produce .jpg files.

I tried to open the HEIC file first with Photoshop Elements then Paint.net and then the Win 10 photos App, without success.

I then tried to convert it via an online web site and, not only was it taking a long time, but it crashed before completion. So I went to the Microsoft Store and got the “HEIC to JPEG (FREE)’” App. This App provides 10 conversions a day before you have to pay. Even then, it only costs AUD$3-55.

The App works quickly and easily. In fact, I will buy it. AUD$3-55 is not much.

APPLE MAC – – BIG SUR / TIME MACHINE

My 2014 Mac Book Pro (MBP) has updated to Big Sur without any problems.

APFS FILE SYSTEM AND TIME MACHINE

Thanks to the podcast MacBreak Weekly Episode 740 that referred to an Ars Technica article that suggests that you should re-format your Time Machine drive to the new file system AFPS.

The Ars Technica article explains why you should re-format the drive to AFPS. However, I had a bit trouble in the re-formatting process so I will set out what I did.

When I tried to use Disk Utility on the MBP to erase the Time Machine drive and re-format as AFPS it kept failing and the reason shown was that the drive was in use. This was even after I removed the drive from Time Machine.

So, I attached the drive to a Windows Machine and used Disk Management to delete the partitions and re-format as NTFS. Then I re-attached to the MBP and used Disk Utility to Erase and re-format as AFPS. All went well and I renamed it – Time Machine- !!

I then set up Time Machine again with the re-formatted drive.

BLUETOOTH DRIVER UPDATE / MICROSOFT KEYBOARD PROBLEMS

I have always applied every Windows Update including Optional Driver updates.

However, I have encountered an optional Driver update that caused issues with my Bluetooth keyboard.

The keyboard is a standard Microsoft Bluetooth keyboard and mouse combo that I am using on my HTPC NUC.

The driver update was for the “Intel ® Wireless Bluetooth ® device.

Fortunately, I remembered what drivers had been updated and I was able to roll back the driver as soon as I noticed that the keyboard would not connect automatically at start and would regularly lose the connection, even though it was still noted as “connected” in All Settings. Surprisingly, the mouse was not affected.

As soon as I rolled back the driver the issue was resolved.

In future I think I will wait for driver updates via the normal Windows Update.

Windows 10 Mail App–Problems Update

Refer previous post.

I reset the App (All Settings / Apps / Apps and features / Mail and Calendar / Advanced options / Reset) a bit over 2 weeks ago. It seems to be better. However, sync problems with G Mail occurred again after a couple of days, but I deleted and re-installed G mail and it has worked OK since then. The only other issue was one time when I forwarded an Email. When I clicked “Forward” the text changed to one letter wide in a long descending column of single letters. However I selected the text and removed the formatting and that fixed it.

This how to remove formatting in Win 10 Mail App. First select the area (highlight) or Ctrl/A to select all and:

After the Reset, the App is working well enough. So, I will keep using the App rather than Outlook and post again if there are any more issues.

5th April. Issues with Gmail are continuing. Gmail stops syncing and the formatting issues seem to also be with Gmail. I give up.

SURFACE PEN–REPLACEMENT TIPS

I did not know this but you can buy a pack of replacement nibs or tips for the surface pen.

I note that there is a newer version with 4 nibs (2H H HB B)

The 3 pack that I bought was about AUD$30 at The Good Guys.

I recently upgraded from Surface Pro 4 to the latest Surface Pro 7 but was able to keep the keyboard/cover, mouse, dock and pen.

However my Surface Pen had been “broken” and I was looking online to decide whether or not to get the same pen for about $140 or shell out for the latest “slim” version for $235.

Although the “slim” version has a rechargeable battery, I don’t draw so the extra features on this more expensive one would be wasted on me.

However while searching for the best price, I came across the much cheaper replacement tips.

I knew it was the tip that was not functioning correctly not only because it still worked (sort of), but also from how it got “broken”. A visitor (who will remain nameless) asked if I had a pen she could use. I referred her to my desk that had 3 ball point pens on it in plain sight. Despite this, she decided to detach what was clearly a stylus magnetically clipped to the side of my Surface Pro 4 and attempted to use it to write on paper. When it would not write, she then proceeded to press down on it heavily and by the time I noticed she had bent the tip.

It did continue to work but was never the same. For example, it was hard to get straight edges when used with Photo Shop Elements. The very same person asked me to use Photo Shop Elements to remove a wine glass from a photo, but when I could not get a straight edge on the table she complained. When I tried to point out that the stylus she had damaged was the cause of the problem, her contemptuous reply was “a bad workman always blames his tools”. You can’t win!

The old tip can be pulled out easily with needle nose pliers and the new one is pushed in by hand. Don’t use pliers to insert the new one, but press reasonably firmly to make sure it is seated correctly. There are plenty of YouTube videos showing how.

We Can’t Sign into Your Account – And Other Computer Problems

Refer my previous post about my new NUC.

My old desktop computer started life when I built it in 2008 but the current iteration dates from 2013 when I kept the Lian Li case but replaced almost everything else.

Two problems surfaced at the same time. These were:

No 1 – We Can’t Sign into Your Account

On bootup, I kept getting the above notice. The suggested simple fix of signing out and signing back in did not work and the alternative seemed to be to carry out a number of changes to the registry. I did not want to do this and thought it would be easier to do a PC Reset.

However, the PC Reset process kept failing. At first, I thought that it might have something to do with the inability to sign into a Microsoft Account. However, later I discovered that the special partition on the C drive needed for a PC Reset was missing. Whether this was due to problems with the 2-year-old SSD and/ or if I did not copy it over to the SSD when I imaged the old drive for transfer to the new SSD, I can’t say. I am reasonably certain that I copied over all of the partitions, but I can’t remember.

In any case I resolved the issue by setting up a new user, elevating it to an Administrator/Microsoft Account and then deleting the old user account. Then I went to the Microsoft site the get the download tool and installed a fresh copy of Win 10.

Everything now works as it should, and a test PC Reset was successful.

No 2 – Computer Failed to Boot when shut down and re-started.

If I shutdown the machine and tried to restart after a short period, it would not send a signal to the monitor. Power was getting to the motherboard and the hard drive was working, just no monitor. My first thought was a problem with the GPU, and I tested this and resolved the issue by swapping out the GPU. The old GPU was a Gigabyte Radeon HD6850 that I bought in 2011 so I have had a fair run out of it.

OTHER THINGS:

Will Not Boot From DVD

As stated above I obtained the download tool to make a bootable DVD of Win 10 for a fresh install, but the computer would not boot from the DVD. It took more than a few minutes for “the penny to drop” and to realise that I had to go into EUFI and turn off fast boot.

Storage Spaces

As well as not being able to boot from DVD, I really started to panic when I pulled out the additional hard drives to recover and copy my data. All was not lost as I had current backups to other drives, one up to date using Win 10 Backup and another a week old via SyncToy. But again, it took more than a few minutes to put two and two together and remember that, back in the days of Win 8.1 (I think), you could create a “Storage Space” by combining physical drives into one big virtual drive. Why I did this I cannot say, but it was probably because I could. I think the last time I bought the OS was Windows 8 or 7 and the “Storage Space” survived the subsequent upgrades to Win 10.

However, I found out the hard way that you just can’t pull one drive out of the storage space and put it in another computer to view/copy the contents. It has to be properly removed and even then, the data on the removed drive is lost.

Anyhow, I had up to date backups, so I did not lose anything, but I have no real use for storage spaces, so I won’t be using it again.

Back Ups

I was using both the inbuilt Win 10 back up set to the default of every hour PLUS a separate back up using SyncToy that I performed when I remembered – usually about once a month. Both were to external USB drives with one (the Win 10 back Up) permanently attached and the other (SyncToy) plugged in just for the backup.

I will keep doing this for my new NUC.

One thing that I did learn is that the Win 10 Back Up system does not detect changes to files encrypted with VeraCrypt. SyncToy does, but only if you tick “Options/Check File contents”.

I tried the new “Personal Vault” in OneDrive but gave up as it becomes annoying with constant reminders about signing out and in.

So in the end, the silver lining is that I learnt some valuable lessons.

My New NUC 7i5BNH

A couple of days ago my old desktop computer became very troublesome. It would not always turn on and, when it finally started, a message would come up showing that “ We can’t sign into your account”. I’ll write a separate post about this but considering I built it in 2008, I thought it was about time for a new one.

I have been looking at those very small computers from Intel called a NUC.

I did not want to spend a lot of money so I looked for models that have been (or will soon be) replaced by newer versions.

I decided on the NUC7i5BNH which was at about a 30% discount at Umart. It is a “barebones” kit meaning that I have to buy and install the HDD and RAM.

I won’t go into the full specs but the CPU is a 7th generation Core i5 and it has USB C Thunderbolt 3, WiFi, Bluetooth, HDMI with 4K video output , SD card slot and plenty of USB3 ports. The “H” in the model number means that it has space for a second 2.5 inch SATA SSD.

The main thing about these “little” computers is the small size yet they have the functionality of a full size computer.

And when I say “little” I mean small – 11cm X 11cm X 5cm. (OR for us oldies who still think in feet and inches – about 4½ inches X 4½ inches X 2 inches)

I set it up with:

Main Hard Drive – 1 TB M.2 SSD

Second Hard Drive 2 TB 2.5 inch SATA SSD

RAM 2 X 16 GB SODIMs = 32 GB

Windows 10 Pro

Also, I ended up buying a USB DVD drive so I could buy a DVD OEM copy of Win 10 Pro. The cost of the DVD Drive PLUS the DVD OEM of Win 10 Pro was about the same as a retail USB version of Win 10 Home – and about 60% of the cost of the retail USB version of Win 10 Pro from Microsoft.

It was easy to insert the drives and RAM and my NUC is up and running using existing monitor, keyboard and mouse . It has only been a couple of days but so far so good. Umart had all of the items that I used on special so I paid about 30% less than standard retail.

To give an idea of size:

Next to the DVD drive with one of those small WD “My Passport Portable” USB external drives on top.

Windows 10 – Ransomware Protection

Recently while listening to Security Now Episode No 732, mention was made of Ransomware Protection built into Windows Security in Windows 10.

It is “Off” by default, but it is a good idea to turn it on. I have deliberately not mentioned this to most of my friends as it can be a bit confusing to use and most ransomware attacks are targeted.

I have had it turned on for some time, but I admit that the earliest versions were annoying. The biggest challenge was finding a program file being blocked to place it on the “white list” so it could run. This was particularly the case with store type Apps rather than traditional programs.

However, the latest versions have largely solved this with a “Recently Blocked Apps” button in the “Add an Allowed App” section to make it easy to put a wanted program on the white list.

Ransomware Protection is located in All Settings / Update and Security / Windows Security / Virus & Threat Protection / Ransomware Protection. It consists of two parts:

1. Controlled Folder Access – A white list of allowed programs/Apps; and

2. Ransomware Data Recovery – Back up to One Drive of certain folders.

Naturally the Back Up to One Drive part is limited by the amount of space you have on One Drive. If you only have the free 5 GB, you will not be backing up things like the Pictures folder. However, in my case I have the large allowance that comes with Office 365.

When it is first turned on, you have to spend considerable time adding to the allowed apps list but, over time, as more programs and apps are listed, it only needs attention when you install a new program / app.

I have it turned on and, in addition, once a week I run a manual back up to an external drive that is only attached to the computer during the back up. This might be “overkill” but is just me. I still use Sync Toy for this even though Microsoft does not list any OS after Win 7 under System Requirements for Sync Toy 2.1.

VLC Microsoft STORE APP

I usually try to use Microsoft Store Apps whenever possible. The only real problem that I can recall with them was when I tried 3 different Apps from the store to extract a 7-zip file. None worked so I downloaded the program from the 7-zip site.

However, I have been reluctant to try the VLC Store App for 2 reasons

The program from the VLC site works well; and
The App had very bad reviews the last time I looked at it.

Normally with reviews I look for say 80% 4 and 5 star reviews. I am suspicious of 100% favourable particularly when there are only a small number. Equally, I approach 1 star reviews with caution. With VLC however, at the time I looked at it, all the reviews were 1 star and most voiced similar complaints that the App crashed and had very limited functionality compared to the program that you download from the VLC web site.

Recently I looked again at the reviews and now 40% are 4 & 5 stars against 50% 1 & 2. This at least is some improvement but there are still many recent unfavourable ones. The main complaints remain App crashing and lack of functions including the inability to play DVDs.

So, I decided to download the Store App and compare it to the Desktop App from the VLC site.

ABBREVIATIONS

DVLC The standard desktop program downloaded from https://www.videolan.org/index.html

SVLC The version from the Microsoft Store.

They are both about 40MB downloads.

TO SUMMARISE, the 1 and 2 star reviews are correct in that SVLC has limited functionality and really only plays common video files which is something the Win 10 “Movies & TV” App will do. However, it did not crash at least on my computer.

I did not test everything but here are the results of the things that I did.

Play DVD

DVLC Played with full functions

SVLC Does not work

DVD iso (ripped copy)

DVLC Plays with full functions

SVLC Does not work

YouTube Video

DVLC Copy and paste YouTube URL to “Open Network Stream” and it plays

SVLC Open “Network” and paste the URL into the box and nothing happens

.mkv File

Both played the file

iTunes .m4v

DVLC Would not play

SVLC Would not Play

.mp4 Video File

Both play .mp4 – AND I assume other common video files but I only have .mp4 files.

Other functions and tools that come with DVLC are not there with SVLC.

On top of that, this annoying screen comes up every time you open SVLC asking if I want to use my USB attached Win 10 Back-up Drive as my media library OR copy my backups to internal storage. NO I DON’T!

SUMMARY

As I mentioned before, the inbuilt Win 10 Movies & TV App does all that SVLC does so I can’t see the point in getting it.

HOWEVER, TO BE FAIR this warning is prominently displayed in the store

Now that this warning is there, for what it is, it is a good player for common files. However, for the full functioning program you need to download the desktop version from the VLC site.

Mine did not crash, and as the warning is now in place, perhaps 1 & 2 star reviews are a bit harsh. Just be aware that if you are expecting something similar to the full VLC program, this store App is not the one for you. I have uninstalled it.

EMOJI Windows 10 TIP

Thank you Mary Jo Foley. In Episode 630 of Windows Weekly, Mary Jo had a great tip on how to insert an Emoji in Windows 10.

I never knew this and I had been using the Touch Keyboard (via a button in the Task bar) to access emojis.

BUT there is a much easier method – Windows Key + Full Stop (Period)

😁👍✔

After hitting Win Key + Full stop you can either select an Emoji or type a word and it will bring up associated emojis.

OR if you want a Bicycle Emoji simply type Bike and: