60: The problem with coupons

Lots of online shops have promo codes that can be entered as part of the checkout process, to get a discount, free shipping or similar. Sign up to their newsletter and get 5% off your first/next order, they might say. It’s usually a reward for or enticement to repeat custom, or if you believe in more sinister motives, a ploy to get you to hand over your data and expose your very living soul.         

Use one of the many “coupon lookup” sites and you could easily find codes that can save significant amounts of money, especially if you’re buying expensive stuff. To the end user, it looks like free money but there’s a deeper and darker subtext. As we’ll learn, there’s never really such a thing as free money.

Don’t click the bottom one…

Sites like Coupert, Vouchercodes and more sometimes tell you what special offer codes are currently active; be wary of any which offer to “automatically apply all codes” or you’ll end up installing a browser extension, which you almost certainly don’t want to do.

1st party coupons

Microsoft has shoehorned “shopping” into Edge (similar to what Google does with Chrome, though Edge’s is a bit more internationally inclusive and somewhat easier to use), and has a Bing shopping site that’s similar to Google Shopping too.

If the feature is enabled in Edge, you’ll see a little shopping label icon in the address bar when you’re browsing something that the browser might have more insights on, and possibly be able to keep a track on the price too.

Both browser tools are convenient way to find coupons and codes, alongside price comparisons, price history etc, even if you could probably find keener deals and info by looking around yourself.

For vouchers and deals, the browser is basically scraping other sites which purport to offer them, though anyone who has tried such sites previously will probably find out many of the codes don’t work anymore.

Margins to share

Retailers typically have a high markup on stuff they sell, expressed often as a margin – if a clothing outlet sells a shirt for $100 and they are buying it from their supplier at $40, then they have a 60% gross margin. That seems a lot relative to the cost of the actual goods, but then the retailer has to run premises, pay staff, deal with returns and annoying customers – all of which will eat into that margin and give them a much lower %age of profit. So far, so good.

When dealing with online transactions, especially if the delivery cost is charged additionally, the overheads will be a lot lower and therefore the margin could afford to be less – that’s why many online-only retailers can sell the same things at a lower price than you’d find in the shops. But at least in trad. retail, customers might be browsing – they could be wandering through a mall and decide to drop in to a store and end up seeing something they didn’t know they wanted. In online retail, that’s so much less likely, therefore they try to attract buyers in other ways.

Online retailers find it sometimes helps to share the margin they make; hence the deals with cashback sites or credit cards, and by issuing voucher codes to incentivise customers to buy now while the deal is there. They may also have referral codes or links that give a small discount to the end purchaser and a kickback to the referring source as well.

Influencers and other “content creators” can earn money by talking about stuff and linking to places where you can buy it, potentially earning $thousands for driving extra buyers into the waiting arms of the online sellers. Sometimes they’ll have a voucher code that gets money off (and which the retailer can track so they know how much extra business is coming from that source). Sometimes the code is built into links on the blog or website, that when you click through (and subsequently buy), will share some margin back to the referrer.

Honey: The sweetest deal?

Along with the features browsers have built-in, there are loads of addins which can be used to help the shopping experience. Honey was a pioneer, so much so that PayPal shelled out a cool $4B a few year back.

Recent investigations have shown Honey’s business model to be on thin ice, though – ostensibly telling users that they can find the best deals with Honey, while getting retailers to pay them to offer only a limited set of the deals which might otherwise exist… so instead of Honey telling you of a sweet 10% deal you could get, they might be taking 2% off the retailer and showing you a 5% code.

Addins like Honey also sometimes pay to have their offering promoted – including paying money to influencers to have the Honey extension featured. To the chagrin of some – even leading to legal action – it appears that Honey has also been rewriting the referral links from other sites too.

So, Honey pays Spongebob Influencerpants to say nice things about them and feature on his site; all Sponge’s users run off and install Honey and are happy they’re getting something for little effort.

Later, when a user clicks on a link to buy some tat in the description text of Spongy’s latest video, instead of him getting the kickback from the retailer, the Honey addin is intercepting and rewriting the URL and pocketing the referral fee for itself.

Even if you think most influencers are gopping eejits, do check out Marques Brownlee – who is one of the smartest and most balanced of the oeuvre – and see what he says about the “Honey Scam”. Unsurprisingly, he recommends uninstalling the Honey addin with all speed.

Whatever the reality of this situation is, it’s certainly not cricket.

#59: Emulation of things past

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Many people of a certain age (men, mostly?) may have spent a good amount of time over the holiday season indulging in a recherche du temps perdu, harking back to their own childhood or teenage years. Late in 2024, a company called Retro Games brought out a faithful-looking £90 / $100 replica of the 1982 Sinclair ZX Spectrum.

The “Speccy” was the first home computer in the UK to really take off; worldwide and across several iterations, it went on to sell 5 million units, way before the advent of home PCs or modern gaming consoles (apart from the earlier cartridge types like the Atari 2600). More importantly, the Spectrum was hugely influential in launching careers of thousands of technologists who got their first taste of the computing world at the hands of its dead-flesh rubbery keyboard. They even made a film about it.

This new machine dubbed “The Spectrum” differs from the original in a number of key ways – powered through a USB-C port and with HDMI output to a modern display in place of the old RF out to a portable telly, and it comes with 48 built-in, licensed original Spectrum games to enjoy. But it looks and feels very similar to the original – making erstwhile fans somewhat weak at the knees.

Pump the garish, blocky colours and frankly horrific opening-screen soundtrack to Manic Miner through a big TV and you might wonder what the fuss was all about, but persevere and you might recall just how fiendishly addictive and difficult some of these games were. There’s even a “CRT mode” to make the graphics a bit more blurry for extra vintage feel.

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You can add other games via the huge archive at World Of Spectrum, by copying them to a USB stick. Thankfully, most of the programs will start in a blink of an eye rather than the several tedious minutes of loading from a finicky tape player. It’s amazing what clever programmers could do in 48K of RAM; that the image of Eugene’s Lair above is 4 times the size of the whole of the Manic Miner game.

The Spectrum starts up in a kind of home screen allowing for easy selection of what you want to run, though for true Old Skool vibes, you can revert to the original blank screen / BASIC programming UI..

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Hardware

The original ZX Spectrum had a total of 64K of memory (16K reserved for the system, hence why 48K was available for use) and used an 8-bit Zilog Z80A processor running at 3.5MHz. The Spectrum is based around an ARM chip (isn’t everything?) and emulates the original Z80 and the custom silicon chip (the ULA) which hung it all together.

An emulator basically translates – in real time – between the environment the software thinks it should be running in, and the hardware which is actually available today. It’s not unlike reading a book in a foreign language, translating each word into English by looking it up in the dictionary then figuring out if the phrasing of the sentence needs to be rearranged… all in real time.

Emulation used to be seen as a poor way of building compatibility as it is quite expensive in compute terms, as the resulting programs will be slower than they would be otherwise. When Apple moved the Mac from its original Motorola 68000 architecture to PowerPC, a built-in emulator made sure that most old programs would still run, and even though they were slower than if they had been developed for PowerPC, the fact that the new machine was more powerful than the old, made up the difference. In this kind of instance, it is translating one radically different hardware architecture to another.

Another good example is how Microsoft allowed the Xbox One to be able to run Xbox 360 games, even though Xbox One was based on an Intel chip and Xbox 360 on PowerPC. Since the Xbox basically runs each game in a custom version of its own operating system, every “backward compatible” game needs to have a package built specifically to emulate not just the 360 hardware but the version of the OS that it would normally expect.

There are a list of Xbox 360 and even Xbox Original games (the OG ones are mostly Star Wars ones, tbf), and in some cases they have been enhanced to take advantage of later hardware; the game thinks it’s talking to an Xbox 360 and asking it to draw graphics at HD resolution, but on a Series X it could be up-frame-rated and upscaled to 4K.

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Run on your existing device

The romance of “The Spectrum” is really all in the classic package; in reality, you can run a free Spectrum emulator and all of its software on your phone, PC, Mac, build your own on a Raspberry Pi or even run in a browser.

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Since most of the games for early consoles and computers were either ripping off an arcade game (see Hungry Horace vs Pac-Man) or were licensed versions which were nothing like as capable, what about emulating the original arcade machines on modern hardware?

MAME

Originally “Multi-Arcade Machine Emulator”, the MAME project set out to build an emulator platform that could take on any number of arcade machines from the 1970s – 90s and maybe beyond. Since arcade games were essentially bespoke hardware in the early days, there’s a lot to do to emulate whatever processor and other chips each one might have come with, but again, modern computing is way beyond what a mid-1980s arcade machine could muster. MAME is an open-source emulator platform which aims to be able to preserve any kind of old computer and its software.

Find out more about MAME; there are even ports to run in a browser too, so you can relive the original Space Invaders in your morning coffee break.

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#58: Tales of Yuletide cheer

A tradition of Tip o’ // of the Week at the end of each year, has been to post some completely non-tech related stuff to help transition from “work” mode into the general lethargy of the festive season. Here’s something of a greatest hits, along with some new nonsense. Top tip if you’re reading this on LinkedIn: hold the CTRL key as you click on links, to pop them into a new tab rather than lose your place on this post.

Drink!

As if the festive season doesn’t present enough opportunities to over-indulge, making some cocktails to ease into the evening can be an effective way of doing it. Clearly, drinking responsibly is to be advised or you never know where that might lead.

One of the most popular of all Tips arrived 2 years back; it was certainly the most fun to write.

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662 – How to make the perfect martini

Some of the ingredients to the ideal martini might take a bit of sourcing, so you may need to stop reading this immediately and go shopping. Recommended gins include Berry Bros no 3 or Tanqueray 10, vodka is Grey Goose or Belvedere, use Dolin for vermouth or Lillet Blanc is you’re Vesper-ing (with a few drop of Angostura bitters too).

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The two brothers who took over the Angostura bitters company decided it was time to rebrand; one designed the bottle, the other the label. They didn’t think to consult each other and the label was too big. 150 years later, it still is.

For espresso martinis, fill a cocktail shaker of glass with ice cubes and add one measure of vodka (even cheaper stuff – save the Grey Goose for better cocktails), one measure of coffee liqueur (Kahlua is OK, if a bit sweet; make your own if you have time, or Mr Black’s if you can find it). Just before serving, add the same measure again of hot, strong espresso and shake it like crazy. Pour into waiting glasses to get a nice crema. Top with a few coffee beans (three: definitely not an even number).

IMG_20230604_183317For more cocktail related fun and games, check out Richard Godwin on Substack.

Eat!

For delicious snacks to go with your cocktails above, try roasting some spiced pecans – in fact, they make a great accompaniment to a small salad with pear and blue cheese.

Spiced pecans

  • Pre-heat oven to 200C / 400F / Gas Mark 6
  • In a bowl, mix up 1.5 tsp of salt, 3 decent pinches of cayenne pepper, 3 tsp of Worcestershire [pr. Wooster] sauce and a good slug or 3 of Tabasco.
  • Add 225g of pecans and toss them well with the mixed goo.
  • Pour onto a baking tray and arrange in a single layer
  • Bake for 5 or 6 minutes, turning halfway through so they don’t get burnt on one side
  • Try to not to eat them all before they’re cooled. Put what’s left in an airtight tub and they’ll keep until the New Year (hah).

The above also works well with almonds or a mixture of the two. That way, you can save the pecans for…

Maple roasted pecans

  • Pre-heat the oven to 160C / Gas 3 / 325F
  • Mix 170g pecans with 2 tablespoons of maple syrup and 1 tsp of almond essence
  • Pour onto a tray and arrange in a single layer
  • Bake for 12 minutes, turning halfway

A couple bowls of nuts

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Green soup

For something more healthy, perhaps a starter on a big-meal day or a quick turkey-free lunch before the port and cheese of betwixtmas, how about a simple 3-ingredient green soup from a blue-mouthed celebrity?

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658 – Sweary 3-ingredient soup

Chef Gordon Ramsay covered this simple recipe back on a show called F-Word (F for Flash…?) but the online videos showing you how to make it in 5 minutes have been taken down. He published it in the book, Gordon Ramsay Makes it Easy too. Or just follow the approach above; combine with a bit of goat’s or blue cheese for unctuousness and a couple of bits of walnut or pecan for extra texture.

Steak

The most popular (by some margin) post on an old TechNet blog called “The Electric Wand”, was how to cook a perfect fillet streak (and applies to other types too), later repurposed to the ToW hosting siteHow to cook the perfect fillet steak.

In short, get the meat to room temperature, dry it with kitchen paper, apply oil and seasoning to the steak directly then cook it quicky on a searing hot pan for a short time on each side. Let it rest on a warm plate for at least as long as it cooked.

Rest

That’s it for Tip of the Week in 2024 – have a Merry / Happy whatever-you-call-it, and see you in the New Year!

#52: The Power of the Cloud

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Being shown around a modern datacenter is a pretty awesome experience. The huge rooms full of servers, networking gear and storage can be reminiscent of that last scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Dig a little deeper, though, and it’s the power systems that are truly jaw-dropping; how much power the DC uses when it’s running and what to do if the power supply goes away is a big part of building these operations.

At one point, Microsoft used huge Caterpillar diesel generators, each of which could generate several megawatts and was kept ready and waiting by continually pumping hot oil inside, so the machine could be started and running at full tilt in a fraction of a second in the event of power failure. Moves are afoot to use hydrogen fuel cells or other means of storing and generating backup power.

AI and Datacenter boom

As much traditional computing has moved into the cloud over the last decade or two, and faster and more mobile internet access drives end-user demand, datacenters have been getting bigger and more numerous. They almost can’t build them fast enough. About 1/3 of all worldwide DCs are in the US, and together they soak up about 6% of all electricity.

Datacentres worldwide used about 460 TWh of electricity in 2022; that’s 460 billion KWh, or enough to run 35 trillion lightbulbs continuously – about 4,300, 24×7, for each person on the planet. That’s quite a lot of power. Expect that amount to double by 2026. Google and Microsoft reportedly consumed 24TWh each in 2023.

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[source – Electricity 2024 – Analysis and forecast to 2026]
https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/6b2fd954-2017-408e-bf08-952fdd62118a/Electricity2024-Analysisandforecastto2026.pdf

Generative AI is VERY power hungry: estimates vary but research showed that generating one image used as much power as over 500 smartphone charges, averaging around 3KWh per image. Better make sure your ChatGPT / Copilot / Microsoft Designer usage is worthwhile and not just creating stupid images of cats and dogs.

To put the commensurate CO2 output into context, however, 1,000 of such images would be the equivalent emissions of driving a car for 4.1 miles. It’s thought that Generative AI on its own could well consume 100TWh or more by 2027.

DC providers are also looking for ways to ensure they can get enough power into the datacenter – Microsoft has even committed to restarting one of the Three Mile Island nuclear reactors and buying all of its power for 20 years. A nod to the old commitment of being carbon negative by 2030, perhaps, but the massive DC expansion to fuel demand for AI makes achieving that target seem increasingly unlikely.

Maybe new governmental administrations will incentivize clean power and reward efficiency?

Local PC power usage

There is something of a dichotomy in power usage on a local computer, especially if it’s powered from the wall rather than using a battery. You want to buy the highest performing, most feature-laden machine you can afford, so (apart from preserving battery life) why would you deliberately knobble its performance to save power? Like buying a Ferrari and driving everywhere at 20mph.

Some quick wins, especially on laptops, could be to reduce the brightness of the screen and use Dark Mode. Check the Power settings on your PC for recommendations on how to lower its energy use. Reduce the number of background apps and trim the ones which start automatically.

If you have an Intel-powered computer (PC, Mac or Linux), they have a free power usage gadget which might give you some idea about the total power consumption of your system, though doesn’t really shed much light as to what’s making it do what it’s doing…

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You could try firing up Task Manager (CTRL+SHIFT+ESC) and adding a couple of columns to its default view (right-click on the column headings); useful to know which apps or processes are causing the power usage to shoot up, but devoid of actual numbers for the more data-obsessed.

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Edge browser has an Efficiency mode – click the … settings menu in the top right and look under Browser essentials.

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If you need more data on overall system performance, try GPU-Z – it gives detailed stats on the Graphics Processing Unit and other main components of your system, including current, maximum / minimum / average power consumption …

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In the screenshot above, the Power Consumption (%) shows how much of the graphics board’s maximum power consumption is currently being used. A similar utility, CPU-Z, can give data about the TDP of the main CPU and how it’s doing too.

#48: When I’m Updatin’ Windows

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Long-time users of Windows will doubtless be familiar with the occasional need to restart because some update or other has been sent to your machine. These days, the “your computer needs to restart” prompt normally gives you a chance to do it later, but there have been times when you literally get a few minutes’ notice to save all that important stuff you’re doing before the update/reboot cycle begins.

Particularly important updates might warn you of an impending restart and give you the chance to take the hit right away, or to wait until the middle of the night. You can set the Active Hours in Settings | Windows Update | Advanced Options and it’s possible to pause updates for up to a week if you need to do some important stuff and avoid a reboot, but the advice is generally to take them as soon as you can.

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Social media users love to share examples of prominent PCs displaying errors, or notices about needing to restart, even if they’re not all that they seem.

It’s That Tuesday

21 years ago, Microsoft started using the 2nd Tuesday of every month to push out updates, informally known as Patch Tuesday. They have flip-flopped to some degree over whether these updates will be security/reliability only, or if unsuspecting users will get new features and changes. Big periodic rollups – the modern-day equivalent of the Service Pack – tend to contain loads of fixes along with some changes in the way Windows (and some of the standard apps) works.

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If you’re looking at someone’s desktop in person or on a Teams/Zoom call in the coming weeks, and see that little double-arrow update icon on their system tray (though maybe they’ve hidden it), it could be that their poor PC has been waiting to restart for ages. That might tell you something about their standards of hygiene and organisation.

If you’re seeing the update symbol on your own taskbar, going into Settings | Windows Update will tell you what needs your machine to restart, and you could determine if it really needs to happen right now or if it could wait until a bit later.

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Search online for the KB number to find out more about what a particular update does. The Knowledge Base has been around for decades; delve into the archives and there are some crackers, like the one-time warning that Barney (remember him?) might self-engage.

In October 2024’s Patch Tuesday, the latest big package of updates to Windows 11 was pushed out – taking the platform to version 24H2 – ushering in a bunch of changes and improvements. To find out more about what’s new, see https://aka.ms/windows/insidethisupdate.

To see what specific version of Windows you’re running, press WindowsKey+R and enter winver. Some earlier versions of Windows 11 – 22H2 – have reached “end of service” so won’t be updated anymore; you’d need to upgrade to 24H2 to continue getting any updates and fixes.

If you’re still on Windows 10, the clock is ticking – it’s due to go out of support in a year’s time, meaning it’s worth either upgrading to Windows 11 (or getting a new PC which already has Windows 11 installed). Some of the hardware requirements of Windows 11 – especially around security hardware – left plenty of users grumbling as some recently bought (even high end) PCs didn’t cut the mustard. Even Microsoft’s own Surface line had some notably glaring exceptions on the compatibility list – the previous flagship $4,000+ Surface Studio is not Win11 compatible, having been launched 5 years before Windows 11.

If you have an otherwise perfectly usable Windows 10 computer which is being blocked from upgrading to Win11 on hardware compatibility grounds, there are unsanctioned workarounds that might allow you to install and happily run the latest version.

Just be careful

#38: Get ahead: get a proper monitor

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As WFH became normalised during the pandemic, a lot of people went from having access to a reasonable working environment in an office, to sitting on the sofa or camping on a kitchen table. A trend of working from a laptop in coffee shops had already been underway and got additional legitimacy when things opened up again.

For the lucky ones with space at home, the increasing trend for WF there sometimes means they have a better environment than in the office – no desk sharing, putting up with co-workers’ smelly/noisy/annoying habits, perhaps even a faster internet connection. This doubtless contributes to the reported reluctance to return to the rat-race in the office.

Make the most of your screen

One huge downside of working off a laptop is that the screen – even for the biggest ones – is small.

There’s little doubt that productivity gains can be had by having larger monitors or more of them. Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch from gave a seminal talk on time management in 2007 – prescient, since he was dying of pancreatic cancer at the time and had only months left to live (his Last Lecture is also worth watching). In that session, he advised that maximizing screen real estate is one of the best things you can do.

The simplest way to improve screen area for a home office desk is to buy a decent monitor. Find one with adjustable height (so you can be looking straight at it, not down at a laptop screen) and position the laptop in front of you, below the monitor.

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Extend the desktop to the big screen and make that your main display (so new windows, the task bar, Start menu etc will appear there rather than on your laptop).

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Side-to-side

It’d be even better if you can use a proper keyboard and mouse, maybe with a suitable docking station, then park the laptop to the side. Ideally you should prop it up so that its display and your monitor are similar in height – there are plenty laptops stands available, or you could even just put it on a pile of books…

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Big screen x little screens

If you’ve had a home office setup for a while, it’s possible you’ll have one or two old monitors that won’t be worth much at resale so you could always bring them into action in a true “multi-monitor” setup (without delving into additional hardware to allow more, Windows 11 supports up to 6 displays).

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Then again, a single large monitor might be a bit more feng shui, and there are plenty of good displays out there. A single, widescreen, curved monitor could give you the same kind of functionality as having two side-by regular widescreen ones, with less cabling and fuss.

Modern displays often have USB hubs and lots of other features such as display modes where two inputs are shown side-by-side (so you have two different PCs on display, or a PC on one side and an Xbox on the other half, or take two inputs from one PC into one physical screen – the computer would see it as two side-by-side monitors, which might have benefits when it comes to app layouts).

Managing the placement of windows is a lot easier with the groovy window snapping stuff introduced in Windows 11 (hover over the maximize icon on the top right of your window, and you’ll see options for where to snap it onto the screen… it’s more than just left/right since if you have a mahoosive screen, you’ll likely have several windows side-by-side). If you need more control, or you’re running Windows 10, try the Fancy Zones utility as part of PowerToys.

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Dell Ultrasharp and Display Manager

Dell have long made some of the best PC monitors; particularly their more expensive Ultrasharp range. If you’re shopping for a new screen, there are various ways to save money too – they have a Dell Advantage program where you can get specific vouchers (eg Microsoft employees can get theirs by entering their work email here), and they have an Outlet store for refurbished goods.

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If you have a Dell monitor already, there’s an app for Windows and Mac which could make your life a little better, especially if you routinely switch between inputs / PiP modes etc – the Dell Display Manager. Connect your PC and the monitor with a USB cable, and you can use the software on the PC to control how the monitor works, rather than monkeying around trying to press tiny buttons to drive the On-Screen Display menu. You can even set up shortcut keys to make it easier to dive in.

Tidy.

#35: Do you really need a VPN?

 

Before widespread internet access, companies would use modems and dial-up services so remote workers could access their internal network as normal, but connecting (slowly) over a phone line. As mobility and broadband became more pervasive, Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) provided a way of accessing data that is held within your place of work – or home, perhaps – when you’re out on the road, establishing an end-to-end secure link over the internet between you and the destination.

At the same time, many of the services we’d rely on moved fully online – like email, shared documents or even business applications, potentially hosted by a 3rd party like Salesforce, Dropbox, Workday or Microsoft. Each of those would be protected using an encrypted and authenticated SSL/TLS connection, just like any other secure website connection.

What do you still have in your home or in your business premises, which you’d need a VPN to access? For organisations with local services or apps, Microsoft has long championed an automatic VPN back to your company HQ, called DirectAccess, but that is now having the sun set on it in favour of a more modern Always On VPN. Many businesses now are all in the cloud, so have nothing internally to connect to – but even as a home user, there may be some relevance.

Securing the connection

When you link using a VPN, everything between you and the endpoint is encrypted through an established “tunnel”, and therefore invisible to the intervening points on the network.

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The invisibility of what’s happening in the tunnel could be useful to the user, for example where there’s a policy denying access to certain websites; if you VPN (and that was allowed) then the network owner wouldn’t know what you were sending up and down the connection since it’s encrypted, and therefore might not be able to block your access.

The VPN model illustrated above has all your internet traffic going back to the VPN endpoint and then out onto the internet from there (so it looks to the website you’re accessing like you’re located wherever the VPN endpoint is). There’s generally a performance penalty in doing this since there are additional “hops” involved, and it also means that whatever you’re getting up to on the public internet will be happening through your company’s firewall or your own home router.

Some VPNs give you the option to split traffic, where it routes only certain data down the VPN tunnel, while everything else just goes out onto the internet from the hotel/airport etc network as usual. That reduces the load on the VPN endpoint and its network (since casual browsing traffic isn’t coming in and out, only stuff destined for the internal network it is attached to), and is a bit quicker for the user since they just get their public internet stuff done nearby.

Some companies – mostly VPN vendors or security consultancies, it must be said – would advise that every time you connect your laptop to a public WiFi network (as found in coffee shops, airports, hotels etc), then woe betide you if you don’t access everything through their subscription VPN service. Such services would say you should routinely connect to their endpoint (in whichever country you want) so that everything between you and their server is encrypted, and the local network provider to you has no clue what you’re doing.

NordVPN, probably the market leader for 3rd party services, pushes itself heavily through advertising and tie-ups with leading podcasts and credit card companies, etc.

Securing the connection is one thing, however there’s still the small matter of being tracked in everything you do, potentially having unwanted software downloaded, which a 3rd party VPN might not protect you from, so it’s no silver bullet.

If you don’t use a VPN and you’re accessing a shopping site or online banking, the network provider (eg the Hotel or airport) could see which URL you’re accessing, but since the first thing you’ll do in nearly every browser session is to establish a secure connection between your computer and their website, any prying networking provider would only see that you’re sending gobbledygook data back to a single address out there on the net.

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There is a possibility of having a man-in-the-middle attack which steals your data through subterfuge, though there are numerous steps taken to prevent this. If you’re using a VPN then you’re protected, unless you’re unwittingly VPNed into the man in the middle directly, in which case, the whole game’s a bogey.

Pretending to be somewhere you’re not

Some VPN users will use them to appear that they are somewhere else – eg if you’re travelling but want to access a web service which is locked to a given region, like TV streaming services. Lots of Brits in America use VPNs to access the BBC’s iPlayer, for example. There is a “yes, I have a TV license” checkbox, but we all know how effective those kind of prompts are.

Since the traffic from the VPN device or service appears to be from whatever country it’s in, that might be used to circumvent geographic blockers. Streaming companies often have legitimate reasons to restrict access based on where you are (as opposed to just being greedy and horrible).

Since some VPNs are offering ways to not only defeat the geo-blocking, but potentially provide a way around password sharing restrictions, the arms race will continue where content providers will try to stop people using certain services and VPN services will get smarter at not being blocked.

Further reading

If you’re on the road and want to access stuff back in your home, your broadband router might even have a VPN service built in (though do take care that it’s not using out of date security standards). Another option could be to set up an endpoint with OpenVPN. If you have Synology NAS appliance (and they are very good), you can enable the OpenVPN service relatively easilysee here.

Some other things to check out:

· Should You Use a VPN? – Consumer Reports

· Do I Really Need a VPN at Home? | PCMag

· Is a VPN really worth it? | Tom’s Guide (tomsguide.com)

So, back to the original question – do you really need a VPN?

Probably not. But maybe.

You be the judge.

#24: Googly Embalmer

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Late last century, when the big tech firms of the day were often led by sometimes spiky characters (McNeally, Gates, Ellison etc), one such luminary famously wrote about the two helmsmen of Microsoft’s push into corporate computing. Ray Noorda, erstwhile CEO of PC networking pioneer Novell famously referred to Bill and Steve as “the Pearly Gates and the Emballmer: one promises you heaven, the other prepares you for the grave”. Thankfully, they didn’t always take themselves too seriously (and here’s the original).

Modern day technology firms have a ruthless attitude to preparing their own products to go 6 feet under. Rapidly killing off failing projects or taking sometimes unpopular and abrupt changes in strategy are the underside of rapid innovation and shifting business models. Two of the most popular posts in the old Tip o’ the Week archive were Tip o’ the Week 350 – Killing me Softly, part I and 353 – Killing me Softly, part II, celebrating some of the old tech that has been and gone.

Apple somewhat aggressively moved the Mac from the Motorola 68000 CPU architecture to Intel X86 and then ARM (at the expense of backwards compatibility – you’re holding it wrong), though hindsight shows both shifts were smart when it came to the ensuing products. Microsoft tried to adopt ARM with Windows 8 and the Surface RT. And we all know how that worked out.

There have been several other attempts at shifting Windows from Intel to ARM architecture, and none have really taken hold – but reports have emerged of a forthcoming Surface Laptop which promises to take the fight back to the MacBook in terms of performance and battery life.

All about the Pod

The term “podcast” (a fusion of iPod and broadcast) might be 20 years old, but the last few years have seen an explosion of content as well-known faces take to putting out regular shows to be streamed, downloaded and listened-to on phones or watched on screens.

Some of the most popular podcasts are depressingly formulaic, but there are so many joyous, informative and hilarious ones that are worth seeking out. It’s no wonder that traditional media is both embracing the format at speed while presumably figuring out how to monetize it.

Google announced last year that they were deep-sixing their popular Google Podcasts mobile app (describing it as a “turndown” like they’re tucking it in for the night rather than euthanising it), in favour of the expanded YouTube Music offering. In some ways, this makes sense as popular podcasts are increasingly using YouTube to also publish video (mostly of headphone-wearing people speaking into a giant mic while looking at 45 degrees to their camera).

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Why miss the opportunity to unify the podcast and video publishing process, while also finding ways to sell more adverts to the listeners?

US users had the rug pulled in April but the reprieve for international listeners has recently been announced as coming to an end, and Podcasts will retire for everyone in June 2024.

So what next? The lead contender for iOS users is probably Apple Podcasts, but for Android users or if you’re an existing Google Podcast user then you might want to try other alternatives. YouTube Music is clearly the preferred option in Google’s eyes, but there are many options – Spotify & Amazon Music both have podcasting support and might push fewer ads at paid-for subscribers.

Free podcasting apps and services abound but run the risk of suddenly disappearing or retreating behind a subscription paywall – current front runner is probably Pocket Casts.

For more fun looking at all the other product Google has binned, see Google Graveyard – Killed by Google and check out Microsoft Graveyard – Killed by Microsoft too.

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#10: More Mapping Bing(e)s

Following on from last week’s tip on Ordnance Survey mapping, it’s worth exploring a couple of other related topics. Reader Steven Grier recommends Walkhighlands: Scotland walks for invigorating walks north of the border (and not just the Highlands … it also covers Stevie’s native Burns country, so you could find some routes to get outdoors while practicing the forthcoming address).

Another regular, Mike Garrish, suggested looking at SysMaps, which aggregates a variety of different mapping services including Bing Maps. The UI takes a bit of getting used to but it does an effective job and makes up for Bing’s inexplicable removal of being able to export routes to .GPX files, by supporting that feature too.

Bing Maps can trace its lineage back nearly twenty years. Launched back in the days when Microsoft felt it needed to do everything its competitors were doing, even if not quite as well, the service was originally called Microsoft Virtual Earth (or Virtual North America, as one former colleague called it, given that everywhere outside of NA was still TBC; a bit like any sports tournament that has “World Series” in front of it). The Virtual Earth platform was aimed at developers looking to harness mapping in their sites and, later, apps. It offered up sometimes very good quality licensed mapping data and images for free, as part of the “Live” branding and then eventually morphed into being part of Bing. The Bing Maps Enterprise and Azure Maps services now form part of Microsoft’s “Map Platform”.

Start me up

The consumer-facing mapping service clings on despite having no discrete mobile client (in a browser, just go bingmaps.com to jump to it, or the alternative googlemaps.com, should you prefer being asked every five minutes if you’re rather use Chrome). There are mapping components in the expanding Microsoft Start mobile app, which is subsuming various formerly-separate apps like News and Money into a single application. Many of these things were at one point “MSN something”, might later have been lumped under Bing, but are now presented within Start like widgets, unsurprisingly slinging some ubiquitous Copilot in as well.

There’s a Copilot key coming to your next PC, the first major change since the Windows Key arrived with Windows 95, designed to make it easy to bring up the new Start menu. Remember that ‘Stones song? Here’s what it could have been like

 

“News” gives you much the same feed as the default New Tab Page on the Edge browser (ie. news from customizable sources, peppered with ridiculous clickbait and stupid adverts… albeit seemingly less so in this instance). From a mapping perspective, there’s a “Nearby” tile which tells you what attractions are close to you, and a “Commute” function which will warn you on the phone when there is trouble on the road ahead.

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The PC app, Maps, is having its wings clipped somewhat, no longer able to work using offline copies of maps. Place your bets on how much life there is in the Maps app, given that it’s likely no longer going to be installed by default.

While it is still available, there are some pretty neat things in that app, like adding Ink annotations to maps which are saved on your PC (though not synced across machines) and using a pen to measure distance on-screen. Notably cool and unique to the Maps app (as compared to Bing Maps in a browser) is the 3D Cities feature. This lists quite a number of major and minor cities in the US, though its international coverage is a bit patchy – the only UK city on offer is Southampton, and while Australia has a few, you’ll not be looking out over the Harbour Bridge.

Back to the Streets

The Maps app offers no Ordnance Survey support for UK users but otherwise it basically does what Bing does in your browser.

It is worth noting, though, that the “not nearly as good as Google Street View” service called Streetside has been expanding internationally where it was a bit of a desert when launched first in the US (see earlier “World Series” comment) – in partnership with Tom Tom, Streetside has been adding more coverage though sometimes there’s not much they can do about being unable to go places.

It’s worth checking out Streetside either in the Windows Maps app or just in Bing Maps on a browser; you’ll definitely get a different view from the one you’ll see in Google.

#9: Go for a walk

Hello, ToW readers! It’s been a few couple of months now since the recent yet erstwhile host of “Tip of the Week” was acquired and their new owner has thus far not completed the repurposing of their content, and therefore not given me confidence in writing any more for them, for now. In the meantime, I’ll continue to dribble this stuff onto LinkedIn each Friday (as Tip o’ the Week always was, in the days when it was a Microsoft internal email), following from the restarted numbering system as at the time it changed from Tip o’ to Tip of.

I do hope you enjoy. Yay.

Now that we’re finally in the grip of the New Year, some NY resolutions might have been sacrificed already; eating less, moving more, not drinking too much and the like. If you’re still keen, maybe each weekend, why not get out into the great beyond and go for a walk?

Step 1 will be to decide where you’re going to walk to. Technology provides lots of help in that regard – from local website guides offering “10 great winter walks to take in your area” type articles (typically stuffed with clickbait and stupid advertising, though), to mobile apps and web sites like MapMyWalk, AllTrails and Visorando. Community enthusiasts might post their favourite routes on these and other fora, possibly with reviews to tell you how muddy they are / how many angry bulls you might encounter etc.

Screenshot 2024-01-12 134756If you like the good old method of staring at a map and making up your own way, there are all the usual mapping tools available too. Google Maps clearly has a market share leadership position, and offers handy offline capabilities and walking directions, which sometimes include off-road footpaths as well. Not bad if you’re mostly in a built-up area, but once you’re in the sticks, you might be better off with more tailored alternatives. If you’re walking in London, check out Footways – a site showing a curated set of suggested “quiet” routes from A to B.

Apple pushes their alternative mapping software for Fruity device users, however if you follow a link to an Apple Maps location – eg https://maps.apple.com/?q=47.641944,-122.127222&t=k – and you’re not on an Apple device, it will send you to Google Maps instead. DuckDuckGo lets you view the map using another browser – eg https://duckduckgo.com/?q=47.641944%2C-122.127222&iaxm=maps – in case you feel like you’re missing out. [You’re not, btw]

If you’re planning a walk in the UK countryside, you’d do well to look at Ordnance Survey, a government funded department which publishes maps at varying scale and with key attributes highlighted. The organization dates back to the 18th century, set up to accurately map England in order to counter military incursions from troublesome neighbours. They still produce not-insignificantly-priced paper maps, however pinch-to-zoom is somewhat problematic on such offline media, so a mobile subscription based app with route planning, offline guidance and the like might be more fitting (and they have a 30% offer on annual subscriptions right now).

If you’re not inclined to subscribe, there is one alternative that’s useful when planning walks, even if you need to print the map out (or screen grab it to save the image to your phone): use Bing Maps.

Screenshot 2024-01-12 144611It’s easy to forget about Bing Maps (jump to bingmaps.com in a browser to get there quickly) since there’s no workable mobile solution, so most people will rely on the other main platforms. If you’re in the UK, however (and you set United Kingdom as your region in the hamburger menu on the top right) then you’ll be able to access Ordnance Survey mapping for free.

Look at the “Style” icon near the top right and you can choose road maps, satellite view and more, including Ordnance Survey. If you don’t see that option, you will need to play some more with your location settings. Zoom in or out until you get the right level, and you’ll see Explorer (slightly more detailed) and Landranger map views, showing key attractions with public footpaths marked.

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Screenshot 2024-01-12 150614It’s brilliant. Right-click the map to use the measuring tool to draw your walk and calculate the distance. Screen-grab (WindowsKey+S) the section you want, and you could highlight your route from within the Snipping Tool before printing it out, nice and big and easy to read.