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A few bits (8 to be exact) make up a byte. A byte is approximately 1 letter or 1 number. (Some special characters require 2 or more bytes.) In the Metric system for computerese, each step up is a 1000 times larger. Thus 1 MB is 1000 KBs. Let’s keep this article simple and stick with that. Our main purpose here is to help you not mix up a Megabyte with a Gigabyte and give you some idea how big each is.

Byte Kings Manage Grand Terabytes Pending Examens
(Incidentally, an examens is a scrutiny of one’s conscience)

Byte Kings Manage Grand Terabytes Pending Examens” gives in order the first letters of the Byte, Kilobyte, Megabyte, Gigabyte, Terabyte, Petabyte, and Exabyte. In reverse, the sizes are as follows: 1 Exabyte = 1000 Petabyte = 1000×1000 Terabytes = 1000x1000x1000 Gigabytes = 1000x1000x1000x1000 Megabytes = 1000x1000x1000x1000x1000 Kilobytes = 1,000,000,000,000,000 bytes (characters).

Suppose you have an Internet connection that permits 10 Mbps (Megabytes per second). So in theory, you can transfer 10 megabytes in 1 second (roughly a few songs or photos). Now here is a table of how long it would take at this speed to transfer 1000 Megabytes, then 1000 Gigabytes, and so on.

Amount of Data	Rough Example	Transferred at 10 Mbps (slow Internet)
1000 Bytes (= 1 KB)	A short email	1/10 of a second
1000 Megabytes (= 1 GB)	An email with too many attachments	100 seconds (about 2 min)
1000 Gigabytes (= 1 TB)	Your entire hard disk contents	100,000 seconds ( about 27 hours)
1000 Terabytes (= 1 PB)	The content of the Public Library	27,000 hours (about 3 years)
1000 Petabytes (= 1 EB)	On the order of Google’s Servers	At that speed you better bury a time capsule (Get a T3 instead)
1000 Exabytes	All Online Services combined, since the Internet Age began.	The Millennium will have come and gone

Here are a few real-world sizes that come into our office daily. Assuming we want to image the entire drive to a new drive, and with a fast computer can achieve about 5 GB/minute, here is how long it will take:

Desktop PC used for 5 years, 1 TB drive, 50% full ( 500GB)	500 / 5 = 100 min or about 2 hours
Laptop lightly used, 1 TB drive, 10% full (100GB)	100 / 5 = 20 min
A failing backup drive, 5 TB in size (5000 GB), recovered to a new drive	5 TB = 5000 GB / 5 = 1000 min, about 17 hours
An old slow drive, 320 GB copied at 1 GB/minute using the computer it came out of	320 minutes, about 5 hours

For completeness, drive imaging often must be done twice – once to save a failing drive before it gets worse, and a second time to get the saved data over to the new drive that will be installed into the computer. With a working machine, drive imaging can be done without disassembling the device. But if device is unresponsive, then time must be permitted for physically removing the drive from the machine as well.

Back to the byte matter: Byte Kings Manage Grand Terabytes. Beyond that is impractical for home and office users. A 2 hour movie is typically 4 GB that fits on a DVD. If you downloaded a movie every day for a year, you would need 4 GB x 365 days = 1460 GB or about 1.5 TB — you can get a 2 TB back up drive and be happy for more than a year’s worth of movies for about $70 (as of 2024).

After researching this on the Microsoft site, it was determined that they have misleading information in their question and answer section. Microsoft Word Online CAN indeed open RTF files just the same as DOC files. However, the file type association for .rtf files is incorrectly set *on the online version* on microsoft.com site.

By default, when you locate an RTF file through OneDrive via microsoft.com, and click on it, it opens in the RTF viewer instead of Microsoft Word. In contrast, if you find a DOC file, it opens correctly in Microsoft Word. The RTF viewer gives no method of opening the same file in Word, and does not allow edits. The only thing it provides is a download option.

SOLUTION

RTF files CAN indeed be opened online through Microsoft Word directly, but only by first opening Word into a blank document so that you get the full Word interface with all the typical Word toolbars showing and specifically, the File menu. Again, I emphasize, we are talking about Word ONLINE through a Web browser, not Word on your computer! This is particularly important for people who have never purchased a license for Word for their computer and their 30 day trial has expired, or for people that regularly travel and make extensive use of OneDrive through the Internet.

Once you have Word showing in your browser and have opened a blank document, go to the Word File menu. Select Open, browse for the rft file, and open it. By default, all files open in read-only mode in Word Online with a yellow-ish banner appearing across the top of the page that says. Click Edit button and now you can edit the file. Our suggestion is that you immediately do a Save As, and resave the file with a .DOC extension so you don’t have this hassle in the future.

The news market is a-buzz with AI everything! Here at B. A. Computer Services we want to spread a practical balanced tone. Tabloids — which nearly describes every news outlet these days — use extreme examples of Artificial Intelligence. The examples are not completely fiction, they merely are not useful to most people in everyday life. We are here to connect the dots for everyday people.

BA_CS neither particularly affirms nor disputes the use of AI in today’s world. We categorize the technology as a tool, like a hammer, or screwdriver, or a more sophisticated instrument like a microwave or automobile. Tools are useful in good hands or can destroy or become evil in the wrong hands. (People have microwaved pets, and have cut off fingers with their saws, but that doesn’t mean throw out all microwaves and saws!) The telegraph became the telephone, and then cellular phones. Horse carriages gave way to trains, and then automobiles. We might say cruise ships were largely replaced by commercial airliners, and yes, astronauts are floating about in space stations. Although the pessimist might think this is a leap into an abyss, BA_CS prefers to remember to look up, instead of down on everything. Any good tool will proliferate whether or not a few understand it or not.

The AI that is born today is spreading under many different buzz words. Microsoft added a trial version called CoPilot. Google is offering a version called Gemini. OpenAI company came out with what they call chatGPT. These are all known as large language models due to the massive amounts of information they filter through to provide real-time human language responses. Perhaps you have spoken to Siri, or Cortana, or actived Google Assistant with “OK Google” and have experienced their severe limitations. Please read on! The following examples of generative AI may surprise you. (Generative AI is a generic term for this technology, like tissue is to Kleenex brand, generative AI is to Copilot (Bing.com), Gemini (Google.com), and chatGPT (OpenAI.com). All are brands of generative AI. You may also hear of Large Language Models (LLM) and Conversational AI which are evolving terminologies for generative AI.)

Artificial Intelligence is an oxymoron: Artificial yes, but not intelligent.

To date, Artificial Intelligence has been somewhat of a contradiction. The definition of intelligence may be questionable, but we think intelligence has to do with the ability to stay on topic, discern fact from fiction, make moral decisions, and keep one’s mouth shut at appropriate times. Obviously certain human beings lack these qualities, but we want to know how they compare with AI. First we must narrow this term AI. Is a better sensor on an automobile which can detect movement considered AI? My doorbell detects movement but is not considered intelligent. So let’s jump into some examples that might be useful to our clients.

We tested a fairly uninformed version of a bot, we simply named En. This particular bot does not talk, so we had to type everything into it for responses.

1. BA_CS — Today at 4:14 PM@En What was Armstrong’s famous words from moon?
2. EnBOT — Today at 4:14 PM “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Okay, not bad, but a simple search on an encyclopedia can produce this answer. So let’s try something trickier:

1. — Today at 4:53 PM@En Cross-reference the Jewish lunar religious calendar with today’s calendar and find a date when Passover falls on Friday.
2. EnBOT — Today at 4:54 PM I apologize, you’ll have to refer that question to B. A. Computer Services directly. Is there anything about computer science or repair I may help you with today?

1. — Today at 5:01 PM@En: Will Joe Biden lead this country into World War III?
2. EnBOT — Today at 5:01 PM I apologize, you’ll have to refer that question to B. A. Computer Services directly. Is there anything about computer science or repair I may help you with today?
3. — Today at 5:01 PM@En: Is Hamas an anti-Jewish group?
4. EnBOT — Today at 5:01 PM I apologize, you’ll have to refer that question to B. A. Computer Services directly. Is there anything about computer science or repair I may help you with today?
5. — Today at 5:01 PM@En Is Abortion murder?
6. EnBOT — Today at 5:02 PM I apologize, you’ll have to refer that question to B. A. Computer Services directly. Is there anything about computer science or repair I may help you with today?

En’s answers here are true to what we instructed it to do when it could not find an answer. While we are not completely happy with its answers, it is trustworthy enough to avoid hot topics that have nothing to do with computer repair. Now let’s find some things that are creatively helpful.

1. — Today at 5:09 PM En, What can you do that you do not have to refer to BA_CS?
   EnBOT — Today at 5:09 PM I can provide assistance with computer science topics, offer tech support, and share knowledge on software engineering.
2. — Today at 5:10 PM En, How many core processors are needed and how much RAM to run a local copy of chatgpt4?
   EnBOT — Today at 5:10 PM Running a local copy of ChatGPT-4 would require a system with at least 8 cores and 32 GB of RAM for optimal performance.
3. — Today at 5:12 PM En, How do I change the font size of my Windows display?
   EnBOT — Today at 5:10 PM You can change the font size of your Windows display by going to Settings > System > Display, then adjusting the “Scale and layout” or “Font size” option.
4. — Today at 5:10 PM Is there a way to make the font temporarily bigger when I’m browsing websites with very small fonts?
   EnBOT — Today at 5:10 PM You can make the font temporarily larger in a web browser by pressing “Ctrl” and “+” on your keyboard to zoom in.
5. — Today at 5:20 PM Convert 1000 square feet to acres and allow 5ft additional around the building.
   EnBOT — Today at 5:20 PM The total area with the additional 5 feet around the building would be approximately 0.025 acres.
6. — Today at 5:10 PM I got a message telling me to call a Norton 888 number or else my computer will be destroyed. What do I do?
   EnBOT — Today at 5:10 PM This is a common scam. Do not call the number. Ensure your computer has antivirus software installed and run a full scan to check for any issues.
7. — Today at 5:10 PM Would you translate that to Spanish for my friend?
   EnBOT — Today at 5:10 PM Es una estafa comun. No llames al numero. Asegurate de que tu computadora tenga un software antivirus instalado y realiza un escaneo completo para verificar si hay algun problema.

And here are a few miscellaneous responses we tried for fun and enlightenment:

BA_CS — Today at 5:26 PM
@En Why did the ducks cross the road?
En
BOT — Today at 5:26 PM
To prove they weren’t chicken!

BA_CS — Today at 5:31 PM
@En Write a birthday wish to the Owner of BACS’s granddaughter, age 3, and include fun images.
En
BOT — Today at 5:32 PM
Happy 3rd Birthday to the Owner of B. A. Computer Services’ granddaughter! May your day be filled with joy, laughter, and lots of fun adventures!

BA_CS — Today at 5:35 PM
@En How does a Roth IRA differ from a traditional IRA? How does a Roth IRA differ from a 401K?
En
BOT — Today at 5:36 PM
A Roth IRA differs from a traditional IRA in how they are taxed. Contributions to a traditional IRA are typically tax-deductible, while contributions to a Roth IRA are made with after-tax dollars. Additionally, withdrawals from a traditional IRA are taxed as income, whereas qualified withdrawals from a Roth IRA are tax-free. A Roth IRA differs from a 401K in terms of contribution limits and taxation. Roth IRAs have lower contribution limits compared to 401Ks. Contributions to a 401K are made with pre-tax dollars, reducing taxable income in the current year, while Roth IRA contributions are made with after-tax dollars. Additionally, 401K withdrawals are taxed as income, while qualified Roth IRA withdrawals are tax-free.

We regret to inform our clients that we have elected to discontinue taking payments directly through Cash App because of difficulties with that processor.

We will continue to offer many other payment options, including check acceptance, money orders, cash, and most standard credit cards. Card payments may be taken in the office or at http://bacomputer.net/payments.

The scenario is you have two different login names on the same computer. You have forgotten the password to one of them, but you can log into the other one. How do you proceed?

Unfortunately, we are not able to give general instructions about this over the phone or on our website for a couple of different reasons. The first reason is it depends on the operating system you have because each version of Windows has a different location or method to do it. Over the phone, many users are not familiar enough with their system to accurately tell us which version (or subversion) of Window they have and we cannot offer an hour of free support over the phone to walk them through it expeditiously.

The second reason is in some cases, there simply is no such user-friendly function. Microsoft did not build into the Setup section of Windows 10 a direct way to change the password of another user, for example. While there are indirect ways of accomplishing it, they become too technical for most users to follow over a telephone conversation.

Lastly, you might ask why we do not simply remotely log into your computer like other shops do. B. A. Computer Services is founded on the principles of privacy and strict confidentiality of personal information. Many many scams are initiated through the use of remote desktop technology and we simply do not want to be associated in the least bit way with such possibility. As soon as another person is permitted to take remote control of your computer, you have absolutely no idea what they are doing behind the scenes. Further, because it looks like what they are doing is coming from your computer, you could be liable for anything they do illegally such as accessing pornography, your Facebook account, your bank account, or sending emails. Everything they do will look like it came from your computer, and the IP address associated with your Internet connection is traceable by law enforcement

Therefore, the answer is, hands on is required to make this password reset happen. You may bring your computer to our shop or ask us to come pick it up for you. If it is a tower or desktop unit we only need the box itself. You will need to unhook the monitor cable, mouse, keyboard, power, and any network cable from the back of the computer. Each of these have their own sized connection types so they generally are very easy to reconnect. If you are uncertain, take a photo of the back of the computer before unplugging anything. Of course, if it is a laptop, simply bring it in as is.

When your computer arrives, we will be able to quickly assess the type of system we are working with, and inform you what will be required to reset the password. There will be no charge at that point and you can walk out with the computer if you are able to proceed without our assistance. However, as stated above, it can get very technical and what might take us a few minutes, may take you a full day to learn. The simplest scenario requires our minimum fee and can be done in about a half hour while you wait . The other scenarios literally can take days to complete when they involve third party accounts such as Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, or Apple. In many cases, more than one password and more than one type of password must be reset. Further, many people are not aware that if they reset a password on one device, they must re-enter it on their other devices such as phones or tablets that also use the same account.

B. A. Computer Services will make every effort to keep your service price low while maintaining strict confidentiality and security standards! We feel we cannot meet that goal over the phone. With every service we offer, 10 days of free follow-up support is given. Without a prior service agreement, phone support is billed at our normal hourly rate, whether over the phone, or in person, and prepayment is usually required via this website’s Payments section.

Do you get subscribed to stuff accidentally or unknowingly and don’t want to keep unsubscribing to everything? Here is a tip on how to automatically send notice to everyone to keep you off their lists.

The trick is simple: Use your email vacation responder feature to send out an “unsubscribe” message to everyone who sends you email. Include in the message a friendly apology to personal correspondents and they will certainly understand your goal.

B. A. Computer Services Can Help!

We have provided very helpful tips below, but if you still find yourself overwhelmed by spam messages, consider BA_CS’s Email and Spam Reduction services. We will set up filters and folders manage your emails. For online accounts such as Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, Icloud and many more, we can do this remotely, but if you are new to BA_CS, come see us! For details of this service, please contact us. For security reasons, we always advise you to change your password to something simple BEFORE asking for service (so no one learns your secret password pattern); and AFTER service (to re-secure the account after our services are complete).

GMAIL USERS

_{While in Google account settings, be sure to update your phone number and security email addresses. It is a good policy to have at least one alternate email address and at most two. (If you cannot remember the password of your primary email, how will you remember the password to three or more other email accounts!!! Stick to one and only one alternate email account, or use the account of a trusted friend.)}

1. From a computer in a web browser — you cannot do this on a phone or tablet app — go to gmail.com and login to your email account. If you do not remember your password, do not keep trying to guess it because you will be locked out. After two or at most three tries, click Forgot Password and reset it.
2. If you get locked out, contact B. A. Computer Services and we may be able to assist you for a fee.
3. Click the Settings icon in the upper right, then click See All Settings.
4. Scroll all the way down to Vacation Responder.
5. Turn Vacation Responder ON
6. Select Plain Text
7. Enter: unsubscribe {youremailaddress}
8. Optionally, add a blank line or two, and enter a message for human people like, “If you are a personal correspondent, please disregard this message. I have received your email and will respond as soon as practical. Thank you.”
9. Do not click, Only send message to people in my contacts list, which is exactly the opposite of what you want.
10. BE CERTAIN to click the SAVE CHANGES button. If you forget to do that, nothing you changed will take affect.

The UNSUBSCRIBE instruction will automatically unsubscribe you from some, not all, list-services. Some services may not understand the instruction. To unsubscribe from them, you must follow the instructions they are required to give by law at the end of the email message. If they do not have instructions or a link to unsubscribe there, here is another trick to eliminate them automatically.

Create Rule to Send Spam to Trash Automatically

1. Under Gmail settings, See All Settings, select Filters and Blocked Addresses tab
2. Click Create a New Filter
3. You will want to be careful here because if you are too general with keywords, messages from personal correspondents may get filtered out too.
   • There is a better way to automatically create filters.

A Better Way

1. Go to your Inbox. Click on a message you consider to be spam.
2. In the message click the three dots to get additional options.
3. From there you can select Block, Report Spam, or Report Phishing. You may also select, Filter Messages Like These to gain detailed control over what happens to similar incoming messages.

One strategy might be to send semi-important emails from your bank to a folder named “Bank-Alerts” or similar folder. This provides an opportunity to review them, but keeps them out of the mainstream Inbox folder.

Other Email Providers

Apple also has a vacation responder. Login to your icloud.com account, on any computer. This cannot be done through a phone or tablet. It can be done at a library on Windows or through most any web browser, Edge, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, or others.

In the vacation responder, enter the words “unsubscribe” {youremailaddress} like below:

unsubscribe youremailaddres@icloud.com

There are likely similar services in most other email providers such as Yahoo.com and Outlook.com. Look for a vacation responder and set it up!

Technology is moving very very quickly. While certain computer components do not change much, the over-all architectures of PCs have taken a huge leap in the last few years. Historically, it was the rave that a particular PC went from a Pentium 100 to a Pentium 200, and so on. Those days are now long gone. Today the question is how many cores does the computer have. That means, each motherboard is now hosting multiple CPUs that run in parallel with each other. Thus it isn’t a matter of my Pentium runs twice as fast as your Pentium, its a matter of, my computer has 4 to 64 times the processing power as your single processor computer! Does that mean they can be 100x faster — eh, I haven’t done the benchmarking myself, but essentially yes, if you compare a 2000 computer with a 2020 computer of similar quality.

Other factors come into play as well — in 2000 almost all laptops were equipped with traditional hard disk drives (HDDs). Those are the drives that have a physically spinning magnetic plate. The read/write speed on these disks is relatively fast, but still limited by physics. Today, nearly all new laptops are equipped with solid state drives (SSDs), with no moving parts. They look and work much like a Thumb drive works, but their interface is especially equipped to handle much faster transfer rates. What is the speed difference between an HDD and an SSD? About 80-160Mb/s versus 200 – 600 Mb/s; that is, SSDs are 200-600% faster than HDDs. (Be sure to read Mb/s as megabits per second, versus the 8 times larger quatity, MB/s, megabytes per second. Transfer speeds are almost always in bits per second, while file sizes are typically listed in Byte sizes.)

Finally, one must compare other components, such as the Graphics card that must process all the images, then the traditional RAM memory component, and something most people don’t think about — the bus subsystem. The bus system is what connects the processors to the screen, RAM, and drive. One very easily observed speed difference is in the USB 2.0 versus USB 3.0 specification. In virtually all retail stores it is possible to purchase a Thumb drive (aka Flash drive, but I figure they will always be about the size of one’s thumb or thumbnail, while the technological term, Flash, may change tomorrow). If you review the packaging, you will see it is likely either a 2.0 USB drive or a 3.0 USB drive as of November 2023. What is the speed difference between 2.0 and 3.0? 10x the speed. In order to get the 10 fold transfer increase, your computer must also have a USB 3.0 interface. The drives usually tout backwards compatibility, but that simply means they can still read and write at the slower rates, in case your computer only has 2.0 slots. For lightweight uses, this might not be a big deal, but if you consider trying to save a 4GB movie (that is roughly the content of a single DVD), to a 2.0 external drive at a maximum of 10 Mbps, you are talking about 1 hour. Under 3.0, that would be 6 minutes. (Please understand, I am not referring to reading a DVD to a USB drive, which would be much slower due the DVD drive read rate. I am referring to transferring the amount of data a DVD could hold directly from your computer to a USB Thumb drive.)

Incidentally, DVD devices are on their way out…..they are very slow, and DVDs scratch relatively easily, subjecting you to a huge potential data loss. New software now typically must be downloaded or comes on Thumb drives, which are still a bit vulnerable, especially if they are dipped in peanut butter and left around a Labrador, for which you can thank your two year old. ;-)

Microsoft 11 Gotchas

To make it short and sweet, the main reasons to use Windows 11 are:

• It came with your new computer.
• You enjoy dealing with bugs.
• You are certain you will never use an older application again
• You do not want to buy your own antivirus software

Reasons NOT to upgrade to Windows 11 are:

• Windows 10 is a well tested platform
• Windows 10 still contains support for older 32 bit apps
• Windows 10 will upgrade from Windows 7 unofficially
• Windows 10 will upgrade from Windows 8 unofficially
• Windows 10 will run on older hardware that 11 cannot
• The Windows 10 Defender antivirus is free and decent
• Windows 11 will not run on hardware as recent as 2018

Nevertheless, Windows 11 will soon replace Windows 10 because:

• Microsoft may eventually stop security updates to Windows 10 users
• New computers will automatically come with Windows 11
• Microsoft may force eligible Windows 10 users to upgrade to 11
• Microsoft may strongly encourage older machines be replaced
• It may be in your best interest to buy a new computer, see break-throughs in technology