Questions & Answers – Page 3 – B.A. Computer Services, 903-662-8832 East Texas

Upgrade Windows 10 to Windows 10?

_{Windows 10, version 1809 (Enterprise, Education, IoT Enterprise)
Windows 10, version 1909 (Home and Pro)
Windows Server, version 1909 (Datacenter, Standard)}

EXPIRES
May 11, 2021

Windows 10 Versions Expire

The title isn’t a typo–Windows 10 must be upgraded to… Windows 10. In truth Microsoft has elected to not rebrand it’s Windows Operating System yet, but is in fact pouring out major updates. The table above shows which “versions” of Windows 10 will be expired early next year. In addition, these previous “versions” of Windows 10 are already expiring: Windows 10, versions 1507, 1511, 1607, 1703, 1709, 1803, 1809, 1903, and 1909.

The upgrade process from one of these older versions of Windows 10 to the newest 2004 (a version number, not a year!) feature release is daunting over slow or unreliable Internet connections. Some machines have been known to require more than 24 hours and multiple reboots to accomplish the final result. B. A. Computer Services is here to help in East Texas with our very-high-speed Internet to remove the headache from this process.

Spammed with Antispam Software?

TrapCall.com is one of many software solutions that claim to reduce your spam calls: www.trapcall.com/blog/how-to-stop-spam-calls. The entire article is geared toward getting you to buy into their software product by giving you a pretense of information about how to stop spoofed robocalls. The software is a TRAP itself!

It is mostly a misnomer to call it random or “cold” calling. In today’s information age, huge lists of phone numbers targeting certain markets are collected. Only the very first call is “cold”, a call you may have dismissed as unknown or innocently answered and hung up.

Let’s look at how random calling works:

A number is chosen from a list, and an automated dialer or call-monkey [a person who acts essentially like a robot] makes the call. With each call, the call status is recorded into a database for the next call-monkey or dialer to read. These possible scenarios happen:
- If the call comes back disconnected, database is updated, and the number is not dialed again for a time. This is not helpful to an individual at all, since it came back disconnected, it is not your active number anyway. Or,
- If the call is answered, either by you or by a voicemail, then again database updates number to be active, and the game is on. The number will be called again and again attempting to connect with a real person. Or,
- You personally answer and hear some sort of recording, for which you stay on the line until an actual person picks up and you are then able to ask them what company they represent. You demand to be removed, you go to your favorite spam call website and register the phone number, and then you post a complaint to the federal trade commission website. NONE OF THIS WORKS! KEEP READING TO FIND OUT WHY!
With each call, new information about the called number is collected, and if you happen to be the one that actually answers the call in person, you will continue to get oodles of calls, no matter how many times you say “remove my number from your list.” Why? First of all, these people do not follow the law in the first place. But even if they were to remove your number from THEIR list, there is nothing that has prevented previous sharing of your number, and the newly collected information that your number is “active”, to the next group of call-monkeys.

WHY BLOCKING PHONE NUMBERS DOES NOT WORK

It is futile to block a specific phone number because most spam calls are not coming from fixed phone numbers anyway. There is a large pool of available phone numbers that can be randomly selected by these spam callers to make their phone call. They call, they get a status on your phone–disconnected, voicemail, or answered–and hangup. Then later they proceed to call on a different randomly chosen phone number. Even if you block the first number, and the second number, in as little as a week later, both of those blocked numbers might now be legitimate numbers newly assigned to a your neighbors newly purchased cell phone! Blocking numbers is a BAD IDEA.

SOLUTIONS

First of all, B. A. Computer Services is NOT selling any call block software. This article was written out of sheer hatred of getting the calls on our business lines. Secondly, these solutions are not fully tested, and do not handle every situation. Thirdly, B. A. Computer Services has never been engaged in cold-calling or using automatic dialers. We despise them altogether. Nevertheless, we CAN SAY the following methods have definitely reduced the number of calls that actually disturb us with a ringing telephone.

Do NOT block phone numbers. In fact, we recommend you remove all blocked numbers, especially those in your local calling area code, from your blocked number list. Most numbers themselves are NOT permanently owned by the spam callers and therefore cannot be deemed to be “bad” numbers intrinsically. In a few days or months one or more of those blocked numbers will be a legitimate business or consumer, could even be your own phone number for a newly purchased phone.
Log the number. Most cell phones save the number automatically, but as a human it is difficult to remember which number is which. The simplest method for meaningful logging is to add the number to your contacts with a tag of, “Potential Spam”, or similar descriptive name. Other valuable information can also be added to the contact’s notes so that over time you can identify the actual source of the caller.
If your phone company offers a call spam guard, we suggest you use it. Most of these spam guards are based on probability that a call from a particular number is legitimate or not. Probability is like reporting the weather — 50% chance of rain and 50% probability of unwanted call — are both approximates, and leaves 50% possibility that the call is legitimately your doctor, lawyer, or other important caller using a phone number you didn’t expect them to use. This again is where logging all calls comes in handy. Add ALL calls to your contacts. (If desired, you can label it Z-Potential Spam, so it drops to the bottom of your contact list!)
Put very important callers in your Starred or ICE groups. Most cell phones now have the ability to tag certain contacts with one or more tags, and your phone can be set to ring only if one of the tagged contacts are calling you. This works great for personal phones where you have a very limited number of people with whom you regularly communicate. This does not work at all for business numbers where you want to be able to receive calls from potential customers.
A solution that works for business numbers, is to incorporate your phone number into an automatic answering service that reads off a brief menu or requires the person to press a digit on their phone pad to continue. A great many of the robot callers will instantly hangup when a call menu is encountered. Unfortunately, a small percentage of potential customers may also hangup before you are able to connect with them.

IN SUMMARY

Call blocking by the number alone not only does not work in the long run, it can be a bad idea overall. There are better methods of preventing unwanted calls from ringing your phone. None of the methods are going to block 100% of the time. Some calls are legitimate businesses in your community that you actually may want to receive calls from periodically.

B. A. Computer Services is able to help you establish your In-Case-of-Emergency (ICE) or Starred call list and functionality so that only known contacts ring your phone, and all others will have to leave a message. B.A. C.S. also offers automated call assistant solutions for businesses who need to keep their number available but resistant to unwanted calls.

Appointments Now Available

People vary in how they like to meet up. You may be driving by and see our sign and decide to pull in. It’s a good bet if you see the neon open sign turned on.

Or you may be on a tighter schedule and prefer to pre-plan when you will be able to have your computer with you for drop off, or pickup. Scheduling a time may be your best friend. Click Book An Appointment from the menu. If you are not certain which services you need, you may choose any FREE item to get the schedule made, and we will confirm the charges when we meet!

Click to Book An Appointment now in a new window.

SSD vs HDD Recoverability

The new solid state drives are currently lauded as better than the traditional hard drives. In plain English, here is what consumers need to know.

For non-technical people, HDD is Hard Disk Drive, and has been used in computers for decades. It has a spinning platter and needle arm much like that of an old record player except all the information is written magnetically. Like any electronic instrument, if you drop this device, it is likely to break, skip data, scratch the platter, or something unsavory of this sort. There is nothing particularly technical about that.

An SSD is Solid State Drive and works much the same way as these new flash or thumb drive keys work. There are no moving parts. Instead, data is stored in tiny electronic switches that remember their position even when there is no power to the device. SSDs are both faster and generally more expensive than traditional HDDs. They may be ideal for certain applications that require higher speeds and robustness from vibration or drops. They are not however good for all applications.

The biggest concern we have with SSDs here at B.A. C.S. is their inability to recover from disk faults. The nature of an SSD’s method of storage makes them much more susceptible to immediate and unrecoverable loss of data and performance issues over time. We have done some research and are including a few quotes from engineers around the world:

[D]espite their performance advantages, SSDs only have a 10% market share compared to HDDs for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, they’re expensive. HDDs today average around 3-4 cents per GB, compared to 25-30 cents for SSDs. Dec 7, 2018
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/data-recovered-failed-ssd/ June 2019

… SSDs are quirky little devices that get slower as they fill up. And eventually, the flash cells reach a state where they can no longer complete write operations at all.
https://www.networkworld.com/article/3326058/what-is-an-ssd.html June 2019

SSDs have a different and bigger problem – SSDs can only write to empty blocks. That’s okay when the SSD is new and all the blocks are empty. But over time, as blocks get filled up, overwriting data becomes an issue, because the only way an SSD can update an existing page is to copy the contents of the entire block into memory, erase the block and then write the contents of the old block in addition to the new data. If there are no empty blocks available, the SSD must scan for blocks marked for deletion, but not yet deleted, erase them, and then write the data to the now-erased page. Over time, as the SSD fills up, writing to the drive becomes more complicated and slower.
https://www.networkworld.com/article/3326058/what-is-an-ssd.html June 2019

At B.A.C.S. we are of the opinion traditional HDDs are safer for data storage in the long run than SSDs and that safe data is the highest priority. However as with any storage device, we strongly recommend full backup of your data to another device. ANY single storage device can be corrupted and the best way to avoid total data loss is to duplicate the disk to a second or third device designed for long-term storage. B.A. C.S. offers the unique option of completely imaging your disk to another disk so that if you do lose your drive for whatever reason, an exact duplicate of the drive can be recovered to a brand new drive. The new drive will boot and act exactly like the old one: absolutely nothing lost (except whatever you added since last duplicating the drive). This method is also very private as it keeps all data in your possession alone. Cost is merely that of the new drive and the duplication effort (which requires special attention and drive removal in many cases.)

Church Overhead Methodology

Making a smooth worship experience for congregations is an art unique in its own right. The entertainment industry perfects certain aspects, but in a congregation of worship, entertainment is not the goal at all. In fact, the best worship teams seek to fade entirely from the platform as they lead the people to enter into the high praises of God themselves.

The primary idea behind worship is that the congregation itself is able to make the words and music that are being sung their own expression of praise. For most congregations, this has led leadership into installing overhead projection and a dedicated computer near the sound booth. Unfortunately these devices do not run themselves, and as with any tool, if not used properly, they may distract from worship more than they aid it. Even if an old-style projector is employed, the methodology for employing words on screen must be carefully learned and coordinated with the lead musicians so as not to detract from worship:

Are the words in print in the same order as those being sung?
Are the slides for repeated phrases easily accessible so that they may be revisited when the music repeats a chorus?
Are the words in a font and color than can be read easily?
Are the phrases in the song written in a poetic logical order in the same manner that the song is sung?
Are there cues in the printed song that aids the congregation in knowing what phrase will come next, or how to sing a particular phrase?
Does the person changing the slides know the song well enough to change the slide in a timely manner, preferably, before the last word on the current slide is sung.

When using a particular software for projection purposes, the projection artist (e.g. lead musician or sound man) must create an organization structure for the library of overheads that will be used in any given worship set. Some congregations prefer to be rigid in their songs sets allowing for pre-ordering of the songs to be sung, but in more contemporary services, songs must be easily searchable so that if an impromptu song is selected, the operator can quickly find it in a few measures of the song and display it for the congregation. Even within a given song, it must be written in a way that allows for verses and chorus to be interchanged and quickly displayed in the same rapidness that a lead musician may opt to repeat a particular portion. All these details take some thought, technical experience, and practice to solidify the art of creating a non-distracting worship environment for people.

B.A. Computer Services is trained in this particular art. (903) 243-9588

To Pad or Not to Pad

A plethora of devices on the market make even those of us who have had a smart phone for several years uncertain whether to invest into something different. Here at B.A. Computer Services we endeavor to research everyday technical solutions and provide very practical advice (albeit not purely scientific) about our findings.

Clearly dissatisfaction or breakage of a current device is the impetus for shopping for another device. Modern communication, namely, texting, has not, and likely will never fully trump basic verbal communication–frequently over a phone device of some sort. Thus priority #1–Buy a PHONE. If you end up with a device that has great color, bells, whistles, and dances on the table, that cannot be easily picked up to make or take a phone call, you have been misled. Look first at your primary communication need–choose a device that you can answer easily, hear clearly, and that has a good microphone so the other party can hear you clearly as well.

Smart phones are a hybrid between a computer and a phone, er, camera, er, clock, er, stereo, er…pad. In other words, smart phones have become so ubiquitous and versatile it is unlikely they will fade anytime soon. The trouble is, any one device is still physically limited to time and space, so Dad’s phone just won’t suit being used as Mom’s ebook, Johnnie’s gamebox, and Suzie’s music all at the same time. Not only that, but Dad wants to be able to answer his calls and check stock quotes at the same time–that is a neat trick that technically is possible if you can tolerate hearing voices over a cellular speaker phone along with the dog barking, outdoor road noise, and kids arguing in the other room.

…the most subtle disadvantage to tablets is the difficulty to hold them without accidentally touching a part of the screen…

This, then, is where a search for a secondary device leads toward the possibility of purchasing a pad or an ipad if you are an Apple lover. Before you do, here are some gotchas you might consider. First, any secondary device means one more thing to tote around, charge, and remember to have on hand at the moment you need it. Having two devices can be twice the hassle as having one. Trying to fit a tablet into your back pocket simply doesn’t quite do the trick, and is a sure way to break the screen.

Yet, perhaps the most subtle disadvantage to tablets is the difficulty to hold them without accidentally touching a part of the screen. Holding a 6×8″ pad up to one’s ear is simply quite awkward. The truth about tablets is, they are not convenient as phones. The truth about smart phones is, they are trying to be too much to too many people. The best thing to do with these devices is to primarily designate them for limited use. Park your pad in one place and use it for a specific purpose. (Your electronic tablet I mean:-) Keep your smart phone in its usual pocket and avoid using it for other non-essentials. An old phone can of course be designated for children or an alarm clock, or whatever app you desire to install on it over WiFi. (In the case of a clock, plug it in permanently, prop at just the right angle, and leave it alone.)

The decision to purchase a pad, in lieu of or in addition to your phone, is yours and yours alone. While B.A.’s repairs these devices, we do not currently sell any of them. We are more interested in helping our customers with making smart purchases. Unfortunately, the old adage, “You get what you pay for,” can be misleading in the purchase of phones. Many higher-end devices are more expensive because of branding more than because of improved quality. Truly, any device with glass on its face that is carried around will eventually break. Buy what you really need, and when you need service, we are here to help. We can also install those perfect apps to recommission your old phone into something useful.

You may find these reviews helpful in choosing an electronic device:

https://www.cnet.com/reviews/

https://www.tomsguide.com/t/tablets/

Why Slow Internet Hangs Your Computer

In sequel to Byte Size Matters article, a frequent occurrence of Microsoft computers on slow network connections in rural areas is the partial updates that attempt to download (unsuccessfully), eventually resulting in a frustrating slow or corrupt computer system.

There may be a number of good reasons your computer has deteriorated. A virus sweep is always warranted, but this isn’t viral-related at all. The problem has more to do with the behemoth operating system updates Microsoft sends out, and its policy to automatically set updates to auto-download. While that policy might be effective for a company with computers on a fast Internet connection, on a slow connection, it is a terrible policy.

The scale of fast versus slow is not easily recognized with smaller downloads of say under 100Mb. A connection that allows “Up to 3Mb per second” may run an average of 1-2 Mbs. If on a good day it runs 2Mbs, theoretically, a 100Mb file downloads in 50 seconds. In reality, several seconds are taken to begin the download, and it may temporarily stall, so realistically it is still a reasonable 1-3 minute download. But lets talk about a bigger chunk of data – a movie for example, or an entire Microsoft operating system update, of a sum of about 1 Gb (over 1000 Mb). So basically 1-3 minutes turns into 10 to 30 minutes over a slow connection!

YOUR Internet speed isn’t the only factor. Even if YOUR Internet speed is ultra-high speed, if the website from which you wish to receive data is slow, you will see slow downloads. In the case of Microsoft, it is reasonable to expect sufficient bandwidth from their update servers at non-peak times. So a difference in Internet speed from 1-3 Mbs to a faster 25 Mbs could be very significant. If it takes 100 minutes at 1 Mbs, then at 25Mbs it should only take a very reasonable wait of 4 minutes or so. Thus it is all about scale. As humans we often encounter situations where a 10-20 minutes waits is acceptable, but much longer sends us walking elsewhere. In fact, doing Microsoft updates over a slow Internet connection is much like wading through metroplex traffic during rush hour(s). The chances of vehicle breakdown is extremely high–just as high as the chances your update will not succeed and your computer will choke on the unsuccessful attempts.

Our recommendation: Let a computer shop do the updates for you. A good shop will have the updates already downloaded, or will have a high speed connection where they can get them many times faster than you can.

Solutions to Poor Cellular Service (Lake Fork, Lake Tawakoni)

Its Simple

GSM works far better than CDMA for one simple reason — the broadcast band it uses is more reliable. Nonetheless, among those that tout they use GSM, AT&T (prepaid counterpart Cricket) and T-Mobile (prepaid counterpart MetroPCS), T-Mobile/MetroPCS dropped service repeatedly in recent tests. MetroPCS uses IP6 addressing over T-Mobile’s network. Nonetheless, Verizon, despite their use of CDMA, works well in most East Texas areas.

It would be hard to generalize, but in actual tests around the East Texas Lake Areas, MetroPCS phones dropped everything from cell service, to texts, to data during cloudy days. Sprint phones and its counterpart Boost Mobile are expected to perform equally poorly in outlying East Texas areas. While AT&T and Cricket might be better alternatives in some cases, there is always an expense trade-off. Data plans vary between these companies but the main advantage any company will have over another is, up-time percentage: Weather sometimes interrupts service–but a few clouds should not drop service entirely for any noticeable length of time.

A Little More

A feature of some cellular services is the routing of calls and texts over the same bandwidth as its data stream. This means very annoyingly–no data access also means no texting. GSM uses two different bandwidths, one for calls and texts, and the other for data. This means you might temporarily hit a spot where you are without data (maps, music, web browsing), but your phone and texts will still generally work. Photos sent via text do not actually go via text–because by definition texting is, well, text. Thus, pictures always use data as multimedia or email messages, and may not go out at all in areas with poor service.

Here is a table extracted from https://techspirited.com/gsm-vs-cdma comparing GSM and CDMA technology. I have added a column to weight for usefulness in sparsely populated Rains County and adjacent rural areas.

Topic	GSM	CDMA	Rains County
Companies	ATT, Cricket, T-Mobile,Boost, Europe	Sprint,Verizon,US Cellular	GSM more available in rural areas, however carriers are recently abandoning 3G networks, and now support only 4G and 5G phones.
% Use	50%, 3.7 billion	5%, 350 million	Roughly as of 2016; others LTE 12%, HSPA 29%
Call Quality	Good	Better	Insignificant difference overall
Carriers	Flexible	Hardwired	GSM users may switch SIM cards to compatible networks CDMA users must switch phones to use a different network
US Coverage	Good	Good	GSM slightly more available in rural areas
Emergency	112	Varies	112 is recognized as emergency help number worldwide on GSM networks only
Battery	Better	Good	CDMA uses more energy
Speed	Varies	Varies	Both technologies run neck and neck as far as real-user experience is concerned. Speed is not a significant factor for calls and texts. It only affects data such as downloads and sending pictures.
Roaming	Free	$$$	GSM is more widely used, and usually free roaming
Inside Buildings	Good	Good	Metallic buildings interrupt all sorts of wireless communications. 5G networks are notably less accessible than 3G and 4G phone networks

MetroPCS, AT&T, Cricket, Verizon, T-Mobile, Boost, and Sprint are trademarks of their respective companies.

Why Can’t I Bring My Phone to a New Carrier?

The cellular carriers are competing by using different technologies to market their version of the cellular services. For example, AT&T uses a protocol called GSM, while Sprint uses CDMA. Technology is quickly changing, but for the most part, CDMA phones are permanently tied to the carrier from which they were purchased. GSM phones however, are the type that have a removable card that can be swapped out to switch carriers to another GSM compatible carrier. A few carriers are crossover carriers, meaning they support to some extent both GSM and CDMA phones.

The reason a company is offering you a free phone to switch from your existing carrier is that they know that the phone you have is likely not compatible with their network, and that the free phone you are about to receive from them is not compatible with your current carrier either. Thus the free phone will be permanently tied to their service, a strong incentive for you to remain loyal to them. This may not however be a big issue for a prepaid service. The phone was free and thus effectively dispensable. The data on the phone can be backed up (synced) to an Internet-based email account before you disconnect it, and when you get a new phone on a new carrier, you simply reconnect to that same email account and presto, all your apps and contacts are back.

Another common error in shopping for a phone, is that the marketeers are not just trying to sell you a phone, they are pushing camera sales. A smart phone is not in the same paradigm as a traditional landline phone, which only permitted talking to people. Smart phones are camera-video_recorder-stereo-phone-and-more all built into one small device. Some of the features are incidental to the device (a speaker phone for example), while many features being pushed are non-essential (a camera isn’t needed to talk on a phone). Thus the difference in price is all about the non-essential features you may or may not need. If it is a phone at all, it will do the basic–it will allow you to make and receive calls.

So the next time you buy a phone with a carrier, just remember, you are effectively buying a disposable device that is locked to that carrier. If you buy a more expensive smart phone with spicy features, realize you bought a camera more than you bought a phone and someday you may want to switch phone carriers and find out that your smart camera is not compatible with the phone carrier you want. And yes, you can continue to use your smart camera without phone service, if that is what you want to do, but you willneed to periodically connect your device to a computer to extract the images since it will no longer be automatically backing all that stuff up to the Internet via a cellular connection.

Byte Size Matters

How much drive space a computer needs is relative to one’s lifestyle practices. For most people, a few hundred Gigabytes of storage will last the life of the computer, which is about 10 years. (If you hear about Gibibytes, it is technically a more accurate measure of drive size because it is based on the binary that computers actually use rather that the Gigabyte which is equal to exactly 1,000,000,000 bytes.) So how big is a Gig or Gib? Well that would be one thousand millions. Now a million dollars might last 10 years if you were conservative with it in today’s economy, but a thousand millions would certainly tide you and your grandchildren over into the next centuries.

A typical digital photograph runs around 1 megabyte = 1000 KB. Now suppose you took 100 pictures a day and stored them on your computer. How long before you used up a 500 Gigabyte drive? Well first, lets subtract about 100 Gigabytes for the operating system and other stuff you already have on the drive. So now we are down to 400 GB free. Converted, that equals about 400, 000 MB. So if each picture is 1 MB, and you take 100 a day, that would be 100 MB a day. Dividing 400,000 MB by 100 MB/day gives 4,000 days, or further divided by 365 days/year gives almost 11 years of use. Now, what are the chances you are actually going to store 100 pictures every-single day for the next 11 years?

How about videos? The standard 4.7 GB DVD on which many movies still come today store about 2 hours of movie plus a few previews and trailers. For ease of computation we will round up to 5 GB and say 5 GB equals about 2 hours video. How many hours video will 400 GB hold? 400/5 = 80 x 2 hours = 160 hours or about a week’s worth of video if you wanted to watch videos 24 hours a day for a solid week. Our previous daily picture example yielded about 11 years of use, while storing one video each day will allow about 80 days of watching or almost 3 months of videos every-single day. In all likelihood, the average person would only watch one or two full-length movies each week or less on average. Thus the storage space would be sufficient for a number of years of use.

Conclusion

For most people today 500 GB of drive space is more than enough. Like a large filing cabinet, oversizing it will just leave room for clutter that gets forever lost and forgotten. A professional cinematographer may desire a larger drive, such as the Tera-byte drive = 1,000 Gigabytes, which is twice the size of a 500 GB drive. Larger drives may be more prone to failure, primarily because more platters must be squeezed into a small space, and thus more heat is generated, more mechanics for failure, and so on. Bigger simply isn’t always better when it comes to drive sizes. A good average size is best, with redundancy of drives.

B.A. Computer Services can assist you in drive replacements, drive arrays, and other disk storage needs. Call us now at 903-243-9588.