WA5MLF

Thursday, May 3, 2018

Email addressee "auto-complete" entries

I and several friends have noticed the annoying behavior of some email applications to pull up multiple email addresses for a friend when entering part of a name or partial email ID in the To: field of a new email. With a careful search I found the following two (of many articles) that address the issue:

How to Clean Up Your Gmail Autocomplete List
I searched through my Google contacts for certain friends and did indeed find a few automatic contact entries, along with multiple email addresses saved in some of the contacts that I built myself. I weeded out the older, unused email addresses and see great improvements in what appears when I start to compose a new email.

I also found some older email addresses associated with Google+ Circles that I had assigned in the past. I had to remove these entries from the affected Circles and, where desired, add the current, valid contacts to the Circles. Call it Spring cleaning.

How to stop old email addresses appearing automatically in the ‘To’ field in mail app
This article is specific to the Apple mail program.

73,
John

Tuesday, March 20, 2018

Customizing arrangement of RCForb windows

Based on discussion and screen shots shared this morning on 75 m, I explored some additional options for arranging and customizing the contents of components displayed in the RemoteHams RCForb client window.

Below is a screen shot of the arrangement (active portions) I normally use when connected to the w4uoa remote. These screen shots where made while the station was powered off.
(Click on any image below for a larger view.)

This arrangement has the KPA and KAT windows pinned to remain visible alongside the K3 graphic, as shown in the close-up view below.

This arrangement can be tailored by adjusting the boundaries among the 3 tiled windows, as illustrated below.

It is possible to drag the KPA window or the KAT window (or both) away from the pinned position to any other place on the Windows desktop.

The next screen shot shows the KPA window overlapping the K3 and KAT windows -- not a useful arrangement. The window can be dragged away from the RCForb window completely, if desired. The pinned arrangement is probably preferred by most users.

A floating window like the above can be returned to the RCForb main window by drag-and-drop as shown below.

Click and hold on the top of this floating KPA window and move the mouse pointer toward the top right. A blue shaded area shows the current position based on the mouse pointer. A cross icon appears indicating possible landing positions for the window when the mouse button is released.

This view shows the selected landing position of the window.

Another display option is to auto-hide the KPA and/or KAT windows.

This view shows both windows auto-hiding. When the mouse pointer is moved onto one of these tabs, the window will open for viewing, until the mouse pointer is moved away.

This view shows the KPA window pinned, so it displays full-time, while the KAT window is auto-hiding.

Comments and questions are welcome.
WA5MLF

Saturday, December 9, 2017

Cryptocurrency and Blockchain

Here are some informative links about cryptocurrency (Bitcoin is the first and best-known) and the enabling Blockchain technology.

Cryptocurrency
The introduction and Overview in this article provide a good quick view of the topic, including the concept of a production cap that limits the ultimate amount of the currency in circulation.

Cryptocurrency Mining
In the early years of Bitcoin, computer users were able to run software to "mine" new Bitcoins. Over time this has become much harder, requiring great amounts of electrical power and computer processing power. This article from 2015 describes the futility for an average PC user.

Update - January 11:
The large-scale mining of Bitcoin was explored in a visit by CNBC to the Wenatchee, WA location of Salcido Enterprises. This facility takes advantage of cheap electrical power to operate 1800 servers that mine 5 to 7 Bitcoins per day. The current power consumption is 7.5 MW, costing $200,000 per month. The CEO hopes to mine 50 Bitcoins per day by July, consuming 40 MW. Salcido is one of 12 companies in the area who are mining Bitcoins. Four companies have requested 100 MW of electrical power from the local utility.

You can view one of the CNBC video segments at this link.

Coinbase
This is probably the best-known site for exchanging ordinary currency into Bitcoin and other popular cryptocurrency.

Special Report: Blockchain World
This series of articles from IEEE Spectrum has LOTS of detail on the subject and its application to transactions far beyond cryptocurrency.