General – Page 21 – Paul's Tech Talk

Writing for writing sake, is that doable?

PaulJune 24, 2021

Blogging for Fun

I love to teach. I am not sure if that is related to blogging but I have found the last few weeks while at school, I think that is where blogging has been my way to teach in my own way. I am currently blogging in my english comp classes. I don’t know why but I think my creative juices are better when I am allow myself to write this really informative and great essays for my classmates. That’s one thing that I’ve recently started to do in my college board. They have this board where you can discuss anything and everything you want. I’ve been blogging/discussing the tips and tricks to almost everything under the sun from writing a good essay outline to the fundamentals of writing an essay.

My Blog

Lately as you can tell, I’ve dragged over my essays and such to this blog because I wanted to share with you what I’ve learned or talked about. I really do love to share my knowledge and maybe show people that they can do the things like I am doing. You just have to step out of your comfort zone. I love to write and it just seems to be getting better and better with every time I blog. Lately I’ve seen how my blog has become more useful for others and even me. I’ve wrote some really good information about the IATA Travel Pass. There have been post in that are quite long but I think are really needed in the way they are using the app. I started putting what I wrote in my academic area onto my blog to see what people think. I started this almost 2 months ago, kept adding more and more each day every other day.

Education is Good

Not even me expected to love the academic of college life. I must say this has been a real pleasure to blog about this stuff and see what types of responses I get. I am sure I’ve lost people or I have gained people. I don’t know who is reading my blog or even saying much at all. I think that’s where it can be hard as a blogger to see the impact of your blog on your readers. It can be very difficult to know if people are coming back or if they are just searching for one thing and leaving. I am really curious as to know what people think or are they coming back to my blog.

Comments welcomed

I am curious to hear what people think about me posting my essays or my discussion on my blog. I have even more discussions I can share with you and others if people are really curious to see what teachers are trying to teach in this day and age. Why not leave a comment and tell me what you think? Do you like it or hate it? Do you want more or want more meat? As a writer I want to know what my readers are thinking and also what they want more of. So please leave a comment and tell me what you think.

How to Protect your privacy online

PaulJune 22, 2021

Online Data

52 percent of respondents shared personally identifying information through social media sites. — Dan Raffer

Do you know how much of your personal data is out there? There are many people who will not know just how much data is available on the internet. You could literally find information about a person where they live, their phone number and even their email address if you really know where to go to search for this information. No I am not joking, it is really not hard to find this information and that is what most people just don’t realize. As you might think, most people are leaking their information in many ways from their hair color to their favorite food on social media sites and this just as dangerous as you might not realize.

Hearing what I just told you, how do you feel about it?

“Most browsers — including Chrome, Firefox and Safari — offer some sort of private browsing window.” Christian Stewart

You can protect your privacy somewhat by using this private browser such as Chrome’s Incognito window but this is only the first step to protect your privacy online. You should also disable third party cookies and also use a good privacy focused search engines such as duckduckgo (duckduckgo.com), or Wolframalpha (wolframalpha.com) to help keep people from tracking you. These are all good and will help you not be tracked as much on the internet and keep your privacy safe.

Be skeptical

More than 99 percent of threats observed required human interaction to execute. – Gamelearn

Did you know that it could be as simple as being very skeptical of any links you have been sent or browsing on the web. Not every link on the internet is safe for us to click. So How do you know if it is safe to click? These are good questions that need to really be thought out before you click any link you want. Some of the common questions I ask myself are:

Did I receive this link without being told?
Was it a popup message or something like that?
Do I know the person who sent it?
Is the URL link hidden from my site?
Was it sent on a Social Media site?

If you answered yes to at least one of these questions you should be very cautious to click the link. Most of the time if you received a message saying your system is infected you would be quick to click that link but that would be the wrong. Most virus authors will pray on your emotions and social engineer the attacks that will get them the most results.

Stop with the easy passwords

This is the most valuable tip I can give you, everyone who’s anyone will not create complex passwords because we aren’t complex. Humans especially when it comes to passwords will not create a really hard password because it will be hard for them to remember it. Definitely don’t write down your passwords for others to see. You’ve seen shows or movies like Ready Player One. If you seen the movie Ready Player One, in the movie Sorrento leaves his password on the rig and well you know the rest but it makes a great point that there are better ways to keep your passwords safe. I recommend using a password vault or a password manager that will do the job. I currently use Lastpass for all my needs but I am sure there are other free password managers that will create, encrypt, and even save those passwords for the next time you visit a website. Any good password manager is really going to be better at create a unique password than you would.

Use 2 factor authentication

It’s time to use 2 factor authentication. It is something you have and not something you know, you should make it extremely hard for any key-logger or other such methods from controlling your account. This is where 2 factor authentication comes into play, they might know your password but they will also need to know or have a way to authenticate in other ways. So it is best to have this turned on even if you are using your cell phone, it will provide another layer of protection and will keep your accounts safe.

When it comes to privacy, it can be a big struggle just to keep your information safe. There are several ways you can keep it from those big baddies that want to use your information for piracy and identity theft. We can never really understand why but we can at least work hard at making sure our information isn’t in the wrong hands.

Some Good Audible Books that I’ve Been listening to recently

PaulJune 20, 2021

affiliate links : all links in this page are affiliate links to Audible or to Amazon to allow you to easily find the books that I recommend on here. I get a small commision for each time you buy a book when you click on my links. Thank you for supporting my website.

I love Science Fiction

If you know me, I just love a good science fiction books to read or even listen to while I do other things in my life. I figured it would be nice to share what I’ve been listening to on Audible and I love to listen to these books as I am doing many things in my day to day routines. I thought it would share with you my love of the books that I have listened to and still listen to.

Expeditionary Force — I enjoy this series very much. Craig Alanson does a really good job with this series. I love how Skippy and Joe Bishop are working really well with each other. The chemistry between Joe and Skippy is very funny and other times very serious. Either way, you’ll be laughing when they interact with each other most of the time. You can even buy some of the Merchandise from Craig Alanson and be part of the “Merry Band of Pirates“. I suggest starting off with Columbus Day and working your way through the series one by one. You’ll start to love this book as much as I do. I almost forgot R.C. Bray does a really good job at voicing all the characters on Audible.

Frontiers Saga – Another good series to listen on Audible or if you like to read it. Either way it’s very captivating and keeps you wanting to come back for more. Ryk Brown does an excellent job at making sure the crew doesn’t do something that is not in their nature. You basically have to listen to the first part of the episodes and just work your way through the whole series. I’ve heard they have 5 parts already lined up. So we are only on part 2 of the 5 parts series. I am sure there will be more in the coming years. See all the Parts of the series at Ryk Brown’s Site.

Old Man’s War – This series is a short but nice series to go back to from time to time. I love how John Scalzi does this series and I kind of wished it would continue but there are a limited amount of books to this series and I must say the Audible book is really good to listen because all the voice narrators do a really good job at keeping you coming back for more books. There is a rumor that Netflix has grabbed the rights to make this a film. I am curious to see this actually happen but the book is still great to go back from time to listen over and over again. I love how John Scalzi developed the characters and made them more real to me each and every time.

Ender’s Game — This one I got interested in after seeing the movie that came out in 2013. After watching the movie, and liking what I saw, I went back and started listening to them and others on Audible. I started with the first book that I got done watching on the big screen. The movie and book are always going to be a little bit different but I loved how Orson Scott Card developed all the characters and progressed them in the series. It is another short series but still a series that I keep going back to from time to time.

Stars End — Another good series that seems to just started off. You won’t find much in ways of books to read or listen to right now but it seems to be developing very fast the last few months since the pandemic has gotten more people staying home. I can only guess M. R. Forbes was bored and just kept writing about this book and we should see a good series in the coming months. I must say the first part of the series was quite dry but if you get past that, the series starts to get better over time.

Planet Side — I must say that Michael Mammay does a good job at keeping the characters real and making me come back for the 3 books of this series. I am sure there are more on the way but for right now it is nice to listen to these three books from time. I love the story line and can’t help but listen as I am exercising outside or doing those thing that I love so much.

These are just a several books in my Audible library that I wanted to share with my readers and hopes they enjoy them too. I do get a small commission for each and every time someone buys my recommends on Amazon and that helps me to keep this website going. Thank you for supporting my website and if you have any good books I should listen to, please let me know in the comments below. I’d love to get even more recommendations of books to listen to on Audible.

How to find a cheap graphics card to hold you over until you can get that high end GPU.

PaulJune 16, 2021

Graphics cards are expensive

Well with everything going on from bitcoin miners trying to make money and buying all the GPU’s lately, you’re probably like the rest of us and can’t find that really high end graphics card to play games with. You could also just be wanting a better graphics for your graphical editing or even for programs like autocad that can be used for business. Either way, you’re still waiting for the Low Hash Rates to come out or start being sold but until then you are probably like everyone else trying to get the cheapest graphics card you can for the price and buying those can seem very hard to get even if you do try to do the Newegg Shuffle. Even then there is not much you can do for that system that needs that graphics card to run the programs or even just because the CPU doesn’t support any Graphical hardware on the motherboard. What’s a person to do?

Buy a used low end GPU

The first way you can do this is to go searching for low end used graphics card. I am going to talk about where you should look to buy that low end card and what you should look for when you finally find that card that will keep you going until the prices drop to where you can afford to buy the card. This isn’t going to be a big list but it will be a list that I’ve used in the past and seems to work really well.

Buy it off of Facebook – Although you can find some really good cards that seem like they are good. You still have to do your research and make sure the buyer has either some good ratings or maybe even has some good used GPU.
Mercari – Is another site I like to watch and have notifications for products that either go on sale or even products that reduces their prices. They have a great way to watch products that will allow you to watch for that GPU that might work for you.
Google Shop – You can look for that cheap GPU or find a really good used GPU that you can use until the price of the High end GPUs start to come down. Either way you can get notified when there are new products that are for sale and or get notified when there is products in your area that is for sale.
Ebay – Although this is one that I don’t support anymore because of how much people have increased the price on GPU and made it extremely hard to buy good GPU’s. I am just throwing this out for those who might want to check it out. You might be able to find a low end GPU that will work for you until you can afford to get a good GPU.

Buy a High end GPU

So you’ve decided to buy a higher end GPU and you don’t want to pay the ridiculous prices that you are seeing from Amazon, or even other sites like that. You want to get it for as cheap as possible but you don’t know how or where to look. I’ve going to give you a few options that I know of but that will likely only be good for a small chance of getting a high end graphics card for cheaper than most.

NewEgg Shuffle – This is one those that I might get you a decent chance of getting a GPU that is closer to the MSRP or even at MSRP rates. I just don’t like it when they bundle GPU’s with something that won’t work or you don’t need. It sometimes does have the GPU’s that are sold by themselves and thus can be good sometimes.
Google Shop — Another good one because you can get notified when you find a cheap High end GPU that might work for your needs. It however isn’t always accurate and thus you will need to keep that in mind when it comes to finding that high end GPU.
Shop Local Computer Repair Shops – If you’re local shop has a website that will notify you when they have GPUs this would be a good time to keep watch on when they have a GPU. You might even be able to find it closer to the MSRP.

Well these are just a few recommendations on how to either find a cheap Graphics card or if you are looking to try to find a high end gaming card for as cheaply as you can. If you are really going to try to find a cheap Gaming Graphics card, this would be the ways I would do it. Either way, you will most likely just always be looking until you find one that will work for you.

What’s some ways you have found a GPU that can work for your needs? Why not leave a comment and tell people how you did it yourself. I know these aren’t the only way to buy cards that are closer to the MSRP. Like what you read, why not subscribe and find out more stuff that might help you with your computer parts.

How to build a Gaming Computer Cheaply!

PaulJune 14, 2021

Building that Cheap Desktop

Even now people are still trying to build cheap gaming desktops because it is fun to build it yourself. You can however order a gaming desktop from either your local computer store or even online such as Origin but then you will be paying more. Either way, you will probably be paying more for the labor and maybe even the price of some of the computer parts. This is why I like to build my own desktop and customize it to my liking. Each time I make a desktop for clients or even me, I ask myself what do I want to have in my system. I’m an INTEL person myself and will always go with Intel due to the fact that it works really well with Windows and other programs natively. I also ask myself some common questions before I begin my build.

Will it Be Intel or AMD? (To each their own preference)
How much speed do I want to have?
What type of HD will I most likely install it it? (examples: NVME, SSD or HDD)
What type of Graphic card do I plan to have in it if Any? (Nvidia, AMD or no Graphics card at all)
Will I want to have max memory or just the standard 8Gb or 16Gb of memory?
Will it be for Gaming or Work, or Both?
Will I need a lot of power to run this PC?
Will it be Watercooled or Air Cooled?
Will it have RGB on it or will it be non RGB? (This too is a good question because RGB will take additional power but it isn’t going to be a lot)
What Games if any will I most likely be playing on this desktop? (Each Game has minimum requirements that need to be met, so look carefully at the games)

Time to do research

This is where it starts to get interesting because most of the time, I will start with Motherboard and CPU. This is the first place I start looking for the right motherboard and cpu for my needs or at least to start off with. You can always buy a slower CPU and gradually upgrade it as you get more money. So you don’t have to always have the fastest CPU to start off with. It does help but it will also help with keeping it cheap. This is the time you decide if it will be AMD or INTEL and then look for the board that will work with the CPU. Also you will need to pay extra attention to the socket types and how many PCI Slots. If you are going to install a Graphics Card, you will need to have the right PCI slot and also if you intend to install any other peripherals which might need a pci slot.

Buy RAM

Once you’ve bought the CPU and Motherboard, you’ll know which type of RAM you will need to buy to install onto the Motherboard. This is what I usually do anyways and I start looking for RAM being sold on Facebook or other sites that sell used RAM. You’ll just want to make sure the seller is reliable and has some good ratings before buying the ram. The max speed I usually get for any system nothing more the 4000 Ghz, I usually try to limit it to 3200 Ghz because you really don’t find any more speed coming from the memory at higher rates. I think it is due to the limitations of the motherboards but that might just be something else.

Power Supply

Now is the time to buy the power supply, This can seem easy but really it is harder than most will admit to. You’ll want to buy a power supply that can be used with your system and then add a cushion of 30% or more to the power supply needs. So if you need a 500 watt power supply, I’d buy a 900 watt power supply just to be safe. If you can find one that is modular, that is even because then you won’t have cables that you aren’t using. That’s the only thing good with Power supply. Something like the one you are seeing on the left will work just fine. Most of the time it will work even better than you can imagine.

Video Card

This is essential the most expensive part of the build right now. Depending on where or who you talk to. It can be anywhere from a few 100 dollars to even a 1 thousand dollars to buy the video card new. The trick here is to find a video that will work for you right now and then upgrade it as you need to in the future or as you get the money in the future. So I always tell people to go with the Minimum requirements of games and then work your way up to recommended requirements because that way you can save up for the GPU that is recommended and still be able to play the game you are wanting to play. Just remember don’t bottleneck your CPU with getting a better GPU and not upgrading your CPU in the same the process. Look for people who are selling their GPU’s and or places that might sell you a cheap GPU that still will do what you are looking to play or do with it. Even with Nvidia announcing the Low Hash rates GPU’s, You can expect the price of them to be more expensive than what you normally will see for quite some time.

After That you should really be set to put you system and install what operating system you might want into the new desktop. Once that done you are set to start playing your games.