Camp for tech savvy kids kids

Irecently went through a Microsoft update and could no longer see my PC from my media box. Thank you, Microsoft. I went through the usual suspects, checking sharing permissions, making sure my static IP address hadn’t changed, rebooting, and even a few exotic settings in the Registry. Then I tried the old favourite, the Firewall. In my case, BitDefender was managing that arena for me and I found that after the update it could no longer “see” my regular LAN network adaptor. Since I couldn’t implement an exception for something that could no longer be seen, I disabled the firewall and access was restored. I’ll keep looking for a better solution but once again, thank you Microsoft.

If you are anything like me, you open multiple tabs in your browser. If not, you aren’t taking advantage of a great browser feature. One problem with this approach is multiple tabs all playing back some audio or video at the same time, something that happens when you open more than one YouTube item. If you aren’t connected to speakers, then this isn’t so much of an issue but in public or connected to a sound system it can be annoying. As a result, you may want to make all new tabs silent by default.

In Google’s Chrome, you can right click on an open site’s tab and select mute site. All subsequent trips to this site will be silent. If you have the latest version of Chrome, you can also click on the main menu (the three vertical dots in the upper right), Settings, Advanced Button, Privacy and Security, Content settings, Sound. At this point you can turn the slider to off to stop all sounds, or you can Add a site to be muted by entering its base URL e.g. CNN.com.

For the time being, Firefox users will need to install an extension. You need to go to Addons — addons.mozilla.org — and search for MuteLinks. Install it by clicking on the Add to Firefox button. Note that you will need a later version of Firefox otherwise look for the add-in Mute Tab. Click on the main menu, similar to Chrome, three bars top right. Then Add-ons, under MuteLinks select Options. Scroll to Blacklist site and enter the site(s). You can also mute all and add the exceptions to the Whitelist area. Perhaps this will soon be a feature in all browsers, perhaps not.

Microsoft is working hard on Redstone 4, Windows 10’s next update. It has a number of new features including a timeline that shows activities from all your devices. Think of your task view with a history of activities. It is like Recent Documents on steroids covering websites, the apps you used and the ability to resume from a certain point. This includes syncing with other devices and resuming from there.

Next is Near Share allowing you to share content wirelessly, or via Bluetooth, much easier and across applications. Think of a broader definition for cut and paste. There is a new Diagnostic Data Viewer that allows you to see, in human readable form, the diagnostics info you send to Microsoft when something goes wrong. The Edge browser is getting a few new features like better access to the Microsoft Store and can finally remember data you are entering into a form to reuse. Yes, the latest version will even come with a right click mute tab feature but not the auto blocking functionality mentioned earlier. Also included is better native support for more video and audio formats like OGG files.

Cortana has a new organiser interface and there is now support for collections. You will be able to control apps like Spotify with natural language commands like “Play my favourites”. My People will support drag and drop and you can pin up to 10 people icons, up from three, on your taskbar. Language packs will now come via the Windows Store. The scaling functions have been improved for high-res monitors and help remove the blurriness you sometimes see in an app. There are a lot more features you can look up and this is more like a major update.

Augmented reality. If you have played Pokémon or Ingress then you already know what this is about, overlaying the real world with computer graphics. Now imagine using this for surgery. A scan is taken of the broken bones in a leg and projected directly onto the patient’s leg, in 3D, in a headset the doctor is wearing. So, a CT scan overlaid on a patient, using Microsoft HoloLens headsets, allowing the surgeon to see below the skin, virtually. It has already been used to reconnect blood vessels. This could be particularly useful if the normal elements of anatomy aren’t in the usual place. So far it has been limited to limbs but could be adapted for use elsewhere, sci-fi style.

AHappy Chinese New Year to all, enjoy the quieter streets in Bangkok. James Hein is an IT professional of over 30 years’ standing. You can contact him at jclhein@gmail.com.