FUD’S FOLLIES
REVENANT

To quote Mark Twain, “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”

I’ve been doing some “R&R” in Florida, and working at controls engineering here in Portland the most recent four months. I can assure you that thinking is a lot more enjoyable than watching the news on TV.

To keep things simple, let’s go lightly over what things have happened to the electronics industry in the last year or so.

VIDEO
The next time you get a TV, future-proof yourself with a 4K (quad HD) set. The prices have settled and some common of phones can have 4K video and much higher resolution than a lowly 1080P display. Quad HD is two displays wide (1920 +1920) and two displays tall (1080 + 1080). You can’t get much over-the-air, or cable content, but the handwriting is on the wall as to whether it will happen. In the meantime impress the hell out of loved ones with your photos and go-pro 4K videos.

My opinion is 3D is a slow starter if it will ever get off the ground. There’s a little 3D content on Comcast pay-per-view.

4K, by comparison, is just waiting for the infrastructure to become common. You’ll want something like Google Fiber or some similar 1 gig fiber Internet. The upgrades to the compression “CODECS” are pretty straightforward (buy a new box).

Speaking of such, when you buy your next ROKU box, of course get the best one available, so you have the future-proof abilities for watching the coming 4K content.

XFINITY SET-TOP DVR
I can’t say this is for everyone who doesn’t have $120 a month to blow on TV. This “upgrade” is a “no brainer”. It works better than previous HD DVRs from Comcast. As I described a year ago, many of the “saved” videos are really just “flags” to save one of a hundred shows that are currently saved for (the no cost On-Demand) shows, But you don’t have to wait a day if you are just time-shifting the show as you might when two shows are competing in a time slot. Also things like parades and Oscar events and other non-recurring events love DVRs.

Sorry to labor-on on a topic that isn’t much fun for all. I (of course) hacked the remote to the X1 DVR controller. Just Google it. I have a similar function to my old (hacked) DVR to jump ahead on DVR recordings. I can skip, maybe 20 minutes of commercials for an hour show. It doesn’t work for CBS (or was it NBC?) shows on on-demand (not DVR’d), but it works for most things I watch.

PHONES
The Nexus 6P, the most recent, is a real winner, with a 5.7” screen and big battery and a superfast charger and an amazing fingerprint reader. And even good stereo speakers!

As you transition to secure, fast money transactions, as you did with bank cards, NOTHING is better than a fast fingerprint reader to unlock (and decrypt) your phone. It’s useless to anyone who grabs it or wants to read your latest text or GPS or Amazon account or banking information or put you in jail with an unlawful search and seizure procedure. For fun, read the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The Supreme Court is in agreement that the popo can’t just willy-nilly read your private e-mails.

If you haven’t a clue what the Fourth Amendment is, put down the pie, shut off the Kardassians and read a book.

Your safest way to buy things will soon be with your phone and some sort of near-field (Google it) scanner at the store.

So, for your next phone give Nexus 6P or the (new also, but smaller) Nexus 5X, each with the dynamite fingerprint reader and superfast charger. You won’t regret it for years to come. These are plain-jane premium phones with the 6P having a quite premium metal case.

If you are an iPhone fan, Apple has had hardware-ensbled encryption for several years (I think iPhone 3s). Android had out-of-the box enabled software encryption since Lollipop on Nexus phones. We’re at “m” marshmallow these days (K,L,M….). But with Nexus 6P the additional cores are put to work for encryption that is so fast, you can’t tell the difference (really). Other brands of Android devices often come without encryption enabled (for a speed increase of 40%). So it’s the 6P that gets it right (or a recent iPhone). The latest and greatest iPhone has a much-faster fingerprint reader, similar to the Nexus 6P.
SPEED VS PERFORMANCE IN LAPTOP CPUs

I’ll keep it simple. As Adelle Davis (nutritionist) once said “which apricot from which tree”, referring to avoidance of an apples-to-oranges comparison (forgive the pun). “Which i5 to what i7” might be a similar question.

As a generality the latest generation of i5 or i7 will cost more and be faster. The top-of-the-line i7-4940MX@3,1 GHz rates 9714 in a common speed test,
will be prohibitively expensive ($1000 for the cpu alone) and the other end of the scale, a core II duo @2.0 GHz’ rating 1201 might be $30. The difference is that the fast one is about 8 or 9 times faster than the miserable lowly one which powers this work laptop.

The i7’s clearly are much faster than the i5’s across the board. And there are a few i7’s that don’t cost that much.
As an example the fastest Microsoft Surface Pro 4 With the fastest i7 processor is the 6650U,
@2,2 GHz rates 4909.

running about 5 times as fast as my lowly work laptop. Much better but no speed demon compared to the i7 4770s @ 3.1 GHz, rating 9344 for $300.
Well, you get the picture. Here’s a link to the comparison page and compare to your heart’s content. https://www.cpubenchmark.net/laptop.html
Additional information you might consider is that the i5’s and i7’s have HUGELY improved graphics, compared to a few years ago. You’ll want that when streaming videos on your new laptop. My Android 9” tablet is far superior in side-by-side comparisons to my Lenovo laptop with “a discreet” graphics card.

HARD DRIVES FOR BIG OR SMALL LAPTOPS
Solid State Drives are the only way to go. Maybe on a “home computer” you may also want a 1T drive for huge storage but boot from a 250 or 500 GB SSD. I’m sure Pacific Solutions can make you a fast and reliable and cheap machine. Don’t skimp on the SSD drive quality. Ones like Crucial and Intel work really well.
If you’re just speeding up your existing laptop, nothing will make it work faster than an SSD and all the RAM that will fit.
If it’s an older laptop like my Lenovo or the lowly work laptop, just join the current generation with fast 4000-series graphics, USB3, wireless AC, the latest speed hard drive (SATA 6 Gb/s) and DDR3 RAM interfaces. If you haven’t a clue what I’m talking about then get a new laptop with an i7.
If you’re buying or having built a home computer, it is, of course, as fast and as rugged as its cheapest component. There’s a degree of flim-flam that you may encounter. ANYTHING can be a little cheaper with a few weaker components. Stick to someone you trust or buy a Dell. Acer is a big name these days.

I treat laptops as just another box. I immediately add a Logitech wireless keyboard and mouse and a decent 22 or 24” monitor. I ignore screen size and keyboard on laptops these days because I don’t ever open the clam shell except to push the ON button.
Depending on operating system you may have to go into (R click on empty part of screen) the “power” tab to tell XP to ignore it when you close the case. You can find something similar on the left (after R click) in Win 7. Beats me on 8 and 10, but it will be somewhere.
I NEVER “extend” a laptop screen (two simultaneous screens that you can drag things between). Works great on XP and better on W7 to just have one screen on the video card.

BTW, for fun just get a long HDMI cable and try plugging into your big screen TV. Get the cable at PCHcables (.com) or drive over to the Hillsboro Airport on a weekday. Cheap, reliable.

SMARTWATCHES
Ho-hum. Fix the power problem! Battery goes one day? Give me a break!
I DO wear a watch but my $70 analog CASIO has solar battery, talks to Colorado each night for fractional-second time corrections, automatically switches Daylight and Standard time, did I mention NEVER needs a battery change? Compare that to the clunkers you can buy for $300 and look like a geek that just fell off the Google turnip truck…..

Smartwatches or a similar “communicator” (maybe a pendant or broach with a pin) WILL take over. But not with a display. The Star Trek Next Generation broach is a workable model. It needs a voice interface. Some speech output and voice recognition.

“(machine voice) Call from Nancy. Do you accept?” “Oh, fur crissakes!” “(machine voice) Didn’t get that, do you accept?” “Yup.” Hi John this is Nancy. Did you remember the bread?” “You know me, I never forget. I’ll just turn around and stop at Freddies.” “Bye” “(machine talk) disconnect.”
That’s how it will work. If you can find someone making it, buy stock. I’m sure about this. I will quote this passage in a year or two, just to gloat.

CARS
I only buy cars every five or ten years, so don’t look here for the most up-to-date advice. All cars will have a display and bluetooth communication and will hook up to your iPhone or Android phone. Get it even if you don’t need it. You’ll be glad at resale time.

HEADPHONES
I’ve gone through several high quality headphone over the years. Often I buy Sony (studio quality around $100). For years at home I have had a wire from my receiver (hooked to my TV digital output). I like to hear what people are saying on the show and not force my show on anybody else. I watch; others can sleep.
I swear by my Bose Noise canceling headphones (BOSE QuietComfort 15) to shut out the racket when I’m working or on a plane or Max trip. Sometimes I listen to I Heart radio and sometimes (just between us chickens) I enjoy the silence. The discontinued ones with a couple rechargeable AAA batteries to swap work great at a decent ebay price.

HOUSE ALARMS
Simply Safe is an easy and cheap way to go. The window and door sensors just tape on and the communication line is through a mobile cell phone tower. No wires can be cut like a phone line.
These new video doobells (Ring Video Doorbell) that let you talk to the UPS guy from your office, just like you’re in the next room. These are a great first line of defense. Never have to open the door, always sound like you’re home. A high quality wide angle image of who’s at the door, for $200.

FAVORITE UNCLE DEAN
Dean La Voie