Is that Site Down?

In this Weeks Show we discussed the recent issues with Facebook and Instagram with widespread reports of the services being down which affected 2.3 Billion Users! Of course this drove traffic to Twitter, even Facebook itself took to Twitter to let users know that the services were facing a downtime. It’s amazing how many people felt disconnected and shared the frustrations on Twitter and Snapchat with Meme’s and the pondering what the user may have down to infuriate the FB Gods to be ignored when trying to login!

It wasn’t you or your fault that sites were having an outage although I did tell my 78 year Great Aunt Delores it was her that took them down and to stay off the Internet! While we still haven’t heard the story of why the Sites were on Timeout other sites have taken a similar turn this week including Apple, Verizon, YouTube and Gmail and its services.

There are a few online tools available as we discussed on this weeks show which can give you a head up if a Service/Site is having an issue. Apple features a System Control Panel giving you a quick look at the different services and display the areas of trouble and accessible to the general public. Check it out at the Apple System Status page.

There are a couple of sites which can give you a pretty good overview of the many services online and when they may be having issues:

  1. Is It Down Right Now – Gives you current status on Netflix, YouTube, Gmail, Facebook, Steam and many other services https://www.isitdownrightnow.com/
  2. Down – Type in the URL and it will tell you if it’s down https://down.com/
  3. Down Detector – This Site is easy to use however requires you to click through to get your answer https://downdetector.com

These will give you a good overview of a Sites Status.

Screen Shot of the System Status Screen at Apple
System Status Screen on the Apple Website

If I Fits, I Sit

Sometimes we have no real clue how we come up with these titles for the shows but they just seem to fall in place! In this Weeks Show Below we cover a variety of topics. First off, it seems like there is a race for Fold-able Smartphones.  The Cost for this technology will more than likely drive the price tag of smart phones in the 2k region. Justin talks about some new smartphone technology that could be coming from Google. Justin adopted the Pixel 3 as his smartphone not too long ago and loves it! He shares his reasons.

Snow Day in Tucson has Andy taking photos with both the iPhone and Canon DSLR and has a tough time viewing the differences on Instagram – Justin talks about the compression used on Social Media on Images. An upcoming trip to Japan has Justin talking about ways to use technology overseas and stay connected. Justin also shares the love for Pokemon and how the game has been re-energized recently by groups playing the game and looks forward to catching creatures in Japan.

Justin talks about a New Super responsive Mouse from Logitech he purchased. The G-502 Hero Mouse. He shares the differences between an “office mouse” and Gaming Mouse. A story on a New USB 3.2 Standard which could achieve speeds of up to 20Gbps transfer speed. Justin shares a story from How To Geek on Transferring a Windows Licence. The guys talk about the Battle of the OS and the different versions of Windows. Justin talks about some new updates to the Xbox One with the introduction of Dolby Atmos Sound. Justin tells us about Playstation Vue for watching Content.

Blu-Ray and 4kUHD Players may eventually disappear, More content is going digital however Andy shares info on an older gentleman who purchased a VCR on Ebay and wrote a letter to the seller on how appreciated he was to be able to purchase the older technology to watch content he hadn’t see in a many years. Andy talks about Nuraphone headphones available at B8TA in Scottsdale as well as online at Nuraphone.Com. A recent story about Stevie Wonder trying them out a CES and loving them so much he bought three pairs! If you get a chance, Please Visit iTunes or Google Play and Drop us a review!

Have a Great Week!

Justin and Andy

TechBlast 01/08/2018

Happy to Be Back and Happy New Year!

In Mid December we changed out the Server to a new Hosting Provider – We have more changes coming but we didn’t want to lost our blog, even if we haven’t updated in a while – Best Advice I could ever share, Make your Backups, make them frequently. We did indeed do ours however it still took time to figure out how to bring it back!

We also want to start bringing back the TechtalkRadio Tech Blast! Here is today’s!

Mitch Goldstone of ScanMyPhotos on TechtalkRadio

 

Preserving your Photos and Film through ScanMyPhotos.Com is an Easy way to protect those memories from tearing, degrading color or worse a disaster. We had the opportunity to talk with President and CEO of ScanMyPhotos.com Mitch Goldstone about the process and just how fast and great quality the process is! Visit the Website for the Audio Interview with Mitch Goldstone

https://www.techtalkradio.com/interviews/scanmyphotos.html

Now for Something Completely Different! New Show Posted!

TechtalkRadio – And Now for Something Completely Different

In this TechtalkRadio Episode, Justin and Andy begin with a discussion of Monty Pythons Flying Circus and how Netflix has added the shows to its library of entertainment. New shows such as Sam Esmail’s “Homecoming” and the return of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel to Amazon Prime are discussed.

Justin and Andy talk about Repairing PC’s and Macs with Today’s Technology. Where can a consumer have a Mac-book repaired? The only solution in most cases for warranty and parts would be through an Apple Certified Repair shop. Not all is rosy with today’s Windows based laptops as many manufacturers have taken away user serviceable areas such as hard drives, memory and even batteries. What are the benefits of building your own PC? Can building your own still be done and which could be more expensive? Local Shops to Tucson like SWS and NOS Computers are great, Justin also recommends the PC Part Picker Website. Are Add-On Sound Cards still required?

Friend of the show, Mitch Goldstone from ScanMyPhotos.Com visits with TechtalkRadio to talk about the service available from the company. Protecting the photos and film from years past is a process made extremely easy with the services of the highly reviewed ScanMyPhotos.Com.  Mitch shares stories of photos which have been preserved in the digital format and why this is also a great gift idea for the holiday season. Technology has advanced the process over the years and in many cases Same Day Scanning is available. This can be great for memorial services or special events. Mitch talks about ScanMyPhotos and why the company takes great pride preserving these images.

Powering a Computer, Do you turn your computer off every night? Is the proper fix for a computer to basically, Turn it off and Turn it on? The guys discuss the idea of rebooting for solving problems. Justin talks about running multiple Operating Systems as a Virtual PC with VMware.

Justin talks about a game called GameDevTycoon from GreenHeart Games. Website of the Week is a look at a product that only because of the Internet could become huge, The Nose Warmer. Don’t Sneeze. The Website is at NoseWarmer.Com