Hewie's Views and Reviews

Pluto TV keeps adding more & more channels. They just added 9 more in the past week. The channels are free & so is the service. If you have a SmartTV, a Roku, FireStick, or another streaming device, just add the app to your device. If you have an iPhone, iPad, or Android device, add the PlutoTV app. If you have none of those, just go to pluto.tv in your browser & watch many TV channels & many movies for free. http://pluto.tv/

Do we get her a new Chromebook or get me a more state-of-the-art Chromebook and give Robin the Acer? My wants included some specific items that run the costs up. I want a minimum of 4GB of RAM, but desire 8GB. I want a minimum of 64GB of storage but prefer 128GB or more. I want a backlit keyboard, a touch screen, an HDMI port, some USB ports, a 13-inch screen or less, 1920×1080 screen resolution, and the screen to fold back into a tablet. Oh, and I want the price to be reasonable. Since there are no models that fit my demands, I had to search for the closest fit.

Every organization, whether it is a volunteer group or a commercial one, needs an artistic person to create flyers and posters to promote an event or the organization itself. Previously, there was at least one member of a group or a company employee who was given the task and perhaps it was their only job. Times have changed. Getting volunteers to do anything is a chore. In the business world, creativity becomes part of 1 person’s job and may not be related to the rest of that person’s duties. Creativity…

SpaceX (Elon Musk) recently received approval from the FCC to launch 4,425 satellites into space to build a low earth orbit network to sell home Internet. There will be an important test this Wednesday. According to a Musk Tweet, “Much will likely go wrong on this 1st mission.” Also, 6 more launches of 60 sats are needed for minor coverage, 12 for moderate. There will be more details on the day of launch, currently tracking to Wednesday. They are production design because they are not like the Tintin ones but…

When I first moved to Manatee County almost 5 years ago, I was disappointed that the Library System did not offer Lynda.com tutorials online. Both the Seminole County (FL) and Orange County (FL) Libraries began to offer the service just before I moved from that area. Lynda.com, which is now a part of LinkedIn, is an online library of unlimited on-demand instructional videos covering a wide range of software, creative programs, productivity, design, and business skills. You watch at your own pace to learn new skills and technologies. You can…

I have a lot of old black & white photos that I scanned. If I were an expert in Photoshop I might be able to add color after a lot of time and painstaking detail. I found a website and demonstrated it at the February 2019 WinSIG meeting that colorizes photos in seconds.

Last night I experienced another way to stream TV. It was on Facebook! Linacre Media has been streaming regional boxing, MMA, and muay thai events from around the world straight to Facebook. Last night was a fight card of 7 fights that streamed for 3 hours with the quality of PPV or network TV broadcasts. There were several cameras showing the action with commentators Michael Woods and Adam Abramowitz doing the announcing.

I have over 1 million files on my 2 drives in my desktop computer. To find any one file is quite difficult. I have used the Windows version of search and Cortana’s search and it almost impossible to find a file. I have tried re-indexing my hard drive. I have found It takes many, many hours to do so and it really doesn’t improve my search. Last year, at my local computer user group meeting, someone suggested that I look at a program called “Search My Files.” I found this…

A month ago I wrote about increasing the available space on my C-Drive, an SSD card. While I have a D-Drive, which is a 1 TB hard drive, it is used for data. My computer is 3.5 years old and the SSD card was down to about 8GB of available space, which is dangerously low, especially with an impending operating system upgrade. In that article, I talked about deleting a 30 GB partition with outdated recovery software and combining it with the main partition for added storage. See “Making Room…

I was starting to panic. My C-Drive on my main computer was becoming unsafe as I was using up all its free space. The drive is a 225GB SSD card. I was down to 8GB free. I also have a 1 TB hard drive that is dedicated to data and designated as D-Drive. As I saw the shrinking drive develop, I changed the default locations for such items as Documents, Downloads, Videos, & Pictures to the D-Drive. Other than Windows and programs (Apps), there is not much else on the…