Channel 7 app on Google Chromecast with TV picks up the wrong location. Sydney instead of Melbourne.

A problem with the Channel 7 app is that it does not allow you to select your location. The reason this is a problem is it can pick up the wrong location. For example we're in Melbourne and the Channel 7 app often only lets us see news from Sydney which obviously isn't right. I do wish Channel 7 would allow us to select the location but that's not possible at the moment.

The reason this happens is we use our mobile phones as hotspots using the Vodafone service. The Vodafone service allocates an IP address but in this case the Channel 7 app sees the IP address as being located in Sydney. On the mobile phones the Channel 7 app uses the GPS and determines the mobile phone location is in Melbourne and the Channel 7 app works correctly on the mobile phone. However, the Channel 7 app on Google Chromecast with TV uses the IP address which is thought to be in Sydney. That means when you're in Melbourne and want to watch the Channel 7 news you can only watch the Sydney news.

The good thing is when I reported the issue to support for Channel 7 they let me know the app uses the Maxmind service. You can report the location of IP address to Maxmind and Maxmind will update the location for the IP address within a fews days. After the update the Channel 7 app will know the location and display the right shows (e.g. News) for Melbourne.

Do the following to report the correct location to Maxmind for the IP address.

Go to www.Maxmind.com
Go to the bottom of the page and select the link GeoIP Data Correction (Submit GeoIP Data Corrections | MaxMind).

Select the first link For a small number of IP addresses, including your own, through our online forms.

Then select the link Correct the geolocation of one IP address or IP range.

Enter the details requested by the form

Agree to the terms and conditions

Click Submit

After submitting you'll receive an email letter you know they've received your submission and it will be reviewed. Once reviewed you'll receive an email letting you know if the submission is successful or not.

In a few days the IP address will be associated with the location submitted.

Something I do wonder is how do Vodafone allocate the IP addresses your mobile phone uses when it connects to the tower. If the IP addresses are permanently assigned there's no issue. However, if the IP address move around from one location to another, in time someone else may assign a different location to the IP address, although that's not an issue as you'll be using a different IP address to.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au

Chromecast iPhone to TV

Let's say you have pictures on you iPhone from a recent holiday and want to share them with everyone in the room on the big screen TV. The TV has a Google Chromecast.

Whilst it is possible to use an app what I've heard is the free apps start charging. So what's the easiest way to do it for free.

It's actually quite easy.

Plug your iPhone into a Windows computer and use the iPhone effectively as a disk and you can access the photos (and videos) in the DCIM folder.

Now cast your Windows computer to the big screen TV.

Open the files on the iPhone which then display on your computer and are cast to the big screen TV. You can step through the photos easily one by one or look at the thumbnails and only show the photos you want. Videos may take longer to transfer over the cable but still, you should be able to view and cast short videos relatively easily.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au

What does ρгό𝔪σŞｍ mean? (Hint: promosm)

I received a comment on a YouTube video recently with just the text "ρгό𝔪σŞｍ". I received no notification. I had no clue what it meant. I thought it was using another language so put the text into Google Translate which came up with nonsense.

I searched Google for "ρгό𝔪σŞｍ" and found others also didn't know what it meant either. I then searched using Bing and found a video that helped.

Once you sit back and realise they've used Greek letters which look like English letters it starts to make sense. I thought this was quite funny that I didn't see it earlier.

ρгό𝔪σŞｍ = promosm or PromoSM

That is Social Media Promotion.

Now if you type in promosm into Google or YouTube you'll quickly see what the comment spam is about.

It does appear this is comment spam is generated by a bot. I decided the best thing to do was to click on Report for the comment in YouTube, so basically from my point of view it's gone.

I would be very wary of these companies. Getting subscribers on YouTube can be hard so it's easy to start looking for easy options. Taking easy options often has unexpected consequences. Some being scams but most probably being a waste of time and money.

Hope this information helps others.

Kelvin

Feel free to subscribe to my YouTube channel if this information helps.
https://www.youtube.com/user/kelvineldridge?sub_confirmation=1

Scam on Jimmy Tries World (jimmytriesworld) on YouTube in response to a reply I wrote.

I recently watched an interesting video on the YouTube channel Jimmy Tries World (jimmytriesworld). I like to thank creators to show my appreciation. Much to my surprise I received the following reply letting me know I'd won a brand new 'Giveaway.

The image in the reply is Jimmy's image but the '@jimmytriesworld on telegram' wasn't the name of the YouTube channel. Of course Jimmy may have been making an offer for marketing purposes so I couldn't be sure. I've not seen scams on YouTube like this before so I thought the best way to confirm was to post another comment. Whilst I felt it was unlikely I'd get a reply since Jimmy gets thousands of comments I was pleasantly surprised that Jimmy responded and confirmed the reply was a scam. Here's a copy of the reply.

Hopefully by sharing this example of a YouTube scam it helps others to spot YouTube scams. Whilst I've been using YouTube for a while as a creator and I'm an IT consultant, scams that I've not seen before could easily trick. The only lesson I can pass on really is trust your instinct. If something surprises you, is unexpected, may even get you interested, pause for a moment and do some investigating. A moment's pause may save you a lot of grief. In this case I hadn't entered a competition so it didn't make sense, but that's not to say there was a competition running I wasn't aware of. So I started doing searches on Google and found the reply was most likely a scam.

Thanks also to Jimmy for taking the time to respond and confirm the reply was a scam. I should point out this scam has nothing to do with Jimmy, just scammers finding another way to trick people.

Kelvin

Seagate external hard drive failure with bad block, format drive message.

Ever get that sinking feeling your hard drive has failed. Yep. Happened to me. Now usually I have a backup of my files but this time I was using a new hard drive as a backup to my dashcam memory card to copy files before they got overwritten. There in lies my failure. I only have a single copy of the dashcam file and now they're gone. About a month and a half of dashcam files. Not a huge problem losing the files but it is very disappointing.

I tried quite a few programs to recover the files and quite a few didn't do anything and so far haven't recovered the files. I thought I'd share the outcome of each program I tried.

Easeus (trial version)
The trial version of Easeus doesn't allow you to save files but can in theory show you what the program can recover. I didn't let the program complete as it was reporting bad sectors and was taking an extremely long time. What it did show however was interesting. There were many files on the external drive I didn't put there. That was a reminder that Windows uses the external drive as temporary storage which increases the risk of the disk failing. Note to self for future. Unplug external drives when not in use. I think that was my main mistake and may have led to the external disk failing.

Recuva
Nothing

Disk Drill
Nothing

DiskGenius
Nothing

TestDisk/Photorec
Nothing from Photorec. Nothing so far from TeskDisk but hopeful something might be returned.

Remo Recover
Nothing

In other words so far everything I have tried has failed. I'll update this post if I have any success.

Kelvin

Pricing of Navman Mivue 140 and 150 makes no sense to me.

I've purchased a number of Navman dash cams from JB HiFi and usually when they've been on special. It is really weird what JB HiFi does. Here is the most recent special for the Navman Mivue 140 and Mivue 150 on the 24th of June 2022.

The Navman Mivue 140 and Mivue 150 are regularly on special and this is the best prices I've seen at JB HiFi. However the special price can vary significantly. What is really weird though is the Ticket price also changes. I get the special price can change but I'd think the ticket price should largely remain the same. Here's the current price shown on JB HiFi on the 3rd of July 2022.

If you're thinking of buying a Navman Mivue 140 or 150 and you're in no rush, they are regularly on special so there's savings to be made by waiting. 

I like the Navman Mivue dash cams but I have found a couple of issues. The recorded sound on the video files is not compatible with Windows 10/11 so if you play back the raw video files or use the video editor built into Windows 10/11 there's no audio. The Navman software can play the audio as can the VCL Player. The second issue is with the Mivue 150 where you're warned of the red light speed camera locations. Actually there's two issues. One is you often get a false alert if there's a camera above you and sometimes when the camera is on the road that crosses the road you're currently on. The second issue is I've found no ability to update the camera information so as speed limits get changed, you'll get wrong advice as to the speed limit which can be very costly if you're not careful. In my opinion it's best to use Google's Waze for speed camera warnings and spend less on the Mivue 140 rather than getting the Mivue 150.

Kelvin

Aldi Stretch Silicon Seals review.

I have to admit I checked out silicon seals on eBay some time ago but never got around to buying them. Perhaps that should have told me something. As I was walking through Aldi there they were. A pack of three stretch silicon seals. I purchased a pack and couldn't wait to try them out.

Well I think I got my moneys worth. I had my wife in fits of laughter watching me trying to put the three different seals onto various objects. She told me a friend of hers had purchased some silicon seals and they'd also entertained others in their house. In other words, if you think silicon seals is the answer to Gladwrap then you like me, will be sadly disappointed.

I did manage to get the biggest silicon seal on a large bowl, but everything else I tried I failed.

My verdict, give stretch silicon seals a miss. I will keep trying to see if I can do better, perhaps with two of us trying we might have a better chance.

Update: 4 July 2022

OK. I persisted. I noticed there were small dots on the silicon which I thought was interesting. I couldn't tell which side so I decided to try having the writing up so I could read it correctly. All of a sudden I was having more success. Still an effort, but perhaps I have the knack now. Who would have thought one side or the other makes a difference and there's no mention of that on the packaging. Here's my first successful use of the largest of the three silicon seals.

Hopefully I'll have more success in the future. This is what I wanted the silicon seal for. Covering left overs so I could them in the fridge.

Kelvin

Aldi Bauhn Wireless Charging Stand (eco tech) review

Yesterday I purchased from Aldi a couple of the Bauhn Wireless Charging Stand (eco tech) and was pretty happy with the purchase. They are 15W wireless charging stands for $24.99 which I felt was pretty good value. Recycled material gives a nice feeling too although I do wonder if not buying it at all is better for the environment.

Plugged the Aldi Bauhn wireless charging stand in and put my mobile on the stand and the phone's screen came on showing everything was working. Then everything started to go down hill very quickly.

Charging for the Samsung S21 was quite slow and for the iPhone 12 next to useless. Didn't even charge the iPhone over night.

Something wasn't quite as expected. First checking the packaging gives you no specifications at all. Does it even work with the devices I have? The first thought is the ports in my powerboard are only rated at 2.1A maximum and older iPhone chargers are often 1A. Perhaps it's the chargers that's the issue. I suspect this is what everyone will be faced with so my experience won't differ from most people except that when I see a problem I like to know why something doesn't work.

I started to check the amps and my 5 volt, 2.1A Apple charge when charging an 85% full Samsung S21 was delivering around 1.25A, so a little over 6W. Perhaps that's what is to be expected for a 2.1A charge, I'm not sure.

For the Apple iPhone I think it was about 0.3A which is next to useless and the iPhone is more likely to lose charge than to be charged. So far useless for the iPhone 12 but OK, albeit slower charging for the Samsung S21.

I then started to investigate wireless charging and fast charging and found there's two standards, PD (Power Delivery) and QC (Quick Charge) with various version numbers. I checked the internet and found Kmart has a 30W PD3.0 and QC3.0 charger so I've ordered one and will soon continue this post.

At this stage if you're considering getting an Aldi Bauhn Wireless Charging Stand and only have an iPhone with a 5V, 1A charger you'll be wasting your money. Stick with the power cable. With a Samsung S21 it will charge faster than the cable, but still it will be quite slow. Also I've found if you're trying to do something on your phone (e.g. uploading) the charging will stop with overheating whereas you can use the cable and whilst the charge in the mobile will continue to drop, my feeling is plugging in the cable will slow the drop down so you can continue to upload for longer.

Update: 30/06/2022
Received the 30W charger from Kmart and after testing the Apple iPhone 12 charged up using around 10-12W or power using the QC socket. Charging was at roughly 9V/1.2A. It was interesting to see the higher voltage being used. If I recall correctly I think I read on the Apple site that wireless charging requires a minimum 20W charger.

The lesson here is the lower powered charges we typically have aren't good enough for wireless charging and a higher wattage charger is required, particularly for the Apple iPhones.

Kelvin

Any suggestion for an alternative to TeamViewer?

I was asked this question and whilst I have a couple of possible approaches, the first one I tried and was happy with was Google's Remote Desktop. Keep in mind I only used it for about half and hour but I ran YouTube videos during the session and the performance was quite good. The remote computer was connected using an Optus NBN service and my computer was connected to my mobile phone as a hotspot using the Vodafone service.

Visit the following Google site. Also you'll have to log on using your Gmail account on each computer.

https://remotedesktop.google.com/

The one tip I have is Remote Desktop is running in the browser (Microsoft Edge or Google's Chrome). If you change the content of the tab where you started running Remote Desktop you'll end your session. If you need to use the internet on the remote computer, open a new tab and use the new tab for accessing the internet and keep the remote desktop session tab in the background.

With my limited testing I was happy to suggest Google's Remote Desktop as the first option to try.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au

Can't set up email account using Microsoft Outlook under Windows 10/11. Fails every time.

One of my clients is using iiNet to host their email services. They started using the email service years ago through WebCentral and since then they've kept using the service as it moved to new owners. The problem is they can't set up their emails using Microsoft Outlook. When they try to set up a new email account it just fails and they can't even open Outlook. I suspect Outlook is expecting a response that isn't available on the older email service.

To get around this problem with older email services, you need to first set up the email account outside of Outlook. This allows Outlook to open with the new email account and you can then make adjustments if necessary.

Windows 10 and 11 have now removed the older Control Panel but the feature you need is available through the Control Panel.

In the Windows Search area type Control Panel.
Select the Control Panel app.

Next Select Mail (Microsoft Outlook).

From here you can set up your new email account without the checking that is causing Microsoft Outlook to fail. You may also need to set up a Profile if one does not already exist.

Once you've set up the email account (including testing to see send and receive works), you can open Outlook and continue to adjust as required.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au

YouTube Video unavailable - Playback on other websites has been disabled - Watch on YouTube

I'm not sure if I've seen this message before, but at times I've clicked on a link to watch a YouTube video and the video has not been available. I always thought it was because perhaps the video had been deleted. Today however, I realised there may be another reason.

If you get the following screen with the message: "Video unavailable. Playback on other websites has been disabled by the video owner. Watch on YouTube", below is why this occurs.

When people upload videos to YouTube they agree to a whole range of things. One is that the video is available to all users using the facilities YouTube provides. One facility is the ability for others to embed the video in their own web page. I've used this feature in www.PracticalDrivingTest.com.au to help people find and watch actual practical driving tests. No one is copying anything, just using the features provided by YouTube.

If a creator of a video doesn't want the video to appear in other websites that's very easy. They simply untick the box for the video which allows embedding. When they untick the embed box a website will display the above message with a link to the video on YouTube.

Kelvin Eldridge
Check out my YouTube channel

How to extract audio from mp4 file using Audacity because the video's sound is not playing under Windows 10.

Recently I had to extract only the audio from an mp4 video file. This happened because Windows 10 could play the video file but there was no audio, even though the video did contain audio. For example playing the video using VLC or even the earlier Windows Media Player played the video with audio, whilst using Windows 10 the default video player (Films & TV or Photos) would play the video but not the audio.

I wanted to produce the video with sound and whilst I have converted files in the past with the VLC Player this approach wasn't working. My next approach was to extract the sound from each video file and then create a new video using the video file plus the sound file. This approach worked and gave me the video I wanted.

To do this I used Audacity which is a program I regularly use the edit audio files. By default however Audacity cannot read an mp4 file so it is necessary to install an mp4 plugin as follows.

First close Audacity if you have Audacity open.
Visit the following web page.
64 bit FFmpeg Library Download (buanzo.org)
Under the section Windows(R) FFmpeg INSTALLER click on the link for the installer, which as at the time I downloaded the file, the file was called FFmpeg v2.2.2 INSTALLER (.EXE).
Run the file.

Now when you open Audacity you should be able to open an mp4 file and the audio track will be available.

I hope this post helps anyone who is having the same problem.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au

MyAnswers: How to turn off the image that appear to the right of the search field in Windows 10.

What Microsoft and Windows developers consider to be a nice embellishment to the Windows interface I some call it annoying unnecessary window dressing. I could say crud or crap, but really it's each person's decision to decide how much value the embellishments are to them. Personally I don't want it so I wanted to turn it off.

The problem is trying to find the option to turn the feature off. You have no idea what it's called so that makes it harder to find the option. So if the images to the right of the search field in Windows 10 aren't to your liking, here's how to turn the feature off.

Right click in any spare space on the taskbar at the bottom of the screen.
Select Search.
Select the ticked Show search highlights.

This now removes the tick from Show search highlights and thus disables the features.

My world is back in balance again.

You can also right click on the image to the right of the search field as well as any spare space on the taskbar. 

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au

Linking to or embedding a YouTube video from your website.

I've created the Speed Camera Locations site which can be found at www.SpeedCameraLocations.com.au. Basically the Speed Camera Locations site aims to document the location of red light cameras and speed cameras so if people get fined they can investigate the location more easily. Many of us get fined without even realising we've done something wrong and by investigating further, we can realise what we did wrong and hopefully improve our skills and minimise the chances of getting fined again, or at least until next time at a different location.

Over the past couple of years I've filmed nearly all the red light speed cameras around Victoria and these videos can be accessed from the details page for each of the red light speed cameras. You can tell if a camera has a video as the camera icon on the map has a red lens instead of a white lens.

Whilst it is comparatively easy for me to film the videos around Melbourne and even Victoria, it's not so easy to film cameras in other states. So that people can see the red light speed cameras in other states other than Victoria, I provide links to other people's videos and start the video around 30 seconds before the speed camera. People can review the location and even watch earlier or later in the video and that let's them see all the related speed signage and road conditions.

For me this helps make my system more complete and thus useful for people reaching my site. For other YouTube creators their videos are promoted free of charge. The YouTube creator still gets the traffic to their channel, credit for their video, people can subscribe to their channel and any revenue if available. This is a standard feature of YouTube. I'm not downloading, copying any creators material, just linking to or using the embedding code provided by YouTube. Creators gain a wider audience and people get to find what they're looking for more easily. If YouTube creators aren't happy with this feature in YouTube they can easily stop others embedding their videos by turning off the option "Allow others to embed videos".

One of the best things that can happen for a YouTube creator is for a video to go viral. The ability to share a link to a video or embed a video in web page to the original video provides a mechanism for this to happen.

How then do you link to or embed to a creators YouTube video.

On every YouTube video is the option to Share. Click on the Share option and you'll see a number of services listed.

You can simply click on COPY and then paste the link into you blog post and this is how the following link was created.

https://youtu.be/ihoFHGdGmUc

You can click on email or any of the services (Blogger, WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter and more) and easily share the video using one of your social media accounts. The Embed option provides the following code you can add to you site, so people can watch the video from within your site but the creator still gets the full benefit of every person who watches their video.

Here is an example of the Embed code for my Please Subscribe video.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ihoFHGdGmUc" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

NOTE: Keep in mind an embedded video by default starts and is muted. That's great as it doesn't affect people around you when you watch the video.

Those with a little more skill can use the Developer API to provide greater flexibility in adding the embedded video to their site.

Whilst I've not had any issue in embedding videos from others, except for the time it takes to explain what I'm doing, I've written the following benefits section to highlight possible things to think about. To me, if someone doesn't want you to link to their video it's no big deal. It's just one video. Both of you end up with a small potential loss but you haven't lost anything if you've never had it. To me it's polite to ask.

Benefits of linking for other YouTube creators

• Wider audience, greater views.
• All credit, views, watch hours, income goes to creator.
• Others promoting your videos and thus your channel at no additional cost or effort.

Benefit of embedding videos from other YouTube creators

• The embedded code does not show comments. If people want to read or add comments they need to click on the option to show in YouTube.
• Embedded videos can be zoomed, something you can't do in YouTube. This is using the browser to zoom the screen not zoom into the video where there's potentially more data.
• You get to use material from others at no monetary cost which may benefit your site.

Why you may not want to link to a creator's videos.

In general I'm happy to link to someone else's video if it helps in some way. There may be some reasons not to.

• My views clash with the creators views and may cause conflict in the future.
• The creator doesn't actively monitor comments and thus directing people to their videos may impact my audience.

Why a creator may not want to you link to or embed a their videos.

First a creator can't really stop anyone sharing a link to their video. If they're not happy all they can do is restrict the audience or delete the video. In terms of embedding a creator can turn off embedding on a video by video basis.

• A creator may not agree with your views which may cause conflict.
• A creator ends up with more views, a larger audience and that's not their desire.

Finally I'd like to thank the YouTube creators who have been happy for me to embed their videos for the Speed Camera Locations site.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.SpeedCameraLocations.com.au

Migrating from Samsung Galaxy A20 to iPhone 12

Not to long ago I migrated a Samsung Galaxy A20 to an iPhone 12 and thought I'd share some observations.

I always find what is just as interesting are the changes that don't work. This post aims to record those changes and the things that didn't quite go as expected.

1. Migrating contacts initially didn't appear to work. Once the Gmail was set up the contacts appeared.

2. Calls coming in didn't come up with people's name. The problem was the telephone numbers needed the country code as part of the number. Once this was done the names appeared.

3. Favourites in contacts on the Samsung come up at the top of the contacts but you need to know on the iPhone Favourites are accessed by hitting the Favourites button which is a star.

4. The home button on the iPhone is a bar at the bottom and you need to slide it up.

5. To see open applications slide up from the bottom and then hold, then release and previously open apps are shown. There doesn't appear to be a simple way to close all previously opened applications.

6. The keyboard on the iPhone requires clicking on the ABC button to show punctuation which takes extra steps. Entering a double space helps with entering the full stop.

I think the biggest issue om the user's point of view really was the iPhone 12 didn't recognise the contact's mobile phone number. Family and friends numbers weren't recognised.

One issue that caused minor annoyance is the iPhone hotspot setting. On Android devices once the hotspot is set up it generally stays on until you turn it off. With iPhones if you don't access the hotspot for 90 seconds the hotspot turns off and there's no way to change this setting. For example if you have an iPad and it's connected to the iPhone hotspot, if you don't use the iPad for more than 90 seconds (e.g. you get distracted or you're reading something on the screen) the iPhone hotspot turns off, you have to turn it on again and wait for the iPad to reconnect, which can be annoyingly slow.

The iPhone 12's camera is far better than the Samsung Galaxy 20 which is a huge benefit for taking good quality photos.

Overall whilst there may be some glitches and differences between Android and iOS, it is quite possible to move from one operating system to the other.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au

Navman MiVue 150 dashcam video has no audio.

First I have to say I've really liked Navman dashcams but lately one limitation has been causing me considerable angst. To the point that I would be unlikely to recommend Navman dashcams unless I find a suitable solution.

The problem is when you go to edit or create a video on Windows 10 using the Video Editor the sound is not available. For some videos I create I want the sound.

For example recently I was caught in a hail storm in Melbourne and I thought it would be great to share the footage with others. When I got home I went to edit the video. I use Windows 10 Video Editor. The problem is even though the sound was recorded there was no sound available to the Windows 10 Video Editor. I decided to try using DaVinci Resolve but all I got was a crackle at the start of the video and then nothing.

Now I know there's sound because I can play the video using Navman's MiVue Manager and the sound is there. But I can't trim or edit videos using the MiVue Manager. Similarly I can watch the video with VLC and Windows Media Player but again there's no editing features I can use. 

So yes, there is sound, but not that I can easily access.

Some have suggested installing K-Lite in case there's a missing codec but this did not fix the issue. On one computer where the audio didn't work with Windows Media Player, installing K-Lite codecs did enable the audio to work but not with Windows 10 Video Editor.

Even though the audio does work with Navman's MiVue Manager I don't consider this to be good enough for my needs and would thus not recommend a Navman dashcam until an easier solution is found.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au