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