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