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