CompuClever Blog

f.lux – How to Elinimate Digital Eye Strain

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We’re going to explore night and day and everything in between – as it applies to levels of light.  There are natural lighting levels that we are exposed to as determined by the onset of sunset and sunrise.  Of course night time we may choose to be in front of a monitor or screen but there may be tradeoffs with respect to eye strain, headaches, or improper sleep.  The technology known as “f.lux” may help to alleviate this.  We like the concept and we also like the company as they are dedicated to offering this technology for free.

The Technology

To put it simply, f.lux automatically changes the color of your screen depending on the time of the day, for the purpose of reducing blue light exposure.  During the day time, your screen appears normal and as evening approaches it becomes pinker or rose colored.  It works well with computers and laptops and it can be used to work with iPhones and iPads.  There are also similar applications for Android devices.

Theory

PC screens, monitors, and mobile phones all emit full spectrum light to resemble full daylight conditions.  The makers of f.lux state:

“Exposure to blue light at the wrong time of day can keep you awake later and interfere with the quality of your sleep.  
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How to Protect Your Computer from Ransomware

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How to Prevent Ransomware

Ransomware is the latest threat to afflict millions of computer users worldwide. What’s really startling is that even police departments are being affected. Let’s take a look at what ransomware is, and how you can protect yourself against it.

Cyber-criminals have so far collected more than $200 million in the first three months of 2016, and are on track to steal $1 billion by the end of the year.

How?

By tricking regular people, as well as businesses and institutions, to download “ransomware” that takes control of computers and servers. If you want to unlock your computer data, you have to pay the crooks.

It’s a lucrative scam and no one is safe: hospitals, school boards and even police departments have all been blackmailed by ransomware criminals so far this year.

You Don’t Even Have to Download Ransomware to Infect Your Computer

Most recently, Game of Thrones fans were targeted by ransomware just by visiting the Pirate Bay video downloading site.

What’s most frightening about this example is that the visitors to the Pirate Bay didn’t actually download any malicious files.

Instead, all they did was get secretly redirected to a webpage that exploited common security holes in their Internet browser.

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Tech Corner: How to Extend Your Home WiFi With Just a Soda Can

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How to Extend Your Home WiFi

“A strong WiFi signal makes for a happy home,” should be the new adage for the 21st Century. At least that’s been my experience based on the turmoil my own home falls into when the WiFi is not working properly!

Here are some tips for improving the range of your home WiFi setup.

Note: This trick works best with a wireless router that has external antennas. If your WiFi router doesn’t have antennas, we also provide tips on how to improve home WiFi signal in the 2nd half of the article.

Thanks to PC’s, smartphones, laptops, tablets, iPads, iPods and other mobile gizmos, a strong WiFi signal has become a necessity for modern life.

Everyone in the family now depends on a mobile device to listen to music, binge-watch the latest TV series and communicate with friends.

Beware the WiFi “Dead Zone”

However, it’s also a fact of life in the 21st Century that your home WiFi signal is not always reliable. There always seems to be one or two “dead zones” in the house where there is just no WiFi signal.

It’s annoying for whoever enters a dead zone, and it’s also a challenge for whoever is tasked to somehow solve the problem!

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BloomSky – Serious but Fun

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Welcome to the third and concluding edition of our series on the BloomSky Weather Sensor review. In the previous articles we covered the introduction to the community and the technology. The second article focused on putting the device together right out of the box. Now it’s time to provide information on the software for the device and then give our overall review of the product along with our recommendations

The Device


There are going to be some of our readers who are inspired by this weather sensor technology and want to take the step of buying an actual weather device for themselves. We covered how to assemble the device and now we will look at connecting it with the available software. First we’ll review some of the features of the device.

A Serious Weather Station

For weather hobbyists, you will immediately recognize the value of the BloomSky device. It has sensors to constantly measure the temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, along with ultra-violet sun exposure and a rain sensor. It is built to withstand weather extremes and it can last 20 days on one battery charge, and it can be powered by solar or AC power.

BloomSky enables you to connect your device and share weather data with Internet weather service like the Weather Underground. Continue reading...

BloomSky Weather Sensor – Setup

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Welcome to the next installment of our series on BloomSky – the weather technology. In this article we review the BloomSky Weather sensor. We will be taking the device, as any new user would, out of the box. Then we will follow the instructions and put it together. Get ready for our first impressions offered by our Tech Support specialist as he unwraps and assembles the weather sensor device from BloomSky.

When the box from BloomSky arrived, Andy was quite excited about it. So, I was somewhat surprised when he asked me to set up the unit and document the proceedings. I’m Richard from the Technical Support team and I would think the assumption is that this should be a snap for me, right? The truth is I learn how to do things by repetition – doing them over and over. However, it’s not likely that I would be a good assembly line worker – my strength is working with computers! So, if I can succeed at setting this up… most anyone can.

An offer for our readers:
For those who are interested in joining the BloomSky network, BloomSky is currently offering an unprecedented special promotion to our readers. Simply follow the link and use coupon code: COMPUCLEVER to get up to $40 off when you purchase a solar powered BloomSky weather station. 
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