1198. "Ashes Never Lie" by Lee Goldberg -- 5 Stars

 

Ashes Never Lie by Lee Goldberg -- 5 Stars

Publisher: Thomas & Mercer

ISBN: 9781662512384

 

I check NetGalley often, waiting for the availability of a new novel by Lee Goldberg because I am certain it will be exciting and well written. His characters are the best part -- they are complex and believable. The interplay between the law enforcement officers is supportive and often witty. Adding Eve Ronin and Duncan to the team worked well. There are several crimes to solve. The ways the team catch the bad guys are clever. Information about fire and arson investigations is worked into the plot without slowing it and am now more educated.  I enjoyed every page!

 

Reviewer: Nancy

1197. Lost Hot Key (F6 to toggle touchscreen) on Lenovo ideapad

 Don't know abut you, but I can't seem to rest my paw on the touchpad while typing. Results: input jumps around to different places. If I'm typing heads down, I could have typed a lot, in open spaces or over the top of other text, before realizing I again was buggered by the touchpad being hot. Thus, at one time I permanently turned it off until I started to need it remotely and didn't want to drag Mickey Mouse along. That's when I reverted to using the F6 Hotkey to toggle the touchpad on/off. Still forget a lot! But, this time the F6 toggle was dead. Didn't toggle and didn't display the notification ICON. Turns out after hours of research that when I tried to fix this by disabling the touchpad in Device Manager I chose to migrate (?) the setting. This didn't work, and I spent more hours trying to locate a new Driver or refreshing the one I had. It did log Events for the Driver under the Touchpad device re Migration which activated my CommonScents to try to go all out and uninstall the driver and let the O/S at Restart find it and correct it. Sure thing, I was rewarded for my CommonScents with an again working Hotkey. So much for all the articles out on Internet that were unhelpful and led me to dig the rabbit hole deeper and deeper. Just using CommonScents I fixed the problem.

Agin: Uninstall the driver and let the Windows Restart process fix it.

1196. Stop Automatic Restart Feature so Errors can be seen

 If your Windows 11 system reboots automatically by itself during your session for an unknown reason, you may never learn why it rebooted. You can turn off the Automatic Restart Feature so you can troubleshoot the error before it disappears on an reboot. To turn off the Automatic Restart Feature, do the following:

Go to Control Panel and in Category view mode  select System and Security > System > Advanced system settings.

In the Startup and Recovery section, choose Settings.

Uncheck the box next to Automatically restart

When your system fails now you might be able to at least note the error causing it before you manually reboot it allowing you to troubleshoot the error.

Reasons why your system may automatically restart:  incorrect group policies, system infected with malware, faulty storage or other hardware issue, misconfigured settings, and many more reasons. Automatic Restart corrects the issues usually, but you will usually have no knowledge why it failed. instructions above, you at least have a chance to learn why by noting the error AND can save what you have been doing before you manually restart.  

1195. What is my Microsoft Windows 11 Product Key?

 To find out your product key should you need to reinstall do the following:

Start Key > enter REGEDIT and select it by right-click Administrator

Trace path as follows: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\WINDOWS NT\CurrentVersion\SoftwareProtectionPlatform

Double-click SoftwareProtectionPlatform to display all files on right side

Double-click BackupProductKeyDefault to see 25-digit Product Key

1194. "Primordial Threat" by M.A. Rothman -- 5 Stars

 Primorial Threat is Science Fiction that one needs to constantly check the little things, the trees, to determine what's real and not. Of course, the forest is far fetched, bu described with enough factual trees to want you to believe it's possible and just the forest next door in 2066, or Stardate 0 AE. So what's this Stardate AE? Read and find out.

Dave, the genius scientist, is one of the main characters and is the one who comes up with the plan to save the Earth from a Black Hole barreling directly toward it, meaning through our solar system right to the sun. How will he protect Earth? An unbelievable solution is is developed and executed and the Earth lives on -- but is it crippled in any way? What about the sun and moon? And who is Dave's girl friend who can talk only via numbers?

Joining Dave are Burt and Neeta, two more brilliant scientists that help pull off the magic. What else can you call it, except, it is way beyond magic! The reader gets to live with the problem and experience an incredible journey escaping the Black Hole's destruction. As mentioned, there is plenty to keep you searching the Internet for background and history. 

Since I already read the sequel Freedom's Last Gasp, another MUST READ, I attest that Earth is still surviving, but quite different. I love how Mr. Rothman incorporates present date issues into his story without blatantly stating them and making them political or controversial. Stephen King has alway been a favorite author before he started doing just the opposite! So, get settled into an easy chair and be ready to be entertained like no TV show or movie can provide. Just you and this novel. 

I'll also review Freedom's Last Gasp and the first of Mr. Rothman's Levi Yoder series, Perimiter, which I also just finished and can't wait to get the 2nd in the series. Three 5-Star hits. 

1193. ALL Input Fields randomly fill with same character - UPDATE

 This is a weird problem that some people have reported as far back as 4+ years! Looks like maybe 10 different people maximum that reported and received no useful responses. Many more responded with "I also have this problem" which doesn't mean they have exact problem or just interested. So, I call it very few people and low, low priority.

However, that doesn't make those, including my visually impaired client, very happy! So, I am doing my best to find the common link/cause of the problem and some resolution it, or at least a way to stop the infinite filling.

Problem: In ANY input field. i.e., Browser fields (URL field, Google.com field), some forms, word processor, and even Window Sign-in before Windows even active have resulted in some character, in our case "-" or +l" or "/" or "0" or etc to just on its own start filling the field and beyond. You will see, e.g., AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA ... forever. We initiall had no way to stop it and couldn't type what we wanted. Recently, if you catch it, maybe early enough, using the Backspace Key to continually erase them and typing a quick key to insert something else will stop it and life can continue. Up to this discovery, the only way to clear it was to reboot. But, then we one time hit it at Windows Signin! So, RESTART and do it again until clear.

Things tried and problem still persisted:

Changed Keyboards

Removed Keyboard

Windows SAFE mode

Updated all Keyboard Drivers

Ran all HP Hardware Tests successfully

Ran HP BIOS update check  -- Back Level was updated just an hour ago. Hopefully this might work, but after it PASSED the date given was 3/8/22 for F.22 level and this is exactly what we originally had. So, the HP diagnostics either reported that we were back level, or the PASSED report reported it wrong. Next time over there, I'll run SPECCY to see if it reports a newer date.

    Update 1/18/24. HP should have told me to RESTART! This morning I checked again using "Run MSINFO32.exe" and it still said F22. Checked HP site again (no help), except set up HP ID. The downloaded code to look at the machine did not work. Even after setting up an account ID it didn't help. Did a RESTART as seen needed under Device Manager>Drivers. It updated the BIOS to F40 7/17/23. Short of current F42 as per support system. We'll run with this to see if problem reoccurs. Apparently, the caretaker said it just started happening when they went to new keyboard. Why? Because the old Visually Impaired Keyboard was reported as not functioning (turned out it was jammed in port next to the USB that it should have gone into. I believe this is for the printer cable!) Maybe this jam caused the problem with the now possibly damaged port, whatever it is, OR the keyboard cable connector). They went to a wireless, but it wasn't a Visually Impaired one and useless to him. I went over and plugged the old keyboard back in, but by this time they had already ordered another Visually Impaired one (Corded). That one is now active and no problems yet on it. Time will tell on the new BIOS code and new keyboard. If anything the problem is with the USB/Keyboard to USB. 

Did SFC /SCANNOW -- no issues

Checked Event Log, but had no date/time to see if anything was reported during error -- nothing found to date

Additional Information:

Over the 4+ years of issue reported, there is no common PC brand or type. More than HP had problem, Ours is Desktop and Laptops with their fixed keyboards also had problem. One individual went to the trouble of disconnecting the laptop keyboard from the motherboard and installing an external one. There were some differences as to some keys working or not working, but the issue persisted. 

I'll be adding to this post as we test more, get this corrected, or find a reasonable workaround.

---------------

1/18/24. Restart done to install F40 BIOS. Awaiting any error reports.

--------------------

3/2/24. https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/character-repeats-automatically-forever-in-all/59fcc9ce-98ce-4740-b539-ddd64d66477e details the Repeating Character troubleshooting and resolution as of this day. Bottom Line it seems like an old surge protector, one I can no longer find on the Internet either didn't stop an electrical surge it itself had a problem that sent a charge to the PC. A full memory test via Memtest86 passed, leaning us with most likely a motherboard failure, or just the surge protector failing. We have run a week without the problem appearing after a new surge protector (about 4300 joule one) replaced the old one. Regardless, a new PC was bought and the old one will go to a friend. Many reports of this problem appear on the Internet with not one resolution or root cause. This could be it! 

1192. Set a Yahoo Finance Portfolio VIEW as default

 Assuming you know how to get to Yahoo Finance, then MY PORTFOLIOS, then creating your new portfolio, say STOCKS, you can bring it up with the fields of your choice. Once on your portfolio, STOCKS in this example, you can select any of the views desired. You might want to create a new view, say MyView, with your field desires -- Create New View at right of all available views is there for you to do this. So, have at it. Finally, on the portfolio of choice you can select MY Portfolios and then the portfolio you desire. On the resulting screen, now your portfolio, you an select the view of choice, say MyView. Now, Bookmark it onto your Bookmark Bar or other place. Note the specific view designator at the end of the URL address assigned by Yahoo. This corresponds to the view you are looking at and, thus, the one the bookmark will take you too. Hence, your selected DEFAULT. You have established a default now assigned to the bookmarked URL. Play with the other views and you will see the end of the URL change to its view designator. Bookmark whichever you desire and go directly to that portfolio and view when desired, i.e., YOUR desired portfolio and desired view.