brianjo

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brianjo
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  • NordVPN review: An extensive VPN privacy package

    brianjobrianjo
    Pema said:
    I concur with the two above posters re: NordVPN. The product often comes out in the top five of recommended VPNs. That said it just did not work for me. It was easy to set up and connect but with the exception that every site that I was blocked out of due to geographical boundaries I stayed blocked out of. I would connect to a site, sign in and within seconds I would be advised of a error along the lines of 'We can see that you are using a VPN, please disconnect and try again'. 
    And this went on for nearly every site excepting the ones that I could log into and access with/without a VPN. 
    There is one program that I eagerly wanted in 4 parts for my PhD research. No way I was able to login. And this was via a major streamer!
    Eventually I located the program on a local site and happened to feature the 4-part series. 

    When I attempted to explain all this to nordsec b.v. they were completely disinterested. All they could come back with is 'your money back guarantee expired last week. sorry'. 

    You would think that a company of this size and spread would be very keen to work with me to fix the issue. Nope. They kept coming back with some lame excuse as in, 'try this server, try that server, try this server, try that server'. I don't have all bleeding day to sit around and f**t arse around trying over 1200 servers as far as the Kingdom of Mongolia to finally land on one that may/may not work 

    I would have thought that their tech support would have come back and asked me for the URLs and they would at least attempt to debug the issue. 

    In the end, after a great deal of lengthy arguing they relented and gave me a full refund. Not a good company if you should happen to run into problems. 

    There mantra: give us your money and don't bother us. 

    If I had to give them a review, it would be 2 stars. Easy to install and setup but of no value if you should happen to run into problems. They are plainly not interested. 
    This is because many websites use other tools to determine your location other than IP address.  It's pretty simple for them to determine you're using a VPN to try and disguise your location and as such will block access.  A decade ago the VPN trick worked.  Not so much anymore.
    dav

  • Microsoft blew $8.5 billion on Skype only to spend 14 years killing it

    brianjobrianjo
    From an IT standpoint, Teams has an advantage that it's simply integrated within the Microsoft 365 platform. User and access management then is handled in one place. Add Zoom, now you have more accounts and logins to deal with. Unfortunately, Teams has turned into a hot mess. In Microsoft fashion, it tries to do everything for everyone, but is sloppy at best and just ends up being unusable kludge for most. Even as an experienced computer user, it gets so confusing, I can't imagine how non savy individuals are able to navigate the system.
    sconosciutostevedownunderdewmechasmDrishmungronnrandominternetpersonwatto_cobra

  • iPhone 17 Slim specs will be an enormous engineering & supply chain challenge

    brianjobrianjo
    It's amazing how bad phones are ergonomically.  The size and shape make them relatively difficult to hold naturally.

    Honestly, the original or maybe the rounded back of the 3G were far superior, but even then, the perfectly smooth edges makes them easy to slide out of your hand.  The flat face makes them less than ideal as phones (not that anyone uses them like that these days)

    I also don't get the attraction of making a phone thinner.  It's at the point where that doesn't matter.  The sacrifices of thinner don't make it better.  I'd much rather the phone be back sized as the original with an enormous battery that lasts days.  Oh, and that stupid camera bump???  Stop it.
    williamlondon

  • iMac M4 review: Minor changes lead to perfection for Apple's all-in-one Mac

    brianjobrianjo
    The worst thing about the iMac is the external power supply. Why couldn't that be built inside? It would make life so much easier. But, if they keep the power brick, it would be awesome if they would have included a couple of USB ports on it. That way you'd be able to have only the power connector attached to your computer, and all accessories could conveniently attach to the power supply itself. Or, what would be even better is if Apple released an economically priced display that could be powered with the Thunderbolt cable, and you just stick the Mac Mini under your desk and get a beautiful Apple display.
    williamlondon

  • How to make an external bootable drive in macOS Sequoia

    brianjobrianjo
    You can also use disk utility to create a bootable clone of your current system.  I generally will do that prior to a major OS install so I have an easy fallback plan to get back to exactly where I was before the upgrade.  I find that much more reliable and complete than relying on reinstalling and older OS and using Time machine to restore.
    OctoMonkeyxyzzy-xxx