About 2 months ago, after repeatedly hearing about AI and ChatGPT on newscasts, I decided to take a closer look. At that time I used the free ChatGPT3. I played with it a bit, comparing searches with Google Search with the same search terms in ChatGPT3. As time went on, the differences between the 2 resources became clearer.

At first, I was just playing with it. Now, I find that greater than 50% of my queries are to ChatGPT4 (compared to Google Search). Yes, about 1 month ago I upgraded to the paid account with ChatGPT to get the ChatGPT4 access. That costs $20/month. It’s more money if you want to eliminate the advertizing.

ChatGPT4 is a newer, smarter version of the program.

It has its limitations. It is not 100% correct in its answers, but it is close to it. So, you have to keep that in mind when you use it and monitor its output closely.

So where have I used it?

So, what types of things have I used it for other than simple information searches?

1. How to do things in WordPress for developing websites
2. How to troubleshoot an RC helicopter setup I was having a problem with.
3. I have given it medical inquiries and the results have been accurate.
4. I have asked it to translate text from English to Spanish, and the translations are excellent (better than Google Translate)
5. I have asked it to improve the wording of things I and others have written and it does a fantastic job. I find I need to edit its output a little, but the end result is much better than I could have done on my own.

Like with Google Search, the key is learning how to optimize your queries and prompts in a way to fine tune the resultant output.

ChatGPT vs Google

With ChatGPT, a session is not a series of independent queries. It remembers the ongoing “conversation” just as if you were talking to a person. Therefore you don’t need to keep repeating yourself. For example, if you ask it to reword an article (or generate from scratch) an article on a certain topic and you think the output is too formal, you could simply say “Do it again, please, but this time make it informal”. Or you could say “give it an angry tone” or word it at a 4th grade level. ChatGPT would remember all the previous conversation like a person (better than a person), so your follow up questions and prompts can be very quick and efficient.

In just 2 months it has become my new Google Search.

I still use Google Search. For example, if I want to find something specific on the internet (eg. an IMDB review of a certain movie) I use Google search.

If I want expert advice on how to handle or solve a problem as if I were consulting and conversing with an expert in that field, ChatGPT4 often gets me the answers I need faster.

Conclusion

If you haven’t already taken a look at it and tried it out it is available at https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt and it is available as an app for your smartphone.

The post ChatGPT4 and Me appeared first on Arnold Solof.

Introduction

There are many things that can go wrong to interfere with a reliable internet connection.  Usually, one can systematically isolate and correct the problem without too much difficulty by knowing the wiring diagram of the network and which devices are affected by the problem.  I’d like to discuss a recent case that happened on my home network to help others who might have a similar problem.  The case involves a faulty streaming Blu-ray player which adversely affected the internet connection of every device on the network; even those not on the same branch of the wired network.

Symptoms of Problem

The problem manifested with the following symptoms:

• When booting a device (computer, etc.) or waking it from sleep it would take 20 to 50 seconds to establish an internet connection. Normally, a device should have established its connection by the time the device has booted or awakened.
• Internet devices would occasionally and randomly disconnect.
• The tested internet bandwidth was not affected.
• Routers used as wireless access points would intermittently fail to connect to devices.

Diagnosis – Phase 1

In diagnosing the problem, since the entire network was affected, I first looked for a global type problem doing the following:

• Updated the firmware in the Sonicwall.
• Reset the Sonicwall to factory defaults and reprogrammed it in case a faulty configuration file was causing the problem.
• Updated the firmware on one of the router/wireless access points.
• Checked the patch cables being used on one of the computers and found 2 of them to be bad (would only transmit at 100mbps).

I replaced the connectors on the 2 bad patch cables.  One was “fixed”, the other was discarded.  This got me to thinking that although the entire network was affected by the problem, could one bad device on the network adversely affect the entire network?  I did some internet research and found reports of bad network interface cards, switches, etc. affecting the entire network, not just the branch on which they were located.

Diagnosis – Phase 2

To find the rogue device I did the following:

1. Connected my laptop directly to the cable modem.  The internet connection came up instantly.  This verified that my laptop, modem, and internet service provider were all functioning normally.
2. Connected the modem to the Sonicwall (router) and my laptop to the Sonicwall. (everything else disconnected).   It worked fine.
3. Connected the Sonicwall to the computer room’s 16 port unmanaged switch with multiple devices and another router/wireless access point/switch connected to that.  I connected the laptop also to the 16 port unmanaged switch.  I left the rest of the house disconnected.  Everything worked fine.
4. Connected the cable going to the rest of the home network into the 16 port unmanaged switch.  The problem recurred.  So at this point, I knew everything in the computer room was fine and the problem was somewhere in the rest of the house.
5. A five-port switch in the basement acts as a hub to connect the Sonciwall to multiple switches in the rest of the house.  This was skipped initially due to access/convenience considerations.
6. The downstairs addition contains a router/wireless access point/switch which also connects to another switch in the upstairs addition.  I disconnected the downstairs switch from the system, but the problem persisted.  This meant the problem was not located in the house addition; neither downstairs or upstairs.
7. The TV room contains an 8 port unmanaged switch and a router/wireless access point/switch connected to it.  I disconnected the source cable from the 8 port unmanaged switch. Everything worked fine!  This located the problem to the TV room.
8. Unplugged all the devices from the 8 port unmanaged switch in the TV room and added them back one at a time.  Everything worked fine until I connected the Blu-ray player.  At that point, the problem recurred.  The rogue device was found!
9. Later I discovered the Blu-ray player had “crashed” and had to be rebooted.  I changed its internet connection from wired to wireless, and it did not adversely affect the network.  I have yet to test whether or not it was a defective wired network adapter in the Blu-ray player or just a side effect of its crashed state.

Discussion

So, the lesson to be learned is that the entire network can be affected by one bad device on it, regardless of its location on the network.

In further researching this issue I learned that using a “smart” switch or managed switch, could protect a network from this type of event.  Devices can sometimes cause network loopbacks or network storms that can utilize so much of the network resources that it can slow or stop the network.  The smart or managed switches can isolate the problem automatically, protecting the rest of the network.  This is something I plan to implement in the future.  I didn’t understand why my office computer vendors would recommend buying the more expensive managed switches over the cheaper unmanaged switches, which seemed to work just fine (until they didn’t).

The post Diagnosing Internet Connection Problems appeared first on Arnold Solof.

One of the features of a Home Theater PC is the ability to use it as a digital video recorder (DVR).  This card can be for both for clear QAM (unscrambled cable channels) and over-the-air / antenna (OTA) signals.

Why Multiple Tuners?

If you are implementing a DVR, you want more than one tuner.  Why would you need more than one tuner?

• To record more than one program simultaneously.
• To watch a program live while other programs are recording.
• Some programs start earlier or end later than there official start/stop times and without extra tuners, a recording may get cut short or you may have to quit watching your live program to free up the tuner for a recording.
• The ability to have multiple TV shows playing simultaneously.

The WinTV-quad Model 1609 has 4 tuners built in which should suffice for most people most of the time.  It also has a built-in splitter so it only requires one coax cable connection for all 4 tuners.

Performance

I have used this tuner card in my main home theater PC for the past 2 weeks and it has worked flawlessly.  It has a sensitive tuner able to pick up weaker stations without glitching/stutters/pixelation.  Live TV viewing and recordings made from it are clear and sharp, almost as good as watching it directly on my high-end Samsung TV’s tuner.

Software

The included WinTV software works OK but I don’t like the way you schedule recordings with it.  Its scheduler is like programming a VCR.  You specify the channel, start & stop times and whether it is one time or to be repeated.  It does have a neat feature where you can have up to 4 shows actively playing on the screen simultaneously (one with active sound), but although it is “cool”, I don’t watch TV that way.

I am used to the Windows Media Center approach where you just click on the program within the on-screen TV Guide and schedule it from there with a couple of clicks.

Since Windows 10 doesn’t include Windows Media Center, I am using NextPVR instead together with the Schedules Direct EPG (electronic program guide).  This functions similarly to Windows Media Center.

Other Tuners

Although I have 2 HDHomeRun dual tuners (4 network tuners total), their performance, which used to be fine, has become glitchy with stutters and pixelation, etc.  I tried to fix it but was unsuccessful.  The WinTV Quad card solved the problem.

Accessories

The WinTV-Quad comes with an infrared receiver and an infrared remote control.  Since I am not using the WinTV software, I haven’t bothered to install the remote. I control it with a wireless mouse instead.

WinTV-Quad Model 1609 on Amazon ($88.16)

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The ability to stream 4K Netflix on a home theater PC (HTPC) has been the latest “Holy Grail” of HTPC computing.  Not too long ago Netflix began supporting this feature on computers having the 7th & 8th generation Kaby Lake CPUs with their built-in graphics engine.  These processors use the Intel® UHD Graphics 620 and Intel® HD Graphics 620.  Although not mentioned by Netflix, the Apollo Lake and Coffee Lake CPUs also have this ability.

But what about those of us who have an older CPU, or, God forbid, an AMD CPU?  What are we supposed to do?

• Buy a new computer?
• Replace the motherboard, CPU, and RAM of the existing computer?

Graphics cards have been available for some time that have the ability to display 4K or higher resolutions.  If only it were that simple.  In the pursuit of protecting video from being pirated, numerous schemes were devised.  So, your video display has to be compatible with all that which includes having HDMI 2.0, HDCP 2.2, and associated drivers that play nice with the DRM (digital rights management) of the video streams being played.

Yesterday the Fall Creator’s Update, version 1709 of Windows 10 became available.  This was the last piece of the puzzle for me.  I downloaded and installed the Windows update, verified I had the correct version, but no joy.

(To check your version of Windows 10, type “System Information” in the windows search bar.)

I contacted Netflix support via their chat feature and discussed the issue. The following is a greatly condensed synopsis of that chat:

Me: How do I tell if I have established a 4k Netflix connection?

Netflix:  You can’t tell.  It automatically adjusts to the highest possible resolution.   Tell me your setup & I’ll tell you if it will work.

Me:  Is there some relationship to the A/V bitrate and Throughput (kbps) on the video stats screen that can let you know if you have established a 4K connection?  It used to specify the resolution on that screen.

Netflix: No

Me: GTX 1050 Ti 4GB video card, 250mb/sec download bandwidth, 4K Samsung TV with HDR

Netflix: You MUST HAVE a 7th generation Intel CPU (Kaby Lake)

Me:  I read that the GTX 10XX 4GB cards can do it with the Windows Creator’s Update.

Netflix: No.  Here are 2 links to what you need to support 4K Netflix on a PC  (the links basically repeated what he said).

With my questions “answered” not to my satisfaction I thanked him and ended the chat.  I did not rate the chat because I didn’t want to vent my frustration on the support person.

Later that day I noticed a 4K symbol next to one of the 4K movies. (Click on the “i” symbol to get to this information screen)

The same screen on my basement HTPC with a maximum 1080p display (Ultra HD 4K symbol missing)

I played it and noticed the video bitrate that had previously been about 3000 was now 16000.  The video was noticeably sharper.  I checked the other known 4k sources and they all displayed the “Ultra 4k” symbol, which had previously been absent.

Then later that day, the 4K connection was lost and I couldn’t figure out why it worked one time, but not now.  Later that evening I had an epiphany and power cycled the Denon X4200W Receiver.  Low and behold the 4k connection re-established itself.  The problem was a partial HDMI handshake between my devices (computer-receiver-TV).  I have an ongoing issue with high definition sound sources for the same reason.  I had installed a powerline toggle switch to my Receiver for power cycling it when the high definition sound connection (via HDMI) is not established. So, the solution is when the 4K connection is not present to turn the receiver off for 3 seconds & turn it back on.  Hopefully, I’ll resolve that one day so the workaround won’t be necessary.  I suspect this won’t be a problem for direct connections from a computer to a TV.  Also, some other Receivers may not have this problem.

While troubleshooting another person’s setup I found out I had left my PC display’s HDR setting off.

After turning it on the Netflix information display included the HDR symbol.

Setting the PC’s HDR setting was great for the 4K source, but darkened the PC display generally.  To optimize the display for non-HDR content you would have to turn the HDR off before viewing it.  Having to switch pc display settings to optimize each type of source is a pain in the ass.

Another benefit of this setup is ATMOS sound.  Even though the Netflix information stats show the sound as “5.1”, my receiver understands it as “Dolby ATMOS” from sources like “The Punisher” which must have the additional speakers encoded within the Dolby Digital+  stream.

So, in conclusion:

• Every question I asked Netflix support was answered exactly wrong.  The correct answer was: To confirm your 4K connection, look for the “Ultra 4K HD” symbol on a video’s information screen or use the <ctrl><alt><shift><d> key combination and look for a video bitrate of 16000 while playing the video.
• The GTX 1050 Ti 4GB video card running on a computer with an AMD FX-8320 CPU outputs 4K Netflix just fine. No Intel CPU (Kaby, Coffee, Apollo, or any other Lake) needed.

Troubleshooting:

• Make sure you have installed the “HEVC Video Extensions” app from the Microsoft Store.
• Make sure you set your PC’s display resolution to 3840 X 2160.
• If multiple displays are connected to your PC simultaneously, they must all be 4k HDMI 2.0, HDCP 2.2
• Your Netflix preferences/settings have to be set for the highest video resolution
• You need a 4K enabled Netflix account.
• You need at least a 25 Mbps internet connection download speed.
• Your HDMI cables need to be rated for 4K HDR
• Your TV needs to be set to enable 4k HDR on the port that is connected to the PC. It may be off by default.  On my Samsung TV, the setting is “HDMI UHD Color” <ON>
• Some 4K TVs support 4k HDR on only one port.  Make sure the TV HDMI port you are using supports it.
• You may have an HDMI handshake issue and require a specific sequence of turning on your equipment or unplugging and reconnecting an HDMI cable to reset the HDMI handshake.
• Verify your HDMI cable is ok by swapping it out with a cable known to support HDMI 2.0 & HDCP2.2.
• Verify you have the Windows 10 Creators Update installed.
• Make sure you have the latest graphics card drivers, and latest TV firmware installed.
• The Netflix help page.
• HDR and advanced color settings in Windows 10.

ATMOS Problems:

• Install the Dolby Access App (It is free.  You don’t need the paid app for headphone ATMOS).
• Set Control Panel/Sound/Properties of your playback device/Spatial sound to Dolby Atmos for Home Theater.
• Your AVR must be in the correct mode, usually the mode for ATMOS/DTS:X.  It MUST be set correctly.  This can be confusing because the wrong setting may allow all other bitstreams to play properly, including Dolby True HD, but not ATMOS.  Don’t ask me how I know this
• Select the AVR’s HDMI sound device in windows setup/sound.  Do not use the SPDIF sound device.
• Set your video player app to bitstream sound.  (I use MPC-HC)

The post 4K Netflix with an NVIDIA GTX 1050Ti 4GB Video Card appeared first on Arnold Solof.

In the process of upgrading a bunch of office computers, I decided to explore the effect of various upgrade options on improving a computer’s performance.  I compared the upgrade options separately and in combination.

• Adding memory
• Replacing the system hard drive with an SSD drive
• Replacing an SATA II (3 MB/sec interface with an SATA III (6 MB/sec interface)
• Replacing the motherboard to use DDR3 RAM instead of DDR2 RAM
• Replacing the CPU with a faster one.  (Dual core E8400 -> Quad core I5-3570)
• Adding a PCI express USB 3.0 adapter to a PCI express V.1 single slot.
• Resetting Windows 10 to make a “clean install”.
• Changing from Windows 10 32 bit to Windows 10 64 bit.

Considerations

In the past, when doing an upgrade on a home computer, I would generally do a clean re-install, add memory and replace the system hard drive with an SSD drive.  If the operating system were 32 bit, I would change it to 64 bit.   But, when considering upgrading from 10 to 20 computers at once, I wanted to be clearer on which upgrades would be the most cost-effective and which ones could possibly be skipped.  One consideration was minimizing cost.  The second factor was minimizing time, which indirectly results in a reduction in cost to the client.  Performing a clean (re)install of a computer requires installing all the software, printers, scanners, networking, etc. and configuring everything.  In an office environment, it is no small task.

For the worst of the machines, it was decided that they were just going to be replaced (not upgraded).  These were 3 Lenovo dual-core E8400 32 bit Windows 10 machines with 2GB memory.

Upgrade #1

The first of those 3 computers was replaced with an upgraded  Lenovo Core 2 Quad 9400 unit with 64bit Windows 10 and 4GB RAM that was inoperable due to a bad motherboard.   The motherboard was replaced “fixing” the computer.  Windows was “reset” to perform a clean install.  Although it was much improved following the reinstall, it still took a while to boot and it just didn’t have a “fast” feel.  I then replaced its hard drive with a 120GB SSD drive and then it booted very quickly (in seconds) and was noticeably much more responsive.

Upgrade #2

The remaining 2 E8400 computers described above were replaced with newly purchased refurbished HP-Compaq computers with Windows 10 64bit,  I5-3570 processors, 8GB RAM, and 240GB SSD drives.  These computers are really fast and worked out perfectly.  Getting refurbished computers you can get great deals that don’t cost much more than adding an SSD drive and extra memory and you can upgrade your CPU at the same time (ie. just pick a unit with a faster processor).  For example, the I-5 3570 processor is about 3 times faster than the E8400.  You can go the Passmark website to find the relative speeds of the various CPUs.

Upgrade #3

Out of curiosity, I ran some experiments on the E8400 computers.  Remember, these were the ones that it was decided they weren’t worth upgrading.  The following shows the steps taken and the results:

1. Clean install from a USB installation flash drive of 64 bit windows 10.
   1. Result: improved but still horrible.
2. Add additional 2GB memory (total now 4GB)
   1. Result: much less in the way of hard faults (use task manager->Performance->open resource monitor)
      1. Note: Hard faults occur when the computer runs out of physical memory and uses the hard drive to extend its memory.  With a traditional hard drive, it is very slow compared to physical memory and this greatly bottlenecks/slows down the computer
      2. The computer was still horribly slow despite the extra memory.
3. Replace the hard drive with an SSD Drive.
   1. Dramatic improvement
   2. Computer booted in a few seconds instead of minutes
   3. Very responsive, definitely usable
4. Remove 2GB memory (leaving only 2GB total)
   1. Result: Computer practically the same as above in #3.  No significant noticeable drop in performance despite having only 2GB memory.
   2. A dramatic increase in hard faults (hundreds per second), yet the SSD drive handled the hard faults without a noticeable drop in computer performance.

Upgrade #4

So, I decided to take this experiment another step forward.  This time I took one of the other Windows 10 32 bit E8400 computers.  It literally would take almost 10 minutes just to boot. It was beyond horrible.  I was “certain” it required a clean re-install.  Instead, I left it as was including only 2GB RAM and the ONLY thing I did was clone its hard drive to the SSD drive.  The result is below:

1. Boot time went from 8 minutes to 8 seconds.
2. Despite a high hard fault rate, the computer remained quick and responsive.
3. The performance monitor showed that 70 to 75% of the memory was constantly being used
4. I even ran Microsoft Word, Excel, Internet Explorer, Chrome, surfed the web, played a blu ray video (all simultaneously), trying to overwhelm it and cause it to hesitate.  Other than some minor 1/10 sec pause hiccoughs, there was no slowing.
5. I would have never guessed that the SSD drive alone could do all that in that situation.

I also want to point out, that in all the examples above, these SATA III drives were plugged into SATA II ports.  So, none of the above performance improvement was attributable to an SATA III interface.

Adding a USB 3.0 Adapter

Around the same time I was doing the office computer upgrades, I purchased an 8TB USB 3.0 external hard drive for my main home theater PC.   That computer is an older computer and only has USB 2.0 ports.  In order to get the full USB 3.0 bandwidth all adapters I could find required a PCI express slot version 2.  The catch here is most of the computers that don’t already have at least one USB 3.0 slot also only have PCI express version 1.  However, even though you can’t get the full USB 3.0 speed plugging the adapter into a PCI express version one slot, you can get about 1/2 its speed, which is still 5X faster than a USB 2.0 port.  I got a USB 3.0 PCI express adapter and plugged it in.  At first, it didn’t work, because I failed to notice it required plugging into it a disk drive power connector for extra power.  Once supplied with extra power, it worked fine.  The USB drive transfer rates went up about 4X what they were on USB 2.0.  This is probably as fast as that (mechanical) drive can go anyway and is comparable in speed to an internal hard drive connected directly to an SATA port.

Conclusion:

The most effective (and cost-effective) upgrade was replacing the system hard drive with an SSD drive.  This was so effective, that in a worst-case scenario, this upgrade alone obviated the other upgrades.  This saves time and money.  This is not to say the other upgrades would not help, but the quantitative and real-world improvement in performance was mostly attributed to the SSD drive, even when done using an SATA II interface (which is what you normally find on an older computer).

The post Upgrading an Old Computer appeared first on Arnold Solof.

I have been asked on multiple occasions for recommendations for a VPN service. Since I never felt the need for one and didn’t have one, I really didn’t have an answer to the question. Yesterday, I had a need for one, so I did some internet research and decided on ExpressVPN.

To start with, let’s explain what a VPN is. VPN stands for Virtual Private Network. Once the underlying software or firmware is setup, one logs onto a VPN with a user ID and password. After the connection is established, all data traffic moving back and forth along that connection is encrypted. Anyone intercepting the data stream will not be able to decipher it.

Although the VPN connection is travelling over the internet, this connection, an “encrypted tunnel”, acts functionally the same as if you had run a super-long Ethernet (network) cable from your device (computer, tablet, smartphone) to a router or a network switch at a remote location. With that connection established, you can have access to whatever resources at the remote location the software has allowed you access to.

So, for example, I have a VPN established via the firmware of my home firewall to the firewall of a business at a remote location which allows me to manage / troubleshoot resources (computers, printers, scanners, network access storage devices, etc.) on that network as if I were there with my laptop plugged into their network.

The “resource” that these vpn connections host is an internet connection from a location other than your current location.

So, why would you want to do that?  Privacy.

Your ISP (Internet service provider), such as Comcast, or Verizon, can see everything you do, what sites you visit, what you download; everything.  For me, the vast majority of the time I say “so what!”.  “I don’t have anything to hide”.  But yesterday I didn’t want Comcast to see something.  Since the point of all this is privacy, I won’t say what.  To get that privacy, I used a VPN.   Why not use the VPN I already described above?  Because, since I manage that location, I would be no more private than if I did the same from my home internet.   The internet connection needs to be seen as coming from a location I am not associated with in order to achieve privacy.

I subscribed to the ExpressVPN service for 1 year.  The cost of the subscription was $100 for the year or about $8 per month.  Signing up was simple.  After you sign up they provide you with a link to download their software.  After the software is installed you have the option to let it automatically run when you startup your computer or not.  When it is running, you have an On/Off button.  I contacted their customer support via “chat” a couple of times with questions, and both times I received a fast and accurate reply.

I was concerned about my internet speed when connected via the VPN.  I have been enjoying a 240 down / 12 up mbps connection via my Comcast ISP.  Using the New York VPN Server I measured 47 / 11 (measured on speedtest.comcast.net  ) .  ExpressVPN has a speedtest you can run that measures the speed from your location to all their servers independently in all countries.  It measured a high of 28mbps download speed from the New York Server to a low of 421 kbps for the server in Egypt.   So although this is a major hit to my available bandwidth, for practical purposes, it is fast enough to do what I want to do without being noticed (I don’t plan to use the server in Egypt).

So for some examples of when I will use the service (press the on button).

• If I’m out of the country and I don’t want to be blocked from Netflix I can stream from a server located in the USA.
• If I’m trying to access Canadian sites which are are limited to locations in Canada, I can access them from a Canadian server.
• If I’m on public wifi when I’m out of the house I can prevent spying / intrusion .
• Anything else I want to keep private from my ISP or anyone else.
• Some items you purchase have prices that vary by the location of your ip (internet) address.  Perhaps you can save $1000 on an airline ticket by shopping the same site from different ip addresses in different countries.

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