Today my Pixel 3 clever phone probably graduated to became the smartphone it was intended to be. This happened when Google installed an app dedicated to my personal safety. Hopefully I will never need to prove how smart it is, but the concept is enthralling.
The Personal Safety app from Google only works in Pixel 3 and Pixel 4 phones. My bet is that they will export the app to other platforms after us Pixel users get all the bugs out for them. Personal safety is augmented by the app keeping track of your location - of course you must give it permission to do so. If you are walking along and trip, for example, the lock screen will enable you to call for help via speaker phone. No need to unlock the phone in this case. The help would be the person(s) you designate as emergency contacts and/or 911. The key to success here is that anybody can pick up your phone and see that emergency call menu. So, if you fall and become unconscious, a random passerby could come to your aid and get help to you from your phone. They better not steal your phone because, as I noted, the gps is always on now tracing the whereabouts of the phone.
That's cute but there is more. The Personal Safety App can detect if you are in a car crash. Well, most of the time. They warn you that some crashes may not be detected. Anyway, if the smartphone detects a crash the lock screen lights up, the phone vibrates, and loud noises emanate from the speaker. The display gives you 60 seconds to disable it, or tell it not to worry the crash is minor, before it calls your emergency contacts with your location automatically. It calls 911 if there is no response from you.
This personal safety goes beyond your immediate surroundings. You can enable the app to alert you of any nearby safety threats. Right now it is telling me about all the Corona Virus stats for St Charles County and offering a dozen articles for me to read. The assumption is that should a severe storm, tornado, or earthquake happen nearby, the smartphone will alert me to that too.
You might think that I feel a whole lot safer now. Well ... that's questionable. The app needs certain information in order to function properly. It needs to know your emergency contacts, for example. Thus the first thing it does is take you to the settings window for you to set things up. Right there on top of the page was my wife's picture and her cell phone number. My home phone, landline, was the second emergency contact. The damned app knew all that and filled in the blanks before I got to it. Hmmm. Well, I did set that up in my contacts list when I first got the phone so that I'm guessing Google just took it all from there. Then, there is a line for pertinent medical information to be displayed on that lock screen along with the emergency contacts. The damned app already filled in the fact that I'm taking an anticoagulant (and could bleed to death rather quickly) and named the drug to boot. THAT was scary. How did Google figure that out? It's all good information, but I didn't realize I was sharing it with my phone.
I've not yet researched it, but I have a feeling that somewhere in the phone settings is the fact that I take that drug. If I don't find it, meaning that I already told Google in a previous lifetime, then I'm going to start thinking seriously about going back to my stupid flip phone. I'd probably have to abandon all computers too. This smartphone is taking things a bit too far now.
Personal Safety From Google
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Re: Personal Safety From Google
I still only carry a Flip-Phone.
The crazy company wanted me to connect it to MY WIFI to download THEIR UPDATE.
I refused to do it, and after a few months, my phone would buzz about 15 minutes from 8 am to 9:30, then only about once every two hours until after dinner, then around 7pm it would start buzzing every 15 minutes again until 8:30pm.
I happened to be driving by their store and dropped it off for them to upload the program using their WiFi since they didn't want to do it over their own data service. They started the update while I was there. I came back two hours later and it still was not done. It did get done around 4:15pm and they called to say it was ready, and they close at 5pm so hurry on up there to get it before they close.
That must have been it since it quit buzzing. But they left the WiFi search turned on, so I had this emblem showing on my screen, and the battery was going down much faster than normal too. I turned off the WiFi search and now everything is back to normal.
It is SCARY how much information Google has amassed about us, and Farcebook too.
Having your Schmartz-Fone locked doesn't appear to have kept them from getting to your data.
SCARY!
The crazy company wanted me to connect it to MY WIFI to download THEIR UPDATE.
I refused to do it, and after a few months, my phone would buzz about 15 minutes from 8 am to 9:30, then only about once every two hours until after dinner, then around 7pm it would start buzzing every 15 minutes again until 8:30pm.
I happened to be driving by their store and dropped it off for them to upload the program using their WiFi since they didn't want to do it over their own data service. They started the update while I was there. I came back two hours later and it still was not done. It did get done around 4:15pm and they called to say it was ready, and they close at 5pm so hurry on up there to get it before they close.
That must have been it since it quit buzzing. But they left the WiFi search turned on, so I had this emblem showing on my screen, and the battery was going down much faster than normal too. I turned off the WiFi search and now everything is back to normal.
It is SCARY how much information Google has amassed about us, and Farcebook too.
Having your Schmartz-Fone locked doesn't appear to have kept them from getting to your data.
SCARY!
Re: Personal Safety From Google
Google is not different than most other places you interact with over the public network. They all collect data about you, but none of it is without your knowledge. You may not understand what you are doing when you use certain apps or enable certain features, but all those things need your explicit permission in order to do the collecting. Like Facebook, and any other social media, Google takes ownership of everything you do with their services. The most invasive service is the Chrome Browser and the Google Search Engine. The information you give them when you use those things is astounding. Look up what they have on you for a history of your browser use, for example. Take a deep breath before you do that.
Having said all that, most, if not all, the data collected by Google, Microsoft, Apple, and the rest, stays with them. Facebook is slightly different in that collecting and selling data is their business. The software giants use it mostly to perform a service. The meds I take are important to know in an emergency situation; Google is just making it easier for the first responders by providing such information. Of course you got to trust them to keep it on that level, and most people don't care. My initial response was surprise, but I'm positive that I gave them all my personal information one way or another.
Flip phones are great. Terrorists and now protesters love them. They buy them in gross quantities so that they can do what needs to be done and then toss the phone without ever activating anything more than the phone and messaging service. Their smartphones are left at home. As far as updates go, I understand your objection to using your WiFi for that operation. I'd not be that concerned about it especially when the phone is acting erratically. I'd want that update ASAP.
Having said all that, most, if not all, the data collected by Google, Microsoft, Apple, and the rest, stays with them. Facebook is slightly different in that collecting and selling data is their business. The software giants use it mostly to perform a service. The meds I take are important to know in an emergency situation; Google is just making it easier for the first responders by providing such information. Of course you got to trust them to keep it on that level, and most people don't care. My initial response was surprise, but I'm positive that I gave them all my personal information one way or another.
Flip phones are great. Terrorists and now protesters love them. They buy them in gross quantities so that they can do what needs to be done and then toss the phone without ever activating anything more than the phone and messaging service. Their smartphones are left at home. As far as updates go, I understand your objection to using your WiFi for that operation. I'd not be that concerned about it especially when the phone is acting erratically. I'd want that update ASAP.
Re: Personal Safety From Google
I have gone through the available history file, at least the one they provided a link to last year for us to look at.
I really didn't find anything alarming on it at all.
My wife on the other hand uses WebMail, and although it is supposed to be private, I don't think it is.
I say that because Google knows ten times more about her and what she talks about than what they have on me, and she's rarely on websites. She does check her scripts at the pharmacy using Google, and also orders them using her webmail notices. They know all of her scripts, even her past and present vacation plans, which is why she gets so many webmails for offers for other ones than she is using.
I assume it is illegal to read other peoples private e-mail messages. That would be like wire-tapping. But I do think they look for keywords and if one is hit, it flags certain advertisements that come into her bulk webmail folder.
I sent her a formula for bubble soap I used to make monster bubbles, for her to pass to a friend of hers.
She replied back to me and asked the exact brand and version I used, because the other gal had asked her.
She passed that info on to her as well.
Later that day, and for the next three or four days, she was getting all kinds of ads and coupons for dish washing liquids.
A coincidence? I think not! And this was not done on a web browser, except it was webmail that uses a browser.
I'll just stick with my Thunderbird, hi hi.
I really didn't find anything alarming on it at all.
My wife on the other hand uses WebMail, and although it is supposed to be private, I don't think it is.
I say that because Google knows ten times more about her and what she talks about than what they have on me, and she's rarely on websites. She does check her scripts at the pharmacy using Google, and also orders them using her webmail notices. They know all of her scripts, even her past and present vacation plans, which is why she gets so many webmails for offers for other ones than she is using.
I assume it is illegal to read other peoples private e-mail messages. That would be like wire-tapping. But I do think they look for keywords and if one is hit, it flags certain advertisements that come into her bulk webmail folder.
I sent her a formula for bubble soap I used to make monster bubbles, for her to pass to a friend of hers.
She replied back to me and asked the exact brand and version I used, because the other gal had asked her.
She passed that info on to her as well.
Later that day, and for the next three or four days, she was getting all kinds of ads and coupons for dish washing liquids.
A coincidence? I think not! And this was not done on a web browser, except it was webmail that uses a browser.
I'll just stick with my Thunderbird, hi hi.
Re: Personal Safety From Google
One of the ways Google gets a lot of it's information on any given user is via partner agreements. Google and Facebook, for example, might as well be one and the same. What you do in one place gets shared in the other. There are many partnerships like that which is how your wife got ads that didn't originate from where she expected them to. The story goes that all your email is read (in G-Mail) but not by humans. They get away doing that because they own the e-mail as a result of you using their service. They do pretty much what you suggest and look for keywords. The reason they keep track of your browsing history is because it tells them about your interests. Again, you may only do a drive by to a given site but you will get specific ads because you have been to other related sites and made a purchase. It's not rocket science, but it does take a lot of resources. And Google has resources.
There is an old story about a young lady who became pregnant. Because she was scared and not married and wanted to keep it all a big secret she did a lot of article reading about what to do. She also visited places that sell baby goods. Well, that's the formula for her to be getting lots of ads about maternity, right? She did get such ads, but her father also got ads that would be directed at grandparents. So, as it happened, the gal was outed because Google made the announcement to her dad. Don't know how true that story is but it points out what the marketing people are capable of doing these days.
There is an old story about a young lady who became pregnant. Because she was scared and not married and wanted to keep it all a big secret she did a lot of article reading about what to do. She also visited places that sell baby goods. Well, that's the formula for her to be getting lots of ads about maternity, right? She did get such ads, but her father also got ads that would be directed at grandparents. So, as it happened, the gal was outed because Google made the announcement to her dad. Don't know how true that story is but it points out what the marketing people are capable of doing these days.
Re: Personal Safety From Google
I hear ya Yogi, and all so true too.
I do wonder what kind of file system or what size storage devices they have, and that they can access them so quickly.
Even WAY BACK in the days of yore. Using the Wang VS 300 mainframe, which was strictly a big hard drive.
We could make a quick search for anyone who bought a vase of roses that went to someone other than their address.
Or placed any order for that matter, and who they went to.
Also, since funeral flowers were our mainstay, we always entered who was what funeral home so we got our deliveries to the right place, even if the customer made a mistake on which parlor they were at.
Even back then it would have been possible to determine which people knew each other or knew certain groups of people. Although we never got into that much detail or tracking of our customers. But the computers made it all possible with the search criteria available back then. And you know as time marches on, so do the abilities of computers and their programs.
Speaking of storage, I've seen a few kids with fairly large USB sticks. Not necessarily a stick, but a little box with a USB cable. One I know held 2 terrabytes because it was on the top of the box. WOW.
What is scary though, is you know they never back anything up anymore. Some do use the cloud though so they must have money to burn.
I do wonder what kind of file system or what size storage devices they have, and that they can access them so quickly.
Even WAY BACK in the days of yore. Using the Wang VS 300 mainframe, which was strictly a big hard drive.
We could make a quick search for anyone who bought a vase of roses that went to someone other than their address.
Or placed any order for that matter, and who they went to.
Also, since funeral flowers were our mainstay, we always entered who was what funeral home so we got our deliveries to the right place, even if the customer made a mistake on which parlor they were at.
Even back then it would have been possible to determine which people knew each other or knew certain groups of people. Although we never got into that much detail or tracking of our customers. But the computers made it all possible with the search criteria available back then. And you know as time marches on, so do the abilities of computers and their programs.
Speaking of storage, I've seen a few kids with fairly large USB sticks. Not necessarily a stick, but a little box with a USB cable. One I know held 2 terrabytes because it was on the top of the box. WOW.
What is scary though, is you know they never back anything up anymore. Some do use the cloud though so they must have money to burn.
Re: Personal Safety From Google
I often wondered about Google, and others, when they produce so many records with my search keywords in a small fraction of a second. Of course I can't measure what they are doing and there is latency on my end, but they are no doubt getting results at blazing hot speeds. The first thing to understand is that Google pays a lot of money to get priority on the network. They are not paying ISP's, but they have developed their own drivers for an optimized network. You may recall a few years back when they were going to wire the entire Kansas City area for Gigabyte networking just to show it can be done; and of course they would be glad to sell you the technology. That project fell through but they never lost the technology behind it. We are looking at megabyte speeds, but Google has more Gigabytes than M&M has green candies. Google also doesn't use Linux. They invented their own operating system written in a language they also invented. It's optimized for what they are doing and allows for that blazing fast query results. What I have not read about, probably because it's proprietary, is how they index all that data they have. That too is homebrew, I'm sure. Add to that the server farms connected by fiber and they just don't make anything better.
I do backups. Maybe not as many as you do, but I do backups. My latest off line portable device is a 1TB giant sized USB memory "stick" with cable. If I recall correctly that cost me under $100 and for just over $100 I could have doubled the capacity. I'm thinking they also offered 4 TB on a stick, but I don't recall for sure. At the same time I purchased a removable hard drive of the same proportions. The only difference I can see between the so call hard drive and the giant memory stick is the package in which they are contained. The giant stick has the form factor of the familiar small ones we know so well, and the disk is a square box. I use the portable device for everyday backups and take it with me on road trips so that I have a copy of all the disks in the tower. The disk is for system images only. Since Windows 7 lost it's support and I can no longer download anything related to it, I have the final version of it all on that disk. I've made one or two images after that, but I think I'm done using that disk until the next disaster arises. It really came in handy when I converted the tower from MBR to EFI.
I do backups. Maybe not as many as you do, but I do backups. My latest off line portable device is a 1TB giant sized USB memory "stick" with cable. If I recall correctly that cost me under $100 and for just over $100 I could have doubled the capacity. I'm thinking they also offered 4 TB on a stick, but I don't recall for sure. At the same time I purchased a removable hard drive of the same proportions. The only difference I can see between the so call hard drive and the giant memory stick is the package in which they are contained. The giant stick has the form factor of the familiar small ones we know so well, and the disk is a square box. I use the portable device for everyday backups and take it with me on road trips so that I have a copy of all the disks in the tower. The disk is for system images only. Since Windows 7 lost it's support and I can no longer download anything related to it, I have the final version of it all on that disk. I've made one or two images after that, but I think I'm done using that disk until the next disaster arises. It really came in handy when I converted the tower from MBR to EFI.
Re: Personal Safety From Google
I've been hearing an awful lot about Solid State internal HDs going bad lately.
I have a few USB sticks I've been using for storage, and the one I carry in my pocket all the time so I can give away copies of my books to folks, it has now gone corrupted also.
I reformatted it and reloaded it and it showed no errors, so it's back in my pocket again.
Maybe a static spark or something is what goofed it up. Seems OK now though.
One of the kids I see at the library from time to time has a ring with about 15 or 20 USB sticks on it.
Never got to talk to him though, and he uses the Windows computers.
Oh, what I thought were USB sticks in a box are called portable solid state drives.
What kills me is when I read an ad for a USB stick and it says 2tb 128gb thumb drive.
What is it? 2 tb or 128 gb and why use both numbers together.
Or does it mean 2 tb plus an additional 128 gb, not likely, hi hi.
I've also seen ones claiming to be 2 tb that are smaller than a wireless keyboard USB receiver.
Yes Google has built their on kernel using the Linux kernel and modifying it for their own use.
I'm sure they can afford to write their own stuff for everything.
But how they come up with instant access to everything does boggle the mind.
If you look at what our government still uses, they are almost a joke, hi hi.
I have a few USB sticks I've been using for storage, and the one I carry in my pocket all the time so I can give away copies of my books to folks, it has now gone corrupted also.
I reformatted it and reloaded it and it showed no errors, so it's back in my pocket again.
Maybe a static spark or something is what goofed it up. Seems OK now though.
One of the kids I see at the library from time to time has a ring with about 15 or 20 USB sticks on it.
Never got to talk to him though, and he uses the Windows computers.
Oh, what I thought were USB sticks in a box are called portable solid state drives.
What kills me is when I read an ad for a USB stick and it says 2tb 128gb thumb drive.
What is it? 2 tb or 128 gb and why use both numbers together.
Or does it mean 2 tb plus an additional 128 gb, not likely, hi hi.
I've also seen ones claiming to be 2 tb that are smaller than a wireless keyboard USB receiver.
Yes Google has built their on kernel using the Linux kernel and modifying it for their own use.
I'm sure they can afford to write their own stuff for everything.
But how they come up with instant access to everything does boggle the mind.
If you look at what our government still uses, they are almost a joke, hi hi.
Re: Personal Safety From Google
I don't know what to tell you about internal SSD failures. I've more or less stuck to one brand (Crucial) of solid state memory and am pleased as punch with it. My first use of SSD was in the old Toshiba laptop. There was nothing wrong with the HDD. All I wanted to do is see if the SSD was any better. It was. A lot better. That drive had SMART firmware embedded and I monitored it constantly to avoid premature failure. I don't recall the numbers now but there were hundreds of terabyte writes to it and no indication of wearing out after a couple years of heavy duty service. When I replaced the Toshiba with the MSI laptop, one of the first upgrades I installed was another Crucial SSD. This one is being exercised even harder than the Toshiba given all my research with Linux and UEFI. I've not checked it lately but the last check showed more than 90% lifetime remaining. That's an estimate based on average usage and I certainly am not the average user. LOL None of my backup Crucial drivers, the portable one and fixed, show any signs of excessive wear. Then again, they don't get used much.
I'm looking at my collection of USB sticks and there is easy three dozen in two plastic boxes. One box is for MBR boot and the other for EFI booting. Just about all of them are SanDisk brand of various capacity. I have one that is 1GB. LOL That would be nearly impossible to find these days and it was only used to store picture files in one of those slide show picture frames. It's mind boggling to realize that nothing I want to save will fit in a single gigabyte of memory. The stick that died was the one I used to install Linux in various places. I would download the iso and save it to this particular USB memory. Must have put a hundred version of Linux on it over time before it would no longer work properly.
The best investment I made was a USB to SATA cable. This allows me to connect any SATA drive to any computer with USB, meaning all the computers I own. I've copied complete OS's, bit for bit, over this cable for use as backup in case the computer I was working on crashed. All I would have to do is swap out drives to be back in business. When I did the conversion from MBR to EFI this cable was worth it's weight in gold. It made any OS on a HDD/SSD bootable.
So, I can't say anything negative about the reliability of the USB memory sticks/drives that I have used. I read an article once regarding how to revive an apparently dead stick if there is no physical damage. All one had to do was fill it up with 1's which sets all the NAND gates inside to one state. That clears a lot of dead spots apparently. The only problem is it might take a few days to fill up a 2 TB stick with data. LOL
I'm looking at my collection of USB sticks and there is easy three dozen in two plastic boxes. One box is for MBR boot and the other for EFI booting. Just about all of them are SanDisk brand of various capacity. I have one that is 1GB. LOL That would be nearly impossible to find these days and it was only used to store picture files in one of those slide show picture frames. It's mind boggling to realize that nothing I want to save will fit in a single gigabyte of memory. The stick that died was the one I used to install Linux in various places. I would download the iso and save it to this particular USB memory. Must have put a hundred version of Linux on it over time before it would no longer work properly.
The best investment I made was a USB to SATA cable. This allows me to connect any SATA drive to any computer with USB, meaning all the computers I own. I've copied complete OS's, bit for bit, over this cable for use as backup in case the computer I was working on crashed. All I would have to do is swap out drives to be back in business. When I did the conversion from MBR to EFI this cable was worth it's weight in gold. It made any OS on a HDD/SSD bootable.
So, I can't say anything negative about the reliability of the USB memory sticks/drives that I have used. I read an article once regarding how to revive an apparently dead stick if there is no physical damage. All one had to do was fill it up with 1's which sets all the NAND gates inside to one state. That clears a lot of dead spots apparently. The only problem is it might take a few days to fill up a 2 TB stick with data. LOL
Re: Personal Safety From Google
I've never done it, but my neighbor uses a lot of USB sticks as well.
He has a program on his computer that shows how much memory is still remaining and how much has been locked out.
I don't know this for fact, but I've heard that if SS drives or Sticks have a failing whatever, it moves the data to one that is not failing so you don't lose data. Like a single pixel out of a picture which would cause the whole picture to fail.
I guess it is like marking bad sectors in the old HDs. But then if a sector went bad, you lost the data. So they must have done something to ensure no data loss should a memory area start getting weak and move the data before it fails.
Or is it possible everything is in there twice? So a 250 gig stick is really a 500 gig stick?
I bought a box of 32 gig sticks to send some stuff to my son, but then ended up using an old 100 gig external drive and mailed that to him instead. He was supposed to copy the data off and mail it back to me but never did, hi hi.
I do have a docking station that fits both IDE large and small and SATA drives. But not the old huge IDE drives I still have a few of around here. I just used a patch cord from an old computer fed to the outside to get data off them.
The docking station is USB, self-powered, 2.0 or 3.0, but the ad for it was misleading.
Says it holds 2 IDE drives and 1 SATA drive. It only has two slots, and one slot is SATA only, which means it can only hold 1 IDE drive at a time. What they meant was it holds both sizes of IDE drives. As I said, misleading advertising, and right on the box too!
Now that I have everything off the old IDE drives, and most duplicates eliminated, I reformatted a couple to backup some old things on as a just in case I lose a new drive prematurely. Or hit the wrong instruction and accidentally delete some files, hi hi.
He has a program on his computer that shows how much memory is still remaining and how much has been locked out.
I don't know this for fact, but I've heard that if SS drives or Sticks have a failing whatever, it moves the data to one that is not failing so you don't lose data. Like a single pixel out of a picture which would cause the whole picture to fail.
I guess it is like marking bad sectors in the old HDs. But then if a sector went bad, you lost the data. So they must have done something to ensure no data loss should a memory area start getting weak and move the data before it fails.
Or is it possible everything is in there twice? So a 250 gig stick is really a 500 gig stick?
I bought a box of 32 gig sticks to send some stuff to my son, but then ended up using an old 100 gig external drive and mailed that to him instead. He was supposed to copy the data off and mail it back to me but never did, hi hi.
I do have a docking station that fits both IDE large and small and SATA drives. But not the old huge IDE drives I still have a few of around here. I just used a patch cord from an old computer fed to the outside to get data off them.
The docking station is USB, self-powered, 2.0 or 3.0, but the ad for it was misleading.
Says it holds 2 IDE drives and 1 SATA drive. It only has two slots, and one slot is SATA only, which means it can only hold 1 IDE drive at a time. What they meant was it holds both sizes of IDE drives. As I said, misleading advertising, and right on the box too!
Now that I have everything off the old IDE drives, and most duplicates eliminated, I reformatted a couple to backup some old things on as a just in case I lose a new drive prematurely. Or hit the wrong instruction and accidentally delete some files, hi hi.
Re: Personal Safety From Google
A lot of the new memory devices have something built into them which will show you information about the condition of the device. Any number of programs for Windows and Linux can pick that information out of the memory device easily. I remember doing such things back at Motorola as a form of preventive maintenance.
It's surprising how much firmware is inside each memory stick. I've never lost data, but I have been prevented from writing. It would not surprise me at all to learn that data was dynamically being relocated when cells became unusable. I know that it's pointless, and recommended not, to defrag a CMOS memory stick. They don't use sectors such as you would find on a HDD in spite of the fact that you can read the memory as if it were using sectors and blocks of data. At one time I probably read how the data is stored on a stick. It wasn't anything I needed to remember, obviously. Moving data around internally is probably done with cache and buffers to prevent any losses during the relocation. I'm only guessing and don't know for certain.
It's surprising how much firmware is inside each memory stick. I've never lost data, but I have been prevented from writing. It would not surprise me at all to learn that data was dynamically being relocated when cells became unusable. I know that it's pointless, and recommended not, to defrag a CMOS memory stick. They don't use sectors such as you would find on a HDD in spite of the fact that you can read the memory as if it were using sectors and blocks of data. At one time I probably read how the data is stored on a stick. It wasn't anything I needed to remember, obviously. Moving data around internally is probably done with cache and buffers to prevent any losses during the relocation. I'm only guessing and don't know for certain.
Re: Personal Safety From Google
Like EXT3 or EXT4 it uses cells, not sectors as a HD.
The way Linux stores data is considerably different than the way Windows does with their NTFS system.
One thing interesting though is saving from Linux to an NTFS drive does not work the way it does in Windows.
Windows saves files sequentially. Linux puts files into cells, usually well apart from each other until the drive gets close to full.
In Windows, if you save a document, it goes onto the drive in the first open but sequential area. The second document you save goes right behind it, and the third behind it, etc.
Now lets say you open the second document and make a change to it. The original document stays right where it is at and the changes to it go behind the last document you saved. This sequential way of saving things is why Windows drives have to be defragged in order to put all the pieces of a document back in order.
In Linux, the cell the file is put into is the same cell, large enough to hold your changes until that cell is full. Then and only then will it add the second cell after it to the first cell. So when you make a change to the document, it gets saved back into the same cell and the original document deleted and replaced with the changed document. This is why EXT does not need to be defragged.
For simplicity. If your cells were numbered 1 to 100, and you saved a file, it might go into cell 25. Then the next file you save might go into cell 75. Then perhaps the next one in cell 50. As you keep adding files, it divides the unused gaps in half and uses a cell half way between the two that are used. As the hard drive fills up, it may decided there is not enough space to save your now large file into the previous two cells and will clear those cells and go find a place that has three cells side by side and use that instead.
I figure USB Sticks or SSDrives probably work in a similar fashion. Divide and conquer the space needed.
How it knows a cell is getting weak I have no idea, but it would have to know in order to keep files from becoming corrupt from a bad cell. But then they probably only have to block one cell and not a whole sector like old HDs used to.
The way Linux stores data is considerably different than the way Windows does with their NTFS system.
One thing interesting though is saving from Linux to an NTFS drive does not work the way it does in Windows.
Windows saves files sequentially. Linux puts files into cells, usually well apart from each other until the drive gets close to full.
In Windows, if you save a document, it goes onto the drive in the first open but sequential area. The second document you save goes right behind it, and the third behind it, etc.
Now lets say you open the second document and make a change to it. The original document stays right where it is at and the changes to it go behind the last document you saved. This sequential way of saving things is why Windows drives have to be defragged in order to put all the pieces of a document back in order.
In Linux, the cell the file is put into is the same cell, large enough to hold your changes until that cell is full. Then and only then will it add the second cell after it to the first cell. So when you make a change to the document, it gets saved back into the same cell and the original document deleted and replaced with the changed document. This is why EXT does not need to be defragged.
For simplicity. If your cells were numbered 1 to 100, and you saved a file, it might go into cell 25. Then the next file you save might go into cell 75. Then perhaps the next one in cell 50. As you keep adding files, it divides the unused gaps in half and uses a cell half way between the two that are used. As the hard drive fills up, it may decided there is not enough space to save your now large file into the previous two cells and will clear those cells and go find a place that has three cells side by side and use that instead.
I figure USB Sticks or SSDrives probably work in a similar fashion. Divide and conquer the space needed.
How it knows a cell is getting weak I have no idea, but it would have to know in order to keep files from becoming corrupt from a bad cell. But then they probably only have to block one cell and not a whole sector like old HDs used to.
Re: Personal Safety From Google
In CMOS memory sticks the individual gates (transistors) get stuck in one state: I think it's a '1' but could be wrong. When that happens the whole register (8, 16, 32, or 64 bits - whatever) becomes unusable and gets marked as such. Whatever data was in there gets put in some other memory location. It is those locations that define the file system. The ext format isn't NTFS, of course, and some master controller in both file system keeps track of bad sectors or memory registers. When you think about what it might take to keep track of good and bad memory locations, it can get very complicated. On top of all that tracking there is the partition table. Then over all that is the disk format. It's crazy. I don't know how anything ever gets retrieved. LOL
Spinning disks are intrinsically different than static memory registers which is the primary reason defrag is not recommended on solid state devices. Some people do it anyway but I have yet to see any performance improvement. It makes sense to do it on a mechanical drive, but as you say Windows, and to some extent Linux, promptly messes up any ordered sequence. Whatever you defrag is useless after the next write operation to the disk. Not only that, but certain files sectors in Windows cannot be defraged; page memory for example. All I know is that solid state memory is faster by a wide margin than it's hard drive counterpart.
Spinning disks are intrinsically different than static memory registers which is the primary reason defrag is not recommended on solid state devices. Some people do it anyway but I have yet to see any performance improvement. It makes sense to do it on a mechanical drive, but as you say Windows, and to some extent Linux, promptly messes up any ordered sequence. Whatever you defrag is useless after the next write operation to the disk. Not only that, but certain files sectors in Windows cannot be defraged; page memory for example. All I know is that solid state memory is faster by a wide margin than it's hard drive counterpart.
Re: Personal Safety From Google
Yes SSD is super fast compared to a spinning platter any day of the week.
I had to Low-Level format one of my small drives back in the day when they only held a gig or so.
That was a big mistake, because a Low-Level format reformats the ENTIRE DISK.
To Clarify: When you do a normal format, it only formats the USER portion of the Disk.
Doing a Low-Level format erased the drives instruction set.
Now there is a ROM chip in the drives that handle most of the drives programming.
But apparently it needed a place on the disk linked to it.
I had to buy a small program that would write this space to a Low-Level formatted disk.
A lot of wasted time and money because of what I did, but HDs were expensive at one time.
I about died when I saw one of my friends tossing 80 gig HDs in the trash after he smashed them to bits.
He was replacing them all with 250 gig HDs. Said he couldn't give them away because they contained client data.
Formatting a drive don't remove the data unless you take the time to write 0s and 1s to the entire disk.
He knew that so wouldn't even give me the couple he had not smashed yet. The turkey!
But that's what happens when you are poor and they have way to much money to burn.
I had to Low-Level format one of my small drives back in the day when they only held a gig or so.
That was a big mistake, because a Low-Level format reformats the ENTIRE DISK.
To Clarify: When you do a normal format, it only formats the USER portion of the Disk.
Doing a Low-Level format erased the drives instruction set.
Now there is a ROM chip in the drives that handle most of the drives programming.
But apparently it needed a place on the disk linked to it.
I had to buy a small program that would write this space to a Low-Level formatted disk.
A lot of wasted time and money because of what I did, but HDs were expensive at one time.
I about died when I saw one of my friends tossing 80 gig HDs in the trash after he smashed them to bits.
He was replacing them all with 250 gig HDs. Said he couldn't give them away because they contained client data.
Formatting a drive don't remove the data unless you take the time to write 0s and 1s to the entire disk.
He knew that so wouldn't even give me the couple he had not smashed yet. The turkey!
But that's what happens when you are poor and they have way to much money to burn.
Re: Personal Safety From Google
We didn't need to do low level formatting very often back at Motorola, but I recall having some special software from Western Digital that prepared and formatted their disks. The company probably paid for it but maybe not given we bought so much of their product. The problems generally were in the firmware, and as you point out a normal format cannot touch that area of the drive.
I recall helping one of my neighbors trying to retrieve programs off an Apple Lisa computer he acquired at a trade show. It was a demo and had all kinds of neat games on it. They "erased" the disk before they gave him the computer, but he knew the programs were still there. Today it's no big deal getting software to undo what has been erased, but back then it was unknown unless you were a developer. Needless to say I could not help him but we did have fun trying.
You are correct to point out writing all zeros or ones out to a disk is the only way to securely erase the data. Normally that is true. However, I've read about the FBI labs where they can detect the so called erased data by looking at the residual magnetism left from a previous write. Apparently writing new data on top of old data does not completely degauss the old data. That isn't possible with solid state memory given that the transistor gates are either on or off. There is no mostly one or mostly zero. LOL Quantum storage will have in between states. My head hurts just thinking about that.
I recall helping one of my neighbors trying to retrieve programs off an Apple Lisa computer he acquired at a trade show. It was a demo and had all kinds of neat games on it. They "erased" the disk before they gave him the computer, but he knew the programs were still there. Today it's no big deal getting software to undo what has been erased, but back then it was unknown unless you were a developer. Needless to say I could not help him but we did have fun trying.
You are correct to point out writing all zeros or ones out to a disk is the only way to securely erase the data. Normally that is true. However, I've read about the FBI labs where they can detect the so called erased data by looking at the residual magnetism left from a previous write. Apparently writing new data on top of old data does not completely degauss the old data. That isn't possible with solid state memory given that the transistor gates are either on or off. There is no mostly one or mostly zero. LOL Quantum storage will have in between states. My head hurts just thinking about that.
Re: Personal Safety From Google
I still have tons of 5-1/4 floppies that were purchased as single-sided disk, of which I used a punch to make them recordable on both sides. Never lost data doing that either by the way.
A few years ago, when I still had an old computer with 5-1/4 floppy drives, I copied several of them over to CDs.
All of those CDs were readable because I checked every one after they were filled and closed.
Today, more than half of those CDs are no longer readable, and they show some visible corrosion around the edges, those that had painted tops, the paint is flaking off of a few also.
I have an old Dell computer that has been sitting around here for years, and I opened it up during my annual cleaning of the computers day, and saw it had the cabling for 3-1/2 and 5-1/4 floppies in it.
I had to go through about four 5-1/4 drives before I found one that still worked and at the right density.
I had forgotten some of those old ones in my drawer were upgraded to higher density units.
I wasn't worried about most of my old floppies as those programs are now useless, obsolete.
But I found a couple of Paid-For Font disks I had missed when I made by CDs of Fonts, which are now on all of my hard drives too. I bought them for a client who is no longer of this earth.
Those old 5-1/4s read perfectly, and are not a part of my fonts files on my Master File Server fonts files.
I didn't have time to weed through what all else was there, but may get a chance to recover some things I don't need, hi hi.
Wonder if I can find an old Windows 3.11 machine anywhere that still works, hi hi.
I had lots of neat games that would not run on Windows XP, not even in 3.11 mode for some reason.
Oh wait, I remember why, they ran too fast so you couldn't see what was happening.
I had also used a bunch of old 5-1/4 drive jackets, with the magnetic media removed to store CDs in so they wouldn't get scratched. They fit and I could keep them in my old 5-1/4 disk storage boxes.
I should take a picture, you would get a laugh at my disk storage shelf.
Looks like it is from ancient history, hi hi.
A few years ago, when I still had an old computer with 5-1/4 floppy drives, I copied several of them over to CDs.
All of those CDs were readable because I checked every one after they were filled and closed.
Today, more than half of those CDs are no longer readable, and they show some visible corrosion around the edges, those that had painted tops, the paint is flaking off of a few also.
I have an old Dell computer that has been sitting around here for years, and I opened it up during my annual cleaning of the computers day, and saw it had the cabling for 3-1/2 and 5-1/4 floppies in it.
I had to go through about four 5-1/4 drives before I found one that still worked and at the right density.
I had forgotten some of those old ones in my drawer were upgraded to higher density units.
I wasn't worried about most of my old floppies as those programs are now useless, obsolete.
But I found a couple of Paid-For Font disks I had missed when I made by CDs of Fonts, which are now on all of my hard drives too. I bought them for a client who is no longer of this earth.
Those old 5-1/4s read perfectly, and are not a part of my fonts files on my Master File Server fonts files.
I didn't have time to weed through what all else was there, but may get a chance to recover some things I don't need, hi hi.
Wonder if I can find an old Windows 3.11 machine anywhere that still works, hi hi.
I had lots of neat games that would not run on Windows XP, not even in 3.11 mode for some reason.
Oh wait, I remember why, they ran too fast so you couldn't see what was happening.
I had also used a bunch of old 5-1/4 drive jackets, with the magnetic media removed to store CDs in so they wouldn't get scratched. They fit and I could keep them in my old 5-1/4 disk storage boxes.
I should take a picture, you would get a laugh at my disk storage shelf.
Looks like it is from ancient history, hi hi.
Re: Personal Safety From Google
Floppy disks did what they were supposed to do. Likewise CD's. None of them were designed to last forever which necessitates migrating the data to some other media eventually. Today the cloud solves all the self-destroying storage media issues. It takes a leap of faith to put your precious data out in the cloud, but it will be there forever. Formatting and reading all that old data will remain the challenge. But, as far as preserving it goes, cloud storage will last forever or at least to the end of our lives; whichever comes first. 
Make me an offer and I'll dig it out of storage to see if the battery is ok.Wonder if I can find an old Windows 3.11 machine anywhere that still works, hi hi.
Re: Personal Safety From Google
Ha Ha, I was just kidding about the old 3.11 machine Yogi.
I just tossed an old machine with a CGA monitor myself.
Hey, I have something serious to discuss with you here.
A website I've belonged to since around 1998 or 1999 is once again locked out due to too much bandwidth being used.
The last time this happened, it was a simple fix. A certain logfile was not parsing itself so kept growing.
All we had to do was delete that file.
But here is the problem, the website was written in PHP by a college student who ran the website as a hobby.
He passed the program to one of the members who does not know anything about PHP, but learned enough to keep it running anyhow. But like me, he forgets how to do things simply from not doing it.
Because of the way the website was written, it cannot be moved to another more modern program.
His name is Randall, and I do not have his e-mail anymore, but do have a friend who texts with him often.
He's looking for help, and is actually willing to pay for a little help.
If you would like to take a look-see, I will mention you to my friend who can contact him and get you two together.
As I said, last time it was just a logfile that needed cleaned out and then all was OK again.
I know how you love challenges, hi hi.
I just tossed an old machine with a CGA monitor myself.
Hey, I have something serious to discuss with you here.
A website I've belonged to since around 1998 or 1999 is once again locked out due to too much bandwidth being used.
The last time this happened, it was a simple fix. A certain logfile was not parsing itself so kept growing.
All we had to do was delete that file.
But here is the problem, the website was written in PHP by a college student who ran the website as a hobby.
He passed the program to one of the members who does not know anything about PHP, but learned enough to keep it running anyhow. But like me, he forgets how to do things simply from not doing it.
Because of the way the website was written, it cannot be moved to another more modern program.
His name is Randall, and I do not have his e-mail anymore, but do have a friend who texts with him often.
He's looking for help, and is actually willing to pay for a little help.
If you would like to take a look-see, I will mention you to my friend who can contact him and get you two together.
As I said, last time it was just a logfile that needed cleaned out and then all was OK again.
I know how you love challenges, hi hi.
Re: Personal Safety From Google
I wasn't sure how serious you were, but that old laptop with 3.11 on it was the first lappie I ever purchased. My daughter used it for several years before she discovered Apple. It was put in storage and then handed back to me when she was cleaning house one day. That was not the first computer I ever purchased, however. LOL My first was an HP-85 that ran HP BASIC and was octal based while everybody else was going hexadecimal. HP deliberately did things to be different and sometimes it paid off for them. Not so with their computer.
Regarding the locked up web site you describe, I will tell you this much. If it's a matter of coding in the PHP language, I'm not the guy your friend wants to talk to. Like that site's maintainer I only know enough about PHP to keep this place on the air; plus there is the phpBB forum that has saved our life a few times. Digging into the source code has always been a copy and paste operation and not much more. If somebody does the coding to fix a problem, I'm very good at copying and pasting it to where it should go. LOL
So, you see, I don't have a lot of PHP coding qualifications. But, as I like to tell you, not knowing what I'm talking about never stopped me from handing out advice. Brainformation forums has had its share of log file problems which I managed to solve without help desk assistance. Like your friend, the logs can get pretty big if they are not written or maintained properly. Up until a couple months ago every server log raw data file ever created for this suite of websites remained on the hosting server. There were so many that I did in fact open a trouble ticket asking them to delete them in bulk. My only option from the control panel was deleting them one at a time. The point to be made here is that the site never shut down due to physical log file size issues. I have unlimited storage and unlimited bandwidth (data download) for under $10 a month. I don't know how the hosting service can allow that, but it's one of the factors that kept us trouble free for many years. I knew those logs were not used to run the site so that I had no qualms about deleting them. The hosting service loved the extra disk space they recovered.
My expertise is first line maintenance, and I would be comfortable looking at anybody's website to see if there are obviously large log files. I am not sure I can do a lot more than that. However, if Randall is truly desperate, I'd be glad to communicate with him/her via the administrator account here. We can determine that way if I can help and go further from there. (BTW I looked up the definitions for further and farther. I think I nailed it here. LOL)
Regarding the locked up web site you describe, I will tell you this much. If it's a matter of coding in the PHP language, I'm not the guy your friend wants to talk to. Like that site's maintainer I only know enough about PHP to keep this place on the air; plus there is the phpBB forum that has saved our life a few times. Digging into the source code has always been a copy and paste operation and not much more. If somebody does the coding to fix a problem, I'm very good at copying and pasting it to where it should go. LOL
So, you see, I don't have a lot of PHP coding qualifications. But, as I like to tell you, not knowing what I'm talking about never stopped me from handing out advice. Brainformation forums has had its share of log file problems which I managed to solve without help desk assistance. Like your friend, the logs can get pretty big if they are not written or maintained properly. Up until a couple months ago every server log raw data file ever created for this suite of websites remained on the hosting server. There were so many that I did in fact open a trouble ticket asking them to delete them in bulk. My only option from the control panel was deleting them one at a time. The point to be made here is that the site never shut down due to physical log file size issues. I have unlimited storage and unlimited bandwidth (data download) for under $10 a month. I don't know how the hosting service can allow that, but it's one of the factors that kept us trouble free for many years. I knew those logs were not used to run the site so that I had no qualms about deleting them. The hosting service loved the extra disk space they recovered.
My expertise is first line maintenance, and I would be comfortable looking at anybody's website to see if there are obviously large log files. I am not sure I can do a lot more than that. However, if Randall is truly desperate, I'd be glad to communicate with him/her via the administrator account here. We can determine that way if I can help and go further from there. (BTW I looked up the definitions for further and farther. I think I nailed it here. LOL)
Re: Personal Safety From Google
I do know he's talked to several people, but only get my info through the grapevine so to speak.
There is nothing standard about the way the kid wrote the website while in college, so apparently it is confusing to study.
Probably like my early HTML pages but harder since it coding placed anywhere and everywhere, hi hi.
I must have spent many months trying to do something like a simple gosub/return using html, only to find it was impossible.
Later it could be done using forms I think, but how others were doing it was with Ajax which I never learned.
Even so, it seems I found a work around for what I wanted to do that worked well enough at the time for what I wanted to do.
I will pass this website URL to my 3rd party go between to pass to Randall, heck maybe he will finally decide to join up, hi hi.
There is nothing standard about the way the kid wrote the website while in college, so apparently it is confusing to study.
Probably like my early HTML pages but harder since it coding placed anywhere and everywhere, hi hi.
I must have spent many months trying to do something like a simple gosub/return using html, only to find it was impossible.
Later it could be done using forms I think, but how others were doing it was with Ajax which I never learned.
Even so, it seems I found a work around for what I wanted to do that worked well enough at the time for what I wanted to do.
I will pass this website URL to my 3rd party go between to pass to Randall, heck maybe he will finally decide to join up, hi hi.