TechByter Worldwide 2019-09-15: Small Towns and Businesses Increasingly Are Targets of Ransomware. Short Circuits. Spare Parts.

We hear about ransomware attacks that affect cities and, while they are frequent targets of malware, some crooks target small businesses and home users because they know the targets will be softer. In Short Circuits: Sometimes it seems that electronic devices go out of their way to make our lives miserable and, when they do, finding a solution to the problem can be challenging. If you've been thinking about switching to an open-source office suite, there are two primary choices: OpenOffice and LibreOffice. So which one is better? We'll look. In Spare Parts (only on the website): When you need to run a notebook computer or tablet for a long time and there's no nearby power source, modifying the computer's power settings can help. • It's also a good idea to keep an eye on the battery's performance over time because you'll probably need to replace the battery at least once before you replace the computer. • Twenty years ago some people were in a tizzy about the September 9th computing disaster that turned out to be even less of a problem than the much anticipated Y2K "disaster".