Battle Born Tech

Trash Bubbles | Battle Born Tech · May 5, 2026 Everything is going to trash this week on Battle Born Tech — and we mean that in the best possible way. First, Linux drops a vulnerability so severe we blew past "hair on fire" and "pants on fire" and went straight to human torch. CVE-2026-31431 (or "Copy Fail" to its friends) is the kind of security story that ends with one piece of advice: update your servers. Yes, all of them. Now. Then Nora joins us with an inbox with only junk. We dig through Thunderbird and webmail spam filters hunting for the culprit — and when we finally sort out what is the problem, you'll be as surprised as us. She stumped us on the call, we'll admit it. The good news? We got her sorted. The bad news? She'll be getting emails again. And Robert takes us on a journey where the trash doesn't stay in the trash. Scammers came calling — twice — with the kind of slick, friendly opener that almost makes you forget they're scammers. ("They have great customer service at the beginning.") A smart call to his bank and a visit to his local tech shop kept his computer clean and his wallet intact. A cautionary tale with a happy ending, and a reminder that just because someone's polite doesn't mean they have any business being on your computer. It's all bubbling up this week: spam, scams, and a Linux CVE that wants to ruin your Saturday. Battle Born Tech airs Tuesdays at 8 PM Pacific on FM 95.1 · Stream live at KNVC.org · battleborn.tech · bbtl.ink/stats · Call the studio Saturdays 9–11 AM Pacific: 775-241-3571 Ask for Bubbles.

Call the Graybeard | Battle Born Tech · April 28, 2026 Dennis has a Linux printer that won't cooperate. Robert wants to send a fax — yes, a fax, in 2026 — and nobody's judging... much. Brian got quietly dumped by eBay and isn't sure what he did wrong. This week on Battle Born Tech, we're reconnecting everything from print drivers to phone lines to broken marketplace relationships. Hair on fire optional. Battle Born Tech airs Tuesdays at 8 PM Pacific on FM 95.1 · Stream live at KNVC.org · battleborn.tech · bbtl.ink/stats · Call the studio Saturdays 9–11 AM Pacific: 775-241-3571

Getting Fancy with Stupid Pop-ups | Battle Born Tech · April 21, 2026 Your browser's been hijacked. Your new laptop won't let you leave the Microsoft Store. And one caller just wants his apps to stop wandering around his screen. This week on Battle Born Tech, we're getting fancy with stupid pop-ups. Diane's computer is buried under a avalanche of fake McAfee warnings. Joan is trapped in Windows S mode — and we go through every letter S could possibly stand for. And Esteban gets his windows organized once and for all with FancyZones from Microsoft's PowerToys. "It's a little geeky — not too much. You can handle it." Battle Born Tech airs Tuesdays at 8 PM Pacific on FM 95.1 · Stream live at KNVC.org · battleborn.tech · bbtl.ink/stats · Call the studio Saturdays 9–11 AM Pacific: 775-241-3571

Bright Lights, Old Mac | Battle Born Tech · March 14, 2026 Your iPhone thinks it's the sun. A wireless mouse is lost without its tiny USB soulmate. And a dusty old Mac emerges from the closet — ready to work, but the web has moved on without it. Christy and Joe dig into accessibility settings, Logitech's Unifying lineup, and the honest truth about dancing with the one who brought you. Battle Born Tech on KNVC 95.1 — real tech help from real callers, every Tuesday at 8 PM Pacific. Battle Born Tech airs Tuesdays at 8 PM Pacific on FM 95.1 · Stream live at KNVC.org · battleborn.tech · Call the studio Saturdays 9–11 AM Pacific: 775-241-3571

Battle Born Tech — "Losing Face" Broadcast April 7, 2026 | KNVC FM 95.1 Tax season brings out the scammers, and Christy and Joe are on it — starting with a firm reminder: "The IRS does NOT take gift cards for payments." If someone's telling you otherwise, hang up. Lee calls in with a facial recognition puzzle — his face won't unlock his iPhone. Christy's sympathy has limits: "You don't see the cracks over the radio." Turns out the Apple Genius Bar exam is harder than it looks, and "the cutting of the fingers is not good." Steve wants to know where all the old Battle Born Tech episodes went — good news, they're not gone forever. Christy and Joe dig into how archived shows work and where to find them. Keith is running out of hard drive space right at tax crunch time and needs relief fast. Teresa, meanwhile, has spotted something wrong on the internet — and Christy and Joe tackle the uncomfortable truth: "What the web gives...the web can take away." Plus — how do you update the internet? Joe weighs in with context and follow-up, and nobody leaves without a reminder: "Don't forget the treat!" for the tech!

Battle Born Tech "Your Windows Roots Are Showing" Broadcast March 31, 2026 | KNVC FM 95.1 Christy and the crew tackle three real-world tech puzzles. Lee's barcode scanner gun has an identity crisis — it doesn't know it's a keyboard. Donna can't figure out why her WordPress homepage keeps changing on her. And Lee discovers the hard way that downloading a Linux .tar.gz file is usually the long way around — when sudo apt install or your desktop package manager will do the job in seconds. Call in Saturdays 9–11am Pacific at 775-241-3571, or call anytime to schedule your own tech battle. "Your Windows roots are showing — we can help you get those touched up."

The FCC just banned new foreign-made routers — what does that mean for your next upgrade? Mitch needs home internet and weighs his options from cable to Starlink. Steve schools us on MoCA ethernet over coax and drops a warning for DirecTV users. Donna tries to fix her email and sends us deep into Outlook's Credential Manager. Real tech battles, real solutions — Battle Born Tech airing Tuesdays 8PM Pacific on KNVC FM 95.1. Call Christy at 775-241-3571 Saturdays between 9-11 am Pacific

Uninvited Guests | Battle Born Tech · March 10, 2026 This week, every caller's computer is hosting something it never invited in. Tom suspects a rootkit is hiding deep in his system — we pull out the eviction tools, including Malwarebytes (with rootkit scanning switched ON — it's off by default) and the legendary Kaspersky TDSSKiller. Jackson's Bluetooth speaker has a codec mismatch nobody warned him about, and Joe explains why aptX Adaptive, LC3, LE Audio, and Bluetooth 5.2+ are today's gold standard — but only if both devices speak the same language. Brian goes hunting in Windows Security settings and finds OneDrive ads squatting in his security panel, uncovers the ghost of Windows S Mode still haunting fresh Windows 11 installs as Smart App Control, and learns that ransomware protection through version history is already built into Windows if you know where to look. In Battle Plans: we sort out MoCA internet over coax versus the old Token Ring network, explain the ClickFix scam where pressing Windows+R and Ctrl+V hands your computer to a criminal, and spotlight Agent Charley from Charlemagne Labs — a privacy-first, on-device AI watchdog using a Small Language Model that catches phishing and lookalike sites before you click, with everything running locally and nothing going to the cloud. "Anti-virus doesn't protect you from being tricked by the tricksters." Battle Born Tech airs Tuesdays at 8 PM Pacific on FM 95.1 · Stream live at KNVC.org · battleborn.tech · Call the studio Saturdays 9–11 AM Pacific: 775-241-3571

Zoom In, Log In, Plug In | Battle Born Tech · March 3, 2026 This week Joe and Christy welcome three callers with three very different tech puzzles. Robert needs help making his screen easier to read — and a simple keyboard trick saves the day. Billy can't figure out who all these strangers are on his company's LinkedIn page, so the crew shares some tips for keeping your staff directory clean and current. And Steve discovers that the coax cable running through his walls might be the secret to better internet — no new wiring needed. Plus: Megs (not Mips) and Gigs, why you should never grab an old network hub from the garage, and the best spots to place your WiFi router for maximum coverage. Want to battle your own tech? Call us in the studio Saturdays from 9–11 AM Pacific at 775-241-3571, or call anytime to set up a time to talk.

Driving MS Dizzy | Battle Born Tech · February 24, 2026 This week on Battle Born Tech, Joan calls in about those mystery Windows lock screen photos and then surprises everyone by reporting that OneDrive actually worked — smoothly moving her files to her new machine. Then Lee wants OneDrive on his Linux-based Raspberry Pi 500, which sends the crew down a rabbit hole through websites, github, Windows encryption, and why Windows users are "just spoiled." "Have we ruled out elves?" Battle Born Tech airs Tuesdays at 8 PM Pacific on FM 95.1 · Stream live at KNVC.org · battleborn.tech · bbtl.ink/stats · Call the studio Saturdays 9–11 AM Pacific: 775-241-3571

Broken By Design| Battle Born Tech · February 17, 2026 Real callers, real problems this week — David's printer has him asking what is "de fault," Bambi wonders if an expired antivirus trial should be tossed out as spoiled, and Kate finds out how bricks are made when the power dies mid-update. Joe also brings a timely warning about fake browser login windows that look legitimate but are quietly stealing your credentials. Practical answers to all of it on Battle Born Tech. Battle Born Tech airs Tuesdays at 8 PM Pacific on FM 95.1 · Stream live at KNVC.org · battleborn.tech · bbtl.ink/stats · Call the studio Saturdays 9–11 AM Pacific: 775-241-3571

Defying Best Used By Date | Battle Born Tech · February 10, 2026 This week on Battle Born Tech, we're defying the best used by date — on hardware, software, and bad advice. We walk back last week's memory recommendations (turns out we went a little update-crazy), get in your face about why your iPhone needs Lockdown Mode before someone else decides it does, and break down the Notepad++ update server compromise — because even your trusted tools can go bad past their date. Then the callers bring the real world in: Bill wants desktop shortcuts the way he wants them, and we've got three ways to get there. Halley is heroically squeezing HDMI output into a VGA projector that has no idea what decade it is — old wineskins, new wine, and a dongle in between. And Steven is running Windows 10 on a network alongside Windows 11 and Linux machines, which is a little like keeping expired milk next to the fresh stuff and hoping nobody notices. October 14th, 2025 came and went. We'll tell you what that really means — and what happens when things stop happening. "Smart to Dumb is easier than Dumb to Smart" Battle Born Tech airs Tuesdays at 8 PM Pacific on FM 95.1 · Stream live at KNVC.org · battleborn.tech · bbtl.ink/stats · Call the studio Saturdays 9–11 AM Pacific: 775-241-3571

Roughing the Data | Battle Born Tech · February 3, 2026 The Big Game is on, but the real action is happening on your devices. This week, Joe throws the first flag — a nasty WhatsApp flaw is executing code on your phone, and the fix is one setting away. He also sounds the alarm on feeding your personal data to AI: encrypt once before storing twice Christy brings a double header: a spicy pillow warning about swollen laptop batteries that belong in the trash, not your lap — and a surprise shoutout to neglected inkjet printers. Bill wants his work files nowhere near the cloud. We map out on-premises backup strategies and how to lock down what you do store online with proper encryption. Robert is stumped — his Nest Hub won't play nice on the guest network. We untangle the eternal battle between security and convenience, and ask: how isolated do you really want your smart home to be? Finally, Brian's laptop is stuck in the slow lane. We make the case for ditching spinning hard drives for solid state, and drop the golden rule of RAM: always match your sticks — mismatched memory is a performance penalty you're paying every single day. Fast drives, locked data, and no spicy pillows. That's Battle Born Tech. Battle Born Tech airs Tuesdays at 8 PM Pacific on FM 95.1 · Stream live at KNVC.org · battleborn.tech · bbtl.ink/stats · Call the studio Saturdays 9–11 AM Pacific: 775-241-3571

Password, Pirates, Pi | Battle Born Tech · January 27, 2026 This week on Battle Born Tech, the digital world reminds us that no one is safe. UnderArmour's massive breach of 72 million customer records proves your name and email are never as private as you think. Lee brings his shiny new Raspberry Pi 500 into the mix, wired up to an HDMI monitor but puzzling over missing audio. Annabelle discovers the hard way that a new router from her ISP means every device in the house needs the new password. Art goes full rogue, sideloading Firefox onto his Android tablet in a mission to stay completely Google-free. We warn folks about September 2026, when Android plans to slam that door shut for good. From data leaks to DIY workarounds, it's another week of battling the tech that rules our lives. "Allow rogue programs..." Battle Born Tech airs Tuesdays at 8 PM Pacific on FM 95.1 · Stream live at KNVC.org · battleborn.tech · bbtl.ink/stats · Call the studio Saturdays 9–11 AM Pacific: 775-241-3571

Power Screen Pass | Battle Born Tech · January 20, 2026 This week on Battle Born Tech, the calls drive the conversation from start to finish. A Verizon user gets the classic fix — reboot your phone. Steve asks about Windows 11 battery health, leading to a deep dive on the powercfg /batteryreport command line tool hiding beneath the GUI, plus a tip to turn down screen brightness to extend battery life. Lee hunts down a Linux clipboard and screenshot tool, sparking a discussion of the PrintScreen key, ALT and SHIFT options, and a recommendation for Flameshot. Joan brings the biggest topic of the day — password help — which opens up a wide-ranging conversation about NIST's updated password guidance, built-in browser password managers, Bitwarden, Proton Pass, NordPass, and why longer passwords or passphrases beat complex ones. Battle Plans this week cover Package Managers, Password Managers, Passkeys, NIST, Browser Extensions, and CVEs. Battle Born Tech airs Tuesdays at 8 PM Pacific on FM 95.1 · Stream live at KNVC.org · battleborn.tech · bbtl.ink/stats · Call the studio Saturdays 9–11 AM Pacific: 775-241-3571

A Host with No Backup | Battle Born Tech · January 13, 2026 This week on Battle Born Tech, Your data is gone. Your taskbar is stuck. And nobody can leave the Zoom meeting. Welcome to another week at Battle Born Tech. This week, Joe sounds the alarm on a sneaky security vulnerability hiding inside MMS text messaging and why switching to RCS might be the smartest move you make this week. Nancy discovers that being a Zoom host is a lot like a church job: you cannot leave until you find your successor. Charlie goes to war with Windows 11 over where the taskbar belongs, and finds out Microsoft has exactly one thing to say about it. And Kirk brings us the saddest story of the week: a hard drive that did not make it, and a reminder that "different locations, different media" is not just good advice, it is the only advice. Plus: cloud storage explained in four words, why the dust might be the only thing keeping your machine alive, and the eternal truth that hammers are always good. Battle Born Tech airs Tuesdays at 8 PM Pacific on FM 95.1 · Stream live at KNVC.org · battleborn.tech · bbtl.ink/stats · Call the studio Saturdays 9–11 AM Pacific: 775-241-3571