The Computer Tutor

I’m still seeing a LOT of these showing up, and clients still contact me to see if they are legitimate. Here’s how to identify this scam.   There’s a good chance you’ve gotten one of these emails at some point over the past several months. The scammers have been sending out a LOT of them – sometimes over 200,000 in a single day. They tend to follow a predictable format. They are supposedly being sent from Norton or McAfee, and the basic message is that your credit card will be charged $199, $299, or even $399 (the dollar amount varies) to renew the service that you have supposedly subscribed to.   Of course, the recipients of these emails are not going to be charged anything. That’s just to get your attention. The REAL goal of these scam emails is to get you to call the phone number. They know that people will read this and think, “Wait a minute, I don’t subscribe to those crappy antivirus programs – what’s going on?” And the person will see that big notice that says “For information about your order, please call…”. Or it might even say, “To cancel this renewal charge, call this number”. And of course the person doesn’t want to pay that charge, so they call the number. That’s the big mistake here – calling the phone number. That’s exactly what they want you to do. Never call the number. When you make that phone call, you will be talking to a professional scammer who is very good and very clever at this game. He will sound very convincing. A lot of people are tricked by this. When the scammer has you on the phone, he will tell you that he needs to remote in to your computer in order to uninstall the software and process your refund. But in the background, he’ll be installing other malicious software and more unattended remote access tools – so that he can get into your computer anytime, even when you’re not on the phone with him. If the scammer senses that you are especially gullible, he might ask you for your credit card information in order to “process the refund”. You obviously don’t want to give a scammer your credit card information. The key to success is this: if you get an email stating that you owe some money, or that your credit card will be charged, or has been charged, don’t call the number on the email. In fact, if you want to, you can forward the email to me at [email protected] and ask if it’s legitimate. I have one client who gets a lot of these emails. Every time she would call me or email me asking if it’s legit. Finally I told her to just put a note near her computer to remind her that these are all just scams. Then I was in her home recently, and saw this on her desk. Smart!   The post 386 The Norton and McAfee billing scam first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

Do you have all your photos automatically saved to your Google Photos account? What if you want to download all those photos and save them to your computer? Here’s how.   Storing all of your photos on Google Photos is a good thing. It’s kind of like an automatic backup for the photos you take on your phone, and it’s free. But over time, you can accumulate a LOT of photos on there. And if that’s the only place where those photos are saved, it would make me a little nervous. What if your Google account gets hacked into, and you no longer have access to it? Or something else happens, and you can’t log in? I’m a lot more comfortable if all those photos – which might represent years or even decades of events – are stored in a second location. Specifically, my computer. When you have all those photos also stored on your computer, you have control of that. In addition, if you follow my recommendations, you’re backing up your computer regularly. So that means those photos would also be backed up. When you store your important things in more than one place, one of them can go haywire and you still have the others. And how do you get these photos from Google Photos to your computer? Well, you could right click and download them one at a time. If you only have a few, that might be okay. But most people have hundreds or even thousands of photos there. So we need a more efficient process. For this we’ll use a service that Google provides, called Google Takeout. It’s at takeout.google.com. When you go there and log in to your Google account (if you’re not already logged in), you’ll see LOTS of data that Google is storing for you. Your Chrome history, your calendar, your contacts, and many more things. But for this exercise we’re just concerned about the photos. So at the top of the list of data, click where it says “Deselect all”, then scroll down to the Google Photos section and check that one box out to the right: And if you did not already know this, you’ll also be downloading all of your videos that are stored there as well. Now, scroll all the way to the bottom and click on Next Step. Now you can choose the option that says “Export once” (unless you want to set this up on a recurring schedule). I recommend keeping the “.zip” file format:   Now click on Create Export in the lower right. And here’s where we wait. In fact, we might be waiting quite some time. Google will even tell you, it might take hours for them to complete this task. They even say it might take days. Not much you can do about it though; it’s going to take however long it takes. When it’s done, you’ll get an email (at your Gmail email address) to let you know they have created the export. Now all you have to do is click the link to download it. Once the download is on your computer, you can store the files where you want. You can leave them inside the zipped folders, or you can take them out and store them in your Pictures folder, whatever you prefer. The important thing is that they are still on Google Photos, and they are also stored on your computer. And after your next overnight backup, they will also be on your backup drive. The post 385 How to download all of your Google Photos images first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

If your computer is currently running Windows 10, like most Windows computers currently are, there’s a new major update that’s just been released – it’s Windows 11. It’s not something you want yet. For quite some time, Microsoft said that the last version of Windows would be Windows 10. They said they would just continue to update it, as they’ve always done. But as they have done in the past, what Microsoft said they would do turned out to be different from what they actually did. Windows 11 was officially released on October 5, 2021 – just 3 weeks ago. The general rule for any software is that you don’t want to use it when it first comes out. The old saying “Pioneers get arrows, settlers take the land” sort of applies with computer software. The early versions will likely have bugs. So you definitely don’t want to put new software on any computer that you have to rely on. Right now, Microsoft is saying that Windows 11 will be rolled out gradually. Most people probably won’t see it come in automatically until after the first of the year (2022). But, once again, Microsoft’s actions are subject to change. Remember when Windows 10 came out, and they said you don’t have to get it if you don’t want to? But LOTS of people ended up seeing it on their computers even after opting very clearly to NOT get it. I can’t really say for sure if Microsoft will force it in. What I can say is that Windows 10 is working fine, and it will be supported until October 14 of 2025. That’s 4 more years to use your current computer and your current operating system. I might jump into Windows 11 before Windows 10 ends, but definitely not right now. So how do you keep Windows 11 from coming into your computer? At the moment, it’s not a very simple process. I’ve done this for several clients remotely already. These are the basic steps: Check computer’s internal drive to make sure it’s healthy Check to confirm that the computer has been fully backed up Check how long it’s been since the last restart (and restart if needed) Create a new restore point (so we can get back to the current state if something goes wrong) Back up the registry (again, playing it safe if things go haywire) Add two (or three) specific things to the Windows Registry Restart the computer Here is my official position on the process I just described above: I do not recommend you do this, unless you are a computer tech and understand what you are doing. The Windows Registry is like the “brain” of the Windows operating system. So going in and editing it is kind of like doing brain surgery on your computer. If you know what has to be done (in step 6 above) and you know how to do it, it’s fine. If you’re not sure, or you make one mistake in the Registry, your computer may not boot up again. I’ve been doing this now for a couple of weeks for my current clients. I can do it through my Remote Support service (pricing and details here). Call or email me if you have any questions about it. Whoever you hire to do this, make sure they know what they are doing. Once Windows 11 is blocked from coming in, you have 4 years to decide what to do. By that time, you might even decide it’s time to get a new computer. And of course, the new computer will have Windows 11 already installed. The post Blocking Windows 11 from coming in first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

If your hard drive starts to show signs of failure, you want to know that as soon as possible. Here’s how to get that alert nice and early. When someone says to you, “I have good news and bad news. Which do you want first?” what do you say? For me, I am a “bad news first” kind of person. Get it out of the way and on to the good stuff. And if it pertains to my computer, even more so. If my computer’s hard drive is having a problem, I want to know about it as soon as possible. The earlier it can be detected, the earlier it can be fixed. It also means there’s less of a chance of losing any important data (even though I do two different backups every day). So I have a system that is completely automated, and it checks the health of my computer’s internal drive daily. And here’s some good news: This process/system is completely free It’s easy to set up Here’s how you do it. First, you install a little program called Crystal Disk Info. I’ve written about it before. You can get it here. There are different programs listed on the website but what you want is CrystalDiskInfo Standard Edition. Just click on the Installer option, and it will download. Then you can install it. It won’t try to sneak anything else on to your computer. So now you have it installed, but it doesn’t do anything unless you double click the desktop icon to run it. When you run it, it will show you a window with a button that says Good, Caution, or Bad. That’s really the only indicator you need to look at. If it says Good, just close the window and go on with using your computer. If it says Caution or Bad, your hard drive is most likely in the process of failing so we need to deal with that. But I said this whole thing is automated, right? That means we need to set it up so that you don’t have to try to remember to run Crystal Disk Info regularly. Here’s how: Open the program, then at the top click on Function. In the drop down menu, look for the word Startup, and click it.   This means that every time your computer starts up, Crystal Disk Info will run automatically. And you’ll see the report about your hard drive’s health. For me, that means every single day. My nightly routine, when I’m done using my computer for the day, is to restart it and then plug in the overnight backup drive. So when I restart it, I see the drive health report first thing. If you don’t do this, your computer’s drive could be in the process of failing for several days or weeks and you wouldn’t even know about it. Better to find out early and take action! The post Check your hard drive health every day – automatically first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

Did you know that Google Chrome can run a quick Safety Check on your computer? Here’s how to do it.   Open Chrome, and click the 3 dots in the top right, and choose Settings. Then, scroll down to the Safety Check session and click on “Check now”. Chrome will take a few seconds and check for: Is Chrome up to date? Are there unsafe passwords stored in Chrome? (My recommendation is that you don’t store ANY passwords in Chrome or any other browser.) Is browsing protection enabled? Is Chrome running any malicious extensions? Is there harmful software running on your computer? This is what the results on my computer looked like: If you’re practicing safe computing, and your computer is properly protected, the Chrome Safety Check shouldn’t find any problems. If the Safety Check does alert you to something that needs to be fixed, and you’re not sure what to do, contact me. Keep in mind, this is a very basic checkup. Your computer may have problems or security issues that would not be detected by this Chrome process. Be sure to have good security on your computer, and make sure all your software is kept up to date (this can be automated). The post How to do a Safety Check using Chrome first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

There are some people who use computers, but don’t do text messages. That sometimes presents a problem for them, but there’s a way to get around it.   Here’s an example of what I’m talking about. When you go to set up a new Microsoft account, one of the things they will want you to provide is a phone number – and they assume this will be a cell phone that receives text messages. Microsoft is not asking for your phone number so that they can text you all the time with spam messages. They want to have that in place in case you ever need to verify your identity. This usually comes into play when you forget your Microsoft password. When you click on the “Forgot password” link, they’ll offer to send you a text message to the phone number you have on file, in order for you to prove that you are the person who owns that Microsoft account. Then you can reset the password. It’s a pretty quick recovery process, but you have to have that phone number already on file with them in order to do that. But sometimes I’ll have a client who has just never bothered with text messaging. So they don’t really know how to get a text message. Or, maybe they’re using an older style phone, or a no-contract phone that doesn’t do text messaging. We come to the place where you have to get a confirmation text message in order to configure the new Microsoft account, but how do you do that when you can’t get a text message on your phone? Google, of course! If you have a Gmail email account, you already have the ability to do this. Just go to this website: voice.google.com and sign in with your Gmail email address and password. Then, just go through their process of setting up a Google Voice phone number. You can even choose one that starts with your own area code if you’re in the US (not sure how it works outside the US). Once you have your phone number assigned to your account, you can use the Google Voice service to make outbound calls, or for people to call you at that number. And guess what – you can also send and receive text messages from that number! All the instructions and configurations are at the website, voice.google.com. So when Microsoft (or any other website) needs a phone number that receives text messages, just give them your Google Voice phone number. In fact, you might want to use that number even if you are able to get text messages on your actual phone – might help reduce the number of spam message you get on your phone.    The post An alternative way to send or receive text messages first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

When you’re online, do you find yourself constantly having to manually type in your name and address when creating a new account? Here’s how to do that with one click.   You know what I’m talking about. You see something on the internet you want to purchase, and it’s for sale on some website where you haven’t bought anything in the past. So you need to create an account. That means you have to type in your full name, your street address, your city and state, your zip or postal code, your phone number, etc. These are all things you’ve typed out a hundred times before. Why can’t your computer just remember these things and enter them FOR you. Good news – it can! This is a great feature that’s available in Chrome. I’m sure it’s in the other browsers as well, but I use Chrome mostly so that’s what I’ll be referring to here. Chrome will store all of that personal identity information inside a special section in Chrome settings. Then, when you go to a website form that asks you to fill all of that out, Chrome recognizes that it’s a form and what it’s asking for, and offers you the option to have it all automatically completed. Here’s how you set this up: In Chrome, click the 3 dots up in the top right, then click on Settings   Now look for the section called “Autofill” and click on “Addresses and more” Now, where it says “Save and fill addresses”, make sure that switch is turned on (to the right). And click the Add button to enter your address information – In the next window that opens, you enter your information. There are places for your country, name, organization, street address, city, state, zip, phone and email – Click Save and you’re done. Now, if you want to test this, go and create a new account somewhere online. You’ll see that when you place your cursor in the “Name” field (or any of the other fields on that form), Chrome will offer you the option to auto-fill the form with whatever information you have stored. A couple of things to also keep in mind: First, you can store more than one set of info. For example, you might have a physical address, and a different address (such as PO Box) that you use for mail purposes. These can be stored separately and you can just use the appropriate one when needed. Second, you can also store payment methods (such as your credit card information) in Chrome, but I don’t recommend doing that. I also don’t recommend storing your account passwords in Chrome. If anyone gets access to your computer (such as if it were to get lost or stolen), or someone hacks into your computer, they can get access to that information that is stored in Chrome and it could mean a huge headache for you. The post Use Chrome to fill in your name and address first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

Your Windows computer has a clipboard feature that you are probably not even aware of!   Before I tell you today’s tip, a little background or “setup” information so that everyone is on the same page. One of the most useful features of a computer is the ability to Cut and Paste or Copy and Paste. If you don’t use this, you should learn how to do it. It’s really easy and comes in very handy all the time. Here’s how it works in a basic example – let’s say you have a Word document that has five paragraphs. You want to move the second paragraph down to the end of the document. Well, you could just retype the whole paragraph at the end, and then delete it from its original spot. That would achieve your end result. But there’s a much easier way! You can highlight the entire paragraph, then tap CTRL + X (this is the “cut” part of Cut and Paste. When you do this, two things happen: The paragraph disappears from the Word document (don’t worry, it’s not gone) The paragraph gets stored temporarily on the clipboard (keep this in mind; we’ll come back to it) Now, you go to the end of the document and put the cursor where you want that paragraph to appear. Now you tap CTRL + V (this is the “paste” part). And there’s your paragraph, where you want it. That’s how Cut and Paste works. If instead of CTRL + X, you did CTRL + C, that means you are “copying” instead of “cutting”. So when you paste, the paragraph will be at the end of the document, but it will also still be in its original position. So what’s the clipboard? When you Cut or Copy, whatever you have highlighted gets stored on the Clipboard. You won’t see this on the screen though. Think of the Clipboard as being an “invisible” thing that temporarily stores whatever you are cutting or copying. You can’t see it, but it’s there and it’s doing what it’s supposed to be doing. So that’s the background of how Copy/Paste and Cut/Paste works. Now here’s today’s cool tip: You can actually view the past items you have put on your clipboard, and paste them over and over. Here’s how: hold down the Windows key, and tap the letter “v”. Windows + v. You’ll see a little window pop up on your screen, and there are the last several items you’ve cut or copied. I’m not sure how many it’s able to display, but I just checked mine and it shows the last 16 items. So if you need to paste something over and over, you don’t have to go back to the original, highlight it, and copy it again. Just click to display the Windows Clipboard, and grab it from there. And by the way, it doesn’t matter if you copied text or an image – they will all show up in the Windows Clipboard. The post How to view your clipboard history first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

One of the most common things I hear from people is still this: “My computer is too slow!” The problem is, they could be talking about two different things.   This leads me to ask a clarifying question, so we know exactly what we are dealing with. I ask, “When you say it’s slow, are you talking about when you go to a website, it takes a long time for the website to load? Or, do you mean for example you click on Microsoft Word and it takes a long time for Word to come up on the screen?” Do you see the difference in those questions? If it’s a website that is slow to load, that’s not necessarily a problem with the computer itself – it’s just a slow internet connection. If that’s an issue, it’s time to make a call to whoever you pay for the internet each month. They can do some diagnostic checking from their end while you’re on the phone. In some cases, the modem or router (or both) might be failing and need to be replaced. You can also speed up your internet connection by connecting the router to the computer with an ethernet cable, instead of by wifi. I know that’s not always physically possible. But if your computer sits next to the router anyway, you would be better off just connecting a cable rather than connecting to the wifi signal. A wired connection is always faster. If it’s a program that is slow to load, then that could be an issue with the computer itself. There are a variety of things to check here. The computer may need to be restarted, there might be too many programs running in the background, or it could even be an indication that the hard drive is having a problem (got a recent backup?). So keep in mind, “slow” can have more than one meaning. But either way, we have methods of speeding it up! The post Two different ways your computer could be running “slowly” first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

You probably heard the announcement recently from Microsoft – Windows 11 is coming. Here’s what you need to do. For quite some time, Microsoft held to their position that Windows 10 would be the last one. They would just keep doing updates to Windows 10, and there wouldn’t be any “new” named versions of Windows. So much for that idea. They announced recently that Windows 11 would be released as the next big version, starting later this year and extending the rollout into 2022. And with that announcement, they included a link that took you to a little program that checked your computer to see if it will be able to run Windows 11. That’s because the hardware and security requirements are going to be higher with this new version of Windows. So people started checking their computers, and they were finding out that their current computer would NOT be able to run Windows 11. So of course that’s when the phone calls and emails started coming in. I had several clients calling and asking what to do, should they plan on going out and getting a new computer, all kinds of questions. So, I’m here today to give you detailed instructions on how to handle the Windows 11 situation. Here’s my recommendation: That’s right. Just wait. Right now, your computer is most likely running Windows 10. If you went out and bought a brand new computer today, guess what operating system it will have. Yep, Windows 10. That’s because Windows 11 has not even been released to the public yet. And even if Windows 11 were available starting today, do you really want to be one of the first ones to use it? New software inevitably has problems which get fixed in subsequent updates. Let the early adopters find those errors. And at this point, as I write this, we really don’t know what the system requirements are going to be for a new computer to be able to run Windows 11. Remember that little checker program that people could run to test their current computer for compatibility? Well, Microsoft took that down because they changed some of the requirements. And those guidelines continue to change. And here’s another important fact to keep in mind: Windows 10 is working just fine, and it’s going to be supported by Microsoft until October 2025. So you’re fine to keep using it for more than four more years! So there’s no rush. No need to make any changes yet. You can relax and just see what happens. Having said all that, I was able to get my hands on an early “preview” version of Windows 11. Microsoft has something they call an “Insiders Program” where techs can try out new versions of Windows to play with it and report problems. So I have a beta version running on one of my computers at the moment, and I have to say I actually kind of like it so far. The Start button and Start menu are in the middle of the task bar instead of in the lower left corner. Taskbar icons are centered (similar to the way a Mac computer displays program icons at the bottom of the screen). Of course, when it does come out officially, I’ll do a blog and podcast about what’s new (both good and bad). Until then – just keep doing what you’re doing. The post What to do about Windows 11 first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

Recently, Western Digital had a problem with a couple of their external drives. This caused a huge disaster for some users, who ended up losing all of their data. Here’s what happened, and why those who follow my backup process had no problems.   First, let’s clear up some terminology. A portable drive usually is slightly smaller than a smartphone. It will only have one cable – a USB cable that you connect to the computer when you want to have the computer do a backup. An external hard drive is usually larger, like the size of a paperback book. The image pictured above is an external hard drive. These drives usually have a USB cable and also a regular power cord to plug into the wall for electricity. Either of these types of drives can be used for a backup, but the one I use and recommend is the portable drive. For most people, it’s all they need. It can sit on top of your computer tower, or on your desk next to your laptop. Western Digital is one of the well-known companies that manufactures hard drives. They make external hard drives, and portable drives. They have a couple of particular external drive models known as My Book Live, and My Book Live Duo. These drives have been around for a while, and they are used by literally millions of people all over the world for file storage. What makes these drives a bit unusual is that they are connected directly to the internet. This means that the files that are stored on the drive can be shared, or you can access the drive from any computer. This is a convenience feature. Western Digital My Book Live Duo   Last week, many people who use these two drives discovered a huge problem. All of their data on the drive had been wiped out. Completely erased. When this happened, I saw some people posting things like “This is my nightmare” and “I’m totally screwed” because they were counting on those drives to store their most important things, like documents and irreplaceable pictures and videos. The question now is, what happened, and how could it have been avoided? As far as what happened, at this point it appears to have been a malicious attack. Some malware was able to run on the Western Digital servers, and that malicious software gave the command to reset those internet-connected external drives. So not only were the drives reset back to factory state (meaning none of the customer’s data was kept), the password that was used to get into the drive was also reset. How could this have been avoided? I would explain this in two concepts: The first concept is what is called an air gap. This means that your backup drive should be, as much as possible, not connected to your computer or the internet or anything else – other than when it’s necessary. There should be AIR between your backup drive and your computer or the internet. For the people who lost all their files, that would not have happened if their external drive was disconnected at the time. Malicious software can’t travel through an air gap. The second concept is this saying: “3 is 2, 2 is 1, and 1 is none.” This is referring to how many places you have your files stored. You have to always assume that one of those places is going to fail. So if you have your important stuff saved in 3 places, 1 will fail, and you really only have it in 2 places. If you have it stored in just 2 places to start with, then 1 of them will fail, and you really only have it in 1 place. And if you only have your files stored in 1 place, you don’t have a backup. Because if that one place fails, you’ve lost your files. So many of the people who used these drives made a fatal mistake. And it’s one that I see my clients make sometimes if they don’t check with me first. They say, “My computer’s hard drive is pretty full – so I’m going to free up some space, and move those files to an external drive.” But think about that – if you move them off of your computer, to your external drive, how many places are they stored? ONE. This means you do NOT have a backup. When that external drive fails, you lose. The process I recommend for backup means that your files are stored in 3 places: The first place is on your computer. Your hard drive should be big enough to store all of your important stuff. If it’s not big enough, I can upgrade it to a larger solid state drive so that it is big enough. The second place is your portable drive. Most of the time, this drive is not connected to the computer (that’s the air gap). The portable drive is only plugged in overnight, when you’re not using the computer. The software that I install and configure backs up ALL of your stuff (including the programs) overnight, and it’s done by the time you wake up. When you get on the computer, you double check that the backup happened, and you disconnect the portable drive so that your newly back

A recent Windows update probably added a new icon to the lower right corner of your screen. If you don’t want it there, here’s the easy way to get rid of it.   Microsoft really loves to put things on your computer screen even though you didn’t request it. Last week (June 8, 2021, to be exact) was the monthly time that Microsoft sends out their regular updates to Windows. It’s always the second Tuesday of the month, and is called Patch Tuesday (because many of the updates “patch” security holes that have been discovered). This most recent update included the addition of a Windows toolbar called “News and Interests”, and it shows up in the row of all the other icons in the bottom right corner of your screen:   By default, it just shows the local temperature and weather conditions (84 F and sunny, that’s Florida!). But wait til you put your cursor over it (don’t click, just move the cursor over that icon). Suddenly you have lots more stuff –   So there’s a more thorough weather report, stock prices, a traffic report for an upcoming trip, and several current news stories. And the image you see above isn’t the whole thing – that window is fully scrollable. There are LOTS more news stories when you scroll through the list. You might actually find this little thing to be a handy quick source of information. But you would also probably want to customize it with the specific news and interests that pertain to YOU. For the stock prices, you can specific which stocks you want to see. Or you can just eliminate that info entirely. You can change the weather location (in my example, I would change it to Safety Harbor, which is where I live, rather than Clearwater). Or you can have it not display the weather at all. There’s also a sports option, so you can see the latest scores and info for your favorite players or teams if you want. And of course there is always the news – this is reflective of the mind-numbing 24/7 news reporting cycle we are in now. Some of this stuff might be handy. If I want to know the current temperature, I can just glance at my screen. Of course, I could already do that by glancing at my phone. I don’t follow most sports so I don’t really care about that. In my case, I might customize the news filtering so that I only see the most unusual news stories (those stories are sometimes the source for guests for my “What Was That Like” podcast). The bad news about this little addition – when you click a link to read an article or get more info, it doesn’t care that your preferred browser is Chrome. All links will open in Microsoft Edge. Remember, this “News and Interests” thing is a Microsoft creation, so they will force you to view any details in their Microsoft browser. Even though most of the world uses Chrome. But if you find nothing of value in this new addition to your Windows Taskbar, you can just get rid of it. Just do a right click on it, then go up to “News and interests” and in the side menu, click on “Turn off”. And you can always turn it back on using the same process.   The post How to get rid of “News and Interests” first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

Are you thinking about buying a laptop? Here are some things to consider before handing over your money. Manufacturer When someone is asking me about which brand(s) I recommend, my first response is to say that who makes the laptop is not as important as what’s inside. In other words, it’s more important to consider the specs of a computer and make sure it’s going to work for your needs, rather than just who manufactures it. That being said, the brands that I prefer are Lenovo, Dell and HP (in that order). That’s just my opinion, based on my experience in buying, selling and repairing computers for 22 years. And some people have very strong opinions about this as well. There are people who may have had a bad experience with Dell and vow to never buy a Dell computer. Then again, I have other clients who love Dell computers and ONLY buy that brand. There are wide-ranging opinions about every manufacturer. Just keep in mind that it’s not the only factor to consider. Screen size Standard screen size for a laptop is 15.6 inches (measured diagonally on the usable part of the screen, not the plastic bezel that frames the screen). If you like a really big screen, the largest laptop screens are usually 17 inches. Recently, more people are looking for smaller screens, like 13 or 14 inches. The advantage of the smaller laptops is that they are lighter and more portable, and usually the battery will last longer since it doesn’t have to power a bigger screen. Internal drive This is one of the biggest factors to consider. I always recommend getting a solid state drive since they are more reliable and MUCH faster (as opposed to a traditional, spinning hard disk drive). I also recommend getting a computer that has just ONE drive, not two drives. Some computers are sold with a small solid state drive just to run Windows, and then a separate spinning drive for storage. This gets confusing for doing a backup. Just get a computer that has a solid state drive that has the space you need. And that’s the next question – what size drive do you need? Here’s how you figure that out. Look at your current computer, and see how much drive storage space you are currently using. Let’s say for example you’re using 110 gb of space. For the new computer, you want to be able to transfer your important files and folders, and still have at least half of the drive as unused space. So if you found a laptop with a 250 gb solid state drive, and you transferred over 110 gb of files (documents, pictures, etc.) then you would still have over half of the drive free. For most people, a 250gb or 500gb drive is sufficient. But make sure you know what you need before you start shopping around. I had a client once who got a great deal on a new laptop (and bought it without consulting anyone). It had a 120gb solid state drive. She brought it to me so I could move all of her stuff from the old computer to the new one, and that’s when we discovered all of her pictures, music and other files came to over 200gb – so it wouldn’t even fit on the new computer at all. That’s the situation we want to avoid. Processor The processor is sort of the “brain” of the computer. I like Intel processors, and usually recommend that you get at least an i5. If you’re on a budget, an i3 might be okay. An i7 is better than both, and i9 is the new one. Of course, the better the processor, the more it costs. So just get the best you can afford. Memory (RAM) Memory is another factor that might be based on what your budget is. The basic amount of memory for any new computers now is 4gb. More is better, so if you can get 8gb or 16gb that would be good. More memory means faster computing. Internet connection Chances are, if you’re getting a laptop, you’ll probably be using it on a wifi connection almost all the time. But if the computer will actually be sitting in the same place on your desk most of the time, and your router is nearby, you might just want to connect to the internet using an ethernet cable instead of wifi. An ethernet cable will mean your internet speed is faster. But not all laptops have an ethernet port – so you might want to check on that as part of your purchase strategy. Keyboard Some keyboards just “feel” better than others. This is just a personal thing. I like Lenovo laptops partly because of their keyboards. If you have a local computer store (such as Best Buy), you might want to go there an get a hands-on feeling of how the various keyboards compare. Price And finally – price. This is obviously a personal matter for anyone shopping for a laptop. The only thing I would say here is this: don’t go for the cheapest laptop on the shelf. When you see Walmart on Black Friday selling brand new laptops for $200, there’s a reason why they’re cheap. They probably have Celeron processors – these are low-end

Have you ever created a Word document and included a link to a YouTube video? Today I’ll show you how to put that video right into the document!   Most people don’t even know this is possible so it’s a great trick to show your friends. First, you need to determine what video you want to use for this. Let’s say we’re writing an article about the TV show The Office. I’ve been a big fan of that show for a long time and highly recommend it. Anyway, there’s a YouTube video that has a few minutes of bloopers from the Office, so that’s the video we want to use.   When you see that video on YouTube, up at the top in the address bar you’ll see the website address for that video: Highlight that website address, and Copy it (right click, Copy). Now, go to your Word document and put your cursor at the spot where you want to insert that video. Then, click on “Insert”, and in the Insert section, click on “Online video”:   Now you’ll see a new window open, and it will ask you for the URL (the website address) for the video. So, in the field provided, do a right-click and choose Paste. That puts the address in that field, and you can click Insert.   Now, the video will show inside the document like this: As you can see, there are control points all around the video image, so you can drag and make it as small or as large as you like. You can even rotate it using the rotate arrow at the top. You can also format it the same way you would format a regular picture – so the text in the document can flow around it, or beside it, or right over the top of it if you want. So, what happens when you click to play that video? Well, a small window opens right in front of the Word document, and there’s a Play button which you can click to watch the video.   And it plays, right there in the document. If you click anywhere outside the video window, that window disappears and you’re back to the regular document. It’s pretty smooth. You might be thinking, “Why would I do this?” Well, if you want reference a video in your article, you could just include the website address for that video. The reader could then click the link, and open a separate window such as Chrome, where they could also watch that video. By including the video inside the Word document, it makes it more convenient for the reader because they don’t have to open a separate program in order to go to the YouTube website and view the video. They can do everything from right within your document. Bonus: people will probably ask, “How did you do that?!” The post How to include a video INSIDE a Word document first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

You should not save your passwords in Chrome. But before you delete them from Chrome, you need to save them so that you can refer to them.   I’ve said it many times – don’t store your passwords in your web browser. Yes, it makes things easy. You go to a website, and Chrome just automatically inserts your login information (email address and password) for that account, and you’re in. That’s fine, until your laptop gets lost or stolen, or someone hacks into your computer. If anyone ever gets control of your computer, all of your passwords are stored in Chrome in plain text. Now they don’t just have your computer, they have ALL of your online accounts. Think it will never happen? So did the people who have actually experienced it. So – the way I recommend you store all your passwords is by using LastPass (I’ve written about it here before). But that’s not what today’s tip is about. What we want to do today is create a nice spreadsheet that contains all of the passwords you currently have saved in Chrome – BEFORE you delete them from Chrome. This makes a nice reference sheet to have, in case you ever need it. And there’s another handy use for it, which we’ll cover in a minute. Here’s how you do it – First, open Chrome and click the 3 dots up in the top right corner. In the drop down menu, click on Settings.   In the Settings window, look in the “Autofill” section and click on “Passwords” –   At the top are two options: “Offer to save passwords” and “Auto sign in”. I recommend turning both of these off. Now, under that, you’ll see your list of saved passwords. Directly to the right of the words “Saved Passwords” you’ll see 3 dots. Click on those 3 dots, and choose “Export Passwords”.   You’ll get a warning that anyone who sees this file will see your passwords. You probably already know this. Click on the button labeled “Export passwords”. You will be asked for your Windows password. This just means the password you type in each time you boot up the computer. Type your Windows password and click OK. If you don’t have a Windows password, just leave it blank and click OK. Now you will get a window that will let you choose where you want to save the list of passwords. It will probably default to your Documents folder, but you can choose to save it anywhere you want. Just pay attention to where it gets saved, so you know where to go find it. The file name will be: Chrome Passwords.csv Click Save, and you’re done. You’ll just be back at the list of Chrome passwords in Chrome settings (this isn’t the file you just saved). Close Chrome and any other windows. Now just go to where that file was just saved (probably Documents unless you designated a different location). Find that file called “Chrome Passwords” and double click it. If you have Excel, the file will open up in an Excel spreadsheet. If you use LibreOffice, it will open up in the spreadsheet program called Calc. If you don’t have a way to open the file, you can get LibreOffice for free at LibreOffice.org. So there you have it – all of your passwords that were saved in Chrome are now listed there on that spreadsheet. From here, you can go back and delete all of them from Chrome (using the same list where you exported them). Or even better, you can use that list to import all of them into LastPass – which is a much better and safer way to store your passwords. As always, if you need help with any of this, just contact me by phone or email.  The post How to export your passwords from Chrome first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

Is there something you want to learn? The internet has what you need.   If you have the time and the incentive, there are resources online that will help you learn just about anything you can imagine. Online courses: Coursera – Coursera.org – build skills with courses, certificates, and degrees online from world-class universities and companies. Udacity – udacity.com – discover the fastest, most effective way to gain job-ready expertise for the careers of the future. Great place to learn tech skills. edX – edx.org – free online courses by Harvard, MIT and 160 other member universities.   Learn a language: Duolingo – duolingo.com – probably the most popular way to learn a language currently. Memrise – memrise.com – learn a new language fast by watching thousands of clips of real locals. Rosetta Stone – rosettastone.com – the original language learning site, and still very popular Verbling – verbling.com – learn a new language with an online tutor – over 10,000 online teachers give private lessons based on your interests and objectives.   Learn how to code: Code Academy – codeacademy.com – join millions of others who are learning to code, and you can get started for free. Learn Code the Hard Way – learncodethehardway.org – advertised as the most effective system for learning the basics of computer programming, designed for complete beginners. HTML Dog – htmldog.com – learn the code that’s used in making websites.   Learn music: Justin Guitar – justinguitar.com – over 1800 effective and fun lessons and song tutorials. Music theory – musictheory.net – free online content as well as premium apps. How to Play Piano – howtoplaypiano.ca – Andrew Furmanczyk takes stuff that’s complicated, and makes it easy and clear to understand.   Learn to cook: Cooking for Engineers – cookingforengineers.com – if you have an analytical mind, and you like to cook, this is your site. How 2 Heroes – how2heroes.com – how-to videos for people who have a passion for food. Reluctant Gourmet – reluctantgourmet.com – a work-at-home dad started this cooking website 20 years ago to teach himself how to cook, and now he uses the site to share everything he has learned.   Learn math: Wolfram|Alpha – wolframalpha.com – compute expert-level answers using breakthrough algorithms, knowledgebase and AI technology Project Euler – projecteuler.net – a series of challenging math and computer programming problems that will require more than just mathematical insights to solve.   A few more – If there’s a particular skill you want to learn, I recommend SkillShare (skillshare.com). Just go to the site and browser, or type in the search what you want to learn. For general life hack ideas, LifeHacker (lifehacker.com) has been around forever and is full of great stuff. If you love to learn by watching documentaries, check out Top Documentary Films (topdocumentaryfilms.com) or Documentary Heaven (documentaryheaven.com).   That should keep you busy for a while! Do you have other online learning resources that we should know about? Put them in the comments below! The post The best online sources for learning anything first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

You know I love writing about illegal scams, how they work, and how to avoid them. Recently I was approached by something that seems to have all the characteristics of a scam, but it’s most likely legal.   Just this past week, I received this message, which was submitted via the Contact form on my website:   The subject is 2021 City’s Best Award Nomination. The text of the message is: Hello! I wasn’t sure which email to send this to. I’m happy to let you know that you won the 2021 City’s Best Award! We work with one business in each major city throughout the US. Here is the link to claim the award (all of the details are here too)… email me after you claim it so that I can get all of the award collateral over to you. Congrats again! The link is: http://www.citysbestaward.com/2021 Wow, isn’t that amazing? Not really. Let’s examine this “notification” piece by piece. “Will” (whoever that is) sent me this message that I have won the 2021 City’s Best Award. Isn’t it interesting that they don’t actually say the name of my city? That’s because this same email goes out to hundreds or thousands of business owners, and it doesn’t matter what city I’m in. When you’re sending out an email to many thousands of recipients, it’s much more time-consuming to customize each one with the name of the city. So they opted to just leave it generic. It’s a show of their laziness really. It also says that they only choose ONE business in each major city throughout the US. Now, this is confusing to me in a couple of ways. First, this is not saying one business in each category. That would actually make a bit more sense – like the City’s Best Computer Repair service, the City’s Best Restaurant, the City’s Best Hair Salon, and so on. But no – they’re claiming they only choose ONE single business to give this award to. Again, this is just laziness. It would be a lot more work to categorize each business and customize the award for each category. Without the categories, they can just send out the same cookie-cutter email to every business owner in their list of thousands. Second, it’s pretty clear that they don’t really deal with one business “in each major city throughout the US”. My city is Safety Harbor, Florida. With a population of around 17,000, it is by no means “major”. Again, this is just nonsense text. They don’t care what city I’m in or how big it is. They just want to get their message out to as many business owners as possible. And why would they do this? What’s the objective of this scheme? To find out, we would need to visit the website – citysbestaward.com/2021 (I’m intentionally not linking to the site because I don’t want to give them any search engine optimization). Here’s what comes with this amazing “award” that I’m being offered: 1. Business listing ranked #1 on our website! Which means nothing, since no one visits their website except other business owners who have fallen for this fake “award”. 2. Website badge for your website! This means I can put the “award” on my website, so that people can click on it and go directly to my business listing on the awards website. If someone is already on my site, why would I want to put a link on there that takes them to some other website? Really stupid. 3. Social graphics to spread the word! So I get 100% generic digital images to post on Facebook, to advertise to people that I fell for this nonsense. 4. Award certificate for your office! And I can also show all of my in-person clients that I got suckered into this too! And note this – they are not going to send me a certificate by mail. They are going to give me a link to some digital image which I have to print myself. More laziness on their part. 5. Professionally-written press release! No doubt this is a template that reads exactly the same for every one of the “winners” of this award. And do they send out the press release to the news media? Nope – they just give it to me, and then I have to distribute it myself. And for all of that, I just have to “Claim my Award” – and pay the $299 annual fee. Ah, now we see where this was all going, right? They want to give me all the meaningless junk listed above, and for that I have to pay not just $299 now, but $299 every year. Wait a minute, how do they know I’ll still be the best business in my city a year from now? Well, their website says that they’ll check in with me in a year, and if nothing about my business has changed, I’ll get the same award again. And every year after that – if I keep paying the $299. So you can see why they have the incentive to send this out to as many business owners as possible – regardless

There are different versions of Windows 10, and you might not be running the most current one. Here’s how to check.   Windows 10 is the most current Windows operating system. If you’re still running Windows 7, you NEED to upgrade to Windows 10 now (you actually needed to do this over a year ago). If you’re still running Windows 8.1, you SHOULD upgrade, but it’s not critical that you do so immediately. The primary reason for upgrading from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 is because Windows 8.1 is really awful. But at this point, almost all of the computers I see are running Windows 10. That’s a good thing. The bad news is, it’s not always the most current version of Windows 10. Probably the oldest version of Windows 10 I see sometimes these days is version 1909. That version is almost to its end of service. So if you’re running that one, we need to take action before it reaches its end of service on May 11, 2021. The next versions after 1909 are 2004, and then the current one, which is 20H2. Either of those is fine for right now. Here’s how to check on which version of Windows 10 you are running: On the keyboard, find the Windows key (lower left area). Hold that down and type the letter “r”. In the box that comes up, type: winver and click OK. You’ll get a window that looks like the one below, which will tell you if you’re running version 1909, 2004, or 20H2.   If you are still running 1909, it most likely means that the automated Windows Updates are “stuck” and needs to be forced to update. I can do this through my Remote Support service if you need help with that. You would need the 2-hour package (it sometimes takes longer than two hours, but we don’t need to be on the phone for that whole time). If you are running 2004 or 20H2, you’re fine for at least the rest of this year (2021). The post Are you running the current version of Windows 10? first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

Have you ever started typing up a Word document, and gotten quite a bit of text entered, then accidentally closed it without saving? Today’s lifesaving tip will show you how it’s possible to get that document back.       A friend of mine used to create Word documents very dangerously. He was a pastor of a church. And he would always create his Sunday sermon in a Word document. He would just open Word, open a new blank document, and start writing. He might write for hours, filling that document up with many pages of text. And that whole time, at the top of that document it would say “Untitled document” – because he never clicked to save it and give it a name. I only knew this because one day I visited him in his office on a computer matter, and I happened to see his Sunday sermon document on the screen – many pages and many hours of work, and none of it had been saved to his computer. When I asked him about it, he said, “Oh, it’s no problem. When I have my full sermon completed, I just click the “X” up in the corner to close the document…” – that in itself caused a little shot of adrenaline in me – “… and the program pops up and asks me if I want to save it. So I say “Yes” and give it a name, and it’s all saved, no problem!” What he had not considered is – What if some day Word DOESN’T ask him if he wants to save it, and just closes? What if some day Word asks him to save, and he (without thinking) clicks “Don’t save”? What if he has several hours of work put in, and there’s a sudden power blip and the computer shuts down? All of those things are possibilities. But he had his routine that he was used to. And I understand that – change can be hard to implement when you’ve been doing something a particular way for a while. Especially since you haven’t had any problem at all (s0 far) with the way you’ve always done it. Unfortunately, some time after that I was called in to see if I could find a document that had gotten closed without saving, and could not be found. I wish I had known today’s tip then. Actually I don’t even know if that old version of Word even offered this function that we’re talking about today. But the current version of Word does, and for some people, it’s a real lifesaver. What we’re talking about is getting back a Word document that has been closed, without EVER having been saved or given a file name. To show how this works, just go through this process: Open a blank Word document, and add some text to it. Don’t save it. At the top, it will just have the title “Document1”, which is the default file name until you save it and give it a name that makes sense: Now, close that document with the X in the top right corner. When it asks if you want to save it, click on “Don’t Save”. At this point, most people would assume that file is lost. Or actually, it just doesn’t exist any more. But it actually does exist. Open File Explorer by clicking on the little folder icon down in the bottom left area of the screen, on the taskbar. Then click on “This PC”: Then in the top right corner, in the search field, type: *.asd and hit Enter: When you do that search, you’ll see your unsaved Word document come up in the search results. It might take a while, depending on how big your computer’s drive is and how much storage space you’re using. But it will be there: You can identify it in the list because it will show the first few words of the document. At this point you want to do a RIGHT click on that file, and click on “Open with”: If Word is not immediately shown in the list of programs, click on “More apps” and scroll down to choose to open it in Word. When it opens, the first thing you’ll see is a prompt to Save it and give it a name: Do that before you do anything else! So now your lost/nonexistent file now has a name and it is saved somewhere on your computer (most likely in the Documents folder). Even if you don’t need this tip right now, keep track of it because someday it could save your life! Open blank Word doc, add some text Close it without saving To find it: Open File Explorer and click on This PC in the search field, type: *.asd the lost document will show up in the search results Right click – open with – choose WordThe post How to recover a Word document that was never saved first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

Is there a particular program that you want to run automatically, every time you turn on your computer? Here’s how to make that happen.   What we’re talking about today is usually the OPPOSITE of how we discuss this topic. So many programs want to insert themselves into the “startup” process when they have no business being there. I’m constantly removing programs from automatically starting up every time the computer boots up, on client computers and even my own primary PC. But what about if you actually WANT a program to run every time you turn on or restart your computer? In some situations, that might make sense. Here’s an example. A while back (actually it’s been 4 years ago now), I wrote about a program that checks the health of your hard drive. It’s called Crystal Disk Info. Once it’s installed, you can run it whenever you want just to check your hard drive. For me, I like to check my hard drive regularly – ideally, that would be every time I boot up the computer or restart it. And that is exactly what happens, using the following process. When you install Crystal Disk Info, it creates a shortcut icon on the desktop. Then, you hold down the Windows key and tap the letter “r”. That will open a little window with a space to type an instruction. You will type: shell:startup and click OK.   That will open a new window. Now, you can just drag (or copy/paste) the Crystal Disk Info shortcut icon into that window. Done! And you can check it by just restarting your computer. When you get back to Windows, you’ll see Crystal Disk Info pop up and give you your hard drive health report, which should look something like this:   Now you can close that window and get on with your work or whatever you need to do. It will show up every time you boot up or restart your computer. If you want to remove anything from that shell:startup list, just open it up, right click on the item to be removed, and choose Delete. So whatever program you want to run at each bootup, that’s the process you use. The post How to make a program start at every bootup first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

Do you have information in a Word document that you don’t want anyone else to see? Here’s how to put a password on it.   Some of my clients store all of their account passwords in a Word document. Some people use a Word doc to keep track of their medical information, or perhaps their bank account details. If you have private information of any kind in a Word document, it might be a good idea to add a password to that document so that it doesn’t get seen by anyone else. And it turns out, adding a password to a Word file is pretty easy: Open the document, then click File:   Next, in the left column, click on Info. Then, under “Protect Document” click the drop-down menu and choose “Encrypt with Password”:   Now you are presented with a window to enter the password you want to use for this file:   You enter the password, then it will prompt you to enter it again to confirm. Then you just Save the document and close it. Now you can test it – double click to open that file, and it should prompt you for the password. If you want to remove the password, use the same process as above, but leave the password field blank, then save the document again. Keep in mind – this level of protection is not all that strong. Someone with a reasonable level of expertise could most likely get past that password protection. But for a lot of people, this simple password protection is sufficient.  The post How to password protect a Word document first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

Do you think there’s a time when a bad program requests permission to make changes to your computer, and you should allow it?   This question came in from Jerry, in Minnesota – Hi Scott, I’m a long time subscriber. We’ve “talked” in the past about your laptops and a couple other things. Here’s a Computer Tutor topic for the future…I hope. I have the Slimware cookie or whatever that keeps its window popping up. The solution appears to be to uninstall it. However, one of the first steps in the uninstall asks me if I want to allow this thing to make changes to my computer. That just sounds like a very bad idea. What do you say to that? Thanks, and I hope you find this worthy of a Monday post. Sooner rather than later I hope! Thank you, Jerry Loretto, Minnesota (near Minneapolis) Great question, Jerry! Logically, it makes complete sense to have concerns about this. Why would you let a known bad or malicious program make changes to your computer. Seems like that would be similar to letting a car thief borrow your car, or giving a scammer your credit card number. It just seems unwise, from a security standpoint. But there is an exception! When you realize a program is unwanted, the next step of course is to remove it from your computer. In most cases, this means you go to Control Panel, where you can look in the “Programs and Features” category to see a list of the programs installed on your computer. Then you can do a right click on the one you want to remove, and choose the option to “Uninstall”. But then, you’ll likely get this pop-up alert:   And though it may go against your safety concerns and your intuition, the correct answer is “Yes”. That’s because the change for which it’s requesting permission it to uninstall itself. And of course since that’s the whole goal of this operation, you want it to be able to do that. If you say “No”, then the operation will stop and the program will still be installed and able to run. So, when you’re trying to uninstall a program and it asks you for permission to make changes, the correct thing is to allow that to happen. Once that “change” has been made, the program should be gone. At least, in theory. Some malicious programs make it seem like they’re going away, but they’re really sticking around. If you have a program that won’t uninstall, contact me. We’ll force it out! The post Should you ever allow a bad program to make changes to your PC? first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

You’ve probably heard the terms “Deep Web” and “Dark Web”. They are not the same thing.   In general, there are 3 internets, or 3 “webs”. The first one is often referred to as the Clear Web. It’s also called the Surface Web. This is the internet that most people use every day – Google searches, reading blogs, watching YouTube videos, seeing what’s on a website. The Clear Web consists of the stuff that anyone can access with a regular web browser such as Chrome. It’s content that’s available to the public. This is, of course, the most popular web as it’s something just about everyone uses. The second one is the Deep Web. Most likely, you have used the Deep Web as well. It consists of content that is hidden – and “hidden” can mean different things. The content might be your online bank account, and of course that is hidden by your password. The general public can’t go to your bank’s website and see your personal account, because it’s in the Deep Web and requires your password. Same thing for your Facebook account – only you can log in and post things on your Facebook account. This also applies to online forums where you have to register in order to post something. And it’s becoming more common to see newspapers put their content on the Deep Web, behind a paywall. This information is still accessible, but only to those authorized to see it. The third web is the Dark Web. If you think about the internet in general as a big city, the Dark Web would be considered a really bad neighborhood. It’s not a place you want to go. This is where most of the illegal online activity takes place, including: buying and selling illegal drugs buying and selling of malware and viruses terrorist forums pedophile groups So you might be thinking – if the authorities know that all of this takes place on the Dark Web, why don’t they just go there and find these people and arrest them? Well, it’s not that easy, for a couple of reasons: The Invisible Internet Project provides hosting of this content anonymously. So the servers that store the information cannot be accessed (at least not through traditional methods). The Onion Routing project allows people to access the internet anonymously. They do this using a special web browser (called the Tor browser), which hides your IP address. Your connection bounces around at points all over the world before it actually lands on the server with the illegal content – so there’s no way to trace that access back to you. And of course, most of the buying and selling on the Dark Web is done using cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin – which is also essentially anonymous. So, you use the Clear Web probably every day, and you probably use the Deep Web fairly often. But I’ll bet you haven’t accessed the Dark Web. I haven’t either – and I really don’t have any plans to.  The post What is the Deep Web? first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

Almost any book you can think of – available online for free. Same as your local library.   If you have a library card for your local library, you probably already know you can borrow digital books. You just need to create an account using an app called Libby, and that allows you to access lots of digital books that are available right there at your local library. And of course, all of this costs you nothing since it it part of the services at the library. It’s really pretty amazing, since you can borrow and read even recent, popular books. Books that if purchased, you might pay $10 or $20 for. But since it’s through the library, you don’t pay anything. But there’s an online library that’s available to just about anyone – and this takes borrowing digital books to a whole new level. It’s called Z-Library. You can view it at https://b-ok.cc/ (not sure what that domain name stands for though). If you thought your local library had a lot of digital books available for download, you’re in for a big fat surprise when you check out Z-Library. As I write this, there are currently over 5.9 MILLION books available there for download. If you’re looking for a specific book, you can most likely search for it and download it without even registering for an account. You’re allowed up to 5 downloads per day without registering. If you create a free account with your email address and a password, that increases your download limit to 10 e-books per day, and a faster download speed. But this only allows you to download and read books on your computer. Still, for some people that’s fine. I mean, how many people read more than 10 books a day? But if you really want all the features, you can get a Premium Plan. To get a Premium Plan, you can donate as little as $1. That allows you to have digital books sent to your Kindle, and the downloads are free of any ads (the free accounts have advertisements). Beyond that, there are additional benefits if you pay more. But you can always choose how much you want to pay. If you pay $1 to $4.99, you get all the extra features but you are still limited to 10 downloads per day. If you need more than 10 downloads a day, you can choose to pay more (but it’s still really cheap). You’ll see the pricing structure listed after you create your free account with your email address. Libraries have always been an incredible local resource. To give you an idea on how this compares to purchase, I looked up the complete set of Harry Potter books on Amazon. The Kindle version is $62.99:   But at Z-Library, you can just click to download the whole thing to your computer. Or pay a little bit of money, and have them sent to your Kindle e-reader:   If you’re wondering if they have a particular book you want, just go to the website and do a search on the title. With almost 6 million books to choose from, there’s a very good chance you’ll find it available. So if you’re planning to make a New Year’s resolution to read more books, the Z-Library could play a big role in making that happen! The post The world’s largest online library first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

There are good reasons for hiding your list of Facebook friends on your Facebook public profile.   You’ve seen those posts from your Facebook friends: “I’ve been hacked! If you get a friend request from me, it’s a fake!” But, as I’ve written before, this is not a “hack”. Their Facebook account has not been compromised. The scammer has just created a new Facebook account, using your friend’s name and profile picture, and they’re pretending to be your friend. The plan for this scam is that they will send friend requests to the people you are already friends with, and some of those friends will just blindly accept (even though you’re already friends). Then they will try to scam your friends, posing as you in order to take advantage of their trust. And THAT’S why your list of Facebook friends should be hidden from public view. If the scammer sees that he cannot find out who your friends are and try to contact them, he’ll move on to another Facebook profile to run his little scheme. So, having your Facebook friends hidden saves you AND your friends the hassle of dealing with it. Here’s how you hide your list of friends. (This is how you do it in Chrome, on a desktop/laptop computer. The process on your phone may look different.) Go to Facebook, and click the little triangle in the top right corner. Then, click on “Settings and Privacy”:   In the next window, click on Settings:   In the next window, look in the column on the left and click on Privacy:   Now look out to the middle part of that page, and find the section called “How People Find and Contact you”. You’ll see an option named “Who can see your friends list?” – click to Edit that setting:   In the drop-down menu, choose “Only me”:   Now just click “Close” over on the right hand side, and you’re done. There’s no “Save” button needed – Facebook has already saved your preferences. Now, no one can see your list of Facebook friends except you. The post Should you hide your Facebook friends list? YES – here’s how first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

You might see a notice pop up on your computer that Adobe Flash Player is being discontinued, and asking if you want to uninstall it from your computer. Here’s what to do.   I’ve had several clients ask me recently about this message they’ve gotten on their computer:   The questions that come up… What is Flash? Do I need it? Should I uninstall it? What is Flash? Flash is a programming language that used to be very common. Websites used it to display some of their content, such as animated images or games. An example of this is the original Facebook game of Farmville – remember when all your friends were always talking about playing that game? It’s actually still played by a lot of people, but that will end at the end of this year when Zynga (the company that owns Farmville) ends it. Only the original Farmville is being discontinued – newer versions will still be available, since they don’t use the Flash technology. The end of Flash has actually been on the horizon for a while. Adobe announced the “end of life” for Flash over two years ago, to give enough time for websites to change over to its replacement (HTML 5). And why is it going away? Because of all the security problems it causes. Of all the malware in existence right now, about HALF of it is due to security issues in Flash. It’s really bad. Do you need Flash? No. The vast majority of websites have already switched over to the much safer HTML 5, and you probably didn’t even notice. There are still a few sites that use Flash to display content, but it’s becoming pretty rare now. And those sites are going to have a big problem after December 31, when Flash no longer works. Should you uninstall Flash? Yes. There’s a good chance you don’t even have it installed now anyway. I haven’t been installing Flash on new computers and the laptops I sell for at least a couple of years. If you have had your computer for longer than that, you might still have it installed. If so, when you get that pop-up on your screen offering to uninstall the Adobe Flash Player, you can go ahead and get rid of it. If you have not seen that pop-up and want to make sure you don’t have it, you can go to Control Panel and look at the list of programs available to uninstall, and see if it is listed there as Adobe Flash Player. If you see it, you can go ahead and uninstall it. Or, you can use the Adobe Flash Uninstaller program here. And if you still play the original Facebook Farmville game, enjoy it while you can!  The post What should you do with Adobe Flash Player? first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

This is a trick you can do with MS Word, that very few people know about. It can be handy in certain situations.   What we’re talking about is being able to select and highlight certain text in a Word document. You already know that if you double-click on a single word, that word is highlighted (selected). You might also know that if you TRIPLE click, the entire paragraph is selected. (If you didn’t know that, there’s a bonus tip for you this week.) You can click on a certain word and drag the cursor across several words, and just those words are selected. You can even do CTRL + A and select the entire document. Then, whatever you have selected, you can do whatever you want with that text. You can cut and paste, copy and paste, change the font or size, or even delete it. Whatever action you take, it applies to ALL of the text you have selected. But here’s a different scenario: Let’s say you have a Word document, and the text in that document is a list of names. Each line is the last name, then a tab, then the first name. Like this: For your purpose, you need to select ONLY the first names (the second column) in that list. How do you do that? If you start with the first one, John, and drag to select, as soon as you get to the second line you’ll see that it’s highlighting the whole second line (not just the first name, Elizabeth). What is the fix for this? Well, for a list that is short like the one above, you could just hold down the CTRL key and double click each first name. That would achieve the goal. But what if this list contained 150 names? or 1500 names? Double clicking on each first name would take quite some time. And there’s a risk – you could spend a bunch of time double clicking and have 89 first names selected, then accidentally click without holding the CTRL key – that means you have DEselected all of them, and you have to start over from scratch. But there’s a little-known trick that makes this process much easier. With a certain keyboard key combination, Word will allow you to select text vertically. In our example, you can place the cursor just to the left of the letter “J” in “John”. Then, on the keyboard, hold down CTRL + ALT + Shift at the same time, and drag the cursor straight down. This allows you to highlight ONLY the first names on the list: Now you can copy those names into an Excel spreadsheet column, or print them, or do whatever you want with them. The post How to select text in MS Word – VERTICALLY first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

Shopping online for a used car? You need to be able to identify the scam ads – and there are a lot of them.   Everyone wants to score a great deal when they buy a car. If you go to a car dealer, you might be able to negotiate a fair price. But if you shop around and look for a car being sold by an individual, you might get a REALLY great bargain. Sometimes people have a car and they just want to get rid of it, and they aren’t really worried about getting the price that it’s really worth. That’s what a lot of potential car buyers are looking for. But that strong incentive to find an amazing deal is also what ends up costing the buyer a lot of money – because they fall for a scam. There are a few things to look for when you’re shopping the used car ads – things that should pop up as a red flag that what you’re looking at might be a scam. Here are a few of them. First, a ridiculously low price. For example, I went on OfferUp and just searched on the word Honda. This is one of the first ads that came up. A nice 2012 Honda Accord, only 86k miles, always garage kept and it has no mechanical issues. You might expect to pay $8000 to $10,000 for a car like this. But look, this one is only $1400! And when an ad like this comes up, a lot of people will say, “No way that could be real” and they keep scrolling. BUT…there are a certain percentage of people who think, “I know that doesn’t really make sense, but what if it’s just a really good deal? I have to investigate further!”. That’s the exact response the scammer is looking for. Second, look for the seller to include an email address in the description. They want you to contact them by email, rather than clicking the “Contact seller” button on the website. Why is that? Because if you start a conversation using the website’s communication service, the scammer might have you believing the whole story and ready to make the purchase. Then, someone else sees the ad and reports it – and the scammer’s account gets immediately closed. That means he immediately loses his avenue of communication with you. If you start off using email, he can continue the scam even if his seller account gets shut down. Of course, his email account could also get deleted, but that’s less likely.. Really, those first two items should tell you to NOT pursue buying this car because it is definitely a scam. But if you do continue (maybe to just act as a buyer to see what happens, even if you know it’s not a real car for sale), here’s the next thing to watch for: an emotional story. I emailed an ad a while back (research purposes), and this is the message I got back from the “seller” – So I guess in this case, her potential scam victims aren’t just people looking for a good deal on a car, it’s also those who are willing to practically steal a car from a grieving widow. Nice! The other very common story with these scammers is that they are in the US military. That is very deliberate, because it plants a subconscious evidence of honesty and credibility into the story. After all, would a United States soldier lie to you? In the case of the letter above, she claimed to be a recent widow AND a military doctor. Must be legit, right? And finally – if you keep going this far with the fake seller – they will try to assure you that it’s all real, because the deal is going to happen through the security of eBay selling process. But wait a minute, you didn’t find the car on eBay, did you? It was listed on Craigslist or OfferUp or some other online classified ad site. So how is eBay involved? Answer: eBay is not involved at all. The scammer wants you to feel confident that it’s all real, so they pretend that the whole transaction is going to happen through ebay Motors. They will tell you that you have no shipping costs, and you can even drive the car for 5 days before your money is even released from eBay to the seller. This is 100% false. If the car was not listed on eBay, and purchased by your bidding on the eBay listing, eBay has zero involvement with this sale and they will not protect you in any way. What should you do when you see a scam car ad? Well, in most cases I would tell you that you should report it so that the scammer’s account gets removed. But now I’m kind of leaning toward the notion that it’s not really worth your time. When I recently went on OfferUp and searched for the word Honda, the FIRST FIVE LISTINGS were all scams. I don’t think the websites can keep up with all the fake listings. Check this out – on OfferUp, there’s a seller named Gianna who had a Honda Accord for sale for just $800. This was in Gulfport, Florida, about 30 minutes from where I live. But when you look at her “other items” for sale, you can see she has the SAME CAR lis

I used to have a routine whenever I would open Word and create a new document. I would always start by changing the font to one that I like, and also the font size. What a waste of time!   The default font in Word, if you don’t change anything, is Calibri. The font size is 11. It looks like this: It’s not a bad font. Pretty clear and easy to read. But what if you want all of your documents to be in Times New Roman, size 14? It’s also a nice font, very classic style. You could type your whole document in the default Calibri 11, and then highlight the entire thing and change it to Times New Roman 14. But that only fixes the document you’re working on right now. Using that strategy, you have to go through that process every single time. There’s a better way! You can just change Word to automatically default to the font and size you want to use, every time. Here’s how to change the default font and font size in MS Word: First, open a new, blank Word document. Up in the toolbar at the top, find the section labeled “Font”, and click on that little arrow in the lower right corner of that section:   That opens up the font dialogue box. You’ll see three columns – this is where you choose the font itself, the font style (regular, italic, bold) and the size. You can see I’ve chosen Times New Roman, regular, size 14:   And the final step is to just click the “Set as Default” button in the lower left corner:   Oops, one more step – you need to tell Word if you want this to be the default font for just THIS document, or for all future documents:   If you choose for it to be all documents, click OK and close Word. Then open a new blank document, and you should see that it’s already in your chosen default font and size. Easy! The post How to change the default font and size in Word first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

Sometimes it’s the little things, you know? Why does Chrome, by default, only show part of a website address in the address bar? I don’t know, but here’s how to fix that.   This one is pretty simple. If you’re not sure what I’m talking about here, just open Chrome and go to any website. As an example, we can visit my own website, ComputerTutorFlorida.com. The actual, full website address is this: https://ComputerTutorFlorida.com. But this is what is shown in the address bar in Chrome:   Why doesn’t it show the full URL? I don’t know. But for me, I just like to have the full website address displayed there. I like seeing the https:// to clearly show that the site is secure, and if a site is not secure, I want to see the http:// (even though Chrome will show a message that says “not secure” on sites that don’t have a valid security certificate). Fortunately, it’s easy to force Chrome to show the full address each time. Type the following line into the Chrome address bar: chrome://flags/#omnibox-context-menu-show-full-urls Of course, you could just copy and paste it as well. When that text is in the address bar, hit Enter on the keyboard. You’ll see some options come up in Chrome, and the first one listed will say “Context menu show full URLs”. Out to the right will be a drop down menu – in that menu, choose “Enabled”: Now go to the bottom of Chrome and click on “Relaunch”. When Chrome opens again, do a RIGHT click on the address bar, and choose “Always show full URLs”: Now you’ll see the complete website address for any site you visit!  The post How to show full URL in the Chrome address bar first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

If you’re looking to buy something from an individual, one of the best places to find a bargain is on Craigslist. But what if you want to shop on Craigslist outside of your local area? You have another option!   I have made a LOT of purchases over the years on Craigslist (craigslist.org). It was the original online classified ads site, and it’s still going strong (even though there are some other good options such as OfferUp and Facebook Marketplace). If you’re looking for something like a lawnmower, a used car, a bedroom set, a bike – Craigslist will have lots of listings. These are things that are common enough that you can almost always find someone selling it within 5-10 miles of where you live. If you don’t mind shopping around for a bit, you can get a bargain. For some items, I do a search on Craigslist using my criteria (location, price, etc) and then I save that search and set an alert. So when something that matches is listed, I get an email within 20-30 minutes of when it goes live, so I have often been the first call on an item and gotten a deal just by being quick. But what about if you’re searching for something that’s not quite as common? Maybe you’re a collector of first edition books. Or perhaps you’re shopping for a particular model Rolex watch. Yes, you might find what you’re looking for within a 20-mile radius of where you live, but your chances are much better if you expand your geographic area much farther than that – like the entire country. But Craigslist itself doesn’t offer that option. You can pick and choose other cities to do your search one at a time, but that could get very tedious. Instead, there is another site that allows you to do this. It’s called Search Tempest – SearchTempest.com.   Right there on the home page, you just enter the item you want to find, the category, your local zip code, and the farthest distance the search should include. So let’s say I’m looking for a John Grisham first edition book. I enter the relevant information:   And when I click the Search button, it shows me what’s available. And guess what – there’s a first edition John Grisham book available for just $5. And it’s at the other end of the country, in the Sacramento, California area. I certainly never would have found that just searching the traditional way on Craigslist. Of course, at this point, it’s up to me to contact the seller and explain that I’m not in their local area. Usually when you list something for sale on Craigslist, you either get local calls from prospective buyers, or you get emails from scammers. So this seller might be a bit hesitant when my email says I’m in Florida and I want to purchase that book. Most likely, I would need to send the money first, and I would need to cover the cost of shipping. In addition to showing you what’s available on Craigslist, you’ll also see the search results for your item in eBay. You could do that directly in eBay obviously, but it’s definitely convenient being able to do both in one place. And if you want to try out another universal Craigslist search engine, check All Craigslist Search (https://AllCraigslistSearch.com). I haven’t tried that one yet but it looks like it would work as well. The post Best way to search Craigslist nationwide first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

With some recent updates, you might see a new icon on your screen – the icon for Microsoft Edge. What do you do with it?   In case you didn’t know, Microsoft Edge is the web browser that comes with Windows 10. Microsoft doesn’t want you to use Chrome or Firefox (the high-quality web browsers) – they want you to use their crappy browser, Edge. That’s why, sometimes after a Windows Update, you might find that your default browser has been changed to Edge. Here’s an interesting bit of information. When you get a new Windows computer, the default web browser is set to be Microsoft Edge. So if you don’t do anything, that’s the program you’ll be using to view websites. So you’d think, since Edge is the default, that a lot of computers would still have it as their web browser. Often in situations like this, people are just lazy and don’t bother to change a program, they just go with what is already there because it’s convenient. But not in this case. As I write this, roughly 70% of computer users around the world have their default web browser set to be Google Chrome. Only 7% are using Edge. What does that tell us? It tells us that Edge is so awful, one of the first things people do when they get a new computer is download and install Google Chrome, and set that as their default browser. The vast majority of people do that, so that they don’t have to use Edge. Installing Chrome is definitely one of the things I do every time I set up a new computer – I put Chrome on there, and set it up with ad blockers so you don’t have to see all the junky ads when you visit websites. Chrome has all kinds of great extensions and ways you can customize it for the way you want to work and how you want to view websites. But here’s what I want to tell you today. With a recent update, you might see the Microsoft Edge icon as a new icon on your desktop screen. You might also see it down at the bottom of your screen, on the taskbar. It looks like this: Microsoft Edge icon   In fact, you might even see a full size window filling your screen, telling you to download the new Edge:   If you see that full size screen, just close it with the X in the top right corner. If you see the Edge icon at the bottom of your screen on the taskbar, do a RIGHT click on it, and choose “Unpin from taskbar”. If you see the Edge icon as a new icon on your desktop screen, do a RIGHT click on it, and choose Delete. If you find that Microsoft has changed your default browser from Chrome (or Firefox) to Edge, you can just change it back: Click the Start button, then click the Settings icon. Click on Apps, then click on the Default Apps section on the left. Scroll down and click on “Web browser”, and choose Chrome (or Firefox if you prefer) from the list. By doing these things, you aren’t actually removing Edge from your computer. You can’t really do that easily, since it’s part of Windows 10. But these steps will at least move it out of sight so you don’t accidentally click on it. And don’t be surprised if you have to do these things again after another Windows Update. The post What to do when you see the “new” Microsoft Edge first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

If you’re on Facebook, you’ve most likely seen the posts talking about the Jayco RV company having a promotion and offering to give away a free RV to some lucky winner. Well… I have some bad news for you.   The Facebook post that you see was most likely shared by one of your friends. And they shared it because they saw one of their other friends share it. It’s crazy how fast these things blow up. The original post reads like this: With a lot of people out of work and Covid-19 keeping them out of work, we know money is tighter more now than ever! So by 9 pm Thursday, someone who shares and also comments will be the new owner of this Jayco Embark 2020 RV, paid off and ready to drive away, keys in hand! And of course it’s accompanied by some beautiful pictures of the $150k RV, which of course is designed to make everyone salivate and really, really want to be the winner. So the eager “contestants” do as instructed, and click the Like button, and make a really creative comment like “I’d love to have this” and click the Share button. The sad thing is, they have only accomplished two things. They have cluttered their friends’ Facebook news feed with (yet another) hoax, and they’ve told all their friends that they’re kind of gullible for believing this is actually real. Jayco is not giving away an RV. There is no contest or drawing. Don’t comment and don’t share it. If anything, tell the person who shared it that they should delete it. This has become so common, and so many people have shared it in order to win, that the Jayco RV company had to actually come out with a statement explaining that it was all fake. This is what they posted on their company Facebook page: So what’s the point of this? Why would someone create a fake Facebook page about giving away an RV? Well, the scammers usually have one of these plans in mind: First, they might get thousands or hundreds of thousands of Likes and Shares. That means that the content that gets posted on that Facebook page will get seen by a lot of those people. So they’ll eventually change it from the RV giveaway to something else, like a spammy product they want to sell. The “RV Giveaway” might change to “Get free quote on your auto insurance!”. And since it cost them nothing to get all of these followers, it’s free advertising. Second, they might just build up the Facebook page with a lot of likes and follows, and then just sell the page on the black market. Any Facebook page that has a high number of followers has value, so it is something that certain people will pay for. So when you see something like this, know that it’s just a scam. Don’t help the scammers! Click the 3 dots at the top, then click on “Report page”. Hopefully Facebook will agree that it’s just a hoax and take it down quickly.      The post The RV giveaway scam first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

Did you know that the Windows 10 Start menu is re-sizable? It’s really easy to do too.   Microsoft seems to be obsessed with making the Windows 10 Start Menu be so large that it takes up much of the desktop screen. Of course, it doesn’t help that they fill it by default with a bunch of junk like XBox games and Candy Crush and Bing News. But we can fix all of that. There are actually a couple of ways you can configure it so that the Windows 10 Start Menu takes up less space on your screen. First, you can get rid of all the tiles they stick in there. This is one of the things I do as standard procedure when I’m setting up a new computer – either a computer that a client has just purchased new, or a laptop that I’m setting up for resale. None of those tiles are needed, so I get rid of all of them. All you have to do is right click on each tile individually, and in the little menu that comes up, click on “Unpin from Start”. And that tile is gone. When you’re done, open the Start Menu again and you’ll see that all that’s there is the scrollable list of all your apps and programs. Much cleaner.   The second thing you can do is physically re-size the Start Menu. You’re able to actually make it taller or shorter, as well as wider or thinner. To do this, just click the Start button so that the Start Menu appears on the screen. Then put your cursor at the top edge of the Start Menu. You’ll see that the cursor changes to an up-arrow and down-arrow icon, and when it’s like that, you can click and drag the top edge of the Start Menu up or down. Just move it to where you like it and let go. You can do the same thing with the right edge of the Start Menu – just click and drag left or right and make it the size you prefer. For me, I like for the Start Menu to be as small and inconspicuous as possible. But that’s just my personal preference. You can set yours to look the way you want. And I’ll bet if you show your friends this Start Menu resizing trick, it’s probably something they didn’t even know was possible. The post How to resize the Windows 10 Start Menu first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

Quick tip today – big Windows Update is coming, so be ready for it by backing up your computer.   This update was actually released a few months ago, and is referred to by two names: The May 2020 Update Windows 10 version 2004 Even though it is called both names, it’s the same update. Some Windows 10 computers have already received it, but many have not. Here’s how to check to see if your computer has already received it: Hold down the Windows key on the keyboard, and tap the letter “r” In the Open box, type: winver and click OK This will open a new window which will show your version number for Windows 10:   If you already have the update, it will say Version 2004. The version just prior to that is 1909. The one before that is 1903. What to do: If your computer is at version 1903 or earlier, I recommend that you get updated to at least version 1909 (it’s quite stable). If your computer is running version 2004 and not showing any problems, that’s good. If your computer is running version 1909, you don’t need to get the newest update yet – but it’s coming. You need to be ready for it. In some cases, the newest big Windows Update can cause problems for Windows 10 computers. So you need to have a full system image backup in place, so you are ready in case your computer gets stuck in an endless loop during a Windows update. The program I use for this update is called Macrium Reflect. It’s free for personal use, and it works great. I have quite a few clients who have avoided losing data after a hard drive crash, because they had this backup. It’s a bit complex to set up initially, but once it’s in place, doing a backup is super simple. You just plug in the backup drive at night, and unplug it in the morning. It’s an incredibly easy thing to do, in order to avoid the huge headache that comes with losing all of your important files and folders. So my challenge to you today is this: get your backup in place. If you need help with this, I can do the whole thing remotely. So you don’t have to have anyone come in to your home or office, and you don’t have to bring your computer anywhere. AND – if you are one of my many clients who already has Macrium Reflect set up to do that overnight backup – when was the last time you did it? I do mine every single night, because it’s just easier to be in that habit. Do your backup tonight, and don’t worry about what a Windows Update might do to your computer. The post Back up your files BEFORE this forced update comes in first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

If you read this blog or listen to my podcast regularly, you should probably by now be pretty good at spotting a scam. Or at least being suspicious enough to investigate further. But what if the scammer shows that he has your actual password?   This is one that I get calls about pretty regularly. Many of my long-term clients and readers of this blog or listeners to the podcast can catch when a scam is fairly obvious, but this one makes them think twice. Or in some cases, they believe that the message that they received is actually true (it isn’t). Here’s the email that usually gets sent (for this example, we’ll assume that the recipient of the email has used the word “pineapple89” as one of their passwords, either in the past or currently): From: [email protected] Sent: Monday, July 20, 2020 To: [email protected] Subject: Your password pineapple89 Your password is pineapple89. I know a lot more things about you than that. How? I placed a malware on the porn website and guess what, you visited this website to have fun (you know what I mean). While you were watching the video, your web browser acted as an RDP (Remote Desktop) and a keylogger, which provided me access to your display screen and webcam. Right after that, my software gathered all your contacts from your Messenger, Facebook account, and email account. What exactly did I do? I made a split-screen video. The first part recorded the video you were viewing (you’ve got an exceptional taste haha), and the next part recorded your webcam (Yep! It’s you doing nasty things!). What should you do? Well, I believe $4900 is a fair price for our little secret. You’ll make the payment via Bitcoin to the below address (if you don’t know this, search “how to buy Bitcoin” in Google). Bitcoin Address: gb399Hi492hEN7Gvq99jum4WMt4956PcG (it is cAsE sensitive, so copy and paste it) Important: You have 24 hours to make the payment. (I have a unique pixel within this email message, and right now I know that you have read this email). If I don’t get the payment, I will send your video to all of your contacts, including relatives, co-workers, and so forth. Nonetheless, if I do get paid, I will erase the video immediately. If you want evidence, reply with “Yes!” and I will send your video recording to your five friends. This is a non-negotiable offer, so don’t waste my time and yours by replying to this email.   Some observations about that email message: First, if you suspected this was a scam, what would be the first thing you would want? Proof that they have this alleged video. So they knock down that objection right in the message. You want evidence, ok – we’ll send the video to five of your friends. Of course the victim does not want that to happen. Second, payment is requested to be made by Bitcoin. This way, the scammers can get the money and still remain anonymous. Third, what is the real kicker that makes some recipients think it might be real? The fact that the scammer has the actual, legitimate password that the recipient has used in the past, or might still be using on some accounts currently. How is that possible? You’ve probably heard of the massive data breaches, like the ones that happened at Target, or the multiple times Yahoo! has gotten hacked into. There are lots of other companies that have had this happen. When the hackers get this data, they are holding in their hands a large database of customer information. In a lot of cases, each record includes the email address for the customer, as well as the password connected with that email address. This information is sold on the black market to scammers. So the scammers have that list of email addresses, most of which are still actively being used. And they have a password that was also used for that account, whether it was with Yahoo! or whatever the online account was. And the scammers know one very important fact: many people use the same password for all of their accounts. So they know that when they send out that email to hundreds or thousands of people, a LOT of those recipients are going to see that password right there, and think, “Oh no – this must be for real”. But of course there is no video, and the whole thing is a bluff. Many people will read it and ignore it, but if the scammer sends out 1000 of those emails, and just 1/100th of a percent of the recipients fall for it and pay, that’s still a $4900 payday. And if 2 or 3 of those pay, that’s a ridiculous payoff. What should you do if you get one of these scam emails? The one thing you should do right away is to change your password for any accounts that still have that password. One of the things scammers are known to do is to try that email and password to log in to bank accounts, Paypal accounts, email accounts, anything that could potentially have value for them. So change that password and nev

Want to avoid getting into trouble with your computer? Here are some things you DON’T want to do.   Don’t have Chrome (or any browser) store your passwords. Yes, it makes it really easy to access all your website accounts. But it’s also really dangerous, because if your computer ever got hacked into, or lost, or stolen, all of your passwords are right there in plain text. Don’t use the backup software that came with your portable or external hard drive. Every company that makes hard drives also offers backup software – Western Digital, Seagate, Toshiba, etc. None of those programs are as reliable as Macrium Reflect, the one I use and recommend (I’ve installed and configured it on hundreds of computers). Don’t talk to scammers when they call you. If someone calls and says they’re with Microsoft, just hang up immediately. It might be tempting to explain that you know it’s a scam, but these guys are clever. They know that the longer you stay on the phone, the more likely they are to actually convince you that they ARE Microsoft tech support. Just hang up. Don’t call a tech support number that pops up on your screen along with some kind of error message or alert. Especially if that pop-up is accompanied by a robotic voice telling you about this terrible problem with your computer. And the message always includes the warning to NOT TURN OFF OR RESTART THE COMPUTER. If that happens, don’t call the phone number. Just restart the computer. Don’t open email attachments. That’s my policy. The only exception is when I get an email with an attachment, and I’m already expecting that email, and I already know what the attachment is. Otherwise, it just gets deleted. It’s kind of amazing, but one of the primary ways to deliver a virus to a computer these is still by sending an email with an attached file that contains a virus. Don’t search Google for a tech support phone number. The scammers have made LOTS of websites that are designed to look like “Dell Tech Support” or “HP Printer Tech Support”, and they design those websites to come up in the search results in Google. When you call them, they are of course happy to “help” you – but you’re talking to a scammer, not Dell or HP. Don’t do your online banking while connected to a public wifi. This is pretty much common sense, but people still do it. In fact, don’t connect to anything that involves personal or private information when you’re at Starbucks or McDonalds or any other public wifi provider. It’s not secure. Don’t re-use the same password (or a slight variation of it) on multiple accounts. The hackers know that most people do this, and they know that it makes their job much easier. All they have to do is get into ONE of your accounts – and now they have the password for ALL of your accounts. Yes, it’s inconvenient to have a different password for every account, but only if you’re trying to remember all of them. You don’t have to though – just use LastPass. That’s what I use. I can set it up for you remotely if you want. What other computer “don’ts” do you follow? The post Some important computer DON’Ts first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

If you have never visited Reddit, you are missing out on one of the biggest and most popular sites on the internet. Today we’ll talk about a few of the unknown corners of that world.   What is Reddit? Basically, it’s a social media site. But this is no Facebook. One big way it’s different is that most people don’t use their real name on Reddit like they do on Facebook. So the relative anonymity creates a “freer” environment for discussion. And of course, that can be good or bad. Another difference is how you vote on things. In Facebook, you can click the “Like” for something you like, but there’s no “Dislike” button (even though people have wanted one for a long time). On Reddit, every post and comment has an up arrow and a down arrow, and you can express your opinion just by clicking one of them. The best way to figure out what Reddit’s all about is to just go there: Reddit.com. You can browse without having an account, but you will need an account in order to post something or to give an upvote or downvote. Reddit is made up of thousands of discussion groups, and each one has it’s own topic or theme. There are probably around 150,000 of these now, and each one is called a subreddit. There are subreddits for almost any topic you can think of. Some of the more popular ones are r/funny (each post is something humorous), r/pics (interesting pictures), or r/politics (anything related to the US government). Something fun is that anyone with an account can create their own subreddit. So, as you can imagine on a social site with over 300 million users, there are some very unusual and niche groups. I even have a subreddit for my other podcast (r/WhatWasThatLike). As you explore Reddit, you’ll come across some very interesting and unusual subreddits. Here are a few that even veteran Redditors aren’t usually aware of: r/HostileArchitecture Hostile Architecture is actually a subject I’ve been intrigued by for quite some time. Have you ever been outside in some public place, like walking on a sidewalk in the downtown area of a city, and you want to sit down and rest for a bit? You look around, and there’s a building nearby, and there’s a sort of horizontal ledge that is part of the building, and it sticks out maybe 6 inches or so. Yes, you can sort of sit on it to take the weight off your feet for a few minutes, but it’s such an uncomfortable place to sit, you can’t stay there very long. It was constructed that way deliberately. If that ledge stuck out maybe 18 inches, you could sit there for a long time. But that business doesn’t want people sitting out there all day. A lot of times, this kind of thing is created with the plan for keeping homeless people away. Flat surfaces are constructed at an angle so that no one can sleep there. In some cases, jagged edges or large bumps are built into the cement to make it uncomfortable. An example of this would be this bench, in Arlington, Virginia. The armrest in the middle is there so that no one can lie prone on the bench:   In the Hostile Architecture subreddit, anyone that sees something like this can take a picture and submit it. And there’s a LOT of this – it’s just something that most people don’t really think about.   r/FormerPizzaHuts If there’s any public building that has a visually identifiable shape, it’s a Pizza Hut restaurant. Everyone knows what they look like:   But what about when a Pizza Hut restaurant closes, and another restaurant, or even another totally different type of business, moves in? The design of the roof usually stays the same, so no matter what business currently occupies the building, everyone knows that it was formerly a Pizza Hut. In this subreddit, everyone submits pictures of former Pizza Huts that are now a different business. Like this one – formerly Pizza Hut, now Domino’s:   r/UpliftingNews/ Okay, this one is a little more practical. Or at least inspiring. As you might guess by the name, in this group every post is some type of news article that is comprised of GOOD news. I mean, aren’t we all sick of the negative, depressing news that gets broadcast 24 hours a day? I am, which is why I don’t even watch the news. Here are a few examples of things recently posted in this subreddit: Teenager saves the life of a 74-year old woman – this elderly lady was home alone, and fell in her garage. She broke her femur and was unable to get up. She managed to open the garage door with a broom, and yelled for help for a while. A 16 year old girl who lives nearby saw the woman’s dog running loose, and brought it back home. That’s when she found the lady and called for an ambulance. Since then the two have become good friends. Florida’s highway welcome centers will once again offer orange juice – When I was a kid li

Today I’ll show you the absolute quickest way to get to all of your important files on your Windows computer.   You might already know that you can click on the little “file folder” icon at the bottom of the screen to open Windows File Explorer. It looks like this:   That opens a window (File Explorer) that shows some of your personal folders such as Documents, Pictures, etc. But it doesn’t show ALL of your personal files and folders. So how do you see all of them? It’s easy to do this: Hold down the Windows key (lower left area of the keyboard) and tap the letter “r” In the search box, type “.” (just a period, without the quotes) Hit Enter What you see next is your user profile folder. This displays ALL of the files and folders in your Windows user profile. A couple of things to note: That window will only show the contents for the user profile you are signed into at the moment. If there is more than one user profile in this computer, you would need to go to the other user profile(s) to see the contents of that profile. Some programs store data in weird places. One example is Quickbooks. More than once, I have seen the Quickbooks company files stored in the user profile called “Public” – completely outside the user profile being used. This is not only confusing, it could also be dangerous – since that folder might not be included in a backup process. You really should check and see where Quickbooks is storing your data.   The post How to find your important files first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

If you order anything online (and don’t we all?) you definitely should be using this Chrome extension. It will save you money.   I’ll tell you this up front – I don’t usually get involved with this kind of thing. In many cases – actually I would say in MOST cases – if you get something that pops up asking you to install it and promising to save you money on all your purchases, it’s just junk. When you install it, you’re likely to get all kinds of bad stuff added to your computer, and you definitely won’t be saving any money. But this one is different. I had heard about Honey before, but never really paid much attention to it. But not too long ago, I was buying something online and the total came to around $300, and added to that was sales tax and about $30 shipping cost. I don’t know what made me think of it, but before I completed the checkout process, I thought, “I wonder if Honey can save me any money on this.” So I went to the Honey website (joinhoney.com) and searched on the name of the item I was about to purchase. And I was surprised to find that Honey came up with a promo code for me to try. So I copied that promo code, and went back to the checkout screen where I was about to make that purchase, and entered it in the “Promo code” box and hit “Apply”. And that quick little experiment gave me a 10% discount on that purchase! So I saved $30, which in effect means I got free shipping. And it never would have happened if I had not given Honey a shot to see if it really works. That’s when I became a believer. I’ve used Honey since then and saved money on other purchases as well. And the best thing is, it’s free. You don’t have to join any silly “shopping club” or get a paid membership on the website, or anything. If you want to try it out, you can use the Honey website like I did my first time using it. But it’s a whole lot easier to just get the extension and have it running in Chrome all the time. You can get the Chrome extension here. I think there’s one for Firefox as well, and probably some other browsers. Once you have the extension installed, if you look up at the top of Chrome in the right corner, you should see the little Honey “h” icon up there. It looks like this:   Then, whenever you are shopping for something online, and about to check out, you can click that icon and it will search the internet for any promo codes that are available for whatever you’re about to buy. It only takes a couple of seconds. With that extension always there, you can be confident that you’re getting the best price possible on your online purchases. And Honey also works whenever you buy anything on Amazon too! I have not yet tried it on take-out orders for restaurants, but I think it would work for that. If you are a Honey user, or just became one after reading this, let me know what your experience has been. How much money have you saved? The post This Chrome extension will save you money first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

Today we’ll learn about a free service that let’s you talk into your computer, and have those words made into a document.   Since I type on my computer keyboard all the time, I’m able to type pretty quickly. I haven’t measured my typing speed lately but I do okay. Which is kind of funny, since I absolutely despised typing class in high school. But here is something that’s true for me, and probably for almost anyone: you can talk faster that you can type. So if you would prefer to just talk to your computer and have it translate your spoken words into digital words (such as in a document, a blog post, etc), the Speechtexter service let’s you do that. And they make it pretty easy. If you go to Speechtexter.com, you’ll see a pretty obvious button right in the middle of the page that says “Start dictating”:   When you click that, you’re immediately presented with a big white space, similar to a blank document. Then you can tap the ESC key on your keyboard, and start talking (assuming you have a microphone connected to the computer, or that you’re using the laptop’s built-in mic).   This is when you’ll want to start experimenting. Just say a few words and watch them appear on the screen. When I played with it, it didn’t really seem odd since I often speak into my phone to dictate a text message. It’s just much faster than typing it on my phone. One of the big conveniences with Speechtexter is that you can also say what punctuation you want to use. There’s a chart just to the right of white area that lists what the program recognizes:   And when you’re all done and all your words are on the screen, you can click the Download icon in the top right corner, and choose whether or not you want to download it as a plain text file (.txt) or as a Word document (.doc). And now you have literally spoken something into existence! I think the way I would be most likely to use this is if I have a long letter or document that is in print form, and I need to get it into digital form. So I could just read the document into SpeechTexter, then save it. Would you use this online service? What kind of situation could you imagine it being a handy tool? Let me know in the comments below. The post If you prefer talking instead of typing – try Speechtexter first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

Today we’re talking about three things that a lot of people believe to be true about computers, but in fact they are not true.   Myth #1: Turning the computer off, then powering it up again, is a restart. FALSE I always tell people, you need to restart your computer every day or two. This resets the uptime counter, refreshes the memory, just gives the whole thing a fresh start. And often when I tell them that, the response is, “Oh, I do that every night!” Meaning, they turn the computer off at night, and turn it back on the next morning. But doing that is not a restart. Intuitively, you’d think it would be a more THOROUGH restart, but the opposite is true. You need to click the Start button, then the power Icon, and then click on the word “Restart”.   Myth #2: Formatting wipes all the data off the hard drive. FALSE If you have a portable drive, and you plug it in to your computer, you can look and see exactly what is on that drive. All the files and folders are there for you to look at. Then, if you do a right click on that drive letter and choose “Format”, you can wait a minute until it’s done, and if you look again, you won’t see any files or folders listed there now. They must be all gone, right? Nope. They are still there. Formatting just tells the computer that all of that space is now open for you to put new files and folders on there. So if you have sensitive data on a drive and you’re planning to dispose of it, don’t just format it and assume that data is gone.   Myth #3: If your computer is running too slowly, you must need to defrag. FALSE This is something every computer tech has heard. A client walks in the door with their computer, and the complaint is that it is running very slowly. “I tried defragging it, but it didn’t seem to make any difference!” That is correct. Defragging will almost never make any difference, for two reasons. First, your hard drive would have to be extremely fragmented in order for defragmentation (the actual term) to make any difference. Second, your computer is already defragging on its own, on a regular schedule. It’s part of the default maintenance that’s already set up in Windows.   Did you believe any of these myths before reading this? Let me know what you think in the comments below!    The post 3 common computer myths first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

If you do Facebook on your desktop or laptop computer, you probably see a lot of posts that have a bunch of comments that are just animated GIFs. I find nothing more annoying than that. But now I don’t see them any more!   There are actually a lot of things that I find really annoying about Facebook: People who create a new post that says something like, “Well, here I am at the emergency room again!” with no context or details. It’s like they want all their friends to immediately comment, “Oh no, are you okay??”. There’s actually a term for that kind of post: vaguebooking. People who post in a local group and ask for recommendations for a good pizza place, or a good vet, or whatever – and they end the post with “… and GO!” like we’re all just waiting at the starting line to provide what they’re asking for. “News” or “life hacks” that are completely fake. I’ve seen so much of this especially recently with the COVID-19 situation. People see something that sounds like a great medical tip, and they don’t bother to check it out or verify, they just click the “Share” button to spread the misinformation to more people. No, sitting in the sauna does not kill the coronavirus. Fortunately for those kinds of posts, I have one tried and true solution. I just unfollow that person. So we’re still Facebook friends, but I never see anything they post after that. And they can still see what I post. And they have no idea that I have unfollowed them. Quick and easy. But there’s a different annoyance that cannot be fixed by unfollowing. It’s the animated GIFs in comments. You probably know what I’m talking about. Someone will create a post in Facebook, like usual. But then someone will reply with a comment that’s just this animated GIF image, like a person clapping their hands, or a cat jumping up and down, or something with lots of movement. And the movement repeats like every 2 seconds, over and over and over. For me, this is incredibly distracting and annoying. Yes, you can click on the moving image itself to make it stop, but there could be a whole barrage of those images in separate replies to the same post, so you have to click on each one individually to make them stop moving. And guess what – even if you click to make them all stop bouncing around, that same post will probably show up in your Facebook feed in a few hours, and they’re all moving again. It was driving me bonkers. And Facebook does not offer any setting to be able to turn those things off. Yes, you can turn off having video automatically play in a FB post, but that does not apply to these images that are added through the comments. But recently I found a wonderful solution. It’s a Chrome extension called FB Purity. Now I’m sure if you took a guess you might think that stands for Facebook Purity, right? But I think the app developers were concerned about using the name “Facebook” in the app, so the actual name is Fluff Busting Purity. But everyone knows that the whole purpose of it is to clean up a bunch of junk in Facebook. And it does a LOT more than just what we’re talking about here today. You can get the Chrome extension here: https://www.fbpurity.com/install.htm (it also works with Firefox and some other browsers). Just download and install, then the next time you open Facebook, you’ll see the FBP icon at the top: When you click that, you’ll see a new window with a HUGE variety of options for you to choose from, about how you want Facebook to be displayed. This is what mine looks like: You might notice some of the choices I’ve made – I have hidden all Sponsored Posts – so on my Facebook I don’t see any ads. I love that! Then, further down the list, I have chosen to always display the items in my News Feed with the Most Recent ones starting at the top. And then you’ll see that I’ve checked “Show Full Date/Time on posts” – so if you see an older post, it doesn’t just say “3 weeks ago”. It will give me the actual date and time it was posted. Not a big deal, just my preference. So let’s get to wiping out the animated GIFs. Over on the left side, click on the category “Font, Colour and Design”. You’ll see in this section you have all kinds of control over the size and color of the text in Facebook. But when you look way down the list, you’ll see the checkbox for “Hide Animated GIFs”. Just check that and click on Save and Close (on the right).   So that solves that problem. But as you can see, there are MANY other options available for you to tweak how Facebook works and displays on your computer. Play around with FB Purity, and let everyone know in the comments which setting you like the best. And please note – FB Purity

If you buy a brand new computer, there’s a chance you might turn it on and find that it’s not just running Windows 10. It might be running Windows 10 in S Mode. Most people don’t want that. Here’s how to get out of S Mode.   What exactly IS “S Mode” anyway? You could think of S Mode as being sort of Windows 10 in “Lockdown”. Maybe with the recent Coronavirus situation, “lockdown” might not be a good term to use. But it’s accurate though. Windows 10 S Mode means you cannot install the software that you might normally use. You can ONLY install apps from the Microsoft Store. You can’t use Chrome or Firefox – you’re pretty much stuck using Microsoft Edge, which almost no one uses willingly. And you can’t even set your default search engine as Google – you are forced to search by default using Bing, since that’s Microsoft’s search engine. What if you want to use Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, etc)? Of course you can do that – because Office is a product of Microsoft! But seriously, for most users, the restrictions on a computer running Windows 10 S Mode are just too much. So if you buy a computer that happens to come with S Mode already running, you’ll probably want to get it out of that status and back into “regular” Windows 10 like you’re used to. How to get your computer out of Windows 10 S Mode First a warning: once you get out of S Mode, you can’t go back. It will never be able to go back to S Mode again. I’m guessing you’re probably okay with that, since you’re about to learn how to get it out of S Mode to start with. You need to go to the Microsoft Store. To do that, you can either click the Start button in the lower left and scroll down alphabetically and click on “Microsoft Store”:   Or, you could just click the Microsoft Store icon that is probably on your taskbar:   When you click that and go to the Store, find the search function in the upper right (the magnifying glass), then click on it and search the phrase “Switch out of S Mode”. When you see it, click on “Learn More” and it will just take you right through the process. You don’t have to pay anything for this. After you’re done (just takes a few clicks), it would be good to restart your computer (in fact, it’s always a good idea to restart your computer). Now the fun part starts – getting all your software installed! The post How to get out of Windows 10 “S mode” first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

Fun topic today! I watch a bit of Youtube each night before I drift off to sleep. I have a few channels that I subscribe to, and these are some that I think you might find entertaining as well. I’ll tell you about them below, and include one of my favorite videos from each one. Warning – some videos have swearing.   Favorite #1: The Lock Picking Lawyer View it here Subscribers: 1.38 million I’ve always had a minor interest in lock picking (as a hobby, not anything sketchy). For those that are more serious about learning how to do it, the hobby itself is called Locksport. But this guy, The Lock Picking Lawyer, takes it to a whole new level. For most of his videos, he takes a particular brand and model of lock and shows how ridiculously simple it is to bypass. And wait til you see what he does. He uses a simple lock pick and I don’t think there is ANY lock he can’t open. It’s really incredible. All the major brands – Master Lock, Brinks, any of them. He especially likes to take the ones that are advertised as “pick proof”. Even if you’re not really into lock picking yourself, this guy is very entertaining to watch what he does. In this video, he gets into a home safe – using a coat hanger.   Favorite #2: Gas Station Encounters View it here Subscribers: 1.24 million This one combines comedy and petty theft, and it turns out to be a pretty entertaining result! There’s a gas station/convenience store located somewhere in northeast Ohio (I don’t know exactly where). They have cameras mounted throughout the store so that virtually every square inch of space can be seen and recorded (it’s not a huge place, just a typical convenience store). And the guy that runs the place, Brandon, takes huge pleasure in catching shoplifters. There are two big monitors right next to each cash register, so he can actually be watching someone steal something even while ringing up another customer. If he is 100% sure of a theft, he’ll follow the person outside and confront them, and make them come back in and pay for the item. What’s really funny is Brandon’s narration when he edits the video to be posted on YouTube. Here’s one where he catches a guy stealing some nail clippers.   Favorite #3: Jose Barrientos View it here Subscribers: 94,500 Another channel that combines two of my favorite things – comedy and hacking. Jose is literally a comedian (he does stand-up comedy at clubs all over the country), and a hacker. But he’s the GOOD kind of hacker – he is what’s called a Penetration Tester. Companies hire Penetration Testers to see how vulnerable their security is. So Jose gets PAID to try to hack into the computer networks of big companies. Normally you wouldn’t think that a computer geek would have much of a sense of humor, right? Well, Jose is the exception. In fact, in the videos he makes, he often uses his sense of humor and his computer skills to bring justice and entertainment wherever it’s needed. And Jose has a heart for helping people: I work with a local non-profit group that gets things for the big homeless population here in Florida, and Jose bought and donated a brand new pair of work boots so that a man could be able to get a construction job. This video is one of my favorites from a while back, and it went viral. Jose played a little prank on his speech class all semester, then did the big reveal during the final class.   Bonus favorite: Surveillance Camera Man View it here Subscribers: 91,000 Okay, I’ll be the first to admit this one is kind of weird. This guy just goes out in public and films people for no reason. What would you do if a stranger just walked up to you and was recording a video, without saying anything? Naturally, people are initially confused and ask him what’s going on. His standard response is, “just taking a video” without giving a reason why. That’s when most people get angry and tell him to leave. But he doesn’t leave, and he doesn’t answer their questions. He just keeps recording video. In some cases, he’s out in public, so he could probably say he has the right to be there and people can’t really have a reasonable expectation of privacy. But in other situations he’s kind of a jerk, walking into private establishments and not leaving when he’s asked to. I believe the person that created this sees it as “art” and I guess you could make that argument. Or maybe it’s a social experiment. I also think I saw somewhere that he did this to increase awareness that there are already cameras everywhere, so we are already being watched all the time – it shouldn’t make any difference that an actual person is holding the camera and doing the filming right in front of you. Whatever the story is behind it, I find it entertaining. It’s one of those v

If you have any kind of vision challenge, or if your eyesight is just gradually getting worse over time, you aren’t the only one. One nice feature of Windows 10 – you can make everything bigger and easier to read.   I grew up wearing glasses since I was 8 years old. I could see things fine up close, but everything was blurry far away. About 12 years ago I had LASIK surgery to correct my vision. LASIK stands for “laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis” and it’s amazing. The whole procedure lasted about 15 minutes and the next day I just couldn’t believe it. I could go outside here in sunny Florida and see faraway things, perfectly clearly, without glasses. But there was a downside. After I had the surgery, I did not have the same close-up vision I had before. So I could see things far away with no problem, but I needed to wear reading glasses to read a book or to see something up close. And to be fair, the doctor told me this would most likely happen. In fact, he said that if I wanted to, I could have one eye corrected to see far away, and the other eye corrected just to see things up close. That was an option I pretty quickly declined. I knew I would probably eventually get used to it, but I just didn’t like the idea of having drastically different vision in each eye. And I really don’t mind too much having to wear reading glasses. Quality of vision definitely comes into play when you’re using a computer. I’m on my computer most of the day so it’s a big factor. I actually have a particular pair of readers for when I’m using the computer, and I use a different strength for when I’m reading a book. This is because the computer screen is farther away from my eyes than a book I’m holding. One thing Microsoft has done well with Windows 10 is allowing adjustments to be made for people with different eyesight abilities. There are several settings available to make it easy to see what’s on the screen. And here’s how you get to those settings: hold down the Windows key, and tap the letter U. This brings up the Display options, and there are a few controls on here you might want to experiment with. First, you’ll see a slide bar where you can make the text on the screen bigger. When it’s the size you like, click Apply. Then below that is the option to make everything bigger – this includes the apps AND the text that you see on the screen. You’ll also notice an option to make the cursor bigger, in case you have trouble seeing it on the screen: And finally, you’ll see a link where you can control the brightness of the screen. For me, everything is easier to see when it’s brighter.   If you’re on a computer for much of the day like I am, it makes a big difference when everything is easier to see and read. And it’s better for the health of your eyesight in the long run too.  The post How to make everything on your screen bigger first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

It’s one of the big frustrations with MS Word – you hit the Enter key, and the next line in your document is a DOUBLE space down from the last line. There are two ways to fix this.   You know what I’m talking about. You open a new blank document and start typing a letter, and the first time you hit Enter, there’s that huge space between the lines and it looks like you are double-spacing the whole thing. Why does Microsoft set that as the default? Are there that many people who are actually double-spacing every document they create? No idea. To fix this, there are a couple of options. The quick, “right now” fix is this: hold down the Shift key while you’re tapping the Enter key. This will cause that line return to just be a single space so you won’t have that big gap. But that only solves the problem for the document you are typing right now. Next time you open a new blank Word document, it will still be double spaced. The permanent solution is this: Open a new blank Word document. With the Home tab selected, look over to the Paragraph section.   In the Paragraph section, find the drop down menu called Line and Paragraph spacing and click the drop-down menu, then choose “Line Spacing Options”.   In the Spacing section, make sure the “Before” and “After” numbers are set to zero. Then, at the bottom click on “Set as Default”.   You’ll get a little question that pops up asking if you want to set this as the default for just THIS document, or for all Word documents. For me, I chose all documents since that’s the way I prefer to create documents. Then just click OK, and you’re done. Now, on the probably rare occasion you need to have a double-spaced line in Word document, you can just hit Enter twice.  The post How to make MS Word single-space all the time first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

Microsoft Outlook is the most popular email software in the world. But there’s one thing about it that sometimes frustrates users – the search function. Today we’ll talk about a common way to fix Outlook’s search process when it doesn’t seem to be working.   You know how it’s SUPPOSED to work – you type something in the little search field, and Outlook is supposed to find the emails that match that search:   And they give you that nice drop-down menu so you can limit where you are actually searching. It can be in the current folder that you have open at the time, or you can include subfolders, or you can search all of the folders in a particular mail account, or you can search all of your mail accounts, or you can search everything in Outlook (this would include calendar entries, contact list, etc.) But what about those times when you KNOW you have a particular email from someone, and you have not deleted it, but you just don’t know where to find it? It could be in your “Business” folder among the other 10,000 emails in there, or it could be somewhere in your inbox, or who knows where. But you know you have it, yet when you enter that person’s email address in the Outlook search field, the results come up with nothing. There are a couple of reasons why this might be happening: If Outlook was just installed recently, it could be that the program has not finished indexing all of your email data. In this case, you can just wait for it to finish (you can still use Outlook while it’s indexing) and eventually it will work. It’s possible that Outlook’s search index has become corrupted. But don’t worry – you can rebuild it. It might sound a little intimidating to think about a project like “rebuilding Outlook’s search index”, but it’s really pretty easy. Here’s how you do it. 1. Open Outlook, then click on File up in the top left corner, then click on Options   2. This will open a new window. In this window, click on the Search tab on the left, then click on the button that says “Indexing options”:   3. In the next window, click on Advanced:   4. In the next window, click on Rebuild. That’s it!   Now you just wait for Outlook to rebuild its entire index. But fair warning – you might be waiting a while. But it’s not really a problem, because Outlook will do that rebuilding in the background, and you can continue to use Outlook to send and receive email while it’s doing that. The post Why isn’t Outlook search working? Here’s why first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

This tip is based on what is probably the most common question I get, which is “Why is my computer running so slowly??” It is definitely frustrating when the computer lags behind. If your computer suddenly starts to run a lot more slowly than you think it should, there are a couple of things for you to check on.   First, you need to check on how long it’s been since the computer has been restarted. It’s important to note, I’m not saying how long since you turned it off, and then powered it back up again. I’m talking an actual restart. This means you clicked the Start button, then right above that you click the Power button, then in the menu options you click on the word Restart. This is what actually resets everything, refreshes the memory, and can resolve a lot of issues. To see how long it’s been since you last restarted, just hold down the Ctrl and Shift keys, and tap the Escape key. That brings up Task Manager. Then click on the Performance tab, and look for the Up time counter. It will show Days, Hours, Minutes and Seconds since the last restart:   I just checked it on my own computer, and you can see that mine has been running for 19 hours, 31 minutes and 15 seconds in that screenshot. A good guideline is to restart your computer every day or two. So many times, I’ve been asked to check a computer that’s doing all kinds of haywire things and running really slowly, then when I check the Up Time counter, it’s been running straight for like 51 days. For that computer, a restart will be like a drink of cold water to a man who’s been crawling in the desert sun all day. Second, you need to see if the hard drive is failing. Hard drives can fail gradually over time, or they can just stop working and not boot up again. So if it suddenly gets really slow, or some programs don’t open, or some programs take forever to finally run, those are often signs that the hard drive could be failing. Hopefully you have a backup, if there is anything important stored on your computer! To check the hard drive, we use a little program called Crystal Disk Info. It’s free, and you can download it here. Once you have downloaded the installation file, double click to run it and just follow the instructions for installing it. It’s very straightforward, and it doesn’t try to add any junkware or bad stuff to your computer. The very last screen on the installation process will give you the option to launch the program, and that box will already be checked, so go ahead and do it. When it runs, it will come up and show you a window full of numbers and other details. You can ignore all of that. The only thing you really need to look at is the big button on the left side. It will either say Good, Caution or Bad. This is mine:   Of course, you want that button to say Good. If it says Caution or Bad, that means you will need to replace your hard drive. And at that point if you don’t have your important stuff backed up, now would be a good time to try to do it, if you still can. Once that drive completely fails, you may not be able to get your stuff from it. Or you may have to hire someone to recover the data from it. Having a backup ahead of time is much less expensive, and much less stressful. There are other factors that can contribute to a computer slowing down, but these two things are a couple of the big ones. Definitely check them first. The post Computer slowdown? Check these two things first first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

If you think having security cameras in your home would be expensive and complicated, I have good news! I got some recently and they were really easy and affordable.   When you’re not at home, it’s nice to know that everything is okay. And even when you are at home, being able to see in another room, or outside, can be pretty convenient. When I’ve thought about implementing security cameras inside and outside my house in the past, I just put it off because it seemed like a “big project” – research all the cameras, compare features and cost, make the purchase, figure out where to put the cameras, and get all the alerts in place. I always have a bunch of things going on, and I never really wanted to set aside the hours I thought it would take to make this happen. But I happily discovered that it’s not really that difficult or expensive at all. I came across the Wyze cameras and found that they are fairly popular, and the people that use them are happy with them. So I dug a little deeper, found more good reviews, and decided to try them out myself. Now I have them, and I’m happy with them too. One note: to really use these, you will need a smart phone because everything is controlled through an app on the phone. But just about everyone uses a smart phone these days anyway. Here’s what I got. I purchased two of these on Amazon:   WyzeC2 camera   And I got one of these: Wyze Cam Pan   You can see right in the image that the pricing is very affordable. And as I mentioned earlier, all you have to do is get the Wyze app on your phone. It walks you through the whole setup. You can set the cameras to record everything, or you can have the recording process start when motion is detected. And you can upload everything to the cloud, so even if someone broke into your home and destroyed the camera(s), their picture would already be recorded and accessible. The difference between these two models is that the second one offers the ability to pan left and right, and tilt up and down. This way you can see more of the room. You might not need that feature though, since the cameras have a “fisheye” quality that really enables quite a wide viewing area. And both models also have full 2-way audio. So you can also hear what is going on in the room, and you can also speak to someone in the room if you want to. Again, this is all live-streamed through your phone, so it doesn’t matter if your camera is in your house in Texas, and you’re on vacation in Hong Kong. As long as you can get on the internet, you can see and hear what is happening in front of those cameras. For me, I’m using two for viewing a couple of rooms in my house. The third one I have mounted on my office window, pointing outward. So I can see when someone is in the driveway, or if an Amazon delivery truck has stopped. This is a screenshot from that camera:   I even figured out a way to have the app send that live picture to a TV in my office (through an app that is connected with the Amazon FireTV device), so just to the left of my two computer monitors is an always-on screen showing what’s going on outside. At a cost of USD $24 or $35, you don’t have the excuse of “too expensive”, and the app makes it so easy, anyone can set these things up. The post Security cameras that are easy to set up – and cheap first appeared on The Computer Tutor.