I’ve read Kim Komando’s tips before and I think they are often pretty useful.  There are some great ideas in this selection, like sharing a Nest video feed, or using a smartphone as a security camera. Dictation, too, is a very useful tool everyone can benefit from. The secret communication on an iPhone? I’m not too sure about that one.

How about doubling your internet speed? Some things are too good to be true, and this one is suspect. I suppose it depends, so it’s worth looking at. The gist is that the DNS can play a factor in internet access speed and that is true. Read it HERE and let me know if any of them help you out. 

Many PC tips are interchangeable with Mac tips. Particularly the key stroke shortcuts. Maybe you are a long time Mac user, but like PC users, there are always tips to pick up. Hopefully one of these will be good for you.

This week I’m referencing an article of top 10 tips for a Mac user. The one I particularly like, and is also on a PC is the File Format option. Tip 2 talks about saving a file in multiple formats from the preview option. When saving a file, you can Option click the Format and get a drop-down list of file formats you can save in. The same is true on a PC, you can often right click the save-as option and that will provide a list of different formats.

The number 5 option is handy if you want to de-clutter your dock, for instance. I like to keep the most used icons in my dock, and remove a lot of lesser used icons. There is a setting that allows recently used apps to appear in a divided section of the dock. Handy for coming back to things you don’t work on so much.
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Look at the article HERE, and see what appeals to you. https://www.macrumors.com/2023/02/14/10-macos-tips-make-life-easier/
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I haven’t written about Android stuff in a while. There are so many nice Android devices out there, I feel I’ve been neglectful. Some generous folks have given me a couple of tablets recently, which I gave away, and it reminded me of how much I like that OS.

Android tablets are generally cheaper than Apple’s, and there iare certainly a lot of them out there. An iPad is gorgeous, but not for everyone, and there are plenty of reasons to prefer an Android. I’m including a list of Android tips HERE.  I like Tom’s Guide for tips. I don’t think all of these are ‘winners’ but most are things an Android user should know about.

The reason I switched from an Android to an iPhone was because of Facetime. WhatsApp will do video calling, and it works on iPhones and Androids, so in that respect Facetime becomes superfluous, although Apple does tie together Facetime among iPhones very seamlessly. It would be nice if Android phones did that with WhatsApp.
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If you have a tip about computer devices that you’d like to share, send it to me. I’m always on the lookout for ideas.

I don’t work on Chromebooks very often. There isn’t much that can go wrong with them. Recently, I was given a Chromebook to work on that had been hacked. It wasn’t really hacked, and from what I’ve read, in terms of security, a Chromebook is about as secure as you can get. I don’t know how true that is, but it seems likely.
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In this case, the person had a pop-up in the Chrome browser saying he had been hacked, by Russians no less. Very specific. Hackers don’t usually tell you anything about themselves. I recognized the pop-up, as I’ve seen that sort of thing on Windows machines before. The computer isn’t compromised, it’s just being annoying.

In this case, I moved the cursor to one of the 3 pop-up windows and an X and a tool icon appeared I clicked on the tool icon and selected Block this sender. All three pop-up windows immediately disappeared and did not return. Some Internet suggestions were to reset the browser, or even reset the Chromebook. Both seemed a tad extreme.

This isn’t a ‘cure’, since another annoying site can do the same thing. With malware and hijacks, it’s a constant battle. They will always be out there phishing, and you will always try to not get hooked. The thing to remember is to NOT CALL THE NUMBER and give them your time and money. Breathe, and remember that the Russians didn’t hack you.

Next thing. Chromebooks are kind of cool. While I am used to Windows, and Macs are also great, Chromebooks are likely all that many of us need. The Chromebook simplifies what most of us are doing, which is going on the internet. Google also supplies many free apps, like word processing and spreadsheets, and it’s FREE.

If you have an old laptop you haven’t given me yet, you might want to turn it into a Chromebook and try it out. You can download the software to a USB drive and run it on anything, or even install it to the old laptop, which I recommend. Again, it’s free. I’ve written about it before, but this time, I’ll let Linus guide you through the process, from why it’s worth doing to the actual doing of it. Watch the Youtube video HERE.