If you have an Android phone, then you may be interested in the article HERE. 
Apparently there is some malicious software being downloaded from the Play Store imbedded in other software. This malware is able to create ways to bill your bank accounts and put the money into their accounts.

In other news, DON’T LET A STRANGER ACCESS YOUR COMPUTER. While it’s possible that the pop-up is really malware, it won’t be giving you a legitimate phone number to call for help. That is, in fact, a major clue that you should NOT call the number. Calling that number will likely put you in contact with the scammers and giving them access to your computer will be the final step in that part of the crime.

The best thing to do if you get a pop-up telling you that your computer has been infected and to call a phone number for immediate help, TURN OFF THE COMPUTER. Pull the plug if you have to, but don’t call the number. Get help from someone you trust. Get help from someone you know.

Windows and Microsoft will not have pop-up like that, so if it says it is them, it is a lie. The Marshall’s Office also will not have a pop-up telling you that it knows what you are doing or that you have outstanding warrants. They won’t call you either, nor will the IRS.

Ultimately, the best thing to do is stay off the computer, turn off your phones, and go for a hike. It’s so beautiful here. We went rock collecting in the Jemez Mountains yesterday. We found heavy black rocks made of glass, and light tan rocks that float on water, all in the same place by a beautiful mountain stream. How cool is that?

A few years ago I switched from an Android phone to an iPhone. It wasn’t because I thought the iPhone was better, it was because I wanted to do FaceTime on my phone. There are plenty of reasons to prefer an Android phone over an Apple phone, and vice versa.

Something that Apple does really well is tying together their products. Since they make them all, that’s a bit easier, I’m sure. Windows and Google and Android should all play together better, and perhaps they could put Apple out of business. Neither of those things is likely, and including Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, it’s really a race to take over the world. Personally, I’m voting for SpiffyCo to do that, but that’s just me.
I FaceTime my mom every day. It’s a great way to stay in touch, especially with the pandemic, and FT is by far the easiest way to do a video call. You can even add more people to the call, which I just stumbled onto, so that adds some more fun to it.
Apple is about to provide a way to send a link to non-Apple devices that will allow the person to join in a Facetime session. You can read about it HERE. 

It works using a browser, so pretty much any OS should be able to do it. The Apple device needs to initiate the request to Facetime, but that’s a start.
Still no non-Apple app yet, but maybe someday. 

I haven’t spoken about saving your computer’s hard drive data to a backup lately, so there, now I have.
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All hard drives fail. Today’s hard drives are really just a little card with a chip on it that stores your data. It’s fairly amazing. A failed hard drive, whether mechanical or solid state isn’t recoverable by the likes of me. That said, a ‘broken’ computer, even if you know it’s a problem with the hard drive, may have recoverable data on the drive. I have dealt with computer repairs where the hard drive has failed or is failing, or Windows is massively corrupted, but the data has still been recoverable. Sometimes not, I’ve had those as well.
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Recovering data from a hard drive usually requires taking the drive out of the computer and attaching it to my computer using an external drive enclosure or cable/converter. For ‘standard’ SATA drives that was enough, but as I mentioned, newer computers have a card that is the drive, and those can vary. I do have 3 types now and have recovered data from several drives already.

On the new MacBooks, that’s not an option because the hard drive is actually soldered right onto the motherboard, as is the memory. That makes them impossible to upgrade, and also to repair, at least for me. Apple isn’t the only manufacturer doing that, so whatever laptop you order, make sure you can either upgrade it yourself, or that it is robust enough to last you whatever time you think you will need it for. 

Uhm, not really. One of the issues with buying a new Windows PC can be the bloatware. PCs are partly subsidized by software put on them when they are produced by the manufacturer. This is a common, and annoying practice. I was with a friend buying a computer at Office Depot a few years ago and he paid for the option to have a third party access the computer and remove the bloatware. Not something I recommend particularly, the third party thing, not the bloatware removal.
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Over the course of owning your PC, it has a tendency to slow down. This is partly normal, but also partly not. Years of updates to all sorts of programs can bring years of apps being installed that you don’t want and likely didn’t even know were being loaded onto your computer. Even “reputable” companies participate in this practice, again, as partially subsidizing a product, free or not.

Obviously, there is also a lot of sneaky stuff inserted that you don’t necessarily know is being installed. So the good news is that Windows Defender has upgraded to a point where it will be blocking somw of these “Possibly Unwanted Programs” or PUPs, aka “Possibly Unwanted Applications” or PUAs.

I have a paid version of MalwareBytes that can help get rid of those, but a new Windows Update will be allowing Windows Defender to automatically block these. I’ve been on computers installing MalwareBytes and when I run it, it can find 20 or 30, but sometimes, it’s found THOUSANDS. You can imagine, that stuff running in the background can really slow a computer down.

One of my gripes about anti-virus programs is just how much they slow a computer down. I find that Windows Defender, which comes with Windows, does not slow a computer down nearly like Norton, Macafee, or many others. So I generally stick with Defender and MalwareBytes. There is an article to read HERE, about Windows Defender and the blocking of PUAs. It’s a bit of hyperbole in the title, but definitely worth the read.  Click to Read