Rick's Daily Tech Tips is a great resource!

Last summer while Brian was not finding diamonds in Crater of Diamonds State Park, I was back at the Airbnb getting the News out.  I knew the internet might be sketchy but I didn't realize how sketchy.  Quickly I switched to using my iPhone as a hot spot.  It worked beautifully.  By that evening I was out of data and have since switched to an unlimited plan.  Mind you, I was on the internet pretty much all day before this happened and what I was doing involved a lot of uploading.  That being said this is a great feature when your internet service is down and you can get cell service.
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Does your Internet service occasionally go out due to storms or equipment failure?
If so, you know how irritating it can be when you have to wait for a tech to come out and restore your service.

But guess what? In a pinch, you can use your smartphone’s cellular data connection to access the Internet with your computer. 

Both Android phones and iPhones have a feature called tethering that allows you to essentially use your phone as a modem and your cellular provider as an ISP for your computer(s) and other devices.

Not all cellular data plans allow you to set up a tethered Wi-Fi connection with your phone, but if yours doesn’t you can probably add that option to your plan for a reasonble amount.

Once you have confirmed that your plan indeed supports tethering, simply follow the steps below to set up a tethered Wi-Fi hotspot with your phone. Just follow the procedure that matches the device you have.
If you have an Android phone:
1 – Tap the Settings icon (it looks like a “gear“).
2 – Tap Network & Internet.
3 – Tap Advanced.
4 – Tap Hotspot & tethering.
5 – Tap Wi-Fi hotspot.
6 – Toggle the setting to On.
7 – Use the settings on the current screen to assign your hotspot a name and password.

If you have an iPhone:
1 – Tap the Settings icon (it looks like a “gear“).
2 – Tap Cellular.
3 – Tap Personal Hotspot or Settings.
4 – Tap Personal Hotspot.
5 – If it isn’t on already, toggle the “Allow others to Join” setting to On.
6 – Choose a password for the new hotspot.
That’s all there is to it. You should now be able to connect your computer (and other devices) to the Internet via the Wi-Fi hotspot you just created. Simply connect to that network and enter the password.

There’s a huge caveat I should mention at this point…
If you have a cellular data plan with a data cap, using a desktop browser that loads the full versions of websites instead of the mobile versions can potentially burn through your monthly data allotment in a hurry.

Of course this won’t be an issue if you have an unlimited data plan that’s truly unlimited (with no data cap or high-speed threshold), but not all “unlimited” plans are truly unlimited.

Some “unlimited” plans will throttle your download speeds back into dial-up range after you’ve reached a certain data threshold. As you can imagine, that greatly impacts the user experience (no more streaming and very slow page loads, for example).
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Just something to be aware of before you start using your phone’s cellular data to connect your computer to the web.

I report scams all the time in the News. Some dear friends recently reported an email from McAfee about their subscription being renewed for $299.55. They don’t have McAfee of course. There was a phone number to call in case they wanted to cancel.

That’s a pretty standard phishing scheme, and she was suspicious, so that was good. It did look real, and she did delete it.

My sister-in-law called us recently, also suspicious. This time it was from Facebook marketplace, where she was selling a bunkbed. A potential buyer wanted to confirm she was not a scammer by ‘sending’ her a 6 digit number which she was to read over the phone to him.
If you didn’t catch what was happening, that’s a scam. Many companies send a 6 digit verification code when a userid is signing on to a new device. In this case, the scammer had my sister-in-law’s gmail address and was trying to sign on from his device. That would automatically cause Google to send a 6 digit verification code to my sister-in-law’s phone, which is the code required by the scammer.
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It’s super clever, and insidious. Those 6 digit codes are meant for your eyes only. Since the code was to be expected, it wasn’t suspicious to receive one, so naturally a person would then give it to the scammer, thereby giving Google access to a scammer. Don’t ever do that! It’s common for businesses to require 2 factor authentication. This is the second factor and it is not meant to ever be given away to anyone. 
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I looked it up and it's slightly different from my description. Same idea though. You can read a government report on it HERE.

I often recommend MalwareBytes to my reader(s). There may be 2 of you. Today though, my friend Grizz called saying MB was acting flakey. Carol noticed some odd behavior this morning as well, of MalwareBytes, not Grizz, but then….

Anyway, I helped Grizz uninstall it and then went to look for some info on what was happening. Sure enough, there were plenty of articles on the problem with MB, particularly it flagging Google.com as a bad site and sometimes blocking access to it.

Therefor, the oops, in the heading. They made a mistake. It happens. It needs fixing. In the meantime, their suggestion is to turn on the toggle for Web Protection in the main MalwareBytes screen. A temporary and not very good solution, because then it doesn’t offer Web Protection.
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Hoping this is very short lived. You can read more about it HERE. https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/malwarebytes-blocks-all-google-apps/

A reprint from an earlier post, with some updates and an updated update at the bottom.
 
As you all should know by now there is a broadband initiative in progress to bring fiber optic to our homes and businesses.  This is based on grant applications from the government to pay for the infrastructure and will likely require several years to actually complete. We are very hopeful that this will happen sooner rather than later, but a couple of years is the best-case scenario.

In the meantime, what are the choices? Many of us have Windstream DSL. This is ranging from great for a few folks to awful for more folks. The majority seem to have truly mediocre service. There are many homes that do not have Windstream DSL at all. They vary from cellular hotspots to HughesNet, to nothing at all. HughesNet, by many accounts, sucks. Dish also offers a satellite service. Those satellite services appear to be costly up front, expensive per month, and limited in the amount of usable data before surcharges kick in.
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Cellular connections, ATT by the lake and T-Mobile near the Rural Events Center, seem a workable solution. I don’t know if anyone is using a Verizon hotspot but I imagine that would be fine also. Cellular hotspots can be a great option if you have a good signal. The devices have a fairly low onetime cost upfront, and the monthly charges are not outlandish. The speeds vary, but seem to be in the 20 to 30mbps range, which is OK. Generally you will need a data plan so that’s a factor to consider.

I now have 2 people using Starlink as an internet solution. I worked with one person in setting it up and testing it. I’m going to briefly describe that and then below I will include the other person’s review.

My friend received and unboxed the Starlink device which consists of an antenna and a wifi router connected by a very long (75’) cable. The antenna is meant to be outside, on the roof for example, and the router is in the house, plugged into a power outlet. The setup of Starlink is done through an app which I downloaded to my phone.

The instructions are extremely simplistic. Basically, plug it in, connect to its broadcast through your phone, then use the app to configure it. Configuring asked 2 questions, what to name the broadcast and what password do you want to use. We left the password blank for now.
That was it. It went through some gyrations where the antenna looked for a satellite, and after a few minutes, it was ONLINE. I ran the speedtest option provided in the app and it showed 190mbps download. Upload was quite a bit slower, around 9mbps. Still, the download speed was astonishing, almost hard to believe, so I went into Chrome to test it and started to pull up some news articles. Sure enough, they were very fast to load.

The antenna for this setup is just sitting on the ground for now, so not an ideal location. The router was sitting on some buckets, and we were close by. It should be even better when everything is placed in more proper locations. We went in the house to see what the speed was like and the speed test still showed 50mbps down and 5 up. These numbers should improve with better device placement.

At one point the connection went down and I looked at the antenna and it was moving. Apparently, it decided to find a better satellite. That was cool. The disconnect was only for a few seconds. Presumably, as more satellites are launched, this service will improve. As of now though, I think it’s quite impressive.
 
The upfront cost of the Starlink is similar to other satellite services at about $600 with shipping, so it’s not cheap. (link: )  The monthly cost is about $110, and there is no contract for that, nor is there currently any data cap. For a stopgap measure though, my guess is that the Starlink resale value will be high. So, investing in Starlink now, until we get fiber, may make a whole lot of sense for some people.
 
UPDATE, 09/16/2022:
The Bondy's have been on Starlink for about 4 months now and are very happy with it. There are several people in the Abiquiu area using Starlink and it's pretty unanimously liked. 

I have a Verizon phone. It’s an iPhone. I don’t think it much matters about the brand though. A few years ago the phone app started a transcription where it offers to play the voicemail and it transcribes it to text. I do like that feature. It does not change the status of the voicemail being on Verizon’s server, however. My voicemail box resides on Verizon’s servers. I can play messages that have downloaded to my phone, but they still remain with Verizon, even if I delete it from my phone.
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In order to listen to my voicemail on Verizon, I have to call my voicemail box, either using *86, or calling my phone# and interrupting the greeting. I use *86 because I have for a decade, I then go through and listen to the messages. I can save a message, by pressing 9, or delete the message, by pressing 7. I have a lot of saved messages from family, because they are especially cute. Yes, I am a dork.
 
You don’t have to listen to the whole message to save or delete it, just press the 7 or 9 once it comes on.
 
AT&T also uses the 7 & 9 for save-delete, as does T-Mobile. Below I have the 3 major companies listed with a link to read about how to setup, listen, save/delete your voicemail. That way when I call you, I won’t get a 'mailbox is full' message.
 
Verizon - https://www.verizon.com/support/voice-mail-faqs/
 
AT&T - Access Voicemail - AT&T Wireless Customer Support (att.com)
 
T-Mobile – https://www.t-mobile.com/support/plans-features/voicemail
The T-Mobile page is good except it fails to mention that a 7 will delete a message.
 
Here’s a link that explains how to setup your voicemail on the 3 major carriers, if you haven’t already. https://www.androidpolice.com/how-to-set-up-your-voicemail-on-every-major-us-carrier/