Today's Tech Tip comes from Rick's Daily Tips
Rick has a slew of great tips!

As you surely know by now, there are numerous crooks, spammers and scammers using Facebook to perpetrate scams and hoaxes on innocent people.
The miscreants use various methods and tools to scam their victims, and one of their favorite tools is fake Facebook profiles.
Fake profiles typically take one of two forms:
1 – A completely fake profile that’s made up out of thin air.
2 – Cloned profiles that were created by copying photos and information from the profiles of real Facebook users.
The completely fake profiles are usually very easy to spot. Here’s what to look for:
1 – The profile picture is a photo of a celebrity or an extremely attractive model.
While some scammers will steal photos of real, average looking people and use them as the profile pictures on their fake accounts, most of them like to use photos of really attractive men and women to entice their victims to accept friend requests from them.
If the person in the profile picture is very attractive and you don’t recognize them or if the photo is of someone famous, it’s a virtual certainty that the entire profile is a fake.
2 – The posts on the profile’s Timeline will have very little or no personal content.
If you take a look at the Timeline and see nothing but shared posts and links with no personal status updates, odds are the profile is a fake.
Most scammers are basically lazy by nature (that’s why they would rather scam folks instead of get a respectable job), and creating real content in the form of status updates isn’t easy. It takes work.
Most scammers are also in a hurry, and it takes a lot less time to share links and posts that others have put up than it does to write a realistic-looking status update.
The really lazy scammers won’t even bother sharing links and other users’ status updates. They’ll simply upload a few stolen pics and immediately start adding friends to the account.
3 – There aren’t many photos in the profile’s “Photos” section, and they’re pretty much all of the same person.
Most real users tend to upload a wide variety of photos to their Facebook accounts.
For example, there will be pictures of them with their kids and pictures taken at events like weddings and birthday parties. And vacation pics are quite popular as well.
Just anything and everything is fair game when it comes to uploading pics to Facebook. That’s why just a few pics of the same person is always such a huge red flag.
4 – If it’s public, check out the profile’s friends list.
If a profile has a lot of links and shared posts on the Timeline but just a handful of friends, it’s likely a fake profile.
Most scammers work on posting content to a fake account’s Timeline before they start adding friends to it in order to give the profile an air of legitimacy.
However, the reverse of this is often true as well. Some scammers prefer to load up the account with “friends” before they start adding photos and posts.
Just remember that a real user will typically add Timeline content and friends at roughly the same pace.
5 – You receive a friend request from someone who is already on your friends list. This is one of the best tip-offs that a profile is a fake cloned profile.
If you receive a friend request from someone you’re already friends with, check out the account’s Timeline and About pages.
Chances are you’re at least somewhat familiar with the types of posts and photos your real friend puts up on Facebook so anything that’s out out of the ordinary for them should stick out like a sore thumb.
While lots of people do create multiple real profiles for various reasons, they’ll usually give you a heads-up by saying something like “I had to create a new account because…“
When that happens the person will almost always stop posting on the old account and start posting on the new account with the same style and patterns they used when posting on the old one.
Luckily, it’s very easy to determine whether a duplicate friend request is legit or not. Simply send the person a private message at the old account and ask them if the new account is really theirs.
If the answer is yes or you don’t receive any answer at all, then you can be fairly certain that the new account is legitimate. If the answer is no, you’ll know for sure that it isn’t.
That’s all there is to it. Now you know what to look for when you’re unsure about a accepting friend request from someone you don’t know or from someone you’re already friends with.

This was a funny one. I was looking for tips for this column, and it turns out, Windows offers tips. It’s under Start/Apps/Tips. I found it under ‘T’. That’s a tip in itself.

I don’t know if Microsoft will be changing them out, adding to them, or just letting them be. I’m guessing they will get updated. Read about it HERE. 
 
Are you getting a new Mac? You should. And give me your old Mac when you’re finished transferring your data. Speaking of which, when you set up your new Mac, it will ask if you want to bring data over from your old Mac, or PC. That’s a seriously handy tool, one that Windows has yet to include. It can transfer using an internet connection so it is amazingly easy to use. I don’t usually pick sides over Macs and PCs, but Apple wins big time for this feature.

Getting a new PC? I highly recommend it. Same rules. Make a good backup, to the cloud or an external drive. I have an article on transferring data HERE. 

Surprises: Yes, you may have some. Whether it’s a Mac or PC, some things may not transfer, or work after they transfer. There are things you can try to make older programs work. If you have a Windows 7 or XP computer you are transferring from (yikes, I hope not) Then read THIS. 

Mac OS Compatibility mode? None that I could find.

Speaking of compatibility, another way to run an older app designed for an older OS is to run the older OS in VirtualBox. That’s a program, available on Mac and PC, that will run a “virtual’ computer inside your computer. It’s a bit techy, but if you are desperate, it could be just what you need. A link to those instructions are HERE. 

If that doesn’t confuse you, then you can definitely do it. Otherwise, give it a few tries before you scream. It’s pretty cool when it works. I have Windows 10 running on my iMac in VirtualBox. 

Since about half the world’s phones are Android, and since Windows 11 is now making Android apps run on their OS, this may be topical.
There is a malware being distributed in some Android apps that can basically lead to a complete takeover of the phone. While the exploit was found in 19 different apps, and have since been removed from the app store, it is worth reading the full article HERE. 

Check to be sure you haven’t downloaded any of these specific apps.
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Malware is all around. Keep your computer and phones up to date. Be careful what you download. 

As this is a tech tip column, generally speaking, I like to find articles and write about stuff that I use, or that seem useful, or is a real convenience, in the tech world of computers, phones, etc.
I have a few sites I particularly like, and Kim Komando is one of them. The one I am referencing is from USA Today.   Click

From the Nest Camera sharing, thru dictation, and the rest, I found all good ideas. And number 11, an app that transcribes for you? That was pretty cool. I need to try that one out.

Earlier I was reading a tech tip about keyboard shortcuts, but I thought the ones they were referencing were not very useful. If you aren’t using Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V, then I don’t know how you get through the day on a computer. Check out the list. They are the common, basic, extremely useful shortcuts.
For Macs. 
For Windows. 
For Chrome. 

Lately I’ve been playing with some iMacs, generally trying to upgrade them farther than Apple will generally allow. Officially, the iMacs I’ve been working with are upgradable to High Sierra, but I have upgraded them to Catalina using a patched version of the OS, by someone called Dosdude1. Today, I upgraded an iMac from Late 2013 to Big Sur, using a patched version of the OS.  (Thank you Tom and Jan)

The instructions for going to Catalina are HERE.   Generally for 2008 or newer Macs. The web site has the specifics. It’s a clear and easy to follow process. The main site to read about patching Big Sur is HERE.   Generally for 2012 or newer macs.
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The site where I downloaded the program that creates the patched Big Sur is HERE.    (it’s at the top right. I used “Patched Sur v1.0.1”)

The only problem I had was formatting the USB’s partition table to be GUID. It’s easy, but it didn’t immediately show up in the disk utility. Do this: from the View menu choose "Show All Devices" and then you will be able to see the actual USB device that holds this volume and erase it, selecting the partition type.

I am now running Big Sur on an iMac, Late 2013. The whole installation process, including the downloads and creation of the bootable flash drive, takes several hours. I did not sit and watch it, for the most part. When it seemed like it was going to take a long time, I went and did other things. It did an update to the iMac, not a clean install. I think it requires the existing OS to be either Catalina or Big Sur in order to install.
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 As always, do not mess with your OS unless you have a backup of your data. 

an update: I upgraded my 2012 iMac to Big Sur, without issue. Everything was where I left it. Mind you, I don't have any fancy software installed that could be an issue. I do have VirtualBox on there with Windows 10, and it needed to run an update for it, but it still works. And yes, I did make a backup before installing.