I often look for tech tips with basic, helpful advice. Sometimes it’s fun to put something out there that’s more tech, nerdy, or quirky. This week though, I’m going for useful. 

Have you ever gotten frustrated searching for a password you swore you wrote down somewhere? How about tediously trying to resize windows so you can view two of them on the same screen? In some cases, technology doesn’t feel like a helpful tool but more like an unavoidable hassle. We’ve listed 17 shortcuts and hacks that will help you use tech to your advantage and make your daily life a little easier.
 
The tips included in the article HERE are everyday helpful. From toggling text from upper to lower case and back, to keyboard shortcuts, this article has it. 
 
From Google searches, to find my Android, to screenshots, these are helpful tips. And of course the first one, well, it’s practically my mantra.  

​I was reading this article, HERE, about ways to get MS Office for free. One of the ways is to use the online, browser version. That’s actually a fine way too, if you consistently have internet. Not necessarily the case if you’re a Windstream customer. Still, a good option. Read the article for more suggestions.

Alternative office programs are out there as well. Google offers a word processor and spreadsheet in their browser, along with some other products. And Apache offers OpenOffice, formerly of Sun Microsystems. That’s a complete office suite that is free and open source. It’s been around a long time too. Both of those allow you to read and save in MS office formats.

I’m sure there are others out there too, but that should keep you busy. Let me know if you’re using something else and why you like it. 

I was looking for some tech tips for seniors and while perusing, I thought a lot of them were silly. While I am suggesting one CLICK HERE, you’ll see some obvious stuff, and some silly stuff. #7, Avoid Phishing scams.  Yes, and don’t fall down the stairs either. I still did, despite carol’s great advice.

#5 & #6 are on Social Media. I would suggest staying off social media. All social media. The problem isn’t the social media content itself, it’s all the peripheral stuff being shoved at you. The news feeds are too often fake stories used as propaganda from who knows where. I get my news from actual journalists, and I demand my news that way. Otherwise, all you get are opinions and lies, #11.

#1 & #10 have to do with passwords. You should have good passwords, seriously. ‘Password’, should NEVER be your password. Two factor authentication is a good but annoying idea. Still, it’s worthwhile. You need to remember to have the proper email addresses and cell phone numbers for that to work though. Two factor authentication sends a code via email or a text, so you can’t use your landline for that. And if your email changes, then you need to remember to update that. And for goodness sake, have a list of your passwords saved somewhere. You WILL forget them someday.

#13 is Backup your photos. If you pay for Office 365 then you are likely getting your major files backed up to the cloud. You should verify that though. Backing up is a great idea. It means having a SECOND place of storage, on a completely different device, like an external hard drive, or the cloud. Save anything you don’t want to lose. If you don’t care about losing your data, then don’t make a backup. It’s up to you. If you do backup though, make sure it’s actually working.
The article this came from was from the Medicare website, and I thought it was reasonably good. If you have any thoughts on it, by all means, let me know what you think.

This was an odd warning that got me reading several articles. The warning was that when you are at a public location, you should NOT use a publicly available USB charging port. The problem is that, apparently, bad actors can insert malicious software into a charging port which can then access your device. I have to say, I found it a bit hard to believe.
 
An article further describing what it is can be found HERE. What is juice jacking? | Definition from TechTarget
 
It turns out to be true. The FCC, Federal Communications Commision, issued a warning to the public about this issue. You can read about that HERE. 'Juice Jacking': The Dangers of Public USB Charging Stations | Federal Communications Commission (fcc.gov)
 
The suggestion is to not use public USB charging ports. The alternative solutions are to bring your own charging block and cable, or use a one way charging cable (which I’d never heard of). As I’ve been travelling a bit lately, and found myself at an airport or two, I thought this was a useful tip to share. These public ports can be anywhere, of course, so be careful what you are plugging into. 

Usually when I have a password to WiFi and Carol doesn’t, her phone asks my phone to share the password, and vice versa. That’s a neat function of the iPhone, but sometimes it doesn’t, and I don’t actually remember what it is. You can look up the password in an iPhone and share it manually, which is very handy, especially for complicated, incomprehensible passwords.
 
I wrote a few weeks ago about getting rid of duplicate photos, that’s a really great tip. Photos can quickly take up the space on your phone and getting rid of the dupes is a fast and easy way to recover it.
 
There are ways to copy screenshots and not save them (a waste of space), pinning favorite tabs in Safari, and adding haptic feedback to your keyboard. There are a couple of Siri suggestions in here, and remember, you can ask Siri to restart your phone now too.
 
If your into gaming, there’s a tip of pairing your phone with your Nintendo Switch Joy-Cons. Read all about it HERE.  Hidden iOS 16 Features That Turn Your iPhone Into a Powerhouse (cnet.com)