blog

Update Your iPhone/iPad and Watch

For all you Apple lovers with iPhones, iPads and Apple Watches, there’s a critical update you need to install now. Apple isn’t giving all the details, so it must be bad. Just do the update and you’re good to go (we hope).

https://www.zdnet.com/article/apple-releases-emergency-update-for-iphones-ipads-and-apple-watch/

Don’t Spend Money on 5G (not yet)

Recently Google announced their Pixel 5G phones, Samsung is pitching their 5G Galaxy phones, and now Apple is announcing their iPhone 12 with 5G.

The problem is you will probably never get 5G speeds with this phone. Verizon’s version of 5G is by far the fastest, but unless you’re in a couple of buildings in Manhattan or in certain locations of sports facilities, you won’t see it where you live or at work for quite a while. AT&T’s version of 5G is just more of an enhanced 4G (they’re famous for doing this same trick in the past) and isn’t really 5G. T-Mobile’s speed is better than AT&T, but still they are in the process of building out their network for it.

You really won’t see wide-spread availability of 5G until 2022, and since the 5G radio in the phone is going to cost you around $100 extra—save your money and stick with the 4G version for now. If you’ve got a good 4G signal, that’s way more than enough to stream hi-def movies on your phone, what do you need more speed for anyway? 😃

Reboot First, Pick up the Phone Second

Why bother rebooting your computer when you can call me and pay me do it for you?

I know, it seems like a silly question, but it’s almost always the first thing I’ll have you do—and don’t be surprised if it fixes your “weird” problem you’re having. I had a client call with a problem, she showed me her problem. I though “oh, that’s weird”, so I asked her if she’s rebooted her computer lately. It had been a few days, so I had her shut down all the windows that were open and we rebooted her computer.

Guess what, that FIXED it! Now, she could have rebooted her computer first, fixed the problem and continued her day, but she called me first so that I could reboot her computer. It’s going to cost her a lunch and then some, so be sure before getting so desperate and mad at your computer that you finally resort to calling me, try rebooting your computer. If that doesn’t fix it, THEN call me and we’ll figure out what’s going on.

Update Your Firefox

There is a sudden exploit that has been found in Mozilla Firefox. It has been patched already but you may need to manually update. In your menu at the top click on Help and choose About at the bottom of the list. If it doesn’t say version 74.0.1 then update. Having 74.0 is not enough, make sure that it’s 74.0.1 and you’re good to go.

[UPDATE]: Any version at or ABOVE 74.0.1 is good. Last I checked we’re now at version 75.0.

Stay safe and wash your hands! ?

Online Credit Card Privacy

I’ve recently learned about a FREE service called Privacy. Some of you may bank where they let you create “virtual” credit card numbers to be used online rather than your actual number. That’s what Privacy does but it works with ANY bank! Rather than use your real credit card number, which can be abused if a merchant get’s hacked and a bad guy gets a hold of it, your virtual number that is created by Privacy can only be used with that merchant. Each online merchant gets a unique card number, so if you purchase something online somewhere like Walmart or Macy’s, and they get hacked—well that number is only good at the merchant it was created for. The money comes from your bank but the merchant doesn’t even know who your bank is!

Also, you can set limits on each card, like the maximum transaction amount, or how much is spent each month. For example, let’s say you have an Apple account that you use to buy music. With Privacy if someone got into your account, and if you have a $15/month spending limit on your Privacy card number a bad guy can’t buy hundreds of songs with your money.

I use PayPal as much as I can to avoid giving out my real credit card numbers, but now even for places that don’t take PayPal, I have Privacy—and once you set up a merchant it’s done, it’s even easier than PayPal to use. They also have an extension for Chrome and Firefox and apps for Android and iOS. Their security is good, when I installed the app on my phone and logged in, it prompted for a code sent to my email to make sure I wasn’t a hacker.

It’s easy to use AND as a bonus, they’ll give you $5 to use on your first transaction through them.

If you’re wondering “well how do they make money if it’s free?” They DO have paid services (if you need to make 35 cards every month or if you’re a business and have larger needs), but the personal account will always be free. They also make money from the merchant on every transaction just like credit card companies do, so they aren’t selling your information to make money.

So go here to sign up and get some PRIVACY in your online life: https://privacy.com/join/XDWLD

Time is Running Out and I Have a Deal…

I told you a year ago and now it’s down to only THIRTY-FIVE days of support left for Windows 7. Windows 7 was first launched ten years ago and now, it’s time has come to an end.

Oh sure, you can keep USING Windows 7 for as long as you want, but you will no longer be getting and feature or security updates. Using Windows 7 after January 14th will be a very UNSAFE thing to do. Microsoft will be popping up some annoying reminders on your computer this month just so you don’t forget.

If you would like help getting your computer upgraded to Windows 10, I’m offering a special that will include upgrading your computer to the latest version of Windows 10, perform a cleanup of your system, run a full check for viruses, remove any garbage apps that might be slowing down your system and check your browsers for extensions that have crept in to spy on you. AND, I’ll walk you through the small difference between Windows 7 and your new Windows 10. And trust me, the difference is small and you’ll be good to go in 5 minutes.

Normally this would cost $175, but between now and January 1st I’ll do it for only $125. If you want to supercharge your computer with an inexpensive solid-state hard drive this is the perfect time to do it.

So email me at [email protected] or call 512-981-7835.  It’s time to keep your computer safe.

You’d Better Not Click It!

Apparently there is an email going out pretending to be from Microsoft telling you to install an update. I hope you know by now to NEVER click on a link OR open an attachment unless you know who it’s from AND you’re expecting it.

If you open the attached file, it will launch ransomware software that will encrypt your files unless you pay a hefty ransom to decrypt your files. If you have an external drive backing up your data and it’s attached to your computer, it will be encrypted as well.

So if you don’t have a solution that protects your data from this, you should call me. Most online backup solutions will protect you, I’m a reseller of Carbonite because I feel they are the best and they don’t limit how much data you can back up. I’ve had a client get ransomware on their computer and with Carbonite we were able to get all their data back.

Contact me if you’re not protected.