Olympics!

Posted on August 2, 2016September 8, 2016 by Gail Eddy in Entertainment, Entertainment Apps, Games, Smartphone Apps

Will you be following the Olympics? More and more people I know don’t have cable or satellite TV service anymore and are wondering how to keep up. Here are some suggestions:

If you do still have a TV with an antenna, tune your set to NBC. If you are near a large city that still broadcasts, you should be able to pick it up. (Unless you’re in Colorado’s Foothills!)
Your second option is to view it via NBC’s live stream: Note that I had to reload the page a few times before it would start playing. I’m guessing their servers are busy!
You can also try Sling.com. They have a one week free trial. Remember to cancel before the free trial ends though, or get ready to pay $25 per month.
You can also download the Olympic app on your phone: Note that it’s not very intuitive and takes a while to figure out how to navigate it. If you’re just looking for results, though, this is a good place to start.You can also get information about the upcoming Olympics in PyeongChang, Tokyo, and Beijing.

Chris Eddy of Geek For Hire, Inc. has been providing computer service to families and small businesses with Mac’s and PC’s for the past fourteen years. His company is highly rated by both the BBB (Better Business Bureau) and by Angie’s List. You can find more on our website. Geek For Hire, Inc. provides onsite service (Tier 3) to the Denver / Boulder / Front Range area and remote service throughout North America.

We’ve been using Amazon Prime for the past few years. We like the free 2-3 day shipping and the online streaming. I haven’t tried the Kindle lending library yet, but I’m tempted! Prime is normally $99/year, but you can try it for 30 day for free by clicking on this link: Try Amazon Prime 30-Day Free Trial (Yes, we’ll get a small commission when you sign up.)

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5 Good Things to Know about Pokemon Go

Posted on July 26, 2016September 8, 2016 by Gail Eddy in Entertainment, Entertainment Apps, Facebook, Games, Smartphone Apps, Social Media

Have you downloaded the new Pokemon Go App yet? Are you playing it? It seems to be taking the nation by storm! You can find out all about it at the Pokemon website: http://www.pokemongo.com and you can download it from the iTunes store or, for the Android from Google Play.

If you are playing, make sure you appropriately manage your security settings. (In fact you should always be careful with how much you share from your phone with game developers.)

Pokemon sure has been getting some bad press though. Consider some of these stories:

Veteran Memorial overrun by Pokemon players
Pokemon Go players go mad.
Falling, tripping, and other mishaps.

The Good News:

But it’s not all bad news. There have been several good things to come out of this new craze. For example, people with anxiety, autism and Asperger’s are finding the Pokemon Go helps them get out and be more social. According to this article in Inverse:

“… the game is reportedly helping people overcome anxiety and other mental health issues, bringing an array of players together under one common passion. Such has been the case for a few parents of autistic children, who have been sharing stories about the game easing their children into incredible social interactions.”

Pokemon has helped people find things:

According to one story, two women found a toddler: “Looking for new Pokemon Friday night, as they’d done before, the two stumbled upon a little girl who looked to be no older than 2, crossing a busy street by herself.”

Another teen found a missing man who had recently died.

Businesses have realized they can use Pokemon to their advantage. In fact, this Forbes article is full of ideas that businesses can use to lure in more Pokemon players – and potential buyers!

“Instead, take a cue from this local indie clothing store, which got into the spirit of the game by saying, “come get your PokéBalls and previously rocked threads. Gotta catch ‘em all in style!” That’s bound to leave a positive impression, get people talking and, with the overwhelming media attention this game is getting, potentially get your local business some exposure in the press.”

And players are accidentally getting more exercise! One friend posted this on her Facebook a few days ago:

“I’ve walked 26 miles this week playing Pokemon GO. This is the weight loss plan I’ve been waiting for my entire life.”

In fact there’s even a guide for people who want to do interval training!

“Interval training … is a workout where you push yourself as hard as you can in short bursts, rest, then repeat. … This kind of stop and go activity is perfectly suited for the walk-and-stop play of Pokémon Go, and knowing that you get to play while you exercise can be a huge motivator. You’ll collect items at PokéStops (like eggs that only hatch if you walk or run), hatch said eggs with the massive number of steps you rack up, wear down rival gyms so you can take over, find wild pokémon to catch, and get fit all at the same time.”

Is it all just a mad scheme? How long do you thing this craze will last?

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Facebook and Politics

Posted on July 19, 2016September 8, 2016 by Gail Eddy in Entertainment, Facebook, Social Media, Tips

Social Media:

I don’t know about you, but my Facebook is getting full of posts about politics. Sometimes I agree with my Facebook friend, and sometimes I don’t. Sometimes the posts are downright offensive! I have a trick I use to minimize the number of times I see those offensive posts. It also helps minimize the times that those people can see my posts and start trolling.

Other People’s Posts:

I am assuming that you still want to be Facebook friends, you just want to see less of some of the posts that makes your blood boil! If you don’t want to keep in touch with that person, by all means, press the “unfriend” button. Otherwise, follow these steps:

Bring up the person’s Facebook page and click on the down arrow next to the “Friends” button.

Then click on “Acquaintances” and make sure the “Get Notifications” option is unchecked.

Remember that Facebook uses algorithms to figure out what to show you. If you check out that person’s page, it is more likely that their posts will show up on your feed. Facebook needs to be trained!

If something does show up on your feed that you don’t want to see, click the down arrow on the right side of the post and select “Hide Post”.

You’ll get another pop-up after clicking on “Hide post” that looks like this. Here you have another choice. Do you want to see less from that particular person? Or do you want to see less from their source. Click on your option and continue on your way through your news feed.

Your Own Posts:

Sometimes it’s good to minimize who sees your posts as well. Now, that will be easy for you to do. When you post a news story or your own opinion that may be controversial to some, you can select who gets to see it. Click on the down arrow to the left of the “Post” button and select who can see this post. If you select “Friends except Acquaintances”, then all the people you’ve categorized as Acquaintances will not see that post.

I hope these tips help you keep your sanity through this election season!

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Ransomware

Posted on July 12, 2016March 23, 2018 by Gail Eddy in backup, Cloud, Data Backup, Malware, Ransomware

Chris has seen several Ransom Ware infections in the past 18 months or so. Ransomware is just about the worst of the malwares the “bad guys” have thought up. Essentially, once you get infected, the ransomware installs a nifty little program which encrypts all of your data. Then, they’ll give you a pop-up letting you know that you have so much time to pay a ransom to receive the encryption key.

Here is a screen shot of one of the ransom notes Chris has seen.

I’ve asked Chris to tell you what ransomware looks like, what you can do if you’re infected, and how to protect yourself.

I’ve seen three actual instances of ransomware in the past few years.

The first instance occurred about two years ago at a customer site. I found that their personal and business files were all encrypted. Since they had a fairly recent backup of their data, the thought process was relatively quick: remove the old hard drive, install a new one, rebuild their server, and restore their data. This took several hours to complete, but it was successful and very little data was lost.

The previous instance occurred last summer, to a customer I hadn’t served in many years. I forget the nature of the problem which motivated the service call, but I soon discovered that their personal data was unreadable. I turned off the computer and removed the hard drive, so that I could see what customer data was there without allowing the infection to proceed if it was still active. Turns out the customer already had a secondary infection which had been running for the past six months. This created a huge volume of temporary files and greatly delayed my getting permission to access to their data. Somewhat fortunately, every personal folder which had been encrypted had had a text file and an HTML file added, which contained a document from the ransomware software. The document indicated that the data was encrypted, and if you wanted to get it back you had pay a fee in BitCoin at one of 4 different IP addresses. Note that only one IP address was responsive. The ransom cost started at some amount, and would increase as time went on. To prove that they were indeed the ones which encrypted the data, they offered to decrypt one file immediately and at no charge. In talking with the customer, they identified the one file that was the most critical, and this one file was successfully and promptly decrypyted. Eventually, the customer decided to pay the ransom, which was about $700. It it took a long time for the customer to get the BitCoin payment into a spendable account, and then the payment could not be given because none of those IP addresses were accessible. We were ultimately declined access to provide the ransom payment because their servers were too busy to receive another connection. Apparently their servers were being crushed with activity from their own success.

The most recent occurred a few months ago at a business I frequent. The symptom to them was that the computers which run their business management application displayed an error message saying that the database was corrupt. Since I was there at the time this happened, my recommendation was that they turn off all of their computers. Turns out they received an encrypting infection called “Locky”, because the customer files are encrypted and renamed to have a “.Locky” extension. But there was no opportunity to pay a ransom to get the data back. Another problem was that there was no backup of their data for several years. The solution was to replace the old hard drive with a new drive in the server computer, reinstall and update the operating system, and coordinate with the manufacturer to reinstall the application and look for old data. Fortunately, a copy of the database that was 6 months old was found; so there was a 6 month gap in time, but at least they had not lost 20 years of customer data. Also, a good antivirus was installed on all of their computers, which they did not have before. They did not understand that they needed a good antivirus installed. This was actually a problem that was waiting to happen. It could have been avoided if their usual “IT Guy” had taken the initiative to see what they did and did not have, rather than just doing a technical task they were called in to do. They are hopefully in the process of getting a backup procedure, because hindsight showed that having a 6 month gap in customer data could have been avoided if their usual “IT Guy” had implemented backups of their data.

There are lessons to be learned from these experiences.

Have a good antivirus on all of your technology. Note that there is no antivirus on the planet that can protect you from all things all the time.
Have your computer prepped by a competent IT person.
Make backups of your data. Backups never go out of style. It can be to an external hard drive, or a USB thumb drive, or to a cloud based backup service like Dropbox.
Know the completion status of that backup. I’ve lost count of the number of customers who believe that they have been backing up for long time, but turns out that their data is actually old because the backup has not worked for years.

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Wearables

Posted on July 5, 2016September 8, 2016 by Gail Eddy in Apple, Facebook, iPhone, SmartPhones

I ambled down the rabbit hole and stumbled across this old PC Magazine article from 2008. In the article, they look at futuristic devices introduced in movies and show how those ideas have come to fruition in 2008.

There’s the transformer cell phone. Watch the Youtube here.
There’s the hoverboard and another Youtube.
And there’s this poor substitute for the universal translator/ babel fish and its cringe-worthy video.

The only gadget from the movies that has really taken off is the wrist watch communicator. In just the past few years watches that alert you to phone calls and texts, track your steps and heart rate, and allow you to search the Internet, have evolved into wearables worth the investment.

Here’s my Fitbit telling me that Chris is calling:

Aside from the FitBit and the Apple Watch, other wearable gadgets available today include:

Thync: The first wearable for relaxation and energy The Thync works by signaling nerves on the head and neck to act on the brain’s adrenaline system. These nerves then activate your body’s natural state of Energy or Calm.

Then there are Blacksocks Plus. These are truly wearables with a twist! From their website:

Imagine your phone could communicate with your socks. Your phone would know:

which socks belong together,and could help sort them out,
how often you have washed your socks,
when your socks were produced,
when you ordered your socks and
when your socks were dispatched.

Your iPhone can also tell you if your black socks are no longer properly black and help you buy new socks.

If only they could tell you if it was the washer or dryer that stole one of your socks!

Coming out later this year are Jewelbots. This adorable bracelet is aimed at teaching young girls to code. The gender gap among boys and girls in science and engineering classes continues to widen, and the number of technical jobs continue to increase. Getting our girls interested in the sciences at a young age, and keeping their interest through high school and college is so important! Jewelbots is a just one step on this path. For more info on this issue, check out Girls Who Code.

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Sharing Your Social Media Identity with the Government

Posted on June 28, 2016September 4, 2016 by Gail Eddy in Facebook, Hackers, Passwords, Social Media

Every once in a while I read a story that makes me say:

WHAT?

Today was one of those days. According to this article in arsTechnica, the US Customs and Border Protection is considering adding a new field to their Visa application process. They will be asking visitors to the US to provide their Social Media Identity. Apparently it won’t be a required field, but if you leave it blank, it will look very suspicious.

“The agency says travelers coming to the US…. won’t be forced to disclose their social media handles, but leaving it blank obviously could raise red flags.”

Additionally, the verbiage associated with the request is very nebulous. According to the article:

‘Here’s what will be asked: “Please enter information associated with your online presence—Provider/Platform—Social media identifier.”‘

So, someone who is not paying attention may provide not just their ID, but might also provide their login and password info!

I have a couple of thoughts about this.

First, of course, is that anyone can find anything online, so adding a box on their form will just make the process a little easier for Customs to get your info.

Second, how will Customs keep this info safe? How will they insure that someone can’t hack into their systems and capture the info – especially if some of those applications may contain ID’s and passwords?

Lastly, how will this help? Call me cynical, but I don’t think someone entering the country with malicious intent is likely to be providing their “real” social media identity.

It is far too easy to set up multiple identities online. Just look at me. I’ve got an email for business, an email for personal stuff, an email for networking, and an email for signing up for stuff online. It was easy to do this. And once you have different emails, you can set up different social media accounts.

No, those folks will be providing their ”professional” social media account; the identity they use for LinkedIn to show that they are an upstanding citizen of their home country. I fail to see how this new field on the visa application will keep out the “bad guys”.

What are your opinions about online privacy and multiple identities? We’d love to hear your thoughts!

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iCloud – Valued Apple Feature or not?

Posted on June 21, 2016September 4, 2016 by Gail Eddy in Apple, Cloud, Data Backup, iCloud, iMac, iPad, iPhone

iCloud

We’ve been getting a lot of questions about Apple’s iCloud recently. iCloud is something many of us have been using for years. But are you sure how to best take advantage of it?

If you have multiple devices – an iPhone, iPad, and iMac, for example, you can listen to your music whether you’re at home, a coffee shop, in your car, or on a trip.

If you don’t have an Apple computer, you can still access some of the iCloud features from your Windows computer. Head over to www.iCloud.com and sign in with your user ID and password. Some of the features available at the website include Mail, Contacts, Calendar, and Photos. Access to your music is not available here.

The “Find My iPhone” feature is available at the iCloud website. Take a minute now to sign in. Navigate around the site briefly, but especially take a look at the “Find my iPhone” feature so that if you do lose your phone, you’ll know how to use it. (Make sure any folks in your family who are challenged in the area of knowing where their possessions are, have this feature turned on!)

When you sign in to the iCloud, your user ID is probably your email. If you’ve forgotten your password, it’s relatively easy to reset it. Remember that the password for your iCloud account is different from the security passcode you may have set up to access your iPhone or your iPad. If you have set them up to be the same, please change one of them now!

Another feature I’ve just learned about on the iCloud is the ability to share photos with other people. When you click on the “Photos” icon, your pictures appear. At the bottom of the screen there are three buttons – Photos, Share, and Albums. Your Photos shows all the pictures you’ve taken from a given point in time organized by date. Albums arrange your photos by different categories like Selfies, Panoramas, Videos, and Screenshots.

To share photos, click on “New Shared Album”. Give it a title, and select who to share it with by entering their emails. Once the structure is set up, you can then add photos to the album.

If you need help setting up your iCloud properly, check out Apple’s Help pages or the Genius Bar at the Apple store.

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Summer Fun with Raspberry Pi!

Posted on June 7, 2016April 29, 2024 by Gail Eddy in Hard Drive, Raspberry Pi

Are you looking for a fun summer project? How about seeing what you can do with a Raspberry Pi? The Raspberry Pi has been around for a few years and, for the technologically inclined, it provides computing on the cheap.

In case you haven’t heard about it yet, TechRepublic provides this Executive Summary about the Raspberry Pi: http://www.techrepublic.com/article/raspberry-pi-the-smart-persons-guide/

What it is: A credit card-sized computer that costs as little as $5 that spawned a community of millions of home makers and programmers.
What it does: A lot. Despite its low-cost, the Pi can be run as no frills PC, a pocketable coding computer, a hub for homemade hardware and more.
Why it matters: The Pi is a great machine for stoking interest in programming among schoolchildren worldwide and helping create the next generation of developers.
Who it affects: Anyone with the inclination to pick up a Pi and start tinkering.
When is this happening: Right now. More than eight million Pi boards have sold since the machine’s launch in 2012 and demand was reinvigorated by the recent release of the Raspberry Pi 3.
Where is this happening: All over the world, with the Pi’s official forums supporting a community of more than 150,000 active users.
Who is making it happen: A not for profit charity on a mission to get the world interested in how computers work.

More info and resources are available on the Raspberry Pi website. https://www.raspberrypi.org/

Reviews:

Most of the reviews like the older Pi’s better than the new Pi 3, but do like the built in WiFi.

IT-Pro: Older Pis are still better for embedded systems and others projects where the lowest possible power consumption is paramount, but for other uses, especially as a Windows desktop PC replacement, the Pi 3 is a cracking upgrade. http://www.itpro.co.uk/desktop-pcs/26315/raspberry-pi-3-model-b-review-1
Top New Review: The new Raspberry Pi is faster than the previous model, but it’s not the same step up as the transition from the Pi 1 to the Pi 2, when we saw a six-fold increase in performance. The 30-40% speedup over an overclocked Pi 2 is noticeable, but it’s not enough to really change the usage of the device. For us, the onboard Wi-Fi is the biggest feature of the new device. Unless you’re specifically having performance problems, the Pi 3 doesn’t offer enough new features to recommend abandoning a Pi 2 for it. However, if you’re in the market fora new single-board computer, the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B should be the first device you consider. http://topnewreview.com/raspberry-pi-3-review/
Stuff: The Raspberry Pi 3 B is an almost perfect update to the Pi 2 B. We get loads more power, integrated Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. And, the best bit, no price increase. It has all the bits we wanted, none of the elements we don’t care about. A winner. http://www.stuff.tv/in/raspberry/pi-3/review

If you’re looking for some projects to do, there are a plethora available! A quick search came up with a whole bunch of projects:

Make a case from an Altoids tin – http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Make-a-Raspberry-Pi-Case-From-an-Altoids-Ti/
Make your Pi Solar Powered – http://www.instructables.com/id/Solar-Powered-Raspberry-Pi/
Top 20 Projects – http://www.itpro.co.uk/mobile/21862/raspberry-pi-top-20-projects-to-try-yourself
9 Best Projects – http://www.stuff.tv/features/9-best-raspberry-pi-projects

You can find a complete kit on Amazon for under $75: CanaKit Raspberry Pi 3 Complete Starter Kit – 32 GB Edition

Check out my previous blog about free productivity software to load onto your Pi. https://geekforhireinc.com/free-substitutes/

Information About Geek For Hire, Inc.

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Chris Eddy of Geek For Hire, Inc. has provided computer service to families and small businesses with Mac’s and PCs for the past eighteen years. Angie’s List and the BBB rate Geek For Hire very highly. You can find more on our website, or give us a call at 303-618-0154. Geek For Hire, Inc. provides onsite service (Tier 3 support) to the Denver / Boulder / Front Range area and remote service throughout North America.

Here’s a link to our Covid19 Policy.

We’ve been using Amazon Prime for the past few years. We like the free and fast shipping. With Prime, we have access to online streaming too. Prime is usually $119/year, but you can get a free 30-day trial by clicking on this link: Try Amazon Prime 30-Day Free Trial. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.

More Tips Here:

Are VPNs worth it? More here.
Are you interested in learning more about Extreme Privacy?
We have seen a lot of Facebook hacking lately. Here’s what you should do ahead of time to keep your account safe.
And here are the 10 Password Mistakes you don’t want to make!

If you’re looking for a geeky recommendation for Father’s Day, Chris loves DeWalt tools! Shop Amazon – $20 off $100 DEWALT orders

Backing Up Your Data and The Cloud

Posted on May 31, 2016March 23, 2018 by Gail Eddy in backup, Cloud, Data Backup, Dropbox, Hard Drive, iPad, iPhone

It’s time again for my reminder about backing up your data! For many people, when you travel, your laptop could get banged up at the airport or in the camper. For others, summer is the season for extreme weather. It could be fires or floods or tornadoes or hurricanes, but there is always the chance that your home could be damaged, and your computer as well.

That’s why it is so important to make sure your data back up is current. The most convenient way to keep your data backed up is to use one of the Cloud backup services. I’ve had many people ask what “the Cloud” is and how it might affect them. The Cloud is a term used to describe using another company’s servers to store your data or to provide off-site computing.

Here’s a better definition from wiki:

Cloud computing, also known as on-the-line computing, is a kind of Internet-based computing that provides shared processing resources and data to computers and other devices on demand. It is a model for enabling ubiquitous, on-demand access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications and services), which can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort. Cloud computing and storage solutions provide users and enterprises with various capabilities to store and process their data in third-party data centers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing

There are a many companies that provide cloud storage. I’ve been using Dropbox for a number of years and like the simplicity of it. (Disclaimer: if you use that link to sign up for backing up your data, you’ll get 500 mb for free, and I’ll receive 1g as a thank you from Dropbox.) https://db.tt/0ZRkMXZ

I like Dropbox for a number of reasons:

It will automatically upload a file to the cloud every time I make a change to it.
I’ve set it up so that it uploads photos I take on my phone to my account.
I can open files on my iPhone and iPad when I’m away from my computer.
Dropbox stores data for several weeks. If I get a bad virus, I can ask them to restore my data to a particular date.

All of this enthusiasm about cloud storage for backups aside, it’s also important to keep a physical copy of your data. About once a month, I backup my data to an external hard drive. Chris has set me up with the Seagate Backup 2TB Portable External Hard Drive which is convenient and easy to use.

If you need help backing up your data, let us know!

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Change Your Password!

Posted on May 24, 2016May 2, 2024 by Gail Eddy in anti-virus, Hackers, Phishing, Social Media

In the last few days, we’ve had a bunch of calls from customers who have had their email hacked. They are hearing from friends and clients that their email is sending out spam. Some of them have been aggravated with us because they feel like their anti-virus should have protected them. (Security software can’t protect you if someone else already has your password information.)

Here’s the deal. Several years ago, LinkedIn was hacked. Login credentials were stolen from approximately 117 million LinkedIn accounts! Although this happened in 2012, one of the “bad guys” has recently decided to sell the credentials.

According to this article from Tech Crunch:

Now, according to a new report from Motherboard, a hacker going by the name of “Peace” is trying to sell the emails and passwords of 117 million LinkedIn members on a dark web illegal marketplace for around $2,200, payable in bitcoin.

117 million LinkedIn emails and passwords from a 2012 hack just got posted online

CNN:Money adds their two cents:

Companies typically protect customer passwords by encrypting them. But at the time of the 2012 data breach, LinkedIn hadn’t added a pivotal layer of security that makes the jumbled text harder to decode.

Put on the defensive, LinkedIn is now scrambling to try to stop people from sharing the stolen goods online — often an impractical task. The company is also invalidating all customer passwords that haven’t been updated since they were stolen.

LinkedIn said it’s reaching out to individual members affected by the breach. This particular hack affects a quarter of the company’s 433 million members.

http://money.cnn.com/2016/05/19/technology/linkedin-hack/

Since many people use the same password on their other online accounts, the hackers can potentially access other accounts as well.

Our advice? Change your passwords for LinkedIn and other social media sites today. If you use the same passwords for other online sites, change the passwords for your email and banking accounts too. (If you didn’t have a LinkedIn account prior to 2013, you should be safe. This time.)

Changing your passwords on a regular basis is always a good idea!

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