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Top Ten Ways to Use Siri

Posted on June 9, 2015May 6, 2024 by Chris Eddy in iPad, iPhone, Siri, Tips

I’ve had a number of friends tell me recently that Siri is worthless and never gets anything right. “And besides,” they say, “I can just do it faster myself than asking Siri!”

Granted, Siri had her challenges when she was first rolled out, and many of them remain. But if you just ask her to do simple tasks, she’ll generally get them right.

Here are ten things I frequently use Siri for:

Call people: For example, ask Siri to call your Mom. (If you haven’t’ set up relationships within your contact settings, here’s an article that teaches you how to do that.)
Email people
Text people: I especially like this feature. I will dictate the message to Siri and she’ll type and send it.
Set timers and alarms Just be aware that Siri sometimes hears “60” as “16”. I will instead ask for a timer for “61 minutes”.
Check on the weather
Show most recently received email
Search emails: You can find emails with specific text in them or emails from a specific person
Find out the time and weather in another city: Don’t forget, these are two separate questions!
1. Siri, what time is it in London?
2. Siri, show me the weather forecast in London.
Search for a local business When you ‘re looking for a specific business, ask Siri to look it up for you. She’ll generally respond with a map and all of their contact information.
Open an application on your phone: Simply ask Siri to open the map application or the FitBit application, etc.

Siri still has her flaws, but if you know what they are and can work around them, she’ll serve you well. (In a limited capacity!)

Information about Geek For Hire, Inc.

I’ve created a Free Report on what to look for to protect yourself from “phishing” scams. Click here to receive it!

Chris Eddy of Geek For Hire, Inc. has been providing 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 303-618-0154. Geek For Hire, Inc. provides onsite service (Tier 3 support) to the Denver / Boulder / Front Range area as well as remote service throughout North America.

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Windows 10 Upgrade

Posted on June 2, 2015May 2, 2024 by Gail Eddy in Microsoft, Tips, Win10, Windows 10

If you’ve got any version of Windows, from XP to Windows 8, you’ve likely seen the new little icon on the bottom of your screen. It looks something like this:

The current information available is that this is a free upgrade offer from Microsoft It is available for a limited time. After the free offer expires, the upgrade will cost around $200. Microsoft is saying that the upgrade will be ready on July 29th.

I asked Chris why our customers should (or should not) upgrade to Windows 10. Here’s what he said.

Reasons to get the Windows 10 upgrade:

It’s a free way to get the next version of the Windows operating system. My computer has Windows 7 Professional 64 bit, and I was presented with the choice to receive the new operating system as a free upgrade.
This is the general direction of where Microsoft is going with the operating system, and you are probably better off with it than without it.
There has been discussion about the Windows 10 user interface being more like Windows 7 than Windows 8. Since Windows 10 has not yet been released to the public, what it is is still an unknown.

Reasons not to get it:

If you have applications that require Windows 7 or XP, or there is a concern because those applications have not yet been tested to work with Windows 10.
If you need to reinstall the operating system onto your hard drive or SSD in the future, you’ll have to install the previous version of the Operating System, but may not be able to receive the update to Windows 10 without paying for it.

The upgrade may not include an installation disk, which would allow a clean install of the Windows 10 operating system in the future.

More information about the upgrade can be found on Microsoft’s website. http://www.microsoft.com/EN-US/windows

Apple has been offering OS upgrades as digital downloads through their App Store for years, and no one is complaining. The no-media upgrade process tends to work, even though it takes several hours to download (1-4H depending on the speed of your line to the Internet) and install (1-2H depending on the speed of your computer and the speed of your hard drive).

However, I think this will be the first Operating System upgrade that Microsoft is doing that is a digital download. The Windows Operating System Upgrade is inherently more complex than the Apple Operating System Upgrade, because Windows runs on many more machines from different manufacturers (Dell, Lenovo, Toshiba, HP, etc., etc.,) than the Apple software does (which is exactly one: Mac’s). The Apple environment is proprietary and “closed”, eg: you are licensed to only run the Apple Operating System on Apple hardware, where the Microsoft Operating System does not have this constraint. Apple doesn’t charge for new versions of its Operating System, but Microsoft traditionally has.

Let us know if you have any questions about Windows 10!

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Throw Away Technology

Posted on May 26, 2015May 2, 2024 by Gail Eddy in Tips

I was brought up by parents who grew up during the Depression in New England, and the Puritan frugality was bred pretty deeply in me. The whole “Reduce / Reuse / Recycle” motto was just the way things were during my childhood – especially Reduce and Reuse. Nothing was ever thrown away that might have another use sometime in the future. Protecting the environment by keeping things out of landfills was just a fortunate by-product!

Which is why I sometimes think our business is the perfect business for me. We help people repair or enhance their current equipment rather than dumping it and getting something new. Sometimes, it’s just one component that needs to be replaced, and that’s something we can easily do.

An older computer can have a new hard drive added to provide more storage, rather than getting a whole new computer.
Or, it can have a RAM upgrade to help it perform faster.
Or, change out the keyboard or screen on a laptop when they break.

However, with some of the technology being sold today, they are just not being built to be repaired! Some companies are now using cheap plastic clips to hold things together rather than the teeny metal screws. Extra care must be taken to remove the clips so that they don’t break or snap, and putting them back together again can be a challenge. This adds extra time to the repair work and makes the repair bill more expensive. And to all of those folks out there who say “It’ll cost $200 to fix my keyboard? I can get a new machine for that!”, I remind you that you get what you pay for.

We’ll always tell you when it’s more cost-effective for you to replace rather than repair. For example, it’s almost always more cost-effective to replace a broken printer then to repair it. A broken keyboard can go either way. If you’re like me though, the cost to replace will always include the environmental impact of adding to the trash heap.

If you’re wondering what kinds of services we can provide, please check out our services page.

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I’ve created a Free Report on what to look for to protect yourself from “phishing” scams. Click here to receive it!

Beware of Click Bait!

Posted on May 12, 2015December 2, 2019 by Gail Eddy in Click Bait, Hackers, Phishing, Social Media, Tips

This morning, I was doing one of my morning rituals which includes reading through the recent posts on Facebook, and found that a friend of mine who lives on the east coast, liked a story. I worked with him many years ago. He was the manager of a major project which I worked on for many years. This was the largest project in my career, and I know that this system is still “alive” today because I have served a local customer twice who is dispatched by this system. Since I respect my friend, and he doesn’t casually like everything, the things that he does like tends to get my attention. The first thing I did was to like the story too.

The story told of a mother beating her son on national television because he was participating in the recent riots in Baltimore. My friend liked it, so it must be legit. I clicked on the link to the story, which went to a blogsite which I had never seen or heard of before. The content of the page had only a brief retelling of the title of the story, plus several advertisements, but there was no link to the salacious original video that grabbed my attention. Since I didn’t see what I expected, I thought this was a problem with the tight security settings of my daily browser (Firefox, with several add-ons), so I copied the URL from my “high security” browser and pasted it into my “low security” browser which works with everything (Internet Explorer), and fetched the page. The same page was displayed, but this time with many popup advertisements (pop-over and pop-under) which were really concerning to me. There was no salacious video or a link to it. I shut this down fast.

Still being interested in the salacious story, I went to YouTube and searched for the general words of the title of the story, and found several direct links to the video – without additional advertisement or commentary.

In this case, I fell prey to “Click Bait”. I saw a story that interested me, thought it was legit, and clicked on it. It wasn’t legit. I will be doing a total system scan of my computer to check for any residual nastiness.

If you think you’ve fallen prey to “Click Bait”, the best thing to do is to scan your machine for anything malicious. If you need help, give us a call!

Information about Geek For Hire, Inc.

I’ve created a Free Report on what to look for to protect yourself from “phishing” scams. Click here to receive it!

Myth – Mac’s Don’t Get Viruses

Posted on May 5, 2015October 19, 2020 by Gail Eddy in anti-virus, Apple, Hackers, iPad, iPhone, Mac's, Virus

More than once I’ve heard the myth – Mac’s don’t get virues.

Unfortunately that’s just not true. Mac’s can get viruses just as easily as any other kind of machine. It used to be that malware was written specifically for PCs and the Microsoft Operating System, because there were just so darn many of them out there. But if our experience at Geek For Hire, Inc. is any guide, plenty of our customers with Apples are getting all kinds of malware. This post contains affiliate links which means if you click and buy, we may make a commission at no cost to you. See our full policy for more details.

(By the way, “malware” is the catch-all phrase for any software you haven’t deliberately chosen to load onto your computer. Remember from high school Latin that “mal” means “bad”. “Malware” includes viruses, spyware, rootkits, and more.)

We use ESET to protect our Mac’s and PCs.

In fact, way back in 2012, Apple itself recognized the flaw. In April, 2012, more than a half million Macs were infected by the Flashback Trojan bug. Shortly after that, PC Magazine reported that Apple “removed from its website the claim that its Mac operating system is not susceptible to PC viruses.”, and changed its tagline to “It’s built to be safe”.

Today, even more malware is being written specifically for the Mac OS. And Apple does not seem to be on top of getting fixes out to their users. In an article by Digital Trends, they stated:

“Apple has also been criticized for being slow to deal with threats and shut vulnerabilities down. Rootpipe was discovered in October 2014, but the fix only came out this month (April 2015), and it only patches Yosemite, not older editions of OS X. To make matters worse, the patch doesn’t actually fix the problem properly. Apple’s big rival may have a bad reputation, but it has taken decisive action to tackle that perception.”

Don’t believe the Myth – Mac’s DO get viruses!

It’s best to protect yourself with a good anti-virus program for Macs. We’ve been using and recommending ESET for many years. And we like that they offer a discount for multiple devices and multiple year subscriptions.

I’ve created a Free Report on what to look for to protect yourself from “phishing” scams. Click here to receive it!

INFORMATION ABOUT GEEK FOR HIRE, INC.

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 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.

iPad Games For Your Cat

Posted on April 21, 2015December 2, 2019 by Gail Eddy in Apple, Entertainment, Entertainment Apps, Games, iPad, Mac's

I’ve been hearing about games you can play with your cat on your iPad. I decided to try a few and see how Dot (our cat) liked them. I started with this article on MacLife.com.

I have a silly rule about applications for my phone and iPad. All apps (except for the ones required for business) must be free! Most of the free apps I found were published by Purina/Friskies.

If you don’t have a screen protector, I’d recommend getting one before letting your cat play with your iPad!

First we tried Cat Fishing 2. Dot seemed interested in the fish swimming around the screen and watched them intently. But she never tried to catch them or attack them in any way. The game makes two sounds. Dot didn’t seem to notice the fish bubbles, but when the iPad meowed at her, she jumped about a mile!

Next we tried Nifty Cat Games. It showed a fly buzzing across the screen. Before Dot could express an interest one way or another – a mere fifteen seconds later – this nifty screen popped up:

Next we tried Game for Cats. I’m starting to think my cat just is too cool for the iPad. Here’s a photo of her with the laser tag game:

I think we’ll just stick to the old fashioned cat toys!

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I’ve created a Free Report on what to look for to protect yourself from “phishing” scams. Click here to receive it!

Repair vs. Replace: Time to Get a New Mac?

Posted on March 17, 2015December 2, 2019 by Gail Eddy in Apple, backup, Mac's, Tips

We’re often asked when a customer should repair their current computer vs. just getting a new one. It’s a hard decision to make. If we’re able to fix it in a reasonable amount of time, we’ll always recommend not replacing. But “reasonable amount of time” varies from person to person.

Chris Eddy adds: “My standard recommendation is to keep the machine, until it fails to serve well as a tool, or is too expensive to repair. “

Here’s a case study for a recent customer considering a new Mac.

The customer had an older (2008) MacBook and wanted to know whether to upgrade it or replace it. It generally worked fine and performed adequately for most tasks, but the customer was encountering more times when they would be waiting for things to complete, and they were concerned about whether it would be adequate for installing and using SketchUp in the future.

General Findings:

Cosmetically, the machine was in beautiful condition. A backlit keyboard was not available at the time the machine was made and it’s a nice touch to have in a darkened room, but not the only reason to consider a new machine.
The hard drive still had about 80% of free space on it, so free disk space wasn’t a problem. I tested the hard drive, and no errors were found within 5 minutes, which is a good sign that the machine was probably not in danger of immediate detonation.
The machine had 4GB of RAM in it, which is the physical maximum amount of RAM that the machine can use.
Current Ram usage was at about 50%, which should support SketchUp Ram-wise. Any current performance difficulties the machine currently has will not be improved by the addition of SketchUp.

Monitor:

The customer wants to use a larger monitor than the 13″ display that this notebook machine has. It’s a nice screen, but it’s not enough screen real-estate for future use.
The customer could be served by a new Apple notebook computer with an external monitor.
The current Macbook Air can come with an 11″ or 13″ screen size, and the current Macbook Pro can come with a 13″ or 15″ screen size.
Another option for this customer is to possibly get an iMac, which is an all-in-one desktop computer that can come with a monitor size of 22″ or 27″. Both monitors are large and beautiful.
The choice of external monitor could be either an Apple monitor, which will be beautiful – but expensive because the Apple “Premium” is alive and well. A large monitor from a different manufacturer could be gotten from the open market, at a lower cost and still be good quality. Dell makes some absolutely beautiful monitors, especially the “U” line of monitors, and we get 30% discounts from Dell – which we pass on directly to our customers.

Keeping your old machine once you get a new one:

There is value in having one machine rather than two, because this is a major “life simplification”; all of your programs and your data is in one place rather than two, and you don’t have to worry about synchronizing the two machines. If something does go wrong you can focus on one machine rather than two. Sometimes people just want to keep their “old” machines as a backup. Or they want to keep the old machine to access old data, or keep the old hard drive to keep an archival copy of the historical record of your old data. My standard recommendation is to not keep the old machine, but do keep the old hard drive for at least a few months. Migrate to the new machine, and enjoy it. You probably won’t ever go back to the old machine. (If you do, you’ll soon remember why you replaced it!)

SSD:

Regardless of which machine you get, always upgrade to a Solid State Drive. The SSD performs /much/ faster than a physical hard drive, and even the Fusion drive will start to slow down soon after the machine is brought home. The SSD will provide the most consistent good performance over time, however it will be more expensive – remember the “Apple Premium”.

The new MacPro:

One possible option is the new MacPro. This is Apple’s new “Desktop” computer. (…and it looks like a small trash can!) The MacPro is a very quick computer and can be ordered with features that will make it outrageously fast – but remember the “Apple Premium”.

Buying Strategy:

If you do decide it’s time for a new Mac, head to the Apple store. BUT, go there with the specific intent of /not/ buying today. I’ve found that there is a reality distortion field within the store that has subtle influences to motivate you to want to buy a new machine right there and right now.

If you find something you like, fine, but buy it tomorrow – not today. This is going to be an expensive purchase of a new tool, and you are going to have it for a long time. It’s in your best interest to let the thinking of this new tool “Marinate” in your brain for at least 24 hours before actually pulling the trigger and getting the tool.

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I’ve created a Free Report on what to look for to protect yourself from “phishing” scams. Click here to receive it!

Car-Hacking…

Posted on March 3, 2015January 13, 2025 by Gail Eddy in GPS, Hackers

I read an interesting report released by Senator Markey last month. His office was concerned that appropriate measures were not being taken to secure cars and trucks on American highways. With most modern cars having built in WiFi, Bluetooth and other technology, they wondered what happened to the collected data, and how vulnerable the cars were to outside influence. Turns out they were right to be concerned.

Here are their key findings:

“Nearly 100% of cars on the market include wireless technologies that could pose vulnerabilities to hacking or privacy intrusions.
Most automobile manufacturers were unaware of or unable to report on past hacking incidents.
Security measures to prevent remote access to vehicle electronics are inconsistent and haphazard across all automobile manufacturers, and many manufacturers did not seem to understand the questions posed by Senator Markey.
Only two automobile manufacturers were able to describe any capabilities to diagnose or meaningfully respond to an infiltration in real-time, and most say they rely on technologies that cannot be used for this purpose at all.
Automobile manufacturers collect large amounts of data on driving history and vehicle performance.
A majority of automakers offer technologies that collect and wirelessly transmit driving history data to data centers, including third-party data centers, and most do not describe effective means to secure the data.
Manufacturers use personal vehicle data in various ways, often vaguely to “improve the customer experience” and usually involving third parties, and retention policies – how long they store information about drivers – vary considerably among manufacturers.
Customers are often not explicitly made aware of data collection and, when they are, they often cannot opt-out without disabling valuable features, such as navigation.”

Most striking to me was this sentence:

“The diversity of responses received by Senator Markey shows that each manufacturer is handling the introduction of new technology in very different ways, and for the most part these actions are insufficient to ensure security and privacy for vehicle consumers.”

While it’s unlikely that a particular car will be targeted for hacking, the privacy issue is concerning to me. Read your manual or check with your dealer to see if there is a way to turn off data collection. It may be as simple as turning off your GPS feature, but check with your dealer to be sure. If you have an older car without GPS, OnStar, Bluetooth, etc., you likely do not have to worry about this.

Here is the Press Release from Senator Markey’s office along with a link to the original report: http://www.markey.senate.gov/news/press-releases/markey-report-reveals-automobile-security-and-privacy-vulnerabilities

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I’ve created a Free Report on what to look for to protect yourself from “phishing” scams. Click here to receive it!