~ Brian Bondy

​I’ve written before about smart watches and how I think they enhance the smartphone experience. I switched to to the iPhone from an Android for FaceTime. That was the only reason. I have grown to appreciate the iPhone well enough, but I think Android phones can be just as good. Same thing with smartwatches.
 
One of the features I appreciate about my Apple watch is the health app and what comes with it. Smart watch manufacturers are working hard to get more technology packed into these things. The newer smartwatches can read your heart rate, take your blood pressure and tell you your blood oxygen level. I know Apple is working on telling you your blood glucose level.
 
We were at the Monterey Aquarium recently with my mother and she tripped and fell somehow. When I got to her she was just trying to get up, but she fell pretty hard. He Apple watch had detected the fall and was beeping and asking if she fell. It offers a choice that you fell or didn’t fall. If you fell, it then asks if you need help. If you don’t respond, it will automatically place a 911 call.  IF you have set up emergency contacts, it will also notify them.
 
My mom was okay, though a bit banged up. I pressed that she had fallen, and then that she didn’t need emergency services. There was a very nice ER Doctor that happened to be there which was gratifying. The point is, the watch can be used for health emergencies, which is handy for our aging population at the very least. I’ve fallen a number of times and had my watch go off. I’ve not needed help but it could happen.
 
The iPhone has a Health app which should have some info put into it too. In an emergency, this information could be helpful. The app has basic personal info, height, weight, blood type, etc., but also it can have emergency contacts in case something happens. While trying to figure out how to add that to my mother’s phone, several days after her fall, I looked for some helpful websites.
 
A great page to get all the “how-to” info on this subject is HERE. 

Brian Bondy
 
I’m a big proponent of clearing junk off your PC. Windows makes all kinds of messes everywhere, and it’s very un-tidy. I like to tidy things up using CCleaner. You can download it free HERE.  

Your iPhone is a different matter. Browsers are messy on all computer devices. I found an article that gives step by step directions on how to clear the cache and clean-up/speed-up your browsing experience. It can also be a privacy issue. Read that article HERE. 
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I’ve been cleaning out my office and workshop. I wish there was an app for that.

Rick's Daily Tech Tips is a great resource!

Last summer while Brian was not finding diamonds in Crater of Diamonds State Park, I was back at the Airbnb getting the News out.  I knew the internet might be sketchy but I didn't realize how sketchy.  Quickly I switched to using my iPhone as a hot spot.  It worked beautifully.  By that evening I was out of data and have since switched to an unlimited plan.  Mind you, I was on the internet pretty much all day before this happened and what I was doing involved a lot of uploading.  That being said this is a great feature when your internet service is down and you can get cell service.
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Does your Internet service occasionally go out due to storms or equipment failure?
If so, you know how irritating it can be when you have to wait for a tech to come out and restore your service.

But guess what? In a pinch, you can use your smartphone’s cellular data connection to access the Internet with your computer. 

Both Android phones and iPhones have a feature called tethering that allows you to essentially use your phone as a modem and your cellular provider as an ISP for your computer(s) and other devices.

Not all cellular data plans allow you to set up a tethered Wi-Fi connection with your phone, but if yours doesn’t you can probably add that option to your plan for a reasonble amount.

Once you have confirmed that your plan indeed supports tethering, simply follow the steps below to set up a tethered Wi-Fi hotspot with your phone. Just follow the procedure that matches the device you have.
If you have an Android phone:
1 – Tap the Settings icon (it looks like a “gear“).
2 – Tap Network & Internet.
3 – Tap Advanced.
4 – Tap Hotspot & tethering.
5 – Tap Wi-Fi hotspot.
6 – Toggle the setting to On.
7 – Use the settings on the current screen to assign your hotspot a name and password.

If you have an iPhone:
1 – Tap the Settings icon (it looks like a “gear“).
2 – Tap Cellular.
3 – Tap Personal Hotspot or Settings.
4 – Tap Personal Hotspot.
5 – If it isn’t on already, toggle the “Allow others to Join” setting to On.
6 – Choose a password for the new hotspot.
That’s all there is to it. You should now be able to connect your computer (and other devices) to the Internet via the Wi-Fi hotspot you just created. Simply connect to that network and enter the password.

There’s a huge caveat I should mention at this point…
If you have a cellular data plan with a data cap, using a desktop browser that loads the full versions of websites instead of the mobile versions can potentially burn through your monthly data allotment in a hurry.

Of course this won’t be an issue if you have an unlimited data plan that’s truly unlimited (with no data cap or high-speed threshold), but not all “unlimited” plans are truly unlimited.

Some “unlimited” plans will throttle your download speeds back into dial-up range after you’ve reached a certain data threshold. As you can imagine, that greatly impacts the user experience (no more streaming and very slow page loads, for example).
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Just something to be aware of before you start using your phone’s cellular data to connect your computer to the web.

I report scams all the time in the News. Some dear friends recently reported an email from McAfee about their subscription being renewed for $299.55. They don’t have McAfee of course. There was a phone number to call in case they wanted to cancel.

That’s a pretty standard phishing scheme, and she was suspicious, so that was good. It did look real, and she did delete it.

My sister-in-law called us recently, also suspicious. This time it was from Facebook marketplace, where she was selling a bunkbed. A potential buyer wanted to confirm she was not a scammer by ‘sending’ her a 6 digit number which she was to read over the phone to him.
If you didn’t catch what was happening, that’s a scam. Many companies send a 6 digit verification code when a userid is signing on to a new device. In this case, the scammer had my sister-in-law’s gmail address and was trying to sign on from his device. That would automatically cause Google to send a 6 digit verification code to my sister-in-law’s phone, which is the code required by the scammer.
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It’s super clever, and insidious. Those 6 digit codes are meant for your eyes only. Since the code was to be expected, it wasn’t suspicious to receive one, so naturally a person would then give it to the scammer, thereby giving Google access to a scammer. Don’t ever do that! It’s common for businesses to require 2 factor authentication. This is the second factor and it is not meant to ever be given away to anyone. 
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I looked it up and it's slightly different from my description. Same idea though. You can read a government report on it HERE.

I often recommend MalwareBytes to my reader(s). There may be 2 of you. Today though, my friend Grizz called saying MB was acting flakey. Carol noticed some odd behavior this morning as well, of MalwareBytes, not Grizz, but then….

Anyway, I helped Grizz uninstall it and then went to look for some info on what was happening. Sure enough, there were plenty of articles on the problem with MB, particularly it flagging Google.com as a bad site and sometimes blocking access to it.

Therefor, the oops, in the heading. They made a mistake. It happens. It needs fixing. In the meantime, their suggestion is to turn on the toggle for Web Protection in the main MalwareBytes screen. A temporary and not very good solution, because then it doesn’t offer Web Protection.
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Hoping this is very short lived. You can read more about it HERE. https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/malwarebytes-blocks-all-google-apps/