Tehachapi's Online Community News & Entertainment Guide
Tehachapi's Online Community News & Entertainment Guide
Sorted by date Results 151 - 175 of 194
First, the bad news. Back in 2003, Bill Burr, a manager at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), wrote a paper about computer passwords that eventually became the password mess we find ourselves in today. Burr's eight-page password recommendation document, titled NIST Special Publication 800-63. Appendix A advised people to use irregular capitalization, special characters, and at least one numeral in their passwords. He was also the guy that suggested we change our...
But not a used computer like you’re probably thinking. I’m talking about a refurbished computer. You can buy a refurbished computer direct from the manufacturer, e.g., Dell, HP, Apple, etc., or you can buy one from a company that specializes in refurbishing computers. The refurbished computers that come directly from the manufacturer were probably returned by a customer for some reason. The manufacturer checks out the computer, replaces any parts that need replacing, and then does the same fin...
The internet is a weird and wonderful place and has become something way beyond what anyone thought it could be and something no one could have predicted. From email to videos, to messaging, to images, most people have a lot of their life posted on the internet. All of your internet content is stored on servers, and mostly everything is fine. But internet content companies do go out of business or get bought by other companies, products get discontinued, and accounts get hacked. To safeguard...
Mmmm, cookies. Unfortunately, I’m not talking about the delicious cookies you make in the kitchen. I’m talking about the cookies stored on your computer. Wait, what? How do these cookies get on my computer? What are they for? Should I be worried? Whoa there, pardner. We’ll get to all your questions. Technically, when we talk about cookies on your computer, we’re talking about browser cookies. Firefox, Internet Explorer (do people still use that?), Chrome, and Edge all put cookies on your compute...
We've heard and read the word ransomware a lot lately, but what is it and how can you protect yourself against it? Ransomware is a form of malware or malicious software. Malware is software designed to damage or do not-so-nice things to your computer. Computer viruses, worms, trojan horses, and spyware are all considered malware. Personally, I consider any program that advertises itself as free and then makes you pay for it once it's installed on your computer malware, too. Ransomware encrypts...
Again with the passwords? Yes, because passwords are important and how we reset passwords has changed. In the old days (a couple of years ago), if you forgot your password for your email or social media account, you could prove you were you by answering some security questions. Then you could reset your password. But there were problems with that method; 1) many people didn’t remember the answers to their security questions (who was my second-grade teacher?) and 2) some of the information was ea...
Here’s how to stop them: • For Chrome: Get the Disable HTML5 Autoplay plugin • For Firefox: Use the FlashStopper add-on • For Safari: there isn’t a plugin, but you can do it using Terminal. Quit Safari, go to /Applications/Utilities and open Terminal. Type this command into the window: • defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeInternalDebugMenu 1 • Press Return and wait a few seconds • For Internet Explorer: While it’s technically possible, it breaks other functionality, so this is just anot...
Outlook “remembers” every email address you type into the address fields To:, cc:, and bcc:, even if you accidentally type in a wrong email address. If one of your contacts gets a new email address and you update their contact record, the new address and the old address will still show up as you type in any of the address fields. Don’t give up, friend. We can totally fix this thing. Outlook uses something called an Autocomplete list that keeps track of the email addresses you use. This list...
For the past few weeks, you may have seen stories about ISPs being able to sell your browsing history to advertisers. Let’s clear up a few things. First off, ISP stands for Internet Service Provider. ISPs are companies like AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Spectrum, and others, that provide internet service to their customers. To connect your computer to a website, your ISP has to know where your computer is – your Internet Protocol (IP) address. Then the ISP finds the IP address of the website you wan...
A new computer comes with everything you need to do the basics, like checking your email, doing some web browsing, binge-watching something on Netflix, or enjoying a little shopping on Amazon. But what if you need to write a letter, do some 3D animation, design a logo, record a multitrack tune, edit a video, or remove the tourists from your photo of the Eiffel tower? To do any of those things, you need to buy specialized software, and most of it is pretty expensive. Try these free alternatives...
You’re finally ready. After years of hearing from your friends about all the ways MacOS and Apple hardware is better than Windows or PC hardware, you’re ready to make the switch from PC to Mac. Or, maybe after watching as Apple focused on iPads and iPhones while letting their entire iMac and MacBook Pro lines miss out on the latest hardware, you started thinking about Windows. Then Apple finally refreshed the MacBook Pro line but made you buy dongles for most of your peripherals, and the...
Most of us probably don’t answer a phone call when it’s from a number we don’t know. We know it’s probably some kind of scam trying to separate us from our money. Here are the newest phone scams to watch out for. Phone scam #1: In this scam you get a call from a robocall autodialer using fake caller ID information that hangs up before you can answer. The scammers might do this several times in a row, making you curious about the call. Don’t call back. Phone scam #2: Or you might get a call like...
Ransomware sneaks onto your computer by either tricking you into opening an attachment or by subverting ads on websites you visit. Once on your computer, ransomware modifies your files by creating an encrypted copy of a file and then deleting the original file. It does this to all of your files, and holds them for ransom; you have to pay to get your pictures and documents back. A new player in the anti-ransomware space is RansomFree by Cybereason. RansomFree watches the file-related processes...
Even the fastest computer can slow down as time goes by. Here are a few things you can do to make it run like new again. Watch out for programs that auto-start Some programs want to start up every time you boot your computer and get loaded into RAM to be ready to go. Unless it's a program you run every time you use your computer; this slows down your computer's boot time. To see what starts up when your Windows computer boots up, right-click a blank spot on the taskbar and launch Task Manager...
Google makes things convenient, and that convenience comes, in part, because of what Google ‘knows’ about you and your habits. Everything you search for at home or on your phone, where you go with your phone, and if you’ve ever use OK Google, it keeps that too. To be fair, Google does give us a way to see what they’re capturing about us and even ways to delete a lot of it. If you’ve ever used the ‘OK, Google’ feature on your phone or laptop, Google keeps a recording and a transcript of...
It’s that time of year again. The internet lets us shop in stores that can be anywhere in the world and the myriad delivery choices can bring our purchases right to our door. It’s convenient, and the transactions themselves are safe and secure. But there are a few things to watch out for while you’re shopping. Ransomware Criminals spread ransomware by adding an infected attachment to an email. This holiday shopping season, watch out for fake delivery or tracking emails that say they’re from FedE...
We log on to Facebook to see photos of families and friends and see who’s off to some far away land and (probably) having more fun than we are - but we don’t want to give the book of faces too much information about ourselves. Here are some changes you can make to take control of Facebook. Prevent your friend’s page likes from turning into ads If you don’t want Facebook to show you ads from pages your friends have liked, you can turn it off. Log in to Facebook. Click on the downward pointin...
As grown-ups, you probably know the basics of how to stay safe when you're on the internet, but how about your kids? Have you had 'the talk' with them yet? If not, here are some things you can cover: Cyberbullying Kids can be bullied online just like they can at school. Cyberbullying can include mean text messages or emails, rumors sent by email or posted on social networking sites, and embarrassing pictures, videos, websites, or fake profiles. In fact, 35% of kids between 11 and 17 years old...
When you buy your computer from a retailer – Amazon, Costco, Best Buy – you’re getting a system that was designed to meet most people’s needs. And also to make everybody involved (except you) some money. But if you build the computer yourself, you’ll probably end up with a better computer and you’ll learn some new skills. Note: there are absolutely no soldering or programming skills needed. Everything either screws together or plugs into something else. Easy peasy! PC parts For any computer, t...
In case you missed it, late last month Yahoo! reported that in 2014 thieves broke into their servers and stole information on 500,000 Yahoo! email users. The information stolen included names, email addresses, phone numbers, birth dates and some security questions and answers. If you haven’t changed your yahoo.com, sbcglobal.net, or att.net password since 2014 you should put down this paper and change it right now. Really. While we’re changing passwords, go ahead and change your password on the...
They’re still out there, the fake tech support people. I know, and you know, nobody from Microsoft will ever call you to tell you there’s something wrong with your computer. It just won’t happen. The people who do call you aren’t from Microsoft and all they want to do is get your money. Don’t give it to them. Don’t talk to them and just hang up the phone. The same is true of any page that pops up on your computer telling you to call immediately so they can “save” your computer. There isn’t any...
Computers are tools. We don’t need to know very much about our computer to check our email, play a quick game of Solitaire, or order ourselves a little something. As part of my job fixing things that can go wrong with computers, I need to explain technical things about computers and how they work in terms I hope people can understand. Here are two of the most common. Hard drive space vs. RAM People worry about filling up their hard drive with pictures or music, or they worry that the programs o...
Myth: For digital cameras, the more megapixels the better. For normal viewing, megapixels aren’t as important as having a good quality lens and a good light sensor. There’s more to digital cameras than just megapixels. If you want to blow up your photos for printing or do some detailed photo editing, you can get pictures with more resolution by changing the settings on your existing camera. Myth: Don’t leave your laptop plugged in all the time. No, you’re not ruining your laptop’s battery b...
Each version of Windows adds features and sometimes new ways of doing the same old things. But Windows doesn’t do everything by itself and probably never will. Here are a couple of utilities I use and recommend for certain tasks. Reducing file size for pictures Digital cameras and smartphones take great pictures these days and those picture are huge in terms of file size. To email your pictures to family or friends, you need to reduce the file size so you can send more than one or two pictures a...
Now that you’ve got your free upgrade to Windows 10, here are some settings you should probably change and why. If you don’t have a touchscreen and never want Windows 10 to run in Tablet Mode, click on Start - Settings - System and then click on Tablet mode about half way down the list. Turn off the touch-friendly setting at the top. Under When I sign in change the drop down box to Go to the desktop and change the drop down box to Don’t ask me and don’t switch under the automatically switch...
