Better living through Cell Phones

This week a client informed me that they still had an old flip phone and used it only for emergencies. The question is what denotes an emergency? For many of us, the smart phone has complemented or replaced our desktop or laptop computers. But how many of us stretch the capabilities of our smart phones to their limits. Almost all smart phones are set up to retrieve and send e-mail, text and messaging. We can use them to shop, check reviews, even move our car in and out of parking spaces when the spot is a bit tight. But how about simple day to day tasks that in the past might require separate tools, dangerous positions, pencil, papers or rulers and tables? For example, I needed a part for a twenty year old vertical blind. The blind parts company asked for the model or serial number of the unit to determine which parts it required. Now, in the old days, I might have gotten out the step ladder, climbed up and unfastened the blind, taking it down, knocking over the lamp that I set off to the side so I wouldn’t knock it over, finding the tag and carefully ascribed the numbers and letters on a note pad. But my baby binary buddy, with the camera set for a selfie, or using the front camera, was able to be held up behind, over and under the valence while I perused the screen until I found a label. Now to record that label’s information was a simple touch on the screen and a photo was taken that could be enlarged if my eyes required it.

Want to give up car ownership? Put an app on the smart phone for Uber and Lyft. The Uber app tells us how many Uber cars are nearby, (eight right now) gives three options ranging from everyday drives to more complex rides. The rate for the basic ride from Punta Gorda to Murdock for 4 people is $18.92, my credit card is charged, and according to the app, the car will arrive in nine minutes to pick us up. In the meantime, I can check out the driver’s customer ratings, see a picture of the driver and the car. No cash transfers between passenger and driver unless of course we receive exceptional service which might elicit a tip. As important as the passengers rating the driver, the driver can also rate the passengers as to their behavior. Now sell that old car. No insurance, no registration, go gas, the list goes on.

The possibilities are endless; an app called Loseit will allow us to track every calorie we stuff in our mouth. Amazing how when we see the calories consumed how our hunger seems satisfied much sooner and the pounds seem to fade away.  Another app called Life360 allows our spouse or others to track our travels, which Martha likes to do when I’m out on a long bicycle ride around Charlotte County.

What do you use your smart phone for?

Court Nederveld owns his own computer consulting and fixit service –Bits, Bytes & Chips Computer Services. He makes house calls in Punta Gorda/Port Charlotte! 

Windows Security..Your Computer is Infected

Fake virus infection Web pages are rampant. By now almost everyone has seen the screen that screams Virus Alert – Warning” text within Edge, Internet Explorer, Firefox and Google Chrome. The screen is actually a popup window and the technical mechanism behind that fake page is called the iFrame injection attack, a common kind of XSS (cross site scripting) attack. That tech jargon isn't important to us but illustrates that this is not an infection of our binary buddy, but is a bogus webpage. We can be victims of this attack by clicking on a compromised link, ad or even surfing a tricked webpage. Recently the NY Times website was affected by an ad placed by a scammer. Readers of the NYT were getting these fake webpage popups just from being on the NYT webpage.

Unfortunately there is little we as users can do to prevent this attack. It isn't email based or controlled by anything on our PC. There are several things we should do however if we see one of these fake warnings appear on our computer. First and foremost, repeat, first and foremost, do NOT call the phone number that it says we must call. Calling this number will lead to a carefully scripted con job, control of our machine and ultimately their possession of our credit card numbers and removing $399 from our account.

Now that we know it isn't real and just a webpage in our browser, the easiest thing to do is restart the computer. This causes our browser to close, removing the sham warning page. Bear in mind that if we simply put the computer to sleep rather than restarting it the hoax will still be there when the computer wakes up.

If we can't shut down the computer then we need to close the browser. The X in the top right corner may not be accessible so use the mouse to right button click on the time and date in the corner of our computer. This will open a menu, from the menu left button click on Task Manager and from the dialogue box highlight our browser, be it Edge, Chrome, Internet Explorer or Firefox and then click on the button labeled End Task. This will crash and close the browser. If we then open the browser it may attempt to take us back to where we were and the hoax page may appear again. Repeat process and the browser will ask us if we want to restore the previous pages or start fresh. Choose start fresh. Alternatively, if we are fast enough, we can open the browser and on the tab at the top for the counterfeit warning page, click the close X to shut down just that tab.

Finally if all else fails call a local tech. Not only will they remove the offending webpage, they will double check for any other issues and in my case try to educate the user on how to handle this problem the next time it appears. Because it will. Don't fall for a rip-off webpage.

Court Nederveld owns his own computer consulting and fixit service –Bits, Bytes & Chips Computer Services.

Something special for my blog readers. Over on the right is the ability to purchase my book, Grumbles from the Keyboard. Chock full of tips and tricks. This book is about 4 years old now and it is interesting to see some of the stuff it covers that isn't even used anymore. But, here is the special deal. I have about 17 copies left and anyone that purchases it from this blog will also get as my gift a copy of my book, Epicuria: Adventures that Really Cook! Yes it is a cookbook and that a computer tech can write a cookbook is worth the price any day. When they're gone they're gone so order yours today.