Author: Bill Scobie

Frequent password changes used to be all the rage, the logic being that it made logins more secure. Good passwords, long (like six random words), unique and not made from a pattern, that can’t be guessed from any publicly available information about you, only need to be changed for sites that have been breached. And,…

You really should use a VPN when you don’t trust the Wi-Fi network you are connecting to, say at an airport, hotel, public Wi-Fi at a café or restaurant. You don’t need a VPN at home, unless you also don’t trust your internet service provider to sell marketing info about what sites you are going…

Start out this New Year by reviewing your passwords. You probably have heard “make each one unique” but hate those very random suggested passwords. I find it easier to pull together six words by looking around my office and if I have to add special characters, numbers, capitals, I do so. I always write down…

Add to your disaster planning of backups and password lists, alternative Internet access. If you don’t know if or how to use your phone as a hotspot, now is the time to learn (make sure your cell plan supports hotspotting.) Also, try using just your phone for a week to find out what all you…

There are so many class action lawsuits that you need to be careful when you get an email or text letting you know that you too can be part of the next great payout. A good place to check whether you might be part of a scam is https://classaction.org or https://consumer-action.org/ Just make sure you…

A large part of the Web is not in English and luckily most web browsers have built-in translation tools. You may have found these by accident, most browsers either just translate the text automatically (Chrome for example) or will ask you (Edge and Firefox.) Safari users have to notice what looks like two speech bubbles…

Google Translate recently announced another 110 languages it supports, assisted by the magic of AI. Many of these are languages from Africa, bringing up to 243 the number of languages supported. With Google Translate on your smartphone you can feel you have Star Trek’s Universal Translator already in your pocket. Explore more at https://translate.google.com/ Sometimes…

Incognito mode could be what you always want when you open your web browser as you like your device forgetting where it has been on the internet and dropping cookies when you close a tab or window. Doing this is actually easier in Firefox and Safari where there are checkboxes to enable this. In Firefox,…

Using your computer’s desktop efficiently is mostly a matter of thinking how you would use a real desk. Likely you keep your current work on the desk, do something similar with folders for current projects on your computer desktop. With your real desk, you probably put away things you no longer need, that is when…

Users of Windows 10 who want to continue receiving security updates beyond October 2025 (the official end-of-life for Windows 10) now know what Microsoft will charge. Per machine, the first year will cost $61, the 2nd year will be twice as much with the 3rd and final year costing twice as much again or $244…

So many things to change on the fly in macOS, installing OnlySwitch will help you access things otherwise scattered around in Preferences or Settings. Things like hiding unwanted menu bar icons at the top of the screen, turning on Dark mode outside of normal dark hours, preparing your mac for presenting by hiding the dock…

There are times you need more control over what you are grabbing off your screen in macOS or Windows 11, both have built-in tools. In Windows 11, there is Screen Snipping, most easily found by searching for it with the Search box in the Start menu. There are four boxes at the top that control…