Scobie.Net

Author: Bill Scobie

  • Facebook, Zelle, Snapchat

    Anyone with a Facebook account who has downloaded other apps, like photo editors, VPNs, flashlight apps, 3D games, fitness trackers, horoscopes, and business or ad management apps should change their password for Facebook. Many of those apps, more than 400 according to Meta (the parent company of Facebook), have sucked up Facebook credentials. Look through…

  • Safer Login Options

    Logins without passwords are increasingly common, and something Microsoft has been pushing hard lately. Going “passwordless” does not mean you no longer need authentication; you just use something other than a traditional password. Think of those codes you sometimes get when logging into a website, often financial sites. Passwords suffer as an authentication method for…

  • OCR, SPAM increases, Enhance Old Photos

    Being able to copy text embedded in an image will soon be easy in Windows 10 and 11 as part of Microsoft PowerToys. In the next few months, with PowerOCR, you will be able to select part of an image with recognizable text to be converted and put in the Windows clipboard as text for…

  • Extend Power During Outages

    When the power goes out and you don’t have your phone and/or battery packs charged, there are a few things you can do to extend your phone’s battery. Turn on low power mode, turn down the screen brightness, turn off location services and Hey Siri or Hey Google, and close all apps you don’t need.…

  • iPhone Tips, Wi-Fi Help, and Security Updates

    iPhone and iPad performance on the web can be improved by clearing your device’s web browser cache. The onlywarning is that clearing the cache will log you out of sites and clear website per- sonalizations. Each browser has its own technique but you can Google something like “iOS chrome clear cache” to get the procedure.…

  • Screen protectors, Amazon Drive, ChromeOS on old laptops, text-to-speech

    As AI (artificial intelligence) is used more and more on the internet, here is an interesting use: translating jargon into more understandable English. There is an extension Chrome titled Jargon. It appears to have a “limited free trial offer” —no indication if or when that will change. Visit explainjargon.com. If you like to choose a…

  • Is Windows Trusted Platform Module (TPM) Update Needed?

    Windows 11 is coming. Are you ready? Or does it even matter? There has been a flurry of excitement and agony around the system requirements for Windows 11. Microsoft is insisting on a fairly recent version of a security hardware component called Trusted Platform Module (TPM), which can protect against potential malware and ransomware attacks…

  • Spam Calls on Smartphones, free your music, Google Hangout changes

    If you get a lot of spam calls on your smartphone but rarely makes calls yourself, you may have thought about changing your number. In theory, it’s easy: once all your important contacts have your new number, they will be able to contact you. And if you message people through social platforms, nothing needs to…

  • Protecting While Sharing

    When loaning your smartphone to someone else, you can do a few things first to limit what they can do. On iPhones, turn on Guided Access (Settings>Accessibility, and slide on Guided Access), and use Passcode Settings to set a different code from your normal unlock code. Explore Time Limits for other options. Limit use to…

  • Tech Updates for July

    Windows 10 always wants to market new ideas, and anew one is called News and Interests. As part of May’s Super Tuesday update, Microsoft put in a new widget to “surface news, sports scores, and stocks based upon your interests,” and it may show up on your taskbar. To get rid of it, right-click on…

  • No More Passwords?

    Apple, Google, and Microsoft are working to end passwords. Before you cheer too loudly, review what they are trying to do. This does not mean that there will not be a need for some type of authentication. Have you ever tried to login to a website and had to get a one-time code sent to…

  • Tips for Backups

    The only backup you will ever regret is the one you didn’t make. Though World Backup Day was the last day of March, you shouldn’t think about it only once a year. The point of a backup of your electronic data—a DVD, thumb drive, or a syncing service like iCloud, Dropbox or Backblaze—is that you…