Category: Advice
-
Working from Home, Ad Blockers and Making PDFs
Working from home, social distancing and adjusting to how we use the Internet all are topics of concern right now. When using video conferencing software, turn off the video to improve your audio quality or at least reduce the video quality (aka bitrate—usually some number with bps or just p after it.) Schedule who needs…
-
Facebook Info and Google Tips
Facebook is revealing more information about what they track across the Internet, and they also have options available to control how they track you. Their new tool is called “Off-Facebook Activity,” and you can find it under “Settings” then “Your Facebook Information.” You can even cut down on future tracking, but all that really does…
-
Tips for Phone and Computer Security
The iPhone has a reputation of being hard to hack, but how can you know for sure? There’s an app for that. Although Apple has strongly limited access to data that security tools would like to access to tell if the phone has been compromised, a new app called iVerify includes a series of detailed…
-
Tips for Holiday Wishlists and More
For the coming holiday season computer purchases for Mac or Windows, look for desktops or laptops that have 8 GB of RAM, ideally a solid-state drive, and at least two USB ports (you might want to buy a USB hub to expand that number). And avoid the lower end and slower processors like the i3…
-
How to Help Older Computer Users
Providing computer help for older friends or someone in your family can be a challenge. The biggest issue is that older people may not have the knowledge base you have or may not want to learn all of the tricks you think they would benefit from. I find it best to have them give me…
-
Headphones, Updates, and Recycling
Apple wants you to think plug-in headphones are passé, as they no longer will include that headphone dongle with new iPhones. You will need to own or buy Bluetooth headphones or a Lightning-to-headphone-jack converter. Microsoft Updates You may have heard that Microsoft will extend support for Windows 7 beyond January 2020, but that is only…