Resetting Passwords and Deleting Voicemails

You need to be wary of password reset notifications sent to your email. Online services go through their records to match lists of compromised passwords at other sites with what might be stored on their own systems. In some cases, they force a password reset and email users that request. Scammers take advantage of this by sending their own emails that ask you to click a link to reset your password. Here’s how to avoid these attacks (or any alert-based scam): Always go directly to the website and log in. If your password needs to be reset, click the “I forgot my password” link and follow the instructions.

Radically changing your Windows 10 desktop can mean more than just setting a custom desktop image or slideshow of images from one of your Pictures folders. Rainmeter (rainmeter.net) lets you display all sorts of information about your computer on the desktop background, using “skins” or “… a movable, dynamic, sometimes-interactive window that appears over the Windows desktop, and usually gathers and displays information of some kind.” In other words, you can make your Windows 10 look very unlike the basic setup. Although it is a programming environment, the rather large Rainmeter community has made many skins available; check out the Discover tab on the website. For a Mac variation, check GeekTool (tynsoe.org/v2/geektool).

There is an interesting emergency responder use of an app call What3Words, whose developers have divided the world into 10-foot squares, each named with three random words. If you are lost in the woods and have a cell signal and this app, you can provide emergency responders with an amazingly accurate location in just three words. For example, I am typing this at snips.estimates.plead but I watch TV at punky.lambs.understanding. (That’s roughly the back and front of my house, respectively.) Get started at what3words.com. Download the app before you need it; it might be off by a few feet, but could come in really handy for a rescue.

Set unique ring tones for people whose calls you must answer and ask them to only call if it’s an emergency; it will make your driving safer.

You need to be wary of password reset notifications sent to your email. Online services go through their records to match lists of compromised passwords at other sites with what might be stored on their own systems. In some cases, they force a password reset and email users that request. Scammers take advantage of this by sending their own emails that ask you to click a link to reset your password. Here’s how to avoid these attacks (or any alert-based scam): Always go directly to the website and log in. If your password needs to be reset, click the “I forgot my password” link and follow the instructions.

Radically changing your Windows 10 desktop can mean more than just setting a custom desktop image or slideshow of images from one of your Pictures folders. Rainmeter (rainmeter.net) lets you display all sorts of information about your computer on the desktop background, using “skins” or “… a movable, dynamic, sometimes-interactive window that appears over the Windows desktop, and usually gathers and displays information of some kind.” In other words, you can make your Windows 10 look very unlike the basic setup. Although it is a programming environment, the rather large Rainmeter community has made many skins available; check out the Discover tab on the website. For a Mac variation, check GeekTool (tynsoe.org/v2/geektool).

There is an interesting emergency responder use of an app call What3Words, whose developers have divided the world into 10-foot squares, each named with three random words. If you are lost in the woods and have a cell signal and this app, you can provide emergency responders with an amazingly accurate location in just three words. For example, I am typing this at snips.estimates.plead but I watch TV at punky.lambs.understanding. (That’s roughly the back and front of my house, respectively.) Get started at what3words.com. Download the app before you need it; it might be off by a few feet, but could come in really handy for a rescue.

Set unique ring tones for people whose calls you must answer and ask them to only call if it’s an emergency; it will make your driving safer.

Voice mail, that wonderful ability for people to leave you phone messages, is something that fills up or, even worse, prevents you from using your own answering machine, where you can hear and screen calls by listening to the message as it is being left. Answering machines used to sit next to landline phones. Now all phone service providers—land and cell—offer their own voice mail service as part of a service package. This means that the messages are stored at their end, and you no longer need to have an answering machine by your phone. None of these phone services have unlimited message storage, so your voice mail box can fill up. If that happens, people can no longer leave messages and you might think that no one is trying to call you. Ask your telephone company how to use your voice mail service, or ask them to turn it off, letting your callers leave messages the “old-fashioned” way—on an answering machine where you can hear them as they leave the message.