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Tech support scams, iOS magnifier, improve lithium-ion battery life

There is a quick way to “kill” some of those scary tech support scams that pop up on your computer. These are those windows that open up, nearly always from the web, trying to get you to call Microsoft for help. If you can, with the mouse, right-click on the task bar at the bottom of your screen and select Task Manager, you will end up with a window listing your web browser application, along with other things you might have open. Select your browser, or maybe just go down the list, and click on the End task button in the lower right corner. You may discover that your scary window has gone away.

There are new features in iOS 10 for the Apple iPhone and iPad that might attract your attention. Finally, there is a built-in magnifier, easily accessible with three Home button clicks. You have to enable this triple Home button click by going to Settings > General > Accessibility > Magnifier and sliding the button to the right. And, if you frequently send pictures in Messages, you may want to cut down on data by going to Settings > Messages > Low Quality Image Mode and sliding on low quality image mode. For more hands-off car safety, Siri can now announce the caller’s name or phone number, see Settings > Phone > Announce Calls and check how you want Siri to announce calls.

Another smartphone weather app is now available through a web browser. DarkSky.net will show you forecasts, and details when you click into the specific day, that are based on aggregated data from a variety of weather forecasting bodies around the world. For the weather data nerds look at <http://forecast.io/raw/> for their sources.

Even more exercises to help undo the effects of slouching at your computer with some simple exercises can be seen in this YouTube video <https://youtu.be/N_KDkC4tois> , however they require a bit of floor space and probably some privacy.

Information from the American Chemical Society points out at least three steps to improve lithium-ion battery life. These include: avoiding high heat as it speeds up chemical reactions in the battery requiring more frequent charging; not letting the battery die or drop to really low to zero charge; and storing your device at around 50% battery charge if you are going on vacation without that device and then keeping it in a cool place.

Frame by frame advancement is fun and possible in YouTube videos by first pausing the video with the letter k and then using the period key to go back frame by frame or the comma to advance a frame at a time. Use the letter k to start up the video again.

Facebook, as useful as it may be, can use some fixing. So, if you have been annoyed by certain facets of Facebook, try installing the social fixer web browser plugin <http://socialfixer.com/> and check out the new social fixer menu in Facebook that let you hide political posts, posts you have read already, hide “sponsored stories”, and even hide certain parts of the Facebook page that you really don’t want or need to see.

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