2024 August eBytes
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12 Simple Things You Can Do to Be More Secure Online
No Time for Huge PDFs? How to Ask Adobe's AI Assistant to Summarize Files
I've tried a zillion desktop distros - it doesn't get any better than Linux Mint 22
Check Your Accounts: 10 Billion Passwords Exposed in Largest Leak Ever
Forget Email: How to Send and Receive a Fax Online
How to Turn Off Political Ads on Social Media
Stop paying for third-party antivirus software. Here's why
7 Features You Need in Your New Laptop (and 4 You Should Skip)
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12 Simple Things You Can Do to Be More Secure Online
Follow these easy tips to protect the security of your devices, your data, your internet traffic, and your identity.
https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/12-simple-things-you-can-do-to-be-more-secure-online
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No Time for Huge PDFs? How to Ask Adobe's AI Assistant to Summarize Files
Adobe's AI Assistant in Acrobat and Reader can answer questions about a PDF and even help you generate content based on the information in the file.
https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-ask-adobe-ai-assistant-to-summarize-analyze-pdfs
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I've tried a zillion desktop distros - it doesn't get any better than Linux Mint 22
Linux Mint's latest release continues its tradition of excellence. It's easy to learn and use, faster than Windows, and runs on a thrift-store PC. What more can you ask for?
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Check Your Accounts: 10 Billion Passwords Exposed in Largest Leak Ever
The 'RockYou2024' database includes almost 10 billion passwords pulled from 'a mix of old and new data breaches.' Here's how to check if yours are at risk.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/rockyou2024-10-billion-passwords-exposed-largest-leak-ever
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Forget Email: How to Send and Receive a Fax Online
If you don't have access to a fax machine, you can send and receive faxes right from your computer or mobile device.
https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-send-or-receive-a-fax-online
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How to Turn Off Political Ads on Social Media
As the 2024 election cycle amps up, political ads are more likely to infiltrate your social media feeds. Here's how to banish them from your Facebook, Instagram, and X (Twitter) accounts.
https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-turn-off-political-ads-on-facebook-and-instagram
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Stop paying for third-party antivirus software. Here's why
There's no need to waste your money.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/stop-paying-for-antivirus-software-heres-why/
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7 Features You Need in Your New Laptop (and 4 You Should Skip)
After testing and rating more than 300 laptops, PCMag's longest-serving reviewer has some good advice about essential features in your new PC and what's not worth your money.
https://www.pcmag.com/opinions/the-11-most-overrated-and-underrated-laptop-features
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Links - News, Tips, & Downloads
Step Up Your Shots: Our Top Tested Picks for Budding Photographers - Ready to upgrade from your smartphone to something better for your photos? In addition to a user-friendly dedicated camera, here's all the gear you need to get started.
https://www.pcmag.com/picks/top-tested-picks-for-beginner-photographers
How to Change the Default Camera Settings on Your iPhone - Don't miss your shot because you're fiddling with camera settings.
https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-change-the-default-camera-settings-on-your-iphone
Top 100 Best Budget Buys: Affordable, Tested Tech That's Actually Worth It - Our experts review more than 1,500 technology products each year. Our mega-guide, updated monthly, scopes out the very best cost-conscious products across 15 key categories.
https://www.pcmag.com/picks/top-100-best-budget-buys-affordable-tested-tech-worth-buying
How to Change Your iPhone or iPad Passcode to Something More Secure - Still using a four-digit passcode? You can beef up your iPhone and iPad security by setting a passcode with six digits or more and even use alphanumeric characters. Here's how.
https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-change-iphone-passcode
40 Excel Tips for Becoming a Spreadsheet Pro - Microsoft's program does just about everything one could ask for in a spreadsheet. Become the office Excel guru in no time with these 38 hacks and tricks.
https://www.pcmag.com/explainers/excel-tips-for-becoming-a-spreadsheet-pro
Your TV Probably Has a 'NextGen' Perk You've Never Heard Of - Sets with ATSC 3.0 tuners are selling fast, but how many people know about these NextGen TV broadcasts, which feature HDR color, a bump in HD resolution, and more?
https://www.pcmag.com/news/your-tv-probably-has-a-nextgen-perk-youve-never-heard-of
How to use ChatGPT to digitize your handwritten notes for free - This is easily the most underrated GPT-4o feature.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-use-chatgpt-to-digitize-your-handwritten-notes-for-free/
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Ask a Question - Send any Tips & Downloads, Ask a Question, For Sale, or articles to: TheMiningPCC@gmail.com
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Q. From a PCC Member - I received this email from Microsoft Defender and would like your opinion if I should do what they request? Suspect they will want me to upgrade to paid features?
Some of the content from the email…
Discover how Microsoft Defender has recently helped protect you and your devices and take action to improve your security.
Alert summary - 1 data breach needs your attention
Take action - Device protection snapshot 0
Threats detected - 0
Links blocked - 1
Devices protected
Maximize your protection. Set up credit monitoring. Get monthly credit reports, 24/7 on-call expert support, and up to $1 million for identity theft restoration. Get started Protect 4 more devices Get powerful protection against threats for all of your devices.
Add device Monitor more info on the dark web. Add your Social Security number, credit cards, bank account, and more.
Keep your iPhone, Android, Mac, and Windows devices safer from threats. Get the Microsoft Defender mobile app
…
You’re subscribed to Microsoft Defender’s monthly security summary. Manage email notifications
This email was sent from an unmonitored mailbox.
Continues on with more information…
A. From Tom Kreuzer, a PCC Board member. I do not recommend paying for options like this when you can protect yourself for free. I have talked about this before in the Apr 2023 meeting on "Identity Theft & The Dark Web" https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QXllyOCmc5aHoBxPwZAZPNrvVBQBhK48/view and will update this topic and present it at the Sept 2024 meeting. Most of these services to check and protect you can be done for free and should be done. Microsoft like Life Lock or Experian Monitoring can not prevent anything a data breach or a magic switch to prevent any hackers from using the data. Example of Free info from https://haveibeenpwned.com/ on your info from data breaches. Your email along with millions of other people was in the AT&T breach. Everyone should be checking their credit reports for new accounts. Everyone should be using the free locks on their credit from the 3 credit services. Use a password manager and change passwords and use passkeys.
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Q. From a PCC Member - I received this strange email message. I have some suspicions about it, but I was hoping you could explain who or how it got sent.
Some of the content from the email…
Begin forwarded message:
On Saturday, July 13, 2024, 12:33 AM, Mail Delivery System <Mailer-Daemon@business51.web-hosting.com> wrote:
This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.
A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its
recipients. This is a temporary error. The following address(es) deferred:
afsanehp1@yahoo.com
Domain obsrie11.store has exceeded the max emails per hour (10017/10000 (100%)) allowed. Message will be reattempted later
------- This is a copy of the message, including all the headers. ------
Received: from [63.250.43.69] (port=11376 helo=asp-relay-shared.jellyfish.systems)
by business51.web-hosting.com with esmtps (TLS1.3) tls TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384
(Exim 4.96.2)
(envelope-from <service@paypal.com>)
id 1sRad7-00DXTA-1e
for gorxs0001@obsrie11.store;
Wed, 10 Jul 2024 12:57:21 -0400
And much more…
A. From Tom Kreuzer, a PCC Board member. You must have received a spam email in your Inbox and opened it up to view it. When the spammer created and sent the email to you they turned on the “Return Receipt” option that in the background sent an email back to the spammer afsanehp1@yahoo.com who sent you the email. Yahoo had suppended the spammer email because it got over 10,000 emails in less than an hour. You should never open or view an email that you know to be spam. When you open it the spammer will get an email and you will get even more spam.
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Q. From a person at the Carondelet Village Senior Living - How critical do you think it is to have secure wi-fi? My Comcast bill has gone from a $50 introductory offer to $88/month. I used the free PHS-Guest WiFi for a couple of years when I moved and TRIED to remember to use my phone as a hotspot when doing financial transactions. Eventually, I decided to go with Comcast. I had heard there was someone here who had found a different provider, but the person who told me that was fuzzy about it. Any thoughts?
A. From Tom Kreuzer, a PCC Board member. It is critical to have a secure connection, you are safe on the PHS-Guest free Carondelet network or using free WiFi.
Years ago, it would have been unsafe to use a WiFi network like PHS-Guest because the information sent and received was not encrypted. This would have allowed anyone to see exactly what you were doing on the Internet along with accounts and passwords. Today 99.99999999999% of the sites or services on the Internet and 100% of the sites and services you use are doing end to end encryption. Years ago, with slower internet connections and slower devices, fewer sites used encryption because of the cost and speed. This is not a problem today. Look for the URL of any site you go to in your browser. It will start with https//… if encrypted and http//… if not. Most browsers will warn and stop you from going to a http// site because it can be unsafe. Every major App including banking and financial use end to end encryption. You are safe on PHS-Guest. I myself use PHS-Guest for everything when I am in the building and my dad uses it all the time.
Good FTC info: https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/are-public-wi-fi-networks-safe-what-you-need-know
The only reason not to use PHS-Guest is if you need/want faster upload or download speed. In the six years my dad has used PHS-Guest it has been down or unavailable less times than when he had Xfinity at his house and the speed is fine for his needs. I suggest you connect to PHS-Guest to see if it is fast enough for what you do on the Internet.
If you want another option than Xfinity there are a handful of people at Carondelet with a 5G Mobile Internet/Phone service (AT&T, T-Mobile, Version) . You can get your own room WiFi for prices from $30-$80 month depending on if you have other phone plans from them. I do not believe Carondelet can get fiber to your room so CenturyLink, USI, and others are not available in your room at this time.
Another security option you may have heard of is VPN. VPN provides additional encryption and features for security. You will see many people who recommend you always use a VPN. I do not recommend VPN. If you want to know more let me know. Give me a call and we can talk.
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Q. From a PCC Member - I have a patch panel with wiring going back to 8 points in the house.
I have an Xfinity compatible router and a Linksys 8 port gigabit switch. The router is currently in my son's room because he has a job in the finance industry and for security reasons needed direct Ethernet access which he got by hooking his computer directly to the router ethernet port. My son may need to work from the house yet as a backup for power outages. What I want to do is move the router to a common area, connect into an ethernet wall outlet going down to the patch panel, connect into the switch from the port going to the router, and from there make other wall outlets throughout the house hot by patching into the switch. I don't have the diagnostic tools to trace from the outlets back down to the patch panel. Is there a service you can recommend to come out to the house to do this work? The original installer went out of business. I've contacted a couple of the companies who absorbed some of their clients however they are not taking any new kind of Cat 5 work other than those where they did the original installation or new construction.
A. From Tom Kreuzer, a PCC Board member. Your biggest issue is the security that may prevent you from putting a switch or anything between Xfinity and your son's computer. Usually security does not like any home network (WiFi or switch) which causes another layer/subnet in the system. The simplest and cheapest may be to leave the Xfinity modem/router where your son's computer is and then have an ethernet out to a good fast Mesh WiFi system to cover the entire house. New good Mesh systems can support more speed than most people need.
I did all my own work in my house and setup and it was not hard to do. I recommend people do the work themself. If you plan to stay with Xfinity, have them set up your home network. It is not hard to trace and check wires using a tool like I have: https://www.fullcompass.com/prod/226258-paladin-tools-pa1574-cable-check-lan-tester
Cat 5 was the standard 15 years ago, you can now get Cat 8 for more speed, quality, and distance.
A. From Mike Griffin a PCC Board member. Tom has offered some good advice. There can be a number of home network architectures. There is no physical reason to put the xfinity router in your son’s room. He can use the same port with the router in a different room. Cat6 cable, for example, supports 10 Gb/s at up to 100 meters. Xfinity, of course, may need to provide the new coax/fiber location to the cable modem. There are many ways to run Ethernet Cat cable and connectors in your house. You can use the existing CAT5 cable to “fish” the new Ethernet cable through the walls. Connectors and hand tools are pretty cheap. Don’t waste money on gold connector conductors. Finally, along the lines of Tom’s thinking, you could go wireless with everything except your son’s computer and save a lot of additional wiring. Make sure the wifi router is set to Network Address Translation, WPA encryption, and a firewall strategy.
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