Prompt Care

04/19/2019

Would you like to play a game?

Been bad about posting lately so I'll throw up a quick one: Miss the old Windows 7 built-in games? WinAero is providing a way to download and install them into your Windows 10 system. Easy-peasy! Get your classic Solitaire back!

08/28/2018

Just a quick FYI -- if you receive mail claiming that your email to a Russian (.ru) email address didn't go through, delete and ignore.

Address not found
Your message wasn't delivered to [email protected] because the address couldn't be found or is unable to receive email.

It's just trying to get you to open the attached 'failed' email and click on the link within it. Once you follow the link, well, you're fair game....so don't.

Just a quick FYI -- if you receive mail claiming that your email to a Russian (.ru) email address didn't go through, delete and ignore. Address not found Your message wasn't delivered to [email protected] because the address couldn't be found or is unable to receive email. It's just trying to get y...

04/11/2018

Was your data lost in the Cambridge Analytica mess? - http://promptcare.ca/posts/was-your-data-lost-in-the-cambridge-analytica-mess/

04/03/2018

Microsoft Defender to start removing coercive "system cleaners" Best news I've seen all day. I see this kind of garbage software more than I do actual viruses. They are snake oil: offering much, providing little. They claim to find hundreds or thousands of problems on the system but will only "fix" a few of them for free. Here's Microsoft's new criteria : [ 127 more words ]

Microsoft Defender to start removing coercive "system cleaners" Best news I've seen all day. I see this kind of garbage software more than I do actual viruses. They are snake oil: offering much, providing little. They claim to find hundreds or thousands of problems on the system but will only "fix"....

03/30/2018

Had my own little glitch here where my bookmarks in Chrome disappeared. Fixed that but I'd have had an easier time if I'd had made a recent backup (guilty). So here's how you do that:

**CHROME**: Press Ctrl+Shift+B to bring up Bookmarks Manager. In that frame's upper-right, go to its own 3-dots and Export.
**FIREFOX**: Press Ctrl+Shift+B to bring up the "Library". From there, the "Import And Backup" dropdown and pick Backup.
**EDGE**: Press the 3-dots in the upper-right of the window...Settings...Import From Another Browser (yes, counterintuitive) ...Export to File

Save your bookmarks somewhere like your Documents, to an online storage (Dropbox, OneDrive, GoogleDrive, etc) or to a flash drive. If anything goes wrong, you'll have a backup of your bookmarks (like I've just done).

02/26/2018

Sites like NameTests.com aren't your friend, especially if you're concerned about your privacy.

"Let’s rephrase what’s going on. You purchase an automatically generated joke about you and your friends and pay by allowing them access to your friend list and Facebook wall, including all your past, current and future posts. A good deal? No, I don’t think so. And on top of that, you pay with knowledge about all your friends too, but without asking them for permission."

You are precious. You are very valuable. At least to companies dealing in advertising and customer profiling. The value of you and your peers make giants like Google and Facebook tick, with a combined revenue of about $78 billion. I’m sure most of you understand this value.

02/14/2018

This is an issue that's worth revisiting every few months, as there is no shortage of scam contests that are just out to get you to fill out some survey which is just a guise to get you to Allow them access to your FB profile info (or even possibly infect your browser or computer).
What I found most noteworthy (to me, at least) is that even those little local contests to win a free lunch and are otherwise legitimate, are often violating FB's terms of service:
"Personal Timelines and friend connections must not be used to administer promotions (e.g. “share on your Timeline to enter” or “share on your friend’s Timeline to get additional entries” and “tag your friends in this post to enter” are not permitted)."

Definitely worth a read as I see someone on my own feed probably once a week falling for some variations of this.

A lot of pages run competitions. Some of them are legitimate giveaways, while others are total scams designed to collect your personal information.

01/31/2018

This is actually a really good read about how unusual characters (e.g. "ṇ" ← see the dot?) as part of a web address can trick you into thinking it's more legit than it is. You might notice "Scötiabank" or "MeridiånCU" is wrong but would you spot "royalbaṇk"? Especially if it had a line below it showing it were a link?

How to protect yourself as an unusual computer symbol becomes criminals' ticket into people's money and data.

01/23/2018

There may come a time when your only option is an unsecured, free, public WiFi hotspot, and your work simply cannot wait. If that’s the case, understanding the risks of public WiFi may prevent you from falling victim to an attack.

01/03/2018

Had to give some bad news this morning and got this response, "My laptop can't be broken. I've dropped it many times before this." It only takes one good bump at the right (wrong) angle to damage a PC. Mechanical hard drives have a needle that floats above them like a record player and a bump can scratch the platters. Circuit boards can develop microscopic fractures...and so on. [ 67 more words ]

Had to give some bad news this morning and got this response, "My laptop can't be broken. I've dropped it many times before this." It only takes one good bump at the right (wrong) angle to damage a PC. Mechanical hard drives have a needle that floats above them like a record player and a bump can sc...

12/21/2017

This is a really great move on FB's part. "Like if you...", "Share if you..." - all those styles of baiting posts will get bumped down on others' feeds. People will have to focus on quality and share-worthiness over emotional blackmail. Yay! (Y)

The social network doesn't just want to rid itself of fake news, spammy posts are also on the chopping block.