R Country Computer Services

02/10/2026

Tech Tip Tuesday: Adjust the font size in CarPlay

I don’t know about you, but I feel like I’m going blind when trying to look at street names on a GPS app in CarPlay.

Starting with iOS 26, they let you adjust the font size in CarPlay.

Sadly, in order to increase the size of the street names you have to increase the font size of everything in CarPlay.

It seems the Apple Maps app is the only GPS app whose street name size is affected when changing the font size. I tried Google Maps, Wyze and Tom Tom and their street name size still remained small.

To increase the font size in CarPlay

Tap Settings

Tap Accessibilities

Now under Text Size choose a %

That’s it! Now street names should appear larger in Apple Maps!

Our eyes rejoice!

R Country Computers
712-548-5310

02/05/2026

Recently a customer fell victim to a PayPal email scam.

After hanging up with the scammer, the scammers kept calling them back on their phone.

Their bank in Sioux city recommended that they “Change their cellphone number”.

That was not good advice, because the moment they did that, the customer could no longer receive the two factor codes being sent from their outlook.com account, locking them out of it.

That’s a particularly bad one to be locked out of, because if you forget your passwords on other websites, the sites will email you a password reset link, which this person will now be unable to receive.

SMS codes are used because they are the easiest to set up and use, but not really the safest.

Let’s talk a moment about Sim Jacking.

Sim jacking is when someone else wants access to that two-factor code getting texted to your phone.

They call the cellphone provider and pretend they are you and get them to issue them a sim card that they use on their phone, porting your number to them. Now the text messages go to them, not you.

A safer yet more complicated way is to use an authenticator app on your phone. You scan the QR code provided by the site with the authenticator and it’s added to the app.

You just want to make sure your codes are being backed up to something like iCloud or Google Drive, because if your phone dies or gets destroyed you lose access to all your authentication codes.

The authenticator app I use on my iPhone is called OTP Auth.

Moral of the story is, do not change your cellphone number on a whim but with caution, as it might permanently lock you out of your online accounts.

R Country Computers
712-548-5310

02/03/2026

Tech Tip Tuesday: Smart Thermometers for your deep freeze and refrigerator

Nobody likes returning home to the smell of a freezer full of meat, which has been unknowingly defrosting for a week.

Wouldn’t it have been nice to know when that freezer started to go below a certain temperature!?

Smart Thermometers to the rescue!

It’s a small box which you connect to your Wi-Fi and the app on your phone. Connected to that small box is a temperature probe that you insert inside your freezer or refrigerator.

Inside the app you set the minimum and maximum temperature.

Once the temperature goes above or below those values, you’ll get an alert on your phone and the box will broadcast and audible beep.

You can also open the app to check the temps at any time. It’s a nice peace of mind if you are away from the house for an extended period of time.

I’m going to link to the one that my parents and I own, but there are others that do the same thing.

A non-affiliated amazon link
https://a.co/d/1uWT0KS

R Country Computers
712-548-5310

01/31/2026

Why do most sites make you reset your password instead of just telling you what your password is?

The majority of websites have no idea what your password is.

You are probably wondering, how can that be? How do they not know what my password is, if they accept it when I type it in?

It all has to do with how they store your password in their database. If you were to give a website the password Monkey123, they don’t store it as Monkey123.

Before saving it in their database they hash it.

Hashing, in simple terms, means that they smash it into weird code, always making the same weird code out of the same word each time, but you cannot take the weird code and turn it back into the original word.

Using our Monkey123, after hashing it, the weird code that would be stored in the database would be..

ce8e327d7db19e92f63455f91359961e9a190faf98f74f0d073d927e763477a

Each time you hash Monkey123 you get that exact weird code.

So, when you enter your password to log in, it gets hashed and the weird code is compared against the weird code on file and if it matches you are logged in.

If someone’s database is hacked and their data stolen, all they get is weird code but not the actual password.

That means they will never know what my password actually was, right?

Yes and no.

Remember how you get the same weird code each and every time you hash the same thing?

The bad guys take large lists of passwords (Billions of them) and they hash every single one of them on that list. Then they can take the hashes they got when hacking the site and compare it to their own hash list to see if it matched any of the billions of passwords. They call this a “Rainbow Table”

If your password is strong and unique and not on that 3+ Billion lists of passwords, then they really have no idea what your password is.

They can also hash different passwords on the fly as a way to brute force your password, basically throwing passwords against a wall and seeing which one sticks.

But there is a way that websites can protect against rainbow tables and brute-forcing.

They can add a little salt to your password.

By salting it, they take your password and add their own something to it, producing a hash that does not match monkey123.

When you go to log into the site, you type in monkey123 and they take their salt, add it to what you typed in and produce that same unique hash again and proceed to log you in.

R Country Computer
712-548-5310

01/27/2026

Tech Tip Tuesday: Leak Detectors.

Nobody enjoys being surprised by either a puddle of water or a flood in their house.

There are smart home devices which can help detect a leak and alert you about it before it becomes a major issue.

How it works is really quite simple.

It’s just a small plastic box that you place on the floor next to things that may leak, such as a dishwasher, water heater, washing machine to name a few.

On the bottom of the small box are 2 small metal prongs. When water flows under it and connects the signal between those 2 metal prongs, it sends you an alert that you have a leak.

I’m going to link you to the ones I have but these are not the only ones on the market.

Non-affiliated Amazon link
https://a.co/d/gvsbug0

R Country Computers
712-548-5310

01/25/2026

Electronics are currently the cheapest they will probably be for the foreseeable feature.

The price of ram and nand storage (storage for devices such as SSD’s / NVME) is getting really expensive.

This affects phones, tablets, desktops, laptops, gaming consoles (Xbox, Playstation, Nintendo) and anything else that has memory and storage inside of it.

I posted about this about a month ago. Since then 1 of the 2 consumer memory makers left has sold out their entire 2026 memory production.

As a result, everything will be more expensive after electronic makers sell their current inventory. I’m honestly surprised the price of computers has stayed as study as it has.

A lot of stuff takes ram that you aren’t even aware of. Stoves, dish washers, refrigerators and cars.

Last year, I upgraded my parents laptop to 32GB of ram for $48. Today that same memory costs $217. Last month when I wrote that article it was $150. That same year I upgraded my own personal computer to 128GB of ram for $234.99. Today that same upgrade would cost me $670.

All the AI companies are gobbling up all the ram they can find. Computer makers are also trying to stock pile as much ram and storage as they possibly can. This only makes the shortages worse.

So if you ever wanted to purchase a electronic device, you may want to do it sooner than later.

R Country Computers
712-548-5310

01/22/2026

If you have an iPhone, take a moment to document your Apple ID. You can locate it by going to settings / and tapping your name at the top.

Below your name you will see an email address, this is your Apple ID.

Please check the recovery information on the account, to make sure it’s correct and up to date.

You need this information to access your iCloud account to set up a new phone should something happen to your current one, or your current phone needs to be restored.

If you are unable to log into iCloud, your data may not be able to be restored.

Username and passwords are important, use a good password manager such as Bitwarden or 1Password or keep them well documented in a notebook.

Customers usually hand me a notebook with their passwords. Each account has 3 passwords crossed off, 3 scribbled next to them and a 4th one that doesn’t work.

For people who use Android phones, you need your Gmail username and passwords to sign in. So, make sure your Gmail info is well documented as well.

R Country Computers
712-548-5310

01/20/2026

Tech Tip Tuesday: Battery Banks

If you use your phone or tablet a lot throughout the day, you may find yourself wanting to charge them before your day is over. Most of the time you are near an outlet to plug into, but for the times you are not, battery banks come in really handy.

A battery bank is a portable battery pack you can carry with you to recharge phones, tablets, and other devices.

They come in a lot of different sizes, but most fit in the palm of your hand.

A lot of different companies make battery banks and there are lot of sketchy ones which is why it’s a good idea to stick with well-known brands such as Anker, EcoFLow, Iniu, and Ugreen to name a few.

Some of them over exaggerate their capacity, which is why I also recommend staying with known brands.

They typically have 1 or 2 USB or USB C ports allowing you to charge 1 or 2 devices, usually at the same time.

I personally own 2 of them.

If you own a battery bank, let us know in the comments below which one you have!

R Country Computers
712-548-5310

01/13/2026

Tech Tip Tuesday: Use your Airpods Pro 2/3 and Airpods 4 to take a photo in iOS 26.

Sometimes you want to take a photo of everyone at a family gathering, and you would prefer to be in the photo too. This means that you can’t stand there holding the camera.

Luckily there is now a way in iOS 26 to control the camera using your Airpods Pro 2/3 and Airpods 4.

Here is how to do it

1) Put the Airpods in your ears
2) Tap Settings
3) Tap your Airpods
4) Scroll down and tap Camera control

You can now select if you wish to press once on the stem or press and hold it to take a picture.

That’s it! Now you can be part of the photo too! Hooray!

R Country Computers
712-548-5310

01/08/2026

Be on the lookout for fake Punchbowl party invitations emails

It will say Punchbowl at the top

Not all fake invites have same wording but it usually end with “Thanks” and the person’s name.

It will then have a large envelope in the middle and a green “Open Invitation” button at the bottom.

More than likely, you will know this person. The email will also say it was sent by them.

Here is a link to a photo showing you one variant of the scam invitation .

https://i.ibb.co/JwqWzXZM/Punchbowl.jpg

Displaying the email alone does not compromise your computer or email account. It’s when you click the Open Invitation button and follow the instructions.

It will either ask you to sign into your email account in which case you gave them your email password, or they will ask you for your name / email and prompt you to install a file. The file is the worst of the 2.

I’m not sure exactly everything the file does once installed, but it is remote access software, that probably steels your session cookies and passwords.

All I know is that if you install the file, then your computer too will be sending out these scam invitations.

Session cookies are what keeps you logged in when you return to a website. If someone acquires those session cookies, they too are automatically logged in as you, bypassing any need for a password or two-factor authentication (Code sent via text or email).

If you received the invitation email described above and actually clicked the green “Open invitation” button and signed into your email or downloaded and installed the file, you should probably call me.

If you opened the file that the site downloaded, then it's still running on your computer as you read this.

R Country Computers
712-548-5310

01/06/2026

Tech Tip Tuesday: Dash Cam’s

Dash cams are great! Nobody wants to get into an accident, but if it’s not your fault, having video evidence is a nice thing to have.

It turns on when you start your car and records your entire trip. You can put a large Micro SD card into them, and they record until the card is full and then they start recording over the oldest videos.

If you see something while driving that you want to tell someone about, you now have a video to show them.

One time, while in the Wal-Mart parking lot I recorded someone almost backing into someone else. The other person got out of the way just in the nick of time!

I also have a recording of myself missing a deer by .02 seconds.

I’m going to link to the one I own below with a non affiliate Amazon link, but there are MANY others to choose from.

https://a.co/d/7dtysL3

Safe Driving

R Country Computers
712-548-5310

01/02/2026

Recently when logging into certain websites, you’ve probably seen a few of them ask you if you wish to create a passkey.

I’m going to link to an excellent video about passkeys which will teach you everything about them.

I personally use passkeys when asked, but I also use a password manager called Bitwarden.

Bitwarden is free and can be used on your computer and your phone to store all your passwords. It lets you generate random passwords for every website. An example of such a password is s6G9@28mjC&SDZgd8EF%

This way all your passwords follow you around no matter the type of device or which device you use.

A single passkey I create and save in Bitwarden is then accessible on all my devices (my Phone, tablets and computers.)

You can find more information about that password manager at the link below

www.bitwarden.com

Now go ahead and give the passkey video a watch, it’s very informative.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYdHm7zoF_M&t

R Country Computers
712-548-5310

☎️ Passkeys are a new form of signing in that promise to be easier and more secure.☎️ PasskeysPasskeys use cryptography instead of passwords to authenticate ...