By BD Bondy
 
Over the past few years we have been travelling quite a bit, by car. As we go through various states, we sometimes go through tollways. It used to be that you’d have to stop and pay a toll, but eventually, you could get a small device in your window and pay the tolls electronically. That was cool except for if you went through different states, then you’d need each states device. We had an Illinois ‘I-Pass’, but not one for Kansas.

Recently, some states have done away with those electronic devices and now read your license plate. After your trip, you go on the state’s website for paying tolls, look up your license plate, and you can pay on-line. It’s pretty easy and pretty slick.

And of course, that means there’s a whole nother way to be scammed now. Apparently, there are some text messages going around purporting to be from a toll fee place saying you have unpaid tolls and you need to pay them before you get fined. I just read about this in a CNET article, which I am including HERE. 
​
For us, having been travelling for the past year and a half, it wouldn’t be a surprise to have forgotten some tolls. The article explains all the dire things that can happen if you click on the link they send in the text. I suppose it could be sent as an email too. The basic thing to remember is, DO NOT CLICK on a link unless you are sure of it, or sure of whom it is from.

By Rick Rouse

​Question:  I just got my first smartphone and I love how I can use it as a camera!
I love taking pictures with my phone but when I go to look at them I sometimes need to rotate it to see a particular picture right-side up.

The problem is when I rotate my phone the pictures rotate too so I'm always looking at them from the same (wrong) angle. The orientation of the picture doesn't change and I can never look at it the right way without getting a crick in my neck.

How can I prevent a picture from rotating when I rotate my phone?

Rick's answer:  This is one of those frustrating little things that we all experience when we first start using a smart phone,

The feature that's causing your photos to rotate and remain oriented the same way at all times is called Auto-Rotate, and it's actually a very good feature because it ensures that you'll be able to read whatever text is on the screen regardless of how you choose to hold your phone.

Luckily, it's easy to temporarily disable auto-rotate while you're reviewing the photos you've taken.

You didn't mention the type of smartphone you have so I'll give you instructions for both Android phones and iPhones.

Note: The steps for disabling Auto-Rotate can vary slightly from the steps below, depending on your phone's model and the version of the operating system your phone is using.

If the steps for your phone are slightly different from the ones below they should be close enough for you to figure it out.

Follow the steps below to disable Auto-Rotate on an Android phone:
1 - Tap the Settings icon (it looks like a "gear" or "cog").
2 - Tap Display.
3 - Toggle the "Auto-rotate screen" setting to Off.

That's all there is to it. Your photos (and anything else on the screen) should now stay oriented the same way on your phone's screen when you rotate your phone.

Note: I recommend that you turn Auto-Rotate back on after you've finished reviewing your photos. To do that, simply follow the steps above once more and reverse the procedure.

Follow the steps below to disable Auto-Rotate on an iPhone:
1 - First, open the control center...
If your phone is equipped with a physical 'Home' button, swipe up from the bottom of edge the screen.
If your phone doesn't have a physical 'Home' button, swipe down from the top-right corner of the screen.
2 - Tap the Screen Location Lock icon (it looks like a lock with a round arrow around it).
3 - Swipe the Control Center up to hide it.

That's all there is to it. Your photos (or anything else on the screen) should now stay oriented the same way on your phone's screen when you rotate your phone.
​
Note: I recommend that you turn Auto-Rotate back on after you've finished reviewing your photos. To do that, simply follow the steps above once more and and reverse the procedure.
​

I’m not a hacker, but sometimes I wish I was. Of course, that superpower I would use for good, to fight all the annoying evil hackers. Alas, I am unskilled in that area, and definitely not smart enough. Sometimes a hero comes along and you don’t recognize him. Mild mannered, quiet, married even. I’m talking about a guy recently that hacked a malicious hacking group, gathered incriminating information, and turned it over to the authorities.

If you are anything like us, then you get phishing scams all the time. I’ve been getting various requests to authorize a package that was undeliverable, either by USPS or UPS. I do order a lot from eBay and Amazon, so while it’s plausible, it’s not very likely since I’ve been here over 20 years and they’ve never had a problem before.

Another one is where I get an email confirming my purchase of some doo-dad, for $348, and it will ship soon. If I need to change any information on the order, click on this link. That’s another one that used to bother me but once I realized they were scams, I just ignore the email and delete it.

A good check on those fake emails is to check the sender. Click on the sender name and see what the address is. It usually makes no sense in relationship to a company. Sometimes it makes an attempt, by using some of the name, or misspelling the name, but it’s usually very obvious.

Back to our superhero. This guy’s wife gets a scam email and falls for it. It happens all the time, as the emails can seem believable. He starts to follow the scammers and hacks into their system, collecting info. Read all about it HERE. 
​

By BD Bondy
 
Windows 11 is about 3 years old now, so it’s fairly well established. Somehow, like Window XP, another beloved OS, Windows 10 is holding on, long after it should. While I wasn’t a fan of Vista, and it took me a year to get used to 8, I found Windows 11 to be quite familiar.
 
I think MS learned from some of it’s mistakes and made Window 11 a far more comfortable transition in operating systems. Still, there are billions of folks that have not made the switch, despite the many offers, some of them being very annoying early on.
 
Windows 10 ends its support in October, and while it will still function fine as an operating system, security will erode quickly. I don't necessarily think that it requires an immediate change, however, it is definitely something to bear in mind. You are almost always under an attack, usually from errant emails, but considering the many breaches of security in companies you likely deal with, it’s generally just a matter of time.
 
I often suggest having some extra protection in addition to Windows Defender, like MalwareBytes. But also, to be very aware of the many types of tricks naughty people will play on you. Software protection is good, but often, the scammer will get into a system using a simple phishing email. The most serious breaches in security of companies probably come via an email that someone mistook for legitimate.
 
If your computer offers to upgrade to Windows 11, please consider it. If your computer is getting long in the tooth, consider getting a new one. If you wish to stay on Windows 10, then be extra careful. To learn more about what’s happening on this subject, read THIS.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2024/08/06/microsoft-warning-for-14-billion-windows-10-users-windows-11-free-upgrade/

Note: The News often goes out from the road.  Usually staying at places where decent internet is sought but that doesn't always happen.  Once while staying at a cabin with wi-fi that was sketchy at best I used my cell phone as a hotspot.  By the time the News was done I had burned through all my data and then some.   If you are a heavy user, you might upgrade to unlimited.
​Carol

By Rick Rouse
Rick's Daily Tech Tips
Rick Rouse

Does your home Internet service occasionally go out due to storms or equipment failure?
If so, you know how irritating it can be when you have to wait for a tech to come out and restore your service.

But guess what? In a pinch, you can use your smartphone’s cellular data connection to access the Internet with your computer. 

Both Android phones and iPhones have a feature called tethering that allows you to essentially use your phone as a modem and your cellular provider as an ISP for your computer(s) and other devices.

Not all cellular data plans allow you to set up a tethered Wi-Fi connection with your phone, but if yours doesn’t you can probably add that option to your plan for a reasonable amount.

Once you have confirmed that your plan indeed supports tethering, simply follow the steps below to set up a tethered Wi-Fi hotspot with your phone. Just follow the procedure that matches the device you have.

If you have an Android phone:
1 – Tap the gear-shaped Settings icon.
2 – Tap Network & Internet.
3 – Tap Hotspot & tethering.
4 – Tap Wi-Fi hotspot.
5 – Toggle the “Use Wi-Fi hotspot” setting to On.
6 – Use the settings on the current screen to assign your hotspot a name and password.

If you have an iPhone:
1 – Tap the gear-shaped Settings icon.
2 – Tap Cellular.
3 – Tap Personal Hotspot.
4 – If it isn’t on already, toggle the “Allow others to Join” setting to On.
5 – Choose a password for the new hotspot.
That’s all there is to it. You should now be able to connect your computer (and other devices) to the Internet via the Wi-Fi hotspot you just created. Simply connect to that network and enter the password.

Now that you know how to set up a Wi-Fi hotspot, there are a couple of caveats I need to mention:
1 - If you have a cellular data plan with a data cap, using a desktop browser that loads the full versions of websites instead of the mobile versions can potentially burn through your monthly data allotment in a hurry.
Of course this won’t be an issue if you have an unlimited data plan that’s truly unlimited (with no data cap or high-speed threshold), but not all “unlimited” plans are truly unlimited.
Some “unlimited” plans will throttle your download speeds back into dial-up range after you’ve reached a certain data threshold. As you can imagine, that greatly impacts the user experience (no more streaming and very slow page loads, for example).
2 - The speed of your Hotspot connection can vary anywhere from sluggishly slow to blazing fast, depending on how strong the cellular signal is at your current location.
I just thought I should mention those caveats before you start using your phone’s cellular data to connect your computer to the web so you’ll know what to expect.

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