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By Carol Bondy
This week I received a Facebook Friend request from an Emily Smith. I didn't recognize the name but I did recognize some of her friends. What I also noticed was that Emily, other than describing herself as an "Abiquiu Fan", shared no personal information. She reposted local posts but there were no personal posts. There were no images of Emily. Since that time "Emily" has changed her last name from Smith to Sheppard and continues to make friend requests to locals. Neither an Emily Smith or an Emily Sheppard is a subscriber to the Abiquiu News. As I said, I did recognize some of her friends. Facebook will show you mutual friends when you get a friend request. I contacted them and all but one responded that while they did accept "Emily's" friend request they did not know her. In some cases they saw mutual friends and thought she must be ok. I've since heard from others that they received a request from this account but didn't know her and didn't accept the friend request. What's the endgame? It could be malicious. It could be someone just wanting to troll for information. Worse case scenario is that it is a scammer. Scammers create fake Facebook profiles and request to be your friend to gain access to personal information that you restrict to "friends only." This information may include your contact information for spamming or other personal information that might be useful in setting you up for a phishing attack. When you accept these type of friend requests you are putting both your information and your friends' information at risk.
Product Recommendation of the Week - Blink XT Home Security Camera System with Motion Detection, Wall Mount, HD Video, 2-Year Battery Life and Cloud Storage Included - 1 Camera Kit
Periodically Abiquiu Computers recommends products. We recommend products that we have personally used or researched. What is new is that we are an Amazon affiliate and if you purchase any of these products through our link we receive a small commission from Amazon.
Carol came across this during Amazon's Holiday Savings. So far we have some great shots of our dogs and the UPS driver! This is easy to install. We purchased the weatherproof one pictured below. Alerts are sent to your phone or you can just check in. Some of our kids were out here and they had one in their apartment that they used to check on their kitties. Blink
Click link below for more information or to purchase.
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Carol got an email recently, seemingly from her own email account, threatening to release a list of all the porn sites she visits, and pictures of her from her webcam. It seemed real to her, and she was a bit nervous about it. (note from Carol, the list of all the porn sites I visit did not seem like a valid threat but I did feel that my computer could have been hacked) I downloaded and ran Malwarebytes, and it did indeed find a Trojan, something I almost NEVER see in a scan. I most often, by far, see PUPs, or Probably Unwanted Programs, which are mostly an annoyance rather than a threat. Malwarebytes Quarantined them and I then deleted them from Quarantine.
In this case, Carol sent notifications to her email provider, website host, and added some extra security. My impression is that it is actually more a phishing scam than an actual hack. However, better safe than sorry. Apparently, this type of scam has been getting more common, especially with the sex site listing threat. You can read an excellent article about this sort of thing HERE. You’ll notice he mentions it may even contain your password, though Carol’s email did not. Providing a password would certainly make the threat more serious, however, it still doesn’t mean your computer was hacked. Some server somewhere may have had a breach with your security info in it, and that may very well sound familiar as it happens ALL THE TIME. So, the typical things apply here: change your passwords, don’t use the same passwords across everything, and for goodness sake, use a password that’s at least somewhat complicated. The password “Password” is a LOUSY password. Additional note from Carol: on many services, especially banking, two step verification is offered. What this means is that after you put in your password there will be an additional step of entering a code sent to your cell phone, or answering a security question. It's a pain but it adds another layer of security. If you have Malwarebytes on your computer, update it and run it. Although there is a free version, we recommend the paid version as it runs in the background and protects you all the time. I did not have this running on my computer but you better believe I do now. Link to purchase on Amazon available on right. For the Abiquiu News, in addition to SSL I've added a fire wall to the site itself to make sure it is safe for you to browse and download from. I usually tell people to buy a new computer, and give me their old one. This is certainly the time of year you should have done that, however, I do understand not everyone wants to give up their computer quite yet. If your computer is less than 5 years old, that's not very old at all. If it's over 7 years old, you've definitely gotten your money's worth and should probably consider a new computer. If you are still working on a computer that is 10 years old, then I congratulate your stubbornness.
Whatever you are working on, there are likely ways to get it to run a little faster. Getting rid of clutter is always a great idea, and it's pretty much free to do. Delete documents and pictures you don't need. CCleaner is a free program you can run on a PC or Mac that will clean up the system a bit. There's a paid version too, if you want. Ultimately, you may need a faster computer. You don't necessarily need a new one, but you may need some newer components. I generally recommend memory as the first step. If you can upgrade your memory, do so. It's generally the cheapest and easiest component upgrade. I've written about upgrading to an SSD drive before. A Solid State Drive has no moving parts, and it will be noticeably faster than a mechanical drive. The prices have come down so much that I just bought a 500gb SSD for $55 yesterday, on Amazon. Just because! I already have an SSD in my computer, so I'll be putting that one into something else. I was looking at daily deals, so check those out. And remember to check the ratings on Amazon before you buy. The price is up to $69.99, still a great price. Click the Amazon link on the right. If you're lucky like I was, you may be in a Goodwill and see an entire motherboard with a core i5 CPU in it. I found one for $10 a year ago and swapped out my mobo with a crappy Atom processor. Not only did it all work, it is SO MUCH FASTER than my old computer, it's wonderful. I'm putting in an article about upgrading your computer HERE. You can get some ideas. Another thing, a free program to download is called SPECCY, from Piriform. It will give you more detailed specs about your computer than Windows will. Just an FYI. We suggest a reboot for a lot of problem solving. It doesn't always work, but it's the recommended first thing to try. For those using Windows 10, you have an opportunity to do the same thing.
That sounds like fun right? Well, I have to say, I have done this sort of thing to fix computers. It's a great way to resolve issues that are wacky with your Win 10 computer. Using restore points is a less invasive way to fix some things, and that was an option since Windows XP. Win 10 gives a bunch more options than that. There are options to restore the operating system and wipe out ALL your programs and data. Not usually the choice you are looking for. Another option is to restore the OS and keep your data, but still, you lose your added programs. Now, there is another option, to restore the OS and keep your data and programs. This seems to suggest you can just do this anytime you want for funzies. Yay. OK, so you probably aren't going to be doing that. And also, you have to be able to get into windows so that's probably a bit of a limiting factor. Usually, a person wants to do this when there's a problem in Windows. There's an article HERE you should reference, in case you do need this stuff. It has a few other options you can look at as well. I was recently asked about some shortcuts when I was working at Paula’s house. I use them every day when I work on computers. And they are good for Macs or PCs. The most common ones, by far, are copy and paste; Ctl + C and Ctl + V. Select all is Ctl + A, though I frequently use the left click and hold the button to highlight sections of what I want to select, then Right click on the highlighted bit and select copy.
Yep, there are lots of ways to do the same thing, and you may have your own already. But if you don’t know some of these shortcuts, you need to pick them up. Below is a way too big list, but check out some of the ones that interest you. These commands are commonly accessed by using the Ctl key (on PCs), command key (on Macs). The commands are pretty consistent across operating systems and programs, but of course, some programs have shortcuts that are specific to them. Word, Excel, Windows, MacOS, they all have fast shortcuts for getting stuff done. For a HUGE list, with diagrams, and I think a printable listing, you can click HERE. |
Tech TipsThere's a lot of fake information out there. Please be scrupulous about what you share on Facebook and other platforms. Here are some trusted sources. Please don't rely on social media for your information.
Abiquiu Computer Recycling
Abiquiu Computers gives away available computers for FREE. We recover used pc’s and upgrade them, repair them, refurbish them so they may have another life with someone else. CategoriesArchives
September 2025
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