Concerned About Remote Access?

 If you’re concerned about someone remotely accessing your computer ask for a copy of my book “Help is a Click Away by emailing oneclick@drewspchelp.com

Remote Access to your PC

 You're using a special program or the remote facility built-in to Windows. In your office you have a nice 27-inch monitor. But you're at home logging in from your laptop with only a 15-inch screen. You've logged in but can't read your screen... The type's too small. What do uou do?

The next time you're in your office sitting in front of your PC do this:

    1. Press your start button

    2. Click on Settings

    3. Click on System

    4. Click on Display

    5. Click on Scale

    6. Move the slide to 125%

Now when you log-in from home your display will be 25% bigger.

Try it.

Remote Help vs In Person Help

 

PROs

• Gain help no matter where you are or where the help is.
• No charge if we cannot solve your problem.
• Very cost-effective

CONs

• You must be able to connect to the internet.

HOW IT WORKS

• You call us at 631.979.3100
• We send you a link to a Helpdesk utility
• You download the utility
• We give you a code that the Helpdesk utility will ask for
• You enter the code
• It links our computers with you.
• We solve your problem
• When we disconnect the Helpdesk program is removed from your computer leaving you secure and on your way.

Passwords vs Passkeys

 For years we've been using passwords which sites have been making us make more complicated:

• password
• password at least eight characters plus a special character
• password at least eight characters, cone capital Letter, one number, one special character.

I had a site recently require a 16 character password that contain no actual words plus special characters.

More recently we've been seeing passkeys being suggested or required. 

What the hell are they???

A passkey consists of two parts: a public key and a private key. The public key is stored on the site. The private key is stored on your computer. But actually, it's a bit more complex than that. Here is one pattern:

• You go to the site and enter your email address
• The site looks up your public key based on the email address
• It then requests your private key
• If the private key matches what should be entered based on the public key you have access.

This is said to be more secure because if the site is hacked only the public key can be stolen.

I'm not convinced it's more secure. If the site is hacked does the hacker have the public key AND the email address? If so then I submit its not more secure.

Locked Computer... Grrr!

Have you received a message on your computer screen asking your for money with a promise that your computer will be unlocked only after paying a ransom?

You've un afoul of someone who thru one of various means has infected your computer... maybe.

First do these steps:

• turn off your computer. (Do not do a shut down!!! just force a shutdown. On a desktop pc simply unplug it. On a laptop, ususally there is a key combination that will for it to turn off.
  
  
• Now disconnect yourself run the internet. This may mean turning off your modem.X
  
  
• Now boot up your computer. Do you still see the message? If yes, give me a call at 631.979.3100 and describe your situation. We'll give you a call back. If there is no message open windows defender and do a full scan. This may take hours to run.
  
  
• Now reconnect the internet (perhaps that means turn on your modem).
  
  
• If your problem is sollved, great. If not give me a call at 631.979.3100

Remote Help

 If you have a situation where you need PC help and you don't have someone to ask, go over toDrew's PC Help

I want to turn this

to this

Computer Shortcuts via The Keyboard

Here is an alphabetic list of common shortcuts

Ctrl + A - Select All

Ctrl + B - Bold text

Ctrl + C - Copy selected

Ctrl + F - Find (access Search)

Ctrl + I - Italicize selected text

Ctrl + S - Save

Ctrl + U - Underline

Ctrl + V - Paste

Ctrl + Y - Do it again

Ctrl + Z - Undo

The most common for word processing are these:

Ctrl + B - Bold text

Ctrl + I - Italicize selected text

Ctrl + U - Underline

Using the mouse with the left-button pressed you can highlight text and then:

Ctrl + C - Copy selected

Ctrl + V - Paste

Ctrl + Z - Undo what you just did

Water... water

Water, water everywhere but do you want to drink it? I'm a bit nervous about the water I'm able to grab for my RV van on the road. I've traveled all around the 48 and have no desire to drink water that might make me sick. So I have a Berkey water filter for the van.

 

I've been pretty happy with it. I've Gorilla glued it to my counter top in the van so that it can't shift or fall while I'm driving.

Is it the best out there. Don't know. On the other hand it seems to work well for me.

Internet On The Road for RVers

On the road to have good internet service possibly you've seen ads for Starlink and for Nomad Internet.

Currently I've turned off my Starlink service and am using Nomad internet. I've chosen the Nomad Air modem and I've been extremely happy here in the northeast. Next winter it will be interesting to see how well it does out in Quartzite Arizona.

UPDATE

I personally no longer use Nomad. I've had issues with them and am not happy. Perhaps in the future I will post about what I now use.

Online Shopping - Amazon & Timu

 I travel for work and pleasure. My vehicle is a custom van. typically I travel with two or three computers, printer, and scanner. Plus a sundry of other devices. My typical source is both Amazon and Timu.

From Amazzon I've bought such non-obvious things such as a travel dog bed, micro sd cards, micro sd card readerice maker, and a walll file holder. From Timu my latest purchase was a usb-based bug zapper.

Good stuff!

On the road again

 

I travel for work and pleasure. One thing I need no matter where I go is internet access. It has to be adequate speed and be reliable.

I have only found two reliable services for internet access with no problems. These are: Starlink and Nomad Internet. But first some background.

Currently the biggest problem besides reliability is throttling. What's that you ask? Cell phone carriers have a problem in that they don't have unlimited resources. So if you use too many of their resources according to them they slow down your internet access making your use of the internet almost unbearable.

Starlink has their own satellites swirling around the globe. So no speed issues from throttling. I have used it from coast-to-coast with no issues but one. My first dish (you can see it in the picture of the van) was out during a hailstorm and rudely failed to work after that. I've also had to replace my cable twice but that was clearly my fault.

Nomad Internet does use cell service but there is no throttling. I use their Nomad Air device and so far I'm extremely happy with it.

Both of these companies offer a service where you can start and stop their service if you won't be using it for awhile. Do check them out. You'll find links to the right under Our Favorites. And check us out if you need computer help. We do a lot of our work remotely. So no matter where you are we're there.

The pain of Passwords... eased

Be calm!

Passwords are infuriating!You just setup an account at your bank and you need to create a password for online access and since your name is Sally you try to choose "Sallyspw". But the bank's system says you need to use a password that conains no names, has at leaast one number and one special character. Plus it has to be between 12 and 18 characters and so you end up with a password like  BigLittle001!.Two days later you've forgotten the password. That's where tool like Roboform and Lastpass come in. These days a good password manager is esstential. Get yourself one and save yourself a lot of grief. 

 

 

 

Websites are funny

 What is a website other than a bunch of code. text, images, and possibly videos. It may even contain links to other websites or documents. But here's the thing. Each website has to be created and this takes time, energy, talent, and oh yes, money.

I have a wwebsite which you can find here. Its a very simple one page website. Other websites are quite complex. For example, the google.com website which looks so simple until you think of all that it does and all that must be behind it.

Why do I mention this? Because you may have decided you want to have a website for your business , organization, or club. You really need to consider what that might cost. For example, I was trying to do something that I had never done before. I spent several days beating my head against a wall and suddenly I hade an inspiration and was able to create that bit of code in minutes. So here's the question. If this was for a client (it wasn't) what would I charge? Could I charge for all the time it took to figure out how to do it? That seems wrong as I think it cheats the client. On the other hand, do I just charge for the final moments when I figured out how to do it? That also seems wrong. It cheats me.

There are other considerations. Perhaps the website needs lots of specialized or technical text. Perhaps pages of it. Who creates that? How much time is alloted for editing?

This is just to give you something to think about if you want a website.

Backing up

When we speak of backing up we mean making a copy from one device to another. It's no use making a folderol your C drive and copying there because if your hard drive fails you will likely lose the original and the backup. Is ckearkt you want to backup to a different device.

That device might be local. For example backing up to a plugged-in external drive. Or it might br remote (in the cloud). The cloud simply means a device  somewhere other than your location. And by device with probably mean a bank of hard drives or many banks of hard drives.

LOCAL:

A bit of history. The Norton company once had a product called Ghost. It would make a clone of your hard drive for the purposes of backup. Currently there is a friendly product called Casper which does the same thing. Do you see the connection?

Here is a list of some of the many backup products:

• Casper

• Acronis True Image

• Easus (several products)

• Backup Pro

There are many others.

CLOUD-BASED:

• Backblaze

• Carbonite

• iDrive

There are others.

The point of all of this is you should be backing up.

Don't Backup

•  You don't care if you're hacked.
• You don't care if your personal information is stolen
• You just love getting viruses
• You just don't care