A Better Way to Manage Your Passwords

The Problem: It doesn’t take long to accumulate a mass of passwords throughout the Web. You have one for email, one for each of several (or multitudinous) websites, shopping sites, your bank, retirement accounts, education…how do we remember them all? Unfortunately, our methods for keeping track of our logins and passwords usually entails one of the following: 1. Pick something […]

You Can Survive Most Crypto Attacks–For Now

Rule Number One: Don’t get infected. But if you do, follow Rule Number Two: Clean it off your system immediately. If you read my post on CryptoLocker, you’re aware that it’s not always just that easy. Without a good backup you run the risk of losing everything, and even with a good backup, you’re in for a lot of work. […]

How to Turn Off Facebook’s Annoying Video AutoPlay

You can only truly turn off this “feature” in the desktop/laptop version; on the Mobile app for iPhone, the best you can hope for is to force it to only work when your phone is connected to wi–fi. update:  ios 7.1 includes the ability to turn OFF video autoplay: go to Settings>Facebook>Settings>Video; set Auto-play to OFF, or to Wi-Fi only. Here’s the way it […]

How to Verify Security at a Website

There’s a great line from the movie Sneakers, when Robert Redford is in the limo with the Russian guy, and the Russian guy says, “You won’t know who to trust.” If you’re going to do any business online, you’ve got to trust someone, and knowing who the trusted trusters for trusting are is a great place to start. Let’s start with […]

Check These Facebook Settings!

Let’s start out with one reality: You are NOT the customer of Facebook. You are the product. Rather, your attention is the product. Facebook is delivering your attention to advertisers. Since YOU aren’t paying for use of Facebook, Facebook stays alive by receiving money from advertisers vying for your attention. So it is in Facebook’s best interest to deliver as […]

Can You Create a Secure Password?

Recently I told you several things that you need to know about passwords. Today I’ll give you step by step instructions on how to make a strong, secure password that will meet requirements and that you will eventually remember. Trust me, you CAN remember them. The sentence method: Open up a program on your computer that you can free-flow type […]

How to Change the Size of Web Pages

You may stumble on this process by accident but if you do, it’s unlikely you’ll know what you did and how to do it again when you need it. If you need to make a web page bigger, do this: From a Windows or Linux machine, hold the Control key and hit the + key. You may—or may not—need to […]

How to Keep Kids Safe Online

The only completely certain way to keep your kids safe online is to keep your kids offline. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s get real. The internet is a wonderful tool that can provide access to the universe. It can open doors to education and entertainment. And let’s remember that not all entertainment is a waste […]