Walter writes, “I read a story about a teenager who ran up a $2,000 phone bill because they thought they were using Wi-Fi but they were actually on the cellular network. I didn’t catch the whole story, but I know it had something to do with iPhones. Do you know what’s going on?”

We heard about that story too, Walter, and all we can say is, “Yikes!”

It sounds like it wasn?t entirely the kid’s fault, though. There’s a new feature in iOS 9 called Wi-Fi Assist that was at least partially responsible.

Wi-Fi Assist helps to make sure you have a solid data connection when you’re using Wi-Fi, even if your Wi-Fi connection is really weak. For example, if you’re in a part of your house that is far away from your wireless router, Wi-Fi Assist will automatically switch your phone over to 4G cellular data to keep you connected to the internet.

This is great for people who have unlimited data plans, but it could run up your bill pretty quickly if you have a data cap and you’re not paying attention to how much you’re using.

For tips on keeping your data usage low, check out our other articles here, here and here.

If you’re worried about Wi-Fi Assist eating up your data, here’s how to turn it off:

• Open the Settings app
• Tap Cellular
• Scroll all the to the bottom of that menu
• Tap the toggle button next to Wi-Fi Assist

In the Cellular menu, you’ll also see a list of all of the apps on your phone that use cellular data. Next to each one is a toggle button to turn data for it on or off. It’s a good idea to look through this list to see if there are any using data that don’t need to be, especially ones you rarely use anymore.

Steve writes, “When I’m on the internet, I constantly see things pop up on the screen that say ‘Check for malware now’ or ‘You’re missing drivers, click to update.’ Should I click on it? The way things are nowadays, I’m afraid to try!” 

Don’t click on it, Steve! As our friend Admiral Ackbar would say:

What you’re seeing is a pop-up ad designed to trick you into visiting a spam website or downloading harmful malware.

Internet pop-ups will disguise themselves as all kinds of stuff to get you to click on them. Spammers have gotten pretty good at making pop-ups look like legitimate error messages, so sometimes it can be hard to tell it’s a pop-up until it?s too late. Our advice is to install a pop-up blocker extension for your browser.

Extensions (also known as add-ons) are little programs you can install on some web browsers which give them extra features. There are a lot of extensions for the Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome browsers, including effective pop-up blockers.

Adblock Plus is one of the most popular pop-up blockers, and is available for both Firefox and Chrome. It not only kills 98 percent of pop-up ads, but also removes most of the in-page ads from many websites. Try it out, and hopefully you’ll never see another one of those pesky fake error messages again.

But we wouldn’t stop there with browser extensions. You can trick out your browser in a number of cool ways. Some of our favorites include:

• Lazarus: Form Recovery – Remembers what you were typing in an online form, in case something happens while you’re filling one out and you lose everything. (Lazarus for Chome) (Lazarus for Firefox)

• Panic Button – Immediately hides all of your open browser tabs with a single click. We’re not saying that it comes in really handy for when your boss walks by, but we’d have to imagine it would. (Panic Button for Chrome) (Panic Button for Firefox)

• LastPass – One of our favorite password managers. Stores all of your passwords, generates complex new ones, and automatically fills in login fields for you. (LastPass for Chrome) (LastPass for Firefox)

• Honey – Automatically finds coupon codes and sales for many popular online stores. (Honey for Chrome) (Honey for Firefox)

• Google Tone – Google’s experimental extension, only for Chrome, which lets you share links with your nearby friends through sound. (Google Tone for Chrome)

It’s important that you only download Firefox add-ons from the official Mozilla Firefox add-on site, and only download Chrome extensions from the Google Chrome web store. Downloading extensions from other locations could be dangerous.

You may have noticed that we haven?t mentioned extensions for Microsoft?s Internet Explorer browser. The reason is, well, IE doesn?t really support them. That?s just one of its many, many issues. In fact, with Windows 10, Microsoft is officially killing it and replacing it with the new Edge Browser, which will support extensions soon. Until then, we recommend giving Firefox or Chrome a shot.

Safe surfing!

Image Credit: Tap Call

Norma writes, “How do you stop receiving an automated text message? When I got my new phone I started receiving messages from a store telling me about their specials. I’ve tried visiting the website and ‘unsubscribing’ but that didn’t work.”

We feel you, Norma. Like junk mail and spam email, unsolicited text messages are the bane of our existence. Luckily there are ways to stop them.

If you’re receiving texts from a reputable company, there should be a way to unsubscribe from them through a text. Scroll back through the text messages from that number, and you’ll probably find a message telling you to text the word “STOP,” “QUIT,” “END,” or “UNSUBSCRIBE” to stop receiving texts from them. Different companies use different keywords, but most of the time if you text the word “HELP” to them, they will tell you what other keywords work on their system.

If you’re receiving genuine spam texts from a less than reputable source, the best thing you can do is to not respond. This just lets the scammers know that your number is a good one to keep spamming. Your only choice is to block the number sending you those texts.

How to block numbers on iOS

• Open the offending text message
• Tap Details
• Tap the “i” button in the top right
• Tap “Block this Caller”

How to block numbers on Android

• Find the text message you want to block in the Message app
• Press and hold it until a pop up appears
• Tap the “Block it as spam” option

If you’re using a regular cell phone, you’ll have to block the texts through your carrier.

AT&T

• To report spam text messages on AT&T, forward the offending text message to 7726 (SPAM)
• You can also call their customer service at 1-800-331-0500 to report spam

Sprint

• Follow these directions on Sprint’s site to block numbers
• Or call customer service at 1-888-211-4727

Verizon

• Call 1-800-922-0204 to report the spam to customer service

T-Mobile

• Call customer service at 1-877-453-1304
• Or use their live chat to block the number

Joan writes, “I’m running Windows 7 on my laptop, and for the past five months I’ve had a request pending to get the upgrade to Windows 10. Am I supposed to just keep waiting patiently, or is there something else I’m supposed to do?”

Congratulations, Joan, on being way more patient than we are! We’re about to lose our minds just waiting for the next season of “Sherlock” to air.

You should be able to download and upgrade to Windows 10 right now for free, if you’re currently using Windows 7, 8 or 8.1 Most Windows users have been receiving little notifications about the update since July 2015. If you clicked on that notification and followed the directions, it should have upgraded your system as soon as Windows 10 became available.

If you’re not getting those notifications, or that option just didn’t work for some reason, you can go to Microsoft’s website and click the Windows 10 link to manually start the download and installation.

But why would you want to upgrade to Windows 10? Well, it depends on which operating system you’re currently using.

Windows 10 is a much smaller installation than Windows 7. It runs a lot faster, and you’ll see a big performance boost by upgrading, even without changing any of the hardware in your computer.

For those readers currently running Windows 8, you absolutely have to upgrade to Windows 10 as soon as possible. Microsoft dropped support for Windows 8 in early 2016, which means there won’t be any more security updates, software patches or bug fixes.

There aren’t as many differences between Windows 8.1 and Windows 10, but we still suggest upgrading anyway. You’ll get the latest version that should be supported for longer, and you?ll get some cool new features like Cortana, Microsoft’s virtual assistant that is sort of like Siri for your home PC.

Another new feature we really like are virtual desktops, which let you set up multiple virtual workspaces on one computer and switch back and forth between them. It’s like having multiple screens without having extra monitors.

So, Joan, go ahead and upgrade, and see if you like it!

Today we have not one but two related questions from different listeners.

Lenny writes, “Last week I received a call from a guy who said he was from Microsoft. He said they had detected that my computer was having problems. To prove it, he told me how to open my Windows log file, and when I did it was full of errors. So I paid him to fix all the problems and scan for viruses. Now I’m wondering if that was really a good idea.”

Sandra sends us a similar story. She says: “I was checking my email and all of a sudden windows started giving me an error message which said it had a virus. It included a phone number. I called the number and a man connected to my computer and fixed it. But now my computer runs slowly and this guy charged me a lot of money. Have I been hacked?”

Neither Sandra nor Lenny were hacked. They were, unfortunately, the victims of one of the most popular scams on the internet these days.

Here’s how it works: crafty scammers convince people that their computer has a serious problem, and the only way to fix it is to pay the scammers money. In actuality, there is no such problem, and these people are paying for nothing.

This is such a major issue that Microsoft testified about it in front of Congress in the fall of 2015. These scammers love to impersonate major, legitimate companies like Microsoft, Apple, and HP, which can create problems for those organizations.

So, what can you do to make sure you don’t fall for this scam? Remember one simple rule: tech support will never call you out of the blue. You call them first.

And just to be clear, Windows error messages do not include a number for Microsoft tech support. If you see an error message that says you need to call Microsoft or any other company immediately, there is a good chance that you are seeing a fake error message. Maybe it’s just a clever web page, but do not call the phone number.

If you do talk to these scammers, they can be very convincing. They may do things like you show a Windows log file full of errors to make you think there is something wrong with your PC. The thing is, though, your computer’s logs are always full of errors, but they are little ones that are perfectly normal.

Unfortunately, both Sandra and Lenny let the scammers gain access to their computers. All of these scammers, once they have you on the phone, will ask you to run or download programs that let them look at your computer remotely. Do not do this! You should never let someone who you don’t completely trust have remote access to your computer. They can’t get into your computer unless you let them.

If you’re not sure if someone is from tech support, hang up on them, find the manual for your computer, and call the number in there. That’s the real number, the one that you can trust.

Credit: Misbehave / Flickr

Thurman writes, “I have a hard drive that was removed from my old computer before I got rid of it. It has some pictures on it that I don’t have stored anywhere else and some of my old tax returns. Is there anything I can do with it, or is it just a hunk of junk? And, should I be concerned about other people getting into it if I throw it out?” 

You can definitely make use of that old hard drive, and you can get those pictures and tax returns off of it too!

No matter how old your hard drive is, it will still probably work with the latest and greatest computers. If you have a new desktop computer, it might even be as simple as opening up your computer case and just plugging that hard drive in. This can be hit-or-miss since a lot of new desktop computers are so small that there’s no room for a second hard drive.

However, almost all computers have a USB port. All you need is a special adapter to change your internal hard drive into an external one, and then you can plug that hard drive into the computer’s USB port.

External hard drive adapters are available almost anywhere you can purchase computers, and vary in price from $5 to $30. If you’re only going to use it once, or you don?t care if it looks fancy, the lower priced ones will work just fine.

Now, Thurman, you asked if you should be concerned about your data if you just throw that hard drive away. The answer is a resounding YES. You should definitely be concerned about your privacy, as it’s just as easy for someone else to put that hard drive into their computer as it is for you. Even if you delete your sensitive files, they pretty easy to retrieve.

Your computer doesn’t really erase files when you delete them, it just pretends that the space is no longer written on. To make sure that your hard drive is secure and completely erased, the U.S Department of Defense recommends that you write over every sector with new data at least three times (or even up to 35 times, if you really want to be safe). Each single bit of the hard drive needs to be written over with all ones and zeroes.

We know that sounds daunting, but there are a few easy ways to accomplish this. If you have a PC, you can use a program like Eraser or the “Drive Wiper” feature in C Cleaner. If you’re a Mac person, try using a program called Permanent Eraser.

Just plug in your hard drive to your new computer using the USB adapter, run one of the programs to wipe it, and you’re good to go. Just make sure you wipe the right hard drive.

As you prepare for hurricane season, don’t forget about your technology. Make sure to download apps now that can make it easier to get through the storm, and make sure to have what you need to keep your devices running during and after the storm.

The Red Cross FRX3 Eton Emergency Radio contains a solar panel and hand turbine charger, rechargeable battery, AM/FM radio, NOAA weather band radio, LED red flashing beacon and LED flashlight. Image credit: Eton

Apps

There are countless weather apps on the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store.  Yahoo Weather, Accuweather, The Weather Channel, WeatherBug and Weather Underground all do a fine job of providing up-to-date weather alerts and information.

News4Jax’s WJXT: The Weather Authority app provides weather alerts and forecasts specifically for Northeast Florida. The JaxReady app provides evacuation information for Jacksonville residents. The Florida Public Radio Emergency Network’s new app, Florida Storms, provides weather and storm tracking and forecasting information, preparedness checklists, evacuation routes and a live audio stream from 89.9 FM or your local Florida public radio station.

The Red Cross Hurricane App helps you plan before the storm, gives updates during the storm and provides information on how to recover after the storm has passed. The Red Cross First Aid App has information and videos to help you handle common first aid emergencies that might arise during a disaster.

If you’re stuck in a precarious position, you may need to get information out fast to someone who can help. Red Panic Button is an app that can send out an urgent text message, tweet, Facebook message and email with a link to your location on Google Maps.

FEMA’s mobile app can help you find shelters and disaster recovery centers. It also provides tips to survive a disaster and can be used to apply for aid after the storm.

External Batteries

An external battery with a USB port will keep your devices working for a while until the power comes back on.

When shopping for a USB battery backup, look for the mAh, or milliAmpere-hour, rating. The mAh is a measurement of how much energy the battery can store. The more mAh, the better. Choose a battery backup that has more mAh than the device that needs to be charged.

The iPhone 6 has a 1,810 mAh battery and the iPad’s battery has 8,827 mAh. A quick search on the web will usually tell you how much mAh your device’s battery has in it. For a list of recommendations, Lifehacker has put together a list of five of the best battery packs.

Battery Chargers

There are a few options that can keep those external batteries and devices charged if the power is out for more than a few hours. Hand crank chargers are devices that turn your arm energy into battery power. There are also pedal-powered generators that use your feet to make energy, solar chargers that use energy from the sun to charge your phone, fuel cells that turn water into electricity and heat-powered generators that use the thermal energy from cooking to charge a battery.

Radios, Flashlights

Of course, if the Internet and cell phone service goes out your apps won’t much provide information. In case that happens, make sure you have a working, battery-powered radio. Tune your radio to WJCT 89.9 FM, the official emergency weather station for Northeast Florida and extreme Southeast Georgia.

Also, make sure to have battery-powered flashlights. Newer LED flashlights provide more light and last much longer than the older incandescent flashlights.

All-In-One

The ideal solution would be one device that had it all: a flashlight, radio, external battery and a way to charge the battery or an electronic device if the power goes out. Fortunately, Eton and the Red Cross have made that device. The Red Cross FRX3 Eton Emergency Radio contains a solar panel and hand turbine charger, rechargeable battery, AM/FM radio, NOAA weather band radio, LED red flashing beacon and LED flashlight. Eton has other survival devices of greater and lesser complexity as well.

Note: This article originally appeared on WJCTNews.org.

Dale writes, “My son-in-law was helping me with some computer stuff and he showed me a trick where I could see all the windows I have open on my computer at once and switch between them. The problem is, I have forgotten how he did it, and I don?t want to keep bothering him. So I thought I’d bother you guys instead!”

No problem, Dale, that’s what we’re here for!

As far as your question goes, we’re pretty sure that the “trick” you are looking for is holding down the ALT and TAB keys on your keyboard at the same time. In Windows 8, that brings up a view of all the windows you currently have open. If you keep holding ALT and start pressing TAB, you can switch from window to window. When you get to the one you want to select, just let go of the ALT key and boom, there you go.

ALT-TAB is one of many keyboard shortcuts that we think are essential to know when using Windows. A shortcut — or hotkey, as they are sometimes called — is a combination of key presses that triggers a command. They unusually involve holding down two keys at once, like pressing CTRL and C to copy, or CTRL and V to paste. Shortcuts can save you a lot of time by condensing everyday tasks that usually require several clicks of the mouse into one press of the keys.

Here are some of our favorite keyboard shortcuts for Windows and Mac.

Windows

• Alt + Tab – Cycle through open windows/programs
• Windows key + D – Display desktop
• Windows key + E – Open new Windows Explorer window
• Windows key + F – Open Windows search window
• Windows key + down arrow – Minimize window
• Windows key + up arrow – Maximize window
• Windows key + X – Open Quick Access Menu
• Windows key + plus or minus sign – Zoom in or zoom out
• Windows key + L – Lock computer or switch user
• Ctrl + Shift + Esc – Open Task Manager
• Ctrl + W – Close window
• Ctrl + C – Copy selected item or text
• Ctrl + X – Cut selected item or text
• Ctr l+ V – Paste selected copied item or text
• Ctrl + P – Print
• Ctrl + A – Select everything
• Ctrl + Z – Undo
• Ctrl + Y – Redo

Mac

• Command + Tab – Cycle through open windows/applications
• Command + Q – Quit open application
• Command + W – Close active window
• Command + C – Copy selected item or text
• Command + X – Cut Selected item or text
• Command + V – Paste copie item or text
• Command + F3 – Show desktop
• Command + Alt + Esc – Force quit application
• Command + Option + Control + Esc – Shut down computer
• Command + Alt + Eject button – Put computer to sleep
• Ctrl + D – Delete

Andrew writes, “It seems like every week there’s another scary news story about a big bank or a major company getting hacked. Is there any way to safely shop online, or should I just stay off the internet altogether?”

You’re right, Andrew, there have been a few pretty severe hacks of some large corporations recently. Unfortunately, we probably haven’t seen the last of them. But here’s the thing: staying off the internet probably won’t help you at all.

Image credit: Sean MacEntee / Flickr

Most of the businesses that have been hacked lately were retail stores, and the people affected were those who had shopped in the stores’ brick and mortar locations, not online. Hackers found their way into the companies’ servers, and were able to skim credit card numbers as they were scanned into the database.

Banks similarly store your information in databases that are connected to the internet. While they take security precautions, those defenses are sometimes compromised by hacking groups that have become more organized and sophisticated.

You see, Andrew, you don’t even have to be online for businesses or banks to store your information online.

All of this can understandably seem pretty scary. Luckily there are systems in place to protect you if your information is stolen. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, or FDIC, says that customers can only be held responsible for a maximum of $50 for a fraudulent transaction, provided they report it to their bank or credit card company quickly. In fact, most credit card companies will rarely hold someone responsible for any fraudulent charges on their card, as long as they report those charges in a timely manner.

The trick is to keep an eye on your bank account and credit card statements. Be on the lookout for transactions you don’t remember making. Remember, the sooner your report a fraudulent transaction, the more likely you are to get all of your money back.

It really is okay to shop online, just as long as you use some common sense. For example, only give your credit card information to reputable online retailers. And make sure you use good, unique passwords. Like we’ve said before, long passwords of 15 characters or more are best. You should also avoid using easily guessable names or words for passwords. Have different passwords for different websites, especially the important ones like your bank, your favorite online store and your primary email account. We also recommend using a password manager like LastPass or DashLane.

Stay safe, and happy shopping!

Photo Credit: “Credit Cards” by Sean MacEntee is used under CC BY 2.0.

Felicia writes, “I read a news article that said hackers could infect my computer through Flash. How do I know if I have Flash? And how can I get rid of it?”

Image credit: Adobe Systems

You have really been paying attention, Felicia! Earlier this year there was a big scare when researchers discovered that there were three big security holes in Flash. These vulnerabilities would have allowed hackers to do very bad things if you visited the wrong websites.

Adobe, the company that makes Flash, has since patched all three of those security holes, but we feel that it’s really hard to trust that there aren’t more issues that we don?t know about. Plus, Flash is an outdated technology that most people don?t need. So we say it’s time to get rid of it.

Flash is installed on most browsers on desktops and laptops, so you most likely do have it. To find out for sure if you have it follow the “Check my Flash” link below. If the page asks you to install Flash, you don’t have it installed on the browser you are using. Otherwise, you do.

Check My Flash

Flash is everywhere because it used to be the piece of technology that allowed websites to show fun animations and play videos. Now, though, there’s an advanced technology called HTML5 that lets you do that kind of stuff much more safely and without being constantly bugged to download updates. Flash is also slow and clunky to use. iPhones have never supported it because of this, which is one of the reasons that the rest of the internet has gradually moved away from it.

So, basically, it’s not that great, it’s kind of clunky, it’s not 100 percent safe, and you don’t need it. Like we said, it’s time to get rid of it!

Uninstalling it is easy to do. Just follow the steps on Adobe’s site for removing Flash from Windows and Mac OS.

Now, we should note that some people might actually need Flash on their computers. For instance, some corporate intranet sites require it, which means uninstalling it entirely is not a good option if you have to use one of those sites. However, even if you have to keep Flash around, there are ways to make it safer for you to use.

One very easy way is to use Google’s Chrome browser. Chrome runs Flash inside what is called a “sandbox,” which means it is isolated from the rest of the computer.

If that isn’t safe enough for you, there is a free browser plugin for both Firefox and Chrome called FlashBlock. FlashBlock, as the name implies, blocks all Flash on a web page by default, leaving only a small icon. You have to right-click that icon and tell it you want to enable that piece of Flash in order to view it.

If you’re not sure if you need Flash or not, try uninstalling it and see if you can get along without it! After all, you can reinstall it any time you want. In the meantime, you’ll probably see a lot fewer of those auto-playing ad videos when you visit websites. We bet you won’t miss those at all!

Image credit: JESHOOTS / Pixabay

Donna writes, “I share a data plan with my family. I’m the biggest user of data, but I’m also the least tech savvy. I do very little downloading! I mostly just check emails. If someone sends me a link and I open it, am I downloading? Sometimes I use my iPhone as a hotspot for my laptop. Is that downloading? Why am I using so much data?”

Any time your phone gets information over the Internet, Donna, that counts against your data plan. This includes reading an email, opening a link from that email, and using your phone as a hotspot so your laptop can connect to the Internet.

In fact, that last one is one of the most data-intensive activities you can do with your phone. Your laptop is a powerful machine that can request a lot of data in a hurry, especially if you have more than one website open at a time. All of the images, ads and videos on those sites are being downloaded through your phone?s connection, which can eat up a lot of data really fast. This is why most websites offer lightweight versions that are optimized for browsing on phones and mobile devices.

Other activities that can use a lot of data include streaming music through apps like Spotify and Pandora, downloading podcasts, and even sharing those vacation pictures you snapped with your friends on Facebook or Instagram. If you do a lot of driving, navigation apps like Google Maps and Apple Maps can also use a lot of data downloading directions and maps.

The sneakiest drainers of data plans we’ve found are free games. While you downloaded basically all of the data for those games when you first got them from the app store, that didn’t include those annoying little ads you see while you’re playing them. Those ads are downloaded while you’re running the app, chewing up your data plan in the process.

It may seem like everyone is after your data plan, but luckily there is a way to stop them: Wi-Fi. When your phone is connected to a wireless network, it uses Wi-Fi to download things instead of your cell data. We recommend turning off your cell data and using Wi-Fi any time you’re at home or work. If you don’t have a home wireless network, you may want to consider setting one up. This will cost some money, but it will almost definitely be cheaper than paying overage charges to your carrier.

Also, all wireless providers offer a special phone number you can call or text to see what your current monthly usage is. Find out what yours is and take advantage of it before you get slapped with fees!

Image credit: Facebook

Karen writes, “I met someone for the first time in a meeting the other day. A few hours later, she showed up on my Facebook page as ‘someone I might know.’ I’ve also noticed that people sometimes pop up in this feed shortly after sending me emails. How does Facebook know about these interactions? Or am I just being paranoid?”

You’re not being paranoid, Karen. From what we can tell, Facebook has someone spying on you at all times. That secret spy is [insert dramatic music here]: your smartphone!

We would bet dollars to donuts that you not only have an iPhone or an Android phone, but that you also have the Facebook app installed and that you have location services enabled on your phone. If that is the case, your phone is allowing the Facebook app to occasionally check your location, which the app does to see if you?re near any other Facebook users. This is one way Facebook knows to suggest people you’ve come into contact with.

However, this doesn?t mean that the app will suggest you be friends with every random person you pass on the street. Facebook is smarter than that. Even though you met this person for the first time the other day, the two of you presumably have things in common: you have similar jobs, you work in the same industry, you know some of the same people, etc. You are in what Facebook considers to be a “network.”

Your colleague probably also had the app installed on her smartphone. When Facebook saw that the two of you, who are in the same network, spent an hour in the same location, it thought, “These people know each other! They should be Facebook friends!” And so she popped us as “someone you may know.”

You mentioned that Facebook also seems to know when you’ve emailed someone, and will suggest that you be friends with that person. You’ll be happy to know that Facebook isn’t reading your emails. What it is reading is your smartphone’s contact list, another thing the app has access to. You most likely have your contacts synced with your email, so when you email a new person they are added to your phone’s list. Facebook sees this, and again thinks that person is “someone you may know.”

These aren’t the only methods Facebook uses to suggest new friends. According to Facebook’s website, they “show you people based on mutual friends, work and education information, networks you’re part of, contacts you’ve imported and many other factors.”

If you don’t want Facebook to have access to this information on your smartphone, your best bet is to just uninstall the app. In fact, that is your only option if you have an Android phone. If you have an iPhone, though, you can change what the Facebook app has permission to see.

Here’s how you can revoke Facebook’s permissions on iOs:

• Open the Settings app

• Scroll down to the Facebook app

• Tap the toggle next to Contacts to turn that permission on or off

• Tap Settings

• Tap Location, and choose “Never”

Now the Facebook app should not have access to your phone’s contact list or location.

Credit: Google

Lori asks, “I have found a beautiful picture of an old barn that I would like to use for my website but the picture is too small. Is there such a thing as a website that will help you find a larger size of image?”

As a matter of fact there is, Lori. It’s called Google!

You probably already know that you can use Google to search for images through their Google Images site, but there is a function of it that a lot of people miss. On the right side of that search bar is a camera icon which opens Google?s “Search by Image” page. This is commonly called “reverse image searching.”

Click that icon and a pop-up will appear. In that window you will have a few options:

1. You can drag an image to it from your computer;
2. Browse to an image on your hard drive;
3. Or paste the web address of an image you found on the internet into it.

Once you’ve done one of those things, Google will search for other similar images. It is actually pretty good at finding different sizes of the same image, so you are in luck. It will also show you what Google calls “visually similar images,” so you might see other pictures of old barns in addition to the one you were looking for.

Speaking of similar images, when you do a regular Google Image search, it’s going to show you a page with dozens of images on it as a result. You can actually use this page to do even more image searching. Click on any of the resulting, pictures and you’ll see some related images plus a link above them that says “search by image.” You can actually click that and launch a new search based on the image you just expanded.

That should help you find the image you’re looking for, Lori, but there is something else you need to think about before you put it on your site: who took the picture that you like so much, and is it free for you to use?

People often assume that just because you found an image on the internet it is free for anyone to use. However, this is not the case. Most images have owners, and unless those images are specifically licensed under Creative Commons or are in the public domain, you need to obtain written permission to use them. The only exception to this rule is if you’re using them for educational purposes or some other very specific reasons. That’s known as “fair use.” What counts as fair use can get complicated, so you should always just try emailing the person that originally took the picture and asking them if you can use it. If you found the picture on an image sharing social media site like Flickr, the photographer usually isn’t hard to find.

There are also lots of websites offering Creative Commons images, which are basically totally free to use as long as you credit them properly. The easiest way to find them is to use the Creative Commons search engine at search.creativecommons.org. It can search both Flickr and Google Image Search, as well as several other sites.

Q: How do you defrag a computer running Windows 8.1? I can’t figure out how to do it on my new laptop.

A: For those of us who have been using personal computers for the past 20 or so years, defragmenting your hard drive used to just be part of life. When you defrag a hard drive, you’re basically re-organizing the data on it so that it will run faster and more efficiently.

When your hard drive stores data, it puts it anywhere there is space available, so it may sometimes put pieces of the same file in several different places instead of right next to each other. Imagine opening a file cabinet and just throwing paperwork into it. You would never be able to find anything if you did that, but your computer can keep track of where it put things even if they are all over the place. This works well, but things can become really messy after a while. This will make the computer start to run slow as it searches through your data. Running a defrag will reorganize everything.

Credit: Lance Fisher/Flickr

When we received your question, Neila, we realized that we couldn’t even remember the last time we defragged a computer. Beginning with Windows 7, Microsoft has built automatic defragmentation into the Windows operating system, so you don’t have to worry about running it yourself. However, you can still run it manually if you want. On Windows Vista or 7, look for a program called Disk Defragmenter. On Windows 8, it is called Optimize Drive; you can find it by pressing the Start button on your keyboarding and typing in “optimize drive.”

Apple has built similar automatic defragmentation into Mac OS X, but that operating system doesn’t offer you a manual way to optimize your hard drive. There are third-party defrag programs available, but we don’t recommend them because they often cause more problems than they fix. If your Mac is running slow, you should try restarting it and clearing off space on your hard drive instead.

One last note: if you have a Solid State Drive (SSD) instead of a classic hard drive, we don’t recommend performing a defrag. It doesn’t provide any real benefit on an SSD, and it can actually reduce the drive’s lifespan.

Photo credit: “defrag” by Lance Fisher is used under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Most mobile devices also require you to agree to an End User License Agreement before you can use them. Photo credit: Wayan Vota/Flickr

Q: I was preparing to install McAffee’s antivirus program, but the user agreement gave me pause. It states that McAffee will “take any personal and sensitive information they wish that is personally identifiable and share it with their providers.” Does all antivirus software collect such information?

A: Congratulations, Janet, you are the one person out of a million who actually reads the End User License Agreement (or EULA, in geek-speak). That’s the document that most people don’t bother to look through before clicking “I Agree” when installing software.

McAffee’s EULA states that they will collect your name, email address and any payment information you gave them, as well as stats about your computer, how much you used their software and how often you downloaded updates. It also does note that all of this is “personally identifiable data.”

While that does seem worrisome, think about what McAffee is trying to do. They’re gathering data from millions of different computers to try to identify new types of viruses and malware, so they actually need to know all about your computer. And if you bought the software from them, they will need your payment information. We think that this makes sense. We also realize that most other antivirus programs are probably going to do the same thing.

This does, however, bring up the fact that EULAs are notorious for being full of weird, alarming stuff. For example, the Apple iTunes EULA contains a clause forbidding you from using it for “the development, design, manufacture or production of nuclear missiles, or chemical or biological weapons.” It’s okay if you’ve missed this, considering that the iTunes EULA is 56 pages long.

There is actually a lot of controversy about how legally binding End User License Agreements really are, with some U.S. courts upholding them while others don’t. You agree to them at your own risk, but if you don’t want to agree to them, you won’t ever be able to install software, sign up for most websites or use most mobile devices. Some people think there should be restrictions on EULAs, and if you agree, you can write your Congressperson about it.

But for now Janet, the best thing we can recommend is to just cross your fingers, click “I Agree,” and install the software.

Photo credit: “XO Tablet End User License Agreement” by Wayan Vota is used under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Ellen writes, How do I download videos from my iPhone to my PC? When I try to email them to myself it shrinks the video. I’ve been told to just connect my phone to my computer and download them that way, but how?

Here’s what you need to do Ellen. Fire up your computer, grab the charging cable for your iPhone and plug one end into your iPhone and the other end into your computer. Only one end will fit the iPhone, and the other end is the obvious end you’ll plug into the PC.

With this easy to follow guide, you too can plug your iPhone into your computer.

If this is the first time you have plugged your iPhone into your computer, you’ll see a pop up indicating that the software for the device is being installed.

Without the device driver software, the two pieces of hardware cannot communicate.

Right after you plug in your iPhone, (or after the driver software is done installing) you’ll get a notification on your phone that asks if you should trust this computer. Tap Trust.

Trust is an important part of any relationship, especially the one between a smartphone and a computer.

You may see a similar window appear on your computer. Click Continue.

Trust is a two-way street.

Then, if you’re using a Windows PC, you should get a pop up window on the computer that basically is asking “What do you want to do with this?” It will literally say “AutoPlay” and give you options to choose from. Click “Import Pictures and Videos.”

So, uh, what do you wanna do with this here thing, eh?

All of your pictures and videos will be selected. You can make changes to how and where they are imported by clicking Import Settings.

Import pictures and videos? That sounds exactly like what I wanted to do!

On the Import Settings Menu, you can choose to send the images and videos to different folders, change the file name of the photos and videos, and other options. Click OK to keep your changes.

Lots of choices. Where do you want what to go? Don’t feel like making choices? Afraid of succumbing to analysis paralysis? Just click Cancel, and get out of there.

Once you’ve chosen which videos and pictures you want to import, then click Import. Your images and videos will begin to transfer to your computer. Depending on how many pictures you have, this may happen quickly, or it may take a while.

You’ll watch your life flash before your eyes ? if you took a picture of every moment of your life.

You’ll see a checkbox that says, “erase after importing.” We recommend not checking it. If there is a problem transferring the video, then the video is gone. It’s best to wait until you you?ve confirmed that the video is transferred, and then delete it from your iPhone manually.

Finally! The pictures and videos are on the computer!

Another window will open up showing all of your pictures and videos that you just imported.

If for some reason you don’t get a pop-up, click the Start button and select “Computer.”

Then, you’ll right-click the iPhone icon, and select “Import Pictures and Videos.” From there, you’ll do everything else the same as we said before.

If you are using a Mac it starts out the same: plug the iPhone in and tell it to trust the computer.

Then, you’ll need to open the application Image Capture or iPhoto. We prefer Image Capture because you can choose where the video is stored on your hard drive.

Just open the Launchpad, and find Image Capture. (Start typing in Image Capture. It will be the only thing that comes up.) You could use iPhoto, but trust me, you don’t want to.

Once Image Capture is open, at the bottom of the window, you can select which folder to import them to.

You can choose the obvious places like Pictures or Documents, or you can decide to save them where ever you want to.

You could even choose to import your pictures and videos to iPhoto, but no one really knows why you would want to do that.

Then, you can click the “Import All” button or select the individual video and click “Import.”

Image credit: Jitter Buffer / Flickr

Q: I have a fantastic sound system that I love, but it’s from the ’90s and isn’t wireless. I’ve been looking at the wireless sound systems, but they are really expensive and all sound terrible. Is there any way to make my current system wireless?

A: We’re almost certain that you can add wireless connectivity to your existing stereo system, Matthew.

By wireless, we are specifically referring to Bluetooth wireless audio that would let you pair your computer or smartphone with your stereo to listen to your music on that device. There’s probably some way you can hook up Wi-Fi to your sound system, and there’s plenty of other kinds of wireless connectors too. But the most widely supported standard is Bluetooth.

If your system has an auxiliary input or an RCA jack input, you should be able to find a Bluetooth receiver that will work with it. There are a lot of receivers for home and car stereo systems that cost anywhere between $5 and $50. Most come with the cables you need to connect them, but check the package (or the description, if you’re shopping online) to make sure. You usually have to give these receivers some power by plugging them into the wall or into the DC jack on your car.

Speaking of cars, most of the Bluetooth receivers for automobiles even come with a microphone so you can use your new connection for hands-free phone calls with your smartphone.

Once everything is plugged in, you would just pair your device with the receiver. This is the process of connecting your device to the receiver using Bluetooth, and will probably be explained in the device’s manual. This is a pretty straightforward process that usually only takes a few taps to get through.

One thing to be aware of is that you’ll probably want to make sure you keep your device within roughly 30 feet of your stereo. You may suffer from Bluetooth connectivity issues if it is farther away than that. Some Bluetooth receivers can go a longer distance, but you will lose quality the farther away you are.

You mentioned that your stereo system is from the ’90s, so it’s safe to assume that it doesn’t have an iPod adapter. If it did, there are a lot of Bluetooth receivers that plug into 30-pin connectors (the old, larger iPod connectors) out there as well. These run between $15 and $30. Just plug one into that connector, and you’ll be able to pair it with any smartphone or computer that has Bluetooth.

Find the right receiver for you, plug it in, pair your device, and voila! You’ve got a wireless stereo! Turn on the tunes, and jam away.

Photo credit: “ITT Touring 120” by Jitter Buffer is user under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Q: I have a scanner and a Windows computer. Can I fax documents through my computer without a telephone land line?

A: That’s a terrific question, Sarah! We can’t tell you much it bothers us when companies or government agencies require you to fax them a document. This is the internet age! Faxing is inefficient and insecure, and we should have left it in the 20th century! But, unfortunately, we know it probably isn’t going away any time soon.

To directly send a fax, you have to have a telephone line and a fax machine. There is just no other way. If you don’t mind using an intermediary service, though, there is a way to do it over the internet. There are a host of companies you can send your document to who will then fax it for you.

Some of the more popular free fax services include MyFax.com, eFax.com, HelloFax.com, and FaxZero.com. Most of them will let you send a certain number of pages for free per day or per month. So if you just have a one-time need to send a small number of documents, this is definitely the way to go.

If you already have the document as a file on your computer, then you would simply go ahead and upload it. If your document isn’t already on your computer, you would need to put that scanner to use, and scan the page in and save it as either a JPEG or a PDF file (many of the fax services will accept other formats, but these two are your best bets).

If you need to fax things often, or need to be able to also receive faxes, you are going to have to pay for a service. One example we found was RingCentral.com, which offers a $7.99/month program that gives you your own fax number and the ability to send and receive 500 faxes per month.

Hopefully one day we’ll do away with archaic fax technology and move to just sending documents digitally. Until then, try some of those services out, and may the next thing you fax also be the last.

Q: I want to make a photo slideshow with music for my friend’s upcoming 60th birthday party. Is there an easy way to make one in Windows?

Image credit: Microsoft

A: You’re in luck, Madelyn, because there is an easy (and free) piece of software you can use called Windows Movie Maker. This program, which is made by Microsoft, comes pre-installed on some PCs, so check in your start menu to see if you have it. If you don’t already have it, you can download it from Microsoft’s site here.

When you open Windows Movie Maker, you’ll see a big box that says “Click here to browse for photos and videos”. You can import your photos through that menu, or you can just drag and drop them into that box from any folder on your computer.

Once you have some photos imported, that box will transform into a timeline where they are arranged sequentially. You can drop and drop photos around on the timeline to rearrange them. To add music, simply click the “Add Music” button at the top.

From our experience, the really time-consuming part of making a slideshow is getting your photos synchronized to the music you pick. Luckily, this is where Windows Movie Maker really shines. Look for the “Fit to Music” button in the “Project” tab at the top of the screen – this will automatically change the length of your slideshow pictures so they fit perfectly to the length of your music.

Once you’ve put the finishing touches on your slideshow, Windows Movie Maker gives you a few different options for presenting it: save the project as a file, upload it to YouTube, or burn it to a DVD.

If you can hook your laptop to your friend’s TV, either saving the slideshow as a file you can play from your computer or putting it on YouTube is the easiest way to show it to your friends. If you go this route, we highly recommend connecting your laptop using an HDMI cable, because they’re easy to connect and will give you great picture and sound. Most modern laptops have HDMI outputs, and almost all HDTVs have HDMI inputs. You can purchase an HDMI cable from basically any store that sells electronics.

Or, if your laptop or the TV doesn’t have HDMI, you can always burn a DVD.

Q: I often get a message from my laptop saying that the virtual memory is too low and that the computer will adjust it. Why is this happening almost four to five times a week?

A: Thanks for the question, Osler! Before we explain what “virtual memory” is, we’re going to just go ahead and tell you what your problem is: your hard drive is too full. Consider uninstalling a few programs you no longer need on your laptop, and moving large multimedia files off of your computer and onto an external hard drive. Computer games and video files are especially notorious for taking up a lot of hard drive space.

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

If you’re not sure what is eating up the most room on your computer, we recommend using a program called WinDirStat. It does a fantastic job of showing you which files and programs are taking up the most space, so you can then delete the ones you don’t need any more or move them to an external hard drive. Once you clear off some of those files, you should stop getting those annoying messages.

Now onto what virtual memory is. Your laptop has two main ways to store information: RAM (often referred to as “memory”) and the hard drive. Accessing the RAM is really fast, so your computer will try to store as many running programs and streaming videos as possible there.

The thing about RAM, though, is that you often don’t have that much of it – your computer probably only has two, four or maybe eight gigabytes of it. When it comes to hard drive space, on the other hand, your computer may have 500 or even 1000 gigabytes of that. When your computer runs low on RAM, it will use the slower hard drive to augment the memory. This is known as virtual memory.

Basically, your computer carves off chunks of whatever it was try to put in the real memory, and puts it into the virtual memory on your hard drive instead. But this won’t work very well if you’re low on hard drive space. At that point, your system is constantly trying to swap things between the RAM and the hard dive in tiny bits, and your computer can really grind to a halt.

Windows will try to help you with this problem, which is when you are getting those messages, but it can’t do anything if you just don’t have enough free space on your hard drive. So, like we said, try clearing a few things off of it, and you should be back to normal.

Q: I have an email conundrum. I have had Comcast internet for years but have decided to switch to another provider because I don’t get online that much or watch cable. The problem is that I don’t want to lose my Comcast email address. Is there a way to keep my same address even if I don’t have Comcast?

Image credit: OpenClips / Pixabay

A: Unfortunately, Shelly, email addresses are not like phone numbers: you don’t get to keep them if you switch providers. But we think we can make losing your email address a little less painful.

There are a ton of free email services out there that are not tied to internet providers. And, as it turns out, most of the free ones are better than the ones you pay for. These include Yahoo Mail, Outlook, and Mac.com. Far and away the most popular, though, is Gmail.

Gmail is also our personal favorite, because it’s easy to use, has a lot of features, and (most important for you) it interacts well with other email providers. For instance, you can import all of your contacts from your old email account into your new Gmail account.

This process pretty easy. Once you have signed up for Gmail, click the settings icon (it looks like a gear), click “Settings”, go to the “Account and Import” section and click the “Import Mail and Contacts” button. Then just follow the instructions.

Of course, you’re going to want to send a message from your old email address to all of your contacts letting them know that you’re switching to a different one. We would also recommend setting up email forwarding on your old address a few weeks before you cancel that account. This will automatically send new messages from your old address to an email address you specify (for example, your new Gmail address). That way, as messages come through, you can respond from your new account and let people know to begin sending emails there.

The hardest part about switching email addresses will be updating all of the online accounts you currently have linked to your email (e.g. your bank account, Facebook, etc). Unfortunately, Shelly, there isn’t a quick and easy fix for this – you’re going to have to simply log in into all of those accounts and change them by hand.

This might seem like an arduous task, but we think it will be worth it in the end to have an email account that is free, can be accessed from anywhere, and isn’t tied to whether or not you want cable.

Q: Recently I called what I thought was an HP support number with a printer problem. In fact, the number connected me to a scammer! He ran a program to scan my computer and then claimed I had been hacked. I realized something was off when he asked me for $350 to fix it, so I hung up. I am worried that my computer is now at risk. Help!

A: Eva, we are incredibly glad you realized what was happening before you handed that guy $350. Calling the real HP support line will of course cost you nothing. Unfortunately, scam artists have flooded Google’s search results so that if you searched for “help with HP printers,” for instance, you would see a bunch of sites that claim to be HP’s official support page but aren’t. The one and only HP tech support website is support.hp.com. If you forget that, the real website address can always be found in the manual that came with your printer.

Some people have reported receiving unsolicited phone calls from people claiming to be HP support. HP is not going to call you unless you called them first! You can call HP directly at 1-800-HP-INVENT to confirm the identity of anyone claiming to be from tech support.

Most of these scammers are out to make money, Eva, but some of them may really be up to no good and could try to hack your computer. That’s why we’re concerned about the fact that he apparently gained access to your machine. We can’t know for sure how much he was able to do, but if he was able to install and run programs all bets are off. He might have installed some sort of key-logger which is sending everything you do on the computer to hackers, or a back door which will allow him to access your computer anytime he wants to.

And here’s the really bad news: anti-virus software probably won’t help you, because someone logged into your computer could easily disable it. The only one surefire way to make sure your computer is safe to reset it to its factory defaults. The documentation that came with your computer will tell you how to perform a reset to factory default, or you can look it up online. You will want to make sure you get any important photos or documents off of your computer before doing this.

The factory reset will make sure the computer itself is clean, but you also need to protect your personal data online and change all of the passwords as well. Assume that all of your important accounts (email, bank accounts, Facebook, etc.) are at risk whether you’ve logged into them recently or not.

Q: I’m fairly new to Apple computers, and one of the reasons I made the switch from PC was to avoid viruses, hackers and other bad stuff. Should I install an antivirus program on my Apple laptop?

A: If you’re like us, Nancy, you’ve probably heard a lot of people say that Macs don’t get viruses. While this isn’t entirely true, there is a lot to back this claim up. Macs are safer on average, and it has to do with a couple of factors.

Image credit: Ricky Romero / Flickr

When hackers write a virus or a piece of malware, their goal is to make money. The most efficient way to make money is to get the virus on as many computers as they can. Apple has always had a pretty low market share in the world of home computers, usually around 10 percent. So, if you were trying to write a virus, what would make the most sense: writing it for the majority of computers running a version of Windows, or writing it for the small number of Macs?

Also, Mac OS X is based on Unix, which (without getting into all the nerdy technical details) makes it much harder to hack than Windows. However, this does not mean that Macs are unhackable.

You may have heard about the recently-discovered bug called Shellshock, which can let a hacker gain unauthorized access to computers running Mac OS or Linux. Although it impacts very few Mac users, it is just one of several bugs and security vulnerabilities that have been discovered in Mac OS X lately. Apple does a fairly good job of patching these up once they’ve been discovered, but it usually takes a little while.

To answer your question, Nancy: we actually wouldn’t recommend installing any antivirus software, unless you are using your computer to run a business. This may sound strange considering what we just said about recent bugs, but it has to do with the cost-to-benefit ratio. As we said, the chance of you getting a virus is very low. When you take those odds into account with the cost of antivirus software, and the amount of resources that software takes making the computer slower and less productive, it just doesn’t make sense to invest that much into it.

We do recommend, though, that you install antivirus software if you use your computer to run a business, especially if you work in the medical field or if the data on your computer is incredibly sensitive. Avast and Kasperky both make highly rated antivirus software for Mac OS X. Avast is free, and Kasperky starts at $39.95.

Q: I just got an iPhone 6. I heard about the new keyboards in i0S 8, but I can’t figure out how to use them. How do I get them installed and what do they do?

The Swype keyboard running on an iPad with iOS 8. Image credit: Swype

A: iOS 8, the operating system that comes standard with the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, added the ability to install third-party keyboards. These let you type on your phone or tablet in a way that the company that made it didn’t originally design. For instance, instead of tapping individual keys, some of them let you type by drawing continuous lines from one letter to another. This style of typing was originally popularized by the Swype keyboard.

Third-party keyboards have been available on Android phones for several years, but iOS 8 is the first operating system to support them on iPhones.

To install third-party keyboards on the iPhone, you’ll first need to find the one you want in the Apple App Store and download it. Then, you’ll open the Settings app, look for “Keyboards” under the “General” menu, and tap “Add New Keyboard” and select the one you just downloaded. Then, tap the name of the keyboard again, and hit the “Allow Full Access” switch. Almost every iOS keyboard app will also explain these steps when you open the app.

Once you have the keyboards installed, you can switch between them while typing by tapping the globe icon in the bottom left corner of the keyboard.

Third-party keyboards are basically like any apps on Android – you download them and they automatically install. You can switch keyboards under the main settings on the device, under the “Language and Input” menu. There will be a list of all your installed keyboards and you can swap between them there.

We have been testing out a few third-party keyboards on iOS 8 since it was released. Swipe-to-type keyboards like Swype and Swiftkey definitely make typing a lot faster, but one of our favorites is called Fleksy. This keyboard basically lets you type as sloppy as you want, and as long as you tap somewhere near where the key is the keyboard will figure out what you’re trying to type.

Try some of them out, Miraya, and remember: the best third-part keyboard is the one you feel most comfortable typing on.

Q: What’s the best way to protect my electronics from lightning? Should I always unplug them? How can I tell if lightning has ruined my stuff?

A: We’re based in Florida, land of the thunderstorm, so we really see where you’re coming from, Brady.

We personally like to take every precaution to protect our expensive electronics from lightning. All of our electronics are on surge protectors and all of our computers are on UPS’s – uninterruptible power supplies – which are battery backups that keep the computers running long enough to let you shut them down properly when the power goes out.

Image credit: Sprogs / Flickr

A typical lightning bolt contains about 15 million volts of electricity, and it instantly heats up the air around it to 60,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Simply put, you do not mess around with lightning. The biggest surge protector in the world will not guarantee that your electronics will be safe in a thunderstorm, but it is still a good idea to plug your electronics into one. Plus, nearby strikes can cause voltage spikes, which a surge protector will protect you against most of the time.

Now, not just any surge protector will do the job. You have to make sure that it is rated high enough to absorb that extra energy. You want a surge protector that is rated to at least 600 joules or higher (it will say this on the box and on the surge protector itself). The more devices you’re going to plug into it, the higher you want the surge protector to be rated.

Unfortunately, there is not much you can do if your house and electronics are directly hit by lightning. To be truly safe, you would need to unplug everything in your home before a storm. Houses don’t get hit directly by lightning that often, but when it does happen it is going to fry just about everything that is plugged in.

Direct lightning damage usually isn’t subtle – things won’t work or they will be obviously messed up. If there has been a nearby surge, though, it might not actually leave smoke coming out of your electronics. You might not even notice the damage at first, but then, a few days or weeks later, you’ll start having inexpiable problems that never go away. If you’re having ongoing trouble with your electronics after a thunderstorm, it’s not crazy to think that it could have been caused by a surge.

In any event, lightning is incredibly dangerous. Your best line of defense is to unplug things when you know a serious storm is coming. When things are plugged in, try to give them some protection with an uninterruptible power supply and a surge protector so you won’t be caught off guard.