I have read that 1/10 of Americans never update any of their electronic devices. Updates aren’t always just to provide new features. I primarily suggest updates for security reasons. Microsoft may find that there is a hole in Internet Explorer that would allow for hackers to attack. The updates they provide after finding these flaws are simply to patch these holes. The Equifax breach happened because the company ignored a 2 month old warning! I strongly suggest keeping the following updated with patches that come out:
Microsoft Windows
Apple iOS – both computers and mobile devices
Adobe Acrobat
Java
New iPhone 8 Features
In case you are considering an upgrade to your iPhone, here are a couple of nice new features for the iPhone 8.
Since the phone has a glass back, the iPhone 8 supports wireless charging. The technology has actually been around for awhile, so any charging pad that’s compatible with Qi technology will work.
True Tone Display automatically changes the color temperature of the screen based on your surroundings. It works a lot like the white-balance-compensating system found in the iPhone’s camera flash, allowing the iPad or iPhone screen to determine just the right percentage and intensity and temperature of white light you need. The idea behind the whole concept is that whites tend to look different under different light, but with True Tone enabled, the iPad can shift how the display looks no matter the lighting.
Tip of the month
What is Phishing?
Not a week (often a day) goes by that someone doesn’t forward an email to me and asks if it is legitimate. I’ll admit that they are looking more and more official, but there are ways of figuring out if it is a scam.
1. Look carefully at the grammar. Many of these scams have really bad grammar.
2. Check the source – the address that the email came from can also be a dead give away. I’ve seen emails coming from Bank of America, as an example, but the address is abc@gmail.com or some other disguised address. No matter how you read your emails – through Outlook, Windows Live Mail, iOS Mail or a browser, you can see the actual email address that sent it.
3. Weird links -You can hover your mouse over links and pictures to see where they’ll lead you. If an email claiming to be from Netflix is actually going to a suspicious website, that’s a good sign it’s a scam.
