On Computers

Around half a trillion dollars worth of stuff is returned to places like Amazon and Walmart every year. Millions of pounds of it wind up in landfills, but you can make money from the rest. Savvy shoppers buy the returned items at stores like “Dirt Cheap.”  Resellers focus on the latest crazes, such as InstaPots, Air Fryers, and massage guns. A couple of nursing school students profiled by NPR’s “Planet Money” say they earn about $800 a week at their local Treasure Hunt store. But they have to endure crazy Black-Friday-like stampedes to get what they want, using binoculars to peek into the store before it opens and heading in the opposite direction of their competitors. An alternative is the […]

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Filed under: Amazon, apps, facebook, magazines, shopping | Comments Off on MAKING A PROFIT FROM AMAZON RETURNS

Windows is famous for its startling “blue screen of death.” I got a lighter shade recently. Then my hard drive died. I could have opened my PC, removed the hard drive and installed a new one. Instead, I asked the local repair shop to back up my files on an external drive and install an SSD. The SSD, or “solid state drive,” will be much faster and more reliable.  The shop charged $150 for the backup, much more than the $99 fee BestBuy charges. But that’s because the dying drive made it a slow recovery process. BestBuy’s price also varies with the ease of recovery.  The shop said that installation of the new drive would cost me $275. So before […]

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Filed under: apps, business, facebook, games, Internuts, TV, Windows | Comments Off on BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH PROVES DEADLY

I had no idea that there were so many things I should have turned off in Windows 10.  CNET gave me a list. The worst one is the ability of every app to run in the background, even when you don’t have it open. An app you don’t even care about could be installing updates and sending you notifications, among other actions, hogging your bandwidth and slowing down your computer. To turn it off, type “background apps” in the Windows search bar in the lower left of your screen. When it comes up, toggle the master switch to the off position.  Next on the list: Did you know you have a Microsoft ID, tied to your account, that is given […]

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Filed under: art, facebook, social networks, troubleshooting, Windows | Comments Off on TWEAKING WINDOWS 10

I sent my favorite 11 year-old a personality quiz based on her favorite Amazon series. Then I made a better one. You’ve probably seen such quizzes on Facebook and elsewhere. Perhaps the most famous is from the New York Times. If you search on the phrase “New York Times quiz how y’all,” it comes right up. It figures out where you’re from based on the words you use. They marked me as a Californian, which is right on target, since I grew up there.  One of the words that helped them decide was my use of “crawdad” instead of “crayfish.” But they also figured I’d spent time in Reno, Nevada, which I had, as a college student. To get started […]

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Filed under: Android, batteries, books, browsers, education, facebook, Internuts | Comments Off on MAKING YOUR OWN ONLINE QUIZ

There are many ways to get scammed on the web. Identity theft is just one of them. False photos are another. A friend of mine nearly got scammed by someone advertising a rental unit on CraigsList. It seemed so fishy, she did a Google image search on the photos he posted. The same photos turned up all over the web– in obviously fraudulent ways. She stopped just short of sending in a $4000 deposit.Here’s how to check out an image in a Google search. First, save it to your computer by right-clicking and choosing “save as.” Then on the web, go to images.google.com. Find the picture you saved. Click and drag it into the search box at Google Images. Many […]

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Filed under: facebook, gadgets, Google, kids, security | Comments Off on WARDING OFF SCAMMERS

Worldwide shipments of desktop computers have dropped in half since 2010, while tablets and laptops have surged, but I still like the feel of a good desktop. I just have to remember to clean the inside occasionally. This is the perfect time of year for that, before summer starts to fry everything. I’ll never forget the time my husband cleaned my sister’s desktop computer for her. No wonder her machine was slow! The dust bunnies were thick and still multiplying. Dust never sleeps, especially inside a desktop. The cooling fans bring in air from the outside, clogging the parts with dust. If it gets hot enough in there, the central processing unit (CPU) as well as the graphics processing unit […]

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Filed under: Android, apps, computers, email, facebook, security, troubleshooting | Comments Off on SPRING CLEANING

I ignore Facebook friend requests from strangers unless I’m sure they’re faithful readers of this column. But some are tricky. An apparent captain of an enormous shipping line requested a connection. I thought for a minute it was a legitimate request. One of my friends, a savvy public speaker, was Facebook friends with him. I decided to investigate, in hopes of warning her if he turned out to be a fake. His Facebook photo, profile and name matched that of the captain he claimed to be, which I found on LinkedIn and on the shipping company’s website. So I accepted his request. Minutes later, I decided it was a risky experiment, so I unfriended and blocked him. That didn’t prevent […]

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Filed under: books, facebook, gadgets, photos, science, social networks, TV | Comments Off on FAUX FRIENDS ON FACEBOOK

A child asked me which was better: Alexa, the voice inside the Amazon Echo Dot, or Google Assistant, the voice inside the Google Home speaker, renamed “Google Nest.” Until recently, I would have said Google Assistant. That was before I read CNET’s “9 Things Alexa Can Do that Google Can’t.” Of course, right after that, I read “9 Things Google Can Do that Alexa Can’t.” Let’s start with some Alexa differences. Alexa can play Apple Music as one of many choices;  Google makes Apple music off limits. Alexa listens for burglars, alerting you if  she hears glass breaking, an alarm going off and other sounds. (But you must turn on “Guard” in “Settings.”) Also, Alexa can hear your whispers and whisper […]

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Filed under: Amazon, art, facebook, gadgets, Google, graphics, Mac, troubleshooting, Windows | Comments Off on TOE TO TOE WITH ALEXA AND GOOGLE

This part is going to get a bit techie, but you’ll be able to handle it. A reader told us about his unbearably slow, seven-year-old laptop. He wondered if he could make it like new again. Sure. His first idea was converting it to a Linux system. It sounded good, but he had problems. So he asked us whether he could still get Windows 10 for free. Sure we said, though we secretly thought it might slow down his PC even more. Why not restore the laptop to its original factory condition, we asked? It had a super-fast Intel i7 processor. He admitted it used to be great. His computer is a Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro with Windows 8.1. When […]

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Filed under: business, facebook, security, Windows | Comments Off on WINDOWS 10 TO THE RESCUE

Over 23 million people had their account information stolen because they used “123456” as their password, according to PreciseSecurity.com. Another eight million used “12345678.” Nearly four million used the word “password” as their password. Many people use a favorite password for all or most of their accounts. Weak passwords caused 30 percent of all “ransomware” attacks in 2019. Ransomware refers to hackers who lock the information on your computer and demand a ransom to unlock it. But only 12 percent of users in the U.S. take advantage of password managers, which create and store passwords for you. If you search on the phrase “best password managers,” you’ll find a TechRadar article on the best: “Dashlane,” “LastPass” and “Keeper.” We haven’t […]

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Filed under: Amazon, apps, facebook, gadgets, games, Google, spyware, virus | Comments Off on PASSWORD FOLLIES