Living and Growing with Technology

We have kids and grandkids who have never known life without wireless technology, and now we’re moving on to AI. Whether you’re a business or a family with an array of technology comfort zones, there’s an array of paths you can follow to help you keep it all together.

I believe one of our biggest dangers with technology is online shopping. Did you see who had the most ads? According to my observations, it was Temu, the Chinese shopping site. What’s the red flag? There are two: 1.) data collection and 2.) legal recourse.

With every purchase you make, Temu collects a tremendous amount of personal data, including, of course, the credit card number you use to buy stuff. AI, which is really the use of superfast computers that can digest and regurgitate massive amounts of data, makes it possible to analyze every aspect of your shopping preferences. Even if you guard the privacy of your data persistently and diligently, some well-programmed AI can find out things you never knew about you. Conceivably, it helps Temu and similar websites present you with product choices and price points that will generate a purchase.

And because Temu is based in China, it operates under Chinese law, not US law. Not only will you not have the same legal recourse in China to protect you from financial loss, you likely won’t have the same regulatory protection about what data is collected and how it’s protected.

Another convenience we like is setting up automatic payments for products or services that are linked to our credit card or bank account. It’s a convenience for consumers and providers, and you can sometimes get a discount for automatic payments.

I dread the day my payment info gets hacked, and there’s no convenience factor that makes it worth the risk of being hacked. If you agree, there are two critical steps you can take to minimize your risk: 1.) Reset your login credentials for your financial accounts and the sites that draw automatic payments. 2.) Set up two-factor authentication (2FA) for every website account that offers it; biometrics and text messages to a device only you can access are best.

Biometrics can include facial recognition, and it offers the best combination of safety and convenience, especially for phones and tablets. Unless somebody has stolen your device and used your digital passcode to get into your settings and take a picture of themselves to reprogram your facial ID, only you can respond. Using a mobile device for a text is good because you should have the device in your possession for the authentication process. The use of authenticator apps such as Microsoft Authenticator or Google Authenticator is a good step.

Younger people typically take more easily to these new authentication methods, but those who are older or not entirely comfortable with technology should find them easy to use once they’re properly installed and configured.

Staying with the theme of age and technology, we have an elderly client who had some issues with a new computer. We tend to think older people are more comfortable with a computer, but we found the client preferred to have a second iPad. We associate iPad and iPhone use with younger people who can easily adapt to a different way of doing things with really quick thumbs. But there are keyboards for any mobile device, and those who use hearing aids can take advantage of Bluetooth with their devices.

The biggest challenge with using a tablet or phone in place of a computer is setting up ways to download, store, and use files with apps mostly associated with a computer. Multitasking is more difficult with a tablet or phone, but we can accommodate most needs for most people.

With tech playing such a large part of everyone’s business and personal lives, it makes sense to tailor the technology to the person rather than the other way around. If you or someone you know has special technology needs, call us – 973-433-6676 – or email to discuss ways to make technology work.

Nimble and Quick

Being nimble and quick is more a matter of knowledge than pure speed. By assessing a new client’s comfort level with technology and knowing what computer to buy and where to get it, we worked together on a holiday miracle. It took a lot of cooperation among parties who’ve worked together to make it happen.

Naturally, as you might imagine, the story begins a few days before Christmas – Dec. 20, at 4 p.m. to be exact – and it involved a new client who had been referred by an existing client. The client’s laptop computer had died, and they needed a new one. But the timing complicated matters. In addition to the holidays, we had a vacation planned during the week between Christmas and New Years Day.

From talking to the client, we learned their comfort level with technology, and we knew what type of laptop they needed, including all the performance specs. We basically had two days to get the computer to the client and have it up and running.

We have a trusted distributor who can get us the equipment we need fast, and they had what our client needed. They said they couldn’t have it ready – configured to the client’s specs – until the next day.

I didn’t have time for me to drive to their warehouse, pick up the computer and a printer, too, but the client was willing to get it late Thursday. They brought the computer to our office first thing Friday morning, and by noon, everything was set up, including the printer, and they were on their way. They still can’t believe they had new equipment purchased, configured, and ready for use in less than 48 hours.

A month later, we got an email from a client at 8:15 a.m., and we saw it 15 minutes later. The client had spilled tea on their laptop’s keyboard, and it didn’t work. We figured the tea probably shorted the electronics in the keyboard. Regardless, the client was leaving town later that day and needed something that worked.

We knew that the damaged computer was put in service in 2018 and determined that we could get a new one for the same price. But by that time, the client was in the air. We sent an email asking them to call us when they landed so we could explain the available options.

We recommended that we have the computer shipped directly to them. They called us when it was delivered the next day, and we walked them through the set-up process. By 5 p.m., it was completely set up, and the client was ready to do business.

The secret to pulling off both successes was knowing what resources were available, knowing the clients’ technical capabilities and being able to make decisions right away. Had they been working with a larger IT service company, their requests would have had to go through a chain of command to authorize the arrangements and go through a purchasing process. With our personal service, we dealt directly with the clients and the equipment suppliers.

If you or someone you know needs equipment immediately, if not sooner, call us – 973-433-6676 – or email us, and we’ll mobilize our resources.

A Tip to Speedup OneDrive

For the most part, the cloud is a safe place to store your files, but we have clients who prefer to have the files they’re working on stored on their hard drives. OneDrive is good for up to 150,000 files, but it can take longer than we like to retrieve files after you blast through that storage level. Here’s a tip to speedup retrieval: Use the Add Shortcut to OneDrive.

The Add Shortcut to OneDrive option does not sync anything to your computer; it just creates a link or bookmark to the document library or folder in your OneDrive for Business. This way, you can access the content from any device using the OneDrive app or website. You can also share the content with others more easily using OneDrive. However, you need to have an internet connection to access the content, and you cannot work offline.

The Sync option syncs the entire document library or folder to your computer using the OneDrive sync app. This way, you can access the content from your File Explorer or Finder, and you can work offline. Any changes you make will be synced automatically when you go online.

Just be aware that synching large libraries or folders can take up a lot of storage space on your computer and affect performance.

Microsoft recommends using the “Add Shortcut to OneDrive” option over the “Sync” option in certain scenarios. They include:

  • The document library contains a large number of files that would take up too much space on your computer’s hard drive.
  • You need to access the files from a device with limited storage space.
  • You need to access the files from a device that is not owned by you.

Just to recap, the “Sync” option downloads the entire document library to your local machine, while the “Add Shortcut to OneDrive” option adds a shortcut to the library to your OneDrive folder on your local machine. The option you choose depends on your specific needs and circumstances.

If you’re synching all your data now and want to set up the OneDrive shortcut, talk to us. If you don’t set up the shortcut properly, it could be the technology equivalent of following GPS directions off the road and into a swamp. You risk losing all your data, and that can be more expensive than just trying to fix a computer.

Call us – 973-433-6675 – or email us to set up an appointment to set up your OneDrive shortcut.

Do You Speak ‘Search’?

The New Outlook’s web-based email client has powerful search functions to help you cut through the sheer volume of messages we store and don’t always sort. Taking advantage of them will require you to learn about “search” language, which has its roots in Boolean searches that offer precise options to find information. They use AND to expand a search, OR to introduce options, and NOT to exclude information.

Boolean searches are rooted in an algebraic method developed in the mid-19th century by the English mathematician George Boole. It’s fundamental to modern computing, and today’s database searches are based mainly on Boolean logic, which allows us to specify parameters in detail. If you think of your email inbox as a database, Boolean concepts apply to your searches.

Fortunately, we don’t need to remember our high school or middle school algebra to search our Outlook inboxes. Cheap data storage (it really is cheap even if you balk at paying for it) lets us keep messages for years…and years…and years. We can have hundreds of thousands of messages in one big folder or dozens of subfolders across several email accounts.

In a typical search, you likely type in a statement (the instructions for the search) that consists of the sender’s name, and often you’ll see a list of options that ties the sender to a subject line or specific content. The computing power harnessed by AI presents you with choices based on what your computer thinks you are looking for. It’s not an efficient way to search your emails for specific information. It’s more like using terms like “hot” and “cold” when looking for a hidden object.

Using Boolean terms, you can give your computer more specific instructions. For example, if you have written me emails for advice on antivirus and malware software, you can pinpoint my responses by typing Norman Rosenthal AND antivirus into the search box. You can also type it in this way: Norman Rosenthal +antivirus.

If you’re not sure whether the subject was spelled antivirus or anti-virus, you can type in: Norman Rosenthal AND antivirus OR anti-virus. If we had email exchanges about antivirus software or malware and want to restrict it to just antivirus, you could type in: Norman Rosenthal AND antivirus NOT malware or Norman Rosenthal +antivirus -malware.

That’s essentially how Boolean searches can work in your email boxes, but they’re not the only kind of search you might need. You can use a statement to find all the unread emails in your inbox. Unread emails can cover several days and pile up when you’re especially busy.

Note that the same search techniques and languages apply to searching your Sent Items.

The New Outlook has removed Unread as a category of messages you can click on. But you can still find them by typing this into the search box: isread:no. This will give you a list of unread messages. There is also a prompt for unread messages when you open the search box, but the list may differ from the list generated by the isread:no statement.

With the increase in the use of email, email manageability and security will become more tightly intertwined, especially for offices with multiple people collaborating on servicing the same accounts, clients, or patients. Good practice for subject lines on outgoing emails will help manage searches for your inbox and messages you’ve sent. The subject line may also influence how email spam and security filters handle your email (see Quarantined Messages and Email Security).

We’ve hit the highlights here. Every organization or person has specific email handling needs. Call us – 973-433-6676 – or email us with specific questions about email management. We all have a ton of emails; don’t let them weigh you down.

Quarantined Messages and Email Security

You may be getting emails from Microsoft about quarantined messages and wondering what’s going on. The short explanation is that Microsoft’s email filters are getting better and that the company is trying to protect you from harmful attachments and links that can compromise your tech system’s integrity.

We typically don’t know about a message we haven’t seen until the sender contacts us because we haven’t responded to them. In today’s age of more sophisticated phishing campaigns, deep fakes, and more malicious code, we rely on our email systems, such as Outlook and Gmail, to protect us from ourselves with stronger filters. Too many people are careless about opening attachments or clicking links that lead to scams. Even the most careful person can fall victim to clicking on something they shouldn’t. So, Microsoft makes you take an extra step or two in hopes you will slow down and give more thought to the action the sender wants you to take.

It used to be enough to check your spam or junk mail folder in Outlook, and it’s still important with the New Outlook. As filters get more robust, more messages get diverted there, but, as the commercials say, wait, there’s more. You are likely getting messages from Microsoft that they have quarantined messages based on their parameters for determining if a message may be part of a phishing campaign or has a malicious link or attachment.

If you have Office 365, you won’t be able to access the quarantined message in your inbox. Instead, you’ll get a message with the following information for each quarantined message:

  • Sender: The email address of the sender of the quarantined message.
  • Subject: The Subject line of the quarantined message.
  • Date: The date/time that the message was quarantined in UTC.

You’ll also get a link. If you don’t understand what’s going on, you probably feel safer just deleting the message with the link. However, because the filters are more robust – based on an array of factors – you could miss a useful or important message.

Individuals and office administrators who use Office 365 as a web app can find their quarantined messages by clicking on this link: https://security.microsoft.com/quarantine?viewid=Email. It takes you to a Microsoft Defender page where you will see who each message was from and why it was quarantined. Messages are held there for 30 days. During that time, you can release a message, which will send it to your inbox, where you can open it and decide what you want to do. You can also delete a message directly from the quarantine page. We recommend you bookmark this link.

Of course, these security measures put an onus on senders, especially those who legitimately send bulk email, to ensure their DNS records are up to date and follow accepted anti-spam policies for outgoing mail.

We can help you by reviewing your incoming and outgoing email settings to maximize your security and email handling efficiency. Call us – 973-433-6676 – or email us to talk about it.

Better Attachment Options

Attached files are the bane of my existence, and they probably cause you a lot of problems, too. Microsoft’s New Outlook removes your option to drag an attachment to your desktop or a folder and forces you to choose a more specific action. It seems like a pain in the butt, but it could save your butt.

Hackers have long used attachments and links to bogus or dangerous websites to get into your system and compromise your data. Microsoft has added extra steps that seem really stupid at first. But they slow you down and force you to give your actions more forethought.

When you right-click on an attachment, you now see a dropdown menu of five actions you can take:

  • Preview
  • Edit in Browser
  • Edit in Word desktop app
  • Save to OneDrive
  • Download

Preview keeps the attachment in your inbox, but once you see what it is, you can choose any of the options in the dropdown menu directly from the preview.

One of those, Edit in Browser, lets you immediately work on a file as part of a collaborative team, a feature that’s becoming more common in offices because it’s much more efficient than editing a file, saving it with a version designation and resending it to everyone as another email attachment. How many times have you seen four collaborators open, edit, and resend the same version at different times? One of the team members invariably is left to sort through all the copies of the file and put all the changes into a new master document. And equally invariably, an edit is missed, misplaced, or misspelled.

Similarly, saving an attachment in OneDrive allows collaborators to edit it or view the changes without having to go through the process of resending and opening new attachments. With both OneDrive and a file edited in a browser, you only need to send a link. Anyone who opens the file by clicking the link will see the latest version. This is the same process used for Google Docs.

But if it’s better for you, the New Outlook allows you to download the file as you did before and save it to a folder – either on your computer or on your computer and OneDrive – if you have it.

New Outlook’s handling of attachments doesn’t mean it’s safe to open and edit a file no matter how you do it, especially when getting attachments or links to attachments from people you don’t know. As we’ve preached ad nauseam for years, you should closely examine a sender’s email address and other identifying factors. If something doesn’t look right, call the sender at a phone number you know is legitimate or look up a phone number by going to a new browser window and accessing a website independent of the email.

We can guide you through all the ins and outs of handling attachments through the New Outlook based on your personal or organizational needs. Call us – 973—433-6676 – or email us for an appointment.

 

 

The New Outlook for 2024

Windows Mail is going away. Let us all say “hallelujah” and give thanks. And let us all start moving to the New Outlook, which is web-based and adds speed, more functionality and additional security features to the old Classic Outlook.

Beginning in 2024, new Windows 11 devices will be shipped with the new Outlook for Windows as the default mailbox application, free for all to use. The Mail and Calendar applications will remain available via download in the Microsoft Store through the end of 2024. Users can switch to the new Outlook for Windows from a toggle in the Mail and Calendar applications on existing devices. If you still want to use Classic Outlook, simply toggle it back. New Windows is part of Microsoft 365 and takes advantage of OneDrive and SharePoint.

While many of us are reluctant to leave our comfort zones, where the old Outlook or Outlook Email might reside, there are several reasons why you should make the switch.

The new Outlook will have a much longer shelf life than the old version. That’s because it’s part of the transition from desktop- or computer-based to web-based apps. Once you get used to it as an individual user or have your employees trained, everyone can settle into a more productive routine.

You’ll first notice how quickly it loads and updates email messages. We found it faster than the classic Outlook, and it streamlines how you can handle email messages and coordinate email and your calendar. You can pin emails to the top of your inbox so they are easy to find later, snooze emails to temporarily hide them, and then have them reappear when you’re ready to respond and get reminders to follow up on important conversations. You can time the schedule for sending emails so they are delivered at the best time for the recipient or undo a sent email within 10 seconds, and you can use the sweep function to clean up your inbox quickly by setting advanced inbox rules for incoming mail. With My Day view, you can see your upcoming calendar events and tasks anywhere in Outlook. Package delivery and upcoming travel dates are also automatically added to your calendar from your email confirmations, and you can view the weather forecast in your calendar at any time.

Aesthetically, you have hundreds of customization options and several key functional options. You can save attachments to OneDrive while in Outlook and open them without leaving Outlook to open your Word, Excel, or PowerPoint.

For security, the New Outlook has beefed up its spam and malware filters, and those with a Microsoft 365 subscription can also access other security features, such as encryption.

Finally, the New Outlook has much more robust search capabilities, which we’ll explain in more detail next month.

In the meantime, we invite everyone to try the New Outlook. We believe you’ll find it a more productive tool once you learn its basics. We’re available if you have any questions about its new features. Just give us a call – 973-433-6676 – or email us if you have any questions.

Password Sharing

Yes, we should guard our passwords like gold bars in Fort Knox. But at the same time, it’s prudent for individuals to ensure trusted people have access to their accounts. We discussed it before, but it’s worth doing it again, especially when it can prevent more heartache with the death of a loved one or a catastrophic event.

Password problems crop up all the time for both commercial and individual clients. They can be annoying, especially when spouses or kids constantly forget passwords, sending you on a hunt. They can be disruptive, especially when an employee leaves and you need to change passwords for accounts they used for your business. They can be downright heart-rending, especially when you need to handle the affairs of family members or friends who have become incapacitated or have passed away.

That last group of problems takes on particular urgency because you’re out there alone. There’s nobody to help you know what to look for and where to find it – especially while you’re working in a highly emotional atmosphere.

All these problems are avoidable, with or without technological solutions.

Unfortunately, we learned about the non-tech side of it when our friend committed suicide. In his deep depression, he knew his family would be devastated. Yet he had the presence to leave detailed information about what his survivors would need to close his affairs and carry on with their lives. It probably made things easier, though nobody involved could know how much while dealing with their grief.

Because we depend on website access to manage just about every aspect of our personal and professional lives, a trusted person or small group of people must have complete information for all usernames and passwords. The info can be on a list that’s printed out or written in a notebook and stored in a safe place. Most of you probably have a fireproof storage box or a safe for important documents such as birth certificates or passports anyway. There’s nothing wrong with hard copies.

However, we can’t emphasize strongly enough that you can set up a password manager with a family-and-friends feature that solves just about all password and web-based account access problems. You only need to remember one strong master password to access all your websites. We like Dashlane for its reliability and ease of use, but it’s not the only one. And regardless of whether it’s for personal/family use or business, certain principles still apply.

Here’s what to look for:

  1. The ability to work across multiple devices and platforms. Everyone depends on being able to use computers, phones, tablets, and even smart watches seamlessly. Many people use Windows, Apple, and Android systems individually and in corporate networks. Your password manager must be able to work on all devices and platforms.
  2. Facial recognition. We believe this is the most efficient biometric for speed and security, especially when you’re on the go and using a mobile device. In some cases, you don’t even need your master password. That’s a great convenience.
  3. The ability to share passwords with a family-and-friends capability or a corporate plan. Whether it’s another annoying request from a family member or a critical request from a business associate who needs instant access, you can find the password they need and give it to them. It can also make it much easier to oversee the affairs of loved ones when necessary.

We look forward to the day when biometrics or some other technology will eliminate the need for passwords. When that day comes, all of our information will be more secure, and easier to access our websites and online accounts. Until that day comes, a password manager is your best bet to handle everyday online life and emergencies.

We can help you select the password manager that best meets your needs, and we can help you configure an individual plan or a multi-user plan. Call us – 973-433-6676 – or email us to discuss your needs or for configuration help.