by Jeff McKamey
iPhone 5SE
iPhone 5SE has almost the same insides as a 6S, and almost the same outsides as a 5S. The only difference is the fingerprint sensor on the older model is a slightly slower one, and the glass is not force touch sensitive. Also when I got mine, the bluetooth speaker phone was really, really bad, but an update fixed it.
So be sure to update your phone if you have one and need the bluetooth. Also it does WiFi calling and HD Voice calls
WiFi Calling
This makes a base station a thing of the past, now you can make a phone call with no service and wifi, also in a foreign country you can make a free call! (maybe) It only works for AT&T on the 6 if you bought it from AT&T and also YOU NEED TO USE THE NEW SIM CARD FOR THIS TO WORK!!!! If you simply transfer the old sim card to the new phone it doesn’t work because they updated the sim card too.
This article explains how if you call from a newer phone to a newer phone, the audio of HD Voice is now much much better.
Facetime Audio:
If you are calling an older phone you can get the really good sound quality with Facetime Audio. Also I find the Facetime Audio is sometimes a lot more reliable than a phone call if your calls are being dropped all the time.
iPad Pro
They came out with a 9.7″ iPad Pro that has almost the same everything as the 12″, except the camera is actually much better!
TeslaCrypt
If you got this ransomware (on your PC) and still have your encrypted useless hard drive, you can decrypt it with this:
http://www.welivesecurity.com/2016/05/18/eset-releases-decryptor-recent-variants-teslacrypt-ransomware/
There is a ransomware for the Mac now,
https://blog.malwarebytes.org/cybercrime/2016/03/first-mac-ransomware-spotted/
There usually is no way to get your data back unless you pay the ransom!
Healthy Sleep Formula
Steve Gibson is a geek that bought a FitBit that measure how well he sleeps at night and started taking different concoctions to see if they would help. After many months of trail and error, he has settled down on five things that work for him. He explains his scientific reason why each ingredient is in there, and has tried many brands of each type of supplement to come up with the ones that work best for him. I have tried it and it seems to work!
It is funny how he mentions that Amazon automatically raised the prices on the supplements because they are popular.
Streaming on Spotify:
I did not know that you could stream audiobooks, and language lessons on Spotify…
http://lifehacker.com/eight-things-you-probably-didnt-know-you-could-stream-o-1776963565
Phone Scams
Virtually every single one of my PC customers have called in the past few weeks getting to a webpage that locks them out of their computer asking them to call a phone number and give the $250 to ‘fix’ their computer. Usually the fix is to ‘buy’ Norton Antivirus for $100 (it usually is a lot cheaper than that) so even if you cancel the $250 on your card, they still keep whatever markup they had on the Norton they had you buy…
One customer told them that her computer wasn’t even worth $250!!! The absolute best way to avoid all this is to put an ad blocker like Ublock origin.
Ublock origin for Chrome
Ublock Origin for Firefox
On Yahoo’s front page it typically blocks 20-30 ads, and if you click on any of the stories, it will block 80 or more ads! Also if you download Adblock Plus, or Adblock; they are being paid by the ad companies not to block certain ads anymore and typically only block about half of the ads now.
VPN
Opera has released a VPN for your entire phone that is free for now. It will block ads and change your location.
If you are serious about streaming Downtown Abbey from the UK or watching the Boston news, you are better off paying for a real service like TunnelBear. The nice thing about TunnelBear is it is one of the few that let you try it for free.
Let Me Google that for you
I found this funny, I am not sure everyone will….
http://lmgtfy.com/
Free Images
If you make web pages or anything that you might want to make money off of, you are better off using a royalty free image instead of just willy-nilly copying anything off of the internet:
http://www.freeimages.com/
Free Music
Also if you make movies that you want to put on YouTube, or sell for a profit, you are better off using something that is also royalty free:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_MacLeod_(musician)
https://incompetech.com/
SkySafe – Take out drones with this device!
http://recode.net/2016/04/20/skysafe-uses-a-wireless-signal-to-take-down-drones/
Top 10 Ways to Save Money on Your Spring Getaway
I thought it was funny the Caller-Times said you can get a lot cheaper rate in Argentena if you use a VPN to show you are coming from anywhere but North America!
http://lifehacker.com/top-10-ways-to-save-money-on-your-spring-getaway-1764496050
You have to be carefull though, sometimes it is a completely different hotel with the same name!
All the Stock Mac Apps That Apple Quietly Made Useful
This shows that some of the stock Apple Apps have a lot more functionality than it used to:
http://lifehacker.com/all-the-stock-mac-apps-that-apple-has-quietly-made-usef-1764376667
How to Upgrade Your Outlets for USB Charging
You can now buy outlets that have USB charges built in, …..might be useful:
http://www.howtogeek.com/244537/how-to-upgrade-your-outlets-for-usb-charging/?.com
Volume Mixer
I thought this was cool, control the volume of different apps:
http://lifehacker.com/volume-mixer-is-an-application-specific-volume-controll-1759651760
SimpliSafe
I haven’t tried this security system yet, but it seems really cheap for what it is:
http://simplisafe.com/home-security-shop