It's not you, it's them…

While awaiting the arrival of snowmaggeddon here in the northeast, I had a few clients call me with

It's not you, it's them…

complaints of no email service. That's always disturbing, especially in cases where I have just recently been visiting… and tinkering. "That Rob, he's always tinkering…"

The sudden loss of email connectivity can create quite a panic. But here's the good news: it's almost always temporary, and it usually has nothing to do with your own computer, your settings, or your own in-home/office wifi or network connection.

Definitely an east coast problem

When your email goes down, here's a few things to check:

1. Do I have other Internet features? Does my web browser still connect? If so, you know your connection is OK.
2. Can I get my email from the web interface? In other words, if you usually use an "email client," i.e. Mail App, Outlook, Inbox, Cloud Magic…, can I get my mail by using Safari, Chrome, Firefox, etc. (If so, this is almost always an indication that POP/IMAP service is down with your provider, and it will be fixed soon.
3. Is there a problem with my ISP or mail host? Here's where Down Detector and http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com can help.

To see if it's you or if it's them, visit either of these two sites, enter the address of the website and you'll see information that will give you a good indication of whether there's a problem outside of your (or my control) or whether it's something that requires more "tinkering."

No, Your Computer is NOT "Critically Infected"

This is a bogus alert that seems to be hitting Mac users, and these people will not help you.

They will take a lot of money if you call them and listen to them. There is actually no harm done to your computer by this little bit of javascript trickery.

The damage gets done if you call them and they convince you to give them remote access to your computer so they can "help" you. In fact, all they do is help themselves to private information, and a couple hundred dollars if you then give them your credit card information.

If you find yourself locked up on that page:

1. Hit Command-Option-Escape.
2. Quit Safari.
3. Start Safari with the Shift key down.
4. Under the Safari Menu, Choose "Clear History and Website Data…"
5. Clear at least Today and Yesterday
6. Restart the computer.
7. Stick to a less unsavory part of the web.

If you have been subject to this phishing/harassment, please let me know, and let me know if this helped. I offer a free 50 minute multimedia presentation called Safer Computers, Tablets and Phones in Minutes to clubs and community/social groups in Massachusetts and Connecticut. Please email or call me if you think your organization would be interested.

Grab the July edition of the monthly "News & Tricks" newsletter

It's hot off the press and ready for reading! Grab your copy of the latest White Collar Handyman newsletter, and if you're not a subscriber, just click here and become one!

iPhone Battery Life Tip That Actually Works, Immediately

If you have "Facebook Messenger," delete it. You're welcome. Go back to what you were doing.

I did this, and my battery life immediately and dramatically improved.

As it turns out, Facebook Apps are battery eating monsters, even when you think you are not using them.

Honestly, you could go in to your iPhone Settings > General > Background App Refresh and turn off Messenger, but why bother? Once you turn off Background Refresh, you have nothing but a big hunk of disconnected bloatware sitting on your phone, taking up space.

And, guess what? If you are like most people, you'll never miss it. Go ahead and open the Facebook App. Look in the "Messages" section. Yep, it's all there and you can continue to receive, reply and create messages right there. As it should be. In one app.

Facebook wakes up &
runs every 10 seconds!

Speaking of the Facebook App, it's gnawing away at battery life too. Unless FB updates are mission critical, consider turning off Background App refresh for it as well. And turn off Location Services for Facebook while you're at it: Settings > Privacy > Location Services and toggle Facebook to "off." Chances are you won't miss a thing.

If you're really curious, here are a couple articles that explain why Facebook Apps are killing your battery:

The Guardian, April 8, 2014

Sebastien Düvel, iOS Programmer Blog

Is (Battery) Life Letting you Down?

It seems that many people are disappointed in the decreased battery life in the recent iOS7 upgrade. Looking at it through my rose colored, Apple fan boy glasses, I see it differently. I don't see the battery life decreased as much as I see the functionality of the iPhone increased. Background updating of my favorite news and weather apps means I spend less time waiting for updates when I run the app. The 3D effects aren't really "functionality," but I'm enjoying them. Location awareness in so many more apps makes their results more relevant, but also draws more power. Notifications and Push technology suck down the juice, but I like finding out right away when Amendola or Gronkowski are healthy, and I love knowing when "Rain is Imminent!" I like talking to Siri, but she wears down the battery too.

Unhappy with the time between charges?

Easy solution: Decrease the functionality.

First, take care of basics, and get rid of the stuff you really don't need:

• Have the phone lock sooner.  Go to Settings > General > Auto-Lock and set the interval to a shorter time, such as 1 Minute.
• Don't automatically update Apps! Go to Settings > iTunes & App Store and turn off the toggle for Updates.
• Disable the parallax effect that gives the home screens that 3D look. Go to Settings > General > Accessibility > Reduce Motion.
• Turn off the Background App Refresh for the apps that you don't need updating all the time. Settings > General > Background App Refresh.
• Turn off AirDrop. Swipe up from the bottom of the screen and select the toggle in the Control Center.
• Disable all of the Notifications that you don't really care about. Turn off the stock ticker. Go to Settings >Notification Center.  Change Alert Style to None. Turn Badge App Icon off. Turn Sounds off.
• Dim your screen some. Swipe up from the bottom of the screen and slide the slider in the Control Center.

Situationally, there are more fixes:

• Turn off Bluetooth when you're not using it. Swipe up from the bottom of the screen and select the toggle in the Control Center.
• Turn off the GPS if you're sitting in one place all day. Turn it on when you need them. Go to Settings>Privacy>Location Services
• Turn off Wi-Fi if you don't use it. Go to Settings>Wi-Fi
• Even if you do use Wi-Fi, turn off "Ask To Join Networks" and you'll save a bit. Go to Settings>Wi-Fi
• If you have low cell tower signal, think about using Airplane Mode. The phone uses a lot of power trying to stay connected, and if you have less than 2 bars or dots, chances are you're missing calls anyhow. Turn off Airplane Mode to make calls or check for emails.
• If instant email is not a priority, change email from Push to Fetch and set the Fetch interval higher. Go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars >Fetch New Data and turn it off. Scroll down and choose a new interval. The longer the interval, the more battery saved.
• If you listen to Music, set the Equalizer to Off. Go to Settings >Music >EQ and tap Off. Any other setting uses more battery.

If you're not using a car charger, you're crazy, and if you haven't invested in a charger - or at least a USB cable - for work, do so!

And finally comes the brutal but honest truth: If you want a phone with a battery that lasts all day, it's easy:

• Stop using email.
• Stop surfing the web.
• Stop checking and updating Facebook.
• Stop tweeting, Vining, Pinning and Instagramming.
• Stop taking pictures and videos.
• Stop watching Youtube, Netflix, Vimeo.

I promise that if you use your phone as a phone only, you'll have plenty of battery life.

Here's that real life advice I promised: Stop wanting to have your cake and eat it too.

Safari PDF Redux

If you have recently upgraded to Safari 6.1 and you suddenly get weird messages about Acrobat Reader being blocked, or your PDF viewing is jerky and slow… Revisit this post: Fixing Safari PDF Problems

I don't know why Apple keeps reinstalling buggy Adobe plug-ins at every opportunity, but each time I simply delete them, I end up with a better Mac experience.

Your Mac and Apple Preview are completely capable of displaying and printing PDFs for you, and any application will create a perfectly usable PDF for you to send to, and be usable by, anyone.

Please let me know if this doesn't work for you!

Curing Mal de Mac

Sometimes general or vague problems with a Mac - what I call Mal de Mac - can be solved by running Disk Utility and repairing the hard drive. But, you need to prepare properly. Disk Utility on your Mac will not repair your hard drive unless you follow the following steps:

If you are running OS 10.7 or later, restart your Mac and hold down the Command key and the R key (Command-R), and keep holding them until the Apple icon appears. After your Mac has finished starting up, you will see a desktop with an OS X menu bar and a "Mac OS X Utilities" application window. You can run Disk Utility and repair your drive from here.

If you have an older system, the best bet is to start up from your Install Disk. Again, you can’t repair the current startup volume with the Disk Utility that's on your Mac. You need to start up from a Mac OS X Install Disk and run Disk Utility from there. But many people, especially those who bought used or inherited an old Mac from a friend, may not have an Install Disk handy. Others simply no longer have a working optical drive, but soldier on.

If you have an older system, and no startup discs, here's another thing you can try:

Shut down your Mac in the usual way.
Boot in "single-user mode" by holding down Command-S at startup.
When you see the text prompt, type:

fsck -fy and hit <RETURN>

When it's done, type:

reboot and hit <RETURN>

Full instructions (and warnings) are found on this official Apple page.

Silent Mac?

Are you no longer hearing a new mail alert?

Has your trash sound, delete sound, copy complete sound or other "user interface audio" disappeared?

Do your sound preferences seem to be OK?

Before you restart your system, try this:

1. Open "Activity Monitor" which is in your "Utilities" folder inside your "Applications" folder 
2. Search for "coreaudiod"
3. Once found, click on it so that it is highlighted.
4. Now, click on "Quit Process" in the upper left part of the window. 
5. Click on "Quit" in the resulting dialog

Voilà!<sup>*



*</sup>Pet Peeve Alert: Why do people write and say "Walla!" at the end of some kind of revelatory statement? Are they being funny and I just don't get it, or do they have no idea that the word is "Voilà" and that the "v" is not silent?

Trouble viewing PDFs in Firefox?

Last week's hint on resolving Safari's issues with PDF's evoked an outcry from some frustrated Firefox users who were also having problems seeing PDFs in their browser.

Here's one way to overcome Firefox's reluctance to properly display PDFs.

1. In Firefox, type ⇧⌘A or choose "Add-ons" from the "Tools" Menu
2. Once that page loads, clcik "Get Add-ons" on the left side of the page.



"Extensions" Tab

3. Next, type "PDF Viewer" in the search box in the upper right part of the window.
4. Once "PDF Viewer" appears, click on it, and then click on the "Add To Firefox" button.
5. When the pop-down window appears, wait a few seconds and then click "Install Now."
6. Click on the "Extensions" tab on the left side of the page.
7. Look to see if you if you have an Adobe Acrobat plug-in. If you do, click "Disable."
8. Quit and restart Firefox.

Navigate to a page with a PDF, and you should be able to see it now. If you can't see the PDF, please let me know what Mac you're using, what version of Safari & Mac OS, and I'll see if I have any other ideas for you!

Can't Open PDF in Safari? Try this.

Some Mac users are frustrated by an inability to open and read PDF files in their Safari browser. Here's what I did to solve that problem for myself a few weeks ago:

1. Quit Safari
2. Go to Finder Type ⇧⌘-G (Command-Shift-G) or choose "Goto Folder…" from the "Go" menu.
3. Type "/Library/Internet Plug-Ins" (without the quotation marks!)
4. When that folder opens, look for a plug-in called "AdobePDFViewerNPAPI.plugin"
5. If you find it, drag it to the desktop. Restart Safari and go to a page with a PDF.

If you can see this PDF now, you can safely throw away AdobePDFViewerNPAPI.plugin.

If you can't see the PDF, please let me know what Mac you're using, what version of Safari & Mac OS, and I'll see if I have any other ideas for you!

Frozen iPhone / iPod / iPad? Try This!

If your iDevice has locked up... like an app won't quit, and it doesn't respond to just pushing the home button, try this:

Restart: Hold down the power button and the home button, and keep holding them. The device may say "slide to power off." If so, do that, wait until it is completely off, and then turn the device back on again.

If the "slide to power off" doesn't appear, or if you continue to have problems after a restart, try this:

Reset: Hold the power and the sleep buttons. Keep holding both buttons, even if the slide to power off option appears. The screen will go black and maybe a little streaky. Keep holding the buttons. Wait until the Apple logo comes up. Now let go of the buttons. Wait for your phone device to finish starting up. It's going to take longer than usual.

All Better? Good. You're welcome

No? Sorry. Call me. Maybe I can help.

Want Your Internet to Keep Working After July 9th?

Then click here.*

*This is a site that will tell you whether or not your machine has been affected by the DNS Changer Malware. Here's the official FBI document.

If you have been affected by the Trojan, there's also plenty of info here as to how to get rid of it and set things straight. If that all seems overwhelming or you just don't want to... give me a call.

If you haven't been infected, Mazel Tov! Read on anyhow, because this is interesting stuff!

Here's the story: Believe it or not, a Trojan called DNS Changer started infecting PCs and Macs back in 2007.

A bunch of Estonian crooks started hijacking unsuspecting Internet users traffic and redirected them to hacker-created websites. Each time a user visited one of these sites, the mob made a penny or two on advertising they had set up there. A penny or two aded up to over $14,000,000.00 by the time they got busted by the FBI last November.

Think of it as a detour on the Information Highway, so that every time you tried to go anywhere on the net, first you went through Estonia! The crooks got paid just by having you go out of your way to look at their billboards and then go over their bridge on your merry way to Facebook, or whatever. You may have seen some ads you didn't want to see and your connection may have seemed slow, but otherwise, you wouldn't have noticed.

Because the scam was so widespread, the FBI simply took over the bad guys' servers and rerouted them to play nice again. In other words, you're still taking the detour, but the G-Men took down the billboards. But that didn't actually fix the problem. The problem is, your computer is still going to the wrong address first... and on July 9, the FBI is shutting down those servers for good. Back to the detour analogy, the bridge is going to be out and the detour signs are coming down. If you don't clean out the Trojan by July 9, when you try to surf the net, your going to end up in Nowheresville. (population: you).

So... now's the time to check and see whether you or I have a little work to do. Click my first link above, and here's to finding: DNS Resolution = GREEN

Fsck your Sparse Bundle!: A Quick P.S. on the Time Machine Verification Failure

I'm happy to report that I found a way to fix the Time Machine backup that I wrote about on Monday, and my Time Machine backups are fully restored.

If you find yourself with a Time Machine backup or Time Capsule that gives you the message...

Time Machine completed a verification of your backups. To improve reliability, Time Machine must create a new backup for you

...here are a couple of ideas on how to fix it:

1. Go fsck your sparse bundle! It's not a vulgarity, it's real Linux advice! Basically, it's Disk Utilities on steroids. Follow the instructions I found here. They look scary but they're really not that bad.

or

2. Give me a call.

Bummer Dude... That's a Bad Flashback.k

Seriously, there's a malicious little Trojan going around the Mac world. It's known as Flashback.k

If you don't yet have it, the official word seems to be to disable Java in your browsers, until Apple publishes a patch. To do this in Safari go to the "Safari Menu," choose "Preferences..." and then select the "Security" tab and uncheck (if checked) the "Enable Java" box.

In Firefox, it's "Tools," "Add-ons," then choose the "plug-ins" tab and look for "Java Plug-in" and disable it.

But, Mr. Handyman, how do I know if I have it?

Fire up the Terminal application, found in your Utilities folder, paste in the following:

defaults read /Applications/Safari.app/Contents/Info LSEnvironment (and hit Return)

The answer you hope to get is "The domain/default pair of (/Applications/Safari.app/Contents/Info, LSEnvironment) does not exist"

Then paste in the following:

defaults read /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/Info LSEnvironment

The answer you hope to get is "The domain/default pair of (/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/Info, LSEnvironment) does not exist"

If you got anything else, Bummer, Dude. You've got Flashback.k. There's a fairly complicated explanation about how to get rid of it, found here. Do ALL of that, and then change all your Internet passwords, starting with Banks and Credit Cards.

Or call me. I can help.

Is it plugged in?

There is a list of questions that any electronic support technician will run through while trying to diagnose malfunctioning equipment. You can pay by the hour for them to ask you these questions, or you can do it yourself:

1. Is it plugged in? Not just into the wall. Have you checked all of your connections? You would be surprised how many times a plug will have wiggled half way out, or a helpful spouse or child will have left something unplugged without telling you. Always start with a complete connection check of all the components of a system.

2. Is it a bad cable? If the printer isn't working, for instance, try using a different cable. Grab a cable from something that is definitely working if you can, and try it between the computer and the printer. Does it work now?

3. Which device is it, really? Can you connect the printer to another computer? Does it work now? Aha! It's not the printer...

4. Does the device have a self-test? Get out your manual. Many electronic devices have a self-test routine and will pretty much tell you what is wrong, and maybe even how to fix it.

If you still can't get it to work - or just don't have the time and inclination to do the basic troubleshooting, you know how to find me!

iPhone or iPad Just Not Quite Right?

Don't forget that simply shutting it down, letting the screen go all the way to black, and then starting it back up again, cures a lot of what ails these things. In fact, it's a good habit to shut these things down and start them back up with some regularity... I'd say at least once per week.

It's also a good idea to plug in to iTunes and do a backup first - and every so often, just for good housekeeping.

As long as your backup is fresh, plugging in to iTunes and using the restore function should solve any lingering problems, but don't do this if your device is jailbroken and/or unlocked. There are ways to get these devices back to 100%, but if you are uncertain how to do that, you are best off being shown the first time.