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Showing posts from May, 2019

Deleting Voice Recordings for Amazon (Alexa)

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If you don't want your voice recordings on Amazon Alexa to get into the wrong hands,  follow this.

Avast Omni

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Coming Summer 2019 - US Markets

Installing Avast Free v19.5.xxxx

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This corrects an error in yesterdays release. Sorry.

Installing Avast Free v19.5.xxxx

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https://youtu.be/HFF6hDvPHt8 Corrected video:  https://youtu.be/9R_xgDYFhqE A custom install of Avast Free

Re-Add Avast Passwords Manager to your Browser

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Disable/Enable Avast Self-Defense Module

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Some changes require that you turn off this module. Don't forget to turn it back on after making your changes.

Avast v19.5 Smart Scan

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Gmail scans emails for receipts and collects these automatically.

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The purchases are neatly listed on a hard to find Purchases page on Google's My Account portal. https://myaccount.google.com/purchases The author of the article thinks this is terrible and in some aspects, he's probably correct. I thank him for bringing this fact to my attention and am happy that I know know of a central point where I can access my purchases. I've added a shortcut of this link to my bookmarks bar. You may well agree with Mr. Brinkmann's view on this topic. https://www.ghacks.net/2019/05/18/gmail-tracks-all-your-purchases-and-it-is-difficult-to-delete-them-and-impossible-to-stop/

Amazon announces Alexa Guard

More information:  https://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=18021383011 We can look at this added feature in two ways. If you're concerned about your privacy,  you might consider this just another invasion by Amazon into your privacy.  I look at this as an addition to my current remotely monitored alarm system.  It enhances some features and, for me adds random lights being turned on and off.  It also adds an additional notification for the items it listens for. I'm happy to receive this added protection.  You'll need to weigh both sides of this enhancement for yourself.  For me, setting this up was very easy. Now all I need to do is leave the house to actually test this new feature

Easy Clean - Ccleaner 5.57.7182

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Easy Clean button for the Average user. Custom Clean for the Advanced user.

New Intel Vulnerability

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This one is called the MDS Attack (Microarchitectural Data Sampling) Unlike existing attacks, this attacks can leak arbitrary in-flight data from CPU-internal buffers. More details and a tool to check if your Intel system is vulnerable can be found at: https://mdsattacks.com/ A test using this tool on my main system shows that it’s vulnerable. According to intel, the dangers of such an attack are medium to low, https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/security-center/advisory/intel-sa-00233.html My own personal feeling is that since it's their chip, income and reputation. I'll be just a bit skeptical with anything they have to say till that information is verified by an independent source. Your computer, your choice. What are your thoughts?

Animals Can Be Funny

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https://youtu.be/IcWpTuu7Mcw Thanks to those that contributed the pictures. It was my pleasure to come up with the captions. The pictures were collected between 2010 and 2012

Screencast-O-Matic and Privacy Badger

I've used a program called Privacy Badger (  https://www.eff.org/privacybadger  ) for some time. Apparently, something they changed on their end is the culprit that's causing a problem by blocking any screenshots taken via Screencast.  As soon as I disabled privacy Badger, all the missing screenshots returned and I was also able to use the link in my post.  I'm sure I'm not the only person that uses PB and am sure it's affecting those users the same way. If you're using PB, you will not see any of screenshots that I've posted over the past year(s) You also aren't going to see any screenshots posted by anyone else that may be using Screencast. Until the problem is resolved, you can add  https://screencast-o-matic.com/  to the safe sites in Privacy Badger. Let's hope it doesn't take them too long.

5-3-2019 PC Community Computer Users Group - Hayward, CA

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Last night I had the pleasure of remotely addressing the members of the  http://www.pcc.org/ Once we cleared up a slight audio problem, the presentation was well received by all in attendance. The club had some questions for me after the presentation which I happily answered. The  Avast SecureLine  and the  Avast Smart Home Security  were the top attention getters.