Computer and Technology Lessons in Lethbridge, AB and Area

May 9, 2017 by Tony Whitney

Learning new things can be hard. Even worse, it can be frustrating when you are trying to learn something you need to use every single day. Maybe a new software update has made tasks you used to do regularly seem like a nightmare. Or a new smartphone doesn’t make you feel smart at all. The tablet you got as a gift and were told you would love just sits in a drawer without use because it just feels awkward.

Y-Not Tech Services can help! I love technology. I love learning about technology and how to use it. I have developed a way of explaining technobabble in a more easily understandable way. When I worked in Retail selling Computers and other technology items many of my customers expressed their gratitude at the way I explained things. Some would refer to me as the plain-English speaking geek.

Computer Lessons in Lethbridge, Alberta | Y-Not Tech Services

Visit us for one on one training in our office, or I can visit you where it’s convenient

Now, I offer that experience to my clients. If you want to learn about your computer, smart phone, tablet, or almost any other device I can help. I have a knack for learning this stuff. I don’t know everything. There’s a good chance that what you want to learn, I don’t know. Yet. But I’ll learn it and then pass that knowledge onto you in a way that is easy to understand. I strip out the technical language found in manuals and online tutorials and put the information into simple terms that are understandable and you’ll remember. Below are two components of a computer. On the left are common descriptions of them and on the right is how I describe them.

Technical Explanation	My Plain English Explanation
A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive or fixed disk is a data storage device that uses magnetic storage to store and retrieve digital information using one or more rigid rapidly rotating disks (platters) coated with magnetic material.	A Hard Drive is like your computer’s library. It stores all of your files and programs like books on a shelf. The larger the Library, the more files, programs, photos, videos and music can be stored before running out of shelf space.
RAM is an acronym for random access memory, a type of computer memory that can be accessed randomly; that is, any byte of memory can be accessed without touching the preceding bytes. RAM is the most common type of memory found in computers and other devices, such as printers.	RAM is like a desk you sit down at and spread out your work on. It is where everything you work on is stored while you work on it. Windows or MacOS need some space on your desk, and the rest is available for the programs and anything else you have open.

The customers I served in the Big Box Store I used to work in always appreciated those explanations and it helped them choose the computer that best fit their needs. I planned to develop set Lesson Plans for popular subjects, but as I started helping clients I found that the subjects they wanted to learn were unique and numerous. I still might develop plans on some subjects, but in the meantime, I am enjoying learning whatever a client needs to know and then passing the knowledge onto them in easy to digest lessons.

A few examples of lessons I have taught:

Garmin Fitness Tracker syncing to iPhone plus online calorie counter website
Building a Facebook page for an organization to promote an event through
Other basic Facebook uses including how to find friends and unfriend someone
E-mail attachments
Basic WordPress and other website set up (using pre-made themes only, no design)
Smart Phone Data limit restrictions and warnings (so you don’t get dinged with a huge bill)
Accessibility options on computers and smartphones to help clients with eyesight and hearing loss
Getting started with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media platforms
I have even shadow wrote for a client writing up promotions for online sales

The list goes on, really, and is always growing. What would you like to learn? Contact me to set up an appointment. I want to be your ‘Computer Guy’.

No current plans, but If the opportunity arises, I’ll do some classroom style lessons

Computer Back Ups in Lethbridge, AB and Area

May 2, 2017 by Tony Whitney

With so much of our important data being stored on our computers, backing them up is incredibly important. To help you audit your own back up strategy, I’ll list a few questions here I want you to answer:

Do you currently have a backup?
If you have a backup, how up to date is it?
Is your backup stored in the same building as the original data?

Why is having a backup strategy important? We store all kinds of important stuff on our computers. We have documents for work or school. We have music and other media we have collected from digital stores like iTunes. And most importantly, we have photos. I have had a few friends lose their homes to fires. They say the whole experience is traumatizing, but the only truly lasting pain they have from it is the loss of their family photos. Nearly everything else lost in the fire can be replaced, but not the photo albums. Today, most of our photos are taken and stored digitally. If the Hard Drive in your computer fails, what will you miss most? If it does fail and you don’t have a backup you will either need to live without those files, or look into Data Recovery, which can be a very expensive endeavor depending on what it needed. Let’s avoid that altogether by building a backup strategy to fit your needs.

Computer Back Ups in Lethbridge, Alberta and Area | Y-Not Tech Services

One copy of your Data will be on the Hard Drive inside your computer

If you do have a backup, that’s great! You’re ahead of many people out there. I have found, however, that one backup is often not enough. I’ve seen the disappointment in a client’s eyes too many times when I transfer their backup over onto their new Hard Drive after a failure and they realize that the backup was done 6 months ago and now they are missing 6 months of their digital lives. That’s a lot of family photos. People in my industry have come up with a 3-2-1 backup strategy, and I highly recommend it.

What is a 3-2-1 backup?

Three copies of your data. Stored on two different devices. One copy should be stored off-site. This ensures with nearly 100% certainly your data cannot be lost. Three copies is pretty self-explanatory and we’ll get to where they should be soon. Why should we store our data on two devices? If a virus or malware badly infects your computer it could damage the data on any drive attached to it. That’s why you should have the data on your internal Hard Drive (obviously, that’s what is running your computer) and another device like an External Hard Drive, a USB Flash Drive or DVDs. Finally, we get to the offsite part of our backup strategy. I have seen people attempt this a number of ways. Often they’ll make a backup and then stash it at a family members home, or at a storage facility. This method has one major flaw though. The data will quickly become out of date. With the storage device (generally a Hard Drive or Flash Drive) off-site AND inaccessible to add new data too, the backup doesn’t get updated. The plan would be to go and bring the drive onsite every week and update the backup, but those plans quickly fade because it’s just one more thing to remember. This is where a cloud backup solution comes in. Y-Not Tech Services has partnered with Datto to offer our clients a managed offsite backup solution to add to your backup strategy. We’ll get to that in more detail later. First, let’s make sure you have the local back-up covered.

Local Backup

Having a local back up is important and can be very convenient when something goes wrong. If your back up is up to date you can quickly restore your data and get back up and running. Ideally, your back up medium will be larger than your internal Hard Drive. This will allow your back up utility to store different versions of your files so you can go back to find old changes if you save over top and want the old copy back. Generally, either an External Hard Drive or Network Attached Storage (NAS) drive is the best choice for backup storage. Windows and Mac both have a built-in utility for backup management. If you need help getting this setup, please contact me so I can help you get it set up.

A second copy of your data could be stored an External Hard Drive like this one.

Another option for local backup is to clone your Hard Drive. This involves making a full, exact copy of your Hard Drive so that you can just swap your back up in and it will boot up just the same as your old Hard Drive. This is a more time consuming and involved way to backup, but can save a lot of time when disaster strikes your hard drive. If you need to be able to get back up and running immediately after a hard drive failure, a full clone backup may be the way to go.

Managed Off-Site Backup

What I like most about Datto is that it gives me a dashboard to see all my clients and I can see at a glance that your backup is up to date. If, for some reason, your backup isn’t up to date, I’ll be alerted and we can get together to make sure your data is safe. What is really nice about the Managed Backup Service is that any time I’m alerted to an issue with your back up, I’ll work to make sure it is resolved at no extra cost to you. It’s all part of the service. For prices and more information please see the Managed Services page.

With Managed Back Up, your data is stored safely and Securely.

In conclusion, don’t be caught without a backup. Hard Drives have many moving parts and are prone to failures. Solid State Drives can also wear out over time. I’ve seen both fail within a week of purchase at times. Yes, the warranty covers the failure and you can get a replacement from the manufacturer, but they can’t do anything about the data you had stored on the drive. If you don’t have a backup strategy in place or if you want to review your backup strategy with me, contact me to make an appointment.

Serving Lethbridge, AB, and area locally. Back Up can be set up using Remote Connection so I can help you no matter where you are. Book an appointment to discuss your options and get a backup in place.

Keyboard Shortcuts – A Lesson from Tony in Lethbridge, AB

April 25, 2017 by Tony Whitney

Over the past several weeks our Tech Tips Thursday’s have focused on shortcuts. That series wraps up over on Facebook later this week. If you haven’t yet, follow us over there. This post will serve as a summary and expansion for Keyboard Shortcuts. We’ll review the ones we covered and I’ll point you in the direction of some new ones to try out.

First I should explain that, while, for simplicity’s sake, I only referred to text in the Facebook posts, but almost all of those commands can also be used for files on your computer. I’ll show you a bit about that as well.

To use a shortcut press and hold the first button in the combination, then press the second while still holding the first button. If there are three buttons in the shortcut, you must hold both the first and second buttons while pressing the last one. For example if the shortcut is Ctrl + V, you would press and hold Ctrl then press V. For the shortcut Ctrl + Alt + Delete you would press and hold Ctrl, press and hold Alt while still holding Ctrl and finally press Delete while still holding both Ctrl and Alt. Some shortcuts can be activated by hitting the buttons simultaneously, but it’s simpler to just do them in sequence.

Cut, Copy, Paste and Select All

Moving text around is a breeze when you remember these shortcuts. Whether it’s copying and pasting an e-mail address to send a message or cutting and pasting text to better organize your thoughts in a Word Processor, it’s simple to do with these shortcuts:

	Windows	Mac	Detailed Explanation
Cut	Ctrl + X	Command + X	Removes Selected Items and moves them to the Clipboard
Copy	Ctrl + C	Command + C	Copies the selected items and moves them to the clipboard, while leaving the original in place.
Paste	Ctrl + V	Command + V	Pastes all items on the clipboard to the selected location

These shortcuts are also extremely useful when organizing your files. In Windows Explorer or Mac’s Finder, you can use these same shortcuts to move files around between folders or even different drives connected to the computer. For example, everything you download from the internet might automatically be saved to a ‘Downloads’ folder. If you wanted to organize this so it was a easier to find things you could create folders (Bonus Shortcut! Ctrl + N | Command + N!!?) within the ‘Downloads’ Folder. You can create different folders for different types of files and use the shortcuts we have learned to Cut the files from the ‘Downloads’ folder and then Paste them into specific folders so you can find them later and avoid clutter. The Copy shortcut comes into play with files mostly when you want something on your Computer to also be on another drive (like for a back up). Again, Copy works the same as Cut, but it leaves the file in the original location as well as adds a copy where ever you Paste it. Select All (Ctrl + A | Command + A) also works for files. Want to Copy all the files within a folder? No need to waste time doing it one at a time! Simply hit your handy shortcut for Select all.

Application Switching and Show Desktop

Probably one of my most used short cuts and one of my least used. I often have multiple applications open. If I’m working I might have a virus scan running on a client’s hard drive, my ticketing and Invoice software, a web browser, and a music application all running and probably more than that if I’m not working with YouTube, Netflix and games added to the list. The quickest way to move among these applications is Alt + Tab on Windows and Command + Tab on MacOS. This is great for switching back and forth between your web browser and a Word Processor for example to write about a subject you’re researching. Or just switching between Facebook and a music player to skip a song you’re not feeling. The uses are myriad, and can it can save almost everyone a lot of time.

	Windows	Mac	Detailed Explanation
Switch Applications	Alt + Tab	Command + Tab	Switches between open applications
Show Desktop	Windows Key + D	F11 or Fn + F11	Minimizes open windows and displays the desktop

I can’t say I use show desktop very often. I like to keep a fairly clean desktop, with all my most used application and files either on my taskbar or in my start menu, so heading to the desktop isn’t high on my list. However, I see many people store their most used files and programs directly on the Desktop. If you are one of these people, hitting Windows Key + D will get you straight to all of your files.

Keyboard Shortcuts - A Lesson from Tony in Lethbridge, Alberta | Y-Not Tech Services

Please don’t let you desktop look like THIS though! How do they find anything?

Undo and Redo

Making mistakes can be annoying and time consuming. However, with the Undo short cut, you can get back on track quickly and easily. This shortcut can be used in many different situations and applications around your computer. It can be used to quickly undo the results of using of the other shortcuts, like paste. If you pasted something in the wrong place and need to get rid of it again, simply use the undo shortcut. Deleted a file you need? Undo. Erased half the picture you are editing? Undo. Play around with this one. You might be surprised how many places it works! Just make sure to have the Redo shortcut handy in case it has an effect you didn’t expect.

	Windows	Mac	Detailed Explanation
Undo	Ctrl + Z	Command + Z	Reverses the last action taken.
Redo	Ctrl + Y	Command + Shift + Z	Resets to before Undo was done

Remember the Undo command and you’ll never need to reach for the white out again!

If you can remember to use these shortcuts, they can be a real time saver for you. It Is much more time consuming to go through and undo the mistake manually. Two key presses can get you back to work almost instantly. And if once you Undo something it doesn’t look any better, or you change your mind, Redo is there to undo the undo. Sometimes when I working with images I’ll end up using the Undo shortcut repeatedly. I’ll change a lot of different things while trying to make it look the way I want only for it to look bad. So I just spam the Undo Shortcut until all the changes I made are reversed and I can start over trying something else.

Open New Tab

My wife is always making fun of me for having about 100 Internet Browser Tabs open at once. I guess I might over use this shortcut. There are many things I do in a web browser. E-Mail, Netflix, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, a few different discussion forums, working on my webpage and so on. If my browser was a desktop it would look the one above. I’m sure you have a different list, but that you still have a reason to open more than one tab at a time. Modern Web browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Safari and even Microsoft Edge make it easy to get new tabs open. It just takes a keyboard shortcut. On windows systems Ctrl + T will open up a new tab and for Safari on a Mac you can use Command + T. As an added bonus, when you open a new tab this way, the address box will take focus so you can immediately start typing the address of the webpage you want to visit, or your search terms for the search engine set to run in your browser.

Barely Scratched the Surface

Hopefully the shortcuts I have explained here are helpful. There’s a good chance you already knew and used some of them. That’s great! There are many other Shortcuts available. Windows and MacOS have more shortcuts ready to use, but so do almost all of your favorite applications and programs. If you use a program regularly, why not have a look around and see if there are shortcuts for your most used actions. You might find these listed in the menus next to where or hidden away in a help file. Either way, taking the time to learn them could save more time in the future and make your workflow simpler.

If you enjoyed this lesson on Keyboard Shortcuts, be sure to follow me on Facebook and consider contacting me for one on one training on the subject of your choice. You can book an appointment below:

I’ll leave you with a link to Shortcuts for Windows and then one for Mac.

Windows Shortcuts:

You can find a huge list of shortcuts for windows here:

https://www.winhelponline.com/blog/master-list-keyboard-shortcuts-windows-10

Mac Shortcuts

A Big list of MacOS shortcuts can be found here: https://www.danrodney.com/mac

In Response to Josh at KISS 107.7 on Google Voice Storage

April 18, 2017 by Tony Whitney

Today Josh at KISS 107.7 (I still want to call it The River) in Lethbridge, AB posted on Facebook about voice recordings Google takes on Android phones. By the way Josh, if you use Google Search app on your iPhone the same thing will happen. If you use Siri or Voice dictation on Apple then that data is also stored (and allegedly sold to third parties – I don’t have time to research this at the moment, but a quick google search reports that they admitted to it). Should we care?

Google Voice Storage Debate with KiSS 107.7 in Lethbridge, Alberta | Y-Not Tech Services

This FB post generated some interest and got me thinking

Personally, I don’t mind. If Google wants to use recordings of me saying “OK Google, what’s the weather like? … OK Google, Remind me to go back to work in 30 minutes… OK Google, remind me to buy milk when I’m done work” to improve their voice recognition, then I’m OK with that. Google and Apple both have expansive privacy policies. As an end user it is up to me to read and understand them. I don’t personally view it as a violation of my privacy that they store these recordings. Especially not when they make them available to me and I can choose to delete them at any time. I can also choose to turn this feature off completely. Here’s how:

Visit https://myaccount.google.com/activitycontrols (this page is also home to other Google Activity Switches – look around and choose what you want them keeping)
Sign into your Google account if prompted
Scroll down to “Voice and Audio Activity” and flip the switch (see image below)
You can also choose to click Manage Activity and listen/delete stored data.

Turning off Google’s Voice and Audio Activity Collection is Actually very simple

Google claims Voice Activity is only saved after you say OK Google or touch the microphone. Some users report they found saved data in their Activity page even though they don’t use those features. I’m still working on trying to find out why this would be. My first guess is that it would be like a pocket dial… You know, when you leave a 15 minute voice mail and it’s just you watching Netflix because your phone got activated from your pocket. The same could happen with the microphone button on your phone. And with Google Assistant now, all it takes it pressing and holding your home button for Google to begin listening to you. If you don’t want Google to have this information, simply follow the above directions. Apple’s site says that when you delete Siri and Dictation that they will delete your stored data

Who Pays for Google

Google is a huge company with huge profits, yet they offer us a lot of services for free. Gmail, Google Search, Google Photos, Google Assistant, Google Drive and it’s suite of online office compatible programs, and the list goes on and on. So how is this all paid for? The answer is mainly through Ads. Google is first and foremost an advertising company. When you search, there are paid results at the top of the list. There are ads in your Gmail inbox. And to make those ads match you, Google uses the personal data we give it to build up an advertising profile on us.

Google products and services are not free. We just don’t pay for them with cash. We pay with our data. Everything we type in or say to Google is considered our giving them that data. So far I haven’t heard any reports of Google using this data in negative ways.

With large companies gaining access to more and more of our data this is a conversation that needs to be had. We need to make ourselves aware of who has our data and what they are doing with it. Both Google and Amazon have devices that are designed to sit in our homes and listen to us. There has been at least one case where data from an Amazon Alexa device may have been able to solve a murder. So is this an invasion of privacy. Which is more important: Protecting our data or solving a crime?

In conclusion, my personal stance is that I’m not worried about Google having my personal data. The data of my clients, however, is encrypted and I only use secure payment options. As I said, if google wants to store me asking for directions to Disneyland on their servers, that’s fine. I understand why some people are upset by this. I guess part of why I’m not upset is because it has never come as a surprise to me that this data is being stored. To many people it is a surprise, and that surprise leaves them feeling somewhat violated. My honest advice: If you don’t want a company to have data on you, don’t use any product from that company. For Google this would include Chrome, Keep, Android, Search, Gmail, Drive, Chromebooks, Assistant, Google Now, and other products and services offered by Google. The same can be said for other companies like Amazon, Apple, Samsung and Microsoft. It’s increasingly hard to get away from data collection, and in many circumstances legislation is still lacking in dealing with this.

Let me know in the comments how you feel about this. Do you feel your privacy is being invaded by these companies? Do you plan to delete whatever data you can? Will you be reading the privacy policies and End User License Agreements (EULA) more closely before using digital devices?

If any of this was confusing or you’d like help sorting out your privacy settings on any device, you can book an appointment with Y-Not Tech Services and we can help. Why not let Tony take care of it?

Internet Security Basics for Lethbridge, Alberta and Area

September 12, 2016 by Tony Whitney

Greetings. Today I thought I would go over some basic information about staying safe while you’re online. This post will be geared towards computers running a Windows operating system, but for those of you using Apple computers, remember most of this applies to you too. Fun Fact: One of the earliest viruses around hit Apple computers. All it did was display a poem on the screen. Today, many of the dangers online target all operating systems. We’ll cover a few without getting too technical or going into too much detail. [Read more…]