I have had lots of questions over the past fortnight about whether it is a good idea to update to iOS 10 on the iPad and iPhone, and to MacOS Sierra on the Mac. While it is still early days for MacOS Sierra, iOS 10 has now been out for nearly 2 months. Let's deal with iOS 10 first.
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Recently, I published an article about a scam that caught out a young client, and resulted in a charge of over $500 on his credit card and some scammers from India gaining access to his Mac computer. This scam has also impacted THREE iTandCoffee clients during the past fortnight. All of these clients contacted iTandCoffee to say that they had received a strange message on their devices while using their web browser. Two were Mac users, and one was a Windows user. This message told them they had a virus and needed to contact a 1800 number. Here are some images of messages showing variations on the same theme. In each case, the client's web browser locked up, rendering them unable get rid of the message and go to any other web page.
In two cases, the clients called the 1800 number and allowed the scammers to get onto their computers. Fortunately, they realised they were being scammed when they were asked for credit card details. But the scammers still had access to their computers! Needless to say, these two clients were very distressed when they called iTandCoffee. The first thing we asked them to do was to turn off their internet and shut down the computer. iTandCoffee was then able to subsequently remove offending software that the scammers installed, and the clients are now back up an running. PLEASE DON'T GET CAUGHT BY THIS SCAM ON ANY OF YOUR DEVICES. This type of message can also appear on your iPad or iPhone. You DO NOT have a virus. DO NOT call the 1800 number. The scammers are trying to
Here are a couple of past articles that tell you what to do if your web browser does get locked up by one of these scams.
Need help? If you are concerned you have been caught out by this, or need help to sort unlock your browser, please contact iTandCoffee to make an appointment. We can walk you through what to do over the phone, or in-shop at 34 High Street Glen Iris, Victoria. If you are in Melbourne, we can do a home visit to help sort you out. (Please note that charges apply for all appointments.) 8/10/2016 0 Comments Working out what's slowing down your Mac (and giving you that dreaded 'spinning beachball of death'!)Just today, while trying to write an article for this fortnight's iTandCoffee Handy Hint Newsletter, I found that my Mac started giving me the dreaded 'spinning beachball of death'. It was looking pretty dire - I couldn't do anything for several minutes, which was very frustrating. I wanted to avoid the drastic step of shutting down my Mac by holding down the power button, as it is best to try to shut down 'gracefully' if at all possible. Also, I was busy converting a video and did not want to stop that process. To solve my Mac's problem, I used a standard utility on my Mac, one that showed me what was going wrong. A particular web page that I had opened was the cause of my problem. This web page was showing that it was using nearly 5GB of my computer's working memory, its RAM. What a hog! No other process could get a look-in, and this was causing my spinning beachball. Find out what I did to resolve this issue in this Handy Hint for iTandCoffee Club members: Not yet a member of the iTandCoffee Club? Why not JOIN TODAY for all sorts of great tips like this and to take advantage of a range of other great content (videos, slideshows, articles), services and discounts for members. (As a limited offer for new iTandCoffee Club members, join by 14/10/16 to receive iTandCoffee's 95-page guide "Introduction to the iPad and iPhone - A Guided Tour (iOS 10 Edition)" for FREE. Find out more HERE›) Other hints and articles about troubleshooting Mac problems
There are just so many occasions where I want to save the content of an email to somewhere other than one of my mailboxes on my iPhone or iPad. For example, when I am arranging a trip, I like to keep all the confirmation emails in my Evernote, so that I can have everything relating to my trip stored in the one Notebook. This makes finding what I need SO easy. To date, I have used a 'Premium' (i.e. paid!) feature of Evernote that allows me to 'forward' emails to my Evernote account. While this has worked, in iOS 10 I have discovered a better way - one that does not require a 'Paid' subscription to Evernote, and that allows me to save ANY email as a PDF to Evernote, iCloud Drive, Notes or anywhere else that I choose. If you are an iTandCoffee Club member you can read more about this really handy tip here › Join The iTandCoffee Club to receive a FREE iOS 10 guide, plus attend FREE sessions!Are you a member of the iTandCoffee Club? Why not JOIN TODAY for all sorts of great tips like this and to take advantage of a range of other great content (videos, slideshows, articles), services and discounts for members. As a limited offer for new iTandCoffee Club members, join by 14/10/16 to receive iTandCoffee's 95-page guide "Introduction to the iPad and iPhone - A Guided Tour (iOS 10 Edition)" for FREE. Members can also book to come along to our monthly 'Free Friday' sessions at iTandCoffee in Glen Iris. Those members who can't make it to Glen Iris (or if the session is booked out) can watch a video of the session that will be added to The Clubhouse shortly after that session. Our next FREE FRIDAY will cover 'What's New in iOS 10?'The next Free Friday session is scheduled for Friday October 21st at 12:30. This one-hour session will have a 'topic of the day', which will be "What's new in iOS 10". This members-only session is filling fast, so members should get their bookings in as soon as possible to avoid missing out. Other handy hints and articles about MailHandy Hints (for iTandCoffee Club members)Articles
Nearly every week I see clients who bemoan the upgrade to Windows 10, and the way it automatically downloads and installs Windows updates at THE MOST INCONVENIENT times. I have had appointments with clients where this has happened, and has stopped us doing anything for up to an hour! For those with a very limited allowance for their internet data, the automatic Windows updates can also be VERY expensive. A client I saw recently had a pre-paid 4G 'dongle' that he used for his internet access. The attempted download of the Windows 10 Anniversary update 'sucked up' his remaining prepaid allowance in no time flat, costing him about $30. When he re-charged, adding just $20 (which gave 500MB more), this credit was used up within minutes. He brought his PC to iTandCoffee to find out what was causing his credit to disappear. Investigation showed that the Windows 10 Anniversary update was the culprit. It was 60% complete - so any further prepaid data credit would have been 'sucked up' again. To prevent this, the remainder of the update was completed using iTandCoffee data. The Windows 10 Anniversary update can, according to the below article, require between 3 and 5 GB to download. This is a very expensive download for those on pre-paid and limited data plans. Is there a way to stop these automatic downloads? If you are using a Wi-Fi connection, there is a way that you can tell your Windows 10 computer that you are on a 'Metered Connection'. This will stop automatic downloads from occurring. Here is an article that tells you how to to this. If you have a Wi-Fi USB 'dongle' that you plug into your computer, you can instead plug this into a wall power adaptor and connect to the 'dongle' via WiFi, instead of via USB. Does this all make sense? If not, and you need any help with adjusting this setting (or other Windows issues), make an appointment with iTandCoffee in Glen Iris (Melbourne) by booking online, calling 1300 885 420 or emailing bookings@itandcoffee.com.au My brand, spanking, new iPhone 7 Plus arrived just this week and I have now had a few days to play with it. I must say that I do really like the 'Haptic' Home Button - which replaces the 'real' Home Button of my previous iPhones. It is so clever how it feels like you are pressing a button, even though your aren't! And, I am LOVING the speed of the new phone - it is certainly an improvement on previous iPhones. Even the battery seems to be lasting longer than my iPhone 6S Plus (after I fixed a problem that is outlined in the article: Battery problems after upgrade to iOS 10 - and how I fixed this). When problems occur on an iPhone 7 or 7 PlusI was having a problem with one of my 'website monitoring' apps on my new iPhone (it was crashing every time I logged in). Additionally, my Commbank business banking app was crashing every time I processed a payment. I suspected that the problem was with the Apps themselves (i.e. that they needed to have something updated to handle iOS 10), but I wanted to rule out any other problem on the iPhone. So, decided I would try to do a 'forced reboot', to see if this made any different to the performance of these apps. Forced Reboot no longer works using the 'standard' buttonsNow that the Home Button on my iPhone 7 Plus is not a 'real' button, the usual method of 'force rebooting' my iPhone does not work! Instead, this method just activated Siri or put my iPhone to Sleep! (For those who don't know, the 'usual' method of 'force rebooting' is to hold down the Sleep and Home Buttons at the same time for about 10 seconds, until the Apple symbol appears. Let go when the Apple appears, and your device will eventually fire up again, and take you to the Lock Screen. Be patient - it might take a little while sometimes. In most cases, this fixes whatever problem you were having on your older-than-iPhone-7 iPhone or iPad.) Because of the change to the Home Button on the iPhone 7 & 7 Plus, a 'forced reboot' requires a different combination of 'hardware' keys. 'Sleep' and 'Volume Down' are the new combination After a bit of research, I discovered that the combination of buttons that I now need to use to do a Forced Reboot. To Force Reboot an iPhone 7 / 7 Plus, press and hold the Sleep and Volume Down buttons concurrently for about 10 seconds, until the Apple appears, then let go. The Volume Down button is the lower of the two volume buttons on the left side of the iPhone. Some Handy Hints about 'Troubleshooting' |
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