As I've stated many times over the years and as I pointed out in the form of a warning in my recent YouTube video ("Using Technology To Fight Racism"), scammers will take every negative opportunity to try to steal your money. Whether it's a hurricane, a tornado, a flood or civil unrest, these thieves will …
Category: Email
Dangerous Attachments
In the past view days, I've gotten dozens of emails similar to the one pictured above. The email subject always includes the word "Receipt;" the email comes from different addresses; and the email has an Excel spreadsheet attached. While you may be curious as to what's on the Excel spreadsheet, even though you might suspect …
Address Book Mayhem
In a previous Question of the Week email, I listed a number of computing-related things you could do while stuck at home during the Coronavirus pandemic. One of those items was to clean out your address book. In the "old days" we used address books like the one pictured above on the left. Today, however, …
Facebook Emails
Yesterday, a customer logged into Remote Technical Support for a quarterly checkup. Also, she wanted to know if there was a way to stop getting emails from Facebook every time one of her friends posted something. If you have a lot of friends on Facebook, getting an email every time they post or comment or …
2019-nCoV
Did you read our Question of the Week email for February 3, 2019? (If not, you should read it now - before you continue with this post. You'll find it HERE.) In addition to what I shared in the email, I wanted to warn you of something scammers/hackers are doing. They are sending emails with …
Believe Only Half of What You See
There's an old saying credited to Edgar Allen Poe - "Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see." This saying first appeared in his story, “The System of Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether” in 1845. In 1858, the saying was altered to read: " Believe only half of what you see and …
When You Care Enough…
Whether we're ready for them or not, the holidays are upon us! Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and then the parade of major holidays follows. There's Advent, Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, and New Years. Plus, you might be like our family where numerous birthdays are celebrated during this same time frame. (Not everyone can be born in August …
Fake Replies
Earlier this week, I posted about one of our customers whose email was hacked and all kinds of problems ensued. (Hacking Email) I found out that one of the people who received the fake email replied to it with the word "No." This person knew the email was a fake and, I guess, wanted to …
Hacking Email
Hackers can get into your email a variety of ways but the archetypical method is cracking your password. There are other ways such as the server hack that we experienced a few months ago on one of our accounts. Still, breaking your password is the modus operandi for most email hackers. With this in mind, …
I Won, I Won!
Today, I received an email telling me that I could claim my prize in the Chevron Texaco Oil Promotion (see the image above). Interestingly, I do have a Chevron/Texaco Oil gas credit card. So, at first glance, I might think this is legit. But, of course, it's not. Let's look at the top of the …
Why # Instead Of @
In my last post, The Life Of Riley, I wrote the following: "Send your pet’s information to pet#4kcc.com. (Replace the # symbol with the @ symbol before you try to send.)" Additionally, in another post, Address Book Confusion, I shared: "Of course, I have email addresses – my business one (john at 4kcc.com) and..." A …
Bahamian Alert
An attempt to appeal to your willingness to help others. Warning! It occurs after every natural disaster. Whether it's a hurricane, earthquake, tornado, volcano eruption, mud slide or major flood, you can count on it happening. There will be crooks who will attempt to use Social Engineering and appeal to your willingness to help others. …
Delayed Gratification
In this post, we're talking about delayed grati... no, actually, we're talking about delayed emails. And just for the fun of it, I'm going to throw in another subject - lost emails. If you read my previous post, But First, you are aware that there are many hardware components to the Internet. When those pieces …
But First…
Recently, I had an inquiry regarding delayed emails. I want to address the issue in depth. But first, I want to give everyone a simple but thorough explanation of the hardware components that make up the Internet. Here is a fairly complete "parts list" of the Internet hardware: Cable (wire)Fiber Optic CableDense Wavelength Division Multiplexers …
Not Spam
I've talked about spam in a number of my posts yet I continue to get questions about it. When I try to help someone reduce the amount of spam they receive (you can never really eliminate it), I often find that they aren't handling legitimate email correctly when it goes to spam. (Just a reminder: …
Like A Horror Movie!
Yesterday morning, before we left for church, I went on to my computer to check something. When I opened my email, there were hundreds of email messages like the two pictured below. These emails indicated that something I had sent out was undeliverable. It all started around 2:00 a.m. Sunday morning. As I sat there, …
Microsoft Service Agreement Email: Yes, It Is Legit
Recently, we've been getting a large number of people logging in to our Remote Technical Support to ask whether a particular email is legitimate or not. The email appears to be from Microsoft but people aren't sure if it really is. (To see a slightly larger view of the email, just click on this picture:) …
Continue reading Microsoft Service Agreement Email: Yes, It Is Legit
Address Change
A question that we're asked frequently is: "How do I change my email address?" There are many reasons you might want to change your email address. For example, you might be changing ISPs (Internet Service Providers) and you'll be losing your address with the original company; you might be unhappy with changes your current email …
A Subject That Matters
Every day, I receive about 400 business-related emails. In my personal accounts, there are probably another 150 or so emails. If I read all these emails, do you think there would be any time left during the day to do other things? Hardly. While my number of daily emails might be a bit higher than …
Attachment? What Attachment?
A couple of days ago, I received an email from someone who was sending me material for one of the websites I maintain for an outside company. In the email, they stated, "Here's the bio you need." Unfortunately, they had forgotten to attach the bio to the email. I wrote them back and teased them, …
Like A Broken Record
I really hate to sound like a broken record. You know, the same thing over and over. Still, it seems no matter how many times I bring up this subject, either in the Question of the Week email or here in the blog, someone hasn't followed my training. Let me put this in simple terms: …
Is There A Draft In Here?
Have you ever been typing an email and have it suddenly disappear? If so, you can often retrieve it by going to the DRAFTS mailbox in your email service. Whether you get your email online through a browser or you use an email client like Microsoft Outlook, all email services have four basic mailboxes (or …
More Throwaways!
In my April 15, 2019 post "Fighting Spam," I mentioned throwaway, i.e. disposable email addresses. At our seminar this month, several people asked if I would explain this anti-spam option in more depth. So, here you go! Today, I'm going to talk about Yahoo mail and show you how to use disposable addresses. Keeping in …
Email Archives
Here at Keystone Computer Concepts, we offer as much free training as we can. This blog is a prime source of our educational info. Still, did you know that we have archives of our Question of the Week emails? If you're not on our email list (you should be!) or if you've deleted a QOTW …
Fighting Spam
At our seminar this past Saturday, one of the subjects we discussed was ways to fight spam email, a.k.a. junk email. As I mentioned then, you will not eliminate spam but you can fight it and lower the number of junk emails you receive in your Inbox. In this post, I'm going to review the …
Two Blog Email Items Of Interest
Last week, I told you about the edition of our chat box. (Mr. Watson, Come Here) In this post, I want to talk about two items related to our blog email. The first is a new feature that we've added - a blog post email signup in the right-hand column of our blog pages and …
Amex Scam Email
Just wanted to give you a warning regarding a scam email which purports to be from American Express. It includes an attachment with a .html extension. You should NOT open the attachment and you should NOT respond to the email. Simply delete it. I have already forwarded a copy to American Express. If you'd like …
Email Account Hacked?I received an email that says so! Recently, we've been deluged with emails to our different accounts saying that our email was hacked. Since I have our Spam filter turned off, I get the same email for accounts that don't even exist. Click on this picture to see one of these emails full …
Xfinity Customers – Missing Emails?
Did you know you might be missing important emails because they are being deleted before they ever get to you? We all know about Spam emails, right? Did you know that all email providers have Spam filters running on their servers? What happens to the emails after they are caught in the Spam filter depends …
Old Rule Out, New Rule In
Yesterday, I attended a security webinar presented by Lenovo and Intel with special guest speaker Vinny Troia. Vinny is a Computer Forensic Specialist and Certified Ethical Hacker, well-known throughout the computer IT world. Lenovo and Intel presented new ways they are improving hardware to make our computing safer. When it comes to software and user …