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Quick Productivity Tips

This section covers articles that provide quick tips as opposed to the longer tutorial section that mostly covers Microsoft and Google products.

This master list is presently comprised of 6 categories:

  • Cell Phone
  • Email
  • Internet of Things
  • Computer Security
  • Web
  • Microsoft Windows

This section is several pages long so be sure to use the blue Next Page >> button at the bottom or the search box to the right.

Stop Being Lazy and Get a Password Manager

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Before you get mad at me for the lazy reference, just know I’ve been called lazy too. Lazy people try to find systems so they don’t have to do mundane stuff. This article is a remake of one I did over a decade ago about predictability and passwords. However, the password strategy I outlined years ago is no longer recommended.

How to Find Out More about Suspicious URLs

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I’m sure this experience has happened to many of us. You see an email come in from a friend, but something just doesn’t look right based on the preview. Parts look normal, but some stuff was suspect. This happened to me this weekend and I decided to research it more.

Could Your Printer Be Vulnerable to an Attack?

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I know we’re sick of security warnings, myself included. But have you ever thought of your printer as a security threat? A recent article by Tenable, a network security firm, referenced some unexpected issues with a line of Hewlett-Packard (HP) printers including the default settings. Regardless of your brand, I would be inclined to check your printer settings. The reason is that automatic updates may not be enabled.

Simple Ways to Protect Your Online Accounts

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Recently, I met a friend who looked stressed. He returned home from work only to find out that someone had broken into his online accounts. Naturally, he was concerned about the data, but also the amount of time it would take to fix the problem. I told him an easy way to reduce the risk of account breaches is to use something called “two factor authentication” or 2FA. But, it has some issues if you’re not careful.

How to Fix Web Pages Where Text is Too Wide

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The web is a wonderful place, but sometimes the pages don’t work for me. It’s not the content, but how they display. I’ll find a site where the text is very wide or even full screen. On some monitors, this works well. Other times, the width makes it harder to read the page. Your eyes have to span the full screen and it’s more tiring. But, with the use of your browser and a couple of tweaks, you can fix pages where the text is too wide.

How to Change Chrome Push Notifications

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Do you find you’re seeing more browser push notifications? Some of these are quite useful, but others are a result of me clicking to allow something in my haste. This week, I hit the tipping point. Each time the little box would push out from the right side of Chrome, I’d want to smack it. While that might make me feel good, the better solution was to change my browser settings.

Using Browser History to Find Elusive Pages

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Ever had the situation where you need to go back to a web page you visited but can’t recall the URL or site? This happened to me this week. I knew the site name, but not the specific page. My attempts to find it using the site’s search didn’t work well. I couldn’t recall the right words and got too many results. And then I remembered I could find the page using my browser history.

Alexa Routines Show Promise and Limitations

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It shouldn’t be any surprise that I’m an Amazon Alexa fan. Naturally, I was intrigued when Alexa added a new feature called “Routines”. As the name suggests, it allows you to standardize certain actions for consistency. In theory, this works well, but it didn’t give me the flexibility I expected. I was hoping that anything I could speak, I could use in a routine. However, it’s still something worth exploring as it can make things easier.