Disclaimer: The information contained herein is of a general nature. Always do

your own research and seek advice before proceeding on any information you don’t

understand.

January, 2019

Contacts: Web Site: — http://sdcuci.com

E-mail: — sdcucinc@gmail.com

M eetings are

held monthly

on the third

Wednesday at 7.30

pm, in the hall at the

rear of St Mary’s

Catholic Church on

the Corner of Bains

and Main South

Roads, Morphett Vale

Cost $3.00 per person

per meeting. This

includes a copy of our

Newsletter, plus

coffee/tea and biscuits

Visitors are most

welcome

After 3 visits, you are

requested to become

members

Annual Subscription:

Single — $20.00

Family — $30.00

Both Novice and

Experienced

computer users will

be most warmly

welcomed

The Yardbroom Report 1/19

Happy New Year to all our members. The silly

season is almost over for another year.

Although no Committee meeting was held in

January, I can report on the events of the Decem-

ber meeting.

The Christmas function was a big success with 33 persons attend-

ing. A special thank you to Cheryl McDonald for great organiza-

tion; also to all those who assisted on the night. Well done!

The new Member Directory is ready for distribution and will be

made available to all members in the next month. Please use this

directory for your own private purposes. It is not a public docu-

ment but is for the exclusive use for Club purposes only by its

members.

There is some concern about dwindling member numbers.

Changing technology and use of smart handheld devices may be a

reason for this. Active promotion of the Club was discussed.

There may be a segment of each general meeting which allows for

more member participation. The Editor of the newsletter may fa-

cilitate this discussion.

Many of the presentations at general meetings require a high

speed Wi-Fi. The church has its own NBN high speed connection

but, due to the personal and sensitive nature of the data on the

church computers, our Club cannot access this facility. We will

continue to use portable Wi-Fi devices.

Our next general meeting will be held on 20 February 2019.

Lindsay Chuck will talk about the “Be Connected” program and

how we as a Club are participating.

Vol.: — 19

No : — 1

Newsletter Editor: David Porteous — daibhidhp@aussiebb.com.au

2

Personalising Word (Part 1)

Many of the users of Office appear to have no idea that you can “Personalise” Word. As it

can make quite a difference to how you work, it might be an idea to have a look at that,

being the start of a new year.

Using Word 2010, first, open a blank Word document (actually, it

doesn’t have to be blank) but a blank document is a good place to start

— a clean slate if you like! Click on the “ File” tab in the top left-hand

corner of the screen and quite a long callout box will appear. Depend-

ing upon which version of Office you are using, it should look some-

thing like the diagram to the left. Now “Click” on

“Options” (arrowed). It will open on the “General” tab (see below).

This tab allows for a number of personalisations to be made, amongst

others: the theme colour to use for Word — Silver, Blue or Black; if or

how “Screen tips” are shown. There are also a number of tick boxes

that are pre-ticked. You can untick them if you wish. Whatever chang-

es you make to this or any of the other options under “Display”,

“Proofing”, and so on, will apply every time you open Word until you

decide to change them.

Have a look under the “Display heading (see page 3).

There are a whole range of things that you can choose to include or otherwise. Some are

pre-ticked: others are not. Many users find that showing the “formatting” marks in My

Documents most useful as they allow the user to see exactly what has been done and

where on the page the cursor is located. Whilst these marks don’t print, but they do allow

you to see exactly what is happening on your document. You can, of course choose not to

tick them, but experience suggests, to at least try them out for a while, to see if you like

them. Change the choices in the other boxes if you wish, but they are probably OK.

(Continued on Page 3)

3

The only item that seriously needs changing under “Proofing” is to remove the tick under

“Ignore words in UPPERCASE”. Why would you want to ignore spelling errors just be-

cause a word in in upper case. If this had not been unticked, The computer would have

complained bitterly for using it as one word (as Microsoft does).

That brings us to the “Save” options. There is only thing that seriously needs changing

under this option and that is the “Save AutoRecover information every 10 minutes”. This

needs to be reduced to a maximum of every 3 minutes or even every 1 minute. You can

lose quite a lot of work in 10 minutes!

Depending on how your computer is set up, you might also like to change where the

“AutoRecover file location” is as well as where the “Default file location” and the

“Default personal templates location” reside. Next month, we’ll have a look at

“Language”, customising the “Quick Access Bar” and the “Advanced” options.

(Continued from Page 2)

I suggest you tick (click) all

of these to try them.

I wouldn’t be without them.

4

Combatting Tech Support Scams

Around 7,000 victims have reported scams associated with just 16

call locations. The number, however, may increase after further in-

vestigation. Most of the victims were Americans and Canadians.

These fake call centres send fake warning alerts to customers saying that their PC has a

problem and needs immediate technical support. The alert messages are normally so con-

vincing that the recipients get trapped and seek the tech support. The frauds in the call

centres then convince the victim to give them remote access to their PC to check and solve

the issue, thereby charging them a hefty service charge. These call centres were not only

bagging money from the victims but also getting unauthorized access to their devices.

A similar operation was carried out in October this year by the Delhi Cyber Crime Cell

where 10 call centre locations were identified and 24 individuals were arrested. Many sig-

nificant pieces of evidence were also seized which included live chats, recorded voice

calls, scripts, and customer records. Microsoft also registered a case against these Indian

fraud call centres.

To avoid online tech support scams, never give control of your computer to a third

party who calls you out of the blue. Avoid searching for help online. The online

search result is certainly not the best way to find technical support or get a compa-

ny’s contact information. Scammers sometimes place online ads to convince you to

call them. Do monitor your computer for unusual behaviour. If you notice there is a

departure from the norm, check for the following: New and unexpected toolbars; Un-

expected crashes; Displaying repeated error messages or inability to shut down or

restart your system.

Tech Support Scammers can also: Play pre-recorded audio messages; Display cooked up

error messages; Disable your Task manager; Continuously display pop-up windows. This

latter removes your ability to take evasive computer action except , literally “to pull the

plug” out of its socket — which is what you should do.

If any of the above prove positive, disconnect your computer immediately.

• Set your security software, internet browser, and operating system to download and in-

stall updates automatically.

• Always have up-to-date security software installed. Update your security software

daily, and then run it to scan for viruses and spyware. Delete anything it identifies as a

problem. Restart your computer to allow the changes to take effect.

• Change all your passwords. If you paid for bogus services with a credit card, immedi-

ately call your credit card provider asking them to reverse charges, cancel your card

and issue with a new one. Create a new pass word for it too.

Genuine tech support companies will never offer to provide you tech support. Never

give remote access of your device to any third party, until and unless you are sure that it is

a legitimate tech support team. If you have any doubt about any tech support company, in-

form the local authorities immediately. Finally, put your phone number on the National

Do Not Call Registry, and then report illegal sales calls.

No matter how many support systems we have as individuals, we can protect ourselves on-

ly by taking extra care and by educating ourselves.

5

Booting Windows 10 in Safe Mode

Windows 10 Safe Mode loads the oper-

ating system with a minimal set of sys-

tem files and device drivers — just

enough to boot the Windows operating

system. In Safe Mode, the startup pro-

grams, add-ons, etc, do not run. We usu-

ally boot into Safe Mode when we need

to troubleshoot issues.

Prior to Win-

dows 10,

booting into

Safe Mode

was compar-

atively easy

— as the computer was initializing, you pressed the F8 or some other Function Key re-

peatedly and you would end up in Safe Mode. But not any more!

There are several ways to boot into Safe Mode in Win 10 but the simplest is as follows:

Press and hold down the “Windows” key and, at the same time, press the “R” key.

This will open the “Run” command. Key in the term: “msconfig” (without the quotation

marks) and then press “OK” (see diagram top right).

“Click” on the “Boot” tab (arrowed in the diagram left above). In the resultant callout box,

(diagram above centre) “Click” in the box alongside “Safe Boot” and ensure that the

“Minimal” radio box is highlighted. “Click” “OK”. The “System Config” callout box

(above right) will appear. “Click” on “Restart”. The computer will restart in “SafeMode”.

Now, How do You Get Out of Safe Mode? Having fixed the problem via “SafeMode”

and, depending on which version of Windows 10 you use, you may be able to get out of

“SafeMode” by right clicking the desktop, then selecting “SafeMode and finally selecting

“Exit SafeMode” in the resultant callout box. Alternatively, you may have to go through

the reverse of the above procedure. Here’s how:

As above, press the “Windows” key and “R” to bring up the “Run” command. Key in

“msconfig” and click “OK”. Again select the “Boot” tab, but this time, click in the “Safe

boot” box to unselect it. Click “OK”. “Click” on the |”General” tab, then on the “Normal

startup” radio button , finally “Click” “OK”. This will bring up the bottom box above.

“Click” “Restart”. The computer should restart, taking you back into normal mode.

6

Best Antivirus Software for Windows Home User: 2018

It is always nice to know whether you have the best anti-virus software loaded on your

computer to protect it from viruses and malware in order to keep your files and personal

data safe from hackers. Which antivirus software for Windows 10 have you been using? Is

it the best?

In the box below, AVTest has released the findings of the their latest (October 2018) antivi-

rus software test for Home users. It would be interesting to see what changes occur in the

months to come as vendors continue to improve their products.

Antivirus software

with full Protection

rating of 6:

•Avira

•Bitdefender

•BullGuard

•Kaspersky

•eScan

•Norton.

Each of the above anti-

virus programs, taken

from the list to the left,

has a rating of 6 across

the board, therefore, if

you are using one of

these premium prod-

ucts, you should be

safe. However, if

you’re unable to afford

the cash, then Windows Defender and the Avast Free Antivirus are perfect for the job be-

cause they run a close second.

Every Windows 10 computer comes with Windows Defender as the default antivirus pro-

gram, and according to the latest evaluation from the folks at AVTest, Windows Defender

has improved a lot in terms of protection, the product is rated 5.5 out of a maximum of 6,

whilst it gets a full 6 stars under the classification of Usability.

Windows Defender is now a tool more capable of being your default protector for the life

of your computer. We suspect that in due time, the ordinary users like us won’t have to

spend money on antivirus programs ever again because the free options are slowly becom-

ing just as good — or, is that just a case of “Dream on”?

Why not register for

https://beconnected.esafety.gov.au/login/signup.php?

As the advert suggests, “Why not register for “Be

Connected”. Doing so releases several tutorials

to help you improve your knowledge.

The address (left) makes it much easier to register.

(Just copy and paste it into your search engine

7

2018: The year of the data breach tsunami

Remember all the data breaches that happened in 2018. When you look at the most im-

pactful ones, it paints a grim picture about the state of data security today.

For consumers, the consequences of companies leaking sensitive data represents a loss of

privacy, potential identity theft, and countless hours repairing the damage to devices. It is

costly for companies, too, in the form of bad press and resultant damage to their reputa-

tion, as well as time and money spent to remediate the breach and ensure customers’ data

is well secured in the future.

Despite the well-known costs of data breaches, the problem of leaky data isn’t getting bet-

ter. While there were a greater number of breaches in 2017, 2018 saw breaches on a more

massive scale and from marquee players, including Facebook and several others. Cyber-

criminals stole sensitive personally identifiable information from users, including email

and physical addresses, passwords, credit card numbers, phone numbers, travel itineraries,

passport data, and more.

You’d think these problems would cause companies to be extra diligent about discovering

data breaches, but according to Risk Based Security, companies rarely discover data

breaches themselves, in fact only 13 percent of data breaches are discovered internally.

Moving forward to 2019, let’s have a look at how (or if) things have improved.

Our US friends’ government has been, at least partially, shut down for nearly a month now

due to President Trump’s insistence on a Mexican Wall and the US Government’s refusal

to provide funds to build one.

Without going into the nuts and bolts of security certificates for web sites, if you prefix

your “WWW.” with “HTTPS” rather than “HTTP”and a site does not have a security cer-

tificate, it is quite possible that your browser will not let you into that site (it has happened

to me on a number of occasions). Apparently, a number of US Government sites are no

longer accessible because their Security Certificates have expired, primarily because the

personnel who would normally attend to those certificates have been stood down.

Whilst the inability to connect to a particular site may be annoying to us, it affords a won-

derful opportunity to the cybercriminal. You can expect users who are looking for govern-

ment websites, especially if they offer a service or require personal information or a login

to access, are going to find copies of these sites presented as an alternative to access the

same website. Users who rely on social services—typically older folks, veterans, or the

disabled—will be looking for a way to access the government sites they frequent. When

they search for the site, their first link might take them to a dead end, since the security

certificate has expired. However, the second or third link might work and take the user to

a page that looks exactly like where they want to go. From this look-alike site the unsus-

pecting user might be taken to a phishing site where his (or her) sign-in details are stolen

and used to access a more valuable (to the cybercrim) site — perhaps a power station

which the cybercrim might be able to close down and hold a whole area to ransom. Just

think back to the last power outage you experienced. All the shops had to close because

they could not operate their tills. Parking stations closed because their boom gates would

not operate. The country came to a virtual standstill because we had no electricity. What

an easy way to win a war — just render a few major power stations inactive!

The mind boggles at the comparative simplicity of it to the experienced cybercrim!!!

8

Windows’ New Time Line Feature

Are you aware of the new Windows’ Time Line Fea-

ture? Microsoft introduced it in the April 2018 up-

date. This handy, optional feature can track what

documents and web pages you’ve been working on

over the past weeks and months, organizing them into

a collection of documents you can quickly open to pick up where you left off. Chances

are you already know where it’s found, even if you’ve never used it: Down in the taskbar,

next to the Cortana search box, there’s a small icon called Task View within the Fall Crea-

tors Update. A slightly different icon identifies Timeline within the latest version.

Microsoft is ready to upgrade this feature. Now, you can view and download your photos

from your phone to your PC. Along with that, application emulation and many other ex-

citing features are coming to Your Phone. This works well with Android but might lack

some features or efficiency on iOS due to limitations imposed by Apple’s iOS. If you are

not comfortable with this feature, you can use various methods to disable it on any Win-

dows 10 computer. Here is how to do that.

How to enable and disable Timeline

As usual, Windows assumes that you want Timeline turned on (funny how often they are

WRONG). If you don’t, or you would like to manage how Microsoft uses your infor-

mation, visit the Settings menu at Settings >

Privacy > Activity History. There, (see left)

you will find two options to check or uncheck:

Let Windows collect my activities from this PC,

and Let Windows sync my activities from this

PC to the cloud.

In order to disable ‘Your Phone’ linking feature

on Windows 10, it is necessary to use the Registry Editor.

Hit the WINKEY + R button combination to launch the Run utility, type in regedit and hit Enter. When Registry Editor opens, navigate to the following key-

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows

Now, right click on System and se-lect New > DWORD (32-bit system) Value or QWORD (64-bit system). Name this newly created DWORD as EnableMmx. If necessary, double click on it and change its Value to 0 to disable it. To enable it, you need to set its value to 1.

Reboot your computer for the changes to take effect.

(Continued on page 9)

9

(Continued from page 8)

Checking the first box collects your activities only from this PC. If you check the first

and the second, your activities, and Timeline, will sync across devices. If you sign in with

the same account on another PC, you’ll be able to pick up where you left off no matter

which PC you use.

Because it archives pretty much everything, Timeline can be a bit of a mess without some

organization. The problem is that it is unquestionably Microsoft-centric. Most of the

productivity apps within Windows are owned by Microsoft, including Office. Activities

cover the standard Office apps (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and more) as well as Edge. If

you opened a PDF, for example, you’d better hope you opened it within Edge.

Microsoft sees Timeline as a fundamental way to boost your productivity, as well as keep-

ing you nestled within its app ecosystem. It is the marquee feature of the Windows 10

April 2018 Update, and it's worth a tryout to discover whether it works for you.

Is It Essential to Backup?

This is almost a no-brainer! Can you imagine losing ALL the data you have collected/

created over the last few years — and what about losing ALL those precious photographs

of your wife/partner and the children and grand children, and the music you have collect-

ed? It is almost unimaginable. I must admit that I was quite surprised at the number of

members who apparently don’t backup their computers.

Without going into too much detail, there are three main ways to back up your data: a snap

shot image of your hard drive; a complete copy of your hard drive and incremental back-

ups of your hard drive. Each of these may be stored either on an external hard drive or in

the Cloud. There are a lot of different programs (many of them free) available to take a

backup copy of your data. Below, I will mention a few, together with their basic charac-

teristics. Have a look at each to see which suits you best.

Windows includes built-in tools to let you backup and make copies of your files and create

a system image. It now also includes a System Image Backup Tool you can use to backup

or clone an image of your disk. But it is found wanting in some features, and that is why

many prefer to use one or the other free backup software available.

Cobian Backup has a lot of options which are mostly found only in commercial back-

up software. The interface is simple, and you don’t need to be an IT wizard to set this

up; the developers have made it very simple.

EASEUS Todo Backup Home is free file backup and disaster recovery software, pro-

tecting your data, including photos, music, videos, documents, financial data, and ap-

plications. It provides backup, restore and disk-clone functions.

AOMEI Backupper offers three main functions: Backup, Restore, and Clone. It is

easy to find them on the left side of the main interface.

Ashampoo Backup Free seems user-friendly. It has an uncluttered interface, and

there aren’t too many tabs and options which can make the process overwhelming.

You have to simply select which disk partition you want to back up, set a target loca-

tion and time of the day when you’d like the back up to occur.

Now, you have no excuse, but do check on the web there are many, many others.

10

Jest a Minute Jest a Minute

Truisms

— Doesn't expecting the unex-

pected mean that the unexpected is

actually expected?

— Television may insult your intelli-

gence, but nothing rubs it in like a

computer.

— A computer once beat me at

chess, but it was no match for me

at kick boxing.

— The grass may be greener on the

other side but at least you don't

have to mow it.

— If at first you don't succeed, sky-

diving is not for you.

Members’ Computer Survey

I would like to thank those members who responded to the survey; in the end we had just

13 responses upon which to base our analysis. As a result of the survey, the Committee

have at least some idea of what programs members are using on their computers and, to a

lesser degree, what they are using their computers to do. I say lesser degree, because I as-

sume each of you have more or less mastered what you are trying to do. On the other

hand, if you think there may be a better way of doing something and are interested in pur-

suing that end, you have but to make a phone call to one of the Committee and, between

us, I am sure we will be able to help in that direction. Alternatively, after that discussion

you will know that you are, or are not, well and truly on the right track.

Below is an overview of what we have on board our computers: Most of us use Widows

10 and Office 2010. Graphics programs are widely divergent with 5 using Photo Gallery,

3 using MS Paint and most others using a range of other programs including Corel Paint

Shop Pro. Firefox and Chrome are almost equally the most popular web-searching pro-

grams with some using both or a variety of others. Surprisingly, Google is not all that

popular. Avast is the anti Malware program of choice with a plethora of others amongst

other members. I was surprised how many members have Publisher and PowerPoint (as

the survey was anonymous, maybe they were all committee members). Quite a few mem-

bers are using Movie Maker and Chrome is by far the most popular for storing Book-

marks. It was also interesting how many programs were only used by one member. I

guess the most horrifying fact to come out of the survey was how few members did any

backing up — perhaps that was because it was not a direct question — I do hope so!

My sincere thanks to those who responded; it has helped me get a bit of a picture.

A bit like your Editor’s Desk!

11

MEETING RULES

We are allowed to use the facilities at the Hall at the rear of St Mary’s Catholic Church,

on the corner of Bains and Main South Roads, Morphett Vale in return for a small fee

plus respect for their property. We ask for your co-operation in respect to the above.

Whilst we have no control over what our members do away from our Club meetings,

piracy of copyright material cannot be condoned at our meetings. Please respect

copyright laws at all times.

— For Your Notes —

~ TONIGHT’S TOPIC ~

BeConnected

Lindsay Chuck

12