Tech – jjmarcus tech solutions

Identity Theft

In the past six months I’ve received two letters from local health facilities telling me that they’ve been hacked. One office suggested we victims use a company called IDX in case of identity theft. I have Googled IDX, but I do not like that they use cookies. I’m also wary about handing over my social security number. What do you think?

I sure appreciate your vigilance and suspicion! I don’t know if you clicked on the reviews for IDX when you searched for the company, but they indicate pretty clearly that you should steer clear. I’m not asserting that all such companies aren’t worth their salt, but at least a few of IDX’s customers are displeased.

The businesses you are hearing from are under obligation to make some kind of remedial suggestion to you, though I wish they had stricter obligation to maintain tight security in the first place.

What they should be doing is telling you to place credit freezes at the three major bureaus, and to change your major passwords to all be different if they aren’t already. Also use multi-factor authentication on every account that allows.

Sigh.

Your instinct guided you correctly, and keep trusting your gut. If anything on the internet smells even a little fishy, it almost certainly is entirely fishy. That said, you should know that nearly every single website you visit employs cookies. Of a nature it can be a useful technology, for example, letting a web app remember how I had logged into it and displaying my most recent choices on that app. You are not wrong, however, that cookies are also used for purposes more convenient to the site owner than to me, in gathering information about me to sell to data brokers.

The GDPR law passed by the EU in 2016 requires that websites that use cookies must display a choice screen if they want to operate in the EU. I think the spirit is right, though the implementation has proven annoying: rather than use different policies for visitors from different locations, the sites show those choice screens to the globe. So perfectly legitimate, nice, well-meaning, or beneficial websites might show you that they use cookies and let you turn different categories of cookies.

Finally, while I support your care in handing your social security number to just anyone, that number is flowing like water all over the internet, and the credit freezing and password security are our primary, if not only, defenses against identity theft.

Fear mongering

Ronan Farrow tells people to restart their phone every day.

“DNSFilter has found that one in every 644 clicks on unsubscribe links that say ‘click here to unsubscribe’ leads users to potentially malicious websites” – From “Think Twice Before You Click ‘Unsubscribe’” in The Wall Street Journal

Good gravy, I have seen so much misguided fear mongering lately. Like, there’s stuff to be legitimately concerned and vigilant about, but in so many ways that comes down to:

Be careful what you click on.
When you do click on something, make sure it’s the right thing.
Don’t enter your email address or password on a webpage you got to by clicking a link in an email. Go to the site manually and then log in.
When you enter your password for that thing, make sure it is a strong password that is different from every other password you use, and that is stored in a password manager.
Most things should ask you for a one-time two-factor security code, provided by the same password manager.
If you do enter your password into a bogus thing, immediately change your password in the real thing.

The WSJ article isn’t wrong, but they should start it with, “You should absolutely be ready to hit “unsubscribe” on any email you know to be legitimate, which are from legitimate entities that just want to tell you something you might actually wanna know or to sell you something you might actually like. and those entities don’t want to run afoul of the federal CAN-SPAM act, which requires they have an unsubscribe link.” And then talk about the 1-in-644 statistic.

But yeah, if you’re someone who just clicks on every damn thing you see on the Internet, your email inbox probably looks pretty horrorshow anyway, so good luck to ya.

Meanwhile, about restarting your phone every day: That’s insane, or at least irresponsible guidance. It is very unlikely to help if you actually have spyware installed. And Farrow doesn’t highlight how hard it is to get spyware on a phone, almost certainly requiring a targeted attack on an individual, spending time tricking them into installing it.

Instead, Farrow should be talking about passwords and multi-factor authentication, but that doesn’t fit into a soundbite nearly as well as saying that people should be more “freaked out.” They should be vigilant and thoughtful.

Rant over.

Latest on AI tools

Just a bit of zeitgeist pasted from a conversation…

…Another well worth mentioning is Perplexity. Their pitch is that it’s built for research, the immediate upshot of which is that the results are organized to lead to your likely next questions. The main features are: 1. it actively searches the web as well as generating from LLM’s, and 2. included are links to real web pages supporting the output.

Again with the controversy and likely copyright infringements, but the tools are incontrovertibly useful, astonishingly so. Even the stuff in Apple’s latest “Intelligence” feature set has some nice quick “please capitalize and punctuate this nonsense so I don’t have to” abilities that I use. I don’t yet pay for any subscriptions, only the backend API’s. I am able to get most of what I want for free, although I have considered paying for Anthropic’s Claude mostly just to see what it will do, choosing that one for the reasons we discussed.

I also run a couple of large language models locally on my Mac both for fun and when I don’t want the material out in the world.

One comparative point I wanted to highlight: While these are all, for so many purposes, interchangeable, they each have their moments in the sun. And in this moment, Google happens to have just released a new model that has received praise, and they are offering 2.5 Pro to all accounts both free and paid as “experimental.” This dropdown menu gives you a good idea of how the different models might be used:

To me it’s a sign of how young this technology is that we have to think about which tool is right for the job.

I have to acknowledge here and now how little I like the term “AI” in this context — and for different reasons the movie of that name that Kubrick pawned off on Spielberg — and wish Apple could have kept using “machine learning.” It does not help that now the companies are bandying about “AGI” (“G” for “general”) to represent Kurzweil’s singularity. There is so much nonsense and jazz-hands and jibber-jabber about it, not to mention legitimate concerns and fears, but as that seems true for bloody well everything these days, I’m content using this amazing stuff for what it actually does do very very well.

Finally, the thing I really want it to do is read my whole computer of my own text, and either answer queries about that or spit my own words back out at me, so I can say, for example “repeat what I wrote Lucy about AI last week.” Apple purported to be working on that, but appears to have been failing in that effort, so much so that they have done some reorganization to address the lack.

Live Text is OCR everywhere

When it comes to scanning and/or printing documents, what is OCR?

Humans and their acronyms! OCR is fortunately real easy: “optical character recognition” meaning the computer turns a picture of text into copyable text.

I use it on all my scans of documents, so I can just boop! copy and paste from the scan into an email or Word or wherever. Also, my Mac can then search for text inside scans.

This used to be rarified magic, but now all of our phones and Macs are doing it on all of our pictures. You can even search your Photos library or Notes app for text that’s inside photos! And look for the little “live text” icon on your phone when you open a photo or take a screenshot. That will let you select text, tap a phone number to call it or an address to map it, and even translate!

Update everything always

Should one have macOS set so that apps update automatically? is there any reason not to?

Yes, one absolutely should auto-update both apps and the operating system. while there are edge cases when a given app or OS shouldn’t be updated — a mission-critical app with an update that would lose a feature, cost more, or break compatibility with some other software or peripheral — everyone else will benefit from current security practices and the latest features.

Are charging cables all created equal?

The cords in my truck keep dying. Can you recommend cables to withstand life in the passenger footwell? I found a coupon code for Raycon. Are they a decent brand?

Those dang things! Totally normal lifecycle, though. Raycon is a completely OK brand, along with Anker, Cable Matters, Belkin, and Monoprice. There are others but those are easy enough to find. I definitely recommend staying away from the random weirdly named shlock purveyors on Amazon.

However… I would also steer clear of gimmicks like those “Magic” cables that Raycon offers, that swivel or with the heads that flip off to reveal a different jack. Those are just points-of-failure waiting to fall apart on you. And Raycon doesn’t appear to offer normal cables.

Their chargers themselves – the part that plugs into the wall – are fine, though.

And in terms of which type of cable to get, for the iPhone 15 you want one end to be USB-C to go into the phone, and the other end to be either USB-A or USB-C to match the charger you have in that location. Also look for “fast charging” as lesser cables might not charge at all. I think “braided” is nice, too.

This link should take you to a search that narrows things down to what I’m talking about!

Is HomeKit set to take off?

I don’t think Apple said squat about it last Wednesday. But something is clearly happening here. For all its prettiness, this page is pretty vague. Also interesting that it’s under /ios:

http://www.apple.com/ios/homekit/

A bunch of great accessories here…

http://www.apple.com/us/shop/accessories/all-accessories/home-automation

Yet Philips has only said:

We are working hard on integrating Philips Hue lighting system for the home with Apple HomeKit, in time for this Fall.

Whilst the details are being finalized we can confirm that existing Philips Hue lights will work with Apple HomeKit, and any necessary upgrade to the system will be fully supported… More details will follow from September 2015 onwards.

But I don’t get why Apple would highlight this company’s kind of silly products:

http://idevicesinc.com/switch/

I’m just thinking, this space is gonna blow up this year.

Modern email hosting

My current email service stinks. Three different people reported to me recently that they had emails kicked back from my address address. I spoke to my host, who said they were doing maintenance over the weekend.

I really can’t have an email address that is subject to occasional maintenance. Do you have a suggestion as to where I can host it? I was with Network Solutions but had problems with them as well. I’m seriously thinking about just going with my gmail address for business and everything.

Here’s the scoop: We now have two excellent and similarly priced options for hosted email: Microsoft Office 365 or Google for Business.

I’m a Google reseller, and I’ve used and loved their product for years now. All my @playworksync.com email goes through Google, and I can use any email software or the super-powerful Gmail web site to get at it. Great collaborative calendar stuff, and a whole ecosystem of third-party apps to tie into it.

Microsoft has made a quite amazing turnaround in the last couple of years, and their Office 365 reflects that. People who want a true Exchange experience (in many ways still the best in the industry) no longer have to own and maintain their own server. And if you pay a bit more, it can include your license for Microsoft Office, in keeping with the new software-as-subscription model adopted by Adobe and many others.

Really, I can recommend either of those solutions. Let me know whenever you want to make the switch. You’ll never look back.

Hangout: Cure your website woes with Squarespace

If you need a website, or if you have a site that you’re unhappy with, you have got to try Squarespace. Squarespace makes creating a site easy, fun, and satisfying. Apple Consultant Jonathan Marcus will show you how to get started with Squarespace, and some important tips for building your content with Mac and iOS.

Thursday, Nov 21, 1pm CST, on Google+

Original event

A Tech Support Joke

A chemist, an engineer, and a computer scientist are driving through the desert, and the car breaks down.

A punchline to remember when you’re having a tech meltdown:

A chemist, an engineer, and a computer scientist are driving through the desert, and the car breaks down.

The chemist says, “Look, guys, it’s probably something with the fluids. Let’s get out of the car, pop the hood, check the fluids, top ’em up, get back into the car, and I’m sure it’s gonna work.”

The engineer says, “No, guys, I bet it’s something mechanical. Let’s get out of the car, walk back, find the part that fell off the car, walk back, put it on, get back into the car. It’ll fire right up.”

Then the computer scientist says, “No, guys, guys, guys, listen: Let’s get out of the car, get back into the car, get out of the car, get back into the car, get out of the car, get back into the car… and then it’s gonna work fine!”

So, here’s troubleshooting 101:

Whatever is not working, turn it off for 10 seconds, then turn it back on. (The geek word for this is “power cycling.”)
- Sometimes this means force-quitting an app (in the Apple menu). Sometimes it’s unplugging your modem. Target the thing that’s causing the problem.
Check all cables, everywhere. I know this sounds like an obvious one, but it is often still overlooked.
Restart the computer. We know this sounds like number one, but if quitting an app and firing it back up doesn’t work, it’s always worth a wholesale restart of your computer.