04-11-26 What If The Next Invoice Email Is A Trap?

That “problem with your payment method” email might look exactly like Amazon or one of your real suppliers, but it could be a targeted phishing attack built to drain a small business account in minutes. We walk through the FBI warning on vendor impersonation scams hitting Florida and explain how attackers clone logos, mimic domains with tiny character swaps, and weaponize urgency so someone on your team clicks before thinking.

From there, we shift into practical defenses you can actually use at work: what to check in the sender address, why hyperlinks and embedded images are so risky, and how to verify vendor requests safely by calling a trusted number from your own records. We also point you to IC3.gov for reporting, because these scams scale fast and the data matters.

We then tackle everyday tech pain that quietly kills productivity: a computer running slow. We cover the biggest culprits including too many startup programs, a nearly full hard drive or SSD, malware, outdated Windows and drivers, and the surprisingly real cost of having dozens of browser tabs open. We also talk about antivirus bloat and why some popular products can slow you down more than they help.

Finally, we decode social media algorithm changes across Meta, TikTok, and YouTube and what they mean for regular users, creators, and businesses trying to reach customers. We close with a security upgrade that’s overdue: switching from passwords to passkeys for easier, safer logins using biometrics or device security. If this helped, subscribe, share the show with a friend, and leave us a review so more people can find it.

Transcript

Welcome And Today’s Tech Agenda

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Hey there and welcome to Tech Talk here on WDBO 1073FM and AM580 Orlando's news and talk. I'm Greg Rhodes here with David Levitt, president and founder of Refresh Computer Superstore, and technician Adam Littlefield. You can contact the Refresh Computer Superstore by calling their free tech support hotline at 407-478-8200. Or if you have any other comments during the show, go and leave an open mic using the WDBO app. You can also check out their website over at Refresh Computers.net or stop at the Refresh Computer Superstore in Longwood at 820 East State Road 434, just three and a half miles east of I-4 in Longwood. Store hours are Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. If you're listening to the show here on Saturday, that means you still have time to stop by. They'll be open until 7 p.m. today. And now for the men themselves, David Levitt and Adam Littlefield.

SPEAKER_02 0:56

All right. Thanks, Greg. And thanks everybody for listening to yet another edition of Tech Talk with Refresh Computers. You know, this show is recorded also, so you can listen to this show at any time by going to our website at refreshcomputers.net, click on that podcast link, and we have a new system, Adam, there. So you can uh click on that podcast link. You can it'll take you to this show in past shows. And what you'll also see now is a summary of what we talked about instead of just a link to listen to the show. So now you'll be able to look at, well, geez, do I want to listen to that or not? And well, hopefully you listen to all of them.

SPEAKER_03 1:36

But this will give you a little bit of an insight. It's like the cliff notes of our uh our podcast.

SPEAKER_02 1:41

That's right. It's show notes, basically, right there, so you can see that so you so you know what we're gonna be talking about before you start listening. And if you want to make sure you don't miss an episode, you can go to refreshcomputers.net and at the bottom of any page, just enter your email address. It's very simple, and we'll include you in our mailing list so you'll be able to get an email as soon as the show goes live on the internet. So kind of cool that you can do that as well. So we have a lot to talk about today. There is a new scam targeting small business owners. We're gonna get to that in just a minute, but we're also gonna talk later on about reasons why your computer might be running slow. So you might want to stay tuned for that as well. We're gonna talk about some social media algorithm changes. Yes, they're changing the way things are displayed on your social media account. How they deliver content. Yes. So they're changing that again, like most of the major social media platforms are. And uh we'll finish the show off with a reminder that maybe it's time to ditch your password and switch to a pass key. It's a lot simpler, and a lot of people are afraid to use it. I've heard people have had feedback. We talked about this before. People would say, Ah, geez, I'm not gonna get a pass key. Why would I want to do that? My passwords are just fine. Well, we're gonna tell you why. So stay tuned for that as well.

FBI Warning On Vendor Phishing

SPEAKER_02 3:11

So let's get into this new scam that's going on. So just this week, the FBI issued a warning about it's a new phishing scam, and it specifically targets small business owners. Guess where? Right here in Florida. So scammers are impersonating vendors and suppliers. So they're getting really good at it, too. So if you own a business or work in one, you probably need to hear about this one.

SPEAKER_04 3:39

Yeah, and this is just a really big target, I think, now, because a lot of businesses you have a lot of employees, right? Every every head you have is just another phishing attempt. You know, it's something that you kind of have to train your employees to be aware of because not every email you're getting into your official work email is a real, is a real vendor, is a real person.

SPEAKER_02 3:59

And you made a good point to train your employees because they need to know about this too. Because what happens? What's going on with this with this new scam? So, what they're doing is the scammers are researching your business and they're finding out who your vendors are, and so they're using that information because they'll send you an email, they'll send somebody in your company an email that looks exactly like it's from your vendor. So they'll copy their logos, they'll copy what looks like their website, they'll copy all this information, and they'll send it to you in an email or one of your employees in an email. So you've got to be very aware that this is going on, and it's it's going on right now.

SPEAKER_01 4:39

And when you're talking vendors, you're talking about anybody from who you get your paper supplies from to all the way to people that you actually purchase your products that maybe you sell from, right?

SPEAKER_02 4:47

Exactly. And Amazon is a vendor of a lot of small businesses, right? Because you know, we everybody uses just about everybody uses Amazon now, not just for personal use, but for for your business. You order supplies, maybe toilet paper, maybe something from Amazon. So, yeah, they actually use Amazon too. We'll talk about that as well. So they'll say that there's a problem with your account or your payment method. That's typically what they're doing. And what they want you to do is click on a link that they provide in the email to guess what?

SPEAKER_04 5:19

Doesn't take you where you think it's going.

SPEAKER_02 5:21

Well, they they want you to update your payment information. Right. So, and it's not going to where you think it's going. I mean, they make it look very, very good. They make it look like it's going right to that vendor that you're using, whether it's Amazon or could be FedEx, could be a shipping company you use, right? Could be any of these places. That's what we mean by by vendor, people you buy from, other sources where you buy, purchase supplies or inventory from.

SPEAKER_04 5:51

Yeah. And a lot of what these scammers tend to do is when they when they have a link to send you somewhere to put in your payment information, it sends you to their website instead, but it looks a lot like whatever vendor they're impersonating. Amazon, for example, is a big one where instead of it being M-A-N-Z-A-M-A-Z-O-N, it's AMAZ0N. Some just letter swap like that. That's so easy to just not even pay attention to.

SPEAKER_02 6:15

Yep. And so you got to watch out for that. Just look at it very carefully. And you know, and the other thing to look out for is the sense of urgency. So they'll always make it like urgent. Like, you know, your account's gonna be suspended. You're not gonna be able to order from us.

SPEAKER_01 6:31

No toilet paper will come this week unless you change your information.

SPEAKER_02 6:34

Right. Account termination imminent. You need your toilet paper, so you better act now. So, and you know, and hey, especially if you're the business owner and you're the one that handles all your vendors and stuff, which a lot of uh small businesses do. I I pretty much handle all the vendors for refresh computers. I don't have one of my any of my employees do it. And the thing the yeah, we're busy, you know, it's just we're busy. Yeah, and so a lot of times you see that oh crap, well, let me just go ahead and take care of this now because I if I don't do it now, I'm not gonna get to it later and I don't wanna miss getting my toilet paper, right? So you so you just people will just click on it, and next thing you know, that one mistake costs you thousands of dollars. Right.

SPEAKER_04 7:20

And a lot of a lot of these scams I've seen now too, instead of actually putting in a direct you know link in the email, what they'll do is use a hyperlink. Basically, what that is is it's it's just text that they can select, tell it, and say, hey, if they click on this word, open up this link. And those the it does it's not apparent how to view what that hyperlink is before you click on it.

SPEAKER_02 7:40

It's not. It's sometimes they do a really good job of masking it and making it look like the real link.

SPEAKER_04 7:45

Real deal. There's a lot of uh there's a lot of redirect sites that they can use to mask where you're actually going. And I know um there used to be a really old one, AdFly, that every every scam I knew ran what was going through Ad Fly before it went to the scam site because nobody could tell the difference at the time.

SPEAKER_02 8:01

Oh wow. Well, they do now.

SPEAKER_04 8:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:03

Yeah, they do now. So unfortunately that one's taken care of. But here's some red flags, red flags to watch out for. So, you know, the email address is slightly off, like you already said, Adam. So like replacing a O for a zero, for example, in the URL into the website address. And sometimes it's the inverted A, right? So there's a more than one style of the letter A, so they'll use a different type of A. I forgot what it's called, but it's I think it's I think it's called Cyrillic. Cyrillic A. There you go. You're right. Thank you for that. So you get you know, so that's that that's really hard to spot sometimes because it's a little variation in how the letter A looks, right?

SPEAKER_04 8:41

But you know, one of the biggest things that I I've always seen on these scam emails is they always tend to start with some general opening, dear customer, or who the whom this concerns.

SPEAKER_02 8:50

Well, that's another red flag.

SPEAKER_04 8:51

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 8:51

That's another red flag, so it's just basically a general greeting. So instead of oh, hi David, or hi refresh computers, uh, you know, if it says dear customer instead, then well, that's a red flag right there. So, you know, these companies, if they're gonna email you, they're gonna be more personal than that. But just because it is personal doesn't mean that you need to follow through with it. I'm just saying that's another red flag.

SPEAKER_04 9:16

It's very easy for somebody to to tweak it and just instead of saying dear customer, you know, say, hey, dear Dave or dear David. But even sometimes the the way that they refer to you, like in the verbiage of the email, just is a red flag. I've seen a lot of grammatical issues be the major thing.

SPEAKER_01 9:31

And that's something we've talked about before in watching for these scams, is those weird grammatical issues throughout the body of one of these emails, but those are getting less and less I've seen the AI get better with all of these, and a lot of these, a lot of these bad guys are using AI for the wrong purposes, right?

SPEAKER_02 9:46

Yeah, people with uh that you know that don't necessarily you know speak or write English very well, or you know, that were obvious scams because they would be, you know, plurals, plural words that are plural that shouldn't be plural, and that kind of thing. And so now they these people are using AI and they're cleaning it up. So it's looking really, really good. So there's less and less and less of the mis misspelled words, misplaced words, it's less and less of that, and it's looking better and better all the time. So so another red flag is the urgent language, right?

SPEAKER_04 10:23

You know, you must act now, urgent account notification, those kinds of things.

SPEAKER_02 10:28

So, and the thing is another red flag is asking for passwords or payment info in the email, via the email. Because I'm telling you now, legitimate companies will never do that. They're never going to send you an email and ask you to update your password or payment information.

SPEAKER_04 10:46

Email us back, your change of password, please. They will never ever do that.

SPEAKER_02 10:50

No. So that's that's an obvious red flag.

SPEAKER_04 10:52

Right. And you know, that that comes around to something that I've seen before on a lot of recent scams has been with these these login scams, actually. You'll you'll click on a link in the email, it takes you to a fake Amazon login. You put in your email and your password, hit sign in, and it says, Oh, it's incorrect. Even though you know it's correct, they're they're faking Amazon. What they're actually doing is they they're probing to get you to put in more of your passwords. So now they know your different emails, they know all of your different passwords that they can try on any account that they want to.

SPEAKER_02 11:23

So, so uh important that so what

Red Flags And Safe Next Steps

SPEAKER_02 11:26

should you do? What should you do if you get a suspicious email? So, first of all, of course, don't click on any link in the email.

SPEAKER_04 11:33

Right. Especially the ones that say click here now, and it's it's just an underlined here. Especially don't click those. Those are those are hyperlinks, those are ones that you just you can't easily identify.

SPEAKER_02 11:42

Oftentimes there's a there's something in the email that says downloads. And so that's actually clicking on a link. So sometimes it's just a photo with the word download on it, right?

SPEAKER_04 11:52

You can you can put links into almost anything in the email.

SPEAKER_02 11:55

So don't click on those photos either because there's a link in there and it's probably going to be malicious.

SPEAKER_04 12:00

And a lot of uh I've noticed a lot of email clients now will actually not load images first thing when it's a sender that you don't recognize. Yeah. So if it is coming from a scam account, there may be a chance that none of those images even load. That's right. And a lot of the times that makes the it the email look broken. It's all over the place.

SPEAKER_02 12:16

That's true. So another thing that you can do is call the company directly. Yeah. Hey, did you send me this email asking me to change something in my account or update my payment method? Just call that company directly. You know, take the time to do that. And gotten those before from like your bank and things like that as well.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

And oh yeah. Because that that that could also mean that there's maybe an issue on their end as well, that they're having some maybe hacking issues as well.

SPEAKER_04 12:43

And uh a big thing I've seen now too is with um reaching out to whoever you're trying to contact, don't just Google the number. If you have a vendor set up with your business, if you're an employee somewhere and you need to contact that vendor, there is somebody at your company that probably knows how to contact them. Don't ever Google it because what Google I've seen right now is the numbers that are appearing at the top of Google half the time are soliciting scam numbers. So you call them and now you're you're roped into this entirely different scam.

SPEAKER_02 13:09

Yep. So you got to watch out for that too. So another thing that you can do that will help all of us, basically, you can report it directly to the FBI. You can take any suspicious email, and if you go to this website, it's IC3. So it's the letter I, the letter C, the number three dot gov, and that's the FBI's malicious content reporting site. So you can go there and report any type of malicious activity going on in your emails or on your web on websites that you happen to run across. You can report all that stuff right there directly to the FBI.

SPEAKER_01 13:49

I saw a report recently that they received over a million reports to that website last year for cybersecurity scams. Yeah. Over $21 billion in losses associated with those.

SPEAKER_02 13:59

So it's a big deal. It's a it's a you know, it's it's a big industry out there, the scamming industry. So they're good, they're after your money. So you just gotta watch out for it. So, how can you protect your business? If you're not sure, the short answer, give us a call at Refresh Computers. We have a free tech support hotline, 407-478-8200. And if you're not sure, then you can call us and say, Hey, I got this email, and we can guide you from there. We guide customers like this every single day, don't we, Adam? Yes, we do. So, and and train your employees to spot these phishing emails. Just give give them a quick rundown, have them listen to this podcast, have them listen to this radio show. It's go by going to refreshcomputers.net as you can hear all about it right there. Keep your software and antivirus updated and back up your data regularly.

Protecting Your Business Day To Day

SPEAKER_01 14:48

And some of those tips actually tie into our next segment where we're going to talk a little bit about why your computer might be running a little bit slowly. We'll talk about that next. You've been listening to Tech Talk right here on WDBO 1073FM and AM580. Hey there, and welcome back to Tech Talk here on WDBO 1073FM and AM580, Orlando's news and talk. I'm Greg Rhodes here with David Levitt, president and founder of Refresh Computer Superstore, and technician Adam Littlefield. You can contact the Refresh Computer Superstore by calling their free tech support hotline at 407-478-8200. Or if you have any other comments during the show, we'd love to hear them use that open mic feature inside the WDBO app. And now back to David and Adam. All right. Thanks, Greg.

SPEAKER_02 15:43

And thanks everybody for listening to Tech Talk with Refresh Computers. If you missed the previous episode, we talked about a new scam targeting small business owners right here in the state of Florida. And the FBI just issued a warning about it. So you might want to go to the website at refreshcomputers.net and click on that podcast link. You can hear that episode and this entire show in this well, in its entirety without any commercial interruptions. So this segment. So you can catch it easier, Dave. That's why it's running slow. Oh, that's right. Thanks. It's because I'm slow myself. So you know, it needs to be slow so I can catch it. But no. So what's wrong with your computer when it's running slow?

Why Computers Run Slow

SPEAKER_02 16:29

So here are the common culprits. Too many programs running at startup. So when you first turn on your computer, it's trying to turn on all these different things before it actually lets you see anything. So those are called startup programs. Right. And you can actually adjust those. You can turn a lot of them off without deleting the programs. You can just do that. And if you need help with that, I'm going to give you that free tech support hotline again. It's 407-478-8200. Just give us a call. We'll be able to help you out over the phone for something like that. Very simple, very quick. We can get rid of some startup programs for you. And no, well, not get rid of the programs, get rid of them starting up when you turn on your computer.

SPEAKER_04 17:11

Programs will still work fine when you disable them on startup.

SPEAKER_02 17:14

Exactly. So you just have to manually start them. It takes a few more seconds maybe for them to run when you start them. But you know, you don't need to run all these programs at startup.

SPEAKER_04 17:23

Better than waiting five or ten minutes for your computer to be usable after you start it.

SPEAKER_02 17:26

That's right. Right. So another reason that your computer might be running slow is your drive, your hard drive or your solid state drive is almost full. Right. Yep. Because it it's it's when your hard drive gets full, it's it's trying to use some of the memory instead that you have on your computer, and that that's not nearly enough, you know, and then so it just goes back, it just slows things down. So you typically want to have 10 to 15% free space, and you want that free space anyway, not just because it helps your computer run faster. It's just when you do Microsoft updates, for example, for Windows. Sometimes that takes up a lot of storage space.

SPEAKER_04 18:02

It has to store that new update before it actually applies it. So it's it's it's a large amount of space that it takes up. And Windows also uses something called paging, where it basically just indexes everything on the computer so you can access everything quicker. That takes up an amount on your drive every time it starts up.

SPEAKER_02 18:19

It certainly does. So you want to watch out for that. If you need help upgrading your drive, well, you have your tech team right here at Refresh Computers at 820 East State Road, 434. Unfortunately, to upgrade your drive, you're gonna have to come to the store. Yep. So can't do that one over the phone? Can't do that one over the phone. So another thing, malware or virus is slowing things down. And I and I'll just add in the in the malware situation, so it could be malware on your computer, but also some antivirus programs, we'll name some. Norton is one, right? Slows down your computer. It just does. It's a terrible antivirus program. It's more of a uh let's see what else I can get you to buy. It's a marketing product. Yes. Uh so if you have Norton, I would uh recommend getting rid of that. Maybe switching over to malware bytes. You know, we we have a special deal on malware bytes at the store. It's malware bytes premium, which is normally 50 bucks on a malware bytes website, but you can get it from refresh computers for 35 bucks. It's good for a whole year. So another thing, slowing down your computer is outdated drivers or your operating system. Yep. If you haven't upgraded to Windows 11 yet, I don't know. I had a guy yesterday I talked to that was still running on Windows 7. And I told him, I said, Man, please tell me you're not connecting this to the internet to do banking or something because that's so dangerous on a Windows 10 machine, let alone a Windows 7. Because Microsoft's not providing those security updates, and these scanners are out there and they know, and they can get access very easily get access to that computer. So, and then the last thing I want to mention is something I'm guilty of, which is why I have so much RAM in my computer, is too many browser tabs open at the same time. Slows down your computer because every one of those browser tabs that is open takes up a certain amount of your memory.

SPEAKER_01 20:08

I'm gonna use some of this break to close some of my browser tabs. You might as well too. You've been listening to Tech Talk right here on WDBO 1073FM and AM580. Welcome to Tech Talk here on WDBO 1073FM and AM580, Orlando's news and talk. I'm Greg Rhodes here with David Levitt, President and Founder of Refresh Computer Superstore, and technician Adam Littlefield. You can contact the Refresh Computer Superstore by calling their free tech support hotline at 407-478-8200. Or if you have any other comments during the show, we'd love to hear them use that open mic feature inside the WDBO app. You can also check out the website over at Refresh Computers.net or stop at the Refresh Computer Superstore in Longwood at 820 East State Road 434, just three and a half miles east of I-4 in Longwood. Store hours are Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. You're listening to the show here on Saturday. That means you still have time to stop by. They'll be open until 7 p.m. today. And David Adam, I know we talked a little bit about closing some of those browser tabs here in the last segment. I closed a few of them. My computer's running a little bit better, but it's maybe not a hundred percent. Is there uh any other steps that we can look at to try and help improve that computer performance?

SPEAKER_02 21:30

Well, yeah, and you know, we talked about, you know, the common culprits of why your computer's running slow, and and that's one of them is having all of the so many browser tabs open. Me, I personally I it's not uncommon for me to have forty or fifty tabs, and I know that's terrible.

SPEAKER_04 21:47

Man, Dave. Don't worry. The uh we did a couple of shows ago, and I remember Greg and I talking about browser tabs, and I finally went through, I closed out all of mine. It was at 156 on my phone.

SPEAKER_02 21:56

Oh my god. Just my phone. So well, so so yes, even on your phone. Yeah. It takes it can slow down your phone. So not just your desktop or your laptop. So yeah, and that's why I I think I have 128 gig of RAM in my computer.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

Just for browser tabs.

SPEAKER_02 22:10

For my browser tabs. Because I like having them all open because I use them all constantly throughout the day. Yes, I do. That many. So what do you do?

When To Call A Professional

SPEAKER_02 22:20

When do you call a professional? Because it's running slow. So if you did all of the steps that we talked about in the previous segment, and if you missed any of that, by the way, go to refreshcomputers.net, click on that podcast link. You can hear the show in its entirety. And now it also includes an abbreviated text version of the transcript of the show. So it segments it and by uh by segment, I guess, you know. So in between the commercial breaks, I guess I'm trying to say segments it by segment. That was great, Dave. That's a good one.

SPEAKER_04 22:54

Starting to sound like the early AI chat box.

SPEAKER_02 22:57

Yes, exactly. I think I have AI on the brain. So anyway, uh it's segmented. So you can look at the different topics that we talk about, and it gives them a brief, a brief description of each topic that we're talking about right there.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

That way you know exactly what you're getting into. Because you're gonna listen anyways. That's your favorite show.

SPEAKER_02 23:14

So it's a good idea to listen to it. It's it's it's it's a good show. It really is. And you can learn something while you're at it. So what do you do? So you you can give us a call at refresh computers 407-478-8200, and we can help you with any kind of computer issue, especially these issues where you are experiencing a slow computer. We can also help you with getting rid of that Norton we talked about. You don't want Norton on your system. But Norton is another one you don't want.

SPEAKER_04 23:45

McAfee, definitely. That's that's the other McCash. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:49

Those two uh they're junk. I'll say it. Sue me, Norton and McAfee, but they're junk. They they're more interested in in getting more information from you and trying to sell you something than they are about actually taking care of your malware and your viruses.

SPEAKER_04 24:04

So and you know what's really changing now that that's really hooking into what you're just saying, that everything's changing to sell

Social Media Algorithms Are Shifting

SPEAKER_04 24:10

you stuff? Social media algorithms. Every single time I've been talking to somebody about something, when I when I go and look at you know Facebook or maybe Instagram, all of a sudden I'm starting to get advertisements about what I was talking to. Maybe we were talking about something that we saw on Facebook.

SPEAKER_01 24:24

Maybe we're talking about McCaspia and Norton. Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 24:26

You know, we can see ads for that now. You know, it's we're seeing a lot of these algorithm changes, and you know, it's it's all these big names too. Meta, TikTok, even YouTube now is changing their algorithm and how it actually delivers stuff to your feed.

SPEAKER_02 24:40

And so, yeah, because you I'm sure if you're an avid Facebook user, you've noticed that your feed has changed because meta changed how you see your feed. They they change all the algorithms to determine what you're gonna see when you're on Facebook.

SPEAKER_04 24:57

Yeah, they they determine what you want to see before you even know you want to see it.

SPEAKER_02 25:01

So, what changed? So on Meta or Facebook or Instagram, it's prioritizing content from your friends and your family over commercial brands. Well, that's a good change, right? I would I would say, yeah, I would rather see more from my friends and my family. That's my on my personal Facebook page. That's why I have Facebook.

unknown 25:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:23

It's so I can see what's going on with my friends and family.

SPEAKER_01 25:25

Maybe I need to update my Facebook because it's not working for me. Uh-oh.

SPEAKER_04 25:30

I've been getting a lot of stuff that my my friends and family like. That's the thing I've noticed is anytime I see something in my feed now, it says such and such like this. You may you may enjoy this content.

SPEAKER_02 25:40

Well, so Meta announced this rollout, Greg, and one of the reasons why you may not be experiencing it yet is they just can't do it all at once. It's just too much. So they have to roll it out in segments.

SPEAKER_01 25:50

Greg's account is not important. That's right. Adams first, and then we'll see. Yep, I get it.

SPEAKER_02 25:55

I'm definitely seeing it in mine. I'm not saying I'm more important than you, Greg, but I'm just Facebook is changing. That's changed the what I see when I when I look at my my personal page. And if you're into TikTok, I'm not. I don't I never had TikTok, but I know it's popular and a lot of people have it. It's showing more diverse quote unquote content instead of just uh something that comes from like viral trends out that are out there.

SPEAKER_04 26:23

There's also the TikTok bubble where after a certain point you've watched kind of the same content over and over, you get in the cycle where it only shows you that and it's it's stuck there. So, you know, TikTok diversifying it, you know, it's gonna show you more stuff that you haven't really seen before, but why does that really matter? I mean, to me, I don't use TikTok really that much anymore. Yeah, I was into it big when it first came out, but it just it just kind of fell off for me.

SPEAKER_02 26:46

Yeah, yeah, I think for a lot of people it did. So another one is YouTube, you know, and what YouTube is doing is they're actually recommending longer videos. Why? Well, because the longer you watch, the more the longer you're watching, the more ad revenue it is for for whoever's doing that. So that's that's kind of uh kind of an odd one, I think, that they're that they're doing that. But they're actually recommending longer videos over shorter videos. When you look up something like, you know, this the number two search engine in the world, number one is is Google, number two is YouTube. A lot of people don't realize that it is number two, so it's owned by Google, so they own one and two. So, but more people search for content on YouTube than any other platform except Google.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

And you know, I think that's an uh that is a change that I've noticed because I am a YouTube user. I like going on through YouTube videos and even like their shorts programs and stuff like that. I have noticed that they're producing and recommending more longer form content, which works for me. I prefer a little bit of a longer form content. Some of those very quick videos just don't satisfy my need for what they've explained, and now I want to know the further details for it. Well, now they're not giving me any access to that. It goes on to the next thing and it's a different dog video or something like that. That's right. So I like the idea of a longer form, give me more of the information. I'm more likely to stick around with that creator for more of their stuff if I'm getting more of the information.

SPEAKER_02 28:05

More detail.

SPEAKER_01 28:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:06

Yeah. I'm with you on that one. So the other thing is, you know, especially with the advent of social media doing a complete 180, or maybe not a complete 180, but you know, after COVID and after they were hammered by Congress and the general public for, you know, taking misinformation and deleting things because they thought it was misinformation, not showing you things because they determined it was misinformation. Or they're more liberal or they're more yeah, it was mostly the the the liberal, what were they calling those things that were going out and looking and verifying your data, right? And verifying stuff before it would show it, show it to you and would come back and say, Oh, this is probably fake. You know, come to find out a lot of that was not fake. So and so it was really to me, it was a great moment when Zuckerberg and publicly announced what it's been a couple years now, right? That he announced that that uh Meta Facebook and Instagram is no longer going to be looking at content. If it's more like a moderator and moderator, you know, you you as the user, you're gonna have to now. He didn't put it this way, but I know that's what he meant. You're gonna have to determine whether it's crap or not or misinformation.

SPEAKER_04 29:28

You're you're responsible for what content you are in ingesting and and looking at.

SPEAKER_01 29:33

And that was one of the major moves that Elon made when he took over uh. Well, it started with now X because it's now with the uh community notes and things like that. So that was a big step for them, making sure that that information, if it's information that somebody's producing, that it's getting out there, and then it's up to the community to decide hey, this is real, this isn't real, this is more detail, this is less detail, those kinds of things.

SPEAKER_02 29:54

And there's a similar platform on Facebook now with community notes. So it's it's it's good, it's it's the better way as opposed to using some external source, which was what Facebook was using. And I I called it liberal. Excuse me if it that that kind of triggered you. I hope it didn't, but it it it would go up and and reply back with information that wanted you to know instead of what was real. So you just kind of I'm I'm sort of happy that Facebook made that change. So but but they are working more and more to reduce that misinformation and harmful context. That's another algorithm change going on there at Facebook. So, well, why did they make these changes? Why is social media, why are these social media platforms changing their algorithms? Well, one is you know they constantly need to update anyway to keep up with the times, keep up with how people generally feel, and basically from user feedback. A lot of this these changes were from people like you who gave the feedback to these platforms and say, Hey, you know what? Stop sending me, showing me all this crap. I just want to see content from people I know. Right. And that was like the number one thing, the number one complaint. And so they listened, and it took a little while, but now, except for you, Greg, you haven't experienced that yet. I guess I'll wait. It's okay. But it's coming, it's just not all at once. So, also, why would they make these changes? Because, you know, there were recent lawsuits that were just won by individuals for mental health concerns, right? And you know, endless scrolling in comparison, it's is it's bad for you.

SPEAKER_01 31:40

You know, just that they're scrolling scrolling sometimes, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:43

Just scrolling and scrolling and scrolling. You get hooked, it's addicting. It is addicting.

SPEAKER_04 31:47

I was gonna say, with with TikTok, when that came out, that really hit a lot of people and changed the attention span for a lot of people and and got you used to consuming short form content in the in the form of 15, 30 second videos, and it changed a lot of people, and now the algorithms are having to change for those people too.

SPEAKER_02 32:05

Exactly. You're right, and so also a lot of advertiser pressure out there. So advertisers on Facebook that you know they don't want to show an ad to somebody who's just not interested in that kind of thing. Right. So Facebook and Instagram of Meta, you know, all of the platforms out there, TikTok also and YouTube, they are getting better at showing you content that pertains to you.

SPEAKER_04 32:30

Yeah. So based on especially with the ads, because I've noticed I purchased something off of Facebook from an ad that I saw on Facebook, and the subsequent ads I started seeing were different brands for the same kind of stuff that I just bought. So it was kind of showing me now competitors of what I just bought. That's right, what I could compare it to.

SPEAKER_02 32:50

Yeah, and so but you know, I think it's overkill sometimes. It definitely is. I see the same thing. If I look up something from one brand, now I'm seeing it from my maybe 10 different brands. So maybe, maybe, you know, they're doing a better job of giving you content that that pertains to you, but but now it's like kind of like overkill. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 33:07

It's like they're giving me way too much. And and it depends on the on what you're buying too, because say you just bought a brand new pair of shoes that you saw on a Facebook ad that you really liked, and then now you're getting 10, 15 other different brands of all different types of shoes. That there's no reason really for you to be getting all of these ads, but they're gonna send them to you.

SPEAKER_01 33:24

I already bought my shoes. Thanks, Facebook.

SPEAKER_04 33:26

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 33:27

Don't give me buyers remorse, please.

What The Changes Mean For You

SPEAKER_02 33:29

Well, let's get into some some quick reasons why it what it means for you. So if you're a regular user, of course, you'll see more posts from friends and family, like we've just talked about. You might see fewer ads also, or more targeted ads just for you, and your feed will feel more personal. If you're a content creator, because this maybe if you're listening, you're a content creator, you need to be aware that you need to focus on quality over quantity. Thank goodness. Yes. Because they are Facebook's is focused on that now. So your content that you're creating needs to be quality more than quantity. Engagement matters more than the follower account. So you don't want to engage people so they'll follow you. You want to engage them because they're interested in you, interested in what you're presenting. Authenticity is rewarded in these cases for content creators. So if you're a business, guess what? Organic reach is much harder now. You might need to pay for ads. So which uh so they're giving us better content, they're giving us honed in or refined content that pertains just to us. But you as a business, if you advertise, if you don't advertise on Facebook, but you have a Facebook page, this also means that your page is less likely to be seen by anybody out there, no matter how public it is, unless you pay for the ads. So, and if you're a business, focus on building a community, not just followers. So that's important to make sure that you have a good community. That means commenting on other topics that that pertain to your business, as your business, you know, doing some engaging things with your business on these social media platforms so that it it pays attention that you as a business commented on this other business and it knows that. That adds you, it actually ticks you up a little bit there in their algorithm. And quality content and genuine engagement are key.

SPEAKER_01 35:16

All excellent points, Dave, as social media is maturing. It's not just about those vanity metrics anymore. Coming up next, you'll be able to figure out a little bit more about your strong password really worth it, or should you transition into a pass key? We'll talk about that in the next segment. Coming up next, you've been listening to Tech Talk right here on WDBO 1073FM and AM580. Hey there, and welcome back to Tech Talk here on WDBO 1073FM and AM580, Orlando's news and talk. I'm Greg Rhodes here with David Levitt, president and founder of Refresh Computer Superstore, and technician Adam Littlefield. And you can contact the Refresh Computer Superstore by calling their free tech support hotline at 407-478-8200. You can also check out their website over at refreshcomputers.net. And now back to David and Adam.

SPEAKER_02 36:16

All right. Thanks, Greg, and thanks, Adam, for being here on the show with us today. And thank you, everybody, for listening to this edition of Tech Talk with Refresh Computers. We had a really good show today. We still got a few minutes left. So

Ditch Passwords And Use Passkeys

SPEAKER_02 36:28

we want to talk about you know the fact that it's really, you know, it's time to ditch your password and switch to a pass key. And I've had people, I don't want to do this, you know, tell me this, and they just like, oh, another thing, you know. But I'm telling you, if you get used to a pass key, you're gonna love it. I promise you.

SPEAKER_04 36:47

And it's way more secure now than a password, way more secure and it's easier than a than than using a password. There's so many different forms of pass keys that you can do. That's that's what I like with it. You're not just stuck to entering text in a box, you have options to what you want to use for a pass key.

SPEAKER_02 37:02

So what does a pass key, what is a pass key, right? So it's it's a it replaces your password entirely. So no more typing required. No more. Right? Right. You well, one form of uh pass key, you might have to put in your your four or six digit code to get into your saved uh pass key. Yeah. And so on your Windows-based computer.

SPEAKER_04 37:25

But it it also uses things like biometrics, like your fingerprint. Uh, I know a lot of devices have facial ID. There the the main thing I have actually is I have a little USB that I keep on my keyring that when I plug it into a computer, I can open up its program, tap my fingerprint to it, and it'll bring up all of the two-factor codes I have, any passwords I have saved to it. It's something I keep in my pocket that I can't have compromised. Right. And it's it's my it's my fingerprint.

SPEAKER_02 37:51

And that's your PASCI. Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 37:53

If I lose it, it's you know, it's it can't be accessed by anybody else.

SPEAKER_02 37:56

Well, then that's where I don't want anybody to get confused because a lot of people think, oh, PASCI, I gotta carry something with me. Right. It's not just that. It's not no, so you don't have to at all. Right. You do that, Adam, because that's your preferred method.

SPEAKER_04 38:07

That's that's my preferred way of doing it. I just feel more secure that way.

SPEAKER_02 38:10

And it's a great way to do it, except just don't lose that fob. Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 38:13

If I lose that fob, I'm not gonna have a fun time. I think I've got like 20 or 30 accounts linked to it right now.

SPEAKER_01 38:18

Don't forget your keys in your uh pants when you go to do the laundry. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 38:22

So so who what what devices do I need to use a pass key? Who can use a pass key? Well, all of you can. If you're listening, if you have an iPhone, if you have an Android phone, a Windows computer, a Mac, any of these devices, they already have pass keys built in. They have the pass key ability built in. You just have to turn it on. Right. That's it. That you just have to turn them on. And I will add also, if you need help with that, don't forget the free tech support hotline. I keep throwing that out there because you know there are people that are going to be scratching their head. I wish I could understand this, or I wish I knew what to do to activate a pass key. Right. Give us a call at that number and we'll help you out over the phone. So why is it better than a password, Adam?

SPEAKER_04 39:05

It passwords can be stolen. You know, it it's it's been an age-old thing to write your password down on a post-it note. I know a lot of people that save them in your notes on your phone, which is not something I recommend. Yeah. But just with a password alone, that can be grabbed up so easily and just entered into a site and somebody can access your information.

SPEAKER_02 39:22

Well, even with the two-factor authorization system that goes on where you know it's got to text you first. So the hackers have figured that out too, folks. They're getting into that, they're able to get that two-factor code. Right. And so if you have a pass key, you you don't have to worry about that. You don't have to go through that 2FA, right? The two-factor authorization steps. Again, you just use your pass key.

SPEAKER_04 39:48

So again, you also get the choice too to layer it. You can do a pass key and then a two-factor authentication code. There, there are you know layers you can add to it. But realistically, now just having a pass key is is one of the safest ways to keep any account of yours available or not available, but safe, secure. Now, there's a lot of places that don't support it, I know, right now. Pass keys kind of have to be supported by where you have your account with them. Some of the main ones I know are things like Google, Apple, Microsoft accounts, all of those, they support pass keys. They support pass keys.

SPEAKER_02 40:20

And they they actually kind of push pass key use.

SPEAKER_04 40:22

Yeah. Same thing with Amazon, PayPal, many banks are they're also now starting to support these.

Where To Listen And Final Reminders

SPEAKER_02 40:27

Folks, that's all we have time for today. I really hope you enjoyed the show. Don't forget to go to refreshcomputers.net and click on that podcast link where you can hear the show in its entirety. This is David Levitt with Refresh Computers sounding off for this week. We'll be talking to you again next week.