Refresh Computers Tech Talk
Help and advice are given on a range of technical issues from computers to everything internet-related.
Refresh Computers Tech Talk
Freezing Your Credit Stops Fraud Cold
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A stolen password is annoying. A stolen identity can haunt you for years. We start with one of the highest-impact moves you can make in about 15 minutes: freezing your credit so lenders can’t pull your report and thieves can’t easily open new accounts in your name. We walk through what a credit freeze actually does, why you must do it with all three credit bureaus, and when a fraud alert might be a better fit if you’re actively applying for credit. We also talk about why Florida sees so much identity theft, and why kids and older relatives are often the most exposed.
From there, we shift to what people call “viruses” and what we actually see most often: malware, spyware, remote access tools, ransomware, and scam pop-ups that try to scare you into paying. If a screen tells you to call a number or pay in gift cards or crypto, that’s a red flag, not “official support.” We explain why paying almost never ends well and what to do instead.
Then we tackle smart speakers and voice assistants, including the “are they listening?” question. We cover wake words, accidental activations, and practical privacy settings like the physical mute switch, reviewing and deleting recordings, turning on auto-delete, and thinking twice about placing speakers in bedrooms. We close with a tech tip that can save you from a painful email mistake: password-protecting and encrypting PDFs and documents, then sending the password through a separate channel.
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Welcome And What’s Ahead
SPEAKER_01Hey there, and welcome to a Sunday edition of Tech Talk here on WDBO 1073FM and AM580 Orlando's News and Talk. I'm Greg Rhodes, sitting here with Adam Littlefield, a technician from the Refresh Computer Superstore. And you can contact the Refresh Computer Superstore by calling their free tech support hotline at 407-478-8200. Or if you have a comment during the show, go and use that open mic feature inside the WDBO app. You can also check out the website over at refreshcomputers.net, or you can stop in at the Refresh Computer Superstore in Longwood at 820 East State Road 434, just three and a half miles east of I-4. Store hours are Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. until 7 p.m. And now for Adam Littlefield.
SPEAKER_00Well, thank you, Greg, and thank you to all of our Sunday listeners of Tech Talk with Refresh Computers. Sunday crew. It is the Sunday crew listening to this one. We've got a lot of exciting stuff today, but before I get into it, I do just want to mention that we are closed today. Refresh Computers is closed today. So if you have any questions or comments, give us a call Monday morning. We open up at 9 a.m. Give us a call or come by in the morning and we'll be able to help you out with anything that you've got going on. We're going to be talking a lot of different things today. It's a lot of good information to know. So if you yourself want some tips on how to keep yourself safe on the internet or what you can do if yourself or you know a close friend or family member has gotten themselves into a into a stick, into a bad situation, we can we're gonna be talking about over some things today that's gonna be able to help. So I know what we're gonna be starting off our show today with talking about credit and how you can lock it down, freeze it in your identity. We'll also be talking about virus removal and protection services as well as data recovery that we at Refresh Computers provide, those services. We're also gonna be talking about your smart speakers, you know, those the big names out there that I can't mention. Otherwise, somebody's house will light up waiting for a notification. We'll be talking a lot about those and we'll end off our show today with, as always, our tech tip for the week.
Freeze Credit To Block Fraud
SPEAKER_00So, starting off our segment here, and this is honestly, I think, already a really big one, is freezing your credit and locking down your identity. This is something that, you know, it's a 15-minute move that's gonna really save yourself or a family member a lot of trouble.
SPEAKER_01It feels like every other week we're talking about a new scam that's in the market that's stealing identities, stealing account information, all these kinds of things. This really kind of puts a kibosh on all of that right there at the source.
SPEAKER_00It does. So, you know, all of our listeners, if you're young enough to not really know the importance of why you should lock down your credit history or your identity, it's still important for you to know. You might have a family member that's going through something that that they may need to do something like this. So if there's anything that we go over today, this is gonna be a a long segment. If there's anything that's missed, go to our website, refreshcomputers.net, and click the podcast link, listen back to this segment. We'll list out all the details, and you can listen back to this show and tons of other shows too. Have a bunch of other tips on how you can really just kind of protect yourself on the internet. So, first off, really, a credit freeze. What is it? You know, I always heard the term myself, and even when I was younger, and you know, up to this day and age, I don't I never really understood the full extent of it until actually looking into it. So, you know, when someone tries to open a new credit card in your name or a loan, phone contracts even are happening now, the lender checks your credit report first. And if that lender sees, you know, that your credit report is frozen, I don't really know what they see. They may see a lock symbol next to your name or something. They see something that says that your credit report is locked, so nobody can peek at it, they can't check it. And if they can't check your credit, they can't they can't open the account. That's it. Everything is stopped right there in its tracks.
SPEAKER_01It's really like just flipping that deadbolt on your credit account. It allows it just allows only you, somebody that has the direct access for that information, to be able to lock and then if needed, unlock it at some point. It's really that straightforward.
SPEAKER_00Right. And this is important because your credit report contains a lot of important information about you, but it is also the gateway into getting a lot bigger problems started. Again, opening up credit accounts and your name alone, that's that can be a lot of money that you're gonna end up losing because somebody has stolen your identity.
SPEAKER_01You've heard about those home mortgage fraud schemes, you've heard about those auto loan schemes. Well, this is again, this is really the first step at those hackers getting into doing those, right? Those those those identity thieves, is they have to have access to your credit. They can't open those without access. And the second that they see, like we said, whether it's a little lock or a little deadbolt symbol next to your name, that means no go.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. And you know, this is something that protects you if you accidentally give your information out to the wrong person and if you have a phishing scam that happens, or this can happen just from a data breach. You know, this isn't always just about the ignorance of the user. This this comes down to frankly just some companies, they have a data breach, and some very sensitive information can sometimes be grabbed. I know big retailers, some banks, and even health companies have had data breaches, had had information held at ransom, asking millions of dollars, or else we'll release it to the dark web. But I'll tell you what, half of the time, those people that are holding for anything for ransom, whether it be a company or you personally, if you pay them, they're just going to release the information anyways and just give you the proverbial digital middle finger.
SPEAKER_01We've even had the credit bureaus have their own leaks as well.
SPEAKER_00So, I mean, it goes all the way up the chain. Yeah, this is this is just the world that we live in now. You have to assume that these problems are out there and you got to take some some proactivity for to protect yourself. And when a credit freeze is happening has happened, uh, banks normally do contact you if there is a poll that was attempted. They may say, hey, there was a recent recent credit activity, something requested your credit report and it is locked. We're reaching out on behalf just to let you know. And that'll tell you right there if somebody has your leaked info. I know on this show we have talked about a website before. It's have I been pwned. That's PWNED.net com. That website you can put in your email address and it'll tell you if your email address has been in a recent data leak. And and that's just the tip of the iceberg if it's your your email. Because let's face it, a lot of our emails link to a lot of different accounts. And if somebody can get into one of those accounts, if you use the same password, which also gets leaked in these data breaches, you know, that's that's a whole other can of worms that's happened. And if it's something like your your bank account, for example, your checking account, and somebody can log into that. If you don't have a credit freeze, well, now they have the keys to to drive your credit all the way into the ground while they're on shopping sprees with your money that they've taken from you. So this is something that is free to do. Credit bureaus don't charge you to do this for freeze because, in the end of the day, it really is just protection. Now, credit bureaus, again, that's another business. And like all businesses, they want you to use them. They want you to be using your credit report to open that that other credit card, but they don't want it happening when it's not you, right? So here's kind of how you can do it for the three credit bureaus. And it as far as I can say, it's annoying. It's way more annoying to have to go through and figure out who got into what. Because when you're trying to backtrace and track where you got compromised, that is just giving more time with your information exposed and being used. So going through the credit bureaus, there are three of them: Equifax, Xperian, and TransUnion. And you do have to freeze all three of those separately. And as as far as I'm aware, you can go onto their website or call them and can create a free login with them. And once you do that, you can click to freeze right there. Just again, set aside 15 minutes and do all three of these back to back. Save the logins that you have for those as well, because if you use the same password for those and somebody gets your password for another account, well, they can just get in and unfreeze your account. Which, end of the day, the what's the point of doing it then, right? So again, that's it. 15 minutes, you go through all of them. That's it. You you have protected yourself or a family member from years of problems. I I personally see almost every day I have customers come in that have been compromised. Either it's been accounts, which thankfully that's easy enough to recover. But unfortunately, I have seen large financial losses that do walk through our door. It it is the sad reality of it, is that this happens. It happens every day to people. And the more information that's out there is really going to save yourself and your loved ones a lot of time and effort and a lot of money too. Because when fraud like this happens, you're not always protected. There is no golden law or rule hanging above that'll say it's okay, don't worry. You know, you won't owe a dime. Some people, for lack of a better way to put it, get screwed. They do.
SPEAKER_01No, it's true. And unfortunately, that's uh such an it again, it always comes down to our elderly and our youngest that always seem to be the most at risk here. And before we started talking about this show, I didn't even really think about it, but you can honestly put a freeze on these types of accounts on your children when they're young, before they're even actually really supposed to be applying for credit cards. You can put a lockdown on that so they're not dealing with any of these scammers later on when they do actually need to apply for an auto loan or get that first credit card, things like that.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. And that's something to think about too is our children, most children, some do, but most don't, don't have their own cell phone with a phone number. They don't have their own email address that's set up for notifications that if their social security number is being used for something, that they're gonna get a notification about it. Yep. And even you as a parent don't have any any safeguards really set up half the time looking for that initially. So, like Greg was saying, you can go through and actually put a freeze on your child's social security number, for example, because that is a gold mine for all of these fraudsters and scammers to use, because that is something that's being or not being monitored really by yourself or your kid. I know me, myself, if I was told at the age of seven I need to check my credit report every six months, I would just be confused. Right. I wouldn't even know what to begin with on that. What is a credit report at that age? Credit karma.
SPEAKER_01I don't need that. And then on the other end of it, we talked about older parents and older old or older relatives. If you're someone who's an executor on an estate that's working with your family and you're the one that's been entrusted to make these kinds of financial decisions, this sounds like the first step I would be making to make sure that we're not dealing with anybody trying to contact them. Maybe they're not in the right state of mind to be able to make proper decisions like this. But somebody calls them and they say yes, that's all they need.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So you've if you're able to put a lockdown like this on the other end of that, that really helps cut down on a lot of headache in the future.
SPEAKER_00And one personal story I have seen of a friend of mine, he um, one of his uh family members was actually, she started developing dementia just as she was aging. And at the time his family really didn't think anything of it for freezing, you know, Social Security or credit reports. Come to find out when when she had eventually passed, she had opened over 90 credit cards because she forgot that she opened one the day before. So putting a lock like that, it's not just to protect from scammers, you know, it is also to just to protect the elderly. Because end of the day, there are ads that pop up all the time for credit card applications. They make it very easy. They do make it very easy. Yeah. And there's only very there's very little information that you have to provide them anymore for them to be able to pull a credit report within a minute. And I know that personally, going through and just looking for, you know, a couple offers that I had, how many more just pop up after you look at the first one? It is a can of worms. And I know something personally for myself that if I had an elderly loved one that could get into the middle of this, anybody that has control over their accounts, I would immediately say, put a put you know a lock on the credit report. Now, there is a closer, a closer comparison, I would say, to a credit freeze that isn't as harsh as a freeze is, but it is still it's still what I would suggest setting up if you've got nothing. If you don't want to go through a full freeze, you can set up fraud alerts. Basically, what that does is it tells lenders to take a couple extra steps to verify that it's really you before opening an account. It's free to set up that as well. And set setting it up at just one bureau covers all three bureaus. So you don't have to go through all of them like doing the freeze. You can rather just set up the this one fraud alert. What I like with this is, you know, you do have the option still of using your credit for making for signing up for accounts, but the lender has to contact you another way. Maybe they they have to call you and contact you, which is one way they may do a two-factor authentication, maybe an email uh authentication, some way just to off to provide two-factor authentication. That's the word I'm looking for here.
SPEAKER_01Two-factor. Not just filling out a form, then just filling out the form and then verifying it was you that filled out that form.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. And while a freeze is a stronger lock in what I would recommend. The fraud alert is way better than nothing. And end of the day, it is, you know, your first step in kind of protecting you from that. Florida is really becoming just one of the biggest like states in the country right now for identity theft and fraud. So this isn't something that's just I'm talking about just to just to fill the air. You know, it is something that I hate to see come through our door, but it does happen every single day. Somebody got scammed, somebody got fished, information was taken, they were part of a security leak that caused all this information to get out. There is things that happen, but there are ways to protect yourself. And if you have any questions, I would suggest giving us a call Monday morning at 9 a.m. Our number is 407-478-8200. And any of our technicians there, we can kind of go through these with you as well just to give you just a little bit of steps about it, or you can check out our podcast on our website.
SPEAKER_01And don't forget to check with your financial advisor as well for some of these. If you're in the middle of buying a house, you don't want to necessarily put a credit lock or freeze on your account. Coming up next, we're going to talk a little virus removal and data recovery there at the Refresh Computer Superstore. You've been listening to Tech Talk right here on WDBO 1073FM and AM580.
Spyware And Scam Pop-Ups Explained
SPEAKER_01I'm Greg Rhodes sitting here with Adam Littlefield from the Refresh Computer Superstore. You can contact the Refresh Computer Superstore by calling their free tech support hotline at 407-478-8200. Or if you have a comment, go ahead and leave an open mic using that WDBO app. And now on a Sunday, back to Adam.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, Greg, and thank you, the Sunday crew, for listening to Tech Talk with Refresh Computers. We talked a lot about your credit and just everything really credit, Social Security in that last segment. If you missed any of that, I would suggest listening to our podcast, refreshcomputers.net, or anywhere that podcasts are relatively available. You can listen to us. We talked all about what you can do to save yourself or a loved one just from a big headache later on down the line. And this segment kind of gets into that as well. You know, viruses. That's that's something that I know personally has not been the big one anymore, as far as I would say, as opposed to scamps. Viruses are, I wouldn't say in the past because we still do have them day to day. I do have ransomware viruses that come in, malware, things like that. And that's something that we we clean up on computers. I will say actually, a lot of these identity theft situations that I have had have come from a spyware program that just got downloaded on the computer that allowed somebody remote access and it's unattended remote access. So what that means is you can leave your computer on, go sit in the living room on the other side of the house watching television. And if there's a spyware program installed for remote access, they can get in and view all of your accounts immediately. Anything that's on the computer, they can look at like they're using it physically in front of them. So virus and malware removal, we get rid of all sorts of that stuff every day. Same thing with malware, and especially the big one that I see come up every day are those scam pop-ups that try to lock your screen and they demand money. And I said it last segment, and I'll say it in this segment again. If you ever find yourself in the middle of a situation where something's demanding money, it's popped up on your computer, bring it by our store. We are closed today, but bring it by our store Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., and we can take a look at it for you. Because nine times out of 10, I I'll I want to get closer than nine times out of 10. 9.9 times out of 10, these type of people that say, Oh yeah, if you give me 30 Bitcoin, I will unlock your files and not put your information on the internet. They will take whatever money you give them and they will still put the information out there. Right. There is no honor for the type of people that do this. So again, if you have something that pops up, some pop-up that says, you know, call this number and your computer has been locked, this or that, those are just scam pop-ups. And a lot of times you get on the phone with somebody that's asking you to pay them in gift cards. That's always how it ends up. And I know, Greg, you and I, we talked about, you know, your personal run and working retail, right? Seeing those gift card scams. They still happen. Always. They do. So at refresh, uh, I don't know how many viruses I can really say I've seen, as opposed to, you know, malware and spyware. Yeah. Because that's all it really is anymore. I do have a couple customers that have had some problems with encryption uh malware, and that's an entirely separate one. It's a whole different, different topic altogether when it comes to that. Because when uh those files are encrypted, those are locked. Right. And you know, the person that locked them says, give me your money and I'll unlock them for you. And they're not going to.
SPEAKER_01And like you said, those are the malware and spyware. But when it comes to viruses, that's really just malicious intent. There's no, there's not there's not someone on the other end that's trying to take money. There's nothing they're they're literally just there to wreck your computer. Exactly. And it happens in the blink of an eye.
SPEAKER_00It it really does. And a lot of times the word virus will be used as a scare tactic. Your computer has been infected with this many viruses and this much malware. It's a buzzword. That's really what it is. And it makes you, you as a user of a computer, think, you know, oh man, is there actually a virus on my computer? But like you said, Greg, a lot of viruses are pretty instantaneous. If there's a virus that's malicious, it's gonna take it's gonna take advantage before telling you to call a number. Right. And a big thing I want to put out there before we get to a break as well, if you ever get one of those pop-ups that comes up that says this is Microsoft or this is Google or any one of those large tech companies, I can tell you almost without a shadow of a doubt that those big companies will not be reaching out to you, an independent user, asking that you to call them because of a small issue you have going on with that computer. Especially via a pop-up. Exactly. Um, we're gonna be getting to a break here, but when we get back, we're gonna be getting into uh some smart speakers like the Amazon Echo and just kind of uh how you can use them well and are they really listening to you?
SPEAKER_01You've been listening to Tech Talk right here on WDBO1073FM and AM580. Hey there and welcome to a Sunday edition of Tech Talk here on WDBO 1073FM and AM580, Orlando's news and talk. I'm Greg Rhodes here with Adam Littlefield, the technician from the Refresh Computer Superstore. And you can contact the Refresh Computer Superstore by calling their free tech support hotline at 407-478-8200. Or if you have a comment during the show, we'd love to hear it. Use that open mic feature inside the WDBO app. You can also check out the website over at refreshcomputers.net, or stop in at the Refresh Computer Superstore in Longwood at 820 East State Road 434, just three and a half miles east of I-4. Store hours are Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. until 7 p.m. And now for Adam Littlefield.
SPEAKER_00Well, thank you, Greg. And again, thank you, everybody, for tuning into this Sunday edition of Tech Talk with Refresh Computers. A 26-year-old Central Florida tech company now. We work on tons of laptops, desktops, we help out with software, and there's so much other stuff. I could take up this whole 15-minute segment just talking about the things I I do at our store. So if you have any questions on, you know, if we do provide some service or if there's something you want to have worked on and you don't know if we could or not, I would suggest giving us a call during our business hours. We're open 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Our phone number is 407-478-8200. And me, I'm one of the technicians that do answer those phone calls. So there may be a chance that you call in if you've got any questions, you can ask, speak to me, or you'll be speaking to me already. In
Smart Speakers Privacy And Benefits
SPEAKER_00this segment, we're going to be talking a little bit about a, I think this is a more of a controversial. Tech topic, if anything, and that's um smart speakers, you know. Think of it as how do I put it? Smart speakers are something that is in our everyday lives and they provide functions that other devices we have do as well. I know, for example, with these smart speakers that they they listen for wake words, you know, they're they're not always recording, but they are looking for a specific wake word. And that could be, you know, their name saying hey, this name, or just saying the name outright. That's that's how you get them to start listening to what you're prompting for. Same function as most mobile phones. Most mobile phones have a hey, this assistant name to bring up a voice assistant. And your phone isn't always listening to you and responding back. You know, I have my phone sitting here in front of me, and I don't have Gemini yelling into the microphone as I'm trying to talk. So these speakers are always listening, but again, they're looking for a wake word. So it's not really recording or sending anything anywhere while it's waiting. I know personally in my own home, my family, they unplug our Amazon Echo every time they're not using it. And you know what? As far as I'm concerned, I don't that doesn't bother me. Yep. Doesn't bother me, I don't care. I would be annoyed having to go plug it in every time, but I don't really use it too often, comparatively, to the rest of my family.
SPEAKER_01Right. And I I think that there's there's a a point to that as well. There has been lawsuits in the past about the data that was being collected from some of these devices as well. How long is a listening session after you say the wake word? How long does it continue listening by the end of your conversation? So there has been some controversy that's surrounded them. We've seen those kind of settled in and out of court in some cases, but I agree for the most part, there's there's a no no more or no less privacy than if you were walking around with your cell phone all day, which you most likely are.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And you know, that's the thing is sitting at the dinner table and you've got the the echo sitting across just the room, it's not recording your your dinner conversation and sending it to the the company servers.
SPEAKER_01I was thinking of you sitting across from your echo eating dinner and it had a plate in front of itself.
SPEAKER_00So pardon me for You know, that that'd be very interesting. Maybe you are one of the people that that set the table for your for your uh smart speaker. You don't you don't know.
SPEAKER_01Especially with the AI advancements that they've made. I mean, hey, sometimes it holds a better conversation than uh my three-year-old, so maybe it's uh sometimes it does hold it hold a place at the dinner table in certain circumstances.
SPEAKER_00It may, and you know, we last yesterday we did talk a lot about Apple, their new phones, and it's something we didn't say in that episode, but we were talking about off the air is where where's Siri. Yeah. And I know with these smart, these smart speakers, Apple has the home pod. And I don't know about the capabilities of Siri through that home pod, but I know with my my Google home setup that I have, it's very conversational. Yeah. I can just say something in in the middle of the conversation with it, it'll do the action and continue the conversation.
SPEAKER_01We have Amazon Echo at our house and uh similar uh reactions. Again, it holds a it holds a pretty good conversation with my three-year-old sometimes. Uh I'm still trying to work on how to figure that out. But yeah, no, for the most part, it's it's pretty intuitive, like how to advance a conversation in certain circumstances.
SPEAKER_00And that's something, you know, I I feel with Siri that if you put your three and three-year-old in front of it, I don't I don't know if your three-year-old would be entertained by hearing, I don't know, I didn't quite catch that over and over. It just stop. So these speakers, they're not perfect, right? Like humans, they do mishear things. Sometimes you're you're in a room with a couple other people and you hear your name across the room, but it definitely wasn't your name, you know? You think you heard somebody say your name, they didn't. That's kind of what happens with these. Or maybe sometimes you're watching television and the name just comes across, or you're listening to live radio and you hear us say one of the names of who shall not be named. We've been very good about it this episode. Don't test our luck, though, at it I know. Knock on wood with that one. So it's not really spying on you around the clock. Occasional accidental snippets are real and it does happen. Like all technology, it does happen. And I'll tell you what, I have even seen some commercials that even point out and say, you know, they'll say an activation phrase and say, if you're if your echo just activated, this this advertisement might be for you. And then it goes on talking about what the echo can link to, smart plugs, for example. So there are advertising as well that are focused towards it. And I hate to say it, it is becoming more of a relatively regular thing to have these smart speakers just accidentally activate. It's something that I know has bugged me in the past because I'll be talking to someone and I'll hear the the Google activation sound and I'll turn and scream across the room and I'll just go, not you, and continue my conversation. I I would love to just know how many of those snippets I've sent to Google myself.
SPEAKER_01You use much nicer words than I do when I'm talking to my echo when uh when they activate on accident. So that's nice of you.
SPEAKER_00I try to be nice to it because I I I have this whole playful attitude that, you know, if you're nice to the AI now, whatever happens in the future, it it it'll it'll be happy. I said please and thankfully. If you're nice to the AI now, Skynet won't come after you in five years.
SPEAKER_01You're right.
SPEAKER_00But the the great thing that these things are good at, and it's something that even I use some of these functions myself, things everyday little life, like setting timers and alarms, hands-free while you're cooking. You can do the same thing with your phone, but I'll tell you, it's harder to shout at my phone to get it to figure out I'm trying to talk to it, rather than just talking to my smart speaker.
SPEAKER_01I agree. I love using ours for cooking. So, like when I'm cooking dinner and I need uh the next step in a recipe, for example, or I just can't remember the conversion for tablespoons to cups. Right. I it makes it so much easier to kind of get those broken down and it responds quickly, and it can even read out the entire recipe if I need to hear it back again.
SPEAKER_00So and the AI integrations that are happening with these smart speakers now, like you said, Greg, you know, ta asking cup conversions or asking what the appropriate temperature to cook chicken is at, you know, something like that. Smart speaker comes in really good play when you've got, you know, raw chicken all over your hands and you're thinking you're like, oh man, what did I set the oven to?
SPEAKER_01I really don't want to wash my hands for the 19th time. Exactly. So yeah, no, absolutely, because that's that's the worst part about trying to touch your phone with chicken fingers. But uh even just a recent example, just uh just here over the last week, I asked for a substitution for an item that I had. I didn't have something that was in the original recipe. Is what is a good substitute for mirin? I think I asked it for. It gave me an example of using rice wine vinegar, which I happen to have. And it gave me the conversion like what you should add to make it taste like it. You should add a little sugar to make it taste like the mirin. It worked out great. I couldn't notice the difference in my recipes.
SPEAKER_00So and that's that's one of those things, quick questions. Yep, they excel at it, right? The weather. Again, how many tablespoons are in a cup, how old an actor is. All of those questions, playing music, podcasts, like tech talk with refresh computers, all of that can be set up through this uh this speaker. And I know some of them are even starting to recognize specific tone as well. So they can almost tell, you know, is this the actual owner talking to it, or is this the owner's three-year-old that is babbling at me? It will be something like that.
SPEAKER_01It recognizes a difference. It's hello, Greg, or it says it doesn't say his name because it doesn't know his name because it does it says it just says a general greeting. Yeah. But yes, no, it does recognize and it recognizes a difference between myself and my wife in the house. So yeah, I'm all very uh very advanced with some of these. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00A little creepy sometimes, but it can be, but you know, the biggest thing I use it for are reminders and especially my shopping list. Oh, yeah. You know, if I'm in the middle of cooking, I use the last of the milk. I will tell you the amount of times I've told my my Google Home to remind me, to put on my shopping list that I need to get milk, it has saved me quite a few times of being chewed out for using the last of the milk. But same thing for uh reminders, you know, setting reminder that you've got a 3:30 appointment coming up and it tells you an hour before and you're in the kitchen, just I don't know, getting a drink or something, or anywhere in the house, really. Hand-free calls as well. That's another one that I really genuinely like using. Is if I'm in the middle of doing something, I can, you know, if I get a phone call, I can pop it over to my to my Google Home, or I can throw it on over our Echo, which I have found to be a little weird because a lot of the smart speakers in the Echo environment, you can use them with music to play all of the speakers at once. I had it bug out once where it did that with a call. So I'm talking to my brother on the phone, and all of a sudden I walk to the next room to grab something real quick, and he says something, and now he's screaming right behind me on the shelf. You know, it's there there are little things that you can do with them also like that. And they can be a real help as well with folks with limited visibility or mobility, for example, just being able to talk to the device rather than trying to use your phone, for example. I don't know personally, so this is something that I would have to do a little more research, but I do know some of these do provide simple voice commands to make calls if you have give them access to your contacts. And you can also tell them to call emergency services. So if for whatever reason you've fallen and you can't reach a phone, you know, it it it it will it may do you good some use to just shout for you know one of your assistants and say, please call 911. I've fallen. And I don't know personally how well it works, but I do know I remember seeing that setting in in my Google Home. So that's something to kind of think of. And again, Greg, like you said, AI advancement advancements are coming through, and we're starting to be able to hold conversations with these speakers now. Never what I thought in in my life I'd say I can hold a conversation with my speaker, but here we are, we're in the present at the time of this show. So it there are a lot of leaps coming with it, but again, on the other on the other side of the page, we have the privacy conversation because there are privacy concerns, you don't want it recording you all the time, you don't want it listening to you. So there are a couple things you can do. Most of these smart feakers, smart speakers have a feature, there we go, on the top of them or on the side of them, some of them on the back that's a physical mute button or switch. You can press that or flip it, and that will turn it electronically off the speaker, the the microphone, until you turn it back on. Great if you're having for private conversation or just general peace of mind in your house. But again, remember if you did mute it, because you know it can be frustrating, shouting for the assistant, it's not hearing you, and you walk over and you see a little glowing red dot means you muted it. So that's something to consider. But you can also review and delete recordings that are made with these. So in in the app that you use for setting up or controlling these, you can listen to what's been saved, delete it, even turn on auto-delete so history doesn't pile up. And I would recommend turning on auto-delete just because, again, private conversations happen. We forget about these speakers. If we accidentally say in a a trigger word and now you've got sensitive information in the middle of that recording, you want to and you didn't even think about it, auto-delete'll save you. It'll delete it without you ever having to even think about it. And the third thing, and this is the most important one I would really say, is think about where you put it. You know, the kitchen or the living room, awesome choices where just family gathers and multiple people can use it at any given time. But bedroom or a kid's room, I would think twice. If privacy is your top priority, you know, Apple's home pod is generally the most private of the bunch, you know, Apple's walled garden and everything. But again, you know, you kind of have to consider where what you're putting where. I know myself, I keep my Google home in my bedroom. It not only is a voice assistant, it has a screen so I can see the time, the weather, things like that. It also can give me sleep tracking. So it listens for snoring, it can tell if I'm laying down, but I also just disable that sometimes because it gets really annoying watching television laying in bed. Bright flashes can happen. And now my my assistant thinks that it's daytime and it puts brightness up to 100%. So there are some push and gives with this, but the bottom line is they're useful and the privacy risk is manageable if you go through and and tweak them. If you have any questions, go to our website. We'll have all of this notated down underneath this episode, or you can give us a call. Our number is 407-478-8200, and we can go through and kind of talk about how you can make yourself a little more secure. When we get back from this break, we're gonna be uh talking about our another tech tip, and this is an important one, I think, actually, for uh especially if you send documents over emails.
SPEAKER_01You can listen to tech talk right here on WDBO 1073FM and AM580. I'm Greg Rhodes here with Adam Littlefield of the Refresh Computer Superstore. You can contact the Refresh Computer Superstore by calling their free tech support hotline at 407-478-8200. And don't forget to check out the website over at refreshcomputers.net. And now back to Adam.
SPEAKER_00Well,
Password-Protect Files Before Emailing
SPEAKER_00thank you, Greg, and thank you, Sunday crew, for tuning into this episode of Tech Talk with Refresh Computers. I'm gonna go right into this topic because I I just think it's the best way to start it off. Is all of our listeners right now, Greg, you included, myself, think about what we email for a second. You know, just think about what you put into emails as attachments. Some of us may email photos to family friends, and some of us, you know, we have to email our tax documents to our tax guy. Maybe you've got medical forms or bank information or even house, you're yeah, or sign contracts even. Yeah. Now, think about if you send that to the wrong person, you know, you you type in that email address wrong or it autofills somebody's else. Well, now, whoever you may have sent that to, if you don't hit undo fast enough from sending it, you've now sent that document to the wrong person. And if it's got information that's pretty sensitive to you, that can be a very, very bad situation to be in. So, in this in this segment, I'm gonna talk a little bit how you can actually put a password on most of those files that you're gonna be sending, because this is something that I think will be the best way to protect yourself for vital information. So, tax documents, bank statements, medical forms, sign contracts. What you can do is on a Mac computer, this is actually built right in on PDFs. So if you open the PDF and go to file and export, you can choose the box to encrypt it. Basically, you can set a password and that's it. The file is now locked with a password and requests that whenever it is downloaded and opened. On Windows, you would have to get a little more in-depth with it. You can open the document in Microsoft Word, or if you use LibreOffice, I believe this function is included with that program as well. Go to file and then info, and there should be an option that says protect document. And choose encrypt with password and then just save it as a PDF. That should be an option. And if you if you go through and do that, you set the the password. And if you use Adobe Acrobat, it has a protect function built right in, setting a password for it. And on your phone, it's the same. There are uh apps that have to do it. You can't do it built into your phone, but there are some reputable apps that can lock PDFs and other files. But again, through your computer is going to be the easiest place to do it. This is something that I would recommend doing because again, you're sending something vital to your tax guy or to a bank, like Greg was saying, buying a house or a signed contract. What you should do is send them that file through email. And if you have another way of contacting them, maybe a number that you can call them or they provide they they text message, send them that password for that file through a completely other avenue. That way, if the file itself gets sent to another person or a person intercepts it for any reason or or rhyme or reason, then they can't open that file because it's encrypted and password protected. This is something I know I had a customer a couple months ago actually would have really benefited from. They just prepared a lot of signed contracts and they got hit with malware on their computer, and it was uh remote access, spyware technically. And all of that information, they were able to basically receive the files that this person was sending. They didn't grab them from the computer, but they set it up to where they were the ones receiving these files instead of where they were supposed to be going. And it was probably two, three hundred files. Wow. A lot of sensitive information. So that's something to keep in mind. And I know those steps were kind of convoluted to get through them. So go to our website, refreshcomputers.net, click that podcast link. We'll have the steps for this listed there as well. One thing before we go, I do want to say if you do lock that file and send it, save that password. Just like any other password, save it. You know, it, yeah, maybe you'll be able to resend the file, but if you locked the source file on your computer, that's it. If you lost the password, you can't open it. So it's something to keep in mind.
Final Reminders And Sign-Off
SPEAKER_00So I we are getting to the end of our uh Sunday show here. So I want to say thank you to the Sunday crew. And if you're not part of the regular Sunday crew, just tune in in today instead of maybe your regular listener yester yesterday. Go to our website again, listen to yesterday's show and today's show. We've got tons of information. We're gonna be getting back to you guys again next week with just a lot, lot more information. So I'll be talking to you guys again real soon.
