Tag: internet

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Whole House Wifi

This is a term that I hear occasionally but what does it really mean? It usually refers to a system that covers your entire house with wifi. The trouble with most routers is that they are only in one location in your house and sometimes that location is in the corner in your basement. Most routers are not in the middle of the house where they could give you the most coverage and even if they are in the right place they probably don’t have the range to reach everywhere in the house.


So how do you cover your entire house with wifi? By using a Mesh Wifi System. This is a system of pods that are strategically placed around your house to cover all areas. The brand I use most even says you can “paint your home in WIFI.” People used to use wifi extenders to do this, but an extender usually creates a new network instead of expanding your current network, so you have to connect to a different network in certain areas of your house. Extenders also don’t come with a phone app, so it is difficult to tell if they are really working or not. Mesh systems only broadcast one signal, but you seamlessly connect to the nearest pod.


The great thing about these mesh systems is that you don’t need to rewire your house to connect all of these pods. They only need to be plugged into an electric outlet and they also need to be in the range of another pod. By using a few pods, you can cover all areas and all floors in even very large homes. Many mesh systems can even reach outside onto outdoor living spaces with special pods that are made for outdoor use and are weather resistant. You don’t even have to know how large the range of each pod is because there is an app that you put on a cell phone that helps set them up.


After fighting with some dead zones in my house for years I recently added a mesh system. I had been putting it off because I was concerned that I might need to reprogram all of my smart devices after changing my network. I was very careful to name the new network the same as my old network and make the password exactly the same. When I turned on the new network all of my devices connected to it automatically except for one printer so it didn’t take long to get everything working.


This not only improved the coverage of wifi in my house it also gave me much higher speed. I was previously using the wifi from my Comcast modem and those don’t have a lot of wifi coverage or speed once you get a few feet away.


There are many brands of mesh wifi systems. I have installed expensive systems and inexpensive systems. I know what works and what is junk. Just because a system is expensive doesn’t mean it works well. If you are considering a mesh wifi system I can help you find the right one for your home. Here is a video where I talk about these systems:

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To Protect Your Account, We Need to Authenticate Your Identity.

This can be a devastating message if you don’t have another email address, or a cell phone number attached to your email account. I deal with this often when someone has trouble signing into their email account. Sometimes they might even know what their password is, but the email provider wants them to use two factor authentication to prove who they are.


This recently happened to a customer, and we went through their recovery process, but were not successful in retrieving his account. He did have a phone number connected to his email account, but it was his landline. Since he can’t get a text message on his landline, he is effectively locked out of his email account. Some providers allow calls and texts, but his did not.


I did some research online and we ended up contacting a landline texting company that deals mainly with other companies that want to text their customers reminders, but they don’t want to use a cell phone to do this. The company we found also allows the customer to text back. This is the part that we needed. Before paying for this service, which was about $25.00 for a month, we reached out to their sales department to make sure this would work. The sales rep told us that he gets people doing this all the time. But they never call back to say if it worked or not.


We were not successful in getting the code. Another way to recover your account is to provide more information. Microsoft wanted a lot of other information like have you used this account with Skype or Xbox, who you have you recently emailed back and forth with, what is the subject of an email, and other similar questions. We were not able to answer enough questions to satisfy them.


Needless to say, this has been a hassle from the very first message that his account was locked. All of this could have been avoided by making sure the number attached to his email was his cell phone and not his landline. I know many don’t have a landline anymore, but are you sure the correct phone number is attached to your email? If you have switched phone numbers, which sometimes happens, you could be locked out also. Do you have another email account connected to your primary email account?


The time to check these things is when you absolutely know what your password is, and you have access to it on a trusted browser. This issue crops up when people switch computers, switch phones, and sometimes due to computer updates when your browser is not recognized any longer. This is what happened to my customer.


If you are not sure if you have the proper backup accounts connected to your email, I can help you with this. Please call me to help you recover your email before you lose it. It will save both of us a lot of pain. I can also help you set up another email account to keep you ahead of things. As I mentioned last month, using a password manager can help keep you connected also.

Here is the one I use.

Get more info about Keeper
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Passwords, Passwords, Passwords!

Every day it seems like there are more and more accounts that you need and every single one of them requires a unique password that is more than ten characters long and contains upper- and lower-case letters, special characters, and numbers but you can’t have any double characters. It gets harder and harder to keep track of all of these passwords and then on top of that some accounts require that you change your passwords every 30, 60 or 90 days. 

I know many people use a password book and they are constantly trying to scratch out one password to add the new one. Every time they get a new account they have to figure out where to write it down since there is no room where it should go alphabetically in their book. They add the date to try to help them keep track of which is the current password. Others use a spreadsheet and make handwritten changes and then go into the digital document occasionally to update it and reprint it.

Maybe you just use your browser’s password manager to keep track of all of those passwords. This is fine until someone gets into your browser and has access to all of your accounts. These are great for remembering your passwords, but they are not very secure. If your computer is unlocked these can be used without any further authorization.

So, what can you do to make sure your passwords are secure and also that you can access them and use them on all of your devices when you need to? You basically have two options. First you can try to remember all of those passwords, which is mostly impossible since they all need to be unique, and you might have more than one email address, so you also have to remember which email goes with which account. The other more realistic option is to deploy a password manager and use it on all of your devices.

Password managers offer the security of having long, unique passwords for all of your accounts while giving you the convenience of only having to remember one password. The next time an account tells you that you need to change your password, your password manager can handle everything for you. It will come up with a new unique password and change the entry in your password manager so it will be correct the next time that you use this account. Most password managers will even sync this change across all of your devices.

I know the initial setup can be daunting, but just think about having to recover all of your accounts if your current book, sheet, or browser gets compromised. The recovery time on that mess would be much worse and you could possibly have information or money stolen in the process.

There are a few different ways to set up your password manager:

  1. Most will allow you to import your information into them. You just need to find out what the format needs to be and copy from your current document, or browser into that format.
  2. Make a day of it. Not much fun, but if you have the time, just sit down with all of your accounts and login to one after another.
  3. Set up as you go. In this scenario you would use your old system and your password manager simultaneously. Each time you need a password, open your password manager and if that account isn’t there you can add it. The downside to doing this is that eventually you will probably have to have a session to do the rest that you hardly ever use.

Once you have all of your passwords in the manager, accessing them and even adding new ones will be much easier. Not to mention how much easier it will be to set up a new device since all you will have to do is add your password manager to the device and all of your accounts will be there automatically.

I know all of us have been dreading this and putting off the inevitable, me included. But it isn’t going to get any easier so the sooner we make the change the better it will be. As always, I am available to help with finding the right product and even helping to import information into it if you need.

I did some research and the password manager that I like and use is Keeper.

Get more info about Keeper
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How to ensure you never lose access to your email accounts.

Every few weeks, I get a call from someone that can’t access their email address and they don’t know what to do. In most cases, I can help them gain control of their account by using their phone, other email account or information in the emails they have sent to others. This can be a long process and sometimes this just won’t work, and you might lose access for good.

When you rely on your email for communication with friends and family, and to receive your bills and other correspondence from companies it is very important that you can always access this account. For most people this isn’t a concern because they use a password manager and have their account tied to other email addresses and also their cell phone.

If you don’t have your email connected to another email account and your cell phone, you might want to consider doing this. I know some people believe this is just another way for Google or Microsoft or whoever your email supplier is to gather more information on you but there is also a very good reason to accept these connected accounts.

When you have email through your internet supplier like Comcast or CenturyLink, you have an account number with this company, and you pay a monthly fee to them for your internet. Since you have this type of relationship with them, they will gladly help you reset your email account password if you lose track of it. The phone call to make this happen might take an hour or more, but it is possible to do.

When you have a free email account you really do not have a relationship with the company and they do not offer any type of customer service to you. So, if you cannot access your account, you can get completely locked out unless you have other ways to verify your ownership of the email account. This ownership is proven by accounts that are linked to the original account. They may be other accounts that you own or a friend or family members’ account.

It is also very important to make sure this information is always up to date. If you no longer have the phone number or email account listed as your backup information you need to change this information now. Also, if you used your landline make sure the account recovery can call the number and not just send a text message.

I know keeping up with all of this stuff can be a hassle, but not keeping up with this stuff could cause a lot more pain later if you lose access to your email. I have helped many people with this, and it sometimes takes a couple hours to fix it if we can. Save yourself time and money by adding/updating your alternate information on your email accounts. If you are not sure how to do it, I can help. It is a little different for each email provider.

Here is a video about alternate information:

While on my YouTube site please subscribe to my channel so that you will not miss any of my new videos.

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Is My Internet Down?

How can you tell what is really going on with your internet? Is it the router? Is it just your computer? I get these questions a lot, so I decided to break down exactly what you need to do to get the answers and get your internet working again.

Is it your Router? – To determine this, you need to do some homework before your internet goes down. Whether you have a modem/router that was supplied by your internet service provider (ISP), or you purchased your own equipment, it is important to know what it looks like when it is working correctly so you can easily know when it isn’t working.

When your equipment is working correctly, look at the lights and maybe even write down what lights are lit up and what color they are or even take a picture with your cell phone. With this information, you can easily look at your equipment and know that there is a problem because the one light on your Comcast router is orange instead of white for instance.

This is the first question I ask when someone calls with internet issues. What lights are lit up and what color are they? If the lights look different, your first step is to restart your equipment. This is usually done by pulling the power cord out and then plugging it back in. Just know that it will take a few minutes to completely boot back up, just like your computer. Many times, this will fix the issue. If the lights are still not correct, now is the time to contact your ISP for help.

Is it just my computer? – If you check your router and it seems like it is working properly after a restart, it might be a problem with your computer. If you have other devices connected to the internet, are they working properly? This is the easiest way to tell if it is a computer problem. Maybe your computer just lost its connection to the internet. 

Here are the icons that show internet connectivity. Look in the bottom right corner on the taskbar:

Descriptive graphic of internet signal icons

Based on this picture, if you should be on wifi and you are not, just reconnect it. If you should have an ethernet connection, check both ends of the cable. Many times, these simple things will solve your problem. If it still won’t work, call me and I will help you troubleshoot further.

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Does Unsubscribe Really Do Anything and Should I Use It?

I get these questions a lot and my answer is always the same. It depends on the actual email. I know this isn’t the straightforward answer people are looking for, but it is the best answer. Here are a few situations and whether or not to use the unsubscribe button.

If you are receiving multiple emails from a real company, and by that, I mean the email address matches the company name (the email says it is from Target and the email ends with @target.com) then you can use the unsubscribe button and hopefully within a couple days you will no longer receive email from this company. According to The New York Times: “Marketers have 10 business days to honor your unsubscribe request. After that, it’s a violation of the CAN-SPAM Act for a sender to continue emailing you. If the emails keep coming, you’re well within your rights to mark them as spam using your email client’s built-in Spam button.”

If you know the email is not from a real company, meaning the email address does not match the company name, you should not click on the unsubscribe button. When you receive an email that is a phishing scam or some other type of scam there is no point in clicking on unsubscribe. Here are the reasons that you do not want to click unsubscribe in a scam email.

  1. Many scam emails come from stolen email accounts. Since they keep stealing new email accounts, unsubscribe will have no effect. It is a waste of time.
  2. Many times, the unsubscribe link will be the same link as any other link in the email. Clicking on it could cause damage to your computer or install malware. I suggest you never click any link in an email that could possibly be a scam.
  3. By clicking on a link in a scam email you are letting the scammers know that your email is a valid email, and you can end up on even more lists.
  4. Scammers don’t follow the rules.

How do you stop scammers from sending you email? You really can’t stop them if they have your email address, but you can reduce the number of scams that hit your inbox. Always mark scams as “junk” or “spam.” These filters learn over time what you don’t want to see and eventually most of the scams will go there instead of your inbox. This can also cause the email address they use to be flagged and blacklisted. This can slow them down but since they usually steal accounts or make fake accounts this will not stop them.

So, if your inbox keeps filling up with emails that you don’t want, you can unsubscribe to a couple real emails per day and your inbox will eventually look cleaner. You can also mark the scams as spam/junk and over time your inbox will receive less of those emails also.

If you are not sure if an email is real or not. Contact me and I can teach you how to tell the real from the fakes. I have also made a few videos about this, check out this playlist:

Watch the Whole Playlist

While you are there please subscribe to my channel!

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How Scammers Can Use Your Email Rules, sometimes called Filters, Against You.

This is something that I have seen many times. A scammer will somehow get access to your email and then they can send emails from your account without you even being aware of it. In fact, they hide it from you. They can carry on conversations with others right from your email and you will never see it.

First let me explain what rules are in email accounts. These are instructions to help you manage your email. You can set up a rule for instance, to move any email from “John” to the folder “John.” These rules can be very helpful if you receive a lot of email and there are some that you need for future references but don’t necessarily need to see them when they arrive. I always get an emailed receipt when I buy anything from my computer supplier. I don’t need to look at these emails, I just need them for documentation if I am ever audited. So, I set up a rule that anytime I receive an email from Micro Center those emails will be moved to my Micro Center folder.

Scammers can do the same thing in your email. They can send an email to your employee that says “Please pay this invoice” in the subject line. In this email they will tell you to follow this link and pay this invoice for them. They can set up a rule that says any email that has “Please pay this invoice” in the subject line, delete the email. They can go into the trash and keep corresponding with your employee about this and you will never know about it.
This is a basic description of how they do it, but you get the idea about how they can steal from companies by using this tactic.

So, how can you protect yourself from this type of scam that has cost many companies a lot of money? The first thing is to make sure your email password is complex and not similar to other passwords that you have and use 2 factor authentication. If you can keep the scammers out of your email you don’t even have to worry about this.

But it is still a good idea to check your rules occasionally to make sure there are not any new rules that can be used against you. I had a customer that was one of the recipients along with others in their company on an email from one of their customers. Suddenly she was not receiving these emails any longer while everyone else was still getting them and they could see that she was listed as a recipient in the emails.

We verified that there was no issue with her email, she was receiving emails from everyone else except this one person. Then we checked her rules in Outlook on her computer and finally logged in online to her email and checked the rules there. When we checked online there were some new rules set up that she was not aware of and didn’t set up.

The scammers were using her account to try to divert payments to another bank. Luckily, we caught it, and no money was sent to the wrong bank. We then deleted these rules, changed her email password, and forced a sign out on all devices. We also made sure there were no rules in anybody else’s email account in the company and we instituted 2 factor authentication to ensure their email accounts remain safe.

If you are familiar with email rules, you should immediately check to ensure there are no extra rules in your email accounts. If you do not know anything about rules and don’t know how to check for fake rules, here is a video where I walk through how to view your rules in Outlook, Outlook online, and Gmail, most other web-based email accounts work similar to these. Check with the company that supplies your email or contact me.

If you would like to receive the Email Scambusters Monthly Report, sign up at the link below. It is a two-step process. Sign up and then click the payment link. The cost is $49.99 per year which is less than one cup of coffee per month. If you need more information give me a call.

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Which box is my router and what are those other boxes in my IT room?

I get questions like this a lot. Usually when someone calls me because their internet is down or there is some other problem with the systems in their small business. When this happens, I try to explain what their router might look like, and I ask for a description of the other boxes so I can help them solve their problem over the phone.

When my regular customers call me with these types of issues, I can easily tell them to restart this or that box. The reason for this is that I usually label all boxes in their IT room the first time I am there. This is a big help regardless of who calls me from that company.

Many times, these issues happen when the “boss” is not there and so they instruct their employees to call me for assistance. Since everything is labeled, I can quickly diagnose the issue with their help. This can save the company a lot of down time and money since I can help them fix their issue remotely instead of having to go on site.

I have even had customers send me pictures so I can tell them what the boxes are. This works sometimes, but I might need to know what the wires are connected to and how they are connected so dealing with this before there is an issue is very important.

If you have a business and you don’t know what every box in your IT room does, let me know and I will explain each to you and even label them so you will be ahead of the issue next time the internet goes down. I can also help homeowners with this, but they usually don’t have as many boxes, so it is usually easier to diagnose things.

Many times, when people move into a brand-new home, they will find that it is partially wired for internet connections in some rooms. The wires might be in the basement and connected to each bedroom and even the kitchen and living room. The problem is that they don’t know what they need to get all of these wires connected to their router. This is also something that I can help with. I can even label each connection so they will know in the future which wire connects to which room in the house.

This is something I really don’t talk about much, but it is an important service that I offer. If you need this type of help let me know.

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Parental Controls

The school year will be ending soon, and it got me thinking about all of the parents that still have to work while their kids are home alone. I am sure most parents leave a list of chores or other things that must be accomplished during the day, but many kids will just end up on the computer wasting their time; However, there is a tool that most of us have in our homes that can help keep the computer time to a manageable amount.


What I am referring to is your router. Just about every router sold has some type of parental controls built in just waiting to be enabled and set up. These parental controls can help you limit the amount of time your kids spend on the internet, limit where they can go by blocking certain sites and also certain types of sites, and also set up schedules for when they can use the internet.


I have had customers that used the scheduling function to make sure their kids are not on their tablets after bedtime, you can even set it up to allow more time on the weekend. Some have blocked Facebook or any other social media site until after dinner time to allow time for homework. Most routers have built in filters to restrict any sites that have certain adult content on them. Many have a list of categories that can be checked off to restrict certain content.


If you are not sure of the capabilities of your router, you can google the model number and parental controls and you will probably find a list and instructions. If you don’t know how to access your router, these instructions should cover that also. Even though they are called “Parental Controls”, small businesses can use these to limit and protect their employees and guests while they surf the internet in their businesses.


Most people don’t take full advantage of these high-tech machines. By spending a few minutes setting up your parental controls, you can gain some peace of mind when you are away, and your children are surfing unsupervised.


These controls are not foolproof and might not be perfect fits, but they can help in many situations. If you need more controls than what your router might offer, or you need help implementing this kind of control, please contact me. I have helped many people gain control over when their children go on the internet and what they are able to see.

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Why do I have two different wifi connections?

I was at a customer recently and they had a router that broadcasts both the 2.4 GHz and 5.0 GHz frequencies. The router had been set up with the 5.0 being named for their company and the 2.4 was named guest. Each had a different password. They also told me that their printer could not see their wifi but could see their guest network. Even though the printer was on the guest network one of the computers on their network could print to it.


They had recently switched to a new internet service provider and the new company just shipped them a new modem/router and gave them basic instructions on how to get it online. When they saw that there were two frequencies, they assumed it was two separate networks, so they named the 2.4 to guest because they figured the higher number was the better network for their business.


Based on this interaction and the many questions I have received about this I decided to completely explain the difference and how to best use your wifi if you have both frequencies. Th first thing to know is that they are not two separate networks but two different connections to the same network. It is kind of like taking a winding road or a straight road that both take you to the same place.


A 2.4 GHz connection travels farther at lower speeds, while 5 GHz frequencies provide faster speeds at shorter range. So, in your home or office it is helpful to have both. In many home situations the 5.0 GHz connection is used for gaming since these computers and consoles are usually stationary and probably set up near the router. If that is the case the 5.0 GHz connection will be faster which is needed for gaming. But if your gaming machine is not close to your router you might want to use the 2.4 GHz connection to ensure you won’t drop the signal.


When setting up the wifi on phones and laptops I usually tell people to connect to both networks and save the password on each so that as they move around their home or office, they will get the strongest signal at the time and place where they currently are. If you use your wifi on a patio or in your yard you will most likely want to use the 2.4GHz for this since it travels farther.


Now let’s address why their printer didn’t show up on their 5.0 GHz network. Many older components and also many smart devices only see the 2.4 GHz networks. Since these devices don’t need the higher speed and are always stationary, they don’t add the 5.0 GHz capability which probably saves them a few dollars per unit when they are manufactured. Hopefully they pass some of this onto the consumer.


Last year I was setting up a mesh wifi system for a church and they had a number of thermostats throughout that were all managed by a phone app, so they needed to connect to the wifi. While I was setting up their router and mesh system there was a setting that allowed me to combine both the 2.4 GHz and the 5.0 GHz into a single connection. I thought that might avoid confusion in the church about which one to connect to but the combined signal with both frequencies could not be seen by those thermostats, so I had to go back and remove that setting and list both frequencies separately.


I mentioned guest networks in the first paragraph but didn’t really explain them. A true guest network is just a tunnel out to the internet. When someone connects to your guest network, they cannot see your computers or printers. Usually, they can’t even see other computers that are connected to the guest network. This is very important for companies, so their computers are not compromised by hackers through their guest network. Most routers come with a guest network that can be turned on to keep guests’ connections walled off from your network.


If you are not sure if your guest network is separate from your main network or if you need any other help with your wifi network, let me know. I have helped many individuals and companies fix their networks by adding guest networks and expanding the networks with mesh wifi systems.

Think you will understand better if you watch a video? Here is a video version.