Cloudeight InfoAve Premium

Cloudeight InfoAve Premium
Issue  #805
Volume 16 Number 21
March 15, 2019

Dear Friends,

Welcome to Cloudeight InfoAve Premium issue #805. Thank you very much for subscribing and for being a part of our Cloudeight family. We appreciate your friendship and support very much!

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Pay What You Like Sale Is Back For Spring!

Our Spring Pay What You Like Sale is Back!

Spring is right around the corner  and we're celebrating by bringing back one of our most popular sales ever! We're giving you the option to choose what you pay for some of our most poplar products & services.

During our Spring Sale you can choose the price you want to pay for any of the following products & services:

  • Cloudeight Direct Computer Repair - Single Key
  • Cloudeight Direct Computer Care Season Ticket - Computer Care for one full year.
  • Thunderbird Email Installation and Setup
  • Emsisoft Anti-Malware installation, setup and a one-year Emsisoft license
  • Don't need anything? Please help us with a donation.
Our Spring Sale won't last as long as spring, so don't miss out. Help yourself and help us too.

Get all the details here and get a great deal on a great product or service.

Your purchase supports our small business and helps up keep on helping you. Thank you so much!

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Cloudeight InfoAve Premium - Reader's Comments

A comment from Judy
Darcy and TC , you guys have been the best thing that ever happened to me concerning my computer repairs. And thanks to you both my computer repairs have been few and far between because what you do, you do it so well. You are why I can even afford to have a computer. Because I could not afford to take it in for expensive fixes to my computer messes. The best part, I don’t even have to take it in. So convenient and you do amazing work. We love you, I cannot imagine computering without you. Please never grow old, because I need you!

A comment from Frank
We have an elderly neighbor who was just about to begin paying these scammers when he explained the problem to me. It was an easy fix–with Darcy’s usual helpfulness–and it just made me wish that they all read your newsletters. My Mom, who just turned 90, introduced me to Cloudeight many years ago and the best testimonial that I can give is that you have kept our computers problem free in all those years. Cloudeight would have new corporate headquarters, should we ever win the Lotto! Keep fighting the good fight.

A comment from Brenda
Hi TC... I think I have finally cleaned my computer up and have all my files. It took several tries but I was able to create a USB flash drive from your instructions and run it. I want to thank you for all your help. You didn't give up on me and that is why I am still a loyal follower. I've been with you since the early wallpaper days. A donation is also on its way to you. Have a great day. Brenda

A comment from Don
Recently I had a problem with my computer and after many years of following you and supporting you on your newsletter and all the other service that you provide for free decided to use the computer repair service. I am very pleased that everything went well and also pleased with the service you provide. Thanks again for all the wonderful service and I would be 12happy to recommend you. I look forward every week to your newsletter; it is truly a learning experience from the information you provide. Keep up the good work and if I every need any repair service I know how to contact you. Thanks again. Don

A big Cloudeight "Thank you!" to Judy, Frank, Brenda, Don  and everyone who took time out to write to us. We appreciate your kind words and your support very much! EB & TC. 

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Pay What You Like Sale Is Back For Spring!

Our Spring Pay What You Like Sale is Back!

Pick you own price on our most popular products and services. Save on Season Tickets, Cloudeight Direct Computer Care Repair Keys, Thunderbird installation, and Emsisoft with Installation.

Get all the details here and get a great deal on a great product or service.

Your purchase supports our small business and helps up keep on helping you. Thank you so much!
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Here are some important links for you:

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Nadine is getting an "NSIS - Error launching Installer" error when she tries to download a game
I am having a problem downloading a game. An error message keeps popping up which says: NSIS Error - Error Launching installer. It happens on every game site I try to download a game on. I got a new computer a couple of days ago and that is when the problem started. I appreciate all the help you have given me over the years and you are the only ones i trust with any computer issues. I hope you can help me with this problem. Thank you.

Our answer
Hi Nadine. It sounds like you have downloaded a corrupted installer. Delete whatever installer you downloaded, and then reset your browser. After resetting your browser, restart your computer. You should be able to download your files again.

It's important that your restart your computer after deleting any installers and resetting the browsers, otherwise this fix won't work.
Learn how to reset Chrome here.
 
Learn how to reset Firefox here.
 
Learn how to reset Edge here.
 
Learn how to reset Internet Explorer here.

Hope this helps you.
-----------
Nadine wrote back: "Thank you so much for your help. The tip you gave me about a corrupted installer and how to fix it worked perfectly. I really appreciate your help. Thanks again! Nadine W."

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Roger is having with Google Chrome & LastPass
What do you recommend for a Password Manager. I've been using LastPass with Chrome but lately I'm having all kinds of trouble. Please help! Thank you

Our answer
Hi Roger. A couple of years ago, I was having problems with LastPass in Chrome. But I was able to easily fix it by completely  removing LastPass, shutting down Chrome and then restarting my computer. After I restarted, instead of going to the LastPass site to install the universal version of LastPass or the version for Chrome, I restarted Chrome,  went to the Chrome Web Store and  downloaded and installed the version of LastPass made for Chrome from there. It worked beautifully and here 2 years later it's still working without a hitch.  If you follow our advice and re-install LastPass, all you will  need to do is sign-in to LastPass with your master password, and you'll be back in business!

Hope this works for you, Roger.
-------
Roger wrote back: "Thanks TC. It worked like a charm. It's great to have LastPass working well again. Appreciate your help. Roger"

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Elwood wants to know why he should keep using Emsisoft when TotalAV is free
I have been running Emsisoft Anti0Malware for a few years now and have no problem with it. I've seen TotalAV™ software offered free on line for any device while on line to protect our devices. I would like to know what you think about TotalAV™ and if any good can this be run while using Emsisoft?'

Our answer
Hi Elwood. We found numerous problems with TotalAV. First it's not free - it's $39.95 ($19.95 for "entry level" protection) whatever that is - see this page. They do a good job making it look like TotalAV is free but it's not. You can download it free and try it for 30 days.

Secondly, it's had 22 complaints filed against with the BBB which you can see here. So, it looks like customer service is poor or non-existent. Emsisoft customers rave about the great support they receive from Emsisoft.

And finally, TotalAV is not ranked very highly by independent AV rating sites.

Emsisoft is not only a great antivirus - always ranked in the top ten by the independent labs, it's the best antimalware you can have. Emsisoft protects you from the things you're most likely to encounter. It's very rare these days to encounter a virus on the web, but it's very likely you'll encounter malware like browser hijackers, ransomware, PUPs, exploits, bundled software and other malicious software.

So, if you're looking to save money, TotalAv won't do that. If you're looking for better protection, TotalAv won't do that either. And if you're looking for great customer support forget it - TotalAv seems to have a poor reputation.

Emsisoft is less expensive, offers better protection, and has great customer support. So, we don't see a single advantage in using TotalAV - all we see are negatives.

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Keith wants to avoid Australian government interference with P2P file sharing
Hi TC and Darcy. Thanks as always for your continued support and great newsletter. My question is about using VPN's for downloading files on the internet. It is becoming more and more difficult to download files especially in Australia where the government have instructed " servers " to block P2P sites. Is it safe and worthwhile to use a VPN? I believe you may have covered this before but I cannot remember which newsletter it was in. Thanks again, Keith

Our answer
Hi Keith. Thanks so much.

We're not familiar with the Australian government's policies on blocking peer-to-peer sites. Like any other technology P2P can be misused and a lot of illegal files are "shared" via P2P. For example copyrighted movies and music. It may not only be a copyright violation, movies can be huge files and use up a lot of bandwidth. We are not saying most people use P2P for sharing movies and music.

If all you want to do is download / share files via P2P, a browser-based VPN might be the easiest and best solution for you. Browser-based VPNs only work with the browser on which they're installed.

In a case such as yours, you might want to install a VPN that is a browser extension that you can turn on and off and use it only when you need to use P2P. This would be much easier and better using a VPN that works on a operating system and network level. One problem with routing all traffic through a VPN is that some Web mail, credit card sites, banking sites, and other financial sites, use your IP address to identify you to add an additional  layer of protection for your account. If all your traffic is routed through a VPN, your IP address will change, and maybe often, and you may appear to be from the other countries such as the USA, New Zealand, Japan, Romania, United Kingdom, etc. and be unable to log in to Web mail, financial sites, etc. depending on what server you are using with the VPN or which server the VPN chooses. This may cause you problems when logging in to Web mail accounts, banking sites, credit card sites.

A couple of free browser-based VPNs that work with Chrome and Firefox are CyberGhost and Windscribe. Both are highly-rated browser-based VPNs that you can turn on and off as needed. Both are installed as Chrome extensions (or Firefox Add-ons), and both are free. However, Windscribe has a 10 GB data limit - above that limit you will to pay for the service. CyberGhost limits he number of servers you can use, which shouldn't be a problem if all you're going to use it for is P2P file sharing.

If you have Chrome installed, visit this page to learn more about and/or install CyberGhost VPN for Chrome.

For WindScribe visit this page.

If you have Firefox installed - open it and visit this page for CyberGhost. Or this page for WindScribe.

There are dozens of browser-based VPNs, but CyberGhost and WindScribe seem to be most highly rated. If you're going to be searching for other VPNs, we recommend you avoid any that are based in China or Russia.

We hope this helps you, Keith.

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Bev wants to download Recuva but not CCleaner and she does no want to download from FileHippo
Hi TC & Darcy. I want to download Recuva but I really don’t want to use CCleaner, or Filehippo etc., I would like to download it from Piriform but can’t find anything that I can download from. Have you any ideas? Bev.

Our answer
Hi Bev. You can download Recuva from the links below:

From SnapFiles (one of our trusted download sites)

http://www.snapfiles.com/downloads/recuva/dlrecuva.html

From Major Geeks - another trusted download site:

https://www.majorgeeks.com/mg/getmirror/recuva_portable,1.html

Hope this helps you, Bev.

Note: For those who are wondering what Recuva is, it's a free program that helps recover deleted files.

-----
Bev wrote back: "Hi TC: Thanks so much again for your help. I really appreciate all the help I can get. Bev"

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Angie is worried about her email address being "pwned"
What is this? I got this and am worried. I haven't done anything about it. You have helped me many times and thought maybe you could help me again. Thank you, Angie

Here's the email I received:

Fwd: You're one of 40,960,499 people pwned in the ShareThis data breach

-----Original Message-----
From: Have I Been Pwned
To: _______________
Sent: Sun, Mar 3, 2019 1:14 am
Subject: You're one of 40,960,499 people pwned in the ShareThis data breach

You've been pwned!
You signed up for notifications when your account was pwned in a data breach and unfortunately, it's happened. Here's what's known about the breach:

Email found: __________@aol.com
Breach: ShareThis
Date of breach: 9 Jul 2018
Number of accounts: 40,960,499
Compromised data: Dates of birth, Email addresses, Names, Passwords
Description: In July 2018, the social bookmarking and sharing service ShareThis suffered a data breach. The incident exposed 41 million unique email addresses alongside names and in some cases, dates of birth and password hashes. In 2019, the data appeared listed for sale on a dark web marketplace (along with several other large breaches) and subsequently began circulating more broadly.
..

Our answer
Hi Angie. ShareThis is a site sharing service. A lot of sites have "Share This" buttons. These buttons allow you to share web sites you like via Email, Twitter, Facebook, etc.

When you sign up you give them your email address and a name. The ShareThis site was breached but no personal information was stolen. Your email address is not personal information.

This is a minor breach and nothing you should worry about. No passwords were stolen, no personal information such as your street address, city, Social Security number, credit card numbers, or phone numbers were involved. Why? Because ShareThis doesn't ask for any personal information beyond a name and email address.

Your email address is and has always been vulnerable - spammers have been harvesting and collecting email addresses for decades.

I would not worry about a breach at ShareThis. If you're worried about your email address being compromised you don't have much choice but to stop using that email address and use a different one. But that's your choice.

If this were MasterCard, your bank, Visa, Amazon, PayPal, or some other site with access to your financial accounts, credit accounts, online shopping accounts, medical records, Social Security number, I'd be concerned and advise you to change all your account passwords.

But ShareThis has no personal information of yours - no medical records, credit cards, online shopping accounts, etc.

Don't worry about this, there are a lot of more important things to stay focused on.

-----
Angie wrote back:  "As always, THINK YOU! Great explanation! I will not worry about it. Angie"

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Don asks: "What is the difference is between copying a file to another drive and backing up a file to another drive?"
What is the difference from backing up a file to another drive or coping a file to another drive?

Our answer
Hi Don. There is technically no difference between copying a file from one place to another and backing up a file. The only other way to add a file to a new location is by moving it. Whether you copy a file to an external drive or USB flash drive or backup a file to an external drive or USB flash drive. the file remains in both locations. The only other way to change the location of a file is by moving it - and If you move a file it will only be in one location and that would be the location to which you moved it.

Cloudeight InfoAve Premium

Pay What You Like Sale Is Back For Spring!

Our Spring Pay What You Like Sale is Back!

Spring is right around the corner  and we're celebrating by bringing back one of our most popular sales ever! We're giving you the option to choose what you pay for some of our most poplar products & services.

During our Spring Sale you can choose the price you want to pay for any of the following products & services:

  • Cloudeight Direct Computer Repair - Single Key
  • Cloudeight Direct Computer Care Season Ticket - Computer Care for one full year.
  • Thunderbird Email Installation and Setup
  • Emsisoft Anti-Malware installation, setup and a one-year Emsisoft license
  • Don't need anything? Please help us with a donation.
Our Spring Sale won't last as long as spring, so don't miss out. Help yourself and help us too.

Get all the details here and get a great deal on a great product or service.

Your purchase supports our small business and helps up keep on helping you. Thank you so much!

Cloudeight InfoAve Premium

Cloudeight InfoAve Premium -Tips & Tricks

How to Make a Diary Using Notepad
(Windows 7, Windows 8.1, Windows 10)

Here's an easy Windows trick you can use to create a diary using nothing but Notepad.

1. Open Notepad (on Windows 10 type Notepad in taskbar search & press Enter)

2. On the very first line of your new Notepad type .LOG ... that right, a period first then LOG in uppercase letters.

3. Space down a line or two  and type a description (optional). For mine I used "Today, March 12, 2019, I am starting a simple Notepad diary."

4. Save your new Notepad file with a name you'll recognize. Diary would me nice - or MyDiary.

5. Next time you open it the date and time will be automatically added. So all you have to do is type in whatever you want to that date and time. And then save your file.

6. When you open it the next time, the current date and time will be appended automatically so all you have do is add whatever you like to your simple Notepad diary.

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Above: My simple Notepad diary complete with dates and times.

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How to Change Your Primary PayPal Email Address
Everyone with a PayPal account

If you have an old email address on your PayPal account – one that you don’t use anymore or one you rarely check -you may be causing yourself problems. If you purchase something online using PayPal and your email address on your PayPal account is incorrect, the seller won’t be able to send you confirmations or if you ordered non-tangible items like software or service keys, the seller won’t be able to deliver those to you via email. Remember – the only address the seller may have for you is the email address that PayPal sends them when you order.

Orders, confirmations and other correspondence are automatically sent to the address you have set up as your default email address with PayPal. Some folks get a new email address, and they go to PayPal and add the new email address but they forget to delete the old address and make the new one default. Merchants will send your default PayPal address. Since PayPal allows you to have more than one email address associated with your account, if you get a new email address and add it to PayPal, you need to delete the old email address and set the new on as default, otherwise email will be sent to the old address 

So, if you’re using an old, outdated email address on PayPal, right now is the time to change it and here’s how to do it.

1. Log in to you PayPal account
2. At the top on the right side you’ll see a gear icon – click on it.

Cloudeight InfoAve Computer Tips and Tricks

3. Scroll down until you see your primary PayPal email address.

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Before you can change your primary PayPal address you’ll need to add a new email address. Click the plus + sign to add a new email address.

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Type in your new email address and click “Add Email”. You’ll need to verify your new email address. PayPal will send you an email to the new address asking for you to confirm it.

Once you’ve confirmed it, you’ll be able to make it your Primary PayPal address. This is the address you’ll use to correspond with PayPal, sign in to PayPal and the address to which sellers will send your orders or order confirmations.

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After you’ve made your new address the Primary PayPal address, you can  remove your old PayPal email address.

And that’s all folks. That’s how you change your primary email address on your PayPal account!

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Stop Using Disk Cleanup and Start Using Storage Sense
Windows 10 (version 1803 and newer)

Microsoft is deprecating Windows Disk Cleanup beginning with Windows 10 Version 1809 (October 2018 update).  Microsoft said in an announcement on August 30, 2018:

"The Disk Cleanup experience (“cleanmgr.exe”) is being deprecated. We’re retaining the Disk Cleanup tool for compatibility reasons. There’s no need to worry since Storage Sense’s functionality is a superset of what the legacy Disk Cleanup provides! The Disk Cleanup Tool has been there for years. Sep 17, 2018..."

Microsoft uses the word “deprecated” loosely. The meaning of deprecate, according to Merriam-Webster is ” (to)…disapprove of, deplore, abhor, find unacceptable, be against, frown on, take a dim view of, look askance at, take exception to, detest, despise, execrate…”   A good synonym for the word deprecate in the sense that Microsoft uses that word is “retire”. So, Microsoft is retiring the venerable, old Windows Disk Cleanup in favor of Storage Sense.

What does this really mean for you? It means Disk Cleanup may stop working correctly or it may start deleting things it shouldn’t … or it may stop working entirely.

It’s time we let Disk Cleanup enjoy its retirement and start using Storage sense to clean up the clutter our on our computers.

Using Storage sense

Right-click on the Windows Start button, click “Settings”. In “Settings”  > “System” click on “Storage”:

Cloudeight InfoAve Windows 10 Tips

Use the switch to turn Windows 10 Storage sense ON.

Cloudeight InfoAve Windows 10 Tips

Then click on “Change how we free up space automatically” to customize your Storage sense settings.

You’ll see the Windows default Storage Sense settings. Windows will decide when to run Storage sense and will delete temporary files every 60 days. But you can customize these settings.

Cloudeight InfoAve Windows 10 Tips

You can choose to run Storage sense,  Every day; Every week; Every month; or let Windows decide for you.

Cloudeight InfoAve Windows 10 Tips

When you turn Storage sense on, it will, by default be set to automatically delete your temporary files every 60 days, but you can change it to: Never; 1 day; 14 days; 30 days or leave it set to its default – 60 days.

Cloudeight InfoAve Windows 10 Tips

You’ll also see an option to delete all files in your Downloads folder. By default this option is set to Never. When I download portable applications – applications that don’t need to be installed, I leave them in my Downloads folder and make a shortcut to them. I do not want Windows to delete anything in my Downloads folder. But if you don’t use portable apps, or you keep your portable apps in another location and all you have in your Downloads folder are program installers for programs you’ve already installed you might want to let Windows clean your Downloads folder.

Cloudeight InfoAve Windows 10 Tips

I would suggest you leave it set to “Never” unless you’re sure you have nothing important in your Downloads folder. But if you want Windows to clean it up, you can choose to have Windows clean up your Downloads folder every: 1 day; 14 days, 30 days or 60 days.

Cloudeight InfoAve Windows 10 Tips

The “Clean now” option

You can also use Storage sense like you used to use Disk Cleanup – you can run it on demand, whenever you want .

NOTE: If you select “Delete previous versions of Windows”  you will not be able to roll back your Windows version to the previous version of Windows 10. If it’s been more than 10 days since you updated to a new version of Windows, the Windows.old file (the file that lets you roll back to a previous version) should be automatically deleted after 10 days. If you want to learn how to give yourself more than 10 days to go back to a previous version of Windows, read this.

Once everything is set the way you want it, click on the “Clean now”  button to clean up junk, temp, and other unnecessary files on your computer.

Cloudeight InfoAve Windows 10 Tips

I have not used Storage sense or anything else to clean up this computer in a long time, so let’s see what happens when I click “Clean now”.

Cloudeight InfoAve Windows 10 Tips

Windows Storage sense cleaned up my computer and freed up 4.46 gigabytes of disk space. Not bad!

It’s time to stop using Windows Disk Cleanup and start using Storage sense. As time goes by Disk Cleanup may tend to get more and more unreliable. It’s time to move on.

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Why You Should Make a Windows 10 Installation DVD or USB Flash Drive 
Windows 10 (all versions)

If you’re using Windows 10, you should make a Windows 10 installation DVD or USB right now. It’s easy to do and there are many good reasons why you should. And Microsoft makes it easy to do – at least for now. Who knows what Microsoft will do tomorrow.

Why do you need a Windows 10 installation DVD or USB?

Here are 3 of the most important things you can do with Windows 10 installation USB or DVD:

  1. You can boot your computer with an installation USB or DVD if your computer won’t boot normally
  2. You can access troubleshooting tools. If your PC won’t boot normally you can boot with an installation USB or DVD and access troubleshooting and other tools.
  3. You can use your Windows 10 installation USB or DVD to do a repair installation of Windows 10 which, if completed successfully preserves all you personal files, settings, and all your installed programs.

First things first. You’ll need to go to this Microsoft page, scroll down past “Update now” and go to the section called “Create Windows 10 installation media”. See?

Cloudeight Windows tips & tricks

Next, click on the blue button labeled “Download tool now”. Then, after you’ve downloaded it, double-click on the application to run it.  When you do that, you will see the following:

Cloudeight Windows tips & tricks

When it’s done loading, click “Next” and agree to Microsoft’s terms. Click Accept:

Cloudeight Windows tips & tricks

Now the important stuff. Since you want to make an installation USB or DVD, make sure the you tick the circle next to “Create installation media (USB flash drive, DVD, or ISO file) for another PC”.  Then click “Next”.

If you’re creating installation media for the same PC  you’re using now, leave the box ticked next to “Use the recommended options for this PC ” ticked. Most of you will want to leave this box ticked click “Next”. If you’re creating installation media for a different PC, untick the box next to “Use the recommended options for this PC “, then select the language, edition of Windows 10 (Windows 10, Windows 10 Pro, etc.) and the architecture (32-bit, 64-bit) of the PC for which you’re creating the installation media.

Cloudeight Windows tips & tricks

Next: Choose which type of installation media you want to create. Choose USB if you have an 8GB (or larger)USB Flash Drive. A new, never-used flash drive is best, but you can use one you’ve used before, but keep in mind whatever data is on the flash drive will be erased. Choose ISO if you want to create a Windows 10 installation DVD. You can burn the ISO file to DVD later. After you’ve made your choice, click “Next”.

Cloudeight InfoAve Windows tips & tricks

After you click next, go make some coffee and relax. Windows 10 media file (ISO or USB) will take a while to download as it’s around 3.4 GB in size. For this article I chose to download the ISO file so I can burn a Windows 10 Installation DVD later. But either way you’re still going to be downloading over 3 GB of data.

Cloudeight InfoAve Windows tips & tricks

If you choose the USB option follow the onscreen prompts. If you downloaded the ISO to create a Windows 10 installation DVD disk, follow this guide:

  1. Insert a blank, writable DVD in the CD/DVD drive
  2. Right-click on the ISO file you downloaded and choose “Burn to disc”
  3. We suggest you tick the box to verify the disk after burning.

And whether you choose the Windows 10 USB flash drive installation media  or the Windows 10 ISO and made a Windows 10 installation disk, make sure you label it so you know what it is – and keep it in a safe place. You never know when you might need it.

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Want more computer tips & tricks?

Windows 10 Puts Weather At Your Fingertips

All About the Windows 10 Stopwatch, Timer, and More

We have thousands of Windows tips, tricks and more on our InfoAve web site. Come see for yourself
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Help us keep up the good fight!

Make a small donation and help us help you!

If you don't need any of our products or services right now, please help us with a donation. Even the smallest gift is appreciated. Every donation helps us to provide useful information that helps you with your computer as well as helping to keep you safe on the Internet. We offer free help to thousands of people every year... and we offer an honest and inexpensive computer repair service too. We do everything we can to help you with your computer and keep you safe too.

So if you don't need any our products or services right now, please consider helping us with a small donation. If you're not a Cloudeight Booster already, you'll be invited to join our boosters after you make a donation of any amount. Our boosters get freebies and special booster-only offers

Please help us by making a donation right now. Thank you!

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Cloudeight InfoAve Premium -Tips & Tricks

Pine Tools

Our site pick this week is literally a treasure chest of tools - a toolbox extraordinaire. There are so many tools on Pine Tool we're not even going to try to list them all.

To give you some idea of the kinds of online tools you'll find in the literal treasure chest of great online tools you'll find at Pine Tools we submit the following for your perusal:

MATHEMATICS

Calculator
Area calculator
Percentage calculator
Single rule of three direct
Single rule of three inverse...

COLORS

Color picker, tools for modifying or generating colors

Lighten color
Darken color
Change color saturation
Greyscale/desaturate a color
Invert a color...

TEXT AND LISTS

Work with lists and texts, sort, randomize, reverse

Reverse list
List randomizer
Sort list
Add text to each line
Remove extra whitespaces...

NUMBERS

Work with numbers, generate, filter, sort

Generate list of numbers
Filter numbers
Sort numbers
Minimum and maximum of a list
Average of a list...

DATE AND TIME

Measure time, calculate distance between dates, chronometers

Date/time difference
Add to a date
Subtract from a date
Timer
Stopwatch...


IMAGES

Resize images, crop, optimize and more

Invert colors
Flip image
Darken image
Lighten image
Change brightness...

RANDOMNESS

Generate random numbers, randomize lists, common distributions

Random number generator
Coin flipper
Dice roller
Gaussian random number generator
Password generator

PROGRAMMING

Tools for programming and web development

Syntax highlighter
CSS Inliner
JSON formatter
CSS beautifier
HTML beautifier

FILES

Convert, compress, join or split

Split files
Join files
Base64 encode
Base64 decode
Random file generator..

What more can we say? If looking at the tools above does not make your fingers twitch to click and visit Pine Tools, there's nothing more we can do!

Cloudeight Site Pick - Pine Tools

If you're looking for one great site where you can find dozens and dozens of online tools that can help you do just about anything you need or want to do, then take our advice and visit our latest Cloudeight Site Pick - Pine Tools. It really is one amazing site!

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Reg Organizer: Cloudeight recommended and endorsed.

Now available: Reg Organizer 8.26

If you purchased or renewed Reg Organizer through Cloudeight within the last 12 months, you're entitled to a free version upgrade to Reg Organizer 8.25.

Save $14 on Reg Organizer right now!

Reg Organizer - A Swiss Army Knife of Windows Tools - Works Great on Windows 10!

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Cloudeight InfoAve Premium - Essays , Rants, etc. 

The Exploitation of Senior Citizens

We’ve been doing computer repair work since 2011. In the past eight years, we have worked on thousands of computers and we’ve seen just about everything. All too frequently we’ve seen computer repair services taking advantage of senior citizens.

Far too often we have learned of people paying hundreds of dollars for unnecessary computer work that didn’t repair anything. Far too many times we have helped people who were frightened by some computer repair crook who told them that their computer was corrupted, infected or “hacked”. We see now, more than ever, companies that most consider legitimate preying on and scaring folks with the “dark web” threat, knowing full well that most people don’t know much at all about the dark web. Nothing frightens people more than the unknown.

We’ve watched dishonest companies prosper; we’ve seen crooks become wealthy. We’ve seen people scared into spending hundreds of dollars unnecessarily by one tech support scam or another. When we read a recent article in the “USAToday” newspaper, we were not shocked.

Here’s part of that article – and it’s so disturbing to us because, in our work, we see this going on every day.

$356,000 to protect your computer?

Feds promise ‘all-out attack’ on scams targeting the elderly

By Kevin Johnson | Mar. 7th, 2019 USAToday

WASHINGTON – One man, alarmed at the thought that hackers might attack his computer, shelled out $14,990 to a company promising a “fix” that would keep it safe.

Eight months later, the 68-year-old from Hawaii mailed the same company a check for $24,999 more. And he kept paying. All told, the unnamed man, who suffers from dementia, sent about $356,000 in checks and wire transfers, unaware that the computer security alert was part of a network of elaborate scams that the government says cost the nation’s elderly and infirm hundreds of millions of dollars over the past year alone.

The case is part of a heartbreaking archive of court documents filed in just the past year, charging more than 200 suspects with trying to swindle 2 million Americans, most of them elderly.

Federal authorities said the illicit operations, some based in the United States and others scattered across the globe, looted seniors of nearly $1 billion. The charges brought in the past 12 months, the second such enforcement campaign in as many years, represents the largest of the federal sweeps against elder fraud.

‘Crimes against the elderly target some of the most vulnerable people in our society,’ Attorney General William Barr said Thursday. He said the Justice Department will intensify its efforts to target those cams (sic), promising to mount an ‘all-out attack.’…

Read the entire USAToday article here.

We see this kind of thing all the time. Just in the past week, we did computer repair work for several people who were told their computers were corrupted or infected. These folks were offered “repairs” costing hundreds of dollars. Many times the cost of the repair was more than the cost of a new computer – and sometimes much more than a new computer.

We have been on the Web for twenty years and we thought we had seen it all...

Read the rest of this rant here.

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Cloudeight InfoAve Premium - Issue #805
Volume 16 Number 21
March 15, 2019

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