www.computerbooters.org / December 2018 1

Computer Booter

The

December 2018 Computer Booters of Sun Lakes

Newsletter Highlights

I N S I D E T H I S I S S U E

General Meeting:

Wednesday, December 5, 2018 6:00 pm Ice Cream Social / Tech Support

6:30 pm Meeting Navajo Room, Sun Lakes Country Club

C l u b N e w s From the President Secure Home Networking

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Next Up Free Tech Support Upcoming Workshops

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Booter News Ransomware Scam

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A nd just like that, 2018 is coming to an end. On Page 2, please read Janet Quade’s letter about the workshops we offer along with the knowledgeable professionals the club brings in to talk with our members. Ralph

Larsson also introduces the speaker for our December meeting, Mark Mach, who is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional

F e a t u r e s Thoughts on Passwords 5

Safe Online Shopping 6

iPhone/iPad Keyboard 7

Club Info 6

Calendar / Benefits 7

On Page 3 you will find infor-mation about our upcoming speakers and workshops and that Allan Levy is offering free Tech Support before the meet-ing on Wednesday. On Page 4 Allan reports on our last meet-

ing and upcoming meeting and there is also infor-mation about ransomware scams. As a Computer Booters club member, we strive to keep the most rele-vant technology information in front of you! Page 5 features “Ralph’s Thoughts on Passwords”, an article by our Vice-President / Program Director on creating unique passwords for security’s sake.

Page 6 features an article received from Detective Seth Ty-ler of the Chandler Police Department via Nextdoor; on Page 7 find information about the iPad/iPhone keyboard. On Pages 8 and 9 you will find information about the Club along with the Club calen-dar and Club Benefits. Don’t forget to check the Club calendar on our web-site! We wish you a fun-filled Holiday Season, blessed Christmas and look for-ward to seeing you at up-coming meetings!!

Secure Home

Networking —

Routers

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W e have come to the end of another successful year in which we have pursued the ins and outs of the latest technology available to us. At our November general meeting Dan Dragoon

from the Sun Lakes Camera Club addressed the issues around using digital cameras to get our best pictures.

Of course, many of us have used our smartphones to accumulate many pictures and then wonder what to do with them. A November Workshop on Photoshop Elements studied the intricacies of working with a powerful program to perfect our cherished images and allow us to store our pictures and develop a method for retrieving them at will.

Computer Booters continues to offer many Workshops that develops our knowledge and ability to make use of our comput-ers in whatever form we chose, such as, laptops, phones, artificial intelligence, watches and other devices. Come and learn from one of our members who is willing to share their knowledge and wisdom for the good of our members.

Have a blessed Christmas celebration,

Janet E. Quade, President

C l u b N e w s

From the President

by Janet Quade, PRESIDENT

Secure Home Networking—Routers by Ralph Larsson, VICE-PRESIDENT / PROGRAM DIRECTOR

M ark has almost forty years of education and experience in the management and application of Information Security and Technology. He is currently the Chief In-

formation Security Officer (CISO) at Certilytics, Inc., which he has been with for thirteen years. He is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP); a member of the International Information System Security Certification Consortium (ISC)2; member of and Director at Large for the board of the International Information System Security Certification Consortium (ISC)2 Phoenix Chapter; and a member of American Mensa.

Mark’s background includes information security, management, information technology and security governance, systems integration, systems administration, network admin-istration, independent verification and validation (IV&V), software development, pro-cess development and improvement, and tech-nical documentation. He studied computer sci-ence at Michigan Technological University and served in the United States Navy.

We all have home networks in operation, that allow us to connect our computers, smartphones, tablets, etc. to the outside world (the Internet). These ‘little black boxes’ that handle the digital traffic over phone lines or TV cables are the central component of those networks. They are also an important factor in our information security campaign. Join Mark Mach in a discussion on your home network, the router and its security.

Mark Mach, CISSP Certilytics, Inc.

www.computerbooters.org / December 2018 3

C l u b N e w s

Date Speaker Topic

Jan 2 Ted Berenyi (Club Member) Modeling the Universe on your PC

Feb 6 Abby Stokes—Webinar Tech Travel Tips, Best Travel Apps, and Great Travel Gadgets

Allan Levy, Technical Director continues to offer free technical support at the start of the regular meeting from 6:00-6:30 PM in the Navajo Room at Sun Lakes Country Club.

Nov 28 Wed 6:30 pm Mail Merge using MS Word

Teri Bitler

Ceramics Room

Cottonwood Country Club

Dec 7

Dec 14

Fri 9:00 am Genealogy The Modern Way

Barbara Hug

Ceramics Room

Cottonwood Country Club

Dec 10 Mon 8:30 am Microsoft Outlook 2016

Microsoft Staff

Microsoft Store

Chandler Fashion Center

Dec 12

Dec 19

Wed 6:30 pm Buying & Selling on Ebay

Alan Behr

Ceramics Room

Cottonwood Country Club

Jan 11

Jan 18

Fri 9:00 am Genealogy The Modern Way

Barbara Hug

Ceramics Room

Cottonwood Country Club

Jan 14 Mon 8:30 am One Note—Part 1

Microsoft Staff

Microsoft Store

Chandler Fashion Center

Jan 23

Jan 30

Wed 6:30 pm Excel Part 1

Teri Bitler

Ceramics Room

Cottonwood Country Club

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C l u b N e w s / F e a t u r e

Booter News by Allan Levy, TECHNOLOGY DIRECTOR

T here will be an Ice Cream Social at the beginning of the General Meeting on Wednesday, December 5 at 6:00 p.m.

Computer Booters has moved its meeting day. Due to unex-pected conflicts, we had to move to the first Wednesday of each month from September through May. At 6 PM we have cook-ies and coffee. At 6 PM, our technical director, Allan Levy, runs a free one-on-one computer clinic. Come and get your computer questions answered. Meetings begin at 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the Sun Lakes Country Club’s Navajo Room, 25601 Sun Lakes Blvd.

At our November meeting, we had a special presentation on Digital Photography from Dan Dragoon of the Sun Lakes Camera Club. Dan took us through the various processes of organizing, editing, and saving our photography.

Coming in December: we will hear about Secure Home Net-working – Routers by Mark Mach, CISSP.

We all have home networks in operation, that allow us to con-nect our computers to the outside world (the Internet). The ‘little black boxes’ that handle the digital traffic over phone lines or TV cables are the central component of those networks. They are also an important factor in our information security campaign. Join Mark Mach in a discussion on your network, the router and its security.

Important Information

Microsoft is having problems with their authentication servers.

This results in Windows 10 claiming it is not valid. Do nothing, calling Microsoft has resulted in more confu-sion. Users are now complaining that they are being forced to downgrade machines running Win-dows 10 Pro to the lesser Windows 10 Home edition. The problem stems from Microsoft's anti-piracy system which now resides in a mixture of a hardware-based solution tied to indi-vidual machines, and tying the serial numbers to a Microsoft account This may be resolved by the time this is printed.

The purpose of the Computer Booters organization is:

To encourage and assist in the dissemination to its mem-bers and others of general knowledge concerning com-puters and their utilization.

To facilitate the exchange of information among mem-

bers about all brands of personal computers, related hardware and software products, and techniques for their utilization.

To provide a forum for members where they may share

their knowledge with others, and seek help in solving specific problems with their computer equipment and applications.

See Page 3 for Workshops!!

O ften the ransomware will claim you have done something illegal with your PC, and

that you are being fined by a police force or government agency.

These claims are false. It is a scare tactic de-signed to make you pay the money without telling anyone who might be able to restore your PC.

This is a very serious malware that can prevent you from accessing your operating system like Windows, encrypt your files with a secret key so you cannot access them anymore, or stop applications from running such as your internet browser.

There is no guarantee that paying the fine or doing what the ransomware tells you will give access to your PC or files again. Prevention is the key here with anti-virus and software that you keep updated. If this does happen to you, do not pay any fines; disconnect from internet and run anti-malware scans using your anti-virus; and contact police if you were deceived into paying fines.

It is likely that you may need to have your computer restored to a point before it was infected.

www.computerbooters.org / December 2018 5

F e a t u r e

Ralph’s Thoughts on Passwords by Ralph Larsson, VICE-PRESIDENT / PROGRAM DIRECTOR

T here is a lot of guidance provided by security profes-sionals (like I used to be) about the use of ‘strong

passwords’. Most suggest long, complex ‘pass phrases’ or the use of a password manager application.

As most people do, I find it difficult or nearly impossible to apply that sage advice.

So, in violation of everything I used to teach, here are my personal, practical tips for creating memorable pass-words.

Here’s an approach that isn’t too complex, that may work for you.

• Use a basic format, but vary it slightly from account to account.

• Pick a root word, at least 8 letters long that you can easily remember. A sports team, favorite author, city name. Of course, avoid a word that can be easily guessed by some hacker who knows a little about you…

• Let’s just use ‘Cardinals’ (note that it includes both a capitol letter and lower-case letters)

• Change a couple of the letters to numbers or punctu-ation. For instance, the ‘i’ to a ! (! = an upside-down i) and the ‘l’ to a 1. You could also use a 5 for an ‘s’, a zero for an ‘o’ and a @ for an a.

• Now we have ‘Card!na1s’ (we have a mix of letters, numbers and punctuation)

• Now for each account, add a space and the first letter of the web site. (spaces are usually allowed and add a lot to the complexity of your password)

• If it’s your Chase bank account add a ‘c’, if it’s for your Sun Lakes account, add an ‘s’.

• Now we have ‘Card!na1s c’ for the Chase account and ‘Card!na1s s’ for the Sun Lakes account.

Using this approach, you will satisfy most of the guide-lines for a strong password, yet it will be sufficiently memorable that it should work for you.

Of course, NEVER share your passwords with anybody, EVER. You should also never use the same password for multiple accounts. If one is stolen, they all are…

Hackers steal passwords using several common methods.

• They will guess, and try every possible word in the dictionary. So a word that is not all letters is good.

• They will infiltrate your PC and steal the passwords as you type them.

• They will impersonate a real site and steal your pass-word as you try and log on.

• They will hack into the real web site log-on page and steal everyone’s password as they log on.

So:

➢ Prevent ‘key logger’ viruses with a reliable Anti-Virus package, kept up-to-date.

➢ Make sure that the ‘log-on’ web page uses HTTPS.

➢ Make sure you’re logging into the real site, not some sneaky imitator.

➢ Never use an eMailed link to reach a log-on web page. Use a link that you’ve saved, or type it in.

One last comment. You should at least try to use a pass-word manager program. If your Anti-Virus solution doesn’t include one, several good and inexpensive ones are

Dashlane

Roboform

Lastpass

1Password

These programs, once you figure them out, provide you with the highest level of security.

Ralph spent 40 years as a Systems and Software Engi-neer, with the last 10 in information security. He was a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and a Payment Card Industry Qualified Security Assessor (PCI/QSA).

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F e a t u r e

Source: Nextdoor, Detective Seth Tyler/City of Chandler

www.computerbooters.org / December 2018 7

F e a t u r e

Back to Basics: Using the iPhone or iPad

Keyboard to Enter Text by Jim Cerny, Instructor, Sarasota Technology User Group, Florida An APCUG Article

T here will be many times when you will want to enter text on your iPad or iPhone. You probably have al-

ready used your screen keyboard many times. But here are some helpful things you may not know your keyboard can do:

Touch in any area where there is text for you to edit or a place for you to enter text and the keyboard should ap-pear on your screen. If you do not have your keyboard displayed, you are not able to key in or enter text.

If you touch in a place where there already is text, you will see the “insertion point” (which is a small vertical line) appear BETWEEN two characters where you touched.

To MOVE the insertion point to a different place, touch at that place. This can be very tricky to do on a small screen, but you can do it! Just keep trying – if you get a black bar that says “Select – Select all – Insert photo” just touch somewhere else on the screen and that bar will go away. If you are entering text into a blank or empty space, you cannot position the insertion point, it must be at the beginning of the blank area.

Now, on your screen keyboard, notice the following:

Touching the small left pointing arrow with a small “x” in it will DE-LETE the character to the LEFT of the insertion point. Hold this down to delete many characters quickly.

Touching the up arrow will “shift” the keyboard to capi-tal or uppercase letters. Touch twice to keep uppercase for many letters (caps-lock for you who remember the old typewriters). Touch again to get back to lowercase.

Touch the “return” bar at the lower right to go to a new line.

Touch the small button with the little microphone on it to SPEAK your text. Try it, you may like it!

Touch the “123” button to enter numbers and other char-acters. On this keyboard that appears you can return to the regular keyboard or you can touch “# + =” to get more characters.

Touch the “emoji” button (the one with the smiley face) to get hundreds of small symbols to insert as a character. When on the emoji screen you can touch “ABC” to return to the regular keyboard.

To EDIT text, touch TWICE in the text area and a small grey “highlight” of text will appear with two small “lollypops”, one at each end. Carefully DRAG a lollypop to expand or reduce the highlighted area. If you make a mistake, just touch outside the highlight and you can start over.

When some text is highlighted, you will see a black bar with “Cut – Copy – Replace” on it. Cut will remove the text (which you can “paste” somewhere else next if you like), Copy will leave the text there but will make a copy you can paste and Replace will let you type new text in its place. Other tools/options are available by touching the right white arrow on the bar.

Strangely, there are TWO places to adjust settings for the keyboard. At “Settings – General – Keyboard” you can turn on or off the keyboard options or even select or add a new keyboard for a different language. Here the “Text replacement” option will allow you to have a full long text string replace a shorter text. For example, you could have the text you enter as “omw” be automatically re-placed with “on my way”. Also, here is the “Predictive” option that, if turned on, will provide you with a band of three words immediately above your keyboard as you

type. If one of the words is what you were start-ing to type, just touch the word at it will com-plete it for you. I like this option. If one of the pre-dictive words is in quote marks, touching it will

enter that text exactly as it is even if it is not a real word, and it will not correct the word.

The other place to change some keyboard settings is at “Settings – General – Accessibility – Keyboard” which has a few more settings such as “key repeat”, “sticky keys”, etc. It seems to be almost overkill to have so many settings and options for the keyboard, many of which you will probably never use, but they are there.

And don’t forget that if you have any questions about ANY option, just ask Google! Be specific, such as “What are sticky keys on my iPhone?” or “How do I make my iPhone keyboard easier to see?” There are so many op-tions I am sure some of them will appeal to you, so happy typing!

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C l u b I n f o r m a t i o n

YOUR BOARD OF DIRECTORS

The COMPUTER BOOTERS OF SUN LAKES is an organization established to aid personal computer users in achieving maximum results from their home or small business computer. This newsletter is published monthly from De-cember through December by the COMPUTER BOOTERS. It is not connected with any commercial or private business. The information contained in this newsletter is believed to be correct and accurate. However, the COM-PUTER BOOTERS assume no responsibility for inaccuracies or omissions. Any information used from these articles is at the user’s risk. The COMPUTER BOOTERS meet the first Tuesday of each month, except in June, July and August. We meet at 6:00 PM in the Navajo Room of Sun Lakes One Country Club, south of Riggs Road on Sun Lakes Blvd. Board meetings are held on the second Wednesday of the month at 1:30 PM at Sun Lakes One. If you have any questions about membership, please contact Alan Behr, Membership Director, at alanbehr@gmail.com. Other computer user groups have our permission to use the articles writ-ten by our members as long as credit is given to the author and source, and notice is sent to:

mrsb0930@msn.com

Member of

PRESIDENT

VICE PRES. - PROGRAM DIRECTOR

SECRETARY

TREASURER

APCUG REPRESENTATIVE

WEBSITE COORDINATOR

EVENT DIRECTOR

EQUIPMENT DIRECTOR

MEMBER-AT-LARGE

MEMBERSHIP DIRECTOR

NEWSLETTER EDITOR

PUBLICITY DIRECTOR

TECHNOLOGY DIRECTOR

WORKSHOP DIRECTOR

Janet Quade

Ralph Larsson

Barbara Hug

Howard Winkle

Patricia Hill

Richard Davis

Patricia Hill

Open

Open

Alan Behr

Teri Bitler

Open

Allan Levy

Open

jecquade@gmail.com

rk-larsson@msn.com

barbhug3@gmail.com

booterhoward@yahoo.com

booterpat@aol.com

richthewebsiteguy@gmail.com

booterpat@aol.com

alanjbehr@gmail.com

mrsb0930@msn.com

Allan@his.com

www.computerbooters.org / December 2018 9

THIS MONTH’S MEETING

Wednesday, December 5, 2018

6:00 PM Ice Cream Social & Free Tech Support Offered 6:30 PM Regular Meeting Start Time Navajo Room, Sun Lakes Country Club

Guest Presenter

Mark Mach Chief Information Security Officer (CISO)

Certilytics, Inc

CALENDAR CORNER

2018 GENERAL MEETING DATES Navajo Room, Sun Lakes Country Club

December 5

Monthly meetings from December through May with presen-tations by club members and computer professionals on top-ics of interest. Each member and guest receives a free ticket for the door prize drawing at the end of the meeting. ➢ Workshops; these are separate from the general meeting. ➢ Newsletter with club news, articles, and product re-

views ➢ Website with club information, monthly program sched-

ule, recommended programs to download, and various member services

➢ Help from other members with your computer questions ➢ Vendor discounts

Clean Up Your PC Computer Components

Google Microsoft Excel

Microsoft PowerPoint Microsoft Word

PC Basics Photoshop Elements

ProShow Gold Quicken Skype

Turbo Tax Welcome to Tablets

Windows 10