Important changes to your AOL Desktop software

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Introducing AOL Desktop Gold

You may have received – or in all likelihood will receive – an email from AOL that reads, in part:

Thanks to one of my clients for forwarding this email to my attention. I had not heard of this before now, so I did some research.

From what I have read in a variety of online forums, this software is a complete travesty. It functions poorly, doesn’t address the needs of most users, and is subject to frequent crashes and computer freezes despite the (supposedly) frequent updates from AOL.

I’m not certain what they were thinking – other than asking hundreds of thousands of older adults for $4.99 a month to be able to send and receive emails – but for those of you who have not paid anything for AOL for years, this is a pretty drastic change.

AOL is saying that because they will now offer two-step verification, your AOL account will be more secure. They will be encrypting the emails that are saved on your hard drive so that no one will be able to read them, thus providing you with more protection. And, because you are a paying customer, you’ll have access to their tech support (definitely not US-based).

So, what should you do?

I am going to recommend that you DO NOT install this software unless you want the headache(s) of dealing with it. If there ever was a time to break free of the AOL desktop software, it is now. It should not be too difficult, but I’m going to cover the available options – and there are only three.

First, you can opt to sign up to receive the new AOL Desktop Gold software. You must have an existing AOL account and (at some point) you’ll have to provide your credit card for the monthly $4.99 charge. The first 30 days are free.

Now I called AOL customer support, and after waiting about 20 minutes for a representative, I asked about that little asterisked statement at the bottom of the email. The one that reads, “To avoid being charged the recurring subscription fee, simply cancel before the free-trial period ends.” This means exactly what it says. You can decide you don’t want to pay for this new software before you get charged. And when you tell AOL that, the software will stop working. Seriously. You won’t be able to access your emails – or your contacts. And you won’t be able to go back to the old desktop software version because the new one has scrambled the crap out of your emails. This is a one-way ticket. I warn you not to do it. If you run into a problem after you install this, I won’t be able to help you – you’ll have to call AOL tech support for help.

Second, you can keep your old software and use AOL in a browser. You will have 30 days from when you receive this email notification until your desktop software will no longer work in terms of sending or receiving email. So you can decide to bite the bullet and use a web browser to work with your new emails, as millions of people do. This isn’t a particularly awful transition, because things are pretty much where you expect them. And it is still AOL and all of your stuff is there for you.

Your existing desktop software will continue to let you access all of your email that was “Saved to my PC.” You will be able to use any browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, or Safari) to access your mail directly at http://mail.aol.com, where all of our “Saved to AOL” mail exists, as well as your contacts.
All of your downloaded email attachments can be accessed through the Download Manager in your old version of the AOL Desktop software, or through Windows Explorer in the folder where the files were originally saved.

I’m sure at least one of you is going to be curious and ask: Can I archive my old mail? The answer is: Sure you can; but you have to do it one at a time. There is no automated mechanism. You have to open the email, select File, then chose the type to save it as, and then you have to use a unique name for each one. If you have thousands of emails, you’ll have to work non-stop throughout those 30 days just to get a small portion of them saved. Not worth the effort…

Third, you can give up using AOL and use another email service. And this means changing your email address, which I know is a horrifying thought. The two free services that I suggest looking at are Outlook.com and Gmail.com. Changing your email address means that you would have to contact everyone you know to say, “Hey here’s my new email address.” You’ll also have to update any website where you sign in, and update any email subscriptions, and your phone and tablet. It is a huge effort, but I wanted to cover all the options. Irrespective of which one you chose, you can save your existing AOL contacts and import them.

Outlook, provided by Microsoft, is a free service that uses the same enterprise infrastructure that Microsoft uses for Fortune 100 companies. Only because you are not a company, you will receive AOL-like ads in your email. You can reduce some of them by using the privacy features in the profile settings. The web interface is clean and pretty straight-forward.

Gmail is offered by Google. It is free; it can be accessed on any web browser anywhere as well as on mobile devices. Similar to AOL, it is not ad-free. The company will display targeted ads; only not based on your activities in Gmail, but instead on things like your Google searches, the YouTube videos you watch, the apps you use, and the websites you visit. You can opt out of those targeted ads — but not Google’s data collecting — by turning off “ad personalization” in your personal Google settings.

There you have it, three not so great possibilities, but that’s the way of the email world in 2017.

AOL is rolling out this change in waves, so it may be some time before you receive the notice. I just wanted you to be aware of what’s going on, and to prepare for it.

Any questions, let me know in the comments.

Seven Steps To Take If You Mistakenly Let A Stranger Access Your Computer

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The last thing in the world I want to hear from a client is, “I did something really stupid,” because sometimes I am inclined to agree with them.  This was the case the other day.  I received a very distraught call in the middle of the afternoon. My client sputtered, “I should have known better, but I just wasn’t thinking.”  She went on to tell me that she received a phone call from someone who alerted her to the fact that something was wrong with her computer and that he had to remote in to fix it.

What makes this situation a bit puzzling is that she uses a Mac, and most of these fake callers say they are from Microsoft.  Now for the truly terrifying part:  She proceeded to let a complete stranger remotely access her computer for about an hour.

I won’t go into the recriminations she must be feeling.  While I tried to offer as much comfort as possible, I am quite embarrassed that one of my clients would not think to call me, or at least tell the person calling that “I already have a computer guy who takes care of this for me.”  But that is not the point of this security brief.  I need to concentrate your attention on what has to happen after this atrocious event.

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This is not an April Fool’s Day missive

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There is a reason I send out regular security bulletins explicitly warning about malicious email activity and instructing you, my clients, to call me before you do anything that could have serious repercussions.  That is because there is really bad stuff out there!

I received a voice mail from a client saying she received an email from her accountant and it contained instructions for using Dropbox.  (Dropbox is a file hosting service that offers cloud storage and file synchronization.)  When I listened to the recording, I wasn’t sure if she couldn’t follow the instructions or if she couldn’t get Dropbox to open.  Needless to say, she sent the email to her son, and he couldn’t get it to work either.

Then she called her accountant, who told her he didn’t send it, but that other clients also received the email.  After all of that, she ended her message asking me if her computer was OK.

Well, that was a tough question to answer.  Just the same I was able to conduct some forensics into what occurred with this email – and it was most certainly malicious.

Here is the text of the problematic email (unfortunately I couldn’t capture the header information).

apr1

Now, I don’t know how many times I have told you not to click on links from people you don’t know, but that wasn’t the case here. This sender (whose name has been erased) is known to the recipient. However, I strongly doubt that any business person she knows uses arbitrary capitalization like this. I also doubt a professional would ever send an invoice labeled as a “doc” file with a “jpg” file type.
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More Windows 7 Tips

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I have seen it time and time again. A client has a Windows desktop that is completely covered with dozens of icons — a veritable sea of Word, Excel, and Adobe reader files. I often ask, “How do you find what you need?” And the response I get is that it takes a while, but they know where something is (eventually).

Would you like to be a little more organized than that? If so, then I suggest you try these two built-in features of Windows 7 to help you:

  • Jump Lists
  • Pin program to Start Menu

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Not A Slogan I Would Use With My Clients

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I recently ran across an old postcard from a local area computer repair shop.  I don’t want to quote it because you might think I made it up.  So here’s a picture:

Now, how in the world can the company be comfortable making that claim?  And how would you, as a client, feel about taking advantage of it?

A competent computer technician will tell you at the outset whether he can fix your computer.  I mean, come on!  How many things can go wrong?

Here’s a list of the most common hardware problems:

  • Your monitor no longer displays anything
  • Your printer no longer prints anything you send to it
  • Your computer beeps when you turn it on and nothing happens
  • Your computer doesn’t turn on at all

Here’s a list of the most common software problems:

  • Your computer is infected with malware
  • Your computer displays a blue screen with white text when you turn it on
  • Your computer freezes in the middle of a game
  • Your computer displays an “End Program” message when you shut down

Obviously, these are very short lists.  You may encounter other errors from the software and hardware that you are running, but there are very few instances where something absolutely cannot be fixed.  To make the claim this company did is disingenuous; it implies that there will be situations where a customer will receive free computer support.

I certainly don’t operate Heliotropic Systems like that.  You know right from the start that all of my work has a 100% guarantee.  If you are not satisfied with what I have done, I will work to correct what ever is wrong – or refund your money.  It is as simple as that.  No muss, no fuss, and no idiotic statements about “free.”

Proactive vendor updates with an e-mail blast!

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I received an e-mail today from Norton. Yes, that was the “from” name in Outlook. At first, I suspected the subject line, “Larry, your free update to Norton™ AntiVirus is Available” was spam. However, a careful review of the contents (thank you SpamBayes) revealed this was legitimately from Symantec.

Norton 2011 Update

After spending a moment reading the contents, I thought this marketing effort was quite impressive. The 2011 AntiVirus and Internet Security products were released to the public on September 9, 2010. Now, one month later, it is all the more impressive that Symantec would alert customers to take advantage of what amounts to a “free” upgrade.

Most consumers usually wait until the product starts to nag them (30 days – every day) before they update their subscription. Others wait until they can manage to obtain the new version of the product for $9.99 at their local office supply store.

In this case, Symantec is taking a preemptive step towards ensuring their customer base is on the latest version of the product. That is something aggressive and new.

Yet this actually fits in with something I have been telling my clients for a long time now:  You should update the product version at least every two years to take advantage of the latest available detection technology. Simply renewing your subscription to the updates is not sufficient to keep your computer secure from all of the nastiness that is out on the Internet.

In keeping with a recent ruling, the e-mail contains the requisite text that informs customers of the following:

If your product is not updated yet and you choose to download Norton AntiVirus 2011, you will have the right to use this product for no additional charge until the expiration of your current Norton AntiVirus subscription, subject to acceptance of the Symantec License Agreement included with this product and available for review at www.symantec.com.

I’d be interested to learn about your reaction to this e-mail.

Your Security Should Come Before a Discount

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For several weeks, Staples has been selling laptop and desktop computers with a unique offer.  They will give you a $50 discount if you give them a laptop or desktop to recycle.  That is between a 5 and 10 percent discount on the price of a new computer.  I am all for saving money when the opportunity arises.  Nevertheless, you have to be cautious when something appears to be “too good to be true,” and this offer bears some scrutiny.

The fine print of the Staples offer is quite specific.  They want you to give them a computer that works.  Yes, your trade-in has to be able to boot to Windows (XP, Vista, or even Windows 7), have a “working AC adapter and undamaged screen.  At the time of trade-in, laptops must power on and boot up to operating system, desktops must power on.”

I am not at all certain why they have this requirement, but I don’t like it.  If you give them a working computer, it has all of your files on it.  It has all of your e-mail correspondence.  It also has all of the web browser sessions where you have plugged in your user id and password, because you cannot remember what you used for you bank account versus Amazon.com.  In other words, it is a treasure trove of personal information that could – in the hands of a malicious individual – be used run up charges on your credit cards, ruin your credit rating, or steal your identity.

To their credit, Staples has text on their web site that assures customers that their technicians will, in no way, look at any of that information before they run a utility program to delete all of the data on the computer’s hard drive.  I believe their lawyers had to insist on that.  At the same time, do you really want to take that kind of risk just to save $50?  I certainly don’t!

Yet there is something you can do to protect your personally identifiable information before you give them your computer for trade-in.  It takes less than half an hour and requires just a few simple steps.

The “trick” is to create a new user ID on your computer.  You will then log on to your computer as that user, and remove your existing user ID.  This will eliminate the majority of the personal information that can easily be obtained and give you some peace of mind if you decide to take Staples up on their $50 offer.

Here’s what you need to do:

Click Start and select Control Panel.  Whether you are in Category View or Classic View, double-click User Accounts.

Under “Pick a task…” click Create a new account

Under “Name the new account” type in the name for the new account.  I would suggest the following, NoOne, and click Next.

Under “Pick an account type” use the default, Computer administrator, and click Create Account.

Close this window and the Control Panel.

Now restart your computer.  Click Start, Turn off computer, Restart.  The new user ID will appear on the Windows Welcome page.

Click that new account.  Windows will spend a few minutes creating the desktop – it will not have any of your customizations, but will look just like when you first got your computer.  (Some of you may not remember that far back…)

Once again, click Start and select Control Panel.  Double-click User Accounts.

If you are using Category View, under “Pick a task” click Change an account.

Then, under “Pick an account to change” click your old user ID.

Under “What do you want to change about your account” click the Change my account type link.

Under “Pick a new account type” select Limited and click Change Account Type.

You will be returned to the “What do you want to change about your account” window.  This time, click the Delete the account link.

Windows asks if you want to keep the files – and the whole purpose of this exercise is to eliminate them – so click Delete files.

Windows has a final prompt, to make sure you know that everything will be deleted.  You want to do that, so click Delete the Account.

Depending on the number of files you have, and the age of your computer, the delete process can take either a few minutes or a half hour.  Get a cup of coffee, read a magazine, or go run some errands.  You must have the patience to wait this one out.

After it is finished, you can close Windows and feel better about giving your computer to Staples knowing that you have eliminated the bulk of your personal information and can save $50 on a new computer.

Why would you want to do that? It’s my job!

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One morning you had a problem connecting to the Internet.  So, what did you do?  You turned the Internet box off and on a couple of times, you rebooted your computer, but nothing much changed.

Next, you unplugged the Internet box and headed over to the local retail office supply store.  You asked one of the sales people (you know, the guys in the colorful shirts) what to do with the box that no longer worked.  He said you needed a new box and proceeded to sell you one.

You got home, and plugged everything in the way you remembered it.  Lo and behold, you still had a problem connecting to the Internet.

It was only at this point that you decided you really needed help, so you called your computer consultant.  You told him you had a problem, and asked if he could stop by to see what was wrong.

It only took a few minutes for your consultant to diagnose the situation, because several things were wrong.

The most obvious one was that the “geek” at the retail office supply store took your broken DSL modem and sold you a Linksys router, which would never, ever, work as a replacement.  Without a DSL modem, there was no way you were going to access the Internet.

As a side note to office supply store personnel:  If you do not know what you are talking about, please don’t waste someone’s time.  If the customer complains (or if enough customers complain), you are going to be out of a job.

Your computer consultant managed to obtain a replacement DSL modem from your Internet Service Provider by using a little subterfuge.  The net result was that you would be back up and on the Internet in a few days.  You were grateful for your computer consultant’s prompt responsiveness to your call for help and his advocacy for your situation.

I was going to turn this post into a rant, but I was reminded that harsh sounding words wouldn’t get the point across.

The truth is that you are not a computer consultant.  You are a real estate agent, or a dentist, or a lawyer, or just someone’s mom.  However, you are not trained to handle computer problems.  That’s my job, and that’s why you ask – and trust – me to take care of your computer systems.

Because, after all, that’s what I do – you just have to let me.

Google: First you don’t see it, then you do!

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If you search the Internet on a regular basis, you might have Google (http://www.google.com) set as one of your Favorites or as your browser’s home page.  You have undoubtedly gotten very used to the simple interface, the way the page loads very quickly because of the lack of graphic images, and the utilitarian aspect of simply performing a search.  (See http://www.msn.com or http://www.yahoo.com for opposite experiences.)

However, don’t think there is something wrong with your computer when you go to Google’s home page and only see the logo, the search box, and two buttons.  That is what Google has decided should appear – until you move your mouse.  This “fade-in” effect was first introduced as an experiment back in October 2009.  It was slowly rolled out as a test and was modified during some rather violent (and often virulent) feedback.  The earliest versions did not include the search buttons, which elicited no end of scathing retorts.  Now the test has been concluded and the change has been made permanent.  It appears to be the same in all web browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari).

So, no, there is nothing wrong with your PC.  It doesn’t have a virus, you aren’t being affected by malware, and your broadband connection doesn’t have a problem.  It is none of those things.  It is simply the largest search engine on the planet giving you something you did not ask for, something most people do not want, something no one needs.

What do you think?  Let me know!