Wednesday 11th September 2019
Confirmation of Payee
We had a brief discussion about paying people/organisations by Internet banking. If you are paying someone new, as Brian suggested, it is wise to set up the new payee in your online banking and pay a small test payment of say, £1. Then call the payee (using a number or email address you are certain about) and check they have received the test payment before paying any larger amounts.
Currently, the payee name is completely ignored by the banking system. This has enabled scammers to convince people to pay money into a different account - the so-called "authorised push payment" (APP) scam. There is a plan to introduce the checking of payee names (in addition to sort code and account number) by March next year. This new system is called "Confirmation of Payee" (CoP). This scheme has already been delayed several times, so hopefully they will meet this new deadline. You can read more about this in online articles such as this:-
Reducing Scam Phone Calls - SHAKEN & STIR
We had a chat about scam phone calls. Often, these spoof the Caller ID, so a local number may appear on your phone, in spite of the calling scammer being overseas. New security systems are being introduced to counter this problem. The new technologies are playfully entitled SHAKEN and STIR. STIR = Secure Telephone Identify Revisited. SHAKEN = Signiture-based Handling of Asserted Information using toKENs. The protocols have to be used by both the sending and receiving phone carriers, so it will be a while before this is implemented worldwide. Currently, telecoms companies in the US are working on this - see this ZDNet article from earlier this year:-
The technology is under consideration in the UK, and Ofcom have a consultation document on this:-
Forcing PCs To Switch Off
Margaret raised this issue. If you have a PC that is not responding, so you cannot switch it off in the normal way, you can force it to power off by holding down the Power Button for about 10 seconds (or more, in some cases). Only do this if there is no alternative, as this kind of immediate shutdown could corrupt hard drive data. Hopefully, the system will reboot and work OK. Otherwise, further diagnosis and repair might be necessary.
Windows 10 Search Box
By default, in Windows 10-1903, you will see a Search Box and the Cortana icon on the Taskbar. In previous versions of Windows, Cortana and Search were combined. The Search Box takes up a lot of space on the Taskbar and is, I would suggest, unnecessary. You can search just by clicking the Start Button and then begin typing - a search box will magically appear! To remove the Search Box, right-click on the Taskbar and select Search, Hidden.
Snip and Sketch
We had another quick look at this useful, if slightly confusing app which is installed with Windows 10-1903 by default. See the August 2019 blog for more on this. This time, we noted that there is a Save icon at the top right of the app window, so you can save a snip as a file (either a png, jpg or gif). This might be useful if, for example, you wanted to send the snipped image as an email attachment.
iPad/iPhone
Activation Lock
If
you turn on Find My iPhone on your Apple iPad or iPhone, this also turns
on a feature called Activation Lock. Activation Lock stores the serial
number of the device on Apple's Activation Servers and associates it with your Apple
ID. This is a great security feature as it means that, if your iPad/iPhone was
stolen, the thief would not be able to set it up with their Apple ID. Even if
they completely erase and reset the device using Recovery Mode, when they try
to set it up, it will still require the previous owner’s Apple ID and password.
See this Apple support article for more detail:-
If
you acquire a second-hand iPad/iPhone, you need to know that the previous owner
has signed out of their Apple Account, or you may have an unusable device. The
same problem could occur if the current user has forgotten their password.
Note
that Activation Lock is actually implemented on Apple’s Activation Servers, NOT
on the individual iPad/iPhone. So there is no solution on the device itself. If
you have an Activation Locked device and you don’t have the password, you will
have to contact Apple Support (0800 048 0754) and supply proof of ownership.
This would need to be an Invoice (or similar) with the Serial Number of the
device. If you google for solutions to this problem, you will find lots of web sites offering to solve this issue for a fee - they are all scams.
Browser Basics
We had a look at the Browser Basics document which you can find at:-
We chatted about browsing and searching from the Address Bar and how to change the default search engine which is used when searching from the Address Bar. We also discussed Bookmarks/Favourites and Private Browsing. We noted that the Bookmarks Toolbar is normally off by default and needs to be turned on in the browser settings. To edit or remove an existing item on the Bookmarks Toolbar, just right-click on it.
I also mentioned that Microsoft are redeveloping their Edge browser and will base it on Chromium, the open-source product on which several browsers are based, including Google's Chrome. If you want to try this new Edge, you can download a preview version from here:-
Ad Blockers For Safari
Linda asked if ad-blockers are available for Safari on iPhones/iPads. We had some discussion on ad-blockers in general back at the October 2015 Computer Club (see blog). While ads help finance web pages, downloading ads takes time and bandwidth, slowing the browsing experience. On PCs, my favourite ad-blocker is uBlock Origin. AdblockPlus is good alternative. AdblockPlus is available for iPad/iPhone and can be installed from the Apple App Store. You will also have to go to Settings, Safari to enable Content Blockers. This site explains more:-
Next Session
Wed
9th October 2019 1:30 to 3:30pm.
