Another romance scam victim

November 17, 2024

💔 Another romance scam victim: A 77-year-old Florida widower lost over $100,000 after falling for “Julia” on Facebook. The two chatted for eight months, and she promised to relocate from the U.K. to the U.S. after paying off a debt to a man in Minnesota. Hoping to speed things up, he sent cash to a home and a bank in Minneapolis. The twist? “Julia” wasn’t real — it was a 26-year-old man in Minnesota the whole time.

Tags: Facebook, Florida, Minnesota, romance scams

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Reset your social media algorithms

Still stuck in election season on your social media feed? Or maybe you bought one bottle of perfume and now Big Tech thinks you’re launching a beauty empire. Algorithms are smart, but they don’t know when you’re ready to get back to your regularly scheduled programming, like cat videos and memes. Here’s how to reset your feed and take control of what you see.

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No “regerts”: The next time you make a typo on your phone, try this trick instead of tapping backspace a bunch. On Android and iPhone, press and hold the spacebar until your keyboard goes away. Without letting go, move your finger until your cursor lands where you want to edit. Done!

For you, Android pals: Files by Google is seriously underrated. It’s an easy way to view all your images, videos, apps and other files and clear out the junk quickly. Try this: Tap the three-dot menu > Clean. Here, you can delete duplicates, old screenshots, blurry pics and large files with just a click.

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Hackers like to sneak in characters that look just like the ones your eyes expect to see.

Deals without tracking: Download your grocery store’s app for the best possible prices. No one says you have to use your real email address and phone number if you’re not into the data collection. Make a burner account!

Ctrl + Alt + Del: Windows people know that’s how you force-quit apps, and it’s just as easy on a Mac. Press and hold Cmd + Q to close the app that’s not responding. Another method: Right-click on the app’s icon and choose Quit from the dropdown menu. Bye-bye, spinning wheel of death.

Windows 11 smarts: “Quick settings” lets you control Airplane mode, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Battery-saver mode and lots more, all in one place. To open it, left-click on the taskbar where the speaker icon is. To edit what you see, click the pencil icon. Unpin anything you don’t use. Easy-peasy.

Hide-and-seek: You’re shopping online for your kiddo or spouse and they walk in. Quick! Hide your open browser windows. On a PC: Windows key + M. (Use Windows key + Shift + M to reopen.) On a Mac: Cmd + Option + H + M. Phew, no spoilers.

New to the Apple App Store: Google Gemini for iPhone. The AI chatbot has a leg up on ChatGPT in one big way: It links to Google apps like Mail, Maps, Calendar and YouTube. Open the Gemini for iPhone app, tap your profile icon at the top right corner and select Extensions. Toggle on any apps you want to link all in one place.

That was easy: Use social media for your business? Stop posting one at a time. Tools like Buffer, Hootsuite and Later can help you schedule your social media posts ahead of time with just a few clicks. Use the free trials for each to figure out which option you like best.