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Phishing emails have been a problem for a while but there is a new threat that is coming in text messages. The bottom line is you should never click a link or call a number in an email or text message unless you are absolutely, 100% sure you know where it came from. Any message asking for personal information is most likely a scam and should be deleted. If you want to make sure, find the appropriate phone number for the organization in question, from a source other than the email, and contact them directly. Reputable companies will not request information using texts or emails.

This morning the following email came to our tech support email address. We knew right away it was not legit as we don't have a Netflix account using that email address, but if we are not careful, it is easy to be fooled. The email looked legitimate on the surface but there are always telltale signs that it is not. The goal of emails like this is to get you to give up your credit card and other information. Please do not react to emails asking for information like this. Legitimate companies will not ask for information like this. We all need to be careful!

Pocket Dials Many of us have been plagued by our phones making calls on its own. Some call this Pocket Dialing, others Butt dialing, but what ever you call it, it can be annoying. For me it got so bad my wife started calling me the king of butt calls, so I figured I needed to find a way to fix it. I normally have my iPhone in my front pants pocket. How, I wondered, after an hour or more in my pocket my phone could wake up and start calling others. There was one time I heard my pocket talking and realized I had face timed someone. Most of the time the volume is too low to hear your pocket (or purse) talking so I knew it was happening more than I realized. When the screen is off the iPhone is inactive and calls cannot be started, so I thought about ways the iPhone can wake up on its own. There are a couple of settings that will do this. The first setting is Settings/Display & Brightness/Raise To Wake. When this is turned on the phone will automatically wake up when the phone changes from horizontal to vertical. This sounds like a nice feature as it will automatically wake the phone up when you pick it up. Problem is the phone can do this in your pocket with normal motions. Once awake the phone can do strange things without your knowledge. I now have this feature turned off. The second setting is Settings/Notifications/Show Previews. There are three options for this setting. I had mine set to “Always” initially and that automatically wakes the phone when a notification comes in. There are countless options for notifications and with this setting my phone was constantly waking up in my pocket. I changed this setting to “When Unlocked” so I only get notifications when when my iPhone is already awake. It will no longer wake up on its own. The third option is “Never,” which effectively disables notification alerts. This setting would also work for this. Since I changed the above two settings, I am not aware of any annoying pocket dials. Additionally, there was another major benefit to these changes. Every time the iPhone wakes up, the screen turns on, and battery power is used. I have noticed a big change in battery life since I made the changes. Note: The notification changes can also help extend the battery life on an iPad. I used to think it was nice to see the screen turn on when things happened but I now think the cost for that is too high and hopefully if I call you, it won’t be a mistake.