LinkedIn - see what your network has been up to. Watch out. Some may not be who they say they are.

I really only have a LinkedIn account to help my clients if they need help with their LinkedIn accounts. Other than that I don't really use it. My earlier testing over a couple of years didn't show me the LinkedIn account had any value.

Now if you have an account and in my case don't use it, LinkedIn love to send you those email letting you know there's been some activity. It's a way of appealing to the FOMO (fear of missing out) in us.

I decided to check the four people mentioned in the email. One I know is a client. One is an old contact that invited me to connect some months ago but I haven't since I don't use LinkedIn. Nothing against the old contact.

What was interesting were the two other pictures. Now normally you'd have to sign in to LinkedIn and then check the people out. That means they could know you've checked them out. I didn't want to do that. So instead I got the site address for the pictures and did a Google image search. The image of the woman returned two LinkedIn accounts with different names. One living in New Zealand and one in South America. The other also returned two names but to one LinkedIn account, which was strange.

Given the suspicious nature of these people (multiple names) checking out my LinkedIn profile, I can only say it was probably for nefarious purposes. More importantly there's no reason to log on to LinkedIn as the people concerned that I don't know probably aren't legit.

Perhaps knowing you can get the image source from the email and do a Google image search, may give you another option should you wish to check out people who are checking you out without them knowing.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au
IT support

Google search algorithm update around 7-8 October 2017.

I decided to share some stats from one of my sites. The site enables people to convert kj to Cal. The site is www.convertkilojoulestocalories.com.au. The site is a handy web app I and others regularly use.

Below is a graph of the number of sessions since the start of September 2017. As you can see there's a large increase and the number of sessions has more than doubled.

I did nothing during this period that would have any effect. I can only put this down to a change in Google's algorithm. There was only one change on the 9 September 2017, which was to add the words "Thank you for visiting my web site:-)" and then the next change was on the 11 November 2017. Now whilst there's still a slim change the change is to do with something I'd previously done to the site, it's more likely a Google search algorithm change as there's gossip on the internet that a change did occur at this time,

The real concern here for those relying on Google search  for business, is at any time their traffic can double as it did here, but just as equally traffic can disappear overnight and you'll be none the wiser for it happening. This shows just how risky it is to rely on organic traffic from search engines as the main source of business.

I hope this insight assists others.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au
IT support.

Headphones won't click into place in PC.

This was a really unusual request from a client. They went to plug their iPhone headphones into their PC's audio port and it wouldn't click into place. They could hold it in but if released would not longer work.

To me this didn't make sense. The iPhone headphones will work in a PC audio port to play sound (although the microphone of course won't work). I suggested trying it on another PC and the same thing. Both PCs were bought not long ago and were identical. Perhaps there was something wrong with the audio ports on both PCs.

A check on the internet and I could see people having probably with lint or fluff getting into their audio ports. That makes sense. The fan in a PC draws air in through the case across the motherboard and out through the back. With both PCs being on the floor the audio port is very likely to get dust sucked into the port.

The suggestion to the client was to see if they could clear the audio port. They came back saying they blew into the audio port and whatever was there is now gone and the audio is working perfectly.

If your audio port on your PC is giving you a problem it is worth checking it for dust or fluff.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au
IT support