Advice from Vodafone staff, apps, and online so confusing and conflicting you don't know who to believe.

Recently I decided that Vodafone had a range of offerings that would allow me to achieve what I wanted. The apprehension was, in the past I've had issues where Vodafone staff gave wrong advice. In one case the Vodafone reseller contact had to retrain staff in the store so they could deliver the service they had available. As they say, once bitten twice shy.

In summary what I was doing and did was two set up two mobiles with 12 month SIM only plans. I also wanted to port our landline number to one of the mobiles thereby keeping our landline number, but getting rid of the physical landline. Now calls to the old landline number would go to the mobile. Yes this can be done.

The benefits are obvious. Instead of getting 6-7Mbps on the fixed line with ADSL2+ I'd now get 30-60 Mbps or more. Keep the landline number and able to use the broadband allowance of 70GB which is shared between the two mobiles anywhere there is a good Vodafone connection. All for less than I was previously paying.

Issues I had.

1. Calling the customer service number to confirm I could port the landline number and the first response is Vodafone didn't do it. I advised the customer contact person they could and asked them to look up the service on the Vodafone site and they came back confirming the service was available. I'd done a lot of online checking and I expected the customer contact person wouldn't know about the service. Porting can take around 15 days.

2. Not trusting the customer contact call centre off I went to the local Vodafone store to check all the details. Left and came back on another day once I was sure I knew everything I could. Set up the two mobiles and ported the landline. These would all port and I was told I didn't need to do anything more such as cancelling services. That was done when numbers were ported. I selected a $35 a month plan which had 30 GB of data as I was advised I could upgrade a plan at no cost, but couldn't downgrade. The other plan was $40 with $5 discount and 40 GB of data. Porting the two mobiles happened very quickly. One whilst in the store and one by the time I got home. That's great but a concern because if I was a fraudster the real user would have received no notification. I never received notification from TPG the mobile numbers were being ported.

3. I signed up on the 8th of November and the plan reset on the 10th. I was told this is what Vodafone did and effectively you got two days free. I was billed $10 extra for 1 GB of data. Had to call Vodafone for this to be corrected.

4. The porting of the landline took a little longer than the 15 days. Calls were now going to the mobile if the landline number was called. I decided to test the landline. I could still call out so the landline was not automatically disconnected as advised by Vodafone staff. Had to call Vodafone to confirm they didn't cancel the line. Had to call TPG, then message TPG to cancel service. TPG kept all unused amounts from mobile services including charging for 30 days notice on the landline/ADSL2+ service. Unfortunately I couldn't provide advance notification to cancel the landline/ADSL2+ to minimise this cost as I couldn't be sure the landline port would work. Just so others are aware this probably means $60-$70 of services you've already paid for but won't use.

Overall at this stage everything was now working.  The next stage was to increase the $35 plan to have more data if required.

The plans I was discussing with the Vodafone staff are shown in the the following image from WayBackWhen. The prices didn't come up on the WayBackWhen site but were $35, $40 (includes the $5 discount and $60.

As it turned out I had to use more data than expected in the month upgrading computers, so felt upgrading the $35 plan would give more elbow room. I saw Vodafone now offered 10 GB more on the $40 plan and 20 GB more if I upgraded the $35 plan to the $40 plan. That made me think I could upgrade for $5 a month in total and get an additional 30 GB of data.

With the $40 plan since it was the same plan I had, but just with extra data this wasn't considered an upgrade. I accept I was wrong in my assumption. No problem. That's just 10 GB.

With the $35 plan I could upgrade to the $40 plan and get the extra 20 GB of data. I was advised there was no cost to upgrade by two staff members. There was three days to the end of the current period. I asked what happens with upgrading. When you upgrade you lose any remaining and the plan upgrades immediately. I decided to wait until the last day of the month for the plan which was the 9th of December. (NOTE: According to the Vodafone terms and conditions upgrading plans start from the beginning of the next billing cycle and not immediately. This differs from what the staff member said.)

On the last day of the current (the 9th of December) I went into the Vodafone store to upgrade. I didn't trust the call centre and don't trust the app as I get inconsistent information. Two Vodafone staff had told me I could upgrade the $35 plan at no cost.

I asked the staff member at Vodafone and they said you're locked into the 12 month contract and can't upgrade. I let her know what the other staff members had said but she again said I couldn't upgrade. I then showed her the Vodafone app which said I was eligible to upgrade. She then conferred with her manager. She came back and said you can upgrade but have to pay out the exit fee for the plan which is 50% of the remaining 11 months.

The real problem here is the information you get from all the sources available from Vodafone is not consistent or complete. You never know if the staff you talk to know what they're doing or not. The Vodafone app which knows the plan you're on shows you can upgrade but does not mention exit fees. You just don't know who is right and who isn't.

At this point I've largely given up because the time involved has been excessive and more time with Vodafone feels like a waste of time and energy. If this is too hard for me, and I live in the world of providing advice and guidance to others on technology, then I don't know how others with less knowledge don't get burnt. Two staff at the one store say one thing whilst two staff say another. Online and app information also say different things.

It is my nature to persist and get answers to these issues as that is often what I do for a living. Even though it does take a lot of time, it does mean I can provide better advice and guidance to others that I help.

Also I should say I'm often looking at new services people can take advantage of and that means often staff in the companies aren't informed and this creates problems.

With Vodafone I think it's best to keep things simple. Try to understand the contracts and the commitment you are entering into. Assume if you sign up for 12 months you can't change anything. Assume the worst. It may be staff don't know, or it can be miscommunication. We often assume things in a conversation based on our perspective or knowledge and don't quite hear things in the way another person has said it, or the other person was simply wrong. The bottom line is, only the contract matters. That is what you've committed to. It's a sad fact of life that we get told things that aren't true but if they're not written down in the contract, you'll only get grief and agro trying to get satisfaction with what you've been told.

Would I refer others to Vodafone. I'd be very reluctant. With all the time I put into making sure I get everything right, and it is considerable, and still come unstuck, I'd suggest others be very cautious.

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

Update: 17 December 2018
After taking some time going through the Vodafone site I decided to revisit the Vodafone store to ask the original staff member to confirm what I'd learn even if it wasn't what I originally understood he'd advised me.

The problem in hindsight is I went into the store discussing the current advertised plans. They were the only plans I knew about and thus I assumed the staff member was talking about the same plans including bonuses such as data and discounts.

Whilst I was told I could upgrade the $35 plan at no cost, I wasn't told that when you upgrade you lose all the data bonus and discount. That is the $35 plan with $30GB of data could be upgraded to the $45 plan with no $5 discount and no 25GB of bonus data. Less data for $10 more.

Vodafone have plan upgrades as one facility and switching plans as another. When you switch you lose benefits of the plan. If you upgrades you generally need to pay out the old plan if under contract.

In addition, if I read the online information correctly, you can upgrade at no cost from the 12 Month SIM only to the 12 Month SIM only Plus plans. That is you can go from the $35/$45 to the $60/$80 plans at no cost, but I suspect you'd lose any bonus data on the $60/$80 plans.

Overall a very confusing situation for consumers.

I've decided now to leave the plans as they are. Whether I continue to use Vodafone when the contracts expire is hard to say. During the 12 months if I need additional data, Coles and Woolworths often have new prepaid plans that can be purchased for a considerable discount. For example today I purchase a SIM kit for $9 which will provide 35GB and can be activated up to the 4th of February. If I activate the SIM at the right time (halfway through my Vodafone billing cycle) I can use this to supplement the data covering two billing periods giving me more data if needed, at a lower cost, than picking a higher priced plan from Vodafone. Not as convenient, works around this issue if needed.

Can't type into Search Google or type URL on Google Home page.

A client recently said his browser was playing up. He couldn't type into the search field on the Google Home page. The field where it states "Search Google or type URL". The field was greyed out and the cursor would jump to the address bar when he started to type. The problem for him was the address bar was much smaller and more difficult to read than the Google Home page search field.

I'd not seen this behaviour before and my first thought was that it could be malware. A couple of tests and malware wasn't the problem. The question then is what had changed for the client. Because the client's hard disk had failed the computer had a fresh install of Windows 7 and Google Chrome.

With a bit of testing I determined this appears to be the behaviour designed by Google into the Chrome browser. If you have the default search set to Google, when you type into the search field on the Google Home page, the cursor will jump to the address bar area and enter your search request there. It works but it's confusing and unexpected behaviour for users and one could argue it is a poor design decision.

The good thing is it's easy to work around and get the Google Home page "Search Google or type URL" field working as you'd expect. You just need to make two changes in Settings for the browser.

1. Change the default search engine to something other than Google such as Bing. This is the setting  "Search engine used in the address bar" found in the Search engine section.

2. Set up www.Google.com as your default page that opens when you open the browser. You can set this in the On start-up section. Select Open a specific page or set of page, click on the three vertical dots, select Edit and type in the page (such as https://www.Google.com) you want to open when you open Google Chrome.

How long this behaviour has been occurring I don't know. I use my own search page https://www.AdvancedSearch.com.au/SearchGoogle/ or https://www.AdvancedSearch.com.au/SearchBing/, as my own search page takes me direct to hundreds of sites if I type in the company's name or product, avoiding the search engine results page and saving time.

Because this design by Google confuses people, is not expected behaviour, is different from how other browsers behave, or even how Google Chrome behaves with different settings, it could probably be considered poor design on Google's behalf. The design however could be a deliberate strategy to enforce the Google Home page isn't required for searching and people can use the Address bar.

Whatever the reason you now know the issue isn't a bug or malware and you can easily change your settings to create the behaviour you want.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au
IT support

Microsoft Windows Essentials 2012 couldn't be installed errors 0x800c0006 WLXSuiteLang UXPlatformLang

A client's Windows 7 computer failed due to a failing hard disk. Lots of errors, Outlook not working and unable to repair. As a precaution I kept the client's hard disk for them and installed a new hard disk giving them more space at the same time.

Reinstalling Windows 7 isn't difficult now that Microsoft provides ISO images that can be downloaded. A welcome change from Microsoft that they make the ISO images available. However, reinstalling Windows 7 on an older computer nearly always comes with issues and time consuming updates. This computer was no different. Over a hundred updates to be applied, graphics card not recognised and issues with the ports. All taking a considerable amount of time to find drivers to install.

The client used Windows Essentals Photo Gallery and sometimes Movie Maker. No problem I thought. A visit to the Microsoft download site should fix that. How wrong could I be. As the software was discontinued in 2017 and no longer supported, the software is not even available from the Microsoft site.

Really Microsoft! Surely you could provide an archive area for all your old programs that people could download. That protects people from having to download software from potentially questionable sites. Just another reason my support for Microsoft has nearly vanished over the years. If Microsoft doesn't look after their users, users should reconsider supporting Microsoft.

But I digress. After quite a few attempts to install Windows Essentials 2012 found using Google searches, with the error messages 0x800c0006 WLXSuiteLang UXPlatformLang, the client suggested I try YouTube as he'd seen links to the software on YouTube. I checked YouTube and found https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9aAnqXDSpw. The comment in those video post lead me to the site http://hifi2007reviews.com/movie-maker-windows-essentials-2012-microsoft-offline-installer/.

On this site there were two links. One for Windows Essentials 2012 and one for Windows Essentials 2011. I downloaded the Windows Essentials 2012 file, performed a virus scan and installed the software removing all options except for Photo Gallery and Movie Maker. The software installed without a problem. Configured the software for the client since they had their files on a second hard drive and the client was now up and going again.

For those getting the same error messages as I did, try the site above. It could be I'm located in Australia and the other downloads I tried weren't suitable for Australia. The error messages indicated a language interface issue so that sort of makes sense.

It's a pity Microsoft alienates their clients by not providing their files in an archive area. In this case the client was using an older version of Outlook but now the client is happy to use Gmail, further reducing the need for them to use Microsoft products. Microsoft seems to have forgotten that if you look after you're clients, your clients will look after you.

Kelvin Eldridge
Online Connections
www.OnlineConnections.com.au

Office 365 licence changes coming on October 2, 2018.

According to a blog post from Microsoft, from October 2, 2018 there will be some changes to the Office 365 Home/Personal licences. The first thing to note is you don't have to do anything. This will all happen automatically.

I'm always a bit perplexed when companies make changes. Often there can be a bit of manipulation. You appear to be getting something extra, when in the background something is being taken away.

If I've read the following article correctly this is what you get from October 2, 2018.

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/important-news-about-your-office-365-subscription-06828297-4f1d-4059-8748-365d8e658968

Microsoft previously allowed you to load Office 365 onto up to 10 devices. Now you'll be able to load Office 365 onto an unlimited number of devices. That's good for convenience as the software's on the devices if needed.

For Office 365 Personal you'll be able to load Office 365 on all your devices but you'll only be able to sign into five at any one time. That appears to be an improvement as previously you only had one PC or Mac and a tablet. Now if looks like you could have PC, Mac, tablet, mobile device, etc.

For Office 365 Home you'll now have an additional user licence giving you six users. Each user will be able to sign into up to 5 devices at one time. Previously it was 5 users and up to 10 devices. In effect 2 devices per user. Now it looks like there could be up to 30 devices signed in.

Overall there doesn't seem to be any losses, just gains for users.

For Office 365 Personal it now means if you have more devices such as PCs and Macs, the Personal licence may be used instead of the Home licence.

Overall there's more options, more flexibility and potential for home users and their families to save money and that's always a good thing.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au
IT support

myGov Medicare payment site cloned. Beware.

One of my readers today let me know about a scam they'd just read about in the news.com.au site. It appears that scammers have set up a cloned version of the myGov Medicare payment site.

https://www.news.com.au/technology/online/security/mygov-medicare-payment-site-cloned/news-story/2d9f0dbd5c4e549f58a1a666e3952bcd?from=rss-basic&utm_medium=Facebook&utm_source=News.com.au&utm_content=SocialFlow&utm_campaign=EditorialSF

It starts with a fake email that appears to be from Medicare to update your payment details. You are then taken to the fake Medicare site that's designed to trick you into thinking you're at the real Medicare site.

The bottom line now is when you receive emails you now have to always be on your guard. Don't click on links without thinking about it first. Open your browser and go directly to the website instead of clicking on links.

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

GoDaddy domain authorisation codes sent for multiple sites but not requested.

Recently a client's domain authorisation code was sent to me. For some reason I'm still listed as the contact on their domain even though I shouldn't be. At first I thought this may be the client's doing.

However, today I received five more requests for authorisation codes across three different domains.

I thought I'd share this because it indicates either a problem with GoDaddy's systems, or perhaps some form of attack on GoDaddy's systems.

It may be wise to keep an eye on your domains and make sure they are not transferred away from you without your knowledge, if there is an actual attack happening.

Kelvin Eldridge

Online Connections

www.OnlineConnections.com.au

IT support.

Update: I called GoDaddy in case their systems were under attack. They aren't. I suspect the reason is as from the 1st of July the organisation managing .com.au domains is changing. As a result of this GoDaddy most likely needs to update all the .com.au domains. Unfortunately a side effect of this is to send out authorisation requests to domain holders even though they have not requested them. In other words just ignore the requests there isn't any malicious activity occurring.

Outlook versus Gmail versus Mail on Android devices.

A while ago I wrote myself some notes on the advantages and disadvantages of Outlook, Gmail and the built-in email client apps on my Android based mobile phone. I thought I'd share those notes in case it helps others.

Outlook v Gmail v mail

Outlook
- does not show active link for hyperlink address
- if only email client Google Chrome does see it as default. Tries to set up new account. For email links.
- no notification for new emails. Have to use widget instead
+ layout clear
+ don' feel Microsoft scanning all emails
+ Appears to update better than Gmail
- No badge count
- sent url does not create link for Gmail receiving.

Gmail
+ converts url to link
+ works with Chrome email links
- feels like Google scanning all emails.
- No badge count
- really terribly slow at refreshing. Need to manually refresh by pull down. E.g. deleted items stay shown until sync.

Mail
- Crashes frequently
+ Works well as default
+ badge count
- need to disable so other choices shown for mailto links.

Overall I've found none of the three email clients does what I want so it's a compromise. The built-in email client is the client I end up using the most. I also use the Gmail app separately for my Gmail account only. Outlook I've tried but generally end up deleting the app.

Kelvin Eldridge
Online Connections
IT support.

G Suite discount code.

I noticed an ad pop up promoting Google's G Suite partner referral program. One of my clients needed G Suite set up for their email as their developer's web host didn't provide email services. There were a couple of options and the client decided to use G Suite. The client is quite happy with G Suite and uses my services to set up G Suite initially and every now and again to set up new accounts or email aliases, rather than having to learn G Suite and the jargon involved.

When I saw the ad and since my clients is happy with G Suite I decided to investigate. Google's G Suite partner referral program obviously offers the partner a monetary reward. As a consultant the client has to know this and decide if they'd like to be referred, or not be referred and go direct to the Google site (without using the referral link) to sign up. That is entirely their choice and makes no difference to me. To me the client's choice is the most important.

However there was a further offer to partners where partners could provide a promo code. Each promotion code provides 20% off the first year on either the G Suite Basic plan or G Suite Business.

I decided to sign up for the Google G Suite partner referral program as it may generate some income, but also provide a discount for those signing up.

For those interested here is the referral link (https://goo.gl/81amsf).

The promotion codes for the 20% discount are:

G Suite Basic Plan           34TDEGCNEF4HLYD
G Suite Business Plan      34KAD9G7KYVAFJA

Before using these codes make sure G Suite is suitable for your needs.

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

Please be aware the discount voucher code were valid at the time this post was written but they may be discontinued at any point in time by Google.

Gallon to Liter Calculator test.

One of things I believe in when developing is testing. One test I'm currently running is for the Gallon to Liter Calculator site. The site has been running for nearly six months now.

The test was to see if I could create a site that was .com instead of .com.au and see if the site would gain traction worldwide, or even just in America. The reason is Australia is a small market and if I could build a website that didn't appear to be based in Australia there was greater potential for more traffic.

The result so far is it has been disappointing financially, but not a total failure. OK, a financial failure but it provides useful information.

As an Australian you'll notice the spelling of liter in the domain name. This is the American spelling and not the Australian spelling. Does it matter? Yes. Not only for the intended audicence but also to Google.

In terms of ranking, "gallon to liter" versus "gallon to litre" has an average position of 12 versus 16.4. So spelling does matter. There's also around five times as many impressions for the liter spelling in Google search results versus the litre spelling.

The site statistics show the greatest number of visitors come from Canada. A check of the position for  the search "gallons to litres" returns the following positions:

Google.ca - 18
Google.com - 18
Google.com.au - not in top 100
Google.co.uk - 18

Using the .com domain has certainly made a difference in terms of not appearing in searches from Australia.

The Gallon to Liter Calculator is a useful tool for converting gallons to litres. It hasn't been a financial success, but it does generate some interesting information.

When testing your website's presence on the internet, if you make a change measure the position before the change, wait until perhaps 1-2 weeks after Google has picked up the change (you can check the cached version in Google for when it was last scanned) and then measure again. You really do have to be patient. Making too many changes at once means you won't know which change made ranking betters and which changes perhaps made things worse.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au
IT support

Optus increases price of 100 GB mobile broadband plan.

I was a bit surprised to see Optus increase the price of it's 100 GB plan. Previously the price was $70 per month and the price has now increased to $80 per month.

To be fair when I first saw the $70 plan it only included 50 GB. Optus then offered double data which brought the plan to 100 GB. For a short while in May Optus even offered 140 GB of data for $70 a month.

Today when I checked prices the price has gone up and is now $80 for 100 GB a month. You really don't know what Optus is going to do with their mobile broadband pricing, but I didn't expect to see the price increase.

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

Turn off push notifications in Safari under macOS.

I have to admit I'm not a fan of push notifications. I think the push notification feature could be pretty useful, but the real problem is more and more sites I visit want to ask me for permission to send push notifications. It's just another nag I don't need. Really, what's the chance I want to receive a notification from the many, any sites I visit. Almost zero.

If however there was a site I followed and let me know they had push notifications that I could sign up for, that's another matter. I'd find that in theory potentially useful. But in time it's possible every site you visit will be nagging you for permission to send push notifications.

Get ahead of the curve. If you're not interested in push notifications you can disable the feature in your browser. In Safari under macOS you do this as follows.

Open Safari
Select Safari (in the menu)
Select Preferences
Select Websites
Select Notifications
Remove the tick from Allow websites to ask permission to send you push notifications.

Ah, peace and quiet, until the next piece of technology is created for marketers to keep us "informed". Don't get me wrong, it sounds like I'm not a fan of this technology but I am. I'm simply not in favour of technology that nags me to do something so often, when I'd rather opt in if I choose to.

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

Free unlimited mobile broadband for six months on TPG's new mobile network.

Later this year TPG will launch their own mobile network. As part of the launch it appears TPG will be offering six months of free mobile broadband as an introductory offer. After the six months the cost will be $9.95 a month.

The following is a link to the press announcement (https://www.tpg.com.au/about/media.php).

I think this is an excellent offer and felt it would be good to let others know. It's pretty hard to beat free. 

There's couple of details to be aware of though. The coverage is a bit limited at this stage, but if you're in or near the major city areas, the offer could be very useful. The areas covered are listed in the press announcement. In terms of unlimited in TPG's case, this means 1GB a day with no restriction and then if you go over this limit, you'll be slowed to 1 mbps.

The speed of 1 mbps is still OK, but not generally good enough for live streaming. The speed of 1 mbps is around 450 MB per hour. Generally you'd need around at least 2-3 times this speed to watch standard definition TV and more for higher definition. However, if you're steaming to a mobile phone and/or a service that enables you to stream at a lower quality, it's worth giving it a go. If your service allows you to download videos for offline use then you can still watch videos, but you'll just have to wait longer.

In terms of hardware keep in mind you'll need some type of mobile broadband device, which will probably need to be unlocked. An older 4G mobile phone could also be used as Wi-Fi access point. You may also try older 3G devices. I've used 3G broadband devices with SIMS capable of 4G and they've worked, but at slower speeds. As soon as I get a TPG SIM I'll test it out on a range of devices.

I have to say I am looking forward to seeing what TPG's new offers will be. For some people the $9.95 a month mobile broadband plan will be all the broadband they need. No need to pay for an NBN service if your needs are less.


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

Block all notifications in Google Chrome.

Ever get the feeling there's yet another way to get annoying prompts. For some people those pop-ups that ask you if a site is allowed to send notifications or not is simply another annoyance.

The good thing is instead of saying no to each notification you can simply turn off all notifications. That is notifications will be blocked from all sites.

To block all notifications click on the three dots at the top right in Google Chrome.
Select Settings.
Scroll to the bottom and click Advanced.
In the Privacy and security section click on Content Settings.
Click on Notifications.
At the top there's a slider for the setting Ask before sending (Recommended).
Slide this slider to off.

Notifications will now be blocked. The problem with the Notifications screen is you don't know there's a blocked setting until you move the slide to the left.

Peace and quiet now those pesky notifications are gone. Of course if you like to receive notifications from one or more sites, you just have to respond to each and every site with a no or a yes as you're prompted.

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

Apple lightning to USB camera adapter (adaptor) - Cannot Use Device

I purchased an Apple lightning to USB camera adapter (adaptor) to make it easy to transfer pictures from a Nikon Coolpix S3400 to an iPad Air 2. I'd previously purchased the lightning to SD Card Camera Reader and that worked well.

I wanted to test the USB camera adapter (adaptor) as not all cameras use SD cards. In addition plugging the cable direct from the camera to the iPad reduces the steps to get a picture from the camera to the iPad for those who wish to post to social media.

What was weird is when I purchased the USB camera adapter  the Apple salesperson said if I had any problems they were happy for me to return the adaptor. I'd not previously had an Apple salesperson say this about any Apple product previously. In hindsight that probably should have been a red flag.

When I plugged the USB camera adapter (adaptor) to connect the iPad Air 2 to the camera the iPad Air 2 displayed the message: "Cannot Use Device".

The reason for the device not able to be used was: "The connected device requires too much power."

Once you get this message there's usually not much you can do, except return the device to the Apple store and get a refund. This is what I did and there was no problem returning the adaptor.

Apple does have another USB camera adaptor which has a power input. In theory this may avoid this issue of the iPad trying to provide power to the external device. However, whilst $45 was hard to justify to the original adaptor, spending $59 for the adaptor requiring a power cable was harder to justify. The real problem was to transfer photos with the USB camera adaptor with the power cable required a power point or a battery bank. This becomes even more clumsy than the SD car reader adaptor.

The bottom line is this device did not work.

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

Uber self-driving car hits and kills a woman walking their bike across a dark road in Tempe Arizona.

When I read the news items and watch the video on this terrible event of an Uber self-driving car hitting and killing a person, it pains me that at first reports that Uber or the driver was possibly not at fault. The statement that the person appeared out of the dark and the collision may not have possibly been avoided is unbelievable.

The person had walked three quarters across a two lane road when they were hit. When the person became visible they were already across the first lane and into the second lane of the car on a two lane highway.

Even if we accept that a person may not have seen the person in time, since they only had about a second to respond, which is not sufficient for a human driver, you would think a self-driving car has a number of advantages over a human.

Firstly you would think they would use sensors to detect what is ahead. If the sensors don't then something isn't right. Perhaps an infra-red sensor is needed to detect heat signatures of moving objects. In Australia a kangaroo often jumps out from the side of the road with a moments notice. If a person who has already crossed one lane and is into the second lane of a two lane highway is not detected, we'd have no hope with kangaroos and possibly other wildlife.

It is truly sad when we place such technology onto our roads for something like this to occur. The self-driving car industry needs to be held accountable. I think even the average man can see this isn't good enough. It isn't a matter of whether or person could have done better, it really should be the technology in the car far exceeds the capability of humans as sensors are available that we as humans are not endowed with.

It does may me wonder whether or not those in government are making sure appropriate levels of technology are being incorporated into cars to ensure we are safe in what is a fairly likely accident situation that we as humans may not be able to avoid, but technology should be able to easily avoid.

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

PS. I'm reluctant to post a link to the news article containing the video, but it's the only way people will know the situation around the event. Otherwise we just guess as I did the person stepped out in front of the car, perhaps next to the car, with no warning or possibility of anticipating such an accident. (https://www.recode.net/2018/3/21/17149428/uber-self-driving-fatal-accident-video-tempe-arizona) Please don't watch this video if seeing the video of a car about to hit a person will affect you in any way. It is something I'd rather not watched which I can't take back. My desire to understand the technology and the limitations of the technology, so I can advise and guide others, and use it myself, made it hard for me not to seek out further information.

Can I run MYOB AccountRight locally sharing across multiple computers or do I have to run online?

A client was upgrading their MYOB accounting software to also include payroll. They could see they could run online and share the data but wanted to know if they could run locally. They didn't think so because they were still using an old Windows XP computer as a file server and MYOB is not compatible with Windows XP.

I decided to download and set up a trial. My first thought was to use the offline feature but this looks like it really isn't suitable as from what I read it locks the online data which means a second user can't also update the data.

Further reading showed there was a server edition for MYOB AccountRight. Whilst they can't use their server they can load MYOB AccountRight onto their Windows 10 computer. Then other Windows 10 computers with MYOB Account Right can connect to and update the data on the first computer.

The client now had two options. To use MYOB AccountRight locally on their network, or have their data stored in the cloud.

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

Clients can't open PDF attachments they're sent. Not supported file type or file has been damaged.

Attended a client who had an interesting problem. They use a Microsoft Access system and create a new email with the client's email address already filled in by clicking on a button. They then attach a PDF and send the email.

The problem was clients started reporting they couldn't open the PDF in the email. Clients would see the message "the file type wasn't supported or the file has been damaged".

The client was using Microsoft Office 2016 and Microsoft Access 2016. The copy of Microsoft Office 2016 came with the Dell computer and Microsoft Access 2016 was purchased separately from Microsoft's store.

After checking the raw email data I found the process of attaching the PDF to the email created from Microsoft Access indicated the file had been attached, but there was no actual data in the attachment. Thus you could save the PDF but it was empty with a file size of zero. There was no problem with the original PDF.

I decided to run the repair option for Microsoft Access 2016 and then Microsoft Office 2016. The local repair didn't fix the issue. I then ran the Microsoft Access 2016 online repair option which stated it would do a more thorough repair. What happened then was unexpected. I could see the full version of Office 2016 was being downloaded which I assumed would be used to do the repair, but instead Office 2016 was installed. Access 2016 still worked but now Office 2016 wasn't activated. A new product key was required for Office 2016. The repair had left Office 2016 now not activated and useless for the client.

I'd been in a similar situation before. The original Office 2016 licence from Dell preinstalled on the computer with the product key. Now a new version of Office 2016 from Microsoft. Previously for a copy of Windows 7 Microsoft had said the issue was with Dell. In this case however the problem was Microsoft's repair software had created the problem.

I decided to use the online chat for Microsoft support. After quite a lengthy chat conversation Microsoft's support staff offered a new licence for Office 2016. As the Office 2016 software was already loaded it only needed to be activated which I did.

The installation of the new copy of Office 2016 also fixed the issue with attachments not working so everything was back to normal for the client.

There's a good lesson in this story. The support to fix the client's issue was a total of around four hours. That's a considerable cost to the client. Office 2016 needed to be reinstalled to fix the issue but because Office 2016 was purchased from Dell and Access from Microsoft, you leave yourself exposed to a difficult support situation. Had both licences been purchased direct from Microsoft you don't leave yourself exposed to the potential situation where Microsoft can say you need to go back to Dell even though all the software is Microsoft software. This has happened previously as mentioned with a copy of Windows 7.

I'd suggest if you're buying a new computer buy the computer from the supplier such as Dell, but buy the software from Microsoft. That way you have control over the licence. You unfortunately don't have control over the operating system software licence as that still is from Dell and Microsoft has previously referred that back to Dell.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au
IT support

Facebook notifications appear even though nothing is open.

On an Apple Macbook Air Facebook notifications appear by popping out in the top right corner. At first this was a bit perplexing. Nothing was open and yet these notifications appear. These notifications appear because of the Google Chrome browser.

To stop the Facebook notifications appearing open Google Chrome.
Click on the three vertical dots at the top right.
Select Settings
Select Content Settings
Select Notifications
In the Allow section you'll find the Facebook address. Click on the three dots at the right.
Click Remove to remove the notification.
Alternately you could also click Block so you don't receive any requests to allow notifications.

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

The Gmail Team - Update to Gmail app and get the most out of Gmail.

One person received the below email from The Gmail Team and asked if they should start using the Gmail app. The person was using an iPhone 6S.

Based on my experience using the Gmail app on a cheap Android mobile phone, and using and supporting Apple's email clients on iPhones and iPad, I'd suggest the Apple iOS email client is already a better email client in general than the Gmail app. If you have an Apple product their email client is better than Gmail's email client so there's no reason to switch.

Google are always promoting their products such as the Gmail app and Google Chrome browser to the users of their services, but often there's no reason to use their products when the existing products you use are as good or possibly better.

As an example, using the Gmail app on my Android mobile phone, even after I've deleted emails on my notebook, they still appear on my mobile and take quite a while before they disappear.  After deleting emails they reappear for no apparent reason and need to be deleted again. This behaviour of the Gmail app is confusing, annoying and a waste of time. I should add however this is using an IMAP service and not the Gmail service.

If the email client you are using does everything you need to do and works well, I'd suggest it may be best to continue to use the email client you already have. It can take a lot of time and effort to evaluate another email app, which could simply be a waste of time. If you know of a benefit a new email client will offer, then you have a reason to evaluate using the new email client. Just because Google suggests their app will "get the most out of Gmail" doesn't mean it will make any difference, and in some cases you may be worse off and simply waste valuable time and energy.

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

Can't open Instagram on iPad. Error "Safari cannot open the page because too many redirects occurred."

A person had a problem opening Instagram on their iPad. There had been no problem but then for the previous couple of days they couldn't open Instagram using Safari on their iPad. The error message they'd receive was, "Safari cannot open the page because too many redirects occurred."

If you receive this issue there's two solutions that will let you open Instagram on the iPad.

1. Install Google's Chrome browser. The Chrome browser had no problem opening Instagram when the Safari browser couldn't.

2. Close Safari and then go into Settings -> Safari. Click on Clear History and Website Data.

Both of these approaches fixed the problem and Instagram could again be opened using either the Safari or Chrome browser.

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

Gmail emails not appearing in inbox. Have to select All Mail to see the emails.

A couple of people have mentioned recently they've lost their emails in Gmail. On further investigation for one person it turned out their emails had been marked important and only appeared in the Important folder and not the Inbox. Totally confusing.

The problem appears to be that Gmail is deciding what is important or not to you and sometimes filtering out email so it doesn't appear in the Inbox but only under Important. This leads to considerable confusion as now people have to check Inbox, All Mail and Important. Add that some emails from people you've known for years ends up in Spam and Gmail is a bit of a mess.

The good news is you largely fix the issue (not the spam filtering) of emails not ending up in your Inbox. To do this you need to open Gmail using a desktop or notebook computer. Select Settings and Inbox.

Towards the bottom of this screen you'll see the options for Importance. The way I work is I simply want all emails to come into my Inbox (excluding any real spam that can go to the spam folder) and then I know I have all emails. If I want, I can then mark messages as important, star them, or add labels, although I'd rarely use those features if ever. I just want a simple easy to use email client.

The following is the settings I've enabled for the person having problems.

Show markers is turned off. Most emails come into the Inbox as important and this shows up on mobile phones as a yellow marker on every message. There's really not point unless you are really using the importance feature, and most people probably don't.

Don't use predictions. We've seen Gmail is really screwing up people's emails and they feel they can't find or have lost emails. This is a poor problematic feature so best turned off.

Override filters is selected as you don't want some emails to not appear in the Inbox for no apparent reason.

Google's Gmail automation in this case is creating confusion and additional work for Gmail users. Turning the importance features off for most people will make their email experience simpler and cause less confusion.

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

A useful table showing SD card speed classes. Utility to test card size and speed.

I recently purchased a very inexpensive 32 GB micro SD card from eBay. It was $6.99 which is possibly up to a fifth of the cost if purchased from an Australian retailer. I really had two concerns. The capacity being actually 32 GB and not faked. The second the speed is Class 10.

With the speed a bit of research on the internet enabled me to come up with a quick cheat that I could remember. There's a number of standards. There's C, U and now V. If an SD card has a C class followed by a number e.g. C4, the 4 directly relates to the megabytes per second. That is C4, C6, C10 are 4, 6 and 10 megabyte per second write speeds. With U there's typically U1 and U3. In this case we multiple the number by 10 so U1 and U3 are 10 and 30 megabytes per second write speed. The V class is similar to the U class where you multiply the number by 10, thus V6 and V9 are 60 and 90 megabytes per second.

The following link provides a chart which shows what you can use each of the classes for. In my case I wanted to record HD video so the C10 device was sufficient.

https://www.sdcard.org/developers/overview/speed_class/

The second concern was to test the actual capacity of the micro SD card to what I thought I'd purchased. You can't just insert the card and read the capacity as it is possible for card to fake that information. The best way is to have a utility write to the card and then verify the data that has been written. I was able to find the following utility to test the micro SD card which also performs a speed test of the card.

http://translate.google.ca/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://www.heise.de/software/download/h2testw/50539&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=2&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3DH2testw%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG

The site is a German site but using Google translate it is easy to download the program. The program has an option to display information in English. For a 32 GB micro SD card you can expect the test will take around two or more hours for a 32GB memory card. Also before installing any software you're sure of it is best to use a site to run malware scans on the file. The site I use to test files I access by going to my search site https://www.advancedsearch.com.au/SearchBing/, type virus and then click Search. This site owned by Google tests the file for malware against dozens of well known software products.

After receiving the micro SD card I immediately ran the test software. The result below shows the micro SD card only had 112.8MB of 32GB memory that wasn't faulty and the speed did not meet the minimum Class 10 speed of 10MB/s. In other words I'd bought a dud

Test results

Warning: Only 31992 of 31993 MByte tested.
The media is likely to be defective.
112.8 MByte OK (231031 sectors)
31.1 GByte DATA LOST (65288585 sectors)
Details:4.5 KByte overwritten (9 sectors)
0 KByte slightly changed (< 8 bit/sector, 0 sectors)
31.1 GByte corrupted (65288576 sectors)
4.5 KByte aliased memory (9 sectors)
First error at offset: 0x00000000070cee00
Expected: 0x00000000070cee00
Found: 0x00eaacb0c0f30657
H2testw version 1.3
Writing speed: 7.59 MByte/s
Reading speed: 9.56 MByte/s
H2testw v1.4

This is a good lesson when it comes to buying cheap memory cards on eBay, or the internet in general. Make sure you test the memory cards when you receive them using test software. You can't just copy files to the card as the card will appear to work. It's only when you go to retrieve or use the files that you'll know the card is not what it should be. For example I copied a video file onto the card and no error was reported. I started to watch the video and after a short while the video froze. No error was reported.

Hopefully this experience will provide you with the knowledge and tools to check your memory cards.


Kelvin Eldridge
Online Connections
IT support

Apple Store subscription for Magic Piano by Smule a fake

Today I received an email for an Apple Store subscription for Magic Paino by Smule. Since this is a scam variation I'd not seen before I thought I'd share.

The email is a scam designed to get you to cancel by clicking on the link. The email is not real. It isn't from Apple. It's a fake.

Remember, often the only thing that is protecting you from you from these scams is how willing you are to click on the link. Don't do it.

Kelvin Eldridge
Online Connections
IT support.

Watch out for bait and switch which is very common on eBay

You're looking for a product on eBay but what can make it harder, is the old bait and switch technique. For example if you search for "earbud bluetooth" and then sort by "Price + postage - lowest first", you'll see quite a few low priced items.

Let's take the following item.

As you can see, there's a price range of $1.00 to $9.49. The $1.00 is to get you to see the listing by getting their item listed higher in the list. The $9.49 is for the black or white coloured bluetooth earbud. The $1.00 it is a set of cheaper wired earphones. Nothing to do with bluetooth at all. A fudge to get the listing higher in the list if the list is sorted by price.

I'm a bit surprised that eBay tolerates this bait and switch tactic of sellers. It really is annoying and such a time waster. Since eBay is unlikely to do anything about these types of ads (they're often included in their suggestions section as well) then I suppose it really is up to buyers to choose a  different supplier that doesn't use the bait and switch tactic. The good thing is it's easy to do. Just use the heading information to do another search query. There's usually quite a few sellers selling the same product.

Of course at some point I suspect the ACCC should get involved as this isn't the type of behaviour we expect from retailers in Australia.

Kelvin Eldridge

iMessage on iPhone has serious design flaw causing messages to never be received.

A person who had recently obtained an iPhone found they weren't receiving text messages from some of their friends. These friends also had iPhones. With a little investigation it was found the problem is with iMessage, when the recipient of the message turns their data off.

For example, person 1 turns off their data on their iPhone as they've reached their monthly limit and don't want to incur excess data charges. Person 2 sends a text message using their iPhone. The message is sent using iMessage (you can tell as a blue bubble appears for the message) but the message is never received. The message just vanishes. The only clue the sender might twig something hasn't worked, is the message icon on the iPhone has a red exclamation mark. The problem is as soon as you go to see what the red exclamation mark means by opening text messages, there's no information and the red exclamation mark disappears. The iMessage that was sent but not received doesn't indicate any failure. It looks like it has been sent and received.

This means that if you have an iPhone and sent a text message to another iPhone, and iMessage is used, you won't necessarily know if the person received the message or not, if the person turns off their mobile data.

There's a few ways around this problem.

1. If you can send unlimited text messages with your plan you can turn of iMessage on your iPhone. That means every message is then sent as a SMS text message. The bubble around the text appears green.

2. If you know a person who is likely to turn their data off, after sending the text message as an iMessage (the message appears in a blue bubble) press and hold on the blue bubble. You'll then see an option to send the message as text (not an iMessage). This option will send the message again. From that point on any message you send to the person will go as an SMS text message and they'll always receive the message whether they turn their data off or not . Keep in mind picture messages require data but here we're discussing text messages.

3. Turn off iMessage if you're not sure a person will receive the message and turn it back on after sending the message. For example you know a person regularly runs out of data.

Whilst in an ideal world we'd all have unlimited data and this wouldn't be a problem, the reality is, different people have different plans. You can't anticipate what plan another person has, but you can determine what you do.

I don't currently have an iPhone, but in the past when I did, I decided to simply turn off iMessage as iMessage caused a number of problems. This is not a problem with Android mobile phones as they don't have iMessage. However, if a person transfers to or from using an iPhone from or to an Android, they won't know these problems exist and won't realise they're not receiving text messages.

Kelvin Eldridge
Online Connections
IT support.

How to delete your Uber account.

I set up an Uber account but never ended up using it. Now it's asking for a new credit card so I decided to delete the account. To my surprise there's no option on the website if I log into my account to delete the account.

It turns out if you're using the website you need to submit a request and reason for deleting the account. However in your app you can delete your account. I decided to reinstall the Uber app and delete the account using the mobile app. That meant it was done and no confirmation back from Uber was required.

To delete your account open the Uber app, select Settings, Privacy, then Delete your account. You're then prompted for your password. Once deleted your account will be deactivated immediately and permanently deleted after 30 days. Select the reason or Other, then click Delete. After your Uber account is deleted you can delete/uninstall the Uber app. A confirmation email was received from Uber.

Kelvin Eldridge
Online Connections
IT support.

How to check the battery on your iPhone, iPad and macOS devices.

It never ceases to amaze me how information we could use, is so often hidden from us. With all the issues around Apple slowing down devices reportedly over ageing batteries, I started to wonder if you could easily check the battery of your devices.

Yes, you can go to the Apple store and see a technician, but last time I enquired the appointment was for the following week.  With a little searching I found software called coconutBattry which can be installed on a MacBook Air. Using coconutBattery you can check the status of your iPhone, iPad and MacBook Air battery. With iPhones and iPad you connect them to your MacBook Air using the USB cable and provide permission.

Be careful installing any software from unknown sources. The software coconutBattery is available from many sites. I decided the only site I could partially trust was the developers own site. Any other site could have a modified version uploaded. Even the developers software can be suspect. In this case I ran a scan using a malware site which checks the software using over 50 anti-virus engines. With the software checked it was then installed. There's now only a small chance the software could be nefarious.

With your iPhone or iPad connected to a MacBook Air via and USB cable and running coconutBattery, you can then select the iOS Device tab and see the battery information. The following is an older refurbished iPhone 4. Whilst the cycle count is above the 500 mentioned on the Apple site, there's still plenty of life in the battery as the capacity is a little over 90%.

The important figures are the cycle count and the percentage of the design capacity. You'll need to check the cycle count for your device.

The iPad and MacBook Air is designed to retain 80% of the battery charge for up to 1,000 cycles. For the iPhone it is 500 cycles. Older devices like the iPhone 4, may have a different cycle count.

The MacBook Air contains most of the information but doesn't include the design capacity. It does let you know in the system information the status of the battery, but the if the design capacity was provided as the full charge capacity is, you could determine the percentage yourself.

Apple does like to hide technical information from users which does make it less confusing. But for those who wish to have more information, since it's so easy to obtain, Apple could easily provide a suitable app. It's a pity they don't.

Kelvin Eldridge
Online Connections
IT support.

iPad Air 2 keeps beeping when connected via cable to a MacBook Air.

Connected the iPad Air 2 to the MacBook Air and rather than the usual experience, all the iPad Air 2 would do is keep beeping. I noticed the battery indicator appeared to be going on and off. The prompt to give permission to connect the the iPad Air 2 on the MacBook Air kept looping.

Tried different USB ports in the MacBook Air and even connected the power, but neither of these changes made any difference.

The cable is in good condition so I wondered if perhaps it was a bad connect. I wiped the contacts on the end that plugs into the iPad Air 2, inserted the cable and the problem was solved.

Kelvin Eldridge
Online Connections
IT support.

9Now location incorrect for Apple TV as based on IP address from Telstra.

I received a call from a person who was over talking with Telstra. They were based in Brisbane and their Apple TV 9Now app was providing shows from Melbourne instead of Brisbane. They wanted to watch a show on their Apple TV, but couldn't since they could only watch Melbourne shows.

It turns out Telstra had allocated the person's internet service an IP address which appeared to be based in  Melbourne. A check on the internet shows this problem does occur with others. Sometimes a person in Melbourne can appear to be in Brisbane. That most likely means people in other locations experience similar problems.

After considering the options, I thought since they're using an Apple TV, I asked if they also used an Apple Mac computer, which they did.

The solution suggested was to use their Mac to use their browser to go to the 9Now site to watch the show. The Mac should pick up their location correctly and give them the Brisbane shows on 9Now. They could then mirror their Mac on their Apple TV and watch the shows on their larger TV.

This solution solved their problem.

This solution may not always work as it depends on how your browser determines your location. Each browser may use a different approach, or the same approach, to determine your location. I noticed for example on Google Maps in the browser on the Apple MacBook Air, they'd use my mobile phone's location. If we don't know how the location of a device is determined by the software, it really is just a matter of trial and error to see what works.

If you find yourself in this position two other solutions to consider are:

1. Use your mobile phone temporarily as a hot spot and connect the Apple TV to the mobile phone. You'll most likely be seen in the correct location. BEWARE however of data usage. 9Now can use up to 3GB an hour on the fastest streaming high definition. Very easy to go through your mobile data and/or end up with bill shock with high data charges. Use with extreme caution.

2. As a test I decided to see if I could use GPS location faking on an Android mobile phone that was connected to my ADSL service using Wi-Fi (with mobile data turned off). I'm in Melbourne so set the fake location as Brisbane. Went to 9Now using the browser. Clicked on the link "Not in Vic" which rechecks the location and 9Now then saw me in Brisbane. This approach may be useful if you've just missed a show and the show will be on later in another state such as SA or WA. For on demand shows it won't work as yo get prompted to install the 9Now app. The 9Now app doesn't use the faked GPS location so most likely uses the IP address.

Finally, one thing you can try is to turn off your ADSL modem overnight. Some telcos provide dynamic IP addresses and if you turn off you equipment for a suitable amount of time, a new IP address may get allocated. That IP address may then be seen as being allocated to the correct state. For telcos that offer a fixed or static IP address, resetting the modem won't work.

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

Error 2293 when sending email from Microsoft Access - Can't sent this email message.

Yesterday I attended a client who uses a system I wrote for them using Microsoft Access. The problem is when they click on a button to create an email (this uses SendObject) nothing happened. My code catches the error but doesn't let the user know what happened. Could have coded that better, but it meant I put together a quite test program so I could see the error message.

A search through the internet for the Error 2293 message gave lots of responses but nothing that could help. Luckily a second computer didn't have the problem so I went to send my test program to the second computer. I right clicked on the file and selected Send To, Mail recipient and was surprised to find this feature also didn't work.

That actually was a good thing as it showed the problem was a system problem and not a Microsoft Access problem. Again a search of the internet revealed many responses but nothing that could help.

I tested an email link in Excel and it worked. So clicking on a link would created an email for me. That meant it had to be something not related to email URL. When I checked the Send To feature that called MAPI. Most likely this was installed using Microsoft Office.

I decided to run a repair for Microsoft Office 2010, the version installed on the computer. Microsoft Access 2016 is installed on the computer but Microsoft Office contains Outlook and this is I suspect what would install MAPI.

It turned out I was right and the repair fixed the problem. The client could now send emails using the buttons in Microsoft Access that used SendObject.

What caused the problem I don't know. It may be possible installing Microsoft Access 2016 after Microsoft Office 2010 caused an issue as the client suggested the email feature hadn't worked for some time and possibly since the change to the full version of Microsoft Access 2016. Previously the computer only had Microsoft Access 2010 runtime installed, but was upgraded as the new computer had Microsoft Office 2016 and Microsoft Access 2016. This may have been the case because once Microsoft Office 2010 was repaired the test program I had written no longer worked and there was a missing DLL.

Problem fixed and client happily using their Microsoft Access system they've now been using for over 20 years that started with Microsoft Access 1.0 and now runs under Microsoft Access 2016.

Kelvin Eldridge
Online Connections
IT support.

CPA Australia faked email contains malware attachment.

Today I thought I'd remind everyone to never trust attachments even when they may be from businesses or organisations you know. I'm not a member of the CPA, but many people are. The following email arrived today.

Everything in the text of the email is OK. However scanning the attachment showed only 4 out of 59 of the anti-virus scan engines would pick up the attachment contained malware. None of the commonly used in Australia anti-virus programs detected the malware meaning, if most people in Australia opened this attachment it may infect their computer without warning.

Don't be tempted to open attachments even if you know the organisation sending the email. If you wish to check the attachment you can save the attachment to a computer (I'd suggest a secondary computer that can be wiped if necessary). Then type virus into https://www.advancedsearch.com.au/SearchAustralia/ which will take you direct to the site I use to check suspicious emails. Upload and check the file. If one or more of the 59 scanning engines detect malware then the attachment is nearly certainly malicious. It may be worth waiting half a day or so before checking the attachment. That means others may have already uploaded the file and the scanning engines updated with new signatures. After checking the file if it's malicious delete the file immediately after checking and also empty the deleted files. You don't want to inadvertently infect your computer later.

Even if the attachment is reported as clean, there's still a small chance it is malicious. Check with the send to ensure they actually sent you the attachment.

Yes it is a pain to take this level of precaution, but it's more of a pain to get an infected computer repaired. Even more if the computer is on a network and infects other computers as well.

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

Apple battery replacement iPhone 6 and later, price reduced until December 2018.

Apple has recently come under fire for reducing the performance of certain Apple iPhone models when the battery is ageing. The apparent reason is, as batteries age they can't handle the peak power requirements and if the power requirement was not reduced, it may cause the iPhone to unexpectedly shut down.

This technically really isn't a bad thing, but what hasn't been the best is Apple letting their customers know. Apple is now reacting by bringing out an update early this year which will provide better information on the battery status and also making an offer of reducing the battery upgrade price from $119 to $39 until December 2018. Obviously that's still a poor outcome for those who went and replaced their iPhone thinking their iPhone was now getting too old because it had become slow.

This does however mean there may be quite a few good iPhones sitting in drawers that for a $39 battery upgrade may again become useful devices.

Secondly, this is a great opportunity for anyone with an older iPhone 6 or above, who is finding their battery not lasting as long as it previous did, to get a low cost battery replacement. Keep in mind this offer lasts until December 2018, so you can get as much use out of your current battery and take advantage of the offer later in the year.

Overall the battery offer gives an $80 saving and peace-of-mind the replacement is being performed by Apple.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au
IT support