How To: How Much Venmo Info Are You Sharing

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August 21, 2021

Venmo is one of the most popular forms to send/receive money, however, not everyone realizes how public their information is on Venmo. Do you use Venmo to send or receive money? Have you checked what the default Venmo settings are? Today’s post will go over the steps you should take if you don’t want others to know about your Venmo activity. How Much Venmo Info Are You Sharing

Introduction To Venmo

Venmo, which is owned by Paypal is used by millions to send and receive money from friends and family. In addition, Venmo can be used to make payments with select approved businesses. Venmo is unique in that it allows users the ability to share and like payments and purchases through a social feed. For millennials, Venmo seems to be the Go-To option to send and receive money.

The Problem With Venmo Settings

Signing up for a Venmo account is easy, just download the app. Once downloaded provide your name and your email address, and in a matter of minutes, you have an account. However, the social feed part of Venmo means that your account by default is public. All the settings in Venmo, by default, are all set to public and not everyone wants to share all the details of their life with everyone.

What To Check With Venmo

Once you have your Venmo account set up, what you want to check is the following. Click the 3 lines on the top right of the app

Select Settings -> Privacy

You will find the Privacy setting set to public. You will want to change that to Friends if you want those you know to be able to see what you do, or Private if you want only the person you send or receive money from to see.

Now Select Past Transactions.

This is the setting for all of your transaction history. Again, you can either make it Friends or Private, depending on what setting you prefer.

Go back one screen from the Past Transaction screen, and then select Friends list.

If you don’t to be seen by everyone on Venmo, this is where you can select if you want to be seen just by your friends, or not be seen at all. If you select Private, for others to find and add you, they will need to get your info from you. They won’t be able to search for you on Venmo.

How Much Venmo Info Are You Sharing

Final Thought

Some people may not care and are willing to share everything they do. However, for most, they want to have some control. These steps will give you some of that control with Venmo.

How To: Add Shared Mailbox Outlook For Windows

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anovelo

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August 20, 2021

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A shared email mailbox makes it easy for a group of people to monitor and send emails from a public email alias. When a person in the group replies to a message sent to the shared mailbox, the email appears to be from the shared address, not from the individual user. Today’s Post will go over the steps to add a shared email mailbox. Add Shared Mailbox Outlook For Windows

About A Shared Email Mailbox

Keep in mind, if you are reading this and wondering about your personal @outlook, @yahoo, or @gmail email, they don’t offer shared mailboxes as part of your benefits. Shared email mailboxes are something that is offered and available as part of business email accounts and will be accounts that end with @yourbusinessname. The basic goal of a shared email account is to allow a group of people to have access to and monitor a specific public email account without the need for a direct log-in.

Adding A Shared Mailbox To Outlook In Windows

To manually add the shared mailbox to Outlook in Windows:
1. Open Outlook.
2. Choose the File tab in the ribbon.
3. Choose Account Settings, then select Account Settings from the menu.
4. Select the Email tab.
5. Make sure the correct account is highlighted, then choose Change.
6. Choose More Settings
7. Now select the Advanced tab > select Add.
8. Type the shared email address, such as info@yourcompanyname.com.
9. Choose OK > OK.
10. Choose Next > Finish > Close.

At that point, if you added it correctly, the shared email will appear in the advance tab, under “Open these additional mailboxes”.

Final Thought

If it isn’t opening, then you will need to check with your email admin to make sure that your email account has the correct permission to access the shared mailbox. Add Shared Mailbox Outlook For Windows

Source

Microsoft – Open and use a shared mailbox

Deal Alert: Apple iPad Pro

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anovelo

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August 19, 2021

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If you are looking for a deal on a larger iPad, then B&H may have the deal for you.

Continue

Deal Alert: Apple Airpods / Airpods Pro

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anovelo

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August 19, 2021

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For those considering getting Apple Airpods or Airpods Pro, they are ON SALE! We have multiple vendors who have them on sale. Today’s post will show you some of the options if you are about to buy a set of Apple Airpods / Airpods Pro. Deal Alert: Apple Airpods / Airpods Pro

The Apple Airpods / Airpods Pro

With the Airpods you have a choice of a wired case, wireless case, or the Airpod Pro w/ wireless case. If your goal is to just get Airpods, the wired case may be enough. If you want noise-canceling, you may want to look at the Airpod Pro. The below break out gives you the difference between the 3.

Airpods On Sale

The Apple Airpods are on sale from several vendors.

From Amazon – You can get the wired version of the Airpods for $114 (Normally $159). If you want wireless charging for your Airpods, then it’s $149 (Normally $199). And if you want the noise-canceling features of Airpod Pro it will cost you $179 (Normally $249).

From Best Buy – If you are looking to be able to pick it up at a local store, or if you just don’t like Amazon (we don’t judge), you can go to Best Buy. At BB the Apple Airpods are on sale for $119. The Airpods with wireless charging is $149. And the AirPods Pro is $189.

Those who prefer Target is matching the Best Buy Prices for all 3 Airpod options

Final Thought

Keep in mind that just because they say Apple Airpods, that they are not only for Apple. The AirPods work on other devices (including Android and Windows). As long as your device has Bluetooth, you can use AirPods.

Deal Alert: Apple Airpods / Airpods Pro

Source

Amazon – Airpods
Best Buy – Airpods
Target – Airpods Pro

Update: More On T-Mobile Data Breach

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anovelo

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August 18, 2021

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T-Mobile is confirming that their system was breached. According to details released by T-Mobile, approximately 7.8 million current T-Mobile postpaid customer accounts’ information was stolen. The data also includes just over 40 million records of former or prospective customers. Today’s post will cover the details that T-Mobile has admitted to so far. Update: More On T-Mobile Data Breach

What Has T-Mobile Admitted So Far

As part of the T-Mobile admission (so far), they have acknowledged

They located and immediately closed the access point that used to illegally gain entry to the servers.

We know that was the case as the hacker had even acknowledged that he no longer had access last week.

Our preliminary analysis is that approximately 7.8 million current T-Mobile postpaid customer accounts’ information appears to be contained in the stolen files, as well as just over 40 million records of former or prospective customers who had previously applied for credit with T-Mobile. Importantly, no phone numbers, account numbers, PINs, passwords, or financial information were compromised in any of these files of customers or prospective customers.

So even if you aren’t a T-Mobile customer, if you applied at any time, you may be affected by the breach. If you see what T-Mobile posted, the hacker claimed to have the IMEI numbers which are specific to each phone. T-Mobile has not acknowledged if the IMEI numbers are included in the breach. Also, T-Mobile says that PINs and Passwords are not effective for most (just for some – see below). Tech Geek and More and T-Mobile both recommend that all users reset their passwords and pins, and has a post, Change T-Mobile Password & Pin with the How To Info.

Immediately offering 2 years of free identity protection services with McAfee’s ID Theft Protection Service.

As expected T-Mobile is offering 2 years of identity protection services, to cover this breach. Unfortunately, it’s only 2 years of coverage. What happens after 2 years, because once your data is exposed, it doesn’t suddenly disappear in 2 years.

At this time, we have also been able to confirm approximately 850,000 active T-Mobile prepaid customer names, phone numbers, and account PINs were also exposed. We have already proactively reset ALL of the PINs on these accounts to help protect these customers, and we will be notified accordingly right away

If you are one of 850k prepaid T-Mobile customers, your pin has already been reset.

Final Thought

This isn’t the 1st time T-Mobile has been hacked. You would assume they would have figured it out by now. Hopefully, they will finally get serious about the security of their customers’ info.

Source

T-Mobile –T‑Mobile Shares Additional Information Regarding Ongoing Cyberattack Investigation

How To: Change TMobile Password & Pin

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anovelo

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August 17, 2021

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It’s always a good thing to regularly change your passwords to your accounts. As much as you may hate the process of changing or remembering passwords. It’s especially important to change your passwords or pins after any identified data breaches. Considering T-Mobile has confirmed another breach of their systems, you should consider changing your T-Mobile password and pin. Today’s post will go over how to change your password and pin on your T-Mobile account.

For those who may not have seen the earlier post Alert: Possible Data Breach T-Mobile, it seems a hacker has obtained the data of over 100 million people, from T-Mobile servers. The data in question includes

Names
Physical Addresses
Social Security Numbers
Phone Numbers
Unique IMEI numbers
Drivers License info

Sadly, data breaches are so common, that data from 100 million people (per what the hacker claims to have), doesn’t seem to have the same impact that it used to have. Once your data is breached and on the dark part of the web, there isn’t much you can do to get it back. However, there are a few steps you can take to try and protect yourself.

One of the 1st things to do, is change your log-in info on your T-Mobile account, and any other account you use that you share that log-in info on. Basically, how many other online accounts have the same user name and password as your T-Mobile account. You need to figure that out and you need to change your info on those accounts as well. However, that is step #2, lets start with step #1, which is changing your account info at T-Mobile.

Changing Your Info – T-Mobile

To change your info, log into your T-Mobile account, and from the homepage, click on Edit Profile Settings. If you don’t see Edit Profile Settings, click where it says My Account on the top right of the page, and then click on profile. Once you get to the profile page, you will see T-Mobile ID

Click that and on the next page you will get the options to change

Name on account
Email associated with the account
Password on account
Pin/passcode confirmation used with the account
Primary phone associated with the account

From those options, you really should consider changing the email account associated with your T-Mobile account, password on the account, and Pin/passcode used with the account. In addition to the ability to change your account password info, on the same page, you can set up (and should set up) Two-Step Verication using an Authenticator app.

I know the page says Google Authenticator, but other Authenticators also work. Its very simple

Click on Manage to the right side
A QR code will appear
Open your Authenticator app, and select add acct
Scan QR code to add T-Mobile to your authenticator app.
Turn on Always Require, so that you are prompted everything time you log in for authenticator app info.

Final Thought

With this latest breach from T-Mobile that includes IMEI information, someone with bad intentions could use that info to clone your phone. That means they would be able to see all the text messages you send and receive. If you have sites that you log in that send you text codes as part of the log-in, the bad guy could easily see your info. So it’s best, to try to secure your accounts using an authenticator app (Like Google Authenticator or Microsoft Authenticator). Lastly, with other breaches of this size, the affected company offered free credit monitoring to its user base. T-Mobile has not announced that yet, however, keep an eye out. Tech Geek and More will post the info if T-Mobile announces it.

Recommended: Uni USB-C Hub

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anovelo

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August 16, 2021

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If you have purchased a laptop recently, you realize that most only come with 1, maybe 2 (if lucky) USB-C ports. If you require additional ports (like USB, HDMI, etc), you need to purchase adapters. Today’s post will review the Uni USB-C 8 in 1 hub, which is in stock at Amazon. Recommended: Uni USB-C Hub

To start today’s post, this is NOT a sponsored post. Tech Geek and More is not getting any financial gain from the vendor in this post. This post was inspired by multiple readers who just purchased new laptops (both Mac and MS Surface Pro), that only come with 1 or 2 USB-C ports. After multiple questions on what should they get to expand their port choices, we have today’s post.

The USB-C Hub Used / Recommended By Tech Geek and More

uni makes several computer accessories, and the one that is our favorite is the uni 8 in 1 USB-C hub, With the 8 in 1 hub you get

A USB-C port that can be used to connect your laptop power supply (up to 100W). This is especially helpful if you only have 1 USB-C port on your laptop. It lets you charge it, while the hub is plugged in.
An HDMI port that can broadcast up to 4K.
An Ethernet port for those who prefer to use a wired ethernet connection.
A USB 2.0 port
SD Card Port
Micro SD Card Port
2 USB 3.0 ports

The uni 8 in 1 USB-C port can be purchased at Amazon for $59.99

The uni 8 in 1 hub is compatible with Windows, Mac, Linux, as well as the iPad pro and numerous Samsung Galaxy devices.

Final Thought

If you need a handy USB-C adapter, without wanting to spend a lot of money, check out the uni 8 in 1 Hub. The hub can be ordered via AMAZON. This adapter is used by Tech Geek and More, and this post is being made because we like the UNI device. This is not a sponsored post.

Recommended: Uni USB-C Hub

Alert: Possible Data Breach TMobile

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anovelo

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August 15, 2021

0

If you are a customer of T-Mobile you should be concerned tonight. It seems there is a possible data breach of T-Mobile data that could affect a very large part of their customer base. This is still a developing story, so details are limited. The information came to light Sunday, Aug 15th, via a report from Vice.

According to the report, the hacker has obtained the data of over 100 million people, from T-Mobile servers. The data in question includes

Names
Physical Addresses
Social Security Numbers
Phone Numbers
Unique IMEI numbers
Drivers License info

Vice reports that they spoke to the hacker, who is selling the data. Of the compromised data, 30 million users’ data is being offered in the underground forum, for 6 bitcoin (or about $270,000). The remaining data is being sold “privately”, which is even scarier. According to the report from Vice, the hacker has lost access to the servers in question, so T-Mobile already probably knows and has patched the access. However damage is done, the hacker has downloaded and has the data.

T-Mobile for their part is only saying they are aware of the claims and are investigating.

Stay Tune for more info as it becomes available.