There is NO Topic More Important than your Online Safety

by | Oct 3, 2019

Our community is often targeted by bad people.  The bad people we are talking about include scammers, hackers, phishers, and distributors of badware.  We want to fight back and we want to enlist your help.

October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month (NCSAM). Held every October, NCSAM is a collaborative effort between government and industry to raise awareness about the importance of online safety and to ensure that all Americans have the education and resources they need to be safer and more secure online.

The Senior Tech Club is an NCSAM Champion.  We are committed to helping you stay safe.   We will use the month of October to focus our weekly News and Nuggets email on topics and conversations that will help stay safe and secure online.  We will do this  as you continue to build your skills and confidence with your devices.  Every week in October we will share a tip, a nugget or information that will help keep you safe.

Keep a Clean Machine

Keeping your internet-connected devices free from malware and security holes makes the internet safer for you and more secure for everyone.There are several recommendations that come from the National Cyber Security Alliance on their StopThinkConnect.org site under the theme, Keep a Clean Machine.  

Here are two important recommendations for our community of iPhone and iPad users:  

1.  Keep your Software up to date.  With your iPhones and iPads, this means that you should try to keep your IOS (the software that runs your phone) updated to the latest practical version.  At the Senior Tech Club, we like to be practical about this.  We don’t encourage our community to be among the first to update to the latest version.  But after the dust settles, we encourage you to complete your updates.  We dedicate a page on our website to the latest recommendation.  This is our first featured nugget of this week’s email.

2.  Remove Unused Apps.  We recognize that with your iPhones, there is an app for everything.  Sometimes you install apps that you may not use or use only temporarily, for example an app used on a vacation.  It’s a good plan to keep your machine clean by removing unused app.  Our second featured nugget of the week will show you how.  

Our Recommendations to help you Keep a Clean Machine 

  • Update IOS Software
  • Remove Unused Apps

Featured Nugget #1

Featured Nugget #2

 

This Nugget provides a step-by-step review of the process to delete apps from your device. ....Continue Reading

News & Events

Here are news and events on the Senior Tech calendar for the coming weeks.  Reply to this email if you want more information. 

March 2020 Classes

Here are the upcoming classes scheduled for the month of March along with links where you can receive more information.

Senior Tech Time (iPhone) – St Anthony Community Services March 23 2-4 pm

Stay Safe with your iPhone. This class will review the basic security and safety setup for your iPhone and iPad. This includes Touch ID, Face ID, Emergency SOS, Driving with your iPhone, Setting up Medical ID, Blocking TeleMarketers and general recommendations about avoiding phishing and malware.

St. Anthony Community Services – 612-706-1166 or website

Senior Tech Time (Android) – St Anthony Community Services March 25 2-4 pm

How to Make your Android SmartPhone Smarter. This class explores the features of the Android smartphone that are most useful for older adults. This includes bringing widgets to the home screen, managing notifications, using Google assistant and activating do not disturb.

St. Anthony Community Services – 612-706-1166 or website

 

Contribute to Medical Research & Get an Apple Watch for $49

iPhone users who are 65+ are invited to join the Johnson & Johnson Heartline Study and receive an Apple Watch for $49.  This is not only a great price for an Apple Watch but an opportunity to learn about heart health and participate in medical research.  

See the eligibility requirements, application and frequently asked question on the Heartline website. 

Magical Ending to Disney World Trip

A fun and heart-warming story from this past week involved the family of an iPhone 11 user from Montana.  They were visiting Disney World with their six-year old girl.  It was a dream of her short lifetime.

Starting with the iPhone 7, our iPhones have become increasingly waterproof.  The iPhone 11 is the most waterproof iPhone Apple has manufactured.  But dropping your iPhone into the Seven Seas Lagoon at Disney World is not in the specifications.  And certainly having it submerged for nearly two months is beyond belief.  It survived!

You can read the story at the MacRumors web site and then take some comfort in knowing that your iPhone is capable of surviving a dunk in a pool, ocean or lake.  But don’t ever submerge your phone to wash it.  

.