Data Doctors Tech Tips

Passwords continue to be one of the weakest links in cyber-security and I've stressed extensively why it's so important to use a different password for each of your accounts. I have given you a lot of suggestions for tools that can manage your passwords, but it may still be overwhelming. If that's the case, I've got a low-tech suggestion for anyone struggling to keep track of your passwords; just write them down! I don't mean scribble them on a sticky note and pop it on your screen, I mean write them down and save them somewhere safe, like deep on your phone or in your desk. Just dot use the word "password" anywhere on the document and incorporate your own form of "encryption" in the event someone discovers it. For example, add four completely random characters or numbers at the beginning of your actual passwords, then you'll be the only one to know to ignore them. My point is, If your choice is to use the same password on every account or write individual unique passwords down, then write them down so you aren't totally exposed by a single data breach.

The cameras in our smartphones have become our go-to cameras because they are so good, but since they don't fit in our hands in the same way as our point-and-shoot cameras, we can often end up with crooked pictures. Trying to take the picture with one hand is what generally causes this problem, because it's tough to get the phone aligned and tap the shutter at the same time. You can fix the image that's off kilter after the fact, but it's too much work to commit to in most cases, so we just post them crooked. It can look kind of artistic, but if you are taking too many crooked pictures and want some help, there's an app for that. An app called Orient helps you take straight pictures no matter how you are holding your iPhone because it can compensate for just about any angle by using the built-in gyroscope. You don't need to pay any attention to how you're holding your phone with the Orient app; just pick an aspect ratio from their options and the app does the rest. You can align pictures horizontally or vertically and it works with both front or back cameras, so now your selfies will come out straight. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/orient-self-aligning-camera/id820477384

If you're using an Android smartphone or tablet, you are more likely to be interested in all of the tweaks and utilities that this platform offers. If you're a more technical hands-on user that is used to the Windows approach to file manager, here's an app you might want to check out. It's called ES File Explorer and it is a very popular app for Android users that's been downloaded hundreds of millions of times already. This useful app replicates much of the functionality in Windows, using folders that you can cut, copy, paste, move, delete, rename and allows multiple select options for faster management. As with any utility on any system, if you don't know what something is, don't ever delete it. ES File Explorer can also integrate with Dropbox, Google Drive, Sky Drive and many other popular online cloud services, so pushing files to the Internet is made easy. You can also manage other applications, stop background tasks from running and delete junk files even on your SD card. If you are the tinkering type and have an Android phone, it's worth checking out: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.estrongs.android.popandhl=en

Whenever you've had to do research on the web, you know that you shouldn't take the information you find on a single site at face value. Finding similar sites that can help you verify or possibly dispute the information you are researching is a way of validating the info, but searching for related sites can get laborious. That is where a website called http://www.similarsitesearch.com can help in a big way. This search engine focuses on finding sites that may be similar, related or even alternatives based on your search words, the topic or category. Simply type any website into the search site and it'll return a list of sites that are similar ranked by popularity. It's a really quick way to get a solid list of alternative resources for just about anything you are trying to do research on. You can even help them improve the rankings by giving each suggested site a thumbs up or down based on how accurate you feel the results are. It's one of those awesome resources that you will love when you need, so consider bookmarking it!

There is a vital process to surfing the Internet known as DNS that plays a critical role in directing you to the sites type in your browser. DNS which stands for Domain Name System acts kind of like a traffic cop providing your computer with directions to the sites you want to visit. The DNS setting is usually determined by your ISP, but changing from your defaults can have several major benefits. Not only can you increase the reliability and your speeds but if you are a parent, you can easily block adult content or malicious sites for your entire household. A really great free service called OpenDNS is fast, very reliable, easy to get setup and it gives you complete filtering control over everything that connects to your home network. It's as simple as changing the DNS settings in your router and every device in your home will have improved performance and be better protected. The link to the free versions of OpenDNS are posted at DataDoctors.com/radio https://www.opendns.com/home-internet-security

Think of your PC's hard drive as a refrigerator, which no matter how big the storage, you will eventually fill it up. And just as with your frig,tossing out the unneeded items is a whole lot cheaper than buying a new one. The problem for most attempting a cleanup is that they don't know what's taking up the space, so they don't know what to uninstall or delete. First off, uninstalling unused programs is a good start, and if you have a bunch of videos or a huge music library that you no longer need, those are huge space hogs. If you are a user of Windows, you can make it a lot easier to see whats what with a free program called TreeSize. With Windows, the storage structure is referred to as a tree and each folder is like a branch. TreeSize will show you how much space is taken by each folder so you'll have a good idea where the space hogs reside. But Be Careful: You shouldn't ever delete anything unless you know exactly what it is and be sure you have a complete and verified backup before attempting to clean up your hard drive. http://www.jam-software.com/treesize_free

No matter who you are, you have probably realized that you are watching a lot more video online these days. The king of online video is still Google's YouTube with well over six billion hours of video being watched every month. More than 100 hours of streaming video is uploaded to Youtube every single minute of every day. Whether you are a family with a lot of active kids or a business looking to leverage video, creating your own YouTube channel is really kind of a no-brainer. If you're a business, creating helpful videos to attract customers is useful or your family can upload and privately or publically share your videos of everyday life. If you aren't very tech savvy, getting your channel started may seem a bit overwhelming, but it is actually pretty easy. Google has created an excellent educational resource that they call the YouTube Creator Academy to assist novices and emerging viral video stars alike! You can learn how to get started or discover the 10 fundamentals to a creative strategy for your business allowing you to learn as you go. If you've been thinking of getting started yourself, checkout the creator academy link posted at DataDoctors.com/radio https://www.youtube.com/creatoracademy

When your computer starts to run a little slow, many of you assume that means it's time to get a new computer. If your computer is really old maybe, but there's an inexpensive way to get it running like it's new again. It is known as a Hybrid harddrive and it is one of the "best kept secrets" in the computer world. There are 3 major internal components that have a dramatic impact on how fast your computer will run: your processor, RAM and harddrive. The hard drive turns out to be the biggest bottleneck and improving this bottleneck will have a huge impact on performance. And best of all, it's a lot less expensive than buying a new computer. Hybrid hard drives make use of a super fast solid state memory circuit combined with an old-school magnetic drive and keep the files you use most on the much faster partition. If you upgrade, you can use the old hard drive as a backup drive by putting it into an external enclosure. So, before you spend a ton of money replacing an old computer, check to see if a hybrid-hard drive can save you money and pep up your system at the same time!

Weddings are meant to be a joyful experience but the days leading up to the big day are usually filled with to-dos and stress. One of the biggest decisions is choosing what method you'll use to create a gift registry. The options for creating the gift registry are numerous, but just about all of them will limit the gift options to only what the site is setup to sell. If you know of a couple that's announced their nuptials, let them know about Zola.com; that's Z O L A.com Zola allows wedding couples to create their gift registry from products, services, experiences or even a honeymoon trip, but makes this site different is that the items can be from just about anywhere on the Internet. Zola creates a single site for everything on the couple's wish list and then it manages all the transactions in one place as well. There is also an option to schedule delivery of all the gifts, which is critical for newlyweds that know that they are going to move or delay delivery until the get back from the honeymoon. You can even create group gifting for more expensive items; it's like a Kickstarter for weddings. Zola.com is a modern customizable gift registry that can do it all for the engaged couple.

The initials "PDF" stands for 'Portable Document Format' and it is the de facto standard for publishing documents and forms. The problem is that when you download a web-form, you have to print it, fill it out by hand and then scan and email it back, fax it back or send it via snail mail. While you can install programs that will provide the ability to electronically fill out the form, it's a bit much, especially for those that only need it once in a while. The next time you find yourself needing to fill out a PDF form, checkout a web tool called PDFescape.com. Because it is a web based tool, there is nothing to download and install, so you can fill out and modify forms whenever you want from any Internet connected computer. All you do is upload your PDF to the site and fill in the existing text boxes or use their 'Text' tool which allows you to add text anywhere on the form. When you're done, just save the updated form on your computer so you can email it back. http://pdfescape.com is worth bookmarking!