The Computer Tutor

Most of us are on Facebook every day and pretty much do the same things – look at what our friends have posted, maybe post a new status of our own sometimes. But there are some things you can do with Facebook that a lot of people don’t know about. Today I’ll show you 3 of them.

1. Get a copy of everything you’ve ever posted on Facebook

For some people, that’s a TON of stuff – photos, videos and status updates. Just click the drop-down menu that shows the “Settings” option, click on that and look at the “General” tab:

When you click that, you see this:

Click “Start my Archive”. You’ll have to enter your Facebook password again, then Facebook will start organizing your entire archive of content and they’ll send you an email when it’s ready for you. Mine took about 10 minutes.

When it’s ready, click the link in the email to download, enter your password again, and you can download everything in a .zip folder. Open it up and there’s all your stuff!

2. Designate what happens to your Facebook account after you die

If you have had a Facebook friend who has passed away, you might have wondered this yourself. Wouldn’t it be ideal to have some kind of final post on your Facebook status to let all your friends know when you have died? I mean, obviously some of your real-life friends and family would already know, but a lot of them would have no idea. In anticipation of this, you can designate someone to be what Facebook calls  your “Legacy Contact”. You just choose someone who will be able to log in to your account and write a pinned post (meaning that post stays at the top) to let everyone know you are no longer around.

To do this, log in to Facebook and go to Settings -> Security -> Legacy Contact. Find the Legacy Contact “Edit” option and you can enter one of your friends to have this job. Of course, it needs to be someone you trust.

3. Upload a 360 degree picture or video

You’ve probably seen some of those cool pictures or videos that a friend has uploaded to Facebook. As you move your phone around, you can see a full 360 degree view – just like you’re standing where the person was when they took the picture.

This doesn’t require any expensive equipment. You just need your smartphone and the Google Street View app (free for Android and iOS). Basically you just run that app and open the Camera option within the app. Then you take a picture, move to the right a little and the app takes a picture on its own when it’s lined up properly with the previous one. You just keep doing that, save the file, and then upload the picture to Facebook.

Here’s a video showing how to do this:

Yahoo recently announced that hackers were able to get into their system and steal a lot of personal information. Here’s what you need to know, and what you need to do.

When did the data breach take place?

This is one of the more concerning factors about this problem. Yahoo says that the hack into their servers actually happened back in 2014 – 2 years ago. This means that the 500 million users that were affected by this have gone for two years not even knowing there was a problem. The real question is, when did Yahoo find out about it? If they knew about it in 2014, then they have acted quite irresponsibly in not announcing it. If they just found out about it, how can their security systems and processes be so lax that a breach of this magnitude can go unnoticed for two years?

What information was stolen?

Yahoo has concluded from their investigation that these things may have been stolen:

Does this only affect Yahoo email users?

Unfortunately, probably not. Yahoo owns several other popular websites, including Flickr and Tumblr. They also own  the popular fantasy football site called Rivals. If you currently have, or have ever had, an account at any of those sites,  you need to change your password and security questions right away.

What do you need to do?

If you have ever had a Yahoo account, or an account with any of the sites mentioned above, yes you need to do a few things:

1. Change your password

2. Create new security questions

3. Change password on other sites where that password was used

4. Don’t use Yahoo

It’s one of the most frustrating things about Windows. You go to shut off your computer, and rather than just shut down, it decides it’s time to install a bunch of updates. So you wait and wait while this happens, all the while wondering why your computer is forcing you to stand there and watch it until it says you can go. There’s an easier way!

Don’t get me wrong – Windows Updates are important. They are sent out on the second Tuesday of each month, which is called Patch Tuesday because most Windows Updates are little pieces of code that patch up security holes or software bugs that have been recently discovered. In a few rare cases, a Windows Update has been known to cause a problem, but that’s very uncommon. So you should get those updates when they come out, in order to keep your computer as safe and secure as possible.

There are two steps in the Windows Update process:

The downloading part of the process you probably don’t even notice, since it happens in the background even when you’re using the computer. Or it might happen overnight, when you’re not using the computer.

So the updates are downloaded, and then they’re just sitting there waiting to be installed. At this point, if you don’t do anything with your computer, those updates will be installed automatically at 3 am the next day. BUT – if you happen to decide to shut down your computer or restart it before that, the updates will want to install right then.

For me, this usually happens at a really inconvenient time. Like when a client is coming to pick up their computer and they’ve checked it all out and everything is repaired and working properly, so we go to shut it down and now we have to wait for the updates to install. I actually try to get any Windows Updates while I’m working on it, but sometimes that happens. Or, if I hear thunder or see lightning, I immediately go around and unplug all the computers from the wall in order to avoid any voltage surge problems. At a time like that, I really don’t like waiting for the computer to finish getting all the updates while there’s an electrical storm happening.

Fortunately, there is a way to turn off your computer and SKIP installing those updates. You’ll still need to get them, but you just don’t have to get them right that minute.

Here’s how you shut down your computer and skip the installation of Windows Updates.

This is the menu in Windows 10 (just not showing those other two update options since my computer isn’t currently waiting to install any updates):

This is what it looks like in Windows 7:

What you DON’T want to do is to get in the habit of just using this shut down menu to continually put off getting those Windows Updates. This is just a way to get around it at the moment if you’re in a hurry and can’t wait for them to install.

Last week we talked about a “low-security” way to keep someone out of a particular file or folder, just by “hiding” it. Today is part 2, and this procedure uses a separate program to provide a much higher level of security.

Rather than just protecting a file by making not readily visible, this process encrypts it so that in order to be viewed, a password needs to be entered.

The program we’re using for this is called AxCrypt, and you can download it at AxCrypt.net.

AxCrypt has both a free version, and a paid version. Obviously you get more features with the paid version, but the biggest difference I can see is that the paid version allows you to encrypt entire folders, whereas the free version only allows individual files to be encrypted. The paid version is 24 Euros per year, which currently converts to about $27 in US dollars.

So, in order to use the free version, you just need to encrypt all of your individual files (pictures, documents, spreadsheets, etc). You might find it easier to just create a folder for all of those files. Someone would still be able to get into the folder, but they wouldn’t be able to open any of those files unless they have the password.

Here’s how you get AxCrypt set up on your Windows computer:

1) Go to the website AxCrypt.net and click the Download link at the top

2) Click the download button that is appropriate for your computer. For most people it would be 64 bit, unless you’re using a computer that is pretty old.

3) After the download has completed, double click to run it and follow the standard installation process:

4) When AxCrypt runs for the first time, you have to enter your email address:

5) Then you’ll get an email with a 6-digit code to confirm that it’s actually your email:

6) This is the email:

7) After you have confirmed your email, you’ll need to create a password. Remember, as with all passwords, it should be strong and unique (not a password you have used anywhere else). That will activate your account.

8) Finally, you can now sign in to your account:

Now you can start using the program. To try it out, create a test file such as a Word document or an Excel spreadsheet, or just a regular text file with Notepad. Save that test file in your Documents folder. In the example below, I created a text document called “TEST FILE.txt”. When you right click on that file, the menu that comes up will have an entry for AxCrypt. Just mouse over that menu, and another one will fly out to the size, and you can choose to Encrypt that test file.

When that file becomes encrypted, you will notice two things about it. First, the icon changes to the AxCrypt icon (the padlock). And the file extension changes to “.axx”. These things are how you can tell at a glance that a file has been encrypted with AxCrypt:

Whenever you’re working on your computer, it’s good to make sure you are signed OUT of your AxCrypt account. You can do that by right-clicking on a file and this time choosing “Sign out”. That way, if someone tries to get into any of your encrypted files, they will need to sign in with your password in order to gain access.

And of course, you can decrypt a file by going through the same right-click process and choosing “Decrypt”. You’ll be asked for your AxCrypt password, and that file will be decrypted and viewable by anyone.

If you have a need to encrypt a specific folder, or multiple folders, it might make sense for you to get the paid version. Otherwise, for most people with just a single file or a few files that need to be protected, the free version is sufficient.

Here are a couple of videos from the AxCrypt website that show more detail. The first one is for setting up your AxCrypt account, and the second one is getting started with using it.

https://youtu.be/grEu_gglHB4

https://youtu.be/FXa7RnikL7Q

I recently got this email from a podcast listener:

Dear Scott, I live in Dubai and I enjoy your weekly podcast, which is simple and informative. Please keep up the good work! Scott, could you please cover in a future podcast how I can create (in Windows 10) a normal file folder but one that can be password protected. So, for example, if I hand over my laptop to a friend or colleague, I can simple shift my personal files to that folder and then move them back when I need to. Or else, all those files that are private I can file in my password protected folder and not have to worry about password protecting each and every file. Can you help? Best wishes and thanks once again for a great podcast. Regards, Faisal

Thanks for the great question, Faisal! I know the podcast is heard all around the world but I’m still a little taken aback when I hear from listeners from so far away as Dubai.

There are actually a couple of ways to protect a file from being viewed by some other person – a low-security way, and a high-security way. Both are free, and neither one is very difficult. I’ll talk about the low-security process today, and next Monday I’ll go over the more secure process.

The low-security way to protect a file or folder

This process does not require any other software other than Windows, and it will work on Windows 7, 8 or 10. It is based on the premise that a nosy person can’t peek at a file if they don’t know it exists.

Now, I should say up front that this method will not stop anyone that is even a little bit tech-savvy or knows a little bit about how Windows works. But it would be effective for a large percentage of computer users.

Let’s say if you go into your computer and open the Documents folder, you see the following folders:

Does anything there stand out to you? Of course, the “Private files” folder. Anyone who’s even a little curious would probably click on that to see what’s in there. Which is exactly what you DON’T want them to do.

So what you need to do is HIDE that folder so that it’s still there, just not visible in that list.

It’s easy to do that. Just do a RIGHT click on the folder name, and choose Properties at the bottom of the menu. In the new window, under the “General” tab, check the box labeled “Hidden” and click OK:

Now if you look at that same list of folders, this is what you see:

Keep in mind, you didn’t DELETE that private folder, you simple designated it as HIDDEN. So no one sees it, not even you.

“Great, Scott. But now how do it get it back?”

In order to see it again and access it, you have to tell your computer that you want it to display any files or folders that are designated as “Hidden”.

To see the “hidden” files and folders, go to Control Panel and click on Folder Options (in Windows 10, it’s called File Explorer Options). Then click the View tab, and check the button that says “Show hidden files, folders and drives” and click OK:

Now go back to the list of folders and here’s what you see:

You can kind of see that the “Private” folder is visible, but the icon is a different color than the other icons. That is just the indication that the folder is designated as “hidden” but you can still see it because you told the computer to show you the hidden files.

If you want it to not be seen at all, just go back to the previous step and choose “Don’t show hidden files, folders or drives”.

Like I mentioned earlier, and you can probably tell, this is not a very secure way of keeping someone out of your private files and folders. Anyone that knows how to tell the computer to display hidden files will be able to find that private folder. Only you can decide if this method is sufficient for you. Two factors to consider:

If the file is super-duper private, or the person might know how to do what I just showed above, you probably won’t want to use this method. A week from now, I’ll show you another process that uses a free piece of software and it’s much more secure.

For some of my clients, I have a hard time convincing them that they need to have a backup process in place. Usually these are people that have not (yet) experienced a hard drive crash and lost some, or all, of their important files. Their computer is working fine at the moment, they’ve never had a problem, so setting up a backup is not very high on their priority list. Those people are likely to have an unpleasant surprise some day.

So you can imagine, if they don’t think a backup process is all that important, there’s no way they would see the need to have TWO backups in place.

But for a lot of people, having two different backups is definitely the right solution. That’s because they do two different things.

The two types of backups are local backup, and cloud backup.

Local backup means you use a portable hard drive that sits next to your computer, and it plugs into a USB port to do the backup. I usually set this to happen overnight, like from 1 am to 3 am, while the computer is not being used. This local backup takes everything – EVERYTHING – on your hard drive and puts it into a single file on that portable drive. So this means your Documents, your Pictures, your wallpaper, your MS Office software, your antivirus, everything on that hard drive is backed up.

For the local backup, you just need a portable drive like the one I linked to above. The software I use for this, Macrium Reflect, is free for personal use. And if you want me to set it up for you, I can do that remotely (takes about 30 minutes).

Cloud backup means you are backing up your important files on a different computer. That’s really all “cloud” means – it’s storage space on a computer other than your own. Cloud backup is completely automated. Once it’s set up, you don’t have to do anything. This type of backup safely stores your important files, such as Documents, Pictures, Music, Videos, Outlook emails, that kind of thing. It does not backup your software such as MS Word or your antivirus program.

For the cloud backup, your cost for your personal computer is $60 per year (that goes to the backup service I recommend, which is Carbonite).

Now back to the initial question: why do you need both of these backups? Why not just choose one of them?

To answer that, let’s say you only have one of these backups when your hard drive crashes:

If you only have the cloud backup, your documents and pictures and other files are safe. So you just take out the crashed drive and put in a new one, but before you can do anything, you have to install Windows. Do you have your Windows installation disc? Do you have the product key required to activate Windows after it’s installed? Do you have your installation disc for Microsoft Office? You can download Office and install it – but for that you need your user name and password for the Microsoft account. And you need to install all the other software, such as Chrome or Firefox, your antivirus, and any other software you normally use. THEN you can go to your cloud backup service and download all of your files such as documents and pictures.

As you can imagine, this whole thing is quite a lengthy process and it can be a while before your computer is back up and running with all of your programs and important data. If you use your laptop for your everyday work, you might find that you don’t have use of it for a few days while all of this is being restored to the new drive. So it’s good to have the cloud backup service, but it’s not that convenient if that’s the ONLY backup you have.

On the other hand…

If you only have the local backup to your portable drive when your computer’s hard drive crashes, you can just put in the new replacement hard drive, and then restore everything from the last local backup to the new drive. Everything will be there – all of your programs, your documents, your screen saver, everything is exactly like it was when that most recent backup was done.

But what if you haven’t done a local backup in a month? or 6 months? The process for doing a local backup is simple – just plugging in the USB cable at night and unplugging it in the morning – but you do have to remember to do it. If you don’t, your most recent backup might not be very recent.

And here’s another factor. Usually, that portable drive is going to sit next to the computer. So the original hard drive (in your computer) is right next to the backup drive. What if you have a fire? The computer AND the backup could get destroyed at the same time since they’re in the same place. Or remember the recent massive floods in Louisiana? Lots of computers were destroyed, and if the portable drive with the backup was in the same location, the backup was destroyed as well.

Also, that portable drive can get lost, stolen, dropped, stepped on, etc. even under normal conditions. So it’s good to have the local backup to the portable drive, but it’s kind of risky to have that as your ONLY backup.

So, if A) you want to be really sure that your files are safe, and B) you want to be able to be back up and running as soon as possible after a hard drive crash, it really makes sense to do both of these backups.

And finally, the other question I get sometimes after I explain all of this to clients – if I were only going to do one type of backup, which one would be better?

My answer would be the local backup would be the one I would prefer, if I could only do one. But that choice comes with one qualifier – that you are disciplined enough to do it. If you don’t think you’ll remember to plug that portable drive into your computer at night, and unplug it in the morning, then don’t rely on that type of backup. The cloud backup is completely automated so you don’t have to do anything.

If a friend sends you a Facebook message, you see the notification at the top of the Facebook page, click on it and read it. Simple. What if someone sends you a message, and you actually do know that person in real life but you aren’t yet Facebook friends? You might never even realize that message exists, unless you know where to look for it.

This happened to me a few times before I got wise and started checking it regularly. It would be nice if Facebook popped up some kind of notification that there was a message waiting for you somewhere other than your “regular” inbox, but they don’t (as far as I know). When you check this, you might be surprised to find messages that people sent to you months or even years ago!

There are a couple of types of messages that you won’t be notified about: Filtered Messages, and Message Requests.

If Facebook’s algorithm detects that the message might be from a spammer or a scammer, they just put it in the Filtered Messages area.

If you get a message from someone you might know, that one will go in the Message Requests area. The sender might be someone you aren’t friends with, but maybe you have some mutual friends so there’s a connection. Or maybe both of you are also members of a few different Facebook groups.

Every so often, I’ll get a reply from someone on Facebook, and it’s a reply to a message I sent them a LONG time ago (sometimes more than a year). That just means that person just now figured out how to see those hidden messages.

Here’s how to check for these messages:

Open Facebook, and click on the “Messages” icon in the top right area of the page:

When you click on that, you’ll see a list of your most recent messages. At the bottom, click on “See All”:

Then look up in the top left area. When you click the “More” button you’ll get a drop-down menu and one of the options is “Filtered”. If there’s a number in parentheses there, that’s how many Filtered messages are waiting for you.

Just to the left of the “More” button is the “Message Requests” button. When you click that, you’ll see a list of the people that have sent you a message, along with the message they sent.

At this point, if you have messages in either of these categories, you can respond to them, ignore them, or delete them.

This is a good thing to keep in mind when you send someone a Facebook message, but you’re not friends with them on Facebook. They might not be ignoring you – they might just have no idea that your message is sitting there in hiding, waiting to be read!

What a week this has been. It started with a simple process: replacing a monitor. By the end, I had to replace my primary computer. And I discovered something very important for you to know about Windows – especially Windows 10.

I’ll give a brief summary of what happened.

I use 2 monitors on my main desktop computer. I’ve done this for years. If you ever set up your computer to use dual monitors, you’ll never go back to one because it’s so nice to have all that space for everything.

My left monitor had been dying a slow death for several weeks. I knew it was going bad, because every time I restarted my computer, the right monitor would come on fine, but the left monitor would come on for about a half second, then shut off, then come back on for a half second, and that cycle would continue. When it first started doing that, it would go through that cycle for about 30 to 60 seconds before it would come on and all would be fine. But as time went by, that cycle would last for a longer period of time. Last week it had gotten to the point where I was waiting about 10 or 15 minutes for it to be completely powered up, so I decided to go ahead and switch it out.

I had another set of dual monitors that I really like, so I went ahead and switched out both of my current monitors for this other matching set. Got them all hooked up, and got no video signal from the computer to either monitor. I knew the monitors were working, so this was kind of odd. Tried various connection changes, still no luck. So I tried putting a different video card in my computer. In fact, I tried a few video cards. Not only did this not work to get a video signal, now my computer won’t boot up properly. It would start up, run for about 30 seconds (with no video signal), then power down and start up again. This cycle continued indefinitely.

So now this has gone from a simple monitor switch to a major computer issue. And this was on Friday. I usually write my blog and record my podcast on Saturday, for publication on Monday. Looked like that was going to be a tough deadline to meet now.

As a side note, I’ve had some people ask, “Why not just use a different computer to do the blog and podcast?” It’s true, I have other computers, including the ones I have for sale. The problem is the software. I use Adobe Audition to record my podcast, and I also use Photoshop to edit the photos on my blog. Getting those installed on different computers, as well as the time it takes to write the blog and record the podcast, was just too much to fit in while I was in the process of buying a new computer and getting it all set up. So I just sent out an email to my subscribers (and posted on my website and on Facebook) to let everyone know there would be no blog or podcast on Monday. First time I’ve ever had to do that so it felt kind of weird.

Finally found a computer on Sunday night. This was a Craigslist ad and it was about 20 minutes away from me. The seller was nice enough to let me come and look at it even though it was like 9 pm on Sunday night. I verified it had all the specs I needed (including the option to use 2 monitors) and brought it back home that night. Looks like this:

Even before this purchase, Lenovo has been becoming my favorite brand of computer. They look nice and they work so well. This desktop computer (so far) further confirms this and I’m very happy with it. It has an i5 processor, and although I got it with 8 gb of memory (RAM), I took some of the memory sticks from my old computer and upgraded the memory on this new one to 20 gb. Nice and fast, and very quiet. Fan noise is a factor, since it sits on my desk and I really don’t want the sound of computer fans to provide the background noise for my podcast.

The only thing that made me hesitate about buying this computer is the operating system on it: Windows 10.

You probably already know my feelings about Windows 10. For over a year I’ve been telling people to avoid upgrading from Windows 7 or 8.1 to Windows 10. Partly this was because of the obnoxious practices Microsoft was using to get Windows on every computer. Partly it was because Windows 10 has caused compatibility issues with so many of my clients. And partly it was because I just don’t like the user interface (mainly the Start button/Start menu).

I’ve also said that for some people, Windows 10 functions properly. Fortunately I can (so far) count myself among those people. My printer was compatible with it (I’ll come back to that in a minute) and all of the drivers were there with no issues. And from a practical standpoint, I needed a computer sooner rather than later, and Windows 7 computers are gradually becoming harder to find. This Lenovo met all of my other requirements, so I went ahead and made the decision. I also knew that if it were a total disaster, I could at least try to wipe it and install Windows 7 on it (that doesn’t always work either, but it was a potential option).

The next step was to get the new computer all set up with my stuff. As you probably know, I do several backups every day so I definitely was not going to lose any of my important files or folders. Those were all safely stored on 2 different drives as well as the cloud (Carbonite). The real issue was getting all of my software on the new computer.

I had recently learned about a piece of software that will take everything from an old computer and transfer it to a new one (including Windows, all of the programs, all of the data, everything). But rather than use that, I made the decision to just manually reinstall all of my software on the new computer. Over the years, I had a lot of programs on my old computer that I really didn’t use any more. This slowed things down, and it also made my backup very large (my overnight system image backup was taking about 7 hours every night).

So I figured this was a good opportunity to start “clean” with this new computer and just put on the stuff I needed and used regularly. This also meant a huge amount of time-consuming work, but now that it is mostly done I think it was worth it. My backup overnight now takes about 2 hours and this computer is also super-fast.

(Printer update: about a week after my computer died, my printer took a jolt of electricity and died also. Replaced that the same day with a Brother laser printer (after verifying that it too is compatible with Windows 10, and it works fine.)

In the middle of all this, one thing made me laugh. After I sent out the email telling everyone my computer crashed and I had to replace it, I got a few responses expressing some surprise that MY computer – the Computer Tutor computer – could crash just like everyone else’s. This one in particular struck me funny, from Chester:

“Wishing you the best in getting a new PC

Maybe a little sadistic, but I thought it was funny. So thanks for the laugh Chester!

And the important thing I discovered in this process

System Restore is a function that’s built into Windows. It allows you to take your computer back to the state it was in at an earlier point in time (hours, days or even weeks earlier). It does not affect your Documents or Pictures or other personal files, just your computer’s software, the registry, etc. System Restore is a very handy tool for technicians to use in a variety of situations, so you want to make sure it’s always enabled.

For some reason, Microsoft has set up Windows 10 so that System Restore is disabled by default.

That means you need to go in and enable it manually. To do this, hold down the Windows key and tap the letter X, then click on Control Panel. Click on “System”, then in the top left click on “System Protection”. Look in the middle under “Protection Settings” for your C drive and see if the protection is on or off. If it’s on already, you’re fine.

If it is designated as off, you can turn it on by just clicking the “Configure” button and in the next window, click “Turn on system protection”. I also usually set my disk space for this to about 5% but you might want more or less than that, depending on how much free space you have. Then just click OK.

And by the way, you shouldn’t only check this setting if you have Windows 10 – you should check it and make sure it’s enabled no matter what version of Windows you are using. In some cases, when I’m fixing a computer, System Restore can mean the difference between a 15 minute fix and a 3 hour fix. When you’re paying by the hour, that’s a big difference!

If you ever have a need to publish photos online, such as on your website or a social media account, you need to be VERY careful to make sure you have the right to do that. Otherwise, it could be a very expensive lesson.

When you need a picture for some project such as a business website, or your blog, or a Twitter post, what’s the easiest way to find that perfect image? Google image search, of course! I mean, Google has many millions of images indexed so you’re sure to find LOTS of photos that will serve the purpose.

But you better not do that.

There’s a company called Getty Images, and their entire business model is based on catching people who use digital images online without having the right to do so. Getty has purchased the copyright license to a huge collection of images, and they spend their days searching websites and blogs and social media sites looking for any of “their” pictures that are being used without authorization.

If you are using one of their images, they’ll find you and the first thing you’ll get is a very direct letter stating that they own the rights to the image, you don’t own the rights, you used the image without permission, you owe us money. The amount being demanded can range from $100 up to thousands of dollars, depending on the image and the usage. I had a client who received a letter from Getty demanding $700, and they ended up just paying it rather than trying to figure out who was right or wrong in the situation.

And I would guess that’s what most people or companies do – for a payment of a few hundred dollars, it’s cheaper to just pay it rather than hire a lawyer to fight it in court. So Getty probably goes unchallenged in most of these cases.

And really, even if you do have the rights to the photo, could you actually come up with the proof of that? Or could you produce evidence that you purchased the usage rights from the actual owner? If you can’t (or don’t want to bother with it), the only other option is to just pay the bill and get on with your life.

So today’s tip is just that – only use images that you have the right to use, and keep the paperwork and proof of purchase in case your rights ever get challenged.

(Thanks to reader Tim, who recommended this article on how to respond to a Getty letter: read it here.)

As you might imagine, Getty is not very popular with a lot of people. They make their money by sending large invoices to people that aren’t expecting them, so many of their transactions involve parties that are very upset at this unexpected bill that they’re being forced to pay.

That’s what makes this recent story so wonderful.

One of Getty’s recent targets was Carol Highsmith. Highsmith runs a nonprofit called the This Is America! Foundation, and posted an image on the group’s website. Getty Images sent her a letter, just like they usually do, accusing her of copyright infringement, and demanding a $120 “settlement payment”.

Except this situation was a little different. In this case, Carol Highsmith actually DID have the rights to publish the image that the Getty letter referred to. And how did she have the right to publish the image? Because she was the photographer that created it.

Yeah, you might say that Getty Images kind of stepped in it that time.

This is the image that was the subject of that demand letter:

Carol Highsmith is a professional American photographer who has traveled across the country, documenting life in America through her amazing images. The photo of the abandoned gas station at the top of this article is one of hers. And she doesn’t even do this to make money – she is actually donating all of those images to the general public, through the Library of Congress. So anyone can go to the Library of Congress’ website and access any of the pictures in that archive, completely royalty-free.

So it’s kind of ironic that she would donate this collection of her images for anyone to use, and then Getty Images accuses her of copyright infringement and demands payment for her use of her own photo. In fact, there are several publications that have used her images and credited Getty Images since Getty claimed the rights and required the purchase of a copyright license.

This is kind of like if I stole a book from the public library, then threatened the author of the book with a lawsuit if he claimed any rights to “my” book.

The fun part of this story is that Carol Highsmith has filed a lawsuit against Getty Images in federal court. She accuses Getty Images of illegally claiming the rights to her 18,755 donated images, and the lawsuit is asking the court for over $1 billion in damages. This is not the first time Getty has been accused of doing this (last time it cost them $1.5 million). It will be interesting to see how this one turns out.

So remember to never use images if you don’t have the rights to them, but if they’re images that you own, stand up for those rights.

For many people that use Outlook as their email program, it’s very frustrating when you get an email that’s supposed to have pictures in it, but Outlook doesn’t display those pictures – it only shows a red “X”.

And in all of Microsoft’s wisdom, they didn’t create a clear or intuitive way to fix this problem. But here’s how you do it.

(Note: the instructions and screenshots here are for Outlook 2016, but they are very similar for Outlook 2013 or 2010. If you are using an older version than that, you really need to upgrade anyway.)

In Outlook, click on File, then Options.

In the new window, click on Trust Center:

Then click on Trust Center Settings:

Now go to the “Automatic Download” section and UNcheck the box that says “Don’t download pictures automatically in HTML email”

Then click OK in the two open windows, and you’re back in Outlook. You might need to restart Outlook in order for this to take effect. And, this change may only apply to new emails that come in from now on, not the emails that are already downloaded. But that should solve the “Red X” problem in Outlook.