Category Archives: Tips & Hints

How to Block Scam Calls, the Top Source of Fraud Against Older Adults

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Scam­mers are al­ways find­ing new ways to dupe peo­ple out of money. In the U.S., phone calls re­main the pri­mary way swindlers hook older vic­tims.

A study pub­lished last month by the Fed­eral Trade Com­mis­sion found that 24% of adults over age 60 who re­ported los­ing money to a scam in 2021 said it started with a phone call—the largest per­cent­age of any method, in­clud­ing email, text and mail. For vic­tims 80 and older, phone calls were be­hind 40% of scams.

Scams range from robo­calls pitch­ing car war­ranties to young peo­ple pos­ing as grand-chil­dren in need of a bailout. The best way to pro­tect against phone scams, on­line-safety ex­perts say, is to not re­ceive the phone calls in the first place.

So how do you do that?

While ig­nor­ing mys­tery calls is ef­fec­tive, it isn’t al­ways fea­si-ble. Per­haps you don’t have all the num­bers of health­care providers, in­sur­ance com­pa­nies and other vi­tal ser­vices stored in your phone’s con­tacts. Also, caller ID of­ten doesn’t iden­tify the name of the busi­ness that is call­ing. Tech com­pa­nies are de­vel­op­ing so­lu­tions for di­vert­ing scam calls. And even though the ma­jor­ity of Amer­i-cans over 65 have smart­phones, there are also ways to pro­tect your­self if you’re on a land­line.

See More [Wall Street Journal]

www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-block-scam-calls-the-top-source-of-fraud-against-older-adults-11673051224

Business Idea? 4 Tips to Make it Successful

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Build Your Brand – 1 min.

The first work day of 2023 is today for most and many are setting goals for the year.

Start strong! Your goals and ideas will always work better when you collaborate with top performers. Think about all of your past successes. Did you do it alone? Probably not. Build your brand! Here are tips to help you do that: Design, Content, Marketing Strategy, Reliable Team

See More [R. Michael Brown Tips]

Wide-Leg Khaki Pants Are Back. For Real This Time.

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Wide-leg and longer-rise trousers—khakis, jeans, even Cary Grant-ish suit pants—are selling out in the early fall shopping season.

The pants are huge. Sales have been, too.

After years of edging into the mainstream, wide-leg trousers are officially back according to at least one metric: J.Crew’s “Giant-Fit Chino Pant” is completely sold out online. An early hit of the mall brand’s recent refresh, the baggy, off-the-thigh pants have a leg opening nearly 50% wider than its standard slim-cut chinos.

See More [Wall Street Journal]

Wide-Leg Khaki Pants Are Back. For Real This Time.

BrownieBytes: Finally I’m a fashion icon. They’re catching up to me. I’m years ahead of my time….

I’ve always found fashion reporting to be funny.

Shark Attacks in U.S. Total 28 So Far This Year

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Unprovoked bites, while rare, have been raising the alarm for some beachgoers this summer

Sources: Florida Museum of Natural History (1837-2021); trackingsharks.com (2022 data from media reports)

Brownie Bytes Take: As a surfer with 40 years experience in Florida, New Smyrna Beach has the most shark bites and sharks in the surfline than anywhere else. I’ve been bumped, chased, and seen others bitten there in 3 ft. of water right along the shore. Even though the blacktip shark migration during the late Fall and Winter happens in S. Florida with 10,000 sharks per mile per day cruising near the coast, they rarely bother anyone.

– R. Michael Brown

News of shark attacks off the coast of New York’s Long Island this summer raised the alarm for many beachgoers, surfers and divers. Shark bites, although rare compared with the number of people who get into the ocean, still happen in coastal areas of the U.S.

According to Tracking Sharks, a website that specializes in reporting shark attacks and bites across the globe, there have been 28 shark attacks in the U.S. in 2022 as of Aug. 1. Two of the attacks were provoked and none was fatal.

There were 47 confirmed cases in 2021, returning to prepandemic levels, and 33 in 2020.

Unprovoked shark bites are the most common incidents, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History’s International Shark Attack Files, a global compilation of all known shark attacks. Florida leads the U.S. in shark attacks, followed by Hawaii, California and South Carolina.

The most frequent type of unprovoked bites are so-called “hit and run” attacks, the museum says. These normally happen in the surf zones as coastal shark species follow schools of fish close to shore. There, sharks can encounter swimmers and surfers—and sometimes confuse people with their usual prey. The sharks don’t return after inflicting a single bite or slash wound.

Shark attacks and deaths from shark bites are extremely rare, experts say. The yearly average of unprovoked shark bites globally is 70, resulting in about 5 deaths, data from the Florida Museum of Natural History shows.

See More [Wall Street Journal] Subscription May Be Required

Don’t Let Perfection Be the Enemy of Productivity

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I’ve worked with organizations that thought perfection was the perfect standard. It actually killed creativity, progress, and growth.

They were stuck in place and productivity stalled. Perfection is the enemy of great.

— Read on hbr-org.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/hbr.org/amp/2020/03/dont-let-perfection-be-the-enemy-of-productivity

Bluetooth is bad and you should stop using it

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Seriously. Turn it off.

Everyone uses Bluetooth. Perhaps they shouldn’t.

The technology that we’ve come to rely on to connect our phones, smart speakers, cars, vibrators, and toasters is problematic for reasons more serious than pairing issues. Bluetooth has been shown time and time again to be a security and privacy nightmare — albeit one that can be mostly solved with a simple toggling of an off switch.

Bluetooth has long been a dirty word for security professionals. So much so, in fact, that one of the most common pieces of advice given to attendees of the annual DEF CON hacker conference in Las Vegas is to make sure Bluetooth is disabled on their phones.

This is not just paranoia. In fact, at this year’s DEF CON researchers showed off the ability to use Bluetooth to identify vulnerable digital speakers. Once identified, hackers could take control of the devices and force them to play “dangerous” sounds that could lead to hearing loss in anyone unfortunate to be nearby.

— Read on mashable.com/article/bluetooth-is-bad

Delete Chrome Now

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Your privacy is compromised.

A new tracking admission from Google, one that hasn’t yet made headlines, should be a serious warning to Chrome’s 2.6 billion users. If you’re one of them, this nasty new surprise should be a genuine reason to quit.

www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2021/08/28/stop-using-google-chrome-on-windows-10-android-and-apple-iphones-ipads-and-macs/

CyclingDiet Product Review

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By: R. Michael Brown, Freelance Writer [Follow on Facebook: @RMichaelBrownLLC]
📸: Let Ideas Compete is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

After joining a bunch of Facebook cycling groups I started to receive ads for CyclingDiet. You may be getting them too because you are part of the Facebook groups or post about cycling.

As a former US Olympic Cycling Coach and professional freelance writer, I thought I would take a look at their plan and write a review to be helpful to other cyclists.

The bottom line, BUYER BEWARE!

According to their Facebook ads and their Facebook page [@cyclingdietforweightloss] they say, “Fun, easy, and safe way to lose weight! Find what will work for you with 60-sec quiz approved by cycling coaches and experts and get your personalized plan & diet!”

So I purchased the program to check it out and it cost $66… not including the international charges because the company is based in Lithuania (Didn’t know that when I registered).

In addition I paid an extra, $4.99, to get the “rush” evaluation on the quiz I took. They say the personal evaluation is done by cycling coaches and experts.

I signed up as a beginner to see what they were teaching new cyclists. When I received my plan it included some generic daily workouts for before and after stretching, calisthenics, and bicycle training. You could easily come up with these on your own via the web for free.

But when I got to the diet part, and you are led to believe with a name like CyclingDiet this is the robust part of their offering, all it had was a Cycling Recipe book in a PDF showing calorie amounts for the few dozen recipes they provided. No daily plan, no meals to sync with the daily cycling and off-day workouts, no technology to track your calories… Just two mentions above the recipe “book” that showed total daily calories you should stay within to maintain weight and total calories you should target to lose weight.

Honestly, you could buy a paperback weight loss cookbook for under $10 and get more information.

What they sent me is what their “cycling coaches and experts” came up with?

After working with Olympic cycling sports nutritionists and many nutritionists over the years on my own diet and my daughter’s because she has Type 1 Diabetes, the CyclingDiet isn’t a diet or diet plan by any stretch of the imagination.

The whole plan is basically – stay under 1,500 calories a day and you add it up on your own. Oh, and exercise a lot. Not worth $5 let alone $66.

If you’re used to MyFitnessPal, Fitbit, WeightWatchers, or the many other online programs, CyclingDiet looks like a bad joke.

Plus, when I attempted to get a refund after telling them the deficiencies in their product, they gave me some back and forth customer support static and said they would refund only half ($33) and it may take 2 weeks to process.

So just to check on them by doing a Google search, turns out the company for CyclingDiet, UAB Kilo Grupė, in the first few Google results, are about “unauthorized charges” and scam alerts.

Now I’m going to have to watch my PayPal and bank accounts to see what happens.

They buy a lot of online ads. They’re everywhere. I blocked them.

As you can imagine, I won’t recommend this product. Far from it.

In fact this is the best $33, hopefully, I’ve ever spent if it helps you not fall for this waste of your time and money.

If you need a diet, talk to your medical doctor or a licensed nutritionist. They work with you and legitimate online programs for you to evaluate, plan, and track your diet. That’s the safest and will get you the best results.

Happy cycling!

For more free reviews and stories go to BrownieBytes.net

Small American Cities are Making Attractive Offers to Lure Tech Workers Away from the Metros

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Fayetteville, Arkansas

Cities in North-West Arkansas are making offers to workers in New York and Los Angeles that’re simply too good to pass. Incentives including cash bonuses, free mountain bikes and year-long discounted rent prices.

Are you ready to move out of the big metro areas and why?