The human species evolved to react to alerts and alarms, and all of our devices take advantage of that fact. Notifications are the sounds, highlights, numbers, banners, and other ways programs and apps let us know we have a new message, an update, or anything else we've allowed our devices to alert us about.

If you were to allow every app on every device and every platform to notify you every time it wants to, your life would be a confusing cacophony of beeps, pings, pop-ups, and texts. Fortunately, you have control over what programs are allowed to alert you, and when. It's just a matter of finding the controls and setting your preferences. Here are where to find notification settings:

Windows: Notifications pop up through the  Windows Action Center, which is accessed through a small box in the lower right hand corner of your screen, next to the date and time. You can click on that box to expand the Action Center and view and clear your notifications.

To change your notification settings, start by typing Notifications in the search box, then click on Notifications and Action Settings. You can turn off all notifications, or scroll down the list and only allow notifications from certain apps. If you click on each individual entry on the list, you can choose the type of notification you get, sounds vs. banners, and whether the notification will show in the Action Center

Mac : Notifications pop up in the upper right hand corner, and the Notification Center is accessed by clicking on the three stacked lines in the uppermost right. You can change your notification preferences by clicking on the Apple menu, choosing Settings, and choosing Notifications. There you can customize your alerts, or turn them off altogether.

Phones and Tablets: Phones and tablets present you with notification sounds, banners, and pop-ups, either in a notification area, on the icon for the app, or on the lock screen. You can control each of these types of notifications - in other words, you can turn off notifications altogether, or say yes to banners, but no to sounds, etc. 

In general, the first time you open a new app, it asks if you want to allow notifications. You can say no, as you can always change your mind later. To change notifications on an Apple device, go to Settings / Notifications and tap on the app you want to control. On an Android device, go to Settings / Apps and Notifications. You might have to tell it to show all apps. Then scroll to the app you want to control, tap on it, and choose your preferences.

Browsers:  Click on the links for instructions to control notifications from  Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. One of my pet peeves are browser notifications, as people don't really understand why they are getting "pop ups" from websites they may have only visited once. I tend to just say no to browser notifications, and turn them off altogether.

Sometimes an excess of notifications is caused by malicious toolbars and extensions. If you are getting constant pop-ups, especially from sites you have no interest in, it might be a sign of some sort of infection.  If all the beeps and buzzes and pop-ups are causing a problem, schedule an appointment and we can get them under control!  

People often call me who suspect their email has been hacked, generally because friends have gotten strange emails from them. Often their email has not been actually hacked - instead it has been spoofed, which means their email account hasn't been breached, someone is just using their name as a return address on a random email account. Spoofing is a problem, but not nearly as serious a problem as a hacked email account.

Unfortunately, recently I have seen multiple Comcast email accounts that have been truly hacked, all in the same manner . The account was logged into by the hacker, who then set up a lookalike email address, using the identical name but @outlook.com instead of @comcast.net. The hacker also set up  filters in the Comcast account so that the account owner didn't see sent or returned mail, and set up forwarding to send all incoming @comcast.net mail to the lookalike @outlook.com address. 

In all the cases I have seen recently, once the hacker gained access to the victim's email account and contacts, and set up the fake lookalike account, they tried a typical "do me a favor" scam, where they ask friends of the victim to help them out by purchasing a gift card. Fortunately, many people are alert to this type of scam (a sad commentary on our times) and they informed the Comcast email holder that there was something wrong. That's where I came in, helping to secure the Comcast account and assisting with clean-up.

I am not sure why or how Comcast accounts are being breached, but if you use a Comcast email account, you should consider yourself a potential target for this hack. The most important way to protect yourself is to update your password, especially if you haven't changed it for a long time. You will want to choose  something long, complicated, and not used anywhere else. If you need some help with that, or if you are concerned you might have been hacked, please give me a call and I can check your account for signs of trouble.

Every month I post several articles of interest on my Facebook page. For those of you who don't follow me on Facebook, here are some of the stories I've featured in the past this summer.

One of my favorite review sites, Wirecutter, put together a great article about technologies to help seniors age in place - very relevant in this age of social distancing.

Covid-19 claims another victim - Microsoft retail stores. The store at the Natick Mall, along with all other Microsoft stores, will not be reopening. Too bad - they always had a nice selection of higher end laptops.  

Need to buy your student a back-to-school laptop? Here's a good guide to get you started.

AT&T sent an email to customers with older phones, telling them their phone will no longer work on AT&T's network . If you use AT&T as your cell provider, and you are using an older phone, you will need to upgrade, but you have a little time to shop - the new technology won't be turned on until February of 2022