Why do phones sometimes ring just once? It's a scam. Don't call back.
According to HowtoGeek.com, a call back may result in toll charges similar to those on a 900 number. The longer you stay on the line, the more money they make. The scam called "Wangiri" originated in Japan, the website says. Calls reportedly have been traced to Mauritania, Liberia, Comoros, Chad, the Cook Islands and Nauru. But it's not always a developing country. Some come from Switzerland.
If in doubt, search the web for the number to see if there are scam reports or complaints. Or if you get a lot of these and have an iPhone, try out the new "Silence Unknown Callers" option in the latest operating system, iOS 13. To use it, go to "Settings" and then "Phone." Scroll to the bottom and turn on "Silence Unknown Callers."
QUICKEN AT NO COST
A reader liked our suggestion to install an old version of Quicken on a new machine, to avoid the annual subscription cost of the latest version. We've often found old versions of some programs to be better than new ones. That's because new versions of software often don't improve the basic program, they simply add more features, complicating how it works.
But what if you don't have the disk for the older version? The reader wondered: "How can I migrate my Quicken software and data to a new computer without subscribing to the new [Cloud] version (which requires an annual fee)?" We thought it was easy: Buy one from Amazon. Boy, was that wrong. The older versions are labeled "unavailable," except for a few that cost more than $100, which could indicate how useful the older versions are compared with the new version.
If you do a Google search on "older versions of Quicken," you'll find Quicken 2004 Deluxe free from a site called oldversion.com. One caveat: since Intuit stopped supporting the older versions, you can no longer use them to access your banking and investment accounts. Nor can you use a third party to store your financial data. But the reader says he does neither of these things. He just wants the basic ledger functions for his banking and investing offline. He saw an advisory from Experian, the credit report agency, warning against linking to online banking.
If you get Quicken or some other program from oldversion.com, you can usually ignore the fact that these programs are for Windows 7 or earlier. In our tests, they worked in Windows 10. The site has hundreds of old programs free for Mac and Windows, including WordPerfect, Paint Shop Pro and Picasa. We tried Quicken and Picasa and they worked fine. Bob tends to keep old programs because he values being familiar with how something works.
WINDOWS 10 ON THE HOUSE
A reader writes that he wants to upgrade to Windows 10, but doesn't want to pay for it.
We thought it was too late to get it free by three years, but our reader found it in a link from an article in DigitalTrends.com titled "How to Get Windows 10 for Free." Usually, the Home version is $140 and the Pro is $200.
"My HP Probook was an ideal candidate and the new operating system runs great on it," he writes.
"It should be noted," he adds, that Windows 10 needs a fast processor and SSD (solid state drive) these days."
The reader says that before he upgraded to Windows 10, he saw 70 things running in the background. Now there are 166. He's probably stuck with them, because Windows 10 uses so many.
GETTING ORGANIZED
A reader wants to consolidate all the music on his Windows computer into one folder. It would take too long to drag the contents from each folder to a master folder. Here's a quicker way to do it.
Open Windows Explorer and navigate to your music folder. Click to create a new folder and give it a name, like "All Music." In the Windows search box in the upper right corner, type"mp3." All the MP3s you have will be listed. Now click "Select All," or hold down the "CTRL" key and tap the "A" key to select all. Then right-click any one of the songs and choose "Copy." Choose your new "all music" folder as the destination.
To organize files on a Mac, choose "File," then "Library," then "Organize Library" and select "Consolidate Files." As in Windows, your files remain in their original locations and copies are placed in the one giant folder.
If you want to transfer songs from a computer to an iPhone, you can plug the iPhone into the computer and turn on "File Sharing." Search on the phrase "Use iTunes to share files between your computer and your iOS Device" for more info. For Android, search on "Transfer files between your computer and Android device."
Bob and Joy Schwabach can be reached by email at bobschwab@gmail.com and joy.schwabach@gmail.com.
Business on 12/14/2019