Bob's 3-year-old Windows 10 computer went kablooey. Joy attempted to bring it back and made it worse. So we turned to our master fixer, Kenny.
Kenny is an American who lives on a Greek island. He has never failed us. If the problem is easy for him, there's often no charge. You can find him on the web at HelpHelpNow.com.
Here's what happened before we thought to call. Joy tried a system restore, and it failed twice, with the two available restore points. Next she tried Windows recovery, choosing the option to back up files first. It failed too. So she tried it a second time. This time, it erased all the files and still didn't work.
Kenny told us to hold down the power button for at least four seconds while Windows 10 was starting up, and to repeat this if Windows didn't launch into the Automatic Repair mode. After two tries, we got that and a reset option which offers the ability to keep all your files. It was too late for that though, because Joy had already erased them. Everything worked this time. Kenny is knowledgeable, gentle and seems to have all the patience in the world. He said there'd be no charge, but we don't work that way. So we paid him.
BACK FROM THE DEAD
On coming back from the dead, Bob's computer was missing everything he'd previously installed, including Bullguard Internet Security, his antivirus program. He decided to join Joy and go with the solution she uses: the free Windows Defender, which is built into Windows 10 and Malwarebytes premium, which is $40 a year.
The main difference between the premium version and the free version of Malwarebytes is that the paid version prevents bad things from happening and the free one does repairs after they've happened. What are those bad things? Identity theft, loss of privacy, malware and ransomware to name a few. Identity theft is just awful. Malware can slow down your computer. Ransomware is when a hacker locks your files away until you pay. We decided to protect against those things in advance.
SHORTCUTS
A reader sent in an article about recording the police. If you're pulled over by the cops, and you have the Police shortcut activated on your iPhone, just say "Hey Siri, "I'm getting pulled over." That will trigger a video recording of the whole encounter and a text message sent to your favorite contact.
To find the iPhone shortcut, we searched on "Police Shortcut for iOS." We didn't install it because we got a warning from Apple about third-party apps. Some reviewers say you can ignore those, but we don't need the app anyway, knock on wood. Except for a minor fender bender that wasn't our fault, we haven't encountered the police in many years.
The Police shortcut led us to wonder about the other shortcuts, the ones built into the iPhone and iPad. You can find them by tapping the "shortcuts" icon on your iPhone or iPad screen. Tap "Gallery" and click the plus sign on any that look good to you, then "add shortcut."
We like one called "hand washing music." It plays music for 20 seconds to keep you scrubbing. To activate it after you add it to your list, say "Hey Siri, hand washing music." When we tried it out, we got the Economist magazine as our hand washing audio. It didn't have much of a tune. When we switched to Spotify, we got music. The shortcut will play from whatever source you've recently been listening to. There are many other shortcuts in the shortcut gallery in the Shortcut app, but we found them to be more trouble than they're worth. If in doubt, look up how to create your own.
THE POWER OF THE CROWD
At the dawn of computer life, when the first emails were getting cranked out, Bob had a vision. The internet would one day help people help one another all over the world. That turns out to be especially true for users of the World Community Grid, launched in 2004 and still going strong with over half a million users.
If you go to WorldCommunityGrid.org, you can get in on the action by downloading the free program. It's sponsored by IBM and uses its security system. The program allows scientists to use your computer's power when it's idle, to analyze cancers, tuberculosis, pandemics and other concerns. The grid has partnerships with 460 organizations and 650,000 individuals. As we were typing this column, it was working on "Mapping Cancer Markers." After that, it was on to covid-19.
Bob and Joy Schwabach can be reached by email at bobschwab@gmail.com and joy.schwabach@gmail.com.