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When staying at home we have to stock up (but not hoard) on essentials like toilet paper. I hope you don’t have issues like this shopper:

Toilet Tissue:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMTSbSrvcRg

Taking care of our pets can be an issue during lockdowns. With all the extra time you can train them to be a bit safer.

Adorable Dog…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKprR4KSXRc

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SueW

[firemind]

What can I do to protect myself against this type of mail in the future?

I was looking for driver updates and an article mentioned a company. I checked the site and it looked okay so went to download their program and had to supply an email. I used one of my online ones and downloaded the program but it didn’t help with my issue so I uninstalled it.

I’m sure I opted out of any newsletters but began to get advertisement emails from them which my online email forwarded to my personal account. I had to create filters in my online email account and local account so their emails were treated like spam and deleted. I used keywords like “newsletter”, “sale”, and the company’s name. The balance is blocking the right words (bitcoin in your case) but not whole domains like hotmail or your legitimate contacts may get blocked. But, as others have said it’s impossible to avoid them all.

One thing to do also is remind your contacts to not send ‘anonymous’ web emails or you will just delete them. I have a friend who uses an online account with a random/gibberish name (something like qx25rty99 @ gmail.com for example )and he rarely emails me from it so I forget it’s his and delete the emails. I told him to mention his name in the subject- for example :”Dinner with Josh Friday?”

Hope it all works out.

 

• This reply was modified 5 years, 1 month ago by firemind.

Staying at home is a good thing to do in these weird times but it can get depressing. Recently I rediscovered some videos about magic to make smiles – or at least groans.

Magic Trick
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMNEGGW9hM4
Spare Change?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9NFgVpKl_Y

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Elly

Interesting site. My router is not listed and some later similar models say “not possible”. other people have better luck though.

I don’t know the age but the firmware is from 2007 just before EOS. The reason I stuck with it is it just works – to the point I sometimes forget its there. The last time I went into shop for one there were so many choices but all of them were wireless by default and many had been panned in security reviews.

For security: no server options, no utilities with open ports, no remote access, strong passwords. Basically, the default settings with a few things locked up tighter and I haven’t opened anything.

Thanks. I was thinking that even though the firmware update was old (2007) the router is wired and with all the fancy options (battle.net, other utilities, and virtual server) are turned off that things would be fairly safe.

 

It’s a d-link. Single user, home computer, nothing else on the network. I turned off ping response but left DHCP (I think) and one or two others the manual warned may cause issues with ISPs.Remote management has always been turned off.

As for advanced options like port blocking I stuck to the defaults because I am not familiar with that aspect and not sure what the ISP wants. According to shieldsup my ports are stealthed except for 113 that is marked closed. I’m not sure what my ISP blocks if anything but the readings probably are due to my router.

In another forum I posted how Linux seemed to be getting “boring” because I was getting comfortable with it again. I have been  using Linux Mint 19.3 as my sole OS for over a month now and don’t miss Windows 7. I use Linux versions of Teamspeak, Firefox, and Thunderbird, play the same online games (some through Wine/Lutris), and have found alternatives for other apps.

If I had gotten Pop! OS to work on my computer I wonder if i would have stayed with it because I don’t like the Gnome 3 DE. I like the way Mint works and looks and it fits me at the moment.

If you are looking into Linux do some research and pick a distro that you like the look of and are comfortable with. Try it out on a Live USB before installing.

Try one of the “easy” distros like Linux Mint and stick with it for a bit until you learn more about Linux. When and if you are ready you can move on to other distros.

I tried both Linux Mint and Pop! OS on Live USB before installing. It’s a great way to make sure a distro works on your system and then can be used as a sort of rescue cd when your system won’t start up.

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johnf, DriftyDonN

I learned about Belarc from a friend years ago. He liked it and installed it on all his computers. I used it for a time and found it useful. When I bought this computer I tried Speccy which is similar and didn’t go back to Belarc. I don’t recall any problems with Belarc.

 

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Kathy Stevens

If askwoody was a “closed system” I probably have not stuck around. Being able to read and comment on posts helped me out and gave me the confidence to join and contribute. I have learned things and hopefully helped some others. Eventually I. will become a plus member.

Sometimes it’s just a case of effort versus reward. I joined a site last year to help with a driver problem. After downloading and installing the program Windows told me that the drivers were older than my current ones so I didn’t install them. I found my way to a forum of sorts and saw a months old complaint address the same issue. So I made the effort to join and got a dud and email spam to boot (luckily I used one of my online ones).

There is a new kernel update out for 19.3:

linux-meta-hwe (5.3.0.42.99) bionic; urgency=medium

Some users will want to hold off installing if they have propriety drivers such as Nvidia.

I saw this comment in the help pages of Update Manager:

New kernel series usually become available before proprietary drivers support them via DKMS. If you are using proprietary drivers, it is recommended to stick to kernel updates and not to install kernels from series which are newer than the series of the recommended kernels.

Since my Nvidia is 5.3.40 I think I will hold off until a graphics update comes along.

I saw on another forum that a Mint user applied the update and got a black screen and had to roll back the kernel. I’m not sure of the cause but it’s probably related to the quote above.

 

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Bill C.

Thanks for the replies.

Clamtk seems to be updating virus definitions and running smoother. I find it ‘discovers” tons of PUA that when checked at Virustotal turn out to be false positives. It’s main purpose continues to be checking updates for the game I play since they come from outside of the Mint repositories.

 

I just did a mini test with Privado and other search engines.

I went to a search engine website with cookies turned off and javascript turned off (or at least restricted using default js blocker settings.) I then searched using random terms.

Most of the search engines loaded properly and worked fine. Duckduckgo does direct you to a less useful/feature rich working site and tells you so.

Privado would not load unless I allowed cookies and turned on javascript. The big scary sites like Bing and Google can be viewed without these turned on.

Privado doesn’t seem so private.

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Elly, SueW, wavy, Cybertooth, OscarCP, Kirsty, Fred

The best Linux to use is one that you’re comfortable with, and one that works well on your hardware,

True words.

Two things I would add:

• People should do their research before actually trying to install something – especially if they have older computers. I thought I did enough research on Pop! OS but couldn’t install it on my computer due to differences between it an Windows. The issues raised by that failed install effected my later Linux Mint install and I had to start from scratch.
• People need to evaluate their tech skill and how much effort they want to put into the distro they choose. I had installed Linux before and used it for years but it was like Mint in that it offered an “install alongside” option to dual boot or an option to let the installer set everything up if you are replacing your OS. If you are not familiar with creating partitions- for example- small mistakes can have unseen consequences. (My first install of Linux Mint had boot issues and partition problems.)

It may take a bit of time to get comfortable with a new OS. Just take your time and have fun!

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Bill C., johnf, Cybertooth