HOW TO ORGANIZE (AND FIND!) YOUR PHOTOS
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Here we are at the third part in our 3-part series.  In March, we discussed how to organize our computer files.  In April, we took a look at why it’s important to delete old apps and accounts.  This month, we’ll tackle that age old problem of gathering all of our photos together in one place.  For many of us, we have photos on our phone.  We also have some photos on our desktop, in a Photos or Pictures folder, and a bunch in emails and texts that people have sent us.  It’s time to take control of the situation and get these photos wrangled.
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WHAT APP DO I NEED?
What type of phone you have is how to decide which photos app you’ll use.  If you have an iPhone, then you’ll want to use Apple’s Photos app for your organizing, because the pictures you take automatically go to the Photos app.  You can use Photos on either your iPhone or Mac computer.  If you have a Windows PC, then you’ll access the Photos app using iCloud.

If you have an Android phone, you’ll want to use its Google Photos app.  To access Google Photos on either a Mac or PC, go to the internet at www.photos.google.com.
When using either app, you can then set it to sync with all of your devices.  This way, a couple of minutes after you take a picture with your phone, you’ll be able to see it on your computer, too.

SPRING CLEANING

​​Last month was the first part in our 3-part series on organizing your digital life, and I wrote about file organization.  This month, I’d like to discuss another gem when it comes to decluttering our devices (and our minds):  deleting your old, unused apps and online accounts.  We’ll also see why this type of spring cleaning is more essential than you might think.

First of all, when I talk about “apps,” I’m referring to anything that we may call “programs” or “software.”  How did we get so many of them on our computers and phones?  Surprising isn’t it? 

You may have collected these apps over time in a variety of ways:

• They came with your device
• You had to download them for one-time use
• They are obsolete versions that no longer work with your operating system

HOW TO FIND OLD APPS
It’s good to go through your device periodically to see what you don’t or can’t use anymore.

• On a Mac: look in the folder called Applications.  From the Finder, click on Go at the top of your screen and select Applications from the menu
• On a Windows PC: click on Start, select All Apps, then scroll through the alphabetical list
• On most iPhone and Android phones: you can see your apps on your screen, app library, or in Settings

WHY IT’S IMPORTANT

• These apps take up storage space—space you may need in order to add more files or update to the latest operating system, etc.  It’s important to remove them if you are short on storage space.
• A collection of unnecessary apps can also leave you feeling cluttered and overwhelmed.  You may have a difficult time sorting through them all to find what you’re looking for.

WHY IT’S REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT
Moreover, it’s especially important to remove those unused applications if you have login accounts tied to them (and many do).  In fact, you should think about deleting all of your unused online accounts, whether there’s an app associated with it or not.  “But I don’t have that many,” you may think.  Oh yeah?  Take a look at how many passwords/logins you have.  

Where did they all come from?  Of course, we have our important passwords that we use frequently, such as our Windows or Apple ID, or our patient portal login info.  But we also tend to collect many other account logins, just like we tend to collect unopened plastic wear from takeout dinner orders.

These old accounts can contain a slew of your identity details, personal data, credit card information, and (hopefully not) your favorite re-used password.  Why have more targets for attackers than absolutely necessary?  It’s also likely that you’re still receiving spam from some of those old accounts.

HOW TO FIND OLD ACCOUNTS
If you’re wondering just how many accounts you have, there are three good ways to find them:

1. Check your password manager (or password book)
2. Search your email for words like “Welcome” or “Verify”
3. If you sign in to other accounts using your Google, Apple, or Facebook logins, check those three to see a list of the apps and accounts connected to them

WHAT TO DO NEXT
Note: simply deleting the app from your device does NOT delete your account. Once you’ve found an old online account, you’ll have to go to its website, login, and then find out how to delete it. You can usually do this under your account settings on the site.  However, as many sites have different procedures, you may have to do a bit of looking around.

With any luck, your account is so old that the company already deleted it for you!  

Stay tuned next month for Part III in our series when we take a look at finding photos and deleting duplicates.

As we know, it’s all too easy to let our technology get out of hand to the point where we feel disorganized and stressed out.  I’ve previously mentioned two of the biggest areas of discontent–managing passwords and disposing of old cords and devices.  Over the next three issues, I’ll discuss other technological culprits that leave us feeling overwhelmed:  messy file organization, the clutter of unused apps & accounts, and storing & finding photos.  I’ll begin this month with file organization.

Organizing Our Computer Files
Maybe you’re the type of computer user who saves and keeps every file you have on your desktop.  While having a cluttered desktop will slow down a Mac to some degree (not so much on a PC), the bigger issue this creates is that you won’t be able to find something quickly when you need it.

Or, perhaps, you throw everything into a single folder, or many separate folders. This is a step better than just leaving them on your desktop. But, it can still be hard to locate that one file you’re looking for unless you’ve  organized these folders into something called “subfolders.”
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I recommend using your Documents folder as an optimal storage location.  Think of your Documents folder more as a filing cabinet.  In that filing cabinet, there are folders and subfolders (like a hanging file folder system, to continue the visual reference). Name each folder according to the topic, and name each subfolder as a smaller subject within that topic.  Then save each file you have in the subfolder it pertains to.  For example:

Above is a screenshot of a Finder window on a Mac, showing the Documents folder, its folders, subfolders, and their individual files.  I have a folder named after my Google IT Support Certification class.  In that folder are files and a subfolder for class notes.  The class notes subfolder has a file with notes on Modems and Routers.  

​You can get to the Finder by clicking on this guy: ​

In this example, I’m using the Documents folder within Microsoft’s OneDrive, seen below.  There’s also a different Documents folder located in your user folder on your C:/ drive.  Don’t get them confused, as they are not syncing their contents with each other.  I recommend using just one of the Documents folders as your main “filing cabinet.”

Pro Tips for Both PC and Mac!

Give your files names that make sense to you and distinguish them from other, similar files.  Instead of “Letter,” try to be more specific:  “Kathy Recommendation Letter.”

• Add dates to the end of file names that you create a lot of:  “Meeting Notes 020423.”  (The date being February 4, 2023 in this example.)

• Sometimes you want to have easy and quick access to a file.  To keep it at the top of an alphabetically sorted list in a folder, you can add a symbol in front of it:  “*Important Ideas.”  (The asterisk will come before the letter A in the list.)

• Having your folders and files stored consistently in the same manner will go a long way to cutting down on the anxiety we face when we can’t find something.  It will also save you time that you could be spending on more productive activities—like collecting branches that fell in the last ice storm.  

Be sure to let me know if you need help getting your files organized.  Once you start, you’ll never go back.

Next month, I’ll explore part II in this series:  How to Declutter your Unused Apps & Accounts.

So Much Junk Mail!
So you donated to a political campaign back in October, yet you're still receiving junk email from the entire party and all of its causes months later.  Worse, you'll probably receive this "spam" in perpetuity.  In my situation, I've been inundated with golf-related junk email.  I must have signed up for an account with a golf company or association, and they shared my email with as many "partners" as they could.  Removing yourself from existing mailing lists is possible, but it can be time consuming and often only somewhat effective.  You should only unsubscribe from trusted, legitimate senders.  The rest, you'll have to block through your email settings, which is complicated and a topic for a future article.

Hide Your Email
How do you, then, prevent more spam from invading your inbox?  If you have an iPhone, iPad, or Mac, you can use a nice little feature called, "Hide My Email."

•What this does:  It creates a random, unique email address that automatically forwards to your private email address.

•When to use it:  Whenever you sign up for something online, or through an app, and are required to enter an email address (e.g., when creating a new account).

•Why it works:  Senders never see your real email address.  In addition, if the sender's emails get to be too much, simply delete your "Hide My" email address from your iCloud settings and be done with it.  Then, that sender won't be able to spam you again.

•How to start Hide My Email:  You must first have iCloud+, which is any iCloud account that subscribes to more than the free 5GB of iCloud storage that comes with an Apple device.  See plans and pricing here.  You must also be running OS 12 Monterey or later on a Mac, or iOS 15 or later on an iPhone or iPad.  The Hide My Email option will appear whenever you create an account while using the Safari web browser.

The next time you decide to donate to a campaign, or any set up an account, and you don't want the company to see or share your private email address, use Hide My Email.  Your inbox will thank you.

Don't Have an Apple Product?
If you are a Windows or Android user, it's also possible to achieve a similar hiding of your email through Firefox Relay.  For more information, click here.

It's Like a Foreign Language
When I taught elementary school, one of my roles was to teach English language learners.  Today, while helping adults feel more comfortable with their technology, I've noticed many parallels between understanding a language and understanding how computers, smartphones, and other devices work.  Both have vocabulary words, of course, and both have rules to follow, or at least a generally-accepted way of functioning.

For example, in English, we place the adjective in front of the noun it modifies.  In an email or text message, we hit a "send" button in order to deliver it to a recipient.  Pressing "send" after we type seems a bit basic, but there's something else going on here that's less obvious.  Where is that "send" button?  It's hopefully placed on the screen in a spot where you might expect it:  the upper right corner or the lower right, or in a bar across the top.  ​If you aren't familiar with the typical places to look (the generally-accepted rules of the "language"), you might struggle with sending your message.

Icons As Words
Knowing where to look for the "send" button is only part of what you need to master.  You also have to know what that "send" button looks like.  The tech world loves icons.  In fact, we see more and more ways of communicating like this in our society, even in non-tech places.  Ever read the instructions for putting together IKEA furniture?  It's all icons.  No words.  Unfortunately, different application developers and different device manufacturers come up with their own icons to convey the same things. I'll show you the most important ones you need to know.

While there are slight variations of these icons depending on whether you use Google, Apple, or Microsoft, etc., chances are, you're familiar with some form of the above icons.  The one exception may be the "archive" icon.  It's often confused with "trash."  (Sending an email to "trash" will often result in its deletion after 30 days, whereas "archiving" something means you're keeping it, but getting it out of the Inbox.)  Now, let's look at some that are a bit trickier:

Here are 2 of my favorites:  "menu" and "more."  If you're ever trying to figure out how to get to another part of a website, look for the "menu" icon.  It's sometimes referred to as "the hamburger."  If you're looking for more actions you can take on a site or app, such as printing or sharing, look for versions of the 3 dots.  

And now for some really tough ones:

This is where icons can get downright frustrating.  Let's say you want to share a funny picture on your iPhone with your friend.  Depending on which app you're in, it may be any one of the top 3.  And this is all on the same Apple device!  If you're using Microsoft Windows, the "share" icon will look like the one in the lower left.  If you're on an Android phone, look for that funny one with 3 connected dots (note: it doesn't have an arrow like the others, but does the same thing).

The Confidence That You Aren't Going to Break Anything
If you're learning a new app or device (i.e. the "language"), you can pair your knowledge of the icons with an understanding of the generally-accepted rules of how things should work.    Let's go back to the example of wanting to share a photo or a webpage with a friend.  What do you do if you don't see an obvious icon that says "share?"  This is where many people freeze and give up, concerned that they'll break something.  But I say, go ahead and just start tapping icons to see where they lead.  People who are comfortable with their tech know that "it's got to be here somewhere."  And, with a little bit of patience and exploration, they are almost always successful in finding what they need.

The Nonexistent Department of Icon Standardization
Until there are standardized regulations for having one icon for one function, and one place to find it, we are left to figure it out on our own.  However, if you learn what the most common icons mean, you'll have a head start.  This is the vocabulary part of learning the language of technology.  To master the rules of the language, tap around on icons to see where they go.  Exploration leads to understanding and feeling comfortable with your tech.  Like learning any language, the more you practice, the better you get with it.

In the past couple of weeks, I've noticed a rash of scams targeting AOL users.  If you have an AOL email address, the information here will be of the highest importance.  If you do not have an AOL email address, you'll still want to know this, as there are similar scams that use the same tricks.  I'll explain what to look for, so you stay protected.

Scam #1:  What Happens

The first scam comes to your email inbox pretending to be from AOL (see above image).  It tells you that your password is about to expire.  You think, "Oh no!"  But there's a big blue button that promises to let you keep your current password.  Unsuspecting (and very intelligent) people click on this button because they're stressed by the thought of losing their password or email account.

When you click on the button, you're taken to an official-looking AOL page where you're asked to enter your current password.  Now, the scammer has your password and your email address.

What happens next?  The scammer hacks into your email account and sends out a phishing scam to all of your contacts.  This email that your friends, family, and professional associates get pretends to be from you.  The scammer asks your contacts if they wouldn't mind buying a gift certificate on Amazon and emailing back the gift card code and number.  The scammer (pretending to be you) says they'd do it themselves, but for some reason, their Amazon account isn't working.

Scam #2:  What Happens
The second version of what I've been seeing lately is very similar to the first (see above image).  The difference is that you're threatened with account de-activation.  They try to make you think there's been a request from you to close your AOL account.  Clicking on the link to "Cancel De-Activation" will put you on the same type of bogus web page that'll extract your account details.  Using this info, the scammers will again hack into your account and try to fool your contacts.  (There are several iterations of this scam.  The one thing they have in common is trying to get you to panic.)

How to Spot the Scam
AOL is an email provider, so it would be easy for a scammer to make up an email address that may sound official-ish using "@aol.com."  However, whenever AOL sends out its legitimate communications, it always marks them in two unique ways (shown in image below).

How to Spot Other Types of Email Scams
When it comes to emails from organizations that are NOT email providers, the best way to tell if the email you received is legitimate is to check who sent it.  However, you can't just look at the title.  See the below image, where it says "Michigan Theater Foundation" highlighted in blue.  How do I know this email is from the Michigan Theater?  I click the little arrow (circled in red) to show me the actual email address.

Yep!  This one is really from the theater: "feedback@michtheater.org."  It doesn't matter what the part before the @ says.  It's the domain after the @ that matters.  I know for a fact that the Michigan Theater's domain is always "michtheater.org."  CAUTION:  Tricky scammers will sometimes try to make the domain look like the real thing, e.g. "michtheater.com," instead of ".org," or "michtheater.org@google.com."

Also, ask yourself if you even have an account with the sender's organization.  For example:  "Your PayPal account will be charged $450."  Do you have a PayPal account?  If no, delete the email.

It Doesn't Take a Genius to Be a Scammer
Now, take a look at the two AOL scams we started with.  They didn't even try to hide their email addresses!  These scammers aren't rocket scientists.  Sadly, they don't have to be.  Their scams still catch a lot of people off guard.  But not you.  Now you know what to look for!

Unfortunately, many of my clients tell me that they feel embarrassed about not knowing what to do when it comes to their technology.  I get why.  A lot of tech is designed by people in their 20s for other people in their 20s. Something goes wrong, and you don't know what to do to fix it.  The 8-year-old granddaughter knows how to fix it, and you start to think, "Why shouldn't I know what to do, too?"  

Embarrassment is perfectly natural when you feel out of our element.  Computers, smartphones, and wifi surround us and are integral to our daily lives these days.  There's an app to check the weather, an app to give you directions, an app to buy things, and more.  You feel that you should be in command of what you need to go about your day.  When things go wrong and you don't know how to fix them, you feel incompetent.  

I want to emphasize here that, while it's normal to feel abashed, you should cut yourself some slack.  

• ​First of all, everyone else is going through their own incompetence with technology–even the techie people.  Not everything works all the time for me either.  In fact, just last week, I accidentally pushed a wrong button and ended the family zoom call on everyone.  I felt, well..., I felt embarrassed.

• Second, just because so many people use technology every day, it doesn't mean that you should be expected to know how to troubleshoot it when something goes wrong.  A lot of people drive cars, too, but how many know how to repair them?  Most have to take their car to a mechanic to get serviced.
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• Third, you are an expert in your own field–law, medicine, music, art, administration, etc.  You've spent a good chunk of your life honing your skills and can run circles around people who aren't in your field.  How would you know how to so something like erasing your hard drive or setting up your router unless you were trained?  

​Kids seem to know so much more than adults about tech because they've grown up with it and are constantly talking about and sharing tricks with their friends.  Solving tech problems is just intuitive to them.

Many of my clients tell me that, when their technological issues make them embarrassed, they get flustered.  Then they can't think straight, and they panic.  Sometimes they dig themselves deeper into a hole, and other times they just shut down (their devices and themselves).  When these feelings get to be too much, people become afraid to ask for help.  

I understand what you're going through because I see it all the time.  I can tell you from experience that a surprising number of people have the same tech issues and feelings.  So, instead of ignoring your questions, ask me about them.  I'll help you solve the problem.  I'll also teach you about what causes the issue and how to get out of the jam next time.  My goal is for you to feel comfortable around your technology, get it to do what you need it to do, and maybe even have fun while doing it.

It seems as though we can’t go through the day without a technological crisis.  You're trying to log into Netflix, but the site isn't recognizing your password–or worse, you don't remember your password.  Then, there’s the constant barrage of spam and scammers.  Or, all of a sudden, your printer doesn't connect anymore.  To top it off, the internet isn't working either.  I could cite more examples, and I'm sure you could too.  

Having said that, sometimes it's good to take a moment and focus on some of the good things about our tech.  I offer to you this summer's...

Top 10 Good Things About Technology

1.  Keeping in touch with your family and friends:  Not only do we get to talk to our loved ones on the phones in our pockets, but we can also video chat with them.  This is especially helpful with staying connected to friends and family who live far away from us.  My daughters both live outside Ann Arbor.  My wife and I feel closer to them than the actual geographical distance suggests because we FaceTime with them frequently.

2.  Taking pictures and video whenever you want:  In the "old" days, we had to lug around separate picture and video cameras while on vacation or at our kids' plays and games.  Now, that technology is always in our pockets, we can be ready to capture even the silly moments with our pets.

​3.  Sharing photos and memories:  How convenient it is to be able to immediately send people those pictures and videos?  Additionally, when my family goes on vacation, all of us take picstures during the day.  Later that night, we upload them to a shared album that we all can admire.  

4.  Using your phone camera's "selfie mode" as a mirror:  OK, so maybe this one isn't one of the world's greatest uses of technology, but it sure is nice to see if you have anything stuck in your teeth after dinner with friends.

5.  Getting instant weather updates:  The plethora of good weather apps available make it so easy to find out if there's a storm coming.  I love checking the radar screen to see when and where the rain is, and how much time I have until I have to get off the golf course.

6.  Staying healthy with a smart watch:  My wife loves her Apple Watch and all the ways it helps her keep fit.  She tracks her exercise activity, heart rate, and sleep patterns on it.  When we go for a walk, she can tell me how many miles we've covered.  Many people also love the fall detection feature that will alert someone if they take a spill and can't get up.

7.  Meeting over Zoom:  Speaking of staying healthy, a lot of us are able to attend exercise and yoga classes over Zoom.  In addition, we can attend meetings and doctor visits without leaving the house. And how about educational lectures from Elderwise and U of M's OLLI from the comfort of our own couches? 

8.  Enjoying music and podcasts:  I love being able to take my music with me wherever I go.  Apps like Spotify enable me to access just about any album I ever wanted.  I also like to listen to informative and entertaining podcasts on long drives to help pass the time.  

9.  Identifying nature:  Ever wondered what type of tree that is growing in your yard, or if that bug on your tomato plant will destroy your crop?  There are very cool apps (e.g. Seek) available for our phones that use your camera to help ID all sorts of plants and bugs.  And for the amateur ornithologist, you can find apps that will identify birds (e.g. Merlin Bird ID). There are even apps that will help you find constellations in the sky (e.g. Pocket Universe). If you're naturally curious like I am, you can't live without these apps.

10.  Getting answers to your questions:  While we're on the subject of finding out information, search engines, like Google, have made getting answers to just about any question as easy as pie.  My brother-in-law calls it, "the end of wonder."  But still, what would you do if you couldn't google what time the Michigan Football game starts?

KB, MB, GB, TB?  Mbps, Gbps? 4G, 5G, 5GHz?  When someone in technology starts dishing out these abbreviations while giving directions or an explanation, many people's eyes glaze over–and for good reason.  They are just letters swirling around in a bowl of alphabet soup, making a frustrating situation even more confusing.  "I don't care what they mean, I just want my computer to work."  Right?  I totally get it.  However, in the interest of clearing up a lot of the mystery, let me take a minute to define what they mean.

Just like we use units to measure weight, temperature, and length, we also use units to quantify digital information.  Let's start with something called a "bit" (represented by a small b).  A bit is the smallest unit of data or digital memory in a computer.  To encode a single character of text, it takes 8 bits.  And we call 8 bits a "byte" (represented by the upper case letter B).  So 8 bits = 1 byte = 1B

Similar to metric units of measurement, we add the letters K (kilo=thousand), M (mega=million), G (giga=billion), and T (tera=trillion).  So a KB (kilobyte) is a thousand bytes.  An MB (megabyte) is a million bytes or a thousand KBs, etc.

•Kilobyte:  1KB = 1000 Bytes
•Megabyte:  1MB = 1000 KBs
•Gigabyte:  1GB = 1000 MBs
•Terabyte:  1TB = 1000 GBs

What does this mean for...
•Computers:  When someone asks you, "How much memory does your computer have?" or "How much RAM do you have?" you can understand what they're asking.  In today's computers, we're usually dealing with GBs of memory.  Many personal computers have 8-16 GBs of memory.  (RAM is a technical name for type of memory here.)  Hard drive space, or storage space, on your computer is measured this way, too.  Typical storage capacities are 128 GB, 256 GB, 512GB, or 1TB.

•Backup Drives:  backup drives often hold even more storage: 500 GB to 6TB of space.  

•Phones:  Most smartphones will have 128 GB, 256 GB, 512GB, or 1TB of storage space.  (Your phone also has RAM, but it's generally not necessary to know how much.)

​Why does it always seem that your old device never has enough memory or storage capacity?  Tech manufacturers are constantly improving their products.   Year after year, the operating systems and app capabilities grow, but they also require more and more memory and storage.  In addition, consumers need more space as the amount of files they collect builds up with things like photos we take on our family vacations.

When your internet speed is crawling along at an agonizingly slow pace, you may hear someone ask, "What's your download speed?"  Similar to driving in a car and miles per hour, we measure the speed of our internet.  With the internet, we use the term "megabits per second," or Mbps.  Notice, however, that it's "megabits" and not "megabytes."  Also, we're not using miles per hour, like a car, but rather a flow rate of bits of information (more like a hose or a pipe).  Here's a little cheat sheet on internet download speeds to help keep your internet provider in check:

25 Mbps:  a very basic speed
100 Mbps:  getting better
500 Mbps:  now we're talking
1000 Mbps or 1Gbps:  stream all you want!

By the way, if you've ever seen me run a speed test at your home, you may remember me talking about "download" and "upload" speeds.  Think of a Zoom call, where download is receiving other people's video and audio.  Upload is you sending out your video and audio.  

•Phones:  If you own a smartphone, you've probably noticed the commercials for new 5G cell service from Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T.  In this case, the "G" in 5G stands for Generation.  Therefore, 5G cell service is 5th Generation cell service–as opposed to 4G, or 4th Generation.

•Wifi & Routers:  You may be wondering, "Don't I have 5G on my wifi router, too?"  Actually, here, we're talking 5 GHz–not 5G.  Most wifi routers in the home today will have two broadcast frequencies:  2.4 GigaHertz (2.4 GHz) and 5 GigaHertz (5 GHz).  The 2.4 GHz band is the slow, but steady one.  It travels longer distances and through walls better than the 5 GHz. On the other hand, the 5 GHz band is faster, but doesn't travel as far.  A good router will automatically detect and switch to which frequency is best for your device, depending on where it is in the house.  You don't need to do anything for this to happen.

Hopefully, this explanation of our alphabet soup has been helpful.  After all is said and done, though, it still boils down to, "I don't care what they mean, I just want my computer to work."  However, now, you have a cheat sheet on the units of your technology, and what units you'll need to make your devices work best.