allheart55 Cindy E

Some residents of the Philadelphia suburb Tredyffrin have reportedly been receiving emails notifying them of fictitious speeding tickets, and directing them to pay at a link that triggers a malware download. So far, ho-hum, in our crazy cyberpunk futureworld. But there’s a lot more going on here, because, according to Tredyffrin police, the targeted drivers were actually speeding at the places and times indicated in the emails they received. Think about that for a second. Investigators suspect that the detail-oriented masterminds of this plot hacked a GPS-enabled smartphone app to obtain the location data and find actual speeders to target. So far, according to Philadelphia Magazine, only three local residents have reported receiving the emails. This raises all kinds of questions. Most email scamming is based on mass volume and low success rates, but it’s hard to say how scaleable something this precisely targeted could be. Maybe whoever’s behind this is trying to invert the email scam paradigm, spooling exceptionally convincing bait out to a relative handful of people. There may be one unanticipated roadblock to their plan, though–Tredyffrin apparently doesn’t have speed cameras, and real cops issue all citations in person. That could set off alarms for townies receiving the scam emails. Tredyffrin police are also doing those targeted by the scam a big favor and not issuing them real tickets, despite their apparent confessions. This article originally appeared on Fortune.com

A lot can happen when you take a nap on the job, as one Uber driver found out when he fell asleep while taking a passenger on a 200-mile ride. He awoke to find the car in the middle of a police chase, with his customer at the wheel. A Bronx man hired an Uber on Saturday in Philadelphia to take him 200 miles to central New York, reports PIX-11. According to state police, at some point the driver asked his passenger to take over driving duties so he could indulge in a snooze. When the Uber driver woke up, he asked the passenger-turned-chauffeur why he was driving so fast — police later said he was clocked going 86 mph in a 65 mph zone — the man had a simple answer: because police were chasing them. A state trooper said he’d tried to stop the speeding car, but that the man refused to stop, CBS New York reports. The runaway passenger crashed the car soon after, with both he and the Uber driver suffering minor injuries. The passenger was charged with fleeing police and driving without a license. “Both the driver-partner and rider have been suspended from the platform while we look into the matter. We are reaching out to the authorities to assist in their investigation,” an Uber spokesperson told Consumerist in an emailed statement. In other recent “while you were sleeping” news, a truck driver charged with delivering Burger King Whoppers to a distributor woke up from a nap to find a thief had stolen 33 cases of burgers. Rider crashes Uber car during police chase, while driver takes nap: police [PIX-11] Police: Bronx Man Hires Uber Car, Crashes It Amid Cop Chase After Driver Takes Nap [CBS New York]

Is it just the Lenovo website or does it happen no matter where you browse? Have you tried resetting Internet Explorer to see if maybe one of the add-on's or extensions are causing it to freeze?

I usually like the dark themes so this is good news to me.

Hey @Dale, It's great to see you here. How have you been?

Just days after an airplane’s emergency slide came hurtling to the ground, landing in an Arizona yard, the emergency device is once again the center of an unusual story: a United Airlines’ flight attendant allegedly deployed a slide, rode it down, and walked away from her job after her plane landed in Houston on Monday. ABC13 News reports that the ordeal began around noon when United flight 1246 arrived at Bush International Airport in Houston from Sacramento. According to video footage of the incident, posted by Click2 Houston, the plane comes to a full stop once it reaches the gate. At that point, you can see the slide deploy, a woman throws her bag to the ground, and then slides down. Passengers on the flight say they were unaware of the flight attendant’s unusual exit strategy, as they were distracted by a medical emergency taking place in the back of the plane. “When we landed we were told to stay in our seats as deplaning would take a bit longer,” one passenger tells Click2Houston. “Everything seemed to be pretty standard.” Passengers were able to exit the plane normally and the aircraft was taken out of service to be inspected again to meet safety standards, ABC13 reports, noting that the plane has since been returned to service. While a spokesperson for United Airlines says the carrier is investigating the incident, the company believes the flight attendant’s action was intentional. “We hold all of our employees to the highest standard,” the airline said in a statement. “The unsafe behavior is unacceptable and does not represent the more than 20,000 flight attendants who ensure the safety of our customers. United is reviewing the matter and they have removed the employee from her flying duties.” This incident is reminiscent of JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater. In Aug. 2010, Slater got fed up with a passenger, cursed him out, then deployed the emergency slide to make his infamous exit onto the tarmac. Flight Attendant Pulls Emergency Slide On Plane At IAH [ABC13 News] United flight attendant deploys slide on plane at IAH [Click2Houston]

Why Women Live Longer Than Men!

Yes, I do remember. It was something that we all did for fun. It was an interesting thread.

This is true. It's one of the biggest reasons that I use Amazon.

Hello and Welcome to PC Help Forum, Mike. We are very happy to have you!

Hi June and a great big welcome to PC Help Forum. We are all very happy that you are finally here with us. If you have any questions or problems navigating the board, give me a holler!

Just about any pay-TV or Internet service provider (often one in the same) lets new customers sign up online. You can do the whole process — check your address for availability (even if the company’s database is dreadfully wrong), pick a service tier, schedule an installation appointment, and even have your credit history checked — all without talking to a single human being. But if you need to cancel that same service, you likely have to spend quite a long time talking to someone on the phone, explaining that you simply don’t want to give their company any more money. A recently introduced piece of legislation in California, AB 2867, is hoping to compel cable companies and ISPs to offer the option of one-click cancelation on their websites. The bill’s sponsor, Assemblyman Mike Gatto from Los Angeles, argues that “if you are able to sign up for a service online, you should also be able to cancel it the same way.” And that’s exactly what the bill’s language currently states: “If a cable or Internet service provider enables an individual to subscribe to its services through an Internet Web site, it shall also enable all of its customers to cancel their subscriptions through the Internet Web site.” The bill has the support of Ryan Block, who famously recorded a needy Comcast retention employee demanding that Ryan explain his reason for canceling service. A call that Comcast admitted was “embarrassing” and “painful,” even though the employee was doing “what we trained him to do.” “Two years ago my wife and I called to cancel our service, and as is usually the case, that call was pretty unpleasant,” said Block in a statement about the California bill, which he believes “would finally allow most customers to be able to cancel their service online, without having to talk to someone whose job is specifically to prevent you from canceling.” While Los Angeles was spared having to go through a merger of Comcast and Time Warner Cable and the customer service nightmare that would have resulted from that marriage, TWC — the predominant provider in the area — is nearing a merger with Charter, meaning there will inevitably be hiccups as the two companies consolidate staffs, hardware, and customers. This particular bill, if passed, would only require this change in California, but as we’ve seen in other cases — most recently the Vermont GMO-labeling rules — it’s sometimes easier for national companies to just make a blanket countrywide policy change instead of customizing a product for just one state. Source: consumerist

That's what I am thinking.

That's a good idea, Tony. Most of the people that I deal with have more than one computer so my repeat business works well for me. I have a lot of large families and extended family members and their friends. Word of mouth has always been my best advertisement.

Imagine it: a Microsoft-built phone running on Google’s Android operating system. Go ahead, it’s easy if you try. What do you see? I see Panos Panay getting us pumped for hardware as delicious as the oft-imitated Surface Pro 4 and new Surface Book. I see Android tweaked to feature Microsoft software and services like Outlook and the rest of Office for Android, OneNote, OneDrive, Skype, Cortana, and yes, Bing. The same search engine trusted by Apple’s Siri. It’s not as crazy as you might think since all of the above are already available from Microsoft in the Google Play store. Hell, Microsoft even makes a keyboard for Android as well as an app launcher. And let's not forget about the Nokia X and X2 series — phones once built on top of the open-source elements of Android in order to feature Nokia and Microsoft services. Source: theverge

I used to use incentive's for referring new customers. I did this for the first six months. I would give the person who referred someone to me, $20.00 off their next computer issue.

I agree, when you do a good job, you don't really expect to see that particular customer for a while.

I think the blanket price of $20.00 for anything is beyond ridiculous. I think it may be difficult to build a customer base when you see prices like this. You have to "get" the customer first in order to be able to "keep" the customer. I sympathize with you, Mike.

I don't think that you read the article, BigJon. WE aren't recommending anything. This is an article reprint and I posted it because of the instructions on how to remove the Windows 10 nag pop-up.

You'll soon be able to use Skype to books trips, shop, and plan your schedule, just by chatting with Cortana. During its Build conference, Microsoft demoed how Skype users will soon be able to start a chat with Cortana and get things done just by having a conversation. "Cortana is brokering the conversation with a third-party bot," says Lilian Rincon, Skype's program manager. Essentially, Skype will know which company or service you want to talk to, bring a new bot into your chat to help out, and then get rid of the bot when you're done. Bots launch in Skype today The new features are strongly reminiscent of what Facebook is doing with Messenger. It's allowing third parties to build bots that can help their customers through chat. Facebook also has an assistant, called M, that can step in the middle to handle interactions with third parties. Unlike Cortana, Facebook sometimes does this using human input. In addition to chat bots, Rincon also said that Skype will be adding what sound like video bots. "We will also be bringing intelligence into real-time video," she says. Bots launch today, though it isn't clear what will be available at launch. Developers are also getting access to start coding bots today, so presumably there should be some soon. Source: theverge

The future is going to be full of people talking to chatbots, says Microsoft, and it wants to help you build one. Today at the Build developer conference, the company unveiled what it calls the Microsoft Bot Framework — a set of tools that will let anyone create a bot that they (and their customers) can chat to, in the hope that these programs might replace web and app interfaces. To demonstrate this system, Microsoft assembled a chatbot on stage for Domino's, showing how a conversational interface could replace the standard online ordering forms (e.g. selecting from a drop down menu to choose your pizza toppings). This is vision of chatbots we've heard before, but Microsoft wants to give the tools to build these bots to everyone. Microsoft will help power these programs by providing what it calls "cognitive micro services" — little scoops of prepackaged intelligence that give bots the ability to understand natural language, for example, or analyze and label images. This build on services that Microsoft has previously offered developers, but it's upping its portfolio of APIs from five to 22. All will be free to use and be combined however developers want. The Microsoft Bot Framework will also create chatbots that can integrate into a range of platforms, including Skype, Slack, Telegram, email, and the web. "We want every developer to be able to build bots as the new application for every business and every service," said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. "We want all developers to be able to infuse intelligence into their applications." Source: theverge

Hi Mike, I don't use Firefox so I can't be of any help. One of the other tech's should be able to help you. I'm sure that someone will be along shortly.

It also makes me wonder how many of these users have reverted back to their original operating system?