đ Find your roots
May 8, 2024 |
Itâs a beautiful Wednesday! Iâm feeling fine, and I hope youâre feeling fine, too, friend! Todayâs trivia: Amazon wasnât always called âAmazon.â Our pal, Jeff Bezos, considered two other names first. Were they ⌠A.) Caboodle, B.) Relentless, C.) Cadabra and/or D.) Tireless? Answerâs at the end! â Share the know-how. When you see icons below the main story or tip, click one to instantly share it with your coworkers, family and friends. Now, letâs dive into todayâs tech smarts. â Kim đŤÂ First-time reader? Sign up here. (Itâs free!) IN THIS ISSUE
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TODAYâS TOP STORYThe data doesnât fall far from the treeSeven million 23andMe customers thought they were just getting insights into their family history; instead, they had their personal data hacked. (Btw, Iâve told you so many times not to sign up for 23andMe!) Unfortunately, the 23andMe breach went beyond just names and addresses. Hackers got their hands on DNA genotypes and predispositions to certain conditions. They also were able to hunt down genetic relatives for millions of 23andMe customers. So scary. Hereâs the good news: You can research your family history without handing over your DNA. I found ancestry resources, and none are paid family tree research sites that collect a ton of your personal data. Start with a free siteGet started with these research tools, and remember â youâre in control of what info you hand over.
Then, head to these librariesTheyâre for more than your next book club read. Local and statewide libraries and historical and genealogical societies host a wealth of knowledge resources.
Go deeper with public records and community archives
So ⌠what about DNA testing?At-home DNA testing kits are popular, but that doesnât mean theyâre accurate. Two key differences are how the testing is done and how itâs analyzed. Most at-home tests donât take your DNA into context. If youâre planning for a family or want to know your risk for chronic diseases or cancer, working with your doctor can give you more accurate data. You can have a molecular geneticist â a medical professional specializing in DNA, genetic testing and hereditary diseases â figure out what your test results mean for you. Have a history buff in your family? Share these resources and send them off to the races. |
Feel like youâre always playing catch-up with my weekend show? Iâve got the perfect solution for you! đ iPhone users: Enjoy The Kim Komando Show without interruptions! Subscribe to the commercial-free podcast on Apple Podcasts. đ¤ Android users: Not to worry! You can catch all episodes on Spotify, completely adâfree. For just a few dollars a month, youâll get engaging conversations, smart tech insights and news we donât cover in this newsletter. Bonus: Your subscription also supports all the hard work, money and time it takes to bring you our podcasts, videos and these free newsletters. Yes, we have bills to pay, too. â Subscribe today here on Apple Podcasts or here on Spotify, and thank you for supporting our continuous effort to bring you high-quality content you can trust. |
WEB WATERCOOLERđ¨ Newest scam making the rounds: If you have automatic deposits enabled with your banking or financial institutions, cybercriminals can put money into your account. Why is that bad, you ask? Theyâll immediately follow up with a sob story email asking you to send it back via a phishing link, effectively stealing your login info in the process. Donât click any random links, and turn on 2FA for your banking logins. Keanu believe this story: A 65-year-old Colorado woman is convinced sheâs been in a relationship with actor Keanu Reeves since 2022. Itâs a romance scam, and sheâs already in for over $5,000. Her âproofâ? A fake driverâs license. She says sheâll only stop believing if Keanu himself walks through her door. If you know this woman, tell her to call me â I know Keanu. Just like I told ya: Apple announced a larger 13-inch iPad Air with an M2 chip, its first iPad Pro with an OLED display and a 10th-generation iPad that starts at $349. Plus, they teased the AI-compatible M4 chip, a new Pencil Pro with haptic feedback, and an upgraded Magic Keyboard with a larger trackpad and a row of function keys. You can pick them up beginning next week. đŹ Candy recall: Palmer Candy Company is recalling its white-coated confectionery items due to a possible salmonella contamination. The FDA says these snacks, including pretzels, popcorn and chocolate, are sold in 17 states at stores like Walmart, HyâVee, Target and Dollar General. Got some? Return âem where you bought âem for a full refund. đł Free money: If your business accepted Visa and Mastercard between Jan. 1, 2004, and Jan. 25, 2019, you might be eligible for part of a $5.5 billion settlement. It all stems from excessive transaction fees, and even businesses that have since closed or gone bankrupt could qualify. File your claim here before May 31. I did. Search warning: Googleâs latest Chrome update adds Gemini AI to the address bar, but be careful â the chats arenât private. Google uses this data to train its systems. Your chats might be reviewed by a real person. To try it out, type â@â in the Chrome URL bar and select âChat with Gemini.â Great in bed: A Florida retiree discovered his 1989 Microsoft Word tutorial has millions of views on YouTube. The main audience? Insomniacs. The âmost boring video of all timeâ promises to lull you to sleep with two hours of Randy Smith explaining the ins and outs of Word docs. To be fair, his voice is pretty soothing. Tech to the rescue: A drone found a blind man whoâd been missing for over 24 hours in Oklahoma. Thermal cameras spotted him on the ground without his shirt and one shoe. Heâd been crawling for hours before the droneâs camera detected his body temperature. Thankfully, heâs safely back home. Free AI test drive: Nothing has changed our lives quite like AI has â and will. Thatâs why you need to start using AI in your business before itâs too late. Take a free test drive of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure now at Oracle.com/kim. No one does data better than Oracle.* |
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TECH LIFE UPGRADESđš Lights, camera, action! Catch our podcast (and my smiling face) streaming every Monday, Wednesday and Friday live at 11:30 a.m. Pacific (2:30 p.m. Eastern) on YouTube, Rumble and Facebook. Send a fax for free: FaxZero.com is free if you send no more than five faxes per day and only three pages at a time. GotFreeFax.com is free for three pages per fax and two free faxes per day â with no ads on the cover page. Just upload your document and enter the fax number, and the service handles the rest. Check your laptop battery: On Windows, get a detailed report that includes usage, capacity and battery life estimates. Open the command prompt by hitting the Start menu, then typing in cmd or cmdâ .â exe in the Run command box. Press Enter. Now, smarty-pants, type or paste in the following: powercfg /batteryreport And stay out! Programs love to sneak their way into your Macâs dock (usually found at the bottom of your screen). You have two ways to kick them out: Click and drag up on the program icon, then let go, or use two fingers to click > Options > Remove from dock. Hiring is tricky: Are they the right fit? Will they mesh with the team? Do they have the skills you need? Let LinkedIn do a lot of that work for you. Itâs the easiest way to reach your next superstar. Post a job for free at LinkedIn.com/Kim.* |
DEALS OF THE DAYBeep! Ding! Buzz!The other day, I was at a friendâs house, and she used her microwave as a timer. Iâm all for multitasking, but come on â terrible interface, beeping buttons and you have to walk across the room to turn it off! Forget that. Get one of these instead. Digital: Set your timer easily by rotating this modelâs big, bright screen. Read: No repeated button pressing! Itâs magnetic, too, so you can stick it to your fridge or exhaust hood. Grab it on sale now for 30% off ($14.03). Visual: While countdown timers are usually seen in classrooms, but I find them useful for tracking time left! This one maxes out at an hour, so itâs perfect for quick timers. Plus, itâs 33% off ($16.14) and comes in 14 fun colors. Verbal: I used to joke that in our house, Alexa was mostly an expensive kitchen timer, but honestly, sheâs a great kitchen timer (no hands!) and not that expensive. This colorful Echo Dot is 50% off ($19.99) and available in four great colors. Love the teal! |
BY THE NUMBERS92 minutes long U.S. moviegoersâ ideal feature film length. Film critics disagree: âOppenheimerâ won the Oscar last year at double that length â 180 minutes! A perfect movie to test the theory: 1940âs âHis Girl Friday.â Starring Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, itâs, yep, 92 minutes. 0 texts and emails Sent by Tom Selleck, ever. The actor says he relies on others, including a secretary (yup, he used that word!) and his wife, to communicate electronically for him. Tom, youâve gotta meet Siri. 80-year-old WWII letters From a U.S. soldier showed up in a Texas mailbag. A postal worker tracked down the late senderâs sister and drove 500 miles on his day off to return them to her. Itâs like the USPS creed: âNeither snow nor rain ⌠nor an unpaid five-and-a-half-hour drive.â Love that! |
WHAT THE TECH?âIâve been trying to reach you about your carâs extended warranty.â |
UNTIL NEXT TIME âŚThe answer: Both B.) Relentless and C.) Cadabra were starter names for Amazon. âRelentlessâ was deemed too sinister, and âCadabraâ sounded too much like âcadaver,â but âAmazonâ was just right â it starts with âAâ and references that really long river. Personally, I think âRelentlessâ really captures the spirit of the thing (world domination). If you do, too, youâll be happy to know Relentlessâ .â com still forwards to Amazonâs website. đ Thatâs a wrap, folks. Feel free to spread the word and forward this newsletter to your friends. Every single share helps us reach more smart folks like you! â Kim |