Traveling overseas? No bueno

November 14, 2024

⚠️ Traveling overseas? No bueno: There’s a terrifying new trend happening all over the globe: Kidnapping tourists for ransoms. A Venezuelan man, for instance, used a dating app to lure in three American tourists over a month-long stretch in the Dominican Republic. He’d arrange a date, pick up the person in his car, and then an accomplice would hop in to help him restrain his dates. All three victims were held at knifepoint and forced to call friends and family for money. So scary.

Tags: dating apps, kidnappings, Personal safety, ransom, travel

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Small-biz tip: How to onboard a remote employee

If you’re a small business owner, onboarding a new employee virtually can be a huge undertaking. Taking a new hire out to lunch, giving them a tour of the office and introducing them to coworkers is often an integral part of the experience, but that might not be possible if you hire remote employees.

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Area codes and numbers that are probably spam

Whew, the election’s over. The onslaught of robocalls and texts is over, too … right? Nope.

There are fewer political calls and messages, sure, but there are always scammers and spammers. It may be easier for these creeps to get a hold of us now that our phones aren’t constantly lighting up with election-related notifications.

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🖊️ Ever write checks? Use a pen (4-pack for $10) with specially formulated ink that gets trapped in paper, helping to prevent criminal check washing and other document alteration.

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1 week’s worth

Amount of supplies Norway recommends its citizens have on hand in case of war with Russia. Imagine getting that in the mail. Norway isn’t alone; check Ready.gov for the U.S. government’s planning guides for everything from a flood to a snowstorm. Nothing sets my doomsday alarm ringing like 10 minutes without the internet.

Share via email - Distractions, controlled

Share on Facebook - Distractions, controlled

Share on LinkedIn - Distractions, controlled

I’ve been using Distraction Control (circled in red above) in the latest version of Safari on my Mac. It really works! It lets you hide whatever you want on a webpage — images, headlines and videos. If it’s distracting, make it disappear with a click. ✨

ChatGPT, find me customers: Use AI to find out what people are saying online so you can better target your company’s ads. Take a lesson from Shake Shack: They used a bot to scan 80,000 Reddit threads about chicken sandwiches, narrowed it down to the 30 most active and ran ads for their new sandwich. It worked — sales were 31% higher.

Microsoft Edge can’t take a hint: The browser is importing your Chrome browsing data and tabs without asking. Luckily, you can stop it. When you see the pop-up from Edge to Enhance your browsing experience with Copilot in Microsoft Edge, click the tiny white X in the upper right corner and close it. (It’s tiny — you might have to squint to see it.)

When your luggage is MIA at the airport carousel: Apple now lets you share your AirTags’ location with your airline (or anyone else). Open the Find My app, tap on your lost item, then tap Share Item Location > Continue > Share Link. If your bag is found, stop sharing its location anytime; otherwise, the link will expire in seven days.

Test yours at SpeedTest.net to see. If things are slow, it might be time for a full system reboot to clear glitches and restore your speeds. Here’s the right way to do it:

Turn off everything. That’s your modem and router, or yours may be one combined unit.
Wait a full minute. Seriously, count it out!
Turn on the modem first. Give it time to boot completely, then power up the router. Restart your computer and you should be blazin’.

🤖 Have a kid who plays Roblox? Keep them safe from creeps. Go to Account Settings, select the Privacy tab and toggle the voice chat selector to Off. The toggle will go from green to gray, indicating voice chat has been disabled.