Phone Detox: 5 Ways to go back to good old days!

People are on the right track.

Turning off notifications is a good idea as a way to avoid constant reminders that someone, somewhere, has said something that may require our attention and remove it from the people who are in front of us.

Limiting use of phones at dinner is another simple way to take a small break from social media availability and focus on the people you are with in real life.

This can also be a way to practice limiting use at other times, as you become more used to having your phone turned off or in another room.

Here are some additional strategies that can work:

•Go Offline at Certain Times of Day: If you create windows when you are not available (like dinnertime, after a certain time of night, or even every other hour), you begin to teach yourself how to limit your availability. You also teach others not to expect you to be constantly available. This small boundary may make it easier to disconnect at other times and in other ways.

•Become Comfortable with "Sleep Mode": Putting your phone on "sleep mode" and only checking it once an hour is a good way to keep notifications functional but silent, so you can choose when to let them interrupt your day. This puts you in greater control.

•Ask People to Call You On It: Enlist help by announcing that you’d like to check your phone less when you are with people. You can even make a pact with others that none of you will be on your phones when you are together, as in "olden times" (like 2005). This can help you to stay connected with those you’re with, and make it into a game of sorts, rather than something you try to do alone.

•Delete Your Apps: If you delete social media apps on your phone, you’ll be forced to only use them when you are at your computer or tablet. This makes it more challenging to maintain a mindless habit of checking your phone, but it doesn’t cut you off entirely. The idea is to make yourself think about it more, and to make social media less available—but not completely inaccessible.

•Try Meditation: Because checking your phone can be such an insidious habit, it’s easy to do it without thinking. Getting into a new habit like meditation can help you to become more conscious of the present moment, the here and now. That can also help you to get into the practice of being here, now, rather than wondering who else is saying something online. Practice being fully present and it will become easier to keep your phone in your pocket.

by Rituparna Malini at https://www.speakingtree.in/blog/phone-detox-5-ways-to-go-back-to-good-old-days/m-lite

Protect Your Email Address Book

As you may know, when/if a worm virus gets into your computer it heads straight for your email address book, and sends itself to everyone in there, thus infecting all your friends and associates.

This trick won’t keep the virus from getting into your computer, but it will stop it from using your address book to spread further, and it will alert you to the fact that the worm has
gotten into your system.

Here’s what you do:

First, open your address book and click on ‘new contact,’ just as you would do if you were adding a new friend to your list of email addresses.

In the window where you would type your friend’s first name, type in ‘A’.

For the screen name or email address, type AAAAAAA@AAA.AAA

Now, here’s what you’ve done and why it works:

The ‘name ‘A’ will be placed at the top of your address book as entry #1.

This will be where the worm will start in an effort to send itself to all your friends.

When it tries to send itself to AAAAAAA@AAA.AAA, it will be undeliverable because of the phony email address you entered.

If the first attempt fails (which it will because of the phony address), the worm goes no further and your friends will not be infected.

Here’s the second great advantage of this method:

If an email cannot be delivered, you will be notified of this in your In Box almost immediately.

Hence, if you ever get an email telling you that an email addressed to AAAAAAA@AAA.AAA could not be delivered, you know right away that you have the worm virus in your system.

You can then take steps to get rid of it!

Pretty slick huh?

If everybody you know does this then you need not ever worry about opening mail from friends.

DO IT NOW and pass this on to all your friends.

Internet banking: 8 dos and don’ts

Most internet frauds result from poor customer awareness. The biggest concern for online customers is the possible theft of their online credentials, especially those relating to net banking.

This often happens without the customers’ knowledge, enabling fraudsters to steal money from their accounts in a recurring manner.

Here’s how you can guard against them.

Strong password
Make net banking passwords difficult to guess, change them regularly. Also, never share them with anyone, meaning just anyone.

Make sure site is safe
Before keying in sensitive information, ensure the site is running in a secure mode by looking for the padlock symbol at the bottom of the browser.

Virus scanning
Scan email attachments for viruses before opening them. When unsure about the source of an attachment, delete it.

Customers should install a good anti-virus system on their PCs and ensure that it is updated regularly.

Never share your CVV no.
Don’t share your password or CVV details orally with banks. Bank never asks for confidential information like user ID, password, credit card number, CVV, etc, via mail, SMS or bank initiated phone calls.

Make sure it is Bank site
Don’t access bank website from a link provided in an email from any source. Instead, type the address of the bank website in the address bar of browser to access the bank account. Don’t click on any link provided in emails, they may redirect users to a fake/phishing site.

No paper work
Never note down user ID, password on piece of paper, documents or phones for easy retrieval.

Say no to password reminders
Customers should also never use the ‘remember password’ feature provided by browsers to save their net banking passwords.

No Net banking from cyber cafes
Don’t access Net banking from cyber cafes. If you have to, use the virtual key board to key in details and ensure you log out of the system once you are done.

Originally at http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/itslideshow/8486957.cms