Answers...

to commonly asked questions.

Oct 2014

What's my Admin password?

My flash drive is out of date and I’m being asked to download a new version.  It keeps asking me for my administrator user name and password, but we never installed one on this computer.  What do I do?  Again, it’s a MAC.  
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I think you are referring to Adobe Flash and not a flash drive. And yes, the computer asks for your username and password when installing an updated version of flash. Every computer has at least a username. That is most likely automatically populated when the prompt appears during an install. However, the password is not. This is part of the reason Macs are very secure. In order for anything to install, your username and password are required. Now, if a password was never assigned then you can try leaving the password field blank and just hit enter. If a password was created then you may have created a password hint. If a hint was created then that hint will appear after you’ve tried to enter a password 3 times. Hope that helps.

Resolving Apple ID purchase problems

Hi Scotty,

All of the updates were moving along smoothly until I got to the iPhoto update (which is the one I need to see my pictures) and I keep getting this message.  I don't know why my Apple ID has worked with all of the other updates but not this.  What should I do?

IMG_7057
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That’s odd.  I might suggest going into your applications folder and dragging “iPhoto” to the trash.  You will not be deleting your iPhoto library which lives in a completely different location.  After the iPhoto application is gone, return to the App Store and attempt to download iPhoto.  That should give you the ability to download iPhoto under your own ID.  

Another solution: clear the cache db of ~/Library/Cache/storeaccountd storeassetd and storedownloadd
another thought here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5588019?tstart=0


Let me know if that worked.  

iTunes starts playing by itself

Scotty

I don’t know if you remember, but the last time that you were here, one of the problems was that iTunes would pop up and start playing.  You did something—I wasn’t watching- and the problem did go away for a little while.  It slowly came back, and now it pops up every few minutes even though I am constantly hitting “Quit iTunes”.  I did upgrade to OS X Yosemite, but that did not seem to make any difference.
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There are several potential explanations as to why iTunes might start playing randomly. A couple of simple things to check first.

Keyboard key stuck? Try disconnecting the keyboard temporarily to see if the problem goes away.
Inadvertent signal being received from AppleTV remote.

other possibile solution to try:

Right Click on iTunes within the applications to check sharing & permissions. (right click app, then select "get info.") Note that "wheeler" has read&write access. Remove wheeler by using the minus button at the very bottom of that window.



Do I need my own router?

We have the Akkris router by Time Warner.  Is there a diff u recommend.  This one has given us a lot of trouble for quite a while:(
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While the TW modem/router is required to get internet access to your home, it is not required for your wifi.  You can use your own wifi router to provide wifi in your home.  Unfortunately TW now charges a rental fee for their wifi modem/router but they don’t provide modems only which is really all we need.  So most clients I work with keep the modem/router supplied by their ISP but use their own routers they purchase separetly.  I like the airport extremes by apple.  They cost a little more but I think they are worth it.  www.apple.com/wifi

Notes:  I do not like the time capsule routers.  Reasons for that can be found here.

Where is my mail going?

I received a LivingSocial email today and when I opened it it was not from Living Social but from a realtor I’ve been working with in the mountains.  The email from the realtor had the Living Social info on it.  How did this happen?  I would have deleted the living social email without looking at it usually.

Also I am not receiving emails on my phone.  I received several but not all emails.  I know this because the living social and realtor email didn’t show up on my phone.

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This can sometimes be a difficult problem to solve. It can be caused by many different issues. I would suggest before doing anything, we just wait and see if the problem exists a week from now. If it does then it is likely that we may have to take larger steps to solve the issue. That would include deleting and re adding the email account which in your case, considering you have lots of mail still associated to an old account, can be tricky.

It is possible that while your old RR account allowed junk mail to get through, your new gmail account will be more conservative. Checking your junk folder from time to time then marking the mail as “not junk” in your email program will help this a great deal.
Screen Shot 2014-10-23 at 11.57.17 AM
For the most part, junk mail filtering happens at the gmail server and at your computer but it does not happen at your phone. So once it moves into junk, it may not be visible on your phone. That would explain it not showing there. Again, check your junk mail folders and mark it as “not junk” going forward. The newest version of iOS 8allows you to move to junk as well.

I changed my AppleID password. Now what?

Thans for today.  I can’t remember my apple ID and password so I asked for a new one to be emailed to me this morning….no email yet.  So I have no idea what email is assigned for the Apple ID.

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Ok, apple will not email a new password ever.  If you’d like to change your AppleID password, you do so by going to www.appleid.apple.com.  From there you would enter in your security information like your date of birth and a few other questions you answered previously.  Then you can change your password.  They may have emailed a link to the page I mentioned above but they will not email a new password.  

Changing your AppleIDs password will cause a chain reaction within your computer ecosystem.  In other words, once you change a password, you have to make sure ALL the applications and devices that use that password know about the new change.  In other words, you have have to enter in several times.  Each application of device will usually present a message saying the old password didn’t work.  That’s your opportunity to enter the new one.  

Also.  As I recall, you are using a yahoo.com email address as you appleID.  And your children use this as well.  Which means that the reset link may have been submitted to that yahoo email address.  To find out what your appleID is, go to your phone and in settings, select “iTunes Store”.  That should reveal the appleID you use to make purchases.  To find your iCloud ID which may be the same as your AppleID, go to settings and select “iCloud” settings.  You will see your appleID at the top.  

Is this really from Apple?

Is this really from Apple?  The reply address looks fake.
Screen Shot 2014-10-23 at 11.29.45 AM
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Yes. Good eye. It’s totally fake. These guys are getting better at hiding their intentions and becoming more convincing. The the rule still stands. Don’t click on links in email you weren’t expecting. In this case, the goal is to get you to click the link so that you’ll go to a website they’ve set up to look like an apple site so that you’ll put your appleID and password into. Clicking the link doesn’t cause the harm. It’s you then being fooled into giving your information up once you get the the webpage. If you ever receive something you are suspicious about, you can hover over the link in your email program and it will reveal the actual URL.

Other clues to watch out for include: grammatical errors, punctuation errors, poorly constructed sentences, etc...

Keeping exchange contacts on the iPhone

Scotty, the "restore" we did on my iPhone today included my Outlook contacts and calendar, and left in tact the setup of my former business Exchange email. If I delete the Exchange account, will it inadvertently delete my contacts?

As it stands, the phone is repeatedly attempting to connect with Exchange and prompting me for my password.  
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You could try going into the iPhone’s settings/Mail,Contacts, Calendar then select the Exchange account. There you should see three toggle switches where you could turn off email and calendar but leave contacts in tact. I don’t think the phone will prompt you for the exchange password. If I’m wrong then we should still be able to get the contacts and eventually delete the exchange account. Your ultimate goal should be to get the exchange contacts out of the exchange account and into your own personal reservoir of contacts such as iCloud.

Mail not displaying html emails

Scotty,

My email is not showing up as html. I tried checking “view remote images” in mail.app’s prefs but that didn’t work. What next.
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Try showing invisibles first then delete
".OfflineCache" folder found in "User/Library/Mail/V2/IMAP-{youremail}/"

Another thing to try would be just tossing
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist however you could also try editing the plist file by changing PreferPlainText to No as a value. You’ll need a text editor like Xcode, bbedit or text wrangler to edit the plist file however.

Alphabetize folders in mail

  1. I'm a folder guy, especially with my email.  However, when I add folders, sometimes they don't add in alphabetical order and it drives me crazy because I have to move them manually.  Sometimes it does it automatically and sometimes it doesn't.  It drives me crazy for sure.  This is Screenshot #2.  Do you know how I can mandate that all folders are saved alphabetically, no matter what computer it was added from?  (usually when I add a folder at home, it doesn't add alphabetically once I open up mail at my office).
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For forcing the alphabetization of folders, try this:

Go to Preferences -> Accounts. Select the IMAP-based account, then click on the "Advanced" tab and disable the account. Save the settings and close Preferences. Then go back and re-enable the account. Quit and restart. The IMAP folders may now appear in correct alphabetical order.

explanation with picts can be found
here.

Spotlight reindexes after Upgrade to Mavericks

Scotty,

  1. Mail loading - below is Screenshot #1 of where it is Indexing.  Does that mean it is downloading all of the mail, and since the internet connection at my office is slow, it could take a long while before it's up to date?  Some mail has come in, but it's surely not updated, thus I can't use it to navigate my email as of now.
  2. Screenshot 2014-10-14 13.20.00
  3. ___________
The first screen shot is not exactly related to mail. Spotlight is a system wide search feature that is re-indexing the entire drive. This happens after an upgrade of the operating system. While it does index mail as well, it is not exclusive to email. You will be able to use spotlight to search your email after it is over however I suggest using the actual email search bar from within Apple’s Mail program. The spotlight search is not linked to internet speed. It’s just a slow process. It will be over soon. However, email resyncing with the server is a slow process and your slower internet connection will effect how quickly mail finishes syncing everything. To keep a better eye on what’s going on, within mail, go to Window and select “activity”. That will give you a better representation of the conversation happening between mail and the server.

Would computer should my mother in law get?

My mother in law is in the market. What do you reccomend ... Mac air or Mac Pro? What size processor?
Any suggestions would be great. I will probably have her to contact you to help her get all set up.
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Well there are many factors that go into that decision.  The price of course but also the size of the hard drive.  Generally the macbook airs have smaller drives, are slower historically, but are lighter. Basically you’re paying for convenience vs. power.  However, the macbook pros are now so much smaller it’s hard to argue against them.  The MacBook Air is a great computer for someone who has another iMac already as their main computer to store pictures, music etc…  But I wouldn’t suggest an Air as your main computer.  As far as the processor speed goes, I would probably suggest the slowest (cheapest) model. Most of us don’t need the speed that a higher processor provides. It just makes us feel better about our purchase. But for email, web, word processing, you’ll never know the difference.

Why can I send this email?

Sorry to keep bugging you with this same question!
This message has continued to pop up through years with different emails I've  tried sending. I wish I knew what to click on to make it stop reminding me it won't send.
Please help again.
Thanks!


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Unfortunately the picture is too unclear to make out the email address you’re trying to send to. But the large majority of the time the cause is the same. As before, you’re probably trying to send an email to a non valid email address. ex: scotty@mac.cam instead of scotty@mac.com. www.mcdonalds.com instead of ronald@mcdonalds.com. etc...Due to the lack of clarity in the picture I can’t tell much more than that.

best way to migrate to a new phone

Scotty,

I'd like to get the new iPhone 6+ before two or three weeks. Do you have any recommendations of where I should go, seeing that I am in uptown? Also, will they take my old iPhone and give me any $ for it?
The biggest q is what do I need to do before turning it in. I don't believe all my stuff is backed up, especially my 5k+ pics. 
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You can always go to the Apple Store south park in the a.m. They have an inventory that usually gets sold out daily. The folks there would have more info. Some cell carriers do have buy back offers but those may have expired. You can also check gazzelle.com for what the going rate is on your model iPhone. They buy back phones also.

The easiest way to transition to your new phone is to first plug the old one up to iTunes, make a backup. (that should be found under the summary tab in iTunes after the phone is connected and selected in the left hand column of iTunes.) Then after you’ve purchased your new phone, connect the new phone to iTunes when you get home and choose to restore from a previous backup. (the one you just made) I find this method more thorough faster and reliable than the wireless iCloud method. By the way, you may want to consider getting those 5k pictures off the phone and into iPhoto eventually. Here’s more info on how to do that.

Does iCloud backup my stuff?

my husband told me we do have a wireless hard drive already.  not that I am not happy to buy the devices we discussed, but just in case I wanted to make sure we would not be doubling up - my book world he said it's called?
also, he asked why we would not back up on iCloud?  Sorry if you told me the answer to this?
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MyBook world (by western digital) is considered a NAS. (network attached storage). For you to be able to use time machine, the drive needs to be formatted for the mac. That wireless drive will not work well with time machine. If you were able to get it to work, it would be along the lines of a time capsule which I do not hold in high regard. Long story short, you a way better off having a hard drive that you can physically connect with a USB cable. I will sleep better at night if you take that advice.

iCloud is not a backup. Everyone thinks it is. But it is not. Yes, it temporarily backs up the most recent pictures you’ve taken on your phone and it stores contacts and calendars but it does not store your entire photo library. Nor does it currently store all your documents. In short, the space you have in iCloud is not enough to store your entire computer’s contents.

Scotty's Mantra




Pasted Graphic


iPhoto is in charge of taking pictures off the phone’s camera roll.
iTunes is in charge of syncing pictures back on to the phone to carry around and enjoy.

It says I don't have enough space on my phone

Why am I out of space on my phone? I bought more iCloud space and I still can’t take any pictures.

I hear this EVERY SINGLE DAY. Let’s try to clear this up. Buying more iCloud storage has absolutely nothing to do with being able to store more locally on your phone. The only reason you may want to buy more iCloud storage is if you’d like more space for storing documents created in Pages, Keynote, Numbers or Text Edit, more calendar events, more contacts, or a longer period of TEMPORARY storage of pictures via iCloud’s photo stream service. As of 8/2014, iCloud does not, repeat does not backup your entire iPhoto library. It only transfers pictures you’ve taken on your iOS device to iPhoto via Apple’s servers. At present, Apple does not hold on to your pictures permanently. In the near future it is likely that this will change but not right now.

You are out of storage on your device because you, like everyone else, haven’t taken the pictures you’ve taken on the device, off.

Almost no one removes the pictures off their iOS devices. Oh, you think you do but you are wrong. Here’s why.

A: You never plug your phone up to iTunes
B: You plug it up and sync the pictures over but you don’t delete them.
C: You plug it up and sync the pictures over and you hit the delete button but you never go back the phone in the left hand column of iPhoto and actually remove everything.

Confused? Ok. Here’s how to clean all the pictures you’ve taken off your phone to free up space...

Screen Shot 2014-10-08 at 11.38.34 PM

Now choose to Delete the imported pictures.
Screen Shot 2014-10-08 at 11.40.27 PM

Notice that “Last Import” is now highlighted in the left column. This is what throws everyone off the trail. You need to get back to the phone so you can finish the job.
Screen Shot 2014-10-08 at 11.40.47 PM

Select the phone in the left column and now look! The secret button appears.
Screen Shot 2014-10-08 at 11.41.01 PM

Yes.
Screen Shot 2014-10-08 at 11.41.43 PM

You’ve now taken all the pictures from the camera roll off your phone. But wait, there’s more.

So why are there still pictures on your phone? Two possible reasons.

1. You are using iCloud’s photo streaming to save pictures to iPhoto over the internet wirelessly and iCloud’s photos are still on your phone. (usually around 1000 most recents)
2. You used iTunes to sync some older pictures from your iPhoto library over to the phone so you could have those Thanksgiving pictures from 2006 on your phone to show Grandma when you see her this summer.

Either way, that’s fine. The main thing is you’ve now cleaned up the camera roll. Now you probably have enough space to update your phone.

Lastly, remember my mantra: iPhoto is in charge of taking pictures off the phone’s camera roll. iTunes is in charge of syncing pictures back on to the phone to carry around and enjoy.

I've run out of space on my hard drive.

The computer i'm using is a fairly old imac and it is nearly out of memory.  I need a way to clean it up.  Much of the space on this mac is photographs.  SUPRISE>>>>>  With this in mind you might think of a way to store the photos elsewhere without our having to give up the ability to manipulate the image before printing
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When faced with the issue of running out of space where pictures are the guilty party for taking up the majority of the hard drive, sometimes the best option is to move the iphoto library over to an external drive.  This means you’d be tethered to the external drive and could only open iPhoto when that external drive is connected.  But this allows you to avoid buying a larger internal drive for an aging computer.  This also means that you can take the external media drive with you to your next computer.  

Printer not printing correctly

I'm having a problem with my printers suddenly losing the ability to print from a site on line or while I attempt to print a hard copy of an email.
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Sounds like a drive issue.  Sometimes, older operating systems and newer printers (or vise versa) don’t play nice with each other.  A sign that you may not have the most appropriate driver installed is when you see incorrect print jobs.

Apple ID's are very confusing

Hey Scotty its CC. I disconnected from Time Warner today and now my email
Is not coming in at all. I tried to set my Apple ID using my email
cgamble@me.com and it will not accept it. Now do I have to use an ATT account! Help!  My Apple ID had my CC carolina.rr.com  account
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Let’s review: When a person cancels their ISP like ATT or time warner, it’s best if they’ve first made the move to an independent email like @icloud.com or @gmail.com. This way they can keep their email address for the rest of their lives in dependent of what ISP they choose to use. As we discussed, canceling Time Warner service would most likely end that @carolina.rr.com address. However, if you used that email address as an Apple ID in the past, like many many of use have, then you’ll still carry that email address for the rest of your life as an Apple ID. It’s confusing I know. But Apple doesn’t consider it an email address. It’s a set of letters and characters that means you. You will never rid yourself of that Apple ID as it is embedded into the purchased content like apps, songs, movies etc...

So I suggest continuing to use @carolina.rr.com as your Apple ID for the rest of your life even though you no longer receive email there. The two concepts are unrelated. You may have also used the @carolina as an iCloud account. The same idea applies. Leave it.

You do not and should not use any email given to you by ATT. I can’t stress this enough. Otherwise you’ll just end up in the same situation down the road when you change ISP’s again.

Duplicates on iPad after sync

When downloading photos on computer it duplicated many of the pictures. Is there an easy way to delete duplicates?
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Sometimes, we can confuse our photos as duplicates and in actuality they are. However, often they are in albums we’ve synced using iTunes but also still residing in iCloud. We know that these photos will expire out of iCloud eventually. (usually within a month or so with the max being around 1000 of the most recent pictures taken.)If you’d like to verify if iCloud is causing the duplicates, you can go into your iCloud settings on the iOS device, turn off “photos” then recheck the photos app. If the duplicates are gone, problem identified. If the duplicates are still there, then it may be time to resync rom within iTunes. More often than not, it’s a matter of a human not understand what the computer is doing rather than the computer making a mistake on its own. We just have to work out what is causing the duplicates.

printer won't install

Hi Scotty!
We bought the HP Photosmart 7520 printer and tried to set it up. The first try seemed to install properly and it would print when plugged in to my laptop but not wirelessly from the laptop or either of our iPhones. (The printer does say e-print.)
So husband uninstalled it and we shut down the laptop and the printer shortly then went through the install again. It looked fine. We both double checked the window (checked the box to search for any needed updates) then clicked continue. Now it reads: HP Installer quit unexpectedly. Click to reopen the application again. This report will be sent to Apple automatically. This happened twice. What do we do? Can you help me at Town Hall tonight? Should we try to do it remotely one on one? Or do you need to come to the house? Or do I need to exchange the printer?
Please let me know. Also, we have not updated to the new operating system yet on any of our Apple devices because of the trouble we have heard about. Plus in Town Hall you mentioned that it was safer to wait about 10 days, I believe. What is your advice on that?
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The HP 7520 is a great printer. I have positive things to say about it so there’s most likely nothing wrong with it. It would be a great advantage to be sure your computer’s operating system is up to date with 10.9 Mavericks. However, your printer should play nicely with 10.7 or higher. It sounds like the installer is having a problem. But with the latest version of the OS, you really don’t need it. The printer should be found if it is actually on the network. It sounds more likely that the printer is not actually on the wifi network yet. That’s just a guess.

Run your updates. They’re clear to go.

Does iCloud backup my Pictures?

Hello. I am trying to backup my desktop on my netscape account. When I click on icon on the top it says that backup failed. I get a screen that says that Time machine is also on.  IS that what should be on? How do I correct it? It has not backed up since the end of August. My startup disk on my laptop is full again. What do I delete? I have not added any photos.  Also, shouldn't everything except photos be backed up in the Icloud too?
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Time Machine is the software that Apple provides for use in backing up your computer. It does require a second hard drive to be connected to your machine. I’m not sure what you mean by “netscape account” but if time machine is working properly (in other words, there is a healthy external hard drive connected) then you should see a last backup time when clicking on the icon in the menu bar. In your case, it sounds like time machine isn’t finding a healthy drive connected to the computer.

In regards to your hard drive being full, this is something that many people encounter. Mostly people who have small drives like you may find on an older mac or a macbook air for example. Despite what almost everyone thinks, iCloud does not back your computer up. I repeat: iCloud does not backup your computer. It is true that about the most recent 1000 pictures can be find in your iCloud accout, but as of 10/4/2014 iCloud is only used to transfer these pictures to iPhoto or share the most recent pictures between devices. It is not iCloud’s job to backup your pictures. It IS iCloud’s job to back up your contacts, calendars, and documents you create within certain applications such as Pages, Keynote, Numbers, and Text Edit but it does not keep copies of your pictures permanently.

As far as what to remove from your hard drive in order to free up space, I’m afraid I can’t answer that with out a longer conversation and being in front of your computer.

Why is powerpoint starting up at login?

I find that PowerPoint is frequently starting when I boot up. Where do I go to find the startup schedule?
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Go to system preferences then select the Users and Groups pane. Now select Login items. There you will see a list of all the items that are set to open at login. Select the item you wish to remove then hit the minus key in the bottom left corner.

Scotty, I got to the “Login Items” with no problem BUT the only thing set to “…open automatically when…” I log in is “My Drive Connect” which is a TomTom app. Any other ideas?
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Speaking specifically about Power Point, applications will open if either 

a: they are in the “open at login” list
b:  were open when the computer was shut down.  Open means not just windows closed but the application actually running and hasn’t been quit yet.  To determine if an application is open, look at its icon in the dock and see if there is a small white dot underneath.  If you see the white dot, that means the application is still running even if there are no windows associated to the application open at the time.
c:  it has items in the library folders: startup items, launch daemons, launch agents.  But these are rare and probably not associated to your issue concerning powerpoint.  

Can't send email

Hey Scotty
could you please help me know how to make this message go away. it pops up about every 15 minutes. I put in a wrong email it's actually a website but either way this message: (Cannot send message using the server Gmail )
Has come up several times in the past.

photo
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In the email pictured above, you are trying to send to a website, not an email address. One cannot send an email to a site like www.website.com. You can only send email to email addresses like scotty@website.com or scotty@sellsconsulting.com. Delete that in the To: field and replace it with an actual email address.


Inventory management software for the Mac?

do you have any suggestions for an art inventory program for the gallery to keep track of inventory - sales - reports etc?
__________

Take a look at
LightSpeed. It’s a POS system that also has a inventory control piece. Shopify is also a strong contender as its online portion gets good marks.

Don't be scammed! There's nothing wrong with your Mac.

Scotty,  been experiencing several problems including not interfacing with my printer.  Called Pixma to get them to reinstall software to fix and they said that that system has been compromised.  They further showed me that I have a virus in the name of Trojan Horse and that my network is corrupted by CSRSS.exe.  They suggested that they install, from their end, 'Network Shield' for $239 + tax for one year.    Can you advise , as they are sure that my personal data and financial info online is at the mercy of Hackers from Nigeria.  To date those have not been disturbed, to my knowledge.  I am wondering if I was talking to scammers. I used an 855 number on Pixma website.
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Ok. Where to begin? Pixma is a model of Canon printers so calling any number associated to “Pixma” would possibly result in the scam you’ve happened upon. Do not, repeat DO NOT give your card to any online phone service claiming your computer has been hacked etc... That is 100% a scam. The fact that you may not be able to print to your printer is irrelevant to anything they can see as having been hacked or having a virus etc...

Furthermore, CSRRS.exe would be an executable file that would ONLY run in windows as it is. Any file by that name would not run on your Mac. These type of companies: Tunemymac, Mackeeper, Network shield or whoever the people you spoke with, are all preying on mac users who may not know any better and would fall for any story they tell. It is a hoax. They will say anything to scare you.

You most likely dialed a number advertised on the web as an advertisement claiming to be able to help your mac. I can not stress enough that your printer issues have nothing to do with anything these people you spoke with. I strongly suggest you do not give any personal information out. Instead, you can join me on my weekly town hall on Monday and we may be able to troubleshoot the printer issue remotely. If you’ve never used my free town hall meetings, you can check out what they’re like in the link at the top of this page marked “
previous town halls”. No scams! Just free help.

Trend Microsystems?

Scotty,
Please advise if I need the Trend-Micro Systems software on my computer.  I have had it since 2009.

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No. Absolutely not.
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