When working with photos, a common task might be image background removal. This is where you edit the picture so that the background and miscellaneous details are wiped out. You’re just left with the subject of the photo.
Maybe you need to do this with your headshot, for your LinkedIn Profile. Or perhaps you have something more creative in mind. Whatever your pursuits, removing the background of a picture is very easy to do. You do not need Adobe Photoshop or other complex tools for this.
The Photos App in Windows 11
Microsoft has built this popular function into all new PCs. It’s hiding in the Photos app. Just open your pic in Photos and click the Edit Image button to the top left. Then click the Background button to the upper right and use the Remove function that appears.
The Preview App in MacOS
Apple has put this functionality in their Preview app. If you open your photo in Preview, then you can follow these steps and remove the background.
If you’re running the latest MacOS (Ventura), you may also right-click (command-click) any photo in Finder, select Quick Actions and then click Remove Background.
Free Websites
There are also countless websites that offer image background removal. A longtime classic is remove.bg that is now owned by Canva. Photoroom also offers this tool for free. It looks like Pixlr has added this in, too.
These websites are extra-convenient, especially if you are using a Chromebook or other limited device. They promise to respect your privacy with whatever photos you supply, but I still wouldn’t upload anything sensitive.
If your computer is going to dip its toe in the internet ocean, you need protection. There are hazards everywhere, and nothing is sacred on the wretched worrisome web. But antivirus isn’t enough. Whether you are using Microsoft’s free Windows Defender Antivirus, or shelling out big bucks for Snotron McAffeinated 420 Ultra SmartWare Gigaplex Security Suite 2025 Excruciating Edition, you need more. No antivirus is going to keep you 100% safe from the hazards of the internet.
After your antivirus is squared away, you need an ad-blocker. This is software that suppresses or blocks advertisements from ever appearing as you surf the web. And you really need to be blocking ads, on (almost) all websites. They can be dangerous no matter where you go.
Irresponsibility
Websites everywhere look to make a buck through advertising. But they often don’t want the tedium of finding advertisers, collecting ads and payment and other managerial minutiae. It’s much easier for a company to hand that task off to ad firms, who will place and rotate ads on designated places on their website.
But that leads to trouble. If the ad firm doesn’t vet their customers well, or if they suffer a data breach, or if they just don’t care, then you wind up with this nonsense:
To be clear: This screencap is taken (today!) from a Valley newspaper’s website, that most people in the region visit for local news. Directly under their masthead is a large banner ad that will lead people to two different types of undesirable software downloads. I cannot tell you how many computers I have cleaned of OneLaunch this year. And EasyPDF is a well-known search hijacker. Some people are going to ignore that junk. Other people are going to click on it and foul up their computers and have to call a professional to clean things up.
As much as I like to earn my pay, this isn’t right. This is irresponsible, although it is debatable whether the fault lay with the newspaper or the ad agency they’ve hired. Whomever we should wag the finger at, they are unlikely to be sympathetic or helpful when it comes to fixing your computer. And this sort of thing happens frequently, on many of the mainstream websites you visit.
Hence my stance: You need an ad-blocker! An ad-blocker is the second layer of protection for your computer, after your antivirus.
Ad-Blocking Options
There are a lot of options for blocking ads, and they usually do not come from your antivirus vendor. And there are even scammy and spammy ad-blockers out there, so let me suggest some that I know to be legitimate and safe:
uBlock Origin: Also a quality ad-blocker extension, but this one is fairly unique, as it does not ever ask for money, even a donation.
The Brave web browser: Brave is not an ad-blocker, it is an entire web browser with ad-blocking, baked in. It is a modified version of Google Chrome, with lots of privacy and other protections added into the mix.
I should mention it is best to pick only one ad-blocking solution and run with it. If you need to change, remove one before adding another. Multiple ad-blocking softwares can conflict or cause system slowness.
A Final Caveat
Using an ad-blocker may change your life. If you haven’t used one before and this is your first time, you may be amazed at how much more pleasant the internet becomes, with all of that chaff eliminated from your news, your webmail, your shopping websites…
But some websites don’t like that you are running an ad-blocker. They can tell. Those sites may pop-up messages when you visit, exhorting you to disable your ad-blocker, so that “we may continue to rake in those sweet sweet advertising dollars!” Most of these messages you may safely ignore, but a few websites are a bit more rigid than others. They may prevent you from using the website, until you turn off your ad-blocker. In those instances, you have a choice:
A) Disable your ad-blocker for that one website. Usually, you would find the icon for your ad-blocker, click it and then toggle it off. After you refresh the website, ads will show for that one webpage, but the ad-blocker will still function everywhere else you surf.
B) Don’t visit that website. Just leave. If they won’t respect your need for computer security, then perhaps they don’t need your patronage.
The hits just keep coming. I’ve got even more Facebook scams to describe, so that you’ll be able to recognize and dodge these if you meet with them:
Concert Tickets for Sale
This is as simple as they come: Someone will ask for a Venmo or CashApp payment for some concert tickets, and then ghost you as soon as they receive the cash.
And once they’ve stolen your money, they will also Block you. This prevents you from reporting them to Facebook.
Garage Door Repair
Now we can add “garage door repair” to the list of service scams on the internet.
Working on garage doors is not for the faint of heart and is dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing. I think it important that you be sure to have a properly licensed and insured person performing this service for you.
Missing Child Notice
I’ve blogged before about missing child alerts on social media, but this adds a new angle to that. These posts are fakes. These children are not missing. They’re not even located in the named town or region.
From missing people to found items, these scammy notices work the same way. If they can just get their post to be shared far and wide, they’ll later change it to something scammy.
Used Car for Sale
Many people sell their cars on Facebook, so this scam is hard to spot until you start dealing with the poster.
But I know this is a scam, because this person’s account was stolen from them. Once a scammer entered this user account, they changed the password and all other security info. And Facebook did not help the rightful owner of the account. The scammers are still in there as of today, posting about this car on all of the groups that they can.
For those who reach out about this car, they’ll be asked to make a small payment to “hold” the car for them. Or they may be offered a “too-good-to-be-true” price to get the car sold quickly and delivered to you. In any case, it’s just another way to get your cash before they block you.
Red Flags for These Scams
The poster asks you for payment or a holding fee before you have seen the product or received any proof of the item’s existence.
No company name is given, no local phone number or website is shown for offered services.
Real missing-persons notices would include the name and phone number of the relevant police station.
Scammers tend to Like their own posts and often Turn Off Commenting.
The internet is a great place to meet people. But are you you meeting real people near you or scammers who are out to steal from you? Let’s go over Romance Scams, so that you’ll be a little safer making friends and finding that special someone online.
Red Flags
Is that person you are chatting online looking for a serious relationship, or just your money? It can be really hard to tell! But look out for these red flags:
They won’t have a voice or video call with you.
They are very far away and cannot meet with you.
Meet-ups are planned, but always fall through or are cancelled.
Things move very fast, e.g.: they profess their love too quickly or ask for marriage very soon after your first contact.
Requests for money come up, to help with medical expenses, travel costs or investment opportunities.
Communications move to privacy-oriented apps, like Signal or WhatsApp, and you cannot learn the person’s physical address or true phone number.
Honest people that you have just met may exhibit some of these, too. It can be hard to know who’s legit and who’s lying to you. As the red flags pile up, you should trust the other person less and less. But then you may also see if you can knock down any of those flags by:
Verifying Someone’s Legitimacy
This is easier said than done. Not everyone wants to cooperate with requests for personal info, and with good reason: How do they know that you aren’t a scammer?! Still, these items can go a long way to helping you believe that you’ve met someone like you:
Have a call with them, where you can see them and hear their voice.
Meet with them in a public place (library, coffee shop, high-traffic building).
Perform a reverse image search of any profile picture you have of them. That picture may track back to who they say they are, or it may turn up on a ton of stock photography websites.
Ask to postal mail something to them.
Do your own research, looking up tax records and court records through trustworthy government websites.
Talk with family or friends about your new online acquaintance, to see if they think things are kosher or sketchy.
What Can Go Wrong
I can’t tell you how to create a successful relationship or make lasting friendships online. That’s going to be a challenge for many people, even when everyone is being honest. The hope with this post is that I can help you avoid the worst of the worst and their scams, that are out to take advantage of lonely, trusting people. And to that goal, you should understand what these schemers hope to do:
Earn your trust to the point that you’ll send them some money. And then they’ll ask for more. And then more and even more money. This repeated money extraction is sometimes referred to as a pig-butchering scam. Once the victim is bled dry of cash, the criminal will ghost them and move on to the next mark.
Convince someone to engage in romantic written/photographic/video content. Once the scammer has enough adult or illicit material, they use it to extort money from their victim. The extortion can be as simple as “I’m going to tell your wife” or as devastating as “I’m actually 16 years old and I’m going to the FBI with those photos you sent.”
In rare instances, romance scammers urge someone to travel to visit them. If this happens, it could be a trap. When the romantic hopeful arrives in a foreign country, they could be robbed or kidnappedor worse.
Already In a Jackpot?
If you find yourself in the midst of such a scam, cut off communication ASAP. If you’ve been sending them anything of value, you have got to get a tourniquet on things. Don’t send any more money, and consider any previously-sent gifts or cash as gone and unrecoverable. If you have any other worries, find a trusted person (friend, family member, police officer, pastor, counselor) to consult with.
If you know someone who is in the midst of a romance scam, gently confront them to say how you are concerned for their well-being. Show them this blog post or the many other articles that are out there, describing how romancescamsfunction. Be prepared for and understanding about their resistance. The scammers may be in their heads, and have secured their trust. It can be an uphill battle to convince a romance-victim of the larger truth. In extreme cases, you may have to arrange an intervention.
If you are shopping for internet service, you should know about the new broadband labeling requirements. The FCC now requires ISPs to clearly state speeds, pricing and other critical details about their services. These new Broadband Consumer Labels look like the FDA’s nutrition labels. Overall, the government is trying to make ISPs present their offerings in a standard and less confusing way.
Examples
Here’s an example of what you will find, when you go shopping at Xfinity’s website:
When I visited the Glofiber page, their internet offerings were super-clear with these labels:
Despite this being a strict federal requirement, some ISPs are going to play with the format, to see what they can get away with. I went shopping for Verizon Fios, and didn’t see these labels. They gave me the same old Plan Summaries and encouraged me to choose one. But below these choices was a small, plain link that said “Jump to broadband facts labels” and those revealed the clearer details:
If you cannot locate these Broadband Nutrition labels on an ISP’s website, please know that:
This is a very new requirement, and perhaps they are still getting their website updated with this info.
The FCC would like for you to let them know, if an ISP is not posting these labels, or if they are being inaccurate with their pricing or other stated details. You may report such deceptive business practices at this site.
Importance of Broadband Labels
These labels are meant to help you avoid unpleasant surprises on your internet bill. So many people sign up with an ISP due to a low monthly price, only to find out a year later that they were enjoying a promotional discount. When the real price kicks in, those customers feel duped or taken advantage of. The FCC would like to help you know, from these labels, when you are paying a reliable price or a temporary one.
Besides clearing the air over pricing, these labels may help you understand your internet speed. It is so important to know what speed you should be getting in your home! Let me digress with this scenario:
I frequently help clients in speeding up their tech and figuring out why things are slow. And in the course of this detective work, I have to ask them: What speed of internet are you paying for? Many people do not know the answer to this, so we look at their internet bill. If we can’t find the speed on the bill, we visit the ISP’s website. And even then, we may not find any speed numbers. How in the world are we to know if their internet is operating correctly, if we can’t determine what speed they should be seeing?
These labels will clear up that kind of mess. Customers will be able to run a simple speed test, compare it against their broadband label, and reach out to the ISP over any discrepancy. Not that I don’t enjoy the detective work, but this will save everyone so much time!
Apple has created a new website that collects all of their hardware & software documentation, for everyone to use. You can use this site to look up any Apple item for its downloads and manuals and such.
I suspect by now everyone is prepared for the upcoming eclipse, and has viewing glasses in hand. Retinal damage from looking at the eclipse without protection is no joke. But did you know that you also need eclipse protection for your camera?
Experts say that if you plan on pointing a camera at the eclipse, you’ll want to use a solar filter to safeguard its sensors. Unfiltered eclipse photography could permanently damage your device!
Logo Design scams on Facebook are the latest to appear on group pages. These scams are brought to you by the same people who offer duct cleaning, mobile car detailing and more. Here are the deets:
What This Scam Looks Like
Again, this scam usually appears inside of Facebook Groups. The wording may vary, and can actually be a bit engaging:
This time around, the scammers are onto something. The forthright statements and proud attitude is a good hook, and holds the readers’ attention. I see a lot of these posts, full of comments from people who want to contribute their own opinions and attitudes on the subject. And their conversation makes the posts more credible!
But it’s still a scheme, and I recommend you shy away from these offers.
How This Is a Scam
Once again, I have to remind everyone that appearances are often not what they seem on the internet. The people posting these offers use Western names and American-looking photos. They look like they could be your neighbors, but they aren’t. When I chat with these folks, I send them links to click on. And when they do, I get to see their location in the world:
Almost all of these service-type scams are posted by people in Pakistan. I have nothing against the people of Pakistan. But I do have misgivings about dealing with a Pakistani who uses a sock puppet account on Facebook to present themselves as an American.
Incidentally, I am very forthright with these people, as I chat them up. I ask them plainly about their location in Pakistan. They either use coarse language at me, or block me. I do not ever get a civil response from them.
How These Scams Play Out
I would have to give these scammers some money to be sure of how the scam finishes. I’m not going to do that. So, here are my educated guesses on what happens to people who fall for these schemes:
The scammer plays you long enough to get an initial payment, and then blocks you.
The person actually gets you some logos and design options. But they are quickly whipped up, using freesites and AItools, and certainly not worth $200.
They offer to help with your website design, which will give them access to your professional email and domain. Your passwords could be sold to a higher-level scammer who can abuse your email address and identity.
If you have dealt with these scammers, please share your story with me. I would love to update this post with more details!
However these ploys go down, you need to know that you will have no recourse. Whether you lose time, money or your entire website, these people are in another country, where our police cannot address them. These scammers will quickly block you on Facebook, and Meta will not assist you, even if you report the matter to them.
What You Can Do
It can be tricky to recognize these scams. Their verbiage gets better every year. But one useful trick is simply to search Facebook for the scam. Specifically, click and highlight one or two sentences in a suspicious post. Copy that text and paste it into the search field at the top of Facebook. You will know you have found a scam, if your search turns up similar posts from all over the country:
Next, report the scam posts. But understand that when you report things, you have a choice. You can report them to Facebook, but little to nothing will occur. Or, you can report them to the Group’s Admins. That is much more likely to help. The very real and local people that take care of that group will see your report and probably take action against the poster.
It’s quick and easy to report a post to the group’s admin!
Lastly, I do not recommend that you criticize or attack these scammers on their posts. They will simply block you. Once you have been blocked by them, you will be unable to see their posts or report anything that they do.
You can tell what kind of movie The Beekeeper is before you watch it. If its star Jason Statham isn’t a dead giveaway, then the movie trailers surely reveal this as a “lone-killer-out-for-vengeance” film. You may have seen one or two of these already: John Wick, The Equalizer, Nobody. Kingsman, Taken, Hardcore Henry. The Professional, Collateral, The Accountant. The Beekeeper follows the trope well, and will deliver gratuitous, creative and merciless violence for 105 minutes.
If that sounds like your cup of tea, then I recommend you check out this movie! I don’t want to label (most) movies as good or bad, and, despite my opening, I think this is an enjoyable film. Plus, it brings an important issue to the big screen: tech scams.
The Beekeeper’s story begins with a common technology scam, much like those that I write about so often on my blog: A pop-up appears on someone’s computer. They believe the scammy message and dial the on-screen telephone number. Cybercriminals answer the call and trick the person into allowing remote-access of their computer and bank accounts. All of the money is quickly stolen and the victim is shook to their core.
In true Hollywood-fashion, the movie plays fast and loose with the truth and details. But here I didn’t mind it so much. The core of the scam is accurate enough, and I am so very satisfied to see this crime shown in a mainstream film. Representation is important! I appreciate director David Ayer for this, because his film could help “ring a bell” and save someone from falling for a real-life computer scam.
For the rest of the movie, I recommend you relax and don’t think too much. The Beekeeper is meant to be entertaining and not cerebral. The score tells you when a bad guy has entered the frame. All of the actors, even the scammers, are good-looking. Villains shoot up some beehives and escape unscathed. (My beekeeper wife would surely roll her eyes at such silliness, but we’d have a much shorter movie if all the bad guys perished in the first act to a swarm of angry bees.)
I did notice that The Beekeeper missed the opportunity of using an uncapping knife in battle. Those things are dreadfully sharp, and would’ve fit the bee-motif in a clever way.
Overall, though, I appreciated the moral core that surfaced from behind all of the coarse language and brutality. I thought The Beekeeper had great camerawork and set-pieces. It’s no perfect film, by any means, but I’m sure to rewatch it someday. I’ll give it a Bee-Plus.
If you still use a Shentel email address, you should know that there’s a problem with Mail2World’s spam filter right now. Some (but not all) Shentel.net email inboxes are getting a lot more junk email than is normal. After talking with Shentel tech support, I can’t say that I know what the problem is. I don’t know when it will be fixed. I can’t say with certainty that Mail2World is anything more than 3 children in a trenchcoat. But what I can do is teach you how to cope with Shentel/Mailworld’s 2024 Spam Problem in this blog post.
Some people are getting several copies of EACH of these spam messages in their inboxes, every day!
What NOT to Do
First of all, don’t call Shentel expecting a quick fix. This problem is out of their hands, because Remember: Shentel doesn’t manage their email addresses anymore. They offshored their Shentel.net addresses to a company called Mail2World. And that company is really hard to get a hold of. But Shentel assures me that M2W knows about the problem and is working on it…
Next, do NOT unsubscribe from any spam! Clicking on unsubscribe (or any other links) in an unwanted message is asking for trouble. If you click on links in spam, you could attract more spam or lead your computer to a malicious website or download.
While you’re at it, don’t bother trying to use Block Sender on spam. It can’t hurt, but it isn’t likely to help. Block Sender is typically useful only for someone who always uses the same email address. Like that annoying relative who always forwards tacky joke emails to everyone he knows. Or the neighborhood Tupperware salesperson. Or a mentally questionable ex-boyfriend. Block those people to keep your inbox stress-free, but spammers change their email on every message they send. Blocking a spammer won’t work!
What to Do
Your best tool against spam coming to your Shentel inbox is the Mark as Spam function. This is not easy to find! Let me run through some steps on how to find this:
Identify any spam messages in your inbox, and check the box(es) to the left of each one
Above and to the right of your inbox email, click More and then click Mark as Spam
Using this feature removes the spam from the inbox and also sends a message back to Mail2World (and their anti-spam vendor) that these types of messages are spam. It should eventually help them block more spam, which benefits everyone.
Other Problems with Shentel Spam
The Shentel Spam Filter is misfiring in other ways, right now.
Some users are reporting that good email is winding up in the Spam folder. If you feel you are missing any expected message, you’ll want to check your Spam folder. As described above, it is best if you visit the Shentel Webmail page, and then click the Spam folder in the left-hand column. If you find a trustworthy message in Spam, check the box next to it, click the More menu and then click Not Spam.
Also, you may begin seeing some other cryptic emails in your Inbox or Spam folder like these:
I don’t think these messages are spam or harmful in nature. They may be intended for Mail2World and their anti-spam software team, but are being misdelivered to us end-users. Don’t worry about them, and just delete them if you feel any kind of way about them.
Taking It to the Next Level
If we wait this out long enough, the hope is that Mail2World will figure things out, kick their spam filter into gear, and things will go back to … normal. A normal amount of spam, reliable email coming and going, etc.
But what if that doesn’t happen? What if this problem persists for much longer, or how about if new problems emerge as this one resolves? Mail2World doesn’t have the besttrackrecord and I am not prepared to assure you of their capabilities.
If you can’t abide anymore, then your next option would be to create a new email address. Gmail, Outlook.com, ProtonMail and a variety of other email offerings exist. You can create a new address with them at the drop of a hat, and for free.
I realize that concept is intimidating. Switching your email address, in some ways, is more of a labor than changing your mailing address. Not only are you faced with notifying all of your friends and family, but you must reach out to companies with the new email info. And then you get to log into all of your important websites, one by one, to convince each to update your email info.
But consider this: Changing your email address doesn’t have to be accomplished all in one weekend. You can create a new address and migrate things over to it at your pace. You can check two email addresses for as long as you want. Maybe you decide to keep and maintain both addresses?
Also, some email users create a new email address and forward their Shentel mail into it. This is a safeguard against people who “don’t get the memo” about your new address. And it can help with spam! For example, let’s say that you create a new Gmail, and route your Shentel mail into it. All inbound Shentel mail passes through their subpar junk filter, and then gets bounced over to Google. Then Gmail runs it all through their superlative spam filter, and the worthwhile messages arrive in your new Googly inbox.
