Too many emails from Facebook?

If you no longer want to receive routine notifications from Facebook, there is an easy way to turn them off while still receiving important notifications.

On a laptop or desktop computer - 

1. Click on the downward arrow at the right end of the blue bar at the top of your Facebook account.
2. Select Settings.
3. On the left sidebar select Notifications.
4. Click the Edit link to the right of the Email link.
5. Select the radio button beside Only notifications about your account, security and privacy.

On a tablet or phone - 

1. In the Facebook app, tap on the three lines (which allows you to access the Menu.)
2. Scroll down to Settings & Privacy
3. Tap Settings.
4. Tap Notifications
5. Notification Settings
6. Scroll down to the Where you Receive Notifications section and select Email
7. In Your Email Notifications section, toggle off all the settings.

Now, the only emails you receive from Facebook should be administrative notifications which you don't want to miss.

Charity donations on Facebook

If you're on Facebook, then more than likely you've seen a request to donate to a charity for someone's birthday or a special occasion.  Just keep several things in mind before doing so.

1) If PayPal is an option, that is the safest way to make online donations.  Your credit card information is not shared with the charity, only with PayPal.  A PayPal account is free to set up and use.

2)  When making a donation, make sure you check the box "one-time donation" rather than recurring.  And, then check your credit card statement for several months to verify there are no recurring payments to the charity.

3)  If you are still unsure as to whether to donate using the Facebook link, consider going directly to the charity's website and make a donation there.  Then just send a message to the person indicating you made a donation to their favorite charity via the website, not Facebook.

Don't return that middle of the night phone call!

Phone calls in the middle of the night can certainly be alarming and in the past week there have been reports in the news that warned people about a middle-of-the-night phone call scam.
The warning reported that your phone may ring just once, and it is usually in the middle of the night.  DO NOT return the phone call.  Occasionally a message is left asking that you return the call, and if you do phone charges can be incurred because it is an international number.  Caller ID often depicts the call as originating in the US, but most really are international using the prefix - 222 (Mauritiana) or 232 (Sierra Leone).

It's unclear what the "payoff" is for those initiating this scam, but you can read more about this scam here.

Sync.com

Dropbox. Google Drive. iCloud. Box.com Sync.com

All of the above services provide ways for you to share your files with others in the cloud. However, the newest one - sync.com - is making claims that it is the only truly secure sharing service. Everything I’ve read and heard in the past couple of months supports that claim. 

From the sync.com website:  “Sync makes it easy to store, share and access your files from just about anywhere.

Best of all, Sync protects your privacy with end-to-end encryption — ensuring that your data in the cloud is safe, secure and 100% private.”

To learn more, you may want to take a look at this 5-minute video before creating your free 5 GB account on sync.com: https://youtu.be/I6JjCRNyRTg
I haven’t tried it out yet, so if any of you have experience with it, please feel free to share. It looks and sounds very promising!