Be proactive in defending against online scammers

“You’ve been hacked!” Those words spilled out all over a friend’s computer screen. Then her phone rang.

The caller said he represented U.S. Bank, which happened to be her bank. “You’ve been hacked,” he repeated, giving her his fake employee badge number. Then he got permission to install an app to control her computer from afar.

After that, she called her bank. They told her to come in and set up a new account. Then she asked a techy friend to fix her computer. He probably used Windows recovery options. But she still couldn’t sleep. So when I dropped by, I ran a McAfee virus scan just to be sure. I wasn’t expecting any problems, because I would have seen a warning from Windows Defender. All was OK.

The whole incident reminded me of the time an older acquaintance gave a hacker her credit card number, Social Security number, driver’s license number, bank account number and two selfie headshots. It was just enough info to allow the guy to rob her of $50,000, which she eventually got back. She should never have responded to his text, which said her

Amazon account had been used to buy an iPad and she needed to call a certain number immediately.

Here’s the lesson: If a fishy-looking text purports to be from Amazon, forward it to Reportascam@amazon.com. If in doubt about any supposed text or call from them, call their customer support division at (888) 2804331. This number also works for product complaints and questions. Recently, for example, I ordered a glass pitcher that arrived in a dozen sharp shards. The vendor was unresponsive, so I called Amazon, which immediately agreed to a refund.

If you get any kind of call or text requesting your info, hang up. Then call the business or person it’s pretending to be and ask: “Did you just call me?”

AVOIDING TIME-WASTERS

Social media timers help you avoid wasting time on Instagram, Facebook, email or any other app. I gave FaceSCHWABACH,

book five minutes.

To set up this limit on my Android phone, I tapped “Digital Wellbeing & Parental Controls” in Settings. Then I chose “Dashboard” and tapped the hourglass next to every app I wanted to limit, including Gmail.

As my five-minute limit on Facebook approached, the app turned gray. A message announced that Facebook was closing for the day but I could come back tomorrow. Of course, I could have gone back into Settings and deleted the restriction, but that would have been cheating.

To set up time limits on an iPhone or iPad, go to Settings, then tap “Screen Time.” Now tap “App Limits” and “Add Limit.” Choose a category, like “Social,” then choose the apps you want to limit, such as Instagram, Facebook, Messenger or “all.” Then tap “Next,” choose your time limit and tap “Add.” When the time is up, you can add 15 minutes or delete the restriction.

MAGIC STUDIO

Canva’s new artificially intelligent tools help you make logos, business cards, animated social posts, presentations and almost any other artistic project. They call it Magic Studio.

I tried out their image-generation by clicking “create a design” from the hamburger menu (three stacked lines). After choosing “Facebook Post,” I clicked “Elements” and chose “Generate Your Own.” After typing “a black bear surfing,” I got something that might turn into a greeting. For a video, I chose a bunch of images and asked AI to create a movie promoting a relaxed vacation. It did a good job.

Canva also offers Magic Switch, which lets you transform one kind of project into another. Pictures can turn into presentations, Instagram stories or almost anything you can imagine, even song lyrics.

You can play around with these AI tools long enough to generate 50 images and five videos. After that, you could sign up for the 30-day free trial of the pro version, which costs $120 a year.

Or you could ignore the AI tools, because Canva also offers more than a million templates, over a thousand types of designs, over three million stock photos and five gigabytes of storage. I tried making a logo, which came out great. I also made a newsletter from a template that looked just like a newspaper, with photos I can swap out and headlines I can reword. Try Canva at Canva. com or in the mobile app.

ROBOT NEWS

I love the robot videos from Boston Dynamics, but their mechanical dogs look more like machines than pets. Now they’ve added a furry version. Its movements are so canine, I wanted to reach out and pet it. To see the video clip from TheVerge, search “They Made the Robot

Hairy!”

TEXT WITH CANNED LAUGHTER

Remember the canned laughter in sitcoms? Soon Android users will be able to add canned laughter to texts.

These Audio Emojis are coming to the Google phone app sometime this year. Besides laughter, your texts can include clapping, partying, crying, flatulence or a drum’s rim shot. The crying sound comes from a sad trombone.

INTERNUT

“Ars Technica plasticeating bacteria.” Search that phrase to find an interesting article. Scientists have finally found a species of bacteria that eats up thermoplastic, which is common in products ranging from bicycle tubes to Ethernet cables.