I've recently heard from a number of my friends on e-mail that they have been getting spam e-mail solicitations from me! Does this mean my computer has a virus?
    Spam e-mail such as you describe is most likely not coming from your computer so, no, your computer probably doesn't have a virus causing this problem. There are other ways e-mail which appears to be coming from you might be sent to your friends. Unfortunately, you only have limited ability to deal with such phantoms.
   The most common source of this kind of spam e-mail is often Facebook. Many of us have Facebook accounts but maintaining the security of those accounts is an ongoing challenge for users. While Facebook has worked to eliminate default account settings that lend themselves to being hijacked for various purposes unbeknownst to the account owners, ultimately it is the account owner who must be vigilant and take direct steps to keep the account locked down and be an informed user. Here is a good starting point on this topic from Facebook. If you use a web browser to manage your e-mail, you also may want occasionally to check the security settings of your account when you log in, as we have seen a few cases where it appears that an outsider has managed to download online contact lists of webmail users. On both Facebook and webmail, having a solid password and updating/changing it occasionally is always a good practice.
    And now the bad news. Once your e-mail address is acquired by someone other than a desired correspondent, it often finds its way into a database to be used by an outsider as a random "sent from" address, a random "destination address" or both. There is simply nothing you can do about it short of acquiring a new e-mail address and abandoning the old one. It's distressing, but there's nothing in the design of e-mail on the Internet that keeps someone from using someone else's e-mail address for evil purposes. It is akin to the situation we've learned to accept with the US Postal service, but where the cost of postage keeps paper spam under some level of control, the lack of a per message cost to send e-mail lacks any such impediment.
   Electronic spam is essentially part of the psychological cost we all pay for the nearly universal use of Internet-based communication. We will gladly help you evaluate what, if anything, you can do about spam coming to you or spam that appears to be coming from you.

I use my cellular phone a lot and, over time, my bill shows that I'm using and having to pay for an increasing amount of data. Is there any way to reverse the trend?
    In the early days of cell phones, the number of minutes you talked and where you used the phone were the main variables in the monthly bill. The advent of unlimited talk and text plans and the move away from roaming charges by the various cell providers have stabilized that part of the monthly bill. The arrival of popular audio and video streaming services has made data use the main variable in a cellular bill. But there are other things that claim part of the data component on modern cell phones that you should be aware of.
   Limiting the use of audio and video streaming is the first and most important step in stemming the upward rise of a monthly cell phone bill. Other software in your phone also may be adding to data use, even if you aren't actively employing it at the moment. E-mail software, weather monitoring software, fitness software, financial software can all be using up data when running in the background. Increasingly frequent software updates also eat up data.
    Since wi-fi is increasingly available these days, taking advantage of secure connections when they are available can lessen the cellular data load. Just be wary of "free" wi-fi locations (those not requiring some kind of password to connect), as they pose another host of other issues.
    We can help you examine both the configuration of your phone and your usage habits to assess what steps might be taken to trim a burdensome data usage issue. We can also give you some tips on safe use of "free" wi-fi.

My inkjet printer uses a lot of ink and it's right expensive. What can I do to keep my printer from putting me in the poorhouse?
   Printer technology has evolved to the point that the cost of ink is the most significant price of ownership. Where printing pictures and documents used to be their main function, we are seeing an increasing variety of "multi-function printers" (MFPs) on the market that also can scan and copy documents. So the volume of printing for a typical user has increased over the years. Improvements in the quality of printing available from ink-jet printers also contributes to higher ink usage.
   The first thing to do in handling a rising printer ink bill is, of course, making a conscious decision only to print things you really need to print. In many cases, keeping an electronic copy of a document or picture will work just as well as making a hard copy. Scanning items into electronic format rather than making printouts is also worth considering. Also, some printers do offer printing quality level adjustments. Using a lower quality print setting usually means less ink is consumed in the process. While photographic printing requires a fairly high level of quality for acceptable appearance, word processing and spreadsheet documents often show no degradation when printed at lower quality settings.
   There are some economies to be had when shopping for printer ink. We've found that on-line ink vendors can often beat the prices of local department or office supply retailers. And on-line prices for the same product can vary considerably, so shopping around is always a good idea. Some printers have optional larger capacity ink cartridges, which can lower the per-page cost of use. There are also now some ink subscription options through the various printer manufacturers as well as Amazon where you can subscribe for a small amount per month and receive new ink cartridges as you need them. You can explore those options or we can help you. One thing we need to caution you about is places that offer refilled ink cartridges. Years ago, refilled cartridges were often a great cost-saver. However, many printer manufacturers now configure their hardware to reject refilled cartridges. Even if the printer doesn't reject a refilled cartridge, it may not properly display ink-level status or may not align properly.
    We can help you get the most out of your printer and also help you make a decision on what kind of printer might best serve your needs in terms of initial purchase cost, maintenance costs and the quality of printer output.