Eric

According to their list, the latest security update for iOS 12 was 12.5.5 released September 2021. You said you had an iPhone 6, but the release from Apple says the issue affects the iPhone 6S and newer. If you really only have the 6, it may not be affected. The Security update for iOS / iPadOS 15 is version 15.6.1 if you want to double check your husband's devices. EDIT: The information on that first link does say that 15.6.1 is available for the iPhone 6S. That, along with your iOS version being 12.5.5 tells me you do have an iPhone 6 (not 6S), and will not get (or need) the security update.

The only time I use a VPN is when I'm traveling and using free hotel WiFi which for me isn't that often. I used Mullvad VPN during a recent trip to Boston, spent less than $6 for the month, and cancelled the service when I got back home. I have never had issues connecting to any websites but it is an extra server to route all of your traffic through, so it can potentially be slower. To directly answer your question, nope, I haven't heard of PIA. In my opinion, the main benefits of using a VPN are privacy related. You can keep your browsing from your ISP because all they see is encrypted traffic between sites and the VPN server. If you don't trust your ISP to not sell your metadata to the highest bidder, then a VPN is a good way to avoid that. Just make sure to pick a trustworthy VPN provider because they're the ones who will have that data instead of your ISP. In terms of general security, most of the web now uses HTTPS anyway, so all of that traffic is already encrypted and secure. Transmitting things like credit cards and passwords isn't improved by using a VPN. Some VPN providers have additional security measures that protect you from visiting harmful sites or downloading harmful files, but a little common sense about those things is a lot more effective. There are some things that I think should be higher priority for online security: Don't reuse your passwords. Create secure passwords and use a password manager to remember them for you. Even though it's a pain sometimes, use 2 Factor Authentication wherever it's supported. The type that uses an Authenticator app (Authy, Microsoft Authenticator, Google Authenticator, etc) is better than relying on text messages, but the text messages are a lot better than a username/password alone. If privacy is your main concern, install an ad blocker extension for your browser. uBlock Origin is a good example. An unbelievable amount of tracking happens as you browse the web, and there's a lot of money in knowing who you are as an ad target. A VPN generally doesn't do anything about this, because it's all happening in your browser which is communicating with the site you're visiting. Encrypting the traffic through a VPN only means it's being securely sent directly to Facebook, for example. An ad blocker will shut down most of that tracking and keep it from being shared with the sites you're visiting. EDIT: I didn't realize this before, but Mullvad VPN, and probably other VPN providers include ad blocking and anti-tracking features which would be similar to what uBlock Origin does. uBlock Origin is free, though.

Yep! What Judy said. Thank you all again, and Happy New Year!

And here I am dreading actually having to close all of the gazillion open tabs across multiple windows to allow my browser to update. Reminds me an awful lot of Windows 98, Internet Explorer, and a certain antitrust lawsuit.

Thank you all, and Merry Christmas

That's crazy, a friend of mine sent me this video earlier in the week; I did not expect to see it here! Very cool, Tom.

@Catherine Better late than never? Choose "Custom" from the Categories dropdown!

That's interesting, it should only ask once per browser. Do you have them enabled or disabled? You can check the setting for your current browser in the notification options at the bottom: https://www.atxcommunity.com/notifications/options/ EDIT: Also, what browser are you using? In Chrome, you can manually adjust Notification settings per website (or disable for all sites) here: chrome://settings/content/notifications (copy and paste into Chrome's address bar)

Nope, not this site, but other sites on the server can affect the entire server when the load becomes high enough. I'm not at all worried about the security of any of the sites--the passwords are strong for all administrator accounts... but it does take processing power to evaluate and deal with each password request. I am considering purchasing service from Cloudflare to handle all of that nonsense, but I'm still researching my options.

Well, now I see it too. I'll delete it. You're very welcome! I host websites for a number of municipalities, banks, and hospitals, and they all seem to be common targets for brute force attacks, which can cause very high server load when multiple are ongoing simultaneously. I'm working on mitigating those attacks, because I feel like these issues crop up on this website when the server bogs down due to the load.

I swore that I responded earlier. I was getting that 2S119/1 error in the back end of the site. I cleared/rebuilt the software's template cache and those errors went away. Hopefully they went away on the front end of the site as well. So far, so good it seems

I have talked to Max W about his issue--he was trying to do a password reset I believe but wasn't able to receive any emails from the site. I think that was more of an email system issue, probably related to an overzealous spam filter on the provider end of things. These other problems are unrelated. The server experienced a period of extremely high load earlier today, and I suspect the login issues were related. I'm making sure there aren't any lasting issues as a result, so please let me know if any of the login problems persist.

Windows 11 is an arbitrary version number; it's just a prettier version of Windows 10 with a few new features. They have refreshed/refined the visual style but everything basically works the same. For the most part, it's no bigger an update than any of the previous Windows 10 feature updates which most have installed without ever knowing. Microsoft had previously said that there wouldn't ever be a Windows 11 because they have moved to a more iterative release style where they gradually add features over time. They decided to change their mind and bump the version number because it's a nice marketing tool. I wouldn't let it cause you any anxiety either way. It's just another free update, and like the rest of the Windows 10 feature updates it's best not to be the first to install them on a computer used for work.

The site is responsive, so depending on magnification and screen width (or browser window width if not full screen), the design of the site adjusts to accommodate whatever you've got going on. From a significantly magnified desktop monitor, to a small laptop, to a tablet, down to a phone in portrait orientation. It will not adjust to accommodate Internet Explorer, however. The browser's been discontinued everyone should be switching to Edge.

It looks like you figured it out. Thank you. And thank you to the rest as well!

Alright, so I'm sure many of you have noticed some changes. For a few brief moments, everyone had little badges next to their avatar/photo but I've disabled the feature for now. The new version of the forum software introduced a new Points/Rank/Achievement/Badge system that's more complex than the previous system that gave points/ranks entirely based on the number of posts you've created. When I get some extra time, I plan to take a closer look, so some of those badges may return later(?) If anyone specifically dislikes any of the new features, this is the place to discuss it!

Venmo is owned by PayPal. It's safe. I'm not sure why it needs the weird social aspect, but that's a different subject.

The 5 minute limitation helps to alleviate certain situations that can be difficult to navigate as a moderator. We only have one rockstar moderator on the forum (thank you so much, Judy), so if it's not too much of a hardship to deal with I would prefer to keep the 5 minute limit in place. I think in situations where 5 minutes isn't long enough, 15 usually isn't either.

It's nothing you did, Margaret, don't fear the weirdness (or Leprechauns) It was automatic, and it's called a Topic View Summary. It will sometimes be added to a thread based on a number of factors, but it's especially likely to show up in a thread that has seen a lot of activity. We don't see many threads that get this long here, so that's probably why you haven't seen it before.

I was under the impression that the home office deduction was meant for people who are self-employed. So, my question had more to do with whether it was proper to continue taking the deduction since the use of that space is no longer 100% related to that particular business and source of income... it is now shared with my day job.

I have a home office that has, in the past, met all of the necessary requirements of the deduction. The freelance work I do is very closely related to the work I do 9-5, and since March I've been working that 9-5 job from my home office in addition to doing my freelance work in the same space. My normal 9-5 office still exists, but it's not really available for me to use for the foreseeable future. Do I still qualify for the deduction?

I didn't see much difference between the default post font color (very dark grey) and black, so I ended up increasing all font sizes across the site to 110% of original size. See the attached image. Top is default, middle is black, last is 110% font size and black. These changes have only been made to the Default theme. "Compressed" has remained with the defaults, since increasing the font size might be at odds with the goal of increasing information density to prevent the need to scroll as much.

not at all, I'm glad I could improve the usability for those who prefer a more information dense layout. You should have a notification or an email (depending on your settings) letting you know that this post is waiting!

The one useful feature I've noticed that gets removed in the Compressed view is the Follow feature. There are other ways to access it, but it's not as convenient. It will be difficult to strike a balance between removing elements and required functionality that meets everyone's needs, but I'll do my best based on feedback. Glad you like it!

Hi Margaret, I know this has been an issue for you for years. As design trends change over time in an effort to be more mobile friendly, stacking elements instead of displaying them side-by-side becomes more common. More white space between elements is meant to make things easier on the eyes--same goes for increased font sizes. This is experimental, but we'll give it a shot to see how it works out. I have created a custom theme for the forum that removes some (hopefully not too important) elements and squeezed some things together for a more compressed layout. I'm not sure if that's easier on the eyes or not... maybe it works out alright with a magnified screen / lowered screen resolution? I'm happy to have some feedback. You can switch between the Default theme and the Compressed version at the bottom of the forum (scroll all the way down). Click the Theme link and choose Compressed.