You Will Be Amazed By How Much Google Knows About You on the Google "My Activity" Page

If you use an Android phone, YouTube, Google Search, Google Maps and other Google products, chances are Google has more data on you than you could imagine on "Google My Activity."

Google knows what searches you've done, websites you're visited, YouTube videos you've watched, what you've voice searched for and where you've been (if you use an Android phone).

Let's take a closer look at myactivity.google.com. 

Today I was at the local vernal pond at Rancho Sierra Vista/Satwiwa with my son to look at the tadpoles and frogs. My son found saw a group of tadpoles acting out The Walking Dead by apparently feasting on a dead tadpole. At his urging, I pulled out my phone and tapped the Google Voice Search icon and said "do tadpoles eat other tadpoles." And sure enough, My Activity showed that I did search for it and provided a recording of my query.

Now if you forget where you were some day and are looking for a reminder, My Activity can help you with that too. Simply click Other Google Activity then under Location History click Visit Timeline. I clicked this and "today" and saw a map of everywhere I went today while carrying my phone. Kind of creepy actually. But also potentially useful...where was I on Christmas Day 2015? Searching My Activity turned up the fact that we were actually in the Florida Keys.

Searching Location History under Other google Activity reminded me that I was in the Florida Keys on Christmas Day 2015. Google My Activity is a great memory jogger!

I took a look at activity prior to January 1, 2015 to see what Google had on me and it showed all my YouTube activity, including searches and videos watched.

Some folks may get a grin out of reviewing their activity. I apparently was helping my kid with geometry homework on April 13, 2016:

So the good news is that if you don't want Google stockpiling all of this data you can do something about it. Click "Activity controls" where you can manage the tracking of your web and app activity, location history, device information, voice and audio activity and YouTube search history You can also go to "Delete activity by" and remove any or all of what has been recorded. 

Why Posting Your Birthday on Facebook is Not Such a Good Idea

You have 250 Facebook friends ranging from close family members, childhood playmates, high school classmates, frat house buddies, workplace acquaintances and other random people. Some you know well, others not so much. 

Never before have birthdays been so exciting. In your Facebook notifications settings, you can be prompted as to your friends' birthdays automatically. Or if you click your Friends section and click Birthdays, you can see "Friends with Upcoming Birthdays."  It's fun to see 97 people write "Happy Birthday!" on your wall on your birthday!

View fullsize

But think about it. Do you really want your birth date, a key component of your personal information that can be used for identity theft, openly displayed on your Facebook page?

At lunch today, a friend told me that someone was able to find out his political party, but he didn't know how that happened.

In many counties, voter records are maintained online. Ventura County in fact makes it really easy to find out if you are a registered voter, when you registered and your political affiliation. All they ask for is your first and last name and your birth date. The Voter Eligibility Search is at recorder.countyofventura.org/elections/voter-lookups/am-i-a-registered-voter/#VoterEligibilitySearch.

This friend just so happens to show his birthday on his personal Facebook page. Just month and day, no year. While I didn't know what year he was born in, it took me only two guesses to log in to his voting record. This would not have been so easy had it not been for his posting his birth date to Facebook.

So unless you are interested in making it that much easier to have your identity stolen or personal information discovered, it's probably not a good idea to post your birthday to Facebook. Your real friends will remember your birthday. They either have it memorized or written down somewhere. Or maybe you can give them a hint.

There's a way to restrict access to your birthday on your Facebook page by going to "Contact and Basic Info" => "Basic Information" and clicking the lock icon next to your birthday. You can select Public, Friends, "Only Me" or Custom. "Only Me" is my option of choice. But of course my birthday comes and goes and I don't receive the Facebook-prompted birthday wishes that my friends receive.

Finding one's voter registration status in Los Angeles County at www.lavote.net/vrstatus requires slightly more work than in Ventura County. You need Last Name, Birthdate, House Number and Zip Code. 

More information about how to recover from identity theft

How to place a credit a "security freeze" on your credit file

Unsubscribing From Email Lists to Help Save Time Over the Long Run

Here we are, nearly halfway into the first month of 2017. Some of us have new year's resolutions, some of us don't. Those of us that do may or may not have made progress towards these resolutions.

Perhaps the best approach to feeling like we are actually accomplishing a new goal in 2017 is to set goals that are achievable. Not a lofty goal that could take months or an entire year, but a goal that can be accomplished fairly quickly and easily with a little bit of focus. A goal that, when achieved, can provide immediate benefits.

For me, that achievable goal is to reduce the size of my email inbox. 

Over the course of the year, I buy stuff online, sign up for services and sometimes sign up for email newsletters. While I try to pay attention to un-check the box asking me to sign up for a newsletter, in my haste I sometimes don't do so.

As a result, the daily email inbox grows and grows and grows. Sometimes to 100, 150 or more emails a day.

My daily routine includes deleting emails, usually by quickly clicking a box next to the email, then clicking the delete button. It doesn't take a lot of time to do, but it is a distraction, especially when it continues to happen all day.

If your email inbox is an annoyance to you, consider doing the following:

1. Instead of deleting unwanted emails daily, consider letting them accumulate in your inbox for a week.
2. Then take an hour of focused time to open up each email and decide if this is an email you want to receive on a regular basis.
3. Click the Unsubscribe button. Sometimes that one click unsubscribes you. Other times it leads you to a page that asks "are you sure?" Of course you're sure! Other pages ask multiple questions; would you like a weekly or monthly digest, would you like to receive these emails but not those, etc. Look, decide and take action!
4. A "digest" option is sometimes offered as a way to receive individual messages consolidated into one email. The Nextdoor neighborhood social network website offers a "Daily Digest" feature as one example that can certainly take a load off your inbox.
5. Do you get reminders from Facebook, like birthday reminders? That's something else you can put an end to if it is causing too much clutter by simply clicking the link at the bottom of the email to opt out.

Don't click links in spam emails!

Now one thing you don't want to do is click a link in an email from an unknown sender, otherwise known as Spam. You may be telling a spammer that yes, this email is active, so send me more spam. You don't want that. Gmail does a good job of identifying spam and placing it in the spam folder but there's also an icon you can click for true spam from unknown senders in your inbox.

Now that you have freed up all that space in your inbox and have created hours and hours of extra time, be sure to sign up for the weekly Conejo Valley Guide Updates Email for highlights of things to do and see in and around Ventura County. You have plenty of room now to enjoy these! :) SIGN UP FOR CVG UPDATES VIA EMAIL

One more aside, there also some free online tools out there that do the unsubscribing on your behalf. While I have not personally used them, they may be of interest: Unroll.me  getunsubscriber.com 

Free Online Tool Makes It Simple to Make Any Page Print Friendly

It was a request from CVG reader Eileen posed that prompted me to find something pretty simply, useful and cool, not to mention free.

Eileen asked how could she save the comprehensive guide to finding family bike paths in and around Ventura County article to a pdf file so that she could print it out and bring it with her.

My first thought of course was, this website is very mobile friendly, so if you have a smartphone, just click the article and you'll have what you need in the palm of your hand. No trees consumed. But, hey, I see the benefits of printing out documents too. Not to mention, as recently as 2015, 32% of adults in the U.S. did not own a smartphone.

Problem is, that print feature does not currently exist on this environmentally conscious website. So what is one to do?

I discovered a simple and very easy solution. Simply click the URL of the page you would like to print to pdf and paste it into to the box at www.printfriendly.com. Within seconds, the article can be printed in a nice format directly to your printer, printed to a pdf file or emailed to someone.

Additionally, you can change the size of the text of the article (although the header text size stays the same) and you can change the size of the images in the article or even remove them.

You can also click any highlighted text links, full sentences or images in the converted article to literally remove it. This could come in handy if something is converted that you don't want in your printable version.

Very impressive and very simple to use. Simple is the key. I like simple and easy. And free. 

SCORE Ventura County Helps Over 1,000 Local Entrepreneurs Each Year

The Ventura County Chapter of SCORE is a 501(c)3 non-profitorganization that was founded in 1971. SCORE was founded as an organization in 1964. The organization’s 11,000 volunteers operate out of over 320 chapters through the country.

The acronym SCORE stands for Service Corps of Retired Executives. SCORE Ventura County counselors are an active group of over 60 volunteers who are retired successful business owners and managers who enjoy helping established and potential business owners achieve success.

SCORE Ventura County provides FREE individualized counseling in partnership with Chamber of Commerce offices in Camarillo, Malibu, Moorpark, Oxnard, Simi Valley, Greater Ventura County and Oxnard. Appointments can be made online at ventura.score.org/mentors.

SCORE Ventura County also provides workshops, some free and most for a small charge, for local entrepreneurs. Visit this link for upcoming events ventura.score.org/localworkshops.

In addition, the chapter is active in many other community projects such as Hispanic Programs Group, Boots2Business training for our military, collaboration with technical assistance partners at the SBA as well as working with local educational institutions.

There are many other useful resources on the SCORE Ventura County website at ventura.score.org. Call SCORE Ventura County at 805.204.6022 or visit their website for more information.

Tips For Using Public Wi-Fi Networks From the Federal Trade Commission

The Federal Trade Commission notes that wi-fi hotspots in public places like coffee shops, libraries, universities and so on, while convenient, are often unsecured, which means the information you send when you're logged in to these hotspots can be seen by others.

Short of simply not using public wi-fi hotspots, there are things you can do to protect yourself.

1. Try to confine your use of unsecured public wi-fi hotspots to web browsing rather than logging in to websites and apps that require personal information.

2. If you do need to sign in to websites using login and password information, try to only use sites that are encrypted, or that basically scramble the information submitted so that others can't see it. How do you know if it is encrypted? If there is an "s" after http at the beginning of the web address, that means it's secure. But make sure the https shows up on every page you visit, not just the page you sign in.

The good news is that many sites requiring login are consistently using https these days, like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, not to mention banking and financial sites. You may notice when you go to a site like Amazon.com, initially you'll see www.Amazon.com in the browser, but a secure web address once you click the sign in page.

As you can see, Yahoo mail uses https

3. The FTC notes that mobile apps don't have a visible indicator like https and that many mobile apps don't properly encrypt information. So if you have that $100 birthday check form Aunt Hattie and want to deposit it to your Chase account using your mobile app while enjoying your Frappuccino at Starbucks, use your phone's 4G or 3G data network, not the free wi-fi.

The Federal Trade Commission has more useful tips for using public wi-fi hotspots at www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0014-tips-using-public-wi-fi-networks.

County of Ventura's VC SafeDiner App Provides Convenient Access to Inspection Results

Ventura County Environmental Health launched the VC SafeDiner app for Apple and Android devices in early 2015.

VC SafeDiner is a quick and easy way to view the latest inspection results for food facilities in Ventura County. The app allows you to search by name, address or city; and also provides a map feature allowing you to view food facilities within a radius of your current location. Full inspection results for the last year are displayed, including recorded violations and inspector comments. 

I've tried it and it works great, replicating the searchable database on the County website at www.decadeonline.com/main.phtml?agency=VEN.