Paul's Tech Talk

3 Ways to Transfer Money Internationally

PaulMarch 2, 2020

Something To Consider!

Before I start talking about sending money abroad to friends or family. The first thing I must at least point out and I have had this philosophy when I started dating in an LDR. Never send money to anyone until you have physically met them. There are plenty of dating romance scams out there and until you’ve met them then you just don’t know if it’s a guy acting like a girl or someone who just wants you to be their ATM. Either way, you’ll know quite well after you’ve met them how they will treat your gifts of money. Either way, I always suggest that you be careful who you send your money to and trust fully until you know for sure.

Why send Money in an LDR?

There are plenty of reasons why you might be sending money to your Girlfriend/Boyfriend. Each reasons can be a simple as wanting to help them out with expenses, especially if you are traveling internationally. The plane ticket alone can be expensive to some. So couples sometimes want to help the other person by help paying for the ticket or help when something comes up. It could easily be that they want to save money for that wedding or save money together for a goal. Long Distance Relationships have obstacles to over come and each one of them can be a challenge for just one person. I reiterate, be careful who you send money to!

PayPal

The first way I can come up with is PayPal. I’ve used PayPal in the past and they’ve done a good job at sending money to other countries and changing currencies. I personally don’t like how much they charge to exchange the money to another currency but it has never failed with me. I know it’s widely used world wide and can be very beneficial for most people. I just don’t like the fees that are associated when you send money abroad.

TransferWise

I’ve started to use this because of some really good features. You can have direct deposits into this account and the fees are really small compared to Paypal. You can get a card for free to use abroad. It acts almost like an actual bank card. I recently got mine and I definitely will be trying this out when I go see my girlfriend in the future. You also can send money directly to someones bank account if you have that information available. The rates at which they charge you to exchange money is far smaller than anywhere I’ve seen and can save you money in the long run. It’s works just as fast as anything else I’ve used.

Xoom

Xoom is part of Paypal but they tend to be far cheaper than PayPal and has some great services such as sending money the same day. You can send money through direct deposit, have them pick it up or deliver the cash to them. Xoom has some good features but they also have higher exchange rates and other fees that you will have to pay. It is a good service and can be good for those who might need some way to send money. I personally wouldn’t recommend this one. I’d still go with Transferwise but they can be used for a lot of scenarios.

More +

There are several services that can transfer and exchange currency to send to friends and family. I’ve only listed the ones that I’ve tried and thus it’s a short list of ways to do just that. I am sure there are others and I encourage you to comment and tell people your experiences with these and other services that you’ve used to transfer money to your girlfriend/boyfriend . Why not tell people about this post and tell them how they can transfer money internationally.

Installing Wine on Linux Mint (Cinnamon)

PaulFebruary 25, 2020

Windows Programs

As you know not everything might be on Linux or ported to Linux. So what is a person to do when they find out that they need a particular program. Lately I have been wondering what Wine has been up to lately. I heard about Wine a few years ago, it wasn’t very stable and you had even more problems then you wanted with this little Linux program. Let’s back up and tell you what Wine is supposed to do. Wine allows Linux users to run Windows programs in a Virtual Windows Desktop like environment. When you installed Linux you probably didn’t even think about the possibility that you might need program. Wine is here for that one reason.

Don’t Wine about it

What’s Wine Good for? It general it is used to play a lot of Windows Game on Linux. From Spore, to Call of Duty, to probably even EVE. I know most of these games will need a Good Graphics Processing Unit to play on Any system. I’ve seen people play Sims 3 on Linux and run very Smoothly. I personally use Wine for programs that I might need to fix Clients computers with. Each users needs are a little bit different and most of the time may or may not work with Wine. So you will need to know what you might need to try with Wine before going all in with Linux. Wine has a great list of apps and programs that will work with it. People have been trying programs and submitting them to Wine For review of how to make them work better.

More Stability

I’ve used Wine in the past few years I think the last time I played around with it was in 2015 but I had some difficulty installing it and using. The Wine developers definitely got it more user friendly and now most things are working much better than before. I even tried my Yumi Multiboot USB tool with Wine and seems to run just fine as long as you don’t use persistence option when you create an ISO on the USB. Hopefully they will fix some of these issue but it might not be fixable due to Wine capabilities.

Do you use Wine? Why Do you use it? Have you left Windows behind? Did you find it hard or easier to do so? Why did you do that? Why not leave a comment and answer all these questions and tell me your experiences with Linux.

Are you treating your passwords like Underwear?

PaulFebruary 22, 2020

I am perplexed

Saw this meme or poster that I found on Facebook has me thinking about password security. What is good way to tell people about Password security? Is it as simple as this poster says? We could use some really bad passwords over and over again! Let’s explore the really good questions of this. I’ll talk about what might be very well help with your password security. Although these are just a few that stick out in my mind but they do help create a strong password. I know I’ve talked about some of these in the past but sometimes it is good to talk about them again.

Password Manager

Now a days if you don’t have a good password manager than you are really not keeping your passwords safe. Like the poster says we usually write down our passwords on a piece of paper on the desk. Instead we should securely put them in a vault somewhere. Should we use something like Google to hold our passwords? That’s a good start. I’d be willing to bet they do a really good job of it. I personally love Lastpass and have used it for years and years. Even though there is a lot of balancing acts with a password manager and your lifestyle. It can be helpful to keep your passwords safe and away from prying eyes.

Keep away from easy passwords

Easy guessable passwords will make you loose your accounts quicker than anything. So keep away from those weak passwords and passwords that anyone can guess. I did talk about those in the past about the top ten passwords that people use and you can bet most hackers will use them to try to get into yours or other accounts. Using a good password manager plus letting them create a hard password is essential to keeping your accounts safe from hackers.

Two factor Authentication

I’ve always said having two factor authentication can also help you prevent your account from being hacked. It will prevent a hacker from getting instant access to your account and even warn you that you’ve been hacked. You can use something like YubiKey but since most of us have cell phones than I just use sms for verification. I’ve even recommend Google Authentication for this purpose. It is almost like a one time password and can save you money in the long run!

Don’t use same passwords

I have talked about this in the past also, but you should never use the same password twice on any of your really important websites like banking or electricity websites. You can keep up to date on if you need to change your passwords by checking Have I been pwned website and seeing if you might need to change your password. It’s never a bad idea to go and check every year to see if you need to change them.

If you are like me, you are constantly trying to keep your passwords safe and secure. Do you have any recommendations or suggestions. Why not leave a comment? I’d love for you to share and talk about how you keep yourself safe.

Windows 10 is the baby in the corner

PaulFebruary 19, 2020

Windows 10 is a child still

Microsoft has been making great strides with Windows 10, but even now they still need to improve. If you haven’t been paying attention lately. Some of the things that people are having issues are like not being able to shutdown due to permissions. That issue seems to be an issue with Adobe and not really a Microsoft issue, you have to update your Adobe Creative Cloud to the newest version to solve this issue.

Microsoft’s Update Bugs

The update KB4532693 has been making headway after this late update because it is reporting that users are seeing their desktop and files are missing but that isn’t really true. It seems this update was causing problems with removing the temporary user. If you are having issues like not finding your files or desktop. You should try to remove KB4532693 update and restart. If you do that you could very well see everything back to normal. Follow bleeping computers website and how to restore your data if this is has happened to you.

The other update in February seems to be KB4524244 which is also causing issues such as Freezes, boot problems, and installation issues. Microsoft has removed this update. It is an issue with UEFI and third party hardware. This update also breaks the push button reset or Reset this PC in which you will get an error “There is a problem resetting your PC”. To be able to reset your PC you will need to remove KB4524244 update and restart your PC. You can go to Bleeping Computers and follow their instructions on how to solve this but it is a simple fix!

Windows 10 needs to grow some more

This is why I have issues using Windows 10. I always encourage people to use Linux because I haven’t had any issues like I have seen with Microsoft. I am hopeful that Microsoft fixes some of these issues and begins growing Windows 10 into an adult operating system. If you would like to try Linux, I suggest trying these free Operating systems and finding one that is a good fit for you! What do you think about Windows 10? Do you use Linux? Why not leave a comment and tell me what you like to use.

3 Ways to save money for that plane ticket

PaulFebruary 18, 2020

Those Flights are expensive

I’ve flown international and I know how much it can be to buy those tickets to go see your other half. I’ve even talked about how to buy cheap tickets because you don’t have to buy the most expensive. If you have never bought a ticket to another place than you are missing out. People always ask about how to save money to be able to afford that plane ticket. I thought it was high time to discuss it. There are many ways to save money or even earn extra money to be able to afford to buy that one plane ticket, but I am going to talk about at least 3 ways that I have learned to do just that. Each way I am going to talk about is just my way of making or saving money to buy that ticket.

Change Jar!

You would be surprised how much you can save if you keep dropping money into a change jar each night. If you plan this just right you could save the money for the ticket for the following year. It can also be used to for the money you might need while you are there in the other country or place you are visiting. This can be used in conjunction of other ways to save money to buy that ticket.

Side Job or setup a business!

If you are like me, you are constantly trying to find ways to make money to go see your other half. I make it my point to use my business to make money. I work on computers on the side and have customers who need me from time to time and I use that money to buy my plane ticket. It can be kind of hard to find enough work or get enough money from your business but it will also be the easiest way to save even more money to be able to get that ticket.

Sell stuff or give plasma!

Unlike everything else this one seems more like a good way to earn more money for those tickets. I usually go give plasma to get paid by the process. You can sell stuff that you might have or know how to do it. Each way can also help to give you money and give you a chance to buy those tickets. You could sell muffins or other foods that you can easily cook to people who might be hungry. You may need to think outside the box but if you really think about it. You’d be able to make enough money to buy that ticket.

These are just a few ways that I do to be able to buy those tickets. Do you have a way that you use to make money for those causes? Why not leave a comment and tell me what you do to get money? Maybe you can help others by your comment.