Working From Home, Do I Need a Car?

My wife and I used to own 3 cars for the two of us. She drives a Jeep Wrangler, I have a truck that I mostly use in the winter and I used to have a sedan that I mostly drove in the summer months. Unfortunately the sedan started having mechanical problems and so I sold it. Then this last week, my truck has been in the shop with a warranty repair. It didn't need to be in the shop for a week but the extended warranty company wanted to make sure they didn't pay for unnecessary repairs.

I have to be honest, because I work from home, I hardly noticed my truck was gone. I don't really go anywhere and I am fine with that. I do need to exercise and so I go for a morning bike ride and get out of the house. Normally I try to keep that ride under an hour and end up going about 16 miles. Some people I know get a little stir crazy and need to get out of the house, which is part of the point of my daily ride.

Now my wife really missed my truck this week. She wanted to go to the hardware store and pick up garden supplies. Supplies that won't fit in the back of a 2-door Jeep. I got the truck back last night and my son informed me he needed to go pick up more supplies for finishing his basement. My wife interjected and said that he couldn't use it until she was done.

While I don't doubt we need the truck, I do question the necessity of owning 2 vehicles in the summer when I work from home. The cost of a second car is fairly significant considering annual licensing, insurance, gas, and maintenance not to mention the purchase price. That is one area where a lot of people could cut down on monthly expenses. 

Unfortunately that second car becomes very important during ski season as I try to get to the mountain every morning before work. I suppose I could convince my wife to come with me and that would eliminate the need for a second vehicle throughout the year. That didn't work this year though and I doubt it will next. Otherwise I think we really could not just survive but thrive with a single car. I'd be interested in your thoughts.

Phishing, Smishing, and Vishing

Every year Sony makes me take mandatory security training and I recently went through the exercise again. Whenever there is annual training, it is best to try and figure out what is new or has been changed. This year I learned two new terms: Smishing and Vishing.

I already know what Phishing is. Anyone who has had an e-mail account knows that scammers will try to send you an e-mail that plays on your emotions to get important personal information. Most of the time the e-mails are easy to spot and I quickly delete them.

The younger generations have mostly ignored e-mail and prefer phones. They fit in your pocket and so texting has become second nature to them. I used to hate texting as I saw it screw up a lot of meetings and slow things down. Now I don't mind it as it is an efficient way to communicate. This is what scammers use for Smishing, your mobile phone. It is the same thing as a Phishing attack but comes over your phone instead of through e-mail. Someone asking for the recently received code your bank texted to you would be an example of Smishing. The term is a mix of Phishing and SMS messaging. As with a Phishing attack, you should never share personal information via text messaging.

So what is Vishing? That is when a scammer calls you or uses voicemail to request sensitive information like passwords or bank information. With current artificial intelligence technology, scammers could call using your spouse or child's voice asking for a password. Therefore it is important to verify phone numbers whenever anyone asks for sensitive information. Even better would be to call the person back as phone numbers can be spoofed as well. Perhaps this is why there is a new word for something I have always considered Phishing until now.

There are relatively few scammers in the world but it feels like they are everywhere. This means we all need to be vigilant about not sharing secret information that would allow them to get into our bank accounts or steal our identity. Vocabulary for Phishing, Smishing, and Vishing just means that they are using every tool possible.

A Virus on my Mac Computer

My daughter just headed to Alaska for the summer to be a kayak guide. My wife and I would like to go up and visit so we started planning a trip. Unfortunately rental cars are really expensive in Alaska and so I started shopping around to some of the more inexpensive agencies. I got an e-mail from Dollar Rental Car and so I decided to check them out. Unfortunately when I tried to go to the site, it said my computer had a virus and wouldn't let me in.

Whenever I see a virus warning in my browser, I don't pay it much mind as it is very difficult for a website to scan your computer that quickly and determine you have a virus. More than likely there is a setting in your browser that it doesn't like and throws up a message indicating you could have a virus. It is better to be safe so I did a bit of checking.

The first thing I did was go to Dollar's website on another computer. I did not receive the offending message and so I knew it was not their website giving a blanket message. Next I tried another browser on my Mac. I have Safari, Chrome, and Firefox. Normally I use Firefox and so I tried Chrome. That worked fine and my guess is that I have a setting in Firefox that Dollar doesn't like.

Next I looked into finding some antivirus software for the Mac. This is where things get tricky. Doing a search can often lead you to false solutions that actually install malware or a virus on your computer. I went to a reputable source to see what the best antivirus software is. There are a number to choose from and some are better than others. I ran through several reviews and found a free one that I trust. The downside of free is that you are always being prompted to upgrade to the paid version. I'm willing to live with that for now. The free versions also don't have all of the features in the paid ones and so if you need something more than bare-bones functionality, you may need to shell out a bit of money.

I suppose it is better to be overly cautious and report potential problems instead of ignoring real ones. It has discouraged me from renting a car from Dollar because I cannot trust their website. Fortunately they are no cheaper than some of the larger brand rental car companies. Ultimately I will probably end up using Turo anyways as they have the best deals for rental cars in Alaska.