Category: “Just Nancy”

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Thanksgiving for My Many Blessings

Thanksgiving Day is more than food, it is about thankfulness.
Thanksgiving Day is more than food, it is about thankfulness.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving day and I am already waxing poetic on what that means. Right now my husband and I have a full house with three kids home from college, my oldest son and his girlfriend here, my Mom visiting from Ohio, and my sister and her son on the way. That is blessing number one for me – family.

I could not have a better partner in my life than my husband Michael. We are so well matched and yet wonderfully different. Besides that, he can still make me laugh. He is supportive, encouraging, and a fabulous financial and life planner. He is also a travel and trip planner extraordinaire. That is blessing number two for me – my husband.

When I reflect on my life I am thankful for my good health. Although I, like many, have had some health issues, I am not battling major life threatening one. I do have a vision disability and I have gone to the best doctors, but there seems no hope for an improvement much to my disappointment. That being said, you can accept health issues or fight them. This one I have just accepted and do the best with the vision I have. A self driving car may be in my future. That is blessing number three for me – health.

I am graced with wonderful customers for my business. I feel that I am at the peak of my profession and really love what I do and am good at it. The people that I work with are wonderful, more than customers to me, and are enjoyable to interact with.  As a result, this year is one of the best and most profitable years in my business’ history. That is blessing number four – great customers.

What are you thankful for today and tomorrow? Make sure to take the time to think about that question and then express to those around you that they are one of your blessings on Thanksgiving day.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving tomorrow!

 

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Asurion – The Best Protection for Your Smartphone

My phone is on the fritz, HELP!
My phone is on the fritz, HELP!

If you do business via smartphone like me, to have your phone go on the fritz is enough to have you pull your hair out. I use a Samsung Galaxy S5 and am not really wanting to upgrade to have a not waterproof phone or one that may burn me when I hold it.  With my phone on the fritz and having just returned from vacation, I needed help fast.

For two years I have had extra insurance coverage for my phone and that of my staff. We use Asurion through Verizon. In less than 30 minutes on the phone with Verizon and then less than 10 minutes with Asurion, I had a new refurbished phone on the way.

I was concerned about getting a refurbished phone, but I have to say the phone I got had a brand new battery, looked sparkling clean and totally new. Glitchy behavior gone, my smartphone is now back to work and my old phone returned in the mail – all with totally no hassle.

I am so pleased with the process that I wrote this post just because I felt it important to share with my readers the service, speed, and hassle-free solution that Asurion has provided.

Thanks Asurion! My refurbished phone is great and I’d never know it was not brand spanking new.

Oh, P.S. I got a free one year no question warranty on the replacement phone giving me total peace of mind.

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Don’t Get Bumped Off the Grid by “Frontier” Hackers

I have just returned from vacation in Alaska and am here to tell you that the real frontier is alive and well. Surprisingly enough to me, there are those who relish living in Alaska off the grid in a “dry cabin” – without water, sewer heat, internet or even generator power.

My photo for this blog post is of the Hubbard Glacier which is 6 miles wide and 250 feet tall just above the water line. You can get an idea of scale from the tiny 6+ passenger boat in front by a calved iceberg.

It is this very real independent “frontier-like” spirit that makes Alaska so wonderfully wild and beautiful, but this same spirit lurks malevolently on the Internet. Surfing endlessly using high tech tools, spiders and robots in a cyber world that has no real boundaries are criminals, spammers, and schemers who are looking for easy targets. An unsecured WordPress website and even an html based website can be prey to these savvy attackers.

The best way to stay safe in this frontier environment starts with a super secure password for your FTP access, WordPress logins and hosting account. I do not mean using the most popular password in America which is baseball and putting a 1 behind it. I mean creating a password that is nearly gibberish and may even be hard for you to remember that contains capitals, symbols and numbers. My team likes to spell out passwords but exchange e’s for 3’s and a’s for @’s.

Don’t forget that you should have different passwords for different sites so don’t use your Facebook password for your FTP access and your WordPress login. I recommend using a password application like one that comes with Norton’s Internet Security or using a Word document to track your sites and unique logins to stay sane.

I do consider your best defense when it comes to hacking is to be proactive and to switch up your passwords every three months. As inconvenient as this sounds, getting hacked and having to pay for a clean up and losing business while your site is reworked is costly and even more inconvenient. Stay safe, it can be wilder than Alaska out there on the Internet!

All the Best,

Nancy C. McCord

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What’s Your Mobile Security IQ?

It's time to review your security on your smartphone.
It’s time to review the security on your smartphone.

This past month, my husband’s identity was stolen and my access to our bank account was hacked. In my husband’s case a credit card was opened in his name. In my case my online bank user name, password and PIN was used to raise credit limits and then steal over $3,000 from our checking account.

Our bank took care of the matter, but what was problematic was just how robbers got access to my own personal online access information. The only thing we can think of is that I was using mobile banking features and may have accessed my bank while I was connected away from my home base.

As a result, here are the things that I have done to improve my smartphone security.

1. My entire family now uses on their mobile devices face or voice recognition biometrics to access our most important bank. For our other bank, we use two step verification. All family members use two step verification via text messages to smartphones to access bank accounts online through desktops.

2. My entire family now has withdrawal, deposit and transaction alerts set up for banking, savings accounts, and credit cards. The focus is to catch robbers early before too much damage has been done.

3. I personally am using NordVPN which ia a subscription base security tool for my smartphone that encrypts my communication on mobile data or when I am connected to any Wi-Fi hotspots out of my office. This will be especially important to me as I will be traveling in the months to come and this secure tunnel will allow me to encrypt data I exchange on the internet, geomask my location as well as to prevent eavesdroppers from snatching my user names and passwords.

Stay safe when you are online with your smartphone and encourage your family members to embrace new levels of mobile security to prevent the headaches that happened to us.