Two years ago I wrote Sharon From Google Called Though It Isn’t Google Calling. It is just a company trying to promote their search engine optimization services. Thankfully “Sharon” only called from a handful of numbers which are listed in the original post.
Soon after I wrote that post, we switched our office phone system to RingCentral as described in Upgrade Your Phone Service and Save Money With RingCentral. I love the big savings on the phone bill and the extra features we get with RingCentral. But one of my favorite features is the blocking!
Just recently I got a call from a number with the Caller ID of “Online Update”. It wasn’t “Sharon” though it was another automated call from a company promoting how wonderful they were at boosting a company’s online ranking. In other words, it was spam!
Below you’ll see a small portion of our Call Log on the RingCentral Web site showing the call from the annoying telemarketer. If I check the box (as seen in this screenshot) and then press the Block button, that number will never be able to call us again.
Thanks to this blocking feature, I haven’t heard from “Sharon” in more than two years and telemarketing calls are more and more rare in our office. While I’m not afraid to block the numbers from these annoying automated calls, I try not to overuse the feature where I would block a legitimate number. I am so happy we switched our phone service to RingCentral and only wish we had done it even sooner.
First Big Windows 10 Update
The first major update for Windows 10 has arrived. Sure, there were a lot of small updates, but this was a biggie. Not all users of Windows 10 have seen it show up yet, but it should show up soon.
When I wrote Is It Time to Move to Windows 10 Yet?, there were two major issues that were holding me back from upgrading. The first issue that is especially important to me is the menus in CorelDRAW X5 and earlier as well as early releases of CorelDRAW X6 not displaying in a readable format. As someone who has to help and train clients, I can’t be using an operating system where the menus of software don’t display correctly. This has not been corrected in the latest Windows 10 Update. I doubt it will get corrected, but I will continue to wait and hope.
The second issue for me is that updates install automatically. From what I’ve heard, this includes the big Windows 10 Update that can take several hours to install! Would you be happy if your computer wasn’t usable for several hours at a time of Microsoft’s choosing? I would be furious. Until I can completely control how and when updates are installed, I will not consider moving to Windows 10.
So is it time for you to update? That truly is your choice. My choice is to continue to use Windows 7 and 8.1 on my computers until I feel these two issues have been addressed.
Thanks for the info about blocking phone scam. On our Androids we use the Mr. Number app which successfully blocks spam on the cell. They have a national database that blocks reported spam numbers on everyones phones. We keep hoping someone will find a way to do it for wired phones. Ring Central apparently only keeps a record of the numbers you block. The problem with us is we get new numbers a lot. We get a dozen calls a week from digitizers from India looking for business. Never the same number twice.