Welcome to your Thursday, friend. Let’s rewind to the era of landlines, fanny packs and, yes, fax machines. Picture this: A now-famous tech company founder once went door-to-door, selling those clunky office machines.

Take a guess which of today’s biggest tech companies started out selling fax machines door-to-door: A) Salesforce, B) Dell, C) Shopify or D) Canva. You can find the answer beeping at the end.

🤯 Every five seconds, someone becomes a victim of identity theft. I trust NordProtect to defend what matters most, my identity. Get real protection and take 65% off with my exclusive deal. Make the switch to this better and less expensive ID protection service now!

🤓 Psst. Know someone who still thinks “the cloud” controls the weather? Forward them this email. We can fix them. Together. — Kim

You’ve got 13 seconds to undo, unplug, swipe or save your digital dignity. That’s your window to salvage your glitchy app, that accidental “Reply All” email or your phone freezing mid-sentence.

Don’t scream, at least not yet.

☕ 1. Spilled something on your laptop? Flip it upside down. Immediately. Don’t sit there staring at the mess like it’s a Greek tragedy: “Oh, Zeus! How could I have done this to me?”

Unplug, flip and do not power it on to “check.” That’s how things get fried.

✉️ 2. Sent the wrong email? Hit “Undo” in Gmail, you’ve got five to 30 seconds.

Set your undo window to the max in Settings > See all settings > Undo Send > Save changes (you’re welcome).

Now, when you accidentally write “Hey, dummy” instead of “Hi, Debbie,” you’ve got time to recover.

💻3. Closed the wrong browser tab? Know the magic keys. Ctrl + Shift + T (Windows) or Command + Shift + T (Mac). This miracle combo reopens your last closed tab like nothing ever happened. A true tech time machine.

📱 4. Phone glitching? Hard restart. Hold the buttons like your digital life depends on it.

🗑️ 5. Deleted a file you actually needed? Check the trash. It’s almost always there unless you shift-deleted. In which case … yikes. For Android, open Google Photos > Collections > Trash to recover any photo or video. On iPhone, look in Photos > Recently Deleted under “Utilities.” Remember, you have 30 days before they disappear forever.

🎯 The moral of the story is that you’ve got a tiny window to save yourself from disaster. When tech goes sideways, don’t freeze. Act fast.

Bonus: Try narrating your panic like David Attenborough. “And here, the professional enters a frenzy, clicking violently in hopes of undoing their digital disgrace ... what a marvel of instinct.”

Have your own tech horror moment turned into a win? Hit the thumbs-up rating at the end and tell me. I might feature your story anonymously, unless it’s really funny. 😉

It’s time to take your identity protection seriously. I use NordProtect, and I trust it enough to recommend it to my readers. It’s powerful, affordable and it works!

Last year alone, identity theft and fraud cost Americans over $10 billion. With 5.5 million cases reported, 60% of the victims struggled to recover their losses.

With NordProtect, you’ll get advanced features for all-in-one protection:

✅ Protect your information with 24/7 dark web monitoring
✅ Monitor your credit activity and changes to your credit score
✅ Keep track of your cybersecurity with near real-time alerts

NordProtect doesn’t stop there: they cover cyber-extortion, reimburse you for fraud, and include up to a million dollars in identity theft recovery costs. Get protected now. Save 65% with my exclusive deal . If you’re already using an identity protection service, now’s the time to switch and save!

🧃 Creatine conspiracy: Turns out your “muscle-boosting” gummy bears might be nothing more than expensive Jolly Ranchers. Independent testing showed some bestsellers on Amazon have ≈0.005 grams of creatine per serving; that’s 0.1% of what’s advertised. One brand would require eating 8,000 gummies per day. That’s a lot of bears with no teeth.

Deepfake dames on the loose: Award-winning actress Helen Mirren is warning fans after scammers used her name to send “charity” emails from drogogo91(at)gmail⁠.com (Yes, really). She says, again, in all caps IT’S NOT HER. If you believe that 79-year-old Dame Helen’s emailing you about crypto, it’s time for you to get off the internet, forever.

🛰️ Shrimp nets, meet rocket parts: Florida shrimpers on the Space Coast say they’re dragging up more than seafood, namely chunks of space junk. Experts agree it could be from rockets. Rocket junk is casually tossed in the Atlantic all the time, and launches are only picking up. Brace yourself for a new sea-to-table menu.

ChatGPT got better: OpenAI added a new feature called Connectors that lets the bot work with apps like Google Drive, Dropbox and SharePoint. You can now ask it to do things like “Summarize all the PDFs in my Dropbox,” and it’ll pull the info for you. The catch? It’s only available to Pro users at $200/month. Yikes.

📷 Alerts with context: Ring cameras can now use AI to describe what they see. Instead of “Living room: Motion detected,” you might get “A dog is tearing up paper towels on the rug.” The best part? It shows up as a phone notification, so there’s no need to open the video. Home Premium subscribers only ($20/month). At that point, just get a real security system.*

✈️ TSA greenlights digital IDs: Good news ahead of Apple’s iOS 26 update. It’ll let iPhone owners add a digital ID to Apple Wallet using their U.S. passport. You’ll be able to use it for domestic flights, but only at certain California airports (for now). And yes, you should still bring your physical ID, just in case. PSA: That’s not your Costco card.

🧰 If your tools are ghosting you mid-project, start here:

❤️ Love these? You’ll find even more in my storefront. There’s a new DIY page waiting for you there.

🛑 Guess who’s reading your inbox? Big Tech. Yeah, seriously. But not StartMail. It’s private, secure and even has disposable addresses. Try it free for seven days and get 60% off your first year!*

⚡️ 3-second tech genius: Double-click the space bar (on your phone) to instantly add a period and space.

Improve Netflix quality: If your stream looks pixelated, your video settings might be set too low. Log in to Netflix on desktop, click your profile > Account > Edit settings > Playback settings. Change Data usage per screen to High and hit Save. If it starts buffering, run a speed test and switch back to Auto.

💻 Clean up your new PC: A new Windows 11 computer usually comes loaded with bloatware that eats up system resources. Go to Settings > Apps > Installed apps. Scroll through the list, tap the three-dot menu next to anything you don’t want, and click Uninstall.

Edit your iPad Mail app menu: Want different options at the top of your emails? Tap the menu button in the top right corner and select Customize Toolbar. Drag functions down to remove them, or drag new ones up (like Mute sender). FYI: You can rearrange the icons from here, too.

🎮 Set Fortnite parental controls: Worried your kid’s spending too much time (or money) on Fortnite? They are. Log in to their account at the Epic Games portal. Go to Parental Controls and set a PIN. From there, you can limit playtime, control who they chat with and require the PIN before any in-game purchases are made.

Don’t miss rewards: From groceries to travel, Clark.com has a list of the best credit cards to help you maximize every dollar you spend.Subscribe to Clark.com’s free newsletter to receive more must-have money tips every day.*

HDMI Forum just announced HDMI 2.2, and it’s basically a teleportation device for pixels, capable of supporting 16K video that will show off every single one of your nose hairs.

Yup, 16K video is hitting while 4K is still a baby.

As TVs, game consoles and streaming boxes push into higher frame rates and AI-powered upscaling (hi, Nvidia Shield and Apple’s next-gen Apple TV), this small piece helps future-proof your living room, no soldering iron required.

Just remember what Yoda said when he saw himself in 4K. HDMI. Nerd humor, but you laughed. And if you didn’t laugh, there’s a better joke still to come.

Answer: B) Dell. Michael Dell was slinging fax machines and PC parts from his college dorm before building a multibillion-dollar empire. Hustle, meet hardware. Speaking of … My laptop was making funny noises today, it sounded like it was singing. Probably because it’s a Dell! (lol)

🧠 Seriously, it’s rough out there: You need to be proactive. This is one of the smartest things you can do to protect your identity. Don’t wait till it’s too late, sign up for NordProtect today and get 65% off. Bet you save a ton of money making the switch to NordProtect, too!

The #1 tech newsletter in the U.S. will be back tomorrow in your inbox with how to get a free meal like one guy who got $40,000 worth of them, a new lethal malware and how to protect yourself from it, and a lot more.

✌️ Signing off, and look at you! Your brain just got a little more powerful! 🧩 — Kim

📣 Don’t keep me a secret: Share this email with friends (or copy URL here)