It’s a fantastic Friday, friends! We’re going to start and end on a musical note today for our trivia. What was the original ringtone before customizable ringtones took over our mobile phones? Was it … Beethoven's "Symphony No. 5," the theme from "Star Wars,” Nokia's "Gran Vals" or the sound of a rotary phone? You’ll find the answer at the end.

🎙️ “Kim, My radio station stopped carrying your weekend radio show. Can I get it as a podcast?” Well, that’s a bummer, Randy in Ohio. Yes, you can get my show as a podcast on Apple and Spotify. Listen to it when and where you want — commercial-free, by the way. Love you for that!

🍬 Glad to bestow upon you tech know-how that you'll use time and time again. I’ve packed in lots of goodies to share with your family and friends. — Kim

Seeing a charge come through for a streaming service you forgot you subscribed to is a special kind of frustration. That’s why I cancel everything I know Barry isn’t using … then, a few months later, “Kim, did you cancel [fill-in-the-blank]?” So funny.

On the list: Three different paid weather apps, four streaming services, a handful of online news sites and, for some reason, a subscription to Tidal, a music streaming service with a ton of hip-hop artists.

I pay for just a handful of apps, and I suggest you do the same. There’s only so much time in a day (and money in the bank)!

OK, so what’s worth paying for?

It depends. Hate watching or listening to ads? Value your privacy enough to pay a premium? Or maybe you need (or just really want) special software to edit selfies.

Here’s a quick list of common app subscription types to get you thinking.

• Music, streaming and entertainment: I pay for Apple Music because I like the variety in genres. You may need a few streaming services to watch your shows, and even YouTube Premium might be worth it if you despise ads.
• Creative tools and software: These apps are handy if you edit pics or videos or need a smart robot to fix your grammar.
• Security and utility apps: Think antivirus software, a VPN and/or a password manager. If you prefer a password book, Barry uses this $5.99 one.
• Productivity: This includes task managers, calendars, project management tools and similar apps that keep your life together.
• Health and fitness: You may want to pay for fitness, meditation or nutrition apps to keep you healthy.
• Education and learning: Language lessons and professional and personal development apps will usually cost ya.

PSA: There’s almost always a free version of whatever app you want. But remember the Komando golden rule: If it’s free, you’re the product.

What’s not worth paying for?

This is subjective, but a few rules apply to just about everyone.

• Don’t pay for a third-party app if your phone already has a built-in feature. Think flashlights, QR code scanners and PDF scanners.
• File and storage managers just eat up space. Files by Google is excellent for Android, and Apple does this automatically.
• Skip the latest viral app everyone is using to make AI photos, see what you’ll look like in 10 years, whatever.
• Paying for an app you never use? Give yourself a week. If you still don’t open it, cancel. You can sign up again later.

🦕 Speaking of, I’ve decided to launch a dating app exclusively for paleontologists. I’m going to call it Carbon Dating. (I saw you smile!)

• Has your old ball cap seen better days? Get a new hat, jersey, sweatshirt or whatever from Fanatics.
• Baseball lovers, keep your can or bottle nice and cold with handy insulators.
• Be the envy of all tailgaters with a portable charcoal grill.
• Don't forget the grill caddy with insulation to keep food and drinks cold. Plenty of space for utensils and cooking supplies, too.
• Not really into sports and just here for the wine? Grab a fancy Yeti wine tumbler.

UnitedHealth’s Change Healthcare hacked: Change is one of the largest healthcare tech companies out there, so this isn't just a hiccup — it's a full-blown crisis. A reported one in three U.S. patients is impacted. Systems went offline, and folks may not be able to get their prescriptions for days. Picking up meds? Bring cash or wait until the insurance problems are fixed.

📵 Network meltdown: A massive outage across AT&T, Verizon and T‑Mobile left about 80,000 folks without service yesterday. No calls — a total mess. In a pinch, text 911, use Wi‑Fi calling if you need to reach someone, or try data roaming. The cause? Still a big question mark. I share my hunch on the video podcast.

Auctions were his bid-ness: Evan James Coker in Oklahoma turned a government auction site into his personal bargain bin. He bid thousands like a high roller, then hacked the prices down to a dollar at checkout. The feds weren't amused, and now he's guilty of wire fraud for his $150,000 web heist.

🛡️ Don't browse without it! Google’s new Private Network Access for Navigation Requests just dropped in beta to shield your home network. In Chrome, it checks if both the source and destination of a website are secure before letting you through. The full rollout starts on March 13. In Chrome, click the three dots in the top right corner, hover over Help and click About Google Chrome. It'll update if one is available.

Watch this lead to justice: Melody Hoffman's Apple Watch revealed her final moments, leading cops to her body in Lily Lake. The device recorded a heart rate spike before silence. The prime suspect, a man she was dating, now faces serious charges. Police found Hoffman's bloodied watch band in his car trunk.

Future-proof: Apple’s all excited because they’re rolling out PQ3, a new cryptographic protocol for iMessage in iOS 17.4, iPadOS 17.4, macOS 14.4 and watchOS 10.4, this March. Huh? In real-world speak, it’s a standard that would keep messages safe from quantum computer attacks. A quantum leap in security? Eh, time will tell.

⚠️ A cautionary tale: Marley Stevens, a student at the University of North Georgia, learned the hard way Grammarly can spell trouble. She used the grammar-checking tool for a paper and was flagged for AI use. That snowballed into a failed assignment, lost scholarship and academic probation. Ridiculous.

Watts of love: After a fling with a mannequin named Pierre (yes, you read that right), Alicia Framis is marrying an AI hologram named AILex. This time, her lover is crafted from the data of her exes (because why not?). She's even trying to get a joint bank account. I don’t understand it. But at least she won’t have to pick up her hologram husband’s dirty underwear.

You guac my world. Most people don't realize all they share when sending a picture via text. Nearly every social media site strips out the metadata that reveals a photo's little details, like when, where and how it was taken. But that info is not protected if you text a pic. You can stop that.

To stop location sharing on iPhone:

• Open the image you want to send and tap the share button.
• Select Options and toggle off Location. Tap Done.

To disable location tracking in your camera altogether:

• Open Settings. Tap Privacy & Security > Location Services.
• Scroll down, tap on Camera, then select Never.

On Android, here’s how to wipe the location data for a single photo:

• Open your gallery and select the photo.
• Go to Details (it may be a three-dot menu) and click Remove location data.

Deepfake detector: Think the photo you found online is AI-generated? Find out for sure with free tools like AI or Not and Maybe's AI Art Detector. Drag and drop, upload, or paste an image URL into the search bar, and they’ll tell you if it’s legit.

Save big on tech: Have old gadgets lying around? Trading them in can get you Amazon credit or a discount on your next purchase. Visit the Amazon Trade-In page for your deal.

🎶 Calling all classical music lovers: Apple Music Classical has over 5 million tracks. For audio nerds: You can listen to 192KHz/24-bit high-resolution lossless audio, plus thousands of recordings in spatial audio.

Crappy Wi-Fi fix: Your walls, furniture, baby monitor and microwave might be making your connection worse. Best bet — place your router in a central location as high as possible (say, on a shelf) and switch to a 5GHz band for a less-crowded signal.

📳 Fast redo: Forget about hitting backspace if you mistyped something. Just shake your phone quickly, and it’ll undo your most recently entered text. Works on Android and iPhone. Shake it off!

Running a successful business comes down to having the right people in the right roles. Hiring is a big job and a huge time-suck — unless you use the tools that make it easier.

LinkedIn is a no-brainer. Millions of people are there every single day hunting for their next career move. We've used it to find superstar team members who make this newsletter and everything else we do possible.

Stop wading through endless resumes from folks who aren't a good fit. LinkedIn's suite of tools makes it easy to find the right person faster. And we can all use a little more time, right?

I have a photographic memory, but I’m missing the film.

The answer: “Gran Vals.” During its peak popularity in the late ‘90s, the Nokia tune was heard an astounding 1.8 billion times per day worldwide. That's about 20,000 times per second!

Well, that’s a wrap, my dear. See ya back here tomorrow with a look at just how bad fraud and identity theft are getting — and a way to protect yourself. You don’t want to miss that! — Kim