Online Holiday Shopping Tips

Posted on November 19, 2009 by wjimenez275

The holiday season is approaching quickly and many of us will be shopping online. It’s important that consumers understand the potential security risks and know how to protect themselves and their information.
The following tips are provided to help promote a safe, secure online shopping experience:

  • Secure your computer. Make sure your computer has the latest security updates installed. Check that your anti-virus/anti-spyware software is running and receiving automatic updates. If you haven’t already done so, install a firewall before you begin your online shopping.
  • Upgrade your browser. Upgrade your Internet browser to the most recent version available. Review the browser’s security settings. Apply the highest level of security available that still gives you the functionality you need.
  • Ignore pop-up messages. Set your browser to block pop-up messages. If you do receive one, click on the “X” at the top right corner of the title bar to close the pop-up message. If that doesn’t work, close your browser. Never accept a pop-up window’s notice that your computer is infected. That should only come from your installed and updated anti-virus program. What? You say you don’t have an anti-virus program? Read my previous post on that here.
  • Secure your transactions. Look for the “lock” icon on the browser’s status bar and be sure “https” appears in the website’s address bar before making an online purchase. The “s” stands for “secure” and indicates that the webpage is encrypted. Some browsers can be set to warn the user if they are submitting information that is not encrypted.
  • Use strong passwords. Create strong passwords for online accounts. Use at least eight characters, with numbers, special characters, and upper and lower case letters. Don’t use the same passwords for online shopping websites that you use for logging onto your home or work computer. Never share your login and/or password.
  • Do not e-mail sensitive data. Never e-mail credit card or other financial/sensitive information. E-mail is like sending a postcard and other people have the potential to read it.
  • Do not use public computers or public wireless to conduct transactions. Don’t use public computers or public wireless for your online shopping. Public computers may contain malicious software that steals your credit card information when you place your order. Criminals may be monitoring public wireless for credit card numbers and other confidential information.
  • Review privacy policies. Review the privacy policy for the website/merchant you are visiting. Know what information the merchant is collecting about you, how it will be used, and if it will be shared or sold to others.
  • Make payments securely. Pay by credit card rather than debit card. Credit/charge card transactions are protected by the Fair Credit Billing Act. Cardholders are typically only liable for the first $50 in unauthorized charges. If online criminals obtain your debit card information they have the potential to empty your bank account.
  • Use temporary account authorizations. Some credit card companies offer virtual or temporary credit card numbers. This service gives you a temporary account number for online transactions. These numbers are issued for a short period of time and cannot be used after that period. – Read a nice article here on the use of virtual credit cards. Additionally, PayPal offers free disposable credit cards numbers. You can read about that here.
  • Select merchants carefully. Limit your online shopping to merchants you know and trust. Confirm the online seller’s physical address and phone number in case you have questions or problems. If you have questions about a merchant check with the Better Business Bureau or the Federal Trade Commission.
  • Keep a record. Keep a record of your online transactions, including the product description and price, the online receipt, and copies of every e-mail you send or receive from the seller. Review your credit card and bank statements for unauthorized charges.

What to do if you encounter problems with an online shopping site:
If you have problems shopping online contact the seller or site operator directly. If those attempts are not successful, you may wish to contact the following entities:

the Attorney General’s office in your state
your county or state consumer protection agency
the Better Business Bureau at: www.bbb.org
the Federal Trade Commission at: www.ftc.gov/

For additional information about safe online shopping, please visit the following sites:

Filed under: Instructional, PC Security, PC Tips and Tools | Leave a comment »

The “Noteable” Mousepad

Posted on November 13, 2009 by wjimenez275

Such a simple idea, but a wonderful one. Not sure if you have to wipe out the marks left by the mouse but if you keep your mouse to half of it, you can scribble on the other half and then just lift the top sheet to wipe it out and start again. And, it’s under $15.00

The Noteable Mousepad – http://www.quirky.com/products/9

Scratch-n-Scroll is a standard mousepad with an added writing surface. This mousepad is for all those times you are working at your desk and cant find a pen to jot down that phone number or list item you know you will forget later on.

Simply, write notes to yourself on your mouse pad using just the pressure from your finger or the built in plastic stylus as a “pen.” Cool thing is, just like your childhood toy the magic slate, you can erase the notes at any time simply by flipping up the semi-transparent top sheet.

Scratch-n-scroll maintains the slim portable design and scrolling surface you’ve come to expect of a standard mousepad, and works in conjunction with any optical / ball based computer mouse. It features a non-slip back pad ensuring that it stays put on your desktop while in use.

scratch-n-scroll.jpg

Filed under: Instructional, Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

Nokia Recalls 14 Million AC Adapters – Gearlog

Posted on November 9, 2009 by wjimenez275

Anyone who bought a Nokia cell phone recently listen up: Nokia has just launched a recall program for certain Nokia-branded AC adapters.

“We have determined that the plastic covers of the affected chargers could come loose and separate, exposing the charger’s internal components and potentially posing an electric shock hazard if certain internal components are touched while the charger is plugged into a live socket.”

Sounds fun. Engadget Mobile reports that the affected chargers are models AC-3E and AC-3U, manufactured between June 15 and August 9, 2009, and model AC-4U, manufactured between April 13 and October 25, 2009. Check out Nokia’s dedicated recall Web site for more information on obtaining a free replacement.

via Nokia Recalls 14 Million AC Adapters – Gearlog.

Filed under: Instructional, Uncategorized | Leave a comment »

What Did He Mean By That? SMS and E-mail Etiquette

Posted on November 2, 2009 by wjimenez275

The other day I was reminded of how important it is when e-mailing or texting that you make yourself “understood”. What I mean by that is when e-mailing or texting, what you write is left to the recipient to interpret the mood or intent of the words. Sometimes the words are taken the wrong way.

I received a request to do something via text and it was followed up a few minutes later with another request by the same person for the same thing. I hadn’t had time to reply to the first text so I jokingly sent out a reply to the second letting the person know that I’d get right on that request. Since it wasn’t anything important that needed to be done right away, and they knew that as well, I thought the reply would be taken good naturedly. Well, it wasn’t. Not sure if the person was having a bad day or not, but they let me know that they weren’t real happy with my flippant reply. When I let them know that it wasn’t meant to be flippant, they let me know that sometimes their phone sends messages twice when they only mean to send it once. Communication breakdown? Yes, but also a good reminder that when e-mailing and texting, there is etiquette to follow:

  • Be wary of the reply all button. Most of the time you would only want to reply to the sender, not to everyone on the list.
  • Don’t type in all caps. That’s the equivalent of shouting. Not nice.
  • Watch for excessive punctuation. There is no need to put 5 exclamation marks at the end of a sentence!!!!! And I mean it.
  • Acronyms. Don’t assume that everyone is going to know what ROTFL (rolling on the floor laughing) or TNSTAAFL (there’s no such thing as a free lunch) means. There are some common abbreviations, such as BTW (by-the-way) and FYI (for your information) but some of the others, well, write the words. If you need to find out what something means, check the Acronym List.
  • Let them know how you feel. What happened to me the other day could have been avoided if I had included a smiley with my reply. These need to be added with care, as in less is more, but in this instance, adding one would have let the other person know that I was saying it light-heartedly. Part of the nature of a good one-on-one conversation are the use of visual cues. Since there are no visual or auditory cues with e-mail or texts, users have come up with something called “smilies”. They are simple strings of characters that are typed in the e-mail text to convey your emotions or meaning. The most common example is :-).  Here are some more examples.  – Smileys and Emoticons. Use them to let the other person know what you mean. 😉
  • When forwarding on an e-mail, remove the e-mail addresses that are on the original e-mail. Highlight and delete them before you send. That puts the text that you want read at the top of the e-mail and removes unwanted items. I don’t need to see who the e-mail was sent to before me.
  • Scan through your text or e-mail before you press Send. Check the recipients to make sure that it’s going to the right person(s). See if there are parts that shouldn’t be said or should possibly be said differently. If there needs to be a smiley inserted to clarify intent, do so.

Filed under: Instructional, PC Tips and Tools, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

The internet’s 40th birthday: anniversary of Arpanet – Telegraph

Posted on October 27, 2009 by wjimenez275

On 29 October 1969, two letters – LO – were typed on a keyboard in the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and appeared on a screen at the Stanford Research Institute, 314 miles away.

The computer scientists had intended to type LOGIN, but the connection was lost just before the G. Nonetheless, this was the first time a message had been sent over a telephone line between two computers.

It was not called the internet – that name was not coined for another five years. It was called Arpanet, for Advanced Research Projects Agency Network, and was developed by scientists in the US Defense Department.

Nor was it the World Wide Web – that was created by the British scientist Tim Berners-Lee, now Sir Tim Berners-Lee, at Cern, the Geneva physics laboratory that now houses the Large Hadron Collider, 20 years ago in March.

And email had existed for a few years before that, between different terminals on single mainframes; the first true email sent between different computers was not sent until 1971.

But 29 October is as good a birthday as any. Those two letters, typed by an undergraduate at UCLA called Charley Kline on an “interface message processor”, were the precursors of everything from the eBay Buy It Now button to LOLcats, Kara’s Adult Playground (we won’t link to that) to Google Wave.

They say life begins at 40. It will be extremely interesting to see where the next 40 years take us.

via The internet’s 40th birthday: anniversary of Arpanet – Telegraph.

Filed under: Instructional, Uncategorized | Leave a comment »

What Can The Wheel On My Mouse Be Used For?

Posted on October 20, 2009 by wjimenez275

We often get so used to using a device for one or two things that we fail to remember what else it can be used for. Such is the case with the wheel that is on most computer mice.

I use it mostly for scrolling up and down a page, but occasionally I’ll need to enlarge or shrink the text on a page and it’s perfect for doing that as well.

To enlarge the text on a page, hold the Ctrl key and turn the scroll wheel away from you. To decrease the size, hold the Ctrl key and rotate the scroll wheel towards you.

A few other things you can do with the mouse wheel and Internet Explorer or Firefox:

1. Closing Tabs
To close a tab just place your mouse cursor on a tab and click with the scroll wheel. This is more convenient and faster than clicking the small cross on the tabs, although sometimes you may have to click the wheel twice.

2. Opening hyperlinks in a new tab
Very often we would like to open a link in a page in a new tab. The normal way to do this is by right-clicking on the the link and choosing ‘Open Link in New Tab‘.  A much quicker way is to just click on the link with the scroll wheel and the link will open in a new tab. You can even click on the Home button or the Forward/Back button to open the respective url in a new tab.

3. Moving Forward/Back
You can use the scroll wheel as an alternative to using the Forward and Back buttons on the toolbar. Hold down the Shift key and rotate the wheel forward to view the next page or rotate backward to see the previous page.

4. Scrolling

On most mice with wheels, you can press down on the wheel once and then by just moving the mouse up or down, the screen will scroll. The further down the page you move the mouse, the faster it will scroll. To turn this off and return to normal use, click the mouse wheel down again.

Filed under: Instructional, PC Tips and Tools | 7 Comments »

Fake security software in millions of computers: Symantec by Reuters: Yahoo! Tech

Posted on October 19, 2009 by wjimenez275

There’s a lot of money to be made in malware. That’s what keeps it going….

WASHINGTON (Reuters) –

Tens of millions of U.S. computers are loaded with scam security software that their owners may have paid for but which only makes the machines more vulnerable, according to a new Symantec report on cybercrime.

Cyberthieves are increasingly planting fake security alerts that pop up when computer users access a legitimate website. The “alert” warns them of a virus and offers security software, sometimes for free and sometimes for a fee.

“Lots of times, in fact they’re a conduit for attackers to take over your machine,” said Vincent Weafer, Symantec’s vice president for security response.

“They’ll take your credit card information, any personal information you’ve entered there and they’ve got your machine,” he said, referring to some rogue software’s ability to rope a users’ machine into a botnet, a network of machines taken over to send spam or worse.

Symantec found 250 varieties of scam security software with legitimate sounding names like Antivirus 2010 and SpywareGuard 2008, and about 43 million attempted downloads in one year but did not know how many of the attempted downloads succeeded, said Weafer.

“In terms of the number of people who potentially have this in their machines, it’s tens of millions,” Weafer said.

It was also impossible to tell how much cyberthieves made off with but “affiliates” acting as middlemen to convince people to download the software were believed to earn between 1 cent per download and 55 cents.

TrafficConverter.biz, which has been shut down, had boasted that its top affiliates earned as much as $332,000 a month for selling scam security software, according to Weafer.

“What surprised us was how much these guys had tied into the whole affiliated model,” Weafer said. “It was more refined than we anticipated.”

(Reporting by Diane Bartz; editing by Gunna Dickson)

via Fake security software in millions of computers: Symantec by Reuters: Yahoo! Tech.

Filed under: Instructional, PC Security, Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

Skipping the Voicemail Greeting on Cell Phones

Posted on September 28, 2009 by wjimenez275

The other day, I was calling a friend and had to sit through a lengthy greeting. It made me think that there has to be a way to skip over the greeting and just leave a voicemail. I looked at the different carriers and lo and behold…there is.  In order for this to work though,  you will need to know their carriers. Here’s how to skip the message and get right to leaving a message.

AT&T: press #
Sprint: press 1
T-Mobile: press #
Verizon: press *

Filed under: Instructional | 4 Comments »

Sending a SMS Text Message to a Cell Phone From Your Email

Posted on September 14, 2009 by wjimenez275

Every now and then, I’ll be on my computer and I’ll want to send a text message to a friend’s phone. I’ve realized that it’s much quicker for me to type the message in my email program and send it than to pick my phone up, enter the text and send.

If you know the carrier your friend or family member uses, it’s easy to enter their information in the To field of your email, type a subject and then the message. When you click send, it’s delivered to their phone. When they reply,  the reply is returned to your email.

The following is a list of carriers and the format you would use to send the message to someone.

Mobile Carrier – Maximum Characters – Email Address
Virgin Mobile – 125 characters – PhoneNumber@vmobl.com
Beyond GSM – 160 characters – PhoneNumber@txt.att.net
Cingular AT&T – 160 characters – PhoneNumber@txt.att.net
Verizon – 160 characters – PhoneNumber@vtext.com
Boost Mobile – 140 characters – PhoneNumber@myboostmobile.com
Nextel – 140 characters – PhoneNumber@messaging.nextel.com
Sprint – 160 characters – PhoneNumber@messaging.sprintpcs.com
T-Mobile – 140 characters – PhoneNumber@tmomail.net
Alltel – 140 characters – PhoneNumber@message.alltel.com
Qwest – 185 characters – PhoneNumber@qwestmp.com
MetroPCS – 185 characters – PhoneNumber@mymetropcs.com
Cricket – 143 characters – PhoneNumberMMS.mycricket.com

Filed under: Instructional, Uncategorized | 6 Comments »

So What Is It Good For? Flash Drives v. External HD

Posted on September 1, 2009 by wjimenez275

I had someone call me the other day saying that they had plugged their USB thumb drive into their computer and it wasn’t recognized. When they plugged it into another computer, it came back saying that it wasn’t formatted and need to be. They had been storing files on it and it had failed.

I recommended that for backing up files, the better option would be an external USB hard drive. They have much more capacity for storage, have a small footprint, easily fits into the computer bag, and hold up better than thumb drives do.

I’m not knocking flash drives. I have several that I use but for me there is a convenience in having something I can put in my pocket as I’m repairing computers. For most people, who need something to backup and store files on, I wouldn’t recommend it.

External USB drives are very inexpensive, have enough capacity to back up your entire hard disk, often times come with backup software to automate the task and most of the time will last for several years.

Flash drives have a purpose, it’s just not as a backup device. Use an external hard drive.

Filed under: Instructional, PC Maintenance, PC Tips and Tools | 3 Comments »

« Previous Page — Next Page »