Internet Shopping - How Safe Is It?

Millions of people make purchases online, but many people are still wary. They fear the unknown and have many doubts and questions about who they are dealing with. They are afraid of being scammed, and rightfully so. Online shopping can be a completely safe and rewarding experience provided you are dealing with a legitimate, reputable retailer. But how do you know if they are legitimate??? Here lies the "fear of the unknown."
Well, as with anything in life, there are precautions to take, questions you should ask yourself, and signs to look out for. Provided you are careful with who you decide to purchase from, online shopping can be a very convenient and pleasurable experience.
Important Safety Precautions:
Take a good look around the website. Make sure you read their Privacy Policy. A privacy policy let's you know the procedures and methods they have in place to secure your personal information. Find the answers to these questions...Do they share your information with others? Some companies sell or distribute your information to other companies. You may wind up on everybody's mailing list. Do they have security measures in place to protect your information (i.e. SSL)? SSL is the abbreviation for Secured Socket Layer. SSL is security software that encrypts information transmitted between browsers. What this means in layman's terms is that your personal information such as name, address, credit card number, etc. is coded or scrambled so that anyone who may try to intercept this information as it is transmitting cannot read it. But don't just rely on them telling you that their site is secure, check for yourself. You will know when you are in a secure browser by looking at the bottom browser bar on your computer (lower right). If the browser is secure, you will see a security lock image. Also check the web address in your top browser bar. Secure web addresses begin with "https" whereas, non-secure pages begin with "http."
Setting up accounts with online stores is quite common. However, many people are leery of this because they don't understand why it is sometimes necessary. Generally, the only information you are providing is your name, address, email address, and sometimes your phone number. This is all necessary information that the store needs in order to ship your order or contact you regarding your order. Setting up an account with the retailer usually provides you with additional such as tracking the status of your order. On the other hand, if the account set-up asks for more than just your basic contact information, then you may not want
to proceed. You should not be required to provide your social security number, bank account number, or birthdate. This information is much more personal and should not be necessary to have an order shipped.
Read the shipping and returns policies before making a purchase. Make sure you feel comfortable with them. Find answers to these questions...What is their shipping timeframe? Is it within a reasonable amount of time? Will they notify you if it will take longer than anticipated? What choices will you have then? Do they allow returns? Are there restrictions on what items you can return and explanations as to why? Do they make sense?
Don't make huge purchases right off the bat. Make a small, low cost purchase with the company and consider it a low-risk test of their credibility. This allows the retailer a chance to prove themselves worthy of your business, but limits the monetary risk you are taking. Should all go well, you can make a larger purchase in the future with peace of mind, now knowing that this is a legitimate business.
There are many advantages to purchasing online and as long as you are careful with who you choose to deal with you can reap the rewards.
Here are some of the benefits:
Convenience: Why fight the crowds in the stores, especially during the holidays, when you can sit at home on your computer and shop. And price comparisons are just a click away when shopping on the internet. There's no need to fight traffic running from store to store looking for the "best deal." You can have your purchase delivered to your doorstep within a few days.
Prices: Online retailers and storefronts purchase their products from the same manufacturers. However, an online retailer doesn't have the costly overhead that a storefront has (i.e. Lease payments on the building, heat and electric, just to name a few). Therefore, the online retailer doesn't have to markup the price as much as the storefront in order to make the same profit. So you, the consumer, come out the winner!
Store Hours: Online retailers are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Shop at your convenience.
So as long as you take some simple precautions, shopping online can be a very pleasurable, time saving and money saving experience.

Web and Computer Security

Well, if that would have been said to me by my father when I was 2 years of age, I would have understood. But when today, my own computer tells me that when I am 34, I wonder why I spent $1500 on my computer hardware and software just to enjoy the (un-realized) benefits of this great and revolutionary information technology?
Today’s cyberspace is hazardous. None of today’s PC users can claim that they never had a computer virus issue or a PC security breach. Now, if you count today’s number of PC users worldwide, they will soon be 1 billion by 2010 according to analysts. When I see all the computer viruses, infections, trojans, and what not around me, and compare it with the 1 billion innocent computer users around the world, I simply feel sorry not only for those billion users but for myself too. But again, as a common user myself, I must admit it was not all doomsday for the whole industry since 1987 when I started to use computers. So, as a responsible member of this great IT revolution, I must share some of the best tips and tricks that I learned to use to make the minimum room for productivity on my computer.
Please note this is a tutorial for someone who has basic know-how of computer usage. For those who are newbies, I would recommend asking a local expert’s help before trying anything out mentioned in this tutorial. In that case, make room for payment from deep pocket. For your own convenience, print this tutorial for step-by-step instructions.
Whenever my computer is infected, I act on any of the following options;
1. FORMAT HARD DISK: I back up all of my data on a CD-Writer if it is still accessible. And then format the whole hard disk drive and re-install each and every application.
2. USE SOFTWARE: I exhaust all anti-virus and other software options. This is usually my first priority as compared to formatting the whole computer hard disk drives.
Now, let me explain both options in detail;
PRE-REQUISITES: Make sure you have a CD-Drive (Writer), empty writable CDs, Windows OS CD (bootable) that contains files such as Format.exe, Scandisk.exe, FDisk.exe, and Attrib.exe files. Microsoft Office CD, Anti-Virus CD, GoldenHawk CD Writing Software in DOS (copy2cd.exe and cdtools.exe), Serial Numbers of your License, Driver CDs of Motherboard, VGA, Network, Sound and Modem devices. Optionally, download (using www.download.com or www.tucows.com) these software from any Internet Café when your own computer is inaccessible and save it on a CD so that you can use it anytime for security purposes;
Golden Hawk DOS based CD Writing Software
HTech Fireman Windows based CD Writing Software
Driver Genius Pro
Partition Magic
AVG AntiVirus
SpywareBlaster & SpywareGuard
Spybot Search & Destroy
Ad-Aware
IE-SpyAd
ZoneAlarm
HiJackThis & CWShredder
I have intentionally avoided mention of many commercially good and more friendly software’s mention here as I wanted everything to do FREE without any additional costs apart from the usual OS licenses. For your own convenience, you can research Google or Yahoo search engines find further information about such commercial software and their availability / pricing.
1. FORMAT HARD DISK
I know it is painful and surgical type of solution, but sometimes, it is the ONLY solution left after exhausting all of our efforts to revive our computer machine after a virus attack. Follow this procedure;
Booting Up: Try booting your computer normally first and see if you can login easily. If you can’t or your computer hangs up, try holding F8 key when starting Windows and you will get the Safe Mode. Even if you don’t get the Safe Mode, don’t worry.
Power up your computer and press DEL key or F2 key to login your CMOS. In CMOS, go to Boot Preferences and make CD Drive as boot drive as your first boot drive and change the hard disk drive as the second boot drive. If you don’t see your CD Drive in the boot-up options, your CD Drive is not properly installed. Check the connectors or ask your CD Drive provider for instructions to install the CD Drive. Now, when your CD Drive is ready, insert your Windows OS CD in the CD Drive and restart your computer machine. When prompted, select the option “Boot from CD with CD Option”. When you get the prompt, Notice the CD Drive letter that was allocated to your CD Drive when it installed the CD Driver. It is usually D: drive or the last drive letter depending on the number of your partitions. Note it down as it is the actual drive letter where you will have to type a DOS command like d:
You should now be able to run all software utilities such as Format, Scandisk, FDisk or Windows Installation Setup.exe files. Right now, simply make sure they exist by typing a DOS command dir at the CD drive letter. If you don’t find it with this simple directory command, use dir/s filename to search the file. For example, to search fdisk.exe file, type dir/s fdisk.exe.
BACKING UP YOUR DATA: Before formatting your hard disk drive, please make sure you have proper back up of your critical data files such as Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc files on a CD or any other media for backup that you have access to. In this tutorial, we assume you have a CD-Writer installed for taking backups on Writeable CDs. Their capacity is usually 700MB or less. Here, you should seriously consider using Zipping software like WinZip or WinRAR.
VIA WINDOWS: If you can luckily login to your Windows OS, you should run the CD-Writer software such as HTech Fireman to back up all of your data on an empty CD. If you don’t know how to do it, read their user manual for detailed instruction set. If you can’t access your Windows OS, read on.
VIA DOS: Some of the files that you wish to make back-up, may be hidden. To un-hide them, use attrib *.* +r +s +h.
Now, use the software from Golden Hawk file named as copy2cd.exe to backup your data files or directories on a writeable CD. Before using this command, make sure you are in an appropriate path on the computer such as E:/ where the actual file copy2cd.exe file resides;
Copy2cd c:data*.* f:
Here we assumed that f: is a CD Writer drive. Now, repeat the same for all of your files to back up. When finished, run cdtools.exe command i.e. cdtools f: to finish by selecting option “Disc Finalization”.
If you can’t back up your data using the above-mentioned procedure, either ask an outside expert’s help personally or via internet. If all fails, forget your data forever and carry on installing a new OS as mentioned in this tutorial.
Backing up Your Drivers: An interesting tool to mentioned here is a software that automatically backs up all of your drivers of CD, modem, sound card, vga, usb, printer or just about anything that is currently installed on your system. But this software works only in an operational windows OS, and not in DOS. It is a good and time-saving practice to keep a backup of all of your drivers on a CD by using such a software. Its name is Driver Genius Pro and it is commercial software, not a freeware.
USING FDISK: You may skip this option and go straight to Formatting Hard Disk option, if you wish to use other useful partitions that may contain your data. Before going ahead with this option, Make sure there is no useful data left on your computer to be backed up. This option will delete all of the computer partitions and create new ones.
i) Boot up your computer using Windows OS CD.
ii) Run this command
fdisk
iii) Press option 3 to delete all current partitions.
iv) To create a new partition, select option 1 and select Y to answer the maximum size question by the program.
v) Next, select option 2
vi) Press Esc key to quit and restart your computer to
See the URL http://www.compguystechweb.com/troubleshooting/fdisk/fdisk_scr.html for detailed instructions alongwith screenshots. Now, that you have created the primary partition, you can continue to format the newly created partition. There is a very user-friendly but commercial software called Partition Magic by PowerQuest to manage your partitions easily after installation of Windows.
FORMATTING HARD DISK: Now that you have created new partitions, It is time to format them so that you can start installing Windows. This is how you make your C: drive usable by your Windows OS for installation. Boot up your computer with Windows CD and type format c: command at the prompt. When prompted for maximum size, press, YES. After complete processing you will be presented with the successful report about the formatting of the C: drive. Select your new drive name and press ENTER to finish.
INSTALLING WINDOWS: Microsoft has made it very easy for a newbie to install a completely new OS on a newly formatted partition. It is all wizard based and you simply have to click NEXT each time whenever asked a question. Boot up your computer from the Windows CD and select Start with CD Option. When on DOS prompt, change to the CD Drive that it just created which is usually d: if you have only one partition C. Now type command setup.exe to start the windows installation process.
During installation, make sure you properly name your PC as per your preferences and select your regions and Time zone. When finished, the computer will re-boot and during next re-boot it may ask some drivers of your Sound Card, VGA, Network, or other devices attached. Provide the requisite driver CDs and locate the paths of the appropriate drivers. If you are not sure, leave it like that and press NEXT to ignore. When your windows installation is complete, you can install Microsoft Office, setup internet connection and start using it as normally as you would. Please make sure you install all the security software such as anti-virus, anti-spyware, adware, and other software as mentioned in the next section.
2. USE SOFTWARE
Installing Anti-Virus: Download free AVG Antivirus software and install it. Make sure you get its free key from their website by registering. This software is not auto-updated for critical viruses and for an auto-update version, you will have to pay. If you wish to pay, we would recommend world’s most popular brands Symantec, McAfee and Trend Micros instead. No matter what Anti-Virus software you install, make sure you enable its Auto-Protect feature for automatic protection of your computer’s resources and in-coming or out-going emails from any virus attack. Some software even allow you to setup silent detection and destruction without any disturbance to your work. Further, they are auto-updated via internet at the regular interval that you setup. Hence, you can rest assured that whenever a security threat is spread all over the world, your software will automatically download the requisite updated version and install its defense on your computer.
BROWSER SECURITY: To setup your browser (Internet Explorer on Windows) for maximum security against the usual threats, follow this procedure;
i) Start up your browser
ii) Go to IE > Tools > Windows Update > Product Updates, and selected Security Updates to be automatically updated. Microsoft releases patches and security patches from time to time to make sure your system's security is up-to-date.
iii) Now, go to Internet Options/Security/Internet, press 'default level', then OK. Now press "Custom Level." In the ActiveX section, set the first two options ("Download signed and unsigned ActiveX controls) to 'prompt', and 'Initialize and Script ActiveX controls not marked as safe" to 'disable'. Now you will be asked whether you want ActiveX objects to be executed and whether you want software to be installed. Sites that you know for sure are above suspicion can be moved to the Trusted Zone in Internet Option/security.
If you use another browser such as Firefox or Netscape, see their documentation on how to securely set it up against any such internet threats.
Installing Anti-Spyware: Spyware, adware, browser hijackers, and dialers are some of the fastest-growing threats on the Internet today. By simply browsing to a web page, your computer may become a victim. You can install SpywareBlaster and SpywareGuard to effectively guard your computer from such internet threats.
It includes Fast Real-Time Scanning engine for known spyware and heuristic/generic detection capabilities to catch new / mutated spyware and Download Protection along with Browser Hijacking Protection in real-time.
Simply download the software (free) from their website and install it on your system. Make sure you download its latest update too or enable its Auto-Update feature to be updated automatically in the background. Now, when you are ready, run the software to check the spyware on your computer. When spyware are found, it reports accordingly. Press "select all", then press option "kill all checked". Although it won't protect you from 100% spyware, But it is a very important extra layer of protection.
Next, install another software that is called Spybot Search & Destroy. It works exactly like SpywareBlaster, but it never hurts to have a double layer of spyware detection alongwith Spybot R&D.
Installing Anti-Adware: Adware is a common term used to describe potentially dangerous websites and scripts that do data-mining, aggressive advertising, Parasites, Scumware, selected traditional Trojans, Dialers, Malware, Browser hijackers, and tracking components. There is a very good software called Ad-Aware available to scan and remove such nuisances from your system.
To start using it, simply visit Lavasoft USA website and download its free non-commercial version of Ad-Aware Personal Edition. Run its setup program and install it. When prompted, ask it to scan your computer. If there are any adware found, it is detected and removed automatically by Ad-Aware. Run this software on a weekly or daily basis, if possible to keep your system clean.
In addition to the Ad-Aware, Internet Explorer comes with a very handy tool that allows you to block specific sites that may carry well-known advertisers, marketers, crapware pushers to the Restricted sites Zone. If you had to input 50000+ of such sites manually yourself, it would takes years. Luckily, there is a software that does it all automatically and it is called IE-SPYAD. Once you merge this list of sites and domains into the Registry, the web sites for these companies will not be able to use cookies, ActiveX controls, Java applets, or scripting to compromise your privacy or your PC while you surf the Net. Nor will they be able to use your browser to push unwanted pop-ups, cookies, or auto-installing programs on your PC. It is not an ad blocker. It will stop top unwanted crapware from being installed behind your back via "drive-by-downloads"; prevent the hijacking of your home page.
This Restricted sites list is based in part on info from: discussions in the SpywareInfo Forums and other forums that specialize in crapware removal major crapware reference sites: doxdesk, cexx.org, Kephyr.com, PestPatrol and SpywareGuide.
To start using it, simply download it from their website and run its install.bat file. Make sure you run its update as well soon after its installation.
INSTALLING FIREWALL: A firewall software acts as a defense shield against hackers, intruders, and blocks access attempts to your computer. ZoneAlarm is a professional firewall software that works in a stealth mode automatically and makes your computer invisible to anyone on the Internet.
Download it from ZoneLabs website and run its setup for installation. I recommend you use its Express Settings which automatically configures your most commonly used software like browser, chat messengers, ftp software to access internet, while blocks every other internet traffic in real-time. If any software or service tries to upload or download any data, it pops up an alert whereby you can allow or disallow such internet traffic.
Computer Slow Down: It is very common to see many complaining about their computer slow-down. The fastest and easiest cure is using Windows’ built-in Defragmenter utitlity that you can find in Startà Programs à Accessories à System Utitlities à Disk Defragmantor and run thorough defragmantation. It will take a while before it ends.
If your system’s performance does not improve after running defragmantation utility, consider scanning your computer via a software utility called HiJackThis which you can download and install on your system. Use this tool carefully as it is intended for advanced users only. HijackThis is a tool, that lists all installed browser add-on, buttons, startup items and allows you to inspect, and optionally remove selected items. The program can create a backup of your original settings and also ignore selected items. Additional features include a simple list of all startup items, default start page, online updates and more.
CWShredder is a utility for removing CoolWebSearch (aka CoolWwwSearch, YouFindAll, White-Pages.ws and a dozen other names). This tool will find and destroy all traces of the CoolWebSearch (CWS) hijacker on your system including redirections, IE slowdowns, start page changes, un-authorized addition of sites in IE Trusted Zone, and blocking access to IE options or setup.
Download CWShredder from their official website only as there is a similar named virus/trojan on the loose at various websites which you may accidently download and install, hence become more infected than being cured instead. When it is installed successfully, run the software to scan your local machine. Select the fix button & it will get rid of everything related to CoolWebSearch. Close ALL other programs & windows, including IE, before running CWShredder. Reboot after doing this.
I know there is still a lot left, but as I wanted to keep this tutorial as brief as possible, hence I covered only the critical elements here. I am sure you will have fewer breakdowns (if not ZERO0 and more productive hours on your computer. I would recommend you to setup all the software’s auto update and auto-check options to free your time for more productive things than just playing hide and seek with spywares, adwares or viruses. Happy and safe computing!

Dirty Little Computer Viruses and How To Protect Yourself

Whether you have learned your lesson from a past experience
with a nasty computer virus or have been pressing your luck
by surfing the web and downloading various files or opening
those email messages sent to you by people you don’t know
without any real understanding of just how vulnerable you
really are each time you log onto your computer you now have
the opportunity to discover what steps you can take to avoid
such an annoying and many times destructive infestation.

Listed below are some of the guidelines you can follow in
order to keep those nasty viruses from making a mess out of
your computer and your life.

•Purchase and install a well respected antivirus software
program and be sure to set it up so that it automatically
runs when the computer starts up each time.

•Make sure to keep your antivirus software up to date by
either using the automatic update feature that many come
with or make it a habit to manually check at least once or
twice a week for updates on your own.

•Set your antivirus program to scan for potential viruses
each time you open a word-processing document like the ones
that get sent through email. Viruses found in
word-processing documents are called Macro Viruses.

•When purchasing software make sure to only buy from
vendors that are well known and from ones you trust.

•Resist swapping data with the use of floppy disks or other
mobile storage devices between various computers. If
exchanging programs between computers is unavoidable just
make sure to scan the storage device(s) for viruses before
transferring data from one computer to the next.

•If using floppy disks to transfer data make sure to format
them before using them for the first time.

•Never use pirated software. This is both illegal and a
very good way to invite an unwanted computer virus.

•When downloading software from the internet do so as
little as possible. There are many neat programs available
on the internet, but unfortunately there are many viruses
that go along with them also.

•If you must download programs from the internet ALWAYS
scan them for viruses BEFORE opening them up to install on
your computer.

•Probably the most important and neglected method of
disaster recovery are periodic backups of all important
files found on your computer. Should a virus happen to get
through your lines of defense you may need to replace the
virus corrupted files with fresh ones that have been kept
for such an occasion.

Finally, it is not guaranteed that if you follow the above
steps that you will not be the victim of a computer virus,
but you can sure bet that if followed you will greatly
reduce the chance of being an unsuspecting recipient of such
an unwanted program.

8 Simple Ways to Defend Against Evil Doers Both Online and Off

There once was a time when the only option people had when shopping was to either call in or snail mail in a catalog order form or to jump in the family car, fight through traffic, and wait in long checkout lines to complete the purchase.
Well, nowadays there’s still a few major mail order catalogs floating around and we all still visit our local retail outlets, but time has also introduced the internet as one of our options to shop from the comforts of home.
The internet has made shopping at home a breeze and along with it has unfortunately brought the so called ”Evil Doers” who I believe have such little happiness in their own lives that they must leech pleasure from the hardworking and innocent individuals of our wonderful and surrounding nations.
And yes, I am speaking of the ever growing problem known as Identity and Credit Card Theft.
As an online and offline consumer it is in my best interest to protect myself while at the same time wanting to help others protect themselves as well.
Below is a short yet thorough list of ways that you can follow to help yourself stay safe and be a happy consumer and keep “Evil Doers” at bay.
1) Always shred sensitive materials such as bank statements before throwing them away in the regular trash. Just because the paper documents are in the garbage doesn’t mean they are safe from peeping eyes.
2) Contact your local bank or credit card provider to request a card with a low limit. This can make you feel more at ease about shopping at those not so familiar places and can reduce the damages caused by such an ill intended individual if they get hold of your number.
Also never give out the 3-letter Card Identification Number found on the back of the credit card unless you absolutely trust the merchant you are dealing with.
3) NEVER give out your social security card number for any reason! If capable you are best to obtain a tax I.D. number from the Internal Revenue Service or local tax agency.
If any “Evil Doer” gets hold of your personal information such as home address, birth date, and Social Security Number you are at great risk of being victimized.
4) Only purchase items online through secure order pages which is typically indicated by a small, yellow, “Padlock” image usually located somewhere near the bottom of your internet browsers window.
5) If you ever receive an email asking for sensitive information and claiming to be from a company that you have an account with, NEVER supply the requested information and never click any links or hit reply to send such personal information back to the “company”.
Many legit companies will not ask for sensitive information via email.
If you get such an email you are better off to make a copy of the letter you received then close that browser window and then open a NEW window and access the company directly from their website address.
You should then submit the email you made a copy of to the company so that their anti- fraud personnel can take the necessary steps to send out warnings of possible fraudulent activity to be aware of to its members.
6) Be cautious about downloading and installing unnecessary programs onto your computer. If there are programs that you indeed must download ALWAYS scan the files for viruses and make sure that your anti-virus program is up to date.
There’s a wide variety of viruses that are distributed to unprotected computer systems and some of which are known as “Key Stroke Loggers” that record your sensitive log in names and passwords and then are made known to the trouble maker.
7) If possible try to utilize 2 different computers when using the internet.
One computer should only be used for general internet surfing just in case it was to obtain a virus such as a Key Stroke Logger so there would be little threat of someone getting your personal information.
Only use the second computer to access more sensitive information such as online banking or other important websites that require passwords and important information.
8) Finally, if there are young members of the family that have computer use privileges be sure to monitor and restrict the sites and programs they are allowed to use.
Many fraudulent individuals love to prey on the unexpecting and inexperienced web surfer.
In any case just be certain to contact the police or appropriate authorities the INSTANT you believe that you have become a victim of Identity Theft or Credit Card Number Theft.
The sooner you tell the authorities the better the chance they can help you recover from a financial catastrophe.

Protect Your Little Black Book

The movie Little Black Book features a young woman, Stacy, who is frustrated when her boyfriend refuses to share information about his past relationships. When his PDA, a Palm Tungsten C, falls into her hands, she is faced with a conundrum. Does she give it back, or does she explore it? If she gave it back, we wouldn’t have a movie, now would we? Stacy then proceeds to identify his ex-girlfriends and contact them. Let the games begin.
Could this really happen? Of course it could. Most PDA’s contain a plethora of information about a person and their activities, their digital footprints. People store contact information, appointments, meetings and midnight rendezvous’. They store passwords, login ID’s and PIN numbers. They have photos of people they know and sometimes in awkward circumstances. It’s a lot to have to explain. The courts are only beginning to grapple with how to handle the content in a PDA. One person’s little black book can be very incriminating indeed.
For the rest of us, we have nothing as exotic; however, we are all in danger of exposure and threat. Identify theft has become one of the largest white-collar crimes. There is enough information in the average PDA for someone to take over your life. So, what’s the solution? Give up your PDA? No. You face the same problem with the typical day planner. It has all of the same information, it’s just not as accessible. In fact, a PDA has certain advantages over a planner. You can password protect some of the data. You can even encrypt data. Most importantly, you have a backup. The data is safely stored on your computer and archived on external media if you have taken the proper steps.
That duplication of data also means an identity thief has more ways to get to it. So, what can you do? Well, the first concern is to make sure that you backup your data. Synchronize your PDA at least daily. I synchronize my Treo 600 2-3 times each day, usually when I arrive at my office or leave it. Backing up your data means that you should be creating a copy on tape, CD, zip disk, flash ROM or other external media and storing it offsite. If you are not, you are asking for trouble and your business is at risk. If your PDA is ever stolen, you will need to restore that data on a new PDA.
Next, you need to minimize the amount of data someone can actually access. Let’s face it, if a hacker really wants to get your data, they will succeed. However, not every criminal is a super hacker. Sometimes you just want to keep your information from prying eyes. Just because you labeled something as private in your PDA doesn’t mean someone else can’t read it. It depends on what application you synchronize with. If you sync with Outlook, records that are private on your PDA may be public in Outlook.
The best way to protect passwords and PIN numbers is to store them in a password application that encrypts the data. The best applications have both a PDA application and a desktop application that allows access to the information from either system. The trouble is converting that data from whatever format it’s in currently. I’ve struggled with this one myself. There is no easy method I’ve found so far. Just set aside time to copy and paste the data into the password application. It might take a few hours to get that information into a secure application.
If you’re worried about someone viewing your schedule, the best approach is to archive your past history periodically. Outlook has settings that allow you to specify to how often calendar events will be archived. This will wipe the history from your PDA also. Archives are usually stored in an external file that can be accessed later.
If you have incriminating photos, delete them. If you want a copy, save it on external media like tape, CD and flash ROM. For contacts, you can archive them or simply move the record to an external file. Outlook allows you to create a .pst file that you can use to save email, calendar, address, tasks, or other information. Once you move a record, it will be removed from your PDA.
And, don’t forget to delete the cookies and memory cache on your PDA’s web browser. Remember that website you checked out last week? Is that something you want everyone else to know about? I don’t think so.
Don’t forget physical security; keep an eye on your PDA. It’s possible to take steps to protect your data and remove your digital footprints. Protect your little black book and it will protect you.

Can I Guess Your Password?

We all know that it’s dangerous to use the same password for more than one program. If you sign up for a program run by someone of low moral fibre, what is to stop them running through various programs with your username and password to see what they can access?

But of course remembering all the different passwords can be a headache. And writing them down somewhere isn’t a great deal safer than using the same password again and again.

You can buy software that stores the passwords for you, but do you really want to pay money for another piece of software that performs a solitary function?

Try this simple, two-step, technique that lets you generate an infinite number of passwords, without having to remember any of them.

Step One: Choose a 4-6 letter word or number sequence that you can remember easily. Needless to say, don’t reveal this to anyone. For the purpose of this demonstration, I’ll choose the word "cash"

Step Two: Apply this secret word or number sequence to the name of the program you are setting up the password for.

To accomplish this, invent a couple of easy to remember rules.

Rule 1: Decide which part of the program name you are going to use. It could be the whole name, the first 6 letters of the name, the last 8 letters of the name. It’s totally up to you, be as creative as you like.

eg – For the program TrafficSwarm, I might choose the first 8 letters of the name. This give me: "traffics"

Rule 2: Take the portion of the program name you have selected and merge it with your secret word or number sequence to create a unique password. Again, be as creative as you can with this rule. You could replace every second letter, every third letter, every vowel or every consonant.

eg – If I replace every second letter of "traffics" with my secret word "cash", I get " t c a a f s c h "

or

- If I replace every vowel of "traffics" with my secret word "cash", I get " t r c f f a c s ". The "s" and the "h" are not used as "traffics" has only two vowels, but some words will use all four letters of "cash". Some words might have more than four vowels, in which case just start back at the beginning with "c" and "a" and so on…

You don’t have to worry about making your rules overly complex. Even the best code-breakers would need to see several of your passwords before they could start to guess what you rules are.

As long as you keep your rules safe and sound, your password is secure. But the real beauty of this system, is that you don’t have to remember the passwords you create. You ONLY have to remember the rules.

When you log into the program the next time, just apply your rules to the program name, and you can work out what password you generated. Once you have been using the rules for a while, you’ll generate the password in your head, without even having to pause.

Don’t worry if it seems a little complicated at first. Read this article through a couple more times and then try this technique with just a couple of programs. Once you are happy with it, all that’s left to do is to start working your way through existing programs and update your passwords. It’s time consuming, but for peace of mind you’ll be glad you did.

Don't Miss Information Because of Misinformation

It has been said that with the wealth of information, freely available, the Internet has the ability to make you smarter, faster, than any other medium on the planet.

Of course with an equal amount of mis-information, it also has the ability to make you dumber, faster, than any other medium on the planet.

So how do you decide which sources of information to trust and which sources to avoid?

It has long been a source of debate, whether or not, any information can be 100% reliable. There is, it is said, no such thing as absolute truth (is that an absolute truth?).

Really though, there is no point in driving yourself mad with such trivial philosophies. All you have to do is decide, in your own mind, where your level of skepticism begins and ends. And skepticism is important in this day and age. That isn’t a negative viewpoint, it’s just a realistic assessment of what you need to survive.

Imagine for a moment that you're looking for a solution that will send your weekly newsletter to your eagerly awaiting mailing list. You can choose from a myriad of different software, hardware, third-party solutions. Some free, some cheap, some expensive and some unreliable. A decision has to be made. Who’s going to help you? Look at the options.

SPAM: Lots of unsolicited emails promise to have the definitive solution and at one time this might have been worth a look. Today, however, if a company is so discourteous that they ignore the generally accepted rules of spamming do you really want to do business with them?

Verdict: Dubious

WEBSITE: Ranked high on Google, plenty of glowing testimonials, even a 30 day money-back guarantee. But wait! Are those testimonials real or fictitious? Is there a clause that will prevent you from returning the product if you dislike it? Can you really believe anything you are being told?

The reality is, that many companies will say anything to make a sale. This is true both on the Internet and the High Street. Desire for profit can quickly deteriorate good intentions. I don’t need to preach about this. You know it’s true.

Accept this, then temper your paranoia by checking the facts. Legitimate companies exist on the Internet by the thousand. The ones worth buying from will happily talk to you on the phone and answer your questions in person. They will respond to your questions by email, probably on the same day. And, if they’re really worth spending money on, they will let you personally contact previous customers so you can confirm that what they’re saying is true.

Make the company work for the sale. If they can’t be bothered to reply to your emails or turn the answering machine off, don’t bother to give them your credit card number.

Verdict: Tread carefully

RECOMMENDATIONS: The product/service is recommended by a third party, perhaps in an ezine, or on a website. Sounds great? A genuine testimonial? But wait!

What is the recommender’s motive?

Love for fellow man?

Appreciation of the product?

Cash?

If you picked option number 3, you’re probably right. Joint ventures and affiliate programmes have led to many a recommendation of a product/service that hasn't been evaluated or even used. There are exceptions but there’s a good chance that the recommendation is linked to a commission.

This doesn’t, by itself, mean the testimonial is bogus. It simply means, as previously stated, that you should use some skepticism.

Look for recommendations from newsletters or websites that have been around for some time. If they have a reputation to consider, they will (should?) think twice before promoting something they haven’t fully investigated.

Verdict: Useful, be sure about the source

SEARCH ENGINES: Once you’ve found the product/service that sets you alight, look for negative feedback. Search for the product name alongside words like "hate" or "problem".

If lots of people have used this product and had problems, then at least few will likely have posted their experiences on a forum.

If no results appear, take this as a good sign and move on.

Verdict: Essential step

FORUMS: If you're really having difficulty finding what you are looking for, forums could be the key.

Look around for about half a dozen forums that you like and have plenty of traffic. Then post a description of what you need on all of them. Check back frequently and see what comes up.

Forums are an excellent way to find uncensored information offered solely for its value. Generally speaking, what you see is what you get.

There are, of course, exceptions. Occasionally someone might recommend something, solely because they are affiliated in some way. But if the forum is busy enough, they probably won’t get away with it.

Verdict: About as safe as you can hope to find

Does the above sound obvious to you? Maybe it is, but every day hundreds or even thousands lose money on poor or useful products/services that they were convinced were perfect. If you doubt it, check through a few related forums.

If you run your own ezine/website/forum, ask yourself what you can do to help those who aren’t as experienced. Your honesty will set you apart from the rest.

If all of this seems helpful, all well and good. Your final task is to apply the above information to this article and ask yourself, with just a touch of skepticism:

"Is it information or misinformation?"

Spy Scanners - Don't Compromise your Privacy

Spies, spyware, internet parasites are among what they are usually called. These are scouts that monitor your web activities. The work undercover to check on your surfing patterns, spending habits, items bought, they extract email addresses, hijack browsers, steal credit card information. These are just some of the things a spyware is capable of.

A spyware is mainly an information hungry parasite determined to gather data from a user or surfer without him knowing it.

The information gathered by these parasites are then sent to the originator without the users consent. Most often, the information gathered by the spyware are used to generate ads and pop-ups on the user’s PC.

Spywares and Adwares aside from being a nuisance and an invasion of privacy can also jeopardize the optimal performance of your PC. They can eat up unused disk spaces and position themselves in an inconspicuous location in your hard drive. They can also eat the bandwidth, crash your system and oftentimes inflict themselves in the Registry or in the memory of your computer.

Spyware and Adwares have become very rampant nowadays. Prevent yourself from being a victim of these by:

* Being careful of Freeware and Shareware Downloads

- Some of these downloads are tagged with spywares which may be unknown to the user. Refrain from downloading sharewares and freewares from unknown sources.

* Installing a good spyware/adware scanner and removal software

- There are a number of spyware scanner and/or removal softwares in the market today. A good spyware scanner can effectively locate all spywares installed on your PC and a good spyware removal tool can effectively remove all the spywares detected.

Spy Scanners are programs designed to detect spies in your PC. A good spy scanner can effectively search through the most unnoticeable embedded files that spy on you.

Most Spy scanners include a spyware removal function. Other spy scanners do not entail spyware removal features but display the logs of the spyware detected in your PC. The information in the logs contains the location and nature of the spywares.

For spy scanners with no built-in spyware removal functions, a manual deletion of the spyware files could also be done since the location and the file type is specified in the logs. Some Spy scanner products on the market today have spyware scan available for non-paying users and the removal tool available only for paying users.

Spy Scanners when installed can be chosen to run on demand or periodically.

How to Manage Your Username and Password The Easy and Secure Way

Have been an Internet user for more than 9 years, I have 100's
of logins and passwords to keep. I'm paranoid. I'm now even
more paranoid after I joined YMMSS because I use online payment
systems on weekly basis if not daily.

I used to use Microsoft Excel to manage my usernames, passwords,
and other registration information, both online and offline.
Excel is not safe because there are programs to crack password
protected Excel workbooks and I even cracked the spreadsheet and
VBA source code password for one of my old Excel financial
models I developed. Today I still use Excel to store some personal
information but I only save the Excel file on my another
PC that is not connected to Internet.

In my article "6 Essential Steps to Protect Your Computer On the
Internet", I highly recommended the award winning RoboForm. Free
version of RoboForm (http://www.roboform.com) does come with
limitations such as 10 Passcards only. If you don't want to buy
the Pro version (costs $29.99 as of my writing), there is an
easy-to-use freeware (see below) you can download right now and
manage unlimited usernames and passwords.

Download freeware Password Safe from SourceForge.net - the Open
Source community.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/passwordsafe/

Here are some great features of Password Safe:

- No installation is required. Simply download and double click the
pwsafe.exe file.

- Easy portable. Just copy and paste the EXE file and .dat database
file to any disks. Be aware that when you open Password Safe in
the other disk, you need to specify the database file location
(the .dat file).

- One master password unlocks an entire password database that can
contain all your other passwords.

- Grouping. Usernames and passwords can be grouped into different
categories you define, eg. Email Address, Payment, etc. You are in
total control.

- Strong, random password generation.

- Copy username and password to clipboard so that you don't have to
type them. Always keep in mind that you should never type any
username and password.

- Browse to URL. With one click, the URL related to your username
and password can be opened in your default web browser. Another
save on typing.

- You can create more than one password database (but you have to
memorize more than one master password. Not recommended.)

Here are some tips of using Password Safe (version 2.04) and
managing password in general.

Tip #1 - Always create a strong master password (Safe Combination
as used in the software).

Strong password should meet the following criteria:

- At least 8 characters long to prevent cracking. The longer the better.

- The password should contain lowercase, uppercase, numeric, and any
other characters that are available on keyboard.

- Ideally you should not use any meaningful words or numbers in the
password. Totally random password is the best.

Tip #2 - Let PasswordSafe generate random password for you.

To generate random password:

- Click the menu item Edit.

- Select Add Entry (or use corresponding icon button).

- When the dialogue window opens, on the right hand side, you can
see a Random Password Generate button. Click it, a random password
will be automatically inserted in the Password field.

The generated random password is constructed according to the password
policy defined in Password Safe. You can modify the default policy.

- Click the menu item Manage.
- In the dropdown menu, click Options.
- Click the Password Policy tab.
- Change the policy based on the strong password criteria stated above.

Some sites only allow alphanumeric passwords so make sure you select
the appropriate check boxes when this is the case.

Tip #3 - Very Important: Never type your master password when open
PasswordSafe.

Keylogger spyware can record keystrokes.

How can you enter master password without typing? I do this.

Step 1: Open a Notepad file (.txt).

Step 2: Copy and paste an article from any Internet website to
this .txt file.

Step 3: Select characters from this article and copy, paste to form your
master password.

Tip #4 - Very Important: Never lose your master password.

I memorize my master password. In addition, I also physically write it
down to a hand written study material that has my previous uni works.
Among the 1,000's of words, I placed my 22 characters master password
in two different pages in encrypted format that can let me derive
my master password.

Tip #5 - Categorize username and password.

When you add a new entry, you need to specify Group, Title,
Username, Password, and Notes. The entries that share the same Group
name will be gathered together automatically.

One Group can contain another Group as its sub Group. For example,
I have Email Address group which contains three sub-groups as
Friend, Work, Family.

Tip #6 - For security reasons, always use Copy Username to
Clipboard and Copy Password to Clipboard.

Remember, never type username and password on a web form. This is how
to do it.

- Highlight an entry.

- Right click mouse.

- In the pop-up menu, select Copy Username to Clipboard or Copy Password
to Clipboard

- Go to your login form, paste the username or password.

You can use mouse to do copy and paste. If you prefer short-cut keys,
this is how.

Copy: Ctrl+C
Paste: Ctrl+V

Tip #7 - Use "Browse to URL" rather than typing URL in browser address bar.

When you enter a new entry or edit an existing one, you can enter a URL
(must start with http://) at the first line in the Notes field. You can save website login
page's URL in this field. When you need to open a login page in browser,
right click the entry and click Browse to URL in the pop-up menu. Then
the login page will be opened in your default web browser automatically.

Tip #8 - Don't forget to backup your password database file.

Use the Make Backup menu item to save a second copy of your password file.

Tip #9 - Store your backups in a different offline computer or location.

This is a widely used backup strategy.

Tip #10 - Use the Notes field to store as many information as you want. Very handy for memo.

If you don't have two computers, you need to use other storage media
to save a second copy of your backup file and version them by date
(easy to track back). Other storage media can be zip drive,
thumb drive, floppy disk, CD, etc.

Off site backups are also important. Don't overlook this. You lose
all your data if you lose both your computer and your other
storage media all together for any reason.

Many companies provide online storage services for a fee. You can
store any digital files (you should password protect these files
first) on their secure servers. Search Google and you will find a lot.

I have two computers. One is used to surf net and it does not have any
sensitive info stored on it. Another one is for my development work
(not connected to Internet) and it has my backup files. I also store
my backups in a thumb drive and CDs sometimes.