Derailed

Folks,
There have been some things happening here which are proving a major distraction, and my mind (and time) have not been on the tech and the blog. I ask for, and appreciate, your patience until I get things ‘back on track’.

And, please — be conscientious, and use good, healthy, “paranoid common sense” during this prime cybercrime season. (I.e., don’t open emails advertising extreme bargains on online stores you’ve never heard of before.) And, do the same while you’re in the malls, too (don’t leave your purse in the shopping cart, for instance).

It is the time of year to enjoy the best in life, not become crime victim, right?

Thanks.

Little White Xmas Tree

For those of you Windows 8 owners (or, if Santa brings you a new PC..) Two must-have downloads that make Windows 8 more bearable

“Rather than moaning about Windows 8, here are two downloads that make the user interface a lot more usable and bring back features that Microsoft decided to remove.” Read more..

For those seeking techy gift ideas be sure to check out the CNet Editors’ Holiday Gift Guides.

click me

Today’s quote: “Rings and jewels are not gifts but apologies for gifts. The only true gift is a portion of yourself.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Silly little poll (cont.)

Copyright 2007-2012 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

---

>> Folks, don’t miss an article! To get Tech – for Everyone articles delivered to your e-mail Inbox, click here, or to subscribe in your RSS reader, click here. <<

---

All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.

Beware "The Twelve Scams of Christmas"

McAfee* has revealed their 2010’s “Twelve Scams of Christmas” —

the 12 most dangerous online scams that computer users should be cautious of this holiday season.

“Scams continue to be big business for cybercriminals who have their sights set on capitalizing on open hearts and wallets this holiday season,” said Dave Marcus, director of security research for McAfee Labs. “As people jump online to look for deals on gifts and travel, it’s important to recognize common scams to safeguard against theft during the busy season ahead.“

Twelve Scams of Christmas:

1. iPad Offer Scams
   With Apple products topping most shopping lists this holiday season, scammers are busy distributing bogus offers for free iPads. McAfee Labs found that in the spam version of the scam consumers are asked to purchase other products and provide their credit card number to get the free iPad. Of course, victims never receive the iPad or the other items, just the headache of reporting a stolen credit card number. In the social media version of the scam, users take a quiz to win a free iPad and must supply their cell phone number to receive the results. In actuality they are signed up for a cell phone scam that costs $10 a week.
2. “Help! I’ve Been Robbed” Scam
   This travel scam sends phony distress messages to family and friends requesting that money be wired or transferred so that they can get home. McAfee Labs has seen an increase in this scam and predicts its rise during the busy travel season.
3. Fake Gift Cards
   Cybercrooks use social media to promote fake gift card offers with the goal of stealing consumers’ information and money, which is then sold to marketers or used for ID theft. One recent Facebook scam offered a “free $1,000 Best Buy gift card” to the first 20,000 people who signed up for a Best Buy fan page, which was a look-a-like. To apply for the gift card they had to provide personal information and take a series of quizzes.
4. Holiday Job Offers
   As people seek extra cash for gifts this holiday season, Twitter scams offer dangerous links to high-paying, work-at-home jobs that ask for your personal information, such as your email address, home address and Social Security number to apply for the fake job.
5. “Smishing”
   Cybercrooks are now “smishing,” or sending phishing SMS texts. These texts appear to come from your bank or an online retailer saying that there is something wrong with an account and you have to call a number to verify your account information. In reality, these efforts are merely a ruse to extract valuable personal information from the targets. Cybercrooks know that people are more vulnerable to this scam during the holiday season when consumers are doing more online shopping and checking bank balances frequently.
6. Suspicious Holiday Rentals
   During peak travel times when consumers often look online for affordable holiday rentals, cybercrooks post fake holiday rental sites that ask for down payments on properties by credit card or wire transfer.
7. Recession Scams Continue
   Scammers target vulnerable consumers with recession related scams such as pay-in-advance credit schemes. McAfee Labs has seen a significant number of spam emails advertising prequalified, low-interest loans and credit cards if the recipient pays a processing fee, which goes directly into the scammer’s pocket.
8. Grinch-like Greetings
   E-cards are a convenient and earth-friendly way to send greetings to friends and family, but cybercriminals load fake versions with links to computer viruses and other malware instead of cheer. According to McAfee Labs, computers may start displaying obscene images, pop-up ads, or even start sending cards to contacts that appear to come from you.
9. Low Price Traps
   Shoppers should be cautious of products offered at prices far below competitors. Cyber scammers use auction sites and fake websites to offer too-good-to-be-true deals with the goal of stealing your money and information.
10. Charity Scams
    The holidays have historically been a prime time for charity scams since it’s a traditional time for giving, and McAfee Labs predicts that this year is no exception. Common ploys include phone calls and spam e-mails asking you to donate to veterans’ charities, children’s causes and relief funds for the latest catastrophe.
11. Dangerous Holiday Downloads
    Holiday-themed screensavers, jingles and animations are an easy way for scammers to spread viruses and other computer threats especially when links come from an email or IM that appears to be from a friend.
12. Hotel and Airport Wi-fi
    During the holidays many people travel and use free wi-fi in places like hotels and airports. This is a tempting time for thieves to hack into networks hoping to find opportunities for theft.

McAfee advises Internet users to follow these five tips to protect their computers and personal information:

• Stick to well-established and trusted sites that include trust marks (icons or seals from third parties verifying that the site is safe), user reviews and customer support. A reputable trust mark provider will have a live link attached to its trust mark icon, which will take visitors to a verification Web site of the trust mark provider.
• Do not respond to offers that arrive in a spam email, text or instant message.
• Preview a link’s web address before you click on it to make sure it is going to an established site. Never download or click anything from an unknown source.
• Stay away from vendors that offer prices well below the norm. Don’t believe anything that’s too good to be true.
• Make sure to use trusted wi-fi networks. Don’t check bank accounts or shop online if you’re not sure the network is safe. If you think you may be a victim of cybercrime, visit the McAfee Cybercrime Response Unit to assess your risks and learn what you can do next at the link below.

* About McAfee
McAfee, headquartered in Santa Clara, California, is the world’s largest dedicated security technology company. McAfee delivers proactive and proven solutions and services that help secure systems, networks, and mobile devices around the world, allowing users to safely connect to the Internet, browse and shop the Web more securely. Backed by its unrivaled Global Threat Intelligence, McAfee creates innovative products that empower home users, businesses, the public sector and service providers by enabling them to prove compliance with regulations, protect data, prevent disruptions, identify vulnerabilities, and continuously monitor and improve their security. McAfee secures your digital world.

McAfee is a registered trademark or trademark of McAfee, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others. © 2008 McAfee, Inc. All rights reserved.

References
Cybersafety Resource Portal

---

>> Folks, don’t miss an article! To get Tech – for Everyone articles delivered to your e-mail Inbox, click here, or to subscribe in your RSS reader, click here. <<

---

Share this post :

Absolutely unrelated (video How To)

Because I have decided that I am definitely not going to do any kind of a “countdown to the holidays”, I am not going to remind you that the time to sit down and address greetings cards is, well, today. And I am not going to show you pictures of one of my favorite holiday traditions (and “childhood memories”) – the gingerbread house.

Did you ever make one of these? Or help eat one?

I decorate mine with small candy canes, gumdrops, M&M’s, Life Savers candies, red hot’s, and chocolate. (I think those are Pez on the one shown .. )

Here’s a How To Video. (That anyone can follow.)

I give gingerbread houses two Tech Paul thumbs up.. and a gold star too!

* There are a mere 17 days until Christmas arrives, and we are smack-dab in the middle of the cyber-criminal’s favorite, and most active, time of year. It is the time to redouble your “paranoid common sense” and triple your vigilance for scams, e-mails links, making sure the payment portal is https://, etc.. Let’s all be safe out there!
(To help you, here is 7 Practices for Computer Security [my thanks to reader KsTinMan for the link].)

Related: How to Make an Evergreen Wreath

Unrelated: Cnet’s Holiday Gift Guide 2010

Copyright 2007-2010 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

---

>> Folks, don’t miss an article! To get Tech – for Everyone articles delivered to your e-mail Inbox, click here, or to subscribe in your RSS reader, click here. <<

---

Add Festivity to Your Holiday Letters

Word Trick Makes Letters Merrier

It is the Holiday time of year. (Is it just me, or did 2009 pass-by rather quickly?) Today I’m going to demonstrate some tricks to make your Season’s Greetings letters more joyous, and your documents more visually interesting.

Tip of the day: Add some festivity to your documents with fonts and color. MS Word has a lot of features and options built into it that allows for some very creative elements to be added to your correspondence, and is not at all limited to cold, “professional” documents. I’ll use Word for this demo, but you can do this in most text editors, and e-mail programs.

Today I’m going to use a hypothetical holiday greeting letter to show how to add some fun. By default, Word sets the font to Times New Roman at 12 “points” in height. I have typed in my text, to get things started, and will demonstrate using this letter’s “opener”. As it is a header, I have “centered” the text.

As you can see, this font and text does not quite convey the joy and cheer and “best wishes” I am hoping to express. In fact, this may as well say, “Memo from Giganti Corp.” Yawn! So first thing I’m going to do is ‘tweak’ the font style, and make some word bigger (louder), to express a less formal tone.

I “highlighted” Season’s Greetings, and used the Font drop-down arrow and selected a cursive font– Lucida Handwriting (explore Words various fonts, and find the one you like best). I set the point size to 36. I repeated the process on the second sentence, but set the type smaller.. only 18. I think you’ll agree, this is much more “friendly” than the default’s look. But this is just not Festive enough! Let’s use some color and improve things some more.

I have again “highlighted” season’s greetings to select this font, and then clicked the Font Color button on the Formatting toolbar (If this is not showing, click here to read how to customize your toolbars). I then clicked on the little red box in the color-picker. Now season’s greetings is red. I want to alternate letters in green, so I hold down the Ctrl key and use my mouse to “select” every other letter. I didn’t really like the greens available on the color-picker, so I clicked on “More Colors”….
… and selected a green that contrasted nicely with the red– as the box in the lower right corner shows. This is the result of these steps.

Much more jolly! But, something’s missing…

Let’s add one more thing– a picture of a candy cane. I went on the Internet and found a Royalty-free graphic (though a piece of Clip Art would do just as nicely) and…

Voila!I could ‘go crazy’, and get carried away with adding things here… but I hope you will be able to see by this little demonstration — using only two of Word’s functions — that you are limited only by your own creativity, and that it’s easy to personalize and ’spice up’ your documents.

Copyright 2007-9 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

Share this post :

Word Trick Makes Letters Merrier

It is the Holiday time of year. (Is it just me, or did 2008 pass-by rather quickly?) Today I’m going to demonstrate some tricks to make your Season’s Greetings letters more joyous, and your docs more visually interesting.

Tip of the day: Add some festivity to your documents with fonts and color. MS Word has a lot of features and options built into it that allows for some very creative elements to be added to your correspondence, and is not at all limited to cold, “professional” documents. I’ll use Word for this demo, but you can do this in most text editors, and e-mail composers.

Today I’m going to use a hypothetical holiday greeting letter to show how to add some fun. By default, Word sets the font to Times New Roman at 12 “points” in height. I have typed in my text, to get things started, and will demonstrate using this letter’s “opener”. As it is a header, I have “centered” the text. As you can see, this font and text does not quite convey the joy and cheer and “best wishes” I am hoping to express. In fact, this may as well say, “Memo from Giganti Corp.” Yawn! So first thing I’m going to do is ‘tweak’ the font style, and make some word bigger (louder), to express a less formal tone. I “highlighted” Season’s Greetings, and used the Font drop-down arrow and selected a cursive font– Lucida Handwriting (explore Words various fonts, and find the one you like best). I set the point size to 36. I repeated the process on the second sentence, but set the type smaller.. only 18. I think you’ll agree, this is much more “friendly” than the default’s look. But this is just not Festive enough! Let’s use some color and improve things some more. I have again “highlighted” season’s greetings to select this font, and then clicked the Font Color button on the Formatting toolbar (If this is not showing, click here to read how to customize your toolbars). I then clicked on the little red box in the color-picker. Now season’s greetings is red. I want to alternate letters in green, so I hold down the Ctrl key and use my mouse to “select” every other letter. I didn’t really like the greens available on the color-picker, so I clicked on “More Colors”…. … and selected a green that contrasted nicely with the red– as the box in the lower right corner shows. This is the result of these steps. Much more jolly! But, something’s missing… dpress.com/files/2007/11/9.jpg”> Let’s add one more thing– a picture of a candy cane. I went on the Internet and found a Royalty-free graphic (though a piece of Clip Art would do just as nicely) and…Voila!I could ‘go crazy’, and get carried away with adding things here… but I hope you will be able to see by this little demonstration — using only two of Word’s functions — that you are limited only by your own creativity, and that it’s easy to personalize and ‘spice up’ your documents.

Copyright 2007-8 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

Share this post :

Tech Paul’s Top Lists List

In this, the retailer’s make-or-break shopping period, you have no doubt seen at least one shopping gift idea ‘guide’.. or ‘Top Gift’s For 2009’ list.
(I have already lost track of how many of these I’ve seen..)

And you’ve probably been reminded — at least once — that there is ONLY x SHOPPING DAYS ‘TILL CHRISTMAS.

So I won’t remind you how many days you have left, but I will simply be unable to prevent myself from showing you a list– my list of the best lists.

Tech Paul’s Top Lists List

This being a Tech site, it is only natural that my list of lists should include some distinctly tech-oriented lists.. lists with names like “Gift Ideas For The Gadget Freak” (note, if this really is somebody’s list title.. I apologize)

* PC Magazine’s Holiday Gift Guide is divided into categories, and starts with Desktop computers. The editors at PC Mag use several criteria for determining their top picks; including value, performance.. and the all-important “kewl factor”.

* Tom’s Guide has the Shopping Guide: Black Friday and Beyond : Getting Bang For Your Buck which is also divided into categories; TVs, Cameras & camcorders, Game consoles, peripherals, etc.

* For those on a budget (and, who isn’t?) RealSimple.com has some interesting ideas that might very well spark an idea for those hard-to-shop-for folks on your list (not exclusively X-mas-oriented ideas found here too).

* A site on my Blogroll, MyTechTalk, has posted some nifty gift ideas here, 8 Gift Ideas from Amazon – for any budget- for the Tech Lover on your List, and here Consider Online Gifts for the Web Surfer on your List.

* Sometimes, it is important to know what NOT to buy, and so I recommend a visit to the Consumer Product Safety Commission site, where you can check to make sure the item you’re considering is not on a recall list.

* Toms Hardware: actually, I don’t need to go much further than Tom’s.

Part 1: Tom’s Hardware—No Hassle Hardware Gifts, Good To Go

Part 2: Tom’s Guide—Top Kid Tech Gifts For 2008

Part 3: Tom’s Guide—Great Gifts For Tech Gurus

Part 4: Tom’s Hardware—Hardware For The System Builder In Your Life

Today’s free link: Rick Robinette over on WhatsOnMyPC.com has found and posted a geek video that may just replace White & Nerdy as the Geek Music Video. Click here and check it out.

Copyright 2007-8 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

Share this post :