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Phishing – How to Avoid Getting Caught

With so many of us online nowadays, it’s inevitable that criminals familiar with computer technology have found ways to take advantage of it to make money. The Internet is almost impossible to police, as it crosses so many international borders, and criminals can operate basically from anywhere there’s power and an internet connection. Phishing is just one of many schemes thought up by criminal minds to part us from our money.

Phishing is simply the scam of sending out a fake email in order to try and get the recipient to respond with private or financial information. You’ve probably received plenty of these – they pretend to come from a well known bank, tell you that someone has changed your password or that your account will be terminated if you don’t confirm your details, and give you a link to click on.

Of course if you do actually click on the link, you’ll be taken to a false website where the information you enter will be recorded and used to log in to your bank account or credit card and steal your money. In extreme cases, where the phishing attempt also gets private information such as your social security number, your whole identity may be stolen and used to apply for fake loans. Your financial and credit history can be ruined in literally hours, before you have any idea there’s something wrong.

How Do I Avoid Being Caught?

While this sounds terrible, there are things you can do to lessen the risk of your information being phished. The first, and most important, is to NEVER respond to an email that appears to come from your financial institution. It doesn’t matter how legitimate it looks, or whether it has the right logos in it. These businesses are well aware of the rapid spread of phishing, and the last thing they would do is confuse things by sending an email requesting your login details or for you to confirm a password.

If in doubt, call your bank by looking up the phone number – don’t use any phone numbers included in the email – and ask them if the email is legitimate. Never click on any links or URLs contained in the email, don’t reply to the email, don’t acknowledge that you’ve received it – just hit the delete button as fast as possible.

When you’re visiting websites, always be wary of supplying too much private information. Only supply such information if you’re sure it’s a legitimate site that you’ve navigated to by yourself, and there should be a locked padlock logo in the bottom of the browser so you know the site is secure. Never enter this kind of information at a website you’ve reached by clinking on an email link.

What Type of Phishing Emails Can I get?

Phishing isn’t just limited to financial institutions. Many phishing scams imitate emails from eBay and well-known stores. They may appear to be a special offer, suggesting you click on the link to get a great deal on that particular item. The problem is that you’ll end up at a website designed to steal your information, not the store’s website. If you’re especially interested in the deal being offered, call the store and ask if it’s a genuine offer before clicking on anything.

If you do receive a suspicious email that you think is a phishing scam, it’s always helpful to notify the company that it appears to come from. Some businesses have specific addresses for receiving phishing notifications, but many simply use postmaster@theirURL. PayPal can be reached via spoof@paypal.com. You can also report the scam to the Internet Crime Complaint Center, although this mainly deals with the more threatening and widespread phishing scams.

The important thing to remember is that you should never click on an email link without checking with your bank first. It doesn’t matter how dire the consequences sound if you don’t do it – that’s all part of the scam. The more vigilant we all are, the less people will fall for phishing scams, and the better the chance that one day these criminals will give up and leave our inboxes alone.

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Learn the safe and correct techniques of cardio kickboxing

Learn the safe and correct techniques of cardio kickboxing.

Cardio Kickboxing techniques are all the rage in the fitness world today. There is a reason for this. Cardio Kickboxing gives you a great workout and is fun as well. Cardio Kickboxing is also called Aerobic Boxing, Boxercise, Boxaerobics and Aerobox. I went for Cardio Kickboxing after six months of aerobics. I can vouch for its benefits. These benefits include increased strength and flexibility while burning fat.

I know that some years back cardio kickboxing barely existed. Today it has invaded health clubs. More and more people want to benefit from this latest fitness fad. I have practiced this new form of exercise for barely over a month and the benefits already show in my body and in my self-esteem. If you are reasonably fit and willing to give it a try, Cardio Kickboxing could be your road to a healthier, fitter life.

Let me share what I have learned about cardio kickboxing with you. One basic move is the base move (shifting weight from the ball of one foot to the other). This is good for balance. Another is the bob and weave. The combination move involves a series of quick punches thrown in combination. The front kick involves lifting your foot straight out in front of you with toes up. In the roundhouse kick, the legs are swung around until the shoelaces hit the side of the target in front.

Lets examine some more moves. The side kick is one in which the foot is lifted up in front of you and then kicked out at the side. If you like to punch, the hook, the jab and the uppercut are for you. My personal favorite is the jab, which involves a quick forward movement of the fist.

As a beginner, I was told to keep a few things in mind. In my first class I was taught not to exercise myself beyond fatigue. Do not lock joints or hold dumbbells when punching, My instructor told me. Overextending kicks is always a bad idea, I was told.

I realized early on that Cardio Kickboxing is no substitute for a martial arts class. It is meant to be a form or exercise. The advantage is that it is not as violent as a martial arts class and is good exercise. People with medical problems like joint/knee issues should practice kickboxing with caution.

In performing cardio kickboxing techniques I advise looking for a simple programme. Start by working out once a week. Alternate between high intensity and low intensity workouts. Warm up and cool down with the main session of exercise. Complement cardio kickboxing with other forms of exercise.

Wear Proper exercise gear exercise shorts and t-shirts or tank tops. A sports bra is good for women in training. Drink plenty of water and use a mat and perhaps a sports band around your forehead. Cardio kickboxing techniques have been a godsend to my exercise routine. Heres wishing you the best as you kickbox your way to good health.

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Do You Have DSL or Cable Internet Service

With the ever changing world of technology there remains one constant. People do not understand all of the terminology when it comes to computers and the internet. At a basketball game I overheard two people discussing their internet and what kind of service they had. One guy said he had a DSL router through his cable company. The other disagreed and said he had high speed internet through the phone company and he thought it was DSL.

Here are a few simple ways to remember what kind of internet service you have if you want to keep you conversation accurate.

1. Many people still have the old slow dial up internet connection. It ties up your phone line and is not the fastest way to be online. Because of where they live this may still be the only option they have.

2. Cable broadband internet comes from the local cable company. You get access to it right through the cable coming into your home. The cable guy will come out to your house and do the installation for you. To do this he splits the connection from your TV to a cable modem box. Then he plugs it into your computer or router.

One benefit of having internet access from your cable company is it doesn’t matter how close you live to cable company’s office. Wherever you live you will get it at the same speed as everyone else in your neighborhood. One thing that does matter is the number of households subscribing will affect the bandwidth available and at certain times of the day your service will be slower.

3. DSL is short Digital Subscriber Line and is provided by a phone company. You will probably not need an installer to come out to your home to get started. Your phone company will turn on your service and they will send you a DSL modem and DSL router or filters. You can use the phone line you have without ordering another one.

To get connected, you plug one end of a DSL modem into a regular phone jack and the other end into your computer or DSL router. The filters are used to eliminate potential DSL static from phone jacks in which phones are used. These filters fit easily into the phone jacks and then the phone connections are plugged into the filters.

Because you are using your phone line sharing bandwidth with your neighbors is not an issue. However the further away you live from the phone companies office the slower your system will operate.

If you live too far away you may not even be able to get DSL service and would not need a DSL router, modem or filters. You will have to check with your cable company to see what your options are at that point.

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Inventors… Make Sure Your Invention is a Success!

Discover some of the important strategies all inventors should know to help ensure that their invention is a success.

This list of tips was compiled from successful inventors. They are sure to steer you in the right direction and help you ensure success for yourself…

1. Educate yourself on the in’s and out’s of patents, product development and invention marketing. There is plenty you can do on your own. Even if you plan to hire a patent searcher and a patent practitioner to prepare your patent application for you, you will still need to be aware of what is going on. Professionals may charge hundreds (even thousands) of dollars for their advice and expertise; imagine how much it will cost for them to fill you in on the basics.

2. Perform a preliminary patent search on your own before you invest too much time and money in your invention. Remember, you don’t want to re-invent the wheel (literally). If your invention already exists, you don’t need to continue.

3. Invest time researching the marketability of your invention. If you won’t make money from it, don’t pursue it! Spend your time and energy developing something else.

4. Do not hire the services of an all-in-one invention submission company. Many use fraudulent methods and will overcharge you (at the very least). Even the ones that are legitimate have flaws. Inventing and marketing are not done best by all-in-one shops. If you need help, stick with professionals who specialize; good bets are patent searchers, patent practitioners, prototype development specialists, marketing and licensing companies.

5. Keep good records of your invention in a bound laboratory notebook and have witnesses periodically sign it. Secure your receipts to it and keep it professional.

6. Make the best prototype you can afford. At the very least, have drawings, photos or a model that works well enough to demonstrate your invention. This will help you and your patent practitioner find more unique features and increase the strength of your patent. It will also help you if you plan to look for investors, licensors or marketers.

7. Talk to other inventors. Learn what challenges they faced and how they overcame them. Networking with other inventors can lead you to useful references; such as whom to trust for a patent search, patent practitioners, etc…

8. Set realistic deadlines for yourself and approach all possible contacts; such as investors, licensors, manufactures and consumers in a professional manner.

9. Recognize that there is a risk involved with patenting and marketing your invention and do not spend more money than you need to – definitely don’t spend everything you have. Do as much as possible on your own before hiring anyone.

10. Do not let the excitement you have for your invention blind you from reality.

11. Don’t give up – keep trying, expect to receive some rejections and get over them quickly.

12. Don’t expect someone else to do all the difficult work for you.

13. Once you’ve applied for patent protection, put up a website. The internet is the most global reach you could ever hope for. You may want to gear it toward your investors, licensors or even consumers. It is possible to completely market your invention all on your own right from your own website.

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A solution to your graphic design needs – Rextag

Rextag Strategies is a San Diego website design company, a name familiar on the market because of its achievements in what concerns work related to company branding: logos, business cards, flyers, brochures, websites and much more. In case you didn’t know, it’s time you found out that San Diego is nowadays almost famous for the creativity of its citizens, which lead to the birth of a lot of “creative advertising boutiques”. However, Rextag is different and this article wants to prove it.

Graphic design San Diego and advertising strategies are Rextag Strategies’ strongest and most important services offered to its clients with the contribution of an original, hard working team, fully specialized in both professional design concepts and technical issues. Not all San Diego website design companies have the same professional principles when working with clients. For example, Rextag professionals always know that the final product is very important as it has to be representative for the company, eye-catching, but also to permit obtaining measurable results. In other companies, the graphic design San Diego is seen as an artistic work, the designers following only the appearance issues and not giving much importance to the market results of the promotional ads.

People who have seen work done by Rextag Strategies have probably been pleasantly surprised by the friendly tonality of all their materials and the depth understanding of their clients’ needs. Talking to some of their business partners we have found out that “among all the San Diego website design companies I have worked with, Rextag Strategies is by far the best and I really like its employees because of the care and attention they pay to their work”. Another client stated that: “If you are looking for graphic design San Diego, San Diego companies seem to be very professional at first, but I was disappointed by a lot of them. Rextag provided exactly what I was looking for. While some people I worked with didn’t understand my work and weren’t able to deliver the right message to the targeted audience, working with Rextag Strategies has definitely changed the opinion I used to have about graphic design in San Diego. They were very creative, very patient, they worked hard to acknowledge as much as possible our business and they delivered the right product”.

So, if your business requires some creativity, take your chance with Rextag Strategies and your company’s image will improve for sure. They will provide your business with anything you need from: flyers, postcards, business cards, ads and logos to brochures and books, all professionally designed according to your desires. Rextag.com is also a San Diego website design company that can also perform graphic design San Diego when a websites has to be built to extend someone’s business online. In a few words, they have everything you need!

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What Your Spouse Might Not Want You To Know

Is your spouse or significant other extremely secretive about their computer habits? Do they seem to close things quickly when you enter the room or have everything under lock, key and password? Do you wonder what they might be hiding?

Your imagination can run wild with possibilities when your spouse is being secretive. If they spend vast amounts of time privately on the computer it can have you wondering if they’re being unfaithful to you, if they’ve gotten involved in something harmful such as gambling, it can leave you wondering if they have a pornography addiction or something worse.

Some people keep some aspects of their life private even from their spouse but if you are concerned that your mate’s computer habits could be harmful to them or be something that is either against your morals or illegal you may feel like you need to know the truth. Breaching your spouse’s privacy may have crossed your mind to get to the truth but you might not know how to go about it.

It could be that your spouse is very good at hiding their tracks and you can’t find anything on the computer at all or that everything is password protected. It may also be that you simply don’t know how to go about getting this information because you are not technically inclined with computers.

It’s not difficult to obtain this information. You can purchase a monitoring software package and easily install it on the computer. This package is easy to install and easy to use. It works in the background of the computer system without the user’s knowledge and logs their activities. It sends secure and encrypted files to the e-mail address you specify as often as you specify. You can obtain information such as chat logs, e-mails, websites visited, passwords and more.

This information may be critical for your peace of mind. If your spouse is simply private and is doing nothing wrong, you may decide to just cancel the program and feel better knowing nothing is going on. Or, you may find information that forces you to reexamine your relationship with this individual. Either way, prepare yourself and before proceeding be sure that you’re really ready to find out the truth. A person’s computer contains a lot of personal information about them and perhaps their deepest secrets. If you are sure that you want this information, you can get it and find out the truth once and for all.

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How To Select Colour Laser Printers

A colour laser allows you to print different documents such as photos, graphics or even text in colour.

A quality colour laser is an expensive device. The laser printer uses a laser beam, which places different electric charges on a rotating drum. This drum transfers the toner to the paper.

The ink jet printers function differently, by spraying ink on the paper and they need to be recharged when the ink is exhausted. There are some low-priced ink jet printers that are intended for home use, but they print only a few copies a month and the ink replacement is quite expensive.

When buying a colour laser you must decide the intent for the device. Will you need a small amount of colour printouts? Or will you rather need more copies? If you need to print banners and documents of bigger size, you will probably need a quality colour laser.

The memory of a printer is important, as it is responsible for the speed of the printing. For black and white texts, the memory is not essential, but for quality printed images the memory should have at least 128 MB of RAM. Also check if the memory can be upgraded.

Then you should consider the speed of the printer. This speed is measured in pages per minute, but this feature is not highly important when deciding on the laser colour you want to buy. Look out because the speed that is written on the user’s manual is not entirely realistic, and may not correspond, so you should think that it is a bit lower than the manufacturers say.

Next, consider the volume the colour laser printer can take. Find out the monthly figures the printer can handle, and compare it to your approximate volume of printed material. It is best if you buy a printer that can print by 25% more that your estimated number of pages per month.

The resolution is an important feature of the colour laser printer. The higher the resolution, the better the quality of the printed page. This feature is relevant in case you want to print out photos or images. For text printing you should choose a printer with at least 600×600 dpi, while for images a minimum of 1200 dpi is recommended.

The colour lasers print on practically any type of paper. However, the quality and the aspect of the printed page differ according to the level of absorption of each paper in part. You should test a few types of paper and decide on the one that suits your colour laser best.

Some people don’t find it essential to print in colour. People usually want a printed page for its contents and rarely for the colour of it. However, when you need to print out a photo or an image it is very important that you have a colour laser printer that will render the image as it should be. A colour laser printer is recommended for departments such as graphic design or marketing.

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Online Business – Setting Up Your Own Affiliate Program

Joining an affiliate program is a neat way to make money from your users. But just as you can join someone else’s affiliate program, so you can set up your own program and invite webmasters to sign up.

What would that bring you? The same as you’re bringing your affiliate partners: deals. Every time someone sends you a user who gives you money, you give a portion of that money to your affiliate. It’s an easy way to generate traffic and earn cash.

And you don’t need to be a programming genius to set up an affiliate program. There are a whole bunch of companies out there that offer entire affiliate kits right off the shelf.

Ultimate Affiliate lets you run a fully featured affiliate program from your website. It integrates with virtually every payment method, awards down-line commissions, and can handle high-traffic websites. You can edit the sign-up form to match the “look and feel” of your site as well as delete some of the optional fields. The administration area allows you to edit affiliates and commissions, create printable reports of money due, export the data to a text file, view the traffic through your affiliate program, and much more. Your affiliates can log in at any time and see their traffic and commission statistics as well as change their information and get links and banner code.

Once the program is set up you’ll only need to log in once a month to print out a list of the affiliates, their addresses, and the money owed. You can do this quarterly if you wish. You can export the payments owed to a text file in PayPal’s “mass pay” format and then just upload it to your PayPal account to pay everyone automatically. Or, you can simply write your own checks. If you have to pay a lot of commissions, there is a check printing service called qchex.com. Upload the file and they’ll print and mail your checks for a fee of about 80 cents each.

Alternatively, Locked Area Pro is an advanced member’s area management system offering very good security that’s easy to maintain. The system provides a huge list of useful features including automated sign-up, user account validation, optional random password generation and an administration approve/decline account feature. It also comes with an extremely powerful control panel with an online administration of users, backup, and full customization facilities from the browser. A statistics system is also in built in. What more could you want?

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Automate Manual Tasks With Microsoft Office Macros

Are you familiar with the phrase ‘all the gear, but no idea’? This is very fitting for many Microsoft Office owners. As I’m sure most of you will agree, Microsoft products can be extremely powerful but at times incredibly frustrating too.

It is of little use having lots of cool tools, but not being able to use them properly and being completely unaware as to the ease of automation for routine manual tasks.

If this sounds like you, fear not, you are not alone! Most people use Microsoft Office to only a fraction of its full potential. You needn’t be an expert to benefit from the automation of highly labour intensive manual tasks.

Excel is more than just a Glorified Calculator

Contrary to common belief, Microsoft Excel is more than just a glorified calculator and Word has come along leaps and bounds since its early word processor days. In fact, all the Microsoft Office programs offer an array of advanced features including programmable macros that can be used to automate a variety of tasks – and you don’t have be a whizz-kid programmer either!

Of course, the hard part is deducing what can and what can’t be automated and then learning how to automate what can. If you are not that technically savvy, then it may be a wise investment of time to attend an instructor-led training programme.

Professional trainers often have development experience and are able to communicate technical jargon in plain straightforward English. That’s their job, that’s what they do best!

Creating Macros for Every Day Boring Manual Tasks

All Microsoft Office programmes allow you create macros, which are shortcuts to tasks that you do repeatedly. You can approach macros one of two ways. The first is by programming lines of hand code, Eek! If this sounds like you, then you may like to go down the more technical route of Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) training.

Fortunately the second option is much simpler, whereby you are able to record a common task through the use of a macro. It’s similar to recording a T.V. programme on your VHS player, simply hit record, then demonstrate the task and then click stop when you have finished. No programming to learn here!

For example, you may have an Excel document where you manage data every week or month and you organise or analyse the data the same way every time? Or you regularly apply the same combination of formats and styles? Macro’s can help; they will be your new best friend!

This easily automated process works by recording mouse clicks and keystrokes that can be played back and applied to new sets of data whenever required – it really is that simple! The series of commands are then played in the exact order to perform a specific task, which can be run on a regular basis.

Example of How to Setup a Simple Macro

Please follow these guidelines to see how to setup a simple macro. You could start off by trying it in Microsoft Word or Excel.

* Tools | Macro | Record New Macro

* Enter the Macro Name in the Record Macro dialog box

* Click OK, you will notice a Stop Recording toolbar appears

* You are ready to Record. Enter the commands and keystrokes in the same order required to complete the task.

* Click the Stop Recording button when you have completed your task and Voila – you are all set to finally say NO to boring manual repetitive tasks!

Running the Macro

There are several ways you can run your brand new macro. If you use your macro frequently, you may decide to create a button or keyboard shortcut to execute it. Failing that, you can just use the menu system – here is a breakdown of what is involved with each:

Using the Tools Menu

This is the simpler but slightly long winded approach:

* Select the cell where you would like the formatting to begin

* Tools | Macro | Click the Name of the Macro

* Click Run

Assign a Keystroke to Launch your Macro

* Tools | Macro | Click the Name of the Macro

* Click Options and in the Shortcut key box, enter Ctrl + another character

* You can then enter the Shortcut combination e.g. Ctr + J to run the macro at any time

Be careful not to use a keystroke that already exists such as copy, Ctr + C.

Using a Toolbar Button to Run your Macro

This is probably the clearest way if you are creating a macro that is intended to be run by anyone else:

* Tool | Customise | Select the Commands tab

* Under Categories, select Macros

* You can then drag the Custom Button onto the toolbar where appropriate

* In the Customize Dialog box, select Modify Selection

* Click Assign Macro and then click the name of your Macro

The Microsoft Office suite is packed full of features to save you time and effort. Macros are a great way of minimising the time spent on repetitive mundane tasks. If you require more information on macro development or other time saving Office activities there is now a wealth of resources online, or if you feel a more interactive approach would suite you enquire with a Microsoft training company.

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Instant EXE Programming Utility Review

Thought creating your own software programs was reserved for die-hard computer geeks? Think again!

If you have ever considered creating your own computer software, but thought that the time needed to learn a programming language and the cost of the development program were just too much, then you are in for a pleasant surprise.

Instant EXE is a software development program that allows just about anyone to create their own Windows-based computer programs. Want a utility to store your recipes? Need a tool to monitor a device on your network? Need to automate a process you do over and over again? Then Instant EXE just may be the solution for you.

There are two things that really make Instant EXE the ideal development tool for programming beginners as well as veterans. First, there really is no programing language to learn.

You see, instead of learning a complicated language Instant EXE (or jut IX for short) has a set of 50 highly customizable commands. Simply double-click the command from the list and it is inserted into your program, or script as they are called.

But, don’t let the fact that the program is easy to use make you believe that IX is not a robust development environment. Each of the commands is highly customizable using a graphical window for each. You do not need to remember or even type any routines yourself. Simply change the settings in the dialog box to change the command’s behavior.

IX’s completely graphical interface makes creating your own software much quicker and easier than other development utilities. Furthermore, there are hundreds of variables and formulas that you can choose from, giving you access to every property and setting imaginable.

The second attractive feature is that Instant EXE is completely free. You can create, compile, and distribute your own software without paying for the development environment or paying any royalties at all. This feature alone makes IX a great choice for hobbyists, network administrators, school and computer user groups, or anyone that wants to write their own software.

How can the company that produces IX support itself you ask? IX comes in 2 flavors. The standard flavor, which is sufficient for most people, doesn’t cost anything. However, if you want to unlock even more features you can upgrade to a low-cost paid version and even add in one of the growing number of plug-ins.

The plug-ins extend IX’s abilities even further. The database plug-in, for example, allows you to manipulate databases in the popular Microsoft Access format. The Browser plug-in allows you to include a web browser interface in your programs and even interact with those web pages. You could for example, automatically submit web searches using this plug-in.

Finally, IX has a very avid user group and forum where people exchange ideas and help each other out. If you’re looking to create a computer program of your own, then Instant EXE is definitely worth checking out.

Read more: Instant EXE Programming Utility Review

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