Protecting yourself from hackers in a few easy steps

Hackers love people who surf the Internet without realising the pitfalls that go with it. This is particularly true of those who are ready to click on any unlicenced software or unsolicited email, so long as they are getting some information or application for free. Before long, their computer could come under attack from hackers anywhere in the globe. However, if you follow these simply hints, you should be largely free of hackers and the things they do.

Say ‘no’ to porn

A moment’s pleasure could lead to hours and even days of pain. We are talking about accessing porn sites. Not only are these most commercial, they are also the prime target of hackers. There are those who replicate the exact look and feel of a website, but with a slightly different URL. You might mistakenly enter your credit card number and poof, all your bank balance could vanish with it. Another fallout of visiting a porn site is the way your email gets circulated to all and sundry and soon enough, your inbox will be full of trash mail. But the worst possibility is opening your computer up to viruses and worms that could invade your system and divulge sensitive information to a stranger sitting somewhere in cyberspace.

Emails from banks

Be aware of this common scam that is still conning several people into revealing their bank user IDs and passwords. The thing is, these so-called emails from banks look like they came from your bank, Ebay or Paypal. They will say something to the effect of your account needing urgent attention. They ask you to “click here” to log in and deal with the problem. Just remember that banking regulations prohibit banks from asking you to either reveal your bank number of your password. If the email is a fake, clicking on that link will take you to a page which looks like the real thing, but is actually a fake page which is designed to get your account login information. The best way to deal with these emails is to ignore them. And if you think, it’s real, it is still best to NOT click on the link given in the mail. You would rather key in the URL of the bank yourself and log in. The only difference you could find between a fake and genuine URL is the absence of an ‘s’. Eg: https://paypal is a real website, where http://paypal isn’t. ‘S’ stands for ‘secure’.

Online cards

This is easily one of the most vulnerable of the lot. Your friend might unwittingly send you an online greeting card not realising that it could turn out to be a spy software. The way out? Avoid any online greeting card which asks you install some “special” software to your computer before you are able to open the card your friend has sent. According to estimates, 90% of cases such as these are spyware applications. Some of these launch random popup ads when you are just about to open your word or excel files.

Firewall yourself

It’s best not to access the Internet directly through a modem. This allows hackers access to your system if they figure out your exact location. The best way is to use a router or a software or hardware-based firewall to guard your system from being accessed by unwanted elements in cyberspace. This becomes absolutely necessary if your computer is always on and always connected to the Internet.

Wireless security

With multiple computers at home, there are many of us who use wireless Internet. However, it’s important to secure local area network. Because if you do not, anyone can access your computer within that wireless network from outside your home. Some ISPs like Verizon’s FIOS service supply routers equipped with wireless security. And if you buy a wireless router, ensure you’ve also got yourself wireless security. Don’t operate your system unless you’ve got this on board.

Stay away from freewares and sharewares

Most sharewares and freewares have spyware embedded within them. Therefore, before installing any, it’s best to Google about the application you want to install, and see if people are complaining about adware and stuff of that nature. Kazaa is a file-sharing application. But did you know that it inundates your computer with adware once you install it? Well, there are many lesser-known ones that do that. Therefore, avoid it. And when in doubt, google.

Junk mail

There are several junk mails inundating your inbox. While some of it goes directly to your trash can, the others that make it past your email sensor might not be as innocent. In fact, it helps if you label it spam, so your email service provider identifies and dumps it in the trash can the next time this address sends you an email. But, never, and I repeat never, reply to these spam mails asking them to remove your name from their mailing list. This will not only tell them that this is a genuine ID, it will lead to many more spam mails from different email IDs. One example of a genuine email ID is where the sender clearly mentions a physical address in the email.

Forms in emails

Yes, sometimes it can get weirder. There have been cases where people have been asked to fill in surveys, information and stuff about themselves and their interests within the email itself. Now you have no idea how this email data will be used. Some have even received emails asking them for their PIN number. Therefore, desist from filling out forms in emails. Better to be safe than sorry later.

Warez sites

Much like porn sites, warez sites are as bad. The owners of these sites usually have no sense of ethics and you’re more likely to encounter PC infections on such sites. Warez software is unlicensed software. If you are one of those who find and install paid software for free by finding cracked software and installing it, it’s not without danger. To begin with, it’s illegal and could lead to stiff imposition of fines and even a jail term. But the worse part is that could make your system prone to computer viruses.

So the watchword is to stay away from the bad guys – questionable sites, unsolicited email, freeware, shareware, among others – and you will be a lot better protected from hackers and Internet scams.

Ultra portable cameras. Which ones to buy…

These are a few, though rare, tips that you need to look into before buying any ultra portable digital camera. Its functionality and convenience that should determine your choice. Here are a few tips that could swing the pendulum either way…
Form factor
Ultra compact sized cameras might be easy to fit into your pocket and carry around, but there is a downside to them: they can make controlling the shots quite difficult. Particularly models like the Fuji Z3, Nikon S7 and the Samsung NV3, all of which are exceptionally thin. However, Canon IXUS and Panasonic FX01 provide the right balance of shape and size. They are small, but a bit stout so they fit the hand really well and make it easier to shoot. The other good ones include the Kodak dual lens cameras with their V610 and V705 models.

Types of lenses
Different cameras have different lenses. Take a look at the four different types and decide what suits you best. There are the telephoto lenses that offer zoom capabilities that are usually 3X optical. A wide angle lens offers a much larger frame allowing you to capture better landscape shots. Dual lens cameras combine a wide angle and telephoto lens together to give you the best of both. However, in the small size lenses, they end up compromising quality in favour of versatility. Telescopic lenses enable a much sleeker look with no protruding lenses. The Samsung NV3 and Fuji that use these lenses appear compact but might suffer a bit on quality. But go ahead if you are looking for extreme portability.
For good quality, go for telephoto lens with wide-angle capabilities like the Canon IXUS 850IS and Panasonic Lumix FX01.

Features
Technological marvels abound in every camera model. It depends on what you want from the camera before you freeze on any model. Take the Samsung NV3. It is the only camera in its price range that has a Personal Media Player and MP3 player. You can play both Mpeg4 videos and MP3 audio. It also has an inbuilt speaker if you find your headphones uncomfortable. Besides, its LCD’s resolution, refresh rate and viewing angle make it a great pick. Nikon sports the biggest three-inch screen, but Panasonic has the most responsive LCD: it gives good refresh rates and colour reproduction. Canon is good but not as much as Panasonic. The Kodak cameras have the worst refresh screens: they are exceptionally grainy. Cameras come with various scene modes to help you shoot pictures in different settings, come rain, sunshine or snow. Most have 10 modes; however Kodak V610 has 21 different shooting modes. It’s a problem of plenty. Can you find the right mode before the moment is past? One big reason we carry ultra portable cameras is to take a shot whenever, wherever and most times, as soon as we spot a Kodak moment. Therefore, start-up time becomes critical. However, most cameras score on this, so no worry.

Design
It’s also important to have the best controls to enhance your photo-taking capabilities. Nikon, Fuji and Canon provide immaculate menus to access all the features in a jiffy. Kodaks are great for two-handed operation as the controls are well spread out and well marked. However, some Samsung models don’t score well on this front. The cameras also need to be of outstanding build quality to withstand the situations they go through. Thankfully, most branded cameras are good, particularly Nikon and Canon. They feel nice and are rugged to boot.

Photo challenge
The best way to check the photo-taking capabilities is to do a test-run before buying them. And what are you checking for? Three things: do they fare better in good light conditions and bad in low light or vice versa? How well is the macro feature (extreme close up)? Do they capture the correct skin tones? How good is the detailing and focusing capabilities? How good are they in outdoor and indoor shooting? We found that Fuji, Canon and Nikon score in this feature. The Kodaks lose out at the cost of providing versatility. Panasonic scores in indoor photography.

Overall
Fujifinepix, Panasonic and Canon come out trumps on most of the capabilities mentioned above. But then again, the choice is left to you and what you want. However, don’t go by the megapixels. Most digital cameras are used to print 4×6 photographs for which even a 5.1 megapixel camera is good enough. It can produce as good a result as any other camera which has a 10.1 megapixel function.

Email clients and their idiosyncracies!

First things first. What’s an email client? Short answer: email that you check using your web browser. Outlook Express and Thunderbird are referred to as email ‘clients’. They’re programmes on your computer whose main goal in life is to manage your email. An email client therefore is a computer program that is used to read and send e-mail. Protocols supported by email clients include POP3 and IMAP. IMAP and the updated IMAP4 are optimised for storage of e-mail on the server, while the POP3 protocol generally assumes that the e-mail is downloaded to the client. The SMTP protocol is used by most email clients to send e-mail.

Here goes the list…

BECKY! INTERNET MAIL 2.29

It’s a software specifically designed for the Internet e-mail in 1996. Today, it has become one of the most successful shareware e-mail products. With the totally renewed Becky! Ver.2, it’s become more stable, fast, and feature-rich without losing its most important virtue: ease of use. You can create multiple mailboxes and multiple ‘profiles’ for each mailbox. This feature is especially useful if you use a laptop. You can switch between several different settings, like ‘LAN’ and dialup, for the same mailbox. You can write HTML e-mail with Becky! With a unique ‘Reminder’ capability, you will receive e-mail from ’you’ on the scheduled date. You can even schedule sending e-mail messages to someone else. You don’t have to remember your friends’ birthdays — Becky! does. It also comes with a PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) plug-in preinstalled, which lets you encrypt messages before sending them. Only one minus point. It’s priced at $40. Seems too much for just an email client.

EUDORA 7.1

With this client, you can play your music for new mail and filters by choosing files from your downloaded music. What’s more, Eudora 7.1 has the ability to save search criteria. It allows you to add a picture or logo to your signature. There’s ScamWatch, a new feature that combats ‘phishing’ schemes that use disguised URL’s to gather personal information. Eudora now detects if the URL in the link differs suspiciously from the host name and warns you to exercise caution before making the connection. But the best part is the improved IMAP that synchronises and accesses email from multiple computers and locations. A special mention must be made of Eudora Sharing Protocol (ESP). This automatically syncs and shares files with family, friends and co-workers. No need for a separate server or resending large attachments. What’s more, Eudora shows Email Usage Stats that offers private, personal and interesting insight to your day-to-day email activity and patterns. It’s a good email client and comes in three versions: paid, sponsored and Lite. The Paid and Sponsored have the same features, except that the Sponsored version has adware. Lite versio has fewer features. At the end of the day, Eudora is a good email client, but will be somewhat tough to get used to. What’s more, Eudora is all set to go open source anytime now.

INCREDIMAIL Xe

With so much colour and animations, this is really for kids being introduced to the world of email. But it’s definitely the best looking email clients around. Enjoy a huge gallery filled with 1000’s of emoticons. Place cool emoticons in your email messages. What’s more, IncrediMail has 1000’s of email backgrounds you can use in your email messages. See your messages change into exciting 3D objects like a sailing boat or flying helicopter when sending, receiving and even deleting your email. It also allows for personal handwritten signatures, unique fonts, old typewriter typing sounds, multimedia attachment preview, capturing animations from the web, flash window indicating time and email status, easy placement of your pictures in emails and on the fly spellchecker. IncrediMail has the ability to read POP mail without downloading it. This way, you can delete unwanted mail directly from the POP3 serve.

I.SCRIBE 1.88

i.Scribe is a remarkably compact email program with an easy to use interface and some excellent features, including a split view of folders and items, signatures, drag and drop, preview and more. The program does not require an install and can be run from a floppy disk or USB stick, if needed. It allows you to manage email accounts, check your mail periodically, preview mail on the server, colour code your messages, preview them on the server and more. i.Scribe can import existing mail from Outlook Express, Netscape, Outlook and Unix MBOX. Additional features include plug-in support, proxy support, ESMTP authentication, message templates, Bayesian spam filter and more. A very capable little email program with a ton of features, great as an alternative to the big guys, or as mobile solution on a USB drive. The best part of this is that it’s jst 790KB, requires no installation and can be carried around on a thumb drive. It’s an open source cross-platform email client, more popular with OSes other than Windows.

MULBERRY 4.0.6

Mulberry’s biggest plus-point is its scalable platform. It supports Linux, Windows and Mac OS X. So what does that make it? A high-performance, scalable, and graphically groovy Internet mail client. It uses the IMAP protocol for accessing mail messages on a server, the standard SMTP protocol for sending messages and IMSP for remote preferences. The only big problem is its ease of use. To a newbie, it could take some time to configure a new mail account due to its bad interface. But that doesn’t mean, it doesn’t have its advantages. There’s the Speak mail feature that uses the installed text-to-speech engine in the OS to read your email to you. The search engine is simple but powerful. It’s a free software, so you can always give it a try. It’s a powerful email client that supports almost every platform.

PEGASUS 4.4

It is a free, standards-based electronic mail client suitable for use by single or multiple users on single computers or on local area networks. It is extremely feature-rich and powerful, yet remains small and fast. It comes equipped with an all-new automatic picture-loading options and anti-phishing protection. Though it’s one of the oldest email clients around, it comes with an exhaustive help system. Important because its interface takes time to getting used to. Though Pegasus can manage multiple accounts of each type, it does not support Atom or RSS feeds. And yes, HTML-formatted mails can be composed here. Pegasus can also work with third-party email encryption solutions.

SYLPHEED 2.2.10

It is a simple, lightweight but feature-filled and easy-to-use open source email client that works with Windows and Linux. It has a well-polished and comfortable user interface. It has many features such as multiple accounts, thread display, powerful filtering, various search interface, spell checking, and junk mail control. It supports common email protocols such as POP3, IMAP4rev1, SMTP, and security features such as GnuPG and SSL/TLSv1. It is also fully internationalised and multilingualised. It not only supports RSS feeds, but also IPv6, the next generation Internet Protocol. The user interface is similar to Outlook and therefore quite comfortable to work with. Messages can be composed only as text, but you can use HTML messages.

THE BAT! HOME EDITION 3.85.03

It is a powerful email client with a friendly, cool interface. It has every feature an advanced user will ever need. The Sorting Office is a powerful filtering system, not only sorts your incoming, outgoing, read, and replied messages to folders, but also can auto-respond; reply with a custom template; forward, redirect, print, or export messages; send reading confirmations; run an external program and more. Message parking is designed to prevent accidental deletion of a valuable message. When a message is parked, you will not be able to move it to another folder, nor will it be deleted or automatically purged. The message dispatcher is special feature of The Bat!, which lets you look at the messages stored on your POP3 or IMAP mail server without downloading them. This is very useful for managing your mail remotely, for example leaving “that copy of the huge document” on the server until you get home but retrieving and reading the urgent memos while still on the mobile connection. With features like Scheduler and Memo, The Bat! competes head to head with Outlook, and is good even for corporate and can also work as a server on your home network. Synchronisation and backups are also easily achievable. It costs only $24.50, which is just right.

AND FINALLY…

Many of these email clients are good to a particular segment of the user, be it individual, corporate, teenagers or adults. For example, IncrediMail works well for the kids because of its colourful animation.

However, if you are looking for better features than the average email client, go for The Bat. Since it connects seamlessly to the Microsoft Exchange Server, it’s great for corporate users.

And if you are always on the move and still need to be connected by email, opt for i.scribe. Not only does it password protect your email folder on a portable drive but also has features that lets you preview mails on the POP3 server without downloading them.

If you are thinking of opting for Thunderbird 1.5, just know this. It works well for a home user with its limited options, be it search parameters or message filters (rules), but otherwise it’s no great shakes.

Outlook Express is great because of the ease of use and speed. It scores purely on performance and it is the only email client that supports all required protocols: POP3, Imap, NNTP and even Chat (IRC). The only minus point is that it’s also the least secure email client, prone to worms and viruses.

So the watchword is don’t go by my word. Opt for an email client that is most suited to your needs. It’s an individual decision. Stick by it.

Want to send large files but don’t know how?

Say goodbye to bounced emails, clogged inboxes, FTP servers and overnight courier services to deliver CDs and DVDs. YouSendIt.com lets you send, track and receive files electronically. It is one of the popular digital delivery services on the web. The free service (file under 100MB) is quite simple to use on YouSendIt, it is accessible right from the homepage, no need to register to send a file under 20 MB. But if you register and opt for a free Lite Account, you could send files up to 100 MB with a 1 GB monthly download limit. However, if you want to send multiple files up to 2GB each and several other features like ad-free experience, you would have to pay $29.99/month or $329.99/year for a Business Account. For fewer facilities, you could go for a Pro Account for $9.99/month or $109.99/year.
Now here is how it works:
1. To send a file, enter the recipient email addresses and an optional message
2. Attach your file and click “send it”
3. Your recipients receive an email that lets them immediately click and download the file.

How to open a website in your own language

Most new versions of browsers like Opera, Mozilla and Netscape support different languages, but if you want to hold on to your Internet Explorer browser and still want to open websites in your own language, your IE requires a plugin.

Using your IE, visit www.idnnow.com/index.jsp to download and install the program. Click on the “Download now” link, and after reading the licence contract, confirm with “I Agree”. After installation, confirm a “yes” if there’s a security warning. Without re-starting domain names in any language can be called.

However, problems could crop up if you are visiting multi-language sites. IE might ask for re-installation of plugins. Don’t. It only means the options in the browser aren’t properly configured.

Open “Tools/Internet Options” and on “Advanced” tab in the “Browsing” section, activate the “Enable third-party browser extensions” option. It will take effect after you restart Internet Explorer. Confirm the setting with “Apply” and “Ok”.

On restarting IE, your problem would have been taken care of.

Web-camming tips

Since many video blogs are quite popular these days, here is one very handy tip on making the most of your webcam, even if it happens to be a really cheap one. Watch this easy-to-implement video, and you know what I am talking about. It lasts less than 2 minutes, so it saves your time as well.
Best of luck.

Making $2 in a jiffy!

This was waiting to happen. With so many consumer review sites crowding the Internet, how do you stand out from the crowd? Offer more money. And that is exactly what this new Silicon Valley startup is offering: $2 for the first 3000 reviews to drive more traffic to their review site.

While it’s still in its beta state with a Google Page Rank of 1/10, if you enroll now, you have an early mover advantage. This is particularly good for those who are already reviewing on other websites to come here and make more money out of it. Right now, sites like Ciao in the UK offer a paltry sum. And again, this is determined by the number of people who read and comment on your post.

But over here, you are getting a fixed sum for just posting your review. Ofcourse, once this site becomes popular, the rules of the game might change and either become like Ciao, or even Moutshut that offers nothing but virtual gifts. While I like the monetising idea, I am not sure if I would derive much benefit from it right now. With most reviews not getting rated by fellow reviewers (because it’s still new to the game), one might not get immediate satisfaction of having posted a good review. After all, the greatest incentive to a reviewer is the feeling that he is being read and is playing a big part in influencing someone’s purchasing decisions. That is yet to happen on this site.
As they say, there are two sides to everything. If you are in it only for the money, go for it. If you want to be in it for greater readership, wait.

Tips and tricks on monetising your blog

Ofcourse, the headline is instant eye-grab material. You will be salivating to read the next few sentences on how to monetise your blog. I have read tons of stuff on how to monetise your blog and here is what I have found out…

1. First and foremost, get your own domain name. Many affiliate marketing firms and even text link ads don’t work on platforms like WordPress. (I am soon going to start my own blog where I own the domain name).

2. Write content that’s genuine, honest, insightful and original. In the beginning, just keep at gaining a steady readership through your content.

3. Once you gain a critical mass of readers (both through RSS feed subscribers and site visitors), that’s when you should begin to monetise your blog.

4. Many sites like reviewme.com and kontera.com will not even accept you if your traffic rank is below 500,000 hits a month. Therefore, it’s important to get there with great content.

5. Promote your blog on social networking sites, emails, messengers, chat status messages, and through other blogs and websites… it could even be stuff like leaving an insightful comment on other blog posts.

6. Linking to other popular blogs and asking them to reciprocate the gesture works wonders.

7. Make the most of link festivals like April Fools Day to make unrealistic announcements that you made an X amount of money through your blog and so on. This will let many people forward your blog post and you will get so many more new visitors to your site. After that, it all depends on whether your site has enough engaging content to keep them hooked and they don’t mind the con game.

8. Read. Study. Assimilate from the success stories of other bloggers, most notably John Chow dot Com. Last heard, this guy made a cool $31,000 from his blog in March 2008. This is how he made his moolah…
* Private Ad Sales: $15,230.00
* Affiliate Commissions: $7,729.37
* ReviewMe: $5,000.00
* Text Link Ads: $2,031.90
* Kontera: $1,000.00
* TTZ Media: $384.24
* FeedBurner: $45.73
* Subscription: $20.00
* Grand Total: $31,441.24

Here’s a detailed report on how he managed it ( Blog income report March 2008). I highly recommend his blog. Not only will his reports inspire you, but subscribing to his blog posts should give you enough dope on how to go about making your blog more profitable.

PCs vs iMacs

If you are a die-hard Apple fan, I would be too happy to piss on your parade. No, not because I envy you, but because I have reasons other than merely emotional. I have five hard reasons why PCs stand up to iMacs.
But first off: I’m no Mac user. Or an iPod or iPhone owner. But I love them. Yes, I love Apple. Because they don’t have a single bug unlike the Microsofts of the world who have monopolised our computing systems. It’s just that I can’t afford a Mac. Not yet atleast. However, that’s not to say Apple is good all the way. Here are a few reasons why Macs still suck.
1. PCs Are Better For Games.
2. PCs Are Better Media Machines.
3. PCs Are More Cost-Effective.
4. Apple Is Fascist.
5. It’s Still a PC World Out There.
Don’t believe any of this, then maybe you should read FIVE REASONS WHY PCs ARE BETTER THAN MACs.

Email hoaxes

Someone sent me this about email hoaxes that are most popular and there are many variations of these still floating around in cyberspace. Be aware and beware!

Okay, first things first. If you have an e-mail account, then you must be familiar with emails like Bill Gates sharing his fortune, Microsoft’s lottery promotion, someone in Nigeria requesting you to be a partner to transfer massive amount of money to his account and many more. How many of you have ever believed these e-mails to be true and took further initiatives like providing required details in the e-mails (in case of Microsoft lottery) or forwarding the mails to your friends (in case of Bill Gates fortune) as said in them. Many people have fallen prey to these false e-mails otherwise known as Hoax e-mails. A hoax e-mails is something that is not true but create an impression that it is real. Here are a few of them.

1. Olympic Torch: This e-mail warns you about a virus which opens an Olympic torch on your computer and consequently burns the C drive on your hard disk. Watch out. Yours may be burnt too!

2. Hotmail hoax: This e-mail tells that due to large number of sign-ups for hotmail, it is running out of resources so if someone does not receive this e-mail in his inbox within a month’s time, his account will be deleted. This is to find out which users are using their hotmail account. Alas I am still able to access my hotmail!!!

3. Nokia Is Giving Away Phones For free:  This e-mail claims that Nokia is doing a word of mouth promotion for its product and if you send this mail to X number of people and also a copy to a nokia e-mail ID then you will be able to receive a phone.

4. Missing child: There are several of this kind. These e-mails usually contains a picture of a girl or a guy and claim that they are missing. Passing the e-mails may eventually be read by someone who can then find the girl.

5. E-mail lottery: One of the rapidly circulating lottery e-mail is Microsoft award promotion lottery by Microsoft UK. And this e-mail has fooled many people to believe that they have indeed won a lottery and they send the required details as requested by mail.

6. Bill Gates fortune: This tells that Microsoft and AOL is jointly running a beta test where Microsoft is going to give away $245 for each copy of e-mail sent from your account. Bill Gates is obviously not so rich to waste his money like this.

7. Orkut is closing: A lady called Dianna addresses this e-mail to Orkut users that Orkut is no longer having any name space so they are going to terminate the account of inactive users. Afterwards Orkut will be a paid service. Nothing has happened to anyone who didn’t follow the advice given in the email.

8. Huge amount of money in foreign account: This kind of e-mail has many variations. Usually a manager of any bank will be telling that he discovered an abandoned account with a huge sum of money and he needs a foreign partner to transfer this money. I receive atleast 4-5 of this kind daily. Weird!!weird!!weird!!

9. Beautiful mummy: This can be classified as a chain letter rather than a hoax e-mail. it has a picture of a girl which the e-mail claims to be a dead baby which is 80 year old now and still looks alive. This e-mail tells to forward it to X number of people to bring good luck failing which it will bring bad luck and it also gives some example on how people got benefitted by forwarding it.

10. Enter reverse ATM PIN to dial the police: This is the most absurd and funny hoax of all. The e-mail tells you that if you are ever forced to withdraw money from ATM, then you can enter the PIN in the reverse. This would dial a nearby police station and the police will come to your rescue.