The Truth Bar

No, this article isn’t about some new, lose-20-pounds-in-a-week, certified-by-some-tan-Southern-California-doctor diet. It’s about cookies on your computer - what they are, why they are there, and what to do about them. Computer cookies actually have quite a bit in common with their baked counterparts - some are good, some are bad, and they have expiration dates.

Cookies are small text files that a server places onto your hard drive whenever you access a given domain. Cookies typically contain information that the website uses to either customize the page you are viewing or otherwise make your web browsing experience more convenient and enjoyable. The information is stored on your hard drive and accessed whenever you go back to the website that originally gave you the cookie. They usually include an expiration date at which point they will be erased from your computer - it could be when you close your browser; or hours, days, months, or years after it is placed. Some don’t expire at all. At the time of this writing I had a cookie stored on my computer that wasn’t set to expire until Wednesday, February 25th, 2195 at 3:45:13 am - I deleted it.

Before you run out to your browser’s options and delete and block all cookies, let me mention a few common uses of cookies:

* Cookies store information for ’shopping carts’ at online stores. When you select an item and place it in the shopping cart, a cookie is created to remember the item and the price so that you can keep shopping. When you are done shopping you simply click the button to check out and the site accesses the information stored in the cookies to complete your order.

* Cookies can be used to remember logins and passwords. While this initially sounds a little disheartening, the purpose is really to save you time. Sites will remember the information for you so you don’t have to type it in each time you want to access information.

* Cookies help websites customize their content and layout for you. If you are a diehard fan of the local college’s basketball team, and you always access the stats and score from the game at a website, that site might use a cookie to send you straight to your team’s page.

* Cookies help identify whether you have already visited a site. They can also count how many times you have visited the site in a given period of time.

* Cookies remember the last page or position you were on at the site. Like a virtual bookmark, this is especially helpful if you are reading online or accessing several pages of information.

There are many other ways cookies can be used, and there is obvious potential for abuse. You probably wouldn’t eat a cookie given to you by a complete stranger, especially if you didn’t know what was in it. The same common-sense principle holds true while you’re online, and exercising a little caution can save you from a lot of heartache later on. Blocking any and all cookies will guarantee no personal information is leaked through the cookies, but many sites will either not be able to or will choose not to interact with you.

The trick, then, is to let the good cookies through while screening out the bad ones, not at all dissimilar to what you do when you hover over the cookie tray at a party - you take the ones you want and leave the rest behind. This can be accomplished in a few different ways.

First, you can periodically delete all the cookies on your hard drive. This will systematically wipe out all unwanted cookies that have made their way to your computer. Unfortunately, it will also take care of all the good cookies too. If you only use the internet occasionally (i.e. a few minutes a week), this option might work for you.

Second, you can try to go about it manually. Many browsers that allow you to block cookies also include a feature that allows you to include a list of sites from which you will allow cookies. The advantage of this method is it places virtually complete control over cookies into your hands, allowing only those that you want to be placed on your hard drive. The disadvantage is that it can become very burdensome (at times downright annoying) having to constantly update the list of allowed sites.

Third, you can call in some third-party software to help out. The best programs will scan your computer to find all the cookies and put them into a table or list. This saves you the trouble of having to dig around your hard drive to find the files yourself (try looking for a folder named “Cookies”). Many programs will also indicate with some degree of confidence whether a given cookie is wanted or unwanted, and provide a convenient way to delete the ones that you decide you don’t want.

Nick Smith is a client account specialist with 10x Marketing - More Visitors. More Buyers. More Revenue. For great software to help delete cookies, check out ContentWatch, Inc.

Spam is one of the curses of the Internet age. But if the clogging of mail boxes with useless emails was bad enough, unsolicited emails aimed at tricking you into giving your valuable passwords, banking and PIN numbers is the most dangerous variety of email that you will ever encounter. This kind of email is known as “phishing” because the unscrupulous authors of these messages are fishing for valuable information which they can use to capture your online identity.

If you think that you won’t be fooled by such tricks, think again. Phishers commonly send emails which look like they come from respected financial institutions, such as PayPal, Visa, Ebay, America Online. The messages spoof the email address of the institutions and the letters have the proper logos and everything. They look real. The subject message usually has a dire warning: “Your Pay Pal Account (or Ebay, or online bank account) has been suspended.” “Warning: Confirm Your Online Banking Account.” These messages look so real, that 5% of recipients respond to them

Naturally if you have a good amount of money in your PayPal or online banking account, you are going to panic when you receive email like this. The first thing to do is to stay calm. Remember, responsible institutions will never suddenly suspend your account or ask you to give personal information in an insecure manner.

Usually the phishing emails will ask you to enter new information for your account and they will give you urls, asking you to click through and log into your account. The urls in the email will look like the log-in addresses for these institutions, but if you put your mouse over them you will see that the actual web address is different.

If you get any email of this type the second rule is never, never click through and try to log in. If you log in with your user name and password, then phishers have captured your password. If you go on to fill out other information such as: bank account numbers, social security number, mother’s maiden name or driver’s license number then the fraudsters will really have you.

If you are worried about your online account and want to see if it is OK. Then go to the home page of PayPal, Ebay or your bank, and log into your account in the customary way using the usual url, such as https://www.paypal.com rather than with the url in the suspectt email. When you get into your account you will probably see that everything is normal. If your institution indeed has a message for you, you will find it in that safe environment without compromising your security. If you are still in doubt, call up your institution using their toll free customer service numbers.

PayPal also has a security section where they tell you what to look for in fraudulent emails. For example, whenever PayPal sends you an email it will always start off with “Dear Donald Nelson,” in my case, or whatever name you used when you signed up. They will not say “Dear Valued Paypal customer.” So log into the proper areas of your institution and learn as much as you can about security procedures.

The third thing to do is to report suspicious email . We have to put these crooks out of business, and that can only happen if we report fraud whenever we see it. You can get quick service from PayPal by forwarding email of this type to spoof@paypal.com. Usually within an hour you will get a reply telling you whether the email comes from PayPal or not. For other instances of Phishing, you can report them to the Anti Phishing Working Group at www.antiphishing.org. This website, staffed by volunteers, has up to date information about the latest scams and is doing its best to make the Internet safer for us.

Finally, if you have given any information to fraudulent websites move swiftly to protect yourself.

Notify your bank, change your passwords for online accounts, and watch your online accounts for any signs of unusual activity. A good guide with useful and detailed information on what to do if you have given out valuable information can be found at http://www.antiphishing.org/consumer_recs2.html

So, enjoy the Internet but take precautions and protect yourself from any devious phishing message which may land in your mail box.

Copyright 2004

Donald Nelson is a web developer, editor, and social worker. He has been
working on the Internet since 1995 and is the proprietor of A1-Optimization,
http://www.a1-optimization.com, a firm providing search engine optimization,
copywriting, reciprocal linking, and other web promotion services. He
publishes a monthly ezine, A1-Web Promotion Tips, available at
http://www.a1-optimization.com/newsletter.html

Wake up! If you haven’t been “taken for a ride” by one or more, less than honest, business web sites yet, while you are trying to make your own web site, you’re lucky! You better learn how to recognize them. For those of us who have already had such an experience, the only hope is that we are smarter than before, and might be alerted sooner by the telltale signs we previously experienced.

The tragedy is that some Internet entrepreneurs building a business web site seem to be scammed over and over again. They trust too much in the integrity of another Internet business web site promotion offering to help them.

Trustworthy web sites don’t have the characteristics you are about to learn. It’s easier to avoid dangerous web sites than to try and get your money back!

Memorize these obvious features of trouble coming down the road!

1. Cold calls and spam e-mails: Either of these should be a loud warning to you. If you answer either, you are setting yourself up for wolverine (an animal that never gives up and will take on a foe that is 5 times his size) attack.

2. Scant credentials: No “about us” page - Can’t find detailed information about the site. If you ask them for more information and you receive only promotional materialsrun!

3. Availability Lacking: You have great difficulty getting someone to the phone/e-mail. No call backs, or they come many days later, and put on hold and dropped off the line frequently should worry you.

4. Lousy HTML editor programs: Find that the program malfunctions repeatedly. Expecting you to work with an old and outdated business web site set of tools speaks to the quality of service you will continue to get.

5. Mentoring sucks: Mentor forgets appointments, can’t remember prior work done with you. Mentoring that requires you to adjust to them, especially when you are paying them, is never acceptable. If they are only there to answer your questions and not to teach you, it ranks at the top of the list of reasons to “get out of town.”

6. Dumb tech help: Find you know more then they do concerning web site glitches. When the tech repeatedly has to ask the other person for answers to your questions, while you are on hold, sends a loud message to your wallet.

7. Demonstrated incompetence: Answers to your questions repeatedly miss the point. If the only responses you get back is for you to do your own looking for the solutions, or when they ask a question about your question (that really burns me), head for the hills!

8. Personnel problems: Never contacted by the same person twice. Fast turnover of their personnel should tell you something is not right in their business. You can easily come up with all the reasons for that.

9. Executive hiding: Can’t ever reach the top person in the business. If you do have a good reason to contact the “top gun”in their business, and you are quickly shuffled to the assistant, then to another assistant, or your e-mail to the CEO is never answered, start packing your bags.

10. Work hours unusual: During the day usually get a “voice mail”- and rarely get a response to your message. If you have paid to use their business tools, and you find out that you can never get to them after 5 PM, or on the weekend, you are being shortchanged.

These are the most blatant reasons to get on your horse and ride awayquickly too!
If you don’t have a horse, have your wife drive you. She has no doubt been waiting for this exact moment to finally dig you out of that money hole you are in.

I suspicion that the ladies who are in that money hole, already have the escape plan in mind.

Summary:

Someday, hopefully it will be legal to publish a list of those Internet web site businesses that cheat you out of your hard earned money. Then every Internet entrepreneur starting a business web site will know who they are. As of now we can only fall back on our careful attention to how we are treated right from the start.

Don’t be too trusting of those business web sites that try to push their web site promotion down your throat. The courage it takes to make your own web site and start your own ebusiness is to be respected.

“The life span of a thought is determined by the extent of attention we put to it.”

(Rev. Fred Price)

The author, Curtis Graham, M.D., is CEO of L & C Internet Enterprises, Inc. For over 38 years in medical practice he has written articles, medical information products for his patients, a book on infertility, and marketing information for his practice. He has been published in Modern Physician, an elite magazine for physician executives, and is credited as an “Expert Author” by Ezine Publishers.

Retirement from medicine now permits expansion of his passion to continue helping people by writing pertinent, practical, and detailed articles about many topics. Check out the website that he and his wife share with a passion: Helping entrepreneurs make their Internet Businesses a success => http://www.EBusinessHelpFirm.com

Please feel free to copy, send, distribute, or make this article available to others that might be interested. In doing so you agree to leave the author’s bio and article intact.

Copyright 2005, Curtis Graham, MD, L & C Internet Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Statistics show that the number of carjackings and car thefts have never been greater. As the criminal element of our society increases in number as well as desperation, thieves have become more brazen than ever before. Rarely can you read a newspaper or watch the daily news that you don’t hear about someone being victimized from car theft or worse, their car being taken from them as they are leaving home, the shopping mail, or even stopping at a red light. What can you do to protect yourself and your vehicle?

Fortunately, technology has provided some ways to help protect us avoid or eliminate such catastrophic incidents. One of the latest innovations available to you is vehicle alarm systems with keyless entry programs. This equipment affords you protection at relatively low costs plus ease of installation. Anything that can get us into the safety of our vehicles quicker provides faster safety. These devices are available with a 500 alarm system and a dual zone shock keyless entry.

In addition to the vehicular alarm system with keyless entry programs, you can have remote starter systems which allows not only quicker entry into your vehicle but immediate departure capability. If you need to leave in a hurry this will allow that. Again, this equipment is affordable and easy to install. No more fumbling around for your keys, using keys to gain entry into your vehicle, inserting the key and turning the engine on, all you have to do is open the door, get in, put the vehicle in gear and press the gas peddle. Talk about safety and protection!

Even with all the new devices and protection equipment technology has provided us, we still need to be prudent in our awareness and behavior. Always be aware of your surroundings and the people near your vehicle. Try to park in well lighted areas, keep your vehicle locked at all times whether you are inside of it or not. Never leave windows open, regardless of how hot it is outside! Don’t make your self a target for opportunistic thieves.

One finally tip for your vehicle protection, especially if you have a heavy foot traveling done the interstate or highway. Not only has technology advanced with new hi-tech radar detectors, they are now available with fully integrated laser scrambler systems, that jam and scrambler the signals for those who would give you a costly speeding ticket.

Happy and safe motoring!

Russell and Claudia Knight are writers and administrators for KnightsSecurity-Protection.com, which specializes in home security systems.