Jammed: Full into Capacity

Today, more and more people are using their computers for everything from communication to online banking and investing to shopping.  As we do these things on a more regular basis, we open ourselves up to potential hackers, attackers and crackers.  While some may be looking to phish your personal information and identity for resale, others simply just want to use your computer as a platform from which to attack other unknowing targets.  Below are a few easy, cost-effective steps you can take to make your computer more secure.

1. Always make backups of important information and store in a safe place separate from your computer.
2. Update and patch your operating system, web browser and software frequently.  If you have a Windows operating system, start by going to www.windowsupdate.microsoft.com and running the update wizard.  This program will help you find the latest patches for your Windows computer.  Also go to www.officeupdate.microsoft.com to locate possible patches for your Office programs.
3. Install a firewall.  Without a good firewall, viruses, worms, Trojans, malware and adware can all easily access your computer from the Internet.  Consideration should be given to the benefits and differences between hardware and software based firewall programs.
4. Review your browser and email settings for optimum security.  Why should you do this?  Active-X and JavaScript are often used by hackers to plant malicious programs into your computers.  While cookies are relatively harmless in terms of security concerns, they do still track your movements on the Internet to build a profile of you.  At a minimum set your security setting for the “internet zone” to High, and your “trusted sites zone” to Medium Low.
5. Install antivirus software and set for automatic updates so that you receive the most current versions.
6. Do not open unknown email attachments.  It is simply not enough that you may recognize the address from which it originates because many viruses can spread from a familiar address.
7. Do not run programs from unknown origins.  Also, do not send these types of programs to friends and coworkers because they contain funny or amusing stories or jokes.  They may contain a Trojans horse waiting to infect a computer.
8. Disable hidden filename extensions.  By default, the Windows operating system is set to “hide file extensions for known file types”.  Disable this option so that file extensions display in Windows.  Some file extensions will, by default, continue to remain hidden, but you are more likely to see any unusual file extensions that do not belong.
9. Turn off your computer and disconnect from the network when not using the computer.  A hacker can not attack your computer when you are disconnected from the network or the computer is off.
10. Consider making a boot disk on a floppy disk in case your computer is damaged or compromised by a malicious program.  Obviously, you need to take this step before you experience a hostile breach of your system.

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For months now, this blog has been freed from comment spam I used to experience before because I found out the most effective ways to avoid WordPress spam.

1. Deactivating Akismet. Previously, I was getting at least 200 spam comments per day. I had to scan them one-by-one because some comments were filtered as spam by Akismet. Out of frustration, I deactivated the plugin with thoughts of completely avoiding these spam messages. True enough, I have not received spam comments since then.

Note: Do not delete Akismet from the plugins directory because you’re blog may experience another spam flood.

2. Install a spam blocking plugin. Currently I am using Matriphe Keycode, one of the best anti spam plugins I’ve ever used.
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Get-Paid-To (GPT) sites (e.g. paid surveys, get paid to click, get paid to read e-mails, get paid to surf, get paid to post, get paid to complete offers, get paid to blog, get paid to socialize, etc.) are the most attractive money-making opportunities to internet users, especially to starters. I, too, had several experiences with paid-to programs when I was just learning that the internet promises real money through these programs. Even now, I am a member of some GPT programs.

Paid-to programs are appealing because most of these do not require payment for registration and you can spend any amount of time at your convenience. With numerous paid-to sites coming out, you can hardly distinguish which are worth trying (and is really paying) and which are plain scams.

Most of these programs require you to pay a certain amount to be a premium members. Being a premium member entitles you to earn more with your account. Who wouldn’t want to earn more, right? So you pay for the premium package. During the first days, you were elated because you see your earnings getting bigger and bigger. Then suddenly, you wake up one day losing everything. You were scammed! There is an increasing number of users who succumb to this kind of easy money but wake up one day getting scammed because they forgot the most important step before joining and putting money in these programs – they failed to investigate
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The Google punishment in the form of Google PR drops, due to paid links created a buzz in the blogosphere. Many had been affected, and that includes me. And I want to get my PR back. Probloggers advised to add a rel=nofollow on all paid links but it maybe too cumbersome, especially if you have posted quite a number of paid reviews.

I found a WordPress plugin that will help me to easily put nofollow in all the paid links in this blog without manually adding rel=nofollow to the links. No Old Spam Links plugin will automatically do it for me.

What does the plugin do?

• It add “nofollow” to all links on any domain on a blacklist. The “nofollow” is applied in posts and comments.
• Specify one white list “all links dofollow” category which overrides the blacklist.
• Specify an “all no follow” category that adds no follow to all links after a specified number of days. It will be easier for you to add no=follow to all paid links especially if it’s under one category.

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Recently, Tim of BeThumbed PayPal account was hacked because of filling up a fake form which was purportedly sent by a Paypal staff. I’ve also received a similar e-mail, but I just ignored it. Good thing I was busy blogging at that time that I totally forgot about the e-mail. I also logged in directly to their website to read if similar announcement appeared in their “What’s New” section.

Paypal had been particular in securing their merchants’ accounts. They provided tips on how to protect your account.

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As celebration for their 10-year anniversary, Yahoo! Mail will offer unlimited mail storage capacity starting on May 2007 as announced on Tuesday.

The free version of Yahoo! Mail (basic), which is used by majority of users, offers only 1GB of storage and limited features such as the limited 10MB attachments. You need to upgrade to Yahoo! Mail plus to get more features you want including a “virtually unlimited” 2GB mail storage capacity and larger attachments.

Yahoo! Mail used to be the “giant” in mail industry but when Google started Gmail, millions have converted to it as their primary e-mail provider. This was due to the larger storage capacity – 2GB – and several other great features.
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