This Week's Edition
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Welcome to this week's edition of the Computer Kindergarten Newsletter.
Today is Sunday, Sunday, January 22, 2012
In this Issue:
Special Feature: Top Scams of 2011 and 2012
Tips & Tricks: Top 25 Most Popular Anti-Spam Tips, Tricks and Secrets: How to Disguise Your Email Address in Newsgroups, Forums, Blog Comments, Chat
This Week's Topic: Create Keyboard Shortcuts to Programs in Windows
iPad Tips: Getting Started with the iPad
Question: Printing This Newsletter
Websites of Interest: Tips for Safe Snow Shoveling; Manuals Online; Exercise Tracker; Fruit and Veggie Guru
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Special Feature: Top Scams of 2011 and 2012
By Audri Lanford of scambusters.org
There's some good news and bad news sprinkled around our annual look at the top scams of the past and coming years.
The good news is that, according to the most recently available research, the number of identity theft and fraud victims in the US has dropped sharply. The bad news is that, on average, the out-of-pocket cost to individual victims went up, and identity theft remains in the number one slot in our top 10 scams list both in 2011 and 2012.
One other bit of disappointing news: Just as we were all wising up to the "lost inheritance" or money-smuggling types of Nigerian scams, a massive new wave of bogus online romance tricks is pushing them back up the charts.
And, oh yes, lotteries. When will we ever learn that you don't win lotteries that you didn't enter and that you should never pay money to collect your supposed winnings? It seems there's a never-ending supply of victims.
Other notable trends for 2011 and 2012 -- the continuing growth of social networking scams (despite efforts to beef up security and privacy) and hacking-related data breaches. Expect to see more of these.
In our last edition of this newsletter, we discussed the top scam results for 2011. Please visit our newsletter archives to review the article:
http://computerkindergarten.com/011512.html
Here’s our top scams forecast for 2012.
10. Travel scams. Timeshare schemes will be with us of course, but look out for a surge in free flight and vacation scams -- telephone and snail-mail offers front-loaded with service charges. After you pay, you find the offer has expired. The London 2012 Olympics likely will also be a magnet for ticket scams.
9. Money-for-nothing scams. This is our new catch-all label for doorstep and charity scams. You pay money to a charity collector -- on your doorstep, in the mall or online -- often after a natural disaster, but your cash ends up in the collector's pocket. Also on your doorstep: bogus and crooked contractors who take your money for work you didn't need or which they don't bother to do.
8. Economy-related scams. Times are still uncertain, but other, more lucrative scams will likely push this group of con tricks that includes bogus job schemes further down our top 10 scams list. Foreclosure scams might start to cool off but other fee-laden loan modification and bogus grant tricks will persist.
7. Investment scams. We haven't seen the end of crooked Ponzi schemes yet, and with low interest rates, high precious metal prices and turbulent markets, scammers have latched on to gold, copper and currency trading as a lure to investors. Anything that pushes up oil prices will also boost bogus energy-saving products.
6. Lottery scams. Despite stacks of media publicity and tragic reports of huge financial losses, people continue to be hoodwinked by emails and letters saying they've won a fortune on a lottery. Scammers use celebrity or official-sounding names to make their claims more credible and keep lotteries at the halfway point in our top scams list. Once a victim is hooked with a small initial "processing" payment, the scammers just keep coming back for more.
5. Skimming and ATM scams. We've broadened this top 10 scams category slightly to include tricks that not only steal card information but also block ATMs from paying out. The crook returns to take your money after you've left to complain. This crime is seriously on the rise because it's so easy.
4. Nigerian scams. Well, what do you know... now that everyone knows they haven't inherited a fortune, Nigerian scammers have plunged into the lonely-hearts market to make up for lost "business." They frequent online dating agencies, especially targeting older age groups, but also send out emails on-spec, claiming to have fallen for their victims (whom they've never seen!). Romance ensues, followed by a request for money for an air ticket. This and ongoing advance fee scams will push this scam back up our top scams chart.
3. Internet sales. Scammers will try to keep one step ahead of law enforcement and security software, especially with scam shopping websites. These tricks also include bogus shopping comparison sites that pretend to be giving impartial reviews, phony online pharmacies, and "free trial" sites that trick victims into unwittingly signing up for recurring credit card or cell phone charges.
2. Malware. Law enforcement agencies and software companies have been moderately successful in shutting down botnets, used for spamming, and fake anti-virus alerts that trick victims into paying to supposedly secure their PCs. But the scale of the malware industry is phenomenal. Add in the "gray" area of adware we unknowingly allow to install on our PCs, and we can't see any chance of this PC hijacking moving down our top scams rankings.
1. Phishing and identity theft. As we said earlier, our biggest concern is the amount of information hackers have shown themselves capable of stealing by breaking into the networks of firms that hold our personal records. We think this will continue to grow, along with persistent attempts to capture our confidential information through phishing tricks via spoof sites, emails and cell phone text messages.
What our annual list of top scams shows is that crooks continuously change and refine their techniques in their efforts to outwit us all. No doubt they will continue to do so but the decline in identity theft crime gives us some hope that perhaps advances in security technology or just plain user wariness can help protect us.
It's probably too much to hope that we can ever turn the tide against the scammers but by knowing what the top scams are, you can at least reduce your chance of becoming a victim.
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Tips & Tricks: Top 25 Most Popular Anti-Spam Tips, Tricks and Secrets: How to Disguise Your Email Address in Newsgroups, Forums, Blog Comments, Chat
Spam, spam and spam. How to avoid spam, how to filter spam, and how to complain about spam are the items on this menu of junk mail fighting tips. With the help of Heinz Tschabitscher of about.com, we are presenting an ongoing series of tips and tricks that you can use to minimize the amount of junk mail that you will receive in your email inbox.
Spammers use special programs that extract email addresses from chat rooms, web sites — forums and comment sections of blogs in particular — and Usenet postings.
Disguise Your Email Address in Newsgroups, Forums, Blog Comments, Chat
To avoid ending on a spammer's mailing list when you post to a web forum or a newsgroup, you can disguise your email address by inserting something obvious into it.
If my email address is me@example.com, I can modify it to read me@EXAdelete_thisMPLE.com, for example. I will not get spam at that email address since all messages to it will bounce, but people who want to send me an email can still do so after they remove "delete_this" from the address.
Obscuring your email address does make sending mail a bit more difficult. But this is not always a disadvantage.
In our next edition: How to Report Spam with SpamCop
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Today's Topic: Create Keyboard Shortcuts to Programs in Windows
By Lori Kaufman of howtogeek.com
If you prefer using the keyboard over the mouse, you can use the keyboard to quickly and easily open your favorite programs. A quick modification to program shortcuts will get you up and running without installing additional software.
Creating New Keyboard Shortcuts
Open the Start Menu and look for the program, right-click on it, and select properties.
When the properties window opens click in the shortcut key text area. All that you need to do is choose an appropriate letter for the program (i.e. O for Opera, E for Editra, etc.) and type it in the blank. You will not need to type any other keys or combination in…the “Ctrl + Alt +” will be automatically entered for you as soon as you type the letter in. Click OK to finish creating the new keyboard shortcut.
To use the shortcut, hold down the CTRL and ALT keys, and press and release the letter you assigned as the shortcut key.
Those new keyboard shortcuts will speed up access to your favorite software.
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iPad Tips: Getting Started with the iPad
By Patrick Jordan of ipadinsight.com
Have you just got a shiny new iPad as a holiday gift, or maybe just bought one for yourself? Here’s an easy Getting Started Guide that will help you get the most out of your new favorite tablet:
The iPad has been a huge hit ever since it first hit the market back in 2010. It’s an amazing and powerful device, and a joy to use – whether for work or play. I’m hoping this short guide will give you a good jump-start on getting the most out of your iPad.
iPad External Buttons
You’ve probably noticed that the iPad has very few buttons. When holding the iPad in Portrait mode, there is the Power button at the top right, the Home button bottom center, and the Volume and Mute buttons near the top of the right-hand side of the iPad.
How to Power Off the iPad
To power off the iPad, hold down the Power button for a few seconds, until you see the ‘Slide to Power Off’ bar across the top of the screen. Slide across that and the iPad will shut down. To restart it just press the Power button again for about 3 seconds.
Uses for the Home Button
The home button is your key to navigating your way around the iPad. When you are in any application (or app as applications for iPad and iPhone are known) you simply press the home button to return to the home screen, where you’ll see all your app icons.
If you have multiple home screens (which you will if you start adding more apps to your iPad) pressing on the home screen will take you back to the screen that the last used app is located on. To immediately jump back to the first home screen, just press the home button again from whichever screen you landed on.
A double-press on the home button brings up the Multitasking Bar. This bar shows you all of your recently run apps. A single tap on any of them will switch you to that app – so this is a very fast way to switch between apps. From the Multitasking Bar you can also use basic controls for your Music media player app, adjust the brightness on the iPad, and toggle muting of sound on and off.
Dock Connector Port
Just below the home button, on the bottom center of the iPad, is the dock connector port. This is used to plug in your sync and charge cable for the iPad.
In our next edition:
Taking a Screenshot of your iPad Screen
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Question: Printing This Newsletter
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Answer:
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Websites of Interest:
Tips for Safe Snow Shoveling
From the Colorado Spine Institute, this site will explain ways to reduce the stress and strain when shoveling.
http://www.coloradospineinstitute.com/subject.php?pn=wellness-snow-shoveling
Manuals Online
This website has over 600,000 user manuals for products ranging from lawn mowers to refrigerators to digital cameras.
http://www.manualsonline.com/
Exercise Tracker
This site helps you track your exercise routines online by calculating the calories that you burned.
http://www.medhelp.org/land/exercise-tracker
Fruit and Veggie Guru
At this website, not only can you learn all about fruits and vegetables, but you can find some delicious recipes for them as well.
http://www.fruitandveggieguru.com