Internet

3 Tips to Spot a Phony Phishing Website on the Internet

Phishing is a criminal activity where scammers use the Internet to fraudulently lure people to reveal personal identity data and financial information. Scammers often send emails with links to fraudulent websites in an attempt to steal financial data. Here are three tips to spot a phony phishing website on the Internet.

Check URL

A URL is the address for a website. Phishing scammers often misspell common words in a URL that appears legitimate to navigate users to a fraudulent webpage. For example, the url https://www.bankofamerica.com is a legitimate website. A scammer may eliminate the “i” in America and unsuspecting users may click on a link received in an email without noticing the missing letter.

2. Check if “https://” is in the Address Bar

Banking and financial transaction websites use the secure encrypted “https://” instead of the unsecure “http://”. Phishing scams that direct people to phony websites on the Internet are often not encrypted and use “http” instead of “https.”

3. Check for Valid SSL Certificate

To verify if a website has a valid secure socket layer (SSL) certificate, in most web browsers you can right click on the webpage, click on properties or view page info, click on security if needed, then click on view certificates. Some banking websites may contain a lock icon at the bottom right of the page. You can verify that the icon is valid by clicking on it which will direct you to the security page. Phony websites often have fake lock icons that shows no information when you point your mouse on the icon or click on it.

Filed Under: Computer, Internet, World Wide Web Tagged With: Internet, Phony Phishing, Website

Tips to Optimize Your Internet Job Search Using Social Media Websites

Image by fredcavazza via Flickr

The job market is more competitive today than it has ever been before. Job search strategies are evolving from the traditional method of posting resumes on job search websites to using social media websites that has revolutionized the Internet industry. Here are some tips to optimize your Internet job search using social media.

Create a Professional Profile on Social Media Websites

Recent surveys in 2010 showed that 92 percent of employers are searching for candidates using social media websites like LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a website that’s geared towards professionals connecting. A great benefit of LinkedIn is getting recommendations from your contacts for your work history. This will help boost your credibility with employers. You can also create a professional profile on other social websites like Facebook and Twitter.

Visit Employers Social Media Page

Most companies nowadays have a Facebook, Twitter or YouTube page. The next time you visit a potential employers website, check to see if they have links to their social media pages. Or you can simply do a search for the company you’re interested in directly on those social websites. Utilizing a potential employers social page will allow you to network with employees and clients. This can get you a step closer to the hiring manager for your desired position.

Subscribe to Employers RSS Feeds

RSS stands for really simple syndication. Companies use RSS feeds to release up-to-date information about business ventures, products or services. Subscribing to an employer’s RSS press feed will not only keep you informed but you can use this knowledge to your advantage when writing your cover letter and on interviews.

Filed Under: Advacements, Internet Tagged With: Internet, Job Search, Websites

Borrowing Online

Sometimes in life, you just have to borrow some money to get you through to your next regular paycheck. While this is unfortunate, you cannot always help the curve balls that life is going to throw your way. When you take out a payday loan, it can be a stressful process, and it can even be an insecure one if the company does not run a tight ship. Fortunately, there are many options available that can help you keep the process simple, secure and speedy.

For starters, look online for fax-less lenders. For one thing, many people no longer have fax machines because they no longer have landline telephones. For another thing, fax machines do not send your information (such as your bank statements and identification) in a non-secure way, so anybody could intercept it and use it against you later. But being fax less is not the only benefit of working with an online lender. It is also a whole lot faster and easier to deal with them than it is to stand in a line at a brick-and-mortar shop.

Using an online company also prevents other mishaps. When you are physically carrying your information, it can always fall away and go unnoticed…except to an identity thief. As far as the waiting in line thing goes, you are also going to save yourself a lot of time if you just don’t do it. Don’t you have better things to do than hang out waiting in a line somewhere?

With a company like PayDay One, you can sit in the comfort of your own home and get your application filled out, filed and approved. The lender will direct deposit the funds within the specified time frame. This is a whole lot easier than being handed a big wad of cash, and it can let you pay bills faster.

The Internet makes borrowing emergency cash easy and secure. It may be just what you need.

Filed Under: General, Internet Tagged With: Borrowing, Internet, payday loan

The Internet leads to Access to Your Finances

The development of the internet has lead to a greater availability of information for all that have access to it. Only ten or fifteen years ago most contact needed to be made in person, on the telephone or through mail. The fax machine was also available but was limited, generally to businesses.

To find information such as a personal credit report took days or more to get back. Today, something like a credit report can be retrieved for free on the internet. Even today a credit report requested on the internet can give you immediate information while a request via phone or mail will take fifteen days.

To get your free credit report simple go to www.annualcreditreport.com. At that site, first select your state and push the button “request report”. Follow the instructions and within a short time after verification of your identity you will be able to view your credit report.

This is only one example of the accessibility of information because of the internet. In addition banking has never been more accessible. Not only checking balances and making transfers but also paying bills directly from your account. Even taxes can be done online, with a much shorter wait for your refund, if one is available to you. To file your taxes online all one needs to do is visit the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) website and look for the link to free filing. Without the internet most of the transactions listed here will take a day to months to have competed. The availability of the internet has changed that.

Filed Under: General, World Wide Web Tagged With: Finances, Internal Revenue Service, Internet

Web Hosting Scams – What Some Web Hosting Providers Aren’t Telling You

It’s hard to separate fact from fiction in advertising, and certainly no less so when dealing with web hosting providers. Bold, broad-sweeping claims are endlessly repeated in a shameless effort to keep you from reading the fine print. In an age where it seems there are almost as many web hosting providers as there are websites to be hosted, competition is fierce, and competing web hosting providers will say almost anything to get you to sign up with them.

That’s why you need to know what to look for, how to read between the lines, so that you don’t fall victim to any of the most common scams that plague the internet in the guise of once-in-a-lifetime offers you absolutely can’t refuse.

Free Web Space: Yes, some web hosting providers will give you 5 or 10 MB of web space for no charge, however (and we know you’ve heard this phrase before…) certain restrictions apply. Make sure you know what they are.

Unlimited Bandwidth: There’s no such thing, plain and simple. The web hosting providers themselves have limitations imposed on their bandwidth; how can they offer you any more than that? They can’t.

When web hosting providers offer “unlimited” bandwidth it means they’ve estimated how much usage their average customer could ever possibly need, thereby giving the illusion of unlimited bandwidth.

Free Domain Names: Sure, they’re free, but so’s dirt. You want some free dirt? We didn’t think so. Free domain names are about as valuable. First of all, they look something like this:

www. webhostingprovidersname.com/user/usersname.html (or some equally excruciating variation thereof).

Now, consider this:

First, most internet surfers are wise to these types of URLs; people know that companies with domain names like these are not usually the most well-established or reputable businesses online.

Second, the more slashes your URL contains, the lower your page rank.

And third, no one will remember the name of your website!

These are just a few of the reasons why free domain names aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.

Domain Registration: Now, this by itself is no scam; to the contrary, it’s a useful and convenient feature many web hosting providers offer. Some, however, will actually register your domain in their name. This way, they locked you into service with them as switching web hosting providers now means losing your domain name.

Web Templates: Don’t mistake us, web templates are great. How else can the average computer user whip out a website that looks halfway decent without spending a fortune? But what web hosting providers don’t tell you about these templates could end up costing you later.

Any images or page designs or web forms or any other objects that originated from your web hosting providers database belongs to them. They own the copyright. If you ever switch web hosting providers, you can’t take any of it with you.

Not to mention, if you ever decide to hire a professional webmaster, many will refuse to work with template-driven websites, as they’re (ironically) harder to manage.

No Contact Information: If you can’t find on their website at least one way – email address, query ticket, phone number, mailing address – to get in touch with the web hosting providers you’re considering, stop considering them.

Discounts for Long Term Contracts: Before falling prey to this alluring gimmick, ask yourself, even if your website lasts as long as your contract, are you sure your web host will? Web hosting providers (like websites) are born and die every day, and they know it. That’s why most of them include somewhere in their Terms of Service that they won’t be held liable if they can’t fulfill their end of the contract.

So, if they go under, so does your website. And if you go under first, say goodbye to the money you paid for the long term contract. Either way, it’s no bargain. Stick with a year or two at most.

No Guarantees: Whether for web hosting providers or wetsuit manufacturers or weight loss programs, they’ve got to have a money-back guarantee. These days, it’s essential. And there’s zero reason you should ever pay for a product or service that doesn’t offer some form of money back guarantee or another. Really, now.

So it is much more better that you visit a hosting reviews website and read their web hosting reviews and go for a paid webhosting .

Filed Under: Advacements, Internet Tagged With: Internet, Scams, Web Hosting

Making Money On The Internet

There are a number of ways to make money on the internet and you don’t even have to own a server to do it. Many people dream of working from home and many people actually do it. The internet has made it a reasonable choice to at least make extra money right from your own home. Here is a list of possible ways you too could do this.

Writing: There are all sorts of websites and content needed to add to the internet. There are companies that you can work with that provide this content to other companies and individual websites that are looking to continuously add to the information they provide. In addition to online writing there are many publications looking to hire writers and all you have to do is get out and market your skills.
Store front: It is fairly easy to set up a store front website and start to sell whatever it is that you do on the internet. Are you a jewelry maker or do you make birdhouses. There are markets waiting for you to sell whatever you do. In order to get started you may first organize your business from home and then get it set up on the internet.
You can also make money from advertisers on the internet. If you start a website and start generating traffic you may add advertisements to your website. Many advertisers will give you a certain amount of money for every hit that you generate. Although this only makes a small amount of money, fractions of a cent, it can add up if you generate a large amount of traffic on your website.

There are many ways to generate income online. Find something you like and market it, it can be easy and enjoyable.

Filed Under: Advacements, World Wide Web Tagged With: Commodore 64, Computer, Internet

The Internet, Getting Connected

These days, for most people there are a number of options for connecting to the internet. The cost for this varies and so does the speed, but depending on what you want to use your internet connection for you may not need to have all the speed in the world. So how do I get connected to the internet and what connection type should I use.

First of all if you have an older computer with a slower processor, it may be that a super fast internet connection is wasted on the computer that you have. In other words, don’t get a cable connection if your computer isn’t going to get any benefit from having it.

There are a number of options and even within those options there are different prices for different speeds of connections. So first, you obviously need a computer. Your computer should have a phone port and/or a network cable port. Next you need service. So, there are some connections that still offer service through a telephone connection but these are incredibly slow, so most likely you will use one of the other type connections.

A DSL connection often offered along with your phone service by your phone company offers a faster service. This service is often packaged along with your phone service and rates are charged on a per month basis. A DSL connection is fast enough for most people for most things but if you plan to watch TV or other large video files you may want a faster connection speed.

Cable companies also offer internet connection along with satellite TV connections. The cable company connections are usually the fastest available. For a home network with multiple users and a variety of media being transmitted makes the cable connection enticing. Whatever you choose be sure to find antivirus software to install as well.

Filed Under: History of Internet, World Wide Web Tagged With: Apple, Commodore 64, Computer, Internet

How People Use the Internet

In the 1990s the number of websites that existed were a fraction of what they are today. Making a living online was not a widespread activity. Today, because of the spread of the internet, people use their computers in ways many of us never really imagined.

In the 1990s most of us used the internet for email, browsing the web, chatting, playing some video games, mostly just messing around. That is a generalization, but it is meant to be a description of the average user. The internet was an interesting new way to communicate but for many people it was not their primary way of communicating or getting information.

Today we find that the internet, for some people is the only way they get information. Gone is the television news caste from a TV at least and now, news is digested from the internet. Newspapers are read online if at all and the weather comes from Weather Underground instead of the local 6 o’clock forecast. People spend their time on Facebook, passing hours maintaining social networks. Even the telephone for some is entirely online. It is amazing how we have changed our internet use. One of the biggest changes of all is the number of people that are able to do their job from home. It is a new world where a person has access to everything they have in the office, when they are sitting at the dining room table in their home, or at a coffee shop.

The versatility of the internet has changed things for many people. Some people even make their entire living because the internet exists. What would people be doing today if not for the internet? Would society have advanced in different ways? Irrelevant questions really, the internet is here.

Filed Under: Advacements, Internet Tagged With: Computer, Floppy disk, Internet

Having Trouble Playing a Media File?

How many times have you tried to play a media file only to find that you lack the software to play it. You try it in Windows Media Player and all you see is a file name in red that won’t play. No other players seem to make the file play. It is important that if you choose to use a computer that it can actually communicate to you the information that you are interested in seeing. So what options do you have and how can you gain access to the file you want to see?

The first important task is to copy the file you wish to play onto your computer. Sometimes the file you want to see is possible to play on existing software but your disc player may not be fast enough along with your processor to play the file. So, copy the file to your desktop and see if that allows you to play the file on an existing media player.

If you are still in a bind there is an option of downloading a new player to play your media. One suggestion is to download a player that is meant to play a variety of files. The VideoLan VLC media player is easily downloaded and plays many of the files you may have trouble playing. The VLC player is also open source software meaning it is free and maintained by a group of computer users. The player will play most media files whether it is a DVD or a Quicktime file. The player is meant to play as many variety of files as possible.

If these suggestinos don’t help consider doing a search. Look at the file extension of the file you would like to play and see what information is available. Hopefully the file you are trying to play are not corrupt. Good Luck.

Filed Under: Advacements, Computer Tagged With: Floppy disk, Internet, Media File