Lady Loves Tech

To be honest, I didn’t know either.  This is a pretty good explantion.

I keep hearing about phishing on the Internet. What is it?
Dear Sheila:
Maybe you’ve received an email from Nigeria seeking your help in the transfer of money. Or maybe your “bank” has asked for your social security number… Well, no maybes about it. These are but two of the omnipresent “phishing” scams that hook boatloads of Internet users. From Antiphishing.org:

“(Phishing) schemes use ‘spoofed’ e-mails to lead consumers to counterfeit websites designed to trick recipients into divulging financial data… Hijacking brand names of banks, e-retailers and credit card companies, phishers often convince recipients to respond. Technical subterfuge schemes plant crimeware onto PCs to steal credentials directly…”

Phishing, unfortunately, is on the rise. This Computerworld story describes a typical scam: In 2003, eBay users received emails urging them to re-register with the site because their accounts had been compromised. The message contained a link to what looked like an eBay web page, where personal data was to be entered. Of course, the page wasn’t sent by eBay, but by identity thieves trolling for data.

Many organizations, including the FTC, issue guidelines on how to avoid victimization. Some recommendations:

* Don’t reply to or click links in emails or pop-up messages asking for personal or financial information.
* Use updated anti-virus software and a firewall.
* Be cautious about opening attachments or downloading files from emails.

And remember, if anyone urges you to help them transfer money out of Nigeria, there’s only one proper response: DELETE, sucka!

Or open up FireFox -> Bookmarks -> Manage Bookmarks. Within the MB window click File -> Export and choose a place to save the file.

This is something simple that I never took time to do, but at work with encouraging more people to use Firefox, this has come up.  I previously copied their favorites from IE and backed up their folder.

Windows XP’s Help and Support Center

When you choose Start, Help and Support Center, Windows XP presents you with a wide array of choices. Many of the top-level choices “drill down” to the same bits of information; by giving you many different ways to get to that information, Microsoft hopes to make finding what you need easier for you, even if you don’t know the answer to your question in advance.

Windows Help morsels fall into several categories:

Overviews, articles, and tutorials: Explanatory pieces aimed at giving you an idea of what is going on, as opposed to solving a specific problem.
Tasks: Step-by-step procedures for solving a single problem or changing a single setting.
Walkthroughs: Marketing demos . . . uh, multimedia demonstrations of capabilities that tend to be, uh, light on details and heavy on splash.
Troubleshooters: Take you through a series of (frequently complex) steps to help you identify and resolve problems.
Microsoft has tried hard to enable you to solve your own problems. At the same time, Microsoft has made it pretty difficult to figure out how to pick up the phone and chat with somebody in Product Support Services.

Few Dummies will want to jigger with the Search Options. The Help and Support Center already looks in all the places it can; your only options are to cut off certain types of searches entirely.
Live, one-on-one support from Microsoft is notoriously uneven. One day you get a support rep who can solve your problem in the blink of an eye. The next day you spend hours on hold, only to be told that you need to reformat your hard drive and reinstall Windows.
When Troubleshooters work, they work well, but they cover only the most basic problems and the most direct solutions.
Although Remote Assistance is a great idea, in practice the idea has plenty of problems: Both you and your assistant have to be connected to the Internet (or to the same local network) and if firewalls exist between you, Remote Assistance might not work at all.
Windows newsgroups on the Internet are unmoderated, which means anybody can post anything. Many well-meaning support group participants dole out utterly terrible advice.
Sometimes Windows Updates are worse than the problem they’re supposed to fix. Wait for an update to be in general circulation for at least a week before you apply it to your machine. That way, Microsoft has a chance to withdraw or reissue problematic updates (of which there are many).
The Hardware and Software Compatibility lists leave much to be desired. If a piece of hardware or software that you want to buy appears on the list, it’s probably at least a little bit compatible. If it isn’t on the list, you can’t really draw much of a conclusion.
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Source E-tips, Dummies.com