Article Regarding Facebook Scams

I found an excellent article regarding Facebook Scams.  Y'all be careful out there, you hear?
http://www.techlicious.com/tip/dont-fall-for-these-facebook-scams/

How To Un-Clutter Your Facebook Page

I came across this excellent little article that all you Facebook users might use.  If you want to clean up your Facebook page you can find good information in it.  Take a look here.
http://techtalk.pcpitstop.com/2012/11/27/the-secrets-to-uncluttering-facebook/?tips4pc-facebookclutter=

Other Ways to Save Big $ Using the Internet

My family & friends usually call me when they want to order anything over the internet because they know I have become a bargain-finding queen. You’re probably saying to yourself about now “You’d think she could find other things to do with her time” and you would be right, but I don’t do it for fun. Times have gotten hard in the Gentry household so I save money any way I can. Besides, the thrill of the chase in finding a real bargain makes me feel good and I absolutely hate to give too much for anything. I get a lot more enjoyment out of something if I paid less than the next guy for it. Also, I absolutely hate to go shopping. If I can buy it and have it shipped to my front door and save money in the process, then that’s the way to go for me. So….I’m going to pass along a few easy money-saving tips. If you read the post I wrote on How to Become a Power Searcher, you can really put it to good use when internet shopping.

If you are in town and see something you want (but don’t have to have that very minute) make note of the maker and model number of the item. When you get home a simple web search alone will probably save you a few bucks or enable you to buy a higher quality item for the same money. To usually get the item for even less, go to Ebay and search there. You can filter your Ebay searches to show just “new” items and items with the “buy it now” option. Personally I’m an Ebay bulldog if there’s something in particular I’m looking for. In your searching go so far as to misspell words. Some of the best bargains I’ve ever gotten were from sellers who either had a problem spelling or were poor typists. Also, it doesn’t bother me to buy used items so long as they are in good usable condition. Always carefully examine the photos and descriptions and ask the seller questions to clarify anything in question. Be observant of the shipping costs which are sometimes too much but in some cases free shipping is offered. For the most part Ebay sellers are very fair in their shipping fees. Most of the time even taking into account the shipping you can still save money. Always review the seller’s feedback. To do that just click on the number next to their name. That’s the best way to feel comfortable about buying from them. I’ve been buying off of Ebay for 15 years now and have had only one bad experience. Ebay has since started offering “Buyer Protection” which protects the buyer if they receive anything that is not as was advertised. Not only does buyer protection reimburse your for the price of the item but shipping charges, too.

My favorite shopping site is Amazon.com. You can get just about anything through the Amazon partners and can always save money there. I’ve bought everything from vacuum cleaners, electronics, and even underwear. Just use the Amazon search box like you do with Google, narrowing your search as you go.

Another of my all-time favorite bargain sites is Overstock.com. I will tell you though, if you find something here you want, don’t drag your feet in buying it. Overstock has limited numbers of their items and when they are gone, they’re gone and usually will not be back in stock. Items sell out within days (sometimes within hours) of being listed. You can buy just about everything here, too, but can especially find good deals in household items & electronics. Shipping is never over $2.95 no matter how much you order and during the holidays they always offer free shipping.

Another way to save money on web sites is by coupon shopping. The major online stores offer online coupons that offer everything from free shipping to per cent off deals. For example, doing a search on “Dell Coupon codes” right now will give you a code you can use at checkout with Dell to get 25% off selected systems. During the holiday season site coupons are generally even better than at other times during the year. Almost all major online sellers offer coupon codes from time to time. You won’t always find a coupon for the online merchant you are buying from but it’s worth the effort to check for one.

Craigs’ list is another good place to find bargains. You can generate the listings by your geographical location. That way you can go examine an item before you buy it. Like Ebay, Craigs’ List is a mecca for just about everything under the sun. Each listing includes a phone number so you can call and discuss the item with the seller. As an example, just last month I happened across a laptop being sold out of Denison for $100. I called the girl and bought it sight unseen because I was scared someone else would snatch it up. I went to the bank, transferred money to her account, she mailed it to me & I sold it the next day for $300 without touching it. I could have gotten more but I wanted a quick sale. Had I been needing a laptop for myself I would have kept it. It was that good. Please note that with Craig's List buying sight unseen is not a good idea, though. I was just lucky.

Everyone loves to shop at Walmart but did you know that not all Walmart stores have exactly the same merchandise.  Go to Walmart site online, find what you want, pay for it with your credit card (secured checkout is safer than showing your card in the store). They will ship the item to the local store where you can pick it up with no shipping or to your door for a small fee. Speaking of Walmart, I always take advantage of their “price match guarantee”. Not only do I ask for price match from the other stores in town, I also print a copy of anything I find online, take it into Walmart and ask for a price match. I’ve never been turned down yet. Of course, it must be the same exact item. Also, I make sure I have the internet address where I found the item. I do the same thing if I see something in the Dallas News. Walmart price matches those, too.

Keep in mind that all major internet sites have secured checkout. If you worry about using your credit card online, don’t be. Secured checkout is much safer than using your card in a store where everyone from the clerk to the office girl has access to your credit card number. You can always tell when you are using secured checkout. When you go to checkout, in the address bar the http:xxxx will change to https:xxxx.

These are just a few of the basics for saving money by shopping online. You will recognize other ways as you go along. Here are a few of the best online price comparison sites. If you don’t want to find a bargain on your own, use one of them. They do most of the work for you.

Nextag.com

pricewatch.com

pricegrabber.com

 Here are a few of my favorite internet sites for lower prices.

newegg.com    Electronics – computers –camera – cell phones newegg.com
harborfreight.com    tools
fragrancenet.com  Perfumes & cosmetics
dsw.com, shoebuy.com, zappos.com   shoes – ( shoebuy & zappos offer free return shipping if you aren’t satisfied)
abebooks.com booksamillion.com barnesandnoble.com       books
smartbargains.com   A little bit of everything

Become A Power Searcher & Save Money

These tips will work with most search engines in their basic search option. They will also work within webpages that have their own search-such as EBAY, Amazon, etc. Practice using these and you will see the hoard of differences in your search results, plus, if you shop on line, as I do, you can find the best prices in the least amount of time.

  · Use the plus (+) and minus (-) signs in front of words to force their inclusion and/or exclusion in searches. You will especially find the minus (-) helpful when you want to omit very common word associations.
EXAMPLE: +meat -potatoes Your result would return all sites that have the word meat in them but do not have potatoes
(NO space between the sign and the keyword but is space between words)

· Use double quotation marks (" ") around phrases to ensure they are searched exactly as is, with the words side by side in the same order.
EXAMPLE: "Jesus with cowboy boots" Your results would show all 4 of these words just as typed
(Do NOT put quotation marks around a single word.)

· Put your most important keywords first in the string.
EXAMPLE: dog breed family pet choose

 · Type keywords and phrases in lower case to find both lower and upper case versions. Typing capital letters will usually return only an exact match.
EXAMPLE: president results in both president and President

 · Use truncation (or stemming) and wildcards (e.g., *) to look for variations in spelling and word form. The * takes the place of any possible letter combinations
EXAMPLE: librar* returns library, libraries, librarian, etc.
EXAMPLE: colo*r returns color (American spelling) and colour (British spelling)

 · Combine phrases with keywords, using the double quotes and the plus (+) and/or minus (-) signs.
EXAMPLE: +cowboys +"wild west" -football -dallas Here you would be searching for the primary keyword of cowboys, included with the 2 words (wild west) but any site with the terms football or Dallas will be excluded in your results.
(In this case, if you use a keyword with a +sign, you must put the +sign in front of the phrase as well. When searching for a phrase alone, the +sign is not necessary.)

If you use Google as I do, I have discovered a few neat tricks that I haven't found in other search engines. You can use your search bar as a quick calculator for simple math (+ - / *) In Google search if you type 1+1=  you will magically get your answer of 2.

 Ever come across a word on the Web that you don’t know? Instead of reaching for that bulky dictionary, just type "define" (without quotations)and whatever word you don't know. Google will come back with a bunch of definitions.

Number Range Search - This is the best little tool you'll ever see. I shop on line  so I use it a lot to enter criteria for prices. Here’s how it works: just add two numbers, separated by two periods, with no spaces, into the search box along with your search terms. Okay, so here’s one that you could try:
nintendo wii $100..$300

 You’re asking Google to find all the Nintendo Wii’s within the price range of $100 to $300 here. Now, you can use pretty much any kind of numerical combination; the trick is the two periods in between the two numbers.

What to do If your Email Has Been Hijacked

You may have already experienced a case of email hijacking. You first were confused trying to figure out how it happened, then worried about whether your private data had fallen into the wrong hands, and finally downright mad that it happened to you. I want to give everyone a few hints how to protect yourself against what is becoming a very common target for hijackers. 

Email hijacking is when a hacker breaks into an email account and uses it to send spam or access private data. At the very least, if it happens to you, you will probably find out about it when your friends that are in your contact list ask why you are sending them ads for male enhancement products or asking them to check out some web page. Although this might put you in an embarrassing situation, it is more than likely your account wasn't actually compromised, but that your email account was only "spoofed". It is relatively easy to “spoof” an email address so that it appears a message is coming from one address when it was really sent from another. However, at worst, spammers can gain full access to your email account and major trouble ensues. Keylogger spyware installed on your computer can record every keystroke you type and send the results to a distant spammer who can then read your password from the log file . This form of spyware might even replicate itself into the computers belonging to people who are in your address book.. Your contacts may have received an email purportedly from you that contained an embedded virus or malware and/or your own computer's security compromised as well. You should take immediate steps to protect yourself and advise everyone in your address book to do the same. The following suggestions all apply both when you are compromised AND as prevention to deter any would-be hacker.

If you think your email has been compromised:

Step 1. Do a full virus scan using your anti-virus program. To be absolutely safe also run a scan with one of the online scanners available from programs other than your own anti-virus just in case something slipped by it. The best is Kapersky Online Scanner but it is offline right now. A couple of good ones available are:

 Eset online scanner http://www.eset.com/us/online-scanner/

F-Secure scanner http://www.f-secure.com/en/web/labs_global/removal/online-scanner

BitDefender http://quickscan.bitdefender.com/

(Be sure when using these online scanners that you do not "install" their Antivirus on top of the one you are already using. Just use the online scanner. Keep in mind that if an online scanner finds anything it will not remove it. This is just a "second opinion" to your own anti-virus program.)

Step 2. Update your Malwarebytes to its latest definitions and run the program using a full scan. If you don't have Malwarebytes see my other post on this blog titled "3 Free Programs...." and get it.

Step 3. If you access your bank accounts & credit cards online, check them out just to make sure nothing erroneous has happened.

4. Contact everyone in your address book advising them you may have been compromised and to run these same checks on their computers.

5. Immediately change your email password. Afterwards, change your security questions to new ones. If you cannot reset the password because the hijacker has already changed the security options as well, contact your email provider and ask them to reset the password to allow you access.

The most important thing you can do in preventing email high-jacking is to have a good password.
Make it at least 8 characters long using a combination of upper & lower case, numbers and symbols.
Don't use common words like the name of a pet.   DO NOT duplicate your passwords with those of your financial information sites. Make all your passwords more difficult to hack. This is a dangerous world we live in, folks. You have to take on-line security very serious and do everything you can to protect yourself.

How to CUT, COPY, PASTE -the Easy Way

 Nothing can benefit a computer user more than knowing how to efficiently use the  CUT, COPY, & PASTE features.  It saves you time and cuts down on typing errors.  Material can be moved within a document, between documents in the same application, and between applications.  You may want to copy parts of a Web page and paste it into a Word document as a quote or to assemble portions of multiple web pages into one word document for printing.  You can use these features in your emails as well.  Once you see how easy it is you will find all kinds of ways you can use the commands.

The first thing you need to learn is how to highlight text. Most everyone uses the old "drag the mouse" method and that's fine but there is an easier way.

Click one time before the first word of what you want to highlight.  Then hold the shift key as you click on the last word want to highlight.  When the shift key is released, PRESTO, your text is highlighted.  Alternately if you want to highlight a whole paragraph, hold down your Ctrl key and click anywhere in the paragraph.  The whole paragraph gets highlighted.

With your mouse pointer anywhere within the highlighted area, right click with your mouse.  This brings up a command window. From within this window select which ever command you want to perform. If you want to remove the text from its present location and move it to some other location you would choose CUT.  If you want to leave the text where it is and just want to insert a copy of it elsewhere you would select COPY.

Then go to the document, email, or other application where you want to put the text, position your cursor, right click, and select PASTE.

You can also highlight text and hit your DELETE key to erase text.

 

If you are uncomfortable using your right click context menu you can also find the cut, copy, and paste commands in your EDIT menu at the top of each page.

 

 

3 Free Tools That Should Be on Every Computer in the World

There are 3 basic free tried and true programs that every computer user should download and use religiously.  These tools are easy to use and can clear all that junk your don't want out of your system making your system operate faster and more efficiently.  I suggest you run each of these programs every couple of weeks, or more often if you notice your system slowing down.  Here they are, each with a safe link where you can get them and instructions on how to use them. Run them in the order listed.

Ccleaner - http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download/standard

Leave all the settings at default and in bottom left corner click on ANALYZE.  When scan completes click RUN CLEANER.  You will get a warning that files will be deleted say OK.  Then, on left hand side of screen click on the little "Registry" icon. Click "Scan for Issues". When scan completes
click "Fix Selected Issues". You will be asked if you want to backup the changes which you may do but if you have system restore turned on it's not necessary. The select "Fix Selected Issues" and once again "Fix Issue".

Auslogics Disk Defrag - http://download.cnet.com/Auslogics-Disk-Defrag/3000-2094_4-10567503.html?part=dl-6267754&subj=dl&tag=button. A fragmented hard drive is one of the main causes of computer slow-down.

At the top make sure only your C: drive is checked. Click on "Defrag" and watch how fast it works.

Malwarebytes - http://www.malwarebytes.org/products/malwarebytes_free/

Always update Malwarebyte definitions before running the program. For regular maintenance choose "Quick Scan". If you notice your system slowing down choose "full Scan". If the scan finds any malware check every box that is listed and choose  to remove everything it found to finish cleaning.  Then reboot.  If the quick scan found any nasties on your system I suggest you follow up with a "Full Scan" which takes longer but cleans deeper into your operating system.

 

Please Note- Since these are free programs you will be asked to "buy" their professional versions but doing so is your choice. These companies have developed excellent products. Always update to newer versions whenever they are offered. When installing or updating pay special attention to all those little added check boxes which may add a new toolbar, change your search engine,  etc which you don't want.