You Did What?

How to identify fraudulent links!

If you're like me you get many emails these days telling you lies like your credit card is over the limit, or has possibly been compromised, or some other account you have is in danger, and you need to "click here" to resolve it.

Or you go to a website somewhere, and there's just an irresistable offer on the other side of a legitimate-looking link that you must click on to get there.

Once you click on any of these innocent-looking links you're sunk. When your browser displays the page it also lets in code that can then turn your PC into their personal slave, sending back things like every keystroke you make, or displaying all those pop-up ads that suddenly begin blossoming on your screen in rapid-fire fashion.

The problem is that hackers can make the link look perfectly legitimate. But there's an easy way for you to tell if it's not.

If the link in question arrived in your email, click on the subject line to select it, then right-click and in the resulting pop-out list, choose "Properties."

In the dialog box that opens, click on "Details" and in that window click on "Message Source." This will give the entire actual html code of your email message. Scroll down to where the link in question is.

If it begins with something like "123.123.234.121" (or any other set of numbers in that format), FOLLOWED by the actual domain name of who they purport to be, like:

123.123.234.121/www.yourbank.com

you'll know it's a fraud. If it was legitimate it would START with yourbank's dot com name.

Do not, repeat do not , rely on what you can see. What is actually displayed MAY NOT BE the true address!!!

If your email program has a "status bar" at the bottom of your screen, such as Outlook Express, an easy way to see the actual, true address is to hold the mouse over the "purported" link and look down in the status bar and you'll see it.

Again, if the true address begins with a series of numbers followed by the real website name, don't go there. If it BEGINS with the real website name, it's legitimate.

But even if it's the real website name, hackers could still have a load of malware code there, waiting to leap into your PC through your browser.

The bottom line is avoid the internet's "dirt roads" and its areas where huge numbers of people congregate. Because of it's popularity, MySpace is now being hit by hackers planting their bogus links to bogus sites, just waiting to infect your PC.

Just remember to surf defensively and beware of strange or unknown links!!!

BEWARE of public computers!!!

Not long ago the motel I was staying at had a desktop computer in the lobby for guests' use. I was in Branson, MO., and was using it to check football scores. I wanted to check my email at my hometown internet provider's website, but stopped short. Too risky.

Why?

A little program called key-loggers. Hackers secretly install them on public computers everywhere. What do key-loggers do? They record every keystroke on a PC. That means your user name and password! Hackers then gather up a key-logger's data and easily find them and use them.

Recently, news reports described the exact same thing was used to get the user names and passwords to online brokerage accounts. Investors would log into their brokerage accounts from public computers such as those in airports while waiting for their flights. You can guess what happened to the brokerage accounts, and it wasn't pretty!

I'm always ranting about computer and internet security, so please add this bit of advice to your brain.

DO NOT under ANY CIRCUMSTANCE log into online accounts of ANY kind from a public computer. Don't take the risk that it may be logging your every keystroke.

This means those innocent looking banks of computers in your library, or in the lobby of the motel you're staying at, or in that airport while you're waiting out your flight.

Protect yourself, stay safe and DON'T DO IT!!!

Pictures and Panorama of Big Dam Bridge at sunrise

I decided to go out to the Pulaski County Pedestrian/Bicycle Bridge (also known as the "Big Dam Bridge") to shoot pictures of a sunrise last Saturday morning, and was surprised at how many people were out enjoying it at that early hour of the morning!

Following are some of the still photos. To view the panorama of the bridge at sunrise, click here.

If you haven't visited the bridge yet, don't miss it! It is truly an awesome sight and experience, and thanks again to Pulaski County Judge Buddy Villines for all of his efforts to make it happen!

New Windows Vista OS? Yawn.

Some of you may be wondering about the new Windows operating system called Vista, due out in early 2007, and whether you'll want to get it. My reaction is a yawn.

It offers no real break-through changes to the current Windows XP. From everything I've read, it's not something you'll want to break the doors down to have. If you're the type who has to have all the latest bells and whistles on your PC, you might want it...otherwise stick with the tried and true XP.

True, Vista does offer advancements in visual and media related areas such as 3D views of folders and a transparent task bar.

It also offers several new ways to search for files on your PC, but is not in my opinion any better than XP's search feature.

Early reports from developers and ordinary users who have tested it found complaints of repeated crashes and an interface that too frequently forces users to click on warning boxes.

It also will require more memory, or RAM (minimum of 512MB) than most PCs now have.

For the "deluxe" version with 3D graphics it will need a minimum of 128MB of memory in video cards (device that runs your monitor) while most now have 64MB.

Microsoft offers a free test at its Vista Section that will anyalyze your PC and tell you what you'll need to run it.

Early estimates on the price range from $199 for a basic home version to $399 for the all-in-one Vista Ultimate.

Upgrading an existing XP system will be tricky and expensive. My advice is to stay with XP. Down the road when you buy a new PC it will already come installed on it, and hopefully they'll have the bugs worked out of it by then.

Pictures & Panorama of Big Dam Bridge

Pulaski County Pedestrian/Bicycle Bridge

360-Degree Panorama Here

HOW TO SPOT SCAM EMAILS

Scam emails designed to trick you into clicking on their link always have certain traits about them.

Learn them and avoid falling victim!!

Yesterday I got a new one, this time purporting to be a bank where I actually have an account. This time it was Bank of America, but such emails can and do masquerade as many other banks and financial institutions.

How did I know it was a fraud? Let's take a look:

1) For starters they always play to your fear or greed. This one chose fear, using the following subject line: "Urgent Security Warning" (Others play to your greed by promising something that always sounds too good to be true.)

2) It was addressed to my business email that's out there on my website for the world to see, a necessary evil for my line of work. I do not use that email in my info for that bank.

3) You'll notice this on so many scam emails, they just sound amateurish. They use bad grammer, bad english, and basically sound like a stupid person wrote them. Let's take a look, with the stupid or illogical parts highlighted in red:

"Our Technical Service department has recently updated our online bankingservices, and due to this upgrade we sincerely call your attention to follow below link and reconfirm your online account details. Failure to confirm the online banking details will suspend you from accessing your account online." And this: "We use the latest security measures to ensure that your online banking account opened with us is highly safe."

Technical Service department? A bank? ha-ha-ha! Sincerely call your attention? Like they sincerely, really mean it this time? ha-ha-ha! Highly safe? Like there's a mostly safe, or not so safe? Give me a break!

4) Then there was the coup de grace. Here's part of the supposed bank's logo:

Now seriously....do you think a bank would EVER let an image go out where the text was so badly off-center, jammed against the right side like that?

5) Finally there's the bogus link they wanted me to click on. They used the http link format that LOOKED like it was Bank of America's domain name, but by holding the cursor over it in Outlook Express and looking down at the bottom of my screen I could easily see it would actually go to a DIFFERENT address.

If your email client doesn't show the actual address at the bottom like that, you can hold your cursor over the link and RIGHT-click it and chose "Copy Shortcut" then paste it into a text editor like Notepad and see it that way too.

Remember to LEARN the tell-tale signs of email scams and you won't fall victim to them!!!

FREE Razorbacks email animation!

Ok, so shoot me. I'm from Little Rock, and around Arkansas this time of year, that means its time to Hog Up!

So for all Arkansas Razorbacks fans out there in the world, here's an animated Razorback you can put in your Outlook Express email messages. All I can say is GO HOGS, BEAT SOUTHERN CAL!!!!!

Print this out to refer to if you like. To go hog wild, copy the following into a text editor like Windows Notepad, exactly as follows:

And then save it with an '.htm' file extension, like "gohogs.htm" Somewhere like your Desktop where you can easily find it in a minute.

Next, open up your Outlook Express email program.

First click on "Tools" at the top, then "Options" then "Signatures".

Then in the "Signatures" window click on "New." Then just below that click on "Rename" and title it something like hogs or whatever.

Then lower down, under "Edit Signature" put a dot by "File" and click on "Browse" and navigate back to wherever you saved "gohogs.htm" (for example, "Desktop" if that's where you saved it). When you've located it, click on it and then click on "Open". This will then take you back to the main little window.

Last step is to click on "Apply" in the bottom right of the little window. Then to use it, open up a new email, write it, and at the bottom or wherever else in the message you want to put it, click on"Insert" in the email message window up at the top, go down to "Signature" and click on the little pop-out that says "(whateveryou named it)".

And remember, GO HOGS!!!