Book Reviews and Money Saving Tips

In celebration of my geekiness I downloaded ispy camera software prior to a recent hotel stay.  A person very close to me (name withheld due to my desire to continue life as I know it.) suggested I was paranoid.   Well... Imagine our surprise the first time I left my laptop running with the software active, we saw disturbing photos of someone in our room.   The person seemed to be looking at our stuff, peered into the camera and then left without taking anything. This was not a room cleaning person.  I sent one video set to my phone and took the video to the hotel management for their reaction.  I asked if this person was employed by the hotel and if he was supposed to be in our room.  The manager said the intruder was a maintenance man and he would check into it.   After waiting several days I approached another manager who got back to me within 15 minutes and explained there had been a maintenance issue  in our hal...

I got an email from Comcast touting their Constant Guard security package.   It’s free so I thought I would download and try it.   If you are interested just go to www.comcast.net and click on security.  It downloaded and installed OK.   It asked a lot of questions and then had me reboot.   Interestingly after I rebooted, neither Firefox or ie9 would open.   Now I admit Comcast’s blurb about their wonderful security software sounded interesting but… If it is so disruptive out of the box, what happens when it is entrenched?  I uninstalled it and will continue to use the variety of protection software  that have served me well.   Alas, another disappointing experience with Comcast.   

I recently read about Lookout Mobile Security and decided to check it out.    I went to their web site and read all their features.    I then went to Android Market Place and downloaded it. It installed quickly and easily.    I get a truly lousy Verizon signal at my home.   Verizon, please note, it is truly a lousy, lousy, abysmally weak signal.    If my phone didn’t have WiFi I would never download anything.    Setting up the Ap was very easy.    I did a back up and then went to the web site and verified my contacts had been backed up.    If you upgrade to Premium you can back up your pictures and music too.    ($2.99/month) In addition to backup you have antivirus protection.    Another feature available in the free version is the ability to find your phone from your computer.    You need to have your GPS turned on for this feature to work.    Initially it ...

Wired magazine has an article in the October edition that addresses that question. Security is big business. Look at Norton and McAfee, they get you with a fee each and every year. Every week you hear of some data base that has been compromised. Keep in mind that your home computer has little likelihood to be the target of the more talented hackers. Even those of us who have or had small businesses are not that attractive to the hackers. High volume shysters have been targeting gas stations with their parasitic card readers because that is where there is some serious money. Look at how many credit cards they can get in one day with minimal work so it stands to reason getting your credit card information off of your home computer is not going to be high on the agenda of the average cyber creep. This is not to suggest that you should do nothing to protect your computers. You should have a good antivirus software package installed and a spyware destroyer or two. Most importantly you shoul...