Digitalis - The poison of choice for people in a digital age.

Five free software packages to protect your family, and your computer.

2010-12-21T13:10:00.015-05:00

Here are five free gifts to you for the holiday season. Getting a new computer for Christmas? Consider these and it may stay newer longer!

K9 Web Protection from Bluecoat

We all know the stories of folks that have mistyped an internet URL and ended up someplace on the internet that was embarrassing. But what happens when it’s a child that does that? What’s worse is when the child realizes, as happened to a relative of mine, that that’s a way to get to inappropriate content and then shares that with other pre-teens.

Every home with children should have some way to filter Internet content. One way to do that is with K9 Web Protection from Bluecoat. Not only does it filter but parents can set time restrictions so there’s no chatting or surfing going on when your kids should be sleeping. Try this, and keeping your teens’ turned off cell phone in your room at night and you’ll be amazed at how their grades improve. You can also set lists of pages that will always be allowed or always blocked based off your own values.

Already know your kids are misbehaving online? Set it up without telling them and see if they are brave enough to complain. “So what website exactly got blocked honey?”

Part of the setup is that you place a password so that you can override the filter when you, the adult, need to access content that is blocked to your child. Check their website for the full list of features.

Safego’s Bit Defender for Facebook

Everyone has heard of how Facebook apps can be dangerous. Someone finally came up with an app for apps that helps out with this. It’s still in beta form as of this writing, but it’s already had three hits on my profile (posts from other people with dangerous links) that later turned out to be real threats. It checks your wall, your inbox and protects from spam. It will also rate your profile and let you know if your privacy settings are a little too open to limit personal data theft and identity theft.

“OMG, OMG, OMG, this privacy stealing app is broken!!”

Lavasoft’s Ad Aware

You’d have to have been living in a cave to not have heard of spyware by now. Folks first became aware of it over ten years ago, and it’s still the number one killer of computers and system damage. Lavasoft’s Ad Aware scans your hard drive, internet settings and windows registry to rid your computer of these pesky programs and maybe even get back some of that get up and go your computer used to have. The freeware version has to be run manually, so you should run it weekly. The paid version will do it for you, along with some other things if you decide that’s better for you. If you are putting this on Grandma’s system, better go for the paid version. She’s not going to run it even if she says she will. We still love you Nana.

avast! Antivirus

It never ceases to amaze me how many people let their Antivirus subscription run out, and then don’t re-new or switch to a new product. If your paid antivirus has run out and you are strapped for cash, give avast! a try. The free version does everything you’d need an antivirus program to do, with none of the extras. But it defiantly keeps your computer protected which an expired antivirus program that keeps reminding you it’s time to renew does not. One important note, you absolutely cannot run two antivirus programs at once, and must, I repeat, must uninstall an old AV program before you install the new one. If you don’t, they destroy each other, and happily both inform you that you are protected, which you are not. “Hey Doc, since I got two flu shots I’m double protected right?” Uh, no.

The paid version comes with a lot of extra features including a firewall, which would mean you may not need the package below.

Zone Alarm Firewall from Check Point

So now you are socially protected, filtered, ad, spam, and virus free. But what about human beings, real people, trying to get into your computer system? If you are using a wireless access point as many homes are, it may already be protecting you with a firewall, but are you sure? Most folks have someone else set up their access point and never see the inside of it. If that’s the case for you, you might consider a firewall on your computer that you can monitor. Zone alarm blocks bad stuff coming into your computer, but also blocks bad stuff going out. This helps you when you are tricked into installing a software package that said it was one thing, but really just wanted to take over your computer. It keeps the package from acting like ET and “phoning home”.

Here’s a bonus that you get even with the free version. It will monitor your credit report for you and alert you to unauthorized changes to your credit file. Try that with your wireless router’s firewall.

And that’s five. I hope this helps keep your computer protected and healthy, and you happy.

Podcasting: Free TV when you want it.

2010-01-30T10:15:00.008-05:00

The dilemma

I’m a news junkie. I’m also a busy guy, and often find it inconvenient to be in front of the Television when the news is on. You might say that in the era of twenty four hour news shows that’s impossible. But it’s not. I’m also a news snob.

News used to be good stuff. Reporters took their jobs seriously and carefully checked their facts and stayed solidly neutral on any story they presented. These days we have “news” programs calling themselves news channels that are really just an outlet for somebody’s opinions. Everybody’s got an agenda. News has become pop culture. I miss the days when the talking heads gave “just the facts ma’am.”

Despite the immense popularity of pop news, which I am tempted to call trash news, there are still professional reporters in the world. Folks that see themselves and their work as an ethical calling to keep the public informed without the political overtones. Too bad these folks only get an hour a night.

The solution

Well, now, thanks to podcasting, I can get the news I want, when I want. And it’s free. When I ask the average person about podcasting I still get a lot of blank stares. It’s got to be one of the tech world’s best kept secrets.

More than news programs are podcast. Sure, my own podcast list has the Buzz report, ABC, CBS and NBC news. But just for fun, I also get “Scam School” where Brian Brushwood shows you how to cheat at cards, impress your date with telepathy and basically pull the wool over anyone’s eyes. I get “Sesame Street” for the kids, and “My Money Life” with Chuck Bentley, because I am avoiding going to an “I spend too much” support group.

My daughter gets some kind of Barbie podcast and my grandparents get the focus on the family radio show. There are also NASCAR and gaming podcasts, cooking and food news, Comedy Central, Dilbert Animated Cartoons, and How Stuff Works. There are literally thousands of Audio and video podcasts. For a few, check out Zune's podcasting offerings and iTunes' collection.

This brings me to the next cool thing about podcasting software. Once you pick your podcast, you never have to miss an episode. Your podcast software will look for the newest episode and download it for you. Once you subscribe to a podcast, you never have to do anything with it again. It’s as automatic and regular as your digital clock’s alarm. It doesn’t stop working unless you change it. You can set it to just get the latest stuff so you don’t get last week’s episodes when you only want this week, and you can download a whole season of episodes if you want.

You can even get some show’s you’d normally watch on television. But these are usually for a fee. The bonus is that they are usually commercial free.

The Action

So if you’ve decided that you want to finally move into the cool podcast arena, all you have to get is some podcasting software and start subscribing. You can certainly use Apple’s iTunes software if you already have it. If you don’t, I’m recommending Microsoft’s Zune software. The reason is that Zune is not tied to digital rights in the way that iTunes can be. In fact iTunes only relaxed their digital rights stance after Zune came on the scene.

What all that means is that with iTunes it used to be really hard to move music to a different computer or between any two devices where it never has been with Zune. Since I generally use four to six computers at any time, (work, home, business laptop, personal netbook, etc.) that is an annoyance for me.

Neither iTunes, nor Zune require you to actually own an iPod or Zune MP3 player, so there’s no need to purchase anything.

To start with, go to the Zune Software Download page and click on the download now link. Zune will want you to create an account before you download the software. It will take about two minutes. Be sure to uncheck the blocks Zune Communications and Zune Partner Communications if you don’t want Zune spam to your email. Actually the messages from Zune are not too bad, but I’d definitely uncheck the third party partner’s block. But it’s up to you. Next download and install the software.

The enjoyment

Once you open up the Zune software and it does its little show, it’s time to start picking your podcasts. Sign in with the link in the upper right hand corner with the account you created and then click on Marketplace at the top of the window. Click Podcasts and go shopping for your free audio or video podcasts. Entertainment delivered straight to your computer and free!

Lock it up with TrueCrypt.

2009-08-23T14:58:00.010-04:00

What do you have on your computer that no one else should see? You may think nothing, but think again. If Tom Cruise dressed in black and suspended by a dark wire hanging from a hole in your ceiling got access to your computer with no warning to you, what would you not want him to find and make public? Do you have your financial information on there? What about a little word document that has your three dozen passwords to your online bank, your retirement information or your investment portfolio. You could have letters you’ve written to your doctor about health problems, your lawyer about legal information or even your resume, that may just plain be no one else’s business. You just may be a doctor or lawyer or human resources manager. What happens if your patient or client info gets out? What if it was someone worse than Tom?

Tell me Mr. Smith, would you want your wife Angelina to find the online confirmation of the expensive ring you just bought her for your anniversary? And what if it weren’t for her? How awkward would that be? Don’t worry; we know it was for your sister’s birthday. Then there are those pictures of you at last year’s New Years Eve that are funny, but would ruin your aspirations at a political career if they ever got posted to a very public place.

If someone broke into your house and stole your computer, what would you want them NOT to see? All stuff to think about.

Do you think you would you leave any of that stuff lying around your house for anyone to find? If you would lock it up from the general public, you should on your hard drive too. You should always assume that someone is going to get into your computer. It doesn’t matter if no one has. Do you want to install a burglar alarm after you’ve been burgled? Probably not.

While there are burglar alarms for your PC, I try to keep these posts simple for the average person. And there is just no simple way for the average person to know who’s been in their computer. But you can lock your information up with a key that only you can unlock. For free. Yep. If you know me, you know I like free.

Locking things up on your hard drive has been possible for years. But no one did because it was complicated. And it has stayed complicated until recently. But now my friend, it’s easy. So easy. I’m going to tell you about TrueCrypt.

First, what it does. You take a small piece of your hard drive and set it aside. I typically set aside about 5 Gigabytes of space. I do this because all my importanct data fits on a 4 GB flash drive that I never fill up. You can decide how much you need to set aside by putting all of your sensitive files in one folder, right clicking on it and looking at the properties. That will tell you how much your are now using. Give yourself 20-30% more than you are now using to allow room for growth. Once you've decided how much, then remberber it for later when you're setting up your encrypted volume.

Then go download TrueCrypt here. They’ve got versions for Windows, Linux and the ever popular among the trendy, Mac. So there’s no excuse for not safeguarding the goods. Once it’s installed it’s time to get encrypting.

The instructions I’m going to provide are the simplest method for keeping your data safe. Truecrypt is very powerful and capable of a lot more than I’ll discuss in this article, but let’s keep it simple shall we?

When the program first opens, you will see the TrueCrypt Volume Creation Wizard. We want to select the first radio button, Create an encrypted file container.

Once you select next, you want to select the first option again on Volume types for the Standard TrueCrypt volume. Volume location is where you’ll browse to where you want to store your encrypted volume and name it. You don’t need an extension. Hit next again. We’ll go with the defaults on the encryption options.

Volume size is where your advanced work in figuring out how much encrypted space you’ll need pays off. Enter the size you calculated and select the radio button for KB, MB or GB. The next screen asks for the password you want to use to access the volume once you make it. Despite everything you’ve heard to the contrary, write it down. Throw it away once you are absolutely sure you won’t forget it, because my friend, you absolutely cannot get your data back if you forget your password. Write it down, and put it in the Giant Family Bible that you never get off the shelf until somebody is born or passes on. No one needs to know why it’s in there.

If you get a warning that your password it too short, just select YES and move on. You don’t need a really long one unless you are hiding your information from a foreign government or your own. Next answer the question about files larger than 4GB. It’s a yes or no. Once that’s done the volume gets formatted. The wizard will ask you to do some random opening and closeing of windows and programs and maybe a webpage or two to add to the randomness of the process, and then viola, it’s done!

You click OK, and on the volume created page, next. That last next should be a finish because now you are back at the first page of the wizard which may lead you to believe you are NEO suffering a de ja vu in the Matrix, but no, just close it.

To open and store data in your encrypted volume, click on your TrueCrypt icon and in the lower half of the pane where it say’s volume, browse to the volume you just made. From the list of drive letters available in the top pane (they really could have just had the software pick an available one here, but hey, it’s free) pick any letter, then click on the MOUNT button. TrueCrypt will ask for your password and you are done. Minimize TrueCrypt. If the drive letter you picked was G, then open my computer, and you now have a G drive. To make your data inaccessible again, maximize TrueCrypt and click unmount.

That’s it. You are now as capable as any super secret TV spy. Jack Bauer is recruiting. Put in for the job.

Pandora Internet Radio

2009-07-28T01:52:00.003-04:00

Music lovers really have something to sing about. If you haven't checked out Pandora Internet Radio, go take a look. When someone introduced me to Pandora a few months back, I thought it was just some gimmick to sell me music and wouldn't be worth my time. Well, it is a gimmick to get me to buy music, but it is also a great way to listen to songs and music that I like without listening to a bunch of garbage that I don't want to hear mixed in.

Pandora is almost too simple. After creating an account, so Pandora knows when it's you at the keyboard, you just type in a song or artist that you enjoy listening to. That's it. That's the whole setup. Nothing more to do.

The software chooses similar musical styles and artists and plays them for you. You can skip songs you aren't interested in listening to and you can rate songs with a thumbs up or thumbs down. Pandora uses these selections and ratings to further evaluate what you'd like to hear.

As new songs hit the stations, Pandora picks them up and plays them for you as well. Ever hear a new song and wonder who it is? Pandora gives you the artist and song without having to wait for a DJ that most likely is not going to tell you who it is anyway (gotta hate that).

If you like the music you are listening to, Pandora will link you to Amazon.com or iTunes to help you to purchase it. Just like the real radio, Pandora has commercials. But if you are like me, the real radio has about an equal amount of DJ patter and music. I just don't want to listen to the DJs opinion on last night's American Idol or what they think of the political flavor of the week. I turn on my radio to listen to music to keep me going through the day, and Pandora is the coolest way to do that in a long time.

You can bookmark songs, artists and oh, here's a cool one, invite friends to sign on with you so you can see what they have been listening to. It's a great way to tease that guy at work when you run across "Air Supply" in his list of recent music. If you want to check my list out, take a look here.

Pandora now has a downloadable application for both the iPhone and the Blackberry, so you can even take it with you when you go. Somebody tell me how I can get this in my car, please.

Now someone has come up with Pandora in the home from Sonos. This pumps Pandora through every room in your house. It's what I've always dreamed of, uh except the price tag, which can run from $300 to $1000 dollars US. "Honey, can I replace the perfectly working stereo we have with this new gadgety thing? You'll love it!" I don't think I'll be getting it soon unless someone leaves me one in their will.

There's more to Pandora, but I don't want to make this post any longer. Try Pandora and I don't think you'll switch back to any old fashioned internet radio station.

Why is my computer so slow?

2009-07-14T07:31:00.004-04:00

This is one of the most common questions I get from, well, just about everybody. There can be lots of answers, but the most common one I find is spyware. If you are not running an anti-spyware program, such as Adaware, Windows Defender or Spybot, then you are asking to have your system bogged down running things that you don’t want it to and recording what you are doing on your computer.

Spyware was born to make the writers of the spyware programs money; legally, or illegally. And most of the time you install it yourself, thinking you are doing something else. Here’s how it works.

Most spyware watches where you go on the internet and sends that information to a database that the spyware author has made. They do this to see where you are shopping and what you are looking to buy. Spyware authors are interested in knowing what you will spend money on. Once they have that the advertising campaign begins.

Browser popups begin appearing, sometimes even with your popup blocker enabled, that are targeted at what the software thinks you’ll buy. Have you been looking at fertilizer and researching potted plants? Then the banner ads and popups you see show you the flower of the month club or an electronic coupon for Green Grass enterprises. Click here and win a self-propelled lawnmower!

The criminal spyware is looking for your credit card numbers, address, mother’s maiden name and other stuff it can send back to a database outside national borders. This is in an effort to steal your identity, or at the least buy this year’s Christmas presents with your hard earned cash.

These programs get on your computer because you installed them. “Click here to add little smiley faces on your email” could be read as “Install program now to watch your every online move and report it to a stranger.” Play Saturn speed race now for free in your web browser? If you clicked on it, you probably had to click “accept” on the terms and licensing statement, which means you have given permission to the website to install software on your computer. It may even be bold enough to tell you that it’s collecting information on you assuming you’ll never read it, which is true most of the time.

So now that you know what spyware is, what does that have to do with your computer being slow? Spyware never shuts down. It eats up memory, hard drive space, and runs forever until you kill it. The problem is, if you have one spyware program installed, you probably have a couple of hundred. When cleaning a really slow system of spyware, I typically find upwards of three hundred different spyware programs running, all fighting each other, and the operating system for control of the computer.

Imagine a classroom where the students have three hundred persons all claiming to be the instructor, talking at once and demanding attention to different subjects. The students try to listen to each one and become very slow. Before they complete one assignment, the next instruction is given, and the next, and the next.

Your computer is just like this. So when you click on your icon to open your document, that mouse click goes into this long line of instructions your computer has been given from all the various spyware programs running around, giving orders. The click may get registered in all that noise and be put in the long line to be done later (the slowness) or it may get written out by a later command from some program you don’t want running anyway (unresponsiveness).

How to get rid of it? Run an anti-spyware program weekly. Windows defender and Spybot are free. Windows Defender comes with Vista, and can be downloaded for XP. Google it to go to where Microsoft has it for download. It runs constantly, like anti-virus software and protects you while you work. Spybot is great to get what defender misses and, unlike anti-virus, you can run more than one anti-spyware program at once. Get Spybot at Safer Networking.

What the heck is a Netbook?

2009-07-04T09:40:00.001-04:00

The letters are so close you could miss the change. Notebook, Netbook. Looks almost the same on the big sign at Best Buy as you stroll down the aisle. But if you need a notebook, or laptop, you may be disappointed if you purchase the vastly less capable and much cheaper netbook. But if you are looking to check email, surf the internet and maybe have a video chat with your really hot girlfriend hanging out with your transforming Camaro, the Netbook solves a lot of problems.

The netbook trades performance for portability. It’s usually fifty to seventy five percent smaller than a standard notebook and weighs less. The keys can be small depending on the model you purchase and hardware, color and manufacturers vary. But the basic features that define a netbook are its capabilities. Netbooks are not going to be great for crunching those big excel spreadsheet numbers and the tiny screen won’t be a winner at your business presentation. They just aren’t made for heavy duty computing. The best way to think of a netbook is as a personal internet kiosk. It’s great for chatting online poolside, checking sports scores at the airport, twitter, facebook and web browsing. I like it that almost all come with a built in camera and most are blue tooth capable. This makes video chat so much easier. A standard Bluetooth hands free device like the one you use for your phone and the integrated camera make video chat the most portable that it’s ever been.

The other advantage of the Bluetooth is that, when used with a Bluetooth mouse, it frees up the USB port (also in short supply) from that wireless dongle. That’s the thing that you plug in to use the wireless mouse. I didn’t name it. Don’t blame me.

Some of these come with Windows XP, others with Linux. I have only seen one model, made by Dell, that is capable of Windows Vista, and it is larger than the standard netbook and actually blurs that line into what I consider a netbook – notebook hybrid. But you shouldn’t be afraid that XP is on its way out, or that you don’t even know what Linux is. Netbooks are not meant to be upgraded. They are for surfing the internet and will probably be able to do so for years on the current hardware and operating system. They come already set up for internet usage and there is very little for a user to do. A seven year old can be surfing around in less than 10 minutes.

Storing large amounts of anything on a netbook is a bad idea. Most have tiny hard drives that fill up fast. But the Linux versions come with free office applications. This is not Microsoft office, it is open office. It does most of the important things that you use Microsoft office for, but the two are only compatible if you save your files from either version in old Microsoft office formats such as 2003. The 2007 XML formats are still not compatible since the last time I checked. Somebody comment and leave a link if I’m wrong.

For the Windows XP models, you can still add Microsoft office, or even open office which is free, if you have enough hard drive space.

The greatest news about netbooks is for the parents of all those newly created college students this year, especially the ones without Autobots as personal friends. With word processing software, the portability to go to class, and internet connectivity, the netbook is the perfect cheap solution to computing for the budget conscious parent. If stolen the inexpensive price, some as low as $150 (for the ASUS eee 701sd) makes the price of the loss a little less traumatic.

Using AirSet to organize your family reunion, wedding, social club, Sunday school classroom, soccer team Boy Scout troop or anything else.

2009-06-20T02:27:00.001-04:00

Collaborative software was born out of necessity. Organizing groups of people for any project is like herding 50 cats on a large field into a steel cage with very little catnip. Businesses have survived for years because you can always fire someone that doesn’t play along. But what do you do when your group is all volunteers? No one’s getting paid so no one has an incentive to be diligent in keeping up with the thing they volunteered for.

The cool thing about collaborative software is that it works, and is awesome in its effectiveness. And while there is no charge for awesomeness, or attractiveness, there are big benefits to effectiveness when wasting someone’s time means one less participant in your project.

When I accidentally discovered AirSet on Google (yes, I know, there are no accidents) I couldn’t help but be impressed. Here’s why. AirSet has one hundred percent and more, of all the major services of Microsoft’s enterprise collaborative software sold to big business, for free.

Yup, free. And you can use it for anything you want. Soccer team comes to mind because you have a calendar that the parents can check for game days and times. There are announcements that you can put up such as “Practice for the Furious Five is cancelled today for rain.” Oh, but wait, this only works if the parent takes the time to log into AirSet right? Wrong. Parents sign up for email alerts. You change a game time on the calendar, or put an announcement on the site and “pow” AirSet shoots off a notification faster than a fat Panda can get to cookies on the top shelf. They can sign up for instant notifications, or a daily or weekly summary of what’s changed.

Need to organize the family reunion? Use the lists feature and list the food you want. Let your family members log on and sign up for what they’ll bring. And the cool thing is everyone else sees what’s already been taken. So there are no situations where we have twelve pies, no noodle dishes and fruit cake which should never have been an option. You can also assign tasks to people, so the men know that the ladies don’t plan on being the ones to do the dishes.

AirSet encourages small businesses to use the site and you can even host your company web site on AirSet as long as you don’t mind having airset.com in the URL.

You can plan a company picnic and use the discussion application to decide what games you need to think about having. Yes, awesome. Ok, enough with the tease. Here are the big money maker features:

- A public facing web page that anyone can see

- Calendar

- Contact lists to share email addresses and phone numbers

- Store files online like pictures, video, presentations or documents

- Discussion groups

- Task lis

- Email messaging to individuals or the whole group at once

- Photo album

- Playlists (I have never used this, someone let me know what it does)

- Website lists (for example a Google map or map quest directions)

- Synchronization with Microsoft Outlook or a Palm Pilot

- Synchronization with some mobile phones

- Announcements and an activity feed

- Sending of email alerts

- The ability to make some members authors and some members only able to read making changes

None of this stuff is gee whiz or even new. It’s just been expensive. The great thing about AirSet for the average Joe is that it’s free. I’ve been using it for about a year now, and it’s still free.

When you open AirSet the interface is designed to look like a standard computer desktop, and not a web page. I’m not big on the interface, but it has the benefit of working exactly like your Windows PC, so everyone already knows how to get around. Originally, you made one or more groups that you invited people to join. I had one for a public service group that I belong to (not community service, haven’t had that in years), one for my small business, another for the soccer team and the last for just my family. Groups are now called web computers. I think this is confusing and AirSet should have left it as groups, but you get used to it.

Click on the image to see a larger version.

After you create your web computer/group, you populate it with members by adding their names and email addresses to the members portion of the Administration page. The new computer pops up with announcements and activity notifications open and several icons on the desktop for the calendar and such. Your different web computers, or groups, can be changed at the bottom of the screen with the network button. The start button works just like your windows start button and so does the task bar, minimize and exit buttons on the windows.

While you may create several web computers, members can only see those to which they received an invitation. They in turn, can create their own web computers that you won’t see, unless you are invited. Once your members sign in, as long as you’ve given them change permissions, they can start participating. You’ll see changes they make immediately, and so will everyone else in the group.

I have never run out of space on AirSet, but space is limited. I think for the average Joe, they don’t mind hosting your groups for free. They offer more features and storage for a fee starting at about three bucks monthly, which I think is more aimed at the business customer.

So the deal is this. If someone hands you the Dragon Scroll and it reads “Organize the Stoney Point Elementary PTO”, then this is for you.

Facebook scams, hacks and other bad stuff.

2009-06-18T19:00:00.000-04:00

In May of 2009, someone was using a fake facebook page that looked identical to the real one. Facebook users were being tricked into logging into this page and once they did they were directed to their real accounts, but only after their username and password were stored. Then the hack went like this. All the users friends were sent some link or other that also directed them to the fake page. With all the usernames and passwords harvested, the scammers went to work phishing, and spear phishing the users. Easy to do, since now the scammers knew everything about the user, who their friends were, and lots of personal information. If you want to know more, check the article here.

One year earlier, the BBC reported that many of the third party apps, those games, quizzes and tests that ask you if they can collect data on you, and all your friends and you click accept on, were harvesting personal information. Even if you never use any of these third party apps and have your details set to private, if your friends can view it, the scammer gets it. This is called “Skimming”.

Recently a friend of mine had his Facebook account hacked and found that it had sent all his friends a message with malicious content. A friend of his that received it, had received the same message from several of his friends. Then my wife got told by several users of Farm Town that there was a malicious farm hand in the game and if you hired him, he had access to your account.

You can’t depend on Facebook to protect you. Your agreement to their terms of use means that you don’t hold them responsible when you use a third party app and they certainly can’t be held liable when you clicked on a link that is a misspelled facebook. I did an experiment trying several different variations of misspelled facebook addresses and several yielded results. Once of which was a page asking if you were concerned with Facebook security. Another had me very happy that my wife and especially, my kids were not in the room. Don’t try this at home. Remember folks, I’m a professional.

How do you protect yourself? Facebook doesn’t like folks to use false names and I’ve heard of a user being kicked off the site for not seeming to be a real person. This is also why it’s so attractive to skimmers. So be careful of the personal information you put on the site. Email and phone numbers might get you spam, but you definitely don’t want to post exactly where you work or live. If you’re posting you’re at the bank, don’t post what bank. Don’t add any friends you aren’t sure you actually know. This may just be a skimmer trying to view your info. This can be hard since so many people use pictures of their kids for their profile picture. Send a message back and ask how they know you. And lastly, try to only use apps that have been around a while, or only use ones that you actually care about.

Facebook is great and has really allowed me to keep in touch with friends all over the world. You shouldn’t be afraid to use it, just use it wisely.