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Recently a friend told me about Pando,
a program that lets you send files up to 1GB for free to someone else
that has Pando. It’s free and easy to install and plugs right in to
most email programs, so it’s very convienent to use. And due to the
limited capability of email – which takes forever to send big files and
sometimes doesn’t even work, Pando is an excellent alternative.
Also, Grisoft is releasing it’s new 7.5 version of it’s antivirus program. I’ve been using the 7.1 version for some time and it’s been great. There is a free version of 7.5 available here
for personal use. It even runs on Linux 🙂 If you run Windows and
don’t have any antivirus program, I highly recommend this one. In fact,
I recommend running two antivirus programs in Windows, since Windows
users are almost always the target of virus attacks. Don’t forget to
scan for spyware and adware too!

I’ve now seen it all…As web 2.0 apps become more and more capable with new tecnologies like AJAX and Flex, the world of computing will become a very different place. Take Fauxto,
for example. It’s a web-based photo editing tool that may give
Photoshop Elements a run for it’s money. Another promising photo
editing app is Picnik. And these apps appear to be free, although still in beta. Don’t you just love the internet? 😉

I can’t get enough of Google. They just keep on cranking out great web-based tools! I’m lovin‘ it! My most recent discoveries are Google Checkout, Google Analytics, Picasa Web Albums. While most of these services are not new (except to me), I’ve added these to my growing list of other free tools from Google:
iGoogle – a customized search start page. You can fill this thing up with all kinds of RSS feeds
from your favorite sources, and then organize them onto different tabs.
There are tons of Google widgets you can add too, for showing a daily
Bible study, local weather, movie times, your Gmail inbox, and just
about anything else you can think of.

Gmail – Simply the best free webmail around.

Google Talk – A great IM program so you can chat with all of your friends.

Google Maps – My favorite mapping website of choice. The drag around feature is great, and their new "Street view" blows me away!

The Picasa Web Albums
give you a free GB of storage for your images online. You can share any
album, and it’s a breeze to edit captions. And of course every image is
searchable. And if you are a Mac user and use iPhoto, there’s even a plugin for exporting images to Picasa web albums.

Google Analytics
is a tool that lets you track ALL KINDS of information about people who
are visiting your website. What browser they are using, what country
they are in, which search engines are bringing you the most hits,
average time a user spends on your site…you name it. And it even ties
in with Google Adwords if you are paying for advertising.

And finally, Google Checkout, which lets you buy things online more securely (similar to Paypal)
shop faster and even sell items. When you checkout from your favorite
online vendor, if they support Google Checkout, you can keep your email
address private and Google will relay emails to your account and if you
start getting spammed, you can turn that store’s unwanted emails off.

All-in-all, Google gets my award for the company producing the coolest stuff on the web. And most of it is FREE! Does it get any better?

We do a lot of e-commerce websites and one thing that many people don’t
know that if you want to sell something online, you need to have what’s
called a "merchant account" with a payment company. Your payment
company might be your bank or another organization like PayPal. If you go with a bank (will will set you up with a payment processor like Verisign or Authorize.net), you’ll most likely get better transaction rates. For example, with Paypal,
there is roughly a 3% transaction fee, where as most other merchants
charge around 2.2%. BUT, most banks will have a monthly fee of around
$40, where Paypal does not. So if you anticipate moving a lot of product, or large amounts, a credit card merchant other than Paypal may be ideal. Keep in mind Paypal, as well as other credit card merchants, have several different plans, so this is a generalization, for simplicity’s sake.
An advantage of Paypal,
other than there not being a monthly fee (unless you get one of their
higher plans), is it is quite easy and quick to set up. Create a new Paypal account and then you have to link your account to your bank account, so you can make deposits from your Paypal account
to your bank (which is something you have to do manually, but there is
no charge for it). Then you verify your account by entering in the
amount of two small deposits Paypal will
make into your linked account. This is how they make sure you indeed
own that bank account. If you don’t link to a bank account, Paypal can mail you a check, but there is a small fee for that service.

So
it’s best to shop around with credit card merchants and get the best
rate you can, but also make sure it is compatible with whatever
shopping cart system you may have.

Well, I have to admit, I was a little nervous to get back in the front
of the classroom again, but it turned out to be a great experience.
This morning I volunteered at East Millbrook Magnet Middle School. They had "Career Day" and asked me to come speak to three groups of 8th graders about owning a graphic design business.

Overall,
I don’t think I bored then completely to death 😉 Most of the kids
seemed pretty interested. It makes me miss my teacher days…

I’m sure you’ve gotten emails that look like they are from someone
they aren’t. Many scammers send out mail posing to be from a bank.
Paypal is notoriously spoofed. The basic rule of thumb to identify
these spoofs is if the email starts with "Dear Paypal User." Paypal
emails will always be addressed to your real name. Don’t be fooled by
links that look like http://www.paypal.com in the emails. It might look
legit, but often the link really takes you to a site that looks just
like Paypal’s site, but instead collects your Paypal account info so
they can later rob your account.

If you get one of these emails,
posing to be from Paypal, but obviously are not, forward it to
spoof@paypal.com and they will track down the scammer.

Here’s some tips from Paypal on how to handle other Paypal Scams:

Please follow the instructions below to report an unauthorized transaction associated with your PayPal account:

If you are able to log into your PayPal account:

1. Log in to your account at https://www.paypal.com
2. Select the "Resolution Center" subtab.
3. Click "Open a dispute."
4. Select "Unauthorized transaction," then click "Continue."
5. Enter or select the transaction ID for the transaction you would like to dispute, then click "Continue."
6. Complete the report for Unauthorized Use on a PayPal Account, then click "Continue."
7. Confirm that the claim is correct, then click "Submit."

If
you cannot log in to your account, follow the instructions below to
report an unauthorized transaction associated with your PayPal account:

1. Go to https://www.paypal.com/
2. Click on the "Security Center" link located at the bottom of any page.
3. Under the "Report a Problem" column, click on "Unauthorized Transaction."
4. Click "Continue" under "Unable to log in?"
5. Confirm that the transaction in question is unauthorized then click "Continue."
6. Complete the report for Unauthorized Use on a PayPal Account, then click "Preview."
7. Confirm that the claim is correct, then click "Submit."
8. Confirm your account ownership by entering the financial information requested, then click "Continue."

Lastly, we recommend taking a few steps to protect yourself from identity theft:

1. Download the SafetyBar, a toolbar for Outlook and Outlook Express, which identifies known spoof emails.
2. Get eBay Toolbar with Account Guard which warns you when you’re on a potentially fraudulent (spoof) Web site.
3.
Sign up for Equifax Credit Alerts for PayPal Users, a program that
provides an early warning detection system in the event of identity
theft. Find out more by visiting the PayPal Identity Protection Center
at www.paypal.com/idprotection.
4. Frequently monitor your PayPal account for suspicious activity.