Category: reply

Scams about Stimulus Checks

Paul

It’s that time of year where people are hearing about the Stimulus Checks and some Phishing people are still trying to get people’s information for your bank account and steal your identity. One such one is sending out email for the 2008 Stimulus Program this email account looks to be “stumulusref@i-r-s.com”. As you can see this is a .com email address and not a .gov address.

[ad#ad2-right]The IRS will never send out email. The IRS will never ask you for your PIN or Any personal information. Don’t reply and don’t open any attachments, more like is if they send out any attachments they are going to be a virus and you will infect your system with any number of possible viruses out there. To protect yourself from virus you should consider installing one of the many free anti-virus softwares and also installing a firewall will help protect you. Only true way to prevent yourself from being a victim is YOU. No one else can keep your information private but you.

‘Life Owner’ won’t delete your data!

Paul1 Reply

I received this email from a friend and wanted to talk about this:

VERY IMPORTANT , PLEASE READ THIS

Anyone-using Internet mail such as Yahoo, Hotmail,
AOL and so on.

[ad#ad2-right]This information arrived this morning,
Direct from both Microsoft and Norton

Please send it to everybody you know who has
access to the Internet.

You may receive an apparently harmless e-mail titled ‘Mail Server Report’

If you open either file, a message will appear on your screen saying:
‘It is too late now, your life is no longer beautiful.’

Subsequently you will LOSE EVERYTHING IN YOUR PC,
And the person who sent it to you will gain access to your
name, e-mail and password.

This is a new virus which started to circulate on Saturday afternoon.
AOLhas already confirmed the severity, and the anti virus software’s are not capable of destroying it.

The virus has been created by a hacker who calls himself
‘life owner’.

PLEASE SEND A COPY OF THIS E-MAIL
TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS, And ask them to
PASS IT ON IMMEDIATELY!

THIS HAS BEEN CONFIRMED BY SNOPES.

http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/mailserver.asp

After doing my little research, I’ve come to the conclusion that this is nothing more than a warning that someone went over board on. I’ve check this on Snopes and it says that:

This latter version is difficult to classify as either “true” or “false”: The virus it references (i.e., the Mail Server Report worm) was a real one, but it’s neither new nor currently rampant (as claimed in the warning text), nor does it manifest itself in the fashion described (since the “symptoms” provided in the warning are merely a reworking of the text of an earlier virus hoax). All in all, that message doesn’t really merit the dire warning to “SEND A COPY OF THIS TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS, And ask them to PASS IT ON IMMEDIATELY!”

I decided to send a reply to my friend who email me this “Warning” and tell him this:

[ad#ad2-left]Although,  This is a real worm.  It however is over hyped and under no circumstances will it delete your files.   I’ll quote from F-secure:

Warezov.W is a mass-mailing worm that sends itself as e-mail attachments to addresses found on the infected computer.

Typically, a mass-mailer arrives on a computer with an infected e-mail message. In some cases, the infected attachment can start automatically. In other cases, the system is infected when the user opens the attachment. When a typical mass-mailer is activated, it installs itself to the system and creates a startup key for itself in the Windows registry. It then stays active in the system’s memory. While active, the mass-mailer searches for specific files (HTML files for example) on all available hard disks for e-mail addresses. Finally, it connects to an available mail server and sends itself to all the addresses it has found.

Aside from this, Warezov.W also downloads another worm variant from a specified website on the Internet.

According to all my sources is if you are worried about this worm, then I highly recommend a good Anti-virus and Software firewall.   This worm is easily detected by all the free anti-virus software out there.    I like AVG because it scans all incoming emails before you even touch the email.   Please don’t forward that to anyone else it seems to be an old email warning that isn’t really a warning anymore.   It seems to be a scare email where there is no real chance of your data going bye bye.   Just thought you’d like to know!!

So I tell you this, if you have any question of the likely hood of any emails you happen to come buy, you best best it to google it or ask your friend before you open the email up.   It is best also to scan all email attachments before even considering opening them.

Do you want a Windows 7 Beta key?

Paul

Update See bottom:

I recently got 3 beta keys for Windows 7 Beta. I decide we are going to have some fun. IF you want one of the 2 beta keys here is how you do it. I want you to twitter it up on twitter. I would like you to make a Tinyurl using your twitter account so I know who sent the most people my way. Here’s how you do it:

Go to Tinyurl.com then you put this page in and tell it you want it to be made with your twitter name without the @ sign(it would look like this : http://tinyurl.com/twitterusername). The 2 most Referrers to come to my site in this weekend and leave a comment will get a reply from my twitter account saying they won and asking for there email account. I want as many people to see this as possible. If you want a beta key for Windows 7 then advertise people to come to my site and find out how they could win themselves. I only have two extra Beta keys. I used one right now to activate this Windows Beta but I will give the other two away for who ever brings in the 2 most people to my site.

tinyurlcustom

[ad#ad2-right]This end at 10pm EST Sunday Night Jan 11, 2009, so you have that long to get people to come to my site and using the tinyurl Custom Alias option to send people to my site or to this page.   I say this one last time, the top 2 people using the tinyurl to bring people to my site will get the site.   On the side note the other requirement is to have people leave a comment say who referred them to the site.   I want to make sure people don’t just create a URL and come that way to many times.  So Let’s talke about the Rules:

  1. Use a Custome URL to bring People to my site

  2. Leave a Comment with twitter name who brought them to my site.

I’ll add it up Sunday night 10:00 PM EST January 18, 2009, and will be twittering who wins on twitter.   So go at it people send people my way.

According to a blog there seems to be sending out keys that are the same all over the place. I am going to guess that after 2.5 due an over the net activation that these will become invalid. So activate as quickly as you can. I’ve also gotten the same keys from Microsoft also exactly the same Keys this blog is posting so I guess the contest for the 2 keys is now NULL and Void. Sorry guys, didn’t know thought they were unique keys. If you need a key go to that website and get your key!!

Five Ways to Increase Email Productivity!

Paul

As time goes by there are always going to be problems with having Email and being productive.  You can have so much stuff going on in one day it’s not even possible to really have time to thoroughly check your email.  So here are some great steps to get some of your emails done with!!

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  1. Empty your InBox — If you don’t have control over your inbox maybe it is time to make sure it’s empty or at least all read!!  It’s true most of the time I don’t read all my emails, I pick and choose what I want to read.  After that, I decide to make all post marked at read!!  I call it the Panic button!!

  2. Organize your Inbox — Having been signed up for several different email groups.  I’ve got it all organized.  I’ve got a folder setup and used for each group.  I then create a mail filter for each group and have it put it there, unless it’s spam then I have it go into the spam folder!! (also see Email Filtering)

  3. Check your Email on Off peak Hours — Not having a lot of time can sometimes create a need to check your email in the morning or afternoon.  I rarely check it during the day.  So I get all my emailing done either in the morning or late night! As long as you keep in mind not to waste time with the emails.  You can get done with most of your emails in under an hour, unless you get more than 1000 a day, then it’s a different story.

  4. Automate Repetitive Emails —  Having been getting the same emails over and over that aren’t spam.  I’ve got a filter in place to automaticly send out a response to the sender and say I’ve seen the problem and am fixing the problem ASAP.  You too can do that with your emails system.  If you have something that can be automated do it.  It can save you time and money in the long run!!

  5. Unclutter your Email system — Yes that is right to much clutter slows down your chances of getting done with what you need to get done with.  I have done it and it greatly increased my speed in my emails.  Having been email for the past several years I find it essential to keep my email uncluttered!!

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Although, All of these are lifehacker recommendations. I found the most important ones that I have intrigrated into my email performance and I thought I share them with you. I hope these help you in the long run. If you got a tip you would like to share by all means leave a comment!!