This week I wanted to give you a security tip that may save you a lot of pain. I want to warn you about phishing.

What is phishing? No, it is not some new dance move. It's an internet scam that has grown popular over the last several years.

Phishing Scams

This scam tries to trick you into logging into a dummy website and then capturing you password. For example, you may get an email that looks like it is from your bank and urgently tells you to login and take some action. The link they give you to click on is not your banks website, it actually takes you to a dummy site that looks exactly like your banks. When you try and login in the bad guys get your password and can then access your online banking account. Not good!
Common Craft has a great video that explains it, it is well worth the 2 minutes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqRZGhiHGxg

Here are some tips to avoid this scam.

Be aware. Just knowing this scam exists and how it works is 90% of the battle.

Never click on a link in an email to login to your bank or other sensitive websites. If eBay asks you in an email to login to your account, then just open your browser and type "www.ebay.com" and login there.

Double check the address. An address reads something like "http://www.ebay.com". Whenever you are logging into a sensitive site just make sure the address looks correct. If you see something like "http://208.88.34.1/ebay.com", then RUN!

Use the latest internet browsers. Both IE7 and Firefox 3 have anti-phishing features to help you detect a phishing attack.

It happens when you least expect it....

Lets face it. Our lives are on our computers now. Email, photos, important documents. There are too many things that can go wrong on your computer, but there are too many cheap and easy ways to backup the files on your computer to have an excuse.

Online backup is the better because it is easy, cheap and off-site (flood, fire or electrical damage).

Email

I encourage everyone to use a webmail service. All your emails are hosted on the provider servers and you never have to worry about backing up or switching computers. All the major providers give you more than enough space to store all of your email forever. Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Live Mail

Photos

For most people, photos are the most important thing they want to protect on their computers. They represent irreplaceable memories.
If you just want to backup photos we recommend buying space at your preferred photo sharing sites. Share and store at the same time.

Picasa Web (by Google ) buy extra storage
Flickr (by Yahoo!) - pay for unlimited storage

Documents (or everything)

For general online backup of all your files the two big dogs are Mozy and Carbonite. Both are really good at what they do. You just install their software on your PC or Mac, choose the folders to backup and it will back up those files several times a day if needed.

Mozy - 2GB Free, Unlimited $4.95/mo (I use the free version)
Carbonite - Unlimited $49/yr

If you click the link below you should be able to get a free account of 2.5GB instead of 2GB.
https://mozy.com/?ref=4K5FSF

Email is the most commonly used communication tool for the internet today . It is estimated that 60 billion messages are sent everyday worldwide.
Why not make the world a better place and remember these 5 email etiquette ideas.

1. Use the To, Cc, and Bcc fields correctly.

Only put multiple people in the "To" or "Cc" fields if you want each recipient to know who the group is. This is because each party gets a list of all the emails of all the people on the list. [Think, lists where everyone already knows each other well]. For emails where you don't want everyone to know all the people you mailed use the "Bcc" field. [Think, lists of people who don't know each other].

2. Attach large files with care

Try not to attach large files to an email that is going to multiple people. Instead try using one of the services mentioned in our article on sending large files. Doing this allows people to choose if they want to download the file or not and doesn't require them to download a large message just to see what it is.

3. Don't YELL!

Do NOT write in capital letters unless you purposely want to YELL! And please think before you yelling. :)

4. Don't Forward Fibs

Before forwarding chain letters, political gossip or other far fetched forwards, check their validity out on Snopes.com . This will keep you from propagating a rumor or urban legend that isn't true.

5. Use a meaningful Subject

Many people get loads of email everyday. If your Subject is meaningful it will help the recipient to find your email easier as they are scanning their inbox. Instead of "Invitation" try "It's Bill's Birthday and you're invited". Not only do you make it easier on the person receiving the email but it is less likely to get ignored or missed.

Ok, so everyone uses Google for search. Google has become the king of search because it finds the stuff people are looking for.
But if you give Google a little bit of help it can do an even better job.

Try using these simple search tips.

Hawaiian ~vacation
Use the "~" symbol in front of a word to also search for synonyms.

Hawaiian vacations -cruise
Use the "-" symbol in front of a word that you don't want to find in your results.

best books 2002..2007
Will return lists of best books for each of the years from 2002 to 2007 (note the two periods between the two numbers).

site:irs.gov 1099 form
Use "site:website.com" in your search to search only certain websites.

"The Princess Bride"
Use quotes to search an exact phrase.

Amazing grace how * the sound
Use "*" symbol as a wildcard to search for phrases where you don't know one or more of the words.

Email has been used to send files back and forth for a long time. Even though email was not originally meant as a medium for doing this, the need created the demand to do so. Most people send files this ways and for the most part it works great.
But what about these monster sized files that our email client spits back at us? In these cases email alone just doesn't cut it. Below are services and software that meet this need in their own unique ways. As with most of the stuff we recommend they all have a free version that many times is sufficient for most users.

http://www.sendspace.com/
Use for free and no registration required (up to 300MB). Great for occasional use.

http://www.yousendit.com/
One of the most well know services. Send up to 100MB for free right from their home page with no registration required..

http://www.dropsend.com
Send up to 1GB size files. Must register to use service. Free and paid plans. Windows and Mac software to make uploading files easier.

http://www.pando.com/
This is software. Great for groups that share files between themselves often. File size 1-3GB. Requires each party to install software. Send files over IM and email. Has a cool plugin for Outlook. Free and paid versions.

In our increasingly distributed world, managing projects and the people in them has grown increasingly difficult with the old generation of tools and methods. Emails back and forth between your team is quick but can quickly spiral into useless unorganized information. Project actions and to-do lists are printed off or emailed to the appropriate parties with no way of tracking what has been done or not. Keeping a client in the loop is a regular chore of assessing the current status and aggregating all the information for them.

Enter Basecamp.

Basecamp allows you and your colleagues to easily track and organize all aspects of a project — or team effort — in one place.
Think of it as a private (password protected) website that your team can use to collaborate on multiple projects.

1. Assign team members to projects.

2. Create to-do lists and assign them to others.

3. Share files in one central location.

4. Post Milestones.

5. Start conversations and keep all the responses organized.

6. Give access to your clients for contribution or status information.

7. See project calendar.

Check out their offering.
http://www.basecamphq.com
http://www.basecamphq.com/tour
Remember this is a hosted service, that means no software to install and it is dead easy for your entire team to get on.

Wikis are now becoming more and more popular. This is mostly due to the wild popularity of Wikipedia, a free online Encyclopedia that is created and edited by anyone. Sounds crazy, I know, but it works surprisingly well.

Wikis are essentially an online tool for allowing users to easily edit and organize pages of text and content.
If you have ever passed around a Microsoft Word document back and forth over email then you need to seriously look into setting up a wiki for your personal or business use.

Every edit on a wikis is stored so you need not worry about someone deleting your great paragraph in the next newsletter. You can make comments or have discussions about content to make collaboration easier and even subscribe to get emails of new changes to your document so you can closely follow its development.

We use Wikis for things like:

1. Creating documentation for a product.
2. Collaborating on an article, newsletter, contract, etc.
3. Posting and collaborating on new ideas for new products or services.

Here is another great video by Common Craft explaining what Wikis are and how they work.

Ever wanted to block those annoying ads on some of your favorite websites? If you are a Firefox user it is only a few clicks away. Firefox has many “add-ons” that allow you to add functionality to the web browser. Many of these are created by Firefox users. Adblock Plus blocks graphical advertisements from known ad networks. When I first used it I was amazed how it cleaned up many of the sites I used on a daily basis. You can also get Flashblock to stop animated movie ads from playing as well. There are many other useful “add-ons” that can enhance your browsing experience with Firefox. Check them out at http://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/

If you don’t use Firefox (a FREE internet browser like Windows IE) I suggest you download it now and give it a try. http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/products/firefox/

Have you heard all the neat stuff about Google's Gmail? If the only thing holding you back is the fact that you don't want to change your email address - then you are in luck. I have used this trick for over a year now and have helped several family members do the same. Here is what you do.

1. Sign-up

Go to Gmail and sign up for your account.

2. Tell Gmail your old address

This is the magic part. Once you are logged into your new Gmail account, go to the Settings page and click on the Accounts tab. You will see the setting to "Send mail as" option. Add your original email address here. This makes Gmail able to "masquerade" as your old address when you send emails even though it is a different account.

3. Forward your old account to Gmail

This is the only tricky part. You may need to call your current email provider to find out how to do this. Just be sure to forward it "without keeping a copy."

That is it! Now you can enjoy Gmail like the rest of us AND keep you old email address.