AMAZON RENTS COLLEGE TEXT BOOKS

NOTEBOOKSHOP NEWSLETTER ARTICLE:  BACK TO SCH00L

By Jeff Levy, the Digital Doctor.

The August/September time period traditionally marks the back-to-school season, and that means college students, from new college students to seasoned seniors, can expect to shell out big bucks on text books.  And when classes are finished, students wind up selling their textbooks to college bookstores or other students at a substantial loss.   What’s worse, when new editions of text books are published, that makes current versions pretty much worthless.  The good news is that I found a way to save major money on your text books.  Here’s what you need to know.

Now you can rent your text books on Amaxon.com and that can save you up to 70% on your book costs.  All you have to do is use the standard Amazon.com search, find the book you need, select “Rent Now”, select shipping and payment method, and go to check out.

Your books are then shipped directly to you and a return prepaid shipping label is available for you to return the book at the end of your semester.  The return dates are stored in your Amazon.com account and Amazon will send you reminders as the return date approaches.   The text books you receive may be new or used, depending on availability.  And you can always opt to buy the book at the end of the rental term.

If you underline or mark up the pages of your text books, Amazon's policy is this:  Keep highlighting to a minimum.  Highlighting a few lines here and there?  That’s OK.  But if you return a text book that’s covered in beer and pizza grease stains, you’ll be charged full price for that book and it will be shipped back to you.

You might also want to look at www.cram101.com – where you’ll find specific college text book outlines, notes, and practice tests.  This is a terrific study aid.

NEW SHERIFF IN TOWN

Well not a new Sheriff, but there is a new law enforcement tool in town called the ALPS system (Automatic License Place Scanning System.)  It was developed in England and is now in use in several states here in the U.S. in toll booths and parking lots.

But a small town in Texas has taken ALPS one step further.  For a whopping $30,000 ALPS can be installed on a police cruiser.   The vehicle has four scanners installed on the roof.  Two face the rear of the vehicle, one faces the front and the fourth faces the right side of the vehicle so it can be used in parking lots.

In a typical 8 hour shift patrol officers usually enter about 15 license plates into the in-car computer system to be checked against the department’s data bases.  ALPS system scans hundreds of plates in that same 8 hour shift, looking for stolen vehicles and outstanding warrants.  Although at this point the use of an ALPS system by this local police department is a pilot program, I can envision an ALPS system installed on police departments all over the country.

The good news?  This system will help take stolen vehicles off the road and result in the apprehension of people with outstanding warrants, traffic and parking tickets.  The bad news?  There goes another chunk of our precious privacy.  Before ALPS you could literally hide in plain site.  Now, not so much any more.  Is the tradeoff of our privacy to what may be safer streets and communities worth it?  The answer may depend on who you ask.

OBAMA WILL PAY YOUR UTILITY BILL?

When times are hard, people look for solutions, and scammers look for people looking for solutions.  One of the latest identity theft scams is a perfect example.  It works something like this.

You or someone in your family is notified that some state or federal agency is paying people’s gas or electric bills for one entire month every year under a new program approved by President Obama.  All you have to do is call a phone number, give your Social Security number as a “bank account” number along with a bogus routing number that might look something like “061000146” and bingo – you get a free ride on your gas or electric bill for a month every year.  Bunk!  You’ve been had

Sure, there are government programs available to help low income families with essential utility bills, but this one is an identity theft scam pure and simple.

When will we ever learn?  Never give your Social Security number or other personal information to people you don’t know, and just having a phone number doesn’t mean you know the people on the other end of that phone.

Use your own common sense and defeat these would-be fraudsters at their own game.

BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING - AND HE'S LISTENING TOO

These days it’s common knowledge that in a world of electronic communications and the Internet your privacy is at risk.  But now some of that risk comes from an unexpected source… The FBI.

The bureau recently created a secretive surveillance unit tasked with developing new technologies that will make it easier for law enforcement to eavesdrop on your Internet and wireless communications.  The new unit is called the Domestic Communications Assistance Center or DCAC, and in addition to developing new technologies it will act as a kind of help desk for local, state and other federal agencies.

And it appears that Congress is fully behind this project and has recently appropriated more than $54 millions dollars to get the DCAC up and running. 

It’s no secret that the FBI is pushing Internet companies not to oppose a proposed law that will require social-networks and companies that provide VoIP, instant messaging, and Web e-mail to create back door access that would allow law enforcement snooping.  If that law goes into effect you’ll have zero privacy when it comes to your personal and business electronic communications.

As if the “war on women,” the “war on religion” and the “war on the middle class” aren’t enough, we also have a war on privacy.  It looks like that old phrase “Big brother is watching” may now have to include “and he’s listening too.” 

NO MORE INTERNET FOR YOU!

The FBI is warning that because of a computer virus called DNSChanger, hundreds of thousands of people may lose their Internet connections come July, unless they take steps to diagnose and disinfect their computers.  Here’s what you need to know.

When you type a Web address or URL (Universal Resource Locator) into your Internet browser program (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, etc.) your computer makes contact with DNS or Domain Name System server computers to find the numerical Internet Protocol (IP) address of the Web site you’re trying to reach and then takes you there by opening that Web page.  A numerical IP address might look like 182.25.44.12 and those DNS servers translate such numbers to names like http://www.jefflevy.com/.

The DNSChanger virus changes important settings in your computer so that your Web page request is redirected to rogue servers that have been set up by criminals, and the rogue DNS servers than take your computer to Web sites that are designed to steal information from your computer and deliver ads to you that the crooks get paid for whenever you view them.  That amounts to big dollars for the bad guys.

The good news is that last year the FBI broke up one such criminal enterprise and seized several DNSChanger rogue servers, converting them back to legitimate DNS servers.  The bad news is that running and maintaining these servers is costing the Government money, so the FBI will shut them down on or about July 9^th of this year.  Once that happens, if your PC is infected with this malware, no more Internet for you.

The DNSchanger Working Group (DCWG) has set up a Web site that can discover and fix this virus on your computer  Take a look at www.dcwg.org, and click on the Detect button to start the discover/remove process.  Do it now!  Don’t wait.

BEST BUY TO CLOSE 50 STORES

It’s no secret that Best Buy is closing 50 stores after posting a 1.7 billion dollar loss in the 4^th quarter of last year.  The company has a total of 1,400 retail stores and is trying to re-invent itself in the volatile electronics market.  Up until now the exact store locations scheduled to close has been kept a secret.

 But last week Best Buy released the list, and there are several in California facing the ax.  They include stores in East Palo Alto, Los Angeles (Westwood,) Moreno Valley, Ontario, Manteca, a small city located about 76 miles East of San Francisco and Pittsburg, a small city located in Contra Costa County.

Part of the problem for Best Buy is the changing shopping habits of the American public.  More and more people are turning to Amazon.com and other Internet retailers to save money and avoid the hassles of finding parking spaces, fighting the teaming crowds of shoppers and dealing with sales associates that just don’t care anymore.

The company is saying that these store closings are part of an overall effort to cut costs, increase “points of presence” (smaller locations) and decrease overall square footage.  Best Buy plans to open up to 100 smaller locations.

The cost reduction efforts here are troubling if you read the small print.  Best Buy plans to save money through reductions to investments in enhanced customer experience and growth initiatives.  Translation -  Best Buy is calling it quits on some efforts to improve customer service and provide a more welcoming store environment in favor of cutting costs.

And to make matters worse, on April 10^th Best Buy CEO Brain Dunn resigned and Best Buy’s board of directors are suggesting that it may take up to 9 months to find and hire a suitable replacement.

There are those experts who predict that Best Buy will be gone within 5 years, going the way of stores like Good Guys and Circuit City.  Best Buy won’t go quietly so we’ll see if these new steps are effective.   Time will tell, and I’ll keep you posted.

NEW MALWARE ATTACK ON MAC COMPUTERS WORLD-WIDE

It had to happen.  It was only a matter of time.  A Trojan Horse attack on Mac computers has taken place, and on a large scale.

Ask most Mac users why they migrated from PCs to Macs and the number one answer might just be that Macs aren’t bothered with viruses and other malware.  For the most part, that statement has been true, until now.

Recently a Russian antivirus company, Dr. Web, announced that as many as 600,000 Mac computers are infected with malware called the Flashback Trojan, a package designed to steal personal information and passwords.  The company claims that more than half of the infected Macs (57%) are here in the U.S., with as many as 274 located in Cupertino, where Apple has its headquarters.

The malware was initially spotted in September of last year masquerading as a phony Adobe Flash Player plug-in installer.  But it has recently evolved into a package that exploits Java vulnerabilities to target Mac systems.  The latest variant appears to be taking advantage of Java vulnerability in Macs and to Apple’s credit, they quickly released a patch that fixes the problem.

What’s really scary is that simply visiting a malicious Web site containing Flashback using a Mac with any version of the OS X operating system with Java installed will result in one of two installation routes for this package. The malware will request an administrator password, and if one is supplied, it will install its package of code into the Applications folder. If a password is not offered, the malware will install to the user accounts where it can run in a more global manner.

Once installed, the Flashback will inject code into Web browsers and other applications like Skype to harvest passwords and other information from those program's users.

F-Secure, a security company has published instructions on how to determine whether a Mac is infected with Flashback.  You’ll find it at this link: 

www.f-secure.com/v-descs/trojan-downloader_osx_flashback_c.shtml

Will we see more of these Mac attacks?  Probably yes, but being on-guard is your best defense.

F-Secure, a security company has published instructions on how to determine whether a Mac is infected with Flashback.  You’ll find it at this link: 

www.f-secure.com/v-descs/trojan-downloader_osx_flashback_c.shtml

Will we see more of these Mac attacks?  Probably yes, but being on-guard is your best defejse.