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Inside this issue:
Net Fraud Triples in 2002
Auction fraud led the pack, as it did in 2001 and 2000, accounting for 46 percent of complaints the unit referred to law enforcement in 2002. The matter of online-auction fraud has attracted the attention of the U.S. Congress. Instances of nondelivered merchandise and nonpayment made up 31 percent of referred complaints, and credit card or debit card fraud came in third with just shy of 12 percent. Median monetary losses were highest for those complaining about the notorious Nigerian letter fraud--they lost $3,864. People who claimed to be victims of identity theft lost an average of $2,000, and those who suffered check fraud lost a median of $1,100.
Instances of identity theft rose 73 percent in 2002 compared with 2001, according to a January report by the Federal Trade Commission, and topped the list of consumer complaints made to the FTC in 2002.
Editor's note: I keep warning people that using credit cards casually over the net is not a good idea. Folks generally reply "but I'm safe. The most I can lose is $50." As I keep pointing out, and this article reports, the average cost of identity theft is $2,000. If you won't trust a seller with a check, don't trust them with your credit card.
One of the problems with CPUs in general is the need for backward compatibility and support of an existing base. Both AMD and Intel have added features to their chips that are rarely used by software manufacturers. AMD may have a feature that will make their CPU faster in one circumstance while Intel has a feature that makes their CPU faster in another. If a software program was written to take advantage of an AMD feature, it may not work properly on an Intel system and vice versa. The only way to take full advantage of these features would be to write at least two different versions of a program, one to access the AMD set and another to access the Intel set. And if the user had yet another manufacturer's CPU (there are a few others), there would have to be a third, "vanilla" version. So most manufacturers write only the vanilla version and these great features go to waste.
But if AMD rolls out a 64-bit CPU that Intel can't match, companies like Sun and Microsoft could very well begin designing products specifically for this chip and owners of these systems will see incredible performance.
LCD-type monitors can often go even lower than CRT refresh rates and still remain flicker-free. That's because the pixels in a standard color LCD are self-illuminating; they don't have to be "painted" serially by an electron gun, and they don't fade out if not repainted regularly. They are turned on by a signal from the video card, and stay on until another signal arrives telling them to turn off or change; or until power is removed. Because if this, many LCD's have default refresh rates of 60Hz, and still show no flicker at all.
However, this means that whatever image is on screen isn't getting updated that often. There may be no flicker, but in video and other rapid-motion images, you may see smearing, blurring, and loss of detail in the moving part.
LCDs have other issues too. For example, you may notice "artifacting" or "aliasing," where the sides of curved and sloping images (and text letterforms) have little jagged stairsteps. These visual defects have all but vanished from good CRT's driven by decent video cards: The video card fills in some extra data--- data that isn't really there--- to fool your eye into seeing a smooth curve.
LCDs do this less well, even with helping technologies like XP's excellent "ClearType," which was specifically developed to improve text legibility on LCDs. Even driven by ClearType, text on some LCDs can look very harsh and stark--- a sure recipe for headaches and eyestrain.
But a lot has to do with personal taste and visual acuity. This isn't as strange as it may sound: Some people walk around with eyeglasses encrusted with fingerprints and other crud, while other meticulously polish their eyewear on a regular basis. It's similar with LCDs: Personal visual sensitivity plays a huge role in determining whether an LCD monitor will be OK for you. Specs and reviews are good place to start, but only can go so far. Buying an LCD monitor without spending some time--- not just half a minute at a store display, and certainly not just looking at a picture of an LCD as presented in a magazine or on a CRT screen--- is a shot in the dark. Ideally, find a store where you can spend some time with an LCD before you buy it. Don't just view the images the vendor has set up--- they're designed to show the screen at its best. The graphics matter, of course, but once you've seen them, view a long page of plain type, and read steadily for 10 or 20 minutes at your normal viewing distance. Your eyes will tell you if you've found a winner.
BTW: It used to be the same way buying standard CRT-based monitors--- units from different vendors could have the same specs and yet deliver very different results. Now, CRT monitor technology has been thoroughly wrung out, and is less variable. If you buy, say, a name-brand "aperture grill," Trinitron-style monitor, it's probably going to be OK, no matter where you get it.
Steve Rubenstein, a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, has proposed three little words, based on his brief experience in a Tele-marketing operation, that would stop the nuisance for all time. The three little words are: "Hold On, Please..."
Saying this, while putting down your phone and walking off (instead of hanging-up immediately) would make each Telemarketing call so much more time-consuming that sales boiler rooms would grind to a halt.
Editor: Someone else sent in the next tip. I don't know if it works but it can't hurt to try.
Do you ever get those annoying phone calls with no one on the other end? This is a telemarketing technique where a machine makes phone calls and records the time of day when a person answers the phone. This technique is used to determine the best time of day for a "real" sales person to call back and get someone at home. After answering, if you notice there is no one there, immediately hit your # button on the phone 6 or 7 times. This confuses the machine that dialed the call and it kicks your number out of their system. Since doing this, our phone calls have decreased dramatically.
When you get "ads" enclosed with your phone or utility bill, return these "ads" with your payment; let the sending companies throw their own junk mail away. When you get those "pre-approved" letters in the mail for everything from credit cards to 2nd mortgages, do not throw away the return envelope. Most of these come with postage-paid return envelopes, right? Why not get rid of some of your other junk mail and put it in these cool little, postage-paid return envelopes?
Send an ad for your local chimney cleaner to American Express. Send a pizza coupon to Citibank. If you didn't get anything else that day then just send them their blank application back! You can even send the envelope back empty if you want to just to keep them guessing.
Eventually, the banks and credit card companies will begin getting their own junk back in the mail. Let's let them know what it's like to get lots of junk mail, and the best of all they're paying for it... Twice! Let's help keep our postal service busy since they are saying that e-mail is cutting into their business profits, and that's why they need to increase postage costs again.
Send these tips to a friend... or two... or fifty!
Here's a similar tip from the Dilbert newsletter. If you get a spam email with an 800 number, the next time you get a Nigerian scam letter, send them that number as a way to reach you. There are a lot of annoying, lonely idiots out there, so why not introduce them to each other?
Though this might work for folks who don't receive much email or receive email from only a select group of friends, this would not work for anyone running an Internet business. Most prospects will not go through the trouble of sending out an inquiry, then responding to another request. On the other hand, a spammer might go through the trouble of doing this once because then, like a vampire that has been invited, he is now cleared to send unlimited spam to that ID. And what about ezines to which folks subscribe? There are over 2,000 subscribers to this newsletter. Every month when I send it out, about 1% or 2% of the email IDs are no longer valid. Some of them come back with a message that the recipient's inbox was full. I simple remove all these IDs from the list. Like most ezine publishers, I don't have the time to investigate every situation. If the email doesn't go through, the ID is removed. So folks using Goldman's method will be unable to sign up for ezines or offers from specific companies.
Yes, Goldman's idea will probably get rid of 100% of the spam, along with 20% of the legitimate email the customer wanted to see.
Someone circulated a rumor that a new law was passed permitting credit agencies such as Experian to report your credit history to anyone who asks. This rumor is not true. Your history can only be reported to certain agencies under specific conditions. Here is an email from Experian:
You may have received a widely circulated e-mail that claims that as of July 1 credit reporting agencies can share your credit history with anyone, at any time for any reason. The e-mail is completely false. The federal Fair Credit Reporting Act specifies who can obtain a copy of your credit report and under what circumstances. That hasn’t changed. You can learn more about the FCRA and your rights in All About Credit.
The e-mail also suggests you can opt out of the credit reporting process by calling a telephone number it lists. While you can opt out of pre-approved credit offers as well as marketing lists, you cannot opt out of the credit reporting system.
"We can state with absolute certainty that no computer in the world can access the data on this disc," said spokesman Brett Campbell. "We are also confident that no-one is going to be able to produce pirate copies in this format without going to a heck of a lot of trouble. This is without doubt the best anti-piracy invention the music industry has ever seen." As part of the invention's rigorous testing process, the designers gave some discs to a group of teenage computer experts who regularly use file swapping software such as Limewire and gnutella and who admit to pirating music CDs.
Despite several days of trying, none of them were able to hack into the disc's code or access any of the music files contained within it. "It's like, really big and stuff," said Doug Flamboise, one of the testers. "I couldn't get it into any of my drives. I mean, what format is it? Is it, like, from France or something?"
In the new format, raw audio data in the form of music is encoded by physically etching grooves onto the vinyl disc. The sound is thus translated into variations on the disc's surface in a process that industry insiders are describing as completely revolutionary and stunningly clever.
To decode the data stored on the disc, the listener must use a special player which contains a stylus that runs along the grooves on the record surface, reading the indentations and transforming the movements back into audio that can be fed through loudspeakers.
Even Shawn Fanning, the man who invented Napster, admits the new format will make file swapping much more difficult. "I've never seen anything like this," he told reporters. "How does it work?"
As rumours that a Taiwanese company has been secretly developing a 12 inch wide, turntable -driven, stylus-based, firewire drive remain unconfirmed, it would appear that the music industry may, at last, have found the pirate-proof format it has long been searching for.
Now though the above is a joke, the next two items are not.
A company is selling a laser turntable to play vinyl records without using a needle. The digital sound can be played through a PC. They claim that they have recovered their costs on the first 1,000 units sold and can now drop the price dramatically. What do you think? Elpj.com.
Someone claims to have found a way to scan vinyl records and save the music in digital format.
Springer.
Photo Tags.
Here is the solution to a problem many of us have with digital photographs. You have a great photo of your family at Cousin Harry's wedding in July 2002. How do you name it? Do you call it Cousin Harry's Wedding.jpg or Our Family at Cousin Harry's Wedding.jpg? How do you remember which people were in it? Where it was taken? When it was taken? Which directory do you save it in? Do you create a special one for Cousin Harry or do you file it under Summer 2002? Photo Tags solves all this and does even more.
First, it lets you record several captions and categories for each photo. You can call it Cousin Harry's Wedding AND Summer 2002. You can list all the people who are in the photo. You can file it under Special Occasions AND Summer Vacation. You can record all sorts of information about who took it, when it was taken, even the camera and settings used. All of this information is stored digitally within the jpeg file itself. When you browse your directory with My Computer or Windows Explorer, as you move the cursor to each file, a pop up window will display the information you recorded. This lets you know immediately that Cousin Harry's Wedding 023.jpg is a photo of Cousin Harry and Cousin Harriet dancing with your 2 daughters.
Photo Tags also lets you edit the photo right from within the program or call up your favorite photo editor. It lets you create slide shows or email photos to your friends. It's a nifty program and well worth $19.95.
Unstoppable Copier.
Ever try to copy a large file and have the process stop because of one bad sector? Unfortunately, the standard copy programs are an all-or-nothing proposition. Roadkill's Unstoppable Copier will try the file different ways. If it absolutely can't copy a sector, it will replace it with blanks and continue with the rest of the file.
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