Fraudulent E-mail

This week I received an e-mail claiming to be from E-Bay stating that an item I made a bid on was not paid for and I needed to log in and correct the situation before it would go against my account.

I was cautious enough to open a new window and log into my E-Bay account. I contacted them via. The live chat option and told them of the situation. I was instructed to forward the e-mail to e-bay and they would take care of it from there.

The following day I received an e-mail from E-Bay (really from E-bay this time) thanking me for reporting the situation and telling me they would look into it at once. It was not a form e-mail mind you, someone actually took the time to read the original I forwarded to them and type a response.

As impressed as I was with the response from E-Bay, I could not help to think about how many people would have clicked on that link and unknowingly given out their account information.

Fraudulent E-mail is becoming a popular thing these days. If you get an e-mail asking you to log into an account and correct a problem, NO NOT CLICK ON THE LINK!
Do as I did, open a new window and go to the service that the e-mail claims to be from. Log in and let them know of the e-mail. Most services will not send you an e-mail of that nature and will appreciate your contacting them. Hopefully they will take the time to respond and react like E-Bay did.

I have contacted E-bay asking them for information and details on how they deal with situations like this so I can include that in this article. That e-mail is yet to be answered (it’s been a few days now). I guess they really do read through the e-mails and decide which ones require a response. If I do get further information from them, I will do a follow up on how they handle Fraudulent E-mail’s

Written by A. Wallace

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I am always looking forward to seeing what people think about articles I decide to use from others as well as getting feed back on articles that I have written myself.

Thank you,
A.Wallace

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13th Anniversary of the 1st bombing of the World Trade Center

February 26, 2006 marks the 13th Anniversary of the 1st bombing of the World Trade Center, where 6 Americans died and over 1,000 people were injured.

With the conviction of the mastermind behind the bombing (Ramzi Yousef) being convicted back in ’98 and sentenced to life in prison without parole and the conviction of Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, who is also serving a life sentence. This should have been a wake up call for our government to pay more attention to terrorists.

Our government failed to learn from the situation and allowed us to become victim to terrorists once again in September 11, ’01.

Future attacks were predicted yet nothing was done. Reports were made public in March of ’05 of not less then 14 letters between the WTC bombers and a Spanish terror cell. The list goes on.

Death is sad enough without our government making it to be without a purpose.

Please keep those who died in the bombing of the World Trade Center parking garage on February 26, 1993 in your thoughts and in your heart.

·John DiGiovanni: Valley Stream, New York
·Robert Kirkpatrick: Suffern, New York
·Steve Knapp: Manhattan, New York City
·Wilfredo Mercado: Brooklyn, New York City
·William Macko: Bayonne, New Jersey
·(And an unborn baby) Monica Smith: Seaford, New York

Written By A. Wallace

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Cyber Bullies

What exactly are Cyber Bullies? The term Cyber Bullies covers a wide range of things. The most common would be someone that follows you from chat to chat and is being annoying, a person who IM's you all the time, someone that sends you annoying e-mails a lot to be aggravating and those that post improper messages about you on the internet.

Cyber Bullies are becoming more and more common then ever. They hide behind a computer and therefore feel that they can do whatever they want and never reveal their true identity. Most of them know their victims, that's right I said victims (if you are being a bullied by a Cyber Bully, you are a victim of harassment). More often then not, the Bully is someone from school or a (so-called) friend.

The easiest thing to do if you fall victim to a Cyber Bully is to ignore them. Most of the time they will get tired of it and stop. There are times that the extent of the bullying requires a little more action then just ignoring them. It is important that parents speak with their children and let them know that if they are being bullied online, it is important that they talk about it.

Just as any kind of bully, a cyber bully is looking for that reaction. They feed off of making you frightened, embarrassed or cry. As hard as it is to ignore something that is hateful or insulting, retaliation will only escalate the situation and make it worse.

Written by A. Wallace

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Home Painting Tips

Remember, everyone starts as a beginner at painting. Just because you have never painted a house doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give it a try. The money you save by painting your own house is money you can put into other home improvements. It can also be a fun thing for the whole family to do.

Now we need to choose the colors we want to paint the house. There is a really cool tool online that you can use. http://www.benjaminmoore.com/wrapper_pcv.asp?L=owner&K=intproj&N=intproj Click let’s paint. Choose exterior or the interior options. Choose the project closest to yours. Get started and you will soon know what color you want to paint your house and you’ll have a vision of what it is going to look like when you’re finished.

Here are some of the basics. Of course the first thing you need to do is wash down the walls of your house. A pressure washer can be rented at almost any rental yard and is the best way to do that. Now go around with a scraper and remove all loose paint and chipped areas. You don’t have to scrape the entire wall, but any areas where the surface is not flat can cause you problems as you paint your house.

Next, figure out your square footage so you can determine the amount of paint you will need to buy. Buy your paint in 5-gallon pails, rather than gallons to save more money.

Talk to the helper at your local paint store and tell him about your project. They can help you decide on how many brushes and rollers and other items you will need. You can buy natural or synthetic bristles for oil based paints, but only use synthetic bristles with latex paint. The same rule applies to rollers. Good rollers can run you around $7, but buy high-quality paintbrushes. A good brush for cutting in around edges will run you about $30.

Make sure you purchased some painter’s tape. It’s blue tape that comes in different widths and is easy to remove without messing up your paint job. That brings us to preparation. Tape off all areas you don’t wish to get this color of paint on. If there are large areas to cover, make sure you pick up some rolls of plastic. You can tape the edges of the plastic down over whatever you need to cover.

Don’t paint out of the paint cans. First reason is that leaving the paint can open will dry out the paint and make it difficult to apply. Another reason is that your brush or roller picks up dirt and foreign objects, which will end up in your paint and may even change the color as you go along.

Do all of your cutting or trimming in before you paint the walls. Use a 4” brush and with a smooth stroke guide it around the edges where you taped off. Make sure you have plenty of paint on your brush. The biggest mistake people make is trying to stretch the paint too far. Keep drips cleaned up as you go with a small rag. Remember you will be rolling up to the edge of your cut, so don’t worry about that, just make sure you cover the edges well.

Start on the edges of your walls and work your way toward the middle. Most people don’t do this and problems can result. If you start and new can of paint in the middle of the wall and there is any difference in the color at all, it will show up there more than it would on the edges. So with each new can of paint you open, start at the edges first.

Dip your roller in water (for Latex) or solvent (for oil-based paint), before you start. Whether you use a pan or a 5-gallon bucket with a screen, make sure you roll it out a little to make sure it isn’t dripping. You don’t need to go all the way from the top to the bottom as you paint. Do what you can reach.

Apply the paint in a Y or an N pattern, then apply paint in columns up and down smoothing out all the edges or ridges as you go. Again don’t try to stretch the paint out, make sure you have enough paint on your roller to give it a good coat. If you are applying more than one coat, make sure the first coat is completely dry before applying a new coat of paint.
Corners are a difficult part to learn to paint. If you aren’t careful, this is where you will see paint drips later. Get as close to corners as you can, but don’t scrape the roller against the corner. That will cause drips. If you are unsure, have a paintbrush handy to smooth out drips. That is also a good idea overall. Keep a paintbrush ready for taking care of any drips or ridges you leave behind. Doing this as you go is much easier than trying to fix it after it’s dry or partially dry.

Using tray liners for your paint trays will save you a lot of time at cleanup. Soak your brushes when done for awhile and they will also be easier to clean. For water based paint, soak in water and for oil based paint soak them in solvent.

I hope some of these tips have been helpful to you. Have confidence that you can do this job yourself. You will appreciate and enjoy it much more knowing that you or you and your family completed the job rather than hiring someone else to do it.

By: D. David Dugan

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