I’m starting to enjoy these releases from Identity Finder; whoever is writing them is hooking me properly with their top 10 security tip lists. This one concerns ways to protect your identity while on the job, and it should be especially useful for the younger members of the summer job-force.

Can you add any other job security tips to their list?

TOP 10 SECURITY TIPS TO PREVENT IDENTITY THEFT AT YOUR FIRST JOB THIS SUMMER

Over a million college graduates and students will be starting a new job or internship this summer.  Most of them will receive their first company computer and with that comes a brand new set of responsibilities they never considered.   One of those responsibilities is preventing the theft of sensitive company data and their own personal information. Every two seconds an American has their identity stolen and over 277,000,000 data records of US residents have been exposed to date, due to security breaches.

Protecting a corporate computer helps you prevent your own identity theft as well as safeguard your company from unfortunate data leakage incidents.  “Parents teach us to ‘look both ways before crossing the street’ but most of us didn’t grow up hearing, ‘make sure your password contains a number’ or  ‘install the latest service pack,’” says Todd Feinman, CEO of Identity Finder, LLC — a company whose software helps prevent both of these problems. Identity Finder here provides ten simple tips to help you protect your computer at work:

1.       Your password is a form of your identity and can be used to access your computer and all the information on it.  Make sure it is at least seven characters, contains numbers, and upper and lowercase letters.  Do not simply pick a word from the dictionary (or your name!) and add a number.
2.       Peer-to-peer file sharing programs may allow people to access your company’s data and steal personal and private information.  Configure these programs not to expose personal folders.
3.       Microsoft releases Windows fixes weekly or monthly.  Always update your computer as soon as possible after they are released and never wait more than a full month.  These fixes plug holes that hackers know how to exploit to gain access to your files.
4.       If you set up a wireless network in your home or office, make sure to use the security features to prevent people from joining.  If they do join, it is easier to gain access to your computer.
5.       Don’t leave your laptop unattended at the bar or coffee shop.  Hundreds of thousands of laptops are stolen each year!
6.       Don’t purchase anything online with your credit card unless the website is secured with SSL as indicated by a padlock in your web browser.
7.       Don’t click on email messages that contain hyperlinks to websites.  Close the email and type the website address in manually. Phishing attacks are increasingly common and attempt to trick you into visiting false websites to steal your personal information.
8.       Never enter private company information on public computers such as in a hotel, library, or at school. These systems may be infected with a keylogger or spyware capturing everything you type.
9.       Never email or instant message private company information. Those communications are usually not secure and can be listened in upon by other people.
10.   Make sure you don’t store any personal or confidential information on your computer unsecured.  (You can run the free trial of Identity Finder from www.identityfinder.com to see what private information is unsecured and vulnerable to identity thieves, if they access your computer.)

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This list was sent in by Identity Finder, along with the information following. I don’t normally post articles written by PR agencies (unless they are noted on Gear Diary as press releases), but this one really does have a lot of relevant information in this time of rampant identity theft and online shenanigans. Anyone that uses their computer for online monetary transactions would do well to pay attention to these tips…

1. When storing a copy of your tax return on your computer, make sure you secure it with a password so that your SSN cannot be read if the file is lost.

2. Securely delete all electronic, financial documents used to prepare your tax returns so any personal information is safe.

3. Ignore all refund/rebate/warning emails claiming to come from the IRS and never click on links within those emails because it is most likely a phishing attack.

4. Do not provide personal information to anyone calling you claiming to be from the IRS; the IRS already has your information and it’s likely to be an identity thief calling you.

5. Check your credit report with one of the three credit bureaus for free every four months at www.annualcreditreport.com to make sure your identity hasn’t already been stolen.

6. Install the latest updates to your operating system so known Windows or Mac vulnerabilities can’t be exploited by hackers.

7. Don’t save your password in your web browser when accessing banks and other institutions that
keep your personal information because it could be leaked if you ever get a virus, Trojan, or are hacked.

8. If you provided your bank account and routing information to the IRS for payment or refunds,
check your bank accounts to ensure the proper transfer occurred.

9. Visit your bank account online and set up alerts on your accounts to monitor when high amounts of cash are withdrawn.

10. Make sure you do not receive incorrect payment liability or refund information; a thief could have filed a tax return on your behalf fraudulently. If you suspect tax preparation fraud, call the State Tax Department toll-free at 1-888-675-9437.

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I have recently started using Mozilla’s Thunderbird e-mail program for my e-mail coming into Gear Diary.  It supports many protocols my favorite being IMAP.   Not to mention that it is multi platform running on Windows, Max OS X and of course Linux.

One annoying behavior that I’ve discovered about Thunderbird is it defaults to sending all e-mail forwards as attachments.  In theory, nothing is wrong with this behavior, but it creates an attachment that ends in “.eml”.  Some mail providers like Gear Diary’s provider will block this with their spam or virus detection software. Continue Reading

Whenever I travel, I struggle with carrying far too many clothes. I have yet to crack the code for carry on luggage. I remember on one trip my roommate packed one jacket, a pair of pants and two shirts to last five days. There’s no way I could go for that – I need to have a change of outfits at a 1.5 ratio per day! On my last trip, my luggage was delayed for two days; by then my jeans were standing straight up. Now look at this picture; granted I am on the road for an extended work trip, but I have to get a better grip on the amount of gear I carry. Do I need help or do all road worthy gadget lovers carry this much stuff?

Since not everyone wants to spend $129 for a coffee maker like the Keurig Ultra B50 that we just reviewed, I’ll show you the way that I scored a free Senseo coffee maker. The Senseo is a cheaper version of the Keurig and uses pods which resemble teabags that you place into a similar coffee chamber. They’ve been giving these away to people who qualify for at least two years. What are the qualifications? Do you have $15 for shipping? Do you have a pulse? Do you have a credit card to pay for the $15 in shipping? Congratulations you qualify. Keep reading to learn how to collect the free Senseo.

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If you don’t need expansion card slots and memory that only goes to 2GB (EASILY upgraded this myself), then Best Buy has the laptop we bought last month back on sale for $449. This is an Internet only deal - no in store pickup. Unfortunately shipping this time around is $ 19.95 (if you’re patient you may see them throw in free shipping). But it met my two main criteria for a home laptop - (a) big enough hard drive (120 GB) and useable O/S (Windows Vista Home Premium). Last night we installed Office Professional off my Technet subscription (you did read about my Technet deal, right?). Ordinarily I’d say this is a middle of the road laptop…except…every time I use it I’m saying “you know this isn’t a bad laptop for the money” - and my main machine these days is a MacBook Pro. Take a look at this deal and if it suits your needs, I recommend it. UPDATE 4-6-2008 2:20pm : Just noticed this Dell on sale at Best Buy for $499 (has the same $16 shipping) - but 2GB of RAM and 160 GB HDD - memory on the Dell can go to 4GB max while the HP tops out at 2GB. Update: 4-18-2008:Check Fatwallet.com before making any purchases -  this laptop goes on and off sale all the time - I recently spied it at Best Buy in-store for $429.

Link: Best Buy Online - Commpaq Presario T2330 for $449 plus $ 19.95 shipping

If you’ve ever used RedBox to rent a DVD overnight you’ve probably received a free rental coupon via email. In Connecticut RedBox kiosks are located in many grocery stores. New releases come out on Tuesdays. For $ 1 you get an overnight rental (return the DVD by 9 p.m. the following day). If you forget to drop it off - they charge another dollar per day until 25 days have passed - then you own the DVD. RedBox is pretty aggressive about distributing free rental codes (make sure you use the “RENT WITH A PROMO CODE” button on the lower left corner of the rental screen) so you’ll try the service. Of course the Internet makes it easy for people to share. And since RedBox suggests that users share codes with a friend - this sharing seems perfectly legitimate. Keep reading to find out more about free RedBox codes.

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I’m still undecided on the usefulness of Twitter. Part of me loves the news feeds from ZDNET, Techmeme, WeSmirch and of course GearDiary - which notify me when new articles have been posted. The other part hates the blatant self-promotion from some bloggers, which while entertaining isn’t relevant to my day. Here’s an interesting Twitter that I just started following. If you add WiiMe to your Twitter account, they’ll continuously check Amazon for availability of the popular WII video system and “tweet” (send a message via Twitter) when in stock. My kids have been after me to pick one up for them. And, yeah, I hear that certain parts of the country have these available. They’re just not showing up here in Connecticut.

Link: WiiMe Twitter Page (where you can begin to follow their feed)
Link: Twhirl - Twitter client - for Mac or Windows (makes watching the feeds easier)

Amazon on Tuesday night introduced a service to allow shopping their online store via SMS text message. To price compare anything Amazon sells, text an item name, UPC or ISBN number to 262966 (AMAZON). If the price is right, you can order it from Amazon via replying to the text message (assuming you have an Amazon account). Amazon also sends a link to the product so you can browse more details. I’ve been in several situations where I tried to price shop an item via Amazon and this service will make it a lot easier. More details on the next page.

Link: Amazon TextBuyIt

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I’ve been using twhirl for the past week to read and respond to Twitter messages. While I’m still not sold on the long term usefulness of Twitter, I am impressed by the free twhirl program. Because it’s based upon the Adobe AIR platform, the software runs on either Windows or the Mac.

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