GreenBucks

GreenBucks went to the WordCamp Philippines last September 6, 2008.

The lectures that I have attended were the following: Blogging 102 which is basically about how to advertise and have contests (plus where to get the prizes to be given away) to increase the blog’s juice on readership and traffic.

Then I attended the Building a Blogging Community. This is very timing since my friends and I just launched a new group writing blog, the FilipinoMomBlog.

I also attended the lecture on plug ins and SEO.

Then Mr WordPress himself Matt Mullenweg, presented the new developments for WordPress including the WordPress 2.7 which will be available in November.

I had fun learning new things except for one major mishap. My (Sandisk) SD card decided to go nuts so I lost all photos of the lectures that I took. I just took several photos again but the new WordPress 2.7 photos were in those that were probably lost

Incidentally, some of my photos were recovered last night. Woohoo! (insert Plurk banana dance here) Thanks hubby!

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To be a victim of phishing is not a pleasant experience for anyone involved with any online transaction.

To be a victim of online identity thefts is definitely not pleasant.

There have been stories of people, bloggers and non bloggers whose online earnings or savings accounts have been violated and their monies victims of theft.

So how should one protect his online accounts?

• When suspicious emails arrive and there are links to open, check first if the links are legit. Put your cursor over the link and see what is being seen in the browser. If these are not matched, then it is suspicious and might be fraud.

• Now, why would you open a mail that asks you to confirm about an item that you ordered when you know you didn’t order anything? That is suspicious too.

• Change your passwords every now and then, every two weeks if need be. Go for passwords not associated to you and use letters and numbers and characters in the password. Do NOT store these passwords in your computer.

• There are identity thieves that use keystroke-logging software to know the usernames and passwords through emails, freeware and yes, instant messaging.

• Be careful when downloading anything from unknown sources for these files may contain malicious software programs that might be accompanied by spyware.

• Do not respond to emails requesting for your personal information.

I remember this episode from Psych, one my favorite (very funny) detective tv series. They were in a speed dating club and had to sit with other people and get to know them by asking questions. Shawn noticed that one woman’s questions were different. She was asking about these things:

• hometown where the guy grew up
• mother’s maiden name
• favorite color

So naturally, Shawn’s interest perked up. They finally got this woman and her husband who was also working in the dating club for identity theft.

These are just some of the things one has to look out for in order to protect online accounts. I am very sure there are a lot more different ways these thieves have that will enable them to do their illegal activities.

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I did not write these things because I assume I know everything. I wrote these things as a reminder that I too, need to beef up what I need to do to protect myself from identity theft.

If financial institutions and government offices have been victimized, we can be too. I hope not me, of course.

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When I was new to anything about the internet, I often wondered what the numbers meant in the emails I have been getting. Later on, when I was blogging, these numbers come with the comments to my posts that I receive.

One time I got a very annoying comment, well, not annoying really but rather rude. I was going to pass that one up but it was my homeschooling blog that the comment was given to so I was affected. My husband suggested that we look up the IP address of the person who sent that message just to know where it was sent.

We used the IP2Location to look for the IP address of this person who sent the annoying message.

We got what we were looking for but of course, we could not do anything about it but to block that IP Address.

So what can one expect to find when knowing about IP addresses?

IP2Location’s DB15-DB18 packages can show IDD code, weather station name, area code and other stuff. It also has a demo page here which can be accessed within the site.

It is good to know the locations of those who visit my blogs as it gives me satisfaction to know that my posts are being read. Even if it means spam comments are coming, I have a catcher to take care of these.

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Knoppix. I do not really know how to define this. All I remember was when our PC had some problems a few years back, I used a Knoppix program to be able to write reports. This program runs on CD which was downloaded by my husband. Hubby has written a post about Knoppix here.

Click here and here to read about Knoppix.

Ubuntu on the other hand is like Knoppix, a free Linux-based OS for your computers. There are several applications included: web browser, document and spreadsheet software, instant messaging, and a lot of other features.

This can be downloaded here.

My children love the edubuntu software that we have.

Edubuntu can be downloaded here.

Why did I write a short post about this? One time I heard my husband and then 6yo son Julian talking about these things. And also because these are great resources.

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Phishing.

No, I didn’t misspell this word for fishing. Phishing in the online community means fraud or something criminally fraudulent or ok then, something fishy.

Phishing is an attempt to get sensitive information from people who go online and need to use user names or logins and of course, passwords. In a worse case scenario, these sites would ask for credit card details.

Most often, phishing will be in the form emails or instant messaging about a PayPal account, eBay product that has been ordered but not been paid for, online banks and even social networking sites.

This directs the recipients of the email to go to certain sites and enter the details that they ask for.

Take for example this site where a friend has invited me to join. I decided to join because I got invites from several friends but have not responded positively. Just a while ago, I went to the site to see what this all about.

Of course I did not push through with the registration. The reason? It was asking for my yahoo mail password.

My what? Yes, my yahoo mail password.

Something fishy really, if you ask me.

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Mark Cuban not only owns the Dallas Maverick but serves as chairman of the TV Channel HD.Net. He blogs too.

The finer points discussed in the NY Times article about blogging are the following:

1. Don’t expect to get rich.
2. Write about what you want to write about, in your own voice.
3. Fit blogging into the holes of your schedule
4. Just post it already
5. Keep a regular rhythm
6. Join the community, such as it is.
7. Plug yourself.

There’s this part in the article that fits exactly what I think sometimes:

In the end, the biggest threat isn’t that you’ll fail to learn to blog. It’s that if you blog regularly for long enough, and begin to get comments and links from other bloggers, you’ll have trouble doing your day job.

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