NJ Computer Software/Hardware Support Blog

How many times; have you wondered whether it is safe to give out your credit card over the phone or even enter it on the internet.  Is the site ok, is it a fly by night or are they a real legitimate company; should I chance it or should I worry.

Maybe you have asked these or similar questions in the past and have either been frauded or felt that you might be frauded because you have no system and just keep rolling the dice.  Well, unfortunately, gambling with your identity is not going to be a smart move when it comes to keeping your credit clean and of course many other consequences.

1)  First, buy yourself a good cross shredded at any major department or office store and make the decision now that you are going to use it.  Any time you get mail that you don’t want, especially credit card offers, no interest credit paper checks, shred it in your cross shredded immediately.

You see; a lot of identity theft happens because people get information from your trash and thus they learn too much about you and your patterns of what you do.

2)  When you go on-line make certain that before you go enter any confidential or private information to a website such as credit card numbers, address, last name, back account number, social security number, etc, make sure the site is secure. You will notice that your web browser will either have solid lock or solid key and the http will change to https indicating that the site is secure and encrypted.  If it a very large purchase you even want to click on the solid lock or key and verify that the website idetity is the same name of the company your think you are paying.

3)  Never send any confidential information via email as this is not secure on most standard email and home pop accounts and the information can be compromised if it falls into the wrong hands.

4)  If you get any emails that claim any kind of security issue such as we recently noticed a large order of 5000.00 dollars and the products are going to shipped to a new address that was recently added to your account.  We bring this to your attention because we feel this might be fraud and thus we value yoru business, so if you do not want this shipment to take place plase click on the link below and login to our website.

DON’T DO IT!!!!

Even thought that link seems real, it is actually going to do one of two things:  take you two false site make to look like your financial institution or send you to your bank’s website and then run ascript that captures the information. and here is how it usually happens.

First after you get the e-mail an figure that you better respond or card will  be charged; you login the site says your password is invalid, and you just sent your information off to the wrong hands.  Now while you are tyring to login again, thinking that you typed it wrong. the other person is in your account has access to your credit card and otther information and can now change the security questiion address ,etc.

This is a special type of e-mail called Phishing where it gets you believe something that is not true and because of consequences you react immediatly without thinking and someone is on their way to steailing your idenity.

With the buzz around NJ and many people finding that stores only carrying computers with some flavor of windows vista:  home basic, home premium, business and ultimate.  Many large chain stores are telling their shoppers that something will work with vista but later find out this in not the same as windows vista certified.

Our recommendation is to do one of three things before you buy any hardware peripherals for windows vista:

1)  First look on the box and make sure it has a windows vista logo which is basically a small blue circle with a four squares:  red, green blue and yellow.  If you don’t see the windows vista logo don’t buy the product.

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2)  You can goto to Microsoft’s HCL page or hardware compatibility list page; which you can reach by

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/hcl/default.mspx but please be advised this link will only work properly inside of internet explorer.

Once you get to the page choose from the appropriate categories at the left depending on what you are looking for:  components, digital camera and video, input devices, mobile tech, monitor and displays, networking,  printers and scanners, storage devices.

For our example; lets pretend we want to find a new printer that will be 100% compatible to work in vista.

Thus we would click on printers and scanners, next we have a choice to find qualified products by either a the company drop down box, x86 which is works with and vista certified for x86 processors and there is one for works with vista and vista certified regarding x64 bit processors.

Again; lets pretend that we want a Brother MFC or multifunction device, so we will choose Brother Industries, LTD. and then we wil choose certified for vista under x86 drop down.

We can then see a list of wonderful Brother devices that are vista certified, we look at the CDP-350C

and know that it is certified and  the installation will be smooth, and that this vendor cared enough to spend extra money to follow strict guidelines for compliance and have Microsoft run rigorous tests on the products interaction with the vista operating system.

3) Talk to a company like us an let a professional recommend and install a hardware you need.

Again; when we say something will work; that’s itl the system may work but not all of its features have been tested and you will have to guess what is not going to work or perform improperly.