Online scammers use Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows to bait people

The first half of the final installment in the Harry Potter saga, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, will be released next month and as Harry Potter enthusiasts all over the world eagerly wait in anticipation, Symantec have already started observing spam messages around this event.

Spammers have been trying to put innocent fans under their “spell” by promoting fake offers such as asking users to sign up “TODAY” to get all seven books in the Harry Potter series.  As an incentive, users will purportedly receive free tickets to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows PART I. A great lucrative offer that one just cannot afford to miss!

Here’s a sample message from this campaign:

Subject: Get your HP 7 Tickets Now
Subject: Movie tickets and book collection

When the ‘Submit’ button is clicked, users will be asked to provide their email address and other personal data and are then redirected to a “complementary” offer of a four days/three nights stay in a luxury resort:

Last year, Symantec had observed spam targeting Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and had discussed the attacks on the Symantec Security Response Blog. This time, Symantec have noticed an early spam wave and are expecting it to grow as the release date draws nearer. Beware, or you might find yourself bewitched by The Deadly Hallows of Spam!

Symantec advises users to be wary of such unsolicited offers and not be lured by “the spell” of such email harvesters:

• Always apply common sense rules - be careful what you click on. Exercise caution when clicking on links from unknown senders. Always maintain a level of caution around any messages from within a website or that appear to be sent by a website – check the URL.  It’s best to type the URL directly into the address bar.
• Look for signs of identity theft. Be on the lookout for things in the mail, including credit cards you did not request. Clear signs of lingering identity theft problems include being contacted by vendors regarding accounts you are unaware of, or worse, debt collectors for purchases someone else has made.
• Use website rating services such as Norton Safe Web (http://www.safeweb.norton.com/) to check if a website is safe. Norton Safe Web is a community where web users collaborate to report and share dangerous phishing or malware websites. Norton Safe Web Lite (http://safeweb.norton.com/lite) can also be downloaded for free for a safer search experience
• Stay informed. For more information on digital dangers and other protective measures, visit www.everyclickmatters.com.

How to fix the iPad’s WiFi problems

The iPad is already out for quite a while and people are still busy enjoying this new breed of gadget. For some people though, they’re miffed about the unreliability of the iPad to connect to some wireless networks even if they’re already detected.

Are you one of those people? Before you return your iPad or purchase an Apple router, try this solution first as suggested in the Apple KnowledgeBase.

Create separate Wi-Fi network names to identify each band. This can be done easily by appending one or more characters to the current network name.

• Example:  Add a G to the 802.11b/g network name and an N to the 802.11n network name.

Ensure that both networks use the same security type (WEP, WPA, WPA2, and so on)

If the issue persists, reset your network settings using Settings > General > Reset > Reset Network Settings.

It has something to do with some dual-band routers (those supporting G and N) which I’ve encountered with my iPod Touch before.

[via Lifehacker]

How to combine Firefox’s address and search bar into one

If you’ve tried the browser Google Chrome, you will notice how efficient it is to be able to key in your search keywords on the address bar instead of using a separate field in the toolbar for your search.

You can also have this feature in Firefox with the help of this small add-on called Foobar. What this add-on does is combine your address and search bar into one. You can now enter the URL or type in a search entry on your address bar when you install this.

It’s easy to use and you can also set it up to use your favorite search engine as default. Now your browser won’t get cluttered with all those toolbars and search fields.

This add-on should not be confused with Foobar2000 which is a music player for Firefox.

Find photos taken with a particular camera in Flickr

So you’re planning on buying a new digital camera but don’t really know how the images will turn out when used in the real world. You know those promotional sample shots are heavily edited so where do you turn to? How about Flickr?

Flickr has this Camera Finder feature which is a search function that will allow you to browse photos taken from a particular camera. Say you want to know how the Sony Cybershot DSC-T1 performs or what kind of cool shots you can do with it, look for it in the Camera Finder.

You can also browse photos based on the type of shot like portrait, macro, action, etc. so you can get a nice feel on what kind of shots to expect with the camera before buying it.

Of course, buying a good camera doesn’t really make you a good photographer. :)

Never Leave your USB Drive Behind

This is a guest post from Dean who’s one of our readers. He sent this helpful guide on how not to forget your USB drive plugged in your machine. Check it out.

Did you ever forget your USB Stick at your home, office or any other place before leaving when you need it most? Then here is a free tool for you which won’t let you forget Your USB Stick next time.

This free tool is a Vbscript called pcwUnstick, from PC WELT, a German computer magazine. The script opens a pop up window every time you try to shut down your computer and USB drive is still plugged in so that you don’t forget to take your USB Drive with you.

Read more »

Gmail gives you another reason to dump IE

Still can’t bring yourself into downloading and installing a different web browser other than that pre-installed Internet Explorer?

Well if you’re using Gmail a lot then better make the switch to Firefox 3 or Google Chrome. Google recommends those two browsers instead of IE7 when accessing Gmail since it will give you quite a boost in speed reporting it to be twice as fast.

But if you still can’t let go of your trusty IE, don’t fret as IE8 which is reportedly much faster is just around the corner.

Major security flaw in IE now fixed

Barely a week after a major security flaw in all versions of IE has been discovered, Microsoft was able to release a bug-fix to remedy the problem. Security experts are recommending Internet Explorer users to immediately install the patch.

To install the patch, just run Windows Update (you can see it on your Control Panel) and you should see a selection for Security Fix for your version of Internet Explorer.

The malicious code which latches on iFrames of legitimate web sites allows hackers to steal online gaming passwords (for now) from your computer.

Oh yeah, Mozilla also issued recently its own bug-fix for critical issues affecting the security and stability of Firefox 3.

Source: PC World

Stop using Internet Explorer, at least for now

If you can't find a reason to switch to another browser from Internet Explorer, here's a really good one.

Security experts including Trend Micro are advising IE users to switch to any web browsers for the time being when a new major security flaw was found affecting all versions of Internet Explorer.

Thousands of compromised webs sites can exploit the IE security hole allowing them to steal passwords saved. As of right now it can only steal online game passwords but experts are not discounting that it can be used to do more damage really soon.

Microsoft is still on the works to create the patch so for now, it's either you stop using IE or set its security zone setting to the highest mode possible.

Source: BBC

Yahoo Messenger causes multiple instances of IE to popup fix

A lot of people at our office experienced dozens of instances of Internet Explorer popping up. This happened every once in a while and we thought it's a virus. We soon found out that this happens every time Yahoo Messenger disconnects which happens a lot due to our firewall.

If you're also experiencing the problem, download this fix. Extract noYMads2.rar then simply run the .bat file. It's just a list of commands that will tweak your registry to disable the ads in Yahoo Messenger that causes the IE to open multiple times when sudden disconnection.

Don't worry it's not a virus. You can view the contents in notepad before you execute it to be sure. But another solution is to upgrade to the latest version of Yahoo Messenger which is a safer choice. :)

Run multiple Yahoo Messengers at the same time

I'm not sure why some people needs to have multiple instances of Yahoo! Messengers on at the same time. Maybe they have a separate ID for friends and business contacts that they don't want to mix up.

Well here's a simple registry hack that can help you login to your different accounts in Yahoo! Messenger. Close your YM first before editing your registry.

• Go to Start > Run then type regedit and hit Enter
• Navigate down to HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software > yahoo > pager > Test
• Click on the right pane, and go to Edit > New > DWORD value

• Enter Plural as the name and set its value to 1

That's it! I tried this on Yahoo Messenger 8 running Windows XP and it works perfectly. I'm not sure if it also works with Vista but just delete the New Value that you created to revert your registry back.

If you're afraid of manually editing your registry, you can download this registry patch instead. Just extract the .reg file, double-click on it and click yes to apply the patch.

Troubleshoot with Bug.gd

You've probably... well most likely experienced a handful of error messages on your computer every once in a while. So what do you do before contacting tech support? If you're like me, I usually Google about the error message or look at tech forums for solutions.

Here's a website that should be on top of your list of sites to check for solutions. Bug.gd, dubbed as Humanity's Only Hope, is a Web 2.0 service that aims to collect all error messages people usually encounter on their PC and their solutions (if available).

So how does it work? Enter your e-mail address and paste the error message that you received. It will then return the list of solutions to that error message if available. If not, Bug.gd will contact you after 2 days to see if you've been able to fix your problem. If you do, they will ask you to share your solution so that everyone can benefit.

The site is so simple yet effective so contribute if you can to get back good karma. It beats wasting time with a technical support personnel.

Read free magazines from Zinio with Firefox

Zinio is a site that offers popular magazines in digital format. They also offer a handful of these high-quality magazines for iPhone users for FREE via Zinio Labs.

Magazines included are Men's Health, PC Magazine, Popular Mechanics, Popular Photography, Elle and a whole lot more including Penthouse and Playboy.

These magazines can only be viewed using an iPhone browser though. Go ahead and try visiting The Zinio Mobile Newstand now. Nothing huh? But there's a way though.

We need to have our Firefox to simulate as an iPhone browser. Here's how it's done.

First, download a Firefox add-on called User Agent Switcher. This allows your Firefox to quickly switch to different browser environments (Opera, IE7, etc.). Since it doesn't have the iPhone browser included by default, we need to add it.

Go to Tools > User Agent Switcher > Options > Options

In the User Agent Switcher window, click Add.

In the Edit User Agent, enter these info:

Description: iPhone (or whatever name you want to call it)
User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A102 Safari/419 (United States)

Then click Ok.

Try accessing Zinio Labs now. You will be greeted with the full current edition of magazines in digital format. Click on the one you like and enjoy reading! Don't forget to switch your browser back to Default when you're done.

Credits goes to iSmashPhone.

Download YouTube videos using only your browser

Hey guys, I just want to share a tip on how to download videos from Youtube, Google Video, Myspace, etc. without using any special software 'cept for your browser. This one really works and you won't be stucked with .flv files.

So how should we go about it? It's quite simple! Remember my post on Zamzar? Yup, the free file conversion online service can also convert online videos for you to download.

Just head over to Zamzar, and click Download Videos. Enter the URL of the video you wish to download and choose the file type that you want it to be. There's a variety of video formats for you to choose from (mp4, mpg, ipod, iphone, avi, wmv, etc.) but I would go for .mp4 so it won't be a big download.

Wait for about 30 minutes for their e-mail with the link and you're all set. Just queue up your download list so you won't have to wait that long for the next e-mail.

They can convert videos from the following sites:

• Youtube
• Google Video
• Myspace
• Revver
• PutFile
• Break.com
• Apple Trailers
• Dailymotion
• Metacafe
• IFilm
• Grouper
• Blip.tv

Neat huh?

Free online file conversion service

Ever find yourself with the problem of receiving a file but your system cannot open it? Maybe somebody sent you a .docx file but you don't have MS Word 2007 installed. Or maybe you want to convert a Word file into a PDF one.

Instead of downloading multiple softwares to do the job, try Zamzar's free online file conversion service. It's quite simple to use and you don't have to download any software. Just browse for the file(s) that you want to convert and the type of conversion you want to achieve. Then simply wait for the e-mail with the link where you could download the converted file(s).

The site offers a great number of conversion from documents, images, audio, video and compression formats. They also allow you to do batch converts and will zip the files for you for easy downloading.

The conversion is not instant though so don't use it if you need it in a flash. I tried using it to convert some .pdf into .doc and I got the e-mail about 30 minutes later. I didn't get any confirmation after I clicked the Convert button. It just showed a blank page so don't be alarmed if you experience the same thing. Just wait for the mail.

The free service allows converted files to be stored in their server for only 24 hours before they are deleted. It also has a maximum of 100MB file limitation which is enough. You can also sign up for their paid service if you wish to convert a bigger file and have a file account with them where you can manage your files.
Only problem with this service is you can't choose conversion settings if there's any. For example I want to convert a .rm file into .avi, I can't choose the type of video compression to use.

Anyhow, it's free and quite easy to use so I would definitely use this service multiple times. Go try it out.

Quick way to know currency conversion rate via Google

If you want to know the conversion rate of a certain currency where do you go? Newspaper sites maybe? Yahoo Finance? Or XE.com? Well, there's a quick way to know the current conversion rate of a particular currency via Google. No more choosing from drop-down menus or clicking multiple links.

Just type in what you want to convert in the Google Search box. For example type 1 Singapore Dollar in Philippine Peso and press Enter. You will be shown this info on top of your search result. Google can't provide the accuracy of the currency conversion but it is still a pretty good estimate.

Cool huh? Google can also provide you a quick way to convert measurements such as feet to meters or Celsius to Fahrenheit.

Secure your Firefox passwords

If you're using Firefox as your web browser, do you use its Remember Always feature when logging in to your e-mail, multiply, etc.?

Do you know that passwords that you save in your Firefox browser can easily be seen by people accessing your machine? Yup, the passwords are in plain text for people to see along with your username and the URL that it can access.

If you go to Tools > Options > Security > Show Passwords, you could see something like this:

Go ahead, check it out first

Fortunately, Firefox also allows you to protect this feature with some sort of master password.
In Tools > Options > Security, simply check the Use a master password box. You will be prompted for a password that will be asked once per session when you access a site with a saved login detail.

This is extremely useful if you are using Firefox portable in your flash drive just in case you lost it.