The other day, my sister had almost $1500 taken out of her checking account because, as a brand new customer to Paypal she mistakenly responded to a fraudulent Paypal phish email and the scum bags tapped into her personal account.

Thankfully, she acted fast, and her financial institutions were on the ball and very helpful.  However, she had to change a zillion passwords, re-open new accounts and sweat quite a few bullets.

And remember to always report any fraudulent activity like this to Equifax if this happens to you, they will flag your name so all the credit reporting agencies can monitor your accounts.

Among the many lessons we all learned from this awful stunt, is that protecting our identity is more important than ever, and it doesn’t stop with online protection. Our offices – be they home or personal – in many ways need to be well oiled machines. We need secure wireless, reliable data back up, good shredders and maybe even some environmentally conscious attempts…if you’re not completely worn out from trying to keep all your personal information your own.

We are not even close to living in a paperless world, which means we have a lot of valuable information floating around. Personally, I like shredding documents about as much as I like cleaning the bathtub, but Home Improvement Ideas discovered two awesome shredders that might make the task a bit more enjoyable.

...continued: ID Security For Your Office

Doggerelblogger of Canada is a lover of widgets – little bits of downloadable code that can do cool things on your Mac OS X dashboard. You can get daily astronomical photographs, complete with notations by leading astronomers. You can get the entire upcoming NFL 2006 season with automatically updating results. You can even get your very own Chi Pet that grows its green fur every two days…but only if you remember to water it. Now that’s e-life.

Ultra Tech has the latest technology news - and recently did a rather extensive review on the Falcon Northwest Mach V with Core 2 Extreme. “After getting my hands on and testing the shiny new Falcon Northwest Mach V ($6,995 direct, $8,095 with 20-inch widescreen LCD monitor) powered by Intel’s cutting-edge Core 2 Extreme (aka Conroe) processor, all I could say was, “Wow.” This rig smokes my current set of benchmark tests, significantly raising the bar for any system that comes after it. If this performance is any indication of what to expect from the average Core 2 CPU, AMD should be very worried.” Hmmm this should help give the ThisNext gaming community some food for thought.

 Never forget that anything can become a computer. Like this United Boeing 737 for example. Via Technudge.

How many times have you wanted to exclaim that? Or have you actually? Perfect name for a PC blog - I wanted to let you know that That Damn PC blog is “just married” - althought it seems more like it has absorbed fellow blog Secure That Computer. And to help readers catch up - they are implementing some SpeedLinking - so current readers can get a glance at some of the older, newly imported posts.

We’re just all tied up these days…and cords a-kimbo just don’t make pretty.

Thankfully, there is a $6 solution just a (wireless) mouse-click away. And you’re one step closer to a zen state.

via FreshTrend

All that plastic and metal getting you down? Feel like you need to green-ify your office space or entertainment center a bit?

We love the web becuase we’re never at a loss to find better products for better living. And what could be more organic and feng shui than a flat paneled LCD monitor stylishly trimmed in bamboo? I can almost hear the collective stree-relieving sigh now.

For about $640 you can create an organic resting place for the most un-organic of modern day electronics. For the office, add to that a bamboo mouse and keyboard and you just made yourself a little slice of Zen heaven.

via Gizmodo