Today I received an email from a family member which included an email from a third party. They were trying to tell my family member that she is over her email allotment and to fix it to click on the link bellow and enter in her email id and password and all will be fixed. The ironic ting is I host this family member’s email account via my web hosting provider. The 2nd alert was it was an unknown email address. My response was to ignore it this is an email scam.

This is the 5th question I have had about unsolicited emails this week. I thought I would take some time and make some suggestions on how you can protect yourself from Email scams.

The first thing you can do is all the normal security things you should do on your computer. This means install an Antivirus program and keep it up to date. Run a weekly scan of your entire computer to make sure you are virus free. Install a spyware protection program and run weekly scans to avoid spyware on your computer. Also do your operating system security updates and application program security updates whenever they are required. These will help plug any holes in your operating system and programs.

If you are ruining a Windows based operating system do not use Microsoft Outlook for email if at all possible. If you need to connect to an exchange server, use Outlook but for all other people, use another desktop client or stick to a web based client. Microsoft Outlook is vulnerable to many visual basic based viruses and exploits.

Their is also a large human element to all the Virus schemes. Rule number one is to learn to not be so trusting. As you read further you will understand that this is the golden rule to protect yourself from email schemes. Now that I have your attention, please keep reading and you will see why.

When looking at email’s and you do recognize who it is from do not open it. It is very that simple.

If you do open the email and the email asks you to click on a link and login with your id and password do not ever do this. Reputable companies will never ask for a client’s id and password. Not Paypal, Ebay, Google or your bank. This is how they scam you. The link redirects you to an offshore page that looks like Google or even your bank. You, the trusting user enters their information and the stammer now has your id and password for their use.

Do not click on links in email. I also cut and paste my ling directly into my web browser. This way it is harder to disguise what looks like a legitimate link. Copying and pasting the link means the sender can not embed hidden charters behind the actual link.

Change your email password on a regular basis. This will help maintain more control and security on your account.

You should also set up what I call a throw away email account. Use a free service like Hotmail, Yahoo or Gmail and sign up for a free account. Use this account whenever you are signing up for free stuff online, surveys or a non trusted web site. This way your main account will never be compromised.

If you follow the above steps, you will protect yourself from email scams. What do you do to protect yourself from email scams?

Google has had it’s critics. Many people point at privacy concerns and say that you should stay away from any Google services. I am not one that believes that at all. I really believe everyone should sign up for a Gmail account. Before I go further, I need to mention a disclaimer that I do have investment’s in Google.

Why should everyone have a Gmail account? Webmail is th best way to go. The cloud is the future. The future is now.

I have used Gmail for many years. It stores all my email, contacts and calendar. I use it on a daily basis. I forward all my domain email accounts to Gmail and then I use Gmail to manage that email.

Why do I believe everyone should use a Gmail account. The following are many reasons why:

1. Gmail is free so their is not extra cost.

2. Calendar’s can be shared with other Gmail users. I share my calendar with Kelli so she know what my after work schedule is. We use the shared calendars to help manage our lives togeather.

3. Smart Phone Integration is one of Gmail’s strong suites. With most smart phones all you need to do is to enter your gmail address and password and it automatically loads in your email, contacts and address book. That makes your setup really easy.

4. Gmail’s spam filters are some of the best. The spam filters get better as you use Gmail more.

5. Gmail is based in the cloud. This means you can access your email from any computer which has Internet access.

6. Gmail has free pop/imap and Smtp access. I often read and reply to my Gmail using Thunderbird. It make’s my life easier at times.

These are my six reasons why a Gmail account is a must. Why do you think everyone should use Gmail?

Last week at my full time job, a respected colleague asked me a question which provided food for thought. His questions was “Why Do You Blog?”. It was a thought provoking question which I actually had to think about. I do believe I have the answer which I will share but I also thought I would give some back ground on how I got their.

7 years ago I used to change Internet Service Provider’s a lot. I could not find one provider that was consistent on how they provided service. DSL providers would be good for a few months then their service would get bad and I would switch. Every time I switched providers I would have to change email addresses. For a while I used a Yahoo email account to get around this problem of the ever changing email account. Then one day my email account was hacked and I was never able to get it back.

I then did what I always do, some research. After some research I determined the best way to handle these issues was to sign up with a web hosting provider and register my own domain domain. I did a lot of searching and signed up with 1and1.com. At the time they had the best flexibility of packages for what I was looking for. They were also the most reasonable for cost. When I signed up the Cairns-clan.com domain was born. I now had a domain where I could park my email addresses and any addresses that my family wanted as well.

Out of registering the domain, I had also purchased web space. It came with the package. My Uncle Ian was the family historian who was working on updating the Genealogy of the family. The Cairns family history is very interesting. I suggested to my Uncle Ian that we put our history on the web. Out of these discussions the Cairns-clan web site was born.

Around the same time I started to think how I could answer the same IT questions from my friends and family without having to keep answering them over and over. I also wanted to created a set of resource that I could say go here and they would all be on the Internet for them to browse at their leisure. Out of this the-techshop.com web site was born.

The original was website was primitive in comparison to how it is today. The entire site was HTML coded and the information on it was very static. I did not get around to updating the information as much as I should have since it took some time to do. Updates would happen month’s apart. Despite the infrequent updates, I had my resource site. I had links to all the information which my friends and family needed.

After some time, a couple of years ago 1.and1 offered hosted WordPress. For those of you who do not know, WordPress is one of the most popular blogging platforms on the Internet. I had found my solution. The solution which has shaped where I am today. I transformed my web site from a static HTML site to a hosted WordPress Blog. I finally was in business.

WordPress made my life so much easier but the hosted version of WordPress lacked some of the flexibility which I was looking for. Earlier this spring I made the move from hosted WordPress to self hosted WordPress. Self hosted WordPress means I have control over the database, the plugins, more flexibility and most of all more control.

That is where I am today. I am really happy with my choice. I have moved all my web sites to be WordPress based.

Now that I have gone over the technical back ground on how I got here, the questions still remains “Why Do I Blog?”. One of the biggest reasons is blogging give me a forum to share information with other people. One thing I have also enjoyed is staying up to date in my friend and sharing my knowledge with others. Blogging provides me with the platform to share information.

I like to give back. Sharing information helps other enjoy and understand technology. I love to see other people getting excited about technology. Their is no better way to share then to write about it.

Blogging also gives me flexibility and allows me to keep my site more current. WordPress is an easy content management system (cms) to maintain. It does not take a lot of work to update my WordPress blog or add to it.

Most of all I am part of a community. Blogging helps me to network with other people and has helped me to meet many great people.

This week I took what a lot of people would figure I would never do. On my primary pc at home I made a complete move away from any Microsoft applications. As of now I am not running one Microsoft application. The move I made to Google last week made this an even easier decision to make. I have now made the move to Ubuntu a version of desktop Linux for my main machine at home.

Several Factors which contributed to this move were as follows:

1. Cost
2. Computer Security.
3. Learning more and being open minded.
4. Can I do what I do on my pc without Microsoft?
5. What I Currently run on my pc.

Let’s take a look at each of the above factors and explain why they contributed to my move.

1.0 Cost

Cost is a real easy one to discuss. Ubuntu is free. Windows 7 will run about $199.00 for home premium. This does not even get into the software costs. I no longer am using Microsoft Office 2007 at home which means I do not need a license. I am using all open source applications which means they are free:) This is not really a big departure from what I using before since I use mostly use open source applications.

2.0 Computer Security

Linux is less prone to viruses and spyware. The reality is their are less people writing them for Linux. I also am no longer running Outlook/IE which means I am not prone to Active X based exploits.

3.0 Learning More and Being Open Minded

I have been in the technology business for 22 years. One of the reasons why is to learn more. I am constantly learning and exploring my options. This is what I like most about what I do. My brain is always turning and I have a constant thirst for information and knowledge. In order to learn you need to extend your knowledge without certain basis. I really believe I am open minded.

I am not really interested in the Linux vs Mac vs PC fight and wares. What I am interested in is having the right tool at the time to get the job at hand done.

4.0 Can I do what I do on my pc without Microsoft?

The answer to this question is YES I can. Last week I moved my email back to a Gmail back end and this took my dependency away from Microsoft since I no longer need Microsoft Exchange. On the operating system side both Ubuntu and Windows are graphical so not a big change for me. It is all point and click.

In terms of word processing for me Open Office is as good as Microsoft Office so I will not miss the extra features features in MS Office.

5.0 What I currently Run

I was running mostly open source applications in the Windows environment. Most of these applications also have Linux versions so this has not been an issue. Even Google Chrome which is my web browser of choice has a Linux version available for it.

In summary these are the reasons I have gone to Ubuntu. In the next couple of weeks I will also be setting up a Ubuntu home server as well. Their is a learning curve when I moved to Ubuntu. Even for someone like myself who has a large IT background. That all said I still believe it was the best choice for me.

I have changed my back end for my email away from Gmail back to my web hosting provider. It has a little to do with gmail and some third party software I was using but a lot to do with how Rogers does things. Yes dealing with the large company is what fun again in my life – not.

Today I received a text message saying I was over my data package limit for Rogers(I knew I was close to the limit) but not only that I was paying a $50.00 overage this month. Geez I use my data plan mostly for email(some calendar syncing) and the odd web browsing. What makes this all interessting is that I was supposed to have unlimited email to certain domains on my Rogers mobile account for $15.00 per month. One of these domains was gmail. This was one of the big reasons I forwarded all my email to gmail. The other is to share my calendar with Kelli so she knows what my schedule is because it is all over the place.

Rogers informs me I have the $15.00 a month plan and the unlimited email to certain domains was a promo(if I had knowen that I would have gone to another data package orginally) ab=nd now I was limited to 2mb of data storage which is not much per month.

At the same time I have had the fustrating expereince of trying to keep my contact list in sync. The third party utility I use called Syncmycal does a great job of syncing the google calendar’s across platforms but sometimes has issues with the contacts. As a matter of fact most third party google applications have issues with the contact sync. Google does not offer a contact sync for Windows Mobile directly. Just for the Blackberry. So I know have a sort of messed up address book.

So with an issue from Rogers and an issue with Google(free is free) I pondered my next move.

I turned to my web hosting provider. They offer an open source version of MS exchange. MS exchange is the Microsoft product which most people use as a back end for their email services. To add to it nicely they also offer technology which allows me to push my outlook contacts/tasks/calendar and keep it in sync with what I have on my hostings provider’s server. This sync’s my contact list rather nicely.

The only issue I am having is I am having a little problem with their mobile connect software but I am waiting with an email back from my technical support rep. It will get sorted oout in the morning – no thanks to Rogers.

In the end I switched to the $25.00 data plan with Rogers which gave me 500MB of Data a month more then I will ever need.