UPDATE: April 15th, 2019. Today marks the 122nd Boston Marathon. As many of my followers know, I have ran the marathon seven times, and I look forward to it every year. My charity is The Boston’s Children Hospital, and I have raised upwards of $70,000. Training for a marathon is a taxing, physical, emotional and…
Micro charges are charges ranging from 20 cents to $10 and either are fraudulent, legitimate or fall into the category of “grey charges,” which describe sneaky recurring or unwanted charges. These charges often go undetected because they are so small. Nine out of 10 credit card holders don’t scrutinize their statements carefully, allowing these scammers…
Privacy on social networks seems a little oxymoronic to me. We tell the world about our lives, but we don’t want everyone to knoweverything. I know many people who only want some people to share in their experiences, but those same people often friend people they don’t know. See what I mean? Anyway, it is…
A Virtual Private Network (VPN) is a network set up to communicate privately over a public network. For example: You occasionally want to or need to work from home and your employer knows that if you do, the data that travels between your PC and an office PC needs to be protected. So your employer…
We hear an awful lot about hackers breaking into systems and taking down networks or stealing millions of data records. The general understanding we have for hacking is bad guys want to disrupt things to make a point or to make money. But how do they really use our personal information against us? Whether you…
Consumers are oblivious to the dangers of connecting in a free wireless environment. If they actually knew how vulnerable they are, all that coffee shops would do is sell coffee.Nobody would stick around and connect to the internet. Everyone—and I mean everyone—always asks me if they should connect to public WiFi. The short answer is…
My wife was searching online for a specialist to take care of a minor medical condition. While browsing, a certain ad caught her eye, so she checked out its website and made a phone call to get more information. The receptionist was warm and friendly and gave her all kinds of advice and direction over…
Gone are the days when you had to click to “accept” a download or install a software update in order to become infected. Now, just opening a compromised web page could allow dangerous code to install on your device. You just need to visit or “drive by” a web page, without stopping to click or…
Online banking or mobile banking reduces expenses by allowing customers to review transactions, transfer funds, pay bills and check balances without having to walk into a bank branch or make phone calls to a bank’s customer service call center. Mobile banking, m-banking or SMS banking refers to online banking that occurs via mobile phone or…
The number of households in the United States that rely solely on mobile phones continues to increase. As of July 2011, 31% of households had mobile phones and no landlines. Additionally, almost one in six households used mobile phones exclusively or almost exclusively, despite still having a landline. This is the first time that adults…
