Always keeping busy! This time I’ve decided to work on a site based on Ariel’s interests. It’s called Ariel’s Turn.

I plan to cover a few different areas, such as favorite websites, books, videos and so forth. Hopefully I’ll keep it updated as her interests change. It’s still a work in progress; aside from placeholder pages for the areas I want to develop, I’ve added links to her favorite websites. That’s mostly because it will make it easier for me to allow her to pick which she wants to go to.

This is also a way for me to talk to Ariel about what I do. I’m hoping she’ll like the idea of a website about her. And yes, once this is done, there will be one for Gage too!

It’s been a while since I’ve seen any news on this one, but I have found an update. For some this may cause financial pain, but that is what happens in Ponzi schemes even when you think you’ve done well.

You can see the article on ABC 4′s site. While there is some money in the account to pay back some of those who lost money, there isn’t nearly enough, and they are looking at going after some of the big winners in this Ponzi scheme.

It looks like it will be quite complex figuring out who gets money back. First they have to try to resolve chargebacks through the various financial institutions. Then they have to figure out who lost money.

I really do feel for the people who were fooled by this and similar scams. It’s so hard to earn money from home I know this looked like a blessing to many people. Unfortunately, there isn’t any real way to earn like this anywhere. Real investments don’t pay off day after day, month after month at so high a rate. Those that do pay a relatively high rate come with a high risk of losing it all. There are no guarantees.

[tags]12DailyPro,ponzi,scam,work at home scams[/tags]

For so long, when you heard about hackers or virus creators, you’d hear about the lone teenager or young adult who’d done it. But now online crime is being commited more by organized crime.

What this means is that more and more the goal is financial gain rather than bragging rights. It’s beyond phishing or hacking your computer. The risks are becoming greater and it’s more important to protect your computer and your personal information. This also means that attacks are becoming more sophisticated.

I discussed yesterday the steps you need to take to protect your home computer – firewall, antivirus and antispyware. In addition, you also need to know how to spot potential problems.

One of my big recommendations is to use Mozilla (downloadable as a part of Google Pack, link beneath the navigation on the left) rather than Internet Explorer. If you just prefer IE that much, at least consider turning off ActiveX, which is one of the biggest risks when you’re visiting sites. It may mean some slight annoyances on some sites, but it improves your security. Read the rest of this entry »

I found this report on ZD Net very interesting. It says that employees surfing the internet is more dangerous to their networks than spam. While the study was focused on how this impacts companies, I think it is very important to consider how this can impact your home computer.

This is from a Danish report, but so many internet trends are worldwide that this is worth paying attention to. They found that about 30% of companies that had dealt with a virus got it from the surfing activities of an employee, versus 20-25% of those same companies getting a virus from emails.

This is perhaps a good time to think about your own surfing habits and what you do to protect your computer from infection. How’s your firewall? Antivirus up to date? Do you use antispyware protection too?

There are all kinds of solutions. I still use and recommend ZoneAlarm’s free firewall. It’s been the best by quite a few ratings for a number of years, yet you don’t have to pay for it. There is an upgraded version you can pay for, of course, that does more.

For antivirus and antispyware, I always check out what’s up at download.com. It’s a great way to see which ones are still doing the job well. Alternatively, you can get free products by downloading Google Pack, which I have linked to on the left. When I used it, I got the free version of AdAware and a six month trial of Norton Antivirus.

Of course, you should always pay attention to the sites you and your family tend to visit. If you’re getting virus or antispyware warnings you need to figure out why and avoid that source. That means checking out the sites your kids visit and making sure they understand when to open an email.

[tags]surfing,spam,virus,ZD Net[/tags]

You hear about the different parenting styles, such as permissive, authoritarian, authoritative and uninvolved. You may have one you identify with most, but probably don’t stick with one style entirely.

While there are certainly legitimate personal preferences, there are some parenting techniques that work well and others that don’t.

An overly permissive style, for example, doesn’t give your children enough rules in their life. You’ll always hear people saying that children crave rules, and there is a truth to that.

Worse is the uninvolved style, where there is little direction in the child’s life. Parents really need to be involved with their children, helping them to learn and develop socially.

At the other end of things, excessive control of your children doesn’t teach them how to live their own lives when they get older. A child needs a degree of freedom to express his or her own thoughts and feelings and have their wants taken into consideration. That doesn’t mean giving in, but it can mean explaining why the child cannot have something. Read the rest of this entry »