North American Technical Support Numbers

Consumers

• Phone support: 1-800-275-2273
• Find an Apple retail store
• Find a U.S. Apple authorized service provider
• Find a Canadian Apple authorized service provider

Education Customers

• U.S. Support: 1-800-800-2775
• U.S. Sales: 1-800-780-5009
• Canadian customers: 1-800-800-2775

Enterprise & Government Customers

• Call 866-752-7753 for sales support.

Service Providers

United States and Canadian service providers, please call 1-877-576-2775.
For Central Europe, Middle East & Africa, find service providers here.

International Technical Support Numbers

• Verizon Wireless Customer Support can be reached at this number: 1-800-922-0204
• Verizon Land Phone Service: 1-800-567-6789
• Verizon Calling Cards: 1-800-225-5483
• Comcast Business Class: 1-877-284-0129
• Alltel Communications: 1-800-864-7188
• Alltel Communications (Pager and Internet Services): 1-800-745-7330
• Cingular Cellular (Sales): 1-800-920-9783
• AT&T (Customer Service): 1-800-222-0300
• AT&T (Video and TeleConference, Long Distance, Data Services):1-800-232-1234
• Century Tel: 1-800-554-2238
• Amazon.com: 1-800-201-7575
• Hertz Rent A Car (Reservations): 1-800-654-3131
• Hertz Rent A Car (International Reservations): 1-800-654-3001
• Hertz Rent A Car (Reservation Extension): 1-800-654-4174
• Hertz Rent A Car (Hearing Impaired): 1-800-654-2280
• Hertz Rent A Car (Billing Issues): 1-800-654-4173
• Hertz Rent A Car (Claims Management- Insurance): 1-800-432-3479; 1-800-358-2723
• Avis Rent A Car (Passenger Car Rental): 1-800-331-1084; 1800-552-2847
• Avis Rent A Car (Customer Service): 1-800-352-7900
• Microsoft Technical Support: 1-800-642-7676
• Geek Squad: 1-800-GEEKSQUAD (1-800-433-5778) info@geeksquadcentral.com

Mint is a modern, powerful, easy and secure Web–based solution for online financial management. And it’s free. You register anonymously using any valid email address, and then add the log–in information for the online bank, credit union, credit card and investment accounts you want to consolidate in Mint.

Mint connects to more than 5,000 US financial institutions. Your account information is updated daily. Mint automatically categorizes all your purchases, showing you how much you spend on gas, groceries, parking, rent, restaurants, DVD rentals and more, with amazing precision. An advanced alerting system highlights any unusual activity, low balances, unwanted fees and charges, and upcoming bills so you’re in constant contact with your money—effortlessly.

Mint goes way beyond just reporting and budget tracking. Using a patent-pending search algorithm, Mint constantly searches through thousands of offers from hundreds of providers to find the best deals on everything from bank accounts to credit cards; cable, phone and Internet plans; and more. Mint’s suggestions are “unique to you” based on your individual spending patterns. For example, if you have $20,000 in a bank account that’s earning no interest, Mint might recommend a high interest rate savings account from ING or HSBC. Acting on that suggestion would give you an extra $900 in interest income over a year.

Key Benefits

You don’t work for Mint, it works for you. It’s an entirely new approach to personal finance management. We think you’ll love Mint because it’s:

• Easy to use: You’re up and running in less than five minutes. And Mint does virtually all the rest.
• Comprehensive: Mint provides detailed visibility into virtually all your financial relationships with a single, secure login.
• Visual and Analytical: Mint gives you powerful insights into your personal finances making–it easier to practice smart financial management.
• Constantly working to find you savings: Mint typically finds users $1,000 in savings opportunities in their first session—minutes after registering. And Mint keeps looking for new ways for you to save every day—continuously comparing your needs to product, service and bank offerings most relevant to you.
• Secure: Mint provides bank–level data security and industry–leading identity protection. Its security and privacy have been validated by VeriSign and TRUSTe.
• Always On: You’re automatically notified of upcoming bills, low balances, and any unusual activity in any of your accounts through one (m)interface.
• Anywhere/anytime access: You can get to Mint anywhere, anytime over the Web.
• And it’s Free!

I have been using Mint for about five months now and I’m very happy with the product.
Technorati Tags: Mint, Mint.com, eGuru, Krishna, Mandava, Personal, Finance, Free, Service

Source: Received by email

All the numbers in one place. No more searching for hidden numbers.

AUSTRALIA: 131779
AUSTRIA: 0800295194
BELGIUM:080016776
CYPRUS: 80091166
DENMARK: 80010988
FINLAND: 080012010
FRANCE: 0800904490
GERMANY:01802212588
GREECE: 0080044141460
IRELAND:1800709101
ISRAEL: 18009452041
ITALY: 800820080
JAPAN: 0120421234
LUXEMBOURG: 08006776
MEXICO: 0018005281234
NETHERLANDS: 08000221455
NEW ZEALAND: 0800237893
NORWAY: 80011624
PORTUGAL: 0800993900
SPAIN: 900993900
SWEDEN: 020792752
SWITZERLAND: 0800552344
TURKEY:00800399072333
U.K: 0800393130
USA: 1800WESTERN

800-528-1238 (accessible from North America only)

I spoke at my first seminar yesterday. The location was the scenic Couer D’Alene Resort in Couer D’Alene, Idaho. The topic pretty much veered off from computer fraud to computer crime.  It wasn’t surprising to see some of the audience were completely shocked at the end of the day. Nevertheless, it was an exhilarating experience and I’m getting ready for my next course on IT Auditing. Feels different being an instructor for a change.

Google has confirmed that personal data of U.S. employees hired prior to 2006 have been stolen in a recent burglary.

Source: CNET News

Records kept at Colt Express Outsourcing Services, an external company Google and other companies use to handle human resources functions, were stolen in a burglary on May 26. An undisclosed number of employees’ details and those of dependents such as names, addresses, and Social Security numbers were on the stolen computers. It is understood that Colt did not employ encryption to protect the information.

It’s still unclear how many more of Colt Express’ clients were affected by the breach. CBS’ CNET Networks, publisher of News.com, was also affected by the burglary, with about 6,500 employees’ details stolen.

Although there is no evidence of misuse of the data to date, the information obtained could be used by identity thieves to create fake accounts and identities.

It’s only come to light now that Google was one of the companies affected. Google itself was not burglarized, nor were any of its internal systems compromised.

Danny Thorpe, former chief scientist at Borland and engineer at Google who now works for Microsoft, was informed of the theft on July 1.

A letter from Google said personal data of Google employees hired prior to December 31, 2005, may have been stolen in the May 26 burglary of Colt Express Outsourcing Services. No credit card numbers were in the stolen data; just names, addresses, SSNs–all the information needed for a thief to open a credit card account under another’s name.

According to Thorpe, Google has offered to cover the cost of a one-year subscription to a credit report and identity theft-monitoring service. Similar benefits were offered to CNET Networks employees.

ITWorld reported last week that Colt Express Outsourcing Services was in financial difficulty and could not help those affected. The company’s CEO, Samuel Colt III, said in a statement “We do not have the resources, financial and otherwise, to assist you further.”

“We take the security of our employees very seriously and require outside vendors to meet appropriate security standards. We review and update these standards on an ongoing basis,” a Google representative said. “Google is not currently using Colt’s services and had made this decision long before this incident.”

The iPhone drives a lot of interest in the cell phone market these days, and deservedly so. Its sexy touch screen, smooth multimedia interface, and effective ad campaign make it an appealing option.

But what if you’re looking for a phone with a true productivity suite and high-speed data downloads? The iPhone lacks a lot of the convenient features that BlackBerry devotees demand: voice memos, a cut-and-paste option, drafting documents, customizable ring profiles, internal search and scrolling options, syncing task lists from Outlook, etc.

And unlike the iPhone, which is only available on the AT&T network, this list of smartphones includes options for all of the five major carriers.

	iPhone	BlackJack II	BlackBerry Curve 8320 Smartphone	BlackBerry Pearl 8130 Smartphone	Palm Centro
Price	$199-$299 with a new account and 2-year activation with select AT&T iPhone plans	FREE after instant discount from AT&T with a new account	$199.99 after instant discount from T-Mobile with a new account	FREE after rebates and instant discount with a new Verizon Wireless account	$139.99 after instant discount from Sprint with a new account
Weight	4.8oz	4.1 oz	3.9 oz	3.4 oz	4.2 oz
Dimensions	4.5 x 2.4 x 0.5″	4.5 x 2.4 x 0.5″	4.2 x 2.4 x 0.6″	4.2 x 2.0 x 0.6″	4.1 x 2.1 x 0.7″
Removable Battery	Must send to Apple to replace	YES	YES	YES	YES
Stereo Bluetooth enabled	No	YES	YES	YES	YES
Music formats	MP3, ACC	MP3, AAC, WMA	MP3, AAC, WMA	MP3, AAC, WMA	MP3, AAC, WMA
Photo/Video Messaging	NO	YES	YES	YES	YES
Voice-dialing	NO	YES	YES	YES	YES
Max. Memory	8 or 16GB	4GB	8GB	8GB	8GB
Mem. card slot	NO	YES	YES	YES	YES
Camera	2 Megapixel	2 Megapixel	2 Megapixel	2 Megapixel	1 Megapixel
Network	EDGE/ HSDPA	UMTS / HSDPA	GPRS / EDGE	1x EV-DO	1x EV-DO
Top data speed	1.7mbps	3.6 mbps	236Kbps	2.4mbps	2.4mbps
Keyboard	None	QWERTY	QWERTY	SureType	QWERTY

Link or URL shortening services are nothing new–TinyURL, for example, has been around since January 2002, when site creator Kevin Gilbertson wanted to link directly to newsgroup postings with really long addresses. Indeed, that’s the true impetus behind these services; taking really long and unwieldy Web links (to an Amazon or eBay item, for example), and shrinking them down to a more reasonable size. Simply copy and paste the offending URL into the field, hit enter, and voila, you’ll get a much shorter link. These shorter links can then be shared via IM or e-mail without the URL breaking, and they are also very useful with micropublishing tools such as Twitter, where character count is at a premium. Most of these services also redirect the links straight to the original address. There are literally hundreds of these link shortening services out there, but we’ve decided to break it down to 10 that we like the most. Here they are in no particular order:

• TinyURL: Arguably the most well-known of the services listed here, TinyURL was probably also one of the first. One of TinyURL’s most appealing features is that the short URLs it creates will never ever expire. It offers a browser bookmark button that’ll provide a TinyURL of your current page, and there’s a preview feature as well.

SnipURL is a link shortening service with a social twist.

(Credit: SnipURL)

• SnipURL: Also known as Snurl and Snipr, SnipURL is a URL shortening service with a social twist. You can sign up for an account which lets you edit URLs, subscribe to the RSS feeds of your latest Snips, password protect them, and snip multiple URLs at once. It also has an open API for developers. Twihrl, a multiaccount desktop client for Twitter, uses SnipURL for its long URLs, for example. Another bonus is that you can choose your own “nickname” for a link. For example, http://snipurl.com/cnetcrave will redirect to our Crave blog. Like TinyURL, the SnipURLs will never expire, plus there’s also a help forum for support.

• Shorl: For a simpler approach, Shorl is a decent alternative. It has a very clean interface without a lot of ads, plus you can sign up for an account to retrieve the statistics of the shortened links.

• Rurl: Rurl is a URL shortening service ideal for mobile use, since the page is very phone-friendly, and the URL itself is really short (about 19 characters long). The short URL is also good for Twitter, because of its character count limit. Like SnipURL, Rurl also has a developer API.

• Metamark: Metamark also prides itself on providing really short URLs (about 20 characters long), but like SnipURL, Metamark lets you add an optional nickname to a link. There’s also a “secret” option to add a secret word after the URL if you don’t want people to guess the link. You can sign up for an account if you wish to retrieve the statistics associated with your link. Unlike the above services though, the links from Metamark do expire after five years, so take note of that.

• Notlong: Notlong kicks it up a notch by not only shortening the links, but it also lets you pick a subdomain name. For example, I just created http://webware.notlong.com a second ago. Another great thing about Notlong is that the moment you create a Notlong URL, it presents you with a password with which to check the statistics of the URL, no registration required. However, you’ll have to be creative to pick a subdomain that hasn’t been chosen already.

Tweetl is a link shortening service built for Twitter.

(Credit: Tweetl)

• Tweetl: With the popularity of Twitter, a service like Tweetl was bound to come along. Its slogan is “Little Links Built for Twitter” and the links are indeed sublimely short (about 17 characters long), which is good for fitting within Twitter’s 140 character count limit. You can get stats of any Tweetl link without signing up just by entering the site ID after s.tweetl.com (Like s.tweetl.com/[id]). You can also add a tag to each Tweetl link by adding a question mark and whatever you want at the end of a Tweetl link, such as this: http://t-l.cc/[id]?insert-tag-here.

• URLTea: URLTea has a dead simple user interface–simply paste in your link into the field, hit enter, and the shortened link will immediately be copied to your clipboard. Similar to Tweetl, you can add tags after the URLTea link with a question mark, such as this: http://www.urltea.com/l?insert-tag. We also like the gingham background; it’s a nice touch.

• MooURL: MooURL is quite possibly the cutest link shortening site ever, with an adorable cow as its mascot. Like URLTea, a shortened link will be immediately copied to your clipboard. Sure it doesn’t have a lot of statistics-tracking like the others, but it’s just so cute.

• ICanHaz: Capitalizing on the Lolcat trend is the folks over at ICanHaz.com. Its slogan is “I can haz short urlz now? kthx”, which is typical of Lolcat speak. Like SnipURL and MetaMark, you can select a nickname to be added after the URL. For example, http://icanhaz.com/webware directs to Webware. The downside is that you have to enter in your e-mail address if you want to edit the URL in the future. Also, unlike SnipURL and MetaMark, the nickname isn’t optional–you have to enter a nickname regardless of whether you want to, and your chosen name might already be taken. However, the best thing about this service is arguably the Lolcat speak aspect of it, for those who are into the Lolcat meme.

Originally posted at http://www.webware.com/8301-1_109-9898698-2.html

Your email account can contain a lot of personal information, from bank alerts to love letters. Email that, I’m sure, you don’t always want other people to see. We understand how important your Gmail accounts are to you, so we’re adding a new layer of information and control. With this new feature, you can now track your recent sessions and you can also sign yourself out remotely.

If you are anything like me, you probably sign in to Gmail from multiple computers. I, for example, occasionally sign into my Gmail account from a friend’s house when I need to check an important email. Usually I remember to sign out, but every once in a while I wonder if I really did. Now I no longer have to wonder.

At the bottom of your inbox, you’ll see information about the time of the last activity on your account and whether it’s still open in another location:

Using the above example, a quick glance at the footer while I’m at work shows that my account is indeed open in one other location. But I recognize the IP address - it’s my computer at home. Turns out I left my Gmail account open when I left home in a hurry this morning.

Your IP address, or Internet Protocol address, is a number associated with your computer when you connect to the Internet. Some of you might want to know your IP address numbers (more info on finding out your IP address below) for an extra layer of control. For others who don’t want to think about IP information, you don’t need to.

Continuing with the above example, I can see more details about my recent activity by clicking on the Details link:

The top table, under “Concurrent session information,” indicates all open sessions, along with IP address and “access type” — which refers to how email was retrieved, for example, through iGoogle, POP3 or a mobile phone. The bottom table, under “Recent activity,” contains my most recent history along with times of access. I can also view my current IP address at the very bottom of this window, where it says “This computer is using IP address…”

With this information, I can quickly verify that all the Gmail activity was indeed mine. I remember using Gmail at the times and locations listed. Being extra cautious, I can also click on the “Sign out all other sessions” button to sign out of the account I left open at home.

Source: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/remote-sign-out-and-info-to-help-you.html

The ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation sued the Justice Dept. Tuesday for information regarding the use of cellphones as tracking devices. The Washington Post reports that the ACLU had filed, back in November, a Freedom of Information Act request for documents, memos and guidelines on tracking cellphone users.

The groups suspect the government seeks the information without following the Fourth Amendment requirement that it establish probable cause of a crime.

No information was forthcoming, so this suit is an attempt to shake lose the info. The DOJ responded this way:

It is important to remember that the courts determine whether or not cell-site data or more precise cell location data can be turned over to law enforcement in a particular case. . . . Law enforcement has absolutely no interest in tracking the locations of law-abiding citizens. Instead, law enforcement goes through the courts to lawfully obtain data to help locate criminal suspects, sometimes in cases where lives are literally hanging in the balance, such as a child abduction case or a serial murderer on the loose.

An article in the Post last fall revealed that the government routinely asks courts to OK the release of real-time tracking data. As the spokeman said, they “go through the courts.” The issue here apparently is not that they don’t “go” to the courts but whether they show up with inadequate proof of the need for the information and whether the courts rubber-stamp these requests.

Source: http://government.zdnet.com/?p=3880

Less than 60 percent of Web users are outfitted with up-to-date, fully patched browsers, according to a new, IBM co-authored research study, which relies on examinations of users’ Google log records to help reach that conclusion.

Jointly produced by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Google, and IBM Internet Security Services, the study places most of the blame for browser security problems on Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.

A total of 52.4% of all IE users had failed to upgrade to IE7, the latest version of Microsoft’s browser, according to the survey results. Moreover, merely 47.6% of IE users had all of the software upgrades and patches installed on their browsers needed for “safe” Internet surfing.In contrast, 83.3% of Firefox users were using totally updated browsers, followed by 65.3% for Safari and 56.1% for the Opera browser.

As potential remedies for more secure browsing, the researchers suggested that all browser makers should install an auto-update feature — already present in Firefox, for example — and that browsers should be given expiration dates.

“The analysis presented in this paper is based on the large global user base of Google’s Web search and application sites,” the researchers wrote in their paper.

Google’s search and Web application server log data was used to figure out which specific versions of the Firefox, Safari, and Opera browsers people were using, which include the latest point releases. IE, however, only communicates information about which major version is in place — such as IE6 or IE7 — to Web servers.

Consequently, to detect smaller IE browser updates, the researchers reportedly depended on data from users who had installed Secunia’s Personal Software Inspector software on their PCs.

No “personal data” was collected about Google users, according to the authors. Interestingly, though, in recent months, Google has come under fire from privacy advocates who claim the company could be violating a California privacy law by failing to post a link to its privacy policy directly from the Google home page.

Accessible through a number of other methods — such as by entering “Google privacy” on the Google search line — this policy does state, among many other things, that when “you use Google services, our servers automatically record information that your browser sends whenever you visit a website.”

These server logs “may include information such as your web request, Internet Protocol address, browser type, browser language, the date and time of your request and one or more cookies that may uniquely identify your browser,” according to Google’s policy statement.

Google’s policies around log data and personal data are different, though. According to Google, the personal information collected includes that person’s e-mail address and Google search activity, for instance. Yet this personal information is collected only from users who set up Google Accounts, and users can supposedly cancel those accounts at any time.

Why did IBM pitch in on the browser research, too? Logically, IBM’s interest would seem to revolve around the study’s acknowledged focus on the browser as a potential vulnerability point in host-based computing.

“In recent years the Web browser has increasingly become targeted as an infection vector for vulnerable hosts,” the researchers said, in a preface to the report. “Classic service-centric vulnerability exploitation required attackers to scan for and remotely connect to vulnerable hosts (typically servers) in order to exploit them. Unlike these, Web browser vulnerabilities are commonly exploited when the user of the vulnerable host visits a malicious Web site.”

Source: http://www.betanews.com/article/Web_browser_study_uses_Google_data_to_pinpoint_security_problems/1215030984

The de facto registrar of superlative achievements has credited Mozilla for officially setting a record for downloads in a 24-hour period: 8,002,530 copies of Firefox.

Mozilla’s Download Day on June 17, whose server-crippling success delayed its official start, sought to popularize the open-source Web browser. Mozilla, which oversees the Firefox project, projected at the time that it cleared 8 million, but the number is now official.

“As the arbiter and recorder of the world’s amazing facts, Guinness World Records is pleased to add Mozilla’s achievement to our archives,” Gareth Deaves, Guinness’ records manager, said in a statement.

Though Download Day was a big publicity stunt, it’s hard to sniff with too much disdain at the total. To me at least it indicates that people see more in this particular browser than just a bundle of bits to surf the Web; they like its technology, its open-source nature or other attributes, and downloading and using it is an event somewhat akin to suffering in line for hours for rock show tickets or to buy an iPhone.

I’m skeptical that Download Day in and of itself will appreciably shift Firefox’s market share results in the short term. But it did probably coax people toward a more modern browser, which Web site operators probably are happy to see, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Mozilla managed to sign up more Firefox fanboys through its promotional devices.

Also for the record, Net Applications gave Firefox 3 2.31 percent market share for the entire month of June, compared with 4.28 percent for Safari 3.1, 16.13 percent for Firefox 2, 26.38 percent for Internet Explorer 6, and 46.45 percent for No. 1 IE 7. The statistics are based on actual usage at various major search engines. Because Firefox 3 was released midway through June, the statistics likely will show significantly greater share for it in July.

Source: http://www.webware.com/8301-1_109-9983245-2.html