Welcome to this week's edition of the Computer Kindergarten Newsletter.
Today is Sunday, Sunday, January 24, 2010
In this Issue:
Special Feature: New Nigerian Scams
Tips & Tricks: Make Web Pages Print Properly
This Week's Topic: Speed Up a Slow Computer – Turn Off Auto Start Programs
Question: Internet Explorer Status Bar
Websites of Interest: eHow; NASA TV; Life Expectancy Calculator
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Special Feature: New Nigerian Scams
The following article is from scambusters.org
Nigerian scam artists have wised up to the fact that many of us no longer get taken in by the Nigerian email scam from phony government or bank officials offering to split multi-million dollar fortunes or inheritances, or Nigerian scams involving forged overpayment checks that require us to send untraceable money-wires back to them.
So, they've developed new ways to try to convince us that their money-grubbing cons are really genuine.
New variations of the so-called Nigerian 419 scam (named for the section of the Nigerian constitution that deals with this crime) appear almost weekly. Some of them are pretty clever. But with the right degree of healthy skepticism, you can still see through them.
We've got the low-down on three new tricks (or variations of existing Nigerian scams) to help you spot them.
1. After bogus checks, prepare for forged cash.
Those checks that came with letters telling us we had won a lottery or had been selected to become mystery shoppers are so yesterday. Today's Nigerian scammers try to convince us with the "real" thing -- $100 bills.
In a new trick, seen for the first time in Kansas in April this year, a scammer sent $3,000 worth of forged bills to a man and asked him to use it to buy a Moneygram.
The victim had been corresponding by email supposedly with a woman in Nigeria. He received the "cash" from a person claiming to be the woman's uncle, who asked him to send the Moneygram to her so she could come to the US. He fell for it, but the forgery was spotted at the Moneygram office.
Action: Watch out for more of these tricks in the coming months. Bluntly, never send Moneygrams on behalf of someone you do not know, whether you receive cash or a check.
2. Piling on the PayPal pressure.
We wrote previously about the use of forged PayPal emails supposedly confirming that your account has been credited following a sale you made on eBay. Now it seems that the Nigerian scam crooks have developed a whole suite of "PayPal" messages they send out in swift succession, aimed at forcing you to send the item.
Relying on people's trust that PayPal is a safe way to do business (which it is, if you use it correctly), the scammers bid on an expensive item you're selling, then spoof a message to you from the online payment service saying the payment has been received.
Our advice, when this first happened, was to sign on to your PayPal account and check for yourself that the money was in your account. To get around this, the scammers now send out a message, again claiming to be from PayPal but saying the money will not be credited to your account until you send confirmation, with a tracking number, that the items have been shipped.
If you reply to either of these emails questioning the arrangement, the scammer sends another "PayPal" message threatening to close your account unless you complete the sale.
Action: PayPal does not hold money pending a shipment nor does it threaten account closure in this way. As we previously advised, check your PayPal account. If the money is not there, do not send your sale item.
(Another giveaway, by the way, is that the bogus messages usually have misspellings and poor grammar -- Nigerian scam artists haven't wised up to that yet!)
3. Here's "proof" of my story.
As we mentioned at the start, one of the most common, longest-standing Nigerian scams is the invitation to share in some ill-gotten gains. To get your hands, supposedly, on the dough, you have to either supply personal bank account details (for ID theft) or make a money-wire or credit card payment to get the money released (which, of course, it never is because it doesn't exist). To deal with the inevitable skepticism, the scammers often supply a link to a true story, usually about someone (the benefactor) being killed in a road accident.
A variation is to send a message claiming to be a US soldier who got his or her hands on a slice of Saddam Hussein's fortune. Now scammers have knitted together a clever variation of these ruses by pointing to a story about money in Iraq that really has gone missing. Usually purporting to come from "Sgt. Martin Hems," this letter points to a BBC story about hidden money in Iraq and the fact that five soldiers were questioned after some of the cache of cash went missing.
Action: Do not put 2 + 2 together and make 5. Just because there is a true story does not mean that a claim to be linked to it is true. The money may be missing, but it still is not coming your way!
Bottom line -- just do not believe any story that you are in for a cut of someone else's fortune. It is 99.999% unlikely -- and you can get a lawyer to check out the remaining 0.001%.
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Tips & Tricks: Make Web Pages Print Properly
Question: When I print a webpage, the text is very small; too small to read. Can this be adjusted?
Question: The text on the printouts of websites is very large and takes up more pages than necessary. Why is this happening and how can I fix it?
Answer:
The scale setting can change. Here are the steps to adjust the setting:
Open Internet Explorer and maneuver to the website that you would like to print.
Click File on the menu (if you do not see the menu, press the Alt key on the keyboard). Click Print Preview.
There is a toolbar at the top of the window. Look for either Shrink to Fit or a %.
If your webpage text is too small, change the setting from Shrink to Fit to a percentage such as 100%. To do so, click the small down arrow to the right of Shrink to Fit and then click on 100%.
If your webpage text is too large, change to either Shrink to Fit or a smaller percentage.
When you are done with the Settings, click the Print button on the far left. The Print dialog box will open; print as usual.
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Today's Topic: Speed Up a Slow Computer – Turn Off Auto Start Programs
As your Windows computer ages, its speed can decrease. You will notice an increase in response time when you give commands to open programs, files or folders, use the Internet and other tasks. There are several things you can do to speed up your computer.
Over the next several editions of this newsletter, we will present articles discussing some of the steps you can take to speed up your slow computer.
Important: Before making any changes to your system, always create a Restore Point. If anything goes wrong with the changes you make, this will allow you to revert back to a point when the computer was operating correctly. Please visit our Newsletter Archives to read our article, All About Restore Points:
http://computerkindergarten.com/html/040509.html
Turn Off Auto Start Programs
Windows will automatically open programs that are in your Startup folder. You will find the startup folder in the Start button menus. Click the Start button or orb, point to Programs, and then point to Startup.
Everything you see in there automatically opens when you turn your computer on. (If you do not recognize everything in there, note that some programs run behind the scenes and you will never see them on your desktop).
While it may be convenient for programs to be open when you are ready to use them, this process usually significantly increases the time it takes to start the computer.
Some programs, in the installation process, are designed to put a shortcut in the Startup folder; you may not necessarily want that program to open every time you use your computer. These programs can be removed from Auto Startup.
To do so, click the Start button, point to Programs, point to Startup. Right click the Program that you want to remove. Left click Delete from the resulting menu.
You will be asked to confirm the deletion; click Yes, OK or Delete Shortcut (depending on your version of Windows).
Note: When you delete a program from the Start menu, you are not uninstalling the program from the computer. You are deleting the Shortcut, which is the command that tells Windows to open the program. The program will still exist on the computer, and, more than likely, another shortcut to the program will be elsewhere in the Start menu.
In our next edition, learn how to speed up your computer by turning off programs that start up automatically.
Please visit our Newsletter Archives for previous articles in our Speed Up a Slow Computer series:
Speed Up a Slow Computer - Clean the Desktop
http://computerkindergarten.com/html/040509.html
Speed Up a Slow Computer - Uninstall Unused Programs
http://computerkindergarten.com/html/041909.html
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Question: Internet Explorer Status Bar
Question: On my old computer, when I downloaded something, Internet Explorer showed a progress bar at the bottom of the page. I cannot find it on my new computer. Can you help me get it back?
Answer:
You have to turn on the status bar in Internet Explorer. Here are the steps:
Click View on the menu. If you do not see the menu, press the Alt key on the keyboard. The menu will display. Click on Status Bar. A bar will appear at the bottom of your window. The next time you download something, you will see the progress bar appear there.
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Websites of Interest:
eHow
Whatever it is you want to learn how to do, visit ehow.
http://www.ehow.com/
NASA TV
Watch space walks and learn about the life of an astronaut.
www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html
Life Expectancy Calculator
Take this quiz to learn your life expectancy.
http://www.livingto100.com/