"The herd instinct among forecasters makes sheep look like independent thinkers."Edgar R. Fiedler
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Are You Trying too Hard to Be Happy?
We all want to be happy. However, if a woman pushes herself to emotional and mental exhaustion in order to reach “perfect” happiness, she could suffer from a condition she probably has never heard of: Missing Mother Syndrome. When Megan Meadows (not her ...
Grassophobia
Each day my daughter, pushing one year old now, amazes me with the lessons she teaches me. Yes, here I go again learning lessons from someone too young to speak. (Hmm … maybe that's a lesson, too.) In my corner of Starship Earth, winter rolled in a wee ...
How Much Time Do You Have?
Imagine there is a bank that each day credits our account with $86,400. It carries over no balance from day to day. Every evening when we go to bed it deletes what we didn’t use during the day. What would we do? We’d use every bit of it every day! Every ...
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There once was a time when the only option people had when shopping was to either call in or snail mail in a catalog order form or to jump in the family car, fight through traffic, and wait in long checkout lines to complete the purchase.
Well, nowadays there’s still a few major mail order catalogs floating around and we all still visit our local retail outlets, but time has also introduced the internet as one of our options to shop from the comforts of home.
The internet has made shopping at home a breeze and along with it has unfortunately brought the so called ”Evil Doers” who I believe have such little happiness in their own lives that they must leech pleasure from the hardworking and innocent individuals of our wonderful and surrounding nations.
And yes, I am speaking of the ever growing problem known as Identity and Credit Card Theft.
As an online and offline consumer it is in my best interest to protect myself while at the same time wanting to help others protect themselves as well.
Below is a short yet thorough list of ways that you can follow to help yourself stay safe and be a happy consumer and keep “Evil Doers” at bay.
1) Always shred sensitive materials such as bank statements before throwing them away in the regular trash. Just because the paper documents are in the garbage doesn’t mean they are safe from peeping eyes.
2) Contact your local bank or credit card provider to request a card with a low limit. This can make you feel more at ease about shopping at those not so familiar places and can reduce the damages caused by such an ill intended individual if they get hold of your number.
Also never give out the 3-letter Card Identification Number found on the back of the credit card unless you absolutely trust the merchant you are dealing with.
3) NEVER give out your social security card number for any reason! If capable you are best to obtain a tax I.D. number from the Internal Revenue Service or local tax agency.
If any “Evil Doer” gets hold of your personal information such as home address, birth date, and Social Security Number you are at great risk of being victimized.
4) Only purchase items online through secure order pages which is typically indicated by a small, yellow, “Padlock” image usually located somewhere near the bottom of your internet browsers window.
5) If you ever receive an email asking for sensitive information and claiming to be from a company that you have an account with, NEVER supply the requested information and
never click any links or hit reply to send such personal information back to the “company”.
Many legit companies will not ask for sensitive information via email.
If you get such an email you are better off to make a copy of the letter you received then close that browser window and then open a NEW window and access the company directly from their website address.
You should then submit the email you made a copy of to the company so that their anti- fraud personnel can take the necessary steps to send out warnings of possible fraudulent activity to be aware of to its members.
6) Be cautious about downloading and installing unnecessary programs onto your computer. If there are programs that you indeed must download ALWAYS scan the files for viruses and make sure that your anti-virus program is up to date.
There’s a wide variety of viruses that are distributed to unprotected computer systems and some of which are known as “Key Stroke Loggers” that record your sensitive log in names and passwords and then are made known to the trouble maker.
7) If possible try to utilize 2 different computers when using the internet.
One computer should only be used for general internet surfing just in case it was to obtain a virus such as a Key Stroke Logger so there would be little threat of someone getting your personal information.
Only use the second computer to access more sensitive information such as online banking or other important websites that require passwords and important information.
8) Finally, if there are young members of the family that have computer use privileges be sure to monitor and restrict the sites and programs they are allowed to use.
Many fraudulent individuals love to prey on the unexpecting and inexperienced web surfer.
In any case just be certain to contact the police or appropriate authorities the INSTANT you believe that you have become a victim of Identity Theft or Credit Card Number Theft.
The sooner you tell the authorities the better the chance they can help you recover from a financial catastrophe.
Dan Preston is the webmaster of a neat site called InfoHeaven Digital Books and The Online Book Store where you can find useful and Fr'ee information along with many how-to digital books that cover a large variety of interesting topics. http://infoheaven-digital-books.com and http://online-book-store.net.
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Finding Happiness in the DirtPatch.comI'm not talking about discovering the joy of gardening or increasing your appreciation of the outdoors—although I highly recommend both. Back in 2007, a study at the University of Bristol showed that a bacterium commonly found in soil triggered the ... |
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'Happiness Is a Chemical in the Brain': reviewSan Francisco ChronicleThis story is exclusive to the Chronicle's Sunday print edition and will not appear on SFGate.com until 3:00 AM on Monday, May 28. To read this and other exclusive print stories today, subscribe to The Chronicle's iPad app by visiting ...and more » |
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Happiness for Bhutan Olympians is not goldenChina DailyNeither Sherab nor Kunzang expect to win medals for Bhutan, an impoverished, largely Buddhist country between India and China which only opened up to foreigners in 1974, banned television until 1999, and uses happiness to measure its success. |
Bloomberg |
World's Happiest CountriesBloombergBy Andy Reinhardt - 2012-05-25T15:21:49Z People all over the world are fascinated by happiness rankings and how their own countries fare in global league tables. In some places, such as Britain, ratings of national well-being aren't just a matter for ... |
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