WyzGuys Tech Talk

Have you ever wondered what happens to credit card information that is stolen online?  Sure the card numbers get resold on cyber-crime web sites and discussion boards, but a recent FBI sting operation has resulting in the arrest of 24 “carders” from the US and elsewhere, and provides a detailed look at the financial endgame of these cyber crooks.  You can read the entire story on Sophos, but I am quoting pieces of the article below.

“Charges against a ...

In discussions with students in the computer classes that I teach for the seven Community Education programs that I am involved with, the subject comes up all the time whether copying content from the web isn’t “stealing.”  This is a long discussion, but my point always is this:  the Internet changes everything.  The Internet levels the playing field so anyone can be a published author, musician, or artist, or own a software company, or a birdhouse factory, or whatever.  The ...

It has been several years since I took a ride on the “Piracy” rollercoaster, but here is a compelling article from TechDirt Daily that points out once again that file sharing, illegal or otherwise, can be a good thing for musicians.  A sad but very true fact is that musical groups including big name rock bands rarely see any money other than the advance on a recording, the clever accountants at the music labels find a way to tie all ...

I am a big fan of Sam Richter, whose “Know More” web site offers great ideas for using the web as a research tool to improve marketing and increase sales.  In a recent email he offered a link to a downloadable whitepaper that is a 10 step checklist for anyone who is contemplating a web site redesign.

Designing a new website is hard enough, but redesigning an existing website can have repercussions on page rank and traffic ...

Until this weekend , it was possible to post a tweet on Twitter and have that post automatically appear in your LinkedIn updates.  For those of us that were using that feature to send blog article publication announcements, this creates a bit of a wrinkle.  What was an automated process for me, thanks to a couple of Windows Live Writer plug-ins, now requires an extra step.  You can get more of the details on LinkedIn.   I may have ...

According to a recent article published in the Wall Street Journal, and recapped on MediaBistro.com, the average user spends a lot of time on the social networks.  just how much time?  Well for the month of January 2012:

• Facebook – 405 minutes or 6 hours 45 minutes
• tumblr – 89 minutes or an hour and a half
• Pinterest – 89 minutes as well
• Twitter – 21 minutes
• LinkedIn – 17 minutes
• MySpace – 8 minutes
• Google+ – 3 minutes ...

Some of you are bound to have noticed a distinct uptick in the amount of blogging we have been doing lately.  My goal is to have one article to share every day.  I am accomplishing this by writing my blog articles in Windows Live Writer.  I write several of them at the same time, up to a week’s worth, and saving them as drafts, and then publish one a day in the morning.  I have also installed a couple of ...

Apple’s next operating system, Mountain Lion, is coming with a new feature called Gatekeeper, which is being touted as a way to keep malware from running on your Mac.  Basically, if you have not specifically authorized an application in Gatekeeper, it shouldn’t run, and this would included malware applications.  This seems like a revision of Windows User Account Control (UAC), which is the annoying little box the pops up with a “bonk” sound, graying out your screen, as asking if ...