Salient Digital Techno Blog

How to Avoid Identity Theft and Protect Your Credit Free

ATTORNEY’S ADVICE – NO CHARGE

Not A Joke!!   Even If you dislike attorneys… You will love them for these tips.

Read this and make a copy for your files in case you need to refer to it someday. Maybe we should all take some of his advice! A corporate attorney sent the following out to the employees in his company:

1. Do not sign  the back of your credit cards. Instead, put ‘PHOTO ID REQUIRED.’

2. When you are writing checks to pay on your credit card accounts,  DO  NOT put the complete  account number on the ‘For’ line. Instead, just put the  last four numbers. The credit card company knows the rest of the number, and anyone who might be handling your check as it passes through all the check processing channels won’t have access to it.

3. Put your work phone # on your checks instead of your home phone. If you have a PO Box use that instead of your home address. If you do no t have a PO Box, use your work address.Never  have your  SS# printed on your checks. (DUH!) You can add it if it is necessary. But if you have It printed, anyone can get it.

4. Place the contents of your wallet on a photocopy machine. Do both sides of each license, credit card, etc.. You will know what you had in your wallet and all of the account numbers and phone numbers to call and cancel.. Keep the photocopy in a safe place.

I also carry a photocopy of my passport when I travel either here or abroad. We’ve all heard horror stories about fraud that’s committed on us in stealing a Name, address, Social Security number, credit cards.

Unfortunately, I, an attorney, have first hand knowledge because my wallet was stolen last month. Within a week, the thieves ordered an expensive monthly cell phone package, applied for a VISA credit card, had a credit line approved to buy a Gateway computer, received a PIN number from DMV to change my driving record information online, and more.

But here’s some critical information to limit the damage  in case this happens to you or someone you know:

5. We have been told we should  cancel our  credit cards immediately. But the key is having the toll free numbers and your card numbers handy so you know whom to call. Keep those where you can find them.

6.  File a  police report immediately in the jurisdiction where your credit cards, etc., were stolen. This proves to credit providers you were diligent, and this is a first step toward an investigation (if there ever is one).

But here’s what is perhaps  most important of all: (I never even thought to do this.)

7. Call  the  3 national credit reporting organizations  immediately to place a fraud alert on your name and also call the Social Security fraud line number.. I had never heard of doing that until advised by a bank that called to tell me an application for credit was made over the Internet in my name.

The alert means any company that checks your credit knows your information was stolen, and they have to contact you by phone to authorize new credit..

By the time I was advised to do this, almost two weeks after the theft, all the damage had been done. There are records of all the credit checks initiated by the thieves’ purchases, none of which I knew about before placing the alert. Since then, no additional damage has be en done, and the thieves threw my wallet away this weekend (someone turned it in).. It seems to have stopped them dead in their tracks..

Now, here are the numbers you always need to contact about your wallet, if it has been stolen:

1.) Equifax: 1-800-525-6285

2.) Experian (formerly TRW): 1-888-397-3742

3.) Trans Union : 1-800-680 7289

4.) Social Security Administration (fraud line):  1-800-269-0271

We pass along jokes on the Internet; we pass along just about everything.

If you are willing to pass this information along, it could really help someone that you care about.

How to Bathe A Pug Puppy in 8 Haikus

One

Pugs are great, but smell.
Oh, Saturday. Pug’s Bath day.
Hmm, which should go first?

Two

Fill sink with water.
Should be warm, but not too hot.
Don’t want to scald them.

Three

Buy a Pug shampoo.
All-purpose pet cleaning goo.
“For All Dogs” – Pugs too.

Four

Okay, it’s bath time.
Daisy looks eager to go.
Duke can go second.

Five

Very Important.
Clear the area of stuff.
Fewer distractions.

Six

Meek Pug tries water.
She shivers at first, but then,
slowly trusts you’ll be quick.

Seven

Lather, rinse, repeat.
Don’t make a big fuss, gently.
Dab little Pug dry.

Eight

Put outside to dry.
Warm sunny spot would be nice.
Try Arizona.

Dreamweaver slows me down too

This blog is great. Tons of people expressing the same thing I’ve been feeling lately… Dreamweaver is just slow.

I recently switched from Dreamweaver CS3 on Windows (running under Bootcamp on a Macbook Pro) to Dreamweaver CS4 running under Snow Leopard. I also upgraded from 2GB to 4GB of RAM. Dreamweaver CS4 is almost unusable in Design mode, on longer documents. Maybe I have to run disk utility or something, but sheesh.

I’ve enjoyed using Dreamweaver for many years, but why is it that as computers get faster and faster, Adobe software gets slower and slower?

As I’ve pointed out before, Adobe makes some of the most expensive software out there. Why doesn’t it work better?

Kohana 3 PHP Development Resources

Here is the most current Kohana 3 Documentation.

Here is the Kohana 3 API.

Here is the Kohana 3 Unofficial Wiki.

Here is a link to all posts tagged with KO3 in the KohanaPHP Forums.

Here is a search result for KO3 Models. Models represent the ‘M’ in the MVC software design pattern. Chances are your Models will use a Database backend. Here’s the KO3 Database tutorial.

Here’s a great tutorial on using Views with Kohana 3. Views represent the ‘V’ in the MVC software design pattern. Update: Now there’s 8 Great Kohana 3 Tutorials at DealTaker.

Here is a search result for KO3 Controllers. Controllers represent the ‘C’ in the MVC software design pattern. In order to decide what Controller (and Action) to run, you need to use KO3 Routing.

Once you get the hang of things, you’ll find this KO3 Cheat Sheet comes in very handy, as does this Git Cheat Sheet!

Git for Subversion Users

I just spent a few hours reading up on Git, and have to admit I saw the light. One of the coolest features of Git is that it is distributed and provides an easy way to have a repository made up of smaller sub-repositories (called submodules in Git). Try that with SVN! Why does this matter? What’s so cool about Git? you may be wondering… Well, because the Kohana 3.0 source code is stored in several Git repositories, you can easily checkout the source to a local working copy, including only the modules you want, and also build your application in a local Git repository.

All of the following links are really helpfu.

Git for Subversion users, Part 1: Getting started

Git for Subversion users, Part 2: Taking control

git-svn is a gateway drug

Git Manual

Git User Guide

Guide on using Git with Kohana

Famous Pairs (how to name two dogs)

With a little help from Factacular, We compiled this list of famous pairs, in preparation of the potential arrival of two pugs we might be getting tomorrow.

Abbott and Costello
Ben and Jerry
Cheech and Chong
Bill and Ted
Black and Decker
Ernie and Bert
Gilbert and Sullivan
Hall and Oates
Lenny and Squiggy
Lewis and Clark
Mario and Luigi
Ren and Stimpy
Rocky and Bullwinkle
Romulus and Remus
Siegfried and Roy
Siskel and Ebert
Starsky and Hutch
Tom and Jerry
Simon and Garfunkel
Wallace and Gromit
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Edit December 29, 2009
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Well, we ended up with a boy and girl, brother sister from the same litter of 8 pups. We decided to name them Daisy and Duke.

ICANN is retarded. Literally.

I just had an amazing idea for a new TLD. So, naturally, I Google create new TLD.

I went to this link, then to  the ICANN FAQ on how to create a new TLD, then the ICANN forum…

This stuff is like from 2000. Am I missing something? The newest info about this is almost a decade old?

It seems more often lately, I stumbleUpon Ars Technica, which has a good overview of a recent plan by ICANN to allow hundreds more generic Top Level Domains.

GMail Keyboard Shortcuts Make GMail Even Faster

GMail is incredible, has been since it launched.

But if you’re not using the GMail Keyboard Shortcuts, you’re missing out. The performance of navigating GMail is instantaneous when using many of the keyboard commands, particularly archive (e) and delete (#).

Boundaries for Open Source Software

This is the best and most succinct guideline for participating in open-source software I’ve ever read.

http://trac.handbrake.fr/wiki/IsIsnt

How to convert fonts from .pfb to .ttf on Mac OSX

http://fontforge.sourceforge.net/MacOSX.html