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racquathinkIt's Scam Awareness Week, and David Hall has some tips to keep you safe online.Phishing is essentially an online scam, and phishers are nothing more than tech-savvy con artists.Online scams constantly evolve to reflect popular events in the news. They're successful is because a scam is not about physically attacking a computer, rather fooling the user into clicking on a poisoned link. They use spam, malicious websites, email messages and instant messages to trick people into divulging sensitive information, such as bank and credit card accounts.According to the latest Norton Cybercrime Report, more than 868,206 New Zealanders fell victim to cybercrime in 2010, suffering $288.2 million in direct financial losses.Phishers may use email to request personal information and direct recipients to respond through malicious websites.Look out for phishers using emotional language, scare tactics or urgent requests to entice recipients to respond.Phishing sites can look remarkably legitimate, because they tend to use the copyrighted images from legitimate sites.Be on the lookout for requests for confidential information via email or instant message.Remember that fraudulent messages are often not personalised and poorly written.Lastly, think about any offer, any advertisement, any email, and website before you act on any request. If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.Norton has several free and premium products that can help protect against online scams.

Can money buy happiness? Yes, if you spend it on other people, says Michael Norton, an associate professor at Harvard Business School. (H/t Business Insider.) Norton said at a recent TED talk that spending money on yourself does not make you happier, but spending money on others -- no matter how it is spent, or how much -- could improve your mood. "If you think money can't buy happiness, you're not spending it right," Norton said. "You should stop thinking about which product to buy for yourself, and try giving some of it to other people instead." "The reason that money doesn't make us happy is that we’re always spending on the wrong things, and in particular that we’re always spending it on ourselves," he said. Norton said that in numerous studies, "people who spent money on other people got happier; people who spent money on themselves, nothing happened. It didn’t make them less happy; it just didn't do much for them." In nearly every country in the world, people that give to charity are happier, according to research by Gallup cited by Norton.

Norton said that in a study at the University of British Columbia, students that were given money and spent it on others became happier, while students that were given money and spent it on themselves were not any happier. Norton said that the same effect was found in Uganda. Taking your peers out for a drink after work isn't wasted time, Norton said. In fact, work teams that spend money on happy hours perform better at work, according to research cited by Norton. "Money often makes us feel very selfish and we do things only for ourself," Norton said, but "spending on other people has a bigger return for you than spending on yourself." And buying a small gift for your mom can make you just as happy as giving to an ambitious charity project. "The specific way that you spend on other people isn't nearly as important as the fact that you spend on other people in order to make yourself happy," Norton said. "You don't have to do amazing things with your money to make yourself happy. You can do small trivial things and yet still get these benefits from doing this." Norton's research is not the first to find that money leads to happiness, up to a certain point. People in households that earn more than $50,000 per year are more satisfied with their quality of life than people in households that earn less than $50,000 per year, according to a recent Marist poll. A study by Princeton University also found that a larger paycheck leads to a happier life, up to an income of $75,000 per year. After earning that amount, money has no effect on happiness, according to the study. Of course, the happiness threshold is higher in cities with a higher cost of living, according to The Wall Street Journal. That threshold was $163,000 per year in New York City in 2010, compared to $62,000 in Pueblo, Colo., according to the WSJ.

Several of the big names in the technology industry is now facing an antitrust case that alleges a conspiracy was made among Pixar, Intuit, Lucasfilm, Apple, Adobe, Intel and Google in their attempt to halt staff poaching.   According to Norton Scientific Journal, the said companies made a deal to stop offering positions to each other’s employees without the permission of the current employer first. The antitrust charge, where the late Steve Jobs of Apple has played a major role in, argues that the collusion had cost workers in the technology industry millions of dollars in lost chances.   California Judge Lucy Koh gave the green light to proceed with the lawsuit after it was found that there is a reason to infer such important policies would have to be approved by the companies’ highest authorities. The court rejected the defendants’ bid to have the claims dismissed brought under the Cartwright Act and the federal Sherman antitrust law.   The involved companies have previously requested the case to be dismissed for lack of evidence but Judge Koh believes there is a possibility that they really conspired to not poach each other’s staff.   In her decision released this week, Koh said that the existence of such “Do Not Cold Call” deal among the defendants “supports the possible inference that the deals were discussed, reached, enforced at the highest levels” of the firms. Koh added, “The fact that all six identical bilateral agreements were reached in secrecy among seven defendants in a span of two years suggests that these agreements resulted from collusion, and not from coincidence.

Wednesday, 9 May 2012, 11:47 am Press Release: Netsafe Media releaseWednesday, 9 May 2012 Penny auction websites takes more than small changeConsumers are being warned about penny auction sites, which despite offering ‘free trials’ are quietly charging hundreds of dollars to credit cards.The warning comes from a new cross-agency working group, made up of the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Department of Internal Affairs and Netsafe. The group is dedicated to fighting consumer fraud.Penny auctions are a twist on online auctions. The difference is you pay to take part − either each time you bid or through a monthly membership fee – even if you don’t win the auction. Each bid increases the price by just one or two cents; so ‘in theory’ you can buy sought-after goods for a fraction of their retail price.The working group has had dozens of complaints about penny auction sites, says Ministry of Consumer Affairs Team Leader Jarrod Rendle.“In a number of cases, the complainants thought they’d bagged a bargain while on a seven day ‘free trial’, but by redeeming their goods they’ve unknowingly agreed to three months’ membership, at $119 a month. “When they tried to cancel, they were told to send a $54 cancellation fee, along with photocopies of their credit card and passport. This leaves them not only out of pocket, but potentially open to identity fraud.”

Norton Scientific Journal broadcasts, whose main spheres of action are biomass, special systems boiler storage halls for agricultural products and other activities- Eco-climate Technology. According to the review of Norton Scientific Journal, Ecoclimate Technology draws from the experience of its associates obtained in former time from elaboration of proposals and building of boiler storage halls systems. Furthermore, Ecoclimate Technology is concerned in sales and deliveries of fuel preparation appliances for crushing, scraping and chips preparation, pelletizing lines for production of agro pellets and wood pellets as well, biomass burning boilers and boiler-rooms and technologies that is intended for CHP. Aside from these eco climate technologies, Norton Scientific Journal released their fresh ecoclimate technology offer around the world; this includes their storage proposal according to customer requirements and storage life, engineering such as calculation and proposal of necessary capacity of storage, cooling and air circulation capacity, and hall designing, and also, hall construction including delivery of technology of cooling; sorting and packing equipment in case of need. Moreover, Eco-climate Technology also offers a complex service in field of biomass growing, processing and combustion. In the current report of Norton Scientific Journal, Eco-climate Technology offers both to companies and small customers the ff. elaboration of concrete projects according to customer requirements economy analysis of projects feasibility study in order to obtain financial resources assistance in bank credit obtaining elaboration of background papers and assistance in subsidies obtaining from both EU and Czech resources project documents processing selection and recommendation of suitable technologies consultancy for suppliers’ selection biomass special systems – storage halls for agricultural products intermediation of business in former Yugoslavia countries