Maxed Out

Maxed Out is a documentary about the abusive practices of the credit card industry. It was created by James Scurlock.

Dave Ramsey was interviewed for the documentary. I first heard of him through Financial Peace University, his bible-based training in practical finance. Several people I know have taken this course and have nothing but great things to say about it.

Since this documentary was created in 2006, there have been many opportunities for reform. Indeed, there was great victory last year when the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD) Act of 2009 was passed. There are numerous protections in there that will benefit every one of us. I am glad that we live in a country that is not (completely) corrupt :)

Goodbye GOOG-411, Hello BING-411

Google recently announced that its toll-free directory assistance, GOOG-411, would be discontinued on November 12, 2010. This is unfortunate, because I use this service from time to time.

Thankfully though, there are other companies that offer toll-free directory assistance. These include

• Microsoft with BING-411,
• Verizon with THE-INFO, and
• Jingle Networks with FREE-411.

I will be using BING-411 because it does not make me listen to ads while the other two do.

AT&T's Great Customer Serivce

When I moved to my new apartment this summer, I ordered DSL internet service from AT&T. $15/month gets you 3.0 Mb/s (for a year), which is an amazingly good deal. I ordered this service through their website and signed up to have my bill automatically changed to my credit card.

When I received my most recent bill, it said that I was past due on a payment and changed $0.24 interest. When I called AT&T's customer service, a guy answered and said,

"Hello. My name is ****. My job is to make you a satisfied customer. What can I help you with?"

Wow! I knew at this moment that this was going to go well. I explained to him the situation. He said that their online system does not always initiate the automatic credit card payment system. Then, without me having to ask for anything, he said that he would credit my account $1 and get the automatic credit card payments set up.

What wonderful customer service! I have called AT&T before with a technical problem, but the problem was not resolved so promptly. (The beginning of the conversation went something like this.)

Google's Priority Inbox

I use Gmail. It is, by far, the best email service. You literally can't pay (any affordable amount) for better email service.

I would guess that most, maybe 75 - 85%, of my email is worthless. These emails are not spam or junk, they are from real people here at UWM. However, many of these emails are not for me. I am on these lists that send general FYI-type of emails, but there is always the possibility that I need or want to know about something contained in these emails.

The real problem is that these emails get in my way of reading the more important emails that show up less often. My previous solution was to create a special label, which I called "Normal", and set up filters to send these normal emails there, skipping my inbox. This worked pretty well, but it requires effort on my part to set up the filters.

Yesterday, I started using the new beta version of Priority Inbox in Gmail. I have high expectations for its effectiveness, so I hope that I will not be disappointed. I will post again in the future to let you know how well it works.

US Bank Fail

I previously blogged about my problems with Wells Fargo. Well, for those and other reasons, I have created accounts at US Bank. I have yet to shift over to using US Bank full time (or even at all), but they are already testing my patience.

Since I rarely login to my US Bank account, I could not remember my the answer to one of my security questions. (At least that means it was a good question...even I can't figure it.)


The important text is the following.

Please contact us at 877-202-0043 for assistance.

I called this number, waited for a banker, and then finally got to speak to one. I told them that I was locked out of my account.

Now, try to guess what happened next.

The banker told me:

Ok. Let me forward your call to the department that can help you.

WHAT?!?! Your website knows exactly why I am calling. I should have been given the number that directly allows me to speak with the department that can help me.

US Bank Fail (#1...)

Lock Bumping

Lock bumping is an extremely effective lock picking technique for picking a pin tumbler lock, which is (probably) the type of lock on your front door.

The following video will show you how it works.

How To: Windows Maintenance

Many people ask me to "fix" their computer, and I am always willing to do so. It is not that I can preform miracles, I have just learned and memorized the necessary steps. Well today, I am going to share these steps with you.

Many tasks brag about being doable in three steps and this one is no different:

1. Remove
2. Clean
3. Update

Remove

Begin by removing anything that is unnecessary. There three areas on which to focus:

1. Applications
2. Files
3. Start-on-boot entries

Uninstall any unused applications. They use disk space, increase your security risk (because they could contain an exploitable flaw), and will slow down the cleaning and updating phases.

Delete unused and unnecessary files. This especially includes temporary internet files. Where temporary internet files are stored varies with the version of Windows. However, (I believe) there is a universal way to delete them in "Internet Options" of the "Control Panel". Also, delete any unneeded/unused icons on your desktop. Having these on your desktop is akin to having a messy room. Similar to applications, unnecessary files use disk space, increase your security risk (because they could contain malware), and will slow down the cleaning and updating phases.

Many application want to start on boot, but the only non-operating system, non-hardware related application that I allow at boot are related to security or file synchronization (by which I mean Dropbox). There are two places in the registry that contain start-on-boot entries. To edit the registry, enter "regedit" at the run dialog, which can be accessed via the keyboard shortcut "Windows-R".

• HKEY_CURRENT_USER -> Software -> Microsoft -> Windows -> CurrentVersion -> Run*
• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> Software -> Microsoft -> Windows -> CurrentVersion -> Run*

("Run*" means any folder beginning with "Run".) You should delete any registry key (which is what the contents of these registry folders are called) of a program that does not need to start on boot. Be especially on the look out for malware that is set to start on boot. How do you know what is malware, what does not need to start at boot, and what does need to start at boot? Google. That is basically how I figured out which keys are necessary, which are malicious, and which are benign. Some programs (most notably in my mind...QuickTime) really want to start on boot but have no reason to do so. If you delete its registry key, it will reappear there (eventually). I know of two solutions for this, but one of them will be discussed in the "clean" phase. The solution from this section is to leave the registry key, but disable it in the "Startup" tab of "msconfig" (which can be accessed via the run dialog). You also need to check the "'Windows/Start button' -> (All) Programs -> Startup" folder because, as its name suggests, also contains start-on-boot entries.

Clean

In this phase, we are cleaning and securing your computer of malware. I recommend the following security software:

1. Anti-virus: AVG
2. Anti-spyware: Spybot Search & Destroy
3. Anti-"rest": Malwarebytes

All of these programs have free versions. If you have another anti-virus program (especially one that you paid for), just keep using that one. Otherwise, install the programs that you do not have. Update them. Then, have each one, one at a time, run a full system scan. Remove any problems that they find.

Spybot Search & Destroy also has two other important features. It has an "immunize" feature by which it secures your browsers in many ways. You have to immunize after each update. The other feature monitors registry changes. This is the other way to prevent programs from recreating their start-on-boot entry in the registry. Spybot notifies you if a registry change is requested. If it is a program wanting to recreate its start-on-boot registry entry, then you check "Remember" and click "Deny".

Update

Now that your computer is quick and clean, we need to keep it that way. Update all the programs that can be updated. We updated the security software in the previous section, so they should already be at their newest versions.

The two most important programs to update are Windows and your browser. Internet Explorer updates are found with Windows updates. Firefox and Chrome have menu entries where you can trigger a update process.

Other common programs that can be updated are

1. Adobe PDF Reader,
2. Apple Software (such as iTunes and QuickTime), and
   
3. Java.

Conclusion

I am sure that you are happy that your computer is now malware free. Did you know that I am also happy? Sure, I am happy because you are happy, but I am also happy because there is one less computer ruining the internet. Computers with malware are responsible for all of the bad things that happen on the internet, including identity theft, spam email, and DDoS attacks. Thanks for taking the time to make the internet a better place.