Email Account Issues

My Yahoo email account was compromised last week.  (May 11th)  I found out a few hours after it happened.  It sent an email with a link to a Russian website.  Please do not click the link.  I'm not sure what it goes to.  I contacted the FTC, and they told me that what happened constituted identity theft.  They said that anytime someone or something sends an email using your email account without your knowledge or consent, it's considered identity theft which is a felony.  They told me to put a fraud alert on my credit report, and to contact Yahoo! and file a police report.  I contacted Yahoo! and they told me that it was a virus going around on their system.  When I asked the Yahoo! Customer Service Representative whether he thought that I should file a police report, he was totally silent.  I have to imagine Yahoo! wouldn't want their reps saying either one or the other.
So the ordeal was trying to say the least.  Evidence of the bug's transgressions were slight.  Actually the bug attacked my email again two days later.  I was pretty upset the second time.  I forwarded the bad email to Yahoo! customer service.  They sent me the same form email back the second time.  It's a bug on their system, blah, blah, blah.

Amazon Associates

Hey guys.  I wanted to talk a little about a new feature on my site.  It's called Amazon Associates.  I have an Amazon.com box on the top right hand of my site.  If you search for a product you want and then go and buy it at Amazon, I get four percent of the purchase price.  It helps me to pay for certain features that could be added to the site to make it more functional for users like yourself, assuming that anyone actually reads this!  You can also just click on the Amazon logo below the search bar to go straight to Amazon.com  So the next time you think to go to Amazon, go through Billhonlinejournal.  Thanks!  And when you get to Amazon from your computer, go ahead and bookmark the affiliate site.  It will do exactly the same thing as Amazon.com because it is still amazon.com, but it just allows me to make a small commission.

The other cool thing about Amazon.com's affiliate feature is that I can add products to the site and link them back to Amazon for people to purchase.  Just like this Motorama book that I'd love to have, but can't afford until I make enough money from the affiliate network to purchase it.

The Domino's Pizza Disaster

Hey guys.  This post is going to talk about the fairly recent Domino's Pizza fiasco.  This also occurred while I was taking the Spring Break Hiatus.  This was a PR department's worst nightmare come to life.  Two Domino's Pizza employees filmed themselves sticking food up each other's noses and then putting the food onto pizzas.  They put the video up on YouTube and it quickly got hundreds of thousands of hits.  Domino's was humiliated.  They made no response within the first 24 hours, but on Wednesday, they were able to begin the correction process.  It was very embarrassing for the chain, and certainly will stick with them for a long time.

The Susan Boyle Phenomenon

Unless you've been living under a rock, and perhaps even then, you've heard of Britain's new superstar Susan Boyle. She flew onto the scene when she delivered her stunning performance that proved to be jaw dropping.  Her fame is worldwide.  She has been featured in articles in the middle east, China, Japan, the US, all over Europe and elsewhere.  he has appeared on ABC's Good Morning America, NBC's equivalent and CBS's equivalent.  She has been on Larry King Live and Oprah is trying to get her on the Oprah Winfrey show.  I for one am a big fan.

Internet Soon to be Fixed

The Internet is going to be fixed at home very soon. I'm excited because I will be able to post stuff without waiting for the family computer to become available. The loss of wireless internet has greatly affected our family. Conflicts have arisen and problems have occured because of it. I also can't wait to get online in my room. Facebook will be so much fun because I have only been able to use it for a few minutes each day. I have been able to type the posts on my laptop while I'm offline of course, but I can't put it online for everyone else to see. My email has probably been building up and I'm almost scared to check it.

Possible technical difficulties

There have been some outages recently that I would like to comment on. I have been able to edit the blog, however I haven't been able to view the blog. I can't get to Blog*Spot, but I can get to Blogger. Right now I cannot tell if it's simply on my end, or if Blogger is experiencing technical difficulties. I know that they recently launched the new version of Blogger, so it is possible that the problems are on their end, however I have been experiencing problems with the Internet connection at home. Sometimes the connection 'gets lazy' and just doesn't access the site that is demanded of it. In any case, I'll keep you all updated as the situation pans out.

FreeRice

Hey guys. I just found out about freerice.com, and I wanted to tell you all about it. When you go to freerice.com, you are asked a vocabulary question. If you answer it correctly, 10 grains of rice are donated to the United Nations charitable efforts. 10 grains of rice doesn't sound like a lot, but it snowballs into a huge amount if you play enough! Clicking on the title of this post should take you to freerice.com, or you can scroll down, and I should have a link to it in my list of sites that I support. Have a great weekend.

VSide

Hey everyone. I just thought that I would tell you all about this neat new program that lets you create a character and interact with other people over the internet. You basically walk around this virtual world, you can shop, dance in clubs, flirt all over the internet. You have a 3D character that you control. I have met a bunch of people online that seem like neat people. Of course when using any online service like this NEVER give out your personal information. Even your name is a large risk with tracking technologies that are out today. You also need to respect other people online. Just because they can't see you doesn't mean that you can harass or verbally abuse anyone else. If you remember that and your basic NETiquette and you should be able to to use these types of sites safely. If you are under 13, always check with your parents to see what they think. Anyway, let's get back to the talk about VSide. It's so much fun. You have to download a program that is admittedly fairly large. I believe that it is about 200 megabytes. It's worth it though. Best part is that it's free!!! ;)

Haven't Written in a while...

Hi everyone. I'm really sorry that I haven't written. I have not been up to much. I am just lying down right now. I got back from vacation the monday after I wrote that last post. There is a possibility that we'll go back up north for a few days. I'm praying that we do. I'm even willing to give up internet for that time. It's not like I've been using the internet for much anyway. I haven't checked my email in so long, my inbox is probably overflowing. Anyway I think I'll check it. l8r. OH BY THE WAY, on another note we have to wear these stupid "lanyards" around our necks. They have ID on them. It's going to be terrible. What do you think?? Leave a comment!

I just sent a letter to the FCC talking about Net neutrality. You can view it here. L8r

More Internet stuff

Hey. I wanted to post more on the IMing. Before, I showed you some IM symbols that are commonly used in IMing, but right now, I wanted to note how people IM with each other. I'm sure that you have heard about the stories about people getting physically harmed because of their horrible actions on the Internet. The media blows that problem up to a size that is more alarming then the actual numbers. That doesn't mean, however, that you can go to chatrooms, and expect lots of church-style respect for one another. I have been to a computer chatroom once, and was so suprised at the nerve of some of those people. It was actually creepy. I left within 2 minutes of entering. It was creepy. People say the worst things, because they figure that they don't know the people, so it shouldn't make a difference how they treat their fellow chatters. It is horrible. It is also couwardly. It makes you think: these people probably could not get away with saying the things that they say if they were to say them in real life, so they figure that they can just say it on-line and they will never be bothered by the people again. Actually it is a crime that you can go to JAIL for!!!! It is called cyber-bullying. That is not the legal name, but the "street name". Well, anyway, it's very bad!