Daily Dose of Common Sense

Debit cards are increasingly popular, and for good reason. It’s the convenience of plastic without the temptation to spend money you don’t really have.

But should you sign or enter your PIN? Although I’m a technologist, I’ll be the first to admit it’s just as much, if not more, of a business issue.

Thankfully both types of concerns land on the side of, in my opinion, only using your PIN when you withdraw cash from an ATM (and make sure it’s a legit ATM at that!).

On the business side, most card issuers offer better fraud protection if you sign for a debit purchase than if you use your PIN. This is at least partly due to the fact that when you sign, the transaction gets processed by the MasterCard or VISA networks, and at minimum you get the fraud protection offered by them. You should check with your card issuer to get the details.

The credit card networks used when you sign also offer better fraud detection, as they can analyze the data from many card issuers.

On the technology side, it’s a question of the risk to your PIN and the impact if it gets compromised. ATMs, especially the major brands like NCR and Diebold used by the big banks, are built with security in mind. The keypad module has built-in encryption and its tamper-proof, for instance.

Other equipment where you use your card and enter your PIN is unlikely to be as secure. Even if it is, a clever person can skim your card in the blink of an eye and have a surreptitious camera recording your PIN.

Once they have your PIN in addition to your card #, they can create a fake card and then carry out the less consumer-protected PIN transactions instead of just being limited to signature transactions if they didn’t have your PIN.

Depending on your bank and what other info they have, they might even be able to access your account(s) through your bank’s web site because they have your PIN as well.

If all that isn’t enough to convince you, consider this: more and more, banks are enrolling their debit card customers in rewards programs similar to the ones offered for credit cards, but you only get rewards for signature transactions.

More protection and free stuff. Sounds like a winning combination to me.

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They say that in real-estate, location is (at least almost) everything. The same can be said about the files on your computer. To put the issue in a more metaphysical light, if you don’t bother to know where you put something, how can you expect to find it?

When PCs first became available, the concept of location was easy for most users to understand, as there was usually a floppy disk involved, with (theoretically, at least) a label on it. Location was tangible, physical.

Now, we use increasingly large hard drives where we can create a virtually limitless collection of “nested” (one inside the other) folders to store our files in.

Just as it was incumbent on us to label and organize our storage when it was in small physical containers like floppies, it’s even more important to do so now, at least if we want to find our stuff.

When someone can’t locate a file and they ask me for help, nine times out of ten their answer to the question “Where did you put it?” is either “Huh?” or “I don’t know.”

Here’s one common scenario: Someone gets an email attachment and they open it (usually by double-clicking) without saving it in a known location first. They make some edits, then something goes wrong. The power goes out, the computer hangs, the reply email with the edited file doesn’t get sent or saved, etc. Poof…gone.

The way to avoid heartache like this is to NEVER open a file from an external source (email, a web site or application, etc.) without saving it to a location of your choosing first. It usually just takes one extra click (choose Save instead of Open, for instance) to make sure that you know where the file is being saved instead of just relying on the default setting of whichever program you are using.

I’ll end with an example of how crazy it is to do anything else. If you handed a clerk a piece of paper and said “Just file it anywhere,” would you ever expect to find it again?

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Progress in technology always brings about new kinds of dangers. Crossing the street must have become a frightening experience for a fair percentage of the folks who lived through the transition from horse-drawn to motorized vehicles, but soon every 5-year old knew enough to look both ways before they cross and pay attention to traffic signals. Education and adapting your behavior are the key.

The security dangers posed by the Internet are no different. By now (hopefully) we’ve all learned not to open email attachments we weren’t expecting (even if they appear to come from friends).

But a newer and more subtle danger is deceptive web links in emails and on web sites. But, like the simple rule about looking both ways, there’s also an easy way to mitigate this danger as well.

The key is to understand that the text of a link doesn’t necessarily have to match the actual web “destination” (the technical term being a URL, Uniform Resource Locator). So, if I want to link to CNN, I can make the link text match (http://www.cnn.com/) or use some other text (CNN).

The malicious links are crafted to appear like that first link that shows the URL as the text (let’s call this a “bare link”), but the actual URL is a different site that is a fake version of the real site shown in the text. So, how can you detect this subterfuge?

Every web browser and email program has a feature that shows you the URL of a link when you hold the mouse pointer without clicking (called hovering) over the text. So, for instance, this fake bare link to Citibank can be easily detected: http://www.citibank.com/

So, anytime a bare link’s destination URL doesn’t match what looks like the URL in the text, don’t click it. It’s as simple and common-sensible as looking before you cross the street.

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Our lives are crowded with electronic devices, and that’s mostly a good thing, as they entertain, inform and connect us. Keeping track of all of the various chargers and adapters for these devices, however, can be a huge hassle. Here’s two common sense tips that will help reduce the burden.

First, when you get a new device or adapter, get a Sharpie and write the name of the device on its charger/adapter. A black marker on a black plastic case still works, as you can see it fine if you change the viewing angle. This will prevent you from losing track of which “brick” goes with which device.

The next tip is for the car. If you prefer to have a separate adapter for the car (so that you don’t forget your cell phone charger, for instance), then just follow your usual shopping routine (with comparison shopping on the web highly recommended). But if you want to avoid paying for another adapter, a great solution is to buy what’s known as an inverter.

An inverter plugs into your car’s DC power outlet and then generates the AC power for an outlet just like you find in your home. It costs about the same as one specialized car power adapter that will only run one device, but lets you use any regular home adapter. Also, many of these inverters now feature a USB port to charge/power any device that plugs into your computer’s USB port.

If your kids, for instance, have several different portable gaming devices, you need only buy the one inverter and then you can use the home adapter that came with each device.

Keep in mind that inverters generate limited amounts of power, so don’t plug a power strip into them or otherwise try to run multiple devices off them (unless you’ve bought a larger-capacity, higher-priced truck mounted unit or similar).

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Hard really is better than soft.

While trying to explain to a friend why clicking on untrusted links or attachments is bad, I came up with an analogy. It’s the equivalent of walking down the street and having some stranger hand you an opaque container filled with unknown liquid, and you discarding or ignoring your common sense and swallowing the stuff.

I don’t have a good analogy, however, for this next bit of tech advice, which is common sense for the pocket-protector set, but may seem like an arbitrary edict for anyone without a degree in computer science.

Whenever you buy a new computer, it doesn’t matter what kind it is (Windows, Mac, Linux, etc.), ALWAYS connect it to the Internet via a router (which acts as a hardware firewall).

The reason is that even if the computer is equipped with the best software firewall, when the computer is brand new, it hasn’t had a chance to download the latest security updates. Therefore, in those first tens of minutes when you are setting up the PC and getting those updates, the computer is extremely vulnerable.

In case you think I’m exaggerating, you should know that people have done studies that have found the time it takes for an un-patched (missing the latest security updates) system to get infected can be as low as four minutes.

You don’t need a fancy firewall like a corporate office may have, any cheapo home router will do. This is because the function in the router that  allows it to share the Internet connection with multiple computers also means that it blocks any connections originating from the Internet (as opposed to originating from one of the computers connected to the router).

This is not to say that you shouldn’t bother with software firewalls (whether built-in to your operating system or part of 3rd party security software). You should have a software firewall as well. Computer security experts call this kind of layering “defense in depth”. Think of the hardware firewall as the doorman or security guard in an apartment building. You still want to keep your own door locked too.

So, don’t let the hacker grinches out there ruin the experience of setting up a new computer this holiday seasons. And yes, I realize that I did come up with an analogy after all. It’s a Christmas miracle!

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We’ve all heard joke versions of “there’s two kinds of people in the world”. Those who get Seinfeld, and those who don’t, etc.

But in the computer business, it’s for real, and it breaks down to those who have already experienced a hard drive failure, and those who will. Because unless you are unfortunate enough to die shortly after first using a computer, there sure as shit isn’t anyone who will escape.

Google is an interesting source of data on this because they run their computer infrastructure not by buying less of the higher-quality, expensive business equipment, but by buying more consumer-grade gear and linking it up smartly so the failures get taken care of automatically (key point – I’ll come back to it in a bit).

Their data shows that, on average, there is roughly a 20% chance of a hard drive failing in the first 3 years. Now, I’m no statistics guru, but I think no matter how you slice and dice those odds, it shows that almost everyone reading these words is at least due–if not long overdue–for a drive failure.

But here’s where we run smack dab into one of the biggest quirks of human nature. That sub-conscious pattern-matching faculty in our brain that we call intuition is, very frequently, lousy at correctly perceiving risk. In the case of data loss, even if we soberly judge the odds, we tend not to appreciate how disastrous the consequences can be.

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Sure, most of us techno-geeks and science nerds get worked up when some movie or TV show blatantly mungs some bit of science or technology (the “sound” from explosions in space, for instance), but do you know what gets our beanie-hat propellers really spinning? When our non-technically minded friends buy some pseudo-science claptrap that they heard from “them”, or read on the Internet.

Nothing fits that mold better than confusion about radiation. Just like with any other word or phrase, it’s always a good start to understand its origins. The word radiation is derived from the word radius, which is the distance from the center of a circle to its edge. So, any phenomenon that spreads out in all directions from where it originates can be said to radiate, and thus can be called radiation.

Sadly, few call sound “acoustic radiation”, or perhaps people might get the commonality. Either that, or they’d think that loud noises will give them cancer. Scratch that idea.

That bad, cancer-causing kind of radiation is “nuclear radiation” (that’s not a real term, just used for emphasis) and is the kind being talked about when something is called radioactive. Its real name is ionizing radiation (because it can strip an atom of electrons, turning it into an ion), and it consists of actual subatomic particles getting thrown around. While it is associated with things like nuclear reactors and bombs, it also just happens naturally. Almost all of the lead in the earth, for instance, once started out as another element, and was transformed into lead by the process of radioactive decay.

Ionizing radiation is bad, and can injure or kill us, because when atoms get ionized, they become very chemically reactive, and all kinds of unintended reactions start to happen in our cells. Cells can die, or worse, accumulate genetic mutations and turn cancerous. When cancer had another cause, however, ionizing radiation can help, as its targeted use can kill just the cancer cells and spare healthy cells.

Then there’s electromagnetic radiation, otherwise known as radio waves or light waves. Electromagnetism is one of the four fundamental forces of the universe, and I won’t attempt to explain it here. But, in the frequencies/energies in which we use it to run our modern world of technological marvels, it is not, I repeat, not, ionizing radiation. The electromagnetic radiation from your radio, Wi-Fi, cell phone or even microwave oven (which is by far the most powerful electromagnetic device most of us encounter) can not injure you the same way ionizing radiation can. Electromagnetic radiation is a wave, just like a ripple of water in a pond. What radiates out in such a ripple is not particles, like an explosion, but the motion of the water.

(Note: A damaged microwave oven CAN injure you, in the same way that it affects the leftovers you heat up: by heating the water molecules inside your body. NEVER use a microwave oven with a broken door, hinge, latch, etc.)

Now here’s the tricky bit. Although nearly all of the confusion between ionizing radiation and the benign electromagnetic kind comes from the common word being used in the sense of “radiate”, there is another connection.

One of the great mysteries of our universe is that in certain situations, matter and electromagnetic radiation behave like both a wave AND a particle. Light is the most famous example, and is how science first came across the phenomenon. Some ionizing radiation, like x-rays and gamma rays, which are high-energy particles like other ionizing radiation, are ALSO very high frequency electromagnetic waves. Ain’t the universe just the coolest?!

So, while that connection is true, it does not mean that your cell phone, which emits electromagnetic “radiation” of very much less energy/frequency, where the difference in quantity becomes a difference in kind, is radioactive in the sense of a nuclear bomb. Ditto with the cell phone towers, radio station antennas, etc.

In short, Stevie Wonder said it best: “When you believe in things you don’t understand, then you suffer; superstition ain’t the way.”

Photos: SC Fiasco, Comic Book

They have always been a good idea, but the tough economic times have made more people than ever look into using rechargeable batteries instead of single-use batteries. Once a mystery, we now all routinely use special-purpose rechargeable batteries in devices like cell phones and digital cameras. Like anything else, however, knowledge is power (pun intended), and even a few simple facts can help a lot.

First, let’s deal with the most important issue: safety. NEVER try to charge a single-use battery. Those warnings are not from some overly cautious lawyer; fire and explosions are real dangers. If you don’t believe me, search for battery fire on YouTube and you’ll see that these innocuous-looking little devices are not to be misused. Electricity and chemistry can each be dangerous on their own, and together they are even more so.

Similarly, never use any kind of rechargeable battery that has been damaged in any way. Likewise, don’t try and jury-rig anything; use things as they are intended and according to the instructions. We technology professionals have a humorous acronym for this: RTFM, which stands for (polite version) Read The Freaking Manual! While our arcane knowledge may seem a mystery to most people, and some of us do indeed have a knack for gadgets, it’s mostly due to the fact that we read the darn directions!

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Technology can be overwhelming, no doubt about it. But if anything, that should make you more eager to do your homework before buying, not less. Otherwise, you will get ripped off.

So, why is it that so many otherwise wary consumers, who would smack down a car dealer trying to sell them “serial number glass etching”, get duped into buying expensive computer and A/V cables they don’t need? Because we fear what we don’t understand.

Cables are one of the highest margin items any electronics or office retailer sells. That 10 foot Ethernet patch cord at the office superstore that costs $18? Well, it works no better than one you can buy on-line for $3 (or less), and both are quite likely to have been made in the same factory in China. Likewise for USB.

Cables for your new flat screen TV can be even more overpriced, because now you are contending with marketing-driven brands. There’s no doubt these high-priced cables are engineered superbly, but there’s also no doubt they are overkill when compared to a no-name cable that meets the same specifications but doesn’t have to cover the cost for throwing expensive parties in Hollywood.

Even the moderately overpriced cables are a rip-off. When I recently received a flat-screen TV as a gift, I only had the cables to hook it up like my old TV, low-def analog. The local electronics shops had 6-foot HDMI (combined digital video & audio) cables for no less than $50, with the cool brands costing over $100.

By resisting the (admittedly HUGE) temptation to buy them on the spot, I was able to get very nice, good spec, gold-plated cables from a well-known web retailer (whose 2-day free-shipping plan I’m on) for $6. That is not a typo. For three cables my decision to wait saved me at least $150.

The key, of course, is being able to wait. Like the convenience store that charges double or triple for a bottle of soda, retailers count on you needing the cable right now.

So, when you are researching your next computer or electronics purchase, don’t forget to look into the cables you’ll need as well. With the money you save, you can order a spare (I didn’t need that 3rd HDMI cable) AND pay for dinner. Nothing goes with a new flat-screen TV like free take-out.

Photo courtesy of Flickr: Mathieu Ramage