As part of my constant survey of false and misleading job ads, I came across this interesting one on craigslist at this link. http://calgary.en.craigslist.ca/etc/1415300999.html
It tells us that if we participate in the “focus group” that we will get paid $100 for this. Well I’ve participated in many surveys and ‘focus groups’ and enjoy doing so, but many are not all they seem, and some are downright invasive about ‘knowing your personal lifestyle’ or worse, resellers of your information. So I decided to check it out and reply to the email listed in the ad as Haley.Axel@gmail.com. My first suspicion about this was when I received a reply almost immediately. Very rarely do ad responses get immediate replies, and instead of asking for a time to meet, it simply directed me to a ‘screener’ survey via Survey Monkeys. Well Survey Monkeys is a free online service anyone can use to generate surveys and submit them. So I’m thinking they wanted to stick me into doing a survey for free. Well the questions were in my mind serving nothing other than providing a clear redirect to the real company Lightspeed Reasearch, based in New Jersey, to ‘become a member’. Well membership is free so I’m thinking so far so good right?
Continue reading 'Focus Group Music Survey for $100 – I don’t think so.'»
Security
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If you had an opportunity to view your local newspapers job classifieds this weekend you may well find an ad like this one. 
It looks like a highly sincere advertisement seeking folks who would like an opportunity like this. They obviously are seeking to appeal to anyone interested in a highly flexible and possibly rewarding (getting paid to shop) opportunity. The site seems to indicate a 4-12 hour work week on average and you are considered part time. This is all cool. However, what isn’t so cool is the lack of ANY security features for the sites ‘job application’ forms.
In my eyes this is very troublesome that anyone would submit this much personal information without any measures at encrypting the data to the site. And it wants a LOT of data from you.
Continue reading 'Looking for Work – Qualityshopper.org wants you, but does it secure your data?'»
Security
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Are you one of the folks who has an Google email account? They are not hard to find, and very easy to get and many folks find it very handy. But for most Windows users, trying to adopt a webmail-like email such as GMAIL in place of typical clients like Outlook Express can have some problems.
Enter Google Notify. Its a great little tool that simply monitors calls to email and redirects them to your Gmail account. No more clicking on email links on web pages and getting outlook express popping up. Now the request generates a gmail compose message and seems to work very well. It will also tell you when you have new mail!
What if it doesn’t work?
Continue reading 'Google notify not working?'»
Internet & Networking
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