Because fraud is so rampant on ebay, many ebay sellers are requiring their buyers to confirm their address so that they will be covered by ebay and Paypal’s Seller Protection Policy. But what does this mean? This is ebay and Paypal’s way of verifying your identity. The system they have built covers the seller in the event of fraud and they buyer gets some other benefits too.

So how as an ebay buyer do you do this? Generally, you add your bank account to Paypal, Paypal sends you two small deposits, and you then report back the deposits. It is not full proof but it must have good enough success for ebay to support it.

As an ebay Seller, I have had Paypal tell me that someone fraudulently stole one of my buyer’s account to buy something from me. When this happens, I am liable and Paypal will always reverse the transaction taking the money out of my account but since I shipped it to the address given in Paypal and they had a confirmed address, they covered it and did not take the funds from me.

Had I not followed ebay and Paypal’s rules and the buyer’s address was not confirmed, they would have taken the money from me end of story. Im pretty sure if you add your bank account to Paypal as a buyer, you get coverage in the even that the seller is fraudulent.

As a buyer or seller, you will run across someone who will try to rip you off. If you are going to sell or buy on ebay, please read ebay’s policies before buying or selling anything. Many people jump right in and get ripped off right away. Others who are more cautious, get through without ever getting ripped off because of ebay’s policy.

Of coarse be sure to read the date when you read this because all 500GB hard drives might be this price by then but $69.99 for a 500 GB Seagate is phenomenal. This is the cheapest price for a hard drive I have ever seen. Go to ZipZoomFly.com As usual, Seagate helps us out by driving the base cost of gigs per dollar down in hard drives.

It is not your fault and it is easy to do, but getting you identity stolen via a fake email is a serious issue. Unfortunately, we live in a world where their people are evil and prey upon the good and unsuspecting. Most people may know by now but if you have not heard, you can get fake or spoofed emails from a spammer that leads to a fake financial institution or some other scheme in an attempt to steal your personal information or gain access to your bank account. To help prevent yourself from getting your identity stolen, I have compiled a simple list of rules to follow.

• Assume all from anyone you don’t know is bogus and fake
• Assume all email from any financial institution is fake
• Do not click any links in email

On another note, you should turn off the html preview in email so you don’t get a virus but that is a story for another day.

If you receive an email from you bank or financial institution, it could be real but there is a good chance it is fake. Usually, they will say your account is about to be canceled and to click a link to fix or update your information. The email will look just like it was from you bank and the link will take you to a site that looks just like you bank but it is not. when you log in, they phishing is done. You just gave your username and password to your bank and now they are free to drain your account. Some really bad and obvious links will ask you to update your information while asking for your name, address, drivers license number, birthday, and social. Sadly, do not trust anything of this nature from your email. If there is a problem with your bank, go directly to their web site by typing the web address in your browser. Obviously, if there is a problem, your financial institution will tell you.

If you think you are a victim of identity theft, here are some steps as they are found on the ftc.gov website.

• Try to document and make a record of as much as you can regarding the theft.
• Place a fraud alert on your credit report. Get the info below.
• Notify the companies who own the accounts that have been compromised. If your American Express info was stolen, call American Express immediately
• Close the accounts that have been compromised
• File a complain with the Federal Trade Commission. Use the online complaint form or call 877-ID-THEFT
• File a report with your local police department (in the place that the theft took place)

Equifax: 1-800-525-6285; www.equifax.com; P.O. Box 740241, Atlanta, GA 30374-0241

Experian: 1-888-EXPERIAN (397-3742); www.experian.com; P.O. Box 9532, Allen, TX 75013

TransUnion: 1-800-680-7289; www.transunion.com; Fraud Victim Assistance Division, P.O. Box 6790, Fullerton, CA 92834-6790

Again the steps and more details are from the ftc.gov web site found here

I have to start by saying I would not recommend doing this for various reasons, but this is really cool. It seems someone fed up with the lack of connections with his MacBook Air and a knack for soldering figured out how to imbed a USB Verizon wirless card in the Air. First of all, a $5 USB extension cable would allow for connectivity or second, you could create a personal hotspot with the cradlepoint router which will be less stressful and you wont ruin your expensive computer by accident. I should also warn you that these USB hi-speed EV-DO modems don’t seem to last long if you use it much. If your card burns out, you have to do this all over again!

With that said, I admire this persons creativity and think it is worth mentioning on my blog. It seems that even though there is only one USB port on the MacBook Air, there are connectors for more USB ports inside the computer. The modder simply broke down the USB modem to be as small as it could, get some other parts he needed, found a small bit of room in the computer, and you have a MacBook Air with build in EVDO. Check out the steps with this link: http://www.getlistedlocally.com/Business_Resources.html

Yes that is right, that thing your kids buy music on is now 5 years old. Introduced today back in 2003, iTunes and iPods have developed and shaped people, Apple as a company, and much more. iTunes has taken the world by storm so much, you will often see references to iTunes in TV shows or animated comedys. With sales rising to the top as the number 1 online music seller, I must say well done Apple. Happy birthday iTunes.

Given where I live in Southern California, I have decided to learn Spanish. I was horrible at learning the typical way when in high school so I decided to take a different approach. I decided to try Rosetta Stone the, "Fastest Learning Course, Guaranteed. Used by NASA, FBI, 10,000 Schools."

I’ll tell you one thing about learning a language. Unless you are a super brainiac, you will not fully learn any language until you fully immerse yourself in it. You also risk forgetting it if you don’t use it. The traditional way of reading a schoolbook where you read the word and read that it means xyz in English just did not cut it. One of my bilingual friends told me that in order to be successful, you have to know what is being talked about in the foreign language without doing a mental translation of what is spoken in your native language in your head. Rosetta Stone aims to solve this by showing you an image and telling you what it is, building on it, and adding more and more. Overall, I have been really satisfied with Rosetta Stone, I am not fluent in Spanish but I really feel that is because I have not used the program enough. I have only spent a few hours using Rosetta Stone while owning it a few months. Had I used the software every day for the past few months over and over, my dumb head might be speaking Spanish. If you have had trouble learning a language, I strongly suggest trying out Rosetta Stone. The newest version of Rosetta Stone works with Windows or Mac platforms.

I just want to warn people who are using Windows on their MacBooks with OSX and BootCamp. Don’t use the sleep feature! I have not tried this with XP and please confirm if you have but I have tried this with Vista. Make sure you shut down your computer…

Normally I hit shut down but I recently hit the sleep button, you know the one that looks like the power button in my MacBook Pro and my Vista MacBook went to sleep. Well everything did what it was supposed to do.. Everything went off and the computer turned on to Vista when I  hit the power button.

The only problem was, I could have fried an egg on it! This makes sense to me now since the boot configuration in BootCamp needs to run. So the computer does not really shut off but the fans apparently do.

If anyone has had similar circumstances, please let me know. If I am doing something wrong, please let me know.

If you need at a minimum, weekly dose of tech news and commentary, please tune in to KFI am 640 talk radio on the weekends from 11 am to 2 pm for Leo Laporte The Tech Guy. If you cant tune in your radio, you get the stream from KFI at KFI640.com, or twit.tv/live which will soon be twitlive.tv.

Leo is amazing at helping people learn and solve everyday technical problems an average user might have. The show may sometimes get geeky, but is made for an audience that may or may not know anything about tech. Leo has been a source of inspiration for me and I hope for you too.

Leo also creates too many to count, podcasts that release just about every day. Check out twit.tv for getting any of his shows delivered to you via RSS or iTunes.

MacRumors.com reported, then engadget.com followed… And now I! Yes you read it correct, it seems Apple accidentally let some future plans slip out the door. 06/10/08 is the day for iTunes 8 (which was pretty obvious), an aluminum MacBook (which I cant wait for), updates to the MacBook Pro, and a 32GB iPhone (which was only a matter of time). I really hope for the the 3G in an iPhone when the next update comes around but no mention of that. I really want higher speeds for when exchange comes out with iPhone version 2.0.

Of coarse you cannot really trust any of this but I would like to see all of this happen and Apple usually delivers what their customers want.

As far as I know, the original blog to report on this was MacRumors: http://www.macrumors.com/2008/04/16/aluminum-multitouch-macbook-new-macbook-pro-and-more/ 

I take no credit for any of the info here… I am just repeating what I read.

I can’t believe it is here but we are seeing 1 TB hard drives sold for under $200! This price may be a limited time offer but since it is out there, I would not buy any 1 TB hard drive for any more than $200.

The link for this one is the "eco" friendly drive that has variable speeds from 5400-7200 rpm.

Some advice about high capacity drives: At first I was not sure about the investment in a drive that would operate at 5400 rpm because of slower speeds but I have heard from some people that this may actually be better for drives with really high capacities. It seems that because the densities in these drives are so compact, little movements from case fans or even the fast 7200 rpm cause the drive to error and it spends more time correcting errors than an average drive does. So although these new 1 TB drives may run slower than regular drives, a 5400 drive may be quicker than a 7200 rpm.