Internet

The Art of Buying Safely Online

anilatluri 0 Comments

Why do you want to buy online?

You would like to buy online because:

Convenience

  • You do not have to ride to the mall.
  • You do not have to drive around ten blocks to find a parking place.
  • You do not have to jostle around with the crowds in the mall.
  • You do not want anyone following your every move with a hawk’s eye.
  • You do not want some one to convince you into buying, something that you do not need.

Well, I think they are good enough reasons why you would like to get onto the net and go buy something online.

Standard Features of online malls
Most of them are visitor friendly. Let us look at one such Online eMall I came across.

Let us now see how these Online eMall websites are designed.  This is a generic website.  Of course you understand that this site does not exist and it is only for demonstration purposes I am mentioning it here.  Let us call it simply – Online eMall.

The customer-friendly Online eMall website is cleanly laid out. The website name is very clearly displayed on the home page.

A key feature of this Online eMall is, it  offers franchises.  Normally, the franchise’s name appears to your left, right beneath the Online eMall profile. Then you have the navigation bar that indicates the e-franchise home, orders tracking and a tab to invite friends to the site.

Then you see those small folder icons: The name of the folders indicate the contents and within brackets the number of items too. For example the first folder is Beauty and Personal Care and it is displaying 43. When you click on the folder, the column to it’s right displays all those items that fall under the “Beauty and Personal Care” category. Each item has a small picture of the product / service with pricing, availability and probable shipping time.

So, all the visitor has to do is click on the folder on the left, view items that appear on the right, add her choice to the shopping cart, fill the forms and pay, to have them delivered at her doorstep. But before she confirms the order, it is up to her to make doubly sure that she is ordering exactly what she expects.

When the shopping season approaches, the Online eMall  owners will update the site and announce really amazing products and services to it’s customers, at great prices.

Phishing
OK, so what makes you think it is safe to buy online? Haven’t you heard of those who collect your credit details and siphon off monies without you ever knowing about it?

Yes, I have heard about that and read about it too. But then there are always those elements around. All you have to do is take a few precautions and you are better off.

Now let’s see what those precautions are:

FAQ’s
Every online shopping mall would have a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) and a privacy policy. Read them both carefully and if you are convinced that it is a good site and is taking care of your interests go ahead and do your shopping.

Warranties and Guarantees
Check if the the site is offering warranties and or guarantees on the products and services they are offering before you make your purchase decision.

Postal Address
You must take care to see if the postal address of the site is given on the web site. If it is not there, then their intentions are in doubt and I advise you not to do business with them.

Cash
There may be occasions that the company or any individual you are buying from asks for cash, say no. Tell them that you would prefer to pay with your credit card. That way you are protecting yourself from avoidable fraudulant transactions.

Help and Support
There are genuine sellers and are helpful. They would be more than happy to help you with your doubts and queries that you might have. Some of these sites do have a live chat service where you get instant answers. Some of them have Feedback forms for their customers and they always write you back about your concerns.

Search and Research
Use the search engines to learn about the online shopping mall that you are trying to buy from. This would help you learn more about them and you can make a buying decision based on that.

Reviews
If there are reviews left by customers read them. It would give you a better insight about this online shopping mall and how they go about treating their customers.

Return Policy
You should also make sure what their Return Policy is, so that you know exactly what to expect.

RESOURCES
There is this excellent site that tells you how to protect yourself from online phishing scams. Please click here to visit the site.

Happy Shopping!

Note:
This article was first published elsewhere on August 6, 2009 and the site is no more available.  Hence I am posting it here again.

https://web.archive.org/web/20101123150210/http://rightword.blogsome.com

Paste Email Plus, a Mozilla Firefox Add-on Helps Reduce Repeated Stress Injury (RSI)

anilatluri 2 Comments

Paste Email Plus is a Mozilla Firefox add-on and that is one more reason why I like Firefox browser.  You can customize Firefox to your heart’s content. You think of a feature that you are missing in this browser and go and dig in to the add-ons or  extensions or plug-ins and I am sure you will be find one that meets your need.

Let me tell you about Paste Email Plus now.  Paste Email Plus is another beautiful add-on for Firefox, that would help you browse the net with fewer keystrokes and reduce the chances of potential RSI (RSI btw means Repeated Stress Injury).  Chuck Baker, the guy who created this wonderful add-on calls it the Paste Email Plus.

Paste Email Plus

Paste Email Plus store email address,passwords, & any other text to type frequently

Let me tell you where you can use Paste Email Plus and how it would help you reduce those mundane, boring, repetitive tasks of filling in all those forms.

Come to think of it, this cute little add-on can be used anywhere, when you have a lots of copying and pasting to do. Let me give you a few examples.

A typical example is a sign-up form, without which you cannot log into a site. Generally there are a few fields like user name, email id, password. More often than not some of them ask you to enter data at least twice, either your user name or your email id. You are supposed to fill them in. Imagine if someone is visiting on an average five sites a day she has to enter at least all those details 5 times.

For an individual who has more than two accounts, it would be entering the user name twice and then again the password twice. Let us presume that the user name is eight letters – abcdefgh and the password / or as some sites call it the pass phrase is again 9 characters – for e.g.: 123456789 and let us further presume that both these are made up of alphanumeric characters. The user name in this case is a1b2c3d4 and password is e5f6g7h8i, let us calculate the number of key strokes that are involved. That would be eight characters for the user name. If you use the tab button to jump the cursor into the next field that is the password that is one more stroke there. Else you would click the mouse to move the cursor into the password field and leave it there to use the key board to input the 9 characters.

Keystrokes to enter into the user name       =    8
Keystroke to hit the tab                                       =    1

Keystrokes to enter the password                  =   9

Keystroke to highlight or hit the enter key =   1

Total number of Keystrokes                              = 18

When you are using the Paste Email Plus add on, you can accomplish all these in 8 strokes.  Here is the break up:

Paste Email Plus Context Menu helps you copy & paste from a text file

Move to the Login text field   = 1
Right click for Context menu = 1
Select email Paste                       = 1
Tab or Mouse cursor = 1
Password Field                            = 1
Hit enter or Tab to Enter = 1
and hit                                             = 1
Total number of keystrokes  = 7

So how many keystrokes are you saving? Thanks to Paste Email Plus 11 key strokes in all, without taking into count all those innumerable times when you begin at the beginning when you input one wrong character and system asks you to repeat the whole process right from the first character.

No worries about the safety either – because with Paste Email Plus you can encrypt the password when you first key in your user name and the password.  I am yet to try this though.

So there it is folks! Paste Email Plus, one of those cute and nifty add-ons that makes your surfing on the net much easier and smoother. There is one more nifty feature with Paste Email Plus.  You can save all your data in a text file on a local drive on your machine and the best part is you can

Go and try Paste Email Plus. You can read more about it from Chuck himself and download it here.  Chuck is the same guy who gave us the add on FEBE that helps us save our Firefox profile.

You can download your Mozilla Firefox here and look get more add-ons here.

How to: Share a Document Online – Tip 1

anilatluri 0 Comments

As a freelance content provider it is but natural that I deal with documents of all sorts.  I open new ones. I save them and share them.  Sharing most of the time involves mailing them across to others or uploading them to an online document management service and share a link or email as an attachment.

During one of those events, I sent across a word file that I created in Word 2010 (beta).  This document has an extension docx.  In the past I did have problems opening documents because of compatibility issues between different versions.  Word 97 loses its format when you try to open it Word 95.  Similarly you will find that a document that you created in OpenOffice looks different in certain respects, when you open it in MS Office word.

During those times there were occasions when I used Abiword or some such RTF tool.  While I was giving OpenOffice’s Writer a spin, I also downloaded a version of the MSOffice Word viewer.   All of them came with their own constraints.

Later I started using the online versions.  I used to upload my documents to Google Docs, or Zoho or to my account on Skydrive MS Office.  I upload my document and then share the documents.  Most of the time I used to send the link across and all the recipient has to do is click on the link and read it.

But in this particular instance I refer to, though I uploaded the document to one of my online document management accounts, I mailed her a copy.  I just wanted to see if she was able to open the document and read it.  She could not open it.  So I opened the Save As dialog box in my Word 2010 Beta and saved it as ‘Word 97 – 2003 document’.  I sent it across.  She could open it.  She said she would read it and get back to me with her review.*

So that is one more way to share your word document.  If you are using a Word 2010 Beta and if you are not sure about the version of the MS Office Word or any other word application the other person is using,  it is best to open a  ‘SaveAs’ dialog box and save it as ‘Word 97 -2000 document’.And then mail it across.

Click to enlarge

Please feel free to tell me how you share you documents.  Thank you.

*In this instance I still am waiting for her review.

Hyperwords Helps You Interact With Your Words

anilatluri 0 Comments

This is about another addon that is of immense help to those that work with words.  I came across this addon a few years ago.  But somehow during the ensuring browser crashes and OS hopping and upgrades and updates I missed it.  Today I found it again and to my surprise I learned, Hyperwords has a version even for Chrome.  Once you install it and restart your Firefox / Chrome you are all ready and set to go.

Hyperwords Promotional Logo

Hyperwords - an extension for Firefox and Chrome browser

When you are on the net, select any text that you need to learn more about.  You will notice a small icon next to the text.  Hover your cursor on the Hyperword icon and you are shown a few options.  Choose the one that suits you and you are done.  You can do a whole lot of things with Hyperwords addon and the text on the web.  You can translate, email, share, find meanings and synonyms.  It interacts with Facebook and Twitter too.

Click here to learn more on their own demo page.

To see Hyperwords in action on YouTube, click here. It is much more detailed and elaborate.

No wonder there were one million, eleven thousand, four hundred and twenty one downloads when I checked the last time.  🙂

Give it a shot.  I am sure you would love it.

Does GMail’s ‘Forgotten Attachment Detector’ Read Your Mail?

anilatluri 0 Comments

Does GMail find attached files and read them?

Were you ever prompted by GMail to check if you have attached your files after hitting the ‘send’ button?  I had that experience many times.  That was then, a few years ago.  GMail then had a ‘Forgotten Attachment Detector’ by a Jonathan K, tucked in, under the experimental features ‘labs’.  One had to enable it.  You do not see that feature under ‘labs’ anymore.

Now, in your GMail, when you compose a mail and hit the send button, it asks you, “‘did you mean to attach files?  You wrote ‘see attached’ in your message, but there are no files attached.  Send anyway?'” , a gentle reminder. I found out something else.  This doesn’t work out all the time.

It is not that GMail reminds everyone that mention a ‘file’ or ‘attachment’ in their message.  GMail responds to only to that phrase ‘see attached‘ or ‘find attached‘ and warns you if you have not, by then,  attached any files.

Even the reminder that it throws up replicates it in the prompt.  Check screen shots I took with those two different phrases.

1 – with see attached 

See attached file reminder forgotten attachment detector

and

2 – with Find attached

GMail Forgotten Attachment Reminder

So just make sure that you use those words and I am sure that GMail would definitely remind you about those so called forgotten files.  🙂