This article was originally published by MSN Money on Monday, Jan. 31, 2011.
Smart shoppers use the Internet to save a bundle through comparison sites, coupons and online services. Just be sure you're not wasting time and money to save a buck.
By Katherine Reynolds Lewis
Savvy Internet users can save nearly $8,000 a year through smarter shopping, online discounts and Web-based services such as bill paying, according to a report compiled for the Internet Innovation Alliance.
Gale Swanson, 53, can attest to the value of an Internet connection. Since her children gave her a computer in 2009, her Web usage has saved her more than $5,000 on gifts, entertainment, food and travel purchased through the Internet -- and ended her weekly trips to Big Lots and Wal-Mart.
"Because I'm on a fixed income and a budget, I have to make sure I don't spend my money frivolously," said Swanson, a retired office manager in Van Nuys, Calif. "The ease of being able to find things that are discounted is great."
Use the Web to save $8,000 a year
Cash a check, maybe go to jail
This article was originally published by MSN Money, on Friday, Dec. 11, 2009.
Did you get conned into joining a check-cashing scam? Even if authorities decide you're an innocent victim, you could find yourself owing a bank thousands of dollars.
By Katherine Reynolds Lewis
Cash a check, go to jail. Or at the very least, empty your own savings account and ruin your credit.
It's happened to hundreds of thousands of Americans who believed that banks don't make funds available unless the checks they've deposited are genuine.
It happened to Calvin Barnett, who could face 11 years in prison for doing what he said he thought was his work-at-home job.
As unemployment reaches its worst levels in generations, scammers are finding a growing pool of victims all too willing to deposit strangers' checks, then return part of the money by wire transfers.
"There's a knowledge gap that these scammers are clearly taking advantage of," said Susan Grant, the director of consumer protection for the Consumer Federation of America. "Under federal law here in the U.S., financial institutions have to give consumers access to the money from checks and money orders they deposit pretty quickly, usually within one to five business days. It can take much longer for counterfeits to be discovered, by which time the consumer has already sent the money."
"The problem is the con men are very persuasive," said Nessa Feddis, a vice president and senior counsel at the American Bankers Association, which is working with the Consumer Federation to educate consumers about check fraud. "People are desperate. They want to work. They want a job."
What if the Internet breaks?
This article was originally published by MSN Money, on Thursday, Dec. 10, 2009.
The 40-year-old system might be vulnerable to technical collapse and cyberattack, which could cause widespread chaos in fields from banking to health care to government.
By Katherine Reynolds Lewis
When your Internet service goes down, it's at best an inconvenience. If you rely on it for business, it can quickly cost you money.
So imagine: What happens if the Internet breaks?
Picture people wandering the streets lost without GPS or maps on their iPhones, unable to pay for food or other goods with a simple swipe of a card.
Companies would have to resort to faxes and phone calls instead of e-mail; they'd quickly reach capacity and be unable to function. Credit cards wouldn't work; stores and hospitals would run short of supplies. Even electrical power to our homes could be disrupted.
"It would be a mess," said Dave Marcus, the director of security research for McAfee. "You would be taking businesses that were designed to do all their point-of-sale and financial transactions through the Internet and going back to pen and paper and taking checks in a car to the bank. People would lose their minds."
On the 40th anniversary of the first transmission over the earliest version of the Internet, it's more than an idle question to examine the network's fragility. It's been more than 20 years since the last systemwide overhaul, and Internet infrastructure is still based on 1970s ideas about computer networks.
Headline-making outages of popular Web sites such as YouTube and Twitter merely hint at the damage a full-blown failure could wreak. The Internet protocols that allow computers to communicate in networks have infiltrated every sector of our economy.
"The Internet has moved from being a toy or ornament to something that's central to our economy," said James Lewis, a senior fellow at CSIS, a nonprofit think tank in Washington, D.C. "We've automated all these processes, which makes our economy much more efficient, which means cheap. But it also means we're now dependent."
Charity Malls Allow Painless Online Donations
By Katherine Reynolds Lewis
c.2008 Newhouse News Service
Debating whether to send flowers or make a donation to Mom's favorite charity for Mother's Day?
Now you can do both.
Web sites with names like Benevolink and BuyforCharity use your online shopping to benefit philanthropic organizations, without costing you a cent more.
Here's how it works: You sign up with the site and designate a charity to receive cash. Most sites, known as charity malls, will let you enroll a new organization if your favorite isn't already listed.
Then you visit the charity mall when you shop online, clicking through to your favorite retailer. The merchant gives a percentage of your purchase to the mall, as a referral fee. The charity mall passes on a portion of that fee to the group you designate.
FCC Auction Key for Wireless Broadband
c.2007 Newhouse News Service
Illustration by Monica Seaberry
WASHINGTON — There's about to be a land rush in telecommunications as the U.S. government auctions the only remaining airwaves suitable for nationwide, high-speed wireless Web access.
Big telephone and cable companies are jostling alongside Internet and technology entrepreneurs to control the spectrum, estimated to be worth as much as $30 billion.
"It's the biggest chunk of spectrum to come back into the public administration in a generation and it's by far the most valuable piece,'' said Ben Scott, policy director at Free Press, a Washington-based nonprofit focused on communications policy.
And it's a hot topic in Washington: House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell, D-Mich., will explore the issues in a hearing Thursday, and the Federal Communications Commission, hoping to schedule the auction this fall, may vote on rules as early as April 25.
What's at stake? The auction winners will determine whether American homes, businesses and classrooms have access to a third "pipe'' for high-speed Internet, not to mention better reception and innovative services for mobile phones and other devices.
Multi-tasking Has a Downside
By Katherine Reynolds Lewis
c.2007 Newhouse News Service
Illustration by Monica Seaberry
We feel so efficient, listening to a teleconference while sorting e-mail and eating lunch at the same time. But experts warn that instead of completing three tasks in the space of one, we're really spending more time to achieve mediocre results.
"Research that's looked at multi-tasking shows that you can't do it well. No one can," said Kristin Byron, assistant professor of management at Syracuse University. "You're fighting the way your brain works."
The brain acts on just one task at a time. What we perceive as simultaneous multi-tasking is really rapid switching back and forth to keep different tasks going even if one is as simple as deciding to lift the sandwich for another bite.
It's like the classic vaudeville act of spinning plates. Your brain can set a task in motion, then another, and then another, before returning to pick up the first task, explained David Strayer, a psychology professor at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. "If the demands of any given task aren't too taxing, you can get two, three, four plates going up, but at some point you're going to reach a threshold when they're going to crash."
Managing E-Mail Overload
c.2007 Newhouse News Service
Illustration courtesy Cohesive Knowledge Solutions
Do you ever sit down to check your e-mail "for a minute," and the next thing you know, two hours have passed?
You've got company. American professionals spend over 40 percent of the workday on e-mail and information storage, and consider a third of the time wasted, according to research by Cohesive Knowledge Solutions, a Guilford, Conn., corporate training firm.
That amounts to $300 billion in lost productivity, said CKS chief executive Mike Song, co-author of "The Hamster Revolution: How to Manage Your E-mail Before it Manages You."
"People have reached the breaking point," Song said.
The burden on personnel and computer servers has some companies training their work forces to use e-mail more efficiently. Last year, 42 percent of companies surveyed conducted e-mail training, up from 24 percent five years earlier, according to the ePolicy Institute in Columbus, Ohio.
The results are striking. On average, one 45-minute CKS seminar saved Novartis Oncology employees eight days a year, and 75 minutes of training returned 11 days a year to the typical Capital One worker.
"Few investments in business ... have that kind of payback," said Nic Oatridge, global head of information technology for Novartis Oncology in Florham Park, N.J. "People are saying we've set them free."
