Brads Blog

I received an ING Direct Identity Theft tip in my email today, thought I’d share it:

With ID Theft on the rise, it is more important now than ever to make sure you are taking the necessary steps to protect your personal information. Just last month, ING DIRECT hosted a series of seminars in our Cafés to educate consumers about this very important topic. Here are some tips from our Website and from our guest speaker, Evan Hendricks, author of Credit Scores & Credit Reports, to help you start the New Year right – by making smart choices about identity protection.

You need to check more than just your credit report – You should also check your Social Security Earnings and Benefit statement once a year to make sure that no one else is using your Social Security number for employment. Obtain a copy of your social security statement here.

Do not leave your mail at the mercy of ID thieves – Stop thieves from obtaining personal information from your bank statements, physician statements, credit offers and other sensitive documents you receive in the mail by securing your mailbox. Websites such as www.secure-mailboxes.com offer mailboxes with locks, keypads and letter slots. Opting to receive your statements electronically is another good alternative.

Protect your personal information online –
Use anti-virus software and firewall programs to stop hackers from accessing personal information stored on to your computer. For more information about securing your computer, please visit our site.
Use a secure browser when making online transactions. Look for the “lock” icon on the browser’s status bar to be sure your information is secure during transmission. Or the letter “S” for secure in the website address – example https://
Choose strong passwords with a combination of letters (upper and lower case), numbers and symbols and don’t use an automatic log-in feature that saves your user name and password.
Don’t Get Hooked on a “Phishing Scam” – Never give out personal financial information online or over the phone unless you have initiated the contact. Legitimate companies will never request that you submit confidential customer information over non-secure channels such as e-mail or phone calls initiated by them. If you have questions or concerns about your account, call the telephone number you have on file, or open a new Internet browser session and type in the company’s Web address. Be sure not to “cut and paste” the link from the email into your Internet browser – phishers can create links that take you to phony sites.

I just saw a commercial for the Asbestos Trust Fund. I did a Google Search for it, and had some trouble finding people saying good things about it.

Does it cut off poeple’s right to sue neglegent parties for sicknesses such as asbestosis?

I would be interested in learning more about this!

George is going to address the world tomorrow at 8:55PM. Make sure you watch him, as well as the much anticipated Democratic response. I think it’s funny how the Dems can already have a response prepared when they haven’t even heard the speach yet.

It’s that time of the year again. I have an appointment with my CPA tomorrow to have my taxes done. I am not expecting as large of a return as I normally do, for reason’s I think I’ll keep to myself, but I am excited none the less.

About the CPA-
We started going to this CPA a couple of years ago because my wife was selling Creative Memories scrapbooking stuff and the taxes got a bit too complicated to do on Turbotax. So, we started seeing Cyndi.

I honestly thought I could save money by doing it myself, and not have to pay her the $135+ fee to do them for us. However, afterwards I am glad we did and will always have her do my taxes, and this is why:

- She maximized our deductions, and we ended up getting nearly a thousand dollars more back than I had originally calculated.

- She provides copies of everything, nicely bound for safe keeping.

- The service really isn’t that expensive, and is in itself tax deductible.

If you are on the fence about hiring a CPA to do your taxes and you don’t qualify to fill out the EZ form, I’d say have someone else do it!

I have decided to make a new Bradsblog policy regarding reviews. Only one a day, Max. I know that these are not really normally a hot topic to read, it serves as a commercial. They pay the bills.

So, If/when I do more of these reviews that might not be that interesting, I will limit them to one per day.

Not to tie my hands too much, I might on occassion do a website review and another kind of review within the same day.

I currently do not have any reviews lined up.

Well, I think I might be coming out of my rut. I feel the blog juices starting to flow once again. This is the seventh blog post today.

Certainly, there is no possible way I can keep this pace up, so I’ll try to take it easy.

I started laughing when I went to Judy’s Blog. There is a cartoon that accurately describes how things are in my house. Let me know how you like it!

Today I went with my son to a birthday party at Skatetown USA and thought it would be fun to get some roller skates and take a few laps. This was fine until I staarted to feel the blister. This left me with about an hour left of the party until it was time to leave.

They had an arcade area, and I figured I would try to make my money last by playing a pinball machine. The only probem with this idea was that they had no pinball machines. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I had seen a pinball machine anywhere! The only thing left are the video games that require at least 50 cents to play them.

Have I suddenly grown old? Where are the pinball machines?

I mentioned yesterday that I was having an SDP, which is the acronym for Site Development Party.

I had a couple of my brothers come over last night to work on their blogs and other websites.

They were over for several hours, and I don’t know about them, but I got a lot done. For one, I jumped on the Michele bandwagon and registered a new domain called www.thepersonaboveyou.com, and is a comment game. I have a long way to go on this site, and am not in a big rush to get it going.

I also started a new website related to plastic surgery. I spent a lot of time getting it going, and think I might be about done with it.

On top of all this work, I managed to do a little bit of dreaded link development. This is the part of website building I hate the worst. Submitting my links to various website directories is the pits, but I guess it’s better than paying someone else to do it.

Jason has also made the big step away from Blogger and started his own domain. It’s called Electric Short. It’s kind of funy that it’s called thatbecasue there is nothing electrical about it.

He talks about a wide variety of topcs icluding poker tips, etc. Anyway, after you’re done checking out Iniardwatch, check out Jason’s new blog.