Back when MailWasher Pro was just called MailWasher, which we only took voluntary donations for, we also used to receive all sorts of great gifts.

Over the last several years we have hosted all our forums with www.castlecops.com   It has been a great partnership for us, we’ve made a lot of friends, and myself especially have enjoyed watching CastleCops grow over the years into a massive community.  The commitment and drive behind CastleCops really made it a benchmark for other security related websites, and the community built has been absolutely tremendous in assisting not only each other, but to help us better understand our customers.

Google Insights (Beta) is a new tool from Google allowing you to compare search volume patterns across specific regions, categories and time frames.

The flexibility and functionality it gives will draw significant increases in deployment of marketing strategies, further understanding of target demographics, and give analysts a comparative view on user search patterns.  

I do enjoy the benefits of contextual advertising.   Read an article about laptops, see advertising on laptops and their associated products.  It has its limits of course, as I don't want my privacy being invaded to serve these adverts either.

Perhaps though, in this case, things have been taken too far.   Taken from the Sydney Morning Herald today.

Buying Refurbished consoles, such as Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, and Playstation 3 is relatively common.  Though they are indeed second hand and most likely recently repaired, they are still cheaper.  You may be able to save somewhere between $100 - $150.   Not a bad bargain especially if you’re like me, who dresses like a hobo and tries to buy everything on the cheap.

ScamChecker is a site I've been working on to help people recognise scam websites, at present specifically those that are trying to sell goods that don't exist or selling fakes.

I deal a lot in my day with websites and/or people that are dealing with fake goods. It's through these fake goods too that people are being scammed over and over, either by not receiving any items ordered or by thinking they were actually going to receive the genuine article.

So I do get a sense of perverse pleasure in reading things like this.

In June 2007 the New Bankers Association presented a new Code of Practice that tried to shift liability to consumers. I cannot really express it any other way other than to say it was a piece of crap.

Here in New Zealand we don't like to use eBay, the most popular auction website is instead TradeMe. And unfortunately things like this are happening far too often.

As part of the ScamChecker website I have been building, I wanted to convey the sense of scamminess of a website through using images of common stereotypes.