Web banking: It's time to write down your password

Banks should stop forcing customers to create long, alphanumeric passwords because they can't protect against today's threats, according to AT&T computing researcher William Cheswick.
Web banking: It's time to write down your password

Why Zappos Pays New Employees to Quit

“The Offer.” Zappos, which works hard to recruit people to join, says to its newest employees: “If you quit today, we will pay you for the amount of time you’ve worked, plus we will offer you a $1,000 bonus.” Zappos actually bribes its new employees to quit!
Why Zappos Pays New Employees to Quit

How to Make a Color Image Look Like a Sketch in Photoshop

A sketch is a free hand drawing. In Adobe Photoshop, you can add a sketch effect to any color image or photograph and give it an artistic feel, or perhaps trick your friends into thinking you've suddenly become an amazing sketcher.
How to Make a Color Image Look Like a Sketch in Photoshop

HomeCamera Turns Your Webcam into a Surveillance Camera

Web site and software HomeCamera turns your desktop webcam into a web-enabled surveillance camera. Just sign up and download their desktop software to get started. In just a few minutes, you can check an image or video from your webcam in real-time from any browser. Even better, you can set up motion-detecting alerts that will email you with a shot or short clip of what triggered the alert.
HomeCamera Turns Your Webcam into a Surveillance Camera

11 tips for sticking to a schedule of regular exercise

Exercise is a KEY to happiness. Research shows that people who exercise are healthier, more energetic, think more clearly, sleep better, and have delayed onset of dementia. They get relief from anxiety and mild depression, comparable to medication and therapy. They perform better at work.
11 tips for sticking to a schedule of regular exercise

Cool Tool: Knot Tying Cards

These cards are handy for those who already know how to tie proper knots, but don't do so every day and need a quick reminder.
Cool Tool: Knot Tying Cards

Why We Humans Behave So Strangely

MIT's Dan Ariely discusses his research in behavioral economics and explains how to deal with our brain's flawed decision-making process.
The Science of Irrationality: Why We Humans Behave So Strangely

Privacy: Best Free Ways to Protect Your Private Files

When you're saving sensitive files on your computer meant for your eyes only, make sure you've got the right tools on hand to keep them private. Whether you want to shield your brilliant startup business plan from the Pointy Haired Boss, or hide your stash of Gillian Anderson photos from the kids, there are several free tools that can encrypt, password-protect, or obscure files and folders from others who might use your computer. Let's take a look at various methods, tools, and levels of privacy and security you can use to lock up your sensitive data.
Privacy: Best Free Ways to Protect Your Private Files

Do Infants See Colors Differently

Infants, unlike adults, store color categories in the brain's right hemisphere. This new finding reveals the surprising power of language over perception.
Do Infants See Colors Differently

17 Tips to Help You Get Leaner and Fitter

We don’t want to lose weight, although that’s often stated as the goal — we want to get leaner. We want to shed the fat and leave just the lean muscle (some of us want to increase the muscle, others just want to lose the fat). We want to be healthy and in good shape and able to be physically active.
17 Tips to Help You Get Leaner and Fitter

5 Tips to Help You Live a Well-Balanced Life

With the hustle and bustle of our everyday lives, we often find ourselves yearning for a quieter, more balanced life. If your life has come to resemble an endless race to the finish line, take a look at the suggestions below to bring a greater sense of peace, calm, and even simplicity back into your life.
5 Tips to Help You Live a Well-Balanced Life

10 Healthy Foods Under 1 Dollar

Even with rising food prices, it's possible to shop for healthy foods without spending a fortune.
10 Healthy Foods Under 1 Dollar

Punctuality: More Than Showing Up on Time

When you think of what values you seek from co-workers, colleagues, and clients, punctuality is probably one that wouldn’t immediately come to mind. Being web workers, parents, co-workers, spouses and just about every other role you can imagine, we have many demands for our attention and sometimes these time frames overlap.
Punctuality: More Than Showing Up on Time

Secure Passwords Keep You Safer

There's been a lot written on this topic over the years -- both serious and humorous -- but most of it seems to be based on anecdotal suggestions rather than actual analytic evidence. What follows is some serious advice.
Secure Passwords Keep You Safer

The Traveling Web Worker: What You Should Know About Your Destination

With the mobility that comes with web working, we can now afford to travel for leisure while taking our work with us. However, the nature of our work gives us very specific needs. We can’t just expect to open our laptops in the mountains of Nepal and start working.
The Traveling Web Worker: What You Should Know About Your Destination

4 Free Digital Photography and Image Editing Resources

Many web workers are involved with digital photography, graphics and image editing. There are a number of excellent, free resources available online for staying abreast of the latest news on these topics, and improving your skills.
4 Free Digital Photography and Image Editing Resources

Air Hostesses of Yesteryear

Miniskirts, hairspray and polyester, the official look of the 1960s air hostess.
Air Hostesses of Yesteryear

Taking your laptop into the US?

Last month a US court ruled that border agents can search your laptop, or any other electronic device, when you're entering the country. They can take your computer and download its entire contents, or keep it for several days. Customs and Border Patrol has not published any rules regarding this practice, and I and others have written a letter to Congress urging it to investigate and regulate this practice.
But the US is not alone. British customs agents search laptops for pornography. And there are reports on the internet of this sort of thing happening at other borders, too. You might not like it, but it's a fact. So how do you protect yourself?
Taking your laptop into the US?

Laptops: How to Thief-Proof Your Laptop

PC World magazine rounds up eight tips to stop thieves from stealing your laptop, the most obvious-yet-effective of which is simply locking it up. Apart from their suggestion that you encrypt your hard drive (we'd recommend the cross-platform TrueCrypt for that), all of their suggestions require you to throw down a bit of cash. If you're not up to spending any money but you still want to beef up your laptop security, hit the jump for a look at a few no-cost solutions for guarding your laptop against thieves.
Laptops: How to Thief-Proof Your Laptop

13 Must-See Google Maps Mashups

There are plenty of obvious ones (Frappr, Zooomr, Trulia) but we’ve made some quirkier picks for our must-see mashups. Enjoy!
13 Must-See Google Maps Mashups