Another few more months have passed and we hit a new milestone of 10,000+ downloads for our free Phishing software. If you want to help fight phishing then add this little footer to your signature and spread the word to your friends, family and co-workers…

Are you safe from Phishing? – www.bluefur.com/phishphinder/

If you have not installed it or not sure what phish phinder is you can read about here.

Here’s a random fact that I came across the other day. You know how many celebrities get insurance for their most valuable assets? I’m not talking about taking out a policy for their multi-million dollar homes or high end sports cars. I’m talking more in lines with Jennifer Lopez and her derrière, for example. Well, at least that form of insurance is for something, ahem, physical. The interesting thing is that other items, things that have not even been proven to exist, can be protected.

The famous Loch Ness Monster — known affectionately as Nessie to the locals — is actually protected by the 1912 Protection of Animal Acts of Scotland. Other animals may be on the endangered species list (the bald eagle was recently removed from the list after enjoying significant population gains in recent years), but at least people can prove that they exist. Nessie, on the other hand, is a myth. He/she may or may not exist and no one can say for certain. The most famous photograph of the Loch Ness Monster is known to be a hoax, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that Nessie is a fake too. Real or not, he/she is worth at least $40 million to Scottish tourism.

Considering that it is possible to protect something that may or may not exist, you’ve got to wonder: what else can you protect? “Hi, I’d like to take out an insurance policy on the 26 custom-made Lamborghinis I have stored in Dubai.”

For some people keeping track of dates and time is a difficult thing.

One of the best ways to keep organized is to use a calendar. When I was younger I use to have a large erasable calendar where I would plan out my days.

When I went to high school I had a little day timer (provided free by my school) to write down all the important date and times so that I wouldn’t miss anything.

Today I use my Outlook Calendar religiously. It is well worth the upgrade from Outlook Express to the full version just for the Calendar. When I find an event or need to remember something I create a new meeting and set it to remind me. I personally love getting event details in an email and then simply drag that email onto the calendar tab and it opens that email into an appointment automatically. Currently I have 332 events setup in my calendar for this month.

As my oldest child is going to start school next year, I am starting to see a need for a family shared calendar. This is a feature enabled in Outlook 2007 and will most likely be upgrading all the family computers over the next month.

How do you keep track of your dates and times?

I just completed doing a review of the Logitech MX Revolution cordless laser mouse for The TechZone, and I must say, I’m very impressed with this mouse. Although many of these higher-end devices are typically marketed toward the hardcore gaming population — they have to have the absolute best in speed and precision if they hope to become fragging kings like Fata1ity Johnathan Wendel — but there is a lot of appeal here for business users as well.

The high-precision laser provides for some very accurate cursor movements, regardless of the surface you are using. This makes it great for when you’re doing a sales presentation and a mouse pad just isn’t around. In this way, you can just bring this wireless mouse and use it on any nearby table, wall, or even a leather couch. Yes, it is that precise and it will work on just about any surface.

Another very userful feature is what Logitech calls its “MicroGear” scroll wheel. The scroll wheel has two modes. The first is the standard click-by-click, line-by-line kind of scrolling. The other — which you access by pushing the scroll wheel into the body of the mouse — is called “free spin” and provides a near frictionless scroll. Got a huge Excel spreadsheet? One flick of the wheel and you go down thousands and thousands of rows.

The MSRP on this mouse is a hefty $99.99, but it goes on sale from time to time at a number of retailers. I’ve seen it go for as little as fifty bucks. Similar mice from Logitech include the VX Revolution for Notebooks and the newly announced VX Nano for Notebooks.

Congratulations to this weeks geek Matt who wins another Geek of the Week. This weeks questions are:

1.   What is this?

2.   What is this?

3.   What is this?

4.   What is this?

5.  What is this?

This week I was reading that Sprint dumped 1000 cell phone customers because…

“The number of inquiries you have made to us . . . has led us to determine that we are unable to meet your current wireless needs”

Basically they are saying that they complain to much or require to much support.

What do you think of this practice?

From a business point of view you obviously don’t want someone that opens 4-5 tickets a day using up all of your staffs time.

From a customers point of view it would suck if you were just trying to get your system to work as promised and had to open that  many tickets.

From a marketing point of view I think this is a nightmare. The negative press on this has been horrible and I am sure the bean counter that decided this obviously didn’t pass it through a marketing person first.