Learnings from a Paypal Hacking Experience: Part Two - What to do after your Paypal gets hacked

In Part One you were shown what a Paypal hacker might do to your account. This part gives you advice on how to proceed after you get hacked.



What you may need
1) email to use besides the one which you used on your hacked Paypal account
2) phone line
3) optional is a good budget card for calling overseas if you are not calling within the US

What to do
1) Review the actions of the hacker

Each Paypal transaction has an email notification. If you are able to see the list of transaction that hacker did through your email then list them all. Write down on paper also the transaction ID of each monetary transaction that happened. You need this in case you have to detail to Paypal which transaction/payments you are contesting as unauthorized payments.

It will be good to have old eBay transaction ID also which happened before the hacking in case you have to prove that you are indeed the real owner of the account.

2) Create a new Paypal account.
- When you get hacked you will likely lose the ability to login to your account. When you call eBay you will be ask for a code to verify your identity. Technically your Paypal account is a link to your identity hence they have to use it for verification of calls.

3) Log-in to your new Paypal account and get the Call contact code

Click the "Contact Us" link at the bottom. In the new page click the "Call Us" link. The next page will show you the 6-digit passcode. This passcode expires after 60mins so this means you should be able to call Paypal within the 60 min period if not you need to re-do steps 2 and 3 to get a new passcode.

4) Call Paypal

This is the US number for Paypal  1-402-935-205

Since it is a US number below is their available time to entertain calls
4:00 AM PST to 10:00 PM PST Monday through Friday
6:00 AM PST to 8:00 PM PST Saturday and Sunday
*PST is GMT - 7:00  or user this link to convert to your time zone

When you get hacked it is A MUST to CALL Paypal immediately after the hacking happened. This is to ensure that all transactions done by the hacker is reversed as soon as possible. Response time of email is slow and unsure and by the time someone from eBay have contacted you through email the hacker might have already created a web of transactions to hide, use or withdraw the money already.

Upon calling Paypal they have a smart system which will just ask you for the question you have in mind. This smart system looks for keywords within your sentences and will automatically play a recorded answer to you. If you want to talk to a person just utter the words "Talk to an agent" . If that doesn't works try also variations like "Talk to a person". This will force the smart system to redirect you to a more flexible call center agent that can listen to your story and assist you properly.

5) Explain your story briefly and request reversals of unauthorized payments

When talking to the call center agent be brief and concise. Just explain that your original account has been hacked and you were not able to use it. Explain that the hacker may have also removed your original email linked to that account but you will be able to supply some transaction IDs before the hacking to prove your identity. Do not panic or be hysterical or be angry. Just stay calm and make sure to pause and allow the call center agent to react and help you. If you keep on talking and lose your cool then it will just create room for misunderstanding.

The things you have to request the agent are
a) Reverse all unauthorized transactions.
This includes all payments or transfers done. If possible Make sure you have an idea how much was you initial balance was before the hacking so you and the agent can gauge which actions are caused by the hacker.

b) Allow you to gain access to the account.
Get help from agent to remove all emails linked to the account and make him add only one email address which you own. From here have him initiate and change password request immediately.

c) Remove unauthorized users
For those using business accounts or upgraded to business accounts have the agent remove all those in the manage users list. In case the agent says you have to do this yourself, just request that he be still on the line while you do it for safety precaution.

My Account > Profiles > My Settings > Manage Users > Update > Select the radioboxes of the users and click the remove button.

The hackers will usually hide us another user of this account through through the Manage Users funcationality of business accounts. This means he will be able to manage this account with his own password. So you must remove the hacker from the list. If you are using it yourself it is a better precautionary action to delete all in this list and just rebuild it yourself later.

6) Monitor your email for notifications about the reversals

Try to check you email every hour or if possible more frequently to check if the reversal of the unauthorized transactions have already gone into your account. This way you also monitor if the hacker is able to gain access again to your account.

7) Optional: Withdraw your Paypal balance

When the reversals have been completed in your favor it would be best to withdraw your money to your bank account immediately. Do not think anymore of the charges of Paypal and the bank you may have to incur in the process because you never know if the hacker will be able to login to your account and strike again! As much as possible to don't keep a lot of money in your Paypal account to avoid bad hackers from being enticed to use it.


If above somehow has helped you hope you can check out our online store and if you like something make a purchase. On Part Three, we offer suggestion how to keep your Paypal account safe.

Learnings from a Paypal Hacking Experience: Part One - What the hacker does to a PayPal account he hacks

   For most of us especially those who sell online like on eBay, PayPal is very important. It enables buyers to have the security of paying online and for sellers to have the opportunity to receive payments fast and across international borders. However the occasional bad hacker (yup, there are good hackers also) comes along and mess with your happy online existence.

   Our store Paypal account was the hacked recently and we've thought it best to narrate the experience here in order to help and warn other people. The article will be divided into 3 parts to explain what the hacker does to an account he has hacked (Part One), how to deal with it immediately (Part Two) and precautionary steps to avoid it from happening (Part Three).

Part One - What the hacker does to a PayPal account he hacks

   The hacking started at about 4 AM (GMT +8), a wee hour of the morning where most people would be asleep. At this time PayPal office would also be offline because they are located in the US and it isn't their office hours yet.

   Upon gaining access to our account the hacker did several activities immediately. We know he did them because of the email notifications PayPal has sent for each of the activities. Luckily we still have access to our email account. Below are the list of actions done with our PayPal account.

1) Reset the PayPal password

   It is still quite the mystery how the hacker was able to reset the password when the only way to do so was to gain access to the emails linked to it. One thing is for sure, change your email and PayPal password immediately!!!

2) Sent the money to another PayPal account

   The hacker is a veteran and knows that most PayPal account is linked to a credit card so in our case he sent payment transactions to another PayPal account in an amount more than the current balance we have. This is likely to test how much he will be able to get from our credit card. The hacker would send the money back and forth so there was several Payment Sent and Refund of payment in our email thread. In our case money was moved back and forth using two other PayPal accounts which we suspected to be hacked as well.

   We acted quickly and was able to retrieve the money within the same day. However the hacker is very persistent. Just 6 minutes after the money was sent back to our account the hacker opened our PayPal account again and transferred all the money to another account! Given the very short period when he noticed there was money in our account either he was online or is using a software to monitor and / or automate the process. One more scary realization is that despite us changing the passwords on the email and Paypal, the hacker still managed to go inside our account and send payment to another account. Given in this second attempt he no longer had to change the Paypal password then it means he must have other ways to log-in to the account. We will explain how he did this later.

   Now because the hacker was acting fast to move the money for the 2nd try he may have gotten sloppy or simply arrogant to show how clever he is. The final email the money was sent to was a Paypal account under Guadalupe Gabuna. A Google search of the name revealed many other people scammed by this person hence the name is announced in this post for future reference. Also adding to list of things to note is that the account email used was paypal.contact@yahoo.com, also it shows other email noted on the references of that transaction which are onlines59@yahoo.com and pinoy.hosting@yahoo.com. Be wary of that name and emails because he is a hacker and scammer. Just search his name and you would know.

3) Changed the security questions

    When you reset your password, a link would be sent to your primary email. It would be opened to a browser where there are two security questions that you must answer correctly first before you are allowed to reset your password. By changing the security questions then even if the account is linked to your email you lose the ability to change password instantly. We were never able to reset our password until we called up PayPal's hotline for help. We will discuss the details of how we dealt with it in a Part two post.

4) Changed the primary email address

   We have more than one email linked to our PayPal. The hacker used one of our linked emails and made it the primary email. This would throw us off-guard when understanding the history of how the money was moved. He has changed the primary address 3 times and moving money in between each change. If you have more than one email linked to your PayPal account then check them thoroughly also to get a clear view of the history of actions done to your account. And reiterating again change your passwords immediately!!!

   On a side note if you are using Gmail account the conversation view is turned on by default which makes reading the whole story based on the order it was done a bit confusing. Turn off conversational view to understand the whole history of the actions of the hacker better. If you don't know how to turn it off just read this how-to post.

5) Refunded the money back

   After making a payment the hacker would refund the same amount. Thinking about it the main reason the hacker is adding a refund in the history of transactions so that in your email list perhaps would be to make you think that PayPal has safely sent back your money. Paypal does have some safety mechanisms to check fraudulent activity but they aren't absolutely foolproof so you should not be complacent and let the word Paypal refund in your email history fool you.

   Do note that when the money is refunded it goes to your Paypal account balance and not back to your credit card so you will still be billed in your credit card unless PayPal is able to help you reverse the transaction that caused the charging to your card. See an example at the bottom of this page of how money could flow across hacked accounts.

7) Send you invoices from another Paypal account

   This is another transaction to throw you off. The hacker will send invoices likely from another hacked account. He will even send a reminder of the invoice to add more emails in your inbox to confuse you. We know this is merely to confuse because amounts in this invoice is different from the amount of the Payment Sent transactions which he will do after making the invoice. Plus the hacker never paid through the invoice. The money was alway transferred through Payment Sent transaction.

5) Removed the linked cards and bank accounts

   When the hacker is able to maxed out the linked credit card and transfer the amounts to your PayPal balance then he would remove it. They would also remove your bank account because these  card and bank account numbers can be a source of identification when you call PayPal. Their full numbers is not visible so there is a possibility for you to use them to identify yourself when PayPal needs to confirm that you are indeed who you say you are when you try to reset your password or talk to them. The hacker can't risk it happening so he will remove them.

6) Added a new email account and changed the primary email

   On the third time the hacker changed the primary email address he first added a new email. For reference purposes the email added was pinoy.hosting@yahoo.com. We have good reason to believe that this may be a dummy email because despite it sounding like a legitimate business this email or even the service with that name is unsearchable.  The name is also linked to a Paypal account under Guadalupe Gabuna which based on Google search has hacked a lot of other accounts also.


7)* Added a new user linked to the account. Hacker may have to upgrade your account to Business type first.

    It has an asterisk because this particular action somehow has no email notification. It may or may not be added after the primary email change but this Add User is very crucial to the hacker gaining access to the Paypal account even after you have changed your email and Paypal password. With a new PayPal user authorized to access the account the hacker can log-in using just a username based on your own name and his own password anytime! 

   Example if the account is under the name James Lee then the hacker would use a username like JAMESLEE or LEEJAMES give this user all possible permissions and put his own password to it. Therefore if you look at the the last login located at the top right side of your Paypal Overview screen you might just overlook checking the dates and time thinking that JAMESLEE or LEEJAMES is still you. For a business account the last login section should show the email you used to log-in and not a username!

   By having this authorization he may also call PayPal and assume your identity or inform them he has authorization on the account given he is a valid user! It's not just a possibility it did happen to other victims of the hacker.

   Adding a new user to manage the PayPal account is applicable only to business account type. If you have a personal account the hacker would have to upgrade that account also to business type so that he can add a new user. This fake user created by the hacker must be deleted immediately after you gain access to your account. We will detail how to do that in a part two post.


8)* Changed the account name.
   It has an asterisk because this particular action somehow has no email notification. He will rename it to something generic that is similar to your nature of your use of the account. Example if you sell tickets online he will name it travel agency. If you are more a buyer he will name it ebay shopper and so on.

   The idea here is so that he can cover his tracks better. It is easier for the hacker to hide when doing a "Sent Payment" transaction because the email does not show the email of who it was sent to. Also by exchanging it with a generic name it will make it harder for you to track down the owner of the hacked account where the payment is sent. Changing the name could possibly also slow down the detection rate of PayPal's programs when he does the transfer of the stolen funds into his own PayPal account.

   Above where the actions done by the hacker in our account. If you want to read more detailed experiences of others hacked by this particular hacker just Google search for Guadalupe Gabuna. 


 ----

 This is a sample overview of how the flow of money may happen when the hacker gets hold of your PayPal account. Local currency used here is Philippine Pesos.
 

Given:
Your PayPal balance = P10,000
Your Credit Card Usable Limit = P15,000
Your Credit Card Billable Amount = P0
Other Paypal Account 1
Other Paypal Account 2
HACKER's real PayPal Account


 1) Hacker sends payment of P30,000 to  Other Paypal Account 1
Your Paypal balance = P10,000
Your Credit Card Usable Limit = P15,000

Your Credit Card Billable Amount = P0

Other Paypal Account 1 balance = P0

This transaction will not push through because the total possible money to get is P25,000 only. (Paypal balance + Credit Card Usable Limit) The card will not to be charged an amount more than its limit.


2) Hacker sends payment of P19,000 to  Other Paypal Account 1
Your Paypal balance = P0
Your Credit Card Usable Limit = P6000

Your Credit Card Billable Amount = P9,000

Other Paypal Account 1 balance = P19,000

The P10,000 will be removed from your PayPal balance and the P9,000 will be removed from your credit card. Your credit card will bill you P9,000 already!

3) Refund the money from Other Paypal Account 1 back to your account.
Your Paypal balance = P19,000
Your Credit Card Usable Limit = P6,000

Your Credit Card Billable Amount = P9,000

Other Paypal Account 1 balance = P0
When the refund happens note that the money goes to your PayPal balance. The charge to you credit card will NOT be reversed and your credit card will still bill you for that amount.


4) Hacker sends payment of P25000 to  Other Paypal Account 2
Your Paypal balance = P0
Your Credit Card Usable Limit = P0

Your Credit Card Billable Limit = P15,000 (P9000+P6000)

Other Paypal Account 1 balance = P0
Other Paypal Account 2 balance = P25,000

The P19,000 will be removed from your PayPal balance and the P6,000 will be removed from your credit card. Your credit card will bill you P15,000 already!

5) Refund the money from Other Paypal Account 2 back to your account.
Your Paypal balance = P25,000
Your Credit Card Usable Limit = P0

Your Credit Card Billable Amount = P15,000

Other Paypal Account 1 balance = P0
Other Paypal Account 2 balance = P0

Note again that the refund goes to your PayPal balance. The charge to you credit card will NOT be reversed and your credit card will still bill you for P15,000.
 6) At this point the hacker will do several separate send payment transactions. This may be a combination of $ and local currency. It is the point where the hacker will remove all your money and may put it accross different accounts. If the hacker is desperate or is just full of confidenhe will move all of it directly to his own PayPal account.


Hacker sends payment of $200 (or P8600 assuming exhange rate P43 = $1 ) and P16,400  to Other Paypal Account 1

Your Paypal balance = P0

Your Credit Card Billable Limit = P15,000

Other Paypal Account 1 balance = $200 and P16,400


From Other Paypal Account 1 money is moved to the Hacker's real PayPal account
Other Paypal Account 1 balance = 0
 HACKER's real PayPal Account = $200 and P16,400



7) Just to throw you off guard,  the hacker may put in an extra step of sending  invoices from "Other Paypal Account 2" with amount different from the final transfer he made to "Other PayPal Account 1". This is just to trick you into thinking these may be the money which was transferred out of your account when in reality no payment was made for these invoices.


If you like to know how a hacker may use the money read here.
If the above happened to you read on to Part Two to know what action you should immediately take to get your money back!

How does a PayPal hacker use or turn the Paypal balance he hacked to real cash?

1) Trading the PayPal account balances

    The hacker will sell the PayPal money to a willing buyer. If the hacker is selling Paypal balance in dollars then it would be at a low exchange rate and / or less the service fee. Selling in dollars is less suspicious as they can just justify that it was something earned from providing services to foreign clients who pay in dollars.

   To do this the hacker will likely do a "Sent Payment" transaction to the PayPal account of a legitimate buyer who does not know he is dealing with a hacker. The buyer upon receiving the amount will then send the money using local money transfer services.

   If the owner of the hacked account makes a claim, the one at the losing end will be the buyer of Paypal money from a hacked account. Because he has no way of retrieving the cash he has already sent to the scammer after PayPal reverses the "Sent Payment" transaction done by the hacker. The buyer will also be charged a penalty by PayPal for accepting the money taken from a hacked account.

2) Use Paypal to buy stuff

   A second option  is that the hacker will use the money to buy something expensive online. For sellers it is best to ask your buyers who pay through PayPal to confirm their identity by providing a contact number where you can reach them. This should be a must if the buyer is using a newly created accounted and suddenly pays through PayPal. Check also if the buyer has used a verified PayPal account. You may also like to wait 1-2 days to let it clear because if the money used in paying is from hacking then it is likely to be reversed by PayPal.

3) Transfer the money to a bank account

    Another option is the hacker may also try to add his own bank account into the hacked PayPal account and transfer the money into his account. Or if the hacker is desperate or just openly boasting his skills that he won't get caught he will move all of it directly to his own PayPal account and likely try to deposit it to his bank account. Transfer however of money to bank accounts should take 2-4 days to clear so chances are this would be the final option he would take.

Here are tips in knowing how to make a strong password

Upon learning about the pitfalls of password creation in a previous post you should next learn about how to create strong passwords.

1) Think of a long phrase and use all that as a password.

This comic from xkcd should help explain why long passwords are better than short passwords.

example:
iloveeatingicecreaminthemountain
007isjamesbond

2) You can make it longer by putting a hyphen or special characters in between the words
example:
barney-is-purple
hello!world?

3) If you are limited with the character to use make use of  capital letters and special characters and character substitutions.

example: bornwild = B0rnW1ld3r
in here the first characters of the word are in capitalized, vowels are substituted with numbers. You can make your own rules.

Go ahead and make you password changes now. Feel free to test out your new passwords with Microsoft's password checker.

Common pitfalls in using passwords

Passwords are needed to secure your identity. You need a good password to ensure hackers will be kept away from getting precious information that will help them steal not just your identity but also the money from your credit cards and  bank accounts.

However it is easy to succumb to some bad habits when it comes to using passwords. Here are the common pitfalls you should avoid


1) Don't use the same password across all accounts

Make sure your computer passwords, email, bank account, online wallet (like PayPal, AlertPay etc) , social accounts (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter), messaging accounts (Skype, Yahoo Messenger, etc) and such important accounts have different passwords.  It may be hard to remember them all but the precaution is still worth it. Any case there is always the option to recover password or you can do it old-style and write it in a notebook which you could keep safely tuck away always in a safe place and always away from prying eyes.

2) Avoid using a short password

Hackers typically try to guess what your password is. They make use of programs that can try hundreds of possible combination in just one minute. The shorter the password the easier it is to guess because the lesser the combination the computer has to test.

3) If you must share your password change it afterwards

You might have asked someone to check your email for you or post a photo online on your behalf. Even if you know that person very well it is still good practice to change your password. It is possible that although they will not do anything bad but what if they have accessed your information from an infected computer that has a keylogger which logs keyboard strokes and send this information to a hacker? If the account used for that password like your email may contain sensitive information then it is better to be on the safe side and change your password.


 4) Taking things for granted and not regularly changing your password

You never know who is trying to hack your account. By regularly changing your account like as often as every 90 days or  at least once a year helps deter hackers who try to brute force their way into your accounts.

How to turn-off conversational or threaded view in Gmail

Conversation or threaded view in Gmail is very handy because it groups together emails with the same subject. However if you are trying to determine the order of how different emails went inside your inbox then the conversation or threaded can make it a little difficult.

Here is a list of steps to help you turn-off conversation view in Gmail.


1) At the top right section of the screen beneath your avatar picture look for the gears icon. Click on it and select "Settings".













2) In the Settings go to General Tab  and look for Conversation View section.

3) Select the "Conversation view off" and this will disable the threaded view of the messages.

4) Just click the Inbox on the left side to confirm if it is indeed complete.

How to Understand Computer Parts and Specifications

You have read the article "What computer to buy? Desktop vs Laptop" and have already got a shortlist of either a desktop or a laptop based on price. How would you now read the computer specifications to see which items is the best?

Here are the most common parts of a computer, their use and tips on what to get.

1) Monitor
- This is an output device for display.
- It can either be those bulky CRTs (Cathode Ray Tube) or sleek LCD screens.
- CRTs are no advisable not just because of the size they take but because they consume higher power compared to an LCD screen.
- If you buy an LCD screen you might want to consider getting LED LCD because it will consume even half of what an LCD will consume.

              

CRT Monitor

LCD Monitor

2) Motherboard
- This is the part of the computer where everything is placed or connected to. It holds the slots and ports where the other parts will be attached.
- When upgrading or buying a motherboard make sure it contains the most recent slots and ports to ensure that you will not limited in the kind of parts you install into it.
- Example there are two kinds of ports for a CD/DVD drive and hard disk drive. It can be the earlier IDE or a SATA port. Some motherboards can carry both IDE and SATA during the period where SATA is still new.


3) Processor
- This is the "brain" of the computer because it does necessary computations and logical operations to run a program.
- At the moment of writing the most known processors brands are Intel and AMD. Based on what I have read from forums Intel are best for office and desktop publishing work while AMD is best for gaming.
- When buying a processor don't just be taken by the numbers. Try to ask when the processors came out and do use the internet to review about the processor of your choices.
- When you buy the processor it comes with a standard fan but if you are thinking of overclocking or exceeding the use of your processor more than its intended speed then you might want to invest on a branded fan.

4) RAM
- This means Random Access Memory and is responsible for becoming temporary storage for use by actively running programs and processes of a computer.
- generally the higher the RAM the more programs you can run at the same time but the processor would play a big part two in determining if these programs will run smoothly.
- If you are buying a new computer I highly suggest that nowadays don't settle for anything less than 2GB of RAM anymore and make sure to stay away from SDRAM, DDR and DDR2 as these are old models already.
- RAM comes in sizes of 512kb, 1GB, 2GB, 4GB and 8GB. Usually there are only two slots available so if you hear that they are selling a computer with 3GB of RAM then it is most likely composed on a 2GB and 1GB sticks of RAM.
- typically a laptop RAM would come also in smaller size.

5) Hard Disk Drive
- The programs, files and pictures are stored in a hard disk drive.
- It comes in either with a SATA port or an IDE port, the latter being the older model.
- SATA allows much higher capacity of data that can be transferred with also a much slimmer cables to be used.
- Desktop hard disk drives are about 3.5 inches while laptop hard disk drives are 2.5 inches.
- It comes in storage sizes of 80GB, 120GB, 160GB, 240GB, 320GB, 640GB, 1TB, 2TB, 3TB etc. My best suggestion is get at least a 320GB minimum to assure that you don't have to worry much about storage space anymore. However if you don't plan of saving lots of picture or movies then 240GB is quite sufficient.
- Please note that if you get a 640GB it doesn't equally mean to be 640GB exactly. It may fall off a few kilobytes because the conversion is not exact. 1024 bytes = 1kilobytes (KB), 1024 KB =  1 Megabyte (MB), 1024 MB = 1 Terabyte (TB), 1024 TB = 1 Gigabyte (GB).

6) CD / DVD Drive
- This is where you put your CDs and DVDs so you can view their content inside the computer.
- If you get one with a write feature it can also be used to back-up or save data from your computer into a CD / DVD. The CD and DVD you must though must also be Writable.
- Like the hard disk drive it can also be either for a SATA or IDE port, the latter being the older model.
- A desktop can carry as many as 3 CD-DVD drives at the same time depending on the number of bays which can be carried by the case used however for a laptop there is only one CD-DVD drive available, sometimes none at all like with netbooks.

                

Internal CD/DVD drive

External CD/DVD drive

7) Video Card
- They are expansion cards which allows to creates the images to be displayed out to the monitor.
- Motherboards nowadays have their on-board video and this would share memory from the RAM but some more advanced boards would have their dedicated memory even if it is on-board specially with laptops.
- You may consider using a video card instead of an on-board video if you wish to run more power hungry graphics like for computer games and multimedia editing.
- Be careful not just to buy any kind of video card and always check what your motherboard can handle are there now several lots types for use on video cards. The latest now are PCIe.

What computer to buy? Desktop vs Laptop

Below are common types of computer and reasons why you should be buying them

1) Desktop Computer

• This is the kind of computer which is stationary. 
• Typically it has has a monitor and CPU (Central Processing unit), keyboard, speaker and mouse which are separate from one another. If you want a computer where you can put in one place like the family living room so you can monitor your children's computer use then this is what you want to purchase. 

• You would also consider a desktop computer if you want to easily upgrade specific parts to your liking. Easily upgrade means you can remove the parts easier as compared to that of a mobile computer where more technical know-how would be required. 
• Typically the cost to of each parts of a desktop computer is also relatively cheaper compared to the parts of a mobile computer.
• Of course being stationary means it is not portable to be moved from one place to another. However for this you might consider those high-end branded desktops which have the monitor and CPU fused into one. But then again it won't be easily upgradeable anymore. A sample of these are those of MAC Desktops.

• The price can vary depending on the power and brand you would like to purchase but a desktop is still a cheapest among all type of computers. 

2) Laptop

• Laptops are portable.
• Currently there are two kinds. A notebook and a Netbook. Most notable difference between a notebook and a netbook is in terms of size and existence of a internal disc drive.
• Laptop Netbooks
• They are are equal or less than 10.1 inch and don't have any internal disc drive. 
• They light and cheaper than a notebook.
• If you are looking to just use your computer for surfing the internet, using Microsoft Office and simple picture editing and multimedia presentation then you could go for a netbook.
• Don't be turned away from the lack of an internal disc drive as this can be remedied by getting an external one. They don't cost much and sometime they are even given as a freebie or are part of the package price already.

• Laptop Notebooks 
• they are usually greater than 10 inches and will have an internal disc drive.
• They are a bit pricier especially as the screen size and processing power increases. It can go as double the price compared to that of a desktop with similar specifications.
• If you wish increased mobility without sacrificing power and functionality then a notebook is what you are looking for.

• A downside to a laptop compared to a computer is that they won't be that easily upgradable and repairable without more knowledge about their technical structure. You may have to send the laptop to a technician when the need arises.

When buying a computer always consider (1) for what you will be using it and (2) how much is your budget? Buy answering this you would a shortlist already of the product you wish to purchase and from there do a more closer inspection next of the specifications of each model to find that which is best suited to your needs and budget. 

Revisiting the blog

The blog was created with all the intention of helping out my friends and family who are either new to computers and technology or want to expand their knowledge about them.

But somehow the initial burst of passion almost 3 years ago hasn't taken its full acceleration hence the site never bloomed to become what it is supposed to be.

I want it to changed; so here I am again, taking a go at this. May God guide my hands and my brain in what to write. Many thanks far for all those who have visited this site already and found it helpful.

Thanks!
Aisa