My paper Tiger is a Christian Rock band. I currently design and maintain the website for them. I am very happy with the results of my work on the designs of the website. Much of the CSS and PHP I used on My paper Tiger's Website Makes my websites theme possible. All of the work I do for the website is free of charge as my way of donating to the bands cause.

My Paper Tiger currently plays many songs and some originals are my personal favorites. They are a local band in Hayden Alabama. If you wish to know more visit the website at MyPaperTiger.net or click the link above or the sidebar.

MPT, here is to your success,

Your webmaster,

-James Evesque.

Here is a quick tip on making your websites look nicer in the address bar. It is something I have never been told, I just kind of found out on my own  many years ago and have been doing it for a long time now. It is kind of funny, I never really thought about it much. one day I have .HTM on my website URL's , the next I don't. The reason I never noticed it was for the fact I did not try to make it happen. My first website was pure old fashioned HTML, like everyone else had. example of my URL was:

mysite.com

Everyone else who had a website may have had something like this, but what about the other pages?

mysite.com/contact.htm

Yeah, that is pretty…

One day I ended up having lots of content in my root folder of my server. An example would be:

index.php

contact.php

page.php

picture.jpg

banner.png

robots.txt

(And a lot more)

So I decided to make folders for my pages, and put the items that go with the entire website in a special folder, and items that go to a single page is the pages folder. Making this:

Index.php

contact/

page/

robots.txt

bin/

After I did this, I found out that this URL will no longer work:

mysite.com/contact

I would have to use this one:

mysite.com/contact/contact.php

I sat for a moment then thought, why not rename the file to index.php?

After typing in this address, I saw something wonderful:

mysite.com/contact

Became:

mysite.com/contact/

NOT:

mysite.com/contact/index.php

Here is a general reason why, besides good programing.

index.php is a file the server looks for when no file is specified, for this reason, it does not show up on the address bar. The same for most index exentions, asp, htm, html, aspx, etc. If the file is not looked for, it will display it in the address bar.

In conclusion, in order to remove ugly file extensions from your websites:

1. You must first make a folder for each page of your website with the pages name.
2. Rename your web pages to index.htm.
3. place the index file in the folder.
4. correct all code errors from the rename, have fun by the way.

This will make your website more professional in the address bar. Another trick if you do not wish to do this is to just rename all your pages to have ASP or PHP, giving the look of a programmed website. You may have to fix internal links if you used the exact URL.

Identity Theft

Identity theft, in short, is the illegal act of pretending to be someone else by using personally identifying information such as your name, Social Security number or even your credit card number to gain access to bank accounts, as well as commit many other crimes.

The crimes can very by a large degree. Thieves may rent buildings, start accounts for phone lines, and credit cards and make tons of purchases. You may not learn about the theft until you have looked over your credit report, credit card statement or even worse, contacted by a debt collector.

Sometimes, thankfully, victims can fix the problems fast. But still, many spend hundreds of dollars and many days and nights fixing damages by identity theft, including their good name and credit record. Those who are victims may lose out on job openings, loans, housings and cars. In rare cases, be arrested for crimes they did not commit.

How  Identity Theft Works

Identity Theft begins with taking personal identification information. A few would be your Social Security Number, Credit Card Numbers, Account Information.

There are a few ways thieves use to gain this information:

• Dumpster Diving. One of the older methods, still practiced today. Mainly for the fact, it still works. They look for bills, and anything with clues to who you are. Get a paper shredder that cross cuts, or use a fireplace. Give them nothing to find.

• Phone Scams. They are the analog versions of Phishing. They will call you and pretend to be who they are not. Never give out information this way. A real company or bank knows this is not a secure method of information transfer. This method is old but still used, because it works, do not let it work for you.

• Phishing. Like phone scams, they pretend to be someone they are not. They will send spam to your email, requesting your information. They may even have links to a "fake" version of real trusted websites. They can even go as far as putting viruses and spyware on your computer to catch your information being used online and send it to them without you knowing. Never open email you don't know exactly where it is from.

• Changing your address. They move your billing statements to another location by using a change address form. Take note if you miss a bill statement, and check your billing address.

• Stealing. Yes it is kind of without saying. They steal wallets and purses, mail, bank and credit card statements, pre-approved credit offers, new checks or tax information. They may steal personnel records or bribe the ones who have access. Always  kill credit cards, debt cards, and any other method of getting to your funds and file a report. Never carry information you do not need, such as your Social Security Number,  passport, or  birth certificate. Memorize you Social Security Number and keep it safe and out of site.

• Pretexting. They use false information to get your information from financial institutions, phone company's and other places.

What can be done once they have your information

Credit Cards

• They can open new accounts, such as credit cards in your name. When they use the cards and do not pay the bills, the delinquent accounts appear on your credit report.

• They may change the billing address to your current credit cards, so you no longer get bills. Then they will charge the account. Without the bills, you may not notice a problem very quickly.

Utilities.

• Open a phone and wireless account in your own name.

• They may even charge to youe existing account.

• Use your name to get utility services such as electricity, heating or even cable.

Bank.

• Create fake checks using your name or account numbers.

• Open a bank account in your name and write bad checks.

• Clone your ATM card and make electronic withdrawls from your accounts.

• Take out a loan in your name.

Government.

• Get a driver license or official ID with your name and their picture.

• Use your name and social security to get government benefits.

• They can even file fake tax returns.

Other crimes.

• Get a job in your name using your social security number.

• Rent a house or apartment in your name.

• They may give your personal information to the police during an arrest. When they do not show up, a warrant for arrest is issued in your name.

Ways to find out if your a victim

Monitor all bank accounts each month, and your credit report on a regular basis. Doing this can limit damages caused by criminal actions, saving you time, money, and frustration.

Sadly, most find out about the stolen identity after the fact

• You may find out by a bill collector, when they contact you for debts you never gained yourself.

• You may find out when you apply for loans and you bad credit is stopping you.

• You may find out when you get mail on an apartment you never rented, A house, or even Job.

What should you do if you find yourself a victim

• File a police report, check your credit reports, call creditors, and fight transactions you did not start. Time is critical to keeping your good name.

• The best place to start if you have been a victim is to check out this website. It is a .GOV website, so it is created by the U.S. Government.

Here is the link:

Stop Identity Theft

I hope this has been help to you. I will continue to update this as I find more information.

Email is one of the best ways to send information over the internet. There is no buddy this, friend that, add this contact, accept this, accept that. It is true, Social Networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, Myspace make it easy to stay connected with friends, family, and people around the world. These tools are powerful but one forgets something very important using these tools. Not everyone uses the same network, or all networks. As of the days of Friendsters are long gone, (Some have not gotten the memo yet), other networks will also come and go to. MySpace is quickly becoming only for Music and Music Fans, it should be called MusicSpace, Facebook is great for most connections to basically anyone, but sometimes you do not want someone on your connections list, for almost any reason.

• Too many people equals too much spam, in the form of news, posts, updates.

• You may not trust someone with your information or just don't want to share it, even when you make sure not to share too much, I personally have nothing to hide, nor do I really care what anyone finds on me. My name is a website after all.

LinkedIn is a great way to connect with most in the name of business, saving your facebook from your boss's eyes. Think about it, you take a sick day, he gets on Facebook and you have a long post about your fishing trip and that trophy shot.

Oops?

But what is the one thing all social media networks have in common? They require an email address. There is a reason for that, everyone who was not born yesterday has one. The only issue is, well quite frankly, email is boring, and unless you know where it came from, is sometimes unsafe. Not to mention you have to manually check it every day unless you have something checking it for you. It is not just on your end either, you have most people never using an email, using facebook for everything, and checking email maybe once a year at the most. I can't help them unless they read this, but I can help you. There are a lot of programs you could run in the background, slowing you computer down, and turning one on only now and then, well it never lasts.

But never fear, there is a solution. FireFox. I have looked for a plugin that would actually work for most email types. Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, POP3, ect. I have finally found it. This plugin will allow you to set up and many emails as you want to check, how often to check them, when your on the internet. Also, you can click the email icon on the bottom right of the browser, and hit "check now" or a specific email address. The icon has a number over it and becomes gold when you have an unread email. click it, and a new tab opens for each email address that has mail.

This add on is called, the WebMail Notifier, and it is the cleanest, most professional plugin for firefox I have ever seen. The menus are well organized, fast, and easy to understand. If you only ever get one add on for FireFox, it should be this one. It is the most used part of my Browser that did not come with it.

"WebMail Notifier checks your webmail accounts and notifies the number of unread emails…
Supports : gmail, yahoo, hotmail, aol, daum, naver, nate, paran, POP3/IMAP and more."

You can get to the WebMail Notifier here.

When using iGoogle, the website will send you that version of the homepage, even when your homepage is Google.com. The reason is Google checks the lasts version you had and then thinks it is the version you use. Many people love iGoogle but want to have a fast homepage like the classic Google homepage.

In order to keep your classic homepage and use iGoogle, normally you would have to return the the classic home page before leaving Google. Now this is somewhat annoying if nothing else. But if you use this link below as your home page, it will tell Google to give you the classic version every time, bypassing the last version check. This is possible since this link is the link to the classic version of the home page found on the iGoogle version of the website.

Here it is:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=p&pref=ig&pval=1&q=/webhp%3Frls%3Dig

Copy and paste it into your hompage url box in your browser settings. Firefox should have it in tools, Internet explorer should have it in properties, right click the IE icon on your desktop, click properties, it should be in a tab.

One really cool feature of FireFox, (out of the few million to choose from) is the bookmark tool bar under the address bar. One issue though is that the space you have to work with is not always a lot. Right clicking on the icon, you can change the text, normally you will remove the extra text and leave the name of the name of the website.

In example: "Facebook.com | Home"

You would remove the extra, ".com | Home"

In result: "Facebook"

Now this is a great habit, but somthing even better would be removing all text. Why? Well think about it, Facebook has a very unique blue icon. Most websites do. If you know the site by the icon the text is not needed. Most people do not know that the text can be removed 100%.

To remove the text, right click on your bookmark on the toolbar, go to properties, at the top click on the title text. Then, remove it all and hit enter. Nothing left but the icon, and no ugly gap will show up between where the text used to be and the icon.