More info at Best Camarillo Dentists site. They’re also running a free teeth whitening offer.

Just today I received a rather legitimate looking e-mail that could easily be misunderstood to be from Skype. If I had clicked on the embedded link, and installed any of the software I would have been in for a world of hurt. It was one of those malware writers that makes you believe you have a virus/malware and says you need their software to clean your computer. Their ’software’ in turn ends up being garbage that costs lots of money.

Here’s how to lock down your Skype settings:

1. Go to the menu Skype-> Privacy
2. Ensure that all of the “from” settings are from “people in my Contact List only“

Here’s a screenshot of what that dialog box looks like. Click for a larger version.

There is just one minor drawback. You will need to manually add new contacts before they are allowed to call/message you. A small price to pay for a lot more security.

However, I’ve found that sometimes I don’t have time to either cook an extensive meal, go shopping and/or plan the week’s meals, or just want something different and/or simpler. So I went searching for some alternative recipe sources and found these. I was also specifically looking for ‘healthy’ dishes as it’s totally easy to get fast food or nuke a frozen dinner. I’ll bet that there are lot of these recipes that don’t qualify as ‘healthy’, but there are lots to choose from so you don’t need to depend on all of them.

1. Lifehack
2. WebMD
3. The Food Network (also has useful search tool for finding recipes with specific ingredients in under x # of minutes)
4. WHFoods

I’m yet to try any of the recipes here, but my goal wasn’t to necessarily find the best recipes, but more to find ideas. And after all, I’m yet to find a recipe that I ever followed to a ‘T’!

Any company that gets big enough where they have so many products/projects and/or groups and/or diversity such that infighting starts needs to split up and/or downsize. Pronto.

When a company starts reflecting the human race in the clannish aspect, the one group vs another, the zero-sum game that everyone thinks it is, they need to step back and take a good look at themselves, because this is not a way for any company to succeed.

Ironically, there was a great deal of pride taken in the action. This is not something to be proud of. This is symbolic of a dysfunctional company.

I’ve attached an Excel spreadsheet w/ formulae that I used to compare
mortgages. Just punch in the value of the house you want to buy, the downpayment you plan to make, and the various fees that your potential lender is going to charge you. You can adjust this to suit
you.

Good real estate sites for searching and even for background knowledge:
Realtor.com, Homes.com, Homefair.com.

I’d recommend going with a big realtor like Century21, Coldwell Banker,
etc. They typically have more resources. On the other hand, you may
find a smaller realtor will give you more personal attention - just
make sure they have access to MLS listings.

Find out about current interest rates: bankrate.com. You can
also do some comparison shopping there.

Mortgage shopping comparison: lendingtree.com. Of
course, once you plug in all your personal info, expect to get lots of
calls! Do it once you’re sure you need to secure a loan. I highly
recommend checking with the big lenders as well as what you get from a
shopping comparison agent. The big guys can typically offer you the
best rates, loans backed up by lots of money, they probably won’t
resell the loan and they have more resources to support you in the long
run. So consider: eTrade, ABNAmro, eLoan.

There is a Wharton Prof who has a really good website discussing all of the
ins and outs of mortgages, loans, banks, etc. You should definitely
check it out. In fact, it’s useful even if you already own property. He
calls himself the Mortgage Professor. Go figure…

The day you decide to lock in on an interest rate is the day that you
can expect to spend most of the day doing that (at least if you want to
try to secure the best rate and and the lowest lender closing costs).

Good luck!

PS> This was originally an e-mail that I was about to re-send to yet another person when I realized (yet again) that I should really blog this and share it with the rest of the world. That way, I don’t even need to re-send the e-mail, but instead say - just check out my blog! Yeah, some of you may not agree, but that’s ok - you don’t have to; you don’t even have to read this!

If you haven’t seen President Obama’s inauguration acceptance speech, then thanks to YouTube and citizen journalists, here is but one version.

The lines that resonated with me the most were:

Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.

We will restore science to its rightful place.

We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth;

As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.

PS> Interesting article on Brock Pierce of IGE (which was a company that used low-paid workers to farm virtual gold and re-sold it at huge profits).

My take - an Al Gore presidency would not have primed us for an Obama election. Unfortunately.

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