Web News Archives

As you may already know, Earth Day is just around the corner. On April 22^nd, 2008, hundreds of millions of people from around the world will be celebrating Earth Day in order to raise the general awareness about energy conservation and environmental protection and care.

While there are several great ways to participate, TampaBay has posted some helpful tips to help parents educate children about energy conservation. The tips are both practical and effective, ranging from teaching your children good habits like turning the lights off when they leave a room or unplugging non-used appliances to taking them out in nature and showing them what a treasure it is. Another tip mentioned is demonstrating that children are a part of this world and have a role to play in affecting the environment, for good or ill.

Since Earth Day falls on a weekday, many cities are holding related events this upcoming weekend. The guide also has a few tips on some fun Earth Day activities if you happen to live in the Tampa or St. Petersburg, Florida area. For more information, read up on the full article at TampaBay. To get more education about April 22^nd, EarthDay has plenty of online resources as well. But most importantly, check out your local city guide and find out how to participate in the celebration locally.

Tags: clean energy, earth day, energy conservation, environment, green, green energy, renewable energy

Last month, students at the University of Central Florida held a competition. And no, the NCAA was not involved. This particular competition had students squaring off to see who could save the most energy. The record-setting results have come in, and it seems that the students gave UCF a good show for green energy.

Nearly "6,000 students reduced their energy use by a competition-record 8.9 percent --enough to power 150 homes for a month or the equivalent of nearly $17,700 in energy bills". The three winning buildings now have a chance to win prizes including scholarships, gift cards and pizza parties. Residents from each building have a short window to send in essays about their efforts to save energy.

All of this is part of UCF's long term plan to transform into a greener campus. By 2011, "the Center for Energy and Sustainability wants to reduce UCF’s energy consumption up to 20 percent in all education and general buildings". To read more about the green contest, you can head over to the University of Central Florida.

Tags: clean energy, energy conservation, green energy, renewable energy, save energy, university of central florida

Thinking about purchasing a hybrid automobile as your next vehicle?

In a recent article, the Star-Telegram out of Ft. Worth analyzes some key things to know about the energy-efficient autos including charging, how the car works and its fuel economy. It's an extremely helpful and informative piece, and should tell you all you need when considering your options for your next vehicle.

To read up on hybrids, visit the Star-Telegram.

Tags: clean energy, green, green energy, renewable energy

Booyah! If you're looking to connect your home services online and don't know where to start, stop stressing over endless, frustrating Web searches and take advantage of this simple information at your fingertips with news, guides and more. Need tips on how to find cheap home phone service? Check. Need a faster Internet connection? Look no further than the links below for all of the essential grit for home phone, high-speed Internet, moving tips, natural gas and green energy, minus the browsing in circles and general headaches.

Faster Internet

Inexpensive Home Phone

How to Positively Impact the Environment

Natural Gas for Georgians

Moving Without Losing Your Sanity

Does giving out your credit card online fill you with dread? Two of the largest players in e-commerce have come up with something that might give you a little extra peace-of-mind. Last month at the sixth annual eBay Live! Conference, eBay and PayPal announced the availability of the PayPal Security Key for its customers.

The small electronic token generates a unique security code approximately every 30 seconds. The companies say that members can use this code, along with their user name and password, to sign into both their eBay and PayPal accounts, helping to prevent unauthorized users from accessing them.

This type of additional security, known as two-factor authentication, is used by financial institutions as additional means to protect consumers and reduce losses from online fraud such as phishing attacks.

"We???ve had a tremendously positive response to the PayPal Security Key beta program and are excited to make the device generally available," said Michael Barrett, chief information security officer at PayPal. "While PayPal.com remains a trusted and secure environment, the PayPal Security Key allows customers to take their privacy and security into their own hands to help protect their eBay and PayPal accounts against unauthorized access."

The PayPal Security Key is part of the VeriSign Identity Protection (VIP) Network. As part of this network, consumers use the PayPal Security Key to protect themselves on a variety of financial services and e-commerce websites.

"As founding members of the VIP network, eBay and PayPal are leading the way in giving millions of consumers the tools they need to add an extra layer of protection when online," said Fran Rosch, vice president, Authentication Services, VeriSign. "Through the VIP Network, eBay and PayPal members will be able to use their PayPal Security Key to protect their account data at other participating sites and thereby reduce online fraud and cyber crime."

The PayPal Security Key has a promotional one-time fee of $5.00 for PayPal and eBay account holders in the U.S. The PayPal Security Key will also become generally available in Germany and Australia with more countries to follow.

For more information, check out https://www.paypal.com/securitykey or http://www.ebay.com/securitykey.

AT&T and USA Gymnastics recently announced their effort to give a behind-the- scenes look at the nation's top gymnasts in a 25-episode online series, USA Gymnastics: Behind the Team, as they prepare to represent their country on the world stage through 2008. The series will be included as exclusive content available on the AT&T blue room Team USA site

"Behind the Team will provide an insider's look at the USA Gymnastics story over the next 17 months," said Steve Penny, president of USA Gymnastics. "This series will chronicle the athletes, coaches, events and training activities that combine to produce some of the finest gymnasts in the world and prepare them for international competition. Behind the Team will also help people understand how the sport and the U.S. training system have evolved over time."

"Through more than two dozen webisodes, this series will explore the world of one of the most watched sports in the Olympic movement," said Jason Simpson, director of Olympic integration, AT&T. "With such great consumer demand for Olympic sports content, AT&T is thrilled to exclusively offer this compelling program leading up to the 2008 Beijing games."

The Behind the Team online series will include interviews with current and former athletes and coaches, as well as video of training camps and competitions. The first webisode will debut on the AT&T blue room in April 2007, with new webisodes introduced through August 2008. Webisodes will also be archived on the site.

AT&T is an official partner of the U.S. Olympic Team and USA gymnastics, providing financial support, products and services to America's athletes. AT&T will serve as the official telecommunications services partner of the U.S. Olympic Team for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China.

For more information, check out the AT&T press release.

Good news, golf fans! AT&T announced this week that you can now enjoy more of the 2007 Masters Tournament as the company launches its first major content initiative across the three screens central to customers' lives: the wireless device, the TV and the PC.

Under an agreement with the Masters, AT&T will provide golf fans with access to Masters previews and daily highlights, live tournament and practice range coverage, player interviews, live updates, links to real-time scoreboards and more. Masters coverage will be available through AT&T blue room, AT&T U-verse^SM TV, AT&T Homezone^SM service, AT&T U-verse OnTheGo, AT&T Broadband TV, and Cingular, now AT&T, wireless service. Live video, including Masters Extra and Amen Corner Live, real-time scoring and additional information is also available on the Masters official Web site, masters.org.

The deal furthers the company's commitment to deliver compelling content across the three screens. AT&T offers customers a wide variety of content through a portfolio of advanced video, broadband and wireless services, bringing customers more of the entertainment they enjoy and strengthening programmers' and advertisers' connections with new and loyal audiences.

"By extending the excitement of the 2007 Masters Tournament across the three screens, AT&T is giving golf fans more ways to enjoy one of the greatest traditions in all of sports," said Dan York, head of content and programming, AT&T Entertainment Services. "As audiences look to get content on the range of digital devices, three-screen entertainment is the future. The Masters recognizes that successful programming translates to all three screens, which AT&T can deliver to consumers, programmers and advertisers."

For more information, check out the AT&T press release.

Experts at SophosLabs™, a global network of virus, spyware and spam analysis centers, have warned of a widespread worm posing as a Valentine's Day greeting which is spreading fast across the Internet

The W32/Dref-AB worm has been deliberately spread via e-mail in readiness for office workers and home computer users to find the malicious Valentine e-mail in their inbox first thing in the morning. Since the beginning of the holiday, the Dref-AB worm has accounted for 76.4 percent of all malware sighted at Sophos's global network of virus monitoring stations.

Subject lines used in the attack are many and varied, but all pose as a romantic message. Some of them include "A Valentine Love Song", "Be My Valentine", "Fly Away Valentine", "For My Valentine", "Happy Valentine's Day", "My Lucky Valentine", "My Valentine", "My Valentine Heart", "My Valentine Sunshine", "Send Love On Valentines", "The Valentine Love Bug", "The Valentines Angel", "Valentine's Love", "Valentine's Night", "Valentine Letter", "Valentine Love Song", "Valentine Sweetie", "Valentines Day Dance", "Valentines Day is here again", and "Your Love on Valentine's".

Attached to the e-mails are files called flash postcard.exe, greeting postcard.exe, greeting card.exe, or postcard.exe which contain the worm.

"This new Valentine attack is spreading hard and fast across the Web, accounting for over three quarters of all the malware we've seen at e-mail gateways around the globe since Feb. 14 began," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant. "People will be truly love sick if they let the virus run on their PC."

Opening the attached files on a PC activates the worm, which then sends itself to other e-mail addresses found on the now infected computer. Sophos analysts believe that the worm code is designed to attempt to download further malicious code from the Internet designed to take over the PC, convert it into part of a zombie network, and use it to send spam on behalf of hacking gangs.

"Cynical hackers are using the theme of Valentine's Day to conquer innocent people's computers and use them for their own money-making purposes," continued Cluley. "Your PC and the data on it is precious, and it needs to be protected. No-one should be blinded by the excitement of Valentine's Day into opening unsolicited attachments or clicking on links to unknown websites, as you could be falling deep into a hacker's trap. The best defense is common sense, combined with up-to-date anti-virus software and e-mail filtering at your gateway."

For more information, check out the Sophos press release.