CNET article about $2M gas station card-skimming scheme

Interesting article about 13 individuals being indicted for theft, fraud and laundering from devices that they installed inside gas pumps in New York state. This appears to be another version of the skimmer device that was inserted into ATM’s to do the same thing.

If you are interested in reading the article here…

This just brings to mind that you have to be extremely vigilant in tracking charges to your credit cards even from sources that you would normally consider safe.

"By using skimming devices planted inside gas station pumps, these defendants are accused of fueling the fastest growing crime in the country," Vance said in a statement. "Cybercriminals and identity thieves are not limited to any geographic region, working throughout the world behind computers. In this case, the defendants are charged with stealing personal identifying information from victims in southern states, using forged bank cards on the East Coast, and withdrawing stolen proceeds on the West Coast."

Office 2010 RTM became available on Friday

The Released to Manufacturing (RTM) version of Office 2010 is available to MSDN participants as of this past Friday. I have installed on my primary home system and so far I have a big smile. Take a look at this article to see my preliminary findings and what you need to do to prep your machine for installation.

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Outlook 2010 - Quick Step Overview

One of the new features of the Outlook client in Office 2010 is the ability to create workflow functions called Quick Steps that can be used over and over again to help you become more productive. This post contains both step by step text help and a video that shows you the steps on using this amazing new feature.

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Initial Impressions of Office 2010

I am starting a list of the the things I love and hate about the new release Office that is coming out and even though I know that I am working with Beta version, most of the product seems to be working fine with just a few quirks I have to live with. There are some integration issues with some of the products I for use daily basis, but I believe that these will be worked out very quickly once the final release arrives.

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A quick look at MS Office 2010 beta system requirements

I loaded up the Office 2010 beta the other day and I am finally getting some time to play with it this weekend. So far I like it but several of my Outlook synchronizations broke (not unexpected) and I decided to take a look at what the system requirements are. The first thing that jumps out at me is the Operating System requirements. You will need at  least, Windows XP with Service Pack 3 installed. I suspect that this will be one of the reasons that we some push to new equipment. The Memory requirements (256 MB) is still low but like 2007, I wouldn’t run it with less than 2GB, which I suggest for any system right now as the bare minimum. Always remember that minimum requirements are not optimum requirements. You never really run a program at its minimum specs.

The display minimums was the other specification that jumped out at me. I am already sensitive to the screen limitations on my NetBook so I really look at these closely. Most of your 10.1 inch NetBooks have a 1024x600 screen and most of the first units, that were 8.9 inch were the same resolution. Any way, the recommended resolution is 1024 x 768 which is no problem for desktop and notebooks. Five programs will fall within the screen resolution guidelines which include Excel, Outlook, OneNote, PowerPoint and Word. That leaves Access, Publisher, InfoPath and Visio that will not work on your NetBook. Since you have probably read before that I don’t believe a NetBook is a true production machine but more of a research, communication and light writing device then maybe this isn’t a great problem. My next step is to try loading it onto my NetBook and seeing just what the limitations are.

Below are links to the Beta Versions of Office, Visio and Office Web Apps. If you click on the Office 2010 Beta image above you will be taken to the the Office 2010 support page.

Downloads Download Office Professional Plus 2010 Beta Download Visio Premium 2010 Beta Download Microsoft Office Web Apps Beta