Legend has it that on the set of You Can't Cheat an Honest Man (1939), a stagehand was cleaning out W.C. Fields' dressing room and accidentally bumped into a table on which Fields had placed a bottle of whiskey. He caught the bottle before it hit the floor, but the cork had popped out and he couldn't find it. He placed the bottle back on the table and left. Later Fields came back to the dressing room, and a few minutes after-wards stormed out, roaring "Who took the cork out of my lunch?"

Two years later with Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (1941) William Claude Fields firmly established himself as a premier con man.. Even as far back as 1934 he played the role of a crooked sheriff named Honest John in Six of a Kind (1934).  Not being a W.C Fields authority I am sure there are many others going as far back as1915 that also brought out the part of the swindler ready to get into your pocket the first time you let your guard down, but those just happen to be a few of the W.C. Fields movies I am familiar with.

If W.C. Fields was alive today he would love the internet.  It is a swindlers paradise and unless you know some simple ways to  protect yourself from some very effective scams taking place on the internet today you can end up laying out cash needlessly and not even know you have done it.  The scams are that slick.

I am going to spend the next two, maybe even three articles on some simple technology tips that I promise will not only save you some money, but some grief if you will stay with me on what can sometimes be a pretty mundane subject.  All of us wish technology could be absorbed by osmosis and not have to be learned.  The con artists know this and lately I have seen some really good cons that will pull $29.95 out of the wallet of anyone who isn't on to these things so fast it will make your head spin.

First,  let me point out that most of you have a program on your computer named Windows Defender.  It probably came with your computer when you bought it.  It may need to be updated at Miicrosoft.com for free, but that is easy. You should check and see.  If you do, the next time a program offers to do a free security scan check "No".  Rarely will any of these programs do anything Windows Defender will not do if up to date and Windows Defender is provided to you at no cost whatsoever.  Anytime you allow any program to do a FREE security scan only the scan is going to be FREE and depending on how big of a con the program is, there is always going to be something that needs to be corrected at the end of the scan. In order to correct the problem it is going to require you to purchase their full program for a price of $29.95 up.  Windows Defender will generally do the same job for free.

If the company that did the scan is a USA company they will usually at least tell the truth about the malware files found and the corrective measures needed because they can be held legally accountable by the attorneys general in all 50 states for fraud if they don't.  However, if the company that is marketing the software that just did the scan is located in a foreign country, particularly Russia, lookout!!!  There is no limit to what false information you will likely be told.  There are no legal ramifications the company can be held accountable to so expect  to be told you have trojan horses when you probably don't have them, expect all kinds of scare tactics designed to get you to spend your cash immediately to buy peace of mind.  The peace of mind is generally already there residing on your dirve C: in the form of Windows Defender.  Be sure and keep it up to date and ignore the free scans from all the internet hustlers.

Also, I do not believe in purchasing many software programs.  There are thousands of free programs available in what is called "open source" and most of them are in my opinion better quality than commercial programs that are sold.  One program that I consider a power tool is called Spybot - Search and Destroy.  The program is free although they do ask for you to send in a donation to support the continued development of the program, but that is up to you.  It works with or without the donation.

Spybot - Search and Destroy does exactly what the title says.  The makers of the spyware programs don't want you to have it and they will even play tricks on you and try to intercept your browser to keep you from downloading it so make sure when you are trying to download it that Spybot - Search and Destroy is the program you are getting.  If you start to download a program and Spybot - Search and Destroy is not the name or they ask you for a payment then you have somehow been diverted.  Try again. Also, until you become a power user I recommend running this program in default mode.  You can turn on advanced mode and do some fine tuning, but that also lets you destroy some things you might not want to destroy.  Running it in the default mode will protect you from yourself and still get rid of 95% of everything you could possibly want to get rid of.

How many of you would love to have Microsoft Office, but limit yourself to Microsoft Works because you don't want to lay out the dinero for the expensive Microsoft Office suite of products. Go to www.OpenOffice.org and download their suite of products instead.  Everything you can do in Microsoft Office you can do in OpenOffice except pay for the product and the documents are compatible with each other so if you make a spreadsheet or powerpoint presentation in OpenOffice and send it to someone who uses Microsoft Office they can open it right up.  How cool is that?  About $400 cool.

I'll be back Tuesday with some more tech goodies.  How about free mind mapping software and thousands of other programs that you do not have to pay a single penny for.

Until then, here is the old con artist himself playing Sheriff Honest John in a bit from the 1934 movie Six of a Kind.