Email hacking, true quick picks and big mystery

Let me start out with some great articles you would enjoy:

• 9 Oft-Overlooked E-mail Etiquette Tips Every Young Worker Should Know 9 Oft-Overlooked E-mail Etiquette Tips Every Young Worker Should Know
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• 52 Great Google Docs Secrets for Students Google Docs Secrets for Students
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Hacking email

I was the victim of an email hack attack. Someone hacked my Hotmail and AOL accounts. They then proceeded to send out junk email to my contacts lists. This was done while I run WinPatrol, Norton Security Suite and run behind a Linksys router.

I decided to let my Hotmail account go into limbo, due to the high volume of junk in it. The AOL password was changed and everything was back to normal.
Here are some great articles from About on email hacking:

• How to Choose a Secure and Hack-Proof, Strong Email Password How to Choose a Secure and Hack-Proof, Strong Email Password
• How to Steal a Password How to Steal a Password
• How to Tell if Someone Is Hacking Your Email Account How to Tell if Someone Is Hacking Your Email Account

How secure are these free email accounts? There is a good review at the following sites:

• Free Email Services Review 2012 – TopTenREVIEWS Free Email Services Review 2012 – TopTenREVIEWS
• The Best in Email – The About.com 2012 Readers’ Choice Awards The Best in Email – The About.com 2012 Readers’ Choice Awards

The TopTenREVIEWS shows that Hotmail is medium in security, when compared to others like Yahoo, Gmail and AOL. There’s an interesting set of emails shared with Readers Respond: Why Did You Close Your Windows Live Hotmail Account? At Readers Respond: Why Did You Close Your Windows Live Hotmail Account? .

Let me share some good sites for great password generators. They are better than using common names that are easy to guess. Please try these out and be sure to write the passwords down somewhere.

• GRC | Ultra High Security Password Generator Random password generator
• Strong password generator Strong password
• Secure Password Generator Secure Password Generator

Truly random quick picks

Recently Illinois entered the realm of online lottery sales. You can pick tickets for either Mega Millions or Lotto. Yet if you generate a quick pick, the results are not truly random.

But you can generate truly random numbers, from the Random dot Org site at Random dot Org site. They have a quick pick for common lotteries off the link at quick pick. These numbers are based upon data from atmospheric noise. Other sources can be radioactive decay. This service is provided by a professor of Statistics at a university in Ireland. You can read all the gory details of randomness at randomness.

Big Mystery

Now for the big mystery. I went to the grocery store Aldi and the Dollar General. My search was to secure some salad dressings, which are about one-third the cost of conventional names like Kraft. I found all the standard varieties except one – French. It’s not that they were out, as I couldn’t find any empty shelf space. I do know that French dressing is still made, since I can order it as an option at McDonald’s. What happened to the cheap versions of French dressing?