checking

Hot Potato officially lands in Facebook's lap

Hot Potato, an online "check-in" service that lets users report their whereabouts and activities to friends, announced on Friday that it had been acquired by social-networking behemoth Facebook.

The deal, which has been talked about for several weeks, is the most recent development in Facebook's efforts to juice up the location-based aspect of its hugely popular service, which lets people connect with friends and family via the Web and share thoughts, links, photos, and more.

On Wednesday, Facebook unveiled Places, a feature that enables Facebook account holders to advertise their current location to friends, and lets users … Read more

Check mate

Small businesses need all the breaks they can get, and anything that can reduce costs and increase productivity by automating a tedious process is welcome. HalfPriceSoft's ezPaycheck 2010 is a payroll management tool designed for small-business owners and accountants. It can manage payrolls for several companies, print checks and reports, and even calculate taxes and print tax forms. It includes tax data for all 50 U.S. states and Washington, D.C., as well as Social Security, Medicare, and FICA withholdings.

The ezPaycheck interface is a simple, efficient dialog that opens with a split display, a sample check facsimile … Read more

Facebook goes Places

Links from Thursday's episode of Loaded: Update your Facebook Places Verizon on the iPad Google Chrome Web Store leaks Intel to buy McAffe Personal spy game with the iPhone

'Check-in' craze moves beyond location

Despite the press, geolocation service Foursquare is still pretty small. But it's proven influential in another way: the phenomenon of "checking in" has spread beyond telling people where you are, and a handful of services now focus on letting you "check in" to what you're doing--whether it's attending a concert or reading one of those ubiquitous Stieg Larsson novels.

One of them, GetGlue, announced Wednesday a partnership with HBO to promote its current series "True Blood," "Hung," and "Entourage," in which users who use the GetGlue iPhone … Read more

Bar code generator

Businesses, organizations, and others who have a lot of stuff going out all over the place need to know who's got what stuff where, not only to make sure it doesn't go missing, but also to maximize its usefulness and your return on investment; stuff isn't cheap. Kaizen Software's Asset Manager 2010 Enterprise Edition has an easy-to-apply answer to the problem of keeping track of stuff. This bar code label printer and manager creates custom bar codes that you can attach to equipment, materials, tools, supplies, and anything else that is all too portable. You can … Read more

Check counterfeiting using botnets and money mules

LAS VEGAS--A Russian group is doing check counterfeiting in the U.S. using malware, botnets, virtual private networks, and money mules recruited online, according to research expected to be revealed at the Black Hat hacker conference here on Wednesday.

The SecureWorks Counter Threat Unit investigated the bizarre operation over three months and is now working with law enforcement to find out who is responsible for the scam, which is believed to have netted as much as $9 million from fake checks in the last year.

SecureWorks researchers uncovered the complicated operation in April when it discovered a unique variant of … Read more

Are you worried about geolocation privacy? (poll)

Geolocation services--mobile applications that allow users to share their physical whereabouts with their networks--are gaining momentum. This week, Foursquare said it hit 100 million check-ins, with nearly 1 million "check-ins" per day. Earlier this year, Twitter added its own geotagging feature and now Facebook is reportedly working on its own.

But as these services gain speed, so too, it appears, do user privacy fears--at least according to a survey conducted by Webroot, a maker of antivirus and antispyware software.

Given the nature of Webroot's business, the company does have a vested interest in the topic. Nonetheless, the … Read more

Backup time machine

Regular system backups are a matter of emphasis for us, and we like them thorough and often. Windows' built-in system recovery and backup utilities do a pretty decent job, but like many built-in features, they have their limitations, and they can be confusing and even daunting for many users, especially those who need them the most. There are more third-party backup utilities than you can shake a Registry at, however, each offering a different combination of power, flexibility, and ease of use. MagiCure Professional 9 from AdvantEDGE Solutions is aimed at less-experienced users, since its goal is to simplify the … Read more

New plug-in tester mimics Mozilla's

BrowserCheck, from security company Qualys, evaluates your installed plug-ins and lets you know if they need to be updated. It's identical in function to Mozilla's Plugin Check, although it appears to be far more limited in scope for now.

Qualys' BrowserCheck helpfully targets out-of-date plug-ins, and provides links to download updates. Oddly, the service takes a unique approach by requiring the user to install a Qualys add-on before it will scan for out-of-date plug-ins. This is likely to frustrate many users, especially in the face of Mozilla's service, which doesn't require an additional add-on and currently … Read more