{balki Blog}
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I have a recurring weekly reminder on my Outlook Tasks to call friends and family (along with their names and phone numbers for convenience). But I also have to admit that I always mark that reminder complete even though I don’t call a single person on that list. I feel like it is too much hassle to open the reminder on my computer, find my phone, and dial the number (or find that contact’s details on the phone). Not anymore!! Not after I started leveraging my new Cingular 2125.

Over the last 2 weeks, I reviewed various Task management software and settled on the 3rd party Oxios ToDo List (because the native Task List that comes with Windows Mobile 5.0 OS sucks big time). Oxios ToDo list does a fantastic job of simulating the Task list on my Outlook, and beyond. One of the best features is the “links view”. In the above case, when the reminder (to call) pops up on my phone, I simply open the reminder and switch to Links View and voila! All the phone numbers and email addresses turn into hyperlinks. I can call any of the numbers (or send an email) by merely selecting that number. How convenient and smart is that?

So, friends and family, if you start getting calls from me more often than usual it does not necessarily mean I am liking you more. It only means that “calling people is super easy and fun again“!!

Technorati : Cingular 2125, smartphone

Yesterday we were on a Delta plane from Jacksonville, FL to Atlanta which was completely full. Maanasa and I did not get our seats together. I was in the middle seat in the center row so I requested my two neighbors if one of them could switch seats with Maanasa who was sitting in the row behind me in the middle seat. But neither of them was willing to give up the comfort of their aisle seat to go sit in a middle seat. I thought it was not a big deal since it was only a 45-minute flight, and I needed some private time anyways. I dozed off before the plane took off and did not wake up until after the flight landed in Atlanta. Apparently many flights were delayed, including our own flight while I was happily sleeping and the flight crew had no updated information on the various connecting flights and the passengers were getting quite anxious to find out their connecting flight status. We also had to take a connecting flight from Atlanta to Portland an hour later, so as the plane slowly taxied to the gate, I wanted to check the status. I pulled out my shiny new Cingular 2125 powered with unlimited MediaNet service, navigated to the five-alive site optimized for viewing on PDAs and smartphones, and keyed in the flight number to find out to my delight, that our flight was still on schedule. Both my neighbors watched me do this, but only one of them dared to be shameless enough to ask me to check her flight status. It so happened that even though her connecting flight was supposed to have left already, it was behind schedule and she still had 20 minutes to make it. So, she quickly gathered her stuff and zoomed out of the plane to try her luck (and check her running speed!). The other guy probably had too much ego to ask me for help, so he called up his wife and asked her to turn on the computer and yelled instructions on his cell phone on how to check the flight status on www.delta.com. I could clearly see him thinking he should have offered Maanasa his seat when I requested. The payback was swift, powerful and painful!

Anyways, I felt it was a nice sweet (geeky) sort of my own brand of revenge.

If I were to turn this incident into a MasterCard commercial, I would end it with the following quote:
A month’s subscription to MediaNet Unlimited: 19.99
The desperate, helpless, contrite look on your enemy’s face: Priceless!

PS: All fun aside, I am not the kind of a person who would take pride in a geeky revenge. I would have gladly offered to look up this guy’s connecting flight status, if I knew for sure he actually needed it.

Technorati : Medianet, cingular, five-alive
Flickr : Medianet, cingular, five-alive

Sooner or later it was bound to happen. It was just my wishful thinking that I was somehow beyond identity theft. I am pretty obsessive about protecting my credit history and about following all the advice out there to the T. ( I do crazy stuff like reviewing the free credit reports from the 3 credit agencies regularly by spacing them out evenly throughout the year, one every 4 months). With all this madness and process in place, I always thought there was no chance my identity could be stolen. I was wrong!

Two days ago I received a very apologetic letter from my mortgage company’s local office notifying me that they lost a computer which “might have” contained my sensitive personal data. The letter was carefully worded to avoid any liabilities on their part while warning me several times that I need to meticulously monitor my credit. They offered a promotional code good toward a year’s worth of credit monitoring from Equifax. Although the news was not earth-shattering, I knew instantly my financial life would not be the same again. Over the last couple days I registered for the credit monitoring for both me and my wife, activated the fraud alert on all three credit bureaus (a small relief is that once the data is validated by Equifax, they notify the other two agencies automatically to activate the fraud alert on their respective systems). I even had a chance to test how well the fraud alert system works! (I switched my cellular service from T-mobile to Cingular, so Cingular had to run a credit check on my behalf). Although the process seemed fool-proof, I am still not relaxed enough to act normal again. A colleague’s daughter works for a local credit monitoring agency and she provided some helpful hints on protecting my financial identity going forward. I might bite the bullet and sign-up for their service in the next few days.

Anyways, in case something similar happens to you or someone you know, follow these steps right away:

1. Activate the fraud alert on Equifax (800-525-6285) and they will transmit your data to other bureaus as well.
2. Check your credit history regularly by spacing the 3 free credit reports available via https://www.annualcreditreport.com/
   Eg. Equifax - January 1st
   TransUnion - May 1st
   Experian - September 1st
   This way you can monitor your credit at a regular interval for free.
3. If there is any chance your identity could have been stolen, register for the credit monitoring service from one of the bureaus or a private agency like Identity Safeguards.
4. Contact FTC (www.ftc.gov or 877-FTC-HELP) for information regarding the steps you can take to help protect your privacy and identity.

Technorati : credit bureau, fraud alert, identity theft
Del.icio.us : credit bureau, fraud alert, identity theft