Holiday time is tough enough on your budget. You don’t want to spend more than you planned because a retailer or credit-card company came up with some tricky way to squeeze more money out of you. Well, you can beat the system! You just need to know where to look for these sneaky shopping traps.

Trap No. 1

Hidden debit-card fees

Whipping out your debit card to pay for holiday goodies probably seems like a budget-friendly idea because the cash is immediately withdrawn from your account. No need to worry about paying interest on a credit card or fees for bounced checks. But using a debit card could end up costing you a lot more than you’d think. In the past banks would reject a debit purchase that was more than the amount you had in your account. But many banks now process the purchase-and then hit you with an overdraft fee. Those charges range from $25 to $35 at 16 of the largest banks, according to a July Consumer Federation of America survey. If you buy several gifts in one day and use your debit card to pay for gas, groceries, and lattes, you could be hit with multiple fees. In September, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo announced plans to lower or eliminate overdraft fees. Let’s hope other banks will follow suit.

Dodge it! Use a credit card for large purchases, especially if you pay the full balance each month. Credit cards give you a lot more protection than other forms of payment if your account number falls into the wrong hands or if you have a legitimate beef with a seller and want to dispute a charge. Use a debit card only for small purchases if you’re relatively certain you won’t need the extra protection a credit card provides and you’re sure you won’t go over your balance.

Trap No. 2

Phony sales

Many highly promoted “door buster” sales, particularly ones that take place on Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving) and the following Cyber Monday, offer deep discounts on hot-ticket items. Black Friday has earned the reputation as a bargain-hunter’s dream because retailers feature a limited quantity of high-profile, attention-grabbing toys or electronic items at or below cost to draw you in, hoping you’ll also purchase lots of full-price merchandise. There’s a more deceptive version of deep-discount sales, though: An item is advertised at a superlow price on a Web site, but it’s a phony come-on. The goal is to get you to buy something else and spend much more. If you try to buy just the sale item, you’ll often find that the retailer cancels the sale, claims the product has been back-ordered for months, or sends you lower-quality merchandise or items that you never ordered. Returns can be difficult, if not impossible.

Dodge it! To protect yourself when you’re shopping online, be wary of unrealistically low prices. Don’t make a purchase if you’re pressured to buy additional products or services. To be supersafe, stick with merchants you know. Also, follow these other tips:

* If you go to a door-buster sale, don’t buy other items in the store unless you have done the research ahead of time and know they’re a good deal.
* Don’t worry about missing a one-day sale. It’s very likely that another supersale will come along. Last year we found plenty of so-called one-day sales that were extended.
* If someone on your list wants this year’s hot item, hit the stores as soon as you can. Go early to beat the crowds or try online. Last year we found that online retailers sometimes offered special savings early in the morning.

Trap No. 3

Unnecessary warranties

This holiday season, shoppers are expected to spend more than a billion dollars on extended warranties. Appliance and electronics retailers push shoppers to buy extended warranties or service plans because the store keeps 50 percent or more of what they charge for them. That’s much more than they can make just selling the products. But extended warranties are notoriously bad deals because some repairs are already covered by the standard manufacturer’s warranty that comes with the product. And our data show that products seldom break within the period the extended warranty covers — after the standard warranty has expired and within two to three years of purchase. When electronics and appliances do break, the repairs, on average, cost about the same as an extended warranty.

Dodge it! Our decades of brand research have shown that products are reliable enough that we don’t think you need extended warranties. But if you’d like the peace of mind an extended warranty can provide, you might be able to get similar coverage by charging the item on a credit card. Check your card agreement; some cards, especially gold and platinum ones, lengthen the original manufacturer’s warranty by as much as one year. If you can’t rely on your card’s additional coverage, channel your inner Scrooge. Get the cheapest deal you can on an extended warranty by including the cost of one in your price comparison. Always try to negotiate a better deal. And don’t pay more than 20 percent of an item’s purchase price for any warranty.

Trap No. 4

Gift-card charges

Sure, buying gift cards can shorten your holiday shopping time. You don’t have to rack your brain to come up with an appropriate gift for the hard-to-please folks on your list or spend hours hunting for whatever present you settle on. But we advise shoppers to avoid gift cards. Some come with purchasing and processing fees, expiration dates, transaction fees, and inactivity fees that unfairly diminish their value over time. And the recipient could end up with a worthless piece of plastic if a company goes out of business or files for bankruptcy protection after you buy its card. There’s also a good chance your card will not be used. A quarter of the people we surveyed last November still hadn’t used a gift card they received during the previous holiday season.

Dodge it! In one bit of good gift-card news, American Express announced in September that it would no longer impose fees on its gift cards — but it will still charge you $3 to $7 to buy one. Consider giving cash instead of any gift cards issued by credit-card companies, banks, or malls. If you do buy a gift card, stick to those issued by retailers, which are relatively free of expiration dates and pesky fees.

Trap No. 5

Return fees

Many electronics items, especially cameras, camcorders, computers, monitors, printers, scanners, projectors, PDAs, and GPS devices, are subject to a 15 to 25 percent restocking fee if they are returned opened or if they’re not in a factory-sealed box. If you return a refurbished item, it might be subject to a restocking fee, too. You might even be charged a 15 percent restocking fee for some appliances, tools, and lawn-and-garden products if you don’t return them in their original packaging. Merchants can’t resell as new any item after the package has been opened, so they penalize you for opening it.

Dodge it! Don’t open the package if you don’t want what’s inside. Items like computer software, music CDs, and movie DVDs aren’t generally returnable for another title after the seal has been broken. But if you do break a seal, some stores will give you a partial refund of a restocking fee if you ask. You should not have to pay a restocking fee if the item was defective when you unwrapped it. And always find out about a store’s return policy before you buy. Things like restocking fees and limits on what you can return vary among retailers, and some retailers have a different policy online than they do in their stores.

Provided by ConsumerReports.org

Yeah, maybe you got a lemon, but no matter which brand you bought, you truly are not alone in this situation: An analysis of 30,000 new laptops from SquareTrade, which provides aftermarket warranty coverage for electronics products, has found that in the first three years of ownership, nearly a third of laptops (31 percent) will fail.

That’s actually better than I would have expected based on my experience and observations on how people treat their equipment.

SquareTrade has more detailed information (the full PDF of the company’s study is available here) on the research on its website. But here are some highlights about how, why, and which laptops fail:

> 20.4 percent of failures are due to hardware malfunctions. 10.6 percent are due to drops, spills, or other accidental damage.

> Netbooks have a roughly 20 percent higher failure rate due to hardware malfunctions than standard laptops. The more you pay for your laptop, the less likely it is to fail in general (maybe because you’re more careful with it?).

> The most reliable companies? A shocker: Toshiba and Asus, both with below a 16 percent failure rate due to hardware malfunction.

> The least reliable brands? Acer, Gateway, and HP. HP’s hardware malfunction rate, the worst in SquareTrade’s analysis, is a whopping 25.6 percent.

None of the numbers are overly surprising. As SquareTrade notes, “the typical laptop endures more use and abuse than nearly any other consumer electronic device (with the possible exception of cell phones),” so failures are really inevitable.

Want to keep your notebook running for longer than a few years? Ensure your laptop is as drop-proofed as possible (use a padded bag or case, route cords so they won’t be tripped on, lock children in another room), and protect it as best you can from heat and dust.

By Christopher Null

Here’s a Black Friday reality check: Of the hordes of pre-dawn shoppers who line up for hours outside stores on the day after Thanksgiving, most will not bag the best bargains that appear in merchants’ circulars.

Look at the fine print that appears next to an advertised “doorbuster deal” at the bottom of the page in this year’s circulars.

It will either say “While supplies last,” “Minimum 2 per store,” “No rainchecks” or “All items are available in limited quantities.”

A quick scan through a few of this year’s Black Friday circulars show quantities as low as a “minimum of 5 per store” on some models of large plasma and HDTVs and popular brands of home appliances such as a washer-dryer pair.

Should Black Friday deal hunters feel cheated? Yes they should, say some retail experts.

“It’s a sleazy practice,” said Craig Johnson, retailing expert and president of retail consulting group Customer Growth Partners.

“I am old school,” said Johnson. “If a retailer is advertising a juicy deal and they are not prepared to have in sufficient quantity, don’t advertise it. Or give consumers a raincheck.”

Johnson said it’s not enough for retailers to mention that they’ll have such limited quantities of a product on one of the most-hyped shopping days of the year.

“Retailers aren’t winning any customers. They are just pissing off people,” he said. “It’s poor retailing practice.”

Unfortunately for consumers, more examples abound.

CNNMoney.com spoke to industry experts to uncover a few dirty secrets of Black Friday deals.

Limited quantities: Advertising a Black Friday deal as “limited quantities” is bogus, said Johnson.

“The only time it makes sense to have only two or three [items] in stock is if the deal is on a $2 million gift product that appears in the Neiman Marcus holiday catalog,” he said.

Edgar Dworsky, a consumer advocate and editor of Consumer World, agreed with Johnson.

“C’mon guys. Give me a break,” said Dworsky. “How can you be the size of a retailer like Sears and only get a minimum of five per store, yet devote big space in your circular to advertise that deal?

Sears (SHLD, Fortune 500) has not officially revealed its Black Friday sales. However, the company confirmed to CNNMoney.com that two of its post-Thanksgiving deals include a Samsung 40-inch 1080p LCD HDTV for $599.99, “Only while quantities last, minimum three per store, no rainchecks.”

The other is a Kenmore 3.5-cubic-foot high-efficiency washer and 5.8-cubic foot dryer pair for $579.98, “Limit four per store, no rainchecks.”

“Sure, you probably have more, but how do you put out a circular to millions of households and only have three?,” Dworsky asked.

When asked for a comment, Sears spokesman Tom Aiello said he was “not comfortable” addressing the issue of limited quantities for some Black Friday deals.

Such short supply on deals are not only annoying but can also be dangerous to Black Friday shoppers.

“We saw the stampede at a Wal-Mart (WMT, Fortune 500) store in New York last year on Black Friday that led to an employee’s death,” said Burt Flickinger, managing director of consulting firm Strategic Resource Group. “The stampede happened because so many of the deals were advertised as limited supply.”

One retailer, while not explaining why its advertised deals are in such limited supplies, said it is taking measures to better handle the Black Friday rush.

“From going down the line and handing out doorbuster tickets that guarantee a purchase in advance of the store opening, to printing the minimum quantities in the circular, we go to great lengths to ensure that the Black Friday consumer knows exactly how many items will be at the store and whether or not they will be able to purchase one prior to entering the store,” Best Buy (BBY, Fortune 500) wrote in an e-mail.

What do you mean this HDTV is a “derivative?” Some of the holiday electronics with those low sale prices are derivatives, models that have a few less features than a standard model in that product line, said Dworsky.

The difference can be subtle. “The image contrast ratio might be 20,000 in a derivative model versus 30,000 in a standard model,” he said. “Most consumers probably won’t even notice the difference.”

A report earlier this month in Consumer Reports called attention to HDTV models from Samsung and Sony advertised in Black Friday deals that appear to be “derivatives.” The report said these one-off TVs “with unfamiliar model numbers” are usually cheaper than the standard model in their class.

Dworsky cautions that retailers usually don’t advertise these models as derivatives. “There’s no way the average consumer will know that the TV model they are buying is not the standard one unless they are savvy enough to compare their model numbers,” he said.

Which Black Friday deals are online? “Many retailers will say that their Black Friday deals are available online,” said Dworsky. “But they’re not nice enough to tell you which ones.”

“How about telling me which exact ones so I can shop online from home and I’m not in my pajamas at 5 a.m. in front of your store,” he said.

Online deals that never get shipped: Case in point: Sears. Last year, one of Sears’ hottest Black Friday doorbuster deal was on a Kenmore washer-dryer pair for $600.

Even though the retailer advertised that deal to be in “limited quantities,” the company decided to honor every customer order made on that deal last Black Friday.

Big mistake. The manufacturer could not ramp up production fast enough. Some customers waited months before their order was shipped. Others were sold a substitute model, that was “comparable or even better” for the same deal price, said Sears’ Aiello.

Lesson learned. “We will not be doing that again this year,” he said.

Be careful if you’re shopping online on Black Friday, said Dworsky.

“Since retailers don’t have a live inventory online you run the risk of getting an e-mail weeks later that your order had been delayed or worse, canceled, because the product is out of stock,” he said.

About those rainchecks: Finally, if a retailer does offer you a raincheck on a deal, it could still turn out to be an empty promise, Flickinger warned.

“A raincheck doesn’t guarantee that you will eventually get that elusive Black Friday deal,” he said. “Consumers can go weeks waiting and hoping, and the retailer may never get more of the product shipped to its stores.”

Copyrighted, CNNMoney. All Rights Reserved.
CNNMoney.com

Nathalie Blanchard has been on leave from her job at IBM in Bromont, Quebec, for the last year.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported Saturday she was diagnosed with major depression and was receiving monthly sick-leave benefits from insurance giant Manulife.

But the payments dried up this fall and when Blanchard called Manulife, she says she was told she was available to work because of Facebook.

She said her insurance agent described several pictures Blanchard posted on Facebook, including ones showing her having a good time at a Chippendales bar show, at her birthday party and on a sun holiday.

Blanchard said Manulife told her it’s evidence she is no longer depressed. She’s fighting to get her benefits reinstated and says her lawyer is exploring what the next step should be.

Blanchard told the CBC that on her doctor’s advice, she tried to have fun, including nights out at her local bar with friends and short getaways to sun destinations, as a way to forget her problems.

Manulife wouldn’t comment on Blanchard’s case, but did say they would not deny or terminate a claim solely based on information published on Web sites such as Facebook.

By Associated Press – ap.org

Faux Pas #1: You Forgot Her Birthday
The moment you realize the date got away from you, “offer an apology, but not an excuse,” says Irene Levine, PhD, professor of psychiatry at New York University School of Medicine, and author of Best Friends Forever. An “oops” birthday card or gift and an offer to buy her a drink or lunch are good moves. Remember, too, that how much your friend is hurt by your forgetfulness depends on her birthday-importance meter. If she’s super-sensitive (what Dr. Levine calls a “birthday princess”), you may have to work harder to get back in her good graces.

Faux Pas #2: You Don’t Like Her Husband
Leave her hubby out of the friendship as much as you can; it’s not fair to force her to divide her loyalties, especially if she knows he’s not your favorite person. “Remind her how important her friendship is to you, and restrict your time together to girls only,” says Dr. Levine. Employ a little diplomacy (or a harmless white lie): no reason you have to detail to her what you don’t like about her man.

Faux Pas #3: You Are (or Want to Be) Dating Her Ex
“I’m sure there are friends who have navigated this successfully without causing hurt feelings, but my general advice would be, if you want to keep the friend, avoid the ex,” says Elaine Zelley, PhD, associate communications professor at LaSalle University in Philadelphia, who has studied female friendships. This is particularly true if it’s a recent breakup, but even long-ago exes can stir up a world of emotion. If you’re already involved, be prepared for a painful adjustment period—or even the long-term loss of your friend. But if you’re only in the contemplation stage, “talk to her about it, honestly,” says Dr. Zelley, which is the only way you can hope to emerge with your friendship intact.

Faux Pas #4: You Weren’t There for Her at a Crucial Time
Don’t make excuses or offer justifications (“I was just so busy that month!”). “That only trivializes her experience and makes it seem that your life is more important than hers,” says Dr. Zelley. Instead, admit that you let her down, and that you realize how bad your absence made her feel. Ask, humbly and sincerely, if there’s anything you can do to make it up to her. Then let it go; depending on how hurt she is (and how much other support she had at the time), it may take time for the friendship to fully heal.

Faux Pas #5: You Were Late to Meet Her
You have to apologize, of course, and offer something to assuage her annoyance, such as picking up the lunch tab. If it’s a recurring problem, “you’re giving her the message that your time is more valuable than hers,” says Dr. Levine. Chronic lateness can seriously damage a friendship. Acknowledge that it’s you who has a punctuality problem; it’s nothing she did. Together, come up with a solution, such as meeting someplace she doesn’t mind waiting (a bookstore rather than a street corner), or meeting at your home instead.

Faux Pas #6: You Didn’t Call Her Back…for Months
Don’t keep putting off calling her—just do it. If you truly have no excuse, “a white lie may be in order,” says Dr. Levine (overtime at work, or a needy family member monopolizing your time). But keep it short and sweet, and then launch right into catching each other up on news. Remember, too, that different friendships have a different “pace,” says Dr. Levine. If this is a friendship that normally allows time to elapse between calls, it may not be as big a deal as you imagine.

Faux Pas #7: You Didn’t Tell Her When Something She Did Hurt You
“If what your friend did was a one-time event that isn’t likely to happen again, weigh the cost versus the benefit of telling her how you felt,” says Dr. Zelley. Her advice: “Only reveal the hurt if the benefit—a deeper level of trust and understanding in the friendship—outweighs the cost,” otherwise you could be creating distance in the friendship. But if what she did was so hurtful you’re not sure you can spend time with her without it bugging you, talk to her. Keep it simple: “I overheard you talking to Gina about my infertility problems, which I’d asked you to keep private.” Give her a chance to apologize, and see if you can regain trust again.

By Denise Schipani

A large survey by the staffing firm Ranstad USA asked employees what their biggest office peeves were. It turns out they all involved coworkers. Annoying ones.

Do you recognize any of the top six most annoying coworker types?

The Psst-er: Gossipers were the number one pet peeve in the survey. While some people like to hear juicy tidbits about the boss or their colleagues, too much gossip can undermine the spirit of the workplace. Plus you’re always wondering when the Psst-er will make you the topic du jour.

The Broken Clock: These coworkers stink at time management. They’re routinely late for everything, including work. They tend to spend too much time on emails, take long lunches, and then scramble to get others to help them meet their deadlines, which, for some reason, they keep missing.

Mold Guy: Coworkers who mess up communal spaces were third on the list of workplace pet peeves. Their month-old leftovers sport a thick layer of fur in the company fridge. Every office seems to have at least one who stinks up shared spaces.

The Whiffy Wonder: You can smell these coworkers wafting about from the other end of the office. They just wear too much perfume or cologne. Some have an obsession with Obsession. Others feel the need to douse themselves with Old Spice. And hiding in your cubicle won’t make the overpowering smell go away.

The Cracker: Crackers are loud. They crack loud jokes, they crack their knuckles, they crackle their chewing gum, they clank spoons in coffee cups like they’re calling the cows to come in from the fields. People who work near crackers can find themselves ready to crack.

The Tapper: Tappers are generally quieter than Crackers. But that doesn’t make them any less annoying when they’re tap-tap-tapping on their personal communication devices during meetings. It’s distracting, rude, and yes, just plain annoying!

The one positive aspect of these annoying coworkers is that they tend to unite the rest of us who can bond over the latest outrageous offense. Besides laughing at the insanity, here are some other ways to cope:

* Even the most annoying types may annoy you less if you love everything else about your job. Take the free career test to find a job you absolutely love.

* If you find yourself subject to one or more of these annoying types and they’re driving you batty, it may be time to find a new job that offers greater job satisfaction, with fewer obnoxious coworkers. Take the free resume test to ensure your resume is in shape.

* If you find that all of your coworkers get under your skin, you may be better off working for yourself with the power to select your own co-workers. Take a free entrepreneur test to find out if you have what it takes to start your own business.

by Maria Hanson, LiveCareer.com

Here’s a group of companies that earn high marks in that regard. Nine companies on Fortune magazine’s 100 Best Companies to Work For list for 2009 have never undergone layoffs – ever.

1. Nugget Market

This company has avoided layoffs because of careful job placement and shrewd labor management. Instead of laying off workers, the 81-year-old grocery store refrains from replacing employees who leave. Its stores are 15 miles from each other, making it easier to fill positions, and employees are trained to fit various roles. The Woodland, Calif.-based supermarket chain filled 173 jobs, for a 22% job growth in the year before the list was released in February.

Sandwiched between Goldman Sachs and Adobe Systems, the store ranked number 10 on the overall list. Store directors make an average of $116,440 in annual salary, and checkers, the most common hourly workers, earn $34,490. The store also offers 100% health care coverage.

2. Devon Energy

An oil and gas producer headquartered in Oklahoma City, this company takes a conservative approach to its finances, yet still treats its employees well. Ranked 13 on the overall list, it started a 401(k) retirement plan featuring company contributions of 11-22%.

Flexible and prudent management helps avoid layoffs. The company, which cut its operating budget before the recession, withholds raises in bad years but gives midyear pay increases in good times.

3. Aflac

Known for its quacking duck ads, this company sells supplement insurance. The company, based in Columbus, Ga., keeps its eyes on its budget and ears open to employees. Employee suggestions like telecommuting and flex schedules have saved it millions of dollars. Other company benefits include an onsite fitness center, subsidized gym membership and the largest onsite corporate child care center in Georgia.

4. QuickTrip

Because this 24-hour convenience store is privately held, it can send profits back to its stores and workers instead of shareholders. Smart financial management has helped it thrive in the downturn. It offered over new 1,400 jobs last year. Wages and benefits are so good that over 200 employees have stayed with the company more than 20 years.

5. The Container Store

The storage retailer, based in Coppell, Texas, froze salaries and watched spending to avoid layoffs. Still, it kept expanding last year, opening four stores and adding 70 employees. Extensive employee training makes the company stand out.

6. NuStar Energy

Considering layoffs harmful to company productivity, NuStar management avoids them like the plague. The San Antonio-based pipeline and refinery operator also offers bonuses that can exceed $10,000 and 100% 401(k) matches for up to 6% of pay.

7. Stew Leonard’s

Known for flashy store displays, this privately-held grocery chain focuses on customer service and long-term sales rather than short-term earnings. CEO Stew Leonard Jr. says selling groceries is a stable business, which helps avoid layoffs. No matter how the economy is faring, people still have to eat.

8. Scottrade

This privately-held online discount brokerage has cut bonuses instead of cutting employees. A conservative growth strategy has also helped it avoid layoffs.

9. Publix Super Markets

A strong balance sheet with no debt helped this grocery chain acquire 49 stores and hire over 1,250 people last year. In its 79 years, it has never had layoffs. No wonder – it’s entirely owned by employees.

Besides never laying off employees, at least as of early this year, companies on the list are also some of the best to work for. Treating employees well means good pay and benefits – two factors that are attracting all the right workers. (Preparation can help you land on your feet after getting the “old heave-ho.”

Copyright (I)Investopedia

First up: Meet the “Magic Mouse,” a touch-enabled successor to the tepid, trackball-toting Mighty Mouse. A sleek, smooth sliver of plastic, the wireless Magic Mouse comes without dedicated buttons or wheels; instead, you perform simple multi-touch gestures (like tapping, swiping, and “zooming” on the iPhone) on the mouse’s curved surface to select, rotate, or otherwise manipulate items on the screen. Lefties and righties can also configure the Magic Mouse as they see fit, according to Apple. I’ve yet to try the new Magic Mouse in person, but Engadget says that the new peripheral “feels much thinner than its predecessor,” and that “the whole front of the unit provides a satisfying, unified click.” Interesting. The price tag: $69.

Next: the new iMacs, including a 27-incher and a 21.5-inch model. Both retain the basic, all-in-one iMac design, but the upgraded models arrive with what look to be gorgeous new LED-backlit displays, complete with 16:9 aspect ratios ideal for movie fanatics. The new 21.5-inch iMac boasts a 1920 by 1080-pixel display, same as on your standard 1080p flatscreen, while the 27-inch model comes with a whopping 2560 by 1440 pixels … or in other words, 1440p. Nice.

The two new iMacs also deliver upgraded graphics chipsets, with the choice of integrated Nvidia GeForce 9400M or dedicated ATI Radeon HD 4670 graphics in the 21.5-inch model, or discrete ATI Radeon HD 4670 or 8850 graphics in the 27-inch iMac.

As usual, the new iMacs don’t come cheap, but even the priciest 27-inch model starts south of $2,000, with the 3.06GHz, 4GB 21.5-inch iMac (with a 500GB hard drive) beginning at $1,199, while the cheaper of two 27-inch configurations (with a 3.06GHz processor, 4GB of RAM, and a 1TB hard drive) starts at $1,699. Not included in the mix: Blu-ray support.

Moving right along, we’ve got a redesigned white plastic MacBook, which now takes on the “unibody” design of its bigger MacBook Pro brothers. The MacBook’s new polycarbonate shell weighs in at about 4.7 ounces and measures 1.8 inches thick, and it also comes with a non-replacable seven-hour battery—again, same as with the updated MacBook Pro line. Other improvements include an LED-backlit display and a bigger multi-touch glass trackpad. Prices still start at $999, though (for the 2.26GHz model with 2GB of RAM and a 250GB hard drive).

Last but not least: an upgraded Mac Mini, now with a faster processor (up to 2.66GHz) and more memory (up to 4GB), with prices starting at $599. Power users can also snap up a 2.53GHz Mini with dual 500GB hard drives and Mac OS X Server Snow Leopard pre-installed, for $999.

So, what do you think: Ready for the touch-sensitive Magic Mouse? How about the new, cinema-ready iMacs? Still chafing at Apple’s high prices, or do the new price points sound reasonable?

By Ben Patterson

Cyberthieves are increasingly planting fake security alerts that pop up when computer users access a legitimate website. The “alert” warns them of a virus and offers security software, sometimes for free and sometimes for a fee.

“Lots of times, in fact they’re a conduit for attackers to take over your machine,” said Vincent Weafer, Symantec’s vice president for security response.

“They’ll take your credit card information, any personal information you’ve entered there and they’ve got your machine,” he said, referring to some rogue software’s ability to rope a users’ machine into a botnet, a network of machines taken over to send spam or worse.

Symantec found 250 varieties of scam security software with legitimate sounding names like Antivirus 2010 and SpywareGuard 2008, and about 43 million attempted downloads in one year but did not know how many of the attempted downloads succeeded, said Weafer.

“In terms of the number of people who potentially have this in their machines, it’s tens of millions,” Weafer said.

It was also impossible to tell how much cyberthieves made off with but “affiliates” acting as middlemen to convince people to download the software were believed to earn between 1 cent per download and 55 cents.

TrafficConverter.biz, which has been shut down, had boasted that its top affiliates earned as much as $332,000 a month for selling scam security software, according to Weafer.

“What surprised us was how much these guys had tied into the whole affiliated model,” Weafer said. “It was more refined than we anticipated.”

(Reporting by Diane Bartz; editing by Gunna Dickson)
Copyright Reuters

Hidden in the hilly jungle, the ancient site of Kiuic (KIE-yuk) was one of dozens of ancient Maya centers abandoned in the Puuc region of Mexico’s Yucatan about 10 centuries ago. The latest discoveries from the site may capture the moment of departure.

“The people just walked away and left everything in place,” says archaeologist George Bey of Millsaps College in Jackson Miss., co-director of the Labna-Kiuic Regional Archaeological Project. “Until now, we had little evidence from the actual moment of abandonment, it’s a frozen moment in time.”

The ancient, or “classic” Maya were part of a Central American civilization best known for stepped pyramids, beautiful carvings and murals and the widespread abandonment of cities around 900 A.D. in southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize and El Salvador. They headed for the northern Yucatan, where Spanish conquistadors met their descendants in the 1500s (6 million modern Maya still live in Central America today).

Past work by the team, led by Bey and Tomas Gallareta of Mexico’s National Institute of Archaeology and History, shows the Maya had inhabited the Puuc region since 500 B.C. So why they headed for the coast with their brethren is just part of the mystery of the Maya collapse.

New clues may come from Kiuic, where the archaeologists explored two pyramids and, most intriguingly, plantation palaces on the ridges ringing the center. Of particular interst: a hilltop complex nicknamed “Stairway to Heaven” by Gallareta (that’s “Escalera al Cieloa” for Spanish-speaking Led Zeppelin fans) because of a long staircase leading from Kiuic to a central plaza nearly a mile away.

Both the pyramids and the palaces look like latter-day additions to Kiuic, built in the 9th century, just as Maya centers farther south were being abandoned. “The influx of wealth (at Kiuic) may spring from immigration,” Bey says, as Maya headed north. One pyramid was built atop what was originally a palace, allowing the rulers of Kiuic to simultaneously celebrate their forebears and move to fancier digs in the hills.

When the team started exploring the hilltop palaces, five vaulted homes to the south of the hilltop plaza and four to the north, the archaeologists found tools, stone knives and axes, corn-grinder stones called metates (muh-TAH-taze) and pots still sitting in place. “It was completely unexpected,” Bey says. “It looks like they just turned the metates on their sides and left things waiting for them to come back.”

“Their finds look very interesting and promising,” says archaeologist Takeshi Inomata of the University of Arizona, who is not part of the project. “If it indeed represents rapid abandonment, it provides important implications about the social circumstance at that time and promises detailed data on the way people lived.”

Inomata is part of a team exploring Aguateca, an abandoned Maya center in Guatemala renowned for its preservation. “I should add that the identification of rapid abandonment is not easy. There are other types of deposits — particularly ritual deposits — that result in very similar kinds of artifact assemblages,” Inomata cautions, by email.

Bey and colleagues presented some of their findings earlier this year at the Society for American Archaeology meeting in Atlanta. The team hopes to publish its results and dig further at Kiuic to prove their finding of rapid abandonment there. “I think you could compare it to Pompeii, where people locked their doors and fled, taking some things but leaving others,” Bey says.

So far, what drove people to leave the site remains a mystery, as it is for the rest of the ancient Maya. The only sign of warfare is a collection of spear points found in the central plaza of Kiuic. There are signs that construction halted there — a stucco-floored plaza sits half-complete, for example. “Drought seems more likely, that would halt construction,” Bey says.

Having climbed the “Stairway to Heaven” a few times, Bey can answer one minor mystery, however. Why weren’t the palace sites looted as so many other Maya sites have been? “The hills are a good climb,” he says. “People just didn’t bother to climb the hills to search the rooms.”

By Dan Vergano, USA TODAY
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