It is time to take our swiping discussion to the next level. I wrote part 1 way back in July of 2009 – please refer to it for basic swiping techniques and safety. I am going to break up part 2 into 2 parts. Part one of part 2 will cover more elementary advanced techniques, while part 2 of part 2 will cover middle, advanced-advanced and trick techniques. Then second half of part 2 of part 2, the advanced-advanced techniques, I will begin part 1 of my own past professional exploits. This will likely take 3 parts. The first part will be included in the second half of part 2’s second half – my amateur start and progression into the first part of my professional career. Part 2 of this 3 part series will focus on the second and most exciting part of my 3 part career, professional competition. Part 3 of the 3 part series will talk about the third part of my 3 part career, the last part of my competitive career and first 2 parts of my teaching career. I believe I still have one part of my third part of my 3 part career left to be told.

In the first part of part 1 we will be discussing elementary-advanced techniques and in the second part of each of the parts I will share some memories I have of these wonderful swipes.

Between a bad case of writers' block and an extremely busy work schedule, I have not updated this blog in a very long time. However, I was digging around in Google Analytics, noticed an interesting trend and thought I would write about it on this blog.

It seems that a number of people reach our site when they are trying to figure out whether they have a 32-bit operating system or a 64-bit operating system. When I dig around online, I find a series of often confusing instructions. So, I wanted to draw attention to a simple web-based tool that one of my co-workers came up with. If you are trying to figure out whether you have a 32-bit or 64-bit browser, please open up Internet Explorer and click on this link. Please note - depending on what version of Internet Explorer you use, you may have to hold down the CTRL key while you click that link!

When you click on that link, a popup window will appear that will tell you whether you use a 32-bit operating system or a 64-bit operating system. Based on our testing, this popup is incredibly accurate, but if you have another experience, please let us know.

While I have been following online scams for quite awhile, every once in a while, I read about one that makes my blood boil. Yesterday, I heard about a phishing scam that made me pretty angry and today, I got enough confirmation to write an article about it.

There is a phishing email going around right now that says that people who were vaccinated against H1N1 have to go to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) web site to create a "Personal H1N1 Vaccination Profile". And, when people click on the link to create their profile, they are directed to a site which will steal their personal health information and (in some cases) try to infect their computers with malicious software.

Coremetrics, the web site sales tracking firm, announced some exciting numbers from Cyber Monday 2009. According to their numbers, consumers bought 30% more items on Cyber Monday 2009 than on Cyber Monday 2008! Moreover, total sales were up 13.7% when compared to 2008.

These are some incredibly encouraging numbers from the world of online retailing. However, not all of Coremetrics numbers were quite so good. One particularly important metric (shopping cart conversions) was 3.11% lower than in 2008. And both sports retailers and department stores saw their average order volume drop when compared to Cyber Monday 2008.

There seems to be a great divide amongst the general public about the relative safety of online shopping. There is one portion of the public that has become almost blaze about it, they trust the current system and simply couldn’t be bothered with the hype or perceived inconvenience of adding security. On the other side there is a large portion of the public who are so paranoid they refuse to make their first purchase over the internet. In its Fifth Annual UK Online Fraud Report CyberSource found that 41 per cent of people who do not currently shop online cite concerns about the security of online shopping as the reason.

There is nothing out of the ordinary about a bell curve of people with some on each extreme, but this debate seems to be greatly exaggerated at the two extremes with a disproportionate few at the (usually) reasonable middle portion. By middle portion I mean those that enjoy shopping online while taking precautions. I think the main reason most online shoppers implicitly trust the system, and, therefore, put themselves at risk, is because of a lack of education. Ironically it is also lack of education that keeps non-online shoppers from taking the plunge. So is education the answer to the continuing growth of the online channel? Well, not exactly.

Phonebusters came out with its October report and I wanted to pass along an update so that you could get some more information on the state of identity theft in Canada. September 2009 was another bad month for identity theft - Phonebusters reported that 808 people called in to report identity theft. These people lost a total of $1,143,206.95.

When you compare those numbers to August, you will see that the number of cases reported dropped while the total stolen went up a little bit. In September, 1,468 people reported being victims, but they only reported having been defrauded out of $1,056,880.49. If you work out these averages, it means that in August, the average loss was $719.95. In September, the average loss increased to $1,414.86. The average loss per case increased by over 90%...in one month.

According to Forrester Research, online retail sales are set to grow 11% in 2009. Even though this is smallest growth in a decade it is still growth in a recession. However, consumers are still hesitant to press the ‘submit’ button even though they are clearly looking to buy. The E-tailing Group reports shoppers are abandoning shopping carts at rates of 41% to 50% of the time. And Marketing Sherpa reports an average abandonment rate of 60%.

The top reasons why consumers are hesitating are security and privacy, comparison shopping, hidden return policies, confusion and impatience. These reasons are rational and ultimately predictable. It is obvious many consumers are still not comfortable with the online shopping process. Online retailers have done a lot to try and comfort customers about the security of their site with lock symbols and 3rd party endorsements, but it still seems like the Wild West.