True Cost to Own

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True Cost to Own

Website calculator helps determine car's true cost

BY MARSHALL LOEB AND BRENDAN JANUARY
CBS MarketWatch

One of the most difficult questions to answer when buying a car is how much it will cost a buyer over time -- in maintenance and gas, for example.

A calculator developed by auto website Edmunds.com can help.

The tool, called ''True Cost to Own,'' considers seven categories that affect the value of a car over its lifetime: depreciation, financing, insurance, taxes and fees, fuel, maintenance and repairs.

To find the tool, visit http://www.edmunds.com/apps/cto/CTOintroController

Simply type in the car, its year and price, and the tool will determine how much the car will cost over five years. Edmunds says its statisticians use data and its own algorithms to calculate the costs.

This can be helpful if you are considering two similar car models that are also close in price. One may appear cheaper in the showroom -- but it could wind up costing you more on the road.

Protecting Your Credit Card Number

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Protecting Your Credit Card Number

Card Seem at Risk? Try a Stunt Double

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/16/business/yourmoney/16cred.html?ex=1400040000&en=9d5f6867fe628a7e&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND

By JENNIFER BAYOT

Published: May 16, 2004

AFTER days of searching the Internet, Gen Tanabe of Palo Alto, Calif., found the rare 19th-century memoir he wanted to buy for his father for Christmas last year. But he had no intention of giving the Web site his credit card number.

"The site looked like it might have been run by a teenager in a back room," said Mr. Tanabe, who writes books about college planning and financial aid. "I didn't know how secure it was, or what they would do" with the number.

Online vendors typically encrypt credit card numbers at their Web sites, but the numbers must be decoded later to receive payment. And they are often stored in databases that may be vulnerable to hackers or dishonest employees long after the purchase.

What if there was a way to fool those who would try to fool us, so that purchases could be made online without any danger of card numbers falling into the wrong hands? A few companies are trying such a plan: think of it as the stunt-double approach to online shopping.

Anyone with a credit card from Citibank, MBNA or Discover can request a temporary account number for use when buying online, by telephone or mail order. The temporary numbers are linked to customers' real accounts, but they generally expire after one use, unless the cardholder requests otherwise - for example, by placing a spending limit on the number.

Cardholders can get these numbers in one of two ways, depending on their issuer. They can download software that generates such numbers upon request or upon detecting that a cardholder is at the checkout page of an online retailer. Or, in the case of Citibank, which is owned by Citigroup, they can also register online, then revisit the company's site each time they want a new number.

To avoid giving his real card number to that small online bookstore, Mr. Tanabe, 32, used a temporary number to buy the present for his father. "I probably wouldn't have bought it otherwise," he said.

The temporary numbers can also prevent retailers from renewing purchases like magazine subscriptions or gym memberships without issuing reminders. Many customers forget that vendors may automatically charge their customers' credit cards for such recurring fees.

Fraud remains a big concern for many online shoppers. In a survey of 12,000 consumers at the end of 2003, Forrester Research, based in Cambridge, Mass., found that about two-thirds were "very or extremely concerned" about the theft of their credit card numbers during online activity.

Chris Hoofnagle, a lawyer for the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, says such temporary numbers ease those worries. Mr. Hoofnagle says he has used them himself, to prevent online retailers from keeping his card number in their files. "If the company stores your credit card number, that database just becomes a honey pot" for hackers, he said.

The temporary numbers, he said, also make him more comfortable buying from newer or unfamiliar vendors.

The free service has been available for more than a year, but few people seem to know about it. "I think if you interview 100 consumers, you'll find 100 consumers who've never heard of it," said John Gould, director of consumer lending and bank cards for the TowerGroup, a research company based in Needham, Mass., that was acquired recently by MasterCard.

Industry analysts say consumers tend to rely on other protections - including the card companies' promise not to charge them for fraudulent transactions. Last month, in fact, American Express stopped offering its temporary-numbers program, called Private Payments, saying that other safety features already offered plenty of fraud protection.

Some consumers may think that their credit card accounts are safe because retailers encrypt their card data at the time of purchase. Though the numbers may then be safe in transit, retailers must still decode the numbers to collect payment.

Mr. Gould says it is impossible to ensure that all retailers take the next step: encrypting the numbers again, according to rules set by the card networks. "This is too big a territory to patrol; in the U.S. alone, you've got over 400,000 merchants online," he said. "You've always got the issue of the merchant who is careless. But the real problem is, you've got the merchant who's a fraudster, whose intent is to steal your information."

ANALYSTS also suggest that the card issuers have done little to promote the feature because customers pay nothing for it. But the companies say that the numbers are still relatively new and need time to catch on, especially because their use requires some effort.

"And since it's not being offered by every issuer, you just don't have the repetition or frequency to get people talking about it," said Steve Furman, director of marketing e-commerce at Discover Card.

Although many consumers say they worry about fraud risks, some may not want to bother with temporary account numbers. "Consumers will tell you one thing and do another," said James F. McCarthy, senior vice president for emerging products at Visa. "There is only so much they will do to protect themselves."

Citibank refers to its temporary numbers as virtual account numbers; information is available at www.citibank.com/us/cards/tour/ cb/shp_van.htm. Discover, meanwhile, calls them single-use numbers and offers them on its Deskshop page (www2.discovercard.com /deskshop).

MBNA customers can create the numbers through the company's online ShopSafe program (www.mbnashopsafe.com).

The companies have tried to make the numbers easier to use. A cardholder can now charge monthly phone bills and other recurring payments to the same disposable number, rather than entering a new one each time. Similarly, a cardholder can register a number with a favorite merchant for continued use only with that merchant.

"You'll never need to reveal your actual credit card number again," said Amy Radin, executive vice president for the e-business unit of Citi Cards, a division of Citigroup.

Keeping text together in Word

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Keeping text together in Word

Keeping text together can be important -- having a single line of a paragraph sitting all alone at the top of a page can look awkward. Such stragglers are called widows and orphans, but you don't see them because widow and orphan (W&O) control is "on" by default. However, you may want to permit widows and orphans under certain circumstances -- for example, when you want exactly the same number of lines on a page, regardless of content.

Widows are the last line of a paragraph that would sit by itself at the top of the next page. Orphans are the first line of a paragraph that would sit at the bottom of a page. Word will always keep at least two lines of a paragraph on each page. If your paragraph is just three lines long, all the text will appear at the top of the next page. A four-line paragraph would be split evenly: two lines at the bottom of one page, the other two lines at the top of the next page.

To control widows and orphans:

1. Select the paragraph(s) for which you want widow and orphan control. To apply the control to the entire document, use the Edit/Select All command (or the Ctrl + A shortcut).
2. Use the Format/Paragraph command.
3. Choose the Line and Page Breaks tab.
4. Check the "Widow/Orphan control" box in the Pagination section to set the option on (prevent widows and orphans); uncheck the box to control widows and orphans manually.

Note: you must select the entire document to change the widow/orphan control in your document. Changing the option without selecting all the paragraphs changes the W&O option for the currently selected paragraph only (or the paragraph where the vertical I-beam is blinking).

Source: Dummies.com

Finding Text Changes in Word

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Finding Text Changes in Word

When someone else returns your Word document to you, it's a cinch to have Word compare the "new" document with your pristine original. Word can flag any changes, displaying them for you right on the screen. Here's how:

1. Make sure that you have the edited (newer) document loaded and on the screen. The original document should be saved to your hard disk. You don't need to open it. Just open the edited document and have it on the screen in front of you.
2. Choose Tools, Track Changes, Compare Documents (in Word 2000); Choose Tools, Compare and Merge Documents (in Word 2002). Find and select the original document on your hard drive.
3. Click the Open button (Word 2000); Compare button (Word 2002). Word thinks long and hard. What it's doing is comparing the document on the screen with the older copy on your hard disk.
4. Peruse the changes. Word 2000:  If you can't see any changes, go to your toolbar and choose Tools, Track Changes, Highlight Changes. Put a check mark by Highlight Changes on Screen; then click OK. Word 2002:  If you can't see any changes, look at the new toolbar that opened up when you did the compare.  on the far left should be a box that will probably say "Final."  Change it to "Final Showing Markup" and the changes will appear.

Ah-ha, the revision-marked-up result! The edited document on your screen is littered with revision marks, showing exactly what changes were made from the original.

Any new text added appears underlined. Text deleted appears crossed out (the strikethrough-text effect). Unchanged text remains the same.

Source: Dummies.com

Finding Text Changes in Word

TIP OF THE DAY

Finding Text Changes in Word

When someone else returns your Word document to you, it's a cinch to have Word compare the "new" document with your pristine original. Word can flag any changes, displaying them for you right on the screen. Here's how:

1. Make sure that you have the edited (newer) document loaded and on the screen. The original document should be saved to your hard disk. You don't need to open it. Just open the edited document and have it on the screen in front of you.
2. Choose Tools, Track Changes, Compare Documents (in Word 2000); Choose Tools, Compare and Merge Documents (in Word 2002). Find and select the original document on your hard drive.
3. Click the Open button (Word 2000); Compare button (Word 2002). Word thinks long and hard. What it's doing is comparing the document on the screen with the older copy on your hard disk.
4. Peruse the changes. Word 2000:  If you can't see any changes, go to your toolbar and choose Tools, Track Changes, Highlight Changes. Put a check mark by Highlight Changes on Screen; then click OK. Word 2002:  If you can't see any changes, look at the new toolbar that opened up when you did the compare.  on the far left should be a box that will probably say "Final."  Change it to "Final Showing Markup" and the changes will appear.

Ah-ha, the revision-marked-up result! The edited document on your screen is littered with revision marks, showing exactly what changes were made from the original.

Any new text added appears underlined. Text deleted appears crossed out (the strikethrough-text effect). Unchanged text remains the same.

Source: Dummies.com