‘Phishing’ is a malicious act by online con artists using emails that are supposedly from reputable companies. The purpose of these emails is to lure recipients into submitting personal data and information that can then be used for illicit transactions. The term ‘phishing’ is a simply a purposeful misspelling of ‘fishing’.

This is because phishing also involves throwing out bait — in the form of fake emails — and hoping someone takes this bait and becomes ‘hooked’. The emails can look quite real and will usually appear to be from large companies financial institutions or popular retail sites. Basically, any company where people are likely to have financial accounts or personal accounts that could be misused, can be used as the alleged email sender. The emails will usually inform you about some urgent matter like suspect account activity, suspension, financial transaction and others in order to get you to quickly click the link inside.

The email will include a link for the recipient to click on so that they can be taken to the correct site and page to rectify the problem. But this link will not lead the real site; instead it will take the person clicking it to a clever imitation, often a clone of the company’s official site. This can be achieved by copying the HTML code of the official site page. If the fake site is not a clone, another technique is to dress up destination page to look official. The page will normally include identical graphics, images and brand logos as the real company, in order to fool a visitor that this is an official page.

Once on these fake phishing sites the visitor will be urged to fill out forms using personal data, such as: bank account details, credit card numbers, social security numbers, passwords, etc. Anything that could be used to access the visitor’s financial accounts, or data that could be used to make illegal purchases using the visitor’s payment details, is often the target.

The best way to avoid these phishing scams is to be extra vigilant when opening emails received from well-known companies (like eBay and Amazon) and especially from banks and credit card companies. These companies will never ask for personal data, or if they do they will only ask for a section and never account details and a password.

Another giveaway can be seen when hovering over the link in a potentially fake email: If the destination address that appears at the bottom of a browser is indicating that you would be taken to a completely different address than the link, or one that is obviously not a site connected to the alleged email sender —this is a phishing scam. If you are in any doubt that an email is a phishing attempt, contact the company directly (that it is supposedly from) and inform them of the email you have received. They will be able to confirm whether the email is real or fake.

You can never be too prudent with these types of scam online – if con artists get a hold of your personal information, they can really mess up your life. Use the above tips and stay safe.

It is no secret that technology has been transforming the world in recent years. From the way we live to the way we communicate to the way we work with one another, rapid advances in technology have been changing the very way we relate to the world around us. This transformation is also happening in the world of fine arts, where advances in printing technology and the quality of printed reproductions is changing the way artists around the world market and sell their creations.

Just as digital photography slowly but surely killed off the world of film cameras and darkrooms, advances in digital printing technology, most notably the giclee method, has been quietly transforming the way prints are made. Before this printing procedure was introduced artists had limited choices when it came to creating prints of their original artworks. With the advent of digital high end inkjet printing, artists have many more choices when it comes to creating special edition prints and marketing their favorite creations.

The term giclee is thought to derive from the French, and the term loosely translates to “squirting” or “spraying” in English. This is no doubt due to the way these high end professional quality inkjet printers put colors on the canvas to reproduce original artworks pixel by pixel. No matter what it is called, there are a few important characteristics of true digital fine art printing. One of the most critical is that the print uses archival pigmented inks along with archival fine art papers to create those works of art. If quality inks are not used, the results will not be good.

And even if the initial prints look fine, they will not stand the test of time and will begin to deteriorate rapidly. Giclee printing also uses true professional grade inkjet printers. These printers are a far cry from the ones most of us have sitting on our desktops at home. A true professional inkjet printer will use professional grade nozzles, along with the finest quality inks, to produce results that are far superior to anything a typical computer user could achieve at home.

When choosing a giclee printing service, it is also important to make sure that service uses individual color profiling for each paper. This is very important, since this individual color profiling will provide colors that are richer, more vibrant and truer to the colors used on the original piece of art.

The giclee process has definitely pushed artwork into the new digital world, and this can benefit both artists, who can create more unique and varied art pieces, and customers, who will get them for cheaper than ever before.