At the San Jose Mercury News they are reporting a unique type of theft, in which ATM card readers were actually replaced by crooks, so that they could read credit card and pin numbers. Seems that the switch was made to a ATM machine in a local supermarket, and the bad guys were able to steal some 212 numbers for their own use. The crooks either made withdrawals from accounts or sold the information to other people. The article goes on to state:

“What we have here is more than one person; they’ve been able to get in [Lunardi’s] and switch out the ATM card reader,” Sgt. Tam McCarty said. “Once they’ve done that they can read the card and PIN numbers and either make a temporary card or sell the numbers over the phone.”

“When I called the bank I was amazed,” said resident Mary Ann Lemmo. “There were two withdrawals. They took $700 on Sunday and $700 on Monday.”

Lemmo used a Bank of America debit card at Lunardi’s. She said the bank has reimbursed her for the lost funds.

Capt. Alana Forest said the average theft has been $1,000.

My first thoughts when I read this were that the thieves are getting fairly bold changing out the ATM readers. It would appear they they may have had some inside help to do this. Also this is one more thing we need to worry about when it comes to ID thefts.

Comments welcome.

Full article is here.

During the past year many PC users have either switched or have considered switching over to a Mac system. One of the questions that comes up is how hard is the learning curve going to be? Fortunately Apple has a great site that takes some of the pain on making the switch. Called Switch 101 the site states:

Welcome to the Mac family! If you’re a PC user who has just switched to the Mac and want to find out how to adapt your old working habits to the Mac OS, you’ve come to the right place. Welcome to Switch 101: The former PC user’s guide to getting the most out of your Mac.

Whether you want to learn how to get around and access everything on your Mac; find out how to move your old PC files to the Mac OS environment; figure out how to connect your printer, iPod, digital camera, or other device; learn how to do those tasks you did on a PC on a Mac; learn how to use the software that came with your Mac; or even find out what to do when things don’t go as planned; we have the answers.

There is also assistance on how to migrate your important files, setup hardware and much more.

Apple Switch 101 site is here.

Over at Lifehacker they have a guide called Hack Attack which has very in depth articles to also assist those in making the change.

Lifehacker can be found here.

If you know of any sites that may also be helpful, please post them in the comments section.

Comments welcome.