Guest post from: Bruno Smith

The wife and the kids love watching the television, and now I have joined them in front of it every night that I come home from work. The only reason is that were are planning to move to Spain and watching the travel shows really gives us an insight into what life can be like in certain parts of Spain and the cost of living. House Hunters International is a great program and gives an in-depth guide to regional house prices in different areas. The presenters give an unbiased opinion whilst showing of some amazing homes which can be bought.

Watching this show on Directv in the news has allowed us to decide on where abouts we are moving to in! Spain. This excellent program has even indicated what we should do before buying a property giving us a better than average chance of avoiding the legendary land grab laws over there which has affected thousands of people and cost them nearly all their savings. Spain seems to be a fantastic country for the whole family, and it is thanks to this show that we have decided to move there and give our children a better quality of life and a good education.

I just received a number of emails from different companies stating how my email address hosted by another provider, Epsilon, has been compromised.  Some of the customer accounts that were compromised included big banks such as Citibank and JP Morgan Chase which I bank with.  While all the companies stated that there are no additional information was leaked out, the owners of emails address are subjected to phishing.

There are a couple ways to protect yourself:

1.  Never to click on any links from the email and instead visit the company’s website directly.

2.  Never give out your social security and account number

3.  Make sure you use an up to date browser.  Browsers like Chrome has build in functions where it notifies you when you are about to visit a malicious site. 

4.  Log into your email clients with secure login https instead of http.

5.  Most importantly, monitor your credit score on a regular basis to ensure there are no foul plays.  There are a number of free credit score monitoring services available so you don’t have to pay out of pocket.  If you are an American Express card holder you get 1 free credit report a year!

Amazon is having a Xbox 360 deal right now where you can get an Xbox 4GB console for $199.99 and $50 Amazon credit bonus.  So effectively you can order a new Xbox 360 for $149.99!  I purchased one of the PS3 deals previously so I will hold off until end of the year to purchase another console, but from what I have seen on Youtube, Kinect really makes Xbox 360 an attractive gaming platform!

You know it is Spring time when you are seeing lots of deals from Home Improvement companies.  Lowe’s is currently offering a $10 off your next $50 (offer ends 4/4/2011) coupon on their website.  You might also want to check out the Home Depot Black Friday sale that is going on today if you are planning on doing any Spring home improvement!