Smart Nouveau Computer Tips #4 - October, 2002
By Jeff Sheets
Smart Nouveau Computer Tips October, 2002
Yes, you're right, I skipped a month on my tips newsletter to update the Smart Nouveau Designs Page user interface and to accept online payments for products. Check it out at http://www.smartnouveau.com/ and let me know how you like the new look. If you have friends who may benefit from this tip, please forward this email to them so that they can sign up for this monthly newsletter too.
On with the fun stuff...
With the holiday season coming up, and since I am already knee-deep in the ecommerce lingo, I thought I would share with all of you what I learned about shopping online.
Internet Shopping Safety
When you logon and start surfing, you may find something you want to buy. Be sure that your site is secure before entering any personal or credit card information.
Your personal information is as safe as using an ATM or a credit card at a gas pump if you follow one simple rule:
Buy goods only from secure websites. Secure sites have "encryption", a complex mathematical process which scrambles transmitted information. SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is the standard method to encrypt data and authenticate users.
Secure sites can be identified in two ways:
first, a secure page adds an ‘s’ after the ‘http’ in the address box. In other words, it should read "https://" when you begin to enter your personal or credit card details, it is OK if the rest of the site starts with HTTP as long as it is HTTPS when you enter your personal or credit card information. This signals that the page is secured by SSL or some other equally safe system.
It should look something like this: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr
The second way of identifying a secure site is by your browser showing an icon at the bottom of the window to verify that a site is encrypted and secure. Both Netscape and Internet Explorer use padlocks or keys to indicate whether or not a site is secure (closed padlocks and unbroken keys indicate a secure site).
At SmartNouveau.com We have chosen to use Paypal to secure our online sales because it offers the most flexibility with the highest security. In some ways, it is safer than using a credit card at a restaurant because the seller never gets the credit card number or other information. Only your email address. The beauty of this is that you never give your credit card out to more than one company, and you still control when and how much goes into your Paypal account.
Paypal works like this: Open a free (no fees whatsoever) personal Paypal account and use your credit card number or bank-to-bank transfer option to put money into your new Paypal account. Later while surfing, if you find something you want to buy from a site that supports Paypal (many do nowadays), you check-out with your shopping cart and pay for the merchandise by way of logging into your paypal account. An email goes out to you and the seller from paypal, and the seller is required to ship your purchase within 7 days, or lose rights to use Paypal. For more information go to Paypal's web site at www.paypal.com.
Along with the recent updates to the web page, we are working on the means to offer posters of fine artwork, maps, and your photographs at a low price. This may be available in time for the holidays, so come by and visit us now and then at: http://www.smartnouveau.com.