Stories about: About.com

New contests surface every day on Twitter, with a large variety of prizes up for grabs. Recent contests have given away everything from netbooks to gas cards to $25,000 for a new car. Twitter giveaways are like the lottery, only your odds of winning are dramatically higher, and you can enter as many contests as you want without spending a dime. With some strategy and a little patience, you'll soon discover how addictive Twitter contests can be--especially when you start winning cool prizes.

Do you know how to guard against scareware? How about Trojan horse text messages? Or social network data harvesting?

Wikia, the for-profit company built on user-contributed content, turned a small profit last quarter for the first time, said co-founder Jimmy Wales on Tuesday.

For more than 30 years he has roamed among us, a strange hybrid of Napoleon Dynamite and Vlad the Impaler. Nerdy yet ruthless, brilliant yet hobbled by blind spots regarding his company's failings, Bill Gates leaves an indelible mark on everything digital. Yet on June 27, he'll step down from his day-to-day duties at Microsoft to devote himself to philanthropic activities.

It's easy to look at a laptop, an iPod, or a laser printer as nothing more than a tool to get work done with or to while away your free time on, but these and many other high-tech devices didn't fall off a tree. They emerged following years of hard work--and in some cases, an entire career devoted to a single technology--by inspired researchers, designers, and developers.

This month marks two years of "In Security." Over the past year, some of my more popular columns have dealt with data aggregation and theft, the limits of risk management, getting along with human resources, how to spot and handle rogue security staff, encroachments on personal privacy, and the humor we find in the nonsensical things we hear from security consultants and the consulted. Sometimes it's the laugh of recognition; sometimes it's the laugh right before everyone looks away nervously and changes the subject. In either case, it's worth taking a look back before considering what's next.

Ask eBay users about auction fraud and payment scams, and you'll hear different stories with the same theme: While eBay can be a great marketplace, both buyers and sellers need to beware.

Game developer Take-Two Interactive announced a preliminary settlement on all consumer class action lawsuits in the US related to a software modification calledHot Coffee, that unlocked sex scenes on the popular game "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas."

We've all had excruciatingly embarrassing moments. We say something loud and inappropriate at a party and the room abruptly falls silent and stares. Or we misbutton our shirt and it takes half a day to figure out why everybody's giving us funny looks. That sort of thing.

Google will soon begin selling video advertisements on the Web, opening a new front in its battle for a bigger slice of the online advertising market.