This is a quick run down on the program:
To participate in the CARS program, you do not have to sign an agreement to pay back the dealer the CARS credit amount if the deal is rejected.
You are required to leave your trade-in vehicle at the dealership and sign over the title to the trade-in vehicle at the time of the deal.
The dealer must give you the new vehicle at the time of the deal.
Your vehicle must be less than 25 years old on the trade-in date
Only purchase or lease of new vehicles qualify.
Generally, trade-in vehicles must get 18 or less MPG (some very large pick-up trucks and cargo vans have different requirements).
Trade-in vehicles must be registered and insured continuously for the full year preceding the trade-in.
You don’t need a voucher, dealers will apply a credit at purchase.
Program runs through Nov 1, 2009 or when the funds are exhausted, whichever comes first.
The program requires the scrapping of your eligible trade-in vehicle and that the dealer disclose to you an estimate of the scrap value of your trade-in. The scrap value, minus $50 the dealer keeps for administrative fees, will be in addition to the rebate, and not in place of the rebate.

Contact here via phone: CARS Hotline at (866)-CAR-7891 or TTY at (800)-424-9153

Enjoy!

Posted: July 18, 2009 07:04 PM BIO I recently appeared on Fox and Friends to discuss email hacking. Dave Briggs, a FOX & Friends Weekend co-host, lost access to his Hotmail email account when hackers were able to guess either his password or his qualifying question. (He admitted that his password was not as strong as it should have been.) The hackers locked Briggs out of his own account and spammed all of his contacts with a fraudulent email that appeared to be written by Briggs himself, claiming that he was trapped in Malaysia and requesting that someone help him by transferring money via Western Union. Only after persistently contacting Hotmail administrators was Briggs able to regain control of his own email account.

Twitter was targeted by a similar hack, which led to a data breach. It is likely that the hacker guessed the answer to a Twitter employee’s security question and reset the employee’s password. On Wednesday, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone blogged, “About a month ago, an administrative employee here at Twitter was targeted and her personal email account was hacked. From the personal account, we believe the hacker was able to gain information which allowed access to this employee’s Google Apps account which contained Docs, Calendars, and other Google Apps Twitter relies on for sharing notes, spreadsheets, ideas, financial details and more within the company.”

And of course, Sarah Palin’s Yahoo email account was hacked into last year, during the presidential campaign. The hacker explained how easy it was in Wired.

Web-based email rocks! Since you’re no longer tethered to a PC-based client, you can access your email from anywhere. And all the data saved in your email account will be safe if your PC crashes. Many web-based email providers offer gigabytes of free storage and other useful tools like documents, RSS readers, and calendars. Life in the cloud is easier and more convenient. But is it secure?

PC Pro reported on a study run by Microsoft Research and Carnegie Mellon University, which measured the reliability and security of the questions that the four most popular webmail providers use to reset account passwords. AOL, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo all rely on personal questions to authenticate users who have forgotten their passwords. The study found that the “secret questions” used by all four webmail providers were insufficiently reliable authenticators, and that the security of personal questions appears much weaker than passwords themselves. Yahoo claims to have updated all their personal questions in response to this study, but AOL, Google, and Microsoft have yet to make any changed.

Once a hacker has your email address, he or she can simply go to the “forgot password” section of your email provider’s website and respond to a preselected personal question that you answered when signing up for the account. With a little research, the hacker has a good shot at finding the correct answer.

Some of the current questions could be answered using information found on a user’s social networking profile, or through a website like Ancestry.com or Genealogy.com. Some answers might be found in the user’s trash. Some questions seek opinions, rather than facts. For example, “Who is your favorite aunt?” requires an opinion in response, but if a hacker knew the names of all your aunts, he or she could enter them all one by one. Some questions would be more difficult to answer. Unfortunately, if you signed up for your web-based email account over a year ago, before these email hacks became more common, your questions may be even easier to answer.

Gmail’s current personal questions are:

What is your frequent flyer number?

What is your library card number?

What was your first phone number?

What was your first teacher’s name?

Write my own question

Yahoo’s current personal questions are:

What is the first name of your favorite uncle?

Where did you meet your spouse?

What is your oldest cousin’s name?

What is your oldest child’s nickname?

What is the first name of your oldest niece?

What is the first name of your oldest nephew?

What is the first name of your favorite aunt?

Where did you spend your honeymoon?

I suggest that you check out the “forgot password” section on your own web-based email account, to see your current personal question. If it’s easy to answer, or would only require a little research to solve, update the question with one that you create based on opinion, as opposed to fact. And keep in mind that most people list “pizza” as their favorite food and “liver” as their least favorite. So be creative. You should also beef up your password. Combine uppercase and lowercase letters, as well as numbers. Don’t use consecutive numbers, and never use names of pets, family members, or close friends.

1. Get a credit freeze. Go online now and search “credit freeze” or “security freeze” and go to consumersunion.org and follow the steps for the state you live in. This is an absolutely necessary tool to secure your credit. In most cases it prevents new accounts from being opened in your name. This makes the SSN useless to the thief.

2. Invest in Intelius Identity Theft Prevention and Protection. While not all forms of identity theft can be prevented, you can effectively manage your personal identifying information by knowing what’s buzzing out there in regards to YOU.

Watch Robert Siciliano, identity theft speaker, discuss hacked email on FOX & Friends

How much rainforest does one cup of shade-grown coffee protect?
Each co-op or farm is going to be different. The Arbor Day Foundation used numbers from the co-op that it works with in Chiapas, Mexico.

Acres of co-op farm: 617
Containers of coffee produced: 8
Burlap bags of coffee: 2,000 (250 bags per container)
Pounds per burlap bag: 152.117
Pounds of green coffee (total): 304,234
Pounds of roasted coffee (total): 258,598.9 (approx. 85% of green coffee weight)
Ounces of roasted coffee: 4,137,582.4 (16 ounces per pound)
No. 10-ounce coffee bags: 413,758.24
Acres per bag: 0.0014912
Square feet per bag: 64.956 (43,560 square feet per acre)
Square feet per cup: 2.338 (approx 0.36 oz per cup)

More information about shade-grown coffee
Editor’s note: This article was provided by the Arbor Day Foundation. The Daily Green recommends that consumers look for “Bird Friendly” coffee (certified by the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center) or Rainforest Alliance-certified coffee to be sure that the coffee plantation is in fact a shade-grown operation.
Other labels to look for and consider when buying coffee (and they often go hand-in-hand with shade on traditional plantations) include USDA-certified organic and Fair-Trade-certified coffee.
Here are additional shade-grown coffee brands:

Arbor Day Foundation coffee ($6.95 for 10 oz.)
Golden Valley Farms ($7.95 for 10 oz.)
Audubon Shade Grown Coffee ($8.99 for 12 oz.)
Cafe Sombra ($10-$15 for 12 oz.)
Counter Culture Coffee ($10.35 – $12.55 for 12 oz.)
Equal Exchange (most $9 for 12 oz.)
Grounds for Change ($9.95 for 12 oz.)
Java Forest ($10 for 12 oz. and a portion of your purchase benefits Defenders of Wildlife)
Montana Coffee Traders ($9.95 for 12 oz.)
Cafe Mam ($8 for 12 oz., $9 for 16 oz.)
Caribou Coffee ($10.99 for 16 oz.)
Peace Coffee ($10.95 for 16 oz.)
Birds & Beans ($19.25 for 32 oz.)

Search for a local certified Bird Friendly roaster or retailer
See a list of Rainforest Alliance-certified coffee farms
Reprinted with permission of Hearst Communications, Inc

How to save 181,000 trees and pay bills at the same time
You probably don’t think of “saving green” when paying the bills, but a study conducted by the PayItGreen Alliance, a coalition of financial service companies, shows that switching from paper to electronic bills, statements and payments could help protect the environment.
According to the study, the average American household receives 19 bills and financial statements in the mail every month and makes seven payments in paper form. Here’s the impact on the environment if just 2% more households made the switch to electronic bills and payments:
More than 15 million pounds of paper would be saved, preserving more than 181,000 trees.
Emissions of more than 390 million pounds of greenhouse gases would be halted.
More than 143 million gallons of wastewater would be prevented from entering the environment.
To find out the impact your household could make, use the “Green Calculator” at payitgreen.org.
– Vicki Kriz
Courtesy of USA Weekend