There are a few things people are concerned about online shopping, be it their credit card information being at risk, the security of their mobile transaction, or not being able to get a refund if the item they purchased is unsatisfactory.

Others may not be able to use their local credit card on a website. This is why there are online international payment services like PayPal which makes it easy to send, receive and even request for money across borders.

(Image Source: Fotolia)

Because it’s so popular, there are a lot of rules and regulations that might hinder a few people from successfully completing a transaction. If you find that PayPal isn’t really a good pal to you, this post will give you a few alternatives, complete with comparisons of features, differences and added services they can provide.

Recommended Reading: Digital Wallets – 10 Mobile Payment Systems To Take You There

PayPal – The Service To Beat

We’ll start with the favorite (somewhat hated), PayPal.

PayPal works in many countries and some allow you to link a bank account to transfer or withdraw funds. If linking a bank account is not an option, a debit or credit card would work as well. Once you have a payment method set up, your account will be verified and you can send or receive money with it.

PayPal charges fees for any sort of money transfer and the rate varies between the currencies or country the money is sent or received at. When it comes to withdrawing money, there is also a flexible fee that PayPal charges depending on whether it’s withdrawn to your card or bank account. PayPal also has buyer protection for up to 45 days and it’s very easy to issue or ask for a partial or full refund within that period.

Read Also: 10 Most Asked Questions About PayPal

PayPal is internationally known and used by many online shops, telecommunication companies and a ton of other online services. When it comes to convenience and worldwide recognition, it’s the number one choice.

PayPal Alternatives

Well that’s PayPal but let’s look at what other alternatives we can try out.

1. Google Wallet

At the moment, Google Wallet is mainly used in the US but it accepts credit or debit cards from many countries. It acts like a digital wallet, more so in the US as you can tap to pay in-store with an NFC-enabled Android device. As for online shopping, there are a handful of online merchants that accept checking out with Google Wallet.

Unlike PayPal, Google Wallet is strictly for mechants, so you cannot send money to other Google Wallet users. However, there are no chargeable fees when using Google Wallet online or in-store, this is good if you’re shopping on one of their online merchants where it only accepts US credit cards and not your local one.

2. MoneyBookers

MoneyBookers (currently also known as Skrill) allows you to send and receive money to other users. It works with other online banking services in certain countries and for all other countries, you can send and receive money with a debit or credit card. Each country is also charged differently when sending and withdrawing funds from MoneyBookers.

MoneyBookers focuses more on sending money between users as there are very few online merchants that allow you to checkout with its services. However, their main focus of being able to send money of any currency to anywhere in the world is solid, making it a close competitor to PayPal.

3. Paymate

Paymate is a great way for sellers based in Australia and New Zealand to get money from international buyers from many countries. Sellers from the two countries can use Paymate on their website or on Ebay Australia for a small fee.

As for the buyers, all you have to do is key in your credit card information to pay, taking away the hassle of creating an account. Although this means there’s no way to send money to another user, online merchants can take advantage of Paymate as an alternative payment. Also, your credit card details are not sent to the seller but handled securely by Paymate.

4. Payza

Formally known as AlertPay, Payza lets you send and receive money from 190+ countries across 21 currencies. The service is mainly based in US and Canada but also supports certain banks and credit/debit cards from their recognized countries. You can add funds to your Payza account via bank transfer or credit card, send money to other users, and even request money through invoices.

Creating an account is free but for all the above services of transfering money, there is a small fee which is quite competitive compared to PayPal. Besides transfering money between users, Payza is a great payment service for online merchants with a lot of security features and can also help you manage multiple businesses with one account.

5. Payoneer

Payoneer is an interesting way to pay for online shopping. Registering for the service grants you access to a prepaid MasterCard which will be sent to your doorstep. Creating an account is free and you’re only charged when you activate the card. Once the card is activated, you can load money into the card from your local bank or other credit cards.

An activated Payoneer card can be used in many countries and in different currencies. Of course, maintaining the use of this activated card requires an annual fee. With the card, you can purchase items and even withdraw money from a MasterCard ATM.

Editor’s note: This article is contributed by Lenin VJ Nair. Lenin used to work with the DSL Internet department of AT&T for two years, and now runs an online technology magazine called Blue Bugle targeted at latest smartphones, tablets, desktops, and web technologies. You can find him on Twitter and Facebook.

We know hackers are all around us, and that’s why we are extra paranoid about our online accounts and passwords. In fact, in the current web environment, hacking is not a direct job targeting your Gmail or your Facebook account. It is a controlled chain reaction involving all your linked accounts. From one service the hacker gets important security information about another; then he ‘hacks’ that account, and so on.

We however think that big companies and tech geeks are immune to hacking, don’t we? But is it really the case?

No One Is Safe

Wired writer, Mat Honan’s account was hacked last year, and the hackers (identified as Clan Vv3 and Phobia) took control over his Gmail account and terminated it.

From there, they took over his Twitter and Amazon accounts and then his Apple account, and eventually deleted everything from his Apple iCloud service. The painful truth is that Mat Honan had helped pave the way to this elaborate scam. As an example, since tech blog Gizmodo’s Twitter account was linked to Mat Honan’s, the hackers got access and took liberties with the Twitter account too.

(Image source: Dailydot.com)

In another story, Labnol’s Amit Agarwal was also subjected to a Facebook account hack, which was not successful as the author immediately took action and locked the account.

No one is immune to hacking. It can happen to anybody, and when it does, there is no point regretting it. You really have to know what sort of security you have on all your web services, and how you can better manage them.

How You Are Helping Hackers

Here, we will see some obvious things you can do to make yourself immune to hacking.

1. Facebook Profiles

As the largest social network, Facebook profile is the first thing you need to secure. Go, check it out from the outside. Log out of your Facebook then look your account up, from an outsider’s point of view.

If your Facebook profile shows too much information, you will likely victimize yourself. Check out this particular user’s public Facebook profile, specifically doctored for this article (that means it’s not real. I have only masked the email address, as we need an actual email address to do this. ).

This particular profile lists apparently innocuous information, like the IM screen names on Google Talk, AOL (AIM), Yahoo, etc. What you probably forgot, but a hacker knows and takes very seriously, is that a screen name is actually your email address. For instance, highlyinsecure@gmail.com is an email address owned by this particular user. It is wide in the open for everybody to see.

It is good to share your email address with the people you know. Otherwise, it is better not to share it at all.

2. Account Recovery Hack on Facebook

Let’s do an experiment. Pretend you forgot your password, then go into Facebook. Facebook may ask you for your email address, your user name or your mobile number. You can provide that information, and it will send you an email with instructions to reset your password.

Previously, there was a method employed by Facebook to reset the password, and that method had your trusted friends involved for the purpose. It sounds foolproof unless you accept a lot of friend requests on Facebook. Picture this: You get a friend request from a few people that you don’t know. If you are the friendly type, you’d probably accept those four requests.

One thing you don’t know is that those accounts may be operated by one or more hackers. What they will do is simply raise a password reset request on your account, and select three of those four accounts as your "trusted friends". Facebook emails security codes to those trusted accounts, and boom, the hacker takes over your Facebook account. If you have problems with that, then you should take a look at this post of mine to figure out what to do.

Fortunately, Facebook no longer uses this particular method. It also doesn’t rely on security questions any more. Right now, in order to gather access to a Facebook account, the only way is by securing access to the original email address.

Hence, a hacker needs access to your email account to get into your Facebook account.

Recommended Reading: 9 Ways To Keep Hackers Off Your Facebook Account

2. Email Security

Which email service are you using? Depending on that, the security differs. If it is Gmail, I would extremely recommend that you start using the two-factor authentication.

Here are the steps:

1. Go to your Google Account settings (not Gmail settings) and go to the Security option.

2. You will see 2-Step verification option. Turn the status ON.

3. Add your phone number. Select to receive the codes by text messages or voice call.

4. Enter the code received to verify your account. Make sure you update the records if you change your phone number.

Another important thing on Gmail is notifications about suspicious login attempts. You can opt for email as well as phone notifications if any suspicious login is detected on your Gmail account.

The Truth About Security Questions

Google has a security question that you need to set. Make sure it is set properly. While I was working with email security for AT&T, I have encountered elderly customers answering security questions very truthfully. Even though I took time in explaining to them what a security question is and why they needn’t submit the true answer all the time, most of them did not quite understand it.

Most people don’t realize the fact that a security question answer works exactly like a password, only less secure depending on how you through your information about. Talking about your pet Rover on Facebook a lot then setting it it as your Security question maybe risking it a little. Anybody can access your account, whether or not they know the password, just by making educated guess about your preferences, which would work if you are truthful with your security questions.

For more Gmail security tips, check out the 10 Ways To Tighten Up Your Gmail Security.

3. Website Owners, Beware!

If you get into the Whois database of my website, you will get to see an email address that I own. It is right there, publicly available in the open. It is an email address I still use. However, it is completely detached from my website or any other important service that I use. And there is a good reason why.

In effect, even if you know it, you will not be able to access my website, my Facebook page, or my Twitter account because none of them uses that particular email address.

You, as a website owner, should secure the information you share with the world. You can easily do this if you spend a little more money with your hosting provider to mask the website’s registration information. All hosting providers make it available to their customers at a small fee, but I didn’t do it simply because I cannot afford it.

Whois database gives a hacker not only an email address, but also a physical address, details of the hosting provider, name of the organization, a phone number, etc. An expert hacker looking through this database can easily get valuable info about your hosting account. If you have low security on the email address and website, you will easily subject yourself to attacks.

4. Customer Service

If you are using the customer service option to reset your password for your email, the customer service executive may ask you your security question. Within AT&T, we used to use security questions to verify customers, questions like "Who is your favorite hero?", and answers like "Batman".

Not only that, we were authorized to provide the first letter of the answer if the customer gets it wrong the first time. A hacker can easily fake it since the random operator cannot identify the voice of the caller, and is supposed to divulge a password if the caller gives the correct answer.

In other companies also, the customer service executives can easily give a hacker your password or other important information from your account (such as your birth date) based on a trivial verification process. The information obtained from this call, may be used to verify an account in another service, and the chain goes on. It is very important to know what services you are using and how you can successfully verify yourself with the customer care department of those services.

Conclusion

Today, we are using not a few but a huge number of online services to get things done. Social media and email may be somewhat unimportant to some of you but what about online banking? It goes without saying how important it is to secure your banking account. I know there are elderly people who have no idea what Phishing is or how to create a good password.

A painful truth is that the security experts working in the companies you trust with your information actually expect you to know a little more about security. A security expert barely stresses the importance of these things. They cannot explain how to make a good password to each and every customer while trying to come up with better and more powerful ways to keep your online accounts safe. It is hence the responsibility of each and every one of us to know more about security in today’s world and act intelligently.

If you ever thought of switching from Android to iPhone or to use the iPhone or iPad Mini as a secondary device, then you certainly would want to sync your mail, contacts and calendar information on both devices. With the Google account used on your Android device to backup these information, a final backup will ensure that everything you need will be properly synced to your iOS device.

To get all your important mail and schedules paired up in your Android and iOS devices, there just 2 things you need to do: sync your Mail and Calendar, and sync your Contacts. All you have to do is sign in to your Google account, twice.

Recommended Reading: How To Transfer And Sync Your IPhone Contacts With Android

How To Sync Mail and Calendar

First, go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Add Account.

Select Gmail and key in your name, email address, password and description and tap on Next and then Save. Now when you go to the Mail or Calendar app on your iPhone, you should have all the necessary information synced.

How To Sync Contacts

To sync contacts, you’ll have to go to go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Add Account > Other.

Tap on Add CardDAV Account and on the next screen, under Server, type in ‘google.com’, fill in your full email address for User Name, then enter your password and tap on Save.

Now all your Google contacts from your account will be available on the Contacts app of the iPhone.

Even though smartphones are capable of taking lomography photos with the help of third-party apps, there are still people who prefer to use the actual lomography camera. Since lomography camera still uses analog film to capture and store the images taken, some enthusiasts will develop their own photographs, while others take it to the one-hour photo lab.

Recently, with the success of their Kickstarter project, Lomography has released a scanner which allows you to scan your film and store it in your smartphone.

Dubbed the Lomography Smartphone Film Scanner, it works with any 35 mm film. With the camera app on, just place your smartphone on the scanner. When you turn on the scanner, a light source shines through from under the film. The light will help you to view the negative images.

There’s also a roller to help you roll between frames easily, so you can go through a full roll of film easily and quickly. Once you get the negatives you can colorize it with a software like Photoshop or you can develop it into photographs with an app.

There is a suggested app which can help turn your scanned negatives into positives: the Lomoscanner App (for Android & iOS). The Lomoscanner app also allows one to stitch negatives together to create a panaroma picture or share the scanned photos with your friends with a click of a button. However, it is still currently under development.

To look at the type of output you can get from this, here are some examples of negatives which were scanned using Smartphone Film Scanner. For even more examples, check here.

The Lomography Smartphone Film Scanner is available at the Lomography webshop for $69. It uses 2 AA batteries to power and weighs 244 g. It’s light weight and easy to manage, making it a fun tool to play with among lomography lovers.

For the rest of us, if you find any old 35 mm film lying around, you can use this to recapture all your childhood memories and turn them digital.