A governor, a theft, email and the Ottoman Empire--good day for news

Wisconsin's governor wants to take supervising notaries away from the Secretary of State.

In Walnut Creek, CA, a thief breaking into a car really made out: a notary seal and journal were stolen.

In Texas, notaries can now elect to receive their commission by email.

Just to complete your collection, an Ebay auction is offering a notary stamp from the Ottoman Empire, allegedly dating from 1919. For a mere $129.99. There were no bids on an earlier auction at the same price. You'd think she might dip the starting bid a bit. Seems a tad pricey for a blue stamp with a black overprint.

More great news in 12 Tips to Make More Money as a Notary Public. 99 cents (probably tax deductible as business expense--ask your accountant). Available for
Kindle and Nook or for Instant PDF download:

More email security

If you email clients, you might worry that all your contacts will one day get an email saying you're stranded in London and please send money. Ooops, you've been hacked. James Fallows, writer for The Atlantic, describes the experience in an article published this week.

As he recommends, I finally got off my duff and signed up for Gmail's 2 step verification. It was painless and easy. I chose to use a land line phone because the cell phone set up looked more complicated.

Now when I sign into my email I put in the user name and password as always. Then I wait for Gmail to phone me with a code to type in. So if a hacker guesses my password, he also needs access to my phone to get into the account. Probably one day they'll figure out how to do that.

But for right now, I'm feeling pretty safe. (Now I just have to worry about Gmail burping.)

I was impressed at how Gmail thought this out. If my land line is down, I can elect to have the code ring to another phone. If I'm out and about (and not near the land line), I have 10 back up verification codes.

This starts from the main Google account page if you're interested.