The Internet has changed the way that the world does its shopping. You can buy just about anything that you can think of with the click of a mouse these days: clothes, jewelry, electronics, flowers, food – even cars. Shopping online is quicker and easier than the conventional method of acquiring things and you can do it without leaving your house, heck you can do it without changing out of your pajamas if you want.

The ability to do much of your shopping from home stems from incredible advancements in technology but despite some vast improvements in internet security during recent years internet shopping still has some very real dangers for shoppers who aren’t careful.

Here are some things to look out for and some of the biggest mistakes the internet shoppers can make:

Not Purchasing over Secure Servers

This simple mistake can cause online shoppers major headaches because sending your information over a connection that isn’t secure can leave it open for anyone to see, this information will include your method of payment (credit card number complete with expiration date and security code or your bank account and routing number) along with your name and your address. If this information falls into the wrong hands you could find yourself in a world of financial trouble.

Some of the charges to your credit cards could probably be written off by the credit card companies once the charges are proven to be someone else’s and not yours leaving you with little in the way of direct financial damage, but removing the fraudulent charges could take a good deal of time which could wreak havoc with your credit rating and cause problems if you try to get a loan or apply for a new job before the situation gets rectified.

The best way to avoid a situation like this is to look for a secure method of checkout like Google checkout or PayPal so you are one hundred percent certain that your information is going through a trustworthy source.

You may be able to find a price that seems too good to be true on some random website that has no secure checkout method, but before you proceed ask yourself if it will be worth the months and months of aggravation trying to recover from identity theft to save a few dollars.

Not Shopping Around

The beauty of online shopping is that we are no longer limited by distance – you can literally buy whatever you want from where ever it happens to be – across the country or across the continent, you can compare prices and products from all over the world and buy from the source that has what you want for the price that you want to pay.

Some people make the mistake of purchasing the item they are looking for from the first online store they stumble upon that has it. This is a fine method for shopping if you have a ton of disposable income, but for people who are on a budget – there is truly no better way available to shop around for the best price than online shopping.

Find the item(s) that you want, and then search all of the reputable outlets you can think of for a price comparison. Online retailers are competing for your business just like traditional retailers do – the difference is that with traditional shopping you would have had to spend your entire day driving all over creation to find out who had the best price, with online shopping you can finds the best deals in a matter of minutes without even getting up from your chair.

Not Taking Everything into Account

If you’re new to online shopping, be wary that you may incur charges beyond just what the virtual “price tag” says. You may or may not have to pay shipping for the item you purchase; you may or may not have to pay extra handling charges and depending on where the online retailer is and where you live you may or may not be responsible for sales tax as well. You have to take all of these things into account before you make your purchase to ensure that you are getting the best deal possible.

Online shopping can change the way you do all of your shopping for the better, but you need to keep your eyes open to several things to be a successful online shopper – be safe, shop around and watch the fine print to make sure that your online shopping experiences are safe and positive ones.

Amazon has sent-out press releases for a big announcement on February 9th in New York City hosted by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. Since the event is being held in the Morgan Library, the big rumor is that the new Kindle 2 will debut. For Amazon this is big news since the Kindle was one of the big bright spots of the depressing 2008 holiday selling season.

One of the other interesting reasons that the Kindle is great for Amazon is that it appears to be incremental sales for the company. During a recent earnings call, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos claimed that for every physical book Kindle owners purchase from Amazon they also purchase 1.6 to 1.7 e-books for their Kindle. It seems that the Kindle really gets owners even more involved in reading.

So what’s in it for people like you and me that might buy a new Kindle 2? We’ve done a little research on the rumors and some sites like The New York Times and The Boy Genius Report have some interesting details.

1. According to The New York Times the big feature is the improved responsiveness of the display on the new Kindle. One of the key irritants owners of the Kindle 1 have is that when you click the “Next Page” button the Kindle screen goes dark for a second before the next page displays. The new display uses a new microchip and digital ink technology that – reportedly – does away with this issue.

2. In addition to improving responsiveness for reading, the new display also improves responsiveness for doing things OTHER than reading – for example browsing the Web and working with e-mail. The Kindle 1 Web browser was an “experimental” feature that handled text-based sites best. You could use G-Mail for example, but in the “mobile phone mode” which is primarily text vs. graphics based. The new screen technology seems to remove this barrier.

3. Keyboard is larger – based on “leaked” pictures posted on The Boy Genius Report, the new Kindle 2 keyboard is larger making it easier to work with the keys.

4. The scroll wheel is replaced with a track-ball. Again – checking out the “leaked” pictures of the Kindle 2 it appears the scroll wheel is replaced by a track-ball. We expect this means the way you might interact with the new Kindle 2 screen will be significantly different than the Kindle 1. Rather than using the screen in a “linear” fashion, the track ball will allow you to roam the screen and select text more easily for bookmarks, notes, etc. The new Kindle 2 track-ball might also make it easier to interact with web pages vs. the current scroll wheel.

Let’s think about what we’d like to see in the new Kindle 2 as well!

A. Better web browsing – this seems to be covered

B. Built-in Media Player – allow selecting and playing of mp3 files vs. random play

C. Built-in ability to read .pdf files – Adobe .pdf is a universal file format for a lot of e-books. You can now read .pdf files by e-mailing them to your Kindle e-mail address. Google will convert them for a small charge

And the big question – will those people who now have Kindle’s on back order get the new Kindle 2 when it is released?

We can only wait until February 9th to find-out!