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The federal minimum wage rises Friday by 70 cents to $7.25 an hour. The labor-friendly Economic Policy Institute estimates that about 167,000 workers in North Carolina will benefit from the minimum wage increase.

The federal minimum began increasing two years ago, when it was $5.15 per hour.

Supporters of the wage change say it will increase consumer spending by up to $5.5 billion as the economy tries to recover. But some economists say small businesses strapped for cash will be forced to lay off some of the same workers who might benefit.

I've connected my converter box to my old Casio portable TV, which has a video and audio input jack on the handheld TV. If your battery operated set has a video input, it's really easy to convert it to digital!

Some converter boxes can be adapted to a battery pack or car power adapter if it has an external power supply, or wall wart. Any box and TV can be operated for hours on a UPS, and I highly advise everyone to have a UPS on their digital TV or converter box (I used mine to make coffee during Hurricane Fran). They have many uses, but its imperative to have one to protect your new electronics.

Check your battery operated TV to see if it has a video and audio input, and if it does you can purchase a simple cable from your local electronics retailer to make the connections. Some portable TV sets may have an external antenna connection, but most will not to save space.

Electronics retailers are now stocking a few battery operated digital sets, but they are hard to find locally, and in a natural disaster, it would be almost impossible to find one. Now is the time to check it out to see if you can rig up your own battery operated digital TV. You don't want to wait till the lights go out to try it, because television delivers the best coverage and information during an emergency situation.

Jasper was turned into the North Carolina schnauzer rescue two weeks ago. Since his birth Jasper has been paralyzed from the waist down.

Organizers say donations are needed to help Jasper live a normal life as possible. Area vets are testing to determine if physical therapy will help, or fit Jasper with a doggie wheelchair.

Best ways for people to contact regarding donating or helping Jasper:

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"A few months back - I had someone come along and register an account ... used a very similar name to me ... and tried to pretend that they were me and tried to fool people into listening to what they had to say," Beal said. "They basically followed a whole bunch of people hoping that they would follow them back and their whole goal was to piggy back off of my reputation - my brand - to try and sell their eBook."

Beal is an expert at social media strategy. He's co-author of the book "Radically Transparent, Monitoring and Managing Reputation Online."

"We live in a radically transparent world where everything you do could potentially end up on the web," he said. "With about 48 hours, they were able to identify the imposter. They were able to remove it."

But Beal's imposter was a bit crafty.

"He came back and registered new accounts. Andy_beal or andy_beal1 and started the process all over again," he said. "It was like a game of Whack-a-Mole until, ultimately, Twitter found a way to stop him from permanently coming back."

Beal said social networks have policies in place that will protect you from imposters. Facebook, for instance, has a page in its Help Center section where you can identify the imposter's URL.

"You start wondering what else do they know about you. If someone's created a profile and stolen your name and identity, the initial reaction is - what else do they know about me? Do they know my banking details? Do they know my credit card information," he said. "Typically, they don't."

Beal said even people who don't use social networking sites should check in every once in a while to make sure they, too, don't have impersonators.

"Just make sure there's not somebody impersonating you because in absence of you having an official profile it makes it even easier for someone to come along and pretend to be your mom or pretend to be my brother or something like that because there's not already an established profile there," he said.

Beal said most imposters are usually in it to create spam. But users should be careful and cautious.

"For the most part - nobody is going to take money out of your bank account. Nobody is going to do much harm that said - you don't want to let it sit there," he said. "It could be a hacker who wants you to click on a link that downloads a virus to your computer - perhaps goes through your contacts in your e-mail and then e-mails them."

He also stressed how important it is to protect your real account.

"It is important to have a very secure password. It's very important not to have something that's easy to guess," he said. "Have something that's very complex with a mixture of letters and numbers."

He also said people make mistakes when they pick a hint question.

"Normally people pick ‘where were you born?' In this day and age it's pretty easy for me to figure out where you were born. I can go into Google, find out where you went to school ... find out from there, perhaps, where you were born. All of a sudden - I know the answer to your hint question - I can perhaps get access to your profile."

 Related Story: Using Social Networking To Your Advantage

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More than 25,000 books and 1,000 movies and recorded books are being processed for shelving and an Internet-based catalog. Creative thinking will be needed to handle this many books in the tight space available.

An immediate goal is to attach a label and bar code to 10,000 books by May 30.

Volunteers may come in Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Monday and Thursday evenings from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Prior library experience is highly valued. Groups may call to arrange different blocks of volunteer time. Call 919-661-6565 for more information.

The Federal Trade Commission said Wednesday that the company, formerly known as EchoStar, has made thousands of phone calls to people on the Do Not Call list. Dish Network is the biggest violator to date, the FTC said, based on the number of complaints to the agency.

North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper joined the lawsuit, along with a handful of other states' attorneys general.

According to the FTC, Dish refused to settle the case, so the government filed suit. It's the first time the agency hasn't been able to get an accused company to settle Do Not Call allegations. The complaint against Dish says it made calls, and helped authorized dealers to make "robocalls" that delivered pre-recorded messages when consumers answered their phones.

"If you call consumers whose numbers are on the Do Not Call Registry, you're breaking the law," said Eileen Harrington, acting director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection. "If your authorized dealers call consumers whose numbers are on the registry, you're breaking the law. Either way, we will protect the privacy of American consumers and we will hold you accountable."

Calls to Dish Network were not immediately returned.

Since the registry began in 2003, the FTC has brought more than 40 cases against companies for Do Not Call violations. The biggest case to date involved satellite television provider DirecTV Inc., which paid a $5.3 million settlement.

More than 167 million phone numbers have been placed on the Do Not Call registry, which prohibits telemarketers from calling phone numbers on the list. Companies face fines of up to $16,000 for each violation.

Organizations engaged in charitable, political or survey work are exempt. Companies that have an established business relationship with a customer also may call for up to 18 months after the last purchase, payment or delivery.

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