A Powhatan County resident traveled to Ireland a few weeks ago and left her purse mistakenly under the table at a restaurant in Dublin on the first full day of a family vacation. Within minutes after leaving, she realized it was missing. But it was too late. When she returned, a restaurant employee handed back her pocketbook, which a customer supposedly had turned in, minus her passport, $150 cash, a bank debit card and her digital camera.

Sean Cantrell, owner of Marshall Mechanical LLC. on West Leigh Street in Richmond, heard a presentation about using Twitter, the online social networking site, as a business tool. Cantrell went home after listening to David Saunders of Madison+Main, a new media and advertising firm, and discussed what he heard with his wife. He decided to try it out. He created a free Twitter account and got started. He posted “tweets”—a message that is up to 140 characters-long—on his Twitter page: SeanHVAC.

Changes in credit cards coming in Feb. Planning on getting a credit card before industry reforms kick in next February? Consider using the guidelines in Bankrate.com’s credit card study released Monday. In May, Bankrate studied the small print of 20 platinum and rewards cards issued by 10 credit card companies. The issuers are American Express Co., Bank of America Corp., Capital One Financial Corp., JP Morgan Chase & Co., Citibank N.A., Discover Bank, First National Bank of Omaha, USAA Federal Savings Bank, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo.

Two schools—the University of Phoenix and Bryant & Stratton College—handed out degrees to more than 400 students this month at the Richmond Convention Center. A third school—South University—will open in Henrico County on Oct. 5 behind the Whole Foods Market on West Broad Street. It is now enrolling students for its local campus and online classes.

For pleasant leisure flight you must plan Leisure air travel used to be fun and exciting. Now, with increased airport security and downright stingy airline amenities, it can be the pits, especially if you make the kind of dumb mistakes that I made while traveling this month. Here are five things that can trash a trip and some tips on how to avert a travel disaster:

Consumer Watch columnist Iris Taylor’s column will resume when she returns.

As a small-business owner, you may be missing key signals that your computer network has been compromised. Maybe there’s a sudden spike in traffic on the network. Or the system responds sluggishly. Perhaps some data are inexplicably missing or corrupted. Or suddenly the system is run ning out of hard disk space. Pop-ups may start to appear or Internet browser errors occur. Maybe there are no perceivable symptoms, yet plenty of mischief is going on.

If you’re not on top of your finances in this recession, now’s the time to get a grip. See how you stack up to the 1,000 consumers age 18 and older who responded to a survey released earlier this month by the National Foundation for Credit Counseling. Their responses were “both surprising and predictable,“ foundation spokeswoman Gail Cunningham said.

Do you know what your personal information is worth to an identity thief? Here, from the least to the most valuable, are what some pieces of your data are worth: Your name. A name without any other information doesn’t provide anything useful to an identity thief, said Paul Stephens, director of policy and advocacy for the Privacy Rights Clearing House in San Diego.

“Top Cash for Gold and Silver.“ “Sell Your Gold Here.“ “Cash for Gold Jewelry.“ Those advertisements are all over the place these days. So are you thinking about liquidating some of your jewelry? First know the risks, then fol low some tips. The risks: You may receive a lowball offer and not know it, or mail in your jewelry and it does not arrive. A jeweler might weigh your jewelry in a backroom where you can’t see it or use a scale that may not be properly calibrated.

Does your business have what it takes to attract an angel investor? An angel is an affluent individual who risks his or her money to invest in a startup company either individually or in a group to spread the risk. When a bank says no, particularly in this tight-fisted lending environment, an angel who sees genius in a venture may say yes and invest.

Va. program helps victims of ID theft What would you do if this happens to you? You’re traveling through the airport on the way out of town with your spouse, children and new business partners. You check in at the airline counter and show your boarding pass and personal identification. But when you try to pass through security, you are stopped, questioned and arrested in front of everyone.

Look out for the latest employment scam. And heed a caller’s advice to sign the back of your credit card. The employment scam involves an ad for the position of a food and beverage attendant on a corporate jet, a reader said. The position sounds nice, but really it’s a scam, warns the Better Business Bureau serving Florida’s West Coast in Clearwater. The BBB compiled a report about it.

Businesses need capital now. How else can they survive and thrive? But who knows when the credit markets will open up again. John Silvia, chief economist at Wachovia Corp., will predict on Thursday when he thinks the credit markets will begin flowing again. He will discuss the topic, “Credit Markets: The Measure of Our Discontent,“ at a lunch discussion hosted by the Richmond Association for Business Economics. The meeting will be held at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.

How to undo your miscues with the IRS Let’s talk about the queasy feeling that some of you have today because you’re in trouble with the Internal Revenue Service. The bottom line is nothing will make that feeling disappear until you take the proper action. Let’s go over some of the mistakes that get consumers into hot water with the IRS and what the consequences and options are.