October 18th, 2008
Identity theft can be extremely damaging and upsetting for victims. Imagine finding yourself with thousands of dollars worth of debt you knew nothing about. Imagine being the subject of a criminal investigation for a crime you didn’t commit. Identity theft opens the door for someone to use your name while committing crimes and opening accounts among other things. Identity theft protection is a must in today’s society.
There are two types of identity theft:
- Financial Fraud, including credit card fraud, bank account fraud, tax fraud and computer fraud.
- Criminal behavior that can range from cyber crimes to drugs related crimes and much more. To hide their own identity, criminals often use this type of identity theft.
These crimes can be devastating for the victims in a number of ways and can result in criminal convictions and debt. Identity theft protection is extremely important and if you take specific action you will reduce the chances of it happening to you. The opportunity for identity theft can sometimes be as simple as a forgotten credit card receipt or credit card offers in the mail. Actively protect yourself from identity theft by following these basic steps.
- Never give out your personal information over the phone; it is common for scam artists to pose as your financial institute and request information over the phone.
- When dealing with companies that require personal information such as social security or tax file numbers, check that they will protect your privacy.
- Review your monthly credit card statements and bank activities to make sure you can account for all transactions. If you find anything you can’t account for in you statements report it immediately.
- Dispose of any sensitive material carefully, this may mean destroying documents with personal information on them. You don’t want your rubbish to reveal personal information that could be used in identity theft.
- Don’t carry unnecessary information on you in your purse or wallet. Make photocopies of your passport, credit cards and bankcards to make it easier for you if you lose them and need to cancel them.
- Be careful with deposit slips as they contain all the information someone would require for accessing your bank accounts.
- Use strong passwords on your accounts.
- Be conscientious about credit card receipts.
If you think you have become a victim of identity theft, contact police and fraud offices immediately. Close accounts and get your credit cards reissued with new account numbers and passwords. Let your bank know why you are doing this and follow up the phone call by stating your reasons in writing. Protect yourself and don’t become a victim. By being active in the prevention of identity theft, you will make yourself a less attractive option for identity theft.
Salim Jordan is Editor and Publisher of MoreThanLinks :: Technology. He regulary writes on internet security and identity theft. Visit http://technology.morethanlinks.com
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October 17th, 2008
The use of RSS, or Rich Site Syndication, has increased over the past few years to the point where it can’t have escaped your notice. As an online business owner, you may still be unaware of the advantages of content syndication to your business.
Using RSS, you can produce a live feed of your latest products that can be syndicated by other website owners. This effectively places an advertisement for your business on any number of websites.
But how do you convince website owners to display your RSS feed on their website?
There are two main methods of distributing your feed to website owners.
The most effective is to provide interesting, amusing, unique or themed products. Many website owners like to display the latest gadget or novelty that relates to their site’s theme and will likely syndicate your feed if you provide products that interest them and their visitors.
An example of successful use of this type of RSS feed can be seen at firebox.com. The developers have listed their latest products on the right-hand side of the page, with a link to the RSS feed of the same information below.
If your business provides a service rather than a specific product, you should concentrate on producing an RSS feed of industry news or other interesting information. This is the second effective method of distribution.
You can attach an advertisement for your business to the news feed, which will be displayed alongside the information content.
With content syndication, both your business and website owners benefit. The website owner receives fresh content to display on their website and you, the online business owner, receives exposure.
You can create your own RSS feed easily using a service such as FeedForAll.
Daniel Ruscoe is a professional web developer and founder of Eruero News Syndication.
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October 15th, 2008
“RSS” stands for “Really Simple Syndication”. It is a new way to distribute content. Any content: websites, blogs, forums, etc.
To explain what this means, for once let’s start at the end.
Content from RSS feeds can be displayed by an RSS newsreader.
You and I, as end-users or consumers of that content, can read it by installing a newsreader (more on this below). You have to put an URL for an RSS feed into that newsreader (like you put a web address in your browser).
You can recognize these RSS feed URL’s by a little orange graphic displaying RSS or XML. If you click on such graphic with your right-mouse button you can copy its URL (copy ShortCut) and paste that into your newsreader. (Some sites might simply have a text “RSS” or “Syndicate” link which is basically the same.)
With that URL, the newsreader (when you are online) picks up the RSS feed that is available at that URL, reads the feed data and displays it in the reader.
The RSS feed itself contains information about the titles, descriptions and other data about the publisher’s content. It is written in a special language (XML/RSS, easy to learn!), but that’s out of the scope of this article.
And finally the RSS feed is made up by the publisher of the content. Most of the time their software does the job. And very often this software is used in combination with blogs. That’s why lots of people mix them up. Now, to end that confusion, get this:
- a blog is content like a website or article while
- RSS is a way to distribute content
The main RSS benefits for end-users or consumers
The main benefit as an end-user or consumer of RSS is that we can subscribe to content provided by publishers WITHOUT giving out personal data like email address.
That’s why Ken Evoy of SiteSell calls it ‘Real Simple Subscribing’. Of course the same applies to unsubscribing. Simply delete the RSS URL from your reader and you don’t receive messages from it any more.
Finally the end-user is in control. The content is coming to her without visiting a website. That makes it easy to scan and only visit those sites with promising information.
As a consequence of that the publisher better submit quality content in his RSS. Otherwise nobody will read it. So that’s another big benefit!
An extra benefit for us is that we often are allowed to post comments or feedback.
Because the search engines just love RSS and blogs, they will visit them frequently to index any new content. In most cases you may add your URL in the comment post and that means a link back to your site!
So, if you find a good blog, just enter a message in the feedback section and see what happens.
And there’s the benefit of speed. In this fast moving world we want everything NOW. Well, as soon as a publisher changes content we can receive it (if you have your reader online).
Are there any disadvantages?
Could be. When you start to use your reader it may be a bit ‘overwhelming’ like the first time you searched the Net, remember? ‘Click here, click there, click this, click that ….. oops, what was it again I was looking for?
If you subscribe to every promising feed you’ll encounter, you may very soon suffer from the good old ‘information overload’. Such problem is easily solved by deleting the feeds and start all over again, this time more targeted. Below I have an outstanding resource to search for relevant feeds, so read on!
Another disadvantage may be the impersonal character of feeds. There’s no interaction unless you visit the publisher’s site.
And there’s no way RSS will be used for payment receipts for purchases and answers to questions asked. It simply isn’t a one-to-one communication system. It’s only consuming information.
So, will RSS replace email or newsletters (ezines)?
Absolutely NOT!
While RSS is an outstanding way to distribute content, it will always be very public. It’s not a one-to-one communication medium. You can not build a relationship with your readers, you can’t personalize it and you can’t reward your subscribers for trusting you, simply because you don’t know who they are.
See RSS as another way to collect information. That’s all it is.
And maybe a way to ban spam because the readers are in control of the subscribe and unsubscribe process. We sign up for feeds and drop feeds anonymously. Remember, if publishers send out poor information, no-one will read it.
Wow, another big benefit!.
But for the real information, the communication with my readers, I still use my newsletter. I want to use that to provide the real insiders information. (I intend to even go one step further, but that’s for another issue. Keep subscribed and you will learn more in the next few weeks!)
That’s what any serious marketer will do. So, if you only subscribe to newsletters from trusted companies and individuals and sign up for RSS feeds for more general information, chances are your email box will remain free of spam and loaded with useful, more personal publisher information.
Download your reader
RSS readers are also called “RSS aggregators” or “news aggregators”. Here are a few popular ones:
http://feedreader.com
http://pluck.com/
http://www.rssreader.com/
http://ranchero.com/netnewswire/ (for Mac users)
http://my.yahoo.com/ (a client-side reader, that is, you can read the feeds at your MyYahoo site; you’ll need to register)
There are many more, these are just examples to get you started.
I strongly suggest to go out there and find some interesting feeds. So …..
How to find interesting RSS feeds?
There are many directories of RSS feeds already that you can browse and find something of interest. I will list a few of them below, but if you’re looking for specific information then you better use an extraordinary and outstanding search tool.
A tool that you can always use, because it covers almost everything about searching and search terms.
But in this case we concentrate on RSS feeds only. It’s a little window that you can keep alive in your screen. Here’s how it works:
* Click this Search Link to open a little window (don’t forget to bookmark it!)
* Next click on Search It in that little window! A new little window pops up.
* In that new window select ‘Reference Library for Content’ in Step 1. Next select anything with RSS in it in Step 2.
* If you’ve done that I suggest you click on ‘Click Here for Information About Search Type’ in the center of the window to get more help.
* Finally enter your keywords in Step 3 and hit Search It!
Easy uh? I told you this is an outstanding tool!
Other resources:
http://www.feedster.com/
http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Internet/On_the_Web/Weblogs/
http://w.moreover.com/main_site/content/index.html
http://www.syndic8.com/
Now go out and find some interesting feeds.
That’s it for today.
Wish you success.
Case Stevens
Case Stevens, owner of AnOwnSite Online Marketing, is experimenting with different marketing techniques, websites, traffic and lead generation. He publishes his experiences in a newsletter featuring understandable, successful low cost Internet marketing techniques, ideas and strategies, articles, news, tips & tricks and interesting (free) downloads.
Subscribe at Affordable Online Strategies
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October 13th, 2008
In the last few weeks, adding feeds to My Yahoo has been next to impossible. Here’s a solution that worked for me with a feedburner feed.
Why Won’t It Add My Feed
If you have a blog, adding it to My Yahoo via a feed is a fairly standard option. To do this, you simply accessed your My Yahoo page, clicked “add content”, click “add RSS by url” and then entered your feed. At least it used to be that way.
For the last few weeks, the add content provision for My Yahoo has developed a glitch. Following the above steps simply no longer works. Instead, My Yahoo will show you a preview of your feed, but refuses to actually add it to the My Yahoo page. Why is it My Yahoo will show you a preview, but not add the feed? This realization is followed by an combination of the following: banging head on the desk…rebooting computer…throwing computer…
Feedburner Solution for My Yahoo
Last night, I was able to add http://feeds.feedburner.com/BtrTaxRelief to My Yahoo through feedburner.com. Here’s how I did it.
First, log into and pull up a My Yahoo page. Next, pull up feedburner.com in a second window. Log in to your account. In the resulting page, you should see a clickable title for your feed. To the immediate left of the title is an “xml” link in light grey. Click it to open a new window.
In the resulting window, you will see a light blue box followed by your feed. In the blue box near the bottom, you should see a “My Yahoo” button. Click it.
At this point, your My Yahoo add content page should appear with a preview of how the page will look in My Yahoo. This will be the same preview you were shown when trying to add the feed the traditional way. Go ahead and click the “add content” button on the top right of the page. You should see a page showing the preview and a message that it has been added.
Once you’ve done this, it takes up to 10 minutes for the feeds to appear on My Yahoo. I can’t promise this will work for everyone, but I was able to add three feeds last night.
Good Luck!
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October 13th, 2008
The Vandals are coming! And this time they’re after your wallets.
It’s a new form of insidious spam and like its inbred email cousin, it’s staggeringly stupid.
People are vandalizing “Wikis” in an attempt to get free advertising for their business.
First, what’s a wiki?
If you’re not familiar with this little web phenomenon, you should immediately dig in and learn. “Wiki” (pronounced “wee kee”) is Hawaiian for “quick.” And quick it is. The word is used on the web for a page that *anyone* can edit.
When I first heard of this concept I immediately thought “there is no way it will work - it will be utter chaos” but the mass proliferation of wikis and their clear success have proven me wrong.
The medium lends itself to some amazing ideas. For example, the “wikipedia” project is an online encyclopedia that anyone can edit. It’s surprisingly accurate and useful.
Alas, as with all great things on the Internet, there are forces out there ready and willing to muck it up for everyone.
A “wiki vandal” is someone who goes to a wiki and posts erroneous information. Sometimes this is for fun (like posting your boss’s phone number and sexual habits under a wiki entry about “bondage” - hehe), sometimes it’s for damage (like totally erasing an entry just because you are bitter about life), and sometimes it’s for advertising (like editing an entry with links to your bazillion dollar business “op*ortunity”).
Luckily, there are people out there watching the wikis who will change erroneous information quickly. However, sometimes the vandalism is hard to catch and it sticks.
Now, if the wiki vandals were smart, they’d create a relevant encyclopedia entry about themselves and link to it from other wiki entries.
Do it relevantly and intelligently enough and it may just stick and bring you some appropriate attention.
But, of course, we’re talking about spammers here, and there is already an encyclopedia entry for “Down’s Syndrome.”
Copyright 2004 Val Halla
About The Author
Val Halla researches Internet Marketing Oddities. You can be alerted when she discovers something odd enough and important enough to merit your attention when you visit her site: http://www.webgodessvalhalla.com. She may be reached at: webgoddessvalhalla@yahoo.com
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October 11th, 2008
There are abounding ways of forecasting the future like dream analysis and presently fantastic psychic Anne Jirsch has discovered future life progression. This method is relatively unknown. The stunning technique is achievable to everybody who can be hypnotised. You might expect to go into a deep trance state and this might well happen through hypnosis and you may be directed to go forward into your current life like ten tens years. Make sure you try Anne Jirsch for FLP session at http://www.annejirsch.com/future-life-progression.php.
Future life progression is the opposite of past life regression, you might well go directly to a therapist or you may get an FLP mp3 from the net and do it yourself. Future life sessions allow you to see the future with your own eyes and help you create an incredible destiny. You can often use this mind-blowing technique to see your girlfriend or uncover current life trends in the market.
Anne Jirsch began her brilliant career as a tarot card reader in the UK and has a career spanning over 17 years. The stunning details that Anne acquires for her customers has made Anne Jirsch one of the most publicised tarot readers in England. Tarot reader Anne has gave FLP sessions to famous people for innumerable years and has a big client base in the UK and Dubai.
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October 11th, 2008
Let me start this article by stating I am vehemently opposed to spam and that it is the worst possible way to get your message out. Various groups have been trying to stop spam since it was first used on the internet. However, how can we stop or outlaw something which has never been clearly defined.
I have been unable to find a universally accepted, fits-all definition of spam. There are many ideas about spam and just what it really is. In my opinion it is receiving unsolicited email (email which you have not opted to receive). Even this definition must be applied judiciously and with a certain amount of common sense.
For example, a dear friend could forward an email which you find offensive. Should you be in a bad mood, you could report your friend for spam (and also the originator of the email your friend forwarded, even though it was not the originator’s intent for you to receive this unsolicited email). In this situation the originator (who is innocent of wrongdoing) and your friend will most likely lose their ISP and web host provider simply because you are having a bad day. Is this fair?
More and more ezine publishers and article writers are being accused of spam and forced to fight their ISPs and web host providers. Many of these spam complaints are totally unfounded. In some cases it is because a person forgot they subscribed to the ezine and when they receive it they say they have been spammed. In other cases the person has written an article which was published in an ezine accused of spamming. Here all the advertisers and the article writers are accused of spam and lose their ISPs and web host providers.
These advertisers and article writers did not commit the offense of spamming. They were accused by association. Most articles written for the internet are free for publication, which means anyone can use them as long as the articles and resource boxes remain intact. Unless the writer is being paid for the article, there is no way of knowing when, how or by whom the article will be published.
The truly unfair method currently used to fight spam considers everyone accused of spam to be automatically guilty. The great majority of ISPs and web host providers shut you down without a second thought when you are accused of spam.
You are not given a chance to prove your innocence. Guilty or not, you are shut down. For most of those trying to make a profit on the internet, this is a sword hanging over their heads. Every time they write an article for publication or send out an ezine they are taking the chance of being unfairly accused of spamming.
No ezine publisher or writer in their right mind would ever consider the use of spam. Their livelihood depends on their ezines and articles, so why would they use something which would destroy that source of income?
Those who use spam as the method of getting their advertisements out should be stopped. But not by taking all the innocent people down with them.
True spam is usually fairly easy to spot. There is a bogus return address consisting of nonsensical numbers and letters, either no way is provided to remove yourself from the list or a bogus address is provided as a means of removing yourself from the list, there is a footer in the message which contains a supposed act of the United States Congress defining spam, or other such obvious items.
99.9% of the ezines I have read have a clear and easy way to unsubscribe. Should you use the link and find you have not been unsubscribed, it is possible you subscribed using another email address which is being forwarded to your current address. The ezine publisher cannot unsubscribe you without the original address from which you subscribed.
If you are really upset by spam, why not concentrate on those who are truly guilty of spamming, and not the innocents. Use your efforts to punish the guilty instead of indiscriminately crying spam every time a piece of email hits your inbox.
As an ezine publisher I get a great deal of spam in my inboxes. Rather than waste my precious time trying to track spammers down or reporting them to Spam Cop, I use my delete button. It is efficient and deadly. The spam is gone as soon as I hit delete.
One of the truly great characteristics of the internet is its use for the free exchange of information. This freedom is being seriously challenged by those who believe in the indiscriminate use of Spam Cop or other such anti-spam organizations.
I can’t speak for you, but I get a great deal of information, education and entertainment from the many ezines to which I subscribe. It would be a severe loss if they all quit publishing because of the fear of false spam accusals shutting them down.
In conclusion, spam should be stopped. However, it must be stopped with common sense and discrimination, not with a vigilante mentality. Being accused of spamming is one of the rare instances in current human history where you are considered guilty until proven innocent.
Whatever happened to the concept of innocent until proven guilty?
Should anyone out there in cyberspace have a universally acceptable definition of spam and a means of fairly and judiciously enforcing it, I am extremely interested in your viewpoints.
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October 10th, 2008
Get Even! In a 24 hour period starting at 10: A.M. this past Tuesday, and ending at the same time on Wednesday, I received 1,734 pieces of spam email. Now these were all unique addresses, and some had 4 or 5 copies.
I have had it with this nonsense. Looking at the email addresses, it was obvious that mine were being harvested from the web.
There is software, similar to the protocol used by the search engines, that allows someone to enter keywords, and it will search the web for any web site that matches the keywords entered. It will then capture any email addresses it finds. An example of such software is “Atomic Harvester”.
I downloaded this software, which is fully functional in its search capabilities, and is free if that is all you want. You cannot however, save the addresses it finds unless you pay for it. Not wishing to harvest any addresses from the web, I chose the free version, as step one of my devious plan, so I could see what the spamsters would find when they harvest my site.
Step two was a bit more work. Instead of simply deleting the spam, I created a filter with my email reader that automatically sends all spam identified to my trash bin. I use Eudora, which makes this a rather easy task, but was still time consuming. While this won’t provide a “spam free” inbox, it will cut down on the junk one has to wade through. The rest I simply delete, which also goes to the trash bin.
Now, I have all this spam in once place - my trash bin. But wait, I said get even. A good friend of mine is proficient in the “Perl” programming language. He wrote a program that goes into my trash bin, and extracts all of the “From” email addresses it finds. Now I have a file of all the return addresses of anyone who sends me spam.
The majority of the professional spammers use a forged address, which if you respond to it, is returned as undeliverable. Some of the nave newbies use a legitimate address.
I then put all of the addresses in a file on a web page with an invisible link to it - let’s call it the “Trash Page”. If you visit my site, you will never see it. But, a spammer using harvesting software will hit that page. They will harvest each and every address that I loaded onto that page.
Thinking they hit a bonanza, all those unduplicated addresses will be captured by them. Now, two things will happen. First, all the forged addresses on the list that they send to, will be returned to them as undeliverable, causing them extra work to clean their lists.
Second, all the spam received from a legitimate address, will be on the lists of all the spamsters, and they will get their “just deserts”.
Eventually, the pros will figure out what I have done, and will block the web page that houses them. But that is not my goal. I started putting those invisible links to that “Trash Page”, on a number of my web pages. Now, they can’t just block a particular page, but will have to block my entire domain. Great - now I won’t have all the addresses on my site being harvested by these miscreants.
If this idea snowballs, and I hope it does, a major percentage of all the email addresses being sold by “email list providers” will be worthless. You might think about this if you are ever tempted to purchase their “thousands of email addresses” for $49.95.
The spam problem is not going to go away in the foreseeable future. If webmasters took the steps I have taken, it just might go away sooner. Anyone who sends me an unsolicited email, advertising their “latest and greatest, will wind up on this list.
If you want to participate in this project, send an email to mailto:scambusters@adv-marketing.com - please include the URL for your web site. (I want to make sure you are legitimate, and not a spamster on a “fishing expedition”)
Note - to participate, you must be able to upload web pages to your site.
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October 8th, 2008
Here’s a fun little way to scare your poker opponents and build up your chip stack: continuation betting. It’s a solid psychological bluff when used properly and it’s a good way to irk your fellow players into playing foolishly against you.
The key is one of my favorite poker moves-the pre-flop raise. If you’re the first to raise before the flop, the other players at the table will have to assume that you’ve got a pretty strong hand. More often than not, you will chase out most of the other players, and those that are in the hand are showing that their cards are good enough to play as well.
Now here’s the key-after the flop, take a look at the community cards. Don’t worry if you missed the flop-if there aren’t any straight or flush draws out there for someone to gamble on and the bet has been checked to you, raise half the pot. It’s a big enough bet to continue the illusion that you’ve got a strong hand, and it’s small enough to not cripple you should someone actually have the cards to beat you and call or re-raise.
Chances are you’ll take down a decent size pot, and you’ll have the others wondering what you’re up to, and it’s always good to keep them guessing in the game of poker
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October 8th, 2008
One of the hottest discussion topics going around the web these days is Spam. Spam is different things to different people, but basically it is sending email advertisements to anyone who did not request them or give permission to send them.
I do not consider an email from an acquaintance telling me something they think might interest me- spam. I do not consider people telling me about their business and asking for advice-spam. I do not consider advertisements from companies I have asked about-spam. I do not consider an invitation from a publisher to join their opt-in list-spam. However, these invitations should not be sent out in mass mailings.
There are, however, many things that I do consider to be spam. Unfortunately, when I first started on the Internet, I was guilty of spam once or twice. It does not necessarily make me a bad person, just an uninformed one. Now that I know what is considered to be spam and what is not, I would never in any way, shape or form become a Spam Artist!
These are some things to avoid doing:
* Sending your ad to any email you come across - SPAM! Do NOT send your ad to anyone unless they have asked for information, or if they have joined your opt-in list.
* Joining every discussion and announcement list you can find and sending your ad every few hours - SPAM! When you join these email lists, they will send you an email with their guidelines for posting. Please read and follow these guidelines carefully.
* Subscribing to an ezine and then replying to the ezine with your ad - SPAM! This is one way to get yourself removed from a lot of good lists. If you receive an ezine, do not reply with one of your ads.
* Buying email address lists and blasting your ad-SPAM! Most of the people on these lists probably do not even know they are on them. Therefore, you do not have their permission to send your ads.
* Adding people to your opt-in list without their permission - SPAM! Inviting people to join your list is one thing, but adding them without permission is a definite NO-NO.
* Visit every board you can, leave an ad and never come back - SPAM! Message boards have specific rules for posting and are usually for people to discuss and learn from each other, not for posting ads.
If you are unsure as to whether something is spam or not, visit some boards and ask other more experienced netpreneurs. It is better to be sure than to be accused of spam. Join some discussion lists also, to learn more about spam and what you should or should not do.
Message Boards:
http://www.free-publicity.com/cgi-bin alk.cgi http://www.bizweb2000.com/wwwboard/ http://start-smartz.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi#post
Discussion Groups:
mailto:pubsonly-subscribe@topica.com mailto:Newbies911-subscribe@topica.com mailto:epub-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Visit these sites for more information on what spam is, what to do about it and how to avoid it:
http://w3.one.net/~banks/spam.htm http://www.arachnoid.com/lutusp/antispam.html http://www.spamfree.org/ http://stopspam.sparklist.com/
Be cautious of the way you conduct your business. Some people are tolerant of spam (if you are not a repeat or offensive spammer) and will just hit the delete button, but some will report anything they think is spam.
Do some research on spam and how not to become a Spam Artist!
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