November 9th, 2009
Outsourcing your mail server and spam removal to a hosted service reveals several advantages
With rising volume of spam e-mails that drain a substantial amount of companies financial resources and eat bandwidth, outsourced hosted server could give them freedom from this headache and increase their productivity.
You need the Internet for your daily activities both privately and professionally, but when a major part of it contains unwanted e-mails and malware, is suddenly is a factor that creates stress and frustration for the entire organisation from IT administrators to end users.
The world wide web continues to spread out and becomes available to more and more people - young and old - spam follows this spread out trend resulting in increasing time and finansial resouces spend on filtering junk mail from legitimate mails. It is very common to underestimate the cost of getting rid of spam - the reason is that is just takes a couple of seconds to remove one single spam e-mail. But when spam mails suddenly appear in hundres or thousands on a daily basis it becomes a serious problem - consuming time and users’ focus.
Junk mails are more than just irritating in their nature, they also put significant stress on the entire operation of a company because they occupy network and waste bandwidth. Every unsolicited message delivered uses bandwidth and in some cases spam account for nearly 50% of the entire network.
A slow and ineffective network hits all businesses - from the large companies the have their own dedicated team taking care of IT securiry to small businesses, that has a smaller budget for online protection. Furthermore, governments at all levels - local and regional - have tried to implement legislation aimed at spammers, unfortunately this has not helped fight spam sufficiently as spammers are able to continue their criminal activities using the latest and most advanced technologies.
Spammer have set up their underground base with access to widespread networks of mail servers combined with advanced and custom technology. A number of studies have shown that spam are draining financial resources and posting security threats to organizations by exposing their networks to malware, spyware and other malicious codes.
Such security threats stress the need to implement advanced malware detecting on hosted mail servers to decrease the cost of operating and protecting the internal network from collapse. Oursourcing all mail services can especialy help companies to remove the online threats caused by spam.
A strong argument for using outsourced hosted services for mail is the amount of time companies save becayse the no longer have to worry about handling hardware, software, integration and maintenance of the spam filter. Trained and experienced personnel keep and eye on their systems 24/7 and ensure removal of all spam before it is passed to the company’s internal network and the end users.
The responsibility removing all spam before it reaches the end users is now placed at the outsourced hosted mail server, and understanding the entire process is now much easier for less technical users.
Author:Martin Faklor
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November 2nd, 2009
Have you started or are you thinking in starting an online business?
I bet that you know that the bulk e-mail marketing technique it’s widely used on Internet, it’s free, it’s easy and it’s fast…
But on the long run it can cost you more than you will gain with it!
Many people identify bulk e-mail with spam. Spam used to be referred about posting or broadcasting ads to unrelated discussion groups, but now this term has grown meaning “any unsolicited e-mail” or “any email sent to people that didn’t ask for it”. And the Internet Service Providers are taking steps that can be very dangerous to your business if you decide to use bulk e-mail as your promotional tool.
If the people that receive your unsolicited e-mail, complaint to your ISP and or your virtual host service, you may end up loosing one or both of them. This means that your web site will be shut down, and you will lose your connection to the Internet.
Of course that you can get another ISP and virtual host server, but this will harm you in three ways:
* It will be a waist of time * It will cost you money * It will damage your reputation
So this free medium for online promotion, can be the source of too many problems, and the best that you can do, is to do not get involved with it.
But SPAM can give you problems…
EVEN WHEN YOU DON’T WANT TO SPAM!
And this brings us to our next topic…
FREE SPAM CHECKING
Let’s say that you’re about to mail out your e-zine…
You can’t have an idea of how many will actually REACH your subscribers and how many will get filtered, junked, trashed, or stomped by ISPs, HotMail, Yahoo! Mail, etc., along the way.
Why?
Simple answer… spam.
You know how important e-mail is to YOUR business, right? What if I told you 10%, 20%, maybe 50% or more of it is not getting through?
Spam has reached epidemic levels. So much so that ISPs have been forced to combat it with filtering software.
Alas, many legitimate marketers aare getting caught up and hurt, even though they are not the target.
Now, instead of JUST hoping for the best…
With our SpamCheck feature, you can know exactly what to do to reduce the “spamminess” of your e-zines and promotional e-mail!
As a result, you will know that your e-mail and newsletters are being delivered directly into INBOXES of your clients and affiliates…
…. and NOT into the Junk Mail Folder.
It’s no longer just enough to send the mail… You must be sure that you can reach the INBOX!
What should you do to protect your honest business from being recognized as spam when it is not?
Send your marketing letters and e-zine issues to my special autoresponder, and you will get a SpamCheck Report.
Even if you don’t have an ezine or newsletter you should check your email signature file!
Why?
Simple answer… the average marketing sig file can contain enough “spam triggers” to throw you into Yahoo! Mail’s Junk Mail folder.
STEPS TO SPAM CHECKING YOUR MARKETING TOOLS
Send an email to spamcheck-RB@sitesell.net with the word TEST (in caps, no quotes)preceding your subject in the Subject line.
I repeat, because it’s important… Start the subject line with… TEST …. or we assume it’s spam (since the spambots will add affiliate spamcheck addresses to their dirty databases), and follow up with your usual e-mail or ezine’s Subject
i.e. if your Subject is:
“The best home business”
you should write:
TEST “The best home business”
On the body of the email put your ezine’s issue content or your marketing email’s content
Send it to: spamcheck-RB@sitesell.net
And that’s it, that’s all there is to it!…
You will receive an Instant free spam-checking, and a free Report telling you the results. 
Written by Dr. Roberto A. Bonomi
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October 29th, 2009
Unsigned artists have much more chance of success than any other time through history. On one hand, composing and performing songs without the shadow of a struggling record label hanging overhead leaves musicians free to express themselves without constraints. Otherwise, it leaves unsigned bands the responsibility of market themselves.
While the Internet has become the most vital and effective marketing tool, taking music to the streets has become the bread an butter for many acts. On a smaller scale, Heath & Jed have made a living off of the CD sales and tips they’ve received playing the streets and subways of New York City. In their Gothamist tour diary (8/14/06), they revealed: “We’ve sold over 10,000 CD’s this year. One fan at a time…We came and we conquered and we made some money to live another day as musicians, doing what we love.”
Sony’s Connect music site did a feature on unsigned Fullerton, CA band Cold War Kids who “have risen to the top of the hipster rock heap through their relentless touring.” In the related interview, lead singer Nathan Willett talked about the process of peddling their homemade EPs during their non-stop tours: “Basically (the EPs) were available at our shows at best, and we ran out of them a lot, and it was kind of a bummer because we couldn’t put the effort into being at home and getting more made. But it was cool because we had a limited amount of them and people seemed to want them, and we were surprised that people wanted them as much as they did.”
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April 3rd, 2009
Nobody likes receiving spam and having to spend time dealing with it. Even with sophisticated filtering and avoidance mechanisms discussed in my previous articles entitled “Use A Spam Filtering Tool To Manage Spam And Save Hours Everyday” and “7 Steps To Effectively Take Control Of Your Inbox And Reduce Spam”, these unwanted spam messages keep on appearing. By understanding how the system works, we can effectively take steps to significantly reduce the amount of spam that we receive daily.
What we have to understand is that email marketing is by far the most effective way to promote products and services on the internet today. The basis of this system it to collect as many email addresses as you can and repeatedly send email messages out to them. There is a legitimate way to do this and then there is the way spammers do it.
The legitimate way is to collect email addresses only from people who volunteer it to you on a website in return for some information that you offer. In addition to this every email sent out must include a link or instructions on how to unsubscribe. I would take it one step further and say that unsubscription must be instantaneous. Having to wait for a few days is unacceptable with the software tools available today. Following this method, you will only receive email messages that you have opted-in for and as soon as you are not getting any value out of it, you unsubscribe.
The spammers mode of operation is to collect email addresses by any and all means available. This could be by building software spiders to crawl websites 24 hours day looking for email addresses on any page. Usually they search for the HTML tag “mailto:” but as users have stopped hyperlinking in response, the spiders are getting more sophisticated and are putting together text like “john dot smith at domain dot com” into the proper valid email address “john.smith@domain.com”. Some websites list all their employees contact emails on one page and is a prime target for spam. Harvesting guestbooks where emails are displayed is also a very common practice.
Other methods are more malicious and involve virus-like or worm software being installed on your computer and feeding the names in the address book back to a spam server that collects them.
Spammers trade email addresses for money. This is why the system is out of hand - it is an income producing activity. Every email address has a value to it and no matter how little the value, putting together a list of 100,000 can provide a neat income for a spammer. Most spammers have spam lists many times larger than this.
Spammers also include the unsubscribe link at the bottom of spam emails. These links when clicked and actioned, tells the spammers that this email address actually got through to a live person and that email address is now moved onto a much higher value list and is traded for more money. Those of us who have actioned these links have found the flood of spam coming in to vastly increase within only days.
So now to the question of how to use this knowledge to reduce the spam you get?
First, understand that everytime you give out your email address to a website, that it can potentally be sold and traded. Therefore, if you are unsure about it, use an email address that is not your primary one. Webmail services like Hotmail and Yahoo Mail are perfect for this. You only get the messages when you want them and log into those services. I’ve used a Yahoo Mail address for this for years now. Everytime I log in there are more than a thousand messages but the one that I want to look at is at the top. I never have to delete these messages, Yahoo takes care of it automatically. The only requirement is that I log in to the service within a set period usually 90 or 120 days to keep the account active.
Once you are comfortable that the site concerned is legitimate, you can then change your email address to your primary one. On the other hand, if you start getting spammed, then you do nothing, let the spam emails build up and get deleted automatically by the system.
In my article entitled “7 Steps To Effectively Take Control Of Your Inbox And Reduce Spam” I discuss an elegant way to safely give out email addresses and shut them down in case they get spammed. This is by far the most effective method that I have used.
Other things to watch out for?
Spammers are facing tougher times and they are finding it harder to get new email addresses. While this is a good sign that means the general public are getting more educated, it does mean that we have to be careful of where our email addresses are shown or advertised. For example, magazines and newspapers often are great places for a spammer to collect email addresses. This is a much slower method but if we think about it, these email addresses are of much higher value because somebody has paid money to advertise and so it is bound to be a real address. This means that we have to think laterally in order to stay ahead of the spam game.
Last but not least, we can surely help significantly reduce the problem by not responding to any spam email message whether it is by clicking on a link, replying to the email or unsubscribing using a supplied link. If you really must look at the site, just type in the domain name part of it into your browser and leave out everything after the domain name. This will take you to the site without the spammers tracking identification code.
Together we can surely put a dent in this system by understanding it and staying one or a few steps ahead of spammers.
Balraj Dhaliwal is an Internet Consultant for BSD Register, a well respected and liked domain and hosting provider because of its no nonsense simple approach to getting things done. Visit BSD Register at http://www.BSDRegister.com
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January 1st, 2009
Whenever you turn on the TV news, or read any newspaper and news magazines, one of the hot topics of conversation is identity theft. There is little reason why, as identity theft is skyrocketing. It’s a crime that can affect anyone, regardless of credit history or financial status.
We are seeing reports every month about thieves stealing massive amounts of personal information. From 250,000 veterans to 400,000 individual social security numbers from one of the major credit card companies, the odds of someone getting access to your personal information are increasing with each passing day.
How do we protect ourselves against identity theft? One of the best ways to protect yourself is by being educated. We should all keep ourselves aware of how to reduce the chances of someone stealing our identity. Here are 15 easy tips to help prevent you from becoming the next victim of identity theft.
1. You can talk with people in person or on the phone who you don’t know, but never give them your personal information. This could have disastrous consequences in the wrong hands.
2. Try not to talk about financial events going on in your life while out in public around others. Things like capital investments, big ticket purchases, etc.
3. Don’t carry your checkbook and check register with you. Leave them in your home. Carry 1 or 2 blank checks with you in your wallet. Many identity theft victims have reported that having their check books stolen from them helped thieves get even more of your personal information.
4. Memorize your Social Security number. You should never carry your SS card in your wallet or purse. You have an increased chance of it being taken and becoming a victim of identity theft.
5. Carry only one or two credit cards with you when you are out in public. Leave the others at home.
6. Do not keep personal information stored on your laptop computer. Items such as social security number, bank account numbers, passwords, etc. should always be deleted.
7. Avoid charging a high total on one card. Use both cards and keep things as even as possible in order to avoid attracting attention.
8. Make sure you maintain a list of all your different credit cards along with the various 800 numbers to call if they are lost or stolen. Keep this list in a safe place, not your wallet.
9. Try to limit the use of ATM machines. If you must use one, be sure no one is around you at the time. Stand where others can’t see the keypad while you key in your password. ATM machines are a great target for those who would like to steal your identity.
10. One way to destroy old documents you no longer need to keep is to shred them. You can also destroy them by letting them soak in warm water for several minutes. When they turn to pulp you can simply throw it away. Identity theft is impossible by doing this.
11. Take personal items out of your wallet. Never keep receipts in your wallet, or leave them lying around in your car.
12. If you are traveling, memorize your hotel room number. Don’t leave it on a piece of paper somewhere.
13. Be sure you have your mail stopped by the post office if you are going to be away from home for any length of time. A mailbox full of delivered mail can be a goldmine to any potential identity thieves.
14. When you are using a credit card to make an online purchase, be sure to only use it on sites that use SSC technology. This can’t be stressed enough.
15. Never put personal information or personal letters in the trash. Always shred them or destroy them by other means.
By using these tips you can greatly reduce the possibility of becoming a victim of identity theft. Even so, there is still no guaranteed way of protecting yourself completely. Continue to educate yourself in this area. By doing so you can make it next to impossible for any would be thieve to steal your identity and make life miserable.
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Michael Russell
Your Independent guide to Identity Theft
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December 31st, 2008
Is your email inbox filled with junk emails, SPAM and crap? Well you are not alone and it does not appear to be going away anytime soon. You see the Federal Trade Commissions; FTC’s war on SPAM is killing small businesses and flooding their inboxes with junk mail. This is causing issues with their ability to maintain productivity.
America Online indicated that it culls 75% of the incoming SPAM thru filters and many other companies are able to do this too. But what if you are a small business which does not have such features on your website? What do you do then? You cannot do a thing. Neither can the Federal Trade Commission as per their recent report to the United States Congress, which gave little hope in the War in Spam, as the insurgent Spammers are coming from over the border. But there is some good news. No this is not about saving money in your car insurance by switching to Gieko.
A concocted report from MX Logic purports that SPAM is down a whopping 9%? If you believe that you are on drugs just like the FTC. If you are a small business getting 300 junk mails per day, obviously this is not going to help you in the least as it still means you are getting over 275 junk mails a day. Worse the figure of nine-percentile is said to be a complete misrepresentation and convenient fabrication. Think on this.
“Lance Winslow” - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/
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December 18th, 2008
Paypal is becoming the online payment processor of choice for many users. Paypal allows virtually anyone to except credit card payments. Paypal is also a great way to send and receive electronic payments. Unfortunate fame has it’s price and in the case of Paypal that means scam artists preying on the Paypal members
The Most common Paypal Scam Involves E-Mail, You will receive an E-mail from Someone claiming to be Paypal requesting you Verify your Information. That is Warning Sign 1 Paypal will never send you an E-Mail Requesting Your Personal Information
Often this E_mail will be sent to an E-Mail Address that is not the same one that Paypal has on File. That is Warning Sign 2
The Third Warning Sign is forged Headers (From Address). This is often hard to detect without knowledge of the Internet. Many Spam filters are now setup to block E-mail that has forged headers. Ask your E-mail provider how you can block Forged Headers.
The Fourth Warning Sign is the Greeting says something like Dear Paypal user or Paypal Member. Paypal knows who you are they will use the name you registered with.
The Fifth Warning Sign is the threat. The E_mail will threaten to suspend your account if you don’t take immediate action.
The Sixth Warning Sign is a Non Secure Page. If you do click on the link in the E-Mail you will not be on a secure Page, No Https in the URL and no little Padlock in the lower left hand corner of your browser.
Bad Grammar or Misspelled words in the
If you receive an E-mail from Paypal with even 1 of these warning signs more likely then not it is a scam. Forward the E-Mail to Paypal and ask for assistance if you have any doubts.
Don’t let these modern day thieves keep you from go about your every day life. Life is a risk the key of course is to do all you can to protect yourself and still enjoy life.
About The Author:
Mike Makler has been Marketing Online Since 2001 When he Built
an Organization of over 100,000 Members
Get Mike’s Newsletter:
http://ewguru.com/newsletter
More Articles by Mike:
http://ewguru.com/tips
Permission Based E_Mail Marketing Methods
http://ewguru.com/hbiz/amazingoffer.html
Copyright © 2005-2006 Mike Makler the Coolest Guy in the Universe
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December 18th, 2008
The importance of RSS for marketing can no longer be disputed, but do we really understand all the benefits RSS brings to us as marketers, or really understand why we need to use it to get closer to our customers?
WHAT RSS WILL DO FOR YOU AS A MARKETER?
a] Get your content delivered without fail to all of your subscribers.
E-mail delivery rates are dropping, spam is everywhere and it’s getting increasingly difficult to get our marketing content read by our subscribers, prospects and customers. RSS is the way out.
b] Increase your web traffic and your online visibility.
With more and more sites competing for business every day, you need to do everything in your power to increase your online traffic, and RSS will help you get an upper edge.
c] RSS enables you to easily get your content published on dozens and dozens of other sites.
d] It will serve as a platform for ad sales,
e] It will provide advertising opportunities to promote your own business
f] It will help you get more content for your site without you having to write a single word.
WHY YOU NEED RSS, FROM THE END-USER POINT OF VIEW?
a] People want to receive content in a controlled environment where they are in-charge, not the publisher.
b] Delivering content using e-mail is becoming increasingly difficult, due to blacklists, spam filters and over excessive amounts of e-mail in your recipients’ mailboxes.
c] RSS allows you to deliver content beyond your e-zine, giving you more content delivery opportunities.
d] RSS is a natural tool for content syndication, which means easily and instantly delivering your content to hundreds of other content sources, thus creating additional exposure.
e] When using RSS to deliver all of your web site content updates, RSS will actually increase your web site traffic, thus giving your promotional messages more exposure.
f] People are afraid of subscribing to e-mail lists, which makes getting new subscribers difficult; RSS is a whole different story.
WHY SHOULD YOU CARE?
Either as an end-user or as business person, content delivery should be one of your top informational concerns.
a] As an end-user you cannot function properly without having relevant access to the information you need. Content delivery mechanisms affect your ability to access this information.
b] As a business person you must understand that your business success, among other things, depends on information, and in large on your ability to deliver it. Without the proper content delivery vehicles you cannot get content in-front of your target audiences, at least not in a relevant fashion.
RSS answers the needs of both.
Copyright 2005 Rok Hrastnik
Learn how to take full marketing advantage of RSS and get all the knowledge and how-to information for implementing RSS in your marketing mix, from direct marketing, PR, e-commerce and online publishing to SEO, traffic generation and so on. FREE guide available for immediate download, too. Click here now: http://rss.marketingstudies.net/book/
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October 18th, 2008
A lot of people don’t consider locking their mailboxes, but it should become a usual habit. Every now and again there are some people who decide to go digging through your mailbox. They may steal your phone bill or they may steal something as important as you social security card. That is just one of the reasons why everyone should have locking mailboxes.
Identity theft has become a very big problem for many people around the world. Many people who have gone through identity theft has happened just by unfortunately not having locking mailboxes. If you live in an apartment building, you have probably seen the neighborhood mailman deliver your mail. In the middle of the mailboxes of all your fellow neighbors there is one big lock in the middle that only the mailman has a key for. This prevents anyone else besides the mailman and the post office to have the ability to open everyone’s locking mailboxes.
If you are someone who owns a house and you have a regular mailbox that anyone can open it would be a very good idea to put a lock on it and make sure that only the people that you trust to have the key for it. Another thing you should make sure of is that your locking mailbox is big enough so if you are away for a couple of days you do not have to worry about it sticking out of the slot.
If you are expecting something very important a very good suggestion would be to wait in front of your window until the mailman gets it to you. Make sure that you do not leave it in the mailbox for too long; especially if it does not have a key. If it does have a key still wait for it, you can never be too safe.
Pay attention to where you keep your locking mailbox key so you do not lose it. You may consider it misplacing and you can just get another one, but to some people it may just be the beginning of an identity theft case. No, there are not many people who are willing to walk around to every mailbox and see if the key they have opens it, but there is a lot of technology now that can help them find out what household’s mailbox it belongs to.
Post offices all around the world have been thinking of many possible ways to keep your mail safe. In some states and countries have even set up security alarms on mailboxes that go off when someone besides the mailman opens the lock that opens all the mailboxes at the same time.
The best types of locks to use for locking mailboxes would be Deadbolt locks. This is not the usual key lock this lock is made up of a combination, key and springs so it is not easy to open. You do not have to worry about anyone breaking into that. These locks are so amazing that you cannot just buy them at your local hardware store you must order them. The companies that sell these locks are usually associated with the Post office.
http://mailboxes-hq.com/
Mailboxes HQ contains information about mailboxes from designer mailboxes through how to keep your mail safe from criminals.
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October 16th, 2008
A month or two ago I decided to be some blog posting software called RSS to Blog. The software promised to automate some of the more mundane tasks of blogging. Having implemented the software and read extensively about it, I would now like to offer my two cents worth on RSS to Blog.
First of all, the program does do what it says it will in terms of automating the blogging process. You can paste in scores of articles in advance, and RSS to Blog will faithfully post them to your blog. This can be done in random intervals, and is done with the help of cron jobs, which are a way of running automatic scripts on a web server. RSS to Blog can also post RSS feeds from other sites into your blog, and rotate things randomly.
The idea of automated blog posting is particularly nice for a blogger who is going on vacation, or has trouble maintaining the daily discipline of blogging. However, there is also a significant amount of abuse associated with this type of software.
Most notably, people are publishing spammy blogs, otherwise known as splogs. Some people are publishing as many as 250 blogs each, all spewing forth spammy content laced with Google Adsense ads. One I read about online claimed to be making $200k per year, a claim that I tend to believe.
The problem is, these cron jobs suck up a lot of server resources. It doesn’t hurt a server if somebody has a cron job automating their blog posts 2-4 times per day. But these people who have 100, 200 or 250 blogs, and who are posting and pinging at a high rate of speed, can take down a server all by themselves. Then when a bunch of people running the same script at the same time all congregate on the same server, this really wreaks havoc. So much so, that some web hosts have kicked RSS to Blog software users from their hosting service.
This is a shame, because when used properly, RSS to Blog really can be a helpful productivity tool. Personally, I like to write in spurts. I would rather write 2-10 pages of content, divide it into original posts, and set them up to run over time, than be driven by a need to blog 2-4 times per day, day in and day out. This doesn’t lessen the quality of my posts, it only makes life easier for a busy person.
This is in contrast to people who are picking certain keywords, generating thousands of pages, and pinging the daylights out of the blogosphere. I don’t hate such people, and if they can earn $200k per year cranking out spam, more power to them. But truth be told, I think the search engines and users are getting smarter and smarter about weeding out spam and splogs.
One spammy splogger noted online that he couldn’t care less how rotten his pages were, in fact his goal was to make people who landed on his pages want to barf so badly that they would click on a Google ad just to get off his lousy page. With all due respect, this doesn’t seem like a very profitable business model for Google or its advertisers.
The sploggers also say that they have to keep building, building, building more and more splogsbecause once the search engines find out what they are, their traffic tapers off and drops. This is in contrast to a truly helpful blog with great content, whose value and traffic should continue to spiral upward.
In their defense, I don’t think the developers of RSS to Blog intended for their software to be used in this manner. As a matter of fact, I heard rumblings about limits to be built into newer, more powerful versions. That sounds like a good idea to me. It’s always nice to land on a page with truly meaningful and helpful content.
Since I didn’t want any surprises, and have a good relationship with my web host, I phoned him and told him about the software I was using. He agreed with me that RSS to Blog could be a powerful productivity tool, and that if used rightly (e.g. a reasonable number of random posts) should not diminish his server resources in the least little way. This made me pretty happy, since I plan to use RSS to Blog to help promote my log furniture store.
Cari Haus, CPA and entrepreneur, has been a webmaster and online retailer for more than five years. She sells log furniture through her website, http://www.logcabinrustics.com/
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