Why You Should Ditch AOL

• AOL is suffering serious staffing problems. It's firing people and hiring new people in an effort to save the company. It won't work. It's going to die sooner rather than later. If you have your life and your business tied up in AOL, you will eventually have to get it out of AOL when AOL goes under. We, as a society, don't need "online service" anymore. People pick and choose what they need mostly from free sources. So AOL is dead conceptually. It's brain-dead waiting for someone to pull the plug on the life support.
• AOL program slows your computer down. Click on Control ALT and DELETE at the same time. Choose Task Manager and then Processes. Sort by Size. You'll see what an oinker the AOL program really is. That alone should make you ditch AOL.
• AOL makes people think you don't know anything about computers. Everyone knows that AOL trashes your hard drive and is wondering why you would do that to your computer which you care about.
• AOL is overpriced. For what you pay for dialup you can get a simple high-speed plan. If you are bringing your own high-speed access to AOL, you are just throwing your money to the wind. You can get the same functions you have in AOL elsewhere on the net for free.

Sharing Your Files at Work Safely

There are many ways to share your files at work:

• flash drives - safe, but inconvenient to be passing the flash drive back and forth.
• CD's - ditto. Plus, unless they are rewriteable, it's not green.
• shared external drives - for example, an external USB drive. It's a good solution if the drive comes with software that secures permissions for the drive or if there isn't anything stored on the drive that can't be seen by the whole company.
• peer-to-peer networking - setting up shared folders. I never ever recommend this in a business environment. At home, it's ok, but in business it's simply not safe. It's easy for prying eyes to get into the files. Also, the computer where the files are store cannot be turned off because the connection is easily broken. If the computer storing the files gets infected, other computers connecting to it risk infection. If the hard drive crashes on the computer where the files are stored, the files for everyone may be lost. If the hard drive of the sharing computer doesn't have a lot of space, it will reduce performance on the sharing computer slowing it down. You have to check that the computer has room for other people's files on it.
• domain fileshares - this is the most secure. The setup takes some effort to set up groups and assign permissions, but it's the safest. It requires the expense of a server operating system and server hardware.
• web office spaces- Microsoft live space, Google Docs, or a shared DropBox account. This is a free and safe option for filesharing.

When sharing files at work make sure you runs scans on the flash drives or CD's prior to opening files on them. You don't know how cautious the person sharing files is about their virus protection.

My Favorite Microphone

Blue Microphones Snowflake USB Microphone I love this microphone. It's portable, it's easy to use, and the quality is fantastic. You can hear things all the way across the room with it. It folds up into a little case to protect it when you are travel. It's USB so you don't have to worry about any special connections.  If you are wanting to do any type of recording, you'll be happy with the quality.

Free Program to Password Protect Your Flash Drive

Take a look at the stuff on your flash drive. Is it personal? Can it be used against you for identity theft? Probably. Is it password protected? Probably Not. Are you going to lose it? Probably. Are you going to do anything about it now? Probably Not.

Flash drives are NOT floppy disks. You can put a lot of personal information on one flash drive. Enough to hurt you if it's lost.

You can download a free utility to put a password on your flash drive. That's better than doing nothing.

And that's what it costs. Nothing. Now you have no excuse to have an unprotected flash drive. Cryptainer LE is available from here:

http://www.cypherix.co.uk/cryptainer_le_download_center.htm
Cryptainer LE even works on desktops and laptops.

It's drag and drop easy. It never expires. It's part of a suite of security products you may want to check out. Visit the company's home page here:
http://www.cypherix.co.uk/index.htm

How to Get Your Email Blacklisted

Do all these bad things and you will certainly get your email blacklisted.
Ignore adware updates and scans. Zombies are infected computers that serve as spammer email servers.

1. Your email server allows relaying of email. Your email provider can tell you if they do or not. Most personal accounts allow relaying and business accounts generally don't. Send mass emails from Yahoo and Hotmail.
2. Don't allow opt-ins. Add your customers to a mailing list without their permission and send them emails frequently. They'll mark you as spam and you'll be blacklisted.
3. Don't inform users of how they can opt out of your mailing list.
4. Send information that is irrelevant to the customer. If they have already purchased from you, perhaps they don't wish to remain on your list. People who want to get blacklisted don't ask the customer if they want to stay on.
5. Forward lots of jokes, inspirational stories, or pictures to anyone and everyone on your list. Most people don't realize that if an email is marked as spam, it marks the sender (you) as a spammer.
6. Don't keep your email list updated. Never remove invalid email addressses or update them. Just add and add and add so you get lots of contacts.

Well hope this helps get you blacklisted! No, just kidding, I hope the things that get you blacklisted helps keep you whitelisted. Good luck with your emails!

Here Phishy Phishy

A phish is an attempt to learn personal information about you via email.  Here's an example of one:

An HTK4S virus has been detected in the Company Name Webmail server,and all Company Name  webmail accounts need to be upgraded immediatly to prevent damage to the webmail system.


You are therefor required to provide your account identities listed below to enable us verify and perform maintainance in your account with the new HTK4S anti-virus/anti-Spam version 2010.

failure to provide your valid information, your account will be suspended temporarily from our services.

Full Name:

Email Address:

Date of Birth:

NetID\HawkID:

Password:

Phone Number:

Copyright(c)  Company Name Webmail 2010 All Rights Reserved.


Did you notice all the spelling errors??????

Definitely a phish! I don't make spelling errors! (At least that we are aware of! lol)

Email providers do not ask you to send your date of birth!!!!!
And technology professionals NEVER ask for your password to be emailed to them!!!!!!!! Never ever!!!
Never reply to a phish! Simply delete it.

If You Find Yourself Needing to Use a Cyber Cafe

This is a popular month for vacations. Vacations mean travel and sometimes that travel includes waiting time in an airport or several days in a city that is filled with cyber cafes. I'm on my fourth (filled) passport so I've used cyber cafes alot.

Here's what you should look for in a cyber cafe:

• Privacy walls: you don't need the guy behind you spying on your business. Be on the alert for someone observing you.
• Nothing in back of you that has the possibility of hiding a camera in it.
• Some type of software that cleans the system completely when you log out. "Goback" is a popular one. You can see what I mean by visiting a public library. After you use the computer, the hard drive is wiped and restored to its original condition when you log out.
• Printers should be behind the checkout desk and not in a public location where anyone can take your documents. 

You should also be aware that cafe administrators have the ability to view the contents of your screen without your knowlege. Keep that in the back of your mind.