Protecting Yourself On The Internet

The internet can be a dangerous place and sharing personal information over social media and other internet facets can put you at risk!

So how can we stay protected in an age that feels like people already share too much? Is that Facebook status about being on vacation really going to make your home susceptible to unforeseen visitors? Maybe. Here’s a couple tips on how to protect yourself online.

1. Passwords

Use different passwords for all of your logins. While having one password can really be a breeze, it opens you up to having all of your accounts compromised, rather than just one. One account is much easier to manage than a full-blown security breach!

Also, make sure that your passwords are hard to guess and are strong. “Puppy1” isn’t cutting it anymore, so use a mix of upper and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols to make your password like a cryptic vault!

2. Social Media

Revealing too much about yourself on social media can be very dangerous. Reevaluate who you are friends with on these networks and be cautious sharing information that could be indicators of your password. It doesn’t take much for a hacker to get in, so stop them in their tracks and be wise in what you share.

But it's more than just a hacker that you have to worry about - it's the folks that don't post, don't share, just sort of lurk around... Are you a Facebook user - ? Are you a parent? Have you seen this site?
Take This Lollipop

Enough said.

3. Be aware

The most neglected protection tip is simply to be aware. Computers can get viruses. Cell phones can be stolen. Online accounts can be compromised. Pay attention to your online surroundings and protect yourself by being extra cautious before clicking on links or to install an internet filter or protection service.

And another thing - your computer could go kaput. Make regular backups. If you can't afford an expensive online backup program - buy an external hard drive and backup your precious family photos and files regularly - or save those special things to the cloud. (Dropbox, Google Drive - both FREE!)

The internet can be scary but don’t let it be! Just be aware and cautious and you’ll be able to enjoy it all without the worries.

Preparing For The COMPUTER Crash

In my case, it was my motherboard. GONE. Working along, tap tap tapping on the keyboard at 200 miles an hour - and BOOM. Screen goes out. Everything else appears to be working, but the screen is a gonner. Tried rebooting, never came back on. Plugged in another monitor, no bueno. Grabbed the whole get-up and ran up to Geek Squad, who informed my my machine had a motherboard who wasn't feeling quite as motherly as she once had.

So it was 'time'. I got a newer, bigger, faster (DESKTOP this time so I will stay in my office!) and began the process of computer file recovery. Which brings me too - to our newest site launch as well. Funny it all happened together.

During the process of all of this - I found the following things VERY useful. And they will be something I do - ALWAYS - from now on:

1/ Have a large external hard drive READY! and back it up on your own when you can - I have a 1.5 TB Western Digital External Hard Drive.

2/SIGN UP and USE Firefox Sync. If you are not using Firefox, please do so at this time. Then, sign up for Firefox Sync - this will remember your settings, passwords, visited sites - it's a beautiful thing. Simply sign in and it will 'repopulate' your old get-up!

3/ Save your fonts, brushes and shapes, extensions - If you use Photoshop or another design program - don't lose all you've built up. Downloading, extracting and installing these things takes forever - and especially if you've paid for them!

And finally...

4/ Save your Outlook PST file from time to time. One thing you can recover is your Outlook file. It will get you (PRETTY) close to where you were.

So - without further adieu -

WELCOME TO THE WEB - Blueline Network Solutions! They sell desktops for personal and business use, servers, network security solutions and more. I really like that they have high performance gaming desktops (for those of us who truly relish a little WOW from time to time.) as well as services - like remote backup and data storage and remote IT support.

SEO, Social Media and Your Website

JUST SAYIN'...

SOOOO many clients ask me about search engine optimization, and then I spend an hour typing out this extensive twenty-three paragraph email on "tips and tricks" to help their site be seen on the search engines. While my typing skills are great, (ok, maybe not great - but good enough) this was taking a lot of my time, and I don't have much to spare. So, I just decided to write a blog post about it.

When I do a website for any client (informational website) I do my best to make sure that the markup is up to W3C Standards, I will plug in the META data, try to use useful file names and all that jazz. And certainly - you can hire me to help you with site optimization.

In fact, I am going to put together a basic "SEO/Social Networking Support" package in the next few weeks to support my clients with who have SEO and social networking support needs. While I can NOT guarantee rankings - I CAN guarantee that EVERY SITE OWNER should be already be making sure these simple (but time consuming) things are done - because along with valid markup and META data, they are things that will help keep your site in the natural running for rankings.

So, before I get to putting together a package - and - if you are a 'do-it-your-selfer' - you can use these tips to start a basic SEO/Internet Marketing plan for your website.

Everything I learned - I learned from trial and error, fiddling around with my Google accounts, and books. Great websites like SEO BOOK (GREAT tutorials, forums, articles tools and such!). Testing what people like, what they don't like - what they click on - what they don't. It's been several years in the process, putting websites online, watching how search engines pick them up, index and rank them - and the parameters that control rankings constantly change and evolve. And - every site and it's needs, target audience, etc - is different. But there are some basic things that I can tell you EVERY website owner should be doing to promote new traffic to their website.

1. Get This Book.
The Ultimate Guide To Search Engine Optimization - this book speaks volumes about both the basics, and tons of tricks to help enhance your site's visibility on search engines. What's best about it - is that it's written in easy-to-read language. You don't have to be a rocket scientist (or HTML expert) to read it. Read it from start to finish - because it covers the basics of beginning with an accessible, optimized website, then on to cover the basics of SEO, (META data, titles, alt tags, keywords, linking) PPC management, (Pay-Per-Click) internet marketing, article writing, and conversion testing and tracking. Jon Rognerud - the author, is quite the expert. And while you're there - sign up to download his FREE SEO Guide, and his FREE SEO TIPS by email. They're gems.

2. Get Online.
Use the free stuff, BABY! Get a BLOG (we can design a really nice blog design for you) - and get on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Bizzy.com - create a page (or, lens) on Squidoo - and then (THIS IS IMPORTANT!) spend a few hours every week doing something with it! For your blog - write something about your business. Write something about what you do. Offer a special, a valuable piece of information, educate your reader or audience on something they want to hear. But keep it relevant! Don't be writing about tennis - if you're selling telephones. Unless of course, your telephone is a special telephone that is just for tennis players. Then, share your blog post on Facebook, Twitter - anywhere you can! Scream it to the world!

AND HERE'S A BONUS - Jon Rognerud - the author of aforesaid gotta-have SEO book - is offering a FREE GUIDE to Facebook called FAST FACEBOOK right now on his website SocialMediaYeah.com - Learn how and why Facebook can promote your business on the internet.

3. Get Listed.
Submit your site to directories (again - relevant ones!). Get listed in the general directories (DMOZ is free, Yahoo! Directory has an annual fee) in the proper categories. There are also content-specific directories where you can get listed. For example - Kari and Company is listed in the Website Design Directory. Obviously, I wouldn't want to be listed on the top Hungarian Basket Weaving sites. Find directories of websites that are relevant to your business and check out their listing options. Some are free, some are paid. But even the paid ones are usually pretty reasonable.

4. Use the SEARCH ENGINE's FREE tools!
I am talking about Google Analytics, Webmaster Tools - and most importantly - if you have a brick and mortar - Google Places! (formerly Local Business Center). Sign up for your free account, integrate these free tools (and any others you can figure out!) and do the same thing on Bing.com, and anywhere else you can do it.

Most people don't have time to do all this stuff, and for some people - it doesn't come easy. That is where I have decided to put a package together to support people who own websites and don't have time to track the traffic, write blogs, network and promote. Until then - hope these tips helps the do-it-yourselfers.

New Virus Alert - "XP Police Antivirus"

So, you are trying to be careful with your internet browsing practices, you don't open 'mysterious emails', you've done the research - and you thought you had downloaded and were using the best browser for internet security (Mozilla, right?) - and POOF - now you've just installed XP Police Antivirus and you didn't even hit a button, confirm, ask for it, or know you were downloading it.

Made me feel like I was living in the Matrix. Like the computer totally had a mind of it's own. Thought to myself - "I'm GOOGLING this S.O.B. and getting it off my machine. Today."

So I Googled. And found what I needed to find. I tried a few things, and I'm sharing what I know with you. I accidentally downloaded, I Googled, and I fixed. All by my lonesome. :)

This one is easy enough, but it's still a bit ugly - one, because it installs itself even with the extra precaution of exclusively using Mozilla. Second, it disables your task manager, so you can not just go in and manually begin to remove by stopping processes.

It did definitely slow down my machine, as the VUNDO and ZLOB Trojans did that I had last year - but this one was much easier to remove.

For this little bugger, the best instructions I found for removal were on the Bleeping Computer website/blog. There was also a direct download for Malwarebytes.org Anti-Malware software. Download the free trial - and give it a test run. It'll remove your XP Police virus. Once you're sold on it, it's only 24.95.

Can't beat that with a stick. With last year's VUNDO and ZLOB trojans - I purchased SpyHunter 3 and XoftSpy - both of which I wasn't super-happy with. While I felt like they 'might be helping' - there were really problems all-around - with support, updates, even the basic operation of the software (can't even run SpyHunter anymore - it just shuts down). I don't work for Malwarebytes.org - but what I can say, as an affected user - it's the ONE PROGRAM that truly did what it said it would do - removed the virus. So it's the one I'm buyin'.

Next - we need to gain access to our Task Manager again.

Depending on which version of Windows you're on - you might need some instructions. I followed this post on Software Tips and Tricks Web Forum and was able to enable my Task Manager safely within about 5 mintues.

So that's it - cure XP Police:

1/ Get MalwareBytes.org Anti-Malware
2/ Enable your Task Manager again

Unless of course there's something ELSE lingering on your machine - which - we're all over here hoping there's NOTHING more on your machine - because those boogers sure are smart & sneaky. If we get another one, we'll find a way to remove and post our experiences.

Good luck and safe surfing!

Congratulations POSH PUPPY BOUTIQUE

Congratulations to Jen over at the Posh Puppy Boutique! She's won TWO Webmaster Awards on her fun website - where you can buy DESIGNER DUDS FOR YOUR DOG, BLING COLLARS, DOG BOWLS, PET BEDDING and more.

It's nice to see a website that takes off and does so well after we've edited the Volusion Template. Volusion is the e-commerce platform for Posh Puppy Boutique.

So - again, CONGRATS, JEN - for webmastering your new website to success of these two niche awards! Not an easy task!

Awarded by: Next Day Pets

Dogs, Pet Supplies, Dog Breeders Frontline, Pet Meds, Revolution

	Awarded to quality pet websites. (dogs, puppies, cats, horses) Type: Dog Site

Summer Promotion - New Sites

We'd like to take this opportunity to welcome some new sites to the web - and draw your attention to the hip stuff they can offer. Check them out:





The POSH PARTY BOUTIQUE - offering all sorts of neat favors and gifts for parties and weddings, baby showers and much more!



The AUTO LOAN GROUP - the place for you to get a new auto loan on a new or used vehicle. No hassles, no problem with credit or bankruptcy issues - if you need a little help getting an auto loan, these are your guys.







And, the very popular POSH PUPPY BOUTIQUE! Need the perfect gift for a pet lover? Need a hip new water bowl for your furry friend? Check out this website for the coolest and hippest pet products, pet accessories and gifts!







Check out these fun sites when you can!