Blogging Will Take Over The World

Blogging Will Take Over The World

by: Chris Everson

In recent years, itกs been pretty obvious that กbloggingก (Web + Log = Blog)has simply taken over the internet.

Early blogs were first used by creative (bored?) indivuals, and larger news companies. http://info.cern.ch/ was one of the earliest blogs, followed by NCSAกs กWhats Newก and also NetScapes กWhats Newก blog. After this point the blogging scene exploded.

What exactly is blogging? Many consider blogging in itกs truest form a type of internet diary. In itกs most pure and basic form its simply a single, scrolling webpages with a few links on the side, and an archive table, and larger, prominent updates in the center of the pages. Users usually post small excerpts about daily life, recent events, or news.

Creative writers often attract groups of people, who will pursue and follow that blog, often posting comments on updates. Some writers write outrageous, offensive things that also attract readers. Some people write about personal experiences, and some just flat out write whatever they want!

RSS, (really simple syndication) also started directly because of blogs. Rather than visit an indivual site over and over again to read the updates and posts, coders started using xml to enable these updates to be available anywhere in the world. In response, RSS has created a whole new chapter in the SEO world, all because of blogging.

Many people have begun to weave affiliate links and even sell there own products through their blogs, relying on their dedicated readerbase to generate huge conversion rates. Programs like WordPress can generate ENTIRE web sites simply by advanced forms of blogging. One of my own sites, www.emoneyreport.com utilizes this program. Instead of bloggin real life experiences, we blog our article updates and program reviews. Very nifty!

Even major search engines are taking part in the blog scene. Most noticably, Google, purchased the site www.blogger.com. Now google controls the largest, most successful blogging site to date! Google indexes and spiders every post created on this site, EVERY day. Itกs common practice to create a blog, write small posts and link to your own site through the blog, and doing this you can get spidered and indexed within a day!

We have to ask ourselves, whats next for blogging? Will blogging become the next form of linking? Who knows? All I know for sure is that I like what blogging has become, and that it allows my site to generate income for hundreds of people all over the internet.

http://www.emoneyreport.com NO BS reviews of programs that we have used to make money.

About The Author

Chris Everson

http://www.emoneyreport.com NO BS reviews of programs that we have used to make money.

http://www.therealincome.com We have partnered with several internet gurus to release this book, containing the secrets that most internet gurus DON’t want you to know.

[email protected]

This article was posted on August 08

by Chris Everson

Add New Content to Your Website with RSS Feeds

Add New Content to Your Website with RSS Feeds

by: Craig Desorcy

RSS Feeds are the latest in cuttingedge tools for alert webmasters. Globally, consumers are gobbling up this latest trend. The convenience of being able to monitor all of their favorite feeds in one place carries tremendous appeal. Webmasters and marketers find RSS feeds equally as attractive. The instant widespread distribution of content updates becomes a breeze with RSS feeds. Many believe that in the near future, webmasters who don’t utilize this optimal communication tool will be in the minority.

Joe banged the desk next to his keyboard, making his coffee tilt precariously. He was irate to say the least. For the past 15 minutes he’d been browsing websites looking for that tidbit of information he needed to complete his presentation due in 25 minutes. His growls would have intimidated anyone less courageous than the typical mountain lion, but Joe was fed up. To make matters worse, he knew that he’d recently visited a site with the information. His inability to recall which of the thousand sites he’d perused in the last weeks had him boiling.

In the cubicle to the right sat Sally, ขalwaysontime Sally.ข How did she do it? It seemed that everything she looked for was at her fingertips and only a minute or two away. If he weren’t so galled by his inability to find that one lit bit of info, he’d ask her. Of course her eyes would light up, she’d snap her fingers and say, ขOh I know where we can find that!ข The thought irked him.

The secret to Sally’s seemingly pristine organization skills…you guessed it RSS feeds all posted to one page. She had her favorite news feed, her favorite blogs, the latest marketing and computer tech feeds, and even Garfield her favorite cartoon all posted to one page. When it came time to look for a tidbit of information, Sally knew right where to go. In fact the last time, she’d had to spend time using search engines was when her cat had fleas, and she wanted to find out which flea shampoo was most effective.

Now, as a webmaster this information is highly valuable. Wouldn’t you love to have direct contact with your consumers on a daily basis? You would no longer be fighting with overzealous spam filters who ate your valuable updates for dessert! Your loyal consumers would never have to search, and be distracted by other appealing adds. Your latest news and products would before their eyes immediately and unhindered.

( The Easiest Way To Add RSS Feeds Go To http://www.effectiveinfo.com/AddRSS.html )

Okay, so you’ve made life easy for your consumer and found some room for profit in the process. How much do RSS feeds really benefit you? Literally, they will save you a fortune in time and money not to mention a hefty profit from increased web traffic. Let’s look at a few of the reasons why.

RSS feeds are easily changed and make updating your content so much easier. Not only can you make your loyal customers aware of your updates quickly, your updates will entice the spider to your web (a bit of a different twist, eh?). Literally, search engines are hungry for material that changes often, and will be drawn to your website more often by RSS feeds. This means more exposure, free advertizing, more traffic, and more money for you. A pretty good deal!

All right, now you know the secret to making life easier for yourself, and making a lot of extra money to boot. Enjoy, and…uh…you might want to wipe the coffee stains off your desk!

About The Author

For The Fast and Easy Way To Add RSS Feeds

Click here> http://www.effectiveinfo.com/AddRSS.html

This article is copyright © Craig Desorcy

Craig Desorcy is an Internet enthusiast who Lives and works in Japan, spending most of his free time on the internet running his blog and websites of interest.

Craig(at)effectiveinfo.com

This article was posted on February 05

by Craig Desorcy

Were You Bamboozled by Google?

Were You Bamboozled by Google?

by: Diane Hughes

Itกs still happening. กFlorida,ก กBoston,ก กGinger,ก and กBrandyก are just a few of the many Google updates that have hit within the last few months. And Google is still issuing periodic updates as we speak. No one can say for sure whats going on or what to expect. One thing is for sure… unless you want to get bamboozled by Google (again!), youd be wise to take action to prevent it now.

So many people were screaming (and still are) about losing tons of business due to Googles updates. Some have reported 30%, 50%, or even total losses. What can you do? After all, youre at the mercy of Google, right? WRONG!

Why Do Rankings Keep Changing?

Google, like many other engines, changes its algorithm (formula for calculating who ranks where) from timetotime in an effort to filter out spammers and deliver the most relevant search results possible.

Google has had updates since its very beginning. But now, depending on which theory you choose to believe, they are making more advancements that require more updates. This means, even if you rank at #1 this week, you might not make the top 30 next week.

How Do You Protect Yourself From Updates?

Diversify! It is never a good idea to have all your income generated by one source. You wouldnt depend on having all of your retirement savings from one source (thats exactly why mutual funds are so popular), and you wouldnt have all of your money in one bank. I mean, really! What if that one source went under? The same principle applies to Internet marketing.

While search engines are a phenomenal way to drive traffic to your website, they are most certainly not the only way. In order to ensure you are protected should Google (or whoever is the next กbigก search engine) change their formula yet again, you need to create a diversification plan.

Think of all the outlets that reach your target audience. Investigate each one to see how feasible it would be to market your site through those channels. Then implement a plan that includes several advertising avenues (including search engines) that as a whole generates as much (or more) business as you originally received from Google. That way, should one of these channels go down, your business would only be slightly affected.

Dont stop there! Twice a year youll want to go over your plan and be sure that everything is working, as it should. If one outlet begins to dwindle in its response, look into finding a replacement. This way you are never taken by surprise.

Once you have your diversification plan working for you, you will be in a much better position to be rest assured that the business you receive will be there for the long haul. You will also feel more comfortable that no one organization can cause the tremendous damage Google has caused and could cause again.

Copyright 2004 Diane C. Hughes * ProBizTips.com

About The Author

Diane C. Hughes * ProBizTips.com

FREE Report: Amazingly Simple (Yet Super Powerful) Ways To Skyrocket Your Sales And Build Your Business Into A Tower of Profits! ==>> http://madmarketer.com/diane

This article was posted on April 09, 2004

by Diane Hughes

The Nature of Search Engine Updates

The Nature of Search Engine Updates

by: Bruce Zhang

Webmasters always anxiously wait for a search engine update. Those who rank well want to see their sites get even better. Those who didn’t do well expect a major boost. Those whose sites get deindexed anticipate a major comeback. Those who just started new sites bet on their sites will make into the first page of search engine result pages (SERPs) for their targeting keywords. Of course, not everyone will be happy about the results of search engine updates. After all, search engine traffic is a zerosum game someone loses and someone gains. Then, the webmasters start preparing for next update.

The Types of Search Engine Updates

Search Engines are large software systems. There’re three types of search engine updates.

Updates of index database Search engine crawlers continuously scan the Web for new content and changes to feed their index databases. This drives the minor SERP shifts.

Minor search engine updates Search engines need to fix software bugs and do some minor algorithm changes once in a while. Minor updates seem to happens monthly.

Major search engine updates Every year, major search engines will shock the SEO community with major search engine updates. A major update involves both major algorithm changes and the reorganization of the index database. Major search engine updates are clearly driven more by business reasons than by technical reasons.

The Business Reasons Behind The Major Updates

All major search engines claim that they strive to present search results to users with the highest quality. But the business of search engine is business. What they won’t tell us is that there’re many business reasons for every major search engine updates. Search engine traffic is hot commodity itกs free and has higher conversion rate since the searchers are very close to make their buying decisions. The downside of the search traffic for webmasters is that they don’t have control at all. Your sites may be ranked #1 today, but nowhere next day.

Search engine companies will, no doubt, use the search engine traffic to maximize the values for their stakeholders. Googleกs Feb. 2 update (allegra update or Superbowl update) once again shocked the webmaster community like last Florida update. The noticeable change in Superbowl update is that wellestablished sites rank well even for specific keywords that aren’t even highly relevant to their pages. You may think the move is to fight spams and improve the quality of SERPs. Thatกs only part of the story. The results of the update is that the websites of wellestablished corporations (with never ending press releases) will get a major traffic boost from Google. Google does this by algorithm changes, not manual manipulations.

If we think search engine traffic from Google is really an incentive to try it free before you buy. This time, Google decides to lure the major corporations to test the benefits of search traffic. Major corporations will likely increase their spending in online advertising and those news agencies may even drop their law sues against Google if they see the traffic from Google justifies that their sites benefit from including in Google index database.

Is this the real driving force behind last update? Only Google knows. If you own Google, however, you will do the exactly the same.

Will this negatively impact the user experience? maybe and maybe not. What is the real difference between the #1 spot and the site that ranks #100? the backlinks. Backlinks don’t alter the quality of a page at all.

When they say technology, they mean business. Major technology changes are always driven by business needs. It has nothing to do with กgoodก or กbadก.

Strategies to Cope with search Engine Updates

The Internet and the Web was once hailed as the new medium and the new opportunity for small business and site owners. They will be disappointed as big three peek into fortune 500 companiesกs deep packets. There’re strategies they can use to cope with the search engine updates, however.

Create a portfolio of website using different SEO techniques. If some of your sites get hammered in a update the rest may benefit from the update.

Generate traffic from all major search engines.

Use the search traffic to build loyal user bases.

Build sites similar to the sites of wellestablished companies. The tags, onpage, off page optimization techniques will become less and less important as major corporations aren’t interested in those types of things that geek webmasters are interested.

Speculation on Coming Updates

The next Google update is around the corner. I won’t expect any noticeable change. If Google decides to let big apples try search traffic free. They will need a couple of months to realize the values of the search traffic. There will be major redistribution of search traffic in 3 or 6 months. If the same group of major corporations always get huge amount of free traffic from Google. They won’t bother to open their wallets. The major traffic distribution may be from one group of major corporations to another. The search traffic will unlikely sift back to small sites.

Copyright Bruce Zhang 2005

About The Author

Bruce Zhang operates a website http://www.4thmedia.com that automatically aggregates and categorizes SEO news, new articles, and forum threads from over 50 sources daily ( http://www.4thmedia.com/newsbot/ ) to help webmasters and SEO professionals to keep up with the latest development in search engine marketing. The website also offers original thoughts on SEO.

This article was posted on March 21

by Bruce Zhang

Can A Ping Really Help Your Blog Get Top Search En

Can A Ping Really Help Your Blog Get Top Search Engine Rankings?

by: Tinu AbayomiPaul

It’s been all over the SEOstudent rumor mill for weeks now, and has finally made it into my Inbox – in droves.

The new gettrafficquick scheme for search engine results has arrived – flooding ping notification sites with update announcements, even though your blog hasn’t been updated.

The question is does this or some variation of it work? If not, where did this idea come from?

Okay, bad news first.

Pinging sites like Yahoo and Syndic8 every halfhour for several days or weeks, to notify of updates when they haven’t been made, does nothing but clog up the system. It’s called spampinging and it has been around since 2002.

If you haven’t updated your blog, or you’re pinging updates of a site that isn’t even a blog (or RSS feed, where applicable), in the long run it’s just going to make it harder to get listed at these sites.

In the short run, you could get yourself banned from sites like Yahoo, though it isn’t officially their policy to drop sites for spampinging.

Yet.

True, not all sites that have recently updated lists you can ping to be on are set up to block pings of sites that aren’t updated. But they’ve found ways to block certain sites and users before – it’s only a matter of time.

So even in the unlikely event that you could find some way to make this work temporarily, you’d just be setting yourself up to be dropped, in as little as a day in some cases.

So if this method doesn’t work, why are there tools available to help you flood these directories?

Well, let’s look at the situation logically.

Until the middle of 2004, certain adult web properties were able to create several bogus blog sites – in particular, blogspot.com. They’d found that the links leading back to them from those sites helped their page rank in Google, as well as their search results placement.

Although Google got wise to them and closed this loophole by fall of this past year, several legitimate blog sites have found that they continue to enjoy high rankings for some keywords that are easier to get. Some people erroneously assume that it’s because their updates appear on Weblogs.com and/or in Blogger’s Most Recently Updated pages several times a day.

Having noticed that occasionally, they would get spidered around the same time they posted, they realized that there was a correlation between pinging and better search engine listings.

And they’re not completely wrong – there is a parallel. But a parallel is not a cause. It’s just one facet of the relationship between blogs and getting better results in Yahoo, Google and MSN.

Their frequency of updates had something to do with their rankings, yes. But it is not what guarantees they get spidered – and if the blog isn’t set up to take advantage of the visit from the search engine spiders, they don’t get listed.

To begin to have an understanding of how to get similar results for your site, you have to look at the bigger picture. Spampinging isn’t going to do it, and as I’ve said in other articles, there are other ethical, faster, simpler ways to do this.

So what is this bigger picture?

First of all, blogs have a natural tendency to rank higher in search engines because they

Have wellstructured site architecture

Make use of anchor text linking

Are well linked,

Are frequently updated, and,

Are focused tightly around a narrow theme, among other things.

Couple this with the ease of being able to get oneway links from several sites favored by the search engines, and you have twothirds of the formula for a wellranked blog.

However, just because these sites appear on publicly displayed ping notification lists and other sites that keep abreast of blog updates, this doesn’t mean that you can get away with pinging them without updating your site.

It also doesn’t mean that sites that have authentically updated and sent pings will appear in Google, Yahoo or MSN simply from being frequently updated.

The good news is, you don’t need to deluge the ping sites to get noticed. Doing so is often a waste of time, and may be a harmful one.

Your best bet for now is to continue to achieve your natural search engine position through blogging, basic search engine optimization, and a common sense approach to frequent updates.

And yes, by the way, there IS an ethical way to get into search engines and achieve high rankings with a blog, but it’s not a matter of volume. It’s more a matter of timing, supply and demand. But explaining that process takes a level of detail and an amount of space not available here.

Copyright 2005 Tinu AbayomiPaul

About The Author

Read about real, ethical back doors to higher rankings that the search engines actually encourage you to use, free at http://www.freetraffictip.com/goblog.

This article was posted on January 18

by Tinu AbayomiPaul

6 Essential Steps to Protect Your Computer On the

6 Essential Steps to Protect Your Computer On the Internet For Free

by: Jerry Yu

Recently one of my friends asked me to check out if his computer was infected by virus. He suspected because occasionally the computer was shut down automatically when connected to internet. My first thought was the Sasser worm 60 seconds auto countdown. As he uses Windows 98 second edition with IE5, the virus must be a Sasser variant.
Iกm not network security expert but I know some basic things he must do to protect his home PC. It was a shock when he told me that his 4 years old PC had no protection except McAfee antivirus.

Bought in 2000 and no Windows service packs had been applied since then.
McAfee antivirus software came with the PC when bought and no updates since then.
No firewall installed.
No anti spyware installed.

This is what I did to beef up his PC to the best of my knowledge.
Step #1: Patch the operating system.
The first thing I did was update his Windows 98 to the latest available Windows updates for Windows 98.

Open Microsoft Windows Update page at http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/
Scan the PC to find out what critical updates and security fixes are missing.
Select, download, and install a selection of updates, especially any Critical Updates.
Restart the PC after finished.

When you open the Microsoft Windows Update page, click the กScan for updatesก link. The page will suggest what updates are needed based on your Windows version. You should install all Critical Updates suggested by Microsoft.
It took me about one and half hour to complete the above steps.
Step #2: Download, install, and run Spybot to get rid of all spyware.

http://www.safernetworking.org/index.php?page=download
SpybotS&D is a free antispyware software to detect any spyware installed on your PC.
Spyware is any software that is installed on your PC and tracks your online behavior without your knowledge or consent. Spyware generally can

Track what web pages you are visiting and send these information to advertising companies. This kind of spyware is commonly called adware.
Track and record your computer activities such as what keys you hit. This is generally called Trojans.
Change your web browserกs home page.
And more…

After installed Spybot, I immediately scanned my friendกs computer and found 166 problems. The first run killed nearly all of them except some memory residents that had to be killed after a reboot.
Step #3: Download and install Kerio Personal Firewall (KPF).

http://www.kerio.com/us/kpf_download.html
Kerio Personal Firewall limited free edition is for home users. After installation, KPF works as the full edition for 30 days, after which it becomes the limited free edition.
You may also try the free ZoneAlarm firewall. Be aware that ZoneAlarm free edition uses a lot of computer memory.
The following is the free ZoneAlarm firewall download link. You hardly can find this download link on ZoneAlarm site because they want you to buy the Pro version which is a much better choice.

http://www.zonealarm.com/store/content/company/products/znalm/freeDownload.jsp
Step #4: Download AVG antivirus software

http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_dwnl_free.php
Because my friend has McAfee antivirus installed but has not been updated for about 4 years. I downloaded AVG Free Edition antivirus software and let him to consider if he wanted to pay and update his McAfee or use the freebie. Running two antivirus software on the same computer can cause conflicts.
Step #5: Install password management software RoboForm free edition.

http://www.roboform.com/?affid=siter
RoboForm is a password management software with Artificial Intelligence built in that can automatically fill online forms for you. It has been featured on The Wall Street Journal, CNN, The New York Times, Financial Times, PC Magazine, etc.
Nowadays we all have many usernames and passwords to use on the internet. Some spywares record your keystrokes and send them to the hackers. It has been reported many times that people lost all their money in online bank account or internet payment system account.
One of RoboForm key features is designed to combat this kind of key logger hacking. RoboForm can

AutoSave passwords in browser.
AutoFill passwords to login form.
Click Login button for you.
Fill personal info into online forms.
Save offline passwords & notes.
Generate Secure Random Passwords.
Encrypt passwords and personal info using 3DES.
All personal info is stored on your computer only.
Put passwords on USB KeyChain for extra security.
Sync your passwords and safenotes to a Palm.
Backup & Restore, Print your passwords.
More features: drill down for more.

RoboForm works best with IE 5.0 and above. IE6 is the recommended browser to use with Artificial Intelligence RoboForm.
Note: free eidition comes with some limitations.
Step #6: Apply additional security measures.
More security measures and resources:

Read Web Security tutorial from W3Schools, especially the paragraphs for home users.

http://www.w3schools.com/site/site_security.asp
Use Audit My PC to do three Penetration Testing.

http://www.auditmypc.com/freescan/prefcan.asp
Use Gibson Researchกs ShiedsUP to do port scan and get useful advice.

https://grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2
Download Gibson Researchกs LeakTest and check if personal firewall can be fooled. If the firewall is good, the LeadTest will not be able to reach the internet.

http://grc.com/lt/leaktest.htm
Browse Microsoft security home page to learn more about Windows security.

http://www.microsoft.com/security/default.mspx

Mission completed. It took me nearly 4 hours that night and the result is so far so good.

About The Author

The author, Jerry Yu, is an experienced internet marketer and web developer. Visit his site http://www.WebActionGuide.com for FREE กhowtoก stepbystep action guide, tips, knowledge base articles, and more.

This article was posted on July 20, 2004

by Jerry Yu

Are You Well Protected?

Are You Well Protected?

by: Roxie Hickman

Winter…the official start of the cold and flu season. Though, technically speaking, things got started a little early. Close to a million computers, mostly home PC users, have been infected.

For many of us our computers are our business. We keep in contact with customers and clients via email, do extensive internet research, and transmit important files electronically.

We know what to do to protect our bodies from viruses. There are some simple strategies, and even free precautions we can take to protect our businesses by keeping our PCs virus free.

Adopting the following six checkpoints will help keep your computer healthy and your business uninterrupted.

Use a Firewall

At its most basic level a firewall is a software security system that acts as a barrier between your computer and the outside world (the internet) by monitoring all incoming network traffic. A more advanced firewall will also monitor outgoing traffic. How you use your computer will determine whether basic or advanced firewall protection is needed.

What a firewall does is make your computer invisible while on the Internet. If hackers can’t see you, they cannot attack you.

Windows XP has this software installed; however, it may need to be enabled. If you have XP and would like to enable the firewall, directions are on the Microsoft website.

For non XP users, firewall software can be purchased. McAfee and Zone Alarm are two very popular products. Zone Alarm has a free downloadable firewall, basic version, available on their website, www.zonealarm.com.

Before installing a firewall, you may be interested in learning your computer’s vulnerability. This is something that can be checked for free and in just a few minutes. Visit the website of Gibson Research Corporation, www.grc.com, and under Hot Spots, click on Shields UP. It takes a little bit of scrolling to get to but is well worth the extra seconds. In minutes your PC is scanned and its vulnerability rated.

Antivirus Software

Antivirus software is the กshotก after the epidemic. This software protects your computer from known threats. Many PCs come with antivirus software already installed. Some of the more popular versions are Norton, PCCillin and McAfee.

If you have it pre installed or have purchased it, great. Please be sure to keep it constantly updated with the latest virus definitions. This is important because these definitions are formed in response to the latest viruses. If you don’t have this protection, please consider getting it.

Once this software is installed on your computer, you will be automatically notified when new virus definitions are available. Then it is just a matter of a few clicks to download the new definitions.

Likewise you will be notified when your antivirus software is about to expire. The software needs to be updated annually. The initial purchase, renewal, updates and installation can all be done online.

Spyware Eliminator

Why am I getting all of these pop ups? Certain websites that you visit or free software (shareware) that you download, and, in some cases, hardware purchased from major manufacturers will also install tracking devices on your computer (spyware). Spyware is annoying but not illegal.

An internet search will reveal the many choices available for spyware elimination software. The important thing is to get one and use it consistently. Spybot and PestPatrol are popular choices.

I really like Spybot Search and Destroy. Besides the fact that it is free, once spyware is identified, the software will provide a detailed description of just what it is. This is helpful just in case it identifies something that you don’t want to get rid of.

Backup, Backup, Backup

How often do you backup? What files/programs do you backup? What media do you backup to?

We all know the importance of backing up our information yet so many of us don’t do it. There may be a ton of reasons why itกs not done but the one reason it should be done on a regular basis is that it can be a timesaver, possibly a business saver if your computer system is corrupted for any reason.

If you happen to be using Windows XP Professional, the backup procedure is quite simple. For users of XP Home Edition, it is a bit more involved. Complete instructions, however, are on the Microsoft website.

Typically, data files are what most people need to back up and having well organized files will certainly simplify the process.

Whether you backup to disk, zip disk, DVD, writeable CDs, external file drive or utilize one of the online services, it is important to get into the habit of backing up on a regular basis.

Weekly Updates of Windows

Windows users are automatically notified of current updates for the Windows operating system when your computer is turned on. With just a few clicks your operating system is updated.

However, when certain patches become available for your particular applications software (XP, 2000, NT, etc), as was/is the case with the recent worm viruses, a visit to Microsoftกs website is necessary.

Once there, Microsoft will scan your computer, tell you what updates are available, and you then have the option of installing them on your system. In some cases, you will need your installation CDs to complete the download.

With the recent run of viruses and with more expected, it is imperative to check for these updates weekly on the Microsoft website as well as do the automatic updates.

Be Careful of Email Attachments

Email is such a widely accepted method of communication, and this has not gone unnoticed by hackers who use email as a means of mass virus spread.

For this final checkpoint, your due diligence is the only software required.

Always delete any email from unknown senders and be very careful of any attachments you are not expecting from any known senders. As we have seen, hackers can quite easily access Outlook address books to spread viruses.

By the way, including a fake email address in your address book will not prevent your PC from spreading viruses. This is an urban legend. If you’re interested in the full story, check out this link:

www.snopes.com/computer/virus/quickfix.htm

When it comes to the health of our computers, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Effective prevention software along with plain old common sense, used consistently, can keep you protected.

About The Author

Roxie Hickman, Virtual Assistant (VA), is the owner of The Virtual Connection. The Virtual Connection (www.thevirtualconnection.net) specializes in working with the ‘sucstressed’ (successful professionals who are stressed because they’ve been doing it alone). The Virtual Connection provides offsite executive, administrative, and personal assistance (virtual assistance).

[email protected]

This article was posted on December 21, 2003

by Roxie Hickman

RSS: Get Notified When Your Favorite Websites Are

RSS: Get Notified When Your Favorite Websites Are Updated

by: Bear Cahill

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a way for a site to publish itกs updates. RSS readers can read these notifications and display a listing of the updates to you, the user.

Itกs sort of like having a special กinboxก for emails announcing updates to your selected websites.

Many applications and websites support RSS feeds. You can add RSS feeds to your My Yahoo! page, Firefox has several RSS extensions such as Sage, there are sites that deal w/ RSS feeds such as Feedster and FastBuzz. Thunderbird even allows you to set up RSS feeds similar to your inbox.

There are also stand alone applications for RSS feeds like Pluck, RSSReader and SharpReader.

Different readers allow you to subscribe to a feed differently. Using Firefox w/ Sage, for example, you can draganddrop the RSS icon into your RSS feed folder and itกs done.

Whatกs the benefit?

You can use RSS feeds to see if thereกs anything new at a given site before visiting the site. This wouldn’t be a big help if you only had one RSS feed. However, if you have several sites you check routinely, this can cut the time down tremendously.

It gives you more of an กataglanceก view of all your monitored sites. Imagine if when you went to click on your bookmark for a site that it also said right then if the site had changed and how.

Also, depending on the RSS reader you use, it can tell you when you have a new update on the site.

Sites with RSS Feeds

There are many sites w/ RSS feeds. To know if a site has an RSS feed, look for an กRSSก link on the site or a button/icon w/ RSS, ATOM or XML on it.

One cool use is to set the RSS feed for a news search on a site. At Yahoo! News you can search on a topic in the news and then subscribe to that feed using the XML icon.

A lot of news/info/blog sites have RSS feeds that can help you keep up to date on the info you want.

Itกs a collection of tech info thatกs updated regularly. You can see if/when itกs been updated in your reader, see the title of the updates and a short summary and then decide if you want to load the site or that post or nothing.

Bottom Line

RSS readers allow you to see the latest updates to sites (and possibly be notified) ataglance without having to go to all your sites and load them. Itกs like peaking into many sites from a single place.

About The Author

Bear Cahill is a software engineer in the Dallas, TX area and runs a few websites: The Armchair Geek (thearmchairgeek.com), Webpage Hosting Info (webpagehostinginfo.com), Go To College Online (gotocollegeonline.com) and The Video Exchange Community (videoexchange.org)

This article was posted on January 28

by Bear Cahill

Bios Term

Bios Term

by: John Gibb

BIOS Basic Input Output System
The central processing unit of a computer needs to communicate with the many hardware devices installed in your computer.
The BIOS of a computer contains a piece of software that enables the CPU to communicate with the many devices a computer has installed. The BIOS is normally installed in a ROM and is normally stored on a chip located on the motherboard of a computer.
When you turn on your computer, the bios is the firs thing to load up, you can enter this program by pressing a certain key on your computer keyboard. The BIOS uses the CMOS memory to store all set configuration for your computer. You can change and alter settings in the BIOS and then save it to the CMOS memory.
There is now the flash bios, which enables you to update the bios information with updates etc. Many manufactures provide bios updates on their websites. This can help your computer stay updated and keep performance running smoothly.
Http://www.computerandprinterreviews.com helps new users come to their own decesions.

About The Author

John Gibb is the webmaster of several guide and review websites. http://www.computerandprinterreviews.com is his latest addition.

This article was posted on July 29, 2004

by John Gibb