Sunday, March 30, 2008

One reason I do not like flash

Full Flash web site may look cool but try to get them in the search engines!! It is not impossible just really difficult. At Rossini.com we use a program like Flash but one that is much more user friendly and we think safer. Take a look at this article:



Robert McMillan Thu Mar 27, 2:40 PM ET

San Francisco - Two months after Adobe Systems patched a serious flaw in its Flash development software, there are still hundreds of thousands of Web pages serving up buggy Shockwave Flash (.swf) files that could be exploited by hackers, according to a Google researcher.
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Google security engineer Rich Cannings discovered the widespread vulnerability in his spare time while researching a book on Web security. It turned out that many Flash development tools created files that could be used by hackers in what's known as a cross-site scripting attack. This attack can be used in phishing, but it also gives the bad guys a nearly undetectable route into a victim's bank account or almost any type of Web service.

Cannings estimates that more than 10,000 Web sites are still affected by the issue.

Cannings first noticed the bug on Google's Web site and tracked down the Google employee responsible for the flaw: a sales representative who had been using Dreamweaver to create buggy Flash files.

The bug was in other Flash development tools too, but Adobe and others quickly patched their software after Cannings disclosed his findings. The problem is that Flash files created before the fix can still trigger the issue.

Google dealt with its old buggy files by moving all Flash animation to Web servers that used numerical IP addresses rather than the Google.com domain. This made the cross-site scripting attack impossible on the Google.com Web site. Engineers there didn't even try to repair the buggy Flash files because it's "such a pain" to fix them, Cannings said. He spoke during a talk at the CanSecWest security conference and in a follow-up interview.

But for many companies, moving Flash animation to a different domain may not be an option. They are faced with rewriting their Flash files -- an expensive job that is often outsourced to contractors by companies' sales or marketing departments.

With Web site management also frequently outsourced, it's just not practical for many companies to fix the issue the same way as Google, according to Dan Hubbard, vice president of security research with Websense, a content-filtering vendor.

But that doesn't mean that everyone is ignoring the issue. Fearing that their customer accounts could be compromised by this type of attack, banks are cleaning up vulnerable Flash files, Cannings said. "I had a few banks tell me, 'Oh my God this is a big problem.'"

Hackers are not exploiting cross-site scripting bugs in a widespread way right now. In fact, Cannings believes that these flaws have been overhyped in recent months. For Web sites like Google that contain sensitive customer information, they are a very serious problem, but they are not as critical as, say, remote-code execution flaws that would allow unauthorized software to run on a victim's PC, he said.

Still, if the Flash issue is ever going to be addressed in a widespread fashion, it's unlikely that anyone other than Adobe could really solve it, Cannings said. Although it would be a massive technical challenge, changes could be made to Adobe Flash Player software that would make these cross-site scripting attacks impossible, Cannings said.

"I think Adobe should step up and fix it," he said.

Hacking your operating system!

Now this is an interesting article I found! How about all those interesting commercials about the new Air Book Oh by the way we use Linux!!!



Robert McMillan, IDG News Service Sat Mar 29, 8:00 AM ET

The MacBook Air went first; a tiny Fujitsu laptop running Vista was hacked on the last day of the contest; but it was Linux, running on a Sony Vaio, that remained undefeated as conference organizers ended a three-way computer hacking challenge Friday at the CanSecWest conference.
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Earlier this week, contest sponsors had put three laptops up for grabs to anyone who could hack into one of the systems and run their own software. A US$20,000 cash prize sweetened the deal, but the payout was halved each day as contest rules were relaxed and it became easier to penetrate the computers.

On day two, Independent Security Evaluators' Charlie Miller took the Mac after hitting it with a still-undisclosed exploit that targeted the Safari Web browser. After about two minutes work, Thursday, Miller took home $10,000, courtesy of 3Com's TippingPoint division, in addition to his new laptop.

It took two days of work, but Shane Macaulay, finally cracked the Vista box on Friday, with a little help from his friends.

Macaulay, who was a co-winner of last year's hacking contest, needed a few hacking tricks courtesy of VMware researcher Alexander Sotirov to make his bug work. That's because Macaulay hadn't been expecting to attack the Service Pack 1 version of Vista, which comes with additional security measures. He also got a little help from co-worker Derek Callaway.

Under contest rules, Macaulay and Miller aren't allowed to divulge specific details about their bugs until they are patched, but Macaulay said the flaw that he exploited was a cross-platform bug that took advantage of Java to circumvent Vista's security.

"The flaw is in something else, but the inherent nature of Java allowed us to get around the protections that Microsoft had in place," he said in an interview shortly after he claimed his prize Friday. "This could affect Linux or Mac OS X."

Macaulay said he chose to work on Vista because he had done contract work for Microsoft in the past and was more familiar with its products.

Although several attendees tried to crack the Linux box, nobody could pull it off, said Terri Forslof, a manager of security response with TippingPoint. "I was surprised that it didn't go," she said.

Some of the show's 400 attendees had found bugs in the Linux operating system, she said, but many of them didn't want to put the work into developing the exploit code that would be required to win the contest.

Earlier, Miller said that he chose to hack the Mac because he thought it would be easiest target. Vista hacker Macaulay didn't dispute that assertion: "I think it might be," he said.

Did you turn out the lights?

Last night we turned off our lights in the house at 8:00 PM to celebrate or join the world in a one hour black out for world energy conservation. It was in a way fun and I bumped into several things, I forgot to get my flashlight :) I am sure the world actually looked cool to the men and women on the International space station as the lights twinkled off around the world. The funny thing is, did you go into your computer area and see all those little lights on your modem or hub or router or even your computer twinkle on and off. The fact is those devices are on and drawing power so unless there is a real black out, you will still be spinning the power meter for your good old electric company. I do have a solution to that....if the power goes off, I switch on my emergency back up power kit that I made and I can compute away, watch TV and satellite tv and have lights and a fan and on and on for several hours! More on this later. I have enjoyed using the emergency kit many times. So when the power goes out...I know how to keep it going again :) More on this soon!

The www is getting more expensive!

To register your domain name is about to increase! Not a big increase mind you but it is going up. The base price for.com and .net fees are being raised. These price increases will trikle down to all registrars after Oct 1 or sooner.



By Antone Gonsalves
InformationWeek Fri Mar 28, 7:34 PM ET

VeriSign has raised the registration fee for domain names ending in .com and .net for the second time since the company took control of the top-level domains in 2006.
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The security vendor said Thursday that the registry fee for .com would increase to $6.86 from $6.42, and the fee for .net would increase to $4.23 from $3.85. The increases are expected to take effect on Oct. 1, and are in line with VeriSign's agreement with ICANN, the U.S. organization in charge of managing the assignment of domain names and IP addresses, the company said.

In justifying the increase, VeriSign said traffic volume continues to increase with the emergence of consumer-driven services, the soaring number of Web-connected wireless devices, and the proliferation of technologies and services using the Domain Name System. The company says it processes a peak of more than 33 billion DNS queries per day, under normal traffic conditions.

In addition, the .com and .net infrastructures are continually being fortified against more sophisticated cyberattacks, VeriSign said. The company is deploying new proprietary security upgrades and monitoring tools to identify, track, and isolate malicious Internet traffic.

VeriSign plans to increase the capacity of its global Internet infrastructure by 10 times its current level by the year 2010, and increase its daily DNS query capacity to more than 4 trillion from 400 billion today, the company said. VeriSign also plans to increase the network bandwidth of its primary resolution centers around the world to more than 200 Gbps second from 20 Gbps.

VeriSign's last increase took effect on Oct. 15. At that time, the registry fee for .com increased to $6.42 from $6, and the fee for .net rose to $3.85 from $3.50.

It was the first registry fee increase for the two domain names since ICANN put the fee structure in place in 1999. Nevertheless, the increases were criticized by some as being unjustified.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Google on the prowl again!

Why are they turning off your anolog TV set next year? This may be why!!!

Good Morning Silicon Valley
Article Launched: 03/24/2008 02:02:17 PM PDT

Google launches new probe in white-space race

By JOHN MURRELL

Come February of next year, the mandated move of over-the-air broadcasters from analog to digital will free up some valuable radio frequencies known collectively as the "white space" -- the unused, unlicensed airspace between broadcast channels 2 and 51. It's a tasty bit of spectrum because it can propagate long distances and through obstacles, and that has stimulated the salivary glands of all the big tech companies with an interest in increasing the options for wireless devices and services. And since everything and anything that boosts Internet traffic is good for Google, it's not surprising to see the search sovereign out front in the push to get the FCC to make those airwaves free and open, flexing its lobbying clout the way it did in the recent auction of licensed spectrum (see "Google loses spectrum auction, exhales with relief").

Today, Google lawyer Richard Whitt said the company had sent a letter to the FCC, again making its case and trying to assuage the concerns of opponents who fear such use could cause harmful interference with TV and wireless microphone signals. Right now, the spectrum represents a vastly underutilized natural resource, Google said. "The unique qualities of the TV white space -- unused spectrum, large amounts of bandwidth, and excellent propagation characteristics -- offer a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to provide ubiquitous wireless broadband access to all Americans," said the letter. "In particular, this spectrum can provide robust infrastructure to serve the needs of under-deployed rural areas, as well as first responders and others in the public safety community. Moreover, use of this spectrum will enable much-needed competition to the incumbent broadband service providers." The company outlined several technical suggestions for resolving any interference issues, and said it would be more than happy to provide free technical support to third parties to make this all happen.

The key to exploiting the white space, Google said, is for the government to open it to all comers and then stand back. "FCC rules should specify only what is allowed, not how that result is to be achieved, or by whom," read the letter. "Much like the Internet itself, the agency's specifications should as much as possible enable 'innovation without permission' (although with necessary technical constraints). ... The value of the TV white space to all Americans simply is too great to allow this unique opportunity to be blocked by unfounded fear, uncertainty, and doubt."

Friday, March 21, 2008

Monitors oh where oh where are the old glass CRT'S?

OH you want to buy what?? A CRT? CRT oh you mean cathode ray tube? This is starting to sound like what happened to the old radio days of tube operated transceivers and yes even computers. The LCD panel and display is charging strong and the days of the old CRT are numbered. Here is an interesting article to read:




A monitor for photo editing

QMy wife is a photographer starting her own business. We’re planning on upgrading our computer monitor. We want one 24 inches or bigger. She uses Adobe CS2 for editing and has a Nikon D300. What do you recommend? We are looking for the clearest, sharpest monitor we can get for a reasonable price.

AOK, let’s put this into perspective. Your wife is using an $1,800 camera. Photoshop runs about $600. And your computer must be fairly powerful if it runs Photoshop.

My point? Now is not the time to skimp. Monitors designed for photo editing can run thousands of dollars. But they help you get the most out of your photographs.

For professional photographers, few things are as important as color accuracy. So, a quality monitor is worth the investment. It will help you get the most out of the money you’ve invested in other gear.

Traditionally, CRT monitors have been better for photo editing. (I’d like to see you try to fit a 24-inch CRT on a desktop!)

Manufacturers are doing away with CRT monitors, though. Fortunately, LCD panels are improving greatly. You can get an LCD monitor with the same quality image as a CRT. But you will pay for it.

There are several types of LCD panels. Skip TN (twisted nematic) panels. These are only capable of 6-bit color and 262,144 colors. In comparison, graphics cards can display 16.7 million colors. TN panels approximate the remaining colors.

S-IPS (super in-plane switching) is a better choice for photo editing. You’ll get 8-bit color and 16.7 million colors—without approximations. The color reproduction is also good.

On the down side, contrast could be improved. Response time is slow, but that is unmportant for photo editing.

S-PVA (super patterned vertical alignment) panels are also a good choice. You’ll get at least 8-bit color and 16.7 million colors. Response times are respectable, and the contrast is good.

Unfortunately, many manufacturers don’t list what type of LCD panel they use. In fact, manufacturers may use different types in different production batches of the same model.

If you look at high-end professional monitors, things are different. For example, Eizo and LaCie tout the panel type used in a particular monitor.

You may be able to find out what type of panel a particular model uses. That would probably take a bit of work.

But I can tell you what to consider. First, you want a monitor with a wide color gamut. Contrast ratios are important too. Brightness or luminance is also important.

This article came from Kim Komando

A new cheap PC???

Intel's low-cost Classmate PC to be sold in U.S.
By Steve Johnson
Mercury News


After all the buzz surrounding the low-cost Classmate PC laptop it designed for school kids in other countries, Intel is talking to computer manufacturers about offering an updated retail version in this country within months for less than $500.

"We're expecting to see Classmate PC in the U.S. by the end of this year," said Agnes Kwan, a spokeswoman with the Santa Clara chip-maker. "In the past 18 months, we've been getting a really good response from customers ... as well as from consumers asking about the product. We realized there was a big interest out there."

Although the second-generation laptop is expected to cost from $250 to $350 to make, it would be priced higher for retail sale after it's loaded with various software applications, Kwan said.

She noted that the computer's price and features are still being hashed out between Intel and the companies considering making it, which she declined to name. Whichever company eventually manufactures the new machine might choose to make several versions, each loaded with different combinations of applications and selling for different prices.

Those options will be brought up in a meeting Intel plans to have with some computer manufacturing executives soon. "We are going to talk about the next generation features of it in the next couple of weeks," Kwan said.

The first prototype for the Classmate PC, which contains Intel's Celeron processor, was unveiled in May 2006. It was designed to be
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an inexpensive machine for school children in parts of the world where computer technology remains relatively inaccessible.

The first-generation Classmate PC is being tested in schools in California, Texas and Oregon, as well as in a number of other countries.

The ones being tested in the U.S. are made by Taiwanese manufacturer Elitegroup Computer Systems. Others are made and sold by companies in Pakistan, Brazil, Nigeria, Mexico and Libya, Kwan said.

Intel has not disclosed how much revenue it has made from the first-generation computers and Kwan declined to speculate on what the company might earn from a retail version sold in the U.S.

David Wu, an analyst with Global Crown Capital, said parents in this country might buy the Classmate PC for their children. But he believes the product won't attract many adults.

"They look like a toy," he said, adding that the Classmate PC will likely have fewer features than some other computers already selling for less than $500.

Nicholas Negroponte and his One Laptop Per Child Foundation also have been pushing to provide low-cost computers in other countries. In January, he accused Intel executives of disparaging his product in order to promote the Classmate PC. Intel has denied the charge.

Contact Steve Johnson at sjohnson@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5043.

Google gains more search share!

Google gains search market share
More use search engine
Elise Ackerman, Mercury News
Article Launched: 03/20/2008 01:47:40 AM PDT

Google gained market share from Microsoft and Yahoo in February, even as Americans spent less time searching the Internet, comScore reported Tuesday. According to the Chicago-based research firm, Google's share of core searches jumped from 58.5 percent to 59.2 percent, while Yahoo's fell from 22.2 percent to 21.6 percent and Microsoft's dropped from 9.8 percent to 9.6 percent. In total, Americans conducted 9.9 billion searches in February, a 6 percent decline from January.

- Elise Ackerman, Mercury News

Did Google lose or did they win?

Verizon Wireless, AT&T big winners in airwaves auction; Google emptyhanded
Associated Press
Article Launched: 03/20/2008 01:01:14 PM PDT

WASHINGTON - The two largest cell phone companies dominated bidding in a record-setting government airwaves auction, according to results released Thursday.

AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless combined to account for $16 billion of the $19.6 billion bid in the auction, an Associated Press analysis of the Federal Communications Commission data shows. Verizon Wireless bid $9.4 billion and AT&T $6.6 billion.

The results raised concern that the auction failed to attract any new competitors to the cellular telephone market to challenge the dominant companies.

Google Inc. was not among the winners, meaning the search engine giant will not be entering the wireless business.

One new entrant, Frontier Wireless LLC, owned by leading satellite television company EchoStar Corp., won nearly enough licenses to create a nationwide footprint. Frontier bid $712 million, according to FCC data.

Until Thursday, the names of bidders were kept anonymous in an effort to discourage collusion during the auction. The bidders have 10 days to make down payments.

Verizon Wireless, a joint venture between Verizon Communications Inc. and British telecom giant Vodaphone Group PLC, won nearly every license in the consumer-friendly "C block."

The frequencies, which encompass about one-third of the spectrum at auction, is subject to "open access" provisions pushed by the FCC chairman, Kevin Martin. That means people on the network can use whatever
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phones or software they wish.

Verizon won enough licenses to cover every state but Alaska and said in a statement it was very pleased with the results.

Google posted a bid for the C block licenses early in the auction, assuring that the open-access provision would be put in place, but the offer was not enough.

The third leading bidder was Qualcomm Inc., which pledged $1 billion.

A section of airwaves dedicated for a nationwide emergency communications network failed to attract a winning bidder. Martin said Thursday he had ordered an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the matter.

Public interest groups asked the agency on Wednesday to investigate allegations about a meeting between Frontline Wireless LLC and its financial backers and a company called Cyren Call, created by Nextel Corp. co-founder Morgan O'Brien.

Frontline was widely expected to bid on the public safety spectrum block. But the company dropped out before the auction began after failing to meet a minimum required payment.

Cyren Call was acting as the agent for a nonprofit public safety trust that would operate a shared network with the winning bidder.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Track your campaigns!

One thing has been drilled into me since I was a young sales rep and that was plan your work and work your plan. Also if you made calls, track them. If you did mailers, track them. If you do e-mail newsletters track the response rate.

Another angle of this thought is stated by another professional:

Developing and implementing a strategic marketing plan is an essential part of your success. However, unless you're testing and tracking your strategies, you may be losing a great deal of time and money.

You can dramatically increase your sales simply by taking the time to test and track your results. Not only will it help you to determine what's working and what's not, but it will also enable you to focus your efforts on the strategies that produce results.

When testing your marketing strategies, keep in mind, a strategy that produces results for one person may not produce results for you. There is no 'set in stone' strategy that works for everyone. You must develop your own style and technique and test your results to determine what works for you.

At Rossini.com we offer advanced reporting for all of our clients that can track your web sites successes. Remember, you can hit a target unless you know what and where it is!!!

This blog article is jointly written by Joe Rossini and Shelley Lowery

Writing headlines that sell!

This an interesting article written by Shelly Lowery author of the book Web Design Mastery.

Below are several different formulas used by professional copywriters to write compelling headlines.

How to

"How to Increase Your Sales Up to 500% by Using This One Simple Strategy"

Headlines beginning with 'how to' are very successful, as the Internet is all about information. Internet users have a strong desire to learn. A headline beginning with 'how to' immediately grabs your potential customers' attention and forces them to read on.

Question

"Are You Sick and Tired of Working For Someone Else?"

Headlines written in the form of a question are very effective, as they appeal to your potential customers' emotions. When they read a headline written as a question, they'll answer the question in their mind. If the question identifies a specific need, want or desire, they'll read on.

Command

"Double Your Income Within the Next 12 months --Guaranteed!"

A command headline focuses on the most important benefit your product or service has to offer. It instantly demands your potential customers' attention and intrigues them to read on.

News

"Announcing a Brand New Breakthrough in E-Publishing"

News headlines are very effective and used to announce new products and services. They are written in the form of an announcement or introduction and create curiosity.

Testimonials

"Internet Marketing Exclusive is Pure Genius -- Our Sales Have Increased by 40%!"

Headlines written in the form of a testimonial are very effective, as they instantly begin building trust.

When writing your headlines, certain words, when combined together, will literally draw your readers' attention to your ad. Below are of few of these "Power Words" that consistently work.

Breakthrough
Discover
Discovery
Easy
Free
Guaranteed
Hidden
Incredible
Love
Master
Money
New
Powerful
Profits
Proven
Results
Revealed
Scientific
Secret
Shocked
Shocking
Ultimate
Uncovered
You
Your

According to a Yale University study, the following words are the most powerful words in the English language.

Money
Discovery
Save
Easy
New
Love
Health
Proven
You
Results
Guaranteed
Safety

Just as certain words ignite different emotions, certain subjects have a broader interest than others do. Some of the most popular subjects include wealth, love, health and safety.

Take your time and try the different formulas according to your needs. Use a combination of the power words and write a headline that sells. By learning the art of writing headlines that focus on the basic human needs and emotions, you can increase your sales considerably.


Copyright © Shelley Lowery

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Another Youtube?

YouTube rival Hulu debuts with lineup of TV shows, movies and sports
News Corp., NBC joint venture adds Warner Bros. and sports leagues to list of partners
By Heather Havenstein




March 11, 2008 (Computerworld) Hulu LLC, a joint online video project of NBC Universal Inc. and News Corp., is set to go live Wednesday with programming from Time Warner Inc.'s television group, Lions Gate Entertainment and sports groups. A beta version of the site was launched in October.

Hulu, described as a YouTube rival, will offer full-length episodes from more than 250 televisions series, including The Simpsons and Buffy the Vampire Slayer along with more than 100 movies, according to a report from Reuters. Hulu has also signed video licensing deals with the National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League, Reuters said.

A spokesman from NBC Universal parent company General Electric Co. did not return a call requesting comment on Hulu.

Liz Cannes, a blogger for NewTeeVee, noted that Hulu is reporting an audience of 5 million viewers on the site in the past 30 days, which she described as "pretty insane for a semiprivate beta."

Cannes added that the site's viewing experience has improved since the beta program started by instituting full seasons of some current shows and movies supported by trailers rather than interrupting ads.

"We'll be watching to see if it can hit the mainstream," Cannes noted. "We know some 16% of American Internet households are watching TV online already. Streaming Web video is never going to be the be-all and end-all, but as a happy Hulu beta tester, I would bet it's gonna be big."

Paul Glazowski, a blogger at Mashable.com, noted that he expects ABC and CBS to join the effort at some point, "which would undoubtedly offer considerably more weight to Hulu's long-term business prospects."

"Though (ABC and CBS) both presently operate stand-alone video portals of their own, there's little reason to suspect that a partial migration to Hulu will occur," he said.

"Web video, despite its fresh-faced allure and burgeoning consumer demand, is one that is for the most part unprofitable for large networks now. Web advertising prices don't yet amount to a valuation that can be considered amply supplemental to the networks' present-day income. The tried-and-true standard broadcast and cable television mediums are by far the cash kinds of television at the moment," he added.

Therefore, he said, the more viewers the networks can reach online to generate more ad revenue, the better. The best way to reach more viewers online would be to participate in a concentrated effort like Hulu backed industrywide, he noted.

Monday, March 10, 2008

Virus threats

Latest security post from McAfee:

BREAKING ADVISORY

March 6, 2008. Microsoft plans to release four Security Bulletins for the month of March. All four of the bulletins are rated by the vendor as Critical and allow for remote code execution if successfully exploited. The affected applications include Microsoft Office and Microsoft Office Web components.

Latest scams:

Top Phish scams
Phishing-

A method of fraudulently obtaining personal information, such as passwords, social security numbers, and credit card details, by sending spoofed e-mails that look like they come from trusted sources, such as banks or legitimate companies. Typically, phishing e-mails request that recipients click on the link in the e-mail to verify or update contact details or credit card information. Like spam, phishing e-mail go to a large number of e-mail addresses expecting that someone will read the spam and disclose their personal information.

* WC banking notification: New Certificates 2008
* Wachovia bank accounts support
* Notice: : New Certificates 2008 wachovia.com
* Wachovia Connection New Certificates 2008 notice
* Wachovia Connection banking technical verification

Copyright is important!

I will be trying to post some interesting articles about copyright. In todays Internet society it is important to know that you can not just copy and paste everything into your web site. Here is something from Google:

The Google Public Policy Blog informed us that Utah reversed the law that restricted search engines from triggering ads based on trademarked terms.

This reversal now puts Utah in sync with the precedent set forth by the federal trademark law. In short, you can now legally bid on trademarked terms in Utah, assuming you comply with the search engine's trademark policy in your country.

Thursday, March 6, 2008

White papers

A very neat article from web guru Peter Marshal!
There's more than one way to skin a cat. And
in the case of using information to attract new
customers, any method of packaging that information
is game. And it doesn't have to be a 'White
Paper.'

Today I'm going to give you some alternate ideas.

First, in some industries, 'White Paper' is
a bit cliche. There are some other terms I've
found useful, and in fact my course has a list of
43 alternative words you can use. Here's a half-
dozen:

-Advisory
-Application Guide
-Pocket Guide
-Buzzword Guide
-Comparison Chart
-Slide Chart

Let me tell you a story about slide charts.

There are several companies that specialize
in making slide charts for illustrating data in
simple, interesting formats. If you've got
a table of various kinds of data that needs
to be organized in a simple way, a slide chart
might be just the thing.

About 5 years ago a company I worked for
made one of these charts and handed it out
at a trade show. I won't bore you with the
technical details, but basically it was a
pocket guide that pulled together the essential
details of ten different competing standards
on a single 'gizmo' that could fit in your
pocket.

Bottom line: It cleared up confusion and
gave people simplified information that would
otherwise be very confusing.

This thing was a *runaway success.* People
were handing it out all over the show, even
other booths. And the phone rang for
months afterward. It got written up in a
dozen magazines, and that little chart generated
recognition and business for us for 2 years!

I did the same thing again with a client
late last year and they're using it now to
generate hundreds of sales leads on their
website each month, for about $3.00 each.
The neat part is, people keep this thing in
their desks and refer to it later.

Other ideas: You can create software
programs, cost calculators, toolkits
and ROI calculators, and if they really
solve an important problem, people will
keep them, value them, and value YOU.

Make no mistake -- problem solving
information is 'currency' in the 21st century.
It will attract new customers to you like nothing else.

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Another one bites the dust!

Ask.com will cut workforce by 40 in makeover as women's search site
By Michael Liedtke
Associated Press
Article Launched: 03/05/2008 01:36:44 AM PST

In a dramatic about-face, Ask.com is abandoning its effort to outshine Internet search leader Google and will instead focus on a narrower market consisting of married women looking for help managing their lives.

As part of the new direction outlined Tuesday, Ask will lay off about 40 employees, or 8 percent of its workforce.

With the shift, the Oakland company will return to its roots by concentrating on finding answers to basic questions about recipes, hobbies and children's homework.

The decision to cater to married women primarily living in the southern and midwestern United States comes after Ask spent years trying to build a better all-purpose search engine than Google.

The quest intensified after Internet conglomerate InterActiveCorp bought Ask and its affiliated Web sites for $2.3 billion in 2005. But Ask.com remained an also-ran, despite spending tens of millions of dollars on an advertising blitz about dozens of new products that impressed many industry analysts.

Through January, Ask ran the Internet's fifth largest search engine in the United States with a 4.5 percent market share, according to comScore Media Metrix. Google dominates the industry with a 58.5 percent share.

"No matter what (Ask) did, it just wasn't enough to get people to leave Google," said Chris Winfield, who runs a search engine consulting firm, 10e20. "This looks they are raising the white
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flag."

Jim Safka, who became Ask's chief executive two months ago, predicted the retooling will breathe new life into the search engine.

"Everyone at Ask is excited about our clear focus and the trajectory-changing results it will deliver," he said in a statement.

With Ask scaling back, the online search market could winnow to two dominant players, Google and Microsoft. Now third in the market, Microsoft is trying to buy Yahoo, which runs the second largest search engine, for about $40 billion.

Ask's inability to increase its market share had spurred widespread speculation that Barry Diller, InterActiveCorp's CEO, might hire Google to run the search engine's results to save money.

Newspapers strike back

Newspapers strike back to form a new advertising medium:

NEW YORK - Four major newspaper publishers have created an online advertising sales network in the latest industry attempt to claw back ad dollars that are increasingly migrating to the Internet.

Gannett and Tribune, the largest and second-largest publishers in the country, are joining Hearst and the New York Times Co. to form a company that will sell online ad space across a network of newspapers in many large cities including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.

The joint venture, which launched Friday, will be based in Chicago and operate under the name QuadrantOne. It won't include USA Today or the New York Times itself, which already have significant online ad sales operations of their own. It will include the Boston Globe, which is owned by the New York Times Co.

Dana Hayes, an executive with Tribune's interactive division, was named interim CEO. In an interview, Hayes declined to disclose how much the four companies had invested in the venture, but said it would employ a staff of 17 people, mainly in sales and sales support positions. It is looking to sign up new affiliates, but the four initial investors will be the only owners.

Each of the more than 120 newspapers in the network will contribute standard units of online advertising to a pool which will then be sold to advertisers, Hayes said.

The network will be able to sell ads by region and also by news category depending on where they appear on a newspaper's Web site,
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such as sports, business or health. The network will also include the Web sites of dozens of TV stations.

Hayes said the network will be fully operational by April 1.

Blog..blog...blog

blog blog, blog...one of the most powerful new tools to get noticed in the search engines is to have your own blog. Google, Go Daddy and many more say it constantly, have a blog and use it even if just a bit. Ask us how to set this up and we will help you.

Rossini cyber security

Did you know that Rossini.com servers have both spam and virus filters in place being your first line of defense against those nasty bugs and spammers out there? This is part of what you pay us for! I have been asked by some who do pay us a fee heh don't I have a credit and to that I say your fee is your web page hosting, your virus protection, your spam protection, your e-mail flowing, your web page up constantly 24/7, your files backed up nightly, weekly and monthly, your web page submitted to the main search engines and a lot more. Behind the scenes is a team of professionals working for you!

Fed cyber security

An interesting article on cyber security:

Lawmakers voice concerns over cybersecurity plan
Too little too late?
Page: 1 2 3 Next >
By Robert Lemos, SecurityFocus → More by this author
Published Tuesday 4th March 2008 12:46 GMT

Members of the House of Representatives sought details on Thursday of a $30bn plan to secure federal government systems and upgrade network defenses to ward off attacks from foreign nations and online criminals.

Known as the Cyber Initiative, the Bush Administration project would dramatically reduce the number of interconnections between federal government networks and the internet and put more advanced network security in place to monitor data traffic for signs of malicious attacks.

While the five to seven year project could dramatically improve the network defenses of government agencies, lawmakers questioned whether the initiative will be too little, too late, and whether the resulting network monitoring could undermine privacy.

"It's hard to believe that this Administration now believes it has the answers to secure our federal networks and critical infrastructure," Representative Bennie Thompson (D-MS), chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, said in prepared remarks at the opening of the hearing on Thursday. "I believe cybersecurity is a serious problem - maybe the most complicated national security issue in terms of threat and jurisdiction. This problem will be with us for decades to come."

The US government gave short shrift to cybersecurity issues at the beginning of the decade. While the Bush Administration released its National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace in 2003, the final document significantly softened the government's stance on securing critical infrastructure, which is primarily maintained by private companies. The Administration also collected most of the cybersecurity capabilities into the Department of Homeland Security and then failed to fund the efforts.

While Congress established the position of Assistant Secretary for Cybersecurity within the DHS in 2005, the Bush Administration failed to fill the leadership role for more than a year, finally appointing Greg Garcia, a former information-technology lobbyist, to the post.

In the last two years, however, the Bush Administration has focused more intently on securing government networks. The US computer emergency readiness team (US-CERT) has deployed a network-traffic analysis system, EINSTEIN, to monitor 15 agencies for possible computer intrusions.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology has created the National Vulnerability Database and worked with other agencies to create important standards for configuration management and vulnerability detection.

The Office of Management and Budget, along with NIST, is spearheading an effort to get all desktop computer systems within federal agencies to use the Federal Desktop Core Configuration - a standard, secure configuration for Windows XP and Windows Vista.

Sunday, March 2, 2008

What we do.......

Sometimes, you forget to tell people what you do. Sometimes you get all wrapped up in every day life and business and you forget to tell others what got you where you are.

Rossini.com offers:

Web page creation
web page design
graphic art capability
Logo creation
multi media creation
brochure creation
programming
consulting
web hosting
E-mail hosting
E-mail newsletter creation
E-mail marketing
Search engine marketing
Pay per click marketing
Sales consulting
and much more.......

As you can see we offer a lot and understand a lot. We offer years of experience and knowledge.

Well I wonder if anyone is reading this? It would be nice if someone said they were.

Joe

Saturday, March 1, 2008

Spam is getting criminal attention

This article is from McAfee!

Experts confirm spam link to criminal conduct

Monday, February 25th, 2008 at 1:49pm by David DeWalt

In a recent speech before the Direct Marketing Association, Eileen Harrington, the Deputy Director of the Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Consumer Protection said that the most problematic spam now is tied to criminal conduct.

This statement really resonated with me and confirms what we've been seeing for a while now. Spam is now much more than a nuisance that clogs up corporate networks; it is a key weapon used by cyber crooks to target unsuspecting consumers and this makes it a major threat to individuals and businesses alike.

When it comes to managing spam, the mantra has traditionally been just don't click on it! But the problem now is that cyber crooks are getting smarter. The bad guys are employing sophisticated and more localized social engineering techniques that many people simply don't realize that the emails they are receiving are spam.

We're seeing the "quality" of the content both in terms of language and presentation increasing and making it more difficult for unsuspecting users to tell whether it's legitimate or not. This is a trend our researchers identified in the latest global Sage report.

The bad guys may have gotten smarter, but so have the good guys, and we can beat them. Consumers need to be careful, and businesses need to take a holistic approach to their technology solution.

And while there is no silver bullet to stop cyber crime, I applaud the Federal Trade Commission for highlighting the issue of spam and the steps it is taking in the global fight against cyber crime.

A McAfee interesting article!

Thursday, February 28th, 2008 at 1:36pm by Charles Ross

Leave it to the Air Force Institute of Technology to develop technology that detects patterns in email/web usage that could offer leading indicators of insider security threats.

The technology is called Probabilistic Latent Semantic Indexing (try saying that a couple times fast). It sifts through email and web traffic logs to identify trends in human behaviors that could ultimately lead to malfeasance. For example, an employee who becomes distant with colleagues over email and increases communications with outsiders could be a sign of dissidence. If you’re keeping tabs on this topic, this is an extension of the research MIT is doing around “Reality Mining”.

Researchers will argue they are not concerned with the content of data, but rather data about data (i.e. deltas in creation time, volume, etc.) to draw conclusions. However, this seems a bit flawed with this security guy.

I’m all for finding new ways to find the bad guys especially if good data exists to prove a wrong doing. But, making security predictions based on historical trends of human behavior seems a bit like guess work at best. In my opinion, there is too much inherent variability in human behavior for even the savviest computer and slick algorithms to predict what comes next. If people were truly rational, security would be a heck of a lot easier.

When it comes to preventing insider threats, I believe a basic understanding of human psychology is far more effective than directing machine learning at the problem. People with access to do bad things, combined with a motivating factor and the right opportunity pose a threat to organizations. No arguments there.

While it is difficult to control motives, we certainly can address the access and opportunity sides of the problem. Limiting access, managing data and monitoring usage are critical components to any successful security program, but sadly these are often areas of most neglect. We can’t solve humans, but we can institute pragmatic process and technology to limit them.

Vista takes a plunge!

The boss is retiring, Crazy Stevie's in charge, and our prices are INSA-A-A-A-NE!!

By JOHN MURRELL

In the year since its introduction, Microsoft has moved more than 100 million copies of Windows Vista into the market, and just on the numbers, you'd have to call that a success. But the vast majority of those sales have gone to a captive audience, the folks buying new PCs with Vista preinstalled. Meanwhile, among the existing base of Windows XP users, there's been a broad reluctance to brave the upgrade path (see "No chance we could relabel it Windows Classic and find a quiet exit strategy, I suppose"). The hardware demands, the performance issues, the incompatibilities with peripherals, the sour reviews all contributed to giving XP users a new appreciation for the old OS. But of all the things holding back upgrade sales, price seemed to be the least of them. It was, however, the easiest to fix.

Late Thursday, Microsoft announced it was cutting the retail prices on the upgrade versions of Vista Home Premium and Ultimate editions (the Basic price holds steady). The Premium edition drops from $159 to $129, and Ultimate goes from $299 down to $219. What does not change are the prices Microsoft charges computer makers (another captive audience), so most consumers won't see any benefit. All of which left analysts a little baffled, both at the markdown itself ("I can't remember a big price cut like this," said Chris Swenson of the NPD Group. "It's very unheard of.") and its focus on upgraders ("It's sort of an odd move," said Gartner's Michael Silver).

But with the new prices coinciding with Vista's first major update, Microsoft is seeing an opportunity, however small. Said Brad Brooks, corporate vice president for Windows Consumer Product Marketing, "Over the past year, we conducted promotions in several different markets combining various marketing tactics with lower price points on different stand-alone versions of Windows Vista. While the promotions varied region to region, one constant emerged - an increase in demand among consumers that went beyond tech enthusiasts and build-it-yourself types. The success of these promotions has inspired us to make some broader changes to our pricing structures, to reach a broader range of consumers worldwide." Well, we'll see, but in any case, it's good to hear that there have been no major changes in the traditional relationship between price and demand.