Press releases do work!

The web has a great resource and that is called an on-line press release. I have used this tool and I can tell you it works and works well. I write this because a company usually has something that they can do a new press release about such as a new web site, a new product, a new promotion or more. These PR releases are excellent for search engine rankings and yes it is good to get your company noticed by some major news organizations. The following came from a major web organization about press releases:

Back in the summer, a major study involving a firm that typically sees a boost in search engine rankings and a 50% spike in web traffic after they issue a release. In fact, for one release in particular, the firm saw a spike of 400% on two different Web sites, and the firm doesn't believe they were from the same users. They also incorporate social media tools like Twitter to extend the "shelf life" of press releases, and say that drives additional traffic.

Back to my thoughts, I believe that all major companies should also include a Twitter and Facebook account on their web sites. These social media tools can be linked to a press release to further increase your web penetration efforts.

Marty Weintraub, the President of aimClear shared some great tips and insight into the use of press releases for search. Among other things, he noted that when you do a press release, you're "hitching a ride" in the search engine results and news results. You can use outbound links in press releases, and perhaps more importantly, you're out there where the journalists are looking.

That last statement where teh journalists are looking is important! We at Rossini.com do on line press releases of various sizes and scope. If you have an interest, please give us a call or an e-mail and I will discuss the many ways we can help you and your company.

To all of you... A very Merry Christmas and a Happy Holiday Season!

Not all laptops are the same!

From Yahoo news:

1 in 3 laptops die in first three years

So your new laptop computer died in inside of a year. "I'll never buy a computer from [insert manufacturer name here] again!" I've heard the protests time and time again.

Yeah, maybe you got a lemon, but no matter which brand you bought, you truly are not alone in this situation: An analysis of 30,000 new laptops from SquareTrade, which provides aftermarket warranty coverage for electronics products, has found that in the first three years of ownership, nearly a third of laptops (31 percent) will fail.

That's actually better than I would have expected based on my experience and observations on how people treat their equipment.

SquareTrade has more detailed information (the full PDF of the company's study is available here) on the research on its website. But here are some highlights about how, why, and which laptops fail:

> 20.4 percent of failures are due to hardware malfunctions. 10.6 percent are due to drops, spills, or other accidental damage.

> Netbooks have a roughly 20 percent higher failure rate due to hardware malfunctions than standard laptops. The more you pay for your laptop, the less likely it is to fail in general (maybe because you're more careful with it?).

> The most reliable companies? A shocker: Toshiba and Asus, both with below a 16 percent failure rate due to hardware malfunction.

> The least reliable brands? Acer, Gateway, and HP. HP's hardware malfunction rate, the worst in SquareTrade's analysis, is a whopping 25.6 percent.

None of the numbers are overly surprising. As SquareTrade notes, "the typical laptop endures more use and abuse than nearly any other consumer electronic device (with the possible exception of cell phones)," so failures are really inevitable.

Want to keep your notebook running for longer than a few years? Ensure your laptop is as drop-proofed as possible (use a padded bag or case, route cords so they won't be tripped on, lock children in another room), and protect it as best you can from heat and dust.

Keywords are important

Keyword Effectiveness -
Observing Big Differences In Little Keywords

by
John Alexander

There are all kinds of keywords being used by people daily, in their search for information. Most professional search engine marketers learn early in their career, that all keywords are not the same. Some keywords are highly competitive while others are less competitive, which often seems as though fewer people are searching for them. But then there are some keywords that are really hardly being searched for at all. Some of the most ideal phrases are those that relate to a product or service but are being fairly often used by a specific audience of searchers, but at the same time have low competition.

Let's put it another way. Phrases which have a low number of competing pages, but also are phrases that are actually being used often by searchers, represent a nice "window of opportunity." The reason these keywords are appealing is because you can gain significant advantage (with little or no competition) while only performing mild optimization.

Result: High visibility on major search engines without the stress of competing with millions of pages.

Of course you can go after more competitive phrases once you know how, but the point is that you have to work a little harder if you are competing with 40,000,000 pages as opposed to say 400 pages or maybe just 40 pages.

Holiday gifts

Need a holiday gift for a fisherman/fisherwoman? I have one that is under $11.00

Visit http://www.topcatfishingtackle.com.

Want some outstanding coffee from all over the world?

Visit http://www.actioncoffee.com and ask Bud to make you a special gift for a friend!

How about a science kit that explains solar power? Visit http://www.solarsavior.com.

More to come...........

Google and paid links

The short answer here:

What does Google think about paid links?

Google is very clear about paid links. They don't like them. Google even has an official form that enables webmasters to report paid links to Google:

This was from Axandra.

A new tidbit

I got this from an article in Axandra and it does owk it just takes time!

If you target long keyword phrases with little competition, then the relative value of on-page web page optimization is very high.

For example, if you want to be listed for the search term "buy black adidas samba sneaker in knoxville" then it is enough to optimize one of your web pages for that search term because the competition for that search term is not high. You don't need many inbound links to get high rankings for that keyphrase.

The more competitive the targeted keyword is, the higher is the effect of inbound links on the position of your website in the search results

Content management CMS

CMS is gaining speed fast and we here at Rossini.com offer it. CMS allows you the end user to have tremendous control over your web site. You can now add pictures, add or change content, add video, add calendars and on and on. If you ever wanted to break free of your web master....call me at 913-533-4098 and I will tell you how!

Never burn bridges

I got a call from a person today and they were from a company that use to be a customer. The last date was 2003. They called today and needed help. I think we can help them and maybe just maybe we will have the privilege of having them back again.

16 years and running

Been in this business sixteen plus years and it is so funny, just like cloths and fads things come back around. Now the old B to B internet mall is coming back. Multiple small companies on one domain all selling to each other and to other companies. More info to come.

Is blogging good?

This is a small article as to why blogging is good!

Blogging
• Enable easy, natural process to
consistently update content on your
site, achieve more frequent search
engine crawls, and improve
authority
• Develop an audience of email and
RSS subscribers
• Attract more inbound links (“link
bait”)
• Write keyword rich content to
attract more high conversion rate
traffic

I try to blog every day, try to make good content, try to make yourself the expert!

RMS pleased to announce a new product!

Rossini.com announces the Rossini content management system. This new program allows for a customer to take control of their web page and make changes on their own. This is the future of web page creation. We make the shell and maybe even the original web site and then you take it from there. The process is fairly simple but does require a little training. Once trained you can do minor/mid level changes to your web site. Should you have an interest call me and I will give you some examples.

Upload your own pdf files
make changes to the content of a web page
add pictures
add links
want a calendar, you can have it
and much more

Cal us at 913-533-4098.

RMS adds a new customer

Rossini.com is pleased to announce the release of a new customer at www.topcatfishingtackle.com. If you are into fishing especially cat fishing this is an excellent present for the holidays.

RMS adds a new customer

Rossini.com is pleased to announce a new web site. Please visit http://www.keithsheatingandcooling.com/ Keiths Services offers heating and cooling services in the greater Kansas City area.

A new tidbit for SEO

Another reason to update your pages regularly!

PPC Landing Page Optimization
Keyword choices, your advert text or your targeting techniques aren't always to blame for a poorly performing PPC campaign. According to Search Marketing Standard, you could be losing conversion after conversion because your landing page just isn't up to snuff.
space

Another tidbit from SEO land

Another way to get traffic for free is from other sites in your niche. Getting links with other sites in your niche is also good for SEO, especially if you manage to get links without the famous nofollow attribute. But even if the links are nofollow (i.e. they are useless for SEO), they still help to get traffic to your site. If you manage to put your link in a visible place on a site with high volumes of traffic, you can get thousands of hits from this link alone. If you need list of sites within your niche where you could get backlinks from, check the Backlink Builder tool. However, be careful if you exchange links because linking to bad neighbors can do you a lot of harm.

another scam

Click on this link and change your password! This is a scam! Facebook is what is targeted.

latest virus scam

You have received this message because you are a holder of a FDIC-insured bank account.
Recently FDIC has officially named the bank you have opened your account with as a failed bank, thus, taking control of its assets.

You need to visit the official FDIC website and perform the following steps to check your Deposit Insurance Coverage:

* Visit FDIC website:

This is a scam!!! Do not click on it!

How Facebook grows

A neat article: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=115207

Some info tidbits....

1. Use a blog, it will help you in search engine standings and in bringing visitors to your website.

2, Yes a blog by Google may just help you in Google standings, we use blogger, easy to set up and it is free!

3. If you can occasionally change your first page with some new lines, it can help your search engines standings.

4. Make sure your web page is registered in some of the top directories used by Google and Yahoo.

Need help, Rossini.com can assist you! Just send me an e-mail or call me.

Blogger vs. Wordpress

I thought this was true all along...we use Blogger! Read this article about which one is better:
http://ezinearticles.com/?Blogger-Verses-WordPress---Which-Blogging-Platform-is-Better?&id=2966662

Use your blog!

Sponsored conversation has become a potent tool for brands that want to reach new markets or increase their exposure within their current space. You can use this marketing strategy to leverage blogs, which continue to gain momentum in the media, within the search engines, and among a growing audience of loyal readers. But, like any tool, sponsored conversations can be as damaging as they are effective. The key to using them effectively is in your approach.

Article by Julie Ross

An upgraded customer!

www.henzlikoliver.com a Kansas City based commercial realtor has upgraded their website with us. We added a new look and feel, we added an internal program to capture basic contact information for e-mail gathering. the whole site is written in CSS and much more.

If you are looking for commercial properties please feel free to give our client a call.

Content management

Have you ever wanted more control over your website? We now offer content management software that can be placed into your web page to give you more control. Call us for info!

Upgrade servers

Wow we upgraded our servers today and it went great! Yea!

Google Chrome

No it is not a shiny object it is a browser from Google and wow it is fast!

It is back again

If you get a letter in the mail from Internet Registry of America....just say no and go on and talk to your host vendor and make sure your domain name is still valid. This scam has been around for years and they usually catch many people who just do not know.

The moral of the story is...use a company like us that takes care of these matters.

Bing on the rise!!

Bing search from Microsoft is on the rise!

Google is the royalty of search, so powerful that even its name is used as a synonym for searching. But funny thing. I was talking to someone this week who said he'd "binged" for something.

Bing? What the hell is Bing? Those were the exact words from another conversation I had last week, with my retired next-door-neighbor. He'd seen Bing mentioned in a newspaper article that he was reading. Knowing I'm connected with the Internet in some way, he came to ask me more after spotting me outside.

Bing, of course, is Microsoft's "new" search engine launched earlier this year to challenge Google. I put quotes around the word new because Microsoft has had its own search engine since 1998. Formerly called Live Search, previously called MSN Search before that, Bing is Microsoft's hope that the third time really is a charm. Bing brings a new look and some new features to the Microsoft search engine. Bing's also got a multi-million dollar marketing campaign backing it.

Is it working? Microsoft just went over a 10% share of the US search market for the first time in ages. That person I'd mentioned having "binged" something rather than "googled" it. That's just one anecdotal story, of course, but it's coming directly out of Microsoft's marketing campaign.

I'd say the word is getting out. But is moving the dial? The person who'd "binged it" told me he hasn't been back to Bing. Google still safely has 65 percent of search share for itself. Google's a hard habit to break.

In fact, Google's not just a habit. It's a virtual best friend for many people. In the past, we depended on friends, family and professionals for advice. These days, we turn to search engines for a range of issues, from deeply personal questions to trivia answers. Google is the leading search engine. Like a best friend, Google always there for us, listening and offering help. Google challengers like Bing are the equivalent of someone you don't know walking up and saying they want to be your new best friend. Thanks, but I'm covered.

Still, friends do change. And at the very least, the competition is making Google sit up and take notice. After many rave reviews about search features that Google itself already offers (wow -- Bing lets you track flights!), Google rolled out a new consumer-oriented guide to its various search products (we let you track flights too!). And if things like Bing's new search-by-picture feature were to catch on, Google would likely roll out its own version.

It's not just Bing that's making Google react. Facebook lurks out there on the horizon, a community now 300 million strong, with social networking information that potentially could be used to make for better search results. It's data that Facebook holds to itself, one reason behind Google pushing a rival OpenSocial movement. As people have turned to Facebook for "people searching," an area the company wants to excel at, we've also seen Google rollout improvements to its own people search capabilities. Gotten your Google Profile yet?

Then there's Twitter. The company is appearing in so many places these days, in the way Google did during its early years, that I sometimes say Twitter when I mean Google. But how's all that supposedly self-indulgent twittering likely to make Google nervous?

Well, lots of those tweets are actually searches. Many people tweet questions out to their friends, families and others they follow on Twitter. Plenty get back answers, quickly, and from trusted sources. Twitter's not just a new best friend. It's access to hundreds of best friends, for advice.

Outside of tweeting, there's also Twitter Search itself. Was that an earthquake? Is your cable down? Twitter can tell you answers to such "real time" events even faster than Google.

Let's also remember Apple. All that "there's an app for that" stuff? Change "app" to "google" and you better understand the revolution happening via the iPhone. Google has seen mobile searches skyrocket since the iPhone came in, helped by Google being the default search tool. But want restaurant reviews? The UrbanSpoon app gives them to you better than Google can. Eventful's app keeps you updated on local happenings. There's a "google" for seemingly anything you might be interested in -- but they're not all run by Google.

It's easy to assume that when it comes to search, there's Google and nothing else. That was never the case. Some of Google's former competitors have fallen by the wayside, but new competitors like Facebook, Twitter and literally hundreds of smaller companies -- along with re-energized ones like Microsoft -- keep it from resting on its laurels.


Article by Danny Sullivan 2009

Leasing the other option!

Leasing the other option to consider for your business………….

In a time of tight money companies often need other sources of finance to keep the business wheels turning. Leasing is an option that can be used to keep the sales gravy train going. Long ago (too long ago) I in my early career faced a tight money environment and it was leasing that I turned to help me sell.
Leasing is very good if you sell equipment of most kinds and especially capital equipment. The big benefit for a salesman is to be able to say “Mr. or Ms. Prospect that will be just $250.00 down and $250.00/mo. on a five year lease! This is usually a lot better than saying “that will be $50,000.00 down and $25,000 at delivery! It is all psychological, it sounds better, it is an easier figure to try to justify.
If you should need leasing, one of our clients, Heritage Leasing has been in the business for years! I can say I have worked with Jack Williams and Teri Loveall, for over thirty years and they are very knowledgeable working with companies both large and small. Please feel free to call Jack or Teri at 913-422-9525 or visit their web site at www.heritageleasing.com.

A new e-mail scam

Beware of e-mail scam, IRS warns

Another reminder that the World Wide Web is still a bit like the Wild Wild West.

The IRS again has alerted consumers that scammers are copying names, logos and Web sites of government agencies in an attempt to steal your personal information.

"So far this year, the IRS has identified nearly 1,400 unique phishing sites that use the IRS logo or otherwise purport to come from the IRS," the agency said.

According to the IRS, the current scam e-mails say you have "/UnreportedUnderreported income" and asks you to download a file that has your most recent tax return. That attached file has a virus that will infect the computer.

Anyone receiving a scam IRS e-mail should forward it to the IRS at phishing@irs.gov. Or call the IRS at 1-800-829-1040.
Submitted by Steve Rosen on September 11, 2009 - 6:01am.

top 20 virus threats today

Infected Files in Past 24 Hours - North America
Recent Threats Information with name type risk date discovered # Virus Name # of Infected Files # of Scanned Files % Infected
1 Spyware-AdaEbook 933352 8422589 11.08
2 W32/Rontokbro.gen@MM 909658 20131909 4.52
3 Exploit-MS04-028 758014 2235540 33.91
4 W32/YahLover.worm.gen 747422 18231734 4.10
5 Generic!atr 429088 55531935 0.77
6 GameVance 241887 144873870 0.17
7 RemAdm-VNCView 193461 34675340 0.56
8 HTML/FakeAV 175448 50294958 0.35
9 W32/YahLover.worm 160290 5904109 2.71
10 FakeAlert-XPSecCenter 157432 56319627 0.28
11 Generic QHosts.c 141810 3666002 3.87
12 Vundo!grb 141544 18855891 0.75
13 Generic PUP.z 141127 527509672 0.03
14 New Malware.j 135138 8102376 1.67
15 Generic-CTG.a 106704 581501 18.35
16 Adware-DoubleD.dll 98511 54982336 0.18
17 Adware-BHO.gen.g 98291 211951065 0.05
18 Generic PWS.y!u 89629 632928 14.16
19 W32/Yahlover.worm.gen.c 74406 1824288 4.08
20 CasOnline 69776 51706693 0.13

Recent virus threats

Recent virus threats follow the link to Mcafee :

http://home.mcafee.com/VirusInfo/

McAfee security hint

A good article follow this link to McAfee: http://home.mcafee.com/AdviceCenter/Default.aspx?id=rs_na_sarticle1&cid=64250

Thought for the day

I really have to express what I think when a company wants to use a persons services and says I will try you for 90 days. I want to see what you can do. The problem is and I believe even though money is money if you do not charge for your hard work you are cheating both yourself and your client. Moral of the story is, you get what you pay for! Both parties have to be happy with the deal or you both end up sad in the end.

I love wireless!

Wireless vulnerability assessment solution helps protect wireless networks from outside threats, reduces third-party consultation costs, and ensures regulatory compliance and reporting

Aug 21, 2009 | 11:36 AM

SCHAUMBURG, Ill., Aug. 18 -- The Enterprise Mobility Solutions business of Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT) , today announced the Motorola AirDefense Wireless Vulnerability Assessment solution, a patented wireless security technology aimed at proactively assessing the security posture of wireless networks. This innovative solution provides a completely new method to secure wireless networks against real-world threats by introducing active wireless testing capable of evaluating every deployed wireless access point. Through this revolutionary approach, the Wireless Vulnerability Assessment solution enables IT administrators to remotely find and secure vulnerabilities in their wireless network and automates regulatory compliance reporting, helping customers reduce operating expenses, streamline reporting and increase the resiliency of their wireless networks.

Watch out when you search the net

Be Careful With Your Search Results
Posted by Sean-Paul Correll at 01 September 09 07:29

Blackhat SEO (BHSEO) is currently one of the most prevalent distribution methods for Malware on the Internet. It’s also one of the most dangerous methods because of the user-implied trust in search results. A Forrester research study conducted in 2008 showed that 50 percent of Internet users trust content delivered by search engines. It’s no surprise that cyber criminals have been using malicious search results as a main monetization stream.

The Rogueware campaign we blogged about last week turned into a full blown BHSEO attack targeting relevant news topics such as, the California wildfires, Ted Kennedy’s death, DJ AM’s death, Mega Millions Lottery, Hurricane Danny, UFC 102, CNN and BBC breaking news among thousands of search terms and 123,000 links. Upon clicking one of many malicious links in the top ranking search results, the victim is put through several redirections and finally taken to a fake scan website designed to infect and extort money.

What does spam cost?

Network World - Spam costs organizations $712 per employee/per year, according to Nucleus Research. However, these staggering numbers don't even take into consideration one of spam's latest victims: enterprise mobile users. Spam targeted at smart phones is on the rise and becoming a growing security and productivity concern.

Protecting the inboxes of Blackberries, iPhones and other mobile devices requires new thinking. Spam, viruses and phish getting through to a desktop inbox is troublesome enough, but on a mobile device these threats present a unique set of security concerns and consequences, some of which are only just beginning to surface.

Web attacks still a problem

This report is well a bit scary. One thing to consider, Rossini.com filters many of these virus programs at a server level before they get to you. This is just one of the many features we offer you at Rossini.com!

New Malicious Web Links Up More Than 500 Percent In First Half 2009
Vulnerabilities level off, phishing is down, IBM XForce report says

Aug 26, 2009 | 02:42 PM
By Tim Wilson
DarkReading

There has been a 508 percent increase in the number of new malicious Web links discovered in the first half of 2009, according to a security research report issued earlier today.

According to the IBM X-Force 2009 Mid-Year Trend and Risk Report, the malware problem is no longer limited to malicious domains or untrusted Web sites. The X-Force report notes an increase in the presence of malicious content on trusted sites, including popular search engines, blogs, bulletin boards, personal Web sites, online magazines, and mainstream news sites.

The X-Force report also reveals that the level of veiled Web exploits, especially PDF files, are at an all-time high, pointing to increased sophistication of attackers, according to IBM. PDF vulnerabilities disclosed in the first half of 2009 surpassed disclosures from all of 2008.

"From Q1 to Q2 alone, the amount of suspicious, obfuscated, or concealed content monitored by the IBM ISS Managed Security Services team nearly doubled," the report says.

"The trends highlighted by the report seem to indicate that the Internet has finally taken on the characteristics of the Wild West, where no one is to be trusted," says X-Force Director Kris Lamb. "There is no such thing as safe browsing today...we've reached a tipping point where every Website should be viewed as suspicious, and every user is at risk."

The X-Force report found a significant rise in Web application attacks with the intent to steal and manipulate data and take command and control of infected computers. For example, SQL injection attacks -- attacks where criminals inject malicious code into legitimate Web sites -- rose 50 percent from Q4 2008 to Q1 2009 and then nearly doubled from Q1 to Q2.

The report also says that vulnerabilities have reached a plateau. There were 3,240 new vulnerabilities discovered in the first half of 2009 -- an 8 percent decrease over the first half of 2008. The annual disclosure rate appears to be fluctuating between 6,000 and 7,000 new disclosures each year, IBM says.

Phishing has decreased dramatically, the report says. Analysts believe that banking Trojans are taking the place of phishing attacks geared toward financial targets. In the first half of 2009, 66 percent of phishing was targeted at the financial industry, down from 90 percent in 2008. Online payment targets make up 31 percent of the share.

Nearly half of all vulnerabilities remain unpatched, IBM says. Similar to the end of 2008, nearly half (49 percent) of all vulnerabilities disclosed in the first half of 2009 had no vendor-supplied patch at the end of the period.

Do you Skype?

Trojan Could Enable Attackers To Eavesdrop On Skype Calls
Exploit saves conversations as MP3 files to make detection more difficult, researchers say

Aug 28, 2009 | 04:55 PM
By Tim Wilson
DarkReading

Security researchers at Symantec have observed the public availability of source code for a Trojan that targets users of the Skype voice over IP service.

The Trojan has the ability to record audio from the computer -- including any Skype calls in progress -- and store the files locally in an encrypted MP3 file, where they can later be transmitted to the attacker.

The Trojan, which Symantec calls Trojan.Peskyspy, can be downloaded to a computer by tricking the user with an email scam or other social engineering tactic, Symantec says. Once a machine has been compromised, the threat can exploit an application that handles audio processing within a computer and save the call data as an MP3 file.

The MP3 is then sent over the Internet to a predefined server, where the attacker can listen to the recorded conversations, Symantec reports. "Recording the call as an MP3 keeps the size of the audio files low and means there is less data to be transferred over the network, helping to speed up the transfer and avoid detection," the company says.

The Trojan targets Windows API "hooks" -- a technique used to alter the planned behavior of an application, which Microsoft designed for use by audio applications. The Trojan compromises the machine and then uses the hooking technique to eavesdrop on a conversation before it even reaches Skype or any other audio application, Symantec says.

"At the moment, the risk posed by this threat is quite low, and Symantec has not seen any evidence of this spreading at this early time," the researchers say. "However, with source code now publicly available, malware writers can incorporate this type of functionality into their own customized threats."

Attack of the Tweets

Attack Of The Tweets: Major Twitter Flaw Exposed
U.K. researcher says vulnerability in Twitter API lets an attacker take over a victim's account -- with a tweet

Aug 27, 2009 | 03:54 PM
By Kelly Jackson Higgins
DarkReading

A newly exposed cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in Twitter lets an attacker wrest control of a victim's account merely by sending him or her a tweet.

U.K. researcher James Slater reported the serious flaw earlier this week, and now says Twitter's fix in response to his disclosure doesn't actually fix the problem. "It seems they've made a pretty amateurish attempt to fix the issue, completely missing the massive problem staring them in the face," Slater said in his blog.

The attack basically exploits an input validation weakness in a field of the form used for adding third-party Twitter clients, such as TweetDeck and Twitterific. The form doesn't fully vet what can go in that box, Slater said, so an attacker can put JavaScript tags there as well as raw HTML code, for instance. "Whatever I type in that box will appear at the end of my tweets," he blogged in a follow-up post. "Anyone who sees that tweet will then be viewing that code."

The embedded code can perform any tasks the Twitter Website can perform, including redirecting a user to another page, sending tweets, changing account information, or adding or deleting followers, he said.

"Simply by seeing one of these tweets, code can be run inside your browser impersonating you and doing anything that your browser can do. Perhaps it may simply redirect you to a pornographic website? Or maybe delete all of your tweets? Send a message to all of your friends? Maybe it would delete all of your followers, or worse still, just send the details needed to log in to your account off to another website for someone to use at their leisure," Slater said.

Twitter's patch basically prevents people from putting spaces in that box, he said, which didn't go far enough. It left the door open for attackers to put any other code there, he said.

The best defense from this attack, he says, is to run a Twitter third-party client rather than logging into Twitter's Website directly, and to "unfollow" people you don't know or don't trust. "If you don't see their tweets they can't harm you," Slater blogged.

Twitter had not responded to media inquiries about the bug as of this posting.

It has been a tough summer for Twitter security-wise. Researcher Aviv Raff hosted the Month of Twitter Bugs in July, aimed at exposing vulnerabilities in third-party Twitter applications. Among other problems, Twitter was hit by a massive DDoS attack earlier this month that knocked the popular microblogging site offline for hours, and then a researcher discovered a Twitter profile being used as the command center for a botnet. The profile was sending updates and malware to bots.

Sears has a problem!

Flaw In Sears Website Left Database Open To Attack
Business-logic flaw in Sears.com Web application could have let hackers brute-force attack the retailer's gift card database

Sep 01, 2009 | 03:49 PM
By Kelly Jackson Higgins
DarkReading

A newly discovered vulnerability on Sears.com could have allowed attackers to raid the retail giant's gift card database.

Alex Firmani, owner of Merge Design and a researcher, this week revealed a major security hole on Sears.com that could allow an attacker to easily steal valid gift cards -- a heist he estimates could be worth millions of dollars. Firmani says he alerted Sears about the flaw, and that Sears has since "plugged" the hole by removing the feature that let customers verify and check their gift-card balances.

The vulnerability was a business logic flaw in a Web application that handles gift card account inquiries; Firmani was able to stage a brute-force attack that could grab all valid, active Sears and Kmart gift cards from the company's database.

Firmani says the site wasn't auditing verification requests, which allowed him to verify gift card and PIN combinations using a homegrown PHP script that automatically submitted the requests. "I wrote a PHP script to hammer their verification server. It happily replied with thousands of verification responses per minute," he says.

The Sears application relied on client-side cookies to halt brute-force verification attempts, which Firmani says wasn't effective. "They should know where the verification requests come from, log them all, and be able to disable the verifications when they have a malicious attack," he says. "It doesn't appear to me that they had any server-side control over how many verifications were done."

Jeremiah Grossman, CTO of WhiteHat Security, says this type of flaw is probably fairly common on retailer Websites. And unlike a cross-site scripting or SQL injection bug, this business logic flaw is different: "It basically lets an attacker defraud Sears.com directly," Grossman says.

Firmani's discovery came on the heels of reports of multiple cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities on Sears' Web pages that were abused by an attacker to deface the Website.

"I thought this was notable with Sears being a Fortune 50 company," he says. "I have not tested many other large retailers, but I would hope most of them take better care than this. For smaller sites that write their own gift-card verification code, I'd expect just as many are vulnerable."

Firmani, who says he discloses Website flaws to site owners in order to highlight common Web application security issues, suggests that Sears require a valid user account login before allowing a verification request to be sent. "You could then record the number of verification requests and lock out any offending accounts automatically and without relying on client-side cookie," he wrote in his disclosure paper. "Recording requests server-side would be a more reliable way of handling repeat request offenders."

Another option is recording to a server-side database IP addresses of users verifying their gift cards, he said, as well as using a "number-used once" scheme in the verification form or logging all verification requests and using a script to shut down the response server if more than a specifically designated number of requests arrive per minute, he said.

"Security these days is less about what version of Apache you're running and more about custom-written Web applications. With Web apps given unfettered database access, it becomes a simple matter of exploiting less-than-solid Web application programming," Firmani says. "Finding holes in home-brewed Web app code is much easier than exploiting a root-escalation bug on a Linux server, but both often have similar database access."

Facebook troubles??

Facebook scam tricks Missouri woman

Beware scammers posing as friends.

A Missouri woman was tricked into wiring about $4,000 to someone in England after receiving faked messages from a friend on Facebook asking for help.

The Associated Press reports that Jayne Scherrman of Cape Girardeau wired about $4,000 to someone in England in response to faked messages supposedly from a friend on Facebook.

Police think someone took over the Facebook account of another Cape Girardeau County resident, Grace Parry, changed the password so she couldn't get to her account, and send messages saying she and her husband were stranded in London and needed money.

Scherrman, a dentist, said Parry and her minister husband went on mission trips, so she didn't think it unusual that they would be in England, or might need money till they could get home.

Parry, who hadn't traveled to England in years, eventually tried to access her account to warn other friends but couldn't, the AP reported. She asked Facebook to suspend her account, and her husband posted warnings about the scam, including one Scherrman received after she'd sent the money.

The police said people should remember to change their passwords often for Facebook and other online services, and to be careful about posting personal information.
Submitted by Greg Hack on September 3, 2009 - 7:19am.

New virus on the net today!

A new virus on the net watch out for an e-mail from DHL do not open that tracking code attachment. The attachment has a virus!

A piano man in Kansas City

Did you know that the fine art of tuning or fixing a piano is one that very few people know how to do. The ability to use your hearing and your touch to fine tune a very expensive and usually beautiful piano is perhaps a dying art.

In Kansas City, one of our customers has learned that art and is a master at it. We created a web page for him but that is secondary to his reputation and his ability. If you have a chance visit our customer at http://www.note2notepiano.com/ please feel free to visit our customer and learn more about him.

A customer using a discussion board

Our customer Lake Mary Center in Paola, Kansas(www.lakemaryctr.org)is using a discussion board we set up for them to share information across their entire area network. The employee board will be used for ideas and for group meetings to share information. The board will save time and money in travel and will make the groups more productive. Please feel free to visit www.lakemaryctr.org for more information about them.

A new Rossini.com option

RMS now offers a content management package. What will this do for you or can do for you:

If you can hand code HTML you can build custom content management systems... no programmer required!

Save time by updating some of your own content

Be more efficient by being faster and having the ability to react faster by making your own changes.

These are just a few of the features available, call us today at 913-533-4098 and we will tell you more about this new and outstanding tool.

More news about our customers

Did you know that when gas went to over $4.00 a gallon, one of our customers had a business that helped schools, municipalities and more save by locking in gas contracts at lower than market rates. The name of that business is Saco Petroleum.

Located In The Kansas City Area, Saco Petroleum, Inc. Is a second generation petroleum distributorship.

Founded In 1965 as a single service station, Saco today is a multi-branded distributor of petroleum products Including gasoline, diesel, kerosene, and ethanol products.

Saco prides itself on a commitment of excellence in customer service and making sure that it’s customers come first.

You can find Saco at www.sacopetroleum.com.

Customer notes

Some interesting tidbits from or about our customers:

Lakemary's 40th Reunion Celebration

Lakemary is turning 40 and we would love to celebrate with you! Please join us Friday, September 25th & Saturday, September 26th for 2 unforgettable days filled with festivities! Visit www.lakemaryctr.org for more info.

Rossini.com is proud to announce the release of the new Raymore Missouri chamber of commerce web site. The new website is located at www.raymorechamber.com. The web site tracks membership and allows for news feeds to be uploaded about chamber events and a lot more.

Rossini.com customer Kueker Logistics Group announced the go live of a new test loop which includes: Carousel ASRS, The latest in a 24 volt conveyor, various sortation equipment, in-motion scale and more. To learn more about Kuecker Logistics Group a materials handling company, visit their web site at www.kuecker.com.

Bilt Industries of Belton Missouri released a new web site created by Rossini.com. Please visit www.biltindustries.com. Bilt sells industrial shelving equipment to various areas such as the automotive, book store and retail industries.

More to come visit us at www.rossini.com to learn more about our services.

SEO is important

Today the use of SEO is growing rapidly. The days of just throwing up a website are coming to a close. You need SEO to give you that extra push.

Important security note from Microsoft

This is an important announcement from MIcrsoft:

SAN JOSE, Calif. | Microsoft Corp. has taken the rare step of warning about a serious computer security vulnerability it hasn’t fixed yet. The vulnerability disclosed Monday affects Internet Explorer users whose computers run the Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 operating software.

Tip today

One thing that is important to your web site and to the search engines is that you add new content often. Keep your site changing and use a blog when you can. Keep the site interesting and people and the search engines will find it.

Neat article from Wikipedia

The Phishing Scam:
"Phishing is a modern form of scam in which the artist communicates with the mark, pretending to be from an official organization that the mark is doing business with, in order to extract personal information that can then be used, for example, to steal money. In a typical instance of phishing, the artist sends the mark an email pretending to be from a company (such as eBay). This email is formatted exactly like email from that business, and will ask the mark to "verify" some personal information at their website, to which a link is provided. The website itself is also fake but designed to look exactly like the business' website. The site will contain an HTML form asking for personal information such as credit card numbers. The mark will feel compelled to give this information because of words in the email or the site stating that they require the information again, for example to "reactivate your account". When the mark submits the form (not checking the URL), the information is sent to the swindler."

A Blogging Scam:
"The Ogged Scam: A new con trick born in the age of blogs. For this scam, the con artist creates a pseudonymous internet persona and befriends a group of people online who will become his marks. Then the scammer feigns some terrible disease, such as stomach cancer. Finally, the scammer subtly pushes the idea that his online "friends" could pitch in for something to make him feel better, such as a $700 gift certificate to the French Laundry. After the boon is received, the scam artist claims a miraculous recovery or doctor error."

The Paranoia Scam
"The Paranoia Scam is a scam that involves the con man telling the mark various lies about the different scams and instigating false attempts so that the mark (feeling worried and with no place to hide their money from fraud) turns to the con man for help."

For more insights of these types of scams and and what to be aware of, visit Wikipedia.

Joe's views

The web is changing and fast. As an SEO trained specialist, I have been in a constant battle to keep up with the big changes that hit our field almost every day. First HTML had tables, and that little command to make things blink, remember them? Then came Frames and almost every city I worked with or knew had to have them; oh they were cool. One thing happened on the way to the search engines, though; oh boy, they did not like frames. Then came Flash - wow, was that cool or what, and it really looked nice and flashy. Once again someone forgot to clear it with Google and Yahoo and MSN who once again said ohhhhhh no. Every time we turned around the SEO field scrambled and did work arounds. Creation of mini mirror gateway pages helped as did linking. Now we have CSS and this finally seems like the holy grail because the main search engines have blessed this form of programming, at least for now, and I highly recommend you use it. But, remember, that just because you create a web site and use CSS, that isn't enough. You really should hire a professional company that understands both web creation _*and *_web marketing. The proper key word phrases need to be in the HTML code as well as many other details that can make or break a web marketing campaign. By hiring Rossini.com, we can help tremendously with your website ranking in the main search engines.

In closing, Rossini.com offers a turn key solution: Creating your web page, providing regular support, and submission to the search engines and directories. Call us today at 913-533-4098 or e-mail me at jrossini@rossini.com.

CD-ROM e-books

One of my customers offers the following:

POWERFUL CD-ROM. You'll enjoy the ever-widening array of choices we've made available on this CD-ROM. With so many e-Books to choose from, everyone will have an easy time finding the perfect e-Book.

This CD-ROM includes a wide-range of Top e-Books that appeal to everyone such as:

* "The eBay Cash Explosion e-Book"
* "Memory Power Tricks e-Book"
* "Grow Rich from eBay and the Internet e-Book"
* "Ultimate Guide to Restaurant Recipes e-Book"
* "Internet Marketing Gold Rush e-Book"
* "Top 10 Ways to Retire Wealthy e-Book"
* "How to Retire Without Money e-Book"
* "How to Make Money Watching TV e-Book"
* "Big Money in Your Mailbox Daily e-Book"
* "Kitchen Table Money Machine e-Book"
* "Escape Credit Card Debt Today e-Book"
* "Investing Made Easy e-Book"
* "America's Most Popular Recipes e-Book"
* AND HUNDREDS MORE!

Owning the "Instant e-Book Library CD-ROM" is the fastest way to get started growing your very own e-Book library. You'll have immediate access to OVER 250 cutting-edge e-Books spanning a wide variety of interesting topics.

You can find this cd-rom at: http://powerfulsoftwareprograms.com/index.php?action=product_detail&pid=10

A neat web page to look at

Take a look at one of my clients web sites, it has many software bargaiins to look at.

http://powerfulsoftwareprograms.com/index.php

Wiki who?

"Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales' open source, human-powered Google killer died a quiet death Tuesday, making Wikia.com the latest object lesson in the futility of trying to unseat Google as the king of search engines. [...] Wikia even managed to force Google to adopt a Wikia-like feature in November that solicits user opinions on whether search results are relevant."

I am sad to here this but there are others!!

One more Google fact

From Kim Kammando:

3. Google now shows local results based on IP addresses

Search Google for the keyword "pizza" and you'll see local results in the middle of the search results. These local results are delivered based on the IP address of the searcher. That means that you will get different results than people in another city.

What does this change mean for your website?

It's now easier to rank for competitive keywords for some local searches(The holy grail). While it's very difficult to get a high ranking for a very competitive keyword such as "lawyer" in the regular results, it's much easier to be listed for that keyword in the local results if you're living in a small town.

You should submit your website to Google Maps so that web surfers can find you in these local searches. You can submit your website to Google Maps with IBP's semi-automatic directory submitter.

If you run a local business, you should include your business name, your category and the name of your city in the title tag of your homepage.

If you want to get on top of Google's search results then your website must have optimized content and good inbound links. If you give Google what it wants then your website will get the best possible rankings.

This is me again...notice the words optimized and linking and much more and that is what I do! Call me ay 913-533-4098 and I can help!

Search engine facts

These facts are a combination of articles I have read.

1. Google has increased the snippet length. Less visitors for you?

Google now shows an extended snippet for queries that consist of three or more keywords. The idea behind this change is that these multi-word queries are very targeted and complex. The usual short snippet might not contain enough information.

What does this change mean for your website?

The longer snippet contains much more information. As Google tries to provide the user with the most relevant information in the snippet, the snippet might already contain the answer to the user's query. The longer snippets might result in the following:

* Fewer users might click through to your website because they get the answer to their question in the search results.

* Users might begin to use more multiple-word queries to get more detailed search result snippets.

* As the longer snippets need more space, the longer snippets move another result page below the fold and web surfers will see fewer results at first glance. That increases the importance of very high rankings.

It seems that Google ignores the meta description tag for the snippets. That means that you must include a call to action in your web page titles.

Remember people...this is Joe Google does have 60% of the search market but that also means that 40% may not follow Google on this! Remember there is Yahoo, MSN, Dog Pile, ASK and may more...

2. Google now shows more related searches at the bottom of the results

When you search for a keyword, Google will display related searches at the bottom (and sometimes at the top) of the search results.

For example, if you search for the keyword "principles of physics", Google will suggest "angular momentum," "special relativity," "big bang" and "quantum mechanic" as related terms that could help you find what you need.

What does this change mean for your website?

It's important that you optimize the different pages of your website for different keywords. Do not concentrate on a single keyword but cover a wide range of keywords so that Googly will classify your website as relevant to the complete topic.

The more related keywords and pages can be found on your website, the better.

Air card vs wy-fi

This is a good article from Kim Kamando..yes that is her name :)

Is an air card or Wi-Fi better?

QMy friend travels and is going to buy a laptop. He wants to know if an air card or Wi-Fi is better. He's also considering connecting his personal computer to his company's mainframe. This would let him work on blueprints and pricing plans from home. Would the IT department be able to view his personal files?
—Teresa in Houston, listening on KTRH 740 AM

AThe term "air card" has two meanings. It can be a Wi-Fi card. Or, it can be a cellular laptop card. I'm going to assume that you meant the latter.

Cellular cards and Wi-Fi are not either/or gadgets. One isn't necessarily better than the other. Many people rely on both.

A cellular card connects a laptop to a cellular network. That means you can access the Internet wherever there is cellular service.

There are drawbacks to cellular cards. For instance, they can be pricey. Expect to pay $60 or $70 per month for service. And they have a monthly download limit. This is usually five gigabytes. Exceeding the limit will incur high fees.

In comparison, a Wi-Fi card lets you connect at wireless hotspots. The Internet connection is piped in to a wireless access point. Wireless equipment can then use the signal. Wi-Fi has a limited range. You must be within about 100 feet of the wireless access point.

Many hotels and airports provide Wi-Fi. You can also connect at cafes, libraries and other public places. Some Wi-Fi hotspots are free. Others charge for the service. Usually, this is by the hour or day.

Virtually every laptop includes a Wi-Fi card these days. Do not buy a laptop that doesn't have one.

Your friend may want a cellular card in addition to Wi-Fi. It will be handy if he can't find a hotspot. But even a cellular card may not get service in the boondocks.

A signal bounced off of Venus

I am an amateur radio operator (a ham) I know this has nothing to do with SEO or web marketing but I thought it was cool. Man can achieve many things if he puts his or her mind to it and this is a historic event for hams:

EVE ! - Radio Amateurs bounce a signal off Venus

Radio Amateurs have achieved the very first reception of amateur signals bounced off the planet Venus, over 50 million km away - EVE (Earth-Venus-Earth)

Peter Guelzow DB2OS, President of AMSAT-DL has provided a description of this landmark achievement.

On March 25th, 2009 a team from the German space organisation AMSAT-DL reached another milestone on its way to an own interplanetary probe towards planet Mars.

The ground station at the Bochum observatory transmitted radio signals to Venus. After travelling almost 100 million kilometers and a round trip delay of about 5 minutes, they were clearly received as echoes from the surface of Venus.

Receiving these planetary echoes is a first for Germany and Europe. In addition, this is the farthest distance crossed by radio amateurs, over 100 times further than echoes from the moon (EME reflections).

For receiving the EVE signals, an FFT analysis with an integration time of 5 minutes was used. After integrating for 2 minutes only, the reflected signals were clearly visible in the display. Despite the bad weather, signals from Venus could be detected from 1038UT until the planet reached the local horizon.

The 2.4 GHz high power amplifier used for this achievement is described in the current AMSAT-DL journal.
This represented a crucial test for a final key component of the planned P5-A Mars mission. By receiving echoes from Venus, the ground and command station for the Mars probe has been cleared for operational use and the AMSAT team is now gearing up for building the P5-A space probe.

For financing the actual construction and launch, AMSAT-DL is currently
in negotiation with the DLR (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt) amongst others, to obtain financial support for the remaining budget of 20 Mil Euros.

AMSAT-DL wants to show that low-cost interplanetary exploration is possible with its approach.

More information and the link to the official press release [in German]:
http://www.amsat-dl.org//index.php?o...=166&Itemid=97

The EVE experiment was repeated on Thursday, March 26th for several hours with good echoes from Venus. Morse code was used to transmit the well known “HI“ signature known from the AMSAT OSCAR satellites.

Is Google following the same path as E-Bay?

Interesting...This article snippit is possibly warning that Google might be facing an uncertain future. I think they are trying to be too much to too many people.

By Chris Crum - Fri, 03/20/2009 - 12:06 4 comments
Many eBay users will be very quick to point out that they feel eBay has lost its luster (to put it mildly). Some think Google could find itself on a similar path. BusinessWeek is running an article basically warning Google to avoid such a fate. I think Google has a long way to go before it has to worry about getting to an eBay-type status.

Do you want to pay for on line news?

I think this survey is a bit stretching it but the future of print newspapers is clouding up as many big newspapers fail. The only business plan that seems to work is a pay to read one. I believe a free on-line section with paid ads would be a much better one!

By Mike Sachoff - Thu, 03/19/2009 - 14:44 1 comment
A new report suggests some consumers may be willing to pay for online news content. J.D. Power and Associates has released a report "Online Commentary Indicates Consumer Willingness to Pay For Online News" which is based on a survey of blogs and message board postings.

An undo e-mail button for G-Mail?

I like this!!

By Mike Sachoff - Fri, 03/20/2009 - 09:20 4 comments
Google has added a new feature in Gmail Labs that allows users to retrieve email messages. A new Undo Send button will hold an email for five seconds after the user clicks send. Google says the purpose of this feature is to allow users to recall emails that were sent to the wrong person, have the wrong subject heading or are missing a file attachment.

Skype launches a beta service for business

I use Skype and I like it and recommend it. This service works.

By Mike Sachoff - Mon, 03/23/2009 - 10:58
Skype has announced a beta version of its calling service for business users. The new service, called Skype for SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) allows workers to make calls with traditional telephones, instead of a headset hooked up to a computer.

Facebook redesign a flop? Maybe

One million voters so far and almost 95% do not like the new Facebook redesign. Yikes I hope they go back to the drawing board.

Craigs List is growing in use?

I use Craig's list a lot, it is easy to use and it is free. I have gotten results and that is why I think this next info item is happening:

Heather Dougherty writes, "U.S. searches on the term 'craigslist' have increased 105 percent for the week ending March 14, 2009, compared with the same week last year." Meanwhile, queries for 'myspace' decreased by 7 percent during the same period.

Viral inviters want your e-mail contact list

This is very very important please read!!!

TOP STORY

'Viral inviters' want your e-mail contact list

Becky Waring By Becky Waring

Several firms have recently sprung up that provide tools to copy e-mail and social-network contact lists from Outlook, Gmail, Hotmail, AOL, MySpace, Friendster, and other sites.

Web site operators who lure unsuspecting users into sharing their address lists can then send invitations to all your contacts in order to swipe even more private info.

The names of some of the contact-scraping tools — Viralinviter.com, TrafficXplode.com, and TheTsunamiEffect.com — hide their true purpose. They present themselves as list-builders for site owners and e-mail marketers, and are indeed used by many legitimate companies. But these tools are attractive to all kinds of sites, not just trustworthy ones. Sites that use contact-scraping tools can build e-mail lists in a way that puts your privacy and security at risk.

You may have used an address-scraping tool already. Major social-networking sites such as Facebook, ShareThis, LinkedIn, and Plaxo offer a convenient way to build your initial "friends" list by importing your contacts from Outlook or other e-mail programs or by signing in to your webmail or social-networking service. The process is as easy as uploading a file or entering your user ID and password. (See Figure 1.)

ShareThis
Figure 1. Legitimate social-networking services — in this illustration, ShareThis.com — can create an initial friends list by importing contacts from an e-mail program or from Web services such as Gmail, Yahoo, MSN, AOL, AIM, and MySpace.

Viral inviter–type services take advantage of this familiarity by making their input forms look like those on the social-networking sites. (See Figure 2.)

ShareThis
Figure 2. The TrafficXplode service gives site owners an online form that scrapes contact lists from more than 20 popular webmail and social-networking sites.

Uploading a contact file or entering your ID and password into these forms, however, can transfer your password and/or all of your friends' e-mail addresses to a company that may not have a strong privacy policy.

How viral inviters overcome built-in suspicions

"But wait," you might say, "savvy Windows Secrets readers would never upload their address lists or enter their passwords, so they must be safe, right?"

That may be true of you and me, but it's not the case for the population as a whole. Your friends, relatives, co-workers, and random classmates from 20 years ago could easily fall prey to this data-scraping scam — and they could be the ones surrendering your info.

Imagine that your 15-year-old daughter is a member of Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and ShareThis. She also might be a subscriber to chat services such as AIM, Yahoo, Skype, and MSN. She's used to sharing her address lists on social sites. That's how the services work.

So when your daughter joins a new site — very likely having been invited by a friend to do so — and is asked to go through the exact same list-building process she's familiar with from Facebook, she becomes easy prey. The viral scripts look just like their social-networking cousins.

A site may say that it won't store passwords or misuse addresses, but such promises mean nothing to a spam operator. Phishing sites can do even more damage by simply emulating a well-known social network to lure users into logging in via phony e-mail invitations.

Spammers are famous for manipulating big sites to do the work for them. For example, blogger Dave Taylor describes a standard Plaxo address-update request he received that he would normally respond to without much thought.

However, this request had various bits of old and incorrect info and was obviously cobbled together from different sources, which roused his suspicions.

According to Taylor, "a spammer uploads as much data as is easily found on tens of thousands of people, then triggers Plaxo sending out an 'update your contact information' message. Clueless or overly busy people see the contact info, say 'Whoa! Let's update that, it's way wrong,' and never ask themselves if they actually know the person sending the request."

David Lazarus of the Los Angeles Times has accused social-networking site Reunion.com of abusing e-mail contacts. The company's aggressive marketing tactics require you to surrender your address list to join up, in most cases. The site then sends out invitations in your name to all your contacts. Since Reunion.com charges for membership, the more members it can sign up, the more it makes.

This is not to say that every site posting a form provided by a viral-inviter service is a scam. Most are just typical Internet marketers out to make a buck with their weight-loss secrets or self-help videos.

But address-scraping tools can be gold mines when put in the hands of identity thieves — and the scripts are available to any Web site operator.

Web services can't control what people share

Why don't the big sites slam the door on the scraping of their contact lists? It's not that they aren't trying, but when a user gives up his or her ID and password to a viral-invitation site, there's not much the services can do.

Take Facebook. With more than 150 million members worldwide and a huge amount of data on every user, the site is a dream come true for spammers and identity thieves.

Facebook has an onerous end-user licensing agreement (EULA) that puts the liability for misuse of your account on you whenever you share your passwords or contacts. The EULA also prohibits the use of "automated scripts to collect information from or otherwise interact with the Service or the Site."

Facebook seems to be fairly successful in its attempts to prevent scripts from accessing users' data. For one thing, neither Viralinviter nor TrafficXplode currently claim to be able to scrape data from Facebook (although this ability was at one point claimed by TrafficXplode). This is probably because Facebook now presents address-book information in image form rather than text, which makes it harder to scrape.

Such techniques as cutting off users who make too many data requests in one session can also be effective. However, there's nothing stopping a shady site from storing the IDs and passwords it acquires and using the data later for malicious purposes.

LinkedIn's EULA has similar verbiage to Facebook's. Unlike Facebook, however, LinkedIn doesn't seem to actively prevent scripts from scraping its data. Viralinviter claims to work with LinkedIn accounts and even features the LinkedIn logo prominently on the Viralinviter site, along with logos of MSN, AOL, and others.

Linked social networks accelerate the problem

The arms race between the script builders and big-name Web services is just beginning. The massive data collections that the scrapers are able to accumulate are simply too valuable to pass up.

The problem will only get worse as social-networking sites create linked systems. For example, the Facebook Connect service that launched last year allows members to use their Facebook account to sign in to hundreds of third-party sites, such as CNET and MoveOn.org. (This is explained on a page listing Facebook Connect Live sites).

Facebook claims to vet each site before allowing it to join the Connect system, but as the list grows, it will be increasingly difficult for Facebook to control things. Google has a similar service called Friend Connect. (Google has posted its own explanation of the concept.)

Services such as these provide convenience, but when people become accustomed to entering their passwords on third-party sites, it's only a matter of time before users encounter phishing sites, or worse. Even experienced users may be fooled in this way.

Dave Jevans, chairman of the Anti-Phishing Working Group, told me in an e-mail interview, "Malicious software and scripts that take advantage of social-networking sites or that scrape e-mail address books are a growing threat. Because these messages appear to come from a friend or colleague, the recipient usually trusts the contents.

"There have been outbreaks where over 1 million people have been affected in a short period of time," according the Jevans. "These malicious systems can be used to drive users to advertising sites, thus driving ad revenue for the fraudsters. In some cases, they drive users to Web sites that install malicious software — malware or crimeware — onto their computers in order to steal passwords and credit card information."

Jordy Berson, group product manager for Check Point's Zone Alarm, echoes that sentiment. "Legitimate companies train us to use and trust their harvesting techniques, such as e-mail scraping," Berson said in an e-mail, "but in the wrong hands, they are extremely dangerous for consumers — and stolen e-mail [addresses] are just the beginning."

The bottom line: Assume your data can be scraped from any social-networking or webmail site, and plan accordingly.

Prevent your data from being scraped

Other than canceling all your social-networking accounts, what can you do to protect yourself against list scrapers?

First, be diligent about your own sign-in habits. Use strong passwords and enter them only on sites you trust. Also, make sure you have your browser's phishing protection turned on. The LinkExtend Firefox extension recommended by WS senior editor Gizmo Richards in his Mar. 5 Best Software column (paid content) will alert you to most malicious site operators.

Second, safeguard your e-mail accounts. As emphasized earlier, the main danger is not that you will give away your own information but that your so-called friends will do it for you. Use your work e-mail address only for communicating with colleagues and clients, not for shopping or registering on social sites. Most importantly, don't share your work address with friends and relatives.

Next, educate your contacts that you don't want them handing over their e-mail files or contact lists to any site that asks. You can't guarantee that everyone you know will comply, but there's no reason to let scraping services go unchallenged.

Finally, protect your primary personal e-mail address by using disposable aliases that are forwarded to your primary account. That way, you can track who is sharing your address and delete any addresses that become spam magnets. Google's Gmail and Yahoo Mail both make it easy to create throwaway e-mail addresses. (They work quite differently, however, as WS contributing editor Scott Dunn explained in his July 24, 2008, review of webmail services.)

The data-scraping problem will not go away any time soon, but taking steps to safeguard your personal data can help you keep the scrapers at bay.

Becky Waring has worked as a writer and editor for CNET, ZDNet, Technology Review, Upside Magazine, and many other news sources.

Microsoft and the new explorer

Microsoft Releases IE8, Stresses Security (PC World)

* Posted on Thu Mar 19, 2009 12:20AM EDT


The Tuscaloosa News Tuesday 17th March, 01:38:57 AM



- Microsoft plans to make its Internet Explorer 8 browser available on Thursday, along with a company-commissioned report claiming IE8 is more secure against malware than rival browsers from Mozilla and Google.

Users will be able to download IE8 in 25 languages at 12:00 noon Eastern Daylight Time on Thursday from Microsoft's IE Web site and its online download center.

Microsoft has been preparing users for IE8 for a good year now, stressing performance improvements, better support for Internet technology standards, the addition of new features to help people keep track of most visited sites and favorite sources of information, and of course, security, as highlights of the new browser.

According to the report Microsoft released Thursday, based on research conducted by NSS Labs, IE8's Release Candidate 1 was 69 percent effective at catching malware before it did damage to a user's system. Mozilla Firefox 3.07 came in second with a 30 percent effectiveness rate, with Apple Safari's 3 in third place with a 24-percent rate and Google's Chrome 1.0.154 in fourth place with 16 percent effectiveness rate

NSS Labs said in the report that the data was collected from tests conducted in just over 12 days from Feb. 26 through March 10 in its labs in Austin, Texas. During the course of the test, the company said it monitored connectivity to ensure the browsers could access the live malware sites being tested, and performed 141 discrete tests. The margin of error of the tests was 3.76 percent, according to NSS Labs.

Amy Barzdukas, a senior director at Microsoft, acknowledged that it might be a conflict of interest for Microsoft to sponsor a report in which IE8 came out on top in terms of security. However, she encouraged people to "look closely at the results" before making a judgment call on the validity of the report.

IE8 will be included as part of the Windows 7 OS. However, for the first time since adding browser technology to its operating system, Microsoft will give users the ability to turn off IE8 as a feature in the system.

This decision was outlined in a blog post on the Engineering Windows 7 blog. Microsoft is under pressure from an ongoing antitrust case in the European Union to give users more browser choice in Windows.

another glass half full

BEIJING (Reuters) - China said it was ready to pump more money into its economy and saw a pick-up in trade, offering another glimmer of hope for the battered global economy as signs that big U.S. banks may be turning around lifted world stocks.

I believe if we start thinking like sales are coming and money will flow then it will flow!!

Joe R

5 out of 6 days!

NEW YORK - You know things have changed on Wall Street when the housing industry saves the day.

Glass half full..... back we come slowly but surely!

Half full news update

The Good News is that Inflation is Down

Small Business Loans to be Expanded

Today in KC it will be 80!!

Spring is this Friday yeaaaaaaaaaaaa

Bernanke reported an end in sight to the recession, offering another glimpse of sunlight.

I believe that by using a coordiniated SEO marketing policy you can get leads and sales! You must make sure your internals of the web site are good. You must try to blog if yu can. How about a PR release on a good product or a success story. I happen to know that these things do work and can bring in notice and leads. Do not forget the use of some on line free advertising like Craigs list. Think about at least a small Google Adwords campaign. These things can get you a sale or two if yu try them. I am being positive because I know they work!

The glass is not half empty we are half full and moving to fill it more...See ya soon.

joe R

I begin the half full news

I am tired of gloom and doom so I have begun the half full news. Good stories about the economy and things. I start with this today on Yahoo news:

The government says construction of new homes rose sharply in February, defying economists' forecasts for yet another drop in activity. The Commerce Department reported Tuesday that construction of new homes and apartments jumped 22.2 percent from January to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 583,000 units. Economists were expecting construction to drop to a pace of around 450,000 units.

Maybe we have reached the bottom of the housing crisis!

Last week the stock market was up the most since last November and I think it will be up again this week. I dont think we will boom ahead but step by little step we will come back. I feel so positive I am going to buy some stocks this week.

Ok more to come.

One step at a time

A note from a mentor John Alexander:

Do you ever feel overwhelmed with all of the strategies you want to implement on
your Web site to improve it? Some people are so completely overwhelmed that they
put off getting started for far too long.

Walt Disney put it simply like this:

"The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing."
Walter Disney

Of course he was not speaking about SEO but the principle still applies.
Why not mak a list of strategies that you like to apply on your Web site, but then
take one single item and work on it immediately, until it gets done.

Sometimes even the simplest of changes have significant impact and I always feel
sorry when I see anyone taking to long to "get started."

Linking the danger involved

Be very careful about using any kind of "link exchange service" that
offers to inflate your link popularity quickly. The one thing you
don't want to do is have the appearance of "unnatural linking" or
anything that looks remotely contrived.

Exploding link popularity overnight is bound to get you flagged
for penalty.

A new virus!!!

A third version of Downadup has been identified by Symantec, which says the new variant gives infected machines more powerful instructions to disable antivirus software and analysis tools, among other actions.

W32.Downadup.C is a modular component for machines currently infected with Downadup. This variant of Downadup, also called Conficker, is not attempting to self-replicate and appears to behave more like a Trojan than a worm, says Vincent Weafer, vice president of Symantec Security Response.

"Think of it as an updated module that's more aggressive, more robust in defending itself," Weafer says.

The W32 Downadup.C variant was discovered Friday in a Symantec honeypot and is still under investigation. Symantec expects to identify additional capabilities shortly, says Weafer, who adds that Symantec has not yet seen W32.Downadup.C in customer networks directly.

Earlier versions of Downadup did attempt to disable anti-virus software, but the third version represented in the Downadup.C module is designed mainly to provide more protective actions to infected Windows-based machines so they can better defend themselves from anti-virus software and other eradication methods.

"It's more aggressive, it has more services," says Weafer.

Need to write content?

It is hard to write but here is a bit of a tip:

What motivates you to think outside of your bubble? How do you get outside of your left brain into your outrageously exciting, creatively appealing, right brain thinking patterns?

I’ll give you some tips that help me.

Think of something funny, or find humor in something that’s not necessarily funny (like politics–ha!). Talk to someone about it.

Go outside and enjoy the outdoors. Look at the clouds. Enjoy the fresh air. Get away from your desk/computer. Take a quick power walk.

In other words . . . relax . . . enjoy life. Try not to take it so seriously.

Start with an idea and begin to build upon that one idea. Don’t be afraid to come up with outrageous concepts to add to that idea. Let the world be your playground as you flesh out your idea. Another way to look at it is to think like a child. Children don’t know how to reign themselves in. You need to feel that way too.

Colors

Did yo know what effect colors can have? This is a bit old but is valid:

Did you know that there’s an agency who decides what the color trends are going to be several years in advance?

It’s called the Color Marketing Group, the leading international association of color professionals.

What does this mean to you? If you have an online (or offline) business that has anything to do with colors, you’ll definitely want to be aware of what colors are in style for the current year.

For example, Web design firms, Webmasters, clothing stores, department stores, advertising agencies, SEO/SEM companies, marketing companies, interior decorators, wallpaper and paint companies, etc., need to be aware of what colors are “in” for the current year.

So what are the hot color trends for 2008?

According to the Color Marketing Group, here are your colors for 2008:

1. Green and all colors of nature

2. Blues that remind us of the sky and water as well as a navy that’s so dark it’s almost black

3. Coppery, bronze-y tones of metallic

4. Ethnic accent colors like Moroccan reds, sunny golden yellow, and turquoise.

For more detail, read the entire article at:

http://www.colormarketing.org/Media.aspx?id=784&

e-mail blast

Ever wanted to send out an e-mail blast? They still do work. Call me and I can help!

If you need services here is a list of a few of my customers that offer them

Business leasing www.heritageleasing.com
Need a coffee service www.actioncoffee.com
Need photography http://www.kischufphotography.com/
Need computer work or specialized programming http://www.masterwarecorporation.com/

More to come soon! Have a great weekend!

Key words

We often just think of what a web page should look like or what in its basic form what it should do. We hire a web company to create the web site and we go on to do our own thing and in many cases participate to some degree but maybe not closely. What you need to know is that web site must have a proper internal code so that the search engines can find your web site and that other potential customers can too. Here is an article from John Alexander on keywords etc:

Next time you do keyword research, think beyond the first terms
that jump into your mind. Most people don't really research much
data, but the tend to use the tool to tell them about specific
phrases (THEY THINK) are most important. If you don't believe it
then check this example...

Example, What might a good root word be for an affiliate marketer
to use in a site about "recipes?"

TIP: Try researching anything BUT the most obvious word "recipes."
Explore the subtle supporting terms and see what happens. You might
try exploring a "food group" or action related to cooking.

Remember an SEO marketing company has trained on just how to find these key words for you. Rossini.com offers these services. call us today.

Internet security are you worried?

This is a neat new article and it shows that most of are worried. By the way there is a bill in congress to monitor all e-mails and web searches. Call your congress person and tell them to vote against it!

Majority Of Internet Users Worried About Online Privacy
By Mike Sachoff - Thu, 02/19/2009 - 11:33

Increases with age

The majority (80.1%) of Internet users are concerned about the privacy of their personal information such as age, gender, income and online activity, according to a new survey from Burst Media.

Concern about online privacy is common among all age segments, and increases with the respondent's age from 67.3 percent among those 18-24 years to 85.7 percent of those 55 years and older.
BurstMedia Graph

Online privacy is a prevailing concern for web surfers," said Chuck Moran, VP of Marketing for Burst Media. "Advertisers must take concrete actions to mitigate consumers' privacy concerns and at the same time continue to deliver their message as effectively as possible."

"In addition and as recently seen in the news flare up regarding Facebook's privacy controversy, publishers need to be completely transparent about their privacy policies."

The survey also found that most Internet users believe Web sites are tracking their behavior online. More than half (62.5%) of respondents believe it is likely that a site they visit collects information on how they navigate and interact with it.

Most Internet users are not willing to give up their personal privacy for more relevant advertising. Based on the description "advertisements more relevant to interest," only 23.2 percent of respondents would not mind if non-personally identifiable information was collected if ads were better targeted.

A new week!

The sun is shining, spring is coming and the time change comes in just a few weeks yea. There is a lot to be thankful for. Do not constantly listen to CNBC or CNN or the others it will get you depressed. Talk to friends, work hard and stay positive....good things are coming I truely believe that.

have a great day!

PR releases

Did you know that a great way to get out news about your company is a PR release. A PR release is not just for your local newspaper any more. Our company can put out a release for you that can be sent to hundreds of newspapers and TV stations and on line sources. If you want we will write it for you!
A PR release can get you noticed and noticed could mean a sale! Call me today at 913-533-4098.

What do I think?

I have been asked that several times about many things. I will tell you what I think about web marketing and if it works. Here is the abridged version.

Yes it does if done correctly!

I believe submission to the search engines works but slowly so if you are impatient try Google Adwords

I believe that keywords in the internal of a web site programming helps...it does but not to what it once did but you should pay attention to them

I believe in key phrases being all over your web site in the text..this is important

I believe in linking...this can be misused but is important

I really believe in Google Adwords....I believe in this the most of all!!

Ok check back of more of what I believe and of course comment or write me for more information!

Blogs do they work

Blogs are now intertwined into the web surfers everyday life. A blog is like a diary to some and an outlet for others. What is important is that you use a blog for what is best for you. I use it to send out information that I believe is important to the web and my customers. Others use it to tell their point of view. This past election had no shortage of political blogs. There are sports blogs, financial blogs and so much more. One thing is for sure at least for now and that is blogs help you in your rankings and in bringing in potential return customers. Yu become the expert. You are writing to your audience. Take the time and write a blog, it can be fun and liberating to say what you feel. One word of warning and that is the internet is a big place and your blog might be read all over the world! Be careful what you write because it might just be taken wrong by some and right by others!

Until next time

Joe R

The return of dial up?

Recession could lengthen the twilight of dial-up
By ANDREW VANACORE
The Associated Press


With the costs of home-schooling a special-needs child, Arlene Dawes of Raleigh, N.C., says dial-up Internet is more attuned to her budget than broadband. Chuck Hester says the high-speed Internet options available in his rural neighborhood near Little Rock, Ark., are too pricey.

Lightning speed Internet is the wave of the future. But in a recession, good old dial-up service might get a longer look. Now Internet providers that have seen their dial-up customer base whittled over the past decade see an opportunity to stay in the game by offering the budget-conscious a cheaper option.

“Dial-up is declining overall, but that doesn’t mean it’s not still a viable business,” said Kevin Brand, senior vice president of product management at EarthLink Inc. “There’s still a big market out there and during these tough times, even customers who have bundles including broadband may be looking at their bill and thinking, ’Do I really need all this?’”

With that in mind, EarthLink recently rolled out a dial-up offer of $7.95 per month, lowering its cheapest service — and undercutting competitors — by $2.

The move to more aggressively court new dial-up users is striking, since it’s a market many consumers have fled.

Only 9 percent of Americans were still using dial-up in a study last year by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Time Warner Inc.’s AOL, once the king of dial-up with almost 27 million U.S. subscribers at its peak, decided long ago to prop itself up instead on advertising revenue. Now AOL, whose Internet subscribers are still mainly dial-up customers, counts 6.9 million of them.

United Online, which offers dial-up through its NetZero and Juno services for $9.95 a month, hasn’t said whether it will match EarthLink’s discount. But the company’s ads signal the same approach to the recession.

“The economy is tough,” Chief Executive Mark Goldston says in a recent TV commercial, claiming the 56 million American households with broadband could save $16 billion a year by switching to NetZero dial-up. “It comes down the need for speed or the need to save,” he says.

Pew estimates the average monthly bill for broadband users came to $34.50 in 2008. That means for the year, a NetZero subscriber would save nearly $300.

To be sure, broadband will easily remain the bigger business. EarthLink gets 56 percent of its revenue from broadband, even though it has nearly twice as many dial-up subscribers.

Nor is dial-up likely to make broad gains against faster connections.

Dial-up service may be fine for checking e-mail, online shopping or reading the news, but more people than ever are using bandwidth-heavy tasks like streaming video. Cowen & Co. analyst Jim Friedland estimates the dial-up market will have all but vanished six years from now.

Talking to Hester, who says he’s been bugging his own provider, AT&T Inc., about a fiber-optic connection for two years, it’s not hard to see why.

“Dial-up — it stinks. All the pages that are being written for the Internet now are moving to more and more graphics, more and more pictures, more and more movies,” he said. “With dial-up, you can forget about it.” (AT&T couldn’t comment on Hester’s service for privacy reasons but said expanding broadband access is a priority.)

But even if faster service is more useful, the higher monthly bills are drawing scrutiny these days. Of the people who told Pew they still have dial-up access, 35 percent said faster service is too expensive for them. (Nineteen percent said nothing would persuade them to upgrade.)

B. Riley & Co. analyst Mike Crawford pointed out that weak consumer spending has already benefited dial-up providers. EarthLink lost more than 380,000 dial-up subscribers, or about 18 percent of the total, in the second half of 2008. But its overall “churn” — or rate of customers leaving — declined during the last three months of the year, as the economy worsened.

“We’re seeing increased demand for low-cost Internet, where a few years ago, everyone was looking to go to high-speed bundle packages,” Crawford said in an interview. “I think this market is going to exist longer than most people realize.”

Is this the future...I think you are going to see high speed come down and fast!!

Ads that watch you!

If this does not scare you than I dont know what will!
From Yahoo news

MILWAUKEE - Watch an advertisement on a video screen in a mall, health club or grocery store and there's a slim — but growing — chance the ad is watching you too.

Small cameras can now be embedded in the screen or hidden around it, tracking who looks at the screen and for how long. The makers of the tracking systems say the software can determine the viewer's gender, approximate age range and, in some cases, ethnicity — and can change the ads accordingly.

That could mean razor ads for men, cosmetics ads for women and video-game ads for teens.

And even if the ads don't shift based on which people are watching, the technology's ability to determine the viewers' demographics is golden for advertisers who want to know how effectively they're reaching their target audience.

While the technology remains in limited use for now, advertising industry analysts say it is finally beginning to live up to its promise. The manufacturers say their systems can accurately determine gender 85 to 90 percent of the time, while accuracy for the other measures continues to be refined.

The concept is reminiscent of the science-fiction movie "Minority Report," in which Tom Cruise's character enters a mall and finds that retinal scanners identify him and prompt personalized ads that greet him by name.

But this technology doesn't go nearly that far. It doesn't identify people individually — it simply categorizes them by outward appearances.

So a video screen might show a motorcycle ad for a group of men, but switch to a minivan ad when women and children join them, said Vicki Rabenou, the chief measurement officer of Tampa, Fla.-based TruMedia Technologies Inc., one of the leaders in developing the technology.

"This is proactive merchandising," Rabenou said. "You're targeting people with smart ads."

Because the tracking industry is still in its infancy, there isn't yet consensus on how to refer to the technology. Some call it face reading, face counting, gaze tracking or, more generally, face-based audience measurement.

Whatever it's called, advertisers are finally ready to try it, said advertising consultant Jack Sullivan, a senior vice president of Starcom USA in Chicago. "I think you're going to see a lot of movement toward it by the end of this year in the top 10 markets," he said.

Because face tracking might feel reminiscent of Big Brother, manufacturers are racing to offer reassurances. When the systems capture an image of who's watching the screen, a computer instantly analyzes it. The systems' manufacturers insist, however, that nothing is ever stored and no identifying information is ever associated with the pictures. That makes the system less intrusive than a surveillance camera that records what it sees, the developers say.

The idea still worries Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil-liberties group in San Francisco. Tien said it's not enough to say some system is "not as bad as some other technology," and argues that cameras that study people contribute to an erosion of privacy.

In general, the tracking systems work like this: A sensor or camera in or near the screen identifies viewers' faces by picking up shapes, colors and the relative speed of movement. The concept is similar to the way consumer cameras now can automatically make sure faces are in focus.

When the ad system pinpoints a face, it compares shapes and patterns to faces that are already identified in a database as male or female. That lets the system predict the person's gender almost immediately.

"The most important features seem to be cheekbones, fullness of lips and the gap between the eyebrows," said Paolo Prandoni, chief scientific officer of Quividi, a French company that is another player in face-tracking technology. Others include Studio IMC Inc. in New York.

The companies say their systems have become adept at determining a viewer's gender, but age is trickier: The software can categorize age only in broad ranges — teens, younger to middle-aged folks and seniors. There's moderate demand for ads based on ethnic information, but the companies acknowledge that determining ethnicity is more challenging than figuring out gender and age range.

Prandoni provided The Associated Press a limited version of Quividi's software, which uses an ordinary webcam to stream video to a computer. The trial version tracked gender only, using color-coded circles to distinguish male and female faces.

The sample size was too small to be statistically significant, but it was accurate about 80 to 90 percent of the time.

That might be as precise as the systems ever get, said Deborah Mitchell, a professor of consumer psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Even the human brain can't always determine gender, age or ethnicity.

Still, "even if it gets to 70 percent accuracy, that's still giving you a wealth of information," said Mitchell, who teaches in the Wisconsin School of Business.

That information is certainly valuable to Bill Ketcham, the chief marketing officer of Adspace Networks Inc. His New York company sells video advertising on 1,400 video screens at 105 malls around the nation.

Adspace is testing six TruMedia systems at malls in Winston-Salem, N.C., Pittsburgh and St. Louis. The kiosks display a daily list of top 10 sales at the mall, as well as paid advertising that comes largely from movie studios and TV networks.

A 15-second video ad that replays across Adspace's national network can cost as much as $765,000 per month. So advertisers expect rigorous information about who sees the spots — information that face tracking can now provide, Ketcham said.

For now, at least, Adspace isn't changing the ads based on who's watching — Ketcham said the kiosks' audiences are so large that it wouldn't be practical to personalize ads to individuals.

While advertisers like the face-tracking technology, another privacy advocate, Harley Geiger, questions whether it should be used on consumers without their knowledge. Geiger, staff counsel for the Center for Democracy & Technology in Washington, D.C., said advertisers should be telling consumers what details about them are being collected and for what purpose.

"With the technology proliferating, now or the short-term is the time to consider privacy protections," he said. "If you don't build it in at an early stage it becomes very difficult to build it into an already established system."

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