Bringing out the web's full potential

How to put your URL in TopSurfer

2006-09-04T20:25:00.000-07:00

login to TopSurfer at http://topsurfer.com/member.cgi (there are links there to look up your password if you forgot it)
scroll down and click on "Your Websites URLs" (second to last row of icons)
click the "Add a New Website" button
type or paste your URL in the white box to the right of "URL #:"
click the "Change" button to save the website
click the "Test" Button to verify you spelled the URL correctly

Login to TopSurfer

How to forward attachments in your email

2006-10-11T09:35:00.000-07:00

You receive an email with an attachment and you want to pass it on to someone else. But you do not need the recipient to see the original message or original recipients. Well, here is the simple way to do that.

To forward the attachment from Yahoo, click the arrow next to "Forward" and click "As Inline Text" from the drop down menu that appears.
To forward the attachment from Gmail (and most other email programs), click the "Forward" link.

Then in either program:

edit the subject line to say what you want it to say
delete all the words in the message box and type your own message
be sure only their email address appears in the "To" or "CC" lines

Taking surveys to make money

2006-09-22T14:35:00.000-07:00

It is wise to be careful about filling in forms online. By doing so, you are subscribed to their list which may get you alot of untargeted email messages. There is a way to do this (it is discussed in this ebook) so you can safely look something over. Most likely, it sends you an email with a link to a web page to read more.

The concept of paying people for taking surveys is common, but getting a large amount for any one survey is unlikely. Companies really do want consumer feedback through surveys, but the company marketing the opportunity to take the surveys may be collecting email addresses to be sent email with other untargeted offers.

The marketing company may sell your email address to others as a "making money prospect" or simply email you offers for other companies.

Skimming through the particular web page many times will indicate you need to pay to get a membership that most likely results in getting either (1) information on how to find (on your own) paying surveys, or (2) emails from various other companies offering paying surveys. Read the web page for yourself and see if you think there is actual value in getting a membership.

HTML Tutorial

2005-09-03T01:21:00.000-07:00

As a simple example, if you want text to show up BOLD you enclose them in <B> BOLD </B> (the markup tags you need to type are shaded). Notice there is one tag to open and another with a / to close the instruction. Most tags work this way.

Some of the other tags you can modify your text with are displayed on our full tutorial page since they do not display correctly if posted to this blog.

The full tutorial page covers other tags you can use for italic, centering, underline, color, size, clickable links, and doing lists of items.

Read more on our full tutorial page

Search friendly Ryze page

2005-05-28T09:43:00.000-07:00

To make your Ryze page friendly to all search engines, you need to change a few settings to insure the links are available when the search engines come by your Ryze web page. Clicking each link below will open a new window so you can toggle back to this browser window to follow the instructions point-by-point.

On the http://www.ryze.com/preferences.php page:

un-check the box next to "Ask Spiders and Search Engines not to index your Ryze home page"
The search engines can see neither your "Guestbook" nor your "Friends List", so it does NOT matter what radio button you click under each of them.

On the http://www.ryze.com/userinfo.php page:

Most of this information is visible to the search engines, so fill in as much as you feel comfortable sharing publicly with the world.
in particular, fill in the "Interests" box with keywords and phrases describing you. This will also help other Ryze members find you.
the URL's you enter under "Your Other Web Sites" will NOT be visible to the search engines. So fill in those 3 boxes (if you have URL's) but you ALSO need to include those links on your home page HTML (see next point)

On the http://www.ryze.com/edit.php page:

"Have", "Want", and "Personalize your Home Page Contents" - ALL 3 of these boxes of information are visible to the search engines, so fill in each box.
in the "Personalize your Home Page Contents" box is where you can include HTML code with links to as many web site URL's and images as you like. This is the KEY COMPONENT of your search engine presence.

How to stop getting Ryze forum notifications

2005-08-26T09:29:00.000-07:00

When you join a Ryze network, you are given the option to receive notification of new messages, and you can uncheck it then. But let's say you join and start getting too many messages.

Here is how to stop getting notifications once you are a member of a Ryze forum which is sending you too many daily posting notifications.

Go to Ryze Networks Edit
Notice the column "New Message Notifications"
Uncheck boxes as needed in that column next to your forums
Click the button labeled "Update Membership Settings"

The Blogs are taking over!

2005-04-30T11:49:00.000-07:00

Yet another mainstream OFF-LINE, PAPER business magazine has a cover story on blogs. This is not something to be ignored. You need to seriously consider developing your own web presence to include a blog. So many blog formats and software options, but just pick one and get going!

Excerpt from the article:

Go ahead and bellyache about blogs. But you cannot afford to close your eyes to them, because they're simply the most explosive outbreak in the information world since the Internet itself. And they're going to shake up just about every business -- including yours. It doesn't matter whether you're shipping paper clips, pork bellies, or videos, blogs are a phenomenon that you cannot ignore, postpone, or delegate. Given the changes barreling down upon us, blogs are not a business elective. They're a prerequisite.

Read more about it

How to Optimize Flash

2005-07-29T14:08:00.000-07:00

Question: "How do you get an all Flash website to rank well?"

Answer: "The exact same way you get a non-Flash website to rank well!"

It may surprise you to realize that your problem doesn't lie with Flash. Search engines lack the ability to extract content from within a Flash file (swf), but this problem can be easily rectified and, as you will see in this article, is not at the heart of your problems anyway.

We're talking about a site done entirely in Flash. If you have simply dropped a Flash animation into a page, that has about as much significance as an image.

The Perceived Problem and Solution

The search spiders are incapable of reading the content within the Flash file and thus your site will likely not rank well within the results of a search. But I will later point out that this is not the root of your problems.

Because search engine crawlers were designed to index HTML and still have difficulties reading content from within a Flash file, one must take alternative steps in getting their content on the page. Below is a list of some steps that can be taken to get your content on the page.

- Place your content within <noscript> tags
- Place your content within <object> tags
- Use keyword descriptive <title> tags
- Use keyword descriptive <meta> tags

You're not misrepresenting your site in any way; you are simply making the content that's already on the screen available to the spider. However, just because I don't consider it spamming doesn't mean I can speak for the search engines.

So now that we have our content on the page, life is good and we can expect our website to show up in the results of a search, right? Not quite, you still have a major problem. One that often gets overlooked.

The Real Problem and Solution

I have often heard it said, "If you want to get an all Flash site to place well in the search engines you need to build up quality inbound links." While this plays an important role in the achieved position of a search, it is not the sole factor. Something else must come into play.

You still have a major problem - you have a website that consists of but a single page.

If you were to ask a search engine marketing company or individual to help you with your search engine ranking position (SERP) and proceeded to inform them that they only have a single page to work with, they would certainly have difficulty - Flash or no Flash.

Concentrated Content and Themes

Nuch of it is attributed to how focused the content on the page is as well as the content of the pages that link to it and the actual text of the link itself.

A website more closely resembles the form of a newspaper than any other medium. This is because a newspaper has sections to it that can easily be explored on their own. One can read just the sports or business sections of the paper. Now imagine if all sections of a newspaper had to be confined to a single page. While this would make the newspaper challenging to read for a human it makes it even more difficult for a search engine which is trying to zero in on what the main theme of the page is.

Your all Flash website has a single page to use in telling about your product(s), service(s), company, how to contact you and everything else. If we keep in mind the optimization rule that you should only focus on 1 or 2 keywords per page that really puts you at a disadvantage. If you try and fit into 1 page what 10 to 30 pages should hold you dilute the content to the point that it's now impossible for the search engine to understand what the main topic of the page is.

This is the real reason why an all Flash site will have a difficult time achieving higher ranks than an HTML site. HTML websites naturally encourage the use of multiple pages. An HTML site starts out with the advantage of x number of pages. In addition, each page can be dedicated to a specific topic. A page that has specific focus will have an advantage in ranking over a page that is eclectic. For example, a page that focuses on fishing lures will have a better chance on ranking for the keywords "fishing lures" than a site that has fishing lures, fishing rods, and fishing reels, all on the same page.

Here's the Fix!

At this point hopefully it's become clear that you need to find a way to have multiple pages with each page concentrated on a specific topic. This of course is true regardless of Flash. But how can one do that with an all Flash website? That indeed is the real question; let's look at our options.

The most obvious solution is to create an additional version of your website done in HTML. The problem is a company's budget may not include the development of 2 websites. In addition, you now have 2 websites to maintain.

Another solution to explore is to place your content within plain HTML pages marked up appropriately but with no design at all, just text. This way you don't spend time and money on design and development consists of simply copying and pasting text. Yes, but we don't want our viewers to see this boring white page with content on it when we have a jazzy Flash site to offer them.

What to do: Auto-redirecting is the process of sending viewers to different pages, based off of a characteristic, such as browser type, language settings, IP address, or perhaps they don't have a plug-in installed so you redirect them to another page. All these things sound reasonable, but auto-redirecting in the past has been used by some to abuse the search engines by serving them beefed up pages, while serving viewers different pages.

However, in our example, which is a website done in 100% Flash - making it impossible for the search engines to do an adequate job indexing the content it makes perfect sense to implement auto-redirecting. If it's a spider visiting one of the HTML pages you just let it do its thing, however, if it's not a spider then you redirect to the Flash page.

You are in no way misrepresenting your page as something it's not. You are simply allowing the spider to do something it couldn't otherwise do on its own and that is have an understanding of what the web page is about.

While I am confident that Google and other search engines would not treat this as spamming, I cannot speak with certainty.

Summary

This article has pointed out the real reason why an all Flash website has a difficult time placing well within the results of a search - not just because the spiders still don't do an adequate job indexing a Flash file, but because any website, Flash or no Flash, that consist of but a single page will struggle to place well. Because of this, you must find ways to ensure your website consists of multiple pages. Then you can implement standard optimization procedures.

This article was exerpted from Website Promotion : Optimize Flash

Spyware is a top concern for any business or office

2005-07-07T08:28:00.000-07:00

CNET Networks conducted a survey in March 2005 which indicates that enterprise organizations rank anti-spyware protection among their top three IT priorities this year. And no wonder since malicious spyware disrupts productivity and compromises information security. System slowdowns, higher support costs, and lost productivity can all result from the presence of spyware on employee computers. It can also create breaches in our network security, can go undetected by traditional antivirus scanners, can infiltrate system registries and memory, and can install hundreds of files and processes onto your computer.

All this to say that your workplace should utilize anti-spyware solutions and I recommend you do the same on your computers at home.

You may want to review Microsoft Windows AntiSpyware (Beta) for use at home:
microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software

For those who are interested, below is a summary of the survey:

Key Findings of the Spyware Survey

Dealing with SPAM using Challenge Response

2005-04-18T13:16:00.000-07:00

SPAM can make email unusable, but there is a concept that I have used so I did NOT have to change my email address.

This other method of dealing with SPAM is to use "challenge response". In a nutshell, it requires the sender to respond to a confirmation message. This verifies that an actual person who can read an email sent the message to you. If no response is received, you never are bothered or realize a SPAM email message was even sent to your email address.

How challenge response works

Case 1 - it came from a spammer

Spammer sends an email to you
The software sends a confirmation message to the sender's email address
If the spammer used a fake email address, the confirmation email is not received by the spammer and the fake email address is not confirmed.
Nothing downloaded to your computer, SPAM not seen by you

Case 2 - first-time email from a friend

Friend sends an email to you
The software sends a confirmation message to the sender's email address
Since they used a valid email address, they will get the confirmation message
They click on the link in the confirmation message
Your friend's original message is delivered to you (they do not need to resend the original message)
Friend's email address is added to your "good" email list

Case 3 - additional emails from that same friend

Friend sends an email to you
Their email address is on "good" email list, so message is immediately delivered to you (friend does not receive confirmation message)

Most web hosting providers have this available, so ask your current web hosting company how to get this setup. If they do not have this available, speak to your webmaster or the person who setup your web site or domain email accounts.

Using Thunderbird email software

2005-07-09T09:05:00.000-07:00

One of the most common questions we get from clients is how to deal with SPAM. Many solutions are out there, but this posting will offer ways that the Thunderbird email software might serve you. We will be adding to this post as we develop this issue. All links open in a new window, so click any link as you are reading and then close that window to return to this page.

To begin with, read about Thunderbird to see what it is all about. This is a replacement for your existing email client such as Outlook Express or Netscape Communicator. It has a very effective "Junk Mail" feature which catches most SPAM and puts it in a special folder so you are not bothered looking at it. Those messages will be automatically deleted after 30 days unless you move them out. The basic method they use is similar to challenge response in that those in your Thunderbird address book are never sent to the "Junk Mail" folder.

Resources:

Official Online Documentation
Thunderbird keyboard shortcuts

Read about (or download) Thunderbird

Official looking email is most likely SPAM with a virus attachment

2005-06-28T11:19:00.000-07:00

You may see an official looking message like this in your email box. The wording will vary, but the concept of a so-called message from your email provider with an attachment is the red flag.

I have been receiving more and more of these types of SPAM. But I know this is not legitimate because I control the entire domain that these 2 email addresses are related to, and neither email address is real. A SPAMMER just made them up and most likely included a virus in the attachment.

Example message:
------------------------------------------------
From: administrator@web-potentials.com
To: fred@web-potentials.com
Subject: *DETECTED* Online User Violation
Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 21:00:26 -0400

Dear user fred,

It has come to our attention that your Web-potentials User Profile ( x ) records are out of date. For further details see the attached document.

Thank you for using Web-potentials!
The Web-potentials Support Team

+++ Attachment: No Virus (Clean)
+++ Web-potentials Antivirus - www.web-potentials.com
Attachments

Files:
nmutnf.zip (31k)
------------------------------------------------

If you receive a message like the one above, please do not open the attachment. To verify its authenticity, compose a NEW email message to the support or customer service department of the domain name where you have your email address. If you do not know what that is, manually type in the domain name into your browser and look for the customer service or support link. The domain name is the part after the "@" sign in your email address.

Key Findings of the Trend Micro/CNET Networks Spyware Survey

2005-04-14T13:48:00.000-07:00

Trend Micro teamed with CNET Networks to conduct a nationwide online survey of spyware and its impact on U.S. corporations. The survey was posted online by TechRepublic in March 2005. More than 500 IT professionals who identified themselves as anti-spyware purchase influencers or decision makers responded to the survey.

Key findings include:

93 percent of companies have seen an increase in the amount of spyware on their networks in the past three months
90 percent of companies report lowered computer performance as their greatest spyware-related concern
95 percent of companies report that adware is frequently found within their organization
74 percent said that the loss of confidential personal or corporate information was a primary spyware concern
72 percent already have an anti-spyware solution deployed – with 63 percent of those being stand-alone solutions and 90 percent being deployed at the desktop
78 percent of enterprise IT managers have identified spyware as among their top three IT priorities for 2005
87 percent of companies believe the spyware problem will get worse before it gets better
65 percent of IT decision makers believe an integrated security solution is preferable to a stand-alone anti-spyware product
45 percent of small enterprises and 57 percent of large enterprises believe anti-spyware is most effectively deployed at the gateway
15 percent of small enterprises and 26 percent of large enterprises have anti-spyware deployed at the gateway
Large enterprises are less protected against spyware than smaller enterprises. Only 54 percent of large enterprises have an anti-spyware solution deployed as compared to 80 percent of small enterprises

Read more about it

Formatting your blog links

2005-04-09T12:09:00.000-07:00

As you compose a post you may wish to include links to other web sites. For example, you found a blog or article that your visitors would be interesting in reading. Or you are quoting an excerpt from another web page and want to have a link to the original article.

In either case, you want to create a link that your blog visitors can click. It is recommended to make the clickable link in your post stand out more. You can do one or more of the following to that clickable text:

make it bold
use a slightly larger font size
put it on a separate line (either alone or with just a few words)

Your blog's layout is most likely different from mine which you are now viewing, but your blog might have clickable links in a nice shade that does not contrast strongly with the main text color. This is on purpose since that link text color is used for sidebar links and you do not want to draw excessive attention to the sidebar while a visitor is reading the posts.

The appearance of links on this page may not match those of your blog, but here are 4 examples of how you might present the same information:

Normal link:

If you would like more information about horse training, you can visit their web site to read more. Every time I go there I learn something new since it is easy to navigate with well thought out articles.

Bold link:

If you would like more information about horse training, you can visit their web site to read more. Every time I go there I learn something new since it is easy to navigate with well thought out articles.

Larger link font:

If you would like more information about horse training, you can visit their web site to read more. Every time I go there I learn something new since it is easy to navigate with well thought out articles.

Link on new line:

If you would like more information about horse training, you can visit their web site to read more. Every time I go there I learn something new since it is easy to navigate with well thought out articles.

Visit the horse training web site

Got Audio?

2005-04-22T18:53:00.000-07:00

Got Audio? (on your blog, that is)
Click below to listen

Read more about getting audio on your blog