Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Spyware
by Doug Woodall
John Locke said that "no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions",Yet as I sit here at my computer this morning, I get the feeling that the attempts being made to keep the Internet's safe will not come to fruition soon.
Yes, I can hear you saying, "don't be such a downer, Doug"
Well, hear me out.
Lets explore John Lockes quote shall we?
Life. Yours, mine, your loved ones. Its yours, to do with what you will. Well, sometimes your will is to use the Internet's. But how secure are you? Is your AntiVirus, AntiSpyware and Firewall working and up to date? Do you know what is a Spam email is and not to click on the URL they provide? These decisions can affect your life if you are online.
Next, Liberty or as I prefer to think of, Freedom. To have access to particular resources without constraint. If online threats are making your life hectic, would you consider your rights violated? I would if I found out that some drive by download had installed a keylogger on my computer and then cleaned out my bank account. Or how about while you're trying to conduct business online and you keep getting these awful pop=ups telling you about the sale at Harveys Fish Emporium.
Are your Liberties/ Freedoms being constrained yet?
Now we come to the best part, the pursuit of Spyware. Ok, so John Locke didn't say anything about Spyware, Write your own article, this ones mine!
Threats to our online safety are growing in leaps and bounds by the day. I learned long ago, there is always someone out there who is better than anyone previously. The attacks on servers, the Bot networks, the phishing, the URL re-directs, Keyloggers, Image Spam, it just goes on and on. Your personal information is at risk every minute you are online.
I know, you have the best AntiVirus, AntiSpyware, Firewall there is. But is it really? How do you know? When was the last time you ran "Hijack This" and uploaded the results to a help Forum like MajorGeeks, Bleeping Computer or DaniWeb? Its the only way to make sure your computer is clean. And theres no guarantee it wont become re-infected two minutes after you leave the Forum.I know it happens because I frequent these Forums and I see hundreds of freaked users pleading for help. Many are repeat submitters.
Which brings me to the whole purpose of this article. To bring into the spotlight those out there who fight everyday to help keep us safe. They sit at their computers for hours at a time, examining postings in Forums to help others they don't even know stay out of the clutches of those who would benefit from the misfortune of others.
Ever get that feeling of helplessness that comes when your computer wont work right.
Remember? Not fun huh? These people read your postings and know your pain. Its hard to do this also, they have to help you fix your computer thru posting instructions for you to do. Miscommunication and frustrations can cause it to take longer and compound the repairs.
Then there are the organizations that go after the meanies that cause your pain.
They put out alerts and issue fixes. These include The Alliance of Security Analysis Professionals, The Anti-Spyware Coalition, The Council of Advocates for Relief from Malware Assimilation, The Spamhaus Project, just to name a few. There are plenty more out there that are fighting the good fight every day. The goal is a communication arena where all can participate without concern of malicious intent.
Kind of like the old days when the Internet first existed.
Back then there were "Hackers". They were mostly driven by ego and competition to see who was the best. Now its mostly about money. Legions of Bot captured computers sending out Spam and ads going to millions and millions of unprotected servers, computers and of course, into your email. Theres also the Pharming of websites, waiting like a spider in its lair for you to show up and give you a lil driveby download of something special. You name the evil that people do and you can find it online. Thank goodness the goodness of the Internet's is on the other side of the scale.
So, the solution? Make another one and try again? I don't have the answer, I do know that there are good people out there who want safety for all and are making a good show of it. They deserve our thanks.
I believe there is alway bad that comes with the good. A balance or whatever. And like the other saying goes, Retaining Freedom for all requires constant vigilance.
So be vigilant.
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Unique Gift Ideas For Family And Friends: Picture Gifts
Unique Gift Ideas For Family And Friends: Picture Gifts
by Mario Churchill
Giving gifts is one of the most wonderful experiences that you will ever have. Just watching your loved one's expression once they received the gift is priceless. So, if your family or friends is celebrating something on just about any occasion, you want to give them something that is unique something that they can use everyday.
With today's technology, you can do almost anything to your photos. By just having a home computer, you can install your favorite photo editing software and manipulate your photos. You can even scan your previous photos and store it digitally in your computer.
The software can even let you place celebrities on your photo and make it seem like they are posing with you. You can even print your own photos in a photo paper. However, editing and printing your photos isn't the only thing that you can do with it. You can even print your favorite photos on just about anything. You can print it on T-shirt transfer paper and iron the print on your shirt, or just about any cotton fabric you choose.
There are a lot of gift ideas that you can think of by just using your favorite picture. With a gift idea like this, you will surely keep your friends and family guessing just how you did it. The iron-on T-shirt transfer is one of the most common gift ideas available. It only requires you to digitize your favorite photo or your friend's favorite photo, print it completely reversed on a T-shirt transfer paper and iron the print on a fabric.
Another picture gift idea that your family and friends can truly appreciate is by printing a special photo in a coffee mug. For example, if your friend just had a baby, you can take a picture of the new mom holding her first baby for the first time and print it on a coffee mug. This is definitely a perfect gift for your friend who recently became a mom.
Just imagine, the morning she wakes up for a cup of coffee, she will always remember the first time she held her child. This kind of gift is truly unique and will really show your creativity. These kinds of gifts are simple and can be cherished for a long time.
You can even personalize a mouse pad that you can give to your coworkers. A picture can be printed onto a mouse pad. It can be a photo of him or her making faces. With this kind of gift, your coworker can truly appreciate the thought and they will surely remember the fun times you and your coworker had in the office.
There are lots more picture gift ideas that you can give as a gift to your loved ones. You can even personalize a handbag and give it to your friends who collect handbags. It can be a photo of you and your friend having a great time or it can be anything at all that your friend will have good memories of.
Giving these kinds of picture gift ideas will not only show how thoughtful you are and how creative you are, it will also show how much you cherish those memories you spent with the special people around you. So, whether you are giving gifts to your friends, your parents or to your brothers and sisters, you can really give a gift that they can truly appreciate by giving something that has a memorable picture printed on it.
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Use of S/MIME technology for securing online communication
Use of S/MIME technology for securing online communication
by Geetanjali Kulkarni
The threats to communication on public network have increased over the years of advent in Internet communication. Yet individuals and organizations today are ignorant of ways to secure their e-mail communication. The various threats to e-mail communication on public network are:
� Change / modification of e-mail content during transit
� Delivery of e-mails to unauthorized recipients
� Copy of e-mail to unauthorized recipient without the knowledge of the correspondents
� �Phishing� e-mail messages, i.e fraudulent email messages that appear to be authentic that direct the recipients to divulge personal confidential data or direct users to the fake websites that exist for the purpose of stealing usernames and passwords.
� The use of forged �from� address for sending unwanted mails and viruses
These kinds of attacks/ risks can be prevented by the use of S/MIME. S/MIME (Secure / Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) is a standard for Public Key encryption and signing of e-mail encapsulated in MIME. S/MIME uses digital signatures that digitally sign and encrypt the email. The advantages of S/MIME communication are:
1. Authentication: The authenticity of sender of message
2. Message integrity: The data cannot be modified / changed on sending
3. Non-Repudiation of origin: The sender cannot repudiate later
4. Confidentiality: Data is hidden from all those unauthorized to read it
The digitally signed e-mail tends to increase recipients trust in email infrastructure. S/MIME functionality is built into the vast majority of modern e-mail software and interoperates between them. Financial organizations, retailers and other business entities doing business on internet or exchanging confidential information must adopt the practice of digitally-signing their mail to customers with S/MIME signatures using a certificate signed by a widely-published CA�s.
S/MIME uses two X. 509 certificates. The author digitally signs the email with their private key. The message is then cncrypted using recipients public key and sent. When message reaches the recipient the message is decrypted with the recipient�s private key, and the verified usign author�s public key.
One of the reasons S/MIME has not become popular with end users is the lack of awareness of the technology and its benefits. Another barrier in adopting e-mail security techniques has been the deployment of different and mutually incompatible standards for email security like Privacy Enhanced Mail (PEM), Open PGP, and S/MIME. The problem caused by deployment of these competing standards is that there is no guarantee that a signed message will be verifiable by the recipient. The other problem is that signatures or sometimes the original email message itself, appear as indecipherable attachments when email clients having some other MIME-based standard, receive them.
This standardization problem has now been solved by the wide-scale deployment of mail clients implementing the S/MIME standard. Support for S/MIME is built-in to Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, Mozilla and Netscape. Moreover, the keys by several popular certification authorities (CAs) are distributed both with these programs and with many popular operating systems. Thus, there is a high likelihood that digitally signed mail, once sent, can be readily verified.
For more information, please visit http://www.elock.com
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How to Evaluate a Franchise Training Program
How to Evaluate a Franchise Training Program
by Bizymoms.com Management
Franchising has become a universally accepted business practice today. In fact franchise businesses account for almost half of all the retail sales in the United States. Therefore there is a significant trend among the general public to engage in franchise related businesses. This is confirmed by the survey results which reveal that �a new franchised business is opened every 8 minutes of every business day�.
As many people are in search of franchise opportunities, we at bizymoms thought it would be highly relevant to discuss the things to consider in evaluating a franchise program so that you can ensure your dreams are achieved. So if you are a prospective franchisee, this article is just for you.
One of the fascinating things you may find out about franchising is that most franchises don�t require you to have experience in their field. In fact, many of them don�t even want a franchisee with previous industry experience. They will train you to excel in a job you�ve never done before. So it is needless to say that training is the most important aspect which can determine your future success. Now do not assume that proper training of new franchisees is important only to the franchisee. In fact your success becomes the success of your franchisor. So they should do whatever it takes to make you ready for the challenge.
A good training program should focus not only on the product or service but also on setting up the business, marketing, employee management, business procedures, financial reporting and many more. The best way of finding about a particular franchise program is to ask the existing franchisees. They should be able to tell you exactly why it is good or bad. You should never forget to ask them how prepared they felt when they opened their business and what ongoing training they were provided.
Another important aspect of training is the documentary help provided during the training program. This means that everything you need to know is written down in easy access manuals or other training support sources like intranets. It doesn�t matter how best you fared as a student it�s impossible to remember everything. Therefore you need quick answers as and when the problems arise during the course of business.
The surveys conducted by the famous research agencies show that the people are aware of the need to focus on the training program. But what they often forget is that the quality of the programs varies significantly over time. When you ask from the existing franchisees on their experience of the training program, you are accessing an outdated knowledge base. Most probably problems existed then may have been resolved and sometimes the so called fine training programs on those days are now outdated. Therefore in order to achieve proper results you need to focus on current and updated information sources such as new franchisees who have just stepped in to business.
The main advantage of franchising for novice prospective businessmen is that it provides you a proven method of success. The franchisor has done many things before franchising the business to you. These may include establishing and building the brand, testing a variety of marketing concepts, finding the best way to deliver a quality service or product, and researching the best value in suppliers etc.
Therefore provided you have received a proper training and you are equipped with necessary tools your success is almost guaranteed. So there is no trial and error but it�s more or less a matter of stand and deliver. However it�s up to you, of course to put in the hard work that will make that success a reality. Enjoy franchising!
About The Author
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
�Fear � Your New Best Friend�
�Fear � Your New Best Friend�
by Matt Bacak
Do you know the three steps to creating wealth? Creating wealth for your business depends upon your ability to sell, sell, and sell your products and services. Let�s look at the three steps to creating wealth beyond your wildest dreams.
Following are the three steps to creating wealth that will have you raking in the cash:
Step #1: Fear. You need to find out what people fear. If you haven�t created a product then find out what people fear in life and make a product that helps get rid of that fear. If you already have customers then find out their fears so you can create even more products.
Step #2: Promise of relief. So you�ve found out the fear of your customers, now what do you do with this information? You create a product or service that provides relief. You promise that your product will save the day and alleviate their fear.
Step #3: Money. To maximize your sales you need to let people know why you are the person to solve their concerns. You have to provide credibility so that they will give you their money. If you don�t provide credibility then they won�t have faith that your product will actually solve their problems. You can provide testimonials, show results, and give your credentials so they will literally throw their money at you. Fear is a very powerful feeling, so you can use fear to your advantage.
What are examples of these three steps in action? Let�s look at a couple of examples.
Example #1: Do your customers have concerns about earning the most profit from SEO on their website? You could provide an informational product that helps relieve this fear of losing out on money.
Example #2: The diet industry. The diet industry preys on the fear of being overweight and provides an easy relief solution through diet pills, programs, and gadgets. They prey on the fear that people feel like they will never be able to lose weight unless they order their diet products.
Take the lead from the diet industry and uncover the fears of your customers. If you can provide the magical solution, with credibility to stand behind it, then you maximize your profit in no time. If you don�t then you could lose out on thousands or even millions of dollars in profit.
About The Author
For more information, visit Bacak's site at http://www.powerfulpromoter.com or sign up for his Powerful Promoting Tips at http://www.promotingtips.com
The B2Evolution Features Than Can Add Value to Your Blog Site
The B2Evolution Features Than Can Add Value to Your Blog Site
by Fat Jack
If you are looking for a suitable tool to host a blog site then believe me, nothing can give you a better option than a B2Evolution software package. Going beyond traditional blogging tools, this software can offer you a range of other unusual features that add to the uniqueness to your blog site.
Multiple user/multiple author/ multilingual support
First of all, it supports a multi user, multiple authors set up.
By installing the software for once the software helps organize your blog in a way that each blog has its own set of member users. Thus, you can take the decision as to who gets to write on a particular blog.
On a more advanced level, certain readers can be denied access to particular posts.
To top it all, full user management is included in the software.
RSS feed enabled
Content syndication is one of the most prominent features of today�s blogging behavior. This is a process of article sharing among several related sites. But it is not essential that the full article should be circulated. Through the RSS feed, you can get to see the title and the source of the article. The source link can take you the original article.
The B2evolution has built-in RSS feed support. It also has Atom feeds for both posts and comments.
Thus the readers can get to see your RSS feeds and subscribe to your site.
With B2Evolution, it is possible to assign separate feeds for each individual blog on your site. Alternatively it is also possible to get a feed containing all the blogs on your site by subscribing to the �Blog All RSS feed�.
Digging
Another recent blog-culture involves �digging� of the articles. With the help of a plugin called, AstonishMe Digg Plugin, it is possible to add Digg buttons to your posts by simply checking a box in the Write tab. This allows you and your readers to dig the stories.
Advanced categorization
Another feature helping in advanced blogging relates to complex categorization of contents. This system allows for categorizing and sub-categorizing of the posts/news items by subject or theme.
However, with this software it is also possible to assign multiple categories to each post.
The additional features include: an integrated XHTML validator, supports recursive subcategories, cross posting and has an integrated skinning system.
The end result is: you get blog software that runs easily on almost any web hosting service, generates web pages dynamically from the MySQL database, without any hassle of �rebuilding�. Also without running into any hassle, you can add to your site different �templates� or �skins� from time to time. It also comes with faster search/display capabilities and makes for the most comprehensive blog engine you could ever find.
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The Right to Win
The Right to Win
by Robert Sher
Winning in business is so much better than surviving, or worse yet, struggling. Winning means going home feeling really good each day. It means making payroll easily. It means investing in new projects and new ideas without shuddering to think of the impact of a mistake. Statistics show that industry leaders produce better profits.
I really don't want to run any business that can't win. It's just not worth it.
Does your business have the right to win? Having the right to win means that your business and your team has what it takes to dominate your marketplace. It's about whether you will win the competitive struggle with all your rivals. To be clear, a business can't win in every marketplace. But you, as owner, get to choose where to compete.
On the one hand, you may choose a niche market in a defined geographic area. If the niche is defensible, lucrative, and you have what it takes to win, great! Alternatively, if you've got what it takes, you may seek to dominate one industry segment worldwide.
So what does it mean to earn the right to win? It means that no competitor offers a package of products and services that is better than what you offer. It means that you are the first firm they think of when they need what you specialize in.
Now, if you are lucky enough to have no competition - you can run the business poorly while overcharging, and still do really well! Innovators the world around have enjoyed this for a short time. But competition will find you. And they will want to steal away your right to win.
When I think about the right to win, a number of attributes come to mind.
Quality & Value. You will offer a better quality/value proposition. That could be cheap products at unusually low prices, or it could mean complex, high value services at excellent (but still high) prices. Either way, for your target customer, they'll find your products or services to be a better deal than your competition.
Knowledge. You will know more about your subject than anyone else. You'll take all the courses you can find. You'll have resources you can turn to when you need to learn more. You'll be the local top expert.
Continuous Improvement. Knowing that the competition is trying to unseat you, you'll continually be trying new things, new ideas, new services. They may be taking aim at you, but you're a moving target. You'll embrace foreign competition, new materials, new regulations and other marketplace changes as an opportunity for you to shine and a chance for competitors to stumble.
The Team. Your people will be top quality, and will be pulling your business forward. Anybody that is not great in their position will be re-deployed into the workforce.
Finances. You have enough working capital to run the business well, and you keep the books in good order. You know where you stand, are profitable, and know what you can afford.
Sales and Marketing. You keep your business at the top of the mind of all your prospects. They enjoy doing business with you. You truly understand what your customers need from you.
Operations. You are efficient and productive. Waste is not tolerated. Your costs are as low or lower than your competition. On time delivery and on budget costs are the norm.
Evaluate each key competitor on the above attributes. First pass, do it on what you know about each of them. Evaluate your own business too. Do you come out on top? Be honest with yourself! If you don't come out on top, craft a plan to close each gap. You don't have to be the best at everything, but you need to be close on everything, and the leader overall. If you don't have a clue about your competition, start studying them now. Ask you customers about the competition - they're a great source.
What if it's impossible to close the gaps? If you realize that it's impossible to have such a fine business so as to earn the right to win? You have an important choice to make. If you are happy with the way things are and you like the lifestyle you have now, great. Not everyone is driven to make the most money, or be the most successful. But if winning is your dream, and the business you are in can't get you there, think about changing businesses.
Even if you're not close to dominating your marketplace, the right to win is a concept that will push you and your business to be the best. It's a good quarterly exercise to engage in with your staff. Often painful at the start, but as you close the gaps, you'll notice the difference on the bottom line, and in your pride.
Robert Sher is the principal of CEO to CEO, which guides business leaders as they navigate critical passages. An active CEO for 23 years and running, and a director in the Alliance of Chief Executives. Author of The Feel of the Deal; How I Built a Company through Acquisitions. He has taught entrepreneurship to executive MBA students for many years. He may be reached at Robert@ceotoceo.biz.
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