SOHO Owners Are Liable For Customer Data!
It’s great to know that you have your physical computer systems (desktop or laptop) computer secured but what about the customers’ data?
Many SOHO business owners never think of backing up their own data as well as customer data. Back ups are important and they save a lot of time and headaches when you have to recover data. There’s nothing like losing a bunch of files with no backup reference or point. That means that you have to recreate everything that you’ve ever did and that’s not fun.
SOHO business owners that have customers in legal, medical or psychological professions must take extra steps to ensure that data is backed up and put into a safe place within their home or off site. This may even mean investing in data processing insurance that has an errors and omissions rider.
An errors and omissions rider protects you against disasters that may happen to data which is not your fault. Let’s say that your office building has water damage from a hurricane, fire or something out of your control, you are automatically insured against it provided that you went through all means to secure the data.
Most SOHO business owners should back up their systems and store the backup in an industry certified fireproof safe. Safes can be purchased from your local hardware store or a place like Home Depot.
If a clients’ personal data is not secure, then under certain laws, you can be sued for negligence. If it’s medical data, you could be punished to the extent of the law and pay enormous fines and you could lose your medical license.
You can buy Zip Drives or Tape Drives to back up customer data. Mostly all computer systems come with CD-RW drives which will allow you to back up certain directories on your computer. If you want to keep data offsite with a professional backup company, you can do that too if your budget will permit it.
Make sure that you protect your data and your client’s data which will help you avoid lawsuits and legal action against your SOHO business.
Acquiring Basic PC Skills
For those that have decided to walk into the world of technology, they may be overwhelmed by the types of knowledge that are available. There are several code languages and words as well as different areas that you can move into. If you are a beginner in technology, you can find programs that will help you to move past the first level. Learning basic PC skills through IT Certification is an easy way to begin to understand the several levels and languages of technology. However, before deciding to get IT Certification for basic PC skills, you will want to narrow down which types of PC skills you will want to get.
The first types of basic skills that you will be able to get are related to PC fundamentals. A PC is short for personal computer, meaning that you will learn everything about the computer that you need to use. This will teach you the basics of how to use a computer. It will also allow you to understand how the computers can function and what types of things they can do. If you have never used a computer before, you can also become certified with a keyboarding class. This not only helps to learn the basics to make typing easier, but can also allow you tips and techniques to build your speed when typing. This certification is also good to look into if you are in a work area that requires a certain speed when typing.
If you have already moved past the basics of PC skills, then there are other classes that you may be interested in. Several vendors that offer the IT Certification will also provide classes on expanding basic knowledge for certain types of software. One of these areas will focus on learning how to file different types of information with the best programs. You may also be able to learn easier ways to compute, with specific tools given in relation to programs available on your computer. There are various types of software and hardware that make saving and receiving information easier to put into the computer and save.
Basic PC skills may also offer beginning areas that will lead to the other courses being offered. For example, if you are interested in graphics, the basic PC skills can offer you introductory courses to what is available. You may also be able to find quick guides for things such as how to use a digital camera or how to use other external sources for your personal computer. These can all help you to begin to move into the world of technology.
Within each of these types of classes are also several ways that you can study the courses and take the exam to move to the next level. Vendors will offer quick guides for technology areas that don’t take as much. They will also offer self learning courses that will allow you to read the material and take the test without any help. For those that are more interested in a different type of learning, online courses or courses at a local community college or university are also available.
If you are noticing the changes in technology, as well as realize you need this skill, then getting IT Certification for basic PC skills is a good place to start.
Acquiring Basic PC Skills
For those that have decided to walk into the world of technology, they may be overwhelmed by the types of knowledge that are available. There are several code languages and words as well as different areas that you can move into. If you are a beginner in technology, you can find programs that will help you to move past the first level. Learning basic PC skills through IT Certification is an easy way to begin to understand the several levels and languages of technology. However, before deciding to get IT Certification for basic PC skills, you will want to narrow down which types of PC skills you will want to get.
The first types of basic skills that you will be able to get are related to PC fundamentals. A PC is short for personal computer, meaning that you will learn everything about the computer that you need to use. This will teach you the basics of how to use a computer. It will also allow you to understand how the computers can function and what types of things they can do. If you have never used a computer before, you can also become certified with a keyboarding class. This not only helps to learn the basics to make typing easier, but can also allow you tips and techniques to build your speed when typing. This certification is also good to look into if you are in a work area that requires a certain speed when typing.
If you have already moved past the basics of PC skills, then there are other classes that you may be interested in. Several vendors that offer the IT Certification will also provide classes on expanding basic knowledge for certain types of software. One of these areas will focus on learning how to file different types of information with the best programs. You may also be able to learn easier ways to compute, with specific tools given in relation to programs available on your computer. There are various types of software and hardware that make saving and receiving information easier to put into the computer and save.
Basic PC skills may also offer beginning areas that will lead to the other courses being offered. For example, if you are interested in graphics, the basic PC skills can offer you introductory courses to what is available. You may also be able to find quick guides for things such as how to use a digital camera or how to use other external sources for your personal computer. These can all help you to begin to move into the world of technology.
Within each of these types of classes are also several ways that you can study the courses and take the exam to move to the next level. Vendors will offer quick guides for technology areas that don’t take as much. They will also offer self learning courses that will allow you to read the material and take the test without any help. For those that are more interested in a different type of learning, online courses or courses at a local community college or university are also available.
If you are noticing the changes in technology, as well as realize you need this skill, then getting IT Certification for basic PC skills is a good place to start.
Watch Those Attachments!
Most viruses come through attachments and downloads from the Internet. Many people don’t use the common standard of file recognition. The file recognition rule states that if you are not aware of what the extension or document is; do not download it at all.
An attachment can be a document, .EXE file, JPEG file or even a music file. These files can be small in nature but also very powerful because once you open these files, they can have an adverse impact on your system that you may never recover from.
A great example is the “Typhoid Mary” virus which was an email attachment that attached itself to address books of users in Microsoft Outlook, Eudora or any other email client. The purpose of the virus was to infect these address books and attach itself to emails that were sent out from the system. That means that if you sent an email to a person in the address book and they received it then their address book became infected also. The rule is to never trust a suspicious email which in the subject line looks odd. You should delete that email immediately. You should have a virus scanner to run through all emails as they go out and come into your system.
Downloads are another issue that can give a system problems. If a site is telling you to download software to view a web page, don’t do it at all. The file may contain a certain virus that can embed itself into the applications part of your system and make applications real hard to open and use. Some of these viruses ca record your computer IP or keystrokes and steal personal information that you don’t want to be known to hackers.
Unless you really know the company that the software is coming from, do not download software from the web. The best bet is to leave it alone and go with a reputable company that you know have safeguards and security certificates regarding the download of software.
When dealing with attachments and downloads, take extreme care so that you don’t damage your system.
.
Digging into spam and filtering services
If you talk to anyone who uses email, spam is something that is frequently on there mind. How often is it that you open your inbox checking for an email from your mom, and you end up with emails with subjective titles involving animals, and foreign objects.
There are ways to fight back against Spam, and one of the most popular is through the use of a spam filtering service. There is all different types of spam, and surprisingly not all of them involve email. Most spamming involves the advertising or otherwise promotion of a product, however this is not true in some cases.
Most common types of spamming include: Email spam, Link spam and search engine spam.
Email Spam is the simple act of sending out massive amounts of ‘junk email’ to anyone and everyone, in order to promote a product. Often times spamming has been exploited by more ‘undergorund’ industries such as the adult industry, but it would be unfair to say that other industries haven’t used it as well.
Link Spam is a form of spamming or spamdexing that recently became publicized most often when targeting the increasingly popular weblogs. Weblogs is one of the biggest problems, however link spam also affects guestbooks, and online discussion boards. The purpose behind spamming these various places, is to display hyperlinks to a various page or product, which helps both with user exposure and search engine popularity.
Search engine spam is usually closely related with the above “link spam”, as it is the process of creating countless numbers of pages, that populate search engines. Often times these pages will be full of garbage text and have no real value on there own. When a user visits them, they will either be re-directed to a completely different page, often times on another domain, or show prominent advertising.
Everyone can take their part in removing spam. The easiest way for a general user to not encourage spam, is not to use it. Spammers only spam, because it must be effective, otherwise they would find something better to do with their time. It is also recommended to get various levels of personal spam protection, which is often times included with anti-virus software. 3rd party solutions such as Hotmail, have very good spam detection, however often times spam will leak in, and in that case you can help hotmail out by notifying them of the occurence, so that they can better help protect you next time.
Getting Rid of Spyware
No matter where you go on the web, someone is trying to infiltrate your system. From web sites placing simple logon cookies, to paid advertising tracking your movements on the web, to malicious software that is designed to record your keystrokes and discover passwords, Spyware and Adware have together become a big problem.
Many of these programs are simply dangerous and seriously threaten your online privacy and identity. Even the simple and supposedly benign Adware programs can cause you serious problems.
Spyware is any program that installs itself onto your computer with the intent to spy on your activity. This can be recording your online searching habits, or whatever you type on your keyboard. Adware is not much better. It is designed to watch what you do online, where you go, which terms you search for and then report this to the ad agency that runs the program.
Many, if not most, advertisers on the internet will try and place a cookie or other small program on your computer. Many will add code that will track that cookie as it hits different pages. The code may be designed simply to gather anonymous data, or it may be trying to send ads to your browser that the advertising company thinks you will be more likely to respond to.
Whatever the case, the Adware or Spyware is using your computer to do its tracking. This means that part of your computer’s power and CPU cycles are being diverted away from the activity you are trying to perform. Your computer is being used by someone else instead to track your movements. These programs can literally slow your computer down to a crawl, or make it crash altogether. They can fill your computer up with trash files, open unwanted popup windows, use up the space in your internet cache and generally just make working on your computer a nightmare.
Luckily there are several easy solutions to the problem. Spyware and Adware are not the same thing as a computer virus or Trojan Horse. Although a computer virus can install spyware on a computer, you will need different tools to remove a computer virus and to keep your system clean from Spyware and Adware. There are several good Spyware/adware programs on the market.
Good programs are Ad-aware from Lavasoft and Spy Sweeper from Webroot Software although there are several others. You can easily find both of these by doing an internet search for Ad-aware and Spy Sweeper or simply do a search for spyware.
How To Know If It Is A Link Farm Spam Page
A link farm is a network of sites that link to other sites for the sole purpose of increasing link popularity. This is when a website gets hundreds of links to unrelated sites in exchange for reciprocal links. This is termed as spamming and any website who relates to link farms is penalized by removal from a search engine’s index.
Backgrounder on Link Farms
Link farms were originally developed by search engine optimizers to take advantage of the Inktomi search engine’s dependence on link popularity. It was targeted for manipulation with the use of link farms because of the fact that it was used by a number of independent but popular search engines. The most popular search engines during that time – Yahoo! also used Inktomi results as a supplement to its own directory search feature. Link farms facilitated the stabilization of listings for online business websites having few natural links from more stable sites.
Link popularity is used by most search engines to come up with a ranking order for search results. However, at the time link farms came to be, the Inktomi engine was maintaining two indexes. The primary index produced search results that are limited to about 100,000,000 listings thus pages with few inbound links fell out of the index on a regular basis. While the handling of link farm exchange was informal at the start, several service companies were eventually founded to handle automated registration, categorization and link page updates to member websites.
The coming of the Google search engine paved the way for the use of a link weighting scheme called PageRank. The PageRank algorithm assigns more weight to links that it determines as more valuable than others. Link farming was used to help member pages to increase their PageRank. This soon became the subject of manipulation by unscrupulous webmasters who continue to receive inbound linkage but found ways to hide outbound links if not totally avoid posting any link at all to their sites. There came a need for link farm managers to implement quality controls and require member compliance to rules that were installed to ensure fairness.
As a result, alternative link farm products emerged such as the link-finding software that identifies potential reciprocal link partners. This made possible the sending of template-based e-mails that offered link exchanges. Directory-like link pages were created for those websites intent on building link popularity as well as PageRank. The link farm movement was actively countered by search engines as they sought to identify specific attributes associated with link farms thus filtering those pages from indexing and search results. There were instances where entire domains had to be removed to prevent the potential influences of link farms on search results.
Link farm-influenced crawling diminished as search engines increased their capacity to index more sites. It became unnecessary for link farms to help sites retain their positions in primary indexes. However, it remained a popular tool to increase PageRank or perceived equivalent values. The Inktomi technology has since become a part of Yahoo! while the term “Link Farm” is now widely considered as derogatory.
There is still an ongoing debate as to the value of using PageRank in determining search results ranking. Reputable search engines are one in recommending that webmasters request for relevant links to their sites instead of participating in link farms. Sites that participate in link farms run the risk of having their search rankings penalized.
Link Farm Spam Page or Not?
Link farms usually refer to sites with an almost boundless list of links to other websites rather than links from page to page within a site. Relevancy to a site is not a major consideration in determining the links as the major purpose of linking is to get a high ranking among search engines. The provisions of good information to users cease to be the goal of these websites as they concentrate on attaining search popularity through the sheer number of links.
When is a specific website said to be participating in a link farm? The current indication seems to be pointing at having not more than 100 links on a page as a safe measure. There are apprehensions of whether having numerous internal links will be interpreted as a link farm.
A link farm is composed of a group of web pages that hyperlink to every other web page in the group. It can be manually created but is most often created through automated programs and services. It is sometimes called spamdexing as it is a form of spamming the index of a search engine. A term that is often associated with it is the “spaghetti code” which is a code with a complex and tangled control structure that uses unstructured branching constructs.
The algorithmic principle that puts emphasis on the voting power of “authority sites” lies behind the manipulated processes of link farms. There is that assumption that related pages link to each other and authoritative pages tend to link to other authoritative pages. Conversely, being linked to spam sites or sites that use Black-Hat SEO degrades the reputation of any site. Association with poorly reputed sites affects a site’s search engine positioning as it stands to be categorized as an irrelevant site.
As spammers continue to go around the valid purpose of linking, the value of reciprocal linking continue to decrease. Too many irrelevant links provide no value and can be seen as spam by human experts and search engines. A link directory with no clear, organized and distinct categories of links can be interpreted as a link farm especially if there are already more than 50 links on a page.
TrustRank is used to counter the various techniques employed to achieve higher rankings than actually deserved in a search engine’s result. It uses a technique that manually identifies reputable seed pages and uses their link structure to discover other pages that are likely to be good as well. It aims to cut down on spam and deliver the real content that is desired by the searcher.
There are a number of ways to ensure that a website’s link directory does not end up being categorized as another form of a link farm. Incorporating a link directory into a website has its own advantages but caution should be taken so as not to have too many outbound links on a page that dilutes its value. If a website’s links are very much varied and tend to be unrelated, they will need to be categorized to become relevant to each other.
The use of clear, concise titles and descriptions for categories will help searchers (humans and search engines’ spiders alike) understand what a particular category is all about so that the measure of relevancy can out rightly be determined. It is not a requirement to agree to all link exchange requests especially if the requesting site cannot be considered a good representation of a site’s theme and values. It is highly recommended that regular follow-up on approved link exchanges is done to determine the status of the links and determine whether continued linkage with them is still acceptable. It is possible that although some links present themselves initially as good links have been banned, gone under, or moved. These are situations beyond anyone’s control so it is best for a website to work hard on keeping its links and contents relevant so as to bring continuous qualified traffic to itself. Link farms may be considered obsolete in a sense but it continuous to pop-up in different forms at present.
Free Spam Blockers
Remember when spam was just another horrible thing you would never eat? And then you grew up a little and spam became the lyrics to a great Monty Python song. And now spam is something to avoid at all costs. Or, in the case of free spam blockers, at no cost at all. Everything is better when it’s free, right? Such is the case with blocking out annoying spam from your email account, too.
Free spam blockers are popping up all over the internet. Kind of ironic, isn’t it, that some pop-up ads are advertising spam blocking technology. The problem with spam isn’t really the content, of course, it’s the time spent winnowing through all those e-mails in search of the ones that really contain useful information or are from people with whom you want to contact. The best free spam blockers in the world are not only free, but don’t take up any space on your computer. Yes, I’m talking about being very careful to whom you give your e-mail address.
The plain simple truth is that any time you fill out a form that asks for your e-mail address, you are just asking for spam. Maybe the site where you filled out the form sold your address to mass marketers and maybe they didn’t, but chances are if you have ever given your e-mail address to a company rather than an individual, you received spam because of it. And if you’re like most people doing business on the internet, you’re spending anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour and a half just checking your e-mail every day. You don’t have time to wade through the spam pool. That’s why getting yourself one of the reliable free spam blockers out there is so important.
You can almost instantly tell when you’ve come across one of these free spam blockers because of their oh-so-clever name. For instance, Spamhilator, SpamButcher, or SpamKiller. And you want to know a secret? They are almost all exactly alike. Oh sure, there are little differences that may mean a lot to you personally, but frankly it doesn’t matter. The best thing you can do is download them as a trial version—and with so many on the market offering trial versions, it makes no sense to ever download any of the free spam blockers that don’t offer trial versions—and check them out to make sure they do what they promise. And if they do what they promise, do they do it with a minimum amount of fuss and muss and maintenance on you part.
The key to using free spam blockers is maintenance. You got one in the first place to give yourself more time to do what you need to do. So why would you want to use a spam blocker is high maintenance itself? Go through all the free spam blockers that interest you and then narrow them down until you find the one that works completely in the background without throwing out stuff you really need and that doesn’t require you to keep checking up on it. That’s the one you want.
A Quick Look At Email Spam Filters
You must be eagerly finding for a way out to stop receiving Spam mails in your inbox. Take a quick look at email spam filters to get some idea on how to check spam. There are a number of email spam filters that you can use in your computer. For official purposes, you have anti server software spam where the spam filter is located in the server level to trap all email spam. They prevent them from reaching your inbox. The email spasm not only slows down the performance of the server, but also occupies a lot of storage space. Emails are the easiest and the best way for these viruses to spread.
Working of Spam Filters
Anti spam software and anti spam solutions are essential to aid you in getting a clean inbox. The server spam filter or anti spam server is a software application that scans all the incoming email messages. With the help of their configuration, they identify Spam and prevent them from reaching your inbox. The spam mails not only eats away the storage space and make selecting your personal emails difficult, they also can contain viruses. Using anti spam filters is necessary as it saves both your time and money. But even when you are using anti spam filters, it is recommended to check the messages just to make sure that no personal message has been marked as spam. Even the server spam filters marks email as “false positive” to those that are identified as spam, but in reality they are valid messages. There are various anti spam programs that identifies Spam and sends it to the junk mail folder.
Not all spam filters work in the same way. Some of them are pre programmed where the know spammers are inserted. They accordingly block them. Some of the programs filter the emails based on the keywords used in the mails. Some of the email spam filters are configured and you can easily customize it or the network administrator can also customize it according to the requirement of the company.
New IRS Scam Hits Email Mailboxes
There is a new wave of email “phishing” that is showing up in email mailboxes this spring, unscrupulous scammers are now targeting the American public with email claiming to be from the IRS.
The ingenious fraudsters’ aim is to collect your Social Security number, credit card account information and banking account information. The emails, which look authentic complete with the IRS logo and privacy policy, lure people into providing this information by notifying them of an audit or offering them access to a link to collect their refund. Additionally, the web site that appears bears a striking resemblance to the official IRS web site (even the font type matches) and when people click home, it actually takes them to www.IRS.gov (the real IRS web site).
However, there are some flaws to these thief’s attempts to secure people’s private and personal information. This is what the public should know: In one of the scam emails in the browser or address bar at the top of the page it reads: http://tzk.kozle.pl and the information that is requested, Social Security number, credit card number, banking information (where the refund goes).
The public needs to know that the IRS generally does not communicate with them via email.
“We do not communicate with taxpayers via email. We may send you a letter, we may call you, but we do not send out email,” stated IRS spokeswoman Nancy Mathis.
In recent weeks up to one hundred complaints a day are reported regarding email scams and the IRS has found twelve web sites operated in eighteen different countries committing this type of fraud or other types of IRS related fraud.
If you get an email from the IRS and if you doubt its authenticity, it is best to call the IRS and verify that they did, in fact send the correspondence. Call the IRS at 1-(800) 829-1040 ask confirm if they are trying to contact you. To report a fraudulent or suspicious email claiming to be from the IRS, call the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration at 1 (800) 366-4484. Furthermore, report any cases of identity theft to the Federal Trade Commission at www.consumer.gov/idtheft.