tech+info+resources underground

Am I Just Being Paranoid Or Are The Robots Out To Get Me?

It all started in the early part of the twenty-first century.

In the early days of email we were thrilled with its speed and reliability, far superior to “snail mail” but there’s always somebody who has to go and spoil things for everyone else. In the case of email it was the purveyors of the namesake of a certain pork-based substance. They became such a nuisance that large teams of robots had to be employed to keep them under control.

As the porkers got smarter, the robots had to become smarter still. At first, everybody agreed that stringent measures must be taken to defeat the porkers. Ever hear the phrase “throwing the baby out with the bath water” or “the cure is worse than the disease”?

The number of spam merchants multiplied over and over. Eventually, the only way of controlling them was for every email user to have his or her own robot to filter their mail. I did not want a robot filtering my mail but I didn’t have much choice: nobody was allowed an email account without a robot to monitor its use.

Every time I log into my email, I pause and listen for the faint metallic scraping and a slight pneumatic wheeze as the robot wakes and prepares to filter my mail. No matter how quiet I am, he always knows and is instantly awake and alert, ready to do his job. I did not request robotic help, don’t want it, don’t need it but the robot is here to stay.

I think my robot is like the paranoid android in The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy: slow moving and depressive, so I call him Marvin (not to his face, of course). I don’t suppose my Marvin feels that censoring my mail is a suitable occupation for a robot of his caliber, any more that his namesake thought attending the car park at the end of the universe was a great career for a robot with a brain the size of a planet. On my part, I am sure that I am old enough to take full responsibility for my own correspondence. There is no need for Marvin to wear out his circuits on my account but it appears that we are stuck with each other for the duration.

The extent of Marvin’s power first caught my attention when a regular newsletter which I enjoyed failed to arrive. Delivery just stopped altogether.

I asked my email provider if there was a problem with this particular mail and they said there was nothing wrong with my mailbox, it must be a problem with the sender. I asked the sender why delivery had stopped and they said it hadn’t, it must be a problem with my mailbox. I gave up and just resubscribed myself to the newsletter. Every time delivery stopped after that I wondered what else I might be missing in the way of interesting mail.

It was shortly after this that it became apparent to me that Marvin has a bad attitude. Now I can sympathise with him because I know how it feels to be stuck in a boring job while the brain cells shrivel. That doesn’t mean I think he should behave badly, he should do the job to the best of his ability (even if it is beneath him) and not make mischief.

Everyone seems to believe that the robots keep changing the rules in an effort to keep ahead of the porkers but I don’t believe that. I think they keep changing the rules mostly out of boredom but, in Marvin’s case, I sense a certain underlying malevolence. This surfaced recently when I sent an email to a friend I had not heard from for a while. My mail bounced back with a message to the effect that spam would not be delivered. How dare they, Spam indeed! From that day on, every mail I tried to send bounced straight back at me.

Angrily, I contacted the email company support desk to complain. They helpfully told me that this problem was nothing to do with them, I must have used forbidden words in my emails and that was why they bounced. The forbidden words included “friend”, “free”, “you”, “internet”, “remove”. The list of forbidden words is long and growing longer by the day, it is difficult to make up proper sentences without using the forbidden words, soon our only way of emailing will be by inventing a new language.

My problem now is that I cannot get email through to my friends and they cannot get email to me. Too late I realised that we neglected to exchange phone numbers: there seemed no point when email was so quick and easy. Now I can’t send email, can’t receive email, the robot has isolated me.

Only one way left to break out of quarantine and it’s a long time since I sat with pen and paper to write letters. I won’t use the word processor as I am convinced Marvin will recognise it as a means of communication but I don’t think he will know what the pen is for and I doubt he’ll be suspicious if I take some envelopes with me next time I go out. A glorified email filter is hardly likely to know the purpose of a mailbox which is not of the virtual variety.

I hear Marvin stir even though I have not switched on my computer, he seems to have the ability to read my mind. There is a faint clanking sound, the smell of ozone, an electrical crackle in the air. His hand on my shoulder is heavy and cold, the steel joints creak as his fingers tighten. I don’t think I will be going out to post any letters.

This is one of a series of articles
published by the author, Elaine Currie, BA(Hons)
at http://www.HuntingVenus.com
The author’s monthly newsletter is available free
from mailto:networkerhvm@ReportsNetwork.com

As RSS news syndication gains popularity among users, new ways for publishing RSS are emerging. In this article, I examine the three most popular methods, and help you decide which one works best for you.

1. Blogs
Weblogs, or blogs, as they are commonly called, are the primary reason RSS gained
popularity. In fact, one of the earliest uses for RSS was for bloggers to monitor
other blogs for updates.

Most blogging systems will produce RSS newsfeeds automatically. All you need to
do is enter content, and the blogging software will build a newsfeed based on the
information you enter. No extra work is needed. Just add content to your blog, and
you have a newsfeed.

But there is one major disadvantage to using a blog for publishing RSS: you do not
have complete control of the RSS output. Most blogging software will simply take
an excerpt of your blog entry (eg, the first 15 words), and use that to create your
RSS item. As you can imagine, this can lead to problems. The first 15 words of a
blog entry don’t always capture the essence of that article.

2. RSS Publishing Software
Because of the inadequacy of blogs as a reliable and accurate RSS tool, new stand-
alone software was developed. This software has one purpose: to provide the user
with an easy way to create and publish RSS newsfeeds from their desktops. No
longer do you have to write a long article in your blog to produce RSS feeds. All you
have to do is enter a title for your news item, and (optionally) a couple sentences to
describe that headline - and your feed is better than the blog-produced feed.

Examples of RSS publishing software for Windows include FeedforAll (http://
www.feedforall.com) and Newzalert Composer (http://www.castlesoftware.biz/
NewzAlertComposer.htm). Mac users have their own tool in Orangebox for
Macintosh (http://www.globalsyndication.com/orangebox-for-macintosh).

3. Online RSS Publishing Systems
While subscribers to feeds generated by RSS software enjoyed the simplicity and
clarity of the new feeds, some publishers began to run into problems that came with
the publishing software. They missed the convenience of blogging’s online
publishing that allowed them to add news — regardless of whether they were at
their home computer.

News publishers wanted the accessibility of online blogging with the accuracy of RSS
publishing software. The new demand lead to the emergence of online RSS
publishing systems such as FeedServer RSS Hosting (http://
www.globalsyndication.com/rss-hosting). This new format of RSS publishing allows
webmasters to login to an online control panel and publish their news - without
having to worry about restrictive software licenses. Since most online RSS
publishing systems run on a subscription basis, you can make use of the free trial or
subscribe for one month and evaluate if the service meets your needs.

So which system should you use to publish RSS? It depends on your needs. If most
of your readers manually visit your site to get new information, a blogging system
may be sufficient. However, if you plan to take advantage of the full capabilities of
RSS news syndication, you would do well to use a stand-alone RSS publishing
system. RSS publishing software will satisfy your needs if you plan to use one
computer only. But if you’re looking for flexibility and a lower startup costs, look
into the new online RSS publishing systems.

Josiah Mackenzie is an entrepreneur and small business owner. His website (http://www.josiahmackenzie.com) contains fresh tips and advice for business and internet
marketing.

Josiah also manages marketing for Global Syndication (http://www.globalsyndication.com), an RSS solutions company.

Tag and Ping, Google Analytics, Micro-Dissecting Logs, Visual PageRank…

What does all those topics have in common?

No, I haven’t gotten into the happy-pill jar, just in case
you’re wondering! What does all those topics have in common?
They are all marketing tactics or strategies I am presently
using to promote and propel my sites into the ever increasing,
all encompassing Internet stratosphere.

Let’s face it, there are countless marketing methods, tricks,
tips, strategies you can use to give your site an edge over the
competition. And yes, there are many marketing secrets left
to be told. More being born each day. Countless secrets most
of us will never discover, let alone understand.

But what you have to understand, each webmaster or marketer
employs a whole set of techniques to promote and propel their
sites. Each marketing system is different, each one can develop
into a complex creature slowly weaving its presence into the
fabric of the world wide web. Might sound a bit fantastic, but
it is nevertheless true.

Also know each website on the Internet has its own unique
linking structure, connections, keywords, traffic… its own
unique genetic link-code. Why should da Vinci have all the fun!

Each webmaster, whether they realize it or not, creates this
unique linking structure for each site they build. From day one,
when the first link is placed on their site — this complex
marketing structure is put into motion. What makes some sites
succeed, what makes them become successful automatic profit
generating machines… while others fail? That is the real
question. That is the only real secret you need to know.

Of course, a site’s content plays a major role, but even two
sites with more or less the same content will have two totally
different dynamic linking structures created. One may succeed,
the other fail.

So in this line of thinking, I thought I would tell you some
of the marketing strategies I use for my sites and also reveal
what I believe to be the underlying factor that is key to the
whole shebang. Tactics that will promote and propel your site
into the center of the world wide web. Are you Ready? Here goes:

Tag and Ping

A few years back, it was all blog and ping. This technique
really worked for a while. You wrote a keyword rich entry
into one of your blogs and then pinged this entry with one
of the many blogging directories or sites like MyYahoo to get
the information spidered and indexed. The search engines wised
up quickly and it no longer works as well.

Now, you will hear the magic words ‘Tag and Ping’ till you’re
sick of hearing them. This is a method I have been using for some
time. It’s basically the same thing, only you’re using the tag or
tagging system of such sites as Technorati to draw attention to your
tag or keyword.

It has a special application for keyword marketing and is very
effective for getting traffic and links to your keywords. One
simple way to use tags with Technorati:

<*a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Computers" rel="tag">Computers<*/a>
(remove asterisks in actual code)

Or if your blogging software supports categories; this will
be recognized by Technorati as a tag.

Since this is a relatively new way of marketing your site,
expect it to work for a little while. Until the spammers get
in and ruin it, like they did to blog comments.

Google Analytics

This is a free program from Google that every webmaster should
be using. If you don’t use it — get it! www.google.com/analytics

Google Analytics will give you priceless information about your
sites, your links, your visitors and your marketing. It will show
you which pages are working, which pages are not working. It will
tell you which pages holds your visitor’s attention, which pages
lead to your marketing goals/sales…in other words it will tell
you how effective your site is at getting the job done.

The more knowledge you have about your site, the more successful
it will be. A lot of times, being a success is finding/tracking
the one method or technique that works and repeating it again
and again on your other pages or sites. Google analytics will
help you find the successful techniques on your site. Then you
have to run with them.

Micro-Dissecting Logs

Another valuable source of information about your site is in
your daily logs. If you’re not dissecting or micro inspecting
your daily hosting logs, you’re not realizing the full potential
of your site. Your site’s logs holds the keys to your site’s
success, it holds the information that will make your site
profitable or more profitable.

It will give you information on your site, it will also give
you information on your site’s visitors. The real key to
Internet marketing is finding out what exactly your visitors
are looking for and then giving it to them. Find out the exact
keywords your visitors type into search engines, then supply
the answer or solution on your site. It is as simple as that
— give your visitors what they want.

Whether it is more information on ‘the nature of the universe’
or where they can purchase the cheapest laptop? Just supply the
answer to their question. Your daily logs will give you this
information, read them, dissect them and most of all use them
to give your visitors what they want. Make your content
relevant.

Buying Links

This marketing technique has mixed reviews, many marketers use
it — many discourage it.

You have to be very careful when buying links, know exactly
what you’re buying and be wary of the search engines who may
look down upon this practice. Don’t buy any links from link
farms, or sites which have been banned from Google. Stay clear
of any black hat tricks or methods, play fair and you will
win in the long run.

To me, buying links is just another way of advertising your
site. If your site or online business is successful, naturally
you’re going to put some of your profits back into promoting
or advertising your site. One way to do this is through buying
links on high ranked pages/sites: PR5 or over.

I recently bought my first text link!

It’s something I rarely do, mainly because my article writing
produces many one-way links back to my site. However, there
was one site I just wanted to get a link from, and if it
means I have to pay $7 a month for the link, so be it.

Currently the page has a PR0! Why would I buy a link on a PR0
page — don’t worry, still haven’t gotten into that happy-pill
jar. Because it’s a very new popular page on a very popular
new site. The site is www.iwebtool.com and it has an Alexa
ranking under 2000. The site is about a year old! The page
itself holds what I believe will be a very popular webmaster
tool that shows you visually all the PR rankings on any webpage
on the net. Visual PageRank.

In other words, just type in any url and it will show you
visually all the Google PR rankings for all the links on that
page, internal links and external links. Valuable information
any webmaster or marketer can use. Besides, that page has a
cool factor which in my opinion will propel it to a very high
PR ranking in the future. There are already a few pages on this
site with a PR6 ranking, but all those links have been sold.
Once this new page was created, I jumped at a chance to get a
link there on that site.

Other places to purchase links:
www.linkhaul.com
www.linkadage.com
www.textlinkbrokers.com

One more Marketing Technique

There is one more important marketing method that makes all
the above techniques pale in comparison. This simple technique
is article marketing. Write simple informative articles on
the subject of your site. Submit these keyword rich articles
to online article directories like ezinearticles.com and place
links back to your site in the resource box at the end of each
article.

Article writing is one of the best methods to market your site,
you will be surprised at the effectiveness of this simple
marketing technique. Done correctly, it can be your most powerful
marketing tool.

Information Core.

Did you get the big picture? Did you get the underlying theme
running through all these Internet marketing techniques? The
common thread that holds everything together? What makes
them effective?

That common thread is Information.

Information runs the web. It is the center. Dispensing this
information is a complex system consisting of search engines,
directories, websites, blogs… you must entangle and entwine
your site as deeply as you can into this information process.

That’s why article writing is such an effective marketing tool,
it strikes at the center of this essential process. It places
your content and your site right in the middle of all this
exchange of information. The more relevant your content, the
closer you will get to the real action and the more popular
your site will become.

Remember, all these marketing techniques are not really
secrets, just effective ways you can promote and propel
your site or sites closer to the information core that
runs the web. The thread that binds everything together.
The closer you can get your site to this center, the better
it will flourish. The more you can entangle your site into
the whole mix…. search engines, directories, links to popular
sites… the more successful your site will become.

All these marketing techniques: tag and ping, article marketing,
buying links… will help place your site into this information
mix. Likewise, Google Analytics, micro-dissecting your logs, and
visual pagerank are all information gathering methods every
webmaster should use to make this journey easier and quicker.
Knowledge is the only real marketing tool you need.

So go ‘Tag and Ping’ all you like but realize it is just the
latest in a long line of marketing techniques you should be
using to promote and propel your site closer towards the one
common thread that really matters.

Information.

—-
Titus Hoskins owns and runs numerous sites on the web. To receive more useful
marketing tips and to discover the latest Marketing tools which will help promote
and propel your own website into the Stratosphere! Visit his main site here:
Internet Marketing Tools. Or sign up for his popular List Building ecourse here:Email List Building
Copyright © 2006. This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

If you’re like me, you hate getting telemarketing phone calls. Even if they doesn’t interrupt your dinner, they are just wasting our time because those marketers are running a blanket campaign. They are perfectly willing to have their automated redialer make a hundred indiscriminate calls every twenty minutes. All they hope for is just two sheep who will say yes.

Don’t you hate all that spam in your mailbox, too? The excitement of fifty-three new messages dies quickly when you notice that most of them are business, not personal. Commercial bots collect your email addresses off bulletin boards, shopping sites, and “FREE!” drawing registrations so they can now send you their form letters. They don’t even do us the courtesy of targeting their ads! Just Viagra, porn, and the latest scams sent with an invalid return address.

Here is my solution: communication tollbooths. Charge everyone for taking up each other’s time. “Time is money” according to the proverb, so why should we have to give ours away for free? I would be okay with people wasting my time as long as they paid me for it.

Anyone who calls me on the phone should have to pay a dollar per minute. I could make five bucks just listening to the sales pitches of a phone company trying to get me to switch long-distance service. Spouses could stay home all day and make sixty dollars an hour doing what they like to do anyway: talking on the phone!

Note: I get to press the “#” key which means “refund” so that my friends or business colleagues do not get charged. They are not wasting my time, so they don’t have to pay. But wrong numbers and prank callers? Ring ‘em up! Ch-ching baby! $$$ You had better be sure of your target before you dial my number.

Every email should only hit my mailbox after depositing a quarter into my Paypal account. That way the thirty or so unwelcome solicitation mails per day will start to pay off my eBay purchases. Any advertisers should have to bet that their titles will be interesting enough to get me to read their product ads. Then no one would worry about their email address getting “farmed” onto those accursed mailing lists.

The good part is, any welcome mailings will receive an automatic refund when I email them back. They’ll get a quarter from me, the same as they just spent to reach me. People will start writing you better than two-sentence emails too, since they’ll want to get their money’s worth. Plus, if you start to dislike a friend, stop giving them refunds by mailing back. They’ll get the picture as their Paypal account dries up.

Communication tollbooths! You could have been earning money just by reading this article.

Deft of wit but daft of wits, John Ashen is an author on http://www.Writing.Com/
which is a site for Creative Writing.

The nightmare of identity theft strikes an estimated 750,000 people every year. How can you keep from being one of them? While there is no guarantee that you won’t become a victim, there are some steps you can take to decrease the risk and protect yourself.

According to the Federal Trade Commission, some everyday tips to protecting your personal information include:

• Not giving out your personal information to a stranger over the phone, the Internet, or through the mail. Your Social Security number (SSN), phone number and address, credit card or bank account numbers, and drivers’ license number can be used by criminals to assume your identity. Unless you know the person you are communicating with or have invited them to contact you, do not answer any question that makes you uncomfortable. Identity thieves can pose successfully as agents from banks, credit card companies, Internet service providers, utility companies, or government offices. If someone calls claiming to represent a legitimate organization, confirm this by calling the customer service number listed on your statement or bill.

• Finding out how your personal information will be used and if you have the option to keep the details confidential when providing this data to a legitimate organization, for example, when filling out an application. Ask if the organization has a method of securing your information and if they plan to share it with other companies or individuals.

• Always monitoring the balances on your checking, savings, or other financial accounts. Keep an eye out for unexplained charges or withdrawals made without your permission. Carefully reading your monthly bank and credit card statements, then checking the amounts against your check register or other record-keeping method could catch a thief in the act of assuming your identity and spending your hard-earned money.

• Keeping track of your billing cycles. If your credit card statement doesn’t arrive at its usual time, this could signal an address change by an identity thief.

• Being cautious handling your mail and even your trash. Place outgoing mail in a post office collection box or at the post office instead of leaving it out on your mailbox. Bring the mail inside promptly every day, and when planning to be out of town, enlist the help of a friend or neighbor to do the same. A thief can sift through your garbage in search of sensitive information. Shred all charge receipts, credit offers and applications, insurance or physician’s statements, checks and bank statements, and discarded credit cards.

• Storing your Social Security card someplace other than your purse or wallet. Provide your SSN only when necessary, and ask to substitute another number if your state uses your SSN on your drivers’ license.

• Carrying only the credit or debit cards you need. Leave other identifying cards at home.

In addition to the everyday precautions that can minimize your risk, there are some other actions you can take to improve your safety:

• Safeguard the information on your computer by updating your virus protection plan on a regular basis, using a firewall to keep hackers from accessing your files, and deleting any personal information on your computer before you dispose of it using a “wipe” utility program that clears the hard drive. Never download a file from someone you don’t know, and do not open e-mails from an unfamiliar sender; doing so could expose your computer to a virus. Finally, when submitting personal information over the Internet, look for the “lock” icon on the status bar to know that your browser is secure.

• Use passwords for your bank, credit card, and phone accounts. Try to think of a unique number that you can remember other than your birth date, your mother’s maiden name, the last four digits of your SSN, or a series of numbers in order, e.g. 1-2-3-4.

• Find a safe place for your purse or wallet while you’re at work. Ask about the policy your office has for securing your personal information, such as who has access to it, where it is stored, and how it is disposed of when you leave.

• Every year, order a copy of your credit report from the three different credit bureaus, Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. Check for the accuracy of each and correct any discrepancies. You may be charged for the report, but the savings you receive in peace of mind is well worth the fee.

• Clean up any credit damage as soon as you possibly can. Errors in reporting alone happen often, some estimates are as high as 62% of the information on a credit report may be inaccurate. That doesn’t even begin to cover situations such as identity theft which is a serious problem on the rise in the U.S. You can consult a Credit Damage expert if you suspect that your credit has been accessed or used in any way without your permission. That includes companies running a simple inquiry without you saying they can. For more information on what an expert witness can do for you, go to http://www.creditdamage.com

When it comes to protecting your good name and your hard-earned money, a little caution goes a long way.

Cathy Taylor is a marketing consultant with over 25 years experience. She specializes in internet marketing, strategy and plan development, as well as management of communications and public relations programs for small business sectors. She can be reached at Creative Communications: creative-com@cox.net or by visiting
http://www.creditdamage.com or http://www.internet-marketing-small-business.com

This is a bare-bones RSS template. Well it is a bit more than “bare-bones” however, it only contains the information at the minimum you should have in your RSS file.
My next two articles will have the “medium level” and “full level” (good if you intend to Podcast).

You can easily copy and paste this into a template.
If you are not a techie and dealing with XML for the first time, use a decent text only editor, unless you can use FrontPage or DreamWeaver or a dedicated XML editor. Be careful of any extra charcters that you may sneak in with your typing, and remember not to touch the opening or closing brackets. If you do not know what you are doing do NOT touch the first three lines. The line beginning with the “channel” element is where you should begin to substitute the information on your feed.

Below we have two items in this channel. You can of course add as many items as your heart desires. Just keep on adding the entire section of beginning and ending with

First a template with information and then a template without. (The editing software forces an empty line between each command however in your Feed you should not have any empty lines. Just delete the lines with no information if you copy & paste)

<channel>

<description>RSS Feed for The Great<br /> Perfume Products Sold At Randy&#8217;s Pandy&#8217;s Perfumery</description>

<copyright>&#8220;Copyright 2006 Randy<br /> Pandy&#8217;s Perfumery - All Rights Reserved&#8221;</copyright>

<link><a href="http://www.randypandy.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.randypandy.com</a></link>

<language>en-us</language>

<pubdate>Mon, 5 Dec 2005 23:00:00 GMT</pubdate>

<image>

<width>142</width><height>99</height>

<link><a href="http://www.randpandy.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.randpandy.com</a></link>

<url><a href="http://www.randpandy.com/images/randylogo.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://www.randpandy.com/images/randylogo.jpg</a></url>

</image>

<Item>

<link><a href="http://www.randypandy.com/perfumes/heavenscent.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.randypandy.com/perfumes/heavenscent.html</a></link>

<description>Heaven Scent Perfume - your lover will love.<br /> Created especially by Skunk Perfumes it is their newest and best<br /> selling perfume on the market today. Purchase a beautifully shaped<br /> skunk bottle with this incredible perfume and get a whopping 50%<br /> off! And if you purchase over $100 we will throw in Free overnight<br /> delivery as well!</description>

<pubDate>Sat, 10 Dec 2005 23:00:00 GMT</pubDate>

</Item>

<Item>

<link><a href="http://www.randypandy.com/cosmetics/angel.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.randypandy.com/cosmetics/angel.html</a></link>

<description>A new face<br /> cream which will get rid of all your wrinkles in 7 days or your<br /> money back! Buy the lover in your life the best present she ever<br /> had!</description>

<pubDate>Sat, 10 Dec 2005 23:00:00 GMT</pubDate>

</Item>

</Channel>

Now Just the Bare Bones Template.

<channel>

<width></width><height></height>

<link></link>

<url></url>

</image>

<Item>

<link></link>

<description></description>

<pubDate></pubDate>

</Item>

</Channel>

This will work and without too much trouble if you want to create a simple RSS feed this is what you need.

This Article was Part Ten of the RSS Mania - Understanding RSS series. All parts of this series are available at Ezine Articles (www.ezinearticles.com)

1. RSS Mania Addiction - An Introduction to RSS and the Terminology
2. Outline of How to Create an RSS Feed
3. The Template File
4. The Basic Elements of the Channel Element
5. How The RSS Feed Works & Some Programming Constructs
6. RSS Channel Sub-Elements Specifically Image & How To Use It
7. Understanding RSS - The Elements Within the “Item” Element
8. Understanding RSS - Podcasting, VideoCasting & The Magic of the Enclosure Sub-Element
9. Understanding RSS - Rounding Out The Multi-Media - The CDATA Command

Copyright © 2005 Ted W. Gross. All rights reserved. (You may publish this article in its entirety with the following author’s information with live links only.)

Ted W. Gross owns Virgin Earth http://www.virginisrael.com, a real estate brokerage firm in Jerusalem, Israel. Virgin Earth represents residential and commercial real estate all over Israel. Virgin Earth also maintains an RSS Feed on its current properties and also operates Virgin Earth - Israel Tourism & Information Portal on the same site. Ted Gross is also a published author and maintains a web site for his works. This can be found at: http://www.virginisrael.com/twg/iw.html Virgin Earth Blog can be found at: http://virginearth.blogspot.com/

I open up the ‘Feed Reader’ every day on my laptop and cruise the ‘news feeds’ I ’subscribe’ to. The amount of information is now overwhelming, I need to just ’subscribe’ to only the ‘feeds’ that are of immediate interest, else I would be reading ‘feeds’ twenty four hours every day.

When I click on a link to find out more about a news item, I am taken to a web page with the article of news on it, also there are banner ads, advertising icons to click on, and other side news items to click to take me elsewhere.

The potential for advertising on those web pages for interested marketers is great, not withstanding the change in the news article each day on that web page. One day it might be about Amazon and the ‘outage’s’ they kept getting, or the next it could be a pending court case about ‘cybersquatting’ a brand name. Whatever article is shown the advertisers get their message across. It may not be part of the advertising ploy to sell goods and services from that advert, but to ‘brand’ their products, or name, for future sales.

One research company predicts internet advertising revenues will rise by 19% next year, they also predict that newspaper advertising will drop considerably.

Future habits of net cruisers will be to immediately open up the ‘feeds’ and cruise all the latest news, in contrast to going for Google and Yahoo, inputting search terms, and then cruising only those web sites that come up. Please! Don’t laugh, most of us still do this!

If a web site has not got it’s own ‘news feed’, it will not get any ‘eyeballs’.

Those interested in marketing to the masses should think about trying to get adverts placed on pages of those sites with a ‘news feed’, with their name, or web address written prominently, for cruisers to come and visit, but the main objective is to create ‘branding’.

The usage of search engine’s for locating web sites will decline, unthinkable at the moment for most internet users, but their rss feeds directories will be the most sought after to be able to access more ‘feeds’. So search engine’s will still survive, but usage habits will change.

The ‘big-dogs’ in rss feeds update news on their ‘feeds’ every fifteen minutes or so, they know that to keep a captive readership that they have to update frequently, or they will lose ‘eyeballs’ to some other service that’s giving out more frequent news. This is critical from an advertisers point of view who wants his ads showing on web pages with updated news as frequently as possible.

I can feel the nudging elbow’s already as advertisers are trying to get the best ’spots’.

The most money to be gained from rss feeds is by the person who owns one, the advertising revenue from ’spots’ on the web pages the ‘feed’ points to will be flooding in, and with the decline in effectiveness of newspaper advertising, the rss feeds are the only place most advertisers are going to spend their money. The younger tech-savvy 18-24 year old’s don’t buy newspapers, they also don’t switch on the television as much anymore, so television advertisers are looking at rss feeds, especially the big media companies who have millions of ad dollars to spend.

Remember this, anybody, even you, can put up a rss feed.

About The Author

Tony Dean is a published author and runs a website at:- http://www.ebook-sales.com. He is author of the e-book:-”Really Simple RSS” available from his web site.

A hearty welcome to all the spam fighting filters and programs created to rescue us from the deluge of unwanted e-mail! There is practically a “solution” for everything. But as with most online “solutions” filters and programs are only tools that users need to make some effort to use properly to reap the benefits.

You have to learn how to use these programs to your advantage or you can experience the unexpected downside. How can there be a downside when we’re talking less spam you say? Unfortunately, all too often legitimate and expected e-mails are being eaten by filters and are ending up in the trash!

Twice this week I received terse e-mails from new clients awaiting my response on certain issues. Because they were new to working with me, they didn’t know that I usually respond within an hour to most e-mail. My responses were not returned as “undeliverable” so what happened? Where are they? In both instances I called my clients only to find my messages had inadvertently landed in their junk or trash folder because of their ISP’s filtering systems.

When communicating with clients and in my day-to-day communications, I do not go to extremes to alter certain words that may trip filters in my day to day communications. With folks I know, that shouldn’t be an issue because they are supposedly expecting my e-mail. In addition, I always instruct new clients and subscribers to add me to their address book, approved or white list.

Plus as I am sure you’ll agree, you’ve seen all those funky ways of spelling certain words with characters or spaces that are unnatural. I believe they ruin the flow of your message because the reader can’t help but take pause to notice.

Before you send off a terse e-mail complaining or assuming no response, be sure you have covered the following:

1) When you know you will be communicating with a specific person on a regular basis, make sure you add them to your approved list or address book as soon as possible. Many onliners now use Web based e-mail such as Yahoo! and MSN that allow them to control who they receive e-mail from. Just as the majority of ISPs now give you the ability to filter e-mail based on level of spamminess or by adding e-mail addresses to your list so they can get through. Be sure to use these tools to avoid trashing wanted e-mail.

2) Same goes for Web sites or eZines you sign up for. Add their dot com to your list as soon as you sign up. Most legitimate eZines use a double-opt in subscription process that requires you respond or click on a link within an e-mail from them before you get formally added to their list. If you don’t get that e-mail to respond to ityou will not be added.

3) Before you empty your trash or junk foldergo through the trash! Take a quick peak and look at the Sender: and Subject: fields to see if names are familiar or for a topic that is expected. Otherwise you risk wanted e-mail going out with the trash!

Three simple little steps can help ensure the e-mail you do want lands in your inbox. The e-mail you are waiting for may have already arrived!

About the Author:
Judith Kallos is an authoritative and good-humored Technology Muse
who has played @ http://www.TheIStudio.com for over a decade. Check out her popular Software, Programming and Web Design
Cheat Sheets @ http://www.LearnAndThrive.com

What do they do? How do they work? Which one is right for me?
By Alan Hearnshaw

Spam is a very real problem that many people have to deal with on a daily basis. For those that have decided to do something about it and start to investigate the options available in spam filtering, this article provides a brief introduction to your options and the types of spam filters available.

Despite the bewildering array of spam filters available today, all claiming to the best one “of its kind” there are really just five filtering methodologies in general use today and all products rely on one, or a combination of these:

Content-Based Filters

“In the beginning, there were content-based filters.”

These filters scan the contents of the and look for tell-tale signs that the message is spam. In the early days of spamming it was quite simple to look out for “Kill Words” such as
“Lose Weight” and mark a message as spam if it was found.

Very soon though, spammers got wise to this and started resorting to all kinds of tricks to get their message past the filters. The days of “obfuscation” had begun.
We started getting messages containing the phrase “L0se Welght” (Notice the zero for “o” and “l” for “i”) and even more bizarre - and sometimes quite ingenious - variations.

This rendered basic content-based filters somewhat ineffective, although there are one or two on the market now that are clever enough to “see through” theses attempts and still provide good results.

Bayesian Based Filters

“The Reverend Bayes comes to the rescue”

Born in London 1702, the son of a minister, Thomas Bayes developed a formula which allowed him to determine the probability of an event occurring based on the probabilities of two or more independent evidentiary events.

Bayesian filters “learn” from studying known good and bad messages. Each message is split into single “word bytes”, or tokens and these tokens are placed into a database along with how often they are found in each kind of message.

When a new message arrives to be tested by the filter, the new message is also split into tokens and each token is looked up in the database. Extrapolating results from the database and applying a form of the good reverend’s formula, know as the a “Naive Bayesian” formula, the message is given a “spamicity” rating and can be dealt with accordingly.

Bayesian filters typically are capable of achieving very good accuracy rates (>97% is not uncommon), and require very little on-going maintenance.

Whitelist/Blacklist Filters

“Who goes there, friend or foe?”

This very basic form of filtering is seldom used on its own nowadays, but can be useful as part of a larger filtering strategy.

A “whitelist” is nothing more than a list of e-mail addresses from which you wish to accept communications. A whitelist filter would only accept messages from these people and all others would be rejected

A “blacklist”, conversely, is a list of e-mail addresses - and sometimes IP Addresses (computer identification addresses) - from which communications will not be accepted.

While this may seem like a good idea from the outset, a whitelist methodology is too restrictive for most people and, as virtually all spam e-mails carry a forged “from” address, there is little point in collecting this address to ban it in future as it is very unlikely to be the same next time.

There are bodies on the internet that maintain a list of known “bad” sources of e-mail. Many filters today have the ability to query these servers to see if the message they are looking at comes from a source identified by this Internet-based blacklist, or RBL. While being quite effective, they do tend to suffer from “false positives” where good messages are incorrectly identified as spam. This happens often with newsletters.

Challenge/Response Filters

“Open sesame!”

Challenge/Response filters are characterised by their ability to automatically send a response to a previously unknown sender asking them to take some further action before their message will be delivered. This is often referred to as a “Turing Test” - named after a test devised by British mathematician Alan Turing to determine if machines could “think”.

Recent years have seen the appearance of some internet services which automatically perform this Challenge/Response function for the user and require the sender of an e-mail to visit their web site to facilitate the receipt of their message.

Critics of this system claim it to be too drastic a measure and that it sends a message that “my time is more important than yours” to the people trying to communicate with you.

For some low traffic e-mail users though, this system alone may be a perfectly acceptable method of completely eliminating spam from their inbox - one step above the “Whitelist” system outlined above.

Community Filters

“A united front”

These types of filters work on the principal of “communal knowledge” of spam. When a user receives a spam message, they simply mark it as such in their filter. This information is sent to a central server where a “fingerprint” of the message is stored.

After enough people have “voted” this message to be spam, then it is stopped from reaching all the other people in the community.

This type of filtering can prove to be quite effective, although it stands to reason that it can never be 100% effective as a few people have to receive the spam for it to be “flagged” in the first place. Just like its similar cousin the Internet black list (RBL), this system also can suffer from “false positives”, or messages incorrectly identified as spam.

Hopefully you are now armed with a little more information to be able to make an informed decision on the best spam filter for you.

For further information, consider reading the reviews and articles found at http://www.whichspamfilter.com

Alan Hearnshaw is a computer programmer and the owner of http://www.whichspamfilter.com, a web site which conducts weekly in-depth reviews of current spam filters, provides help and guidance in the fight against spam and provides a useful community forum.
alan@whichspamfilter.com

Spam is considered any unsolicited and often un-wanted e-mail. The term seems to have originated from a Monty Python sketch set in a cafe that serves nothing but the canned, processed meat, called Spam.

In the skit there is a table of Vikings singing, spam, spam, spam, spam, lovely spam. While the skit does arouse laughter, the receiving of spam e-mail usually does not do the same for our demeanor.

It is the rare inbox which hasn’t been visited by some sort of un-wanted message containing anything from get-rich-quick schemes to Cyber-Porn.

Most email browsers or accounts allow a person to use blocking or filtering mechanisms which send junk mail directly to the trash bin.

Professional spammers use sophisticated software that actually spiders the Internet gleaning e-mail addresses from Web sites.

If you have ever filled out an online survey, your e-mail address has most likely ended up on a for sale list of targeted buyers.

While most spam and postal junk mail is annoying, it can have some benefits. Running an online business requires us at times to be effective ad writers. Immediately deleting all this junk mail means you are throwing way an opportunity to learn ad strategies.

Next time spam shows up, why not take a few minutes to read through these ads and see how they are written. See if the headline or body attracts your attention, or what is effective about the ad and what turns you off.

I actually love it when those card decks come in the postal mail. Flipping through the cards, I’ll put those that have attractive headlines in one pile, trash the ones that aren’t appealing, then go back later and really read the one’s in the first pile.

I’m always on the lookout for new ideas on what works in ad writing, new tactics ad writers employ, and seeing what is working and not working for them.

Successful online marketers are constantly studying not only their own ads, but what others are doing. So instead of getting upset the next time you receive your daily dose of spam, why not look at it as an opportunity to help you become a better marketer?

If you would like your name removed from many of the bulk mailing lists, this Web site will be a blessing. Simply give them your e-mail address and they will scan their bulk mailing lists and remove you. It is a unique concept they have. You can read more about what they do at their Web site.

http://removeyou.com