Longing to be a writer and want feedback on your newest story? Looking for an obscure manual? Need a place to upload documents for someone else to view them? Try Scribd.com - this community website attempts to be all things to all people. Use the cloud to browse for something interesting or make yourself an account so you can upload documents (publicly or privately) for others to view.  I was able to find a hard to find manual here and was amazed at the variety and volume of interesting content. 

Got Snow? Check out the northern Michigan webcams  Click on your favorite city for a lovely view of the conditions in that area.  If you're into snowmobiling  you can get trail conditions at trailreport.com or  at  Michigan Interactive, dog sledding races at Sled Dog Central and road conditions at the State Police Operations center

Interested in trivia and useless facts ... I ran across a wonderful website full of them. 

 Did you know:  When visiting Finland, Santa leaves his sleigh behind and rides on a goat named Ukko.

In the 1700's you could purchase insurance against going to hell, in London England.

In Lehigh, Nebraska it's against the law to sell donut holes and It is against the law to whale hunt in Oklahoma.

Every year about 98% of atoms in your body are replaced.and on average, half of all false teeth have some form of radioactivity.

There are more than 1,750 "O's" in a 15-ounce can of SpaghettiOs and the word SPAM stands for Shoulder Pork and hAM.

Mosquitoes prefer children to adults, and blondes to brunettes (so why do they like ME so much?). Spiders have transparent blood.

Want more? http://www.angelfire.com/ca6/useless facts/ 

It's the first chance you've had this month to take a look at your website and ACK!!! it's not there!  or you're trying to reach a site you visit often and it's not loading....

If you're not sure why a page isn't loading, one way to find out is to do a trace route.  There are several programs that can do this, or you can do it by "command line" (that mysterious black box). Look like a geek and do it with a command prompt: start - programs - accessories - command prompt and type in "tracert www.yoursite.com"  (the URL you put in is the domain name of the site you want to find - such as www.yoursite.com). 

What will happen is your computer will tell you the IP address of every computer it goes through to find your site - and how long it took in milliseconds.  It will tell you how many "hops" (or computers) it took, and the IP of the final destination. If the site is down, it will sometimes tell you why.  Either a computer somewhere in the route is nonfunctional (you'll get a timeout while it looks for an alternate route) or a DNS server is down (it will be unable to find the domain name you put in).  This is helpful in knowing if it's "you" or "them".  Often your own ISP is the culprit which means you'll have a timeout in one of the first couple of hops.  If it's the hosting company that is down - it will go through several hops (10-15) but will time out or be unable to find the host computer. 

Before you call the web developer - do a little of your own research.  Unless the developer is also the host, there is often little they can do to fix the problem anyway - except call the host and let them know there's a problem (which costs you).  If you're able to wait it out (usually these problems are very temporary) or call hosting yourself, you can save a few dollars.  

Placing well in a Natural Search

Just what do search engines look for in your site that makes it stand out in a natural search above the rest (this is opposed to Pay per Click and other pay searches)?  Here are a few things:

• A unique topic or audience with a strong focus
• Optimization of keywords and formatting
• The amount of good content
• Incoming links
• Length of time on the web (Google now has a 6 month delay before they'll even look at your site)
• Ability to link to individual pages without going through the main page
• Static HTML content (or dynamic content that LOOKS like it's static content - how it's built)
• Content that is separate from formatting (use of style sheets)
• XML Site maps
• Some group sites will always get preference over individuals (ie: Dog Clubs over Dog Breeders) - Org's over Com's

Some things you can control (how the site is built) and some you can't (the kind of organization you are).  Also, each search engine has it's own preferences and puts a different weight of importance on the above topics.  Some SEO professionals will go so far as to design pages for specific search engines - but be careful - you can be penalized for having "duplicate content" - so each page must be very different. 

Don't don't spam the search engines - it was a fad a few years ago to put hundreds of keywords  in white text on a white background for example - but nowadays, that's spamming and can get you banned forever from your search engine of choice!  The safest method?  Have good, intelligent, content.  Lots of text and articles. In time (usually at least a year) you will begin to appear on your favorite engine - and if you don't - reevaluate and try something different.

Though it is more expensive, sometimes hiring a professional is better than groping in the dark hallways of SEO alone - and can often save you years of waiting for that number one spot.  But be cautions - there are many charlatans and witch doctors in the SEO world. There are no industry standards and no umbrella accrediting - anyone can say they are a SEO "expert". 

Generally, find out what sites they have optimized and see where they rank for what keywords.  Has the optimization been maintained (yep, there is SEO maintenance or you'll start to lose your edge). Most of all, you must trust your professional since you are unlikely to see results for some time after forking out a lot of money - it always takes time and anyone that tells you otherwise is not being honest with you.

Everyone knows of someone that "did it themselves" and sometimes you can - but  consider the competition - do you sell a rare and unusual widget or something everyone has for sale? It's easy to be number one in rare widgets. If your widget is just like everyone else's, then you probably need a SEO expert.

Lunarpages Web Hosting has increased their storage and bandwidth so it's an exceptional deal right now at only $6.95/month.

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What's a Botnet?

FBI Director Robert Mueller noted in a speech that there is potential to attack entire networks, send spam, infect computers and inject spyware with small programs called Botnets. And they are not just an annoyance or make your computer run slow - they can force your computer to do more sinister crimes that threaten national security, compromise your identity or empty your bank account.

"Botnets are considered the Swiss Army knives of cyber crime. You name it, they can do it," Mueller said during a speech at Penn State University. A botnet can shut down a power grid, flood an emergency call center with millions messages or disable a military command post. At the very least, they can steal your passwords and identity, or those of someone else.

Here's how botnets work: A hacker known as a "botherder" takes over your computer using viruses, worms or Trojan horses. A Trojan horse is software that appears to perform a harmless task while cloaking its true function. You may not even realize it's running at all - or your computer may seem just a little slower than usual to respond.

Computer users unwittingly grant access to the botherder by clicking on an advertisement, opening an e-mail attachment or providing information to a "phishing" Web page, which is a phony site that mimics a legitimate site.

Once they have access to your computer, botherders use it without your knowlege for their criminal exploits, making it difficult to trace because the dirty deed is traced back to your computer, not the bothearder's.

Protecting your computer is like "putting locks on your doors and windows," according to the FBI. Is your anti-virus software up to date, firewall installed, and complex passwords used?  Each password should at the very least use a capital letter, a number and no dictionary words. Password1 is bad.  Xp1y401d  is good.  Be careful opening e-mail attachments and advertisers' links on Web sites as well. By careful we mean do no open anything you are not familiar with (and be wary with those you are).  If you haven't heard of them, and you aren't sure what they are selling - be suspicious. If you get a warning message from Internet Explorer asking are you SURE you want to open this site - heed it. Do not use the same password for everything. Have different passwords for a casual log in and your bank accounts - or better yet, different passwords for everything. Don't keep the list on your computer unprotected either - it needs a strong password and ideally encryption too.  If you can't do that, write them on paper and put them in a locked drawer the old fashioned way.

Run your spyware and virus scanner RELIGIOUSLY.  If you don't, your system is guaranteed to be compromised eventually.  If you're careful, and do basic maintenance - you can avoid becoming a victim.

Don't forget - even if you don't need a website yourself, you can refer a friend! Earn up to $100 cash for each referral that becomes a new customer.  Register Here 

It doesn't matter where you or your friend is located, we can work with clients wherever they are -  by email, phone and fax. We are in Michigan, and have satisfied customers worldwide.  Visit our website at http://c-omalley.com.

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