| LED Digest 1844: Including Disclaimers Ezines? |
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================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Reg. from a Trusted Leader pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam,led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com ................................................ July 21, 2004 Issue #1844 ................................................ .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ====================== <Moderator Comment> ~ Stopping Spam with Reverse Firewalls ~ Phantom Clicks at Google --== Adding Disclaimers to Ezines? ==-- ~ Martha Retallick "I recently got the following e-mail from a concerned reader..." ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Site Redesign Blues ==-- ~ Stephen Mareches "...whatever tool you're using to build web pages has little to do with the finished product. --== The End of Email as You Know It? ==-- ~ Jean-Jacques Joseph "I got to the habit of changing [my] email address every 2 months..." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Attorney Referral Needed ==-- ~ Emanuel D. Errico III --== Cached Pages ==-- ~ Charles Miesel ~ Richard Dudley --== Random Spam Email ==-- ~ Tom Aman ======= NEW ===================================== <Moderator Comment> LEDers, I've got a few interesting items for you. Comments are appreciated. - Stopping Spam with Reverse Firewalls VeriSign's principal scientist Phillip Hallam-Baker believes one answer to stopping spammers and even crackers is by using reverse firewalls http://snipurl.com/7wio [zdnet.com.au]. Hallam-Baker claims reverse firewalls should be embedded in every cable modem and wireless access point for home users. "A traditional firewall is designed to stop attacks from the outside coming in; a reverse firewall stops an attack going out," Hallam-Baker said. A few thoughts... don't firewalls already do this (by monitoring incoming and outgoing traffic)? Also, it may be possible that a spambot or virus -- once in -- may be able to defeat / disable the firewall. And finally, I can see conflicts in deciding the specifics of control regarding these devices. - Phantom Clicks at Google From Slashdot: "It's an open secret that low cost workers in India, China and other countries are hired to boost traffic for online ads by clicking on text links, banners etc. Internet marketers facing high advertising fees on search networks like Google are becoming increasingly concerned about this form of online fraud. This problem has reached a critical stage and even Google recognizes http://snipurl.com/7wis [zdnet.com.au] that it has been the target of individuals and entities "using some of the most advanced spam techniques for years". Apparently Google has created their own "Fraud Squad" with "a dedicated team and proprietary technology to analyze clicks"... ---------------------- From: Martha Retallick Subject: Should you include disclaimers in your e-zine? My postcard marketing e-zine includes an advice column called Help This Postcarder. Readers send in their postcard marketing questions, I pose them in the e-zine, and other readers offer their answers. Well, I recently got the following e-mail from a concerned reader: "Have you checked out (advice-giver's URL omitted)? It is a very questionable MML touting many false claims about its product...." The concerned reader went on to say: "I know that they can still give good advice about postcard marketing, but perhaps you should consider writing a disclaimer, or be careful about the links you choose. Otherwise it looks as if you are endorsing their business, which I am guessing is not true?" So, my question to LED-ers is: Should you include disclaimers in your e-zine? If so, what should they say? Martha Retallick "The Passionate Postcarder" http://www.postcardmarketingsecrets.com ===== CONTINUING ================================= From: Stephen Mareches Subject: Redesign blues Lee, You strike me as an intelligent person. And then I read: > I still won't hire anyone that has used [FrontPage]. And for > anyone that says they've developed web pages using any other > Microsoft tool, I wouldn't hire them either unless it was InterDev. - Lee Roberts, LED 1841 And I won't eat a pizza if it's delivered in a Ford. This FrontPage bash has turned to nonsense. If people want to hold a grudge of some sort against Microsoft, that's their business. Granted I'm left handed and don't always go about things the way others might, but FrontPage was the greatest learning tool for me and helps to keep things organized as well. I use it for what it is designed for. To organize web pages into web sites. But the truth is whatever tool you're using to build web pages has little to do with the finished product. It's the brainpower and learning behind the keyboard after all that does the creation, and in time we learn what we need. There will never be a perfect "create web page automatically" product. But by the time you get to understand what FrontPage's limitations are, you know how to simply solve them. "O, it puts in extra font tags!" Big deal. Use a style sheet and get rid of the font tags altogether. And these contentious assertions that somehow the quality of someone's work is damned if they are one of us heathen FrontPage initiates, and damned as well if they don't subscribe to the myth that the tool makes the person's work acceptable? Rubbish. Sounds more like a religious issue. But Lee, you are right on when you say there's a heck of lot more to HTML than learning some stuff about tags. I'd say about two year's worth at least if you really want to know your stuff because like any art form we do gain a better understanding and mastery of our craft with practice. And years later we'll be looking back at what we've learned, and while it may seem things should be appear ant to others in a few short sessions, they too will have their own journey to learn how all of this stuff fits together, in their own way. There are many paths. Stephen Mareches, Web Consultant Sophia Solutions www.sophiasolutions.net ------- new post - same topic -------- From: Jean-Jacques Joseph Subject: End of Email > My spam has now got silly with over > 2,000 messages a day. - Richard Graham, LED 1842 I manage, beside many, a real estate web site since 1997. I found out that people are reluctant to fill forms and I keep using the direct approach "mailto:". Of course this generates spam: within 5 months 1000 spam email a day. I got to the habit of changing the email address every 2 month (the ISP provide us with 20 emails) the old email is send to oblivion though a little trick provided by the ISP and if anything is left with a little FTP you access the mail directory and delete the files. With the help of the Thunderbird mail program, I am able to control the flow of spam and again if the flood is back I change the email. Jean-Jacques Joseph ==== BILLBOARD ==================================== From: Emanuel D. Errico III Subject: Need a Lawyer Hi all! I remember some time ago someone asked for a referral for Patent Attorneys, so I was wondering if anyone had any referrals for a regular business attorney that understands commercial software and licensing issues here in South Florida that I can use as a general council. I really don't want to waste my time talking to dozens of Lawyers just to find one that understands our industry. Please respond to the list so that we can help anyone listening in our area - Thanks! Thanks! Thank you, Emanuel D. Errico III STFB Inc. http://www.stfb.com ------- new post - new topic -------- From: Charles Miesel Subject: Cached pages > How can I make sure that a browser ALWAYS pulls the > recent web page from my server as opposed to pulling > a cached page from the local machine? - Steve Wicks, LED 1842 What I do to try to check cached pages (i.e. those with links to my local hardrive) is use find in my editor, either HTML-kit or NoteTab standard, and then a universal replace. If you are refering to the need to refresh your browser, all browsers have an option to check for new pages automatically. Here is something new to a lot of people, if you change servers and your site does not resolve you may either add a "?" to the end of the URL or use [CONTROL] and click refresh, your ISP will be forced to look up the new IP for your site from the DNS server. Charles Miesel ------- new post - same topic -------- From: Richard Dudley Subject: Cached pages One of your problems may be with the ISP itself. AOL, Earthlink, and NetZero all use caching servers, which seem (especialyl in AOL's case) to ignore any NOCACHE or CONTENT EXPIRES directives. Even though the browser may be complying, the ISP may not be, and that may be your problem. Richard Dudley www.bloomweyweddings.com ------- new post - new topic -------- From: Tom Aman Subject: Random email > I have now resigned to checking mails in web browser before > downloading in my Outlook. I do have anti-virus protection, but > this way I can delete all virus mails before it lands in my PC. - Viggie Bala, LED 1843 I once did that and it was taking forever to go through the messages with a browser (over an hour a day). There is a MUCH easier way. Just run good, up to date, virus scanning software (it should catch any emails that contain a virus before they are stored on your system) and add a good Spam filter to Outlook. I run McAfee Virus Scan Online (since updates are automatic - sometimes as often as once a day, or even more than once a day). Among other things, it catches viruses, etc. embedded in email messages or attachments and deletes / removes / quarantines them. For Spam, I run Spam Inspector (see http://snipurl.com/7wi8 [giantcompany.com]). Among other features, this program automatically updates filters based on global reports. It identifies most of the incoming Spam and moves it to a Junk folder. It does not catch 100%, but is close enough for my purposes. Then I can quickly give a visual scan of the Junk folder just in case a good message was wrongly identified, then delete the whole mess. For dealing with the remaining messages, I created a "Good" folder and added some rules of my own to move guaranteed valid emails to that folder (took a total of 3 rules to do this). Anything that is then left in the Inbox is probably Spam, but not always. So on an average day I will receive about 200 emails of which maybe 3 are really good. Inspector will catch ~175+ and move them to the Junk folder (it errs on the safe side - if in doubt, don't mark it SPAM). My rules will catch the 3 good ones and move them to the Good folder. Scanning the Junk folder takes ~2 minutes, scanning the 22 messages left in the inbox takes ~1 minute, leaving me with only the 3 good messages. So by investing about 3 minutes a day, I get rid of the Spam and at the same time ensure that I do not miss any valid messages that were incorrectly identified (no Spam filter is perfect, the best of them will identify the occasional good message as Spam so it is not really safe to let a filter actually delete anything - Inspector has done this once in the last year) Tom Aman Aman Software http://www.cyberspyder.com ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains Copyright 1995-2004 Adam Audette. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "Only a brave person is willing to honestly admit, and fearlessly to face, what a sincere and logical mind discovers." - Rodan of Alexandria |
