:: The Streets Network News ::

No doubt by now most people have heard about the Firefox web browser as the alternative to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer - though there have always been alternatives.

Check out Browse Happy for a look at some safer alternative browsers - including Firefox.

“Why should I switch browsers? ” you may ask…

basically over the years many people’s computers have been comprimised and infected by viruses and trojans that take advantage of some on Internet Explorer’s security flaws.

Unsecured Internet Explorer browsers are often hijacked by malware and pop up creators. Hackers can access your computer via unsafe Active X controls being run through your browser on improperly configured systems.

The older your version of Internet Explorer is the more vulnerable your computer may be. You should be running version 6.0.29 as of the date on this post. To check this open the Internet Explorer web browser and click top menu Help > About selection and check the version number…

We personally use the Opera internet browser and have done so for many years.

Our business has never ever been hit by the email viruses and trojan horses that plague so many Internet Explorer and Outlook Express users. We made an informed desicion many years ago to switch browsers to Opera.

tracii and i had chat and thought it would be a cool idea if businesses that had any interesting news to share we could post it here for them.

if you would like to publish articles or submit your press release to The Streets Network News just sign up for an account and post your story.

if you are already publishing on another blog or website you are welcome to post a summary and link to your article elsewhere.

amateur writers and business owners are all welcome to join and submit stories, news, useful links - whatever you wish.

we can not guarantee that we will post all submissions, however.

i get questions all the time from people about business, computers and the web - and thought it a good idea to start posting what i can online.

Easily the most popular question of all time:

Q: How do you get rid of SPAM?
A: If you use your ISP’s SPAM filtering service this can help, but getting a bunch of emails saying this email was marked spam is almost the same as getting spam!

Like many with their domains hosted elsewhere SPAM is still a problem. So here is what i do to combat email SPAM:

MY INBOX SOLUTION:
i run the Opera Web Browser with easy to manage spam filter controls provided by it’s built in M2 mail client.
(free from www.opera.com)

i run the email account through a SPAM proxy which cross checks headers with popular “spam databases”
(free from www.spampal.org)

all emails marked as SPAM by the proxy are filtered by the M2 mail client into it’s own separate spam folder for review (just in case an important email was not filtered correctly).

The internal M2 mail client comes with it’s own “smart filter” that learns as messages are marked or unmarked as spam.

By keeping both the M2 mail filters and the Spampal proxy up to date with whitelisted emails and blacklisted domains, i have reduced our SPAM to 0-3 a day from a top of 1300 / day in just a few weeks - with very few “false positives” - all without needing to spend a cent!

FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE:
Your first line of defence in protecting your inbox from spam is really to not get your email listed on a spammers mailing list to start with!

Most online email links and enquiry forms have your email address in plain view on the page code. This is a “published” email address.

Spammers use email address “harvesters” to crawl the billions of pages on the web and collect these published email addresses.

i now encrypt my email address links on my web pages and use specially configured form mail programs to stop client email address from being collected by crawlers.

most of the tools to do this are freely available online - though you will need basic HTML skills to install any code or server access to install form protecting software onto your website.

Tools:
Javascript Email Protector
Hotscripts

Some articles, blogs and forum posts we have found interesting and relevant to our business clients.

ALEXA STATISTICS EXPLAINED: << click to read
"torka" from Highrankings.com explains the significance (or insignificance) of Alexa rankings in this informative post. POST #4 on page

CRAIG’S LIST GAINS POWER ON WEB:
These days, triple-digit annual growth rates are rare among major Web sites. Meet that rarity: Craigslist!

IS YOUR BRAND VALUATION WORTH BILLIONS?
Today, branding correctly with the right image and a universal name identity is still a very easy thing to do.

Well - the WordPress blogging system installed quickly and easily without any hassles… a nice set of scripts indeed!

If you ever need to get aquick and easy, yet versatile, blog happening this will definitely to the trick.

www.wordpress.org

There are also a large set of ready made themes out there for WordPress - though i think i will make a custom one up when i get some time to spare…

if you would like a blog like this set up for your business just give us a shout at www.cyanweb.com.au