Tuesday, March 1, 2011

No comments Posted on  by 

QuickOnlineTips Newsletter

QuickOnlineTips Newsletter

Link to Quick Online Tips

Your Facebook Got Hacked – Your Fault not Facebook’s!

Posted: 01 Mar 2011 08:52 AM PST

Guest post by Eric Marke. On a daily basis, I hear someone say Facebook is not secure, Facebook was hacked and sent a message to all my friends, Facebook this, and Facebook that. For the most part these people are all wrong and they got hacked because of something they did wrong. Not Facebook.

All this being said I am not saying Facebook is perfect. Facebook has issues :

1. Changing privacy settings to something different that the user set them as.
2. Approving applications that are dirty.

Examples of Facebook People getting “hacked”

Dirty Application – Just the other day Mashable had a story on a new Facebook scam that when activated, would send comment spam. That same day, the amount of people that complained about their Facebook account or Facebook in general getting hacked soared. Now what really happened ?

  • Did Facebook get hacked?
  • Did the individual user get hacked?
  • Did the account owner approve a dirty application?

Dirty Application – Someone posted the below comment to my wall via Friends Photos.

facebook-post

I asked her what it was. She said she got hacked and said sorry. I attempted to add Friends Photos to my profile. While doing so this pop up came.

facebook permission

It clearly says it will access all my information. Do you honestly think this application is just going to sit on the information or do something with it? The warning screen above does not say the application will log in to my account to post messages though so I allowed the application and shorty after received an email telling me this application just logged in to my account. This sent a red flag and I removed it. This persons Faceook was not hacked. She just authorized an application to do whatever it pleases.

Example of Individual Facebook accounts getting hacked.

User Error - Every day I hear someone say my facebook was hacked again and Facebook should secure their site. When I hear this I want to fall on the floor laughing because an individual account getting hacked does not make facebook insecure. More often than not it confirms you are not secure.

  • If your profile is public, hackers can see your email. They can assume that email is also your login email and with trial and error they can guess your password. There are 500 million facebook users, eventually someone will get an email password combo that works.
  • If this happens, your account was hacked because of you NOT Facebook, your account was public, your email was public and you had a basic password like password or abc123.

If you want to stop getting “hacked” – do the following.

  • Stop liking every Facebook Application you see.
  • You need to delete the Apps you no longer use. (Account > privacy > Apps & settings > edit your settings)
  • You need to browse Faceook with the new secure setting. ( Accounts > account settings > account security)
    facebook secure options
  • Change your password to something other than a common word, name, or your birthday. Use both letters, numbers, lower and upper case.
  • Check your account and privacy settings weekly.

Facebook is no different than any other company when it comes to receiving feedback from their customers.

  • People generally leave negative feedback over good.
  • I am sure you are are included in this statistic.
    • Do you remember the last company to really upset you?
    • What about the last one that couldn’t have done anything better?
  • Now think of your last contact with each, which company do you remember more about?

I don’t know about you but, I get an email every time someone logs in to my account. If the attempt came from a location I did not approve. Facebook will also disable my account until I answer a series of questions to confirm I am really me. This seems pretty secure to me. Don’t you think?

Now think back to when you thought you got hacked, what happened? Do you think you had anything to do with it?

  • Was your login email the same as the email in your info section?
  • Was your password your name, your children’s name, wifes name, birth date?
    • If so, was your name, your children’s name, wifes name, birth date also public information?
  • Did you install a new application shortly before?

If you had nothing to do with share your experience below and prove me wrong.

Guest author Eric Marke Is someone who believes that everyone is smart enough to have a stunning website, blog, use social media and other online products to gain new customers on a daily basis if information is given to them in a way they understand over a time frame that they can digest it all. The time frame for some thing like this is months, not an all day seminar. He shows you how to do it with Think Market Act.

Promote Your Ebook for Free Through Joint Venture Giveaways

Posted: 01 Mar 2011 07:02 AM PST

Guest post by James Junior. I have created scores of information products, so I remember very clearly what it is like when you first start out with nothing. Like anyone else, after writing my first ebook, I went online searching for ways to promote it.

I read a bunch of articles and blog posts which told me to use marketing methods such as Pay-Per-Click advertising (PPC, i.e. Google Adwords), and buying ad spots on popular websites. Don't get me wrong, those are indeed excellent marketing avenues, but the one thing they have in common is that they are not free.

iRiver Story eBook Reader Review

I don't know about you, but the reason I initially started creating information products was to make more money. I simply did not have funds to invest into my marketing budget. I actually couldn't even refer to it as a "budget" because when you have nothing, there is nothing to budget. So what is the next option? Marketing via free methods. I came across many different ways to get my ebook some exposure, and not a single one of them even came close to the results I got through joint venture giveaway events.

Joint venture giveaway events are pretty simple actually. A bunch of Internet professionals, who are involved in a common niche, get together and each contributes a free product that will be given to participants of the giveaway. This format is very effective because you have buyers and sellers, who want what each other is offering (traffic for free stuff), all congregating in the same spot. I have done many of these, and I got great results from them.

Mostly I use them to build my mailing list, and then pitch them over and over again via email marketing. I have gained, at times, more than a thousand new subscribers in a matter of hours. Do you have any idea how much a thousand, prequalified subscribers are worth? If used correctly, it could mean thousands of dollars in revenue in the long run. After participating in these events, I have tweaked my strategy so that I get the most out of the event.

Members Only

There are different rules for each event. Some charge you a membership fee to enter as a contributor, and some do not. Some require that you have a mailing list of over 1,000 subscribers in order to participate, and some have no minimums.

Ideally, as a green horn you will want to find events that have no fee and no minimum subscriber count. They are harder to find, but not impossible. The best way to find them is by loitering the marketing forums. Eventually, with enough persistence, you will find a JV giveaway that suits your needs and budget.

Original Products Only

If you are going to contribute a free product in the event, I strongly urge you to create an information product exclusively for the event and nobody else. This will make the notion of a free product more enticing, simply because it is not available to download or buy anywhere else on the web.

One method I use is to create templates, a set of them actually, that the participants can use immediately in their own products. What kind of templates? You can offer ebook templates, squeeze page templates, WordPress templates, and even Joomla templates. They are all in demand.

With templates, you can put a link back to your site in the footer and you can reap benefits from all angles. You will be building your list, marketing your site, and selling your ebook; all at the same time. I am not a graphic designer, I have about as much art talent as Andre the Giant from the WWF. However, I am good with layout and using Photoshop to mock up a page and then slice it up with Dreamweaver or any other HTML editor. These skills allowed me to create some good squeeze page templates that people wanted to use.

Email Marketing Software

I know everyone will tell you to use Aweber for building your mailing list. The problem is that Aweber, and other sites like it, charge you to use their services. Some have a free trial where your first 500 or so email subscribers are free, then they start charging you.

These email marketing services are all good, and offer quality support, but I personally hate the thought of my mailing list residing somewhere I have no control over. I would much rather use my own mailing list software instead. There are several open source (free) email marketing software packages on the web that could handle all of your lists.

Software like PHP List can be setup and running in under an hour, provided you have the ability to upload and configure the options. If you can't do it then a paid service would be perfect. I always create a new list for each giveaway event, so I can tell exactly what I gained by participating.

I then create a full set of promotional emails, using an autoresponder, in advance. The autoresponder will let you schedule years of emails if you want, making the process automatic. This would be the perfect method for pitching your ebook, since these people all expressed an interest in your niche to begin with.

As you can see, there is much to be gained by contributing to a giveaway event, whether email subscribers or just straight sales of your ebook. I suggest you network with other marketers in your niche, and even suggest putting together a giveaway event if there aren't any established already. This is one avenue that is practically guaranteed to build your business, and information products are a perfect fit for giveaways.

Guest author James Junior has been an Internet marketer for nearly 10 years. Are you struggling to get your eBook exposure? Are you on a limited marketing budget, such as zero? Well, his new eBook “No Cost eBook Marketing” can show you how to market your eBook using a multitude of methods that cost you nothing. To get your FREE copy just visit his website. Image credits Andrew Mason.

Update WordPress Secret Keys for Better WordPress Security

Posted: 01 Mar 2011 06:29 AM PST

Over the years, WordPress secret keys have added to WordPress security. Update your WordPress secure keys and log out all users to enhance your WordPress security.

WordPress Security Keys

I had an opportunity to check some old WordPress blogs and they had outdated incomplete WordPress secret keys. WordPress Secret Keys was a WordPress security feature introduced 3 years back in WordPress 2.5 for better cookie security.

While earlier the WordPress secret key was one line of extra long random code, over the years it is now 8 lines of complex random code. This is what it looks like in current wp-config.php files.

wordpress secret keys

The 8 security keys are AUTH_KEY, SECURE_AUTH_KEY, LOGGED_IN_KEY, NONCE_KEY; with corresponding salts: AUTH_SALT, SECURE_AUTH_SALT, LOGGED_IN_SALT, and NONCE_SALT will ensure your site is harder to hack and crack by WordPress hackers.

WordPress Secret Key Generator

So how do you create that kind of random code? The old secret key generator created only 4 lines of code, but the new secret code generator will create 8 lines of code for you to cut and paste into your WordPress wp-config.php file.

Remember to use a simple text editor (I use Notepad++) else you might mess up your most important wp-config.php file.  Remember changing these values will invalidate all existing cookies and logout all WordPress users on your site.

Check your WordPress wp-config.php in your WordPress installation directory now and confirm if 8 lines of secret keys exist. Anyway it is a good idea to change it sometimes and logout all users, just incase some hacker is secretly logged in. Good luck.

NB – Edit wp-config.php only if you know what you are doing, else your site could go offline easily. Try at your own risk or seek professional WordPress help.

Paypal India Money Transfer Restrictions Start

Posted: 01 Mar 2011 05:54 AM PST

Paypal India users are now under  new limited Paypal guidelines restricting money transfer, payments for goods and services and  accepting money online.

Paypal had warned about the upcoming changes a month back to comply with Reserve Bank of India guidelines. As Paypal users, mostly freelancers are affected and look around to find a new money transfer agent, here is the login screen which greeted Paypal India users today.

paypal india block

Here are the highlights of the new Paypal policy.

With effect from 1 March 2011, you are required to comply with the requirements set out in the notification of the Reserve Bank of India governing the processing and settlement of export-related receipts facilitated by online payment gateways (“RBI Guidelines”).

  • Any balance in and all future payments into your PayPal account may not be used to buy goods or services and must be transferred to your bank account in India within 7 days from the receipt of confirmation from the buyer in respect of the goods or services; and
  • Export-related payments for goods and services into your PayPal account may not exceed US$500 per transaction.

How has this Paypal restriction affected your business. Post in comments.

0 comments:

Post a Comment