Web Sites That Are
Changing the World Or”Gee, I wish I’d thought of that!”

By Chris Kieff

The Internet is simply a communications channel. Much of the communication is one direction-from a web site to the visitor. However, many of us are finding quick and easy ways to communicate with companies and organizations we would never have bothered with before. Email is so easy and quick and you don’t need to leave your desk, find a stamp or worry about what they’ll think of your handwriting, (OK, so that’s my issue). Many of us are contacting all kinds of companies we never would have contacted before.

Some of the things the Internet is particularily good at:

1. Offering tons of free information on zillions of subjects. Many companies have put their Owner’s Manuals on their web sites, thousands of people have written how to articles on all types of subjects. Check out the Sear’s Owner’s Manual below.
2. Helping people with similar interests to easily communicate with each other and share their expertise, knowledge and enthusiasm. Check out groups listed below.
3. Connecting people with stuff they don’t want any more with people who want or need that stuff. Examples are eBay and Freecycle.

Some of the USEFUL things you can do on the internet that were difficult or impossible to do before:

• Print a copy of the User’s Manual for a 20 year old Sears Craftsman Saw – http://www3.sears.com/
• Learn how to become a contestant on Jeopardy! (But it hasn’t helped me yet.) http://www.triviahalloffame.com/j2004.htm
  This is but one site of many.
• Write a letter to the Editor, of almost any major news outlet in the country
• Find knowledgeable people who will give you GOOD free advice on almost any subject.
  Google Groups
  Yahoo Groups
  AOL Groups
  NOTE: Groups typically work through email. You join the email list and any member can send an email to every member of the list. They usually have a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) that you should read to understand how they operate.
• Freecycle, is a group on Google Groups. The idea is if you have something that’s still useful, you can offer it – not sell it- to someone who can use it.
• Find a group of people who meet in person in your area to discuss selling on eBay - or nearly anything else:
  eBay seller’s group in Northern NJ.
  Find a Group with your interests here.
  NOTE: Meetup is free and it’s huge- you should check it out. There are meetings on everything!
• Find people, their phone numbers and addresses. It’s now become a verb:
  Googling- to look someone up on Google. Also works on AOL, Yahoo, MSN etc…
  (Go ahead I know you want to Google me.)
  NOTE: This is a double edged sword- but you should know what information is out there on you.
• Newsgroups, also called Usenet or Bulletin Boards. They are the precursor to the Email Groups mentioned above. Newsgroups are usually accessed using your email program (Outlook, Outlook Express, Thunderbird…). The difference is you Post a message, just like sending an email to the Newsgroup. The message is then displayed for everyone to read. Then they can reply to your message by posting another message for everyone to read.A series of posts on a topic are called a “Thread.” There are “Lurkers” who just read messages and seldom post. Newsgroups are popular for technical support of software and hardware because you can Lurk and often find a Thread that solves a problem you have.Before posting to a Newsgroup read their FAQ, you can usually find it in the list of posts or here. Warning, Spammers always harvest email addresses from Newsgroups. You can change your “Reply To” email address for just the Newsgroup section of your email program. Mine is ChrisNOSPAM@1GoodReason.com- people reading that on a Posting I’ve made know to remove the NOSPAM when they write me, but Harvesters don’t.

If you have any questions or problems give me a call or send me an email.

Chris Kieff

If you wish to reprint this article in whole or in part you are hereby granted permission to do so if you do the following, send us a copy and a link if it is posted on your website. You must also have a link to www.1GoodReason.Com if the article appears on the web.

For The First Time Ever

By Chris Kieff

This year I decided to take an active role in politics. Those of you who know me well, know that I’m not shy about my opinion. However, this year it turned into something that was truly gratifying, fulfilling and I believe unique in the world of politics.

I volunteered my time to one of the 527 organizations, in the online form I completed I mentioned that I’m a web designer and computer wiz. For several months I heard nothing from them, however, in early October they asked me if I was still able to donate my time. I did and after a brief online training course I began to volunteer my time.

What was unique about this is the fact that I was a volunteering as a Telephone Technical Support person for their other volunteers across the country. There were 3 or 4 dozen of us who were living in “Blue States” and weren’t needed on the ground. However we were able to volunteer our expertise to the other volunteers who needed to access the group’s databases of voters in the battle ground areas. If they had a problem logging in they would call an 800 number which was rerouted to rotate to one of the Tech’s home phones. When I was able to give them time I called in and turned my phone number on, when I was finished I turned it off.

From my perspective it was a very easy job- sit at home and wait for the phone to ring. The overwhelming majority of people calling were courteous, thankful and very happy to work with. Some were tired, or frustrated after a long day of knocking on doors, but they were always happy to have their computer problems fixed. It was an especially fulfilling experience for me because I was able to donate my particular skills and be of service to dozens of like-minded people across the US.

The Internet, call forwarding, rotating phone banks, all of the technology needed to make this program happen has been around for years. But what is different is the number people who are comfortable with computers and the internet to make it work. The 527 I worked with had over 70,000 volunteers nationwide. Some of us never met another volunteer face to face. But we all felt connected to each other via the web site and email.

Our guy lost the election, and we all commiserated, shared our pain, fears and anger. And we are all a little better for it. I believe that this has changed elections from now on and it will be for the better. People are better informed, have access to more information and can discuss topics with others to help shape their opinions.

Yes, there are those who will seek to misinform people. But I believe that just like eBay’s company motto, “We believe that most people are basically honest.” I believe that most people can spot a liar a mile away we will ignore the outlandish and ridiculous. Basically I believe in people and their ability to make an informed decision.

If you wish to reprint this article in whole or in part you are hereby granted permission to do so. However, please send us a copy and a link if it is posted on your website, and keep a link intact to www.1GoodReason.Com Thanks

Internet portal Lycos has made a screensaver that endlessly requests data from sites that sell the goods and services mentioned in spam e-mail.

{Editor’s Note2: As of this writing Lycos stopped the dowload site because they got a great deal of criticism on the tactic. However, I a copy of the download- but it isn’t functioning now. If you want a copy

Lycos hopes it will make the monthly bandwidth bills of spammers soar by keeping their servers running flat out.

The net firm estimates that if enough people sign up and download the tool, spammers could end up paying to send out terabytes of data.

Cost curve

“We’ve never really solved the big problem of spam which is that its so damn cheap and easy to do,” said Malte Pollmann, spokesman for Lycos Europe.

“In the past we have built up the spam filtering systems for our users,” he said, “but now we are going to go one step further.”

Before now users have never had the chance to be a bit more offensive
Malte Pollmann, Lycos
“We’ve found a way to make it much higher cost for spammers by putting a load on their servers.”

By getting thousands of people to download and use the screensaver, Lycos hopes to get spamming websites constantly running at almost full capacity.

Mr Pollmann said there was no intention to stop the spam websites working by subjecting them with too much data to cope with.

He said the screensaver had been carefully written to ensure that the amount of traffic it generated from each user did not overload the web.

“Every single user will contribute three to four megabytes per day,” he said, “about one MP3 file.”

But, he said, if enough people sign up spamming websites could be force to pay for gigabytes of traffic every single day.

Lycos did not want to use e-mail to fight back, said Mr Pollmann.

“That would be fighting one bad thing with another bad thing,” he said.

Slow down

The sites being targeted are those mentioned in spam e-mail messages and which sell the goods and services on offer.

Typically these sites are different to those that used to send out spam e-mail and they typically only get a few thousand visitors per day.

The list of sites that the screensaver will target is taken from real-time blacklists generated by organisations such as Spamcop. To limit the chance of mistakes being made, Lycos is using people to ensure that the sites are selling spam goods.

As these sites rarely use advertising to offset hosting costs, the burden of high-bandwidth bills could make spam too expensive, said Mr Pollmann.

Sites will also slow down under the weight of data requests. Early results show that response times of some sites have deteriorated by up to 85%.

Users do not have to be registered users of Lycos to download and use the screensaver.

While working, the screensaver shows the websites that are being bothered with requests for data.

The screensaver is due to be launched across Europe on 1 December and before now has only been trialled in Sweden.

Despite the soft launch, Mr Pollmann said that the screensaver had been downloaded more than 20,000 times in the last four days.

“There’s a huge user demand to not only filter spam day-by-day but to do something more,” he said “Before now users have never had the chance to be a bit more offensive.”

Getting organized is a wonderful goal to achieve. The benefits are less stress, increased productivity and peace of mind. It is also a process that takes time and energy to work on. As an organizer, my goal when working with clients is to find the best way to organize their space and discover what works for them in maintaining the systems designed to keep them organized. I’ve found that the traditional organizing methods available do not always work. Sometimes one size does not fit all. In the presentation given the objective was to find the organizing style that works best for you and use that.

In determining what style of organizing works best for each individual at the NYC HEAL meeting I started off with a quiz. This quiz taken from the book Organizing for the Creative Person by Dorothy Lehmkuhl and Dolores Cotter Lamping asks Are you an Arbie? An Arbie is shorthand for right brain. The quiz determines whether one is a right or left-brain skilled thinkers A sampling of 2 of the 12 quiz statements to be answered:

A. Time often passes without my noticing.
B. I am very aware of time.

A. I file things by subject.
B. I prefer to locate papers by color-coding.

The right brain embodies creativity, sensuality, the abstract, and the intuition. The left-brain is the analytic, organized, intellectual, structured and rational side. The quiz determines whether you are right-brain, left-brain or have well-developed skills on both hemisps of your braiheren.

Several participants shared that they were right-brain dominant. For the right brain person the following techniques work well when confronted with clutter and what to do with it. Begin by asking yourself these questions, Can I find what I need? Am I comfortable with my workspace? If you answered no to both these questions determine what amount of clutter is comfortable for you and those around you. Decide if keeping certain things is worth the monetary, physical, or mental cost of maintaining it. Don’t waste time on items that have no use.

Be prepared for a sense of loss as you let go of certain possessions. The sense of relief you feel afterwards will compensate for the feelings of loss. Create an easy-to-use place or the path of least resistance for storage items to increase the likelihood of their being put away. Make a conscious decision not to allow things to collect. Barbara Hemphill author of Taming the Paper Tiger coined the phase clutter is postponed decisions. The following are tips to assisting in the decision making process.

In deciding whether to keep or not to keep always ask yourself, how long since I used this item? Can I justify keeping it? What will happen if it’s gone? Is it an irritant?

When working on a space such as a home office use the divide and conquer method by breaking your task down into units. Pace yourself. Use a portable kitchen timer and set aside 15 minutes or more to complete your task. If when finished you want to allot more time that do so. Accomplish tasks by anticipating your needs, not leaving until your task is complete, and doing only what you set out to do. Set aside a specific time each day to put clutter away.

When dealing with the piles of paper on your desk I suggest you use the method devised by Stephanie Winston author of The Organized Executive. For each piece of paper either Toss/Refer/Act/File or T.R.A.F.

For those wondering what exactly to keep or toss, check with your accountant or visit
The IRS website at www.irs.gov for exact instructions on record retention.

Lastly be gentle with yourself during this process. Do what you can do on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. Take your time and slowly you will be in control of your environment instead of it being in control of you. Time spent each day toward uncluttering your home or office counts whether it’s a minute or 5 hours. Each step will increase the likelihood of having the space you want and living the life you want.

Kathy Krickett Irizarry, founder of Organized for Action,currently serves as immediate Past President of the Greater New York Area chapter of the National Association of Professional Organizers. Her more than 20 years work experience includes American Airlines, Saks Fifth Avenue, and McGraw Hill. Her work in the organizing field has been featured in the Bergen Record, the Newark Star Leger and the Business Section of the San Juan Star.

If you wish to reprint this article in whole or in part you are by granted perheremission to do so. However, please send us a copy and a link if it is posted on your website, and keep a link intact to www.1GoodReason.Com Thanks

It never hurts to clearly overstate the painfully obvious… or is that oblivious?

We all receive some of the scam email from some jerk looking to rip us off. I could be the Nigerian Oil Minister looking for a business partner. Or it could be the more dangerous new breed of Fake Email from Real Companies. In the last week I’ve received Fake emails from eBay, Citi Bank, and US Bank- I don’t have anything to do with the last two.

I simply forwarded the entire message to my internet provider and the company named in the message. This is easy to do because almost everyone has adopted a standard Abuse@CompanyNameHere.Com. So for example I received the message “from” eBay, I just forwarded it to my ISP Speakeasy with abuse@speakeasy.net and also to abuse@ebay.com. I got a nice little reply and that was the end of it. I forward these messages as quickly as possible hoping they can catch these buggers and put them in jail.

or

“Do they know something about me, and is that why they keep sending me these ads?”

If you think your spam is bad… my Email Address is on dozens and dozens of Web Pages. In addition I’m not shy about putting my Email Address out there for others to find. I take part in UseNet News Groups, which are targeted by spammers who scan the messages for email addresses. So how in world can I possibly find the messages that matter among the hundreds I get every day? Here are a few tips:

1. Colors: I use colors to separate my email into groups. All my customer’s messages are Red, Newsletters and other periodical information is Green, and personal messages are Blue. Notice how well that stands out in this paragraph? In MS Outlook you simply select the messages you want to make a color and then go to Tools-Organize- click on colors and follow the instructions. Outlook Express doesn’t support this function-consider switching to Thunderbird, read on…
2. Disposable Email Address DEA- Earlier I mentioned that I take part in several News Groups. When a post a message to the open public forums I use a special email address, <');"mailto:Chris@1GoodReason.com?subject=Contact%20Us%20from%20the%201Good%20Reason.com%20Web%20Site">covertchrisemail, which I use exclusively for public email posting. If it becomes too spam filled, I can just delete that address and make up a new address to replace it. Before I delete it I’ll let those few keepers on that address know my new email address.
3. Built in AntiSpam Eradicator, BASE- When I’m posting to public forums I also modify my DEA to: covertchris@SPAMSSUXbigfoot.com that is usually recognized by humans, and hopefully not Spam Machines as a doctored email. If you pull out the capital letters SPAMSSUX you get my good email address.
4. As a Web Master I offer my clients a spam hidden email address for their web pages. This technique uses a programming trick to make the email address much harder for spam-bots to find when they search the web site. If you don’t have one and want one, contact me or your web master.
5. I mentioned Thunderbird in #1 above. It is a new email program that I have personally switched to using instead of MS Outlook. You’ll find a link to it on my Downloads Page. Thunderbird has a unique feature for spam that is really great. You mark spam messages and the program learns as you go along. This gives me a great deal of control and the spam messages are on my computer where I can check to make sure there aren’t any important messages that are in there by mistake.
   Another great advantage of Thunderbird is that it isn’t MS Outlook which means that any viruses or other programs designed to take advantage of their weaknesses won’t work on my computer.

And finally, real help is on the way. The W3C is working on a new email format which will eliminate faked email return addresses and reduce the hazards of viruses etc from email. Hopefully this will make a tremendous dent in the current glut of spam. However, don’t hold your breath we won’t see anything until the end of this year or next year.

Source- Neilsen Netratings for US sites. Copyright © 2003 by Neilsen.

” What Me Worry?”

Headline of the New York Times, November 1st 2004, “PRESIDENT POSTPONES ELECTIONS BECAUSE OF TERRORIST COMPUTER ATTACK”. It is a distinct possibility that Terrorists could use the internet to launch their next attack. It may involve some type of computer virus. It could also involve hijacking your Home or Business Computers and using them to launch these attacks.

“How is this my problem,” you may ask? Not only terrorists but Spammers’ and Hackers of all sorts can hijack your PC without your knowledge. Especially if you have an always on connection like Optonline or DSL. A hijacked PC can then be used along with 1000’s of others to launch an attack against a specific website. Bad enough when that website is MS or Amazon, but potentially catastrophic if that site is the NYSE.

Therefore, I believe that it is our patriotic duty to prevent our computers from becoming pawns of Terrorist’s or other ner’do-wells. So the next question is how do I protect my computer?

Print out this list and keep it handy.

Do These Things at Least Once Each Month

1. Run a Virus Check regularly. If you don’t have one, visit this website; housecall.trendmicro.com and use their free House Call program to check your PC. You can use this Internet based virus checker anytime you want and it’s free. I use this site whenever I think something is funky with my PC- even though I use Norton’s Antivirsus constantly.
2. Run Spyware Detectors regularly. If you don’t have one or two go to my Downloads Page and get Adaware and SpyBot Search and Destroy here. Experts recommend that you use two different programs because they will detect different problems.
3. Pick a date 1st, or 15th of each month and put it in your calendar to run the Anti-Virus and Spyware Detectors.

Do the following Items Only Once

1. Use a Firewall if you have a high speed or always on link to the internet. Ask your ISP if you have a Firewall. If you don’t go here and download and install a free copy of Zone Alarm.
2. Close the loopholes or “backdoors” in your PC to make you a harder target for the bad guys. Go to my Downloads Page and download and open; Shoot the Messenger, DCOMBobulator, XPdite, and UnPlug n’ Pray. These programs will check your PC and make sure these vulnerabilities are secured.
3. Keep your system up to date with the latest patches and security updates. Just to be sure go to the Microsoft Update web site here.
4. Tell a friend or co-worker about this and pass the idea along. Feel free to forward this email along to anyone you wish.
5. Pat yourself on the back. You’ve not only protected your PC and your family or office from future problems, but you’ve also done your small part in the War Against Terror.

If you wish to reprint this article in whole or in part you are hereby granted permission to do so. However, please send me a copy and a link if it is posted on your website, and keep a link intact to www.1GoodReason.Com Thanks