Note: In the past I sent out this list from my Outlook folder. This was a tedious process because Outlook often choked on the large number of subscribers and sometimes when I stopped and restarted the process, some folks got two emails. Starting this month, mailings are being done directly from ASP scripts on my server. Instead of bundling the email (sending it to everyone on the list as a group), the process sends each one individually, using a database of email ids. This is why you will see your email ID. Previously, I used BCC (blind carbon copy) so that the email would not start off with a few pages of all the email IDs on the list. This will also allow me to more easily track and eliminate such problems as bad emails, duplicates and unsubscribes. A few folks asked me to remove them but the email they sent the message from did not match any on my list. Now if you simply reply "remove" when you get this, I will see the email it was sent to and be able to remove you promptly. Because I had to convert my outlook list into a database, it is possible the during the process some names of folks who were previously removed, or didn't belong on this list at all, somehow got on. Though I reviewed the final result, there may be a duplicate record. It is also possible that someone got left off the list. So if you received this letter and had asked to be removed, I apologize. Please reply with remove and this time I promise it will be taken care of. If you get two copies, let me know and I will delete the duplicate record. If you don't get this letter at all, let me know that too :) There are now 3 ways you can read this letter. You can get it in HTML as you are seeing it now, you can view the link on our site or I can send you a PDF file which is readable using the free Adobe Acrobat reader. If you don't aleady have the reader, I suggest you go to www.adobe.com and download it. There are a lot of sites providing documentation and forms in this format. Let me know which format you prefer. I have just obtained the software necessaryto create PDF files. If there are enough folks interested, I will turn this page into a PDF file and send it out that way. Just FYI: a PDF file is NOT a script. It can not excute and it can not infect your PC even if you open it. It is just a document file that can contain fonts and graphics and can only be read with Adobe Acrobat Reader.

As a member of this list, you are also entitled to free tech support. Have a computer-related question or Internet-commerce question? Looking for the best place to buy something, particularly digital cameras? Just email.

I also have another email that goes out about twice a week consisting of inspiring stories and the best humor collected from several other jokelists and sites, including Dave Barry and Scott Adams (Dilbert creator). If you would like to get that email, just let me know. Jokes are screened for "family" acceptability.

Win $10,000! Why don't you tell your friends about my site? Each referral gets you another entry in a contest for $10,000. Just click this link and fill in your friends' email IDs. They will get an email stating that you recommended my site. When they click the link in the email, you will get even more entries into the contest.

We have another winner! M.K. of San Diego, CA won an Epson color printer.

Visit my Lycos auctions for digital cameras, smartmedia cards, cdrw drives and media.

Digital camera bargains This month's digital camera values are the Kodak DC4800 (3+ megapixel zoom for $425 after $100 rebate which expires mid July), the Toshiba PDR-M65 (3+ megapixel zoom for $425 after $100 rebate which expires very soon), Ricoh RDC5300 (2+ megapixel zoom $375) and Agfa CL cameras (1.3 megapixel camera and webcam at $145). I have a number of liquidators and surplus merchants that I contact for closeouts. It is difficult to update my web site because these items come and go. I currently have several digital cameras at prices well below any Internet site. I have also tracked down the manufacturer of the hard to find battery for the Fuji MX series, Toshiba PDR series and Kodak DC4800 and have some in stock at $35 with free shipping if you choose our label (we pay a few dollars more for the name brand labels, though they are all the same battery.)

We have the specific Toshiba/Fuji/Kodak chargers! The long-awaited chargers designed specifically for the Kodak Klick3000 battery, Toshiba BT-1 and BT-2 (used in PDR-M4/M5/M70) and Fuji NP-80 and NP-100 (used in almost all the MX series cameras) have arrived. The charger is $45 (shipping included). Charger plus battery is $75 (shipping included).

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

- Microsoft shoots itself in the foot
- Payment Service News
- Battling eBay
- Protect Yourself from Power Problems
- Technology Advances
- The $5.5 Billion Fire Sale
- Scam exposed
- The Truth About Affiliate Programs
- Your Privacy Is Gone
- More On Security and Your CC Info
- Be the Big Cheese
- Just for fun
- For Webmasters and Online Businessmen
- Search Engine Smarts (part 3)
- useful sites and freeware

Microsoft Shoots Itself In the Foot

In an effort to stop piracy, Microsoft has added something new to its XP and 2002 line of software products: activation. The software is set to run only a certain number of times before forcing the user to go online and obtain an activation key from Microsoft. This activation key matches the system configuration, so if the software is installed on another system that is not identical, it will stop running. Legitimate users (including a few prominent writers of computer articles) have reported having their software stop running when they upgraded their systems. One writer even reported his system locking up while aboard an airplane due to a problem with its activation. It looks like Microsoft is forcing its users to turn to the last place Microsoft would want them to go: the hackers. Folks have reported that full, working copies of Windows XP and Office 2002 are available for under $3 in a number of countries. These copies have had the activation scheme hacked so that users of this pirated software will not face the problems that plague users of legitimate software. I have often warned folks that pirated software is suspect, possibly beta-test versions, possibly infected with viruses. I never thought there would come a time when pirated software would be preferable to the real thing. It takes a company with the customer savvy of Microsoft to make this happen.

Many years ago a company called Ashton-Tate also spent a lot of effort preventing piracy and suing any company that came out with a competing product to their database program, dBase. They also installed a copy-protection scheme which required that a key disk be inserted in the floppy each time you ran the program. Naturally, this caused problems for their users. Because I was so dependent on the product (which I had purchased legitimately) and their scheme caused me no end of grief, I worked with a group of hackers to break it. The resulting program contained no protection, required no key disk and loaded about a minute faster. It quickly spread across the country (I know because of a message I inserted into my copy which folks reported finding in Chicago, Baltimore and California). The time and effort Ashton-Tate spent on worrying about pirates and competitors would have been well-spent making a better product. At one time, they had the number one database product. Where is Ashton-Tate or dBase today? Microsoft had better re-evaluate their policy or they will find themselves competing against their own pirated products actually improved by the pirates.

Payment Service News

Paypal has just raised its rates to 2.9% plus .30 per transaction. This makes Paypal the most expensive of the online services, even beating Western Union's rate of 2.8%. In the usual "Paypalspeak" we have all come to know and love, Paypal announced that its new rates are still lower than Billpoint's. They managed this by quoting an old Billpoint rate of 3% that no one pays and top it off by adding in another Billpoint fee that no one pays and between these two rates no one pays, under certain specific instances, Paypal comes out cheaper. I guess this is what we can expect from a company that has also promised "always free," "we won't force you to upgrade" and "buyer/seller protection."

C2it has lowered their rate to 1% no matter what credit card you use. This is a temporary measure because Mastercard protested that two-tiered system where Citicard users were given a lower rate. You can expect C2it to raise their rates in the future and probably give a rebate to Citicard users. C2it still remains the cheapest and the safest of the credit card based services. C2it has also added the ability to cancel a payment online if the recipient has not yet picked it up. Once again, I remind all payment recipients that they must go into their accounts and claim their payments before sending out merchandise. Do not rely just on the email that says "You have cash!" This is true no matter what payment service you use.

This month an article of mine on payment services was published in Auctionbytes. Payment Service article and a quick chart of fees and comments now appears on their site Payment Service chart. If you are at all interested in selling online, I recommend that you sign up for the Auctionbytes newsletter. It is filled with useful information.

Battling eBay

After more than two years with a perfect record of only positives (not even one neutral and certainly no negatives), eBay has chosen to drive me from their site with the ridiculous over-application of their rules. While not trying to sound like a conspiracy nut, I have evidence which suggests that I was deliberately targeted. Ebay's responses, in which they refused to answer my questions, further supports my theory.

Ebay has a rule against something called "keyword spamming." This is the insidious practice of adding unrelated keywords to an auction to fool folks into looking at it. For example, someone selling a cheap camera might put in his description "looks just like a Sony Mavica." The purpose of this is to lure someone searching for an actual Sony Mavica into his auction. It also happens to be a stupid practice, because anyone searching for a Sony Mavica won't bid on a cheap camera just because they were fooled into looking at it. This does not speak well for the seller's integrity. Ebay is correct in banning this behavior.

I sell batteries designed to work with specific cameras (Toshiba PDR-M4/M5/M70, Fuji MX-2700/2900, Kodak DC4800). If someone is looking for a battery for their Toshiba PDR-M70, they will search for "PDR" or "M70," as I did when I was looking for items related to this camera. So my auction titles state "battery for Toshiba PDR-M4/M5/M70" or "battery for Kodak DC4800." Even though the same battery works for all these cameras, I listed separate auctions to make it easier for the buyers to find what they were looking for. During the time that I was selling these batteries on ebay, I never received even a hint that anyone considered this "keyword spamming." I also had almost no competition because I very rarely saw another auction for the same item. During this period, ebay reviewed my auctions several times. I know this because they contacted me to tell me that my link for C2it was too long. This was the only problem they reported.

One Saturday, ebay shut down all my auctions. They did this without emailing me either before or even after they took this action. I had to email to ask why and then wait several days for an answer. They finally told me "keyword spamming." I had to ask what keyword violated their rule. They responded that I mentioned the Toshiba PDR-M5 even though I wasn't selling the Toshiba PDR-M5. Now this is extremely ludicrous. Every auction on ebay for a part must mention that item for which the part is meant. I emailed them again to ask how would they suggest I word it. They responded that all I am allowed to list is "battery" with no identifying camera! I called them to try to have a dialog with a real human being and they insisted over the phone that this was correct. I asked them to look at ALL the auctions for batteries, lenses, etc where every one of them mentions the camera for which it is intended. They told me that if someone reports those auctions, they will be shut down as well. So I made a list of several dozen and emailed to them, insisting that they shut down the entire digital camera accessories section for keyword spamming. Of course, they took no such action. I asked them why someone decided to target me and they insisted that this was not the case.

I asked ebay to answer these questions: 1) Why was this problem not mentioned two weeks before when they emailed me to report that my C2it text was too long? 2) Why was this not a problem for more than a year before? 3) Why was I not warned before or even after they shut down my auctions? 4) Why do at least 90% of the digital camera accessories auctions violate the same rules? 5) How is a bidder supposed to find a battery for a specific camera if the name can not be mentioned? I have since received several emails repeating that the correct decision had been made but none which answered any of these questions.

When I continued to send them other auctions doing exactly the same thing, they eventually replied that in my auctions I mentioned that the battery also fit other cameras and named them. (Why did it take several weeks to extract this info?) They told me that I could only mention one camera per auction. So I resubmitted them again. They then shut my auctions down because I mentioned that C2it is giving $10 back on the first payment. Now this is the same text that has always been in my posts, edited down to under ten words as they had insisted. They never said in all this time that I couldn't mention it at all. It seemed pretty obvious that they were determined to shut me down and come up with an excuse later.

I posted this on AW and someone suggested that perhaps I had been "turned in" by a competitor. It seems that it is a well-kept secret that ebay is biased toward their better sellers. This information has also appeared in several highly regarded online publications and web sites that review aucton sites. If a high volume seller wants to get rid of some competition, he whispers into the ear of an ebay confederate and they find some excuse to shut down the competitor's auctions. The response to my post indicated I could have become such a victim. I replied that I did not have any competition, since I rarely saw another auction for batteries. Then I went back and checked and guess what? There is now another seller on ebay selling the same batteries (and incidentally, using the same description)! Since this seller has a much higher rating, indicating that he does a bigger volume, it appears to me that I have become another victim of the "ebay insider" conspiracy.

What is amazing is that ebay has permitted scamming sellers and deadbeat bidders to operate with impugnity. Sellers offer bootleg software and tapes openly. When complaints are made, ebay responds that they are just a venue and do not police their site. But when it appears that ebay stands to make a few bucks, suddenly there is swift (and selective) action. I hope that some day someone manages to sue them successfully and put an end to their false claim of being just a venue.

In the meantime, I was ready to boycott ebay entirely. Then they announced their free listing day, so I decided to use that as my last effort. If these auctions survive to the end, I might try again. But my guess is this will be my last time on ebay. And I am not alone. Many sellers, some of them power sellers, have already left the site, some to start competing sites. One getting lots of attention is Gegy.com. Others are bidbay, epier and bidville. It takes a while to get the word out. Ebay flourished by being the first one in a market that had no competition. It was their seller "community" that contributed to their success. Now ebay is biting the hand that feeds them. This targeting of small sellers in order to give their larger sellers a clear advantage is not the only dirty deed ebay has pulled off. Ebay has now started stealing customers in direct violation of their own policies.

There has been much debate whether a seller is allowed to contact the non-winning bidders of his auctions. Ebay of course, considers this fee avoidance and if a complaint is made, it is grounds for getting NARUd (Not A Registered User). There have been unconfirmed reports that ebay agents sometimes contact a seller pretending to be a customer and asking if he has more of an item. If the seller tries to complete the deal off-ebay, he can be NARUd. Even sellers who see nothing wrong in contacting their own underbidders, agree that contacting another seller's bidders is wrong. But now ebay is doing it themselves. Sellers are not permitted to put links in their auctions pointing to their own sites. But ebay puts banners up pointing bidders to sites run by other sellers who paid ebay for the advertising. When an auction closes, the non-winning bidders get an email and anyone who views the closed auction gets a message saying "this auction is closed. But if you want a similar item, you can look at ..." with a link to another auction. If a seller is not allowed to contact HIS OWN non-winning bidders, why is ebay allowed to contact them and send them to ANOTHER SELLER'S auctions? This sheer hypocrisy by ebay has many folks steamed. Some have even started to get revenge.

A "shooting star" ( a seller with over TEN THOUSAND feedback) recently got the message out in such a public way, it even made the talk shows and magazines. He offered for auction his ebay shooting star jacket, sent to him by ebay when he reached his ten thousandth feedback. In his listing, he spent several paragraphs explaining why he would no longer wear it and how disgusted he was with ebay. "I only spit on the box, not the jacket itself". One of his complaints was the bid retraction process. A bidder can bid $5 on an item, then using another ID, bid $1000. Ten seconds before the auction ends, he retracts his $1000 bid and thus he wins the item for $5. Sellers have been complaining for months that bidders should not be allowed to retract within a half hour of the auction end and that there should be a penalty when the same bidder makes too many retractions. Ebay has yet to address this problem. Of course, ebay pulled the auction, but not before several thousand people had seen it and it had reached over $40,000 in bids. Many of the bids were placed and then retracted, in order for the bidder to leave a retraction message. My favorite was, "I bid because I was hoping that there was something good in the pockets. But then I realized that ebay must have already picked the pockets." If you want to view it (it's very funny and some of the retraction messages are hilarious) I saved it on my site Jacket auction. If you want to read one of the articles about it. Auctionbytes article and Cnet article.

Since then, several similar auctions have popped up, like this one: Taming of the Screw. These auctions are not offering any specific product. They only ask that if the bidder agrees that ebay's new rules are stupid and require changing, bidder should place a one cent bid. Ebay will then be sent the list of people who agree. It's sort of like a "petition bid." Ebay is shutting down these auctions but as fast as they go down, another pops up to take its place. Still, it doesn't look like ebay will be getting the message any time soon. If they don't listen to their shooting stars, there's not much chance they'll listen to anyone else.

As for me, as I stated, I will probably be boycotting ebay. Chances are I will be NARUd soon myself. By coincidence, the credit card I used to join ebay recently expired. Ebay has contacted me to update my billing information. Since I have no plans to list there again, I don't see any point in giving them another credit card. Now they have contacted me concerning the $14 I still owe them. I have decided to respond as follows:

"Thank you for contacting me. I am glad that you appreciate the opportunity to do business with me. However, I have a policy against number spamming. I do not accept emails which contain numbers, whether Arabic, Roman or spelled out in English words. Consider this a warning. If you repeat this action, your emails will be summarilly deleted." If I am supposed to sell batteries without mentioning the cameras they fit, let ebay figure out how to submit a bill without mentioning the amount. Their attitude is "our site - our rules." Well, I can match that with "my email - my rules." Their only threat is to NARU me. Considering that I have already decided to leave, it's like the boss saying, "You can't quit - you're fired."

Recently, in view of the fact that my free listings have run to completion, I sent ebay a one-time payment of my fees. I will continue to send them one-time payments only. Should they pull another scam on me and shut down my auctions again, at the very least they will lose some fees over it.

Now if we can form a movement of all the disgusted ebay sellers and all the disgusted buyers who were cheated due to ebay's uncaring attitude, we have enough people to form a "community" even larger than ebay. Maybe it's called gegy.

Incidentally, ebay and others have been asked to explain what they are doing to combat fraud. MSNBC Article.

Free books and $1 book sale

I have a collection of books that have taken 30 years to amass. Now I have to clear some of them out to make room for the new books that my children and I are bringing in. All these books are in good reading condition, no torn or missing pages. Most are perfect with dust jacket. Some are library copies, with the dust jackets encased in plastic. Any special imperfections have been noted. Here is your chance to build your collection or just find the books you are looking for at garage sale prices. Hardcover adult books $2 unless otherwise noted. Children's hardcover and adult paperbacks $1. Children's paperbacks .50. Use C2it to make your first payment and the first $10 is on them. I am adding books to the list at the rate of 20-30 a day, so check in regularly. $1 book sale.

Protect Yourself From Power Problems

Every summer, despite my warnings, a few of my customers will call to report problems with their PCs that turn out to have been caused by power spikes and dips. If they are lucky, these problems will be minor. Sometimes spikes or dips, particularly when they occur repeatedly, can leave serious damage behind. Fred Langa's newsletter recently mentioned reports of problems due to California's rolling blackouts. Though not everyone will be affected by West Coast problems, when folks start turning on their air conditioners, strange things to happen to computers. I have one customer whose color monitor loses its color every summer. The monitor will work when brought to other homes, just not hers. It also works in her home when plugged into a UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply).

Someone recently wrote to Fred Langa stating that as soon as there was a power problem, he shut down his PC. This he felt, would negate the need for a UPS. Here is Fred's response: That's true, up to a point: *If* the power interruptions are caused by a "clean" shorting of a power-distribution line somewhere, or *if* the power company cleanly disconnects your part of the grid as part of a planned blackout, then the risks to your system *may* not be high, and simply keeping the system off until the power is back on and stable *may* be sufficient. Why all the conditionals and qualifiers? Consider: Most PCs today never really shut all the way off: Instead, even if the power switch is in the Off position and all the front panel power indicator lights are dark, the PC may still be actively drawing power to keep a few basic motherboard functions alive. You can sometimes see this if you open the case of a supposedly-off PC: Many times, you'll see an LED on the motherboard glowing brightly, indicating there's still power present. The only way to *completely* shut off these system is with a switch on a power strip or UPS, or by physically disconnecting the plug. This type of PC, if unprotected, can easily be damaged by voltage surges even if they're nominally "off." But even a switch that turns all the way off might not be enough: The air gap in a typical power switch is quite small, and a sufficiently high voltage can jump the gap as if it wasn't even there. For example, a typical lightning bolt can traverse several *miles* or *kilometers* of empty air on its way from a cloud to the ground; the tiny air gap inside your PC's power switch is meaningless in the face of such power, and the voltage will blast across the switch's tiny air gap unhindered. Many people buy inexpensive power strips/surge protectors as a safeguard, but sad to say, most such devices are garbage: They do little, if anything, to prevent power-related problems (despite the extravagant claims you'll see on some packaging). Think of those devices as nothing more than breaker-protected extension outlets. They're NOT serious power protection devices. Although pulling the plug is the only complete protection against worst-case conditions such as a close-by lightning strike, there are power strips/surge protectors that *can* help with lesser events--- but you have to pay more for them: Look for a brand name (MinuteMan, Tripp Lite, Best Power and APC are some of the better-known brands), and look for a written guarantee: The better power strips/surge protectors come with mini-insurance policies that will pay to have your equipment repaired or replaced if it's fried while protected by the high-quality power strip. You'll probably pay something around $25-$50 for a basic power strip/surge protector in this category. Better still, spring for an uninterruptible power supply. These usually include heavier-duty surge protection, and also let your system ride out brownouts, blackout, sags and surges lasting anywhere from a couple minutes up to 30 minutes or more, depending on the size battery you include. The very best UPSes never run your PC off the wall current, but *always* run your PC off the battery so there's no "switching time" when the power goes down, and so there's also extra indirection between your PC and any surge source. You can get a very basic and minimal UPS for around $50, although the units that cost closer to $100 and up are far more robust and practical for normal PC use. (All of my UPSes cost between $80 and $150; I have one for every essential PC in my office.) There's almost no upper limit to how much a UPS can cost: It depends on how beefy you want it to be.

Technology Advances

IBM Increases Processor Speed 35%

IBM claims that a new process called Strained Silicon, will allow them to increase processor efficiency by 35%. What this process does, is stretch certain components so that electrons flow faster. It does not require shrinking any components or retooling their plants, as other companies have had to do. This new process might give IBM a competitive edge. Story

Intel Shrinks Transistors to 1/9 size

Intel claims to have shrunk transistor size by a factor of 9. This theoretically will allow the manufacture of 20 gigaherz CPUs. Unfortunately, the story was removed, so I had to remove the link.

Now if they could combine both of these processes, we can get 30 ghz CPUs.

Panasonic to release 32mb floppy drive

According to an article in Computer Shopper, Panasonic will soon be releasing a drive that can store 32mb on one 1.44 floppy disk. It will be available in both USB and internal versions and should cost about $200. The drives work by placing not just 80 tracks on a floppy, but 777.

The 5.5 Billion Dollar Fire Sale

A company called Iridium sent up 5.5 billion dollars worth of satellites to launch their wireless system. They tried to sign up customers who would pay $7 a minute for air time. Unfortunately, their system did not gain the acceptance needed to sign on enough customers to remain profitable. When you think about it, if you launch satellites and then someone else comes along with a better design, what do you do? Bring down your satellites and upgrade them? Launch new ones? In any case, the big news was that the satellites were going to be destroyed and 5.5 billion dollars were going up in smoke. At the last moment, a group of investors purchased the satellites for $25 million. They inked a $72 million deal with the Pentagon for unlimited air time, thus immediately recovering their investment. Now they are going after additional customers at 1.50 a minute. Sometimes the early bird doesn't get the worm.

Scam Exposed

You enlist the aid of a trusted external web site to mount a safe, fake hack-attack on your system, server, firewall or online intrusion detection system. The external site probes your online defenses in much the same way that a malicious hacker might. But because the "attacking" site is benign, no harm befalls you; instead the site simply reports to you any security weaknesses it finds, so you can shore up those vulnerable points to prevent a real attack from succeeding. There are a number of online sites that perform just these kinds of tests. For free or for a very modest cost, they'll probe your online defenses in depth, and help you pinpoint any trouble spots. But some online security test sites fail to deliver on their promises. Worse, some sites are outright scams. For example: there's a site called "How Secure Is Your Computer" ( http://www.robrob8.com/online_security.htm ) that carries this to an amazing extreme.

The security test page there states: "Internet security is and always will be an important issue for anyone online….Click on the TEST SECURITY link below and if access is granted, your system is NOT SAFE." The "Test Security" link brings you to a page that states "Access Granted," and then displays the contents of your hard drive. To the uninitiated, it looks as through the "security test" has found a way to peek at your files. Wow, better buy some security software, right?

Wrong. Behind some smoke and mirrors, the "test page" doesn't really test anything at all. It simply issues a "file://c:/" command to your browser, which then locally (and harmlessly) displays your hard drive contents: Nothing is sent to or from the remote site; the process is entirely self-contained within your own PC. You can accomplish the same thing a lot less mysteriously simply by typing file://c:/ in the address bar of your browser. Try it!

You might think this a harmless prank, except that the site is using this ruse to scare users into buying a copy of Black Ice Defender, a personal firewall, supposedly to prevent this kind of "vulnerability." So, this "security test" from start to finish appears to be a total scam designed solely to drive affiliate sales of a product that can't and won't address the security "problem" the site uncovers because the "problem" is fake to begin with!

Incidentally, this site is NOT run by Black Ice Defender, only by a company which happens to sell the product. How they expect to get away with this scam is beyond me. After being tricked into buying the product, won't the customer go back and test his PC to make sure it worked? What will his reaction be when he sees that his PC is still "unsafe"?

The above information appeared in the Langa letter. Within days, the site changed their test to state that it was a joke.

The Truth About Affiliate Programs

Affiliate programs have been around since plain folks started getting on the Internet. These programs claim to work as follows: You build a web site. You start getting traffic to your site. You sign up for an affiliate program and get a special code or link. You tell people to visit that site using your link. The affiliate site tracks the hits you generate and sends you commissions based on the number of hits or the number of sales you make. What an easy way to get some free money! The hard truth is that if you divide your "take" by the amount of time you spent on these programs, you would probably be lucky to make 50 cents an hour. I didn't want to make this report based on my experience with one or two such programs over a short period of time. Now after two years of having joined at least two dozen affiliate programs, I can report that they rarely work.

Those of you who visited my site a long time ago may recall that there used to be many links to other sites. As time passed and I realized that these links were doing nothing positive for me and were actually sending my visitors off to other sites, I started taking them down. There were companies that put banner bars on my PC and promised to pay for every hour I kept the banner there and for every new person I sent them. I can't even remember all the different plans there were. I got this information from well-meaning friends who told me how much money they were making with little effort. One in particular, Obongo, offered a $3 sign-up fee and $3 for every person I sent them. Their bar, with shopping price comparison, actually seemed useful. At least 20 folks signed up through my link and I received the email saying, "someone has just signed up through your link. You have earned $3." I'm not holding my breath waiting for the first $3 payment to show up. Many of these affiliate programs have gone out of business. The few that are left have so drastically reduced their promised payment that I would have to sign up half the United States to see a dime. Recent reports indicate that click-throughs on banner ads are at about .2%, that less than 1% of folks who see a banner will even click on it.

Some affiliates which are well known in the industry and still in operation are nothing more than a bunch of cheaters. It is bad enough that they make the plan sound so fantastic when in reality it will take about a year for even a popular site to generate enough hits to get a $25 commission. But do they have to then steal the $25?

Linkshare is one of the more well-known affiliate programs. Their client lists boasts some very well-known names. I signed on with them close to two years ago. I never received a dime. Their deal was you got paid when your accumulated commissions reached $25. You have to apply to each individual vendor. Every so often I would check my account and find that one vendor owed me $10, another $8, etc. But somehow, the combined total never seemed to reach $25. Then one lucky day, one vendor alone owed me $27. I waited for my check. And I waited. I went back into my account and found that my mailing address had mysteriously disappeared. Why Linkshare felt free to bombard me with spam but couldn't get around to asking for my mailing address, I can't explain. (Actually, I can and I think we can all guess the reason.) So I filled in my address and waited for my check. And waited. I went back into the account. The correct address was there. Just the money was gone.

I emailed Linkshare. They told me to contact the vendor. I emailed the vendor. He said that the commissions were paid by Linkshare so I should contact them. I contacted them. They explained that my commissions had to reach $25 in order to be paid. I explained that they had reached $25 before someone emptied my account. Eventually I came to the inescapable conclusion that Linkshare had no interest in solving this problem. They were willing to email me back and forth for months rather than pay what was owed. So I cancelled my Linkshare account. I still receive their spam mailings. Each time I do, I reply that I have cancelled my account and do not plan on giving them any more free advertising on my web site. Once in a while, one of their reps will email and ask me to go over the whole story again. After doing this two or three times, I have stopped wasting my time. Linkshare is either one of the most incompetent companies around or crooked. Since they appear to be one of the largest affiliate programs around, it doesn't speak well for affiliate programs in general.

Your Privacy Is Gone

Computers are appearing everywhere and even offline you can be tracked. Another landmark case about privacy now hits the courts. A man who rented a car was shocked to find a $450 charge for speeding. He had been warned that the company fines renters for certain actions including speeding but was not aware that they were tracking him through a global positioning system (GPS) in the car. The GPS reported that he had exceeded the speed limit, resulting in the $450 charge. The case is headed to court. the story.

More On Security and Your CC Info

In our last issue, I mentioned security and paranoia when placing orders. Some folks believe that the only way to place an order is to call in their CC number. Others believe they must only enter it at a secure site. But the bottom line is that these methods only serve to make your data more secure during the instant of transfer. They do nothing to protect it after the fact.

A secure site encrypts your data during the period it is being sent from your PC to the site. If some hacker is grabbing electronic packets as they are sent, it will be difficult to impossible to unscramble these secure packets and get your CC info. Some folks don't even trust this and insist on phoning in their CC info. (Why aren't they worried that some hacker is tapped into the phone line?) If you follow the horror stories of stolen credit cards, I don't believe you will find any where the data was stolen during the transmission. It is far simpler for a hacker and more rewarding to break into the site and steal the hundreds or thousands of credit cards sitting in a database right on the server. Another trick hackers use is to create a site offering great prices in order to fool someone into entering their info directly. A more insidious trick is to copy a known site and trick people into going there. Folks have gotten false "you've got money" emails that appeared to be coming from Paypal. When they clicked the link to claim the funds, they were taken to a counterfeit site that looked like the real thing. They entered their ID and password and were then taken to the real site. In the meantime, the crooks now had access to their accounts.

The real test of safety is not what steps a site takes to protect your info during transmission, but how they protect it afterward. I have seen businesses where the information was left laying around where any employee could look at it. I once had an experience where a clerk at a large department store chain (now out of business) collected credit card numbers from customers and later placed her own orders using these numbers. Even when I was accepting credit cards directly, the information was either phoned in or sent via separate emails with some obfuscation, so that a hacker would have to work very hard to try and figure it out. At no time was this information ever put on the site. So any hacker breaking into my site might be able to cause me damage but there is no personal or financial info about my customers to be found. Now I work through payment services and leave it up to them to handle security. Even I don't get to see my customers' info.

For those of you who still feel that it is safer to call in your CC info to some company, just read this article . Here is the story of a computer consultant who placed an order with a store and later discovered that every invoice carried a URL that led straight to the order, including the name, address and credit card info. By simply changing the order number, he was able to view all orders placed. He wasted a lot of effort attempting to inform the company of this security loophole and they did not take him seriously until some reporters picked up the story. Now the company is arguing that he is a "hacker" for typing in a URL that they sent him. When you call in your CC info, could you be handing it to people like these?

NOTE: In my last issue I told you about a great reclining chair I bought. Due to the many requests, the vendor has agreed to accept orders from me directly, so there is no need for you to sumit your credit cards. You can pay via C2it, paypal (non credit card), achex, payingfast, check or money order. Just email me for the info or visit the rocker/recliner page for detailed information.

Be the Big Cheese

For those of you who haven't heard of "cheesemania," Dr. Spencer Johnson authored a book called "Who Moved My Cheese?". The book tells the story of two rats and two rat-sized humans who live in a giant maze. Each morning, they all set out in search of cheese. While the rats search diligently, the humans learn that they can always find cheese in a specific place in the maze. Then one day the cheese is gone.

The message of the book is that change is inevitable and smart folks should plan ahead and not stay complacent in the belief that things will always remain the same. This book became a bestseller, with folks crediting it for helping them rebuild their lives after major changes. Others have attacked the book, claiming that its message is that companies owe no loyalty to their employees and are correct in firing them at a moment's notice and folks should just accept this. At least two parodies have come out. You can visit Who Cut the Cheese.

Just For Fun

What happens when you try to translate a phrase to another language using a computer program? And what happens when you try to translate the translated phrase to yet another language? Have you ever played the game "telephone?" Well, now you can do it through a web site that translates your phrase to other languages and then back to English. Now doesn't the result look just like that instruction you got from your boss? Multi-language translation site.

Want to get even with someone? How about involve them in a food fight? Splatter them with ketchup and mustard or a plate of spaghetti and meatballs. Do it while they're at work. Do it right from your desk. It's possible at www.virtualfoodfight.com.

For Webmasters and Online Businessfolk

"Build it and they will come." This used to be the Internet philosophy but it is no longer true. There are lots of folks, millions every week, who are building web sites. But who visits these sites? Even a store that never advertises can get some walk-in traffic. But no one "walks in" to a web site. They have to know it exists. There are hundreds of programs that claim to submit your web site to search engines. Along with a million others. What good does it do to be number 44,674 on the list? No one is going to page down a hundred times until they come to your site. If you're not at the top of the search, you don't exist. There are hundreds of programs claiming they can get you to the top ten of a search. Even if true, there are millions of people using these programs. Only ten of those will be successful. There are banner exchange programs that claim that if you put their banner on your site, they will put your banner on theirs. You could also call a local business and say, "I'll put your business card in my window if you'll put mine in yours." How much business will that get you? Latest figures show that banner ads get clicked .2% of the time. That means that less than 1 person in a hundred will even click it and what percentage of those who click will actually buy? There are pay-per-click search engines out there but if you have been reading Irving Weiss's series on Search Engines, you have probably realized that they only way to be effective is to be at the top of their list and the only way to get there is to outbid your competitors. Do you really want to pay 25 cents a click, knowing that less than 1 out of a hundred people might even buy something?

I have spent thousands of dollars during the past twenty years and tried most of the advertising methods out there. Newsprint, radio, local circulars, banner exchange programs, pay-per-clicks. None of these even covered the cost of the advertising. But in the past year I have discovered some methods that actually work and I decided to share them with you.

1) Build up a list. Don't let that first sale be the last. Remind your customers that you now have a "relationship." The next time they want something, why should they go to some stranger when they already know you?
2) Start a newsletter. You have to remind your customers of who you are, but just sending out advertisements, particularly via email, can annoy them. You have to give people a reason to read what you write.
3) Put useful content on your web site. Give folks a reason to visit. Update the content regularly. I put up my Paypal page just to save myself the time of explaining over and over why I believe it to be an unsafe service. Eventually, I was getting a lot of hits just on that one page, so I added the reviews of other services, the information about credit cards and consumers' rights and other articles. My hits keep climbing.
4) Track your visitors and interact with them. Humanclick Lite (available at www.humanclick.com) is available free. There are also PRO versions for busy companies that get more hits. This program puts a "help" button on your site that visitors can click to chat annonymously with a company service person. I have made quite a few sales with this feature. Another useful feature is that it shows you how many people are on your site, who sent them there and what they are looking at. (It does NOT show you their email ID.) When I see people click on a page and leave quickly, it usually tells me that I should do something to liven up that page (or in one case, the page didn't even work in Netscape). Through Humanclick I was able to realize that a lot of my hits were coming from the Paypal page, which led me to expand on the information. I was also able to realize that almost none were coming from the various program I had joined that guaranteed to get me hits.

5) Find a plan that guarantees results. I am constantly getting solicited to join one referral plan or another. I give them all the same answer. Give me one month free and if I see a difference, I will join. Most refuse to do this because they know I will realize it doesn't really work. Some have done so but the results showed they weren't worth the cost. Now I have finally found one that really works and I am glad to say it is offered by a reader and contributor to this newsletter, Irving Weiss.

Irving manages a list that submits sites to search engines. There are many such lists and each one claims to do a good job. How they work is a trade secret. All I can say is that Irving's works. A month ago he gave me a trial listing with his service. He did warn me that it takes at least a month for the listings to proliferate through the Internet, so I would have to wait 2-3 months before seeing results. So far in one month, I watched my hits double. Thanks to Humanclick, I can identify the visitors who were referred to me by Irving's list and there are many. If you have an online business, I recommend that you get in touch with him at searchenginesmarts.com.

Search Engine Smarts by Irving Weiss

Search Engine Analysis: Part III - The rest of the Pay Per Click Engines

In the last issue we spoke about Goto, Sprinks, and Findwhat the most trusted and established Pay Per Click search engines (PPCSE). This time we will concentrate on the whole smorgasbord of other smaller PPCSE. It should be noted up front that it will take time to set up an account on any PPC and the ROI (return on investment) of time and money needs to be taken into consideration.

On the upside the smaller PPCSE can slowly increase your economically and several campaigns together can start adding up. Because of its popularity, bids on Goto can run as high as $5.00 on a keyword and some of the returns will be from phantom click tricksters or your competitors. These problems are not as serious with one-cent clicks you can be paying on the smaller PPCSE.

Here is a list I compiled of items to be cautious about before signing up. A good resource is the PPC forum hosted by www.searchengineforums.com where you will find a discussion about every PPC. See the following sites for a list Pay Per Search Engines www.payperclickanalyst.com/others.htm and www.payperclicksearchengines.com.

1) The smaller PPCSE tend to be very aggressive with email spam and phone calls making a very beefed up sales pitch and a bounty of special promotions just for you. Their claims are hardly ever true.

2) Phantom clicks on your keywords by either automated programs or humans exhausting your money very quickly. Many PPC have partners who get a commission when people click on keywords coming from their sites. A shady partner can set a robot to do all the clicking for them resulting in heavy commissions.

3) Lack of customer support. No one to call and emails never get responded to. Needless to say it is virtually impossible to ever get a refund.

4) Surprise expenses such as a minimum monthly fee, low account balance charge and overdraft costs (a little exaggeration). It feels like you signed up for a checking account.

5) The GUI can be less then desirable and painstaking to fill out for multiple keywords.

Need help with the Search Engines? Please contact me at no charge. My name is Irving Weiss email searchenginesmarts@hotmail.com phone: 718-337-6907.

Useful sites and freeware

Here's one you can do yourself. Create a file in notepad with the following two lines:

[InternetShortcut]
URL=javascript:alert(document.lastModified)

Save the file as: last_modified.url in the favorites directory of your machine (usually c:\windows\favorites but it might be c:\winnt40\profiles\favorites). Now whenever you are on a web site, you can go to your favorits and click this URL to see the date that site was last changed.

Here's a useful one for folks who are very exacting or find their PC clock inacrruate. It's a utility that can sync your PC's clock with the atomic time. You can run it manually or set it to run automatically in your start up. Atomic Time.

Co_citer - this free utility lets you grab info from a web page into a mini database. It also stores relevant information like the URL, date grabbed, etc.

CDR identifier - this free utility will read a CD and tell you the manufacturer and some other information.

the Langa Letter tips and tricks on using your PC, emailed to you absolutely free. I have included some of his tips in my previous letters.

I hope this letter contained useful information. Please email ccs@ygoodman.com with any comments.