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Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents. Since opening to the public in 2003, it has grown explosively and today is inhabited by a total of 1,653,272 people from around the globe.
* From the moment you enter the World you'll discover a vast digital continent, teeming with people, entertainment, experiences and opportunity. Once you've explored a bit, perhaps you'll find a perfect parcel of land to build your house or business.
* You'll also be surrounded by the Creations of your fellow residents. Because residents retain the rights to their digital creations, they can buy, sell and trade with other residents.
Nyms App Leaves Spammers Out in the Cold
By John P. Mello Jr. TechNewsWorld
With Nyms, there's an undeniable satisfaction in knowing that when you turn a spammed address off, the slimeball behind the intrusion into your cyberspace has been foiled. Better yet, all his partners in crime to whom he handed the address off will be wasting bandwidth on it, too.
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There are lots of software programs, as well as e-mail Get the Facts on BlackBerry Business Solutions add-ons, to fight spam Stop spam, spyware and viruses with Barracuda Networks' free evaluation unit. Latest News about spam, but none are as clever or will give you the visceral satisfaction of Nyms.
Nyms, which is sold on an annual subscription basis of US$19.95, is the cerebral spawn of the folks at Anonymizer, an Internet privacy and security outfit out of San Diego, Calif.
The devilish program lets you create disposable e-mail addresses. These "nyms" can be used wherever you're asked for an e-mail address when surfing the Web.
Toxic Correspondence
For example, if you want information from a Web site but aren't sure what the operators of that site will do with your e-mail address, you can give them a nym instead of your real address.
Or you may want to comment about something on a Web site, but don't want your address scraped from the forum and used by spammers. What's more, if your comments draw the ire and correspondence of other, more toxic forum posters, the nym can be handy for silencing them, too.
When mail is sent to the nym, it's routed through Anonymizer's servers to your real e-mail address. If the nym is harvested by spammers, you can shut it off from your computer and Anonymizer will trash all future mail sent to the address.
Dead End for Slimeballs
Spam filters can be pretty effective, but there's always something sneaking through the holes in the sieve. When that happens, I can get very annoyed, even though I know no anti-spam program is perfect.
With Nyms, there's an undeniable satisfaction in knowing that when you turn a spammed address off, the slimeball behind the intrusion into your cyberspace has been foiled. Better yet, all his partners in crime to whom he handed the address off will be wasting bandwidth on it, too.
Although designed with exclusion in mind, nyms can also be used for identifying friends. You can create a nym and only give it to important folks -- friends, family, the boss. Then you can create a mail filter that will divert messages with that nym address to a special folder. That way, your most important mail won't get buried in the rest of all the traffic Free How-To Guide for Small Business Web Strategies - from domain name selection to site promotion. in your inbox.
Smooth Set-Up
Setting up Nyms is untaxing. When installing the program, it may disturb any antivirus software you have running on your computer, so it may be necessary to turn off that software until the install is complete.
If your antivirus software behaves like mine, Zone Alarm Security Suite, it will alert you when Nyms tries to access system files and reach the Internet. Once alerted, you should be able to tell the antivirus software to let Nyms do its thing.
Operating Nymns from its control panel is very simple. From the panel, you can create a nym, manage nyms, send anonymous e-mail and create a guest nym.
Customize or Randomize?
When you create a nym, you're given the choice of creating a custom or randomly generated nym.
The problem with custom nyms is that the one you cook up may already be taken. You have to ask yourself, is it worth the time finding an unreserved address for something I may have to trash in the future anyway?
On the other hand, while random nyms can be generated quickly, chances are you won't be committing them to memory. My first nym, for instance, was uto4uej9tdmkjak@nyms.net.
Every nym you create appears in the management section of the control panel. If you want to turn a nym off, you select it, click "edit" and choose "disable" in the edit window.
You can send mail from inside the program with its "send anonymous mail" feature enabled. When the recipient of the message receives it, it will appear to have been sent from the nym address you specified. When the recipient replies to the message, however, the response will end up in your e-mail program's inbox.
The "create a guest" feature of the program is a way to spread its visibility virally. It allows you to invite a friend to try out Nyms.
Nyms is an ingenious way to protect your e-mail address from spammers and other miscreants on the Web.
Want to be found much easier on the "Web"?
* 70% had used the Internet to search for a local service business at any point, and 46% had used the Internet to search one or more times for a local service in the last 90 days
* 89% found search to be "somewhat effective" or "very effective" in finding local services in their area.
* 68% said they would most likely use the phone number on the website to contact a vendor.
Google's Local Search Feature is a valuable FREE way to be found easily on the "Web".
Example: Google Local Search Example for business: "web design" Location: "64068"
Do you want a FREE Google Local listing that you control?
Go to... Google Local Business Center
Login or register and create your business ad free!
...I did and this was the final window...
I will receive my pin # in the mail, enter it and I've just received some very valuable, FREE Advertising.
Give Google Local Search a try! Is your business listed?
Don't forget to try Google's Maps
Google Map for InfoKwik with some valuable extras.
They are great for giving directions to your business. You can email them to clients or post them on your web site.
FREE Publicity Reminder
If you want free publicity that increases your exposure on the internet and your business traffic, start by submiting an article to InfoKwik Kansas City News to editor@KC-News.com. I receive several thousand of of visits from readers each month.
Here are some ideas of what you can write about:
PR Story Starters:
How To Get Just a Little PR so you Get a Lot.
Use the following questions to help you brainstorm for potential PR topics. One of the surest ways to get more media coverage is to get some media coverage. Start small, but be consistent. It is a good practice to attempt to get some form of coverage every month. The more successful you are in terms of sheer volume of coverage, the easier it is to get full-length feature coverage. Is that Oprah on the phone!
• Have there been any personnel changes, promotions or additions in your firm?
• Have you taken on a new partner?
• Are you planning to expand your operations?
• Have you landed a significant new project or customer?
• Are you conducting educational seminars?
• Have employees completed industry apprenticeship or certification?
• Are you planning to speak at a professional organization's meeting?
• Have you, or anyone on your staff, received an award in your industry?
• Has a trade association cited you for excellence?
• Have you, or any of your staff, been elected to serve on the board of directors for another company or volunteer organization?
• Has your company sponsored a charitable fundraising event in the community?
• Are you doing anything that is a new trend in your industry?
• Are you mentoring other businesses owners or students?
• Does your business have a high number of women or minorities in management positions?
• Have you supported one or more of your employees through an unusual crisis?
• Do you offer any unusual employee benefits or incentives?
• Have you solved a problem in your industry?
Is your marketing unique?
• Have you started a new department or business?
• Have you significantly expanded your current services?
• Have you moved to new or larger offices or substantially renovated your offices?
• Have you become a new dealer for a name brand product?
• Has your company been in business for 5, 10, 15, 25 or 50 years?
• Have you discovered new ways to use technology in your business?
• Have you discovered new ways to market your products or services?
• Have you increased your sales since last year? Is that unusual for your industry in today's economy?
• What's the income trend in your industry? Are you following the trend or breaking out of the mold?
• Do you have a strong opinion on a local situation or community problem? Can you offer a solution? For example, a construction company might devise a way to organize left-over construction job site materials to benefit an organization that repairs homes for low-income residents.
• The Story Beyond the Story
If possible, you should always try to plan stories that may create other stories. In other words, look at your story idea as a series of news releases.
Email your story to Pat Morgan editor@KC-News.com
Be sure to include applicable photos.
Benefits:
(1) Your link popularity will improve because you will be getting backlinks and traffic from multiple sites.
(2) You will get traffic from your link in your author bio if your articles are good and are read.
(3) You build name recognition and expert status in your chosen field.
(4) Your website will get spidered on a regular basis and you'll benefit because any new pages you build will get indexed quite fast plus any new changes you made to your existing pages will reflect in the index quite fast too.
(5) Promoting your new website this way is profitable because once it has a strong foundation in the search engines, it will be easy for you to build future new websites and get them crawled and indexed. The answer is simply by giving your future new websites a link on your initial new website.
(6) Your search engine rankings will get better.
Below is a good list of article directories or article banks to get you started with your article marketing:
http://www.ezinearticles.com
http://www.articlebiz.com
http://www.articlesfactory.com
http://www.articlealley.com
http://www.searchwarp.com
http://www.articlecity.com
http://www.a1articles.com
http://www.articleheaven.com
Selling Triggers
From Michael Wolf
71 Start publishing an extra issue of your e-zine every week. You could charge a recurring monthly subscription for the free subscribers who want to view the extra issue(s) each week. You could also include no ads in the extra issue because you?re charging a subscription fee.
72 Don't load your web site with a lot of high tech clutter. Your visitors may miss your whole sales message. Haven't you ever visited a web site which had graphic ads, text scrolling and flashing words all crammed together? If you have, it was likely you found it confusing and hard on the eyes and you just said ?forget it?.
73 Don't use unnecessary words or phrases on your site. You only have so much time to get your visitor's attention and interest; make every word count. Use short words, phrases, sentences and paragraphs. Also highlight attention-grabbing words like love, money, sex, etc.
74 Don't make the mistake and think that everyone will totally understand your web site message. Use descriptive words and examples to get your point across more smoothly. Don't use hard to understand words that they might have to look up in a dictionary because they won't, they'll just leave your web site.
75 Don't write your strongest point or benefit only once. You should repeat it at least 3 times because some people may miss it. Also when you repeat something it gets stored in your prospect?s brain easier. This may persuade them to buy later on down the road because they will remember it when they really need or want your product.
76 Don't push all your words together on your web site. People like to skim; use plenty of headings and sub-headings. People don't have time to search and read through every word. It's also harder to read online than offline. But you could remind them they could print out your web page to read it later when they are offline.
77 You could offer your visitors a free e-book if they subscribe to your free e-zine. For example, you could say, "Subscribe to our free e-zine and get a our new e-book for free!" Another example, "Subscribe to our free e-zine and get five e-books with full give-away rights!"
78 Don't use 50 different content formats all over your web site. Try to use only one or two of the same fonts, text sizes, text colors, etc. You don't want your visitors getting frustrated because they have to keep refocusing their eyes. Plus it looks unprofessional not to have a consistent look throughout your web site.
79 Offer easy navigation. People will leave quicker if they have a hard time finding what they're looking for. Don't get them lost or they will leave. You could have a keyword search box, a side, top or bottom navigation bar, a web site map, etc.
80 Don't let selling words and phrases go unnoticed. Highlight important words and phrases with color, bolding, italics, underlining, etc. Also think about about each and every word you use on your web site. Ask yourself "Is this word going to persuade them to buy my product, join my affiliate program, subscribe to my e-zine?, etc.
Michael Wolf is the owner of
Who else wants to learn the secrets of successful JV
marketing? http://www.instantjvletters.com
Referral Reward $100
If you refer a customer to InfoKwik, you'll receive $100 as a referral reward. Email me or call if you have a referral.
Pat Morgan Email - 816-415-0776.
Offer good thru 12/31/06
Back to Index of Articles
• New InfoKwik Newsletter Archive
now online for your convenience.
I've also added a search engine, so you can find subjects of interest more easily.
• New online Keyword and Pay-per-click word research finder for your use:
The Free Overture (Yahoo!) and Google Keyword Suggestion Tool can be found here. I've left the suggested Google AdWord books from last week below for your convenience.
If case you missed the last newsletter, you can find it here.
