Category Archives: technology

Phishing Scam Spam

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Here’s another scam… these will never, ever end, and they will always be slightly different.  They are getting smarter… here’s a my post called Scary Spam where I break down the components of a scam email.

This one looks good enough at first:

But, if you mouse over the link you’ll see, at the bottom left of the browser, that it doesn’t go to a google page at all… it goes to this page where they’ll probably try and get your credit card info:

What I do, when I get this, is not just delete it, but I report it for spam, or in a worse case like this, for phishing (this is a gmail option)… I hope that by doing this I (a) decrease the amount of this crap in my own inbox and (b) somehow penalize the email sending the crap.

Please be careful on what you click on!  First mouse over it and look at the URL… that’s the first thing to check out!

Scary Spam

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This is really clever, very scary… I think the spammers will have a good success rate with people clicking on this:

here are the things to watch for:

  1. I don’t know the “from” person, and “local schools” doesn’t make sense to me (but it might to a lot of students :s)
  2. I went to laca.org and it wasn’t a real website… didn’t go anywhere.
  3. online.com?  Too generic…
  4. subject line has a period
  5. I don’t have a mailbox with 23GB.  I Don’t have an account with them.
  6. NEVER, EVER “click here” to validate a mailbox… or anything that you haven’t specifically requested.
  7. Other poor grammar towards the end of the email

When you mouse over the “click here” link you see it will go to this URL:

A few red flags here, also:

  1. the URL doesn’t match the sender (laca.org)…
  2. the subdomain starts with scripts. … NOT GOOD.
  3. 4goodhosting.com?  Seriously?
  4. form1.html?  Very novice.

This has yellow and red flags all over it – but they’ve done a very good job. PLEASE don’t click on anything that looks like this.  Simply delete it (or, if you are on Gmail, report phishing, or report as spam).

How To Loop a YouTube Video

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I like to listen to music while I work… sometimes I get stuck on a song that I like to hear… here’s what I do so that I can hear the same song over and over.  Note that I normally hate repetition but I put one of these songs on while I work and it’s nice background noise… with no distractions, and no need to hit replay:

Step 1

Open a notepad file and save it as an html file.  In Notepad you’ll want this code:

<html>

<p><object width=”425″ height=”344″><param name=”movie” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/0Gjx-ZQuQ_Y=en&fs=1&”></param><param name=”allowFullScreen” value=”true”></param><param name=”allowscriptaccess” value=”always”></param><embed src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/0Gjx-ZQuQ_Y=en&fs=1&loop=1″ type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=”always” allowfullscreen=”true” width=”425″ height=”344″></embed></object></p>

<html>

Step 2

Now, go to Windows Explorer and double click on the file – it should open in your browser, with a YouTube video embedded.

When you click on play, it will play to the end, then loop again and keep looping all day long.

I have about 7 videos on that page so I can put on different songs when one gets to be too much.

Step 3

To add a new video, just copy and paste the code above (from <p> to </p>) and change what is in bold to be the video code from the YouTube page (in yellow below).

You are telling the chunk of code above which video to show.

That’s it… I’m guessing I’ll update this post as people tell me what’s wrong with it, but it should work.

Not ALL videos work like this… some have protections placed on the YouTube side, and you’ll get a message saying you can’t loop it or show it… but many songs will loop.  Just play around with it.

One of these days I want to figure out how to loop a playlist :p

Buying a headset for your PC

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A few weeks ago I gave a fun presentation on hardware and software (and other stuff) for a home office.  It was fun because the career coaches in the room were taking notes they could take back to their clients who were interested in starting a home-based business, OR settling in for a serious job search.

One of the things I recommend you get is a headset that plugs into the computer that becomes, essentially, your phone. I use Skype as my phone service but my headset allows me to have hands free discussions… this is critical so I can give webinars, take notes, etc.  Also, I spend a lot of time on the phone and I don’t want my arm or neck to get tired.

While I was gone I had some work done in my office and was ultimately out of my office for about a month (yes, it sucked).  While out, one of my kids found my headset and played with it (translation: broke it).

This isn’t the first headset that I’ve had broken.  The first one was a nice, light, comfortable headset that plugged into the PC – you know, in those little round holes made for the mic and speakers?

When I replaced it I got a USB headset that plugs into a USB port… I liked this because I have a USB port on the front of my PC and the audio jacks are on the back, so I get some extra cord length.

I went to buy a replacement headset and my ONLY criteria was USB.  I knew I’d find what I wanted for around $30… I got it at Target just in time to jump on a webinar, and learned there was another very critical thing I didn’t think about:

A MUTE BUTTON!

The headset I bought didn’t have a mute button… and that absolutely won’t work for what I do (lots of live webinars/teleseminars/radio interviews) and my environment (home office with lots of noise/activity).

So now my criteria for a headset includes:

  1. Price – around $30,
  2. USB – for more cord length,
  3. mute button

I got all that and I’m good to go! Hopefully this one lasts longer than a year (not because of the device but because of all the ways I can accidentally crush it :p).

Super Freaking Awesome (video update)

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I need to update you on the video thing… last post I asked for some input on a video from my new video editor…and since then we have changed some stuff and started to put out new videos (which are now live, and in production).

You can see all of the videos we’ve put out for JibberJobber user tutorials here, on Vimeo.  They are hi-def, which means crazy big files, but Vimeo handles it well, and the user doesn’t see slow download time (afaik). Also, if they make the video bigger the quality is good.  Cool.

I’ve also been working on the first series that I’ll sell – because it is HD we can’t do downloads as it’s GBs of info – just barely enough to fit on one DVD.  More on that soon!

Thanks to everyone who gave input on the video post from last time 🙂

Looking for feedback on user tutorial videos – thoughts?

I need some input/feedback on some changes I’m doing with my JibberJobber user tutorial videos. I’ve embedded our test video below, but you can see the wider version here.  Notice that the visible quality is horrible – we’ve uploaded it on vimeo.com also, but it is still rendering apparently… so ignoring the visual (and my narration), I’m wondering about the editing and final product.

Here are my initial thoughts/questions (I hope this doesn’t influence your feedback):

  • Is the intro music (just a few seconds) okay? I think it’s kind of cool but I wouldn’t have thought of it…
  • I’m not sure about the music throughout the entire video… is it… good? Distracting?  Okay, or horrible?
  • At the end the video editor put his voice in the conclusion – thoughts?  My initial thought is “don’t say www”… it is not necessary when typing it in.
  • What else – what am i missing?

Again, realize the quality of what you see (not the audio) will look much, much better on vimeo.

Twitter tools at a conference

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(I mistakenly made this a PAGE instead of a Post… this was from spring, 2008)

I’m presenting at the newcommforum.com conference and it seems that over 60% of the audience is twittering (tweeting) DURING the presentations. In fact, perhaps the conversation on Twitter during the presentation is more interesting than the actual presentation?? Talk about disruptive, especially as a presenter.

Anyway, here are some links to help you track a certain “thing” in twitter…. people here are using the hash mark (pound) like this: #sncr (sncr is the name of the group, pronounced “snicker”):

This definitely makes the list of top 5 valuable things to do with Twitter (and makes the information manageable).

2 Twitter enhancements to make me smile for a week!

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I’m using real info on this, outting my new Twitter buddy. Actually, we met on Saturday in person, and I doubt Clint would care if you know he and I hang out (well, hung out for 20 minutes :p).

Here’s the e-mail I get when someone follows me on Twitter:

Herlo on Twitter is now following me

I would so love it if they also told me:

  1. If I was following this person. If the name and handle doesn’t ring a bell, it would be uber-helpful. Plus, if I already know who they are, and you TELL me that I’m following them, then I don’t have to click through to check. Please Ev, do that one for me?
  2. Please plug in their little summary. If I don’t recognize their name or handle, this would really help. Especially if you make their URL a hyperlink, so I can click on it from my e-mail. You know what I’m talking about, all this stuff:

Twitter about me area

Oh yeah, include the stats, also. That way if they are following 3,000+ people and have 4 people following them I KNOW I don’t want to be #5.

Herlo’s stats, as of right now.

Evan, seriously,this would take your programmer like 20 minutes to do. Please make my life just a little easier!

Plaxo’s amazing growth is attributed to… (drum roll)

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According to Caroline McCarthy at the CNET blog, the growth is attributed to the announcement of OpenSocial. Admitedly, this is Plaxo’s data, not her conlusion. Her blog post is worth reading. (Dear Caroline, don’t worry about my readers getting the wrong message here, the truth is, no one reads this blog ;)).

plaxo_growth.png

However, I have an alternative reason for Plaxo’s growth. It’s because they decided to open the spam machines out again. I swear, this seems to be the same time frame that I received about a gazillion plaxo invites. Like this one:

plaxo_spam.png

Just for the record, I like what Plaxo can do, and think it’s tre-cool. But just when they were getting over the brand and perception that they were a lean, mean, spamming machine, they opened it up again and became the topic of (negative) discussion. Oops.

Plaxo must have fixed their SMTP server

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or, all of my friends invited me to their social network on the same day.  It seems like in the last 24 hours I’ve received about 15 invitations for friends in Plaxo.  So which is it?  Did they let a ton of invites out yesterday, or did all of my friends (yes, all 15 of them) invite me at once??

plaxo_friends.png

Uh, yeah, I’d say that’s an understatement.