It's a jungle out there

Two men in a jungle come upon lion head-on pawing the ground.
One man, ever so carefully, reaches into his rucksack and slowly takes out a set of Nike running shoes, never once breaking eye contact with the lion.
The second man hisses: "What are you doing, you can't outrun the lion"
And the first man says: "No, but it's not the lion that I have to out run!"

The point of the story is that many of my colleagues and friends in business, as well as my self sometimes, look at some of the fantastic blogs out there and say "I can't compete with that", well is that the race your running?



Consider this, what are others in your industry doing? Have they even started yet, do they have support, you have most likely already come a long way, have a look at what Carollyn's web site is looking like now, not the best art site in the country but so much more than most have.

http://moodle.ozecrm.com/course/view.php?id=5 is a course I am currently developing

login as guest and use the key p20nline if you would like to have a look at it.

Facebook at South Park

I know its funny. Just be careful of how you use facebook and what you post on line. I advise keep the close personal material personal not on facebook. It is social networking so it is personal and about you, that's fine if your happy that anything do can be seen by the public. I am mostly fine with that. I have reconnected with lots of old friends on face book and found some new business on facebook but for me its mostly personal. I use facebook my self to get an idea of who new business contacts are, its like doing research on a company before you apply for a job. Professionally I use linkedIn More www.linkedin.com/in/colindixon
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Protecting your computer

Tips for protecting your computer and personal information

The internet has now become an essential business, social, entertainment and educational resource for most Australians. The increasing level of economic transactions on the internet is making it the focus of criminal activities. It is important that internet users protect themselves from falling prey to these activities. The following tips list some simple precautions you can take to minimise the chances of becoming a victim of online criminals.

1. Install anti-virus and other security software, such as anti-spyware and anti-spam software. Use and update this software regularly. Use an auto-update facility if this is available. You can set most virus software to scan your computer at a set time. Information about anti-virus software is available from the Internet Industry Association website.


2. Regularly download and install the latest security patches for your computer software, including your web-browser. Use automatic software security updates where possible.


3. Use a firewall and make sure it is turned on. Firewalls help prevent unauthorised access to, and communications from, your computer. More information on the use of firewalls is found on the Internet Industry Association website.


4. Delete suspect emails immediately. Don't open these emails - but if you open an email and it is any way suspect…


5. Don't click on links in suspect emails. Visiting websites through clicking on links in suspect emails may result in malware (malicious software), such as a ‘trojan', being downloaded to your computer. This is a commonly used and effective means of compromising your computer.


6. Only open an attachment to an email where the sender and the contents of the attachment are known to you. Suspect emails should be deleted immediately. If an attachment needs to be opened, it should be checked by anti-virus software before opening.


7. Don't download files or applications from suspect websites. The file or application could be malware. Sometimes the malware may even be falsely represented as e-security software designed to protect you.


8. Use long and random passwords for any application that provides access to your personal identity information, including logging onto your computer. Don't use dictionary words as a password. Ideally, the password should be eight or more characters in length. Change passwords regularly.


9. Use a limited permission account for browsing the web, creating documents, reading email, and playing games. If your operating system allows you to create a limited permission account, this can prevent malicious code from being installed onto your computer. A ‘limited permission' account is an account that does not have ‘Administrator' status.

This is from this web site ( Point 9. will save you a lot of problems)

Junk mail and how to spot a fraud

If you have friends that email you chain letters, do them and us all a favor and reply to them.

go to www.snopes.com and get the truth, they research claims and Urban Legends and give you the background, interesting and informative.

I received the Kidney Theft email again recently, I have had it about a dozen times over the last 10 years. The email is clearly untrue, and designed to spread fear, we have enough of that in the world. I really do not think we need any more please don't sent them on.

Help fix the problem, my suggestion is google the claim or look up www.snopes.com and reply to the email using reply to all to let the people know they don't need to be frightened of this, what ever it is.

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/robbery/kidney.asp

Add a link to your blog and invite them to subscribe, after all your a knowledgeable person and check the facts before you spread rumors, and gossip.

http://servicebroker.com.au/blog/2010/04/junk-mail-and-how-to-spot-a-fraud/

How Fast is your connection

http://www.ozspeedtest.com/ is a good web site to test this out.



It is good to know what your paying for I have found that it depends on where you are as who is the best option, as well as how much you use.

I upload a lot and require a permanent IP address so this is an important requirement, uploads are 10% of most accounts ( 20% in my case) some providers do not charge for uploads.  Email me your phone number and usage and I can look at it for you.

Build your email list

This is often the 1st challenge, no one likes typing in 100's of addressees or cutting and pasting them one at a time, so why don't you export them.
Gmail and Hotmail collect them and allow you to export them.
You can export from Outlook and most other email programs as well. But what about all the emails you receive and send, there are a lot of email in them.
Here's a free utility to do that.

Email Address Extractor for Microsoft Outlook

Utility designed and developed to extract valid email addresses from your inbox, sentbox or personal folder of Microsoft outlook and create a text file with all the email addresses.

If you need any help see me, I also offer a service to clean your list, send it to me and I can sent it back to you split into 3 files.

• Verified good emails


• Emails that do not exist


• Emails that may be OK

Internet Plans

TPG have been around a long time and always have offered a great value service.

• Home Phone


• Mobile


• Standalone ADSL2+ / Broadband Off-Net


• Naked ADSL2+