AfterTheDotNet

Asia DNR (or DNS) spam

I just received this email about a domain name that my company owns as I’m to the domain contact.

“ Dear CEO,  

We are a domain name registrar centre in HongKong, and in charge of the registeration in Asia,We have something important need to confirm with your company.
On the May21,2008, we received an application formally. One company named “Hkadtod Holdings Limited ” applied for the internet trademark:
” bayinfocomm”

    Domain names:
    MyDomain.cn
    MyDomain.com.cn  
    MyDomain.net.cn  
    MyDomain.org.cn  
    MyDomain.tw  
    MyDomain.com.tw  
    MyDomain.hk  
    MyDomain.com.hk  
    MyDomain.asia

    Internet brand keyword:
        MyDomain
    through our body.

    After our initial examination, we found that the keywords and domain names applied for registration are as same as your company’s name and trademark. These days we are dealing with it. If you do not know this company, we doubt that they have other aims to buy these domain names. Now we have not finished the registration of  Luyun AP Company yet, in order to deal with this issue better, Please contact us by telephone or email as soon as possible.

In addition, we hereby affirm that our time limit for dissent application is 10 workdays. If your company files no dissent within the time limit,we will unconditionally approve the application submitted by “Hkadtod Holdings Limited”.
Best Regards,
brent.lee
——————————————————————————————————————————————–
-Brent| Asia  DNR Auditing Officer |King Regards-
ASIA DNR  (HONGKONG)
Tel: +852-3075 9838
Fax:+852-3177 1520 | +852-3177 1510
Email: brent.lee@asiaip.org | brent.lee@dnrinasia.com
Website:  Http://www.asiadnr.org      www.asiaip.org
Add:  3A, Units 20/F, Far East Consortium Bldg., 121 Des
          Voeux Road, Central, Hong Kong”

I was perplexed and was going to consult the legal department about the same. I was about to forward the email with a covering letter asking for assistance but decided to check the Internet hoping to get a better idea about what was happening as the whole thing seemed fishy.

When I googled “Asia DNR” the results confirmed my doubts that it was spam.

The question that was on my mind was how would the spammer gain? After researching I found that the only way they could gain was that once you respond to their email they would offer to transfer the other domains (which are similar to the name of your company) for a transfer fee of about $300 per domain! Maysoft’s blog at http://blog.maysoft.org/blog.nsf has a pretty good explanation on how the scammers benefit.

The reason why this scam might get some results is that when one receives this kind of an email the first reaction is to act and act fast without thinking much and I’m sure the spammers have managed to get responses from a lot of recipients of these kind of emails. Some of them would have paid for the additional domain names.

The lesson is that whenever you get similar emails search for similar emails on a search engine and that would help you judge whether the mail is spam or not.

Commenting on blogs for online marketing.

Commenting on popular blog’s posts is increasingly being used as a online marketing tool. If you leave a comment on a popular blog post it would be read by many people and what’s more it will remain there till the blog post is online giving you exposure on a long term basis. Blog readers see comments as a good representation of the commenter or their business.

Doshdosh blog has a post (Rethinking Blog Comments: Much More Than Just A Quick Way to Get Web Traffic) on comments where he advises blog readers to comment on posts on popular blogs to build a network. He also points out that one should not comment for the sake of link building because it might serve a short term benefit of increasing your website’s page rank but in the long term it would not be an advantage.

Comments and links in the comments should be relevant to the content of the post to generate more click throughs. Bloggers and blog readers usually do read comments and if your comments are relevant more readers are likely to follow the links, if there are any, in your comments. All bloggers would tell you that they like comments on their posts as the main purpose of posting on a blog is to generate a discussion amongst it’s readers. What’s more developing a network with people of similar interest will be beneficial in the long run.

Doshdosh mentions in his post how he caught a known Internet marketer leaving same comments on number of blogs and posts! Doshdosh promptly marked his comments as spam. The loss for the marketer was that he lost an opportunity to build a network. This is a great example how commenting for the sake of commenting might not be beneficial or might lead to negative publicity.

Therefore, one should comment on blogs for developing relationships and one’s network and not to reap short term benefits.

Update (June 2, 2008)

Since I posted here I was confused about whether one should insert a link to one’s website or blog in the main comments itself because I had seen some of the commentators doing that. I found the answer at a post on Search Engine Journal blog in the post named SEO & Link Building Via Blog Comments. In this post it is clearly mentioned NOT to add links in the comment body unless required. To quote “But do not place a signature link in the comment body itself except for critical circumstances. Linking to your own site in the comment body is not only spammy in nature, but can also get your name, site, email and IP flagged by ’social’ blog spam software like SpamKarma, and get your comments automatically deleted from dozens of blogs which use the application.” Since the author of the blog is Loren Baker who is the editor of the blog and also an authority in the arena of Search Engine Marketing I believe what he says is correct.

DMiracle has a post which discusses the advantages of branding your blog comments. You can get it here Do You Brand Yourself in Your Blog Comments?

Recession Proof Jobs

In the last little while there has been a recession across the world and people have been fearing pay cuts or loss of jobs. However, some parts of the world like China and India, though these countries have more than half of the manpower of the world, have not been hit by a recession that badly. One thought that comes to mind is “are there any jobs which are not effected by recession?” as is the case with some businesses where some businesses are less effected if a recession is on. Some of the examples of businesses which are less effected by recession are healthcare, the federal government, technology, information technology and sales and marketing (to some extent).

While looking for answers on the Internet (my favorite hunting ground) I came across this article on the Payscale web site. Payscale is a website which provides information on salary trends across industries and it was reviewed earlier on the AfterTheDotNet blog. A study done by Kristina Cowan has tried to identify recession proof jobs and businesses. In another post Kristina Cowan discusses how to recession proof your present job.

While conducting research on jobs not effected by recession Jon Bender, managing partner with PrincetonOne, a New Jersey-based recruiting firm observes that recession proof jobs are there where people require goods and services regardless, like healthcare and pharmaceuticals. Therefore anyone who makes or saves money for the company is safe in a recession.

Federal jobs though not easy to get are usually safe as usually an employee is transferred if the services that he is giving are not required during a recession. Moreover, the add-ons of Federal jobs are tremendous. However, one should try and look for federal jobs when the recession is not there since the chances of getting a job during a recession are tougher.

During a recession one should concentrate on the job work harder and take less risks and not make any drastic decisions. One needs to ensure that his contribution is noticed by the seniors during the meetings and the monthly, quarterly and yearly reports. When meeting the seniors or managers you should say where you are doing good, where you can improve. All these practices should be put in practice in the good times for if your attitude changes during a recession it will not have the desired effect as someone might construe that you are insecure about your job.

Experts believe that to identify recession proof jobs or industries is more difficult than it was 15 years ago. The best way to recession proof your job is to ensure that the management sees value being added because of you in the organization. Sometimes you have to be proactive to ensure that the management sees value in your job. If you have not been doing it in the past start practicing it right now and in a couple of years you will feel that your job is recession proof. How recession proof your job is directly proportional to the ability to multi task. The more ability you have to multi task the more recession proof your job is.

The lesson in the end is that ensure everyone sees value of your work in the organization and everyone recognizes your ability to multi task. So get working on these values before the recession really sets in.

Suggested readings

1. An excellent article on how to make yourself and your job recession proof
2. A article by AOL jobs team on how to prepare yourself in case of a recession
3. This post on the Babalu blog argues that we are not headed for a recession
4. More articles and white papers by Kristna Cowan

Manage your online MS Office documents at Google docs

Till Google docs came by it was not convenient to create, edit and store your office 2007 documents online. With a  reliable company backing Google docs (Google bashers please excuse) the security risk is considerably less. The good thing with Google docs is that development has not stopped. Upgrades and additional features are being added by the development team which makes the service more usable and also keeps people interested in the service since there is something new after a few days. Some of the new features are

• Google had added a presentation tool to the Google docs service. Now you can store the slides as PDF’s which can be used to recreate the presentation quickly later if needed online or offline! If you want to do a presentation offline you can do it by using the PDF’s saved in the presentation
• Deeper directory structure can be built. Earlier users were restricted as far as creating sub folders. This restriction has been removed (source Google docs blog).
• Renaming of folders and documents is possible now from the toolbar itself is a great improvement from earlier method where one had to go to the folder or the document to edit it.

• Forms is another feature which is very usable. Now you can create forms within Google docs and send it via an email to anyone. They won’t need to sign in, and they can respond directly from the email message or from an automatically generated web page. The responses are added to the spreadsheet automatically. In fact using Google gadgets one can put this on any website as well and maintain the form from there.

• DocSyncer is another tool which is a very usable and beneficial. Once you have a Google Docs account and you install DocSyncer after downloading it from here, DocSyncer searches your documents and desktop folder for office documents and automatically uploads them to your Google Docs account. In fact later it keeps syncing the desktop and ‘my documents’ folder so that you have the latest versions online. You can also choose which documents to sync and you can also add other directories and folders to the syncing queue. The tool is free to use. Similar tools can be found at OpenOffice.org2GoogleDocs extension and OpenOffice.org2GoogleDocs extension.

• Google has released a simple one-purpose application called Google Uploader that lets you upload multiple documents at once to a Google Docs account, as well as add right-click uploading options for all the document types accepted by the free online office suit. Earlier the same could be done by sending emails to your Google Docs account but restriction on size and types of file was there. Google Uploader is a simpler , effective tool, and it seems to work pretty quickly. Google Docs Uploader is a free download for Windows only and requires .NET Framework 2.0.

With these additional features Google Docs is good system to store files which you might need to access away from your computer. I’m certainly going to start using Google Docs as a backup for my MS Office files.

Blogging - An emerging (or emerged!) trend.

Blogging is an emerging career for a lot of people who are interested in exploring the world and the knowledge through their writings.  Through blogging we all are trying to explore the writer of our inner selves.  Blogs, or web logs, are one of the fastest-growing means of mass communication now days. Anybody who wants to utilize their skills can just start blogging as a freelancer and can earn handsome money. It is a good way to create and maintain public relations… Now let’s explore some thing more about this field.

Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs.

There are wide array of blogs featuring art, photographs videos etc etc ……. Blogs which consists of short blogs are termed as micro blogging.  .There is various types of blogs, and each differs in the way content is delivered or written.

There are various search engines which help in searching content and the online communities’ helps in connecting the bloggers to the world.

There are various definitions of blogs. For me it is a chronological publication of personal thoughts often bedecked or ornamented by a text, images, objects or photographs depending on one’s own creativity.

The activity of updating a blog is “blogging” and someone who keeps a blog is a “blogger.”‘

With the advent and awareness of technology, people are trying to use the Internet beyond email, surfing and chatting. Therefore people have started blogging from around the world.

Blogs are usually (but not always) written by one person and are updated pretty regularly. Blogs are often (but not always) written on a particular topic - there are blogs on virtually any topic you can think of. From photography, to spirituality, to recipes, to personal diaries to hobbies - blogging has as many applications and varieties as you can imagine. Blogs usually have a few features that are useful to know about if you want to get the most out of them as a reader.

Its not just something for young people, or geeks, or cool folk, or Westerners, or even for people with their own computers - instead its virtually for anyone who has an access to the Internet and wants to connect with the world.

Search for free MP3’s on the Internet

Music listening is something that is used by most of the computer users because it transcends preference of OS, size or the power of the computer that you one uses. MP3 is the most used format for listening to music. MP3 playback is now supported by most home audio players and listening to MP3 on a handheld and mobile phones has also increased the usage of MP3.

MP3s are available on the Internet though some of them are illegal. Users with limited exposure to the Internet have a challenge in finding MP3 music on the Internet. The music industry has been trying hard to clamp down usage of unauthorized music and therefore for in some countries (I pity them) users cannot buy or download MP3’s from illegal servers like Pirate Bay or unauthorized Torrent servers and that has not made things any easier. However there are some MP3 search engines which are creditable. Some of the ones I recommend are

Seeqpod

Seeqpod is a MP3 search service that has been developed using complex search algorithms which help in finding MP3 songs on the Internet. You can find specific artists and listen to them play as you surf, share music with friends, even embed the tunes in your Web site or blog. Using the ‘discover’ button you can find music that has been discovered recently by users of Seeqpod. Now Seeqpod is Iphone compatible making it very easy to search music using Seeqpod and other services like Songza have developed applications that with the help of Seeqpod.

Beemp3

Beemp3 is an mp3 search engine which has 800 000 mp3 files in their search database and approximately 10 000 files are added daily.

MP3Realm

Mp3Realm is an evolving search engine focused distinctively on audio in Mp3 format. Mp3Realm also index’s lyrics, so you can sing along to your favorite songs.The speed of the download’s you find, will vary. This is because the files you download are not hosted by Mp3Realm servers, they are gathered from crawling the web. Mp3Realm hosts no mp3 files.

SkreemR

SkreemR is a search engine for locating audio files on the web. SkreemR crawls the Internet for audio tracks and then provides the information for you to listen, download, or find out more about audio that you are interested in.

One neat SkreemR feature is the built-in music player that lets you preview a song before downloading it. It’s also interesting that you can rate search results. This might come in handy for filtering out junk audio files. . SkreemR wants to launch you into the Internet music community.

These search engines would help you find a MP3 file if it exists on the Internet. Be warned though that since these search engine don not host the files they do not take responsibility of the genuine of the MP3’s which you find and download using them. Therefore ensure that the MP3 you are downloading is legal.

There are some other services which people use to listen to music like Pandora or Last.fm. Some geeks have tutorials on how to search for MP3 using a Google as well. In the end you need to insure that you are not doing something illegal and once you assure that then it is happy listening to you.

Best web applications of 2007

As the year comes to an end one is tempted to find out the top web apps for the year. This is not easy to do so because of the number of applications that are being released every day. Once you have your list of top web apps then you want to compare the results what others are saying.

I decided to list the top 5-8 web applications which have been the most useful to me in 2007. I knew that the biggest problem was that there were web applications which are great but I have not tried them even though I signed up for them but never got to test them for the want of time. Nevertheless here is my list

1. Google apps for your domain and Google web apps
   I have been using Google for your domain for my office and it has been a big time saver and has made management of email accounts, documents, chat and scheduling much easier. Google apps include Google docs, Gmail, start page for your domain, Google calendar and the API’s of Google for your domain include Gmail, start page, The biggest advantage is there is a small learning curve as the Google web applications work similar to the offline applications.
2. Opera for my Mobile
   I have a Sony Erricson W700i and the web browser Opera has been a boon for me as now I can check emails, information and also chat using Opera on my mobile. The interface of Opera is very easy to use and their latest version is a big improvement.
3. Delicious
   I started using Del.icio.us at the end of 2006 though I was not using (or abusing it!) till February 2007 because that was the time I discovered the extensions for Firefox. Bookmarking has become interesting and doable because delicious stores the bookmarks online. The fact that everyone shares the bookmarks helps in finding useful sites which you might not find otherwise through regular search engines or browsing. At times instead of searching on the search engines I conduct searches on delicious and invariabily, though the results are far less, the results have some good and interesting links.
4. Wordpress and blogging 
   Wordpress exposed me to the world of blogging and I find sharing of thoughts on a blog very satisfying and fun. Now I’m not restricted to wordpress as now I have 5 regular blogs - one of them on Tumblr (http://www.palimadra.tunblr.com), two of them on blogger, then my personal journal at http://www.afterthe.net/journal and the last one on my business’s official site. While blogging one learns a lot about the nuances of web designing and how the Internet works while keeping in touch with your points of Interest. Once you have the blog up and running one has understand how to market it and that exposes you to the real time challenges of Internet marketing.
5. Lifehacker and Personal Productivity
   Lifehacker (http://www.lifehacker.com and http://lifehack.org) has enabled me to see personal productivity from a different perspective. It is satisfying to know that other people in the world have similar problems as you and some of them are able to tackle it. Lifehacker has helped me understand myself better and also has assisted in developing different perspectives to everything in life and I’m sure would continue to do so for the rest of my life.
6. Box
   Online backup of documents had a new meaning for me. Thanks to the team at Box.net for giving me  a free account on their site where I could store my documents online. With the improved integration with Microsoft Office storing documents has become easier and the obvious thing to do.
7. Youtube
   I know a lot of people would frown on inclusion of YouTube to my list of favorites. I feel the vertical has not developed fully and it is still evolving. However, I’m sure in the years to come this would take the shape of TV on demand. Everyone, I feel, would agree changed the way video was used in one’s life and has made video format more shareable.
8. Google Analytics
   Though I’m still learning the tricks of the trade Google Analytics has added a whole new dimension  to  the areas of SEO, SEM and Internet marketing and exciting as one can measure the results from the intuitive interface of Google Analytics.

Once I had prepared a list of my best web applications I looked up to see what others were saying. There were analysis done by some of the industry observers and authorities in certain verticals. As I had expected they were very different from those on my list. Some of the links I studied were

1. http://lifehacker.com/software/lifehacker-top-10/top-10-new-and-improved-apps-of-2007-332617.php
2. http://www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/11-top-new-web-apps-of-2007.html
3. http://www.investintech.com/resources/blog/archives/78-Popular-Desktop-Apps-And-Their-Online-Alternatives.html : A must read for those who have not viewed the post. Some great alternatives to offline applications.
4. http://socialmediatrader.com/115-social-news-and-bookmark-sites-rated-by-page-rank-inbound-links-and-value/

Please share your list and help people to discover services or web applications you use as this would be a good reward to those who have developed them.

Note taking made easy

One of the toughest things to do consistently is note taking. The first challenge is how to take notes. While some people prefer contemporary method of using pen and paper. This method has its own advantage but the challenge is maintaining speed. More and more students are using a computer to do their daily tasks they are not able to develop good speed in writing and that leads to frustrations because of not being able to maintain speed while taking notes. For those who are comfortable this is a great way to make notes. If you want to use preformatted pages for taking notes then the application at pocketmod is a great tool to print sheets to take notes.

The second option is to use take notes using a software. There are a lot of shareware and freeware softwares available. If you have too much money then you can buy the shareware listed at download.com and if you are like me who hates to spend on purchasing software go through the reviews of note taking freeware for windows below and decide which one is best for you.

Scribbleit

Scibbleit is a windows based software and has been developed by JMK software and is easy to use program to manage your ideas and thoughts. Each note can contain a title, a message, time, date and an URL. Other features available are browsing through your messages, mailing a message, setting an alarm for every message, sorting your messages and more.

SimBust Note Manager

SimBust Note Manager is a simple yet robust application that allows you to easily edit, view, and organize various types of information — notes, memos, thoughts, code snippets, logs, etc. All the files can be password protected. You can also export to and import from text files. The interface is very similar to windows explorer and has three panes.Its stealthy folder key scheme, in addition to the typical file password, is especially suited for keeping confidential data, such as diaries or passwords.  Another features is that you can run this application from a thumb drive if you do not want to mess up the registries.

Essential PIM

EssentialPIM Free is the award-winning, personal information freeware which is supported by a large community of users, EPIM has been widely acknowledged as the best personal information management system on any desktop or USB flash. Since the interface is very easy EssentialPIM is regarded as a world leader in visual appointment and information systems area. Some of the features of Essential PIM are

• Tools to satisfy your calendar, contact management, to do list and notes needs.
• Synchronization with Outlook, Windows Mobile devices, Palm, iPOD, Google Calendar.
• Simple printout of any or all modules and quick export of your data into the most useful formats.
• Strong data protection using Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) algorithm.
• Intuitive interface in many languages.

Debrief Notes

Debrief® is PC software by Idealign® to assist you in making quick notes. If you are one of those who cannot get around to making notes then Debrief is for you as you can have shortcuts for typing and have notes at one place. With mouse clicks you can make general daily notes, meetings, to-dos, assignments, issues, changes, risks, decisions, research, contacts, and more.

There are three editions

1. Basic Edition: Basic notes, subject folders, daily notepad. The Basic Edition is no charge.
2. Standard Edition: More robust note features, debriefs, views, reports, export formats, categories.
3. Professional Edition: Additional contexts for tasks, cases, contact management, library, index, outlines, note decks. Plus reminders, privacy passwords, accounts, deadlines. And more.

The features of the advance version are great but the price is a discouragement.

Treepad

TreePad™ is an Personal Information Manager, Organizer, Database, and Word Processor. It is easy and intuitive to use  and saves you time allowing you to keep your notes, documents, hyperlinks and images at the brief distance of a click. TreePad™ allows you to enjoy better access, organization and control over all your data, notes, bills, projects, clients, addresses, letters, speeches, research, collections, classroom notes, Web pages, links, bibliographic listings, and whatever else your creativity enables you to entrust TreePad™ with, for good organization, easy access, and safe storage.

Treepad can be run from a external disk (such as: USB disk, pen drive, thumb drive, flash drive, memory stick, etc.) without installing it on your hard drive.

Keynote

Though support and development of Keynote has been suspended but even today it is hand solution for note taking. This freeware has the following features

1. Store many separate notes within one file
2. Tree type notes which can be arranged
3. Ability to create user-defined styles
4. Convenient keyboard shortcuts
5. Configurable activation hotkey
6. Integration with WordWeb,
7. You can protect your data files with secure encryption

Keynote is my personal favorite and would recommend it to those who do not take notes but want to start doing that. Please share what method you use to make and notes on a computer or the good old pen and paper fashion.