PeopleareParked.com

This Wordpress blog needed to be upgraded probably 2 versions ago. I must admit, I was a little skittish about doing it, mainly because I didn’t want to mess up the files or lose data. It took several months and conversations with encouraging co-workers, who kept on telling me how easy it was. I also checked out the Wordpress site and found the three step process at http://codex.wordpress.org/Upgrading_WordPress, then an even more complicated process at http://codex.wordpress.org/Upgrading_WordPress_Extended. The last one being pages long, scared me even more with it’s length and warnings.

Today, I finally got up my courage and went for it, basically following the three step process. It actually took a few more than three steps, but wasn’t hard at all. Now, I can proudly say that PeopleareParked.com has graduated to version 2.5. We’re not parked anymore.

A few weeks ago, I wrote an article comparing Norton antivirus with the free AVG antivirus software. Still happy with the performance of AVG on my work computer. It scans for viruses everyday and I can see it scanning every incoming email, so it seem to be doing its job.

Another positive aspect of it is that it is catching all my spyware, which I didn’t have with the Norton. Using Spybot Search & Destroy, I’ve scanned my computer roughly 3-4 times over the last couple of months and no spyware was found. It was amazing, since I used to have at least 20 instances before. And it’s free, people! I’m going to definitely use it on my home computer also and spread the word to friends.

Is free antivirus software as good as paying for Norton? For years, I was brainwashed into thinking that Norton was the most reliable antivirus program and nothing free is worth taking the security risk. I don’t mind paying, if that will get me the best protection, but come on, free is always better!

Having used Norton for many years, I’ve been happy with it’s performance and its ability to thwart off viruses, Trojans etc. A couple of things have changed to make me want to find another solution though.

First, the price has been increasing. It is now $39.99 for the antivirus subscriptions for a year and is now bundled with an anti-spyware program. Then when it comes time to renew your subscriptions, the online process is so confusing to many non-technical people that they are suckered into buying more that they need, like Norton Internet Security or Norton 360.

This brings up my second issue with Norton - the dreaded bloat. I’ve had more clients buy these unnecessary add-ons, only to find out that it’s the cause of their computer slowing to a crawl because every move is being scanned before they can proceed. I end up uninstalling these programs and installing antivirus only - problem solved. Except that you better use the Norton removal tool to get rid of it totally! Would be nice if their uninstall feature really worked.

Enough about Norton and on to the better solution, AVG’s free antivirus program. Check it out at http://free.grisoft.com/. I’ve been using it for about the last six months at work and so far, have been impressed. It is set to scan every morning before I arrive to work and it doesn’t seem to take as long as Norton did. My emails are being scanned as received and outgoing can be set to scan as well (turned that option off). Updates are done automatically every day usually taking less than one minute. It has caught a couple of viruses and quarantined them appropriately.

With the bombardment of increasingly powerful viruses, worms, and Trojans, it makes sense to want the best security against them. However, anytime you can get the same or better without having to pay, it would be silly not to use the free choice.

Of course, these are my opinions based on my experience. Has anyone had a bad experience with AVG or agree with my findings? Would love to hear your comments.

It’s not bad enough that Monday means trudging back to work after the weekend for many people, but Blackberry users also lost their ability to use email. Yesterday, a major service outage affected users of the smart phones across the United States and Canada. All major carriers were affected, including AT&T and Verizon Wireless. No word on the cause or when service would resume, although there were reports of emails starting to trickle in.

That is scary and parked! Glad I don’t have a Blackberry, but it could happen potentially to any of our service providers and affect all of our communication.

From an update this morning, there is still no cause stated, at least not to the public.  Doesn’t sound like a hack job, but a software glitch as they’ve experienced in the past.  Understanding software and the potential for bugs to appear at any time, it’s a good reminder to all of us to back-up, back-up, back-up.

Found this nice little browser tip on Twitter, so wanted to pass it along.

Type “google” or any other site address in your address bar and then press Ctrl + Enter This will automatically fill in http://www. and .com

Did you know that potential employers seek information about you by doing an internet search? They may find your Facebook or MySpace pages very interesting. Not only do they seek to know your habits, preferences, background etc., but also who is associated with you. These seemingly harmless entries can actually work against you. It may not be fair or ethical, but it happens.

What can you do? Google yourself from time to time. See what comes up for your name, because that is what the rest of the world can potentially see. Take a look at your Facebook or MySpace profiles and think of what you wouldn’t want a potential employer to know about you. Pictures also speak a thousand words, so make sure they are appropriate also.

First impressions mean a lot in gaining employment, and you may not realize that yours was already given before meeting in person.

For those of you who don’t know, Alexa ranking is a measure of importance of websites in relation to all others on the web. It’s traffic rankings are based on the usage patterns of Alexa Toolbar users over a rolling 3 month period. It is based on the number of unique visitors on a given day and page view requests for a site. Only top level domains, like www.peopleareparked.com are counted and not sub-domains, like each blog posting page.

After installing the Alexa Toolbar, I’ve been watching the numbers change. When we first started PeopleareParked.com, five months ago, our Alexa ranking was 8,842,119. Almost nine million — now that’s quite a high number and makes you feel pretty insignificant! Since then, I’ve been following our number everyday and it’s been falling slowly, but making progress. As of today, the number is 419,344. A little over eight million lower — not bad.

Today’s top ranking sites are #1 Yahoo, #2 Google, and #3 You Tube — no surprises there. For the full list or more information, check out http://www.alexa.com/.

So what does it all mean? Is there really any weight to this ranking system? I’m not really sure, but it seems we’re doing something right and heading in the right direction. Traffic is slowly increasing, big thanks to all our loyal readers.

That is the question I’ve been trying to answer. What makes people comment on blogs and what can be done to encourage it?

I’ve learned some things not to do and sometimes that is the best way to learn. Perhaps by learning from my mistakes, other bloggers will benefit.

My blog is fairly new, so I’ve been trying to increase traffic to get people to read in the first place. One mistake I made was to require users to register before they could add their two cents. My main reason was not wanting to deal with all the SPAM posted automatically - wrong! This actually deters people from commenting because they have to take that extra step and give out more information than desired. Come to think of it, I like to be able to add comments to other blogs without making me jump through hoops. It just took me a bit longer to apply my own experiences to my blog.

I also turned off the option to send an email to my account every time someone comments. Found that this was not necessary, since I login to my blog everyday at least once anyhow.

Need to moderate every comment? I also found this cumbersome. The answer… add a SPAM filter like Akismet or something similar. Akismet came with my blog set up, so I just activated it and so far, so good.

If you liked what I wrote or have further suggestions, please comment!

What kind of hosting do you really need for blogs? What are important qualities for a blog or simple website host to possess?

Here’s some that are important to me:

1. Reliability
2. Ease of use
3. Reasonable price
4. Useful options in control panel
5. High uptime guarantee
6. Money back guarantee
7. Reasonable amount of included bandwidth
8. Reasonable amount of included server space
9. Quality customer support and quick responses
10. Useful statistics

I’ve used many different hosting companies over the years and in my opinion the best is HOSTGATOR. Easy to set-up, reliable, low cost. $7.95/month - not bad.

An added bonus is the simple set-up for Wordpress, using Fantastico. This feature helps you automatically install the Wordpress script and set up the MySQL database too. Nice option to have if you’re not familiar with setting up databases.

Follow the banner on the right sidebar or click here for more information and sign up.

As many of you have heard, David Airey, a graphic artist from the UK, had his domain hacked and stolen. Since his blog is popular, he announced that he would be going away on vacation, so his fans would be aware of the blank time period. According to his story, during this time, someone hacked into his domain registrar’s account, redirected it to another site and then held the name for ransom.

After going in circles with his domain registration company, web hosting company, and the hacker himself, David finally found how the hack was initiated. Turns out, it was a Google GMail vulnerability (Google GMail E-mail Hijack Technique). Evidently, this issue has been fixed, but David is still a victim, who hasn’t gotten his domain back yet.

What can be learned from this awful experience?

1. Re-read my earlier post on passwords. Basically, don’t use the same one for all sites and make them more secure by using letter and number combinations.
2. Don’t forecast that you will be going away on vacation. It’s like putting a sign on your house that you won’t be there, making you more vulnerable to burglars.
3. Don’t use free email accounts like GMail and Yahoo, for your main business email account.
4. Use reputable hosting and domain registration companies.
5. Make sure all your domains are locked. Sounds like David Airey’s was locked, but you don’t want to make it easier for anyone to transfer.
6. Check your email, even while on vacation. I know… I don’t want to either, but this is a case and point on what can happen. Even if it’s just once every few days or in the least, once a week, you’ll keep watch on a site or business that’s very important to you. If you really can’t, maybe you can entrust a friend with this task.
7. Don’t allow Firefox or IE to store your passwords.
8. Don’t encourage these thieves by paying ransom. I applaud David for not giving in to this blackmailing scheme.
9. Keep your own computer more secure by clearing cookies/history, and having firewalls etc.
10. Some sites that might help, if you are a victim - ICANN, or even the FBI.

Thank you, David Airey, for sharing you story, so that we all might learn from it and good luck.