We're happy to announce the launch of our latest joint project with 9zero6, the new website for the Alger County Chamber of Commerce. Visit the Chamber at www.algercounty.org.

Hello!
Welcome to the July edition of The Maestro Monthly, an email newsletter published by Web Maestro, LLC. The intent of this publication is to bring you news and updates on Web Maestro services, local business news, as well as general Web related news.

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Is Your Browser a Little Long in the Tooth?

by Nathan Lyle

Your business uses a computer that still runs Windows 98. The rest of the world is several versions of operating system ahead of you, but you don't care because you're still able to do the work you need to do, and if it ain't broke, why fix it. Right? Yes, unless you're connected to the Internet.

First, the scary stuff. You don't have to be using email or surfing the Web to be at risk. If your computer is plugged into the Internet (particularly through an "always on" connection like a cable modem) then you have the potential for your computer to be compromised from the outside. The older your software, the easier it is for less ethical people to find ways into your system because there's been more time to discover bugs and create hacks. If you plan to connect your computer to the Internet, you'll save yourself a lot of grief by figuring out a way to keep your software relatively current.

There are many potential points of entry. The operating system itself is likely to have components that were designed to communicate over the Internet. Most systems also come by default with at least one email program and one Web browser. The browser is our focus for the moment, as it's the most commonly used Internet related software on most computers used by businesses.

You don't have to use your browser to visit "naughty" websites to be at risk. Legitimate websites can be compromised so that anyone visiting them may unknowingly download viruses and spyware... so it's not just a question of sticking to the websites you're familiar with. Aside from having good antivirus and firewall software in place, the easiest and best thing you can do is make sure you keep your browser up to date. Most popular browsers are updated frequently. If you're not the type who enjoys downloading or installing software, you can usually set your browser to update itself automatically.

Even if you're not a "tech person" it can't hurt to familiarize yourself with your Web browser's settings and functions. It's a little like owning and driving a car. When you're driving, the more you know about your vehicle, and how it works, the safer you'll be.

If you use the browser that came with your computer, you may not be familiar with the various choices that are out there. (And they're all free!) The most popular browsers are currently Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Opera. You can have any or all of these on your computer at the same time. You can typically find out what version your browser is by looking in the "help" or "about" menu for details. Some browsers will even have an "update" button in the same area to make it easy to get updates. By keeping your browser updated, you'll help ensure that you're as protected as possible from the Internet jungle.

One of the common tricks used by hackers is to create what looks like a Windows pop-up dialogue box. They're hoping you'll click on any of the buttons, which then tells the browser to download viruses or spyware. If you're not sure about something, don't click it! If in doubt, just close the browser window, or the browser itself. Just because something looks a certain way on the Web, you can't take it for granted. This goes for actual websites too. A common "phishing" tactic is to recreate the login page of a bank and then trick people into attempting to enter their username and password. The really slick phishing sites then forward the person to the real bank site, while storing the login in their own database, giving them access to the bank account with the visitor likely not even noticing. The best way to avoid this is to always be aware of the address of websites you visit, which will display in the URL or address field toward the top of your browser. The website http://wellsfargo.com is not the same as http://wellsfargo.com.ibank.ru. (Something like the second example is likely to be a dangerous site.)

Finally, a common misunderstanding about browsers is that viewing websites through a browser is like "window shopping" while you walk down the street, where you see things as you pass but have not gone in to the store or committed to anything in particular. You should know that every bit of text, image, video, audio, etc., has already been downloaded to your computer by the time you view it. Your browser keeps a "cache" of these files. To view a website, your browser collects all the needed files for a page, and then puts it all together and displays it for you. This matters, because once a file is on your computer, it's much more potentially dangerous. This is why an older browser (with more known weaknesses) is a large security risk.

It may seem overwhelming, but with the auto update capability of most browsers, it's not too dificult to stay up to date and at least relatively safe.

Common Web Browsers

• Firefox – firefox.com
• Opera – opera.com
• Safari - apple.com/safari
• Chrome - google.com/chrome
• Internet Explorer - microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer

Want to read more articles? Read previously published articles on our website's article archive.

Miscellaneous Maestro Minutia

Last month we announced the upcoming price increase for .com and .net domain names that was to begin July 1st. While this base price increase is still taking place at the registrar level, we have decided to NOT raise our own price to you. In fact, we are slighly reducing the price to bring most of our TLDs to one price - $11.95 (which includes the 18¢ ICANN fee). Our goal is to offset the difference in cost with our new automated system. It's not a huge decrease, but we try to keep all of our pricing in the most affordable range possible.

We'll see you next month. Oh, and before I forget, happy birthday USA! The 4th of July is one of my favorite holidays, an all too rare reminder of how lucky we are.

Sincerely,
Nathan Lyle

Website: www.webmaestro.biz
Email: nathan@sylvaniawebmaestro.com
Blog: www.webmaestro.biz/blog

Business Tip

Protect Your Name

A domain name is pretty cheap these days. There's no reason not to "play it safe" and register multiple domain names for your website, all forwarding to your primary domain name. Possible additional names to consider would be misspellings or abbreviated versions that someone might search for or type, or even a domain name based on your company tag line or slogan.

Beyond casting a wider net to bring in more traffic to your website, you will also make it harder for others to mooch off of yoru success. There's a reason that yaho.com and goolge.com have been registered by the owners of the correctly spelled domains—if you were able to spend ten bucks to register a name that thousands or millions of people accidentally typed into a browser every day, just think of what you could do with that! (Or imagine what your competitor could do with a different version of your name!)

other places you can find us

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Latest Blog Posts

• The Future of the Internet (and how to stop it)
• A Regularly Updated Browser is a Happy Browser

Web/Technology News

Bing Turns One: Increased Market Share, But Little Impact on Google

A year after Microsoft officially re-launched its search product under the Bing brand, the search engine has made progress in terms of both market share and its share of marketers' paid search spend. However, the majority of that shift has come at Yahoo's expense, as opposed to that of search giant and market leader Google. [read more]

Twitter at a crossroads once again

Twitter acknowledged recently that "from a site stability and service outage perspective, it's been Twitter's worst month since last October." It's a big embarrassment for a company that, over the past year or two, has managed to clean up its reputation for technical instability and that this spring one-upped critics by unveiling a business model that looks like it might actually work. [read more]

Google Docs makes it easier to share--or not

Google has rolled out out a few new tweaks to its Google Docs platform to give people greater control over how to share and collaborate on documents with their colleagues. Google Docs users will now be able to set the visibility of each document in one of three ways to determine whether and how it's public or private. The "Public on the Web" option lets anyone on the Internet find and access your document. You can publish its URL on any public Web page, and the document itself is indexed by Google and other search engines. [read more]

Fans Flock to Entertainment Brands in Facebook's New 'Like' Era

When Facebook killed the "Become A Fan" button in favor of "Like," it breathed a whole lot of life into entertainment brands on the social site. As just one example, NBC TV's "The Office" went from 1.5 million fans (or in the new parlance, "People Like This") before the switch was made on April 19 to 3.8 million now. [read more]

iPhone 4 is out, complaints are in

Though the iPhone 4 is flying off store shelves, the just-released device is already gathering complaints from early buyers. Apple's latest phone hit stores Thursday to lines of people—some who were waiting 6 hours to buy one. But almost as soon as the device arrived on the doorsteps of customers who placed early preorders came reports of reception problems, discolored spots on the screen, easily scratched exteriors, and issues with third-party accessory connections. [read more]

Opinions / Editorial

Trying to please

Who is your marketing or your product or your effort trying to please? Every campaign that I've ever seen fail has failed for precisely the same reason: it pleases the wrong person. Think about it... it wouldn't have launched if it hadn't pleased the boss or the client, right? Pleasing the wrong person meant failure. [read more]

Colbert skewers NY Times for banning 'tweet'

I know you, like so many, will never be able to live without the word "tweet." It has become as much a part of our lives as "iPad", "troll" and "Lol." Not everyone thinks this way, however. The New York Times, for one, announced that its writers would no longer be so cavalier as to use the Twitter byword. [read more]

A sad truth about most traditional b2b marketing

I was at a conference recently where the senior executives spent the entire day talking about profits, market share and growth... they never once mentioned that the pharmaceuticals they were selling were saving lives, or that changes in the product or its pricing could reduce side effects or the load on the patient and her doctor. This disconnect is becoming less common, but it still happens. [read more]