The adage, “if it’s too good to be true…, it probably is”, applies 10-fold in the internet scam arena.  Internet marketing scams, multi-level marketing, email scams,  investment scams, retail scams, ebay scams, craigslist scams… the list goes on.

How do you protect yourself?

A modicum of common sense is your greatest defense.  After that, google can help immensely.

How?

A little research never hurt anyone.

The Internet Is A Lot Like The “Wild West”

Untamed, uncontrollable and still very young.  Anybody can come up with an idea, set up an online store or service, and start a business with little or no money up front.  No need for qualifications, licenses or degrees.  It’s capitalism at it’s best, and worst.

The bad news is that there are tens of thousands of scammers out there who are out to get you.  The good news is that there are relatively simple ways to discover whether or not they’re for real.

Case In Point:

The example below shows a well designed “sales page”.  A sales page is a one page website that entices and/or convinces you into some kind of action.  Sometimes buying some kind of product or service, subscribing to a newsletter or simply to extract information from you that they can repackage into something else.  Here’s what to look out for:

• They use “trusted” logos to make you think they’re legit
• The 100% “trusted” graphic, top-right, which also says “satisfaction guaranteed”
• Bait – $200 – $943 per day
• Sense of urgency  – “Limited Supply”
• Call to Action – “Fast/Easy/Cash”, with arrows
• The Big Red Button – Marketing pros have used this for decades

What Happens Next?

You’re led to believe that for only $2.49 you’ll be sent the “Google Business Kit” and all you need to do is spend a few minutes online every day and all your financial worries will be over. HA!

What really happens is if you don’t read the lengthy, hard to find,  fine print, than you’ve just signed up for $60 – $100 worth of charges per month.  Check this thread – Why Google not stopping “Google Business Kit” if that is a scam? .

Did you grow up in Mayberry or the Bronx?

Even though a multitude of reputable sites with incredible deals exist on the internet, you just can’t trust anyone.  Saying that, understand that I bank online and make 90% of my electronics purchases online.  I’ve bought and sold items on ebay, and I haven’t once gotten scammed.  Why?.. because I use common sense and do my homework.  Example:

On the case above, I read the sales page, it sounded intriguing, but before I filled anything out (or in this case did not), I did a google search for “google business kit”.  As you can see the first result took me to the link above, which is a forum of people talking about their experiences with this particular product.  Further searching resulted in these links:

http://www.greentipster.com/

http://www.mikesmoneysite.com/

When you look at them, you’ll notice striking similarities.  Both of these guys copied and pasted the sales copy (writing) into a website template, bought a domain name and started promoting their sites.  The green tipster takes you to the example above, mike’s money site takes you to a landing page where you only have minutes to decide!! Oh My!!

It’s all a pitch.

AND…

Some of you may be able to make something like this work.  There is money to be made on the internet.  All I’m saying is go in with your eyes open.  Do a few google searches with the title of the website or product advertised.  Read more than one of the results to educate yourself.  Here are a couple sites I refer to for different things that are a great resource:

http://www.scams.org/

http://www.snopes.com

http://www.bbb.org/

Look at the url of the site.  Make sure it is what it said it was going to be.  READ THE FINE PRINT AND TERMS OF SERVICE (TOS).  A little bit of digging can save you time and money.

Have fun.

Facebook changed it’s terms of service earlier this month so that anything you post on FB is theirs.

Satellite TV from your PC!

The problem with being King of the Hill is that somebody is always trying to take you down. Slashdot reports that Internet Explorer (IE) market share has dropped below 70% for the first time in eight years.  IE represents the single greatest marketing tool in the Microsoft arsenal.  They are seriously concerned, but what can they do?

In an industry as vast and diverse as personal computing has become, how does a company retain such a lopsided advantage?  As humans collectively gain a greater technological understanding, we are discovering that there are options out there that perform better, are more customizable and totally FREE!

Also, when a company reaches the unfathomable enormity of Microsoft, things are bound to fall through the cracks, which doesn’t help.  Consider the recent Zune debacle.  On Dec. 31st, 2008, the Original Zune froze.  The Seattle Times reported that starting at 12:01 AM reports of frozen Zunes started flooding the blogs and user forums, affecting possibly over a million people.  A bug in the internal clock was thought to be the culprit, Zune didn’t know what to do with the 366th day.  They reportedly fired back up on Jan. 1st, 2009.

The internet began as a way for scientists, engineers and scholars to freely share information.  These intellectual superiors did not consider the newly found form of hyper communication as a revenue source, and thankfully that hippie-like flag has been carried through the current revolution and there are thousands of FREE applications available just for the asking.

LAMP is a perfect example of how all you need is a computer and the virtual world is yours.  LAMP is an acronym that stands for:

L – Linux

An Open Source Operating System (OS), developed by Linus Torvalds offers a multitude of distributions, or versions if you prefer, including Ubuntu which represents a direct challenge to the Microsoft empire.  Ubuntu, founded by Mark Shuttleworth, designed for ease of use has been gaining acceptance worldwide as a desktop application.  Linux  is already the Server OS of choice worldwide.

A – Apache

Apache is the most popular web server  software on the internet and was founded by Brian Behlendorf.

M – MySQL

MySQL, authored by Michael Widenius,  is a relational database management system which has more than 11 million installations. The program runs as a server providing multi-user access to a number of databases.

P – PHP

PHP is a scripting language originally designed for producing dynamic web pages. It was created by Rasmus Lerdorf, and  the acronym originally stood for Personal Home Page.

While Microsoft continues to force computer hardware upgrades with each new release, Ubuntu, on the other hand, works perfectly well on your old machines.  Ubuntu also includes a bundle of FREE software programs with each installation that competes with MS Office, Adobe and other popular and relevant software programs.

If you have an old machine in the garage that still works, but can’t keep up with the new MS releases, try downloading and installing Ubuntu just for fun.  As the world continues to embrace the true spirit of the information age by accepting open source more and more, the closing line of this post is directed at the King of the Hill:

“The End is Nigh”

If interested you check out what’s going on here:

Windows7 – windows 7 beta info

Windows Server 2008R2 – a sneak peak at Windows Server 2008 R2

Beta tester perks:

· Early access to downloadable beta copies of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2

· Access to private newsgroups to discuss the beta with other testers and with Microsoft staff

· Access to various online events that will highlight new features and allow you to interact with the development team

· The ability to report bugs and track their status

· An opportunity to help us build a better Windows by assisting us in finding and fixing issues

Beta testing will not start until early 2009, but in an effort to better understand their audience, Microsoft is requesting that prospective testers complete 3 “Participant Surveys” prior to being accepted. Here are the links to the surveys:

Note: You must be an approved participant for these links to work (sorry)

Participant Survey Part 1 – http://connect.microsoft.com/Survey/Survey.aspx?SurveyID=7322&SiteID=488

Participant Survey Part 2 – http://connect.microsoft.com/Survey/Survey.aspx?SurveyID=7323&SiteID=488

Participant Survey Part 3 – http://connect.microsoft.com/Survey/Survey.aspx?SurveyID=7324&SiteID=488

It’s well known that Vista was plagued from the beginning.  Dave Puckett, a former Senior Director at Sage Software, one of the largest microsoft affiliate software companies in the world, told me in January of 2007, when Vista was released, that Sage was not even going to consider upgrading to Vista for 6-8 months.

Common opinion was that Vista was not necessarily considered an “Up”-grade.  I converted many Vista machines back to XP for friends who just could’nt deal with the issues anymore or business owners who were afraid that their current programs wouldn’t work properly and their data could be endangered.

Historically, every other release from Microsoft is good.  We can’t really count 3.1 or anything prior to that release since only uber-geeks were into computers in that era. Personal computing for the masses didn’t really take off until Windows 95 was released.

• Windows 95 was great and came packed with FREE features.
• Windows 98 was okay but used FAT32 formatting which is less secure and crashed all the time.
• Windows 2000 was great.  Secure, intelligently and used the NTFS format.
• Windows Millennium was a nightmare.
• Windows XP got off to a rocky start but ended up working out really well.
• Windows Vista was nightmare II
• Windows7? Well if my assessment is accurate it should be okay.  Keep your fingers crossed.

Peace, out