COMPUTER SOLUTION: 11/17/11

Making Money with E-Books

Electronic Books or e-books are books in software form that can easily be distributed over the Internet. One of the biggest obstacles to making money on the Internet is coming up with a great product to sell. Here's a great way to come up with that product.

Nearly everyone has some specialized knowledge that can be turned into an e-book and marketed on a web site for fun and profit. In fact it is a good bet that YOU have valuable knowledge that you can share with others.

You can find several e-books about setting up a profitable web site and creating content such as e-books to sell on the Internet.

There are many advantages to selling e-books over regular printed books. The first is that they are mucheasier to distribute. Your e-book can be easily written for any audience and marketed to people all over the world interested in your knowledge. Although it is a good idea to offer both electronic and printed versions of your e-book, upfront printing, storage, handling and shipping costs are kept to a minimum by preparing an e-book. Advertising costs are generally less expensive on the Internet then they are in newspapers, magazines or other traditional media.

Another advantage of electronic publishing is that it is very easy to add illustrations and even sound and video files to your e-book. If you have many sounds or videos, you may want to publish your e-book on a CD-ROM which will add some of the traditional expenses back into the picture, but the value of your work will be significantly higher than publishing a printed book.

Search Engine Optimization

Every webmaster should know something about search engine optimization. Basically this has to do with making your site rank higher on search engines. This is probably your most important task because search engines will always be the most important way to aquire visitors for most websites.

The first thing you must do is determine which keywords (ie, words that a potential visitor will type into a search engine) will bring the most qualified visitors to your website. To do this, find your competitors on the web and figure out what words they are targeting. You can do this by viewing the source of their web pages and looking at their titles and descriptions.

There is a delicate balance between choosing keywords that are too general and keyword phrases that are too specific. For instance, if you sell auto parts, then the keyword "auto" would be too general (because a search on "auto" would include auto makers, etc.) and the keywords "beautiful auto parts" would be too specific (because very few people would search for these keywords).

You should include specific brand names, and other common descriptions for your products in your keyword list. Sign up for a Google Adwords account and use their keyword suggestion tool to find out how many people search for various keyword combinations.

Include as many keywords as possible in:

The Title of the page
The Description of the page
The first paragraph of the page
The file name of the page (if possible)
The alt tags of any graphics on the page
The page headings of the page

There is quite a lot more information about this subject on the Internet and many people who make a living optimizing web pages for other website owners.

Advertising

You can advertise your web site several ways. There are "Banner Exchanges" where you place an ad for your site on someone else's site in exchange for placing an ad on your site for theirs. Banners have become less effective recently, so many webmasters prefer text links, which have a more personal look.

You can pay to have an advertisement placed on someone else's web site. Sometimes these ads are paid for on a per click basis. Other times you pay a commission on any sale that the ad generates. Sometimes this is called an Affiliation program.

Many search engines have Pay-per-click programs. Google's Adwords is a good example of one of the biggest of these programs. I feel this is still the best way to advertise my websites, but bids on PPC (pay per click) keywords are getting much more expensive, and click fraud (inadvertant or fraudulanet clicks that you still pay for but do not bring you a real customer) is becoming more of a problem.

Here are the search engine advertising PPC programs that I like the best:

ABCSearch

Exactseek.com

goClick.com

Google Adwords

SearchFeed.com

Yahoo! Search Marketing - formerly Overture

You can also run ads in newsletters, newspapers or magazines.

Classified advertising is often a good way to get started in promoting your web site. There are both free and paid classified available on the Internet.

For more information see the Advertising section on this web site.

Promote the site

There are a number of ways to promote your site once you have it up and running. Probably the most important way is through search engines or directories. Another way is by advertising. A third way is by publicity. Here are some great reports on setting up and promoting a web site.

Here's an important free report on The Top 10 Internet Marketing Blunders! Make sure you don't commit these common errors.

Advertising

Upload, update and maintain the site

Once you have your domain name and web host provider, you can start creating your web site. The first thing you need to do is to register your server IP addresses with whoever you registered your domain name with, so that web surfers who try to access your domain name will be connected to your server. There are two names and numbers they will need to know, called the primary and secondary DNS names and IP addresses. These will be supplied by your web host or server administrator.

While this administrative step is taking place, you should create a home page (at least a temporary one) and FTP it to your new web server. If you already have your web site ready to go, then go ahead and upload it and start testing to make sure everything looks and works the way you want it to. The only thing you will need for this step is your server's main IP address, your user name and the password for your web server account to enter into your FTP program. Here'a good primer on using FTP.

If you're having someone else design your site then they will probably take care of these steps for you. Otherwise, some HTML editing programs have the ability to upload files to your server automatically. If you're not using one of these, there are FTP clients such as CuteFTP (Windows) and Fetch (Macintosh) that you can use to upload files to your server. You may also need to use Telnet to communicate with the server.

From time to time, you will need to update the site. You should check periodically to make sure all the links on your site are still valid. There may be other information that needs updating too. You will probably want to add pages to your site as well. Most sites continue to grow and grow.

You should also test your site for browser compatibility, broken links, etc. Different browsers display your pages slightly differently and it is good to find any problems your pages might have before your viewers come and then leave after an unsatisfactory experience. Here are a few sites that will help you test your web page's compatibility:

ANY BROWSER- Checks for browser compatibility.
Web Page Backward Compatibility Checker - Allows you to check your web pages on lower generation browsers.

Find a web host provider

After you've got all the planning and at least most of the production work out of the way, you can look for a web hosting service. There are many of these, offering many levels of size and services. Here are a few things to consider:

Auto responders
Bandwidth
Blogging software
Free Domain Name Registration
Mailing Lists
Monthly fees
Search Engines
Secure Server Access
Server space
Set-up fees
Shopping carts
Toll free technical support
Web Control Panel
Virtual Server

Here are some web hosting companies I recommend:

This site hosted by GoDaddy.com who offers many reasonably priced packages and great customer service.
AIS Media - Full service hosting including: Web design, e-commerce, dedicated servers, and reseller programs.
GlobalNet - Website hosting services and low cost domain hosting solutions.

This Ecommerce Total Package includes absolutely everything anyone needs to open an online store. There is no programming necessary, so literally anyone can do it, even Internet newcomers. It includes secure credit card processing and free web hosting. It also comes with the Cyber Circular, an email tool that helps make sales, the Admin System for transaction management, and Store Statistics.

New Domain Names Available

The Internet has several new extensions for domain names, which work the same as the .com names. One of these is the .cc extension, which is really the country code for the Cocos Islands, but is now being offered for anyone's use.

There are also some other TLDs being used in new ways, such as .tv which is the country code for Tuvalu, a small Pacific Island nation, which has entered into an agreement with dotTV, to market .tv domain names to the general public. If you're business has something to do with television, a .tv name might be good for you.

Similarly .ws (short for "website") is the country code for Samoa, but is now available for use by the public. If your preferred .com domain name is taken, and you can't wait for or afford a .biz name, you might consider .ws instead.

Domain Name Parking

If you're not quite ready to find a web host and set up your web site, or you have a host but no content yet, but you've decided on a great domain name, you can still register that name. Many registrars will provide you with a page for free that you can "park" your domain on, until you get your web site together. You still have to pay the Registrar's fees to park or reserve a domain name.

Choose a Domain Name

When you sign up with an ISP you are usually given some web server space to use. The URL for these web sites is generally something like www.ispname.net/~yourname. Although this may be good enough for personal home pages, a real business should invest in a domain name of their own.

The biggest problem with choosing a domain name is finding one that hasn't already been registered. Some names that have been registered are not currently in use and others have been abandoned. There are people who buy up domain names in hopes of selling that name to someone in the future. To check on the availability of a name here are several possibilities. My favorite place to buy domain names is GoDaddy.com the world's largest registrar.

A good domain name should give the user some idea about the name or nature of your business. Short names are easier to remember, advertise and enter into a browser. There used to be a limit to the length of your name to 23 characters. That limit is now 67 characters, so if a short name doesn't suit you or the name you really want is already taken, perhaps a longer name will do.

There is some debate about the use of hypens in domain names. I like them because it makes the name easier to read. Adding keywords (terms people may use in a search engine) to your domain name is a good idea. Adding hyphens helps search engines identify these keywords. The downside is that the domain name becomes hard to say (ie, about hyphen the hyphen web dot com).

There are seven common extensions you can get for your name. They are .org (usually reserved for non-profit organizations), .edu (for educational organizations), .gov (for government web sites), .net (for Internet service providers), .info (for informative website), .biz (for business websites) and .com (for commercial ventures).

There are several ways to create a web site including:

Web design company
Independent contractor
Knowledgeable friends and relatives
Free web site generators
ISP's, Web Hosts and Malls
Building it yourself by hand
Building it yourself with tools

Organize the content for your site

Once you have all of these elements in hand, you can begin to organize your site by deciding what categories of information you have to present and placing each category on a separate page. You might want to do a sketch of each page that shows where each element goes and what page (or other web site) each link goes to. In the process of doing this, you may discover other content that needs to be acquired before creating your site.

It is a good idea to look at other web sites and see how they are organized and then decide what might work best for your site.

Find or create the content for the site

You will need to assemble all the content for your site before actually creating the site. This includes writing all the text describing your business, products or organization (including an overview for the main page, specific product descriptions, information or articles, order forms, etc.) ; finding graphics that illustrate those products or ideas (including logos, photos, drawings, illustrations, brochures, etc.); organizing other elements that you want to include (including sounds, videos, animations, etc.).

You may want to hire a writer or editor to help with the creation or polishing of the text. Graphics will have to be scanned or created by a graphic artist and then converted into gifs or jpegs. Sounds, videos and animations must be converted into an appropriate format for the web.

Web sites roughly divide into these categories:

Personal - sites mostly about the people who create them, including hobbies, family members, poetry or photography, and favorite links.
Brochures - sites that tell all about a businesses or organization's benefits and features, including contact, service, product and ordering information.
Communication - these sites include bulletin boards, chat rooms, etc.
E-commerce - sites that have products to sell including retailers, auctions, wholesalers, etc.
Entertainment - sites whose main objective is to entertain you, including adult content web sites.
Information - sites about a particular subject, offering lots of information and links to other sites.Wikipedia is an excellent example of an information website.
Portals - sites whose primary function is to link you to other sites. This generally includes search engines and directories. Portals such as Excite often offer news services and other features that you can personalize, such as the scores of your favorite sports team, or stock prices.

If you are planning on having products to sell, then you need to look for Web Hosting Services with e-commerce options such as large server space, shopping carts and other special programming capabilities, as well as merchant accounts for processing credit card payments.

Information sites are usually less complex and do not require e-commerce options or large amounts of server space. Some very large information sites will use databases and .php (all purpose server side scripting program), .asp (Active Server Pages - used on Miscrosoft servers) or .jsp (Java Server Pages - used on UNIX servers) to help deliver vast amounts of information. Java and JavaScript are client side programming languages that can be used to implement more complex features or graphical presentations.

Here are some great reports on setting up and promoting a web site.

Creating and Promoting Web Sites

A Web Site is a collection of web pages that are related and organized in some way. The better the content and the better the organization of that content, the better the web site.

Planning

There are some technical things to consider when planning a web site. If your target audience is likely to be very high tech, or you have a relatively captive audience such as an Intranet, you can plan to add more bells and whistles to your site. These might include lots of graphics, animation, sound and video.

If you are trying to appeal to the mass market, you might consider doing without some of the graphics, animations, etc. in order to minimize the time it takes for your web pages to load. Many users will get impatient and leave your site after only a few seconds if they feel like nothing is happening.

Web sites roughly divide into these categories:

How Do Browsers Work

A web browser works by using a protocol called HTTP to request a text document from a web server. The text document contains special instructions (usually written in HTML) that tell the browser how to display the document on the user's screen. The instructions may include references (hyperlinks) to other web pages, information about text formatting and color, and position information for images contained in the document.

Browser Features

Most browers contain the following features. Some of these may be presented as buttons (or icons) in a toolbar. If you don't find a button, you will find a menu item in one of the menus provided. You can usually customize the toolbar to include any or all of these features:

Address field
: This area is where the URL (web page address) for the web page is displayed or entered. (A field is a text entry or display area.) In many browsers, there's a little downward facing arrow next to this field. When you click on the arrow you will see a list of recently visited websites. Clicking one of these URLs will take you to that website. You can also enter a URL into this field and then press enter or return to go to the website. In some browsers there is a "Go" button next to this field that initiates a server request after typing in a URL. By the way, you don't usually have to type in the "http://" part of the URL. Most browsers will add that information in for you when you press enter or return.
Autofill Forms Button

: When you encounter a page that has a form on it, such as an order page, this button will make filling out the form much easier. See the Autofill section in Preferences to use this feature.
Back Button
: Use this button to go back to the previous page opened in this particular browser window. In some browsers, holding the mouse down on this button produces a menu of previous pages, that you can then choose from. In other browsers, there's a little arrow next to the Back button that produces this menu.
Bookmarks or Favorites
: You can easily create a shortcut to your favorite web pages by using the Bookmark (or Favorites) menu or button. This is a very important feature and it works a little differently in each browser. In Internet Explorer, use the Favorites Menu to Add to Favorites. You can then use the Organize Favorites menu item to place your bookmark in a folder or particular place in the list. In Netscape, FireFox and Safari, choose Add Bookmark from the Bookmark menu. You can then choose Show All or Manage Bookmarks to create folders and/or rearrange your bookmarks. In most browsers you can also place favorite websites to an area just above the main browser window.
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Browsers

Browsers are the software that allows you to access the World Wide Web. The most popular browsers are Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Mozilla FireFox, Netscape Browser and Apple's Safari.

Browser Features

Most browers contain the following features. Some of these may be presented as buttons (or icons) in a toolbar. If you don't find a button, you will find a menu item in one of the menus provided. You can usually customize the toolbar to include any or all of these features:

Address field
: This area is where the URL (web page address) for the web page is displayed or entered. (A field is a text entry or display area.) In many browsers, there's a little downward facing arrow next to this field. When you click on the arrow you will see a list of recently visited websites. Clicking one of these URLs will take you to that website. You can also enter a URL into this field and then press enter or return to go to the website. In some browsers there is a "Go" button next to this field that initiates a server request after typing in a URL. By the way, you don't usually have to type in the "http://" part of the URL. Most browsers will add that information in for you when you press enter or return.
Autofill Forms Button

Free E-Mail Programs

Why would you need more than one e-mail account? Free e-mail accounts live on a very public server, so they can be accessed from anywhere in the world. If you have an e-mail account at work or at school, it might be a good idea to get another address to have your personal e-mail sent to. That way, if you leave your job or graduate, you won't lose all your email and you'll still be able to get your mail at the free account. They can be slightly more secure than normal (especially company) e-mail accounts too. They are also, more permanent. As long as you keep your account in use (it will get deleted if not used for several months) it will be accessible even if you change ISPs.

An extra address can come in handy for posting on bulletin boards or USENET so that your primary address isn't exposed to spammers. Also you to access many e-mail accounts through a Web interface, so you can check your e-mail virtually anywhere in the world. Plus, you don't need any software except an Internet browser!

Some features that you might look for in choosing a free E-Mail program are:

Address Book - Most e-mail programs have an address book where you can store names and e-mail addresses of people you send -mail to often.
Auto-responder - this feature allows you to send an automatic reply to people who send you e-mail. This is useful when you are on vacation or you have a mailbox set up just to send information back to the sender.
Attachments - most programs allow you to send and receive files that you attach to your e-mail such as images, sounds or programs. large attachments can fill up your mail box in a hurry and can take a long time to download. They can also contain software that can damage your computer called viruses. So be careful about using attachments. Don't ever open an attachment from someone you don't know. It might even be a good idea to call them and ask what the attachment is before opening it.
Consolidation - some e-mail programs allow you to handle mail from several e-mail accounts in one convenient place.
Custom signatures - most programs let you have one or more standard signatures that get automatically attached to the end of your e-mails
Forwarding - All programs let you forward email to someone else. Some will automatically send email with a particular subject, on to another email address.
Folders - some programs allow you to store your e-mail in convenient folders that you set up to file your e-mail in (i.e., personal, work, mom, humor, etc.)
Filters - this feature allows you to block e-mail from people you don't want to hear from including unsolicited advertisements called SPAM. You can also have mail automatically filed into folders.
Spell checker - a few programs have spell checkers built into them.

Special Note for New Webmasters

When you sign up with a web host, they usually give you at least one free e-mail account. You now have (at least) two e-mail accounts. One with your ISP (username@your_isp.com) and the other with your web host. In your e-mail program, you will probably want to set it up so all of your mail comes to the same inbox. Some people like to handle their web host e-mail separately from their ISP mail, so they have separate e-mail readers to do this. If you get into heavy e-mail marketing, I would suggest this, otherwise, keep it simple by dealing with all your e-mail in the same place.

In some e-mail programs, there's an Accounts menu item in the Tools menu. This may appear somewhere else in your e-mail program. Choose this menu item and create a new POP mail account. Enter an account name (anything to distinguish it from your ISP mail account) and then your name and default web host e-mail address (ie, yourname@your_domain.com). Your account ID and password are your user name and password with your web host. Your POP server address should be mail.your_domain.com (but check with your web host to be sure). The SMTP server may be one provided by your web host or by your ISP. Your web host will need to provide this information as well. After clicking OK, you should be able to receive all your mail from both e-mail accounts.

Usually, your web host provides you with one main POP account and the ability to add others. For each new POP account you will need to go through the procedure above. Another, possibly better, way to handle many different e-mail addresses is to just set up separate folders in your e-mail program and use mail rules to automatically file incoming messages. Normally all mail sent to a domain name goes to a default e-mail address (ie username@your_domain.com). So you can receive mail for someothername@your_domain.com or webmaster@your_domain.com or orders@your_domain.com all through your default address, and then use mail rules to send all mail to orders@your_domain.com to a "Orders" folder. Get the idea?

Internet Service Providers

When you sign up with an ISP (Internet Service Provider) you automatically get at least one e-mail account. Sometimes you get several and you can almost always pay for additional ones if you need them.

The most important feature of an ISP is a local phone number. Not all services have "dial-up" numbers in all areas, so make sure any service you consider has a local number before signing up. Otherwise you'll pay for a lot of unnecessary long distance phone calls. To find an ISP in your area check out The Internet Service Provider Directory or The List or the ISP Guide.

Special Note for New Webmasters

When you sign up with a web host, they usually give you at least one free e-mail account. You now have (at least) two e-mail accounts. One with your ISP (username@your_isp.com) and the other with your web host. In your e-mail program, you will probably want to set it up so all of your mail comes to the same inbox. Some people like to handle their web host e-mail separately from their ISP mail, so they have separate e-mail readers to do this. If you get into heavy e-mail marketing, I would suggest this, otherwise, keep it simple by dealing with all your e-mail in the same place.

E-Mail Programs & Features

Some features that you might look for in choosing an E-Mail program are:

Address Book - Most e-mail programs have an address book where you can store names and e-mail addresses of people you send -mail to often.
Auto-responder - this feature allows you to send an automatic reply to people who send you e-mail. This is useful when you are on vacation or you have a mailbox set up just to send information back to the sender.
Attachments - most programs allow you to send and receive files that you attach to your e-mail such as images, sounds or programs. large attachments can fill up your mail box in a hurry and can take a long time to download. They can also contain software that can damage your computer called viruses. So be careful about using attachments. Don't ever open an attachment from someone you don't know. It might even be a good idea to call them and ask what the attachment is before opening it.
Clickable URL and e-mail addresses - some programs allow you to click or double-click on URLs in messages, which opens the URL in your browser, or click on e-mail addresses contained in messages, to open up a new e-mail window.
Consolidation - some e-mail programs allow you to handle mail from several e-mail accounts in one convenient place.
Custom signatures - most programs let you have one or more standard signatures that get automatically attached to the end of your e-mails
Discussion list threading - a few programs allow you to manage discussion lists
Draft Box - a place to store e-mail that is still in progress or not yet ready to send.
Filters - this feature allows you to block e-mail from people you don't want to hear from including unsolicited advertisements called SPAM. You can also have mail automatically filed into folders.
Folders - some programs allow you to store your e-mail in convenient folders that you set up to file your e-mail in (i.e., personal, work, mom, humor, etc.)
Forwarding - All programs let you forward email to someone else. Some will automatically send email with a particular subject, on to another email address.
Free trial offer - sometimes you can try out the software for a limited time before having to purchase it.
Groups - Most e-mail programs allow you to set up groups of e-mail address to send e-mail to such as a group of co-workers or friends.
HTML compatible - some browsers can display HTML, others only can display unformatted text. MIME HTML (MHTML) messages actually include graphics, Java applets, and other objects.
Languages - some programs are available in several languages
Multiple accounts - some programs will allow you to switch between several accounts
Newsgroups - some e-mail programs let you read and write to newsgroups.
Offline editing - most programs will let you write, store and file e-mail offline so you only need to be connected to the Internet when sending and receiving e-mail.
Scheduling - some programs let you designate when an e-mail will be sent. This can be used to send reminders to yourself or others about meetings, etc. Many programs allow you to set up a connection schedule which allows your computer to check for e-mail on a regular basis.
Spell checker - a few programs have spell checkers built into them.
POP3, HTTP, IMAP4 & SMTP support - protocols for sending e-mail over the Internet.

E-Mail Programs, etc.

One of the things the World Wide Web is great for is sending messages to one another. These messages can come in many forms. Web pages contain messages of course but the communication is primarily from the web server to the user. If the user wants to send a message back to a webmaster, they usually use e-mail.

Check out Email-Report.com for the scoop on various emails used by individuals.

E-mail is great for sending messages of all kinds to anybody with an e-mail account, which is virtually everybody who can be connected to the Internet. In order to get connected to the Internet, you need an ISP or Internet Service Provider. Your Internet connection could be provided by your work or school, but most people are connected via ISPs.

You can pay for an e-mail program or you can get one free. There are advantages to both and you might want at least one of each. Below are lists of many to choose from and their features.

E-mail programs can also have other features such as address books and even calendars. You can communicate with many people, all at the same time, with Chat Rooms, or Newsgroups . There's even Instant Messaging which is similar to e-mail, only the receiver of the message, if they're online, sees the message appear instantly on their screen.

E-Mail Lists

he following sites have lots of e-mail lists that you can sign up for. You can find a list on virtually any subject. Some lists are sent out every day, others once a week or even less frequently.

Google Groups (coming soon)
Topica
Yahoo! Groups

Instant Messaging

In the beginning AOL , ICQ (I SEEK YOU), and CompuServe offered a service called instant messaging. Instant messages are an online conversations between two or more people. Instant messages are private and free. It's a whole new way of communicating that's fast, simple and totally addictive.

Now there are many other instant messaging services including:

Yahoo! Messenger
MSN Messenger Service
Netscape
Google, Excite, IBM and Apple also have similar systems

The basic idea is that you download a program that runs on the background on your machine. Then when someone wants to contact you, a window pops up on your machine with the message. If you're not online or the program is not running, you'll get the message, next time you sign on.

USENET & Newsgroups

USENET is a worldwide network of computers that is used to discuss information divided into topics or newsgroups. There are thousands of newsgroups on a full range of topics, such as cooking (rec.food.cooking), humor (rec.humor.funny), and many more. You may access USENET newsgroups from a variety of News readers, such as:

Forte Agent
News Xpress

To view the full set of available newsgroups categories, choose Show All Newsgroups from the Options menu in your news reader. Click on a category folder to display its newsgroups. If you click on a newsgroup, its message headings appear in the right hand pane. When you select a message heading, its contents appear in the bottom pane.

After showing all newsgroups you can subscribe to particular newsgroups by clicking on their Subscribe icons. You can change the Options menu setting so that you view only subscribed newsgroups or only subscribed newsgroups with unread messages.

Newsgroups are organized into hierarchies. Here is a sampling of some of these:

Chat Rooms

Chat rooms are abundant on the Internet. At these sites you can "chat" (type and receive messages "live") about virtually any subject. Usually you choose a screen name (other than your real name) to use in the chat room which provides some anonymity.

Many chat rooms are real-time, live chat rooms, which also have the ability to send private messages which open up in a separate screen! So you can watch the chat in the "main room", and have a separate screen to chat with your friends!

Chat rooms only know as much information as you give them, so it is a good idea to not give out personal information such as your full name, home address and telephone number while chatting.

Observe common courtesy and politeness while in the chat room. Please be polite to other users, and do not flood the screen or talk in excessive capital letters.

Some chat rooms are moderated, except for private messages, but sometimes things do slip by the moderators. Some chat rooms allow you to block messages from a specific user by using the ignore command,. You just type /ignore then followed by the persons nickname (i.e., "/ignore joeuser").

Here are some lists of chat rooms to check out:

ScholarStuff Chat Network
The Ultimate Chat List

Malware (Viruses, Trojan Horses, etc.)

As stated above, many hoaxes involve viruses or a special kind of virus known as a Trojan Horse. If you receive a notice about a possible computer virus, check it out first. Don't spread it by simply sending it to other people.

Here are some good sites to visit to see if the virus is a hoax.

How to avoid trojans in your email
Here is a good compilation of information on computer and Internet hoaxes and viruses you might find useful.

Hoaxes & Urban Legends

There are a lot of reports, usually in the form of e-mails, that sound like they could be true, but are not. If you get an e-mail or read a news report that you are at all unsure about, you should check one of the resources below to find out if you are dealing with a hoax or urban legend.

Many stories that sound like "news" are actually just rumors or "urban legends". Some are even true, but the suggested remedy, such as sending the e-mail on to everyone you know, is not a good idea and falls into the classification of "Junk" mail. About.com keeps a good list of current Internet Hoaxes, etc. They classify each one as SPECIAL (a real concern), a Hoax, an Urban Legend, a Rumor or Junk.

Typical hoaxes include a large percentage of computer viruses, chain letters, get rich quick schemes and appeals to send money. Some of these are jokes, but many are much more serious. Here are some examples:

Blush spider found under toilet seats
Cars without headlights on driven by gang members
Microsoft will pay you to test their software
Modem Tax hoax - despite the new Tax Freedom Act signed into law last Fall
Pluperfect Virus or Strunkenwhite Virus - supposedly would block all e-mail with grammatical or spelling errors in it
Pyramid schemes - people are asked to send money to those higher on the pyramid in promise of future riches
Virgins that were going to give up their virginity in front of web cameras

The biggest problem with hoaxes is that anytime you send out dozens or hundreds of e-mails to your friends, you tend to clog up the system. If everyone does it at the same time, it can shut down the Internet. This recently happened when a virus infected a lot of PCs and automatically sent emails to everyone in their address books.

Here are some good links about Hoaxes & Urban Legends:

Symantec's "Virus Encyclopedia"
Urban Legends from About.com
Darwin Awards' Urban Legends

Protecting Yourself from Scams

What are the best ways to protect yourself against getting scammed online? (Courtesy of ScamBusters.org)

Use common sense. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Trust your gut feelings - especially when you have a bad feeling about an offer or a company.
Don't ever respond to a bulk email. At least 95% of these "spams" are scams.
If you want to buy something at an online auction, always check the references of the seller, and only buy from sellers who have good references. Almost all good auction sites have buyer and seller rating systems. If the item is more expensive than an amount you could comfortably lose, consider using an online escrow service like escrow.com. There is a fee, but it might be worth it to you.

ScamBusters.org is a good resource for checking out offers and e-mails that you think might me scams.

You should become familiar with the types of misleading claims that do exist. Keep in mind that SOME wealth-building plans, MLM businesses, or work-at-home opportunities are legitimate. Regardless, protect yourself by becoming educated to potential problems.

Here are some other good sites about "money making" scams on the Internet.

crimes-of-persuasion.com
fraudbureau.com

Here are some SCAMS currently making the rounds:

NEW! - I've been getting quite a few emails lately, supposedly from eBay, with the subject eBay New Unpaid Item Message from some fake user name. These are obvious scams, because they do not even remotely look like they came from eBay and they do not contain any real information about me or my account.

Similar emails come from companies (mostly banks) that I don't even have accounts with, saying that my account may be (or has been) closed. These too are obvious scams.

The other day I got an email with the headline "Activate with PayPal Mobile - You Could Be a Winner." but there were three things that led me to believe this is a scam. First the subject of the email was "Paypal Account Disput" which a) has nothing to do with the email - a good sign this was sent by someone with no brains, and b) has a typo - disput should have an e at the end - another good sign that the sender is bogus. Second, the From email address is very strange. It has two parts, which don't match (sece@pl.com and se@all.com), neither of which even look like they came from PayPal. Third, they claim to be giving away a whole bunch of prizes, just for activating your phone. I do not believe PayPal would do this. BTW, PayPal does offer this new Mobile service, but go directly to their website to sign up.

Ever wonder about all the emails you get for cheap stocks? I must get 30 a day, some as large attachments. Apparently these are a scam too (no big surprise!) Spammers are profiting from share manipulation by coaxing victims into investing in junk bonds. The spammers purchase cheap shares (which artificially raises the stock price) and sell them off as victim investment raises their value further. Internet security analyst firm Sophoslabs calls the spam technique a "stock, pump and dump campaign" and said it accounts for about 15% of all spam, up 5% from last year.Don't fall for these (or any) "too good to be true" offers in your email.

Password Changed scam - today I got an email that just read "Your password was successfully changed! Please see the attached file for detailed information." The attachment was a 111KB .zip file, which I am sure contains a virus or other malware. The sender did not even mention what password had been changed. This should be an obvious scam to anyone who receives it.

SPAM, Scams, Malware, Hoaxes, Urban Legends & False Information

It's not easy to determine whether information on the Internet is legitimate or correct. There is a lot of inaccurate and deceitful information on web sites, in e-mails, and even in news and newsgroups. False information can occur from mistakes or oversights, but the biggest problem is information that is out of date.

Malicious information also exists on the web. Some examples are: products that don't really exist, fabricated news stories, misleading statistics or financial reports, false virus alerts, pyramid schemes, etc. Unsolicited email (SPAM) is the primary culprit in the dissemination of malicious information today. Many SPAM emails are actually SCAMS.

My best advice on the SPAM situation is DO NOT RESPOND (either with a reply or by clicking a link or by opening an attachment) to any email you get that is from a company or person that you have never heard of. I recommend liberal use of the DELETE key and learning to use the filters (or Rules) that come with your email program. Also beware of suspicious emails from companies you do know, especially if they do not use your real name. These may be "Phishing" scams which attempt to get you to reveal personal information which could be used for identity fraud.