The answer is a resounding NO!  Blue Pixel Design will never send you a file by email without discussing it with you first.  The emails that have been circulating recently are examples of spoofing and/or phishing.

Spoofing: "The sender information shown in emails (the "From" field) can be spoofed easily. This technique is commonly used by spammers to hide the origin of their emails. Email address spoofing is done in quite the same way as writing a forged return address using snail mail. As long as the letter fits the protocol, (ie. stamp, postal code) the SMTP protocol will send the message."

Phishing: "In the field of computer security, phishing is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Phishing is typically carried out by e-mail or instant messaging, and it often directs users to enter details at a fake website whose look and feel are almost identical to the legitimate one."

More information can be found here:  http://www.bluepixeldesign.com/how-can-i-be-spamming-myself

The spoof phishing emails that are going around are being sent with an attachment that is very dangerous. If you receive one of the emails outlined below, or an email like it, you should immediately delete the email and its attachment.  If you're unsure, send me an email and I can clear things up for you.

Example #1

SMTP and POP3 servers for raielene@bluepixeldesign.com mailbox are changed. Please carefully read the attached instructions before updating settings.

[Link to the file would follow]

 

Example #2

Dear Customer,

This e-mail was send by bluepixeldesign.com to notify you that we have temporanly prevented access to your account.

We have reasons to beleive that your account may have been accessed by someone else. Please run attached file and Follow instructions.

(C) bluepixeldesign.com

Do you feel like you are wasting your time and money making constant changes to your website? If you are still maintaining your web site with tools like Frontpage or Dreamweaver, or you are making updates directly in the HTML code, chances are there is a much easier way. It is time for you to meet the modern Content Management Systems (CMS) like WordPress.

These systems have a number of advantages over applications like Frontpage. First of all, they work on the internet and thus don’t require you to install software on your computer. You have a new laptop? No problem! Your website updates will work fine without installing any software. By the same token, you don’t even have to be working on your own computer to make an update; you can make your updates from any computer with internet access. Better yet, you can make your updates from a smart phone!

Secondly, these systems have what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) graphical interfaces that require no coding skills whatsoever. It is as easy as point and click. As the very name implies, these systems are designed to let you “manage your content” easily.

Last but not least, these systems will give you more out-of-the-box features and components so you can have a unique looking website rather than a cookie-cutter template. Thanks to the open-source community supporting these systems, there are plug-ins built for every need you can imagine.

Now that you understand the benefits of Content Management Systems, you may be interested in switching to one. Blue Pixel Design can help you jump-start this by converting your website into a CMS format. Give us a call today at 1 (604) 318-5394 or e-mail raielene@bluepixeldesign.com.

The Domain Registry of Canada is a nasty, no good, horrible awful domain slammer!

Wikipedia defines domain slamming as a scam where an Internet Service Provider (ISP) or domain name registrar sends materials to domain owners which attempts to trick them into switching ISPs / domain name registrars under the pretense that the customer is simply renewing their existing services.

How the scam works is that people receive a letter in the mail… a letter that looks very official and legitimate (view the PDF)… informing them that their domain is set to expire and they need to transfer and renew it now before they lose it forever.  These people have nothing to do with Blue Pixel Design or with your domain.  They are just another registrar trying to trick you into transferring your domain over to them at almost quadruple the price!

If you receive a notice from The Domain Registry of Canada (or another registration company) please just tear it up.  If you're unsure, send us an email and we can double check on your domain for you.
 

"If you are a photographer and have a website, you need a blog. A blog can be a huge supplement to your website and can offer more for the viewer than just viewing your portfolio online. You can post new work to it and describe a little bit about your recent photo shoots, and add keywords to your copy which in turn will bring the search engines coming back to your site looking for new content."

Read more here:  http://freelanceswitch.com/freelancing-essentials/how-a-blog-can-help-your-photography-business/

1. Log into your cPanel.  (The login information should have been sent to you when you signed up for Blue Pixel Design Hosting, but you can contact us to have it resent to you.)
    
2. Follow the link to Web/FTP Stats.
   
3. Choose any of the options on the list to view different reports and statistics for your website.

My favourite option from the list is Awstats as it seems the most straightforward and simple to understand.  For an explanation of Awstats, see our blog post "What do all the numbers in Awstats mean?"

So you found Awstats in your cPanel, but what do all those numbers mean?  Hopefully this will clear things up a bit…
 

Unique Visitors – These are the total number of visits by a unique IP address. This can be a bit misleading because dial-up visitors get a new IP each time they log on so you can have the same person visit different times and give a unique hit.

Number of Visits – The number of visits are the total number of visits by all visitors over a given period of time. If I visit your site and then come back 4 more times you should see one Unique visit and 5 visits from me.

Pages – This is the total number of pages viewed by visitors. This does not include images, java script or CSS and the like. Just HTML and CGI type files.

Hits – This is every file requested by the visitor. This includes pages and images together. If you have a page with 2 images calling a java script file, the page will generate a total of 4 hits. The most common referenced stat used and one that is virtually meaningless (and useless). The more appropriate numbers to consider are both ‘number of visitors’ and ‘unique visitors’ (see above).

Bandwidth – The total number of bytes downloaded. If you have a page that has 50 KB of text, 2 images at 24 and 32 KB then each visitor to that page will take 106 KB of your bandwidth.

AWStats then gives you this information for the year so far, as well as a 30 and 7 day perspective. Finally it gives it to you by the hour.

Next is Countries (Top 25). This shows you what countries your visitors are coming from, starting with the most and working its way down.  (All categories with a Top 10 or 25 have a link to the right of the category that can give you an entire list if there are more than 10 or 25).

Following this is the Hosts (Top 25). This gives you a breakdown of the top individual visitors to your site.

Next is a popular category, Robots/Spider visitors (Top 25). Here is a great way to see when your favorite search engine has last visited your site as well as how many hits it has made (again, ‘hit’ can be misleading here).

Although not as popular a category, the Visits Duration is an important one. Here you can tell how long visitors are staying on your site. Are a vast majority leaving in the first 30 seconds? Maybe it’s time to rethink your site’s design or content.

File type lets you see what files are generating the most hits.

Pages – URL (Top 25) gives you the most visited pages on your site.

Operating Systems (Top 10) shows what Operating Systems your visitors are using in order of popularity.

Next is Browsers (Top 10). Like the OS category above, this shows what browsers your visitors are using in order of popularity.

Connect to site from is a multi-part category.

It starts with Direct address / Bookmark / Link in email… This is the number of visitors that either know the name of your site or have it bookmarked.

Links from an Internet Search Engine gives us a listing of the number of visitors coming from each search engine.

Links from an external page (other web sites except search engines) shows what pages your visitors are coming from. This does not mean there is a link to your site on the listed page, it just registers where the visitor was coming from.

Search Keyphrases (Top 10) and Search Keywords (Top 25) are next and tell us what phrases and keywords people are using to find our site.

The last two are Miscellaneous and HTTP Status codes. These give miscellaneous information and what HTTP codes are given to your visitors.

Here’s what happened when Chris Savage, the chief executive of Wistia.com, searched for the phrase "private video sharing" on Twitter, a social networking site. One post he found read, "A teacher requested a private ‘video sharing’ Web site so that specialists can observe student behavior—can anyone refer one?"

That got Savage’s attention. He e-mailed back: "Still looking for a private video sharing site?"

Minutes later came the reply: "YES! It’s the first request for one—thought I’d hit up my tweets before [I] go digging."

Savage: "Cool. You may want to check out Wistia.com. Full disclosure, I’m the CEO; -)"

While this exchange may seem a bit cryptic, Savage is one of a growing number of business owners to whom it makes an awful lot of sense. Savage frequently trolls Twitter looking for sales leads for his five-person, $1 million company, which makes software that facilitates video sharing through a private network. Although Savage has been using Twitter for only a year, it’s already helped him find 12 new clients for his Lexington (Mass.) company. "This is a no-cost way of marketing," he says.

Jeremy Quittner, staff writer for BusinessWeek in New York, has written an insightful article entitled "Twitter: Building Businesses Tweet by Tweet", which outlines how entrepreneurs are finding the fast-rising microblogging site to be a useful tool for reaching out to customers.  It details Twitter’s strengths, how to get started and some examples of businesses who have made it work for them.

"As we see more and more businesses move their services online, and even more that begin their life on the Web, a greater need arises for websites that are designed and built to sell. A great-looking website may achieve the goal of shaping and delivering a strong brand, but its good looks alone aren’t enough to sell the products or services on offer. For that, you need to introduce the element of marketing."

Dmitry Fadeyev’s article, "Design To Sell: 8 Useful Tips To Help Your Website Convert", outlines 8 useful tips to make a casual reader of your website a buyer.

"It’s likely that you are familiar with most of the ‘traditional’ marketing practices; direct mail, email marketing, advertising, telesales, pr etc – however, for a few years now, given the opportunities the internet provides, the term ‘new marketing’ has been bandied around. If we think of traditional marketing as ‘push’ marketing – mediums we use to push our messages onto others ‘interrupting’ them, then the new marketing relates to ‘pull’ marketing – marketing activities we do which ‘attract’, as a magnet would, interested parties, at their own accord, to view our wares."

In her article entitled "Social Media:  5 Things to Do Right NOW", marketing consultant, Michelle Carvill, lists five of these pull activities and tips for getting started.

Please have your Email Username and Password ready and then…

1.  In Microsoft Outlook, select Tools > E-mail Accounts.

2. On the E-mail Accounts wizard window, select "Add a new e-mail account" and click Next.

3. For your server type, select "POP3" and click Next.

4. On the Internet E-mail Settings (POP3) window, enter your information as follows:

Your Name
Enter your first and last name or whatever you would like to appear in the From field of your emails.

E-mail Address
Enter your e-mail address.

User Name
Enter your e-mail address, but substitute a "+" for the "@".

Password
Enter the password you set up for your e-mail account.

Incoming mail server (POP3)
mail.yourdomain.com or mail.yourdomain.ca

Outgoing mail server (SMTP)
Same as above (mail.yourdomain.com) or leave your current Internet Provider’s settings as is.

5. One thing you need to also do is change the Outgoing Server Port to 26. When you’re at the Internet E-mail Settings screen, click on More Settings and that should bring you to the screen where you can change Ports. (Port 25 is generally blocked by Internet Providers and you will have trouble sending mail if this isn’t changed.)

6. Click "Test Account Settings" to double check that things are working, and you’re done!