090817 Internet Handholding, Laptop Ergonomics, Scams, Google

Hello Business Website Customers, Associates and Friends,

One of my customers lost a substantial amount of money to a
Nigerian internet scam. You would think I would know better,
but I helplessly watched a friend get scammed two weeks later.

Laptop keyboards are evil.

For a year www.JewishNetwork.com and www.DanceCalendar.info
were ostracized by Google. Not any more.

Be there in spirit even when you cannot be there in body.
Broadcast your events for your members.

If you need help with any of the things mentioned in the
articles, get in touch with me.

Be Happy, Healthy and Prosperous,
Andrew

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In This Email:

1. Article: Scams
2. Article: Laptop Ergonomics
3. Article: Google Follow Up
4. Article: Be Your Own TV or Radio Station

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Links:

- Computer Technical Support
www.ComputerGainesville.com

- Email Marketing
www.constantcontact.com/index.jsp?pn=bronzebp

- My Internet Blog
http://internethandholding.blogspot.com/

- Web Hosting
www.webhosting.vg

- Domain Names
www.evolve.name, www.domainnames.gs

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Quotes:

- You can not wait for inspiration.
You have to go after it with a club.
~ Jack London

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1. Article: Scams

One of my customers lost a lot of money in a Nigerian internet scam.
Apparently, this is big business in Nigeria.

My customer is an intelligent, educated, sophisticated person, who
you would never think would get caught by one of these scams. I wrote
an article in another newsletter warning the readers.

Two weeks later I was helping a friend move. The movers told my friend
that her cost would be $5,000+, instead of the $1,500 quote. I knew
they were cheating her, but I could not figure out how the scam worked.
(Maybe because we had been up all night packing.)

My customer reported her loss to authorities and she is going
through a legal process, but she may not get anything back.

The next night I figured out how the moving scam worked and we managed
some damage control, but my friend had already left behind half her stuff
to lower her fees.

Searching on google turns up endless entries for Nigerian and moving
scams. Anyone can easily take a second to educate themselves.

My point is this, you can get scammed even when you know you are
getting scammed. Try not to lose too much money.

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2. Article: Laptop Ergonomics

My right hand has been inflamed for six months.

Why? From the contortations my poor hand was making on the laptop
mouse pad, and reaching for the navigation and control keys
bunched together on the right side of the keyboard.

It is surprisingly easy to upgrade your work station and the
benefits are well worth the trouble.

Am now writing this on a full sized keyboard, with a regular mouse
at hand.

Have put my laptop on a wire stand, for better air flow to keep it cool,
and for viewing the monitor at eye level. Helps to improve my posture
for dancing.

Plugged in a second, external monitor that I had sitting around.
Nice to see two full sized windows at once.

Added a semi-permanent, external hard drive and moved all my media
files off the laptop drive. Cleaned up the laptop drive and registry,
and now my computer boots and runs much faster.

For as much as you and your employees use computers, anything you
can do to make your work station more comfortable has to be worth it.

Some upgrades for laptops:
- USB hub to give you more USB ports
- Full-sized keyboard
- Full-sized mouse with scroll wheel
- Raise the height of your laptop
- Second, external monitor
- Semi-permanent harddrive for media files
- Second external harddrive for backup of everything onsite
- Third external harddrive for offsite backup
- Fourth external harddrive for offsite backup rotation
Cannot have enough backup

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3. Article: Google Follow Up

Previously I had written about the rankings of some of my
websites on Google. Here is a quick update.

www.JewishNetwork.com is now #1 on Google in searches for
"Jewish Events".

www.DanceCalendar.info is now on the first page in searches for
"Dance Calendar".

Being on the first page of Google is possibly the best way to get
found on the internet by people who do not already know you.

You can get your websites to the first page of Google if you
spend a little time doing the right things, such as:

- The right content, with matching key words,
internal links and content that grows
- Incoming links
- Keyword domain name
- Blogging

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4. Article: Be Your Own TV or Radio Station

With the Internet, everyone can be their own TV or radio station.

YouTube is an easy way to get started. You can post videos up
to about ten minutes long. If you have an hour show, break it
into parts.

Live audio or video is more complicated and more expensive,
but not outrageous.

My friend Phil put in live, audio streaming at our synagogue
to broadcast the Friday night and Saturday morning services.
He set the system up to come on automatically before Shabbat
so that it is in keeping with Jewish law.

People like to tune in when they cannot make it to services
in person.

Another benefit is the recordings are archived, so people have
a record of their special occasions, like bar mitzvahs and
baby namings.

This has been a big success for our congregation.

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Write to publish@bronz.com to add your email or have
it taken off (I will not be offended).

You received this email for one of these reasons:
(a) You are a customer or business associate.
(b) You are a friend or family, and I thought this would be a good way
to keep in touch, and you might find some things in these emails useful.
(c) Or, you are not on the weekly email list, but I thought there was some
thing in this week's email that would interest you or others you know.

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Copyright (c) 2009, Bronze Inc. All rights reserved.
Visit www.WebHosting.gy

Andrew Weitzen
publish@bronz.com
561-939-2469
Gainesville, FL

www.bronz.com
- Internet hosting, programming and handholding

You may forward, print, post or use any part of this email
as long as you include this copyright notice.
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Linkstar wants Advertising on Dancecalendar.info

Got the email below today to advertise on www.DanceCalendar.info

Found numerous posts about Linkstar.

Appears this is a way for them to build links to their websites to get higher rankings on search engines.

The ads are integrated into your page in a paragraph that is supposed to appear part of your normal copy, not as an advertisement,
with links to websites within the paragraphs.

The idea is that google will rank these links as more relevant for searches.

In this way, Linkstar could get a number of websites a high ranking for keyword searches that generate revenue.

-----Original Message-----
From: Katrina Baker, katrina@link-star.co.uk
Sent: Thursday, August 13, 2009 7:35 AM
To: info@dancecalendar.info
Subject: Advertising on Dancecalendar.info

Hi,

I work for Linkstar, a leading broker of online advertising, dealing with many thousands of independent webmasters worldwide.

I've had a look at Dancecalendar.info and think that it would be a good match for our client, whose target demographic is similar to
your own. We're working on their behalf to acquire advertising from quality websites such as your own.

We would be interested in purchasing advertising in the form of a text-based advert on your site. To reduce unnecessary admin and
hassle, we prefer to pay a fixed annual fee for such advertisements. Once the ad has been placed, payment can be made quickly by
PayPal or Moneybookers.

If you are interested, please get back to me with your rates etc. I look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards,
Kat

Online Payment Processor Moneybookers

Moneybookers is an alternative to Paypal.
www.moneybookers.com

Lookup Microsoft updates

To find information about a particular Microsoft update

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=XXXXXX

Deleting $NtUninstallKB folders in the Windows directory

In cleaning up space on my laptop, decided to look into whether it was safe to delete the $NTUninstallKB folders in the Windows
directories.

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Delete Microsoft Uninstall Update Files $NTUnistallKB
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There are many posts about this. These folders contain information that allows you to uninstall Microsoft updates.

If you are satisfied that an update is working on your computer and that you never want to remove that update, then you can delete
the folder for that update.

There will be a registry entry to list the update in Add/Remove programs. You can then go Add/Remove programs and click Remove. This
should give an error and then remove the entry from the registry.

CAUTION: DO NOT USE Add/Remove programs before you delete the folder or you will remove the actual update.

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Rename With @ to Make Deleteable
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If you are not sure, you can do what I do with all folders I am not sure about. I rename the folder, putting @date at the end. For
example, folder becomes folder@20090812.

My naming convention is that anything with an @ means it is deleteable at anytime.

The date tells me how long ago I made it deleteable. That way, after some time, if I never used the file, it is safe to delete.

--------------
Update Cleaner
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You can buy Update Cleaner for $5 to delete the folder and remove the registry entry if you do not want to do it yourself.
www.pc-shareware.com/update.htm

--------
Ccleaner
--------
Crap Cleaner will also clean up these folders and registry entries. Ccleaner appears to delete them all or none, but not sure since
I did not try to use that feature. Update Cleaner lets you select which ones.

Ccleaner will analyze your computer for things to clean. This was useful. I had less than 1GB of the update files, so I did not
bother removing them.

Ccleaner cleans other things, including your registry.
www.ccleaner.com

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VB Script to Delete Folder and Remove Registry Entry
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There is an interesting entry from this page, with a script for deleting the folder and the entry in the registry for Add/Remove
programs.

www.eggheadcafe.com/forumarchives/windowsupdate/Oct2005/post25175268.asp
10/24/2005 5:21:05 PM Re: Removing UninstallKB's from the Winnt directory
Jim in Cleveland wrote:

Hi,

As long as you doesn't care about not being able to uninstall the

updates anymore, all the $ntuninstall... folders can be deleted.

Below is a VBScript (put it in a .vbs file) that I have written that

will remove the uninstall folder (and the Add/Remove Programs entry

if one exists) for all hotfixes that creates $ntuninstall... folders

under the Windows folder.

Note: This will not uninstall the update itself, only the

uninstall folder and the Add/Remove Programs entry.

'--------------------8<----------------------

Set oShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

Set oFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

sWinDir = oFSO.GetSpecialFolder(0)

Set oFolder = oFSO.GetFolder(sWinDir)

Set oDictionary = CreateObject("Scripting.Dictionary")

For Each oSubFolder In oFolder.SubFolders

sFolderName = LCase(oSubFolder.Name)

sFolderPath = LCase(oSubFolder.Path)

If Left(sFolderName, 13) = "$ntuninstallq" _

Or Left(sFolderName, 14) = "$ntuninstallkb" Then

' get the update name for the registry delete

sUpdateName = Mid(sFolderName, 13, Len(sFolderName) - 13)

' never delete folders/files while enumerating a file/folder collection

' adds them to a dictionary object for later handling instead

oDictionary.Add sUpdateName, sFolderPath

End If

Next

sDeleted = ""

For Each sUpdateName In oDictionary.Keys

sDeleted = sDeleted & vbCrLf & sUpdateName

sFolderPath = oDictionary.Item(sUpdateName)

On Error Resume Next

' remove entry in Add/Remove Programs

oShell.RegDelete "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\" _

& "CurrentVersion\Uninstall\" & sUpdateName & "\"

On Error Goto 0

' delete the uninstall folder

oShell.Run "%Comspec% /C RD /S /Q " _

& Chr(34) & sFolderPath & Chr(34), 0, True

Next

If sDeleted <> "" Then

MsgBox "The uninstall data for the following updates are now removed:" _

& vbCrLf & UCase(sDeleted)

Else

MsgBox "No updates found to remove the uninstall data for."

End If

'--------------------8<----------------------

--

torgeir, Microsoft MVP Scripting, Porsgrunn Norway

Administration scripting examples and an ONLINE version of

the 1328 page Scripting Guide:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/default.mspx

|DataDirectory| in connection string

From
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sqlce/thread/dc31ea59-5718-49b6-9f1f-7039da425296

|DataDirectory| (enclosed in pipe symbols) is a substitution string that indicates the path to the database. It eliminates the need
to hard-code the full path which leads to several problems as the full path to the database could be serialized in different places.
DataDirectory also makes it easy to share a project and also to deploy an application.

For example, instead of having the following connection string:

"Data Source= c:\program files\MyApp\Mydb.sdf"

Using DataDirectory, you can have the following connection string:

"Data Source = |DataDirectory|\Mydb.sdf"

To set the DataDirectory property, call the AppDomain.SetData method. If you do not set the DataDirectory property, the following
default rules will be applied to access the database folder:

. For applications that are put in a folder on the user's computer, the database folder uses the application folder.
. For applications that are running under ClickOnce, the database folder uses the specific data folder that is created.