It is their way of having you transfer the registration of your web address from your current register to them. In some ways this may not be a bad thing, because at least it’ll give you an idea when your domain name needs to be renewed. However most times their cost is much greater than what you may already be paying.

If you don’t remember, or you don’t know because someone else set up your registration and that person is no longer associated with you, that’s just sloppy record-keeping.

However it wouldn’t surprise me that this may be more common than not.

Questions to ask?
Do you know what names are registered? Have you just registered as .com? Did you also register as .net and/or .org?
If not someone else may have registered one of those and are using you to drum up business for them. This may not be that important for those who use .com as their Top Level Domain (TLD). But for those who use .org or .net, just remember that many people will automatically type .com. And if part of your business is supplying information, you may want to look at getting a .info TLD.

Do you know with which domain-registering company you originally registered the domain?
Domain Registration and Domain Hosting are not the same thing. And for many these two aren’t held by the same company. It’s your Domain Registrar that tells the Internet where to look for you.

Do you know when your registration expires?
Once it expires, the registrar will send the url to a default location. If not renewed, it’s free to be registered by another party. There is a grace period, but during that time it’s not displaying your site. Can you afford to have it down for the time it takes to bring it back?

This is just another of those things that can, but shouldn’t fall into an unknown crack in how you do business.

There’s always the cable mess that seems to arrive with computers and other electronic items needed to perform your job. The electric cords and the large ‘bricks’ that accompany some items seem to always be in the way or causing an eyesore. Many manufacturers sell items such as cable ties to secure cable, wide outlet plug strips for those big bulky transformers.

And you can always use a wireless keyboard and mouse to keep those cables out of hand and sight. They have their problems as well. They run on batteries that need to be changed or recharged. Not to mention they need to be turned on before use and off afterwards, otherwise the batteries are replaced constantly. Sometimes it may seem just as easy to have those couple of wires on the desk instead of the constant changing of batteries. But like everything, that’s a personal choice.

But you may be totally surprised to find that clutter resides in your computer. Clutter in your computer could be anything from the adware and spyware that has been installed onto your computer without your knowledge, to just a bunch of old unused and long forgotten files (programs and documents) and folders.

The huge hard drive you purchased thinking it was so big that you would never fill may now be starting to run out of space. Music and video files, even those compressed, when you have 100’s and 1000’s of them take up a lot of room.

Here are a couple of things you can do to help ease that filling hard drive. Take a look at the programs that are on your computer. Is that program you tried a while ago, decided you hated and now have never used still on the computer? It’s probably time to look, evaluate and remove any programs that you have never used.

Another thing you may want to do is check your emails. Do you have old messages that have huge attachments in them? A few may not seem like much, but if doesn’t take too many message with pictures to take up a lot of storage space.

Don’t forget to check your music files. Podcasts have become a common element in today’s life but do you download a daily one, listen to it once, but have no desire to ever listen to it again. Are they still residing on your computer’s hard drive. It’s just like the pictures in your email a few isn’t bad but once you have 100’s it takes up room.

Then again there is another, more technical, answer in case you are running out of room on your hard drive. You can always buy a new bigger one.

Lighting:
Reduce lighting.
There are a couple of ways to do this, one of the best is to take advantage of natural daylight. Turning lights off or dimming them during the day allows for lower energy costs. It can also make for a more comfortable environment. If you need more light use task lights to light the area where you are working.

Use timers and sensors.
The installation of occupancy sensors, timers, or photocells will ensure that interior and exterior lights are turned off at the appropriate time. These inexpensive devices can reduce lighting costs by up to 40 percent by turning off lights in unoccupied areas. In closets and restroom install motion sensors or timers so that the lights are off when no one is using the room. These can also be used in seldom used work areas such as copier rooms.

However, be aware that sensors may not be the best option in the work area. Many people have complained about the light going off while they are working at their desk typing a letter or working on a report.

Replace incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs)
This type of bulbs can last up to ten times longer and provide the same amount of light as standard incandescent bulbs. Replace incandescent lights in exit signs with LED fixtures, which can reduce costs of these signs by up to 95 percent. Caution though must be used with these types of bulbs since they do contain a small amount of mercury. CFLs should not be placed in areas where they could easily be broken.

Turn off the lights when not in use.
It doesn’t get any more simpler than this.

Office Machines:
Turn them off when not in use.
Turning off one computer and monitor nightly and on weekends could save up to $80 a year. It’s a good idea to set PCs, monitors and copiers to use sleep mode when not in use. Unless a computer is doing a critical function at night, such as a daily backup that takes hours or being used as a server, there is no reason for it to be on. Turning it off will not allow the system to last longer, and will only be wasting energy.

Choose ENERGY STAR® products when upgrading or adding new equipment.
These products meet federal standard for energy efficiency, and are often available at the same low cost as less efficient models.

Replace Power Wasting Units:
LCD monitors uses much less energy that a CRT Monitor. The cost for a new LCD monitor will pay for itself in a short period of time making it uneconomic to keep a CRT Monitor when replacing an older system.

Turn the monitor off when not in use or better yet have the computer put the monitor and itself into power save mode when inactive for a period of time.

Do you have an old hand-me-down refrigerator for office use? It may be using more energy than a newer energy efficient model.

Heating and Cooling:
Lower the thermostat temperature in the winter and raise it in the summer.
Adjust the thermostat down in the winter and up in the summer and shut off when not in use. Even a few degrees can significantly reduce heating and air conditioning costs.

When the building is not occupied, nights and weekends, turn the heat or air conditioning off or at least adjust the thermostat.

Make certain that the thermostats are not blocked.
It’s not unusual for thermostats to be above filing cabinets and having books or paper around them. When blocked they aren’t able to get a correct reading of the room air temperature. The room may be cold, but the thermostat may be warm and comfortable.

Don’t open windows and doors.
All this does is to heat or cool the outdoors. If the area is too warm or cooled there may be a problem with HVAC system that needs to be checked. Or as stated earlier the thermostat may be blocked.

Install programmable thermostats or time clocks
These systems can automatically control temperature settings on heating and air conditioning equipment so that when the office is not scheduled to be in use the settings can be at a saving level.

It doesn’t matter whether you consider Global Warming a fact or a hoax. The one thing for certain is that we do harm the environment every day. These are things we can do to not only save and conserve energy but also help the environment.

10) Follow The Three ‘R’ – Recycle/Reuse/Reduce
American’s have become a very wasteful society. When our founding fathers were forming our nation, they used everything with little waste. Washington at Valley Forge, the frontier families who settled west of the Mississippi, even the families of World War II used everything.

Today nearly every item that we purchase is in some type of disposable wrapper. This wrapping is used once and thrown in the trash. This uses another piece of a resource that is diminishing. By following these three ‘R’s’ one may or may not not see a direct savings. But in some cases the cost of manufacturing the products might be less. A recycled aluminum can requires less energy to reuse. than having a new one produced from the raw materials.

9) Drive Smart
There are a number of ways that we don’t drive smart.

We are a mobile society. Many times we jump into a vehicle to attend a meeting across town without looking to see if there are other things we can be doing while in the area. How many of us have gone one place, come back only to realize we also needed to go to another either a few miles farther or someplace between the two? Planning our trips will allow us to use less fuel. it also saves time as well..

Poor maintenance of our vehicles causes us to use more fuel than required. Having the engine routinely serviced, will keep it running at peak efficiently. Don’t forget the tire pressure. Tires at the wrong pressure, especially ones that are low, is a big fuel waster. And don’t forget to have the brakes checked. A dragging brake not only causes the brakes to wear out faster, it will make the engine work harder. And use more gas.

When driving, don’t make rapid stops and starts. This, as well as exceeding the speed limit, can quickly reduce gas mileage. By using the speed control on long trips, the vehicle runs at a constant speed.

8) Heat or Cool the Living/Work Space – Not the World
Does the building have enough insulation? Older homes and building probably don’t. Windows are also an area where energy costs are moving from their desired purpose to change the temperature of the outside air.

Many homes are heating or cooling areas that are seldom used. By setting up heating and cooling areas, one can save money and energy by keeping the seldom used areas warmer or cooler than the rest of the house. Many people may like a warm living room in the winter, but wants a cool bedroom. This would be another reason for separate environmental areas.

Use a programmable thermostat. By using a programmable thermostat you can automatically turn down the heat when it’s least needed, at night when sleeping or during the day when no one is home. Have it raised to a comfortable level shortly before getting up or arriving home. Be certain that it is the correct type of programmable thermostat for your heating or cooling system. Some heat pumps and air conditioning systems require specialized programmable thermostats.

7) Use Water Wisely
Water may be free, but getting it from the ground to the home costs a lot. There’s the cost of pumping it from one location to another, as well as the cost of treating it to be at a usable state. There’s also the cost of removing and cleaning the waste water.

6) Use Energy-Efficient Products
Many older appliances use a great deal more energy than a new one. The 20 year old refrigerator may be working fine, but a newer one could use half of the energy.

Water heaters can use as much as 14% of the energy bill. The older it gets the less efficient it is with one over 10 years being as much as 50% less efficient than as it was when new.

And don’t forget the light bulbs. Most of the energy used by old style incandescent lights is turned into heat. A 15-Watt Compact Fluorescent Light (CFL) gives the same light as a 60-Watt incandescent using a quarter of the energy.

5) Turn Off and Unplug
Unplug devices that use a transformer when not in use. Example; battery chargers. Whenever these devices are plugged in they consume minor amounts of energy. Many devices such as TVs and DVD players still use energy when not in use. Turning them off may only save a small amount of the total energy used. Unplug them when they won’t be used for a long period of time.

Turn off computers at night, and use sleep mode as often as possible. When not in use turn off televisions, radios and other entertainment equipment.

4) Light the area reasonably
Office lighting can be the one single source of using the largest amount of electric each month. Reducing the energy used by lights can make a quick and noticeable impact to the bill.

Many offices either use too much light or does not use the most efficient type of lighting. It’s important to have enough lights in an area so that it’s safe, but there may be places where lights can be removed, the size of the fixture reduced or more economical sources of light are use.

Use task lights to reduce the amount of overhead lights. Task lights puts the required amount of light on the project at hand allowing the room lights to be at a lower light level, therefore saving energy.

Don’t light areas that aren’t being occupied. Install timers and occupancy sensors. These are great in offices for restrooms, storage closets and copier rooms.

3) Make it a Habit
Habits are those things that we do without thinking. Developing a habit takes time. At first it may take some constant thoughts and reminders. By spending time considering your actions and doing the things to save energy each day, these actions will become a habit.

2) Pass Along the Word
It’s amazing how many people there are out there that just don’t know, don’t have an understanding or just need to have a person they know and respect to assure them. Pass along the information. Let your friends know when you replace an appliance and see a drop in the electric bill. Or when they throw a plastic bottle or newspaper in the trash let them know it can be recycled and used again. The more people hear it from someone they know, the more apt they are to follow the advice.

1) Switch Off the Lights
When being the last to leave a room turn out the lights. It will always be saving energy and with few exceptions also saving money.

A laptop can be easily replaced. But that’s only a small part of your business. For those who use their laptop as the primary business computer it is full of important data. Does it hold your idea that is just about ready to send to the patent office? Even if it’s just loaded with proposals, business plans, budgets, and contacts, it’s an important tool.

Has this data been backed up? Does it hold information critical to your business? Does it hold your idea that is just about ready to send to the patent office?

Thousands of laptops are misplaced in US airports per year. While many of these cases are quickly resolved, some are lost or stolen. It’s also easy to leave a laptop in a taxi or at the office of a client.

So what do you do, you could store your laptop computer in a bank vault? It’ll be secure, but you sure wouldn’t get much work done on the road. One idea is to only carry the data that you need to do the day’s or week’s work, if you are traveling. Good idea unless you have a laptop as your only computer. Either way it is a good idea to encrypt sensitive information, with strong password protection. This included your login password.

No matter what you do, there’s always a risk of thief. If you make certain your laptop is locked securely when not with you it helps to prevent it. Lock it in the trunk when you are at a meeting where it’s not needed, and double-check that your vehicle is locked.

There are times, possibly when traveling and staying in a hotel it doesn’t make sense to take the computer with you. You can leave it in the room, but make certain it is secure. Many people have access into hotel rooms. It’s also possible that the maid may be cleaning the bathroom leaving the door open for access to her cleaning cart. A thief could walk in, pretend to the occupant remove the laptop from the desk and off it goes.

You could put it in the hotel safe. Or you could invest in a security cable and lock. Most laptop computers have a security slot that you can attach a cable or locking device. Wrap the cable around a heavy or stationary object, just like a bicycle.

Sometimes it’s the usual things that you do, that could make for a very depressing time.

Now you may be wondering, How can I get one and how can I have it show?

The following gives a very good detail procedure on how it’s done.

http://www.expand2web.com/blog/creating-and-using-wordpress-gravatars/

2) Use virus detection software and keep the software up to date.

3) Scan computer for hidden spyware and adware. These can and will cripple computer performance.

4) Secure the data that has been placed on removal devices.

5) Remove/Erase information from systems before disposing, especially on portable devices such as cell phones, PDAs and memory cards.

Enter the addresses after the message is composed.
Many messages are sent before they are finished. Waiting to add the addresses will keep the message in your draft bin until it’s ready to be sent.

Attach the attachments first.
We have all sent or have been sent a message with a missing attachment. Also be sure that it is attached and not embedded in the email. I’ve made a recent mistake like that and embedded a 4 meg pdf file in the email to a group of people. They couldn’t see the file and on their reply back the large file was in their reply. Needless to say this used a lot of band width and storage space.

Remove large attachments from replies.
Band width and storage space, see above.

Use spell and grammar check.
Business letters have a professional look, so should an email.

Keep personal messages out of business emails.
It’s possible that the email may need to be sent to an associate or supervisor for additional actions. They won’t want to know how the fishing trip went.

Don’t add a new subject to an ongoing thread and don’t combine threads.
When new subjects are added to an ongoing thread it can be confusing to the reader. If the reader only needed to be advised of what was going on, but the added subject needed their action, that action could be delayed. Combining threads generally just confuses everyone. Many email reader programs will continue the thread causing even more confusion.

Address correctly.
If it’s an informational message to many members it’s a good idea to use the Bcc: field to protect other people addresses. In my opinion this or sending the message to yourself is the only correct time to use Bcc:.

When sending to multiple persons with multiple assignments, or to let a supervisor or associate know the mail was sent, address the responsible person by name in the message.

Watch the Reply all.
Does everyone need to see your reply or only the sender? If it’s only the original sender it could save embarrassment.

Be sure to enter a subject.
The information that you put in your subject line can pass information to the recipient the importance of the message as well as how soon a respond may be needed. By leaving the subject line blank it may be ignored completely.

Check before hitting the send button.
Once the send button is press the email is in the stream and on its way to its recipient. It’s always a good idea to proofread the message and check that you have attached the attachments and addressed the message to the correct parties.

Originally published in part in 2008.
© 2008-2010 Steven G. Atkinson – All Rights Reserved

To put it bluntly, as safe as you want to be. In some ways you could compare the Internet to walking the streets in a big city. Most of the time, nothing will happen, but when it does, it could be murder.

If you walk the main streets of the Internet, usually no harm will befall you. But just like walking a big city streets when you venture into the dark alleys and the more dangerous sections, you are obviously going to be in more danger.

There are ways to help to be safe while using the Internet. One of the best ways is to be aware of what you are doing and think before reacting. If something appears too good to be true, it probably is. There aren’t really any ways to get rich by doing nothing.

Be prepared.

It can help by keeping the software on your computer up-to-date. Sometimes a newer version may need to be purchased, but often all that is needed is to make certain that the ones you are using have all of the security patches installed.

There are many malicious programs cruising the Internet. Some of those are just out there knocking on doors to see who answers. Others may be hiding in the shadows of attachments to emails messages that appear to be from friends.

To keep these malicious programs from infecting your computers, the computer needs to protected. Use Anti-virus programs and Anti-spyware. Anti-virus programs can be set up to scan the computer from time to time as well as to check email messages for hidden viruses. Anti-spyware can keep programs such as Adware (programs that sits your computer and feed ads to you) from taking roost on your computer

You will want to fun a firewall on your computer as well. A firewall hides the computer from automated attackers.

Just as walking the streets in a big city there are things to follow to keep you safe.

• Do Not Open Spam.
• Before opening an attachment, check and double check that it is not a malicious program. It’s easy to steal and fake someone email address so even attachments from someone you know may not safe, check.
• If while on the Internet an Ad pops up, such as one saying you have a virus on your computer, you may wonder how do they know. They don’t. They are just trying to sell you a product and lead you to their site.
• Purchase products from locations that you are familiar.
• If the site looks like it leads to a dangerous path, leave and don’t go back.

“This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.” — Western Union internal memo, 1876.

“Everything that can be invented has been invented.” — Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.

“The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?” — David Sarnoff’s associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s

“Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?” — H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927.

“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” — Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.

“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” — Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977.

Now you are probably waiting to read the famous quote that Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft said. That being, “640k ought to be enough for anybody.” But that just happens to be an Urban Legend. Nowhere has it been documented that he spoke those words, and the closest may have been a conversation on the original IBM PC, which used a processor that could only be able to use 640k of memory.

But an interesting quote that I remember occurred in 1983 by the fictional character Travis McGee, created by the novelist John D. MacDonald, in the novel Cinnamon Skin. It goes as such;

“Soon the bosses of the microcomputer revolution will sell us preprogrammed units for each household which will provide entertainment, print out news, purvey mail-order goods, pay bills, balance accounts, keep track of expenses, and compute taxes. But by then the future managers will be over on the far side of the thickets, dealing with bubble memories, machines that design machines, projects so esoteric our pedestrian minds cannot comprehend them. It will be the biggest revolution of all, bigger than the wheel, bigger than Franklin’s kite, bigger than paper towels.”

In 1983 the IBM personal computer was only 2 years old, the MacIntosh was in development by Apple and Radio Shack was one of the major players in the computer industry. Fact can be stranger than fiction, but sometimes fiction can just predict the future.