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.

I firmly believe that Business E-mails should be treated exactly like a business letter, following the same format. Although I will admit that not all emails sent to business associates are business emails. The majority of these Pet Peeves are in these non-business e-mails.

Here are a few of my E-mail Pet Peeves:
• Forwarded e-mail from friends, relatives or business associates passing along jokes and false or misleading information.

• Forwarded e-mails that have been forwarded multiple times showing the email addresses of all of those that it had been forwarded to.

• Receiving an answer to a question either through a new email or by reply without the question.

• Being BCC: on an e-mail without clear indication that the email was sent to someone else.

• Being part of the To: line when in reality the e-mail was CC:ed to you.

Do you …
Use the same password?
Many of us create one password and use it everywhere. Once the password is discovered by a scammer/hacker then it can be used.

Have personal information as part of your password?
Many of us use our children or pet names or other personal information as part of the password. A hacker can and will be able to discover this information and use it to decode the password.

Use a real word?
There are software programs that can go through every word in the dictionary until the the right password is discovered.

Write the password down and keep it close to the computer?
Yes, it’s not a good idea, but we all seem to do it.

Password Best Practices
Since many places allow passwords that are case sensitive, use both upper and lower case letters in the password. such as: PaSSworD – Note never use password, or common sequence of letters (abcdef) or numbers (12345) as a password. Those are the most common ones.

Have special characters and/or numbers as part of the password.

Use initials of a phrase that is easy to remember.

Use different passwords for everything.

I firmly believe that Business E-mails should be treated exactly like a business letter, following the same format. Although I will admit that not all emails sent to business associates are business emails. The majority of these Pet Peeves are in these non-business e-mails.

Here are a few of my E-mail Pet Peeves:
• Forwarded e-mail from friends, relatives or business associates passing along jokes and false or misleading information.

• Forwarded e-mails that have been forwarded multiple times showing the email addresses of all of those that it had been forwarded to.

• Receiving an answer to a question either through a new email or by reply without the question.

• Being BCC: on an e-mail without clear indication that the email was sent to someone else.

• Being part of the To: line when in reality the e-mail was CC:ed to you.

What’s yours?

A recent conducted research of Co-Tweet and ExactTarget may assist in making that decision. Here are the Top 10 Motivations for Consumers to “Like” and Follow a Brand and on Facebook:

1. 40% want to receive discounts and promotions

2. 37% want to show support for the brand/company

3. 36% hope (want) to get free samples, a coupon (a.k.a. freebies)

4. 34% want to stay informed about the activities of the company

5. 33% want to get updates on future products

6. 30% want to get updates and information on future sales

7. 27% like to get fun and entertainment out of it

8. 25% want to get access to exclusive content

9. 22% mentioned they were referred by someone to follow this brand/company

10. 21% want just to learn more about the company

Search
Many times when we open our browser we are going to search for something on the internet. Google is a favorite for many. There’s also Bing and the old stand-by yahoo among others.

Social Media
Social media is used by millions and many have selected one of the big four, facebook, twitter, MySpace and Linkedin, as their home page.

Your hometown Newspaper
Printed news may be decreasing, but most newspapers have an on-line version. One that may post breaking news when it happens.

National News/International news
CNN, Google News, Yahoo News or even international sites such as BBC are used by those who crave news all day long.

Your Favorite Blog
There are millions of blogs and millions of postings on them each and every day. Some will selected their favorite blogger or blog as their home page.

Your Business Homepage
This is an obvious one.

My home page is google search. What’s yours?

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/

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

Google Voice offers a single phone number that can ring on all of a user’s phones, either all of the time or by a schedule that can be applied to each number. The service also has a voice mail box which can transcribe the message to text and send it to an email address or as SMS to a cell phone.

To use the service all you need is an Google account. Currently users will have to select a number supplied by Google Voice. Although this could change in the future.

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.