Speedy Recovery Wishes for Jodi

As I was doing my daily Adgitize / CMF visits this morning, a few posts on Jodi's Journey caught my eye. One was about Counseling, one a 4th Grade Teacher's letter, and the last an indication that Jodi was to undergo a second back surgery.

So as I was driving to work, my thoughts kept returning to Jodi's surgery that was performed yesterday.

It is not too often that one of our fellow bloggers shares their feelings and their fears. But when they do, our little community often fails to notice. Please join me in

Wishing Jodi a Speedy Recovery 

and her know that she is in our thoughts. Hopefully, all went well. You can visit her blog and leave a note, send a PM, or email. I'm sure she would appreciate hearing from all of you.

Thanks,

JL..............

Fourth of July Celebrations Begin

Beginning this week, Americans across the country will begin festive 4th of July celebrations! In my town, the annual picnic began last night and runs through Sunday. The highlight will be a 30 minute fireworks display held at the rec field. And, three of my immediate neighbors are hosting all day parties. One doubles as an 8th grade graduation party; one has a pig roast; and the last features a water balloon contest. Needless to say, everyone will be going from house to house!

Then next weekend, on the 4th itself, our immediate family will celebrate with a chicken barbecue at the family farm. The setting is quite spectacular, and we will be treated to two separate firework displays from nearby towns.

For us, this is one great week of eating, drinking, and socializing with the most treasured family and friends one can have.

During this time of economic and political turmoil, the Fourth of July offers a welcome relief and a sign of better times to come.

Here's wishing you an enjoyable 4th as well. Be safe and enjoy!

Adding AdSense to your Blog - revisited.

 Last week when I was on vacation, I received a comment on a very old post titled: Lets Begin by Adding Google Ads. This was from a new blogspot blogger asking for help on adding AdSense to her site.  Unfortunately, this request was placed on the day that I left, so I wasn't able to respond immediately.

Gwen said... I hope you can help me. You make it sound so easy. I signed up for an adsense account but when I try to do anything inside my blogger account it says there is an internal error. After looking through tons of forums and trying to do work arounds I still get an error and an ugly box shows up on my screen. A lot of people said I should "grant access" through the Adsense-My Account section. My account section doesn't say anything about granting access. Please help! June 5, 2010 9:28:00 AM PDT

Once I approved the comment, I then followed the commentator's profile to their blog:

Adventures with Grandma

Once there, I discovered that the owner already figured out how to place Google AdSense ads on their sidebar, meaning: Problem Solved!

However, I realized that many other newcomers to the blogging world may also be experiencing problems similar to Gwen's, so I thought that I would provide a link to the most useful Google pages that addresses AdSense questions:

AdSense Help Page

This Google page provides a well organized index of useful topics, describing the AdSense program, applying to be a publisher, how to place ads on your site, getting paid, and more. Remember, once you apply, Google will send you mail informing you of your acceptance. If there is a confirmation link in this mail, you must follow it to activate your account.

The first thing that isn't apparent is that: Once a ad grouping is placed on a page (whether a web page or  blog), it usually takes some time before Ads are actually displayed. I've found that this delay can range anywhere from 1/2 hour to about 4 hours.

The second thing to consider is whether you are trying to add the AdSense code directly to a blog, or using the Blogger Monetize tab. For use on a blog, you should always use the Monetize tools to Add, Remove, or Customize the appearance.

Another important item to remember is that you must earn $100 before you will receive your first payment. At that time, Google will send you mail prompting you to provide your taxpayer information. It may also request telephone contact confirmation. If so, follow all their instructions in order to receive payment.

Lastly, and most importantly:

Never Click on your Ads

and

Never Ask Someone to Click on your Ads

If done, you will promptly and abruptly removed from the program.

From my experience, the AdSense program the best publishing program around. Displaying Google ads is a privilege, not a right. If you follow their rules and don't abuse the privilege, you will be rewarded in time.

Adgitize's Summer Sizzlers

Perhaps my favorite advertising network is:

Adgitize

because I can basically advertise my website for free.  To do this, you must first join the network, upload you widget image, install advertising widgets on your site or blog, and then purchase a $14 monthly ad (for 31 days).

Then, to get your money back, all it takes is to write a blog post and click on 51 member widgets a day!

Each day you'll be credited with a small network proportional income. At the end of every month, your earnings will be totaled, and credited to your account. Active members have always received a minimum payout of $14, thus paying for your advertising costs.

Now, Adgitize introduced an exceptional Summer Promotion (running until July 31, 2010) and a:

Discounted Purchasing Plan!

Phase 1 of the Summer Promotion guarantees a minimum daily earning of $0.47, or $14.57 for a full 31 day month for those members who earn at least 300 points a day.

Phase 2 targets lesser active members, and guarantees payout of $0.34 per day for advertisers scoring over 200 points a day.

But, the discounted purchasing plan allows members to buy:

• a 6 month ads for $13 per month; or
• a 1 year ads for $12 per month.

Together with the Summer Promotion, advertising members of Adgitize and guaranteed to earn a profit! In my opinion, these are indeed noteworthy

Summer Sizzlers!

And remember, Adgitize accepts both websites and blogs as members.

Who Can You Trust?

As parents, we are always warning our children about the cyber predators who stalk the internet, trying to seduce the innocent into divulging personal information, engaging in sexual activity, or more. We stress that: No matter how friendly or polite, an unseen communicator cannot be trusted. And, more importantly, strangers cannot be trusted.

However, we, as adults, often ignore our own advice. This is especially true for us in the blogging and webmaster world. Here, we try to build relationships with people from around the world. We comment, click on banners, and visit sites for purposes of expanding our visibility and attracting visitors to our sites. We approach our social activities with the full faith and trust of the reciprocal strangers. Yet how often have we discovered that a site we respect has been infiltrated with a malicious virus, disabling our computers and attempting to steal our identies? But yet, we shrug off the bad ones and continue to prod forward, hoping our next encounters are as trustworthy as we are.

On my website, I regularly monitor visitor activities by reading and comparing various log files.  Whenever I suspect malicious activity, I block individual users and unwelcome sources. My decisions may result if disallowing honorable users from accessing the site, but I believe that caution and safety outweigh individual accessability.

Just recently, I made a decision is disallow a wide group of visitors originating from a particular source. Shortly thereafter, I received an e-mail from a person named cvale, who claimed to be a long time loyal visitor of my site. The person noted that he was now receiving access denied messages and requested that I grant him access to my valuable information.

After checking my logs, I found that cvale had only registered as a member three weeks earlier, and only requested numbers once during that period. I replied and informed him of my recent security modifications. But, cvale politely responded, asking again for access to the site.

Should I trust him and grant access on a one-off basis to this individual?

While I was pondering this decision, I received a new e-mail from cvale. It was addressed to a group of reputable websites, and it contained a single link to a malicious website! What a goof-ball.

Reflecting on this experience, I realized that my initial instincts were correct: cvale and others in that group deserved to be blocked. The two lessons I learned is that:

Security standards should never be breached.

and

Never Trust Strangers!

Holder wants to challenge Arizona law he hasn't read

The new Arizona immigration law as sparked harsh debates, protests, criticism, and threats of constitutionality lawsuits by the U.S. Justice Department.

Fueling the controversy is Attorney General Eric Holder who has recently indicated "that the Justice Department was considering a federal lawsuit against Arizona's new immigration law" CNN reports in its article: Holder: Feds may sue over Arizona immigration law dated May 9, 2010.






Ironically, however, in a House Judiciary Committee hearing on May 13th, Holder admits that he has not read the 10 page law. He has only glanced at it and read newspaper accounts.

What kind of Government makes predefined judgements about laws that they have not even reviewed?

It's hard to have confidence in a leadership who simply aims to placate illegal immigrant ethnic groups while failing uphold the laws they are sworn to uphold.

In Holder's defense, he must be credited for responding truthfully when questioned. So then we must ask, Who is he trying to fool? The immigrants? The protesters? The President? Or, the common citizen?

Lest we not forget the May 6-9 Pew Research poll that finds: 73% approve of the Arizona law requiring people to produce documents verifying legal status where only 23% disapprove.

Count me in the 73% bracket. Where do you stand?

Persistent PayPal Phishing

In early March, I received the following email allegedly from PayPal indicating that my account would be closed in August.  At first I was very concerned, but I took some time to determine whether this was a legitimate notice from PayPal. Rather than responding, I telephoned PayPal. The customer service representative was very helpful and assured me that this was a phishing attempt. They informed me that PayPal does not close accounts for lack of activity. As instructed I forwarded this email to them, and forgot about the incident.

However, just a few days ago, I received a follow-up email from the phishers. This one indicated that I closed my account and that they would like me to take a Survey indicating the reasons for my action. Once again, I checked my PayPal account and found it was still intact. It's not closed.

So, I forwarded this email to spoof@paypal.com, and received a very suspicious reply! The phishers have taken over that email address as well!  

Since PayPal is an important resource for all of us bloggers, I wanted to alert all of you to the scam that these devious thieves are employing.

If you receive any suspicious PayPal emails, ignore them. DO NOT RESPOND.  Instead log into your account, change your password, and then CALL customer service. They will tell you what to do.

So stay safe and don't be fooled!

JL...........

Initial Fake e-mail #1

Subject: XXX, your PayPal account will be closed on 08/04/2010 Date: 3/9/10 3:21:19 AM From: service@paypal.com To:"XXX  XXXXXX" PayPalHello XXX  XXXXXX, We noticed you haven't used your PayPal account in over 3 years. Inactive accounts like yours are often targeted by fraudsters, so for your protection, we'll close your account on 08/04/2010 unless you decide to start using it again within 30 days. If you have questions about our account closure policy, you can check out the User Agreementor email us at support@paypal.com Thanks, PayPal ___________________________________ Please do not reply to this email. This mailbox is not monitored and you will not receive a response. For assistance, log into your PayPal account and click the Help link in the top right corner of any PayPal page. To receive email notifications in plain text instead of HTML, update your preferences. PayPal Email ID PP1491

Fake e-mail #2 - the Followup

Subject: PayPal - Account Closure Date: 5/3/10 3:49:08 AM From: paypal.feedback@echosurvey.com To:xxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxx.xxx Dear XXX  XXXXXX, According to our records, you recently closed your PayPal account. Your business is very important to us and we would like to ask you a few questions around the main reasons why you chose to close your account. The survey should only take 2-3 minutes. http://surveys2.incontact.com/paypal/survey_paypal.taf?survey_id=649&user_id=285C0C4B-FCA9-4B45-A513-838F5082566F To respond to our survey, please click on the web address above. If that does not work, please cut and paste the entire web address into the address field of your browser. Thank you. PayPal Customer Support ** An important note from the survey vendor ** PayPal, as the party who controls the data collected in this survey, may use your responses together with existing data it has about you to ensure its products and services meet your needs. PayPal will treat data collected from you in accordance with PayPal's privacy policy. To review this privacy policy, please contact PayPal or visit PayPal's web site.

Remember: NEVER respond to or click on any of the links in suspicious emails.