Category Archives: Web Stuff

Securing Your Online Presence

January 19, 2015 Mitch Mitchell 6 Comments

Last year, while flying down to where I was consulting at the time, I found that my business email account had been shut down. I figured that I would find out soon enough what was going on so I didn’t fret all that much about it. Actually, I pretty much was betting I knew what the issue was and my only question was why it took so long.

[martin] via Compfight

On the previous Sunday I noticed that an inordinate amount of spam was coming back on me via bad email addresses, way more than I’d normally seen. At some point last year I figured that my business email account had been spoofed, which is what they call it when your email address has been somehow taken from your website. I thought it was via some script.

When my email was shut down, it turns out someone had actually hacked my email account, which was set up at my host, and all this time they’d been sending these spam emails through that account. I was slightly stunned because I thought my hosts site was more secure than that, especially since no spam goes out through any of my other email addresses created there, and yet I’d wondered why it was still so strong after more than a year of my removing a script that had caused the original problem for me back in 2006.

I accept the fault for two reasons. One, my belief that my host wouldn’t be hacked for my email when it had been hacked months earlier through two of my blogs. Two, the password I had on that email account wasn’t particularly strong, as I’d set it up almost 9 years ago, and I just never thought about it all that much; idiocy. lol

There are these things we do and don’t do that threaten our online security, and we all need to be smarter about it. We don’t create passwords that are at least a little bit more difficult for a spambot to crack easily. We don’t update our software or our blogs when we’re notified of an update. We don’t check on some of the things we’ve attached ourselves to all that often, thus don’t know what’s being said or what’s going out in our names.

The thing is it’s really easy to protect yourself. For blogs, just update the software when the updates are available. For passwords in general, even if you have problems remembering them longer is better, and having at least one capital letter somewhere in there is even better than just going longer. For instance, you could have the word “invincible” but make the C capital, which suddenly makes it a strong password. Many sites require at least one number; do that as well.

On social media, don’t make all of your usernames and passwords the same on every site. If someone figures out one they’ll have access to everything. Some people will recommend that you change your passwords at least once a year but if you can make it pretty difficult up front, you might not have to do that as often.

One final thing. For any site that has anything to do with your money never save your username and password via the browser. All of us at some point inadvertently end up on a site with malware that’s looking to steal those things, and if you don’t have pretty good software to stop it at least you’ll have protected your most important information.

Think security first online; there’s just too many people looking to hurt you.

Business, Web Stuff

Don’t Get Caught Looking Like Your Business Is Unethical

December 8, 2014 Mitch Mitchell 4 Comments

Imagine you’re searching the internet looking for someone to provide services for you. Imagine that you come across a website that looks pretty neat and professional. It not only offers the services you’re looking for but many others. And look, there are lots of testimonials on the site, and even pictures of the people who gave those testimonials, just like this one:

Looks pretty good, right? Now imagine you’re someone going about your business, and you find out about a site like this, go to take a look, and lo and behold, there’s your image clear as day, supposedly advocating for a site you’ve never heard of, with a totally different name and in a business that’s not your own.

In this case the lady’s name is Kristi Hines of Kikolani, not Pamela, and she’s one of the top internet writers in the country. She knows a lot about SEO, but that’s not her primary focus. She was stunned to find out that this company had someone obtained her image and used it in their advertising.

I’m not going to mention the website because I don’t want to give them the publicity; she might be trying to do something about removing her image as we speak. It’s possible that the company hired someone else to do the work and that company scarfed up the image from somewhere, figured no one would ever find out, and, well, it’s a super cute face with a great smile, so why not.

As you can imagine, within her circles this is getting a lot of buzz. And since these people profess to do something among their multitude of services that she does, and I’d have to say does better than them, word will be getting out all over the internet & social media circles (that’s where I learned about it), and it will put this company into a compromised situation because this is someone a lot of people like.

The point is that it shouldn’t have come to this. Most of us know that the people shown on many websites, especially in the header area, don’t really work for the company. We’re used to stock images and the like; we get it, because no one stands around posing like they do in some of these pictures.

There are so many sources for finding images that one can use for free that it’s amazing whoever decided to grab this image for its use didn’t go that route. It makes them look bad and, online, once word spreads that you’ve possibly done something unethical, even if it wasn’t specifically you, it’s hard to regain any momentum you or your business might have gained.

Remember, your website is your business, not the business of the person who created it. Don’t get caught up like this, and if you’re thinking about doing it don’t do it. I might say who this is one day… let’s see if someone comes along to identify them so I don’t have to.

Web Stuff

Hacked, And How I Recovered From It

December 1, 2014 Mitch Mitchell 7 Comments

In July 2013, on a Monday night, as I was getting ready to head to bed, I started having some trouble on one of my blogs. I didn’t think much of it, figuring all would be right the next morning.

Neal Fowler
via Compfight

Next morning I woke, came to the computer and tried to access that blog; access denied. I then tried accessing other blogs; some I could see, others said access denied. I then tried to look at my websites; some I could see portions, others access was denied; yeah, that’s a big problem.

I called my friend Kelvin, with whom I share the space, and asked him to look into it, as I had to get to work. He wrote me with the bad news; per the host, I’d been hacked through two of my blogs. Luckily, the host caught the attack and froze access, which was why I couldn’t access anything. He forwarded me the email which explained part of the problem, and what I had to do to fix it.

When I got back to the hotel (as I’m out of town right now) I went to work on the problem. I’m telling you what I did so and what you should do if it happens to you you’ll be able to fix it quicker than I did.

First, the email mentioned that I’d been hacked through the footer of themes on two different blogs that I wasn’t using. Truthfully, when I saw the names I didn’t even remember having those themes on those sites. It didn’t matter; they had to go. The email recommended certain files to remove through a FTP (file transfer protocol) program. I mainly use WS-FTP, but I’m going to recommend Filezilla for those times when you have to delete lots of stuff. WS-FTP lets you delete things, but it won’t delete any folders that have files in them, which can be a pain as I’ll bring up; Filezilla will take care of the entire thing for you.

I went in & deleted the files recommended, and while I was at it I decided to delete the entire theme as well off both blogs. However, all my sites were still closed down afterwards.

The next thing it recommended was for me to go in and update all the software on my blogs. Here’s where, if I’d known something I’ll mention in a little bit, I’d have bypassed. The reason I’d have bypassed it is because I had already updated all the blogging software; all I ended up doing later on was delete and re-add what I already had. If I hadn’t updated it would be a different story; I wasted a lot of time on this step, one I could have skipped if I’d had Filezilla already on my laptop, as I have it on my main computer at home.

Nina Helmer
via Compfight

Here’s the problem. My assumption was that the hack, which wasn’t major but still problematic, had infiltrated all my sites. What happened instead is that once my host, 1&1, locked everything down, it shut down all my sites, not just the two blogs that were hacked. If I’d thought of what I’m about to tell you now I’d have saved at least 3 1/2 hours, as I spent 4 1/2 hours on the problem.

The other thing I want to tell you about is using free themes from other people. Most people who create free themes add things into the footer and hide them with some type of scrambling program. I learned that a long time ago when one of my blogs was being found for certain terms that I’d never written about. I obtained some software so I could see what was in there, stripped it out, and never had another problem with those terms after a month or so.

However, the blogs hacked are my oldest blogs, and I had downloaded a bunch of other themes that I never used, thus I never thought about those footers. I got away with it a long time, but in retrospect I should have deleted themes I was never going to use, other than those that WordPress gives you; take that as a major hint and recommendation.

Anyway, I spent hours deleting files and folders, first with WS-FTP, which took a very long time on the one blog I used it for, then with Filezilla, which went way faster but I’m on a hotel’s internet connection, not the speedy 30 MBPS I have at home, so it still took awhile. Truthfully, it’s possible that if I hadn’t reloaded that software I might not have been able to get into my dashboards and would have still had to go through the process, but I should have done this other thing first, which would have been a snap and maybe might have saved a lot more time.

Ondra  Soukup via Compfight

When the host locked down my sites, what they did was change the file permissions to 644, which basically shuts everything down; at least it did for me, as I couldn’t see any of my files online, though I could get in through the FTP. To make sure everyone else can see what you want them to see, you need to change the file permissions to 755.

You can do this a number of ways, but the fastest and easiest way to do it is to use a FTP program that can do it for you. WS-FTP can’t do it, but Filezilla can. I went online and downloaded it, as it’s free, loaded it up, then used the username & password that accesses all my sites at once so I could work on multiple accounts at the same time. What you do is right click on the file or folder you want to be accessible, see what the permission is, and change it by typing in 755 over the 644 or, possibly, xxx if that’s what you see. Then you hit okay and it releases those files and your stuff can be seen once more. When I was done, all my sites were back up, looking like they were supposed to; whew!

By the way, you might have an occasion to have files on your site which you don’t want anyone to know exists, hence you’ll want to be perspicacious in determine whether you want all your folders or files having their permissions changed.

Here are the major lessons to take away from here.

Preparing maize samples for molecular analysis, Kenya

International Maize
and Wheat Improvement Center
via Compfight

One, stay cool; by staying cool I didn’t do anything really stupid.

Two, if you don’t already have a preferential FTP program I’d recommend Filezilla. The program I use is pretty old, but I’m most comfortable with it for the most part, even if it can’t do everything Filezilla can.

Three, follow the initial instructions recommended by deleting bad stuff they tell you to get rid of.

Four, I should have tested the file permissions on one of my blogs first to see if I could regain access and if I could get into my dashboard before reloading everything; I could have always done it if I hadn’t gained access after the test.

Five, always keep your software up to date when recommendations for upgrading come your way for security reasons. At least I had that part covered.

And six… well, lucky for me I was hacked only to mess with me. They couldn’t get into my blogs or content because I have some plugins on it that protects the blogs, as well as passwords hard enough to figure out to make it more of a chore. That and quick thinking from my host saved me.

Lots to learn here; I hope it helps someone in the long run if this situation comes your way.

Business, Web Stuff

Basic Ways People Make Money With Their Websites

November 6, 2014 Mitch Mitchell 13 Comments

Whether you have a business website or are trying to make money off the web, invariably just being online offers you the opportunity to make money in some fashion. Many people have an idea of what making money online means to them, but it’s often a limited view, which you’ll see if you visit “make money” websites or blogs. I’m going to give you some of the basic ways that people make money, whether directly or indirectly, and a general idea of how it’s done; I’m betting most of you know these ways already.

JD Hancock via Compfight

One, you can make money by selling products. This is the easy one that most people think of, as you can sell products you make or products someone else makes. Affiliate marketing works well for some people who have niche blogs or websites.

Two, you can make money by selling services. You find this more often with people that offer coaching, counseling or consulting services.

When you think of this model, you have to think both short term and long term marketing. For instance, if I have a link up it means I’m trying to sell short term services; not necessarily that I’m hoping you’ll only use me once and go away, but these are immediate services that I want to be paid up front for.

When you have a business website and you provide services, most probably you’re working on long term services, which doesn’t mean you only offer services that last a lifetime, but are looking to build your authority and presence over time so that you can become known as an expert and thus charge more for your services.

Three, you can make money by accepting advertising. Within this model you can include things like Google Adsense and other pay-per-click (PPC) or pay per subscriber/buyer models. If you have a business website you should think long and hard as to whether you want any type of advertising on your site because there’s the potential of you sending people away. However, if you have other sites like blogs that don’t talk about business specifically, accepting advertising is a great way to build income, but you have to be cautious in how you do it.

Advertising can also take other forms. If you write a blog on a certain subject you’ll often have someone ask if they can pay for a link on an article that pertains to what they do. That’s one of the powers of being a prolific writer; there’s always someone willing to pay for some authority to link back to their site. Being known as a publisher or content curator of original information can pay well.

You need to evaluate your business to determine what your websites goals are. If you’re highlighting your business, then stay away from many forms of advertising. If you’re somewhat flexible, there are lots of options you can explore.

Web Stuff

What Passes For Good Information Might Not Be

April 21, 2014 Mitch Mitchell 42 Comments

By now those of you who are using WordPress as your blogging platform of choice know that there’s an update, 3.9. It’s definitely changed some things, including overriding some of my settings for how I have my admin area colorized, but I’m going to let that go… for now…

Instead, I want to key on something you might not have noticed yet. If you look at the comment section of your admin area, underneath the names of people who comment on your blog you’ll now see this number. It shows how many times someone has commented on your blog; cool eh?

I thought that this would be cool to use because maybe I’d want to write a post showing how many people have commented often and how often they’ve done so. Then I looked deeper at it.

As an example I’m showing a strip of my admin panel (so, my colors are funky lol) highlighting our friend Peter Pellicia when he was calling himself Sire. You’ll notice that had made 3 separate comments; you’ll also notice that the number of approved comments WordPress is showing aren’t the same. Heck, they’re all drastically different.

I looked at a bunch of comments from Pete just to see if I could find a pattern. Turns out that answer is no. It’s not based on link, topic, email address, name… You can look at it yourself; there’s nothing defining what it’s looking at.

Thus, I’m forced to conclude that, even though it initially seemed cool, it’s really worthless information. There’s nothing legitimate I can do with it, and if you look at your information, at some point you might realize the same thing.

Sometimes that’s just how it goes. Some of us hold onto certain numbers as if they’re the Holy Grail while others look at those numbers and scoff. Let’s see… Klout score, page rank, Alexa rank, Compete rank, number of followers on Twitter, number of friends on Facebook… over and over we see numbers that are supposed to mean something that probably mean less than what we think. Some are good as a visceral reference (for instance, I tend to use Alexa as a broad based number to determine how well a website’s traffic might be, realizing that a site in the 100,000’s is working better than a site in the 3 millions while recognizing that a site in the 3 millions might be making more money if it’s targeted to its audience properly), but not much else.

For that matter, even the number of blog comments might not tell you what’s going on with your blog. The difference between a blog post with 300 comments and a blog post with 2 might be the popularity of the writer and not the content. If Sergey Brin writes a blog post and takes comments, how many people do you think will comment hoping that either he’ll see it and want to hire them to work for Google (ain’t happening kids lol) as opposed to commenting on this blog hoping I can help make them famous (that’s not happening either… for now…)?

Even Google Analytics, for all the press and publicity we’ve all given it, can’t really help us out. Most of the data about keywords is hidden in a collective area, so we don’t even know why or how people are finding us via search engines. Sometimes it’s hard to figure out what the data they’re giving us really means in the long run; that’s not helpful is it?

Bummer right? If there are so many reports and such that we can’t trust, what can we trust to help us figure things out?

First, you know what your engagement is like, so trust your instincts. I love using Adrienne Smith as an example of someone who truly gets the engagement piece. Her blog posts always get a lot of comments, and not nickel and dime stuff. She puts things on Facebook and Google Plus and you see a lot of people responding to it, even if it’s just questions like what color is your dog (I don’t think that’s specifically one she’s asked but… lol).

Me? Most of the things I put on Google Plus are ignored, and sometimes I wish more of the stuff I share on Facebook was. lol Still, I know where I stand and have an opportunity to figure out what I need to do to improve. I don’t need any of the rankings to tell me what’s going on; I can see which posts people are commenting on and I know which of my tweets get shared on Twitter.

If you didn’t sit back and look at the numbers, are you comfortable trusting your own instincts to know where you stand on social media? For that matter, do you trust your instincts to help you get through life? Let me know; I’m interested in this topic and hope you are also.

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