South Florida Web Marketing Blog

Facebook Registration Plugin for WordPress

The Facebook Registration Tool, as announced by Facebook Developer Paul Tarjan, provides a registration mechanism that is both Facebook user and Facebook hold-out friendly.

The Facebook Registration Tool, as announced by Facebook Developer Paul Tarjan,
http://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/440

Link to the Plugin on WordPress:

Read more about the Plugin

Yahoo Has Hit Rock Bottom And Is In “Absolute Disarray”
Michael Arrington
Dec 17, 2010

Yahoo has hit rock bottom. They’ve now, finally, had their layoffs. Those that are left are keeping their resumes fresh and don’t expect to stay there over the long term. Everything we hear from employees boils down to this – the company is in “absolute disarray.”

Read more…

Another Article:
Is Yahoo’s Business in Trouble?
from theatlanticwire.com

HubSpot’s Website Grader

This free online SEO tool helps you figure out how to get your website better ranked.

It covers the basic SEO ranking factors and provides you a score for your website. The SEO Tools will even e-mail you a link to the report.  Plus there are many more features if you wish to sign up for them.

As you correct things that the reports points out, you can increase your scores as the items are changed.

So give it a try and follow the instructions.

Free Online Website Grader for SEO

http://websitegrader.com/

Happy Holidays

Google Sent out their holiday greeting card in a beautiful way.

From Google:
Thanks to you, this holiday season Google is able to donate $20 million to charitable organizations around the world. They in turn will help improve the lives of over 50 million people.

Thank you for being a part of what Google is today. All this is possible because of you.

Have a wonderful holiday.

Google

……

“Security Shield” is a bogus anti-spyware program. Loaded with popups of false virus warnings.

“Security Shield” is also promoted through the use of fake online scanners and other bogus websites

This malware produces fake security alerts on your computer. The pop up messages say your PC is infected with trojans, viruses, spyware, adware and other bs. Then when you click to  view more – the program shows an order page for $79 to download and install Security Shield in order to remove the infections.

The program is bogus. It DOES NOTHING except empty your wallet and drive you crazy with all the popups and false virus warnings.

If you do install the Security Shield – your computer will become unusable, clicking on warnings and making you believe you are getting hacked almost every minute of the day while your computer is on.

How to Remove the program

It depends on which Windows platform you have, but if you upgrade your anti virus software to the latest version – you should be able to remove it.

1. Restart your computer in SafeMode
… Press F8 on keyboard as soon as you turn on the computer
… Select SafeMode to start the computer loading only minimal resources

2. Delete Windows registry entries the malware created. It is important to BACKUP YOUR REGISTRY FIRST.
… On Windows Start Menu, Click Start > Run > regedit > export > to save a copy of your registry
… Find registry entries mentioned below and delete if necessary (be very careful)

The program will modify Windows Registry and add one or more of the following entries:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run “Security Shield”
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce “Security Shield”
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Security Shield
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Security Shield
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run “(random)”

3. Files related to Security Shield must be deleted:

… You can find the file on your desktop called Security Shield (the Shield Icon) highlight it and select properties. This will tell you where the executable file is located.  Open your file manager and delete it.
… Then Browse and delete malicious files below (they may or may not be present).
… Some files cannot be deleted instantly.
… Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to open Windows Task Manager, look for any virus-related files mentioned and highlight it, click End Process. (This all should be off if you are in the safe mode)
… Then try to locate the files and delete the files.

The this malware may add the following malicious files to your computer:

(in Windows XP) you will find the file in the Application Data directory
C:\Documents and Settings\YOUR USER NAME\Local Settings\Application Data\random-6 to 10 digit number.exe

(in Windows 7 or Vista) you will find the file in the appdata
C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\random-6 to 10 digit or alpha number  xxxxxxxxxx.exe

Also check:
%System Root%\Samples
%User Profile%\Local Settings\Temp
%Program Files%\Security Shield
%Program Files%\Security Shield
C:\ProgramData\[random numbers]\
%Documents and Settings%\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Security Shield
%Documents and Settings%\All Users\Application Data\Security Shield
doguzeri.dll
(random).exe
(random).cfg

4. Run Antivirus Program
… You must update your anti-virus program. This is needed to have the latest database available.
… Run a Complete Scan of your computer.

A few youtube videos with more ideas on how to remove this menace:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeauWr9BLrY&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4fYBBOixvE&feature=related

If you cannot locate the AppData or the Application Data Directories:

Note: for Windows 7 and Vista users:

Application Data is an environment variable that is programmatically set.  If you open a command prompt and type set, you will then see all of the environment variables that are available to you.

Application Data is represented by the environment variable %appdata%.  In Windows 2K/XP/2003 it pointed to c:\documents and settings\%username%\application data.  In Vista and Windows 7, it now points to c:\users\%username%\appdata\roaming.

Open the Control Panel.  Open Appearence and Personalization.  Open Folder Options.  Select the General tab.  Select Show All Folders.  Accept and close.

For Windows XP users:

Open the Windows File Manager – Select Tools – View and locate the option of  “Show Hidden Files and Folders” – click the option to turn it on. Now you can see it in the File Manager.

Just be very careful when you do this. We take no responsibility for this post.

If you do run into problems – conduct a search for further information about “Removing Security Shield” on your AntiVirus Software Website.  They should have complete instructions on how to remove it.

Is your website online?

Do you wonder if you are loosing traffic because your website is down?  Thousands of great websites suffer rank placement problems from having poor hosting services.

The following uptime monitoring services offer a variety of notifications

Here is short list of sites that offer free and paid services for Website Monitoring:

UptimeRobot ……… http://www.uptimerobot.com/
Sites you can Monitor: 50
Every 5 minutes
Methods of Alerts: E-mail, SMS, RSS
(totally free service) UptimeRobot looks at your site header’s status codes every five minutes and if the code comes back with a problem, does further checks.

Site24×7 ………….. http://site24x7.com
Sites you can Monitor: 1
Once an hour
Methods of Alerts: E-mail
The free  service and offers monitoring of one URL every hour with e-mail alerts sent out if there is a problem.
Additional tools: anytime website uptime check, web page load time analysis and assorted DNS/IP search tools

Mon.itor.us ………. http://mon.itor.us/
Sites you can Monitor: 1
Every 30 minutes
Methods of Alerts: IM, SMS, E-mail, RSS
Mon.itor.us is the free service for Monitis and offers a simple set-up for its external monitoring.

InternetSeer ……… http://www.internetseer.com/
Sites you can Monitor: unlimited sites
Every hour
Methods of Alerts: E-mail, SMS, pager
FREE WEB SITE UPTIME MONITOR SERVICE - checks your website every 15 minutes, get trouble alerts by email or sms, daily uptime report with 14 day history, unlimited sites

Pingdom …………. http://www.pingdom.com/
Sites you can Monitor: 1
User set, from 1 minute upwards
Methods of Alerts: E-mail, SMS (up to 20 per month), push alerts via iPhone app
Pingdom offers a paid monitoring service, but does offer a basic free account

100Pulse ………….  http://100pulse.com/
Sites you can Monitor: 2
Every 15 minutes
Methods of Alerts: E-mail, RSS and a Google gadget
Along with e-mail and an RSS feed, there is free website monitoring service for two sites via a Google Gadget
You can add the alert to your iGoogle homepage for quick status of your websites.

Uptrends …………. http://www.uptrends.com/
Sites you can Monitor: 1
Every 30 minutes
Methods of Alerts: On-site info only
The free option from Uptrends is for uptime info – readily available, instead of alert-based, service

BasicState ……….. http://basicstate.com/
Sites you can Monitor: Unlimited
Every 15 minutes
Methods of Alerts: E-mail, SMS
This free web site uptime monitor service for servers with network failure alerts . BasicState will check the status of unlimited websites every 15 minutes and alert you with either e-mail or SMS.

Montastic …………. http://www.montastic.com/
Sites you can Monitor: 3
Every 30 minutes
Methods of Alerts: E-mail, status via RSS and widgets
The open source service checks from multiple locations in the U.S.. Paid-for options increase the amount of URLs you can check and reduce the time between checks.

Are My Sites Up? …… http://www.aremysitesup.com/
Sites you can Monitor: 5
25 times a day
Methods of Alerts: The freebie option checks  up to five sites at least 25 times per day with unlimited email and SMS notifications.

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Review each service carefully to find what suits your needs.

I just got this e-mail concerning  Google’s Website Optimizer:

Dear Website Optimizer user,

We are writing to inform you of a potential security issue with Website Optimizer. By exploiting a vulnerability in the Website Optimizer Control Script, an attacker might be able to execute malicious code on your site using a Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) attack. This attack can only take place if a website or browser has already been compromised by a separate attack. While the immediate probability of this attack is low, we urge you to take action to protect your site.

We have fixed the bug, and all new experiments are not susceptible. However, any experiments you are currently running need to be updated to fix the bug on your site. Additionally, if you have any Website Optimizer scripts from paused or stopped experiments created before December 3, 2010, you will need to remove or update that code as well.

There are two ways to update your code. You can either stop current experiments, remove the old scripts, and create a new experiment, or you can update the code on your site directly. We strongly recommend creating a new experiment as it is the simpler method.

Creating a New Experiment

1. Stop any currently running Website Optimizer experiments
2. Remove all the Website Optimizer scripts from your site
3. Create a new experiment as normal. New experiments are not vulnerable.

——————————————–

There are also instructions on how to update the code. If you do use the Website Optmizer – I would log in and modify the code according to Google to avoid any vulnerabilities.

WikiLeaks dropped by domain name provider
USAToday

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Wikileaks was forced Friday to switch over to a Swiss domain name, wikileaks.ch, after a new round of hacker attacks on its system prompted its American domain name provider to withdraw service.

WikiLeaks’ U.S. domain name system provider, EveryDNS, withdrew service to the wikileaks.org name late Thursday, saying it took the action because the new hacker attacks threatened the rest of its network.

Read more…

2009 – Trans-Siberian Orchestra – Nutrocker

2007 – Trans-Siberian Orchestra – Christmas Eve in Sarajevo