Sanders Media

I know everyone mentions the tough economic times ad nauseum. Still, the fact of the matter is we are facing serious problems brought on by the current economic realities. Businesses are having to cut expenses just to survive.

The first expense usually cut is marketing. Most experts agree that this is the wrong strategy. You need your marketing to thrive in this economy. While I am not suggesting you refrain from assessing your spending, I do think you need to keep a strong marketing campaign. Your brand is important, and you have to keep nurturing it.

One bright spot in this economy is it is forcing all of us to be creative and efficient with our spending. I feel businesses that survive will be stronger. They will have learned valuable lessons about profit maximizing strategies.

Recycling your old electronics has now gotten a bit easier. Consumer electronics retailer, Best Buy, has instituted a policy that allows customers to bring in their old devices for recycling. Most of time it is free, but there is a small fee for some devices. Follow this link for more details.

I am elated by this news. Most of us want to do the right thing, but have found it very difficult to find places to recycle our old electronics. Now, all you have to do is go to your local Best Buy and drop them off. To make your life a little easier, be sure to read the program details before you go.

I posted a list of common computer terms and acronyms awhile back. Since you could name hundreds more, I thought I should list a few more.

• WYSIWYG – What You See Is What You Get
• Backlink - A backlink is a link coming from another website to your own. The number and quality of backlinks that your site has can affect your search engine optimization efforts, as some search engines provide significant weight to the backlinks of a site.
• Below The Fold - The fold in Web design is the position on a Web page where the majority of browsers viewing the page will begin to scroll. Elements that are positioned “below the fold” are not seen when the page first loads. And some people believe that it’s important to design Web pages that don’t scroll, or that keep only less important information below the fold.
• CMS - Content Management System. A tool for managing content, usually on a Web site, that separates the design, interactivity, and content from one another to make it easier for content authors to provide content.
• DNS - DNS stands for Domain Name Service. DNS is the TCP/IP stack that converts IP addresses into domain names. If you purchase a domain name, DNS servers are given the IP address of your Web server and the corresponding domain name. Then, when someone comes to your domain, the DNS server translates that to an IP so it knows where to send the request.
• Link Farm - A link farm is a website set up with the sole purpose of increasing the link popularity of other sites by increasing the number of incomming links to those sites. They are typically made up of long lists of unrelated links. Some link farms are created as networks of sites that contain numerous links to one another.Nearly all search engines remove link farms from their directories when they find them. And many also penalize other sites that link to them. It is not a good idea to link to a link farm if you rely at all on organic search for pageviews.
• Podcast - A podcast is a digital recording that is sent to subscribers over the Internet through an RSS feed. A podcast can be sent as audio or video files.The term was developed by combining the words “iPod” and “broadcast”. There are many ways to promote your podcast, including direct from the Apple iTunes store.

You can find these definitions and more, here.

I helped a client dispose of another Trojan for Windows. This piece of malware digs deep into your computer, and makes Google or Yahoo searches impossible. Essentially, anytime you use Google or Yahoo to search for any subject, the resulting links will not go to their correct destination. This Trojan causes the links to go to predetermined spam sites. I found this article at techspot.com which helped me solve the problem. For your convenience, I’ve also posted the instructions below. Take special care to follow the 8-step Viruses/Spyware/Malware Preliminary Removal Instructions as well. Lastly, download Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware program. I’ve found it to be one of the best around.

Procedural Steps
1.

• Start->Run-> Devmgmt.msc ->ok
• On the toolbar, Click on View -> ”Show hidden devices”

2.

• Scroll down and locate Non-plug and Play Drivers
• Click the + sign to expand

3.

• Search for “TDSSserv.sys”
  • More exploits: clbdriver.sys, oUltraf, seneka.sys,
• Right click on it, and select “Disable”

4. Restart your computer

5. Confirm ‘TDSSserv.sys’ is disabled. Repeat Step 1-3. Cancel to exit.

6. Begin or resume UPDATED 8-step Viruses/Spyware/Malware Preliminary Removal Instructions.