http://www.javascriptkit.com/howto/htaccess.shtml

 How to use the anti spam system and set preferences on the anti spam system.  Note:  If your email program has a spam / junkmail filter - you probably will not want to use our Spam Assassin spam filter -- for instance, as of 2006, Microsoft Outlook's built-in junkmail filter catches more spam than Spam Assassin does.  Also, we have non-content based spam filtration in place that blocks most spam automatically, with zero false positives.

Linux server shopping cart installation instructions.  No matter which shopping cart system you choose to use on the Linux servers - it should be installed into a subdirectory of the /httpdocs folder.  Then we will setup a "symbolic link" so that you can link to the order form that is in the shop cart which is in the /httpdocs folder, using SSL secure layer (encrypted order form.)  (Secure forms that are not part of a larger set of files such as with a shopping cart system, that are by themselves, can be located in the /httpsdocs directory.  But if you are using the above method with a shopping cart system, any other forms that need to be accessed securely in web browsers will need to go into /httpdocs.)

Query the "Who Is" internet database of domain name registration records.

Your local computer's current IP address is:

How to Send Form Page Results via Email.  Both methods that we support, one on Windows dedicated server and one on Linux shared and dedicated server, work the same way:  There are two components to a web page form mailer;  A form component that the end user uses with their browser, and a script component that is invisible to the end user but that processes the information that the end user inputs.  The output from the script processing is an email message.  With PHP Form Mailer (Linux) and AspEmail (Windows dedicated,) there are two files, one for each component.  Since the form component uses html, you can substitute your own form for the example form that is provided if you prefer.

Need a search feature on your web site?  Check out http://www.google.com/services/websearch.html .

OpenDNS is a good content filter for web browsers for your family or business.

SPAM

How to deal with SPAM (unsolicited email messages coming in to your email account).

Our anti spam FAQ is lengthy and complicated.  But you can relax because we filter out most incoming spam for you automatically, before it reaches your inbox. 8 percent of the remaining 10 percent of the spam your email program's content based junkmail filter, or optionally our Spam Assassin server side content based junkmail filter, can handle. Leaving only 2 percent for you to delete out of your inbox (approximately.)  Many of the other anti spam methods discussed in this FAQ will not have to be used.

We use a few different methods to filter out most of the spam before it gets to our customers inbox, without resulting in any false positives (legitimate email mistakenly identified as spam.)  If your email program has a spam / junkmail filter - you probably will not want to use our Spam Assassin spam filter.   For instance, Microsoft Outlook 2003's built-in and updated junkmail filter catches more spam than Spam Assassin does, and using our Spam Assassin filter could pose more inconvenience than benefit.

For Older versions of Outlook, 2002 and earlier, we recommend SpamFighter, which catches more spam than Spam Assasin does as well -- http://spamfighter.com .  Other third party junkmail filters can be found available for download at http://tucows.com .

How To Use our Spam Assassin Filter if Your Email Program Does Not Have a Junkmail Filter
   
Spam tagging system preferences are located at http://email.yourdomain.com (substitute yourdomain.com with your domain name) - login there with your full email address and password. Make sure to select English (and any other languages you use in your email communication.)

You need to enable the spam filter if you want to use it, and then you need to specify if you want messages identified as spam to be tagged as spam in your subject line or if you want them to go into another email account (such as you can create a junkmail@ email account for this purpose for you or your entire office), or if you want it deleted.  We recommend not having it deleted since some valid email is falsely identified as spam, more so in the beginning before you have had a chance to use the allowed sender list, and usually if the email is in html web page format.  Over time, you can use an allowed sender list for valid email addresses that are getting falsely identified as spam in the rules area of the http://email.yourdomain.com spam filter system preferences. If you get to the point where you never get any mistakenly spam tagged messages, it is then a good idea to tighten the rules score to a lower number then the default 5, until you start getting falsely spam tagged messages again, in which case you would loosen the number back up until you have found a number that works best for you.

You can access a junkmail@ account using the webmail system, or with a regular email program that you use, if you choose to have the spam sent to another mailbox, sending it to a "junkmail" mailbox account as an example.  If you choose the method where the spam is tagged in the subject line (and not sent to any other account), you can setup a rule in most email programs to automatically move spam tagged messages into a junkmail folder or your deleted folder based on the content of the subject line containing the word SPAM.  In this case, you must leave the zero in the "Send spam messages to" field, which is the default setting, in your spam filter user preferences (http://email.yourdomain.com).

Don't forget to click on update when you are finished setting up your anti spam system settings. There is no logout button, so you will simply close your browser when finished updating the spam filter user preferences. You can go into the anti spam settings at any time to change your preferences. The http://email.yourdomain.com works on a per mailbox user basis, so everyone in your company can control their own spam filter preferences.

Regarding http://email.yourdomain.com spam filter preferences for each mailbox account -- login with your full email address, and your email password.

To strengthen the spam scoring rules - lower the number to a number lower than 5.0, such as 4.0 or 3.0 or lower.

If you increase the number from 5.0 to a higher number - it will weaken the spam filter threshold.

To use an allowed sender list on particular domains and email addresses - add rules at the bottom of the spam filter preferences page.

*@microsoft.com allows any email address from microsoft.com to bypass the spam filter.

bill.gates@microsoft.com only allows bill to be bypassed in the spam filter rules.

*@*.microsoft.com allows all machine names of microsoft to bypass the spam filter - for instance if you got an email from customers@mail.microsoft.com . It is always a good idea if you are allowing a whole domain to bypass the spam filter - to add the rule both ways, *@microsoft.com and *@*.microsoft.com .

You can also use an allowed sender list in the same way, if you want to block addresses or domains from sending you mail.

In your Microsoft Outlook or other email program, create a rule - which will move any message with SPAM in the subject line into the deleted (or junkmail) folder.  Check that folder several times a day before emptying it. 99 percent of the messages in the deleted folder are spams so you can scan that folder quickly for valid, mistakenly spam tagged messages. Then use the allowed sender list for any valid email address that gets spam tagged, in the spam filter user preferences. Over time there will be less and less mistakenly spam tagged messages. 

Once you have listed all your contacts' email addresses and / or domain names in your allowed sender list, you will probably then want to strengthen your spam filter rule threshold from 5.0 to a lower number - we suggest 3.0 or lower.  You can experiment with finding a number that works best for you - that identifies the most spam but not at the expense of mis-identifiying valid emails.  The number does not have to be a whole number, you can use 2.7 for instance.

If you use a content filtering system within your email program, you'll need to notice which messages get identified as spam by your email program, and use it's allowed sender list feature in the same way.  If you are tagging spam identified messages with our spam filter, you will be able to see those since they will have the spam tag in the subject line.  In some cases you may have to list an address in both allowed sender lists, and it can't hurt to do this if you are not sure which spam filter mis-identified the email as spam.  This does take some time and effort at first, but after a while when you have all your contacts listed in your allowed sender list, it doesn't take much time.  If you have a list of all your email contacts and that list isn't too extensive, you may opt to list them all in your allowed sender list as a preventive measure, then you won't have to be bothered with using your allowed sender list very often.  It may be possible to import a list of addresses into your email program's allowed sender list all at once.

We do not recommend adding spammer email addresses into your block list as spammers always use different email addresses.

The free email program Thunderbird also has it's own spam content filtering system.

The anti spam system does not work on redirect email addresses, only on mailbox (pop3/imap) accounts. Although both redirects and mailbox accounts our mail servers get anti virus scanning protection.

Note:  It would be best for you to set your email program to receive and send email in plain text format only, not in html (web page) format, as most html formatted messages will be spam tagged - since most spam contains html formatted messages and this is one of the rules that helps to identify a lot of spam.  If you have a need to receive messages in html format - just make sure to put all the incoming html format email addresses in your allowed sender list and those messages should not be identified as spam.  (Another reason is that way all the people you are sending email to who also use spam filters, will most likely get your message whether *they have listed you in their allowed sender list* in their system or not.)

You may be able to achieve very good spam blocking -- by creating an autoresponder for an email address that you advertise publicly and/or on your web site (that can be harvested by spammers,) that tells legitimate senders what your real email address is, and all they have to do is then send the mail again to your real email address and update their records.  As most spammers do not receive or read responses to their spams as they would not have the time to read responses to their millions of spams - so mostly only  legitimate senders will find out about your real email address.

http://spamcop.net/  is a web site that can help you deal with spam messages that make it through our filter and spam tagging system.  Please use spamcop to report all your spam messages to -- when you sign up there for a free or paid spam reporting account, you will be provided an email address to send your email messages to.  It is imperative that you first find out how to see the "full header info" version of the spam message.  In Eudora email program, open the message and click on the "Blah Blah Blah" button.  In MS Outlook, open the spam message and go to view-options.  In MS Outlook Express, go to file-properties-detail for the message when it is highlighted (doesn't have to be opened just highlighted.)  Once you see the entire email message including the "full header info" which is where the real spammer mailserver information is hidden, copy all of the message including the full header, and paste it into a new email message, and send that off (no subject required) to your spamcop reporting email address.  You will get a response email back with a URL you click on where you then send the report off to various system administrators who will get the spam report by email. 

No Spam Rule number 1:  Don't ever buy anything from a spammer.  (If there are no sweets for the ants - they go away.  If you provide sweets - count on many more ants.)  If a spamvertised product or service looks like a good idea, search for the same type of product  or service on Yahoo or a search engine rather than buying the spammer's product or service.  Most likely you'll be doing business with a much more reputable and trustworthy business as well.

Note:  Because of the phishing, make sure to be very careful when clicking on hyperlinks in email messages that might be spoofed.  Online criminals send spam that looks like official company email messages, complete with graphics and all, from organizations such as banks, and when you click on the hyperlink, you end up going somewhere else, where you can mistakenly give a criminal organization your online banking login ID and passwd.  The best rule is, if the email looks legitimate, go to the web site manually yourself just to be safe, then click on "login" to take care of what the email message is asking for.  And you can report such criminal email messages to the FBI if you choose, when you get them.  The more detailed the information you can provide the better, such as the entire source code of the email message, and the full message headers.

http://www.elsop.com/wrc/nospam.htm has a lot of anti spam links and information.

Search Engine Marketing

 Google's Webmaster Help Center has a number of useful articles on search engine optimization.  You might as well get your information from the horses' mouth.  Google recommends to be very careful regarding companies that offer search engine optimization services.

     Submit a site to Google

 Yahoo's Webmaster Help Center

     Submit a site to Yahoo

 Microsoft's Webmaster Help Center

               Submit a site to Bing

Google.com Search Term Suggestion Tool This search tool does not show numbers -- showing numbers requires having a paid pay per click account with Google.  (Use a shotgun search word to see many of the niches that are searched on.)

In the early days of the Internet, search engine advertising was free.  It wasn't long before the pay per click model changed free search engine advertising.  You can still include your site for free in search engines, but it is more difficult to have your site listed near the top of the search results.  That said, if you have the budget, try pay per click advertising with Google, Yahoo, and Bing.  One way to minimize a pay per click advertising campaign is to use various kinds of targeted niche search phrases, rather than broad shotgun phrases.  It is easier to have good free listing search results with markets that don't have a lot of competition.

Our recommended rule with search engine advertising/marketing is "think niche."  Niche products and services are generally cheaper to advertise in pay per click search engines then shotgun approach products and services because there will generally be less companies competing for position in your search terms if you niche.  You may even find yourself redoing your business plan completely based around the concept that niche marketing is more feasible on the internet, and arrange your entire business around a niche or niches, and specializing as a result.  Even if you are able to get high ranks in free search engine listings, your chances will probably be better with a niche search term since there conceivably will be less listings to compete with.

Rule Number Two:  Use Unpopular Keywords for Your Product or Service no Matter What Your Budget.  Another approach which can be used with broad market products and services is to use "marginalized" search engine phrases in pay per click advertising.  What this means is using the search phrases that are less expensive for your product or service - they will bring in many less hits, but the per click cost is less, and so no matter what your budget you should be able to afford paying for clicks on some marginalized search phrases which should bring in some business at least, which is better than nothing.  These should be used no matter what your budget large or small as they are cost effective.  These would be search phrases that you might ordinarily not think of off the top of your head at first.  You can try different phrases at the search engine to see what its cost is and how many hits it gets on your search phrase to find out which ones are low cost "marginal" keywords for your product or service.  And Google and Overture have tools now to find these marginalized keywords.  You can even used misspellings for less commonly used keywords.

Another tip regarding using free search engine listings (as compared to pay per click listings) -- apparently the more web sites that link to your site the better - it gives more credit to the validity of your site being listed nearer the top of the findings for some of the search engines.  There should be more detailed info regarding these sorts of methods and strategies for optimizing free search engine results on the internet.

Domain Registration

Domain Name Registrations starting at $12.00 per year.  You can search for available domain name as well see some suggestions for available similar domain names.  Register new domain names or transfer your existing domains to our registrar of choice Open SRS.  Some of the top level domain name extensions available include:   .com   .net   .org   .biz   .us   .tv   .cc   .info  and  .name .

Misc.

Interested in securing your local computer from hackers?  The first thing to do, using Windows, if you are not connected to a local area network (your computer is connected to the Net but is standalone), is to turn off the check mark for "share files with other computers on the network" in your network control panel - file and printer sharing button area.  If you are on a LAN, (local area network), most likely your file sharing will be enabled, but make sure that you right click your mouse button on all your hard drives, and assign a password to access each drive.  If others on your LAN don't need to access your drives or printers connected to your computer, you can disable the check mark for file sharing.  Passwords containing letters in mixed upper and lower case, numbers, and characters are the hardest passwords to crack.

Note:  The US D.O.D. has banned use of USB thumb drives as there was a breach of a US  military network by hackers who intentionally left thumb drives in parking lots which some employees attached to their workstations to see what was on the drive, which executed a malicious program that allowed the hackers to hack into the network.  Used software and drives and data disks of any kind should be avoided if you have found them.

The ultimate security method in a home or office, is to not take that older computer you replaced with the new one to the thrift store just yet.  Use 2 computers, one connected to the internet, running email and web browser and other internet applications you might use, and the other as your workstation, connected only to the LAN, not connected to the Internet.  If you use this method, it is the best "firewall" around of course, as no one on the Internet, not even the best hacker or virus, could then get into your workstation.  But you lose the ability to send email file attachments that are stored on your workstation, and you lose the ability to copy/paste from your workstation files into an email message or web browser field as well.  If having 2 monitors, 2 keyboads, and 2 mice on your desk takes too much room, you can get a "KVM switch" at your local computer retail store or online computer store, that will allow you to use one monitor, keyboard, and mouse, and switch between 2 computers simply by flipping a switch on the KVM switch.

For an alternative email program and web browser, check out http://www.mozilla.com/ 's Firefox web browser and Thunderbird Email program.

Shrink the physical size (not the visual size) of your web site graphics to boost your web site's viewing speed:  http://www.webopt.com or http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshopel/main.html  (among others.)  Adobe Photoshop has the save for the web feature built in as well, which makes optimizing graphics for the web easy, but it is more expensive and is targeted for advanced graphics users.