A Hack Attack Is Only Funny When It's Bill The Cat!

We were hacked. Bet the thought of it gives you shivers. It sure did me, and more!

Mid week I signed up for Google Webmaster Tools and was horrified to see a list of keywords that were pornographic AND not on my site. The first question, of course, was where on earth were these coming from.

I went on the server and started checking every file to see if I could find something that did not look right. As I was doing this my Live Help (Crafty Syntax Live Help http://www.craftysyntax.com//) popped up with a visitor on my site. As usual I checked to see the keywords they used to find me and what page they were searching for and was horrified to see pornographic keywords and a url on my site that I did not know existed.

OMG!

I immediately searched the particular folder and there were pages and pages of pornographic text files that had been uploaded to my site. I reported it to my hosting company who did give me information that helped. I downloaded one of the pages to view the code and saw that there was a script underneath. On further research (google search) I discovered that these pages were simply jumping off points, due to the script, to actual pornographic sites. But there was my url listed with these awful pornographic words - in Google :-(

Read the entire article here:

http://www.jbcr-virtualsolutions.com/tips-and-articles.html#Attack

Jan

What To Ask...

When you decide to start a business online, or bring your off line business online, you will no doubt have a lot of questions, I know. So I have started a FAQ page that I hope will help you as you walk along this path. Visit my new page here:

http://www.jbcr-virtualsolutions.com/faq.html

If you don't find the answers you are looking for please drop me a note.

Have a great weekend!

Jan

One Easy Way To Improve Your Web Site!

I was working on a few things on my site tonight and typed in a file name that didn't work. The page redirected to a 404 page at my hosting company. I'm sure you have seen that happen on sites you have been on - doesn't look very professional does it.

I changed the appearance of my site a few months ago and eliminated some pages and - oops - forgot to upload my custom 404 page. This made me realize it would be a good 'tid-bit' to pass on to you. Here is what you do.

Check the control panel of your hosting company to see what they say the custom 404 page is named. With mine it gave me the ability to do a very general text message, but I knew if I named the page what it was going to name it I could make my own page. In this case it is:

404.shtml

So this is how my 404 page looks (this page does not exist):

http://www.jbcr-virtualsolutions.com/error.html

Try your url with error.html and see what comes up. Do you need a custom 404?

Stay tuned for more 'goodies' and be sure to check out our articles page here:

http://www.jbcr-virtualsolutions.com/tips-and-articles.html

Jan

The Quest To Find Land At Second Life

Bringing your company into Second Life is a new way to give and share information. Yes there are a number of major companies in Second Life, such as, Dell, Nissan, Adidas, IBM, Reuters, Sony BMG, but there are also more not so well known names that offer art, graphics, design, products.

I realized, once I got past the part of creating my 'image' and picking up some feebies here and there, that I had to find some land to build on.

Finding land certainly has not been easy. How does one figure out where you should buy or not? Should you be in "PG" land, should you be in "Mature land", and even then, trying to find at least a reasonable cost.













Read more here:
http://www.jbcr-virtualsolutions.com/tips-and-articles.html#Find

Want to join Second Life? Click here and do look me up when you get there!


Jan

Project Management - Organizing Your Website (Storyboard)

What is Website Storyboarding?

Basically it is breaking the whole into small manageable pieces. It is not just creating pages, the linking structure, though that is part of it, but also the flow of where you what your visitor to enter, the paths you want them to follow (guide your visitor) to reach an end result.

This storyboard will end up telling your story to your visitor both visually and structurally.

In one of my employment incarnations I worked for the film industry. Part of my educational training, which is critical for film production (in fact production of any kind), was storyboarding. The story board covers every last detail of the production to ensure nothing is missed, timing is correct, there is continuity, etc.

My training in I.T. Publishing/Web Design/Programming also had one very critical part of the course which was Project Management. Under that umbrella was also storyboarding.

Read more of the article here:
http://www.jbcr-virtualsolutions.com/tips-and-articles.html#Two

Jan

Virtualoso for April is Now Available!

Virtualoso newsletter is now available. In this issue I cover:

1. Pay Per Action
2. Ranking Factors Report - SEO
3. Social Networking
4. Go To Webinar
5. A funny video not to be missed!

If you are not signed up for the newsletter you can right in the blog just on the right.

Enjoy,

Jan

Organizing Your Web Site - Project Management

When I took my training in I.T. Publishing/Web Design/Programming one very critical part of the course was Project Management. Project Management is common place in large companies as many will have various staff dealing with different aspects of the project. However, Project Management is also used in smaller companies.

Managing the project of a website is not only having the beginning idea and final product ending, but many steps in between to not only help you organize what is needed to be done, determine a time frame, but also to bring the project in on budget.

Learn the beginning steps here:
http://www.jbcr-virtualsolutions.com/tips-and-articles.html#Organizing

Jan