Internet doomsday gets closer

Hundreds of thousands of computers will simultaneously lose access to the internet on July 9 2012, unless their owners check for a virus that may have remained hidden for several years, the FBI has warned.

The so-called "internet doomsday" will come as the bureau turns off a server system its investigators installed in November, when they broke up an Estonian crime ring that was running a global internet advertising scam.

Since 2007, the six men had been using a "Trojan" virus - named after the mythical horse - to seize control of computers all over the world.

The virus, called "DNS Changer", would redirect the web browsers of victims from sites they wanted to visit to ones controlled by the gang.

Revenue from adverts tied to those sites is estimated to have earned the criminals US$14 million ($17.2 million) in commission.

By late last year, when the FBI and Estonian authorities shut down the racket, the virus had seized control of about half a million computers.

However, had the investigators simply closed down the gang's servers, every computer infected would have been unable to access the internet.

The FBI replaced the gang's servers with a surrogate server system, and set up a free website which allows people to check if they are victims of the virus, and then remove it from their machine.

More information here: https://forms.fbi.gov/check-to-see-if-your-computer-is-using-rogue-DNS

Check your DNS here: http://www.dns-ok.us/

Know the risks of having a .COM website domain name

Impossible. Nuts. Unbelievable. Those are some of the more polite reactions Chief Executive of InternetNZ, Vikram Kumar gets when he tells people that having a .com domain name for their website is sufficient for them to be subject to US jurisdiction - which allows for nasty stuff like the US government seizing their website or extradition to USA to stand trial over there based on allegations alone.

With all the recent controversy surrounding Kim Dotcom, it might pay to know the legal risks if you operate your New Zealand website with a .com domain name. Vikram says "The bottom line is, if you have a .com domain name, or other at-risk domain names like .net, you are subject to US domestic laws and jurisdiction. This allows the US government to seize your website or even seek your extradition to USA to stand trial, based on allegations of breaking their laws. You're also at risk from any mistakes and collateral damage."

Read Vikram Kumar's enlightening article in full at the NBR website and be fully informed of the risks. http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/have-com-web-address-know-legal-risks-ck-113355

How safe is your password?

Choosing a unique password is rule number one for online security, but it seems plenty of people are still unwilling to accept the inconvenience, preferring passwords that are easy to remember, easy to type, and most importantly, easy for hackers to guess.

According to an annual list of the most commonly used passwords, published by password management software vendor SplashData, the most common password for 2011 was password, followed by 123456, 12345678, qwerty, and abc123.

Splashdata bases its results on lists of pilfered passwords published online by hackers. Also in the top 10 were monkey, 1234567, letmein, trustno1, and dragon.

A few tricky people thought replacing the letter o in ‘password’ with a zero would throw potential thieves off the scent, but that configuration came in at number 18.

Using your favourite sport could also be a bad idea, with both ‘baseball’ and ‘football’ making the list. Three names made the list – ashley, bailey and michael – as did sunshine, shadow, iloveyou, master, and superman.

Check out the full list below:

1. password
2. 123456
3. 12345678
4. qwerty
5. abc123
6. monkey
7. 1234567
8. letmein
9. trustno1
10. dragon
11. baseball
12. 111111
13. iloveyou
14. master
15. sunshine
16. ashley
17. bailey
18. passw0rd
19. shadow
20. 123123
21. 654321
22. superman
23. qazwsx
24. michael
25. football

A QR code on your website can link to something special

A QR code is a two dimensional barcode.

If you are a website visitor and have a camera phone, scan the image of the QR code. It will open a related web page on your phone's internet browser.

You can check if the camera has an inbuilt QR code reader or you can easily download a free QR code reader application.

For the website owner it is a chance to redirect the visitor to another web page that, for example, may have a Special or even a page designed for mobile phone users.

There are many websites that allow you to create a QR code image and then it's easy to add to your website.

Google Web Fonts

To give website developers a choice of high quality fonts, Google have created Google Web Fonts.

On their website you can browse a catalogue of available fonts, learn about the font designers who created them, and copy the code required to use them on your web page.

The fonts in the directory are all released under open source licenses; you can use them on any non-commercial or commercial project.

Benefits of the Google Web Fonts include:
- A choice of high quality open source fonts.
- Works in most browsers.
- Extremely easy to use.

New Zealand domain name survey

The New Zealand Domain Name Commission recently surveyed online participants about their domain name knowledge. Here's some interesting results:
- 67% of participants prefer to use .NZ for a website over .com
- trademe.co.nz is New Zealand's top domain name for awareness.
- 10% of participants who already own or manage a domain name don't know what a domain name is.
- 52% of participants would prefer to drop domain.co.nz for something smaller like domain.nz

What do you think about a new extension like .KIWI?
- 14% of participants who do not own or manage a domain name would prefer to use .KIWI over .NZ or .COM

Read the full Colmar Brunton survey results at the DNC website at http://dnc.org.nz/content/Survey_results_2011.pdf

The Readability Test Tool

Writing good copy which is easy to read is an important part of connecting with prospective customers.

I came across this great website that provides a quick and easy way to test the readability of your website, proposal, brochure or other written material. It is the most flexible readability software for assessing readability formulas.

Go to www.read-able.com.

My website has the following result: "Has an average grade level of about 8. It should be easily understood by 13 to 14 year olds".

That's encouraging.

Pure SEO offers the best in search engine ranking

When Richard Conway arrived in Auckland to start a new life he asked us to develop a website for his new website search engine optimization business Pure SEO. With many years experience in this field in the UK, he was hoping to help Kiwis improve their search engine rankings.

When Creative Embroidery asked if I could help improve their search engine ranking, I put the 2 parties together and the rest is history.

The NZ Herald recently ran an article on Richard’s company and it makes interesting reading. Go to www.nzherald.co.nz.

Your Trade Me listings on your website

In September 2010 the first edition of the Trade Me API was released.

API is short for “application programming interface” and, in a nutshell, it’s a language and message format that will let a program or application that someone has built talk to information sitting in Trade Me’s database.

We have developed a PHP program that reads an XML file of all the Trade Me listings for Gelaskins and displays them on their website.

Check this out at http://www.gelaskins.co.nz/.

Click on each image to be taken to the Trade Me listing.

Bizlinks is 10 years old

Who would have thought when I started Bizlinks in April 2001 that the company would survive 10 years on.

I would like to thank all those early customers who had faith in what I was doing and especially those customers who are still with me today. I must be doing something right.

Bizlinks will continue to work at it's core business - creating affordable websites using tried and true software while offering a personalised service.