Image via CrunchBase

Google have offered Gmail email accounts since 2004 so they were late to get into this aspect of internet communication compared to Hotmail, AOL and Yahoo. However, anyone with knowledge will understand that Google don’t rush into new products and services. Google develops before it launches products and services and then evolves them according to customer feedback. You might get the impression that the other email account providers proceeded the other way and that’s why so many AOL users (for example) have experienced some awful losses – thousands emails deleted. 

Image by thms.nl via Flickr

Sign Up for Gmail

Gmail won’t want to be held responsible for such travesties. People save emails because they are important for business, career, emotional and romantic reasons. When AOL updated its email services and lost these emails for millions of its users the writing was on the wall. Anyone who was anyone would be looking out for a more reliable email account provider and in 2004 Google did just that. Google mail was born!

Sign Up for Gmail

Sign up for a Google Mail account as soon as possible. With Google’s Gmail you will experience efficiency and you will not be targeted by hundreds of advertisers. Because of this you’ll find Gmail easier, faster and far more efficient.

Since the advent of the world wide web, the “chain letter” got from a paper letter to a cheaper, easier to disseminate electronic message.

We all are receiving constantly emails that are urging us to forward to all our friends. On social networking websites like Facebook, Tagged and MySpace, we got more and more postings on our “virtual walls” with more and more messages that we need to forward to our friends. And for what? Well , there are a lot of reasons, a lot of excuses and they are usually the same again and again.

1. Forward a message to XX amount of people and something good will happen to you

2. Forward a message to XX amount of people and you will get some good news in a few hours

3. Forward a message to XX amount of people and you will get good luck

4. Forward a message to XX amount of people and see how many return the favour

5. Forward a message to XX amount of people and if you receive 1 you are ugly, if you receive 2 you are not ugly, if you receive 3 you look OK etc.

These messages are coming in different colours , different spelling (usually wrong) and different pictures, but the theme is the same, and it is boring !!!

Many of these messages are harmless. The postings on social networking walls usually are just the work of people with nothing else to do in their lives and want to see a message they made appear in so many walls.

Some of these emails though are a single threat to your personal online security.

When you receive such an email and forward it to everyone in your contact list, what happens is that every time you press FORWARD, all the emails from the previous transmission are included in the new email.

I received a lot of these emails recently and I decided to count the email addresses in a message (not one by one … I used a forensic tool !) and I counted 1,392 UNIQUE email addresses. There were in fact 1,744 in total (many of them were double or triple entries).

This means that now I have 1,392 emails to sell as an emailing list, to abuse, to use for spamming, or to send some malware (a kind of virus) that will hijack these computers and I can use them for any kind of illegal activity, from the electronic networking for drug dealers to dissemination of child pornography. YES ! This is what someone can do with your email and the email addresses of your friends that you so easily spread around.

So next time you receive a message, think twice before you decide to forward it. And if you do, make sure you delete all emails in the message and then put the emails of your friends in the BCC and not to the TO or CC fields of your email. This will provide some form of security to all low level hackers and e-criminals.

If you need any further advice, feel free to contact me here on Triond or at www.StrathclydeForensics.co.uk for some advice on how to reduce the amount of spam that goes around. 

Most of their workers are known as expeditors: people who the questions initially come to. Expeditors then have the option to choose from a selection of similar questions to see if there is already a premade answer, clean up the text and send it off to a specialized guide, or answer the question with the knowledge out of their head.

I guess this is a good time to explain what ChaCha is. It is a text message service out of Carmel, IN, that people can text questions to and a live person will send them an answer back from their computer.

To apply, you simply go to their site, and fill out an application and a W-9 form. That’s right, this is an actual job with an actual application. It’s not that hard to be accepted though. You watch a series of short movies explaining the process, and then take a test to see if you have adequately learned the ropes. Within a few days they notify you of whether or not you have been hired. They then set you up with a live mentor who streamlines the process even further for you.

They pay 2 cents per question you answer. This might seem like a small amount, but you rapidly become faster and can soon answer a question in under 7 or 8 seconds. You can set work whenever you want, too. You literally just log into the website and they begin firing you questions. You can work when you want, where you want. You could just sit in your basement watching TV, and make a few bucks for every show you watch.

I’ve been working for two days, a couple hours a day, and I’ve made 20 dollars. Not quite minimum wage, but much better than anything else I’ve found online. Plus you learn a lot. You get to see the private questions that people send into ChaCha, and you get to give them any answer you want.

You can further your earnings by joining a “team” of other guides, and a portion of everything they make, you make too. To join my team, you would simply enter my email address into the box at the bottom of the application page.

Overall, this is a fun, entertaining way to make some actual money on the internet. It could not replace an actual job, but the average ChaCha-er makes a few hundred dollars a month with not too much effort.

Thanks for reading. If you would like to join, here is the link- http://becomeaguide.chacha.com/  To join my team and make a little extra, enter swimmerboyzrg@aol.com into the referral email address box.

Some of my personal experiences about spyware are intuitively based, but still obvious conclusions about who’s watching.

Not really a big consumer, I usually order retinol from a favorite drugstore online entity. For anyone who doesn’t know, retinol is the only proven cream that delays aging skin.

For about two months after the first retinol order, every time I opened my Yahoo email, there was a horrible picture of a woman who had so many wrinkles; she looked to be at least 200 years old.

Because of the grotesque and garish imagery, I gave this old woman the name of “Leach Woman.” It reminded me of an old horror movie by that name.

Leach Woman eventually went away, possibly because I only order the retinol once a year and my activities possibly didn’t merit the costs of a continued spyware program.

Privacy has become a big factor to consider in the rules of the road for the Internet as a whole.

Early on, I took advice about how to protect monetary activities and have never used a credit card in almost seven years of net presence. Keeping funds in Paypal, and operating from there is the best way to go. If I don’t have enough earnings, I can send Paypal a check via snail mail.

Though Paypal hasn’t been infallible, it has a reason to employ the best software to protect itself from invading spyware.

Image via CrunchBase

Handling business transactions this way keeps financial activities out of the loop. Transactions won’t have a completed pathway for statistics that spyware might be interested in following.

In an article submitted to a different writer’s site, I couldn’t help wanting to be sarcastic about how invasive spyware can really be. So, I made a comment referencing hemorrhoids. Before going ahead and submitting, I wanted to think about the tackiness of it, and left the article hanging in cue for a day or two.

Can you guess what’s already offered in my email, now? You guessed it – “Preparation H.” I got the “Preparation H” spam before the article was even published.

Soon after the meeting on Capital Hill, the Federal Trade Commission Chairman, Jon Leibowitz appeared on PBS television. Leibowitz made the remark that he is encouraging companies involved to keep spyware at bay.

He would like to see self monitoring. The unspoken part of his statement may have been “or else.”

With the FCC and the FTC getting involved with the internal workings of the internet, what can we expect?  The most favorable answer would be, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Rants about spyware peeking at my unpublished article in the cue seem justifiable, but let’s keep everything upbeat and pleasant on the Internet, instead.

Ref

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/science/july-dec10/onlinetrack_12-27.htm

CSPAN

email

In the early days, when I was a newbie, I acquired a Yahoo email account because it was the only one I had ever heard of. Now it’s like a home away from home.

In this email box I get comment notifications and publication notices. I like the comments, because this is about people I know and like. I appreciate them for reading my articles.

Also lately, I see that Oprah Winfrey has purchased her own channel. Appropriately named “Own,” I somehow get the idea that this is quite a meaningful move on her part. Though she’s never invited me to be on her show, I like her anyway.

Sherrod Brown sends me the latest news from Capital Hill. I’m not a democrat, but he’s such a likeable guy.

Of the interesting “everyday” people who send me notices from Facebook, I get to be privy of places where I can buy American made goods.

Now I close that and go to another email account that’s sort of homogenous like Yahoo. Here I get astrology news, and political messages concerning the status of the Internet. The latest in scientific news is here, too.

O.K. It’s time to move on and check out Live.com. Here is where I receive cosmic news, and notification of a UFO ezine that an old friend of mine publishes. He found me on the net after years had gone by with no contact. How does this happen?

So this is the Live.com thematic. Here I receive newsletters from Seth Godin, who has a kind of cosmic interpretation of the meaning of the Internet. Another contact is called SouledOut.com. This is the most esoteric of astrology sites I know of.

Live.com has had some problems lately. It took them a few days to straighten it out, but they came around. It’s one of my favorite emails because they have a feature called “sweep.” It files the different subscriptions in one swoop, or sweep.

They would even accommodate all of the other emails to come there all at once, but I don’t use this feature. It seems that it doesn’t’ work very well, and it’s very slow. It simply takes forever to load the other three emails.

There is an explanation for keeping all of these email accounts. One reason is the sentimentality factor. Once I get used to a routine, the first email account is like a comfortable shoe.

Though the others aren’t as cool as Live.com., they are sort of organized insofar as topic matter. Though these others are pretty disorganized, I know it’s my own fault for being sentimental about those who send me their subscriptions.

That’s life in the virtual world. I’m simply grateful that these offerings are free and provide lots of enjoyment in life.

How many emails do you have?

Email: Hello friend! I’m new to Triond. How do I earn more money here?

Our Reply: Sorry friend! If we knew how to earn more money, we’d be running the company by now.

Email: Read my articles and I’ll read yours. We’ll both earn more money that way.

Our Reply: There are far more people out there who *aren’t* members of Triond.  Get those people to read your work. You’ll earn more money that way. We are busy trying to write. Au revoir!

Email: I saw your profile on a dating site. I’m interested in learning more about you and forming a deeper relationship. Send me a personal email (address omitted) and include a picture.

Our Reply: Thanks but no thanks! You don’t even know our gender. We’ve never ever sent anything to any dating site. Plus we’d never subscribe to a dating site that would have us as a member.

Email: a) Hello friend! I need to talk to you in private. Please contact me at (address omitted). It’s important.

Our Reply: We are strangers. You couldn’t possibly have anything important to discuss with us.

Email: b) But it is very important! You see, I’m a pastor, teacher, businessman, refugee (choose one) in [various African countries]. In order to get my money out of the country, I need someone outside [African country] to pay some fees/charges/deposits for me. Then I will come into a lot of money and you will get 10/20/30….% of it. This is absolutely foolproof.

Our Reply: Fortunately we’re absolutely not a fool. Bye now!

Email: Hi! I sees ur writtings. Their good. Plz helps me get more views.

Our Reply: Hi! Try writing in a real language. Have a nice day.

Email: Click on this link (omitted). U will earn lot of cash. Better than Triond. Do this today.

Our Reply: And yet you are a Triond member anyway.

Email: Click here to lose weight, grow hair, enlarge your  boobs, enlarge your penis ad infinitum.

Our Reply: a) We aren’t fat, b) we have a full head of hair, c & d) just how many people do you know who need to have the last two treatments done simultaneously? TTFN.

Email: fdjkvnri ookmqb7 wjciwl ?

Our Reply: Keep the cat off your keyboard! There’s software to prevent that sort of thing.

Email: hi earn up to $(amount of money) week by just investing $(another amount of money) join today

Our Reply: Invest that amount of money in a class for learning punctuation. Have a nice day!

Those are merely a small sample. It just goes on and on. None of the vaguely pornographic emails have been presented here. We’ll leave those to your imagination.

Clearly these people aren’t interested in actually writing anything useful. They seem to think that our inbox is fair game for anything, no matter how silly. If that time and effort were spent producing articles, we’d all be better off.

Believe it or not, a lot goes into an email. From how to phrase or format your emails, to the encryption and the privacy of your information, Emails are much more than just a letter to a friend. They can also act as a bridge from your company or ideas to your potential customers. Wouldn’t it be nice to make sure your emails convey your message to the fullest?

So what about Email Expert?
Email Expert is a powerful, free asset for any businesses or individuals who needs to know about Email marketing. This simple resource can help provide the all important steps to creating a business email. Founded by a man with over 14 years of experience in the email industry, Email Expert provides articles with commentary from professionals, tips on security, news about the latest technologies and so much more! Some of its more popular articles include information on how to avoid having your emails sent directly to the spam box, Creating facebook-like templates for emails, and email marketing advice for small businesses.

So if you’re seeking to learn about how you can promote businesses or ideas via email marketing, check out the Email expert website at: www.emailexpert.org

There are other offers you can do which pay more. For example, right now Inbox Dollars will pay you $7.50 to open an ING Sharebuilder account. On top of that, ING will match your first deposit dollar for dollar, up to $25.00. So in one action, you can make $32.53 — that’s $0.03 for checking your email, $7.50 for opening the account, and $25.00 for making a $25.00 deposit. Where else can you make over 100% profit on $25?

You need $30 to request your first payout with Inbox Dollars, and they charge a $3 fee for each check. When I originally signed up with them back in 2007, I thought that the deal was bogus. Yet I still kept doing it because it was easy. Since I signed up with them, I’ve made $235.34 after check fees. Is that worth it for three years of checking email? You betcha.

Sign up today and Inbox Dollars will give you $5!

Further reading:

• Succeeding at GPT Sites
• Make Money at Swag bucks
• What is Cash Duck?
• 10 Tips for Shopping at Bargain Stores

 
-STOP getting my hopes up with bogus emails. I’m tired of seeing
a new mail in my inbox and then discovering that it’s just another offer for nuvo ring or eharmony.

-STOP calling me at three in the morning with automated messages in spanish (I don’t even speak spanish. At least not well enough to understand whatever the hell it is that you’re selling)

- STOP trying to be my friend on facebook and screwing up my page with your crummy( and sometimes obscene messages)

-STOP announcing my business to the world. If I googled skanky halloween costumes on amazon *once*, I don’t need to be reminded everytime I login to go shopping that I’m “interested” in skanky Halloween costumes. No I do not want any reccommendations amazon. I am a free thinking individual, and I think I can manage to shop online
without being reminded what I was looking at last time.

-STOP arguing with me.

- STOP infecting my computer with viruses. I am too lazy to back up my harddrive, and am too cheap to buy and external drive. I don’t want to have to make an extra emergency trip to  Best Buy and do a payday loan (See other article) just so I can get another laptop. Because you destroyed this one with your spam viruses and Trojans. You have no soul spammers honestly.

-STOP trying to take down twitter with useless viscious pranks. People don’t care that you nerds found a way to put popups on twitter in twenty-five words or less. What are you going to try to take down next? MySpace?

-Most of all STOP trying to recruit me. There are actually websites that will pay you one penny for every ad that you click on. They will also pay you to give out your email and other personal details. (This might be why I get so much spam now. What can I say. I like money.)

Overall, I’m tired of aggressive  advertising on the internet. You’d think they’d learn that if your customers are pissed off, they are not going to buy any of your products. Legitimate ads on sites like Hulu are okay.
] Tell me in 15 seconds or less why I should care what you’re selling, and I’ll be more willing to buy. Otherwise back up off me spammers. Seriously. I don’t want to go postal on your behind. But I might.

To stop the  preapproved credit cards and insurance offers call: 888-567-8688 or visit:optoutprescreen.com. You will have to give them your Social Security number.

To stop all the unwanted catalogs and marketing brochures in your mailbox visit: dmachoice.org, at the same site you can elect to reduce the number of email solicitations you receive.

If you are ordering something from a website and you don’t want your email filled with future span, register for a temporary email account at: guerrillamail.com. It’s free and you will be able to use the address to receive messages for 15 minutes and send them for 60 minutes, after that, it never existed.

To sign up to stop the delivery of unsolicited phone books, go to yellowpagesgoesgreen.org.

To stop Financial Institutions from sharing your saving and spending habits information with other marketers, banks and businesses, call to say no.

Bank of America: 888-341-5000; or https://www6.bankofamerica.com/privacy/Preferences.do

Chase: 888-868-8618; or chaseonline.com/public/privacy/privacyfilter.aspx

Citibank: Call the number on the back of your ATM card or statement; or citibank.com/privacy/us-priv.htm

Wachovia: 866-203-5722; or wachovia.com/personal/forms/privacy-optout

Wells Fargo: 888-528-8460

Publish your articles and earn income.