Technically Easy

Blog

Identifying Malware on Your Computer

Cybersecurity is a growing threat, and hackers and cybercriminals are making their malware increasingly complex and difficult to detect.

And unfortunately, many websites and companies are even having difficulty keeping track. According to published data, as many as 600,000 Facebook websites get hacked a day, and even major brands like the New York Times aren’t unsusceptible to attacks.

But most general internet users aren’t well-versed in the tools to identify malware on their computers, or well-aware of what symptoms on their machine can help them identify possible issues. To here are a few tips and tricks to help you identify malware on your computer.

Establish your computer’s baseline

Do you know what programs and processes are running on your computer right now? Believe it or not, dozens of processes run in the background– and never show up in your taskbar. There are a few applications you can use to help you establish what your ‘baseline’ processes are: what are the normal programs your computer runs in the background when there are no issues.

For Microsoft machines, you can use the Microsoft Process Explorer, which can tell you what processes are running… and also informs you of what the end function of all those processes are. To get a baseline, get a full list of all the processes which run when the computer is behaving normally.

If your computer begins to slow down, or behaves erratically, call up the process explorer and compare notes. Are there additional processes running that are not described, or poorly described? Those might be good places to begin considering a malware problem.

If you don’t run a Microsoft machine, or you want a more detailed look at your computer’s processes, there are a few alternatives: HiJackThis from Trend Micro, and GetSystemInfo from Kapersky. Both of these programs operate similarly to the native Process Explorer, but with beefed-up information. The downside is that they can be a little daunting to learn how to use if you’re a tech novice.

Assess your computer’s vulnerabilities

If your computer and network are less vulnerable, you’ll likely have less threats to combat! While this is usually a preventative measure, if you find out that your computer has specific vulnerabilities, it can be a sign that you need to look for possible malware.

Luckily, most computers come with a Security Analyzer already installed in the OS which can be accessed from the control panel. But if you’d like a stronger option, there are a few reputable third-party scanners.

Secunia Inspection Scanners scan far more than the base security analyzer in microsoft products, and also help to inform users how to correct any vulnerabilities they find in great detail. Luckily, Secunia products are also rather intuitive and easy to use.

Using vulnerability scanners in conjunction to other anti-malware products is crucial for ensuring greater success at identifying malware on your computer.

Your antivirus and anti-malware products

No one using the internet should be using a computer without antivirus and anti-malware; while no one program can catch everything, the more layered your systems of security are, the more difficult it will be for malware to get a foothold on your computer… and the easier it will be for you to find and correct!

There are many companies which provide antivirus for pc; and different options are better for different kinds of users. But since a great deal of malware presents itself as free antivirus products, it’s important to do your due dilligence, and get your antivirus from a reputable source.

A great place to start is to look at the published results of antivirus efficacy tests, which rank software based on their response to common bugs, viruses, and other issues.

Running scans on your security suite software uses heuristics to detect known malware; and some can alert you when they discover malware organically, while others must be told to run dedicated scans.

February 26, 2016
From Zero to Hero: How to Become a Computer Guru

The guru in the spiritual world is one who has achieved an enlightened state. It’s a Sanskrit term that implies that someone is a “teacher, guide or master” of certain knowledge. A guru helps to share their knowledge and to build the knowledge of others, so a computer guru is basically the Om Shanti Om of all things motherboards and cloud.

You need one, or better yet – you need to be one. It’s not that hard (certainly not as hard as achieving enlightenment) and can be achieved with just a few simple steps. Want to learn? Read on…

Tip one: Google is your guru

Ok, so I said before that you’ll be the guru. This is partly true. The other part of this is that a huge majority of what makes up being a savvy computer person is using the internet to your best advantage. Ask anyone who knows what they’re talking about with computers how they learned it, and the vast majority of them will say: I Googled it. True story.

It’s not just a simple matter of saying that Google has the answer to your questions, because you need to know how to phrase things to get the information you want from Google.

For example, if there’s something you don’t know about, check Google’s first few hits to get the gist of it. Wikipedia is a great resource for this too, and you can often get yourself into a click-hole searching for things.

When it comes to most things computer, from how to deal with viruses to how to speed up your Mac, chances are that someone has done it, knows how to do it and has made a tutorial/YouTube video/step-by-step guide. Follow them, and you can do no wrong.

Tip two: Up-skill

If you’re not content with being a Google Guru (and that’s perfectly fine – many people want to achieve the Yoda-like status of computer guru) then you need to hit up a TAFE course (visit www.tafecourses.com.au for a great resource) or online school. You’ll come out of this basically glowing with enlightenment and gigabytes.

Tip three: Just do it

If you’re wondering about something on a computer and thinking, ‘will this work?’ then just give it a go. Always, of course, have a backup of your computer before you do something drastic, but you can’t really permanently break a computer by trying something new.

If you’re a parent and your child likes the play with computers, don’t risk them breaking the family Mac, why not just buy something cheap online and let your child play around with it?

Tip four: Read the manual

Ok, this might seem like a bit of a simplistic one, but you’d be surprised. Just as nobody reads the terms and conditions on an Apple purchase, so too do few people consider reading the manual to programs or computers.

You’d be surprised how much information is contained within, so if you want to get more familiar with Windows or Mac, read the tutorials, dig deep into the learning material, and watch the huge amounts of material available online.

If all else fails, there’s always YouTube, where the information comes thick and fast.

Tip five: Get familiar with shortcuts

If you want to look like the computer guru that you know you are, make sure you can use computer shortcuts and use them well. It will make navigating and getting around things a lot faster, which will in turn give you more time for surfing Reddit.

Tip six: Help others

If you want to learn more about computers, get out there and help other people. You’ll learn something new every time, and you’ll also increase your computer guru status. Win win, really.

Good luck with your computer guru search and enlightenment. May Google be with you.

February 24, 2016
How to Fix the Selected Task No Longer Exists Error
When using the Windows Task Scheduler, you may get an error indicating the selected task no longer exists. I try to automate as many tasks on my computer as possible to avoid remembering to perform regular maintenance on my computer. Everything from cleaning out temporary files and unneeded files to defragging my non-SSD drives are run at least once a week.

I schedule the tasks using the Windows Task Scheduler, which makes it easy for me to perform the tasks on a specific schedule. I recently ran into an issue where this following error message was displayed on the screen whenever I accessed the Task Scheduler:

The selected task 'name' no longer exists. To see the current tasks click Refresh.

The message appeared twice – once for each task that didn’t exist anymore. On top of that, the same messages appear multiple times – once when I opened the Task Scheduler, and a second time when I navigated to the folder that contained the missing tasks.

While the message didn’t stop me from using the Task Scheduler, it just became annoying to having to click the OK button four times each time I accessed the Task Scheduler. So I decided to fix the error to avoid the messages.

The the selected task no longer exists solution

For such a simple issue – at least I thought it was a simple issue – it did take some research to find a solution to the problem. Most of the solutions I found were for a similar, but different, issue. I did, however, find the correct solution to my problem.

To resolve the issue of the selected task no longer existing, use the following steps:
1. Click the Start logo and type “regedit” to search for the registry editor.
2. Right-click the regedit name and select “Run as administrator” to open the registry editor as an administrator. You will either need to enter the administrator password, or confirm the opening of the registry editor as an administrator.
3. In the registry editor, navigate to the “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Schedule\TaskCache\Tree” key.
4. Inside that key you will see additional subkeys for each of task. Find the ones that match the names of the missing tasks, and then delete the subkey with the same name.
5. Reopen the task scheduler. If the error persists, restart Windows and then reopen the task scheduler.
Since I had two missing tasks, I deleted the two subkeys that matched the names of the tasks in the error messages, and the next time I went into the task scheduler the error messages were no longer displayed.

After performing the above steps, the the selected task no longer exists error no longer appeared. If the issue still persists for you, it may be related to something else. Unfortunately, the above steps fixed my issue. A good place to go ask your Windows questions is the Microsoft Tech Community

.
February 22, 2016
10 Proven Ways to Protect Your WordPress Blog
Knowing how to best protect your WordPress blog is an important aspect of maintaining a blog. It seems that almost on a regular basis a WordPress blog gets compromised by a malicious visitor, who installs malware, deletes files, or simply defaces the blog.

As I read about how blogs get hacked I also realize that many of these hacks could have been prevented with regular maintenance, or by following stricter security protocols. While you can’t eliminate security holes from being available in code, you can take measures to mitigate the problems security holes can cause to your blog.

Being reactive to security threats to your WordPress blog is the best defense to ensuring your blog is protected from malicious users. Below are 10 proven ways that you can protect your WordPress blog so you can worry more about the content of your blog, rather than the security from malicious users.

1. Backup your WordPress site

While backing up your site won’t protect it from malicious visitors, it is one of the most important tasks that you should perform. There are two main reasons you should backup your site:
1. To have a copy of your site before something goes wrong.
2. To restore your site when something does go wrong.
Whenever you are about to make a major change to your site, such as update WordPress, you should always perform a backup. This way if your site has any issues after the change, you can restore your site to how it was before the update by restoring the backup.

The above statement also holds true for when a malicious user does gain access to your site. You can restore to a previous version of your site from backup to get your site up and running much quicker than if you were to figure out how to undo what the malicious user did.

I have used two backup plugins with great success:
- UpdraftPlus Backup and Restoration: This is a free backup/restore plugin that is easy-to-use and allows you to backup to different cloud-storage providers. There is a premium version with additional features.
- BackupBuddy: This is a premium plugin that can do everything you want in a backup/restore plugin while making it easy to schedule daily backups to a cloud-storage provider of your choice.
2. Keep WordPress updated

Many security holes are found after a version of WordPress has been released. When one a security issue is found and fixed, a new version is released and you will be notified on the admin dashboard of your site.

It is very important that you keep your version of WordPress as up-to-date as possible to fix any security issues. Many WordPress sites have been hacked because the WordPress version was old and malicious visitors have used previously fixed security holes to gain access to the site.

It may be intimidating to update WordPress because you are worried about something breaking on your site. The best option is to create a local copy of your site on your computer, perform the updated, and everything is working, log into your online site and perform the update.

3. Manage and update the plugins

Much like the WordPress core, plugins can also have security holes. Since there are thousands of plugins, and probably the same number of plugin authors, the chances of introducing security holes is much higher than with the WordPress core.

You should ensure that you update any plugins that have a more recent version available. Doing so will ensure you close any potential security holes introduced by the plugin.

While you are updating plugins, you should also review the list of plugins installed on your site. If you can uninstall and delete a little used plugin, or replace it with your own code or HTML, then you should remove the plugin completely.

By removing unused, or rarely needed plugins, you reduce the chances of security holes being found in your site.

4. Update WordPress themes

While themes may seem harmless, they do run code like the WordPress core and plugins. While themes aren’t updated as much as the WordPress core, or plugins, you will find that they are updated every month or so. You should also remove any themes that you aren’t using to avoid any security issues, as well.

5. Use a difficult-to-guess administrative user name

The administrative user name you use to log into your WordPress site should be difficult to guess. While this isn’t the best way to avoid having someone attempt to login to your site, it does add another layer of complexity.

When I was monitoring failed login attempts on my blog, the most common ID attempted was ‘admin’. In fact, ‘admin’ was used in over 90% of the failed login attempts, which is why you should definitely avoid using that as your user name.

Some additional user names to avoid:
- Your actual name – both first and last name.
- Any user name you have used online at any site. For example, don’t use the same user name you used to sign up on a forum.
6. Use a strong administrative password

Create a strong password for your administrative user name. A strong password will consist of alphanumeric (letters and numbers), and punctuation, and be at least 15 characters in length.

If you want to get really creative, you can also use the full ASCII character set by pressing and holding ALT and typing in a number from 0 to 255 on your keyboard.

You can also use a password manager like LastPass to generate a random password and then save it in LastPass so you won’t even need to remember the password.

7. Enable two-factor authentication

More and more online sites are enabling two-factor authentication. Two-factor authentication means that after you enter your username and password, you also need to enter additional information that you have on your.

In other words, you log in with something you know, and something you have.

There are different ways to enable and use two-factor authentication. The easiest way for me is to use the WordPress plugin Google Authenticator that will require me to enter a six digit code from the free Google Authenticator app (iOS, Android) on my smartphone.

8. Restrict user access

If you manage a site that has many users, then you will want to ensure you only provide the level of access that is necessary for them to do their job. In WordPress, user access permissions is managed by a role.

There are several different roles and capabilities in WordPress, and you should take the time to read through what each roles can do, and then decide what role each user on your site should be assigned.

9. Install an overall security plugin

While I did mention managing the number of plugins you have installed as a security measure, there are some plugins that can help protect your site. Some are much easier to use than others, and some have different features.

I haven’t used too many security plugins, but have used the following:
- Wordfence: This is a popular security plugin that is easy to setup and use. It provides many alerts through email when an issue is found so you always know when action needs to be taken.
- Sucuri Security: Another easy to use and setup plugin that provides security notifications via email.
- Bulletproof Security: This plugin is for the advanced, technical user as it manages to include a layer of security at the .htaccess level. This plugin does require some knowledge of how .htaccess works.
The list above is in now way an exhaustive list, they are just plugins I have used or continue to use.

10. Use a strong hosting password

All of the above tips can be bypassed if a malicious user is able to gain access to your host. Once they gain access to your host, all of your sites are open to anything they choose to do.

The best security you can put in place is to make it difficult for the malicious user to gain access by creating a strong password for you hosting account, much like your WordPress administrative user.

The same password rules apply to your hosting account as it does to your WordPress account.

The 10 tips that I have provided above won’t provide 100% protection, but it will make your blog more difficult to access for malicious visitors.
February 17, 2016
How I Backup Data Files Automatically So I Won’t Worry About Losing Files
Protecting your data files with a good data backup plan is one of the most important tasks you can perform to keep your data safe from hard drive failure, malicious software, or just accidental file changes or deletions.

For me, I have been talking about various data backup plans since I started this blog, and with over 600GB of personal photos and videos stored on an external hard drive, I also take data backup very seriously.

I recently bought and setup a Plex media server that I use to stream my media throughout my home. After setting up Plex I also decided that the server would also make a good data backup server as well.

After some extensive research, I managed to create a server that provides redundancy for both my Plex media files and my personal data files. The server will also backup data files automatically online while keeping them safe from malicous software that may be installed on another computer on my LAN.

The data backup plan requirements

When I decided to use my Plex media server as a data backup server I wanted to ensure that three data backup requirements were met:
1. All data files need to be protected from accidental changes and deletions.
2. Allow digital photos from non-connected devices (digital cameras) to be added.
3. Photos and videos from smartphones and tablets need to be copied automatically to the server.
4. A second local copy of the data files needs to be automatically created.
5. All data files need to be automatically uploaded to cloud storage.
6. All hard drives containing the data files need to be monitored.
The requirements list that I created was a result of years of backing up my data, and then looking at how I could do it better. Unfortunately, at the time I didn’t have the equipment to satisfy all the requirements, but with my Plex media server, I realized that I could probably accomplish what I needed.

Let’s look at each of the requirements so I can explain how I managed to satisfy each one.

1. All data files need to be protected from accidental changes and deletions

The most important requirement when storing my data files is to ensure they are protected from accidental changes and deletions. This requirement needs to address both user and software changes and deletions.

When I just had my desktop and an external hard drive, I would simply turn off my hard drive when not in use. The issue was when it was on and connected to my desktop and the entire hard drive could be written to without any issue.

This meant that I could accidentally change or delete files, or any malicious software that was installed could do the same thing.

To avoid the same problems with my Plex media server, I connect the external hard drive to the Plex media server, create a share to the drive containing my data files that I can then access from my desktop using a local Plex media server account.

Note:

My Plex media server runs without any logged in user, and I never access the Internet from the server. The only time I log into the server is when I need to perform some maintenance.

I changed the permissions on the share to allow read-only access for the local Plex media server account that I use to access the share from my desktop.

Note:

By default, Windows creates shares with the group “Everyone” having access to the share. This is insecure, so take the time to remove “Everyone” from the share permissions and manually add the users and groups that need access.

This prevents me, or any software running on my desktop, from changing any data on my data share. Of course, this also means I can’t add any new files to the share, or make any changes to any of the files, if needed.

2. Allow digital photos from non-connected devices to be added

The first requirement and this one seems to be at odds with how I can access my data files. While my data files are protected when the files are accessed from my desktop, or another machine on my network, I still need to be able to add new files or make occasional changes to existing files.

How to protect my files, while at the same time allowing me to add files or make changes?

Simple – create a staging area.

The staging area is a write-able share on the server that points to a folder on the server. This folder only contains the data files that will be moved to the actual data files external hard drive location.

Basically, when I want to add new files, or replace files that already exist on the server’s external hard drive, I simply connect to the staging share, create the folder structure I want to create on the external hard drive, and then copy the files.

I created a small application that is running as a service on the server that monitors the staging folder. If any files are detected in the staging folder or any subfolders in the staging folder, the service will move the files from the staging folder to the external hard drive automatically. The entire process is fairly quick and requires no interaction from me other than copying the files into the staging folder.

The best part is that the share that contains my actual data files can remain read-only from the desktop as all the updating takes place directly on the server, and not from my desktop. The only share that is write-able is the staging share.

Since the files are moved from the staging share to the actual data files folder very quickly, any malicious software, such as ransomware, that could be running on a machine that is connected to the staging share, may not have enough time to modify all of the files, or may not be able to modify any files.

While the staging share takes care of manually backing up photos, I also needed to be able to backup photos and videos from mobile devices, as well.

3. Photos and videos from smartphones and tablets need to be copied automatically to the server

Many of the new photos I backup are taken with a smartphone. Sometimes my kids also take photos from a tablet, or two. At the moment I have two iPhones, an iPad, an Android smartphone and an Android tablet that can have new photos or videos stored that need to be backed up.

My requirement was to create an automatic process for backing up all photos and videos from mobile devices to the server. Finding the easiest and automatic method to perform such a task did require some research, but I managed to find an app that runs on both iOS and Android.

PhotoSync, while not free, makes it easy to backup all photos and videos from my mobile devices to my Plex media server very easily. There is an app for both iOS and Android, and the look and feel is very similar on each platform.

Using this app to backup to my server did require me to install a free Windows application called PhotoSync Companion. The Windows application that is available from the links on the PhotoSync website didn’t allow my to run as a service on Windows, meaning I had to have a user logged in on the server to have the PhotoSync Companion application running all the time.

I contacted technical support for PhotoSync, and very quickly I was informed that there is a Windows service version of the PhotoSync Companion. The only issue is that I can’t send files to my mobile devices with this version as I could with the standard Windows application. This didn’t matter to me as I only need to send photos and videos to the server, and not the other way around.

Once the PhotoSync Companion service was installed on my server, configured it to point to the staging folder as the destination folder to copy the files from the mobile devices. From there, the same service application that monitors the staging folder will then move the files to the correct folders.

The PhotoSync app keeps track of which files have already been copied so it won’t recopy any files again, which is good because it would keep recopying the files to the server since the files get moved by the staging folder monitor service on the server.

I could, however, manually re-select the files for recopy if I wish.

Now that I have managed to copy files to the correct location on the server, I wanted to then create a local duplicate copy of the files so I would lose any files if a hard drive failed.

4. A second local copy of the data files needs to be automatically created

Let me be blunt: all hard drives will fail. It is a fact of computing, and is something that you need to prepare for if you value the data stored on a hard drive. This is is one of the main reasons for backing up data.

This is also the reason I decided to invest in a second hard drive for my data files.

For years I relied on a single external hard drive, but last year that hard drive began to show signs of failing. The S.M.A.R.T. data on the hard drive began showing issues related to hard drive failure. To avoid losing data, I bought a new Western Digital My Book 3TB and copied my data files to it. All my data was copied without issue.

This year I bought a second Western Digital My Book 3TB to act as a mirror to the first – meaning the two drives were an exact copy of each other. But I wanted to have the mirroring done automatically so I wouldn’t have to manually, or have my staging application, copy the file to each hard drive.

I had been using a great piece of software called Stablebit DrivePool to mirror my Plex data drives, so I decided to do the same with my data files drives.

I setup a drive pool and included both of my data file external hard drives in the pool. A drive pool is simply a virtual hard drive that combines the available storage of any drives you add to the pool. In my case, the drive pool equaled just under 6TB – the combined storage space of the two My Book external hard drives.

Once the pool was created, I then enabled 2x duplication on the pool. This tells DrivePool to duplicate each file in the pool. Because I have two drives in the pool, each file is copied to both drives.

When my staging folder monitor service moves a files to the data files directory in the pool, DrivePool will then copy the file to the second hard drive automatically.

If one drive in the pool starts to fail, I can still access my data files from the other hard drive, while I replace the damaged drive with a new one, and then DrivePool will then mirror the files to the new hard drive automatically.

While having duplicate files locally protects me from one hard drive failure, it won’t protect me if something were to happen to my home. This is where cloud storage comes in.

5. All data files need to be automatically uploaded to cloud storage

I have talked about why I use Backblaze as my cloud backup provider and implementing their backup service into my automatic backup workflow was the easy part. Backblaze was already backing up my data automatically anyway.

I moved my Backblaze account from my desktop to my server, and setup the folders that I wanted to backup within the Backblaze application. Since I now store my data files in a drive pool, I simply added the folders from the pool to Backblaze for monitoring.

When I add a file to the drive pool, Backblaze will automatically backup the file to the cloud storage without any manual effort on my part.

This was the easiest requirement that I completed because of the fact that Backblaze handles the automatic backup, all I had to do was tell it what folders I wanted to backup.

Now that all the automatic file backup was in place, I wanted to add one more requirement to help monitor the integrity of the hard drives. If a hard drive is about to fail, I would like ample opportunity to copy off my data files before it really does fail.

6. All hard drives containing the data files need to be monitored

Along with DrivePool, Stablebit also offers a utility that will automatically scan and monitor the health of hard drives called Stablebit Scanner. I bought both applications together, since they work together and there is a substantial discount when buying both together.

Note:

Each machine that uses DrivePool and Scanner will need a separate license. After the first machine, there is a discount in license fee for each additional machine. The license is a lifetime license, so you get all future upgrades.

Stablebit Scanner essentially monitors the S.M.A.R.T. data, temperature, and the availability of all hard drives connected to a machine. The application will also run scans of the drive to ensure there are no issues, as well.

If there are any issues with a hard drive, such as a high temperature, a drive disconnection, or S.M.A.R.T. data warnings, Scanner will send me an email that describes the issue. This helps me stay ahead of any serious problems.

Scanner and DrivePool are also closely integrated. If Scanner detects that a hard drive looks to be failing, DrivePool will stop copying files to that hard drive, and duplicate files to another free hard drive in the pool.

If Stablebit Scanner detects that the temperature of a hard drive is getting high, DrivePool will throttle any activity on the drive until the temperature returns to a more normal operating temperature.

The monitoring and email alerts have worked well since I started using Scanner. I received a few temperature warning emails when I first setup my data file drive pool. All the file copies causes the temperature of one of the drives to reach the warning temperature.

I received another email when I accidentally turned off the power strip connected to the external hard drives for a fraction of a second. There was no impact to the drive pools because the hard drives briefly turned off.

One of the best features of both DrivePool and Scanner is that I can install a second copy of each application on my main desktop, and then connect to the server to see the statuses of my drive pools and the hard drive monitoring data.

No additional license is required for using the applications in this manner from my desktop.

Summary of how I backup data files automatically

I have been backing up my data files since 2002 (the year I bought my first digital camera and began taking photos), and over the years I have been developing and modifying my backup process.

Since buying and setting up my Plex media server in December 2015, I realized I could use it to incorporate a more automatic approach to backing up and protecting all of my files.

Today, I am able to keep my data files protected, access them in a read-only manner from any device on my network, while being able to add additional files at any time. All of the mobile devices can now backup both photos and videos to the server

All data files on the server will automatically be duplicated to a second local hard drive, and then automatically uploaded to Backblaze.

With Stablebit Scanner running on the server, I will be able to replace hard drives before they fail. All of this has been working flawlessly to keep my irreplaceable data files safe and secure.
February 15, 2016
4 Ways to Protect Your Smartphone from Being Hacked
You already know that you need to protect your laptop and desktop computers from hackers. A lot of people, however, never stop to wonder whether their mobile devices are also susceptible to these threats.

Since your smartphone is essentially a small computer, there is a possibility that someone will try to hack into it to steal your private information. You can protect yourself by following these four tips.

1. Avoid public Wi-Fi

Public networks offer convenient ways to access the Internet without spending more money on your phone’s data package.

Unfortunately, public Wi-Fi also puts you at risk, since savvy thieves can use man-in-the-middle attacks to intercept your data. It’s relatively easy for these people create fake networks that offer free Internet access. When you connect to them, though, the hacker can watch everything you do.

Hackers can even use this method to steal passwords to your email, credit card, and other sensitive accounts.

If you absolutely have to connect to public Wi-Fi, use a virtual private network (VPN) to prevent other people from viewing your activity. It also helps to:
- Disable file sharing.
- Turn your firewall on.
- Use HTTPS or SSL to encrypt data.
2. Only visit trustworthy websites

You could accidentally install malware on your smartphone just by visiting the wrong website. The problem is so significant that the Department of Homeland Security uses color-coded threat levels to identify dangerous sites.

It’s best to only visit sites that you know you can trust. You can always check your Gmail and Facebook accounts, for instance, without worrying that your phone will contract malware.

If you don’t completely trust a site, then you should stay away from it. That obviously means that you should steer clear of sites with questionable content. Visiting an adult website is a surefire way to compromise your phone’s security.

You also should resist the temptation to click links sent to you via email. That video of puppies playing is probably pretty cute, but it also puts you in harm’s way. Do not click it unless you know that the link will take you to a reputable site.

3. Protect yourself from Bluetooth hacking

Bluetooth makes it possible for your smartphone to connect to other devices. That’s extremely useful when you want to use wireless headphones or play songs through your car’s sound system. Bluetooth, however, can also give hackers a chance to access your phone.

Turning off Bluetooth when you aren’t using it is one of the most effective ways to protect yourself. Of course, you don’t want to keep that feature turned off all the time. What’s the point in having Bluetooth if you can’t use it?

Instead of limiting your use, use Bluetooth accessories from a trusted provider to minimize the chances that someone will hack into your phone. After all, you can never have too much security.

4. Install security apps

Installing security and anti-malware apps will help your smartphone recognize potential threats. This should protect you when you visit a website that tries to install eavesdropping software.

Some of the apps also have anti-theft features that will let you remotely wipe your phone’s data. Even if you can’t get your smartphone back, at least you can prevent the thief from stealing your information.

Some of the best security apps for Android devices include:
If you have an iPhone, then you might want to use one of these:
Having these apps will improve your smartphone’s security, but you should still take common-sense steps to protect yourself. Don’t assume that an app can always keep you safe, especially if you use public Wi-Fi or visit unknown sites often.

As more people make smartphones a daily part of their lives, the security threats from hackers will only get worse.

You can protect yourself by following these four tips to stay ahead of the hackers’ game. Any step you take to increase your smartphone’s security is a step in the right direction.
February 12, 2016
3 Tips to Boost your Newsletter Open-Rate

Despite being regarded as a drab and unimaginative form of online marketing, email marketing remains one of the most important channels of communication with customers and is an effective way of boosting sales. Although many of us instantly breeze through mail from companies, the click-through rate of those that do read these emails is remarkably high. There are enough of the latter for most companies to judge email marketing worth pursuing.

Additionally, new software and tools were released in 2015 that allowed marketing departments to be both more creative with their newsletters, and enabled them to analyze the reception to these emails more thoroughly. SumoMe, for example, can be incorporated into sites with a decent amount of webspace, such as those hosted by www.1and1.com.

This offers webmasters a variety of tricks and gadgets to crank up the tempo on an email marketing campaign.

Here then, for those that are prepared to give email marketing another chance, are three tips to help increase your email open rate:

1. Long Subject Lines are Attractive

A report from Get Response found that emails which had subject lines containing over 61 characters, actually had a higher open rate than those with less than 61 characters.

Of course, this provokes the question: how long is too long? Well, by using A/B/C tester emails you will be able to send newsletters out with subject lines of varying length, say 60, 100, and 140. Subsequently you will be able to view the open rate of each to see which was the most successful.

2. Keep them keen … but don’t cry wolf

However long your subject line is, it is important to generate curiosity. You want to give a taste of the goodies that your email contains. For example: ‘Try the Top Tool for Generating Great Content in 2016.’ For the subscriber to find out what this tool is, they have to open your email. Now, the important thing here is to ensure that you can provide the goods when the email is opened.

Click-bait has had its day, and brands are getting punished severely for using misleading titles to lure people in, only for them to be greeted with flat and uninspiring content. BuzzFeed are an example of a brand that provokes curiosity well, without being disingenuous. The Independent newspaper on Twitter, is an example of a brand getting it very wrong. If you cry wolf superfluously, no one will come when there really is something to shout about.

3. Don’t just think ‘How Many?’, but also ‘When?’

Many people say that the key with email marketing is to not send too many emails, just sporadically send a few really good ones. This is true to an extent, you do not want to irritate your recipients, and you do want to ensure each email contains worthwhile content.

However, there are times when it is worth upping the ante. It’s more common that recipients are most likely to open newsletters in the first week after subscribing. Make use of this, by sending a handful of top quality posts their way. It will also help them remember who you are.

February 6, 2016
Build Your Brand By Advertising With Pubsio, Google, And Facebook

The secret to business success online is not building a better mousetrap. It’s getting more people to recognize that you’ve done it.

Using the Pareto 80/20 principle as an illustration, 80% of your success is about using advertising and promotion to build your brand while only 20% is based on creating a superior product.

Unfortunately, advertising is a two-edged sword. If done right, it can help you carve out a name for yourself. If done wrong, it can cripple your business, seducing you into spending more money than you make.

Avoid these 2 Common Mistakes

New business owners often make two mistakes. They prefer free traffic over paid traffic, and they prefer traditional advertising over newer forms of advertising.

3 Problems with Free Traffic

It may appear sensible to use free sources like blogging, social media, and forum marketing to get noticed online. After all, since you’re not spending any money, you can’t lose money.

However, when you look a little deeper into it, this is not a practical way to scale up a business fast. This is because using free traffic generation methods fails for three primary reasons.

One, these methods are huge time hogs. You have almost no time left in the business day to do anything else.

Two, these methods take a long time to work. In the meanwhile, your business is earning little to no revenue.

Three, they force you to work in your business rather than on it. Since you’re spending most of your time on getting traffic, you have no time for business innovation, improving conversions, and increasing customer satisfaction.

The Problem with Traditional Advertising

People like traditional advertising methods because they appear to have stood the test of time. However, this is a logical fallacy because advertising is subject to the laws of “psychological entropy.” The longer a form of advertising is used, the less effective it becomes.

You do yourself a disservice, for example, when you use inexpensive and inefficient advertising like banner advertising and print advertising.

Banner ads work less efficiently than before. Over time, many people have developed an aversion to even looking at them. Seasoned marketers refer to this as “ad blindness.” Today, other advertising media works much better.

Print advertising is still effective for brick-and-mortar businesses, but most readers rarely bother to copy a web address they see in a print ad into their computers.

Where to Advertise

You can get inexpensive, highly-effective advertising to build your brand and attract traffic by using sources like Pubsio, Google Adwords, and Facebook Ads.

How to Use Pubsio

Pubsio offers an advertiser in-site specific display and in-text advertising. As an advertiser, you have the power to leverage advanced optimization technology through total control of your own account. The account management software allows you to make key decisions to drive ad performance. You can access it at any time, get support when you need it, and get comprehensive reports to analyze your income stream in real time.

You have full control of the many different elements of your campaign. For instance, you can control how often ads are served.

How to Use Google Adwords

The mechanics of how to set up your ads are explained by Google, and much useful advice can be gleaned from Google’s blog called Inside Adwords.

However, a profitable strategy is up to you.

One excellent strategy is to start with a small budget.

Using the right keywords and the most relevant ads can limit your budget to $10 or $20 a day.

If you are spending more than this amount to get results, then you need to research your keywords again or figure out how to make your ads more relevant. Tweak long-term keywords to find those that are customer-focused and industry-specific. The right keywords will give you the highest click through rate and conversions.

Once you get results with a small budget, scale up your campaign with a larger budget.

How to Use Facebook Ads

Facebook ads provide focused consumers. To get the most value for your budget, target specific demographics and reach out to them with relevant ads. Targeting reduces wasting money on consumers who click out of curiosity with no intention of buying.

Again, you only need a small budget to test out the efficacy of your campaign. A budget from $10 to $20 per day budget is more than enough.

Quicksprout suggests that you use Facebook ads as a way to build relationships: “Once you have driven all of these fans to your page, it’s equally as important to continue to engage with them. While it may be nice to gain some quick sales with a few advertisements, many sales cycles require more relationship building.”

Paid Advertising Can Be Free

Although free advertising costs time and labor, paid advertising can free up time, labor, and dollar costs.

Although this sounds like a paradox, there is a simple logic to how you can make your paid advertising free.

First, study the science behind each of these three platforms before you spend a dime.

Then, only spend a small amount to test the system.

Finally, when you have reached a point where you earn much more than you spend, then your advertising is free. Advertising can be considered free if it pays for itself and leaves you with much more money than before.

February 1, 2016