the sephone blog

I participate in a UserGroup for Maine Tech Businesses, I wont share at the moment who, as this isnt necessarily a favorable plug… Any how- A comment was posted regarding how a fairly well known Maine company has been working with a Seattle-based web company and blah, blah blah (Details are NOT important). A dialog ensued questioning why Maine companies feel compelled to seek technical assistance from firms outside the state.

Boy oh boy- did the interchange begin- mainly with defenders of the position.

“Maine based companies, feel that they are owed the project because they are in the state. They need to be measured on their performance and compete on merits…“

Well, Duh! Of course we should compete on our merits- but it goes on…

Another “Maine Developer” states “Maine doesn’t have talent equal to the big city, it’s a simple fact” and wait here’s more…” Given all this, a generally poor economy, minimal ethnic diversity and a vicious cycle of limited job opportunities causing the flight of talent, how could Maine be anything other than a marginal, provincial tech market? Face it. We’re &^#$’d

I can go on and share some of the other negative comments and rationale as to why Mainers, and don’t get me started on what the feelings are for Northern Maine… but is this true?!

Are the better solutions only to be found in Boston, Seattle, Santa Clara and NYC?

I do not accept this- For one- I am from away and I have worked with some of the best and talented developers in NY, Dallas, StLouis and Atlanta and there were some cunnin ones in Des Moines and Omaha too!

I can honestly state that those people are good- but no better than the ones I have met in Maine, and especially the ones I have the pleasure to work with everyday here. We have some smaht ones here in Bangor that I would put up against anyone from CA or WA.

What kind of usergroup is this that doesnt feel it necessary to keep resources in the State and to promote Maine companies?

What I can state is that business owners and even organizations like the local municipalities, even the State of Maine itself- shares the mis-nomer that You gotta go outside the State to get the goods.

THIS IS WRONG, IT IS NOT ECONOMICALLY RESPONSIBLE, AND IT IS NOT GOING TO DO NUTTIN FOR ECONOMIC GROWTH, Especially if that is the message that is being send to businesses in the State and our children.

Wake Up Maine. But please- if I am all wet on this let me know.

I can take it.

NOTE: IF there are no companies that CAN provide a particular service- sure there is no choice to make- but let there be some sort of competitive advantage for being in the State. And we get a fair share of work from away- that is true- but since this is a relatively small State- any work lost to an away firm means some one here may lose their job. THAT IS THE POINT.

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Thanks to the world wide web, we’re at liberty to transact business and form and dissolve strategic business alliances at any time and with anyone on earth. It’s never been easier to identify potential partners to team up with on proposals and deals, or to share the information critical to a project’s success. With so many choices, how do we define “community”, “affiliation”, “loyalty” ? Very carefully, I think.

The world has become a small town where information travels fast and reputations are built or irreparably tarnished and there’s no place to hide. In what direction will this transparency lead us over the next couple decades? Will we become increasingly indifferent to what is known about us and our business practices, or will we become collectively better behaved? I hope for and believe in the latter.

Sally A. Bates, Principal

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“The Ghost is in the Machine!” The simple truth about those weird emails:

You don’t know anybody in Nigeria, you don’t want a rolex watch! It is easy to wonder why people continue to send out these emails, even though “nobody” responds to them.

First of all, some people do respond to these emails, but the term “respond” does not always mean hitting the REPLY button. Did you know that you can be responding to the email just by looking at it?

Imbedded Links and images are a SPAMMERS delight! If you click or display on either of these, it actually is almost as if you answered the email. The SPAMMER gets what it wants — CONFIRMATION that it went to your VALID email address, which is what they are looking for.

Here is how it works: They take your valid email address, sometimes even going through your address book and and use it for launching viruses, or other ploys. Like when you receive those messages from banks you have never heard of or that Pay Pal account you don’t have. These are sent all in the hope that you will click on the link, give them your personal information. And you never even see it happen, there is a script that is running inside your computer “The Ghost is in the Machine” while you are going about your business.

SPAM isn’t just annoying it is dangerous. There are server based solutions like “Postini” that Sephone is offering now and there are software products you can buy just for your own PC, like Norton and others that are encryption services that protect your every keystroke.

The Federal Trade Commission has a terrific and easy to use web site that is very helpful:

You can visit it here by clicking this link. This site covers all kinds of Identity Theft, it is a good thing to bookmark so you can keep up with the latest “tricks” that are happening!

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In the world of the Web, tools known as WYSIWYGs are used to edit large or complex areas of content. A WYSIWYG – a What You See Is What You Get editor – is useful when you need to insert text formatting (like boldface or italics), links, pictures, or other types of special text into whatever you’re writing.

Every so often, though, you may find that a WYSIWYG editor doesn’t live up to its name, and some content from the editor may look different when you look at it on the site that you’re editing. We find that this happens most often when content is pasted into the editor from desktop editing programs like Microsoft Word.

Behind the scenes of your text: lost in translation

Underneath any document you make with a rich text editor (including Microsoft Word and online WYSIWYGs) is a markup language. The main duty of a markup language is to let the computer know how to display the text you write; it makes the computer able to understand the difference between 36-point text and words that are bold or blue.

But not all markup languages are the same. When a computer copies text from a program like Word into an online WYSIWYG, it does its best to play the role of translator between languages. Once in a while (especially when working with content with a lot of different formatting within it) it isn’t able to correctly figure out how to translate the text from one markup language to the other. Because online WYSIWYGs aren’t as complex as a program like Word, the online text may start to act funny as it finds formatting it doesn’t understand.

What can I do?

When copying text from a program like Word into an online WYSIWYG, we usually suggest two things: wiping and plain texting.

Style wiping (also known as “scrubbing” or “cleaning”) is the easiest way to clean your content of special formatting from external programs. Wipers usually have their own toolbar button (like one of the icons to the right) and will run through your text and remove any formatting the editor doesn’t understand. (Because of this, there is a chance you could lose some formatting in your text after wiping.) Wipers are usually only found in advanced WYSIWYGs that have a lot of formatting options.

The other option for pasting is to convert your text into plain text before pasting it into the online editor. To do this, paste the text into a program like Notepad. After you’ve pasted the text, select all of it and then copy it again. This middle step removes any special formatting and allows text to flow easily into the online editor.

Do you have any other tricks you’ve learned when pasting your content into online editors? Let us know!

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The Legendary Rock Band - The Who, definitely weren’t thinking of the Internet when they penned the classic tune. And if you are not careful when clicking around in email to what you  ‘ASSUME‘  is a legitimate inquiry from trusted sites, vendors, etc;  You may find yourself singing a similar tune.

By now you are asking yourself- “WHAT IS HE TALKING ABOUT”? , Am I right??

OK- here it is. Phishing. (pronounced fishing) And it ain’t going to the river for smelts. The parties that are on this trip are out for suckers.

Here is an example… A normal looking email from Google.com regarding an Adwords account with a reasonable looking request - Account Reactivation appears in your in box. Well like some of you - I have an Adwords account, so OK- this sounds legit.

And it looks legit too! Even the URL ‘Appears’ to be as well. (Live URL purposely not linked)

Dear Google AdWords Customer,
Please sign in to your account at http: //adwords.google.com/select/login , and update your billing information.
Your account will be reactivated as soon as you update your payment information.
Your ads will show immediately if you decide to pay for clicks via credit
or debit card. If you decide to pay by direct debit, we may need to receive
your signed debit authorization before your ads start running,
depending on your location.
If you choose bank transfer, your ads will show as soon as we receive your
first payment.

We look forward to providing you with the most effective advertising available.

Sincerely,
———————————————————————————-
The Google AdWords Team

But if you think about it,

• WHY would Google send me an email regarding my account?
• When I signed up, didn’t they tell me they would NEVER do that?
• If I am an Adwords user, I would know if there was a problem with my account, so …
• WHY did I get this email?

Now put on your CSI hat and right click on that URL… Horatio Cane would be proud of you; as the link reveals its true purpose…

‘http ://adwords.google.com.selectlogin.cn/select/Login/’
^^

Some party in China, and that isn’t the town in Maine, is hoping for an unsuspecting person to click on that link and happily attempt to log in to their Goggle account where they could ‘re-Activate the account’ that is in need of reactivation. Sounds reasonable.

Instead of going to the real google.com site, you will be directed to a VERY well forged version of the Adwords site just waiting for unsuspecting individuals to try to login.

Let me tell you… You won’t!!!
But ‘they’ will use that info to log into the REAL google site; where ‘they’ would have access to your banking and credit card info. To Steal from you!!

And you would end the session thinking, yup, I have a problem… But- it would be days before you would know if you have a REAL problem.

So unless you have a very smart browser that protects you from these situations, then BE CAREFUL and BEWARE.

In this sometimes cruel world, its nice to know that someone is watching your back! But Don’t Get Fooled. When in doubt- Don’t fill it out!

NEVER EVER use a link in an unsolicited email to access your Bank Account or any other account where you have personal information attached. The key is unsolicited- If you call or go online to your CreditCard provider, Insurance Company or Bank and they send you an email- that is ok. Usually.

So Won’t Get Fooled Again- is a great tune- but lean the lesson here- Don’t get fooled the first time-
When in doubt- Don’t fill it out!

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Last night we performed a large move of servers at our main datacenter. While we were moving, we noticed that one of our primary mail servers (Cyclops, or mail.sephone.com) required a server rebuild before it could be moved to the new location.

If you use mail.sephone.com as your address to check mail (either as the address you use to access webmail or your incoming server), you were one of the domains affected by this rebuild.

If you’re not sure which mail server your site uses, please use our new MyServer tool to check. Your domain is on Cyclops if the name next to “Your mail server:” is “Cyclops.”

One important change for Cyclops users: you must use your primary domain and primary e-mail to log into your account. If you have a primary account of robert.smith@example.com, for instance, but you also have an alias or forward (an email address that automatically forwards to a primary account) at robert@example.com, you must log in with the robert.smith@example.com address. Also, if your business uses multiple domain names (for example: example-site.com, example-company.com, and example.com) you must use the primary domain name, instead of the aliases or forwards. If you’re unsure which domain is your primary domain, give us a call.

We apologize for any inconvenience that results from this move. Please keep in mind that this server rebuild will provide faster mail connectivity in the future for your domain.

We’ve provided additional information for webmail (by going to http://mail.sephone.com or http://mail.yourdomain) and a POP (Outlook, Thunderbird, etc.) users below.

Additional information for webmail users

If you normally view your mail by logging into http://mail.sephone.com or http://mail.yourdomain, you will notice a new version of webmail. Most of the features of the new webmail match those of the old webmail, but you may notice a couple of differences after you log in.

Please remember that we provide webmail as a courtesy to our users. If possible, please use a POP program like Outlook or Outlook Express to check your mail. If you need a POP program, Thunderbird is a great option that is free to download.

Please give us a call at (207) 262-5040 or send an e-mail to support@sephone.com if you’re having trouble logging in, checking your mail, or if you need to administer the users in your system.

Additional information for POP (Outlook, Thunderbird, etc.) users

If you use Outlook, Thunderbird, or another program to check your mail, you may need to check your account settings to make sure that they are correct. Most importantly, make sure that your incoming mail server is mail.yourdomain (the incoming mail server for datavenger.com, for example, would be mail.datavenger.com). Also make sure you are using your primary email address as well as your primary domain name in your email address and incoming mail server.

For assistance with changing your mail settings, please consult the instructions for Outlook or Outlook Express, using the settings found in the MyServer tool.

Please give us a call at (207) 262-5040 or send an e-mail to support@sephone.com if you’re having trouble connecting, checking your mail, or if you need to administer the users in your system.

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“The truth, George. Always tell the truth. It’s the easiest thing to remember.”
–David Mamet, Glengarry Glen Ross

One of the services I provide as a media developer is producing audio — commercials, on-hold messages, and more recently, podcasts. I’d like to recommend one of the latter.

Dean Brenner is President and Founder of The Latimer Group, a company that focuses on helping executives and professionals develop powerful and persuasive communication skills. I recently finished work on one of Dean’s podcasts, called “The Key to Delivering a Powerful Message,” in which he discusses the importance of authenticity in delivering your message. When delivering any message, Dean explains, simply be yourself: “It’s more honest. It’s more real… The last thing we should attempt to do… is to sound the same.” Dean goes on to say that “being authentic when you speak is a form of telling the truth.” In addition to their importance in public speaking, those two statements alone almost entirely define what make up a successful advertising campaign, because after all, what is advertising but persuasion in thirty seconds?

One key to having your ads work as effectively as possible is to have them be remembered. And the best way to fail at that is to have your ads look or sound like “all the other ads out there.” This month, as you know, is the NCAA Basketball tournament. Have you noticed how many advertisers are having “March Madness” sales? It happens to be that the phrase “March Madness” is copyrighted, and thus, illegal to use without consent from the NCAA… However, it doesn’t stop the phrase from being bandied about the newspapers and the airwaves by virtually every car, furniture, and RV dealer across the country. I have colleagues in the radio business who are upset because “Joe’s Furniture is using ‘March Madness’ in their ads. So why can’t my client use it in his?” Legal issues aside, if someone else is saying it, why do you want to? That doesn’t make you stand out. It makes you blend in. It makes you part of the crowd. It makes you forgettable.

Honesty in your advertising is as important. More and more nowadays, the public’s “BS radar” is up, and very finely tuned. Consumers rely on other consumers for information, rather than ads, which are often discounted as “them just trying to sell me something.” Instead, people consult blogs, online user reviews, friends and “regular people” in a fervent search for honest feedback about their purchases. This is why it’s imperative that what you say in your ads, you deliver in your business. If your ads talk about “top-notch auto repair, a clean, comfortable waiting area, and a friendly staff that greets you with a smile,”* then your customers had better get all those things when they come in. Otherwise, you’re perceived as trying to put one over on ‘em. And your customers share those experiences… right after they stop coming to your store.

Thanks to Dean Brenner of the Latimer Group for inspiring this post. For more info on The Latimer Group, please visit TheLatimerGroup.com

* Ordinarily, I would never condone such blatant abuse of advertising clichés in my ads. I only use them here to make a point.

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What is a web browser
A web browser is a piece of software that you look at websites with. More than likely it’s what you are using to view this article right now. I wrote this article in a web browser. Many people think a web browser is how they “get on the internet” or how they “look at the internet”.

What is Firefox
Firefox is a web browser that is a product of a company called Mozilla. Its history dates all of the way back to the earliest days of the internet with the Mosaic web browser which became the Netscape web browser. Firefox is the chief rival to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and brought more secure and standards compliant browser to the general public that included new features such as tabbed browsing, a spell checker, incremental find, live bookmarking, a download manager, addons, and a search system that uses Google. Firefox at this time, has about a 17% market share. Firefox is available for nearly all versions of Windows, Macs and Linux machines.

What is Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer, often called just IE, is Microsoft’s Web browser. At this time it is the most widely used browser and comes pre-installed on all windows machines since 1995. The latest stable release is IE7. IE has been criticized in the past for the lack of full CSS standards support, lack of full PNG support. IE7 is better. IE8, their latest browser in beta right now, does comply with standards support unseen in any Microsoft browser before it. IE is available for all Windows releases.

What is Safari
Safari is Apple’s web browser, it was released in 2003 and has been included with every Mac since version 10.2. Safari has some of the best CSS support of any web browser available. Safari has a bookmark technology, and features a management scheme that functions like the iTunes jukebox software, integrates Apple’s QuickTime multimedia tabbed-browsing interface. A web search box is a standard component of the Safari interface, as are software services that automatically fill out web forms, manage passwords via Keychain and spell check entries into web page text fields. The browser also includes an integrated pop-up ad blocker. Safari is available on Mac OS X, and several Windows releases.

Which one do I use?
Well, that is a great question. It depends on what you like to do on the Internet. Here at Sephone, we are partial to Firefox because of the great development addons to help us do our job. Try all of them if you want and pick your favorite.

No matter what browser you pick, it’s important to make sure that your browser software and OS are updated with the latest patches on a regular basis.

Happy browsing.

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Whether your company is a business or a non-profit organization, if it has been around for 200 years or 2 days, there is a threat to your organization that the majority of owners, CEO’s and board members are reluctant to confront.

In reality, this threat has made the headlines repeatedly, whether you’re in Bangor, Maine or Seattle, Washington, the stories are hauntingly similar. At times it can bankrupt an organization, other times it cripples them, destroying lives and the livelihood of the employees, owners and their families. What could be so devastating and yet so misunderstood? That one word which escapes a label on a balance sheet and is not identified on a profit and loss statement is “Fraud”.

Think back over the past couple of months. How often did you read or hear the word “Embezzlement” (which is a type of fraud) in the local news? I am willing to bet that it’s popped up several times. As a mini, non scientific experiment, pay attention to the news for the next few weeks, chances are you will be shocked at the organizations that are victimized.

You may be shocked, but that is nothing compared to how shocked the victimized organization was. Right up until the scheme came to light the organization had no clue that they were being taken advantage of. Read the quotes of the business owner or Executive Director, many go something like they “never thought it could happen to them” or “She (or he) has been with us for years.”

Unfortunately, it is this very thought process that allows an organization to fall prey to employee fraud.

Now that we’ve established that it does happen, especially to those companies who are positive that it couldn’t happen to them, let’s jump right into why it happens. For this we will need to understand something called the fraud triangle.

The fraud triangle was model developed by criminologist, Dr. Donald Cressey. He indicated that three separate factors needed to be present in order for an ordinary person to commit fraud:

• Pressure
• Opportunity
• Rationalization

Let’s take a quick look at each one of these factors to see how it applies to the typical fraudster.

Pressure – Sure we all have some form of it, but this pressure is actually the motivator. This is the point whereby the feeling of no way out, for example a financial situation due to family illness, addiction or divorce.

Opportunity - Pay attention to this one. Of the three sides to this triangle this is the one an organization may have the most control over. Why? Because it enables a person to feel they can use their trusted position within the organization along with poor internal controls to commit the fraud with very little risk of being caught.

Rationalization – This is where desperate people sometimes do desperate things. In order to commit the fraud an ordinary person needs to reason with their conscience. Often, the person believes they are only borrowing the funds, fully intending to pay them back. Perhaps they are dealing with an ill child or parent and they see no other way out. Feeling that they are underpaid or underappreciated and basically owed the money is another example of rationalization.

By now I hope you are starting to realize that under the right (or wrong) circumstances it is easy to see how some people begin their walk down a very slippery slope. But of course, it couldn’t happen in your organization, right?

Join me in the near future when we will take a walk deeper into the world of fraud and provide insight into various fraud schemes, how they are accomplished and the best ways to prevent them.

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What is a Podcast?

A podcast is a way to subscribe to an audio or video show and automatically receive new episodes. For example, I listen to the NPR morning stories. When they publish a new one, I want it to automatically be placed on my iPod. That’s exactly what a podcast does. In my media player, I have subscribed to the NPR morning stories podcast, and at night I plug my iPod into my computer. As I sleep at night, my media player will download the new episode from NPR and place it on my iPod so I have it in the morning, automatically.

Become a Podcaster

Do you have audio content that you wish to podcast? All you need is some MP3’s and a RSS feed. QuickTime Pro, GarageBand, and iWeb on a Mac would get you on your way. If that is a bit over your head, give us a call or send us an email, and we would be glad to help you out.

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