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What's New at
ci-Interactive
Regional Business Alliance of Southwest Florida - Where Businesses Connect
Bayfront - Naples - Restaurants, Shopping and Marina
Quality Inn and Suites - Naples Golf Resort - Site Redesign
Florida Gulfshore Capital
Hamptons Golf Club - Auburndale, Florida
Coral Hospitality - website redesign
RedSnook Charity Catch and Release Fishing Tournament
Sippin @ Java Joe's - Key West - Read, relax, play chess - High Speed Internet Cafe!
Bob Well Real Estate - Everglades City, Chokoloskee Island, and Plantation Island
Brasstown Valley Resort - Georgia's Mountain and Gold Resort - Young Harris, Georgia
Tin City - site redesign
Go Fish Guide Service - Captain Terry Shaughnessy - Florida Everglades
KeyWestKeynection
Capt. Brien's Seafood & Roast Beef Restaurant - Marco Island
Beads of Distinction - Key West - Beads and beading supplies as well as a variety of ready made items - jewelry, picture frames, candle holders - Check out the online shopping for the entire collection!
Welcome -- Blu Fusion Restaurant Marco Island - Watch for site redesign coming soon!
Marco Rental Properties - 2 luxury waterfront properties available for vacation rental - Marco Island, Florida
The Esplanade Shoppes - Fine dining, upscale retailers and small specialty stores - Marco Island
Kon Tiki Resort - Islamorada - Florida Keys
Olde Marco Restaurant at Olde Marco Island Inn and Suites - Marco Island, Florida
Capt. Jay's Fishing Charters - Light Tackle Fishing in the 10,000 Islands with Capt. Jay Peeler
The Lucky Scarab - a blend of magic, love and mystery. As an introduction to Ancient Egyptian mythology, it will ignite the curiosity and imagination of readers 8 to 88.
Unique Destination Weddings
Captains Table Lodge and Villas - Set in the tranquil sub-tropical paradise of the Florida Everglades, The Captain's Table Hotel is located on the edge of the Everglades National Park and offers many different types of accommodation to suit all budgets.
Marco Island Restaurants - site redesign
Sketch and Travel with travel writer Norm Goldman and his wife Lily Azerad-Goldman, watercolorist
Visit Key West Online - Site Redesign
As You Wish Fishing Charters - with Capt. Duane "Dewey" White - Backcountry Fly & Spinfishing Charters - Naples, Marco Island and the 10,000 Islands
Marco Town Center Mall - Site Redesign
Visit SoBe Online - Site Redesign
The Esplanade Marina - Marco Island, Florida
Lake Blackshear Resort and Golf Club - Resort, Golf Course, Conference Facilities and Dining in Georgia Veterans Memorial State Park
Jane and Brent Cassie - Travel Writer - Photographer team
Allied Paver Systems - southwest Florida
CSI-Houston - Construction Services, Inc. of Houston, Texas
Naples Spas - The Spa at Hotel Escalante - Naples, Florida
Previous ci-Insider News
Winter 2004
Resetting Your Monitor
Search Engine Spam (Spamdexing) (cont)
July 2004
Alexa and Google Toolbars
Search Engine Spam (Spamdexing) (cont)
April 2004
Search Engine Spam (Spamdexing)
January 2004
Looking back at 2003 - What did we learn?
November 2003
WayBackMachine - a look back at Naples and Marco Island area websites
October 2003
Changes Coming to Internet Explorer
August 2003
Scumware Revisited
A Tale of 2 Islands
Anti-Spam programs
May 2003
It's Your Web - Help Clean it Up!
March 2003
Increasing Website Traffic
January, 2003
Security Alert: Fake Email Greeting Cards
Yahoo and Google - New Search Results
SpamNet from www.cloudmark.com
October, 2002
Virus Hoaxes
Who are you doing business with? Check them out!
Google and cached copies
August, 2002
Using Email Signatures
FLASH sites - How to Avoid Search Engine Roadblocks
June, 2002
Calculating Customer Acquisition Cost
Don't Believe the Email FROM Line
Google's Page Rank Formula
April, 2002
SCUMWARE
HOAXBUSTERS
Latest Computer Virus Threats and Global Virus Tracking
How to Check Who is Linking to Your Website
February, 2002
Reliable Web Host - Discount Prices???
Link farm Scam
Search Engines and Paid Submissions
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Email Marketing - Helpful Tips
Your website is up and running...visitors have been signing up for your email only special offers, or newsletter...you are ready to send out your first email to your subscribers.....here are some helpful tips from the email marketing experts.....
Jeanne Jennings at ClickZ Experts offers this advice:
"An effective design should do more than look nice. It should support the business message and objective. Correctly executed, a picture really is worth a thousand words.
When you're talking HTML e-mail, there's an additional image challenge: keeping the file size reasonable so it loads quickly. Standard guidelines... Don't exceed 100KB or you risk the message being filtered as a virus.....
The standard guidelines for e-mail copy:
Regarding HTML (email with graphics) email vs text emails here are some helpful quotes and articles from the industry experts....
"Dec. 2004– Paul Maloy from Symantec, "The newsletter list that I maintain favors HTML by about 12 to 1."
Mike Taylor agrees: "Our customers prefer HTML to text-only e-mails by a wide margin." So does Paula Skaper of Kinetix Media Communications, who says, "More than 90 percent of readers choose the HTML version over text.
Carolyn Gardner of cardcommunications uses an analogy I wish I had thought of: asking clients if they would use plain white paper, rather than letterhead, to send an offline message to prospects and clients. Of course, the answer was no, hence her argument for judicious use of HTML e-mail."
And finally, when should the email be sent?....
clickz.com experts and stats indicated that:
The best response rates to email marketing For an Event or Special Offer was when it was received approximately 1 week prior to the event – when sent out earlier, the person tended to forget the event rather than respond --
The best time to send and email is during the day on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday...most spam is sent during the night and on weekends so legitimate emails are more likely to be missed as recipients sort through emails to be opened on Monday or first thing in the morning.
Adware - Spyware - Malware - ScumwareIt's Everywhere....Are You Infected?
Last November I read an article at CNET regarding adware and spyware removal programs -- a question was asked... "I have three popular spyware programs installed on my XP PC. No matter which order I run them in, each one will detect at least one item that the others missed. I was wondering, how many spyware programs are too many?" I read the article and filed it away without much thought until mid January when, after simply visiting a travel related website (no, I did not click on anything, agree to or say yes to installing anything, I just visited and left), I had popups not just showing up on my system -- they were multiplying at an alarming rate. I pulled out the article from CNET and promptly installed and ran the recommended Ad-aware by Lavasoft as well as Spybot's Search and Destroy. The problem seemed to slow down, but did not stop.
I then installed and ran Spyware Doctor from PC Tools - still popups. I contacted technical support at Spyware Doctor and follwed their instructions to run Spyware Doctor while my computer was in safe mode - still popups.
Next, I installed and ran eTrust PestPatrol Anti-Spyware Corporate Edition by Computer Associates -- not the most user friendly program but I finally figured out how to run it ... things seemed to be running better, but still popups -- they progressively got worse.
I saw an article at Just an Online Minute, one of the editors there was infected with adware and asked readers to offer assistance. A very good solution was offered ... simple go back to a date previous to being infected and do a System Restore. This worked fine for several folks I have talked with who are fairly computer literate. For me, the thought of going back 3 or 4 weeks and maybe loosing all the work I had done during those weeks was not a pleasant option.
Next I tried Microsoft Windows AnitSpyware (Beta) -- again, better but not gone
I considered a solution posted at CNET Forums Community Newsletter by Jim W who wrote...
"I have found a fairly simple solution to resistant spyware and popups. First disconnect from the Internet and from your power source. Be sure that all power is off for ten minutes.
While you wait for all traces of electrical activity to cease, load up a 12 gauge shotgun with pellets that are anything from BB to Triple OO Buck. Fire shots through the case so that the Motherboard, processor chip, RAM, and especially the Hard Drive (s) are totally obliterated.
If you are unsure of the damage, try another shot from another angle. Be careful because sometimes a badly wounded pop-up will charge at you and try to inflict more frustration before it dies.
Remove what is left to the garage-not the curb! Tell the Police when they arrive that you didn't hear anything and maybe it was just engine back fires. "
Currently, I am using a combination of Spy Sweeper by Webroot Software along with Ad-aware by Lavasoft as well as Spybot's Search and Destroy. Most days I can work without pop-up interruptions. About once a week something new shows up during a scan and is quarantined and deleted....which takes me back to the beginning of this article and the original question ...How many spyware programs are too many?...my answer...When you are trying to work and the problem is non stop, you will try almost anything -- being forced to install and run even a single program to get rid of something you did not ask for and do not want on you computer is TOO MANY! I am ready to vote for legislation to put a stop to Adware - What do you think? Here are some additional articles on the subject:
What is Spyware?
Top Ten Spyware and Adware Threats Identified
How to Stop Spyware from Infecting your System
Beware of Spyware
Search Engine Spam (Spamdexing) - update
SMARTPAGES....."In the world of online marketing everybody is striving to gain any advantage over the competition. To that end some people are willing to go to any lengths to gain a foothold online. When smartpages first appeared they seemed the answer to every search engine optimizers dream. Feed in a list of keywords and out comes thousands of highly optimized pages for you to upload.....The pages generated by these programs are filled with hyperlinks and Heading tags that "fool" the search engines into thinking these are actually relevant pages of content. Therein lies the problem. If you're out to fool any search engine then you're looking at short term benefit and long term problems for your business....read the entire article - Smartpages - Legitimate SEO Or Spam? >>
Clearing your Cache - What is cache? Plus, step by step instructions and screen shots for CLEARING your cache.
Some web sites receive hundreds or thousands of unique visitors a day, whilst others only get a handful or none. The reason is often because the web designers or Webmaster has built the site in one ‘really bad way’ or another. This can end up hindering the potential success of the web site. If you want to make sure your site is not a ‘traffic flop’ then here are some simple rules to follow...read more >>
Marketing is not about doing something once and forgetting about it. The very best marketers test. And test. And test.
For instance, maybe your Web site isn't converting visitors to customers as well as it should be. You could hire a copywriter to tweak it for you. You could test the different elements to see what raises your conversion level. That's one way to use testing. You can also test different headlines, different offers, etc....read more
For our purposes, an algorithm-proof site is one that seems to stay in the top five rankings for a desired keyword term through each search engine update. These sites never seem to lose their rankings no matter what happens. And if you’ve recently lost your search engine positions, or are starting a new site, this is the type of site you will want to have....read more
Google's SEO Advice For Your Website: Content
The web pages actually at the top of Google have only one thing clearly in common: good writing. Don't get so caught up in the usual SEO sacred cows and bugbears, such as PageRank, frames, and JavaScript, that you forget your site's content....read more about website content
Developing a Web Site Marketing Plan
Build Your Web Site Links and Traffic
Seven Tips To Keep Your Pc Running At Peak Performance
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