One of my sites is outgrowing a single server and I’ve been looking into clustering and load balancing so it can continue to expand. My biggest concern (until today) was making the PHP sessions available in a distributed environment. The standard answer is to serve sessions via the database, but this site is already top heavy when it comes to database access and I don’t like the idea of adding to that.

Memcache comes up as a viable alternative (and I already use it for other types of caching) but I was concerned about a really involved setup process and was not looking forward to re-coding session handling in my application. Fortunately, I couldn’t have been more wrong! I followed the instructions from “Storing your PHP sessions using memcached” on the Dotdeb blog and had the entire system implemented on my development server in about 10 minutes. After a round of testing, I moved it out to the production server and it’s running nicely.

Total time investment was about 45 minutes and looks solid and scalable. Much better than the week or so I had originally anticipated. Go Memcache!

Today is Veterans Day. If you are a veteran, thank you.

This is a quick checklist to setup a new production server. It’s as much a reference for myself as anything else.

1. Create a non-root user
2. Install SSH
3. Move SSH login to a non-standard port
4. Update the default apt sources
5. Disable root logins over SSH
6. Install Advanced Policy Firewall (easy instructions for Debian)
7. Configure APF (ports 80,443, and the SSH port to start with). IG_TCP_CPORTS in /etc/apf/conf.apf
8. Install MySql, Apache2, and PHP5 (in that order)
9. Install cronolog for log rotation
10. Add virtual host access restrictions to /etc/apache2/conf.d/access_restrictions
11. Add an .htpasswd file
12. Modify, but don’t remove the default virtualhost file
13. Install rsync if you’re using it for backups
14. Add custom “security” config file to /etc/apache2/conf.d/ to protect some areas
15. Install subversion if you’re using it for version control

References:
http://www.dangrossman.info/2007/03/18/dedicated-server-setup-checklist/
http://www.myserverzone.net/protection/7-debian-install-apf-advanced-policy-firewall.html
http://www.webhostgear.com/61.html

Sometimes I like to see which web sites are referring traffic to me in real time. Here’s the command line script I use to do it. It uses awk to parse the incoming log file for real time display in a terminal:

tail -f mylogfile-access.log | awk -F\" '($4 !~ /mysitename|^-?$/){print $4,$2}' | uniq

I use the mysitename and ^-?$ expresssions to strip out self-generated referrals and empty referral fields.

Saw a post on the Google code blog about an Apache module they’ve developed to “speed up the web”. Supposedly, it’s supposed to improve load times and user experience for web sites hosted on Apache servers. I ran a few tests and did not find that to be the case.

Setup

These tests were run against a test environment for my link tracking service. It’s built on the Symfony framework and is served by an Apache2 installation on a Debian Linux server.

I downloaded and installed the mod_pagespeed module per the installation instructions and ran eleven tests with it on, and another eleven with it off. The full results are below, but for the averages I discarded the highest and lowest numbers from each set. Results were measured across a local network using the Firebug Net Panel.

Results

Average load time in milliseconds using mod_pagespeed: 514.78
Average load time in milliseconds without mod_pagespeed: 381.78

Raw Data (sorted)

with/without
439 346
441 353
446 359
478 365
502 375
518 376
521 385
538 392
588 412
601 419
705 421

Conclusions

I think this speaks for itself. Google and I must be doing things differently – no big surprise there.

I recently received a question regarding PHP’s file_put_contents function and possible issues with concurrency for simultaneous write requests. After a bit of research and I uncovered a good bit of speculation – most of it suggesting that concurrency would, in fact, be an issue.

That answer didn’t feel right to me so I set up a simple test.

First, I wrote a PHP script to write to a file using the file_put_contents function:
<?php
file_put_contents('test_file.txt','data'."\n",FILE_APPEND);
echo strtotime('now');


Then I made an HTML page loaded with a thousand iframes to simulate a thousand simultaneous requests. It looked something like this:
<iframe src ="test_write_file.php" width="100%" height="25"><p>iframe</p></iframe>
<iframe src ="test_write_file.php" width="100%" height="25"><p>iframe</p></iframe>
<iframe src ="test_write_file.php" width="100%" height="25"><p>iframe</p></iframe>
<snip> x1000


Results

Three page loads took an average of 118.6 seconds to fully execute, and all 1,000 lines were written to the file each time. My observation is that overlapping requests were not discarded, but were queued pending lock release on the target file to be executed at the earliest opportunity.

While my definition of concurrency may not be accurate, I will go so far as to say that practically speaking, concurrency is not an issue for simultaneous write requests using PHP’s file_put_contents function.

I spend too much time googling my own name. Don’t judge me.

Today, I found the following posted on the Dreams and Dragons blog (run by Jeff Moore). It is quite possibly the best compliment I have ever received. Ever.

Also the site (http://www.1km1kt.net) owner Keeton Harrington has been incredibly supportive and encouraging of all my endeavors and I really like everything he stands for.

Thanks Jeff!

Source: Monkeying Around…

Desperate for more? Here’s everything you ever wanted to know about Keeton Harrington.

Recently had a problem install Oauth on a Debian server via the PECL manager. Here’s error and solution:

The error:

**snip**
running: make
/bin/sh /var/tmp/pear-build-root/oauth-1.0.0/libtool --mode=compile gcc -I. -I/tmp/pear/temp/oauth -DPHP_ATOM_INC -I/var/tmp/pear-build-root/oauth-1.0.0/include -I/var/tmp/pear-build-root/oauth-1.0.0/main -I/tmp/pear/temp/oauth -I/usr/include/php5 -I/usr/include/php5/main -I/usr/include/php5/TSRM -I/usr/include/php5/Zend -I/usr/include/php5/ext -I/usr/include/php5/ext/date/lib -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -g -O2 -Wall -g -c /tmp/pear/temp/oauth/oauth.c -o oauth.lo
mkdir .libs
gcc -I. -I/tmp/pear/temp/oauth -DPHP_ATOM_INC -I/var/tmp/pear-build-root/oauth-1.0.0/include -I/var/tmp/pear-build-root/oauth-1.0.0/main -I/tmp/pear/temp/oauth -I/usr/include/php5 -I/usr/include/php5/main -I/usr/include/php5/TSRM -I/usr/include/php5/Zend -I/usr/include/php5/ext -I/usr/include/php5/ext/date/lib -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -g -O2 -Wall -g -c /tmp/pear/temp/oauth/oauth.c -fPIC -DPIC -o .libs/oauth.o
In file included from /tmp/pear/temp/oauth/php_oauth.h:47,
from /tmp/pear/temp/oauth/oauth.c:14:
/usr/include/php5/ext/pcre/php_pcre.h:29:18: error: pcre.h: No such file or directory
In file included from /tmp/pear/temp/oauth/php_oauth.h:47,
from /tmp/pear/temp/oauth/oauth.c:14:
/usr/include/php5/ext/pcre/php_pcre.h:45: error: expected â=â, â,â, â;â, âasmâ or â__attribute__â before â*â token
/usr/include/php5/ext/pcre/php_pcre.h:46: error: expected â=â, â,â, â;â, âasmâ or â__attribute__â before â*â token
/usr/include/php5/ext/pcre/php_pcre.h:52: error: expected specifier-qualifier-list before âpcreâ
make: *** [oauth.lo] Error 1
ERROR: `make' failed


The solution:
Needed to install libpcre3-dev (Perl 5 Compatible Regular Expression Library – development files) before PECL would make.

aptitude install libpcre3-dev


Tried PECL again, and it worked!

pecl install oauth


Why would anyone want to track outbound links away from their web site? Looking at the Linktrack.info stats, there are two main reasons:

1. To make sure they’re in a reciprocating relationship
2. To gauge why their customers leave

Not particularly ground breaking news, but statistically confirmed from a random sample of 50,000 links. Do with that what you will.

Last week we released a minor version upgrade for Linktrack.info, our link tracking service. The release was a major success, and we’ve gotten tons of compliments and new signups. Thanks to everyone who contributed feedback and feature suggestions!

Earlier this week, I called Paypal on a whim to talk to them about the giant rolling reserve placed on my account a few months ago. I’ve moved a good portion of my business away from them since they placed it, but I still process all of my recurring payments through their service (it’s a pain to migrate recurring payments) and I have a lot of money tied up in reserve.

To my surprise, the friendly customer support rep that I talked to removed the reserve from my account (both the rolling reserve and the minimum reserve) and released all of the funds for immediate use.

Initially I was thrilled about the windfall and withdrew it immediately. After the initial surprise wore off, I remembered some important facts:

• This was my money to begin with – not a gift from PayPal.
• If I had resolved my account issues to their satisfaction, why hadn’t anyone contacted me?
• What would have happened if I didn’t pick up the phone myself?
• What’s stopping this from happening again?

While I appreciate that PayPal worked with me and that I have my money, the whole experience has soured me on their service. I’ll continue to use them while it’s convenient, but during this period I took the opportunity to setup my own merchant account and integrate it with most of my payment processing.

They’ve lost 75% of my business and will lose another 20% in the next six months as I re-program my recurring payment setup. I don’t know what outcome they were hoping for, but I don’t think this is it.

I’ve used PayPal as a payment processor for intangible goods for the last five years ago. As of today, I’m ending my business relationship with them.

In the last few weeks I’ve learned that processing tens of thousands of dollars each year, being a customer since they were founded, responding quickly and diligently to chargeback complaints, and never having balance issue doesn’t mean squat.

Despite the above, restrictions on my account currently include a 30% 90 day rolling reserve and a $928 dollar indefinite minimum reserve which are both way above industry standards. To top it off, PayPal is now initiating and resolving chargebacks against me that are entirely independent of the customer.

Let me be clear on that last bit: without the customer’s knowledge or request, PayPal determines that a sale is not eligible and refunds the customer’s money. Why? Good question. The explanation I’ve received so far was regurgitated boilerplate which is PayPal code for “because we said so”. I call it theft.

Managing PayPal has become the largest burden in my day to day operations. It used to be a good company to work with, but it’s time to take my business elsewhere.

In the coming weeks, SignatureConfirm.com will launch its version 2.0 software on our web site http://www.signatureconfirm.com. We’re very excited about the new software and have been working over-time to include as many of the feature requests and improvements we could. The following is a list of potential questions new and existing users might have about the new version:

What’s new in version 2.0?

We’re introducing quite a few new features for contract management, as well as a paid subscription system. Expect to see support for multiple signatures on a contract, initials on certain sections, tracking metrics, audit logs and more!

How will the subscription system work?

We’ll have different account levels at a couple of different price points. Subscriptions will be billed on a monthly basis and every account type (including free accounts) will have access to all the features. The distinction will be in the number of contracts that can be made.

Will there still be a free account option?

Yes, absolutely.

How will this affect my existing account?

Existing accounts will be automatically imported into the new system and setup with the free account option. Any agreements in those accounts will remain active and won’t be counted toward the account limit. In short, your stuff will stay where it is, you will have full access to it, and you can use the new features with it.

I have more questions – who can I talk to?

Feel free to email me anytime: http://www.danifer.com/contact

I had a chance to talk with the lead developer for Joind.in, an online service designed to provide speakers with efficient and timely feedback from their audience. They have a really well-designed service and I can definitely recommend it if you’re a public speaker or event organizer.

From their web site:

Like the talk? Let ‘em know!

Joind.in provides the missing link between the people attending a conference and the ones that presented. The usual method of handing out paper forms is outdated and needs to be replaced. That’s where we come in – attendees can post their comments directly to each of the talks they attended, giving the speaker direct feedback on how they did and what they can do to improve.

Joind.in also has something to offer the speakers – you can track your record across the conferences and see how changes in your talk might have made a difference in your ratings.

For those of you familiar with our link tracking service, you might have noticed with recently upgraded it with lots of new features and an account management system. Please check it out and send us your feedback!

I attended the DallasPHP group last night. The topic was “Strategic MySql” which was well presented and concise. Here’s what I took away from the presentation/discussion:

• ‘Limit’ statements do not reduce the size of a query. Instead it fetches the complete result set, and then serves the limited portion to you.
• Rather than deleting data with one-to-one queries, consider marking your data “to be deleted” and handling it in a single automated query.
• A utility table containing aggregate information like row counts is a great place to store and retrieve commonly accessed database information without the need for a high overhead query.
• MyISAM is 10-40% faster at writing than InnoDB, but is not as flexible.
• Mixing table types (MyISAM/InnoDB) based on the type of data they’re holding might sound like a good idea, but the extra overhead of handling two table types cancels out the benefits. Best to choose one and stick with it throughout.
• Storing IP Addresses as a numeric value using inet_aton() is a far better idea that a 14 character varchar() field.
• I need to learn more about something called MySql Slow Log.
• Definitely need to look at something called “memcache”. Was described as “the easy button”.
• Benchmarking tools to Google: MySqlslap and ApacheBench
• Monitoring/reporting tool to Google: sqlyog
• MySql caching is turned on by default in my.conf.

Those are my notes – hope you found them useful. Some things I need to do more research on, others are just tidbits I might not have thought to look up on my own.

This is actually the most valuable part of any developer’s group for me. Without other programmers to talk to, I’m essentially developing in my own bubble. It’s one thing to go and look up an answer to a question, but it’s another thing entirely to know which questions to ask.

I finally made the decision to move the web server that powers this site and the bulk of my online businesses out of my office and into a collocation facility. This was a big step for me since I’ve been running this server out of my office on the Verizon FIOS business network for the last two years and it generates a good bit of daily income.

I’m located in Lewisville, Texas so it was important that my collocation facility be located in the DFW metroplex, be reasonably priced, and have a good reputation. After searching some of my favorite online discussion forums, I finally settled on colo4dallas.com located in Irving, Texas. I found several good online reviews, lots personal unsolicited testimonials and very few negative reports. Their pricing to house my Dell SC430 tower server and my small firewall was $109.00/month with a $50.00 one time setup fee. My plan includes 1000gb of transfer which is plenty for me. I estimate I’m using less than 100gb/month now serving database driven web pages.

I placed my order on Monday night and was contacted by a sales rep via email the next day. I gave them details about the equipment I would be bringing and scheduled a time to come by. The sales/tech reps were responsive and helpful. They assigned me IP information the same day, and I was ready to go.

I brought my equipment to them at noon on a Saturday. There were several technicians in the building, and I had to be buzzed in to access the building. After being greeted by the technician in the monitoring room and showing my ID, another technician came out after about 15 minutes to help me get setup. They were prepared for my arrival since I had scheduled in advance and were ready for me when I showed up.

Talking to the technician, I learned that I would have 24 hour access to the building and that there was always someone there to open the front door and let me in. I could use the building’s wireless access with my laptop, and there were several kiosk computers in the lobby available to me as well. If I needed hands-on access to my machine I was allowed unrestricted access to the cage where my server was located, and I could use a cart with monitor/keyboard/mouse setup as needed.

Setup on my server did not go very well since there was an issue with the network cable assigned to me and the VLan designated for my equipment. I was there for a little over three hours – 20 minutes of that was actually bringing in and plugging in my equipment, and I spent another 30 minutes configuring my router and server. The remainder of that time was spent waiting on the technician to make changes to the cabling and VLan. Ultimately, however, I had scheduled 1-3 hours to install the server and I didn’t have any other plans for the day so this wasn’t a huge issue. With this kind of thing, I would prefer it be done right rather then quickly.

While I was waiting, I took a few pictures with my phone and plugged my laptop into the network my server was on. I ran a speed test and was pleased with 20mb+ speeds (both up and down).

On returning home, I found that I have access to a nice customer web interface that bundles billing and ticket systems together, and can be used to initiate a hands-on reboot (a free service). The system also has some nice traffic monitoring reports so I can see how much traffic is being generated. I particularly like their 15 minute reboot promise.

As of writing this article, my server has only been online with colo4dallas for a few days, so I can’t speak to their uptime or reliability. I was pleased with their facility (conditioned power, secure access, etc.) as well as their online communication and reporting.

My only concern with my experience is security related. Although the facility is well monitored, once I had shown an ID I was free to roam, look at and touch most of the other customer’s servers in the building. The technician did have to open a locked door to the cage where my server was located, but once there I could have plugged in to any of the 140-150 machines in the same cage. Other cages in the facility were mostly closed to me, but power cables and network connections were reachable through the bars and I was free to tour the entire floor. Since I didn’t pay extra for a locked cage, I don’t have too much to complain about. With all the cameras and ID requirements, I don’t anticipate any issues, but I had a lot of free time in the cage waiting for setup and it came to mind.

My impression with the colo4dallas is positive, and I’m looking forward to using their service. Moving the server out of my office will cut back on my electric bill, will reduce my uptime concerns, and will give me more bandwidth to work with.

Some pictures:

I’ve started the journey to learn more about OOP (Object Oriented Programming) with PHP and have seen the ‘->’ operator used in most of the code I’ve encountered.

Although it seems to be called the Arrow Operator, I can’t find reference to it other than this page on the php.net web site. Granted, I didn’t search all that long.

From my understanding, the PHP Arrow Operator references the method (a fancy name for a function called from within a class) or a property (a fancy name for a variable called from within a class) via a defined class. In English you would be saying, “I want to use this (method or property) from this class. When I see the arrow operator in code, I read it as “from” in my head.

Here’s another statement with an Arrow Operator translated:

$instance = new simpleClass();

Open up a new instance of this class and start using its logic.

echo $instance->exampleFunction();

Look in the class simpleClass and find the function called exampleFunction. Echo the results.

Here’s a loose template for how I sell products online on one of my information-based web sites. There’s nothing particularly difficult or crafty about it, I just try and engage the customer at the most opportune moment.

Working Example: http://www.exportrules.com
Product: the downloadable “Sample Export Compliance Manual”
1st landing page goal: get people to sign up for the newsletter
2nd landing page goal: upsell visitors on the main product

Methodology:

1. Build a comprehensive, article database from scratch. If people are going to buy your product, it helps to look like you know what you’re talking about. This is also good for attracting free search engine traffic. Your content should be unique, well written, and useful to your audience. You can monetize these non-sales pages with AdSense or something similar, but be careful not to drive traffic away from your primary goal.
2. Bring in qualified traffic. You can build worthwhile free traffic by writing articles mentioned above. I also use Google Adwords which brings in the majority of my customers.
3. Landing page #1 http://www.exportrules.com/FAQ_Free_Download.php. If you sign up for the free product, this puts you in the auto-responder queue. The free product is also directly related to the main product, thereby pre-qualifying potential buyers.
4. Landing page #2 you’ll see after you sign up for the free download. This is where I start pushing the main product.
5. Autoresponder emails. A series of 10 emails that soft sell the product and offer helpful information. Sign up for the mailing list to see examples.
6. An automated system for processing orders and delivering product.

What you need:

1. A professional looking web site built around a content management system. I like WordPress. You can either skin it with a public template or have something custom made for you. I go both routes for this.
2. An article database of original, useful articles related to your field.
3. An email system that ties into an auto-responder like Aweber.
4. A delivery system for your product. If you’re doing affiliate marketing with someone else’s system this is easy. If you’re doing your own deliverable you’ll need a shopping cart of something similar to process orders.

I’m seeing the concept of social networking pop up all over the internet, and more and more its being touted as a business tool. If you’re thinking of investing some time into social marketing to grow your business, make sure you’re thinking about the big picture and the possible negative consequences to what you’re about do.

With that in mind, the most important reason I’ve found NOT to get into social networking (or at least to be extra careful when you do) is that your contact list and confidential business relationships are some of the most important assets your business has!

This is especially true if you sell any kind of product that relies primarily on customer service as its primary selling point. Let’s say you’re an insurance agent contracted with one of the major carriers. In my experience insurance is a highly competitive field, but can be effectively marketed using face to face networking. Once you’ve pounded the pavement to build up a client list, are you sure it’s a good idea to publicly advertise their names and contact information? What’s stopping your competitor from contacting each of your customers with a better deal?

For retail distributors, you might want to think twice before you publish your wholesale supplier’s contact information on your Facebook friends list. For those who outsource, you may want to reconsider letting your customers contact your vendors directly.

Information is one of the largest assets most companies have available to them. While there are many positive aspects of social marketing, it’s just as important to consider what you have to lose.

I found out today that you can decrypt md5 hashes by comparing the string to a known value database. Here’s an md5 decryption search engine designed to do just that. I got this from procodr which has consumed my morning with interesting articles.

The other day, one of my clients got an email from a search engine optimization specialist. I was thrilled when he asked my opinion regarding the outfit that was wanting to do business with him, and I thought there were some points worth publishing.

Here’s the original email forwarded by my customer:

xxx,

I just got off the phone with your assistant; she was calling to find out more information about the message I left you regarding xxx xxx. She mentioned that you currently have a contract with someone who is optimizing your site to show up in Google for terms such as “Fort Worth bankruptcy lawyer.” The conversation ended pretty quick when I let her know from a professional standpoint that your website is not showing up for the major terms and probably will never show up if the work done on your site stays consistent (I think you are on page 25).

I mentioned xxx xxx to showcase our capabilities; he is a well know Dallas criminal (DWI) lawyer. We have optimized his site so that it shows up on the first page for “Dallas DWI lawyer,” and like terms (www.xxx.com). If you know anything about the market you will recognize that these are probably the most competitive terms in the market. I have met with 4 other bankruptcy attorneys in Fort Worth and am looking to work exclusively with just one. If you plan on growing your firm via the internet then it probably makes sense that we set aside time to speak at some point before the end of the week or on Monday. You may reach me at xxx.xxx.xxxx. If you would like more information please visit our site www.xxx.com.

And my response:

Hi xxx,

His is an extremely competitive industry, and it’s also a very new industry. There are some legitimate firms out there, but there a lot more snake oil salesmen. Here are some things to keep in mind:

1. He’s talking about Search Engine Optimization which is designed to help your web site show up in the natural search results. This is different from the paid search campaign that we’ve been discussing.
2. If search engine optimization is something you’re interested in, I would ask about their pricing, whether they intend to put you on contract, and whether they can guarantee results.
3. The first thing most SEO companies will do is come in to work with the structure of the web site. This generally includes things like title tags, meta tags, proper use of headers, and the actual content of the site. These were all taken into consideration as we rebuilt the site, and it’s not something I charge for.
4. Lastly, there are a lot of “tricks” to search engine optimization, but the most successful method is often times the least used because it requires a lot of effort. There is no substitution for publishing original, valuable content online. If his estimate comes back as high as I’m guessing, I would consider hiring a content writer to fill out your site rather than an SEO specialist. This is just an opinion.

Call me sometime and we can talk a bit more about this. I’ve had a good bit of success jockeying two of my projects to the top of the search engines over the last few years and I’m more than happy share what I know. They are:

Itintl.com
http://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+import

1km1kt.net
http://www.google.com/search?q=free+rpg+games

Keeton

I’m sitting in my office trying to come up with an effective way to make the leap from web site revenue driven by advertising, to one revenue driven by payment for use of the service.

Right now, I have four web sites that are candidates for the pay-per-use business model. They are:

• http://www.firmscode.com – on online lookup tool for US Customs FIRMS codes.
• http://www.signatureconfirm.com – a digital signature service for signing contracts online.
• http://www.deliveryconfirm.com – a web based email return receipt service.
• and http://linktrack.info – an online link shortening and tracking service.

Here are the issues I’m facing. FYI – I don’t have answers to these questions yet (that will probably come in a later post).

• How can I implement a pay per use model without losing a significant portion of the users?
• What can I reasonably charge for the service?
• How should I charge? Subscriptions? Individual Transactions?

I’m really starting to believe that online services are the next generation of the web, and I want to be a part of it.

I recently tried to update a client’s PayPal account from an individual account to a business account. After submitting the update form, I got a page entitled “Page Not Found” with a link to retry or go to the PayPal home page.

I assumed that this was a temporary issue and that they were experiencing an outage or upgrading their system. After a week of trying at different intervals I sent an email to their support department. You can see the support message below.

After receiving the reply from the support team, I re-attempted the upgrade process several more times over a few days using different browsers at with a variety of security settings.

Still unable to upgrade my PayPal account, I finally phoned in and was informed that this was a known issue and that they were unable to provide an estimated completion date. In addition, there was no way to upgrade my account manually and that I should continue to try the online form.

So, if you’re having trouble upgrading your PayPal account, this might be why.

Here’s the message I sent to support:

Original Message Follows:
————————
Form Message
customer subject: Business upgrade problem – page not found.
customer message: What would you like to do with your account type?:
‘upgrd_acct’
Additional Information: ‘When I fill out the form to upgrade my account to a business account, I get a page titled “page not found” with a link to retry the form. When will this be working again and is there another way to upgrade my account?

Thank you,

Keeton

Here’s the response:

From: webform@paypal.com [mailto:webform@paypal.com]
Sent: Sunday, April 06, 2008 7:57 PM
To: XXX
Subject: Re: MyAccount (Routing Code: XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXX) (XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX) :ppk1

Dear XXX,

Thank you for contacting PayPal.

I apologize for the delay of our response.

My name is Solad and I am happy to assist you today. I understand that you are having difficulty upgrading your account to a business account. I apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused you. I’ll be happy to check that for you.

If you are receiving the error message ‘page cannot be displayed’ or ‘page cannot be found’ while attempting to access your account or open a new one, it may be because your browser’s security level is set too low.

For maximum security, you should consider upgrading to a Netscape or Microsoft browser supporting 128-bit encryption. Below are the instructions for viewing your browser security level.

For Microsoft Internet Explorer:

1. Open your Internet Explorer browser and select ‘Help” from the toolbar

2. Select ‘About Internet Explorer’

3. On the About Internet Explorer window, you will be given a version number and a cipher strength (encryption rate)

4. If your cipher strength is less than 128-bit, you may update by going to your ‘Tools’ tab and select ‘Windows Update’. (You may also click Help, click About Internet Explorer, and then click Update
Information.)

5. This will direct you to the Microsoft web site to upgrade your browser

You will also need to check the browser settings:

1. Click Start–>Settings–>Control Panel and open ‘Internet Options’

2. Click the ‘Advanced’ tab, scroll to the bottom of the scroll window

3. Ensure that ‘Use SSL 2.0′, ‘Use SSL 3.0′ and ‘Use TLS 1.0′ place a ‘check’ in the checkbox next to each of these options

For Netscape Communicator or Navigator:

1. Click ‘Help’ and then ‘About Communicator or Navigator’

2. In the window that opens, look for a section on RSA security

3. If this section reads, ‘This version supports U.S. security’, then your browser supports 128-bit encryption.

4. Otherwise, it will indicate you have an export version, which only supports 40-bit. (Further details are also available by clicking on Security in the Navigator toolbar)

5. If you need to upgrade your Netscape browser, go to http://home.netscape.com and click the ‘Download’ graphic at the top of the page

For other browsers, please view your help files for more information about upgrading to a more recent version.

If the cipher strength is already set to 128 bit, you will need to clear your cookies.

Double-checking your time and date on your computer may also help with your issue:

1. Click the Start button in the lower left hand corner

2. Scroll up to Settings and click on Control Panel

3. Double click Date/Time

4. Make sure the year is set to the correct year

Once your changes have been made, you may need to reboot your computer.

Please Note: If you are getting ‘Page Cannot be Displayed’ when trying to open a new account, it could be your cookies are not enabled. Once your cookies are enabled, you should be able to view the PayPal pages.

If this still doesn’t work, try clearing your cookies and cache on your computer.

If you are experiencing problems with our website that have not been encountered before, it is likely that you have a corrupted cookie. The easiest way to clear cookies is to remove them from your computer rather than the web browser.

Cookies are small text files (usually less than 1K in size) that websites send to your computer’s hard drive to identify you when you return. Think of them as your ID (identification) badge. Cookies are harmless and cannot affect the performance of your computer.

Without the cookie file, websites you frequent, like PayPal.com, will treat you as a new user each time you return.

Follow these simple steps to clear your cookies:

1. Open your Internet Explorer browser by clicking on the blue “e.”

2. Click “Tools” located at the top of the browser and select “Internet Options.”

3. Click “Delete Cookies”.

4. Click “OK” and “OK” again.

5. Restart your browser.

These steps should work for most Browsers types.

For IE 7, XP, and Vista users:

1. Open your Internet Explorer browser.

2. Click “Tools” located at the top of the browser and select “Internet Options.”

3. Under Browsing history, click the “Settings” button.

4. Click the “View files” button.

5. Click “Edit” at the top of the browser and then “Select All.”

6. Press the “Delete” key on your keyboard.

7. Click “Yes” if you are prompted with “Are you sure you want to delete the selected Cookies?”

8. Restart your browser.

To clear cookies for Macintosh using Internet Explorer, follow the steps
below:

1. Click “Explorer” or “Edit” at the top of the screen.

2. Click “Preferences.”

3. Under Web Browser preferences, click “ADVANCED.”

4. Click “Empty Now” on the right.

5. Click “OK”.

6. Restart your browser.

If it still doesn’t work, kindly contact your internet provider to change some settings on your account with them.

If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us again.

Sincerely,
Solad
PayPal Consumer Support
PayPal, an eBay Company

Google recently announced that there would be an “Important Change to URL Policy Enforcement” primarily focused on matching domain names, Display URLs, Landing page URLs, and Destination URLs.

What I was unaware of prior to the article (and I’m still not sure) is that Google allows the use of tracking URLs that don’t match the landing page URL domain name. I always assumed that the landing page URL had to match the domain of the display URL – no exceoptions.

Apparently, however, it is acceptable to use a tracking URL from a service like LinkTrack to monitor link activity.

You learn something new every day I guess, but this is definitely something I will be taking advantage of in the future.

So here’s a fun new site from Danifer Web Services! LinkTrack.info is a free link tracking service that lets you shorten long urls and track when they’ve been clicked on, and who clicked on them! The service is free and you don’t have to signup or give out any personal information.

Not too long ago we put together a site for an up and coming company, 100% Clean. They’re starting to sign with some very impressive professional atheletes and are issuing press releases, so I figured I should probably mention them in the blog!

These guys were great to work for, and their campaign against performance enhancing drugs is a really fantastic cause. They’re launching a clothing line over the next few months, so if you’re reading this take a few minutes to check it out.

I recently finished a project for a new customer, Kiddos! Kids’ Salon, and I couldn’t be happier. I’m glad when we have the opportunity to depart from the corporate web sites to do something a little more fun, and I couldn’t be more pleased with the way this one came out.

If you have little ones and you’re in the area, I highly recommend you stop by and check them out.

My sincerest thanks to everyone for being a part of Danifer Web Services this year. It’s been a lot of fun and I’m glad that I’ve had the opportunity to share it with so many wonderful people. Best wishes to our customers, colleagues, friends and family this holiday season, and I wish you a happy and prosperous New Year.

From everyone at Danifer Web Services, happy holidays!

Thank you,

Keeton

Last week I attended a meeting for a group called the Grapevine AMBUCS – a charitable organization of businessmen in the Grapevine area. My original goal in coming to the meeting was to get involved with a local charity organization that was laid back and would be fun and easy to attend. I was particularly pleased with the AMBUCS because they were extremely friendly, fairly well organized, and I already knew a few of the members from some of the business networking events I attend.

From the Grapevine AMBUCS web site:

The Grapevine Chapter of AMBUCS is comprised of businessmen from the Grapevine and surrounding communities dedicated to creating independence and opportunities for people with disabilities. AMBUCS meetings, community service projects and special events bring our members together as friends. Some of these friendships last a lifetime.AMBUCS service opportunities provide individuals with the resources to help their community when and if they are unable to do this as an individual. Working together as a group promotes fun, friendship and most of all, enpowers the community and individuals in need.

Creating Independence for People with Disabilities by:

• Performing Community Service
• Providing AmTrykes to Children with Disabilites
• Providing Scholarships for Therapists

As of this week, I am officially an AMBUCS member and am proud to be part of their organization. If you’re interested in becoming a member yourself, would like to volunteer, or have questions about one of the upcoming events, please feel free to drop me a line anytime.

For more information on the national organization, please visit their site at ambucs.com. For the Grapevine local chapter, please go to grapevineambucs.com.

Today I received a very exciting email from the team at SpamBully.

If you’ve read my previous article on updating to Windows Vista, you know that I wasn’t able to migrate the SpamBully software to the new system. I haven’t tested it out yet, but this email suggests that the software is now ready to go!

Their Email

Dear SpamBully user,
We are excited to announce the release of SpamBully 4 for Outlook, Outlook Express and Windows Mail in Vista!

We are offering a FREE 1 year upgrade to users of SpamBully 1, 2, and 3.

SpamBully 4 has many exciting new features and enhancements to help you continue to keep the upper hand against spammers.

New Features and Enhancements Include……..

Auto-Delete – Now you can save time by setting SpamBully to immediately delete emails from known spammers on your Block list.

Review Window – Easily review emails SpamBully has categorized as spam and unsure from one simple window.

Fraudulent Link Detection – Detect links in phishing email messages that are from potentially fraudulent sources so you don’t accidentally give out your valuable financial information to thieves.

One Click Empty – Now with one mouse click you can instantly delete all of the spam in your Spam folder.

SpamBully 4 has also made even more improvements to the core features you have come to depend on daily……

Enhanced Allow/Block List – Allow or block email addresses, IP’s and words/phrases you choose from your Inbox from one simple location. From here you also have the option of auto-deleting emails from known spammers on your Block list.

Fight Back – Easily turn spammers in to their ISP’s and the FTC with the click of your mouse. You can also bounce spam back to the spammers who sent it.

Unsure Folder – SpamBully now can place messages it is unable to properly classify as good email or spam into a special folder. This saves you extra time from having to review your Spam folder.

Cellphone Forwarding – Forward only good emails to your cellphone.

Auto-Delete – Delete spam emails automatically as they download.

Bayesian Filter – Cutting edge artificial intelligence that knows which emails you’ve received are good or spam. Makes sure good emails make it to your Inbox.

Multi-Language Interface – Lets you easily convert the SpamBully toolbar into English, Spanish, Italian, French, German, Russian, and other popular languages.

Statistics – Comprehensive graphing and statistics shows you how well SpamBully is performing for you.

Challenge Emails – Email a special password to an unfamiliar sender that they must type in before the email is allowed to your Inbox.

Try the new SpamBully 4 for 14 days.

Download your copy from:

http://www.spambully.com/download.php

The first time you open Outlook, Outlook Express or Windows Mail with SpamBully 4, it will easily allow you to import all of your SpamBully 3 settings.

We are offering users of SpamBully 1, 2, and 3 a FREE 1 year upgrade to SpamBully 4.

You can instantly get your SpamBully 4 code at:

http://www.spambully.com/upgrade4.php

We truly appreciate your continued support!

————————————————————————–

You are being emailed this announcement because you have purchased either SpamBully 1,2 or 3.

If you do not wish to be notified by SpamBully when new versions or upgrades are available, please click the link at bottom and you will be instantly removed fromour updates email database. SpamBully does respect your privacy and your wishes, we do not sell our customer lists and we will not email you with SpamBully updates that you do not want.

Axaware, LLC
2153 Wealthy
#150
Grand Rapids, MI
49506

If you haven’t been in a while check out import-duty.com, one of my import/export related web sites. I recently redesigned this one with a new WordPress template and added in an email collection utility and some saleable products.

This site has excellent page rank and has generated a steady stream of traffic for import duty and import tax related terms. I’ve decided to develop it a bit further and try to help importers answer that all important question, “how much is import duty?”

What is a Link Exchange?

In order to promote web site visitors to their sites, many web site owners choose to participate in link exchanges. A link exchange is an agreement between two web site owners wherein they agree to add a click-able link to each of their sites in order to promote each other and share traffic.

What are the Benefits of a Link Exchange?

The primary benefit of a link exchange is for unpaid search engine positioning. Search engines like Google, Yahoo!, and MSN are believed to count the number of incoming links a site has from other web sites in order to determine it’s relevance when returning search engine results. It is widely believed that the more incoming links a site has, the higher it will rank for a given search term.

The secondary benefit of a link exchange is an exchange of traffic from one web site to another. By participating in a link exchange, web site owners actively promote their web site elsewhere on the internet in order to gain more visitors from incoming links.

Although generally overlooked, link exchanges also provide value to your web site’s visitors. Assuming that you are planning on linking to sites that have content related to yours, you are providing your visitors with additional resources.

What are the Problems with Link Exchanges?

The link exchange system is prone to abuse. Many sites automate link exchanges with other web masters to generate thousands of incoming links. These incoming links are less a “vote of confidence” from another site and are generally annoying to visitors looking for real information. Here’s a sample automated link exchange request from Merchant Service Group

How can I get the most out of link exchanges?

This part can be time consuming, but it’s definitely worthwhile. Stick to the following for best results:

• Have a web site worth linking to. Fill your site with useful content for your readers and for those sites who would link to you.
• Don’t automate your linking process. Instead, hand pick sites that compliment yours and contact the owner in a personal way. Mention who you are and what you like about their web site. I always write an individual email to each potential link exchange partner. It’s definitely more time consuming, but in the long run it has better results.
• Contact sites that are relevant to your area of expertise, but not direct competitors. An example would be a veterinarian’s web site linking to one for a pet groomer.
• Don’t go overboard. A few choice links from the right people will get great results.

Is there any terminology I should know?

This is not a comprehensive list, but should get you started:

• URL: the address in your address bar. It normally looks something like http://www.danifer.com/blog/what-is-a-link-exchange.html.
• Anchor text: You can use any text to link to another web site. What you use for anchor text is believed to have an impact on search results. This is an example of anchor text. This is a good place to insert keywords relevant to the site you’re linking to.
• One way link: Not a true link exchange, but rather an incoming link to a site that is not reciprocated.
• Banner/Image: You can use an image to link to a site rather than anchor text.
• Alt Text: When an image is used, alt text can be added to signify what the image is about to visually impaired or graphics disabled browsers. This is a good place to insert keywords relevant to the image you’re using and the site you’re linking to.

What about buying links?

The jury is still out on this one. It definitely makes the process easier, but it might not achieve the results you’re looking for. If you’re going to buy links, do so in moderation and don’t blow your budget. There are more proven ways you can spend money to improve your traffic.

I’m ready. What do I do now?

Here’s how the link exchange would normally work:

• Contact the site you would like to exchange links with.
• The two of you agree where you would like the links placed and what you will be linking to.
• Communicate with your web master where the link should be placed, what it should point to and any other information you worked out with the link exchange partner.
• Confirm that your link exchange partner has posted your link.
• Check back occasionally to make sure nothing has been changed.

Best of luck to would-be link exchangers! I hope you found some of this worthwhile.

Keeton

Here’s an example of an automated link exchange request. Although written in a generically personable way, this is obviously an automated program or bulk distribution email.

As a web site owner I find this kind of thing annoying. Not only is it spam mail, but I believe bulk link requests like this are actually harmful to both the originating site as well as those that link to it.

If you’re not sure what all this is about, please check out this related article: What is a link exchange?

Here’s the email:

I came across your website http://www.itintl.com, and would like to propose a link exchange between our sites. *company name removed* provides an array of *service description removed* to retail*potential clients removed* . *service description removed*

Please consider adding our link to your site on your page: http://www.itintl.com/rss/itintl.xml.

Here is our linking information:

Title: *Anchor Text Removed*
Description: *description removed*
URL: *URL removed*

========== Begin HTML Code ================

<a href=”*URL removed*” Target=”_blank”><b>*Anchor Text Removed*</b></a> *description removed*

========== End HTML Code ================

Let us know when our link is placed and we will post your link in the proper category of our resources page listed here: *description removed* .

Please be sure to include your desired title and description. Your link will be posted within hours, however, in some rare cases it may take longer. Please feel free to let me know if you have any questions.

Thank you for your consideration,

*contact information removed*

If you would like not to receive any further communications from *company name removed* , please respond to this email with “Remove” in the subject line.

One of my customers received this notice from ICANN and had some questions. Read the email from GoDaddy, his question, and my response below.

Email from GoDaddy/ICANN

From: accountupdate@godaddy.com
Sent: Saturday, September 29, 2007 9:18 PM
To:
Subject: Important ICANN Notice Regarding Your Domain Name(s)

***********
Important ICANN Notice Regarding Your Domain Name(s)
***********

Dear Name,

It’s that time of year again. ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned
Names and Numbers) annually requires that all accredited registrars (like Go
Daddy) ask their domain administrators/registrants to review domain name
contact data, and make any changes necessary to ensure accuracy.

To review/update your contact data, simply:
+ Go to www.godaddy.com/?isc=
+ Click on the “ICANN Domain Confirmation” icon at the top of the page
+ You will be taken to a landing page and asked to enter your Domain
Information Key: XXX-XXX-XXX-XXX-XXXXXXXXXXX
+ Enter your key and click “Go.”

Next, simply review the contact information for each domain name. To make a
correction, log in to “My Account” with your customer number or log in name
and password. Click “Manage Domains,” select the domain to update, then
click “Contact.” If you find that your domain contact data is accurate,
there’s no need to take action.

If, however, your domain contact information is inaccurate, you must correct
it. (Under ICANN rules and the terms of your registration agreement,
providing false contact information can be grounds for domain name
cancellation.) To review the ICANN policy, visit:

http://www.icann.org/whois/wdrp-registrant-faq.htm

Should you have any questions, please email us at mailto:support@godaddy.com
or call our customer support line at (480) 505-8877.

Thanks for your attention and thank you for being a GoDaddy.com customer.

Sincerely,
GoDaddy.com Domain Support

If you are the domain administrator of more than one GoDaddy.com domain
account, you may receive this notice multiple times.

The Question

Hi Keeton,

Is this something I should worry about or just a clever marketing thing?

Thanks,

Name

My Response

Hi Name,

This is not clever marketing – ICANN is actually an official organization that regulates domains. All they are asking you to do is log into your account and make sure your contact details are up to date. If they haven’t changed since last year, no updates will be needed.

Hope that helps,

Keeton