Regardless of where it comes from, Spyware sends information about you somewhere.

There is literally no “good” spyware if we use the definition above, but there are pieces of software that are not bad for you or your system that act somewhat like spyware – in the sense of tracking information about you – but in almost all cases you did opt in to allowing these items on your machine and they do only something legitimate.

Basically “good” spyware would be cookies and key-loggers for sites and software you have agreed to use as part of your “contract” with either, or which you are choosing to use to enable faster or more pleasant web-surfing.

Example of this would include:

· Cookies for friendly sites
· Active-X controls for friendly sites
· Java scripts for friendly sites
· Key loggers for friendly software.

A “key logger” does what it sounds like, which is records things you do with your keyboard and mouse. For example, if you accept a trial on software that is good for 30 loads, the way the company keeps track of those loads is through a key logger. You almost certainly agreed to this in the terms, conditions or registration of the software – and a large part of the time these things are invisible and won’t harm your machine or transmit confidential information like passwords.

Adware may also include friendly cookies that help identify you, help you log in to websites with which you transact business like “legitimate” sites – for example, major search engines.

The reasons why people want to drive traffic are complex (as a web marketer you may be familiar with some of them) but the most important thing is you don’t want your machine to be a pawn in someone else’s web marketing game without your permission.

The vast majority of spyware is not friendly, and the scanning programs are very good at telling the difference.

You may not be able to entirely stop spyware from entering your system, but you can minimize it through a combination of behaviors and browser settings, then find and remove it with an easy-to-use variety of software tools.

How does spyware get on your machine?

Spyware enters your system through several major routes. These include:

· “Holes” in either your operating system or browser software.

The solution to most of these is “security fixes” or security patches, covered below.

· Online account registrations.

These can be friendly. For example, if you register at Amazon.com, Amazon uses a cookie to “remember” who you are, let you sign in faster, shop more easily and get served offers and items likely to be of interest.

· Downloading images, sound or video clips.

When you agree to download something from a website, the downloading process can bring with it software pieces you didn’t exactly agree to download! While viruses will usually be caught by virus software, spyware will almost never be caught by them because the software is differently written.

· “Active” pages on web sites including Java and Active-X

Some security experts advise against enabling these technologies as a result. For large corporations that may make sense, but the typical small business can find better ways to manage these risks while still enjoying full web functionality. See below for how.

Regardless of where it comes from, Spyware sends information about you somewhere.

Some will try to “hijack” or take over your Web browser to “force” you to go to web sites you don’t want to visit, like the viruses known as worms. Sometimes these sites will look like “legitimate” sites – for example, major search engines. The reasons why people want to drive traffic are complex (as a web marketer you may be familiar with some of them) but the most important thing is you don’t want your machine to be a pawn in someone else’s web marketing game without your permission.

You may not be able to entirely stop spyware from entering your system, but you can minimize it through a combination of behaviors and browser settings, then find and remove it with an easy-to-use variety of software tools.

Because spyware is continually downloaded onto your machine, it needs to continually be found and removed.

And the “definitions” update is even more important here than with virus programs, and, importantly, is often not automatic – so you will need to update the definitions yourself every few days.

While all the major security software companies are introducing spyware stopping products, and the latest releases of the major web browsers have some anti-spyware functionality, the two best pieces of anti-spyware software remain FREE for personal use, and are quite inexpensive for business use.

Ad-Aware is published by the Swedish company Lavasoft. Continually updated since 1999, Ad-Aware is one of the simplest, user-friendly pieces of software for finding and deleting spyware, especially, tracking cookies and registry entries. Available direct from the publisher at www.adaware.com and also from CNET’s fantastic free site www.download.com Ad-Aware SE is highly recommended for all computer users. It is regularly updated, stable, and for non-business use, completely free.

Ad-Aware will remind you to check for updates, offers one-click scanning, and is incredibly simple to use. Definitions are updated about weekly.

The main drawback (at least of the free versions) of Ad-Aware is that it offers no “automatic” scanning options, and it also tends to miss malware that is not of the tracking cookie or registry entry variety.

Also, Ad-Aware is so popular that some spyware designers have found ways to create pieces of software that specifically won’t be found by Ad-Aware, so you need a second piece of software, and at the moment our tests suggest that software should be SpyWare Doctor, which is also available for individual users for free.

SpyWare Doctor is published by PC Tools, which also has good freeware/shareware and also commercial products in the area of registry management and other security and performance enhancement items.

SpyWare Doctor is available in a “free” version which is in fact an unregistered version that has some limits when compared with the registered version, including not being able to run in the background continually, not automatically live updating and so forth. Some trial or free versions of SpyWare Doctor also have limits on the number of scans you can run, or the number of items the scan will allow you to process. If you get a “free” version that allows updates and no limits on the scans, you may find that adequate for your needs. If you get a limited “free” version you may find upgrading to the registered version is a good idea.

SpyWare Doctor offers ease of use, very thorough scanning, and a nice feature lacking in many other spyware detection and removal programs – very specific explanation of what the particular item does, where it probably came from, and how serious a threat it poses.

If you’re the type of person who likes that level of detail, SpyWare Doctor is particularly enjoyable to use. Visit www.pctools.com to learn more and try the software.

There are many other options, and they are changing all the time. Among the better ones (which can all be used alongside Ad-Aware and SpyWare Doctor) are Spybot Search and Destroy from PepiMIK, SpySubtract from Intermute, and SpyWare Blaster by JavaCool.

Chances are Norton and all the others will be offering spyware related software products or upgrades in the very near future, and www.download.com continues to feature the best in freeware, shareware, and trial versions along with a fairly reliable review system.

There is also a great site that is fully dedicated to only anti-spyware programs, and usually has downloads of all the free ones and the time-or-function limited full commercial versions as well – www.spychecker.com.

And by the way: Any time you see a pop-up window offering “anti” spyware products, don’t believe it! Most of those are in fact scams that will download software that is actually spyware masquerading as anti-spyware!

Updating definitions continually is even more important with spyware products than virus products; since spyware is updated almost daily you need to update definitions almost daily, and unlike a virus scan that can be run say once per week, running a “quick” scan for spyware – which will focus on the commonest places for spyware to hide – should be done daily.

You can then run a “full scan,” perhaps once a week.

You also want to update your Windows software regularly to get security patches. Whether to turn on automatic updates or not is a complex question, since some early release updates cause more problems than they solve until the bugs are worked out.

We believe in running Windows update manually every month or so, which is likely to bring you all the major security improvements without the problems of beta or version 1.0 releases, on average.

To update Windows, within Internet Explorer select the Tools menu. Then Tools > Windows Update and the rest of the process will be easy to follow.

If you do want to turn on automatic updates, you can do that via the update process the first time you visit the Windows update site, or, you can enable it via the Control Panel on your PC.

There are a few things you can do with your browser as well.

We mentioned that you can set some parameters within Internet Explorer to minimize the downloading of certain kinds of spyware, but that this will limit functionality of your web surfing and may even make some of your favorite sites unavailable.

There are also some general preferences and routines you should consider.
Disabling Bad Scripts – But Enabling Good Ones

There is a two-setting solution that will probably provide you with some enhanced security while still enabling the kind of surfing and browsing you are used to doing.

What you want to do is disable IE’s ability to run scripts without your permission, first.

1. In Internet Explorer click the Tools menu > Internet Options > Security
2. Select A Web Content Zone and Custom Level.
3. Disable four items:
a. Download unsigned Active-X controls
b. Initialize and script Active-X controls not marked safe
c. Active scripting
d. Scripting Java applets

Then set your Java permissions option to “High Safety.” Now you have better security – but half your favorite sites won’t work. There’s an easy if slightly time-consuming solution to that.

Next do this:

4. In Internet Explorer click the Tools menu > Internet Options > Security > Trusted Sites > Sites

5. Enter (by typing them in one at a time!) all of the site URLs of the sites you know and like that require scripting.

6. Disable “require server verification” for these sites

7. “OK” your way back to the browser window

As you encounter more sites you like that require scripting to function properly, you’ll simply need to go back and use steps 4-6 again.

In addition, you can make simple preferences adjustments within your browser that will minimize the appearance of malicious software on your machine:

· Disable pop-ups (or enable pop-up blocking)
· Do not click in pop-ups if you don’t disable them entirely
· Do not download “free” “toolbars” or other “plug ins” for your browser, since most of the time these software items will not do things you want them to do
· Do not answer strange or unexpected questions in dialogue boxes, whether they pop up in pop-ups or appear on normal web pages. Close the page, browser or window, and if you can’t, Just SAY NO! Literally.

Almost always the “yes” option is opting into something very bad.

Like any area of technology that is rapidly changing, malware is constantly introducing new words and concepts into the language we use to talk about computer issues. This can be educational at best and incredibly confusing at worst.

To make it easier to understand what’s being discussed if you come across news items, stories or instructions in the press or on the Internet, we offer the following basic glossary of terms:

Adware

Adware is the general term for any “spybot” software that exists to track your shopping, browsing and spending habits by sending this information to a remote server. Technically speaking, adware often is bundled with software you intentionally downloaded (which acts as a peer-to-peer file swap, a sort of secret version of what Napster did with music files), and sometimes as we said earlier you agree to host the software in the fine print of your EULA with some software products. Increasingly adware is simply placed on your PC when you download any content from many websites, or even if you just visit those sites.

While most adware is not truly “malicious,” the combination of its hidden nature and more importantly the fact that adware will frequently cause erratic (slow) or annoying (pop-up) behavior means most of it should usually be removed unless you deliberately accepted it, for example, in order to be able to use a piece of free software.

BHO or Browser Helper Object

This is a small piece of software that loads itself every time you start your web browser. They can range from fairly harmless – tracking the ads you are served, for example – to annoying and destructive.

Most BHO objects will be found and removed by any of the anti-spyware programs commonly in use.

Cache or Browser Cache

Also known as Temporary Internet Files, the original idea here was to make web browsing faster by storing certain elements of image-heavy sites locally, so they load more quickly than they would from the web. The problem is that in combination with spyware and adware, the nature of the files and the sites they came from can be transmitted as part of your surfing profile, which you may not want for any number of reasons.

There are many utilities that routinely clear the cache, but this is easily done by hand in Internet Explorer. Click on Tools > Internet Options > and in the middle of the dialog window on the General tab, click Delete Files and check the box for “delete all offline content.” This clears your cache.

Cookies

Cookies are usually tiny text files that contain information about you, that a web site you visited deposits on your hard disk to “recognize” you the next time. Many cookies are harmless but some are not.

Anti-spyware programs will usually find all bad cookies, tracking cookies, and unnecessary cookie fragments, and delete them.

Dialers

If you use a dial-up Internet connection you will want to make sure to protect yourself against dialers, almost all of which are malware and of a type that can cost you money.

The basic functioning of a dialer is to disconnect your modem from your ISP and connect you to another one, usually at ridiculous rates (like a 900 number).

Very occasionally a dialer will be a legitimate business tool that you will agree to use, for example, certain content (usually adult content) will require you to accept a connection to the content provider’s own ISP, which makes the “free” content well more expensive than free, but this may be something certain users are willing to do in some situations.

Good anti-spyware programs will find and remove dialers. If you are not using a modem to connect to the Internet, the dialers can do you no harm in any case.

EULA

EULA is an abbreviation for “end user license agreement,” the detailed contract terms between a user of software and the publisher or owner of the software. Increasingly, these contracts contain legalese that hides agreements to have your behavior tracked and so forth, which is how you may inadvertently agree to certain malware being present on your system.

In this case removal of the malware will usually disable the software it came with, and the software may or may not tell you that that is what happened.

The important thing is to CAREFULLY READ all EULA text from all but the most well-known vendors before clicking that you accept.

(A lawyer would suggest reading the stuff from Microsoft and Adobe and so forth also, but our attitude is productivity in real life requires their products so you may as well agree; also they do not generally abuse their “monopoly” status, at least not in this context).

Identity Theft

Identity theft is a complex subject, but in simplest terms it means taking a person’s actual (“real life”) identity and using it to commit fraud of various kinds, usually involving money transactions but not always.

Malware

An abbreviation of “malicious software,” software designed to harm your computer, you, or to hamper the normal functioning of your system. We define “harm” to include all tracking of your personal information without your explicit consent.

All viruses and most spyware can be included in this category. While some adware would be less than malicious in intent it is fairly irritating in practice, so we consider all of it to be in the general category.

A cookie you willingly accept from say, Amazon.com, would not be malware as it has neither malicious intent nor malicious results.

Personally Identifiable Information (or PII)

This is information that can used to contact you specifically, or that can be associated with you specifically in terms of behavior. Your name, phone numbers, physical addresses, email addresses, etc are PII. PII is necessary for any kind of identify theft, but it is also necessary to offer you personalized service in some software and web situations.

Other information that may be of interest to marketers would be considered non-PII, such as you demographic profile unassociated with any data about you personally.

Privacy policies or agreements (which are included in EULAs frequently) will discuss whether a particular software package or website uses PII or does not.

Registry

The registry is a database on your PC that keeps track of everything about your computing environment like hardware, software, user profiles, settings and so on.

Many spyware programs infiltrate the registry either to gather information or to modify it, which can cause mayhem with your computer or possibly cause it to stop functioning until resolved.

Spyware

Spyware is software that records information about you without your consent, which can include passwords, keystrokes, browsing habits, and much more. Some is merely annoying and some is very dangerous.

Spyware goes by many names: snoopware, PC surveillance, key logger, system recorders, Parental control software, PC recorder, Detective software and Internet monitoring software.

Trojan or Trojan Horse

Named for the original Trojan horse – the “gift” that inside it contained an invading army – Trojans are pieces of good-seeming software that have a nasty surprise inside that may be a virus, a worm, spyware, or even a program that connects to a remote machine and allows access to your whole system.

Antivirus programs will generally stop Trojans before they are loaded, and can usually remove them once they are.

Worm

Generally speaking, a program that makes copies of itself.

As I felt my face turn red, I knew I had do something to save myself from further embarrassment.

The source of this embarrassment was my great aunt.

She was chaperoning my eighth grade class on a field trip to the zoo. Then she did it…

As we finished eating our lunch, my aunt wrapped up a half eaten hotdog in a napkin, and promptly stashed it in her purse.

As everyone at the table looked at me and started to laugh, I instinctively kicked out my friend’s chair. As he fell to the ground, milk shot out of his nose, inciting a roar of laughter. I had saved my aunt from any further ridicule amongst my peers, for this day at least.

I loved my aunt, but she refused to waste anything, and this sometimes caused me a great deal of embarrassment.

Once I started marketing online, I realized my aunt was on to something. In order to succeed as an online marketer, you can’t afford to ‘waste’ anything.

You have to utilize every resource available to you, and leverage these resources to help you grow your business.

One such resource is your customer “thank you” page.

When a customer orders a product or service, they are usually sent to an order confirmation page.

Most marketers have a few sentences expressing their gratitude and a contact email.

Are you making this same mistake?

This lack of imagination is costing you dozens of new customers every month.

The people who read these pages are coveted prospects who are willing to spend money.

There are countless marketers in your niche who would relish the opportunity to pitch their product to your customers.

For years, many savvy marketers have been swapping thank you page promotions with one another. They are adding new customers to their businesses, without very much effort.

You can jump on this money train as well, with two simple steps:

- Find a suitable partner to swap promotions with
- Then simply add his/her ad to your ‘thank you’ page

If you are unable to find any willing partners, you can always place related affiliate ads on your page. (Remember these are hot prospects who are interested in your niche).

Now you have no excuses not to implement this powerful technique immediately.

Remember, you must maximize all of your resources to help your business grow, all it takes is a little imagination on your part.

Who you are today, your personality and your values, depends on the past events that shaped you. You can always find connections between a present thought or feeling and a past event, no matter how far away it might seem. Explanations for present events can be found by going through some memories, and this practice shows you how to do that. By trying this you will be able to reinterpret yourself, by learning not to judge your actions but to accept and understand them.

What this really incorporates is developing a positive mental attitude through your actions in the past. You will probably be able to bring up at least several instances where you didn’t behave how you wished you had. Re-evaluating your behavior will also create a positive mental attitude because we can all learn a positive mental attitude from our mistakes. It’s not difficult to enforce a positive mental attitude as you examine your memories. Once you begin, you’ll find it easier and easier to see things with a positive mental attitude!

Begin by finding a comfortable position, in a chair or armchair. Have a piece of paper or notebook and a pen ready and put them besides you. Try to relax your body and your mind and breath rhythmically through your nose. When you have achieved a state of increased self-awareness go back in time and think of an unpleasant memory that has marked your entire life. You don’t have to find something dramatic – in childhood, for example, even the most insignificant looking remark may have a huge impact on your personality. Let’s say that, as a child, you broke a crystal vase that your mother held dear. She might have said: “You can’t do anything right!”. Of course, that was just an anger driven reaction on her part that disappeared after a short while but you, as a child, were deeply affected by it.

When you have selected your past event try to briefly write it down and finish with a phrase that summarizes your experience (e.g. “You can’t do anything right!”). Make sure your breathing is still rhythmical and relaxed and then think about a minimum of three things that you can learn from that past experience. Do not get stuck on the final phrase, but try to analyze your action in a non-judgmental manner. The main idea is to identify and assimilate the things that you could have improved. Don’t quickly dismiss your past problem by saying “it was a child’s mistake”. The goal here is to find out how any mistake can teach you to become better, instead of lowering your self-esteem and confidence.

When you have found a few positive remarks about the past experience try to write them down. Don’t force your mind to come up with the ideas; instead, try to let everything flow naturally. After you’re done writing make sure to read the statements a couple of times and remember their essence. Put the paper aside and get back to connecting with your breathing. Take a minute or two to focus solely on your breathing and then recall the positive ideas you jotted down on the piece of paper. As an example, in the case of the broken vase, you could write: “I have to concentrate more on my actions”. Repeat that thought in your mind and make sure it represents you completely. Do the same with all the other positive ideas you cam up with. Believing in them and repeating their essence enables you to make them part of who you are.

This exercise is especially useful when you are aware that you are about to go through a similar experience. You may not be in danger of breaking another vase, but you might be in the situation where something a friend holds dear will be in your hands, in your responsibility. If you feel stressed and fearful about that situation make sure you recall the positive aspects from your exercise. Repeat them in your mind before the event and your self-confidence will receive a well-deserved boost, allowing you to do your job free from any negative roots to the past.

I want you to stand up, spin in a circle for a full minute, then try to sit back down and type out your full name.

Can’t do it? I’m insane you say?

The sad fact is, many new marketers start out going in circles, which makes it impossible to focus on even the most routine of tasks.

To become successful online you must use the “focus factor”.

Have you ever felt like you’ve gotten in way over your head? When you first embark on an internet marketing venture, it’s perfectly normal to be overwhelmed. There is so much to learn, so many different things you can do to market a business online, and so many “experts” that claim they’ve got the “secret” to making money online. It can really be mind boggling at times.

So, what’s the secret to internet marketing and making money online? Well, let me tell you, there is no secret. What there is though is information overload. There are tons of strategies for various types of internet marketing techniques and what works great for one business, might not work at all for another.

So, rather than trying to “master the art” of internet marketing, it is best to get a quick overview of internet marketing techniques, decide which one (or two) you want to try first, gain the knowledge and skill you need to pull off the technique, and see how it works. Of course you need to do some research to identify your target market and create a marketing plan, but your internet marketing plan doesn’t have to be extensive and doesn’t have to be set in stone from day one. You can review your stats, see what is working and what isn’t, and tweak your internet marketing campaign as you go along to strengthen it and make it more effective.

When you get started in internet marketing, it is good to have an understanding of various types of internet marketing techniques, but the primary ones to concentrate on in the beginning are search engine marketing and pay-per-click search engine marketing. On average, over 80% of the traffic that comes to a website finds the website through the search engines, so search engine listings are vital to internet marketing.

Search engine marketing consists primarily of optimizing your website using targeted keywords, filling it with relevant content, building relevant incoming links, and submitting the site to the search engines. With pay-per-click search engine marketing, the process of internet marketing through the search engines is simplified a bit because you bid on keywords that will provide results for your particular website and your search engine rank is based primarily on your bid rather than relying solely on site optimization which can be quite challenging.

Rather than focusing on a variety of internet marketing techniques at once, you’ll find it is much more effective to pursue internet marketing options one at a time. After perfecting one strategy, you can move on to the next, continually strengthening your internet marketing efforts.

Usually people are afraid of bad changes, things that affect their existence in a negative way. The question arising is how to cure our fears of change? The most important thing is to understand that life is always made from ups and downs and nobody can be in a permanent ascending trend, simply because that is impossible. Even the most envied stars experience the downs life has to offer, so nobody can avoid them.

However, the most important thing is not how to avoid changes, fears and bad experiences, but how to learn from them. It is crucial not to let problems overwhelm you, but to know how to use them in your favor.

There are many theories of motivation as to why change so scares humans. Some theories of motivation suggest that an event in our childhood can trigger our fears, while other theories of motivation aren’t as defined. Whatever the theories of motivation, our fears can be very real. Theories of motivation can point to our problems, but what are the theories of motivation to resolve our fears of change?

There is no doubt that problems affect us, which is actually normal, due to the fact that we have feelings, but, nevertheless, every single hard moment of our lives should make us even stronger. That is why specialists suggest that you should always analyze and meditate on the worse situation you had to deal with, in the course of your life. Try to learn from your mistakes, because they will help you be prepared for the changes or less pleasant situations to come.

There are many ancient beliefs that consider that every single episode of our lives happens with a pre-determined reason. They also think that life, somehow prepares us for certain events to come, so if we focus enough attention on our previous experiences, we will understand many things from the present.

With all that, it is also true that the unexpected can happen anytime. However, you should keep in mind that a change in not always for the worse and consequently, you must never let go of a chance, because you are afraid to take the risk. Remember that, from time to time, something has to happen in order to free you from monotony, so you shouldn’t be surprised if, at a certain moment in time, instead of being afraid of change, you desire it with all your heart.

If you just don’t feel capable of realizing what a certain change in your life, actually means, here’s a list of tips that might help you get mobilized:

· Try to think only of the positive impacts that will result after the change. See how important they are and meditate upon how to multiply them, by adding some other good aspects, which need certain assistance.

· It is always good to picture somebody else in your situation, as picturing ourselves in a less desirable position, always looks more dramatic than it really is. If you realize that the other person can handle the change, you can be sure you’ll be able to handle it as well.

· Imagine the worse situation that can result after the change. Now try to find various solutions to it. Meditate on how much you can loose, if the worst happened, and how important those things are to you. If you find more than one reasonable solution, you are safe – the change can’t be stronger than you are!

Traffic is the lifeblood of any Internet marketing business. Without a new flood of prospects to your site each and every day, your business will stop growing, and your profits will come to a screeching halt!

Buying traffic to your Website from a wholesale Website traffic broker might be a good Internet marketing technique because you can get massive traffic at a low cost. However, if it isn’t quality, targeted traffic, it really won’t do you any good and it will simply be a waste of your advertising money.

If you are considering buying traffic for your Website, you’ve absolutely got to do some research regarding the type of traffic that certain traffic brokers deliver. Pop up advertisements are common techniques that traffic brokers use to drive traffic to your Website. While they can be appealing to some Internet surfers, pop up ads are considered to be a burdensome annoyance to many and pop up blocker technology prevents them from even being displayed to many prospects.

You also need to know where the traffic you are buying comes from. If it comes from an expired domain that is relevant to your Website, it might be good, targeted traffic. However, if it comes from a source that has nothing whatsoever to do with your target market, it probably won’t be beneficial.

When you do purchase Website traffic in bulk, start with a small amount and carefully track the results that are being produced from the traffic in regard to the number of hits to your Website and the conversion rate. If the traffic proves to be fruitful, you may opt to purchase more, but if results are not evident, save your money to be spent on more productive Internet marketing alternatives.

While traffic to your Website is essential to making money in an Internet-based business, the traffic simply must come from your target market in order for it to be useful. Study up on methods for driving traffic to your Website considering the potential for the traffic to be converted to sales all the while. With a good Internet marketing strategy that consists of a variety of traffic driving techniques geared to the characteristics of your target market, your Website is sure to be successful.