Have you let a spy into your computer?

Yes, it's true. You may have inadvertently invited a spy into your computer. This spy is known as "spyware, adware, or trojans", and once it is in your computer it starts taking statistical information as you travel the Internet. In some cases, it may send you pop-up ads and slow down your computer. A wired.com article, mentions it "could even collect your credit card information".

How did you invite the spy?

Maybe you visited a website you knew and enjoyed only to find that it was recently purchased by a pornography site. The new company has imbedded "spyware" into the home page and now, in many cases without your knowledge, it is on your computer.

Maybe you downloaded a free or paid program and as part of the package you were provided with an added secret bonus a spyware program. Spyware may also be placed on CDs you purchase, too.

Maybe you agreed to it! You could have downloaded a program and checked the box to allow the program to take statistics from you "for their own use".

Maybe someone sent you spam, especially porn spam, and that spam created the spy. Spys can easily be placed, without your knowledge, in pictures or HTML email.

What you can do?

Purchase a firewall program and it should let you know if a program is about to download from the website you are at. Note the word "should".

Or you can learn all about spyware, download an anti-spyware program, and schedule time in your weekly calendar to run an anti-spyware program. The first time I conducted a clean up, on my 18-month old computer, I found 2 porn and 42 other spyware programs. Then a week later, I had 4 new spyware files appear.

To further reduce the amount of spyware that ends up in your e-mail Inbox, create a "rule" or "filter that will move any e-mail containing "certain adult words of your choosing directly to your delete or spam folder.

Norton and MacAfee the virus protection specialists, have added anti-spy programs to the list of maintenance programs they sell. However, according to information Ive seen on email lists, theyre not as anywhere as good as the Ad-aware program from Lavasoft.

Just a note: If a few people use your computer and each has their own log in password, when you run LavaSoft program, you need to run it under each password. Example: Lets say Katie and Molly have passwords on your computer. Log in as Katie and run Lava Soft. Then log out of Katie, and log in as Molly and run the program again. Im sure, youll find additional spys under each log in name just like I did last weekend when I cleaned and updated a friends computer.

Use the resources below to help you learn more about Spys:

Learn about protecting your computer from spam and spyware
http://www.unwantedlinks.com/
http://grc.com/optout.htm
http://www.spyware.co.uk/

Check for spyware on new software before you download it.
http://www.spychecker.com/

Free anti-spyware program. Use it at least monthly and dont delete the items you really want! http://www.lavasoft.de/

Opt out of double click ads
http://www.doubleclick.com/us/corporate/privacy/privacy/ad-cookie/default.asp

Removing your e-mail, address and telephone numbers from lists.
http://www.dmaconsumers.org/consumerassistance.html#mail

Anti-Spam Tools
http://www.webattack.com/freeware/comm/fwspam.shtml

BONUS: Opt-out of credit card marketing mail
The three big credit-reporting companies provide your information to resellers or vendors. To curtail this abuse, call toll free 888-567-8688. Listen to all the options before hitting a key. #3 is the best option to remove you "forever" (well till you change your phone number). Remember to get your cell phone number removed, too. Once you call them they will mail you a confirmation letter for you to mail back to them.

© 2004 Maria Marsala, Business Growth Strategist. Bringing women-owned service businesses our Wall Street expertise. Your bottom line is NO accident. If your income has been hovering or flat lining the past year or so, if you are working more than 35 hours per week and have no passive income stream, we need to talk. http://www.coachmaria.com You have nothing to loose and everything to gain!

About The Author

Elevating Your Business. Since 1998, Maria Marsala, a former Wall Street Trader, has worked more than 1000 women (and men) who own service business to increase their profits, save time, and live rich, fulfilling lives. Visit www.ElevatingYourBusiness.com to request your 2 business reports and join our business building newsletter or forum.Sending SMS in Foreign Languages For Example Arabic, Greek, Hebrew etc.Marinda Stuiver

Mobile phone penetration is increasing globally. With the increase in handsets, being able to communicate with the handset owners in their own language is something that is becoming increasingly important.

The first question that comes to mind is how it works when foreign languages are sent to mobiles from a web site. Based on the fact that computers fundamentally just deal with numbers, letters and characters are stored using a unique number for each and in the past these unique numbers had to be assigned through the use of encoding systems. As a result hundreds of different encoding systems existed, none compatible with each other and none of them containing enough characters to deal with all languages. All this changed with the invention of Unicode. With Unicode one number for each letter has been assigned (a standard has been set) and it is network, platform and language independent. The emergence of Unicode standards and tools allowed web platform owners and developers to develop additional tools which enables end users to send sms in their own language.

These applications are especially important in the Middle East (Arabic), Far East (Chinese, Taiwanese, Hindi etc.) and European countries where normal English characters cannot be used to communicate in data format for example Greece, Finland, Norway - just to name a few.

Prior to development of a user-friendly Java based application, users had to be familiar with Hex and the conversion of Unicode characters into Hex in order for the binary data to be sent to recipients via mobile phones from web sites.

This now all changed for end users. The java based application used for sending Unicode, available on www.smswarehouse.com, allows users to send sms from the web site in the language their keyboard is set to. Once logged in, users have the opportunity to choose whether they want to send their text message in Unicode or in English. After selecting Unicode, the user is presented with the opportunity to send their message in Hex or based on their keyboard settings (Keyboard input).

The process is extremely simple and user friendly - if your keyboard is set (for example) to Greek, you simply type the message in and click on "send" - the text will be delivered to the recipient in Greek. Unicode is still limited to 70 Characters, which is a GSM restriction, but the use of 160 characters is currently under development.

Visit http://www.smswarehouse.com for more details and a free test account.

About The Author

Marinda Stuiver has been working in the marketing industry since 1996. She worked as International sales and marketing consultant for Station Africa Telecoms where one of her responsibilities was media liaison during sponsored events such as the Camel Trophy 4X4 events, Kathy ODowds firs ascent of Mt Everest, the 1999 BT sponsored Vasco da Gama Yacht race and many more. She started her own online consultancy in 2000 (E-SPECTATIONS.COM) and launched a new division in January 2005 called SMSwarehouse. Her major area of interest is convergence of technologies and she works as a consultant in this specific arena. PR forms a big part of her daily duties and services to clients but she also enjoys writing about her outdoor experiences and adventures.

hq@smswarehouse.com