Oakley Studio Weblog

One reason behind the steady rise in Apple Macintosh computer usage over the past several years is that Microsoft Windows has been fraught with so much malware, spamware, trojans and viruses, surreptitious keyloggers and identity theft. If your credit card has been used fraudulently without actually being stolen, and you are a Windows user, good chance there is a keylogger lurking on your PC. It’s become a tiresome day-to-day chore to defend your computer from the many thousands of attack vectors a Windows PC faces online. Who wouldn’t want some relief from that huge time-waster? The Macintosh operating system remains still to this day virtually free of computer virus infections, and most Mac users do not bother running any kind of virus protection software on their Macs at all.

Some say it takes just 20 minutes for a new PC running Windows to get infected once it’s connected to the internet.

That said, the rising popularity of Macs inevitably makes them an increasingly attractive target to attackers. These days trojans are the most likely mode of infection. You know the story of the trojan horse? Something that looks so attractive you gotta have it, but it carries a nasty hidden payload. Trojans are applications downloaded from the internet. They are malware in disguise. You want to avoid getting infected by trojans? Simple — don’t download apps from the internet.

 Flashback

Unfortunately, it’s no longer that simple. A trojan named “Flashback” is the first real threat to Macintosh security. A malicious web site exploits a vulnerability in Java which is used by the Mac OS Safari web browser. If you visit the malicious site, the vulnerability can be used to download the Flashback trojan without your permission. The automated download is what’s made this a real threat to your Mac’s security.

According to anti-virus company Kaspersky Labs the “Flashback” and the related “Flashfake” viruses targeting Macs first appeared back in September 2011, and there are now over 600, 000 Macs infected. And the infection appears to be growing. Kaspersky now has a Flashback Check web site you can use to find out whether your Mac is infected or not.

Apple has come out with two updates to the Java runtime extension that is used by Safari. I recommend that you open your Apple > Software Update… menu now and get these updates. (If it’s been a while since you ran Software Update on your Mac, there may be other security updates there as well.) And if your Mac is already infected

Apple reportedly has it’s own Flashback Removal Tool in the works too, but if the Flashback Check shows you’re already infected you can follow instructions from Finnish security firm F-Secure to manually remove all files associated with this infection.

Eeeek! I just spilled my [insert favorite drink here] on my laptop/keyboard!

Sure wish Macs were not so vulnerable to this sort of accidental spillage. If it’s only water, you may have lucked out. Immediately unplug the computer. Yeah, just yank that cord out of the wall; you don’t want to risk electric shock, do you? Then flip the keyboard or laptop upside down so whatever flowed in can flow out again, as much as possible. (If it’s a laptop, this is a good time to pull the battery out too, so the computer is definitely OFF.) Use a dry tissue to mop up whatever comes out.

Desktop Keyboards

If it’s a desktop keyboard, and you spilled something other than water on it, here’s what to do. Disconnect the keyboard’s USB cable from the computer. Take it to the kitchen or bathroom sink and flush it out real good with warm water under the faucet. You want to try to flush out any sugary or oily residue, which can really yuck up the works. Shake it out well and then set it upside down on a shelf in a warm spot, and leave it for a week or two. Chances are good it will be just fine after that, once it has completely dried out.

When I was doing Mac Support at Goshen College, there were several “incidents” of spills on keyboards — sugary sodas or coffee with milk, etc. They were all USB desktop keyboards, not laptop keyboards. In every case, after the fresh water flush treatment in the bathroom sink — and sufficient drying time — every one of those keyboards survived and went back into service later.

Apple wireless keyboards are more common these days, and — for the record — I’ve never tried the flush technique on a wireless keyboard. If you’re gonna try it, be sure to pop out the battery first!

In most cases your keyboard will be ok after spillage, once it has completely dried out. But don’t start using it again until you’re sure all the moisture is gone.

Laptop Keyboards

Double eeek! Obviously you can’t use the flush technique on a laptop; there are other electronic components in there that may not survive being doused. If the spill was just water, you may still be lucky, but it can take a long time to drive out all the moisture. Turn the laptop upside down and shake it (careful, not too hard) to get as much of the liquid out. Then try setting the computer near a source of warm air (like a radiator), or if you have a hair dryer give it a five or ten minute blast (careful, not TOO hot!) while giving the keys a workout. As water dries, it can leave a mineral residue on a keyboard, preventing keys from closing a key-press contact. Keyboards are mechanical, so try wiggling the keys a bit (gently) to “rub off” mineral residue inside the keys. That might or might not work.

If the spill leaked beyond the keyboard and got onto the logic board, there are components there with unsoldered contacts where  liquid could seep in and disrupt connections until it’s totally dried out. But the hard drive is probably fine — it’s in a sealed box.

I’ve heard of a rice technique that might be worth a try. (NOTE: I’ve never tried this myself.) Simply cover the keyboard with uncooked white rice for a few days to absorb moisture. The fatter the rice kernels the better; you don’t want any rice getting underneath the keys because that could interfere with key presses.

Apple Repair

If the problems don’t clear up with continued attempts to dry the laptop out, then you’ll need to take your Mac to Apple. Maybe you’ll only need to get the keyboard replaced. Or maybe the logic board. If you do seek an Apple repair, it’s best to show up in person at your nearest Apple store. Be honest with them and describe exactly what happened, and what you’ve tried to do to fix it. Mac laptops (and iPhones and iPads) have sensors inside that detect exposure to water, and the Apple technicians will not appreciate it if you fib. But store employees have considerable leeway to provide a free fix if they can do it right then and there… provided you are completely honest with them.

Email is an important part of your online advertising/marketing efforts. Here are some tips to guide you:

1. Always use a permission-based email marketing system such as that provided by TrafficWave.net. Send email only to people who have opted-in to your list.
2. Decide on the type of content you will be sending such as a newsletter, coupon offers, special announcements, training, sales messages, etc… and stick to that type of content.
3. Add signup forms to your blog or web site so that you can start converting web site visitors into subscribers.
4. Create a good email template using TrafficWave.net’s HTML Editor. Your site manager can create a template, you can select from a pre-formatted template in your TrafficWave.net back office, or you can have Oakley Studio create a custom template for a nominal charge.
5. Develop quality relevant content and begin sending your message out to your list. Continue sending relevant content to your list, making sure to keep your schedule consistent. As your list grows, you will begin to notice increased repeat traffic to your web site (and/or place of business) which should bring increased sales.
6. Use personalization in your subject lines and content to improve open and response rates in your email marketing. This is accomplished by inserting tokens in to your body message as you create your messages in the TrafficWave.net HTML Editor.
7. Remind your subscribers to add your email address to their approved senders list. As major ISP’s are becoming increasingly aggressive about filtering email, you’ll want to be sure your subscribers can receive your messages. You can accomplish this by adding a reminder to your subscription confirmation pages, such as: To ensure you receive the requested information, please addemail@yourcompany.com to your Address Book. Thank you!

Procrastination is often caused by fears – many of which are blown out of proportion. Fears that my work won’t be good enough, that a client won’t be satisfied, that people will make fun of it or ridicule me or talk behind my back. Fears that it will be rejected or not appreciated or … you name it.

These are all just thoughts that can get in the way of doing productive work.

Face Your Fear – recognize you are having these thoughts and be determined to do the work anyway – that goes a long way towards shrinking fears to more realistic size so you can do your best work and get the job done.

Attention Oakley Studio clients, a major WordPress update (version 3.3) is out today. If you’re set up with a WordPress blog as part of your site hosting, then log into your Dashboard and look for the update link near the top of the page. Takes about 30sec to get it downloaded and installed. Then take a few minutes to read the Welcome screen to find out what’s new in this latest version. Notable new feature: drag and drop picture uploading.

Also this is a good time to mention that all web sites on Oakley Studio servers are being automatically backed up every hour, so you don’t need to do backup chores yourself.

If YOU have something that belongs to you, it’s YOURS. If I take it away from YOU, it’s no longer YOURS and YOU ARE probably not happy about that. In fact YOU’RE possibly quite mad. Nevertheless and even in the heat of the moment, please do try to distinguish, in your writing, the differences between YOUR and YOU’RE.

Thankyou.

Yeah, last month Patricia and I both got the latest greatest iPhones, the new iPhone 4S with the 8-megapixel camera and Siri talking assitant.

You might think that, being a Mac guy, surely I get the newest iPhone every year… however that would not be true. My previous phone was the 2nd generation “3G” iPhone model that came out in 2008.

In the summer of 2008 I waited in line overnight along with a dozen other people (that was fun!) in order to be one of the first to get that 2nd gen iPhone when it began selling at the local AT&T Store. That was over three years ago, but it’s continued to be a perfectly good phone for the past three years. So I passed on the “3GS” that came out in 2009, and the iPhone 4 that was released in Spring 2010. And really, there was no urgent need for me to buy this new phone except that…

Patricia was still using her original iPhone she got back in 2007! You know, the very first phone that Apple made, the one with the brand new touch interface, on-screen keyboard, no apps; yeah the one that really defined what the words smart phone meant.

In Four Years

On the one hand, it’s hard to believe the cell phone/pocket computer revolution only happened a mere four years ago. On the other hand, wow, she got that phone four years ago!? Phones have come a long way in those few four years.

And Patricia’s original iPhone was in desperate need of upgrading. The battery needed constant charging, the calendar app was no longer able to sync,she was running out of storage.Patricia was actually ready to buy when the iPhone 4 came out last year. But she really really really wanted a white one, and if you remember, Apple had some kind of problem manufacturing the white one. In the end they never could deliver. So last month Patricia, after all that waiting, ended up getting the upgrade she really needed (in white – YAY!) when the brand new 4S came out.

She was getting this new phone, and one thing that was new was FaceTime – video calls between phones and between phones and computers. But who would Patricia be able to FaceTime with??? Well that ended up being the real reason I got my new phone. Plus she knew that if I got the same one as her, I wouldn’t be borrowing hers all the time to try stuff on.

A Phone to Love

You know, I didn’t really think I needed a new phone, but I love this new iPhone! It is so much faster! Faster startup, faster app launching, and I love how most apps appear on screen right where you left off with them last. The camera is fantastic, and getting the new phone meant I could begin using the Panorama360 app I’d been drooling for. (That app couldn’t run on pre-4 iPhones.) Siri is fascinating too, and is good for scheduling appointments much faster than trying to type in all the details in my calendar. Hard to imagine all the things Siri will be able to do in the future.

No surprise, both of us are very happy iPhone owners. Right now I see no need for another/better phone for oh, three, maybe four years?

Oakley Studio has been designing, building, and hosting custom web sites for small and home-based businesses since 1996, and over the years costs for custom web site design have been going up… and up… and up… Partly that’s because web technology keeps marching forward, and new clients want to deploy the latest coolest design effects to make their site stand out from the crowd. Partly because the talent of skilled web designers becomes more valuable over time.

Custom = Expensive

There’s no way around it, a custom web site is an expensive proposition. No more can a business turn to a high-schooler to whip something up over a weekend; web design went PRO eons ago in internet time. These days bids for new web sites start at $5,000-$7,000 and depending on the feature set, audience, objectives, and competitive landscape, the costs can rapidly escalate.

Once a custom-designed web site is up and running, owners return again and again to their webmaster (that’s me!) for updates, design refreshes, content revisions, and other additions. That’s fine for a growing business that can afford the marketing expense, but my focus has always been on the small end of small business — the individual business owners, the tiny home-based startups, or the two-to-four employee shop that needs an online presence to succeed these days.

It’s Social

The web environment keeps evolving, and social interactions on web sites are becoming an increasingly important business activity.

Social is how businesses of all kinds relate to their clients and customers, how they attract new clients, retain those clients, and grow their business. Actively communicating timely news and updates with these various constituencies via the company web site has moved beyond the occasional site update done by a webmaster. What’s the solution?

For big businesses with a lot of money to spend, an end-to-end Content Management System (CMS) is probably the answer. NetSuite and SalesForce come to mind. At the core of a CMS-type web site is a complex backend that allows employees in various departments to push out frequent news and information updates, manage and analyze a huge volume of data, promote the latest products and specials, and interface custom workflows to their business processes, automating their web presence.
But no mom-and-pop business can afford a quarter-million-dolar CMS site, and I’ve always positioned my business to serve those little businesses. So how can I help them compete? What can I do to level the playing field?

Weblogging is the answer — specifically WordPress. Weblogging (blogging, for short) is the way a business can communicate much more frequently with their audience, without having to learn a web programming language or master a complex CMS. WordPress makes site updates easy. Any business owner using WordPress can push out new information easily by writing – just like in a word processor — and can categorize new information for various target audiences, and quickly and easily tag that new information with keywords for search engine optimization.

In addition, WordPress helps a small business owner interact directly with their clients by publishing comments, answering questions, and engaging the people who buy and use their products and services in an ongoing public conversation that attracts more business.

WordPress offers a clean and simple dashboard  for every small business that wants to connect and build relationships with it’s clientele.

The Role of Webmaster

As a webmaster, I see this as empowering small businesses. It puts business owners in the drivers seat, able to add essential news and updates about their work without webmaster intervention. Want to connect directly with customers through your web site? It becomes effortless — and I can step out of the way.

So what then is the role of a webmaster like me? Truthfully, WordPress is reinvigorating my business. I can now offer a WordPress blog as the core functionality for a fledgling business or startup, at greatly reduced cost compared to the old-fashioned custom web site design roadmap. And I can serve many more clients in the long run. I’m available for technical consulting, design guidance, and expertise in how to position and market your business on the web. And as your business expands and the need for specific web functionality becomes apparent, your WordPress site can be customized and extended, and a larger web presence can grow up around your ongoing WordPress blogging.

These days, I believe a WordPress weblog needs to be at the core of every small business web site. For my existing clients I have become something of a WordPress evangelist, gently inviting them to embrace the new social realities facilitated by the web today. And for potential new clients I am aggressively selling the idea of a beautifully designed web site that’s still affordable and that can be operated without webmaster intervention.

WordPress + Webmaster = Success

I have come to believe that the formula for business success on the web today is this: Your business selling proposition, in your own words, presented professionally on the web, with the guidance and expertise of a webmaster who knows how to do it and is able to teach you. And if you are not yet an Oakley Studio client, let’s talk — right here on this web page if you like. I’d love to be your webmaster!

Oakley Studio loves WordPress! Weblogging (also known as “blogging”) is the way to communicate actively with your audience, your clients and your customers. And WordPress is the most feature-rich, secure and popular blogging platform available today. Here at Oakley Studio we believe a weblog should be at the core of your web site, and we want to encourage you to embrace blogging as an essential part of your day-to-day business activity.

Our OS WordPress package includes

• domain name registration or renewal,
• web site and domain name email setup on our servers, and
• three hours of one-on-one personalized tutorials with your webmaster to get you up and running fast!

Normally you’d pay $209 for these services… this package saves you $51. Check it out on our Pricing Page.