Archive for October 9th, 2007

October 9, 2007: 8:54 am: adminMiscellaneous

Your profile is the first and perhaps the most important online dating tool. It is what makes prospects decide to contact you (or not to). Follow these tips to create a sizzling personal profile that stands out from the crowd.

1. First make a rough draft of your profile on a piece of paper or a word processing document like Word, WordPad, or WordPerfect etc. Write everything on this draft. Don’t worry about length just yet.

2. Your user name is a representation of who you really are. It should anonymous but descriptive. If you are seeking a serious relationship, avoid suggestive names like “hotpants21″ or “2hotnsexy”. Also, avoid the trite and overused like “prince charming” or “Betty1625″.

3. When picking a user name, it might help to zero in on an interest, activity or personality (examples, “friendly-n-affectionate”, “cutesmile” etc.). Be original.

4. Know thyself. Ask your friends what they like about you or what sets you apart. What makes you good company? What are your most wonderful attributes? What is it like to be with you? Put it all down on your draft.

5. A photo is important. Surveys by dating sites indicate that you are 10 times more likely to be contacted if you have a picture in your profile. Post a good, decent photo. Just don’t use a photo that no longer represents your present appearance: this irks online daters.

6. Be honest. Don’t lie about your age (quite common online), appearance, education level etc. Be yourself and show them who really are.

7. Use a good headline. Make it positive, warm, open and descriptive. Avoid clichés and overused phrases. Your headline should say something about you (example, “Cute lady loves outdoor life”).

8. Be positive; avoid talking about your failed relationships or bad past experiences.

9. Say what you want. If you are seeking a serious relationship, or want to have kids with the right person in the future, say it. This will help draw compatible prospects.

10. Edit. It’s time to cut the clutter or anything that’s not important. People are busy, so try to make it short and sweet. Check your spelling and grammar, and refine your personal profile before finally submitting.

David Kamau is webmaster of
www.e-datecentral.com. To receive dating articles, tips, updates, and ebooks as soon as they come go to =>
www.e-datecentral.com/subscribe.htm

: 8:11 am: adminMiscellaneous

Today, I wanted to mention this notion of self-sabotage.

I recently studied some material of Kevin Hogans and lots by John Grinder on this topic. John is the co-creators and developers of NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming). John points out the differences and distinction between what he refers to as ‘first-order change’ and ‘second-order change’. First order change is not really relevant to my writing today.

Second-order changes are where a person could encounter what many people refer to as self-sabotage. Some examples of self sabotage include:

- going partying until 4am the night before an important job interview

- setting a goal of getting fit and healthy then eating chips and chocolate every night

- deciding to leave an unhealthy, unhappy relationship, then not doing it

When a person’s behaviours are not in line with what they say they want, there are three main possibilities:

Firstly, it may be that they don’t really want it; maybe they are not convinced of the benefits.

The second possibility is that they may well want it, but there are hidden benefits of the current state that will be lost. (For example, someone may get some short-term good feelings from eating all that chocolate when at home bored in an evening)

Then the third possibility is that they want it, but don’t believe it is possible and/or appropriate for them.

The power of WHY?

Although the why question is frowned upon by many in NLP, personal development and hypnosis professionals, the place that I have found the Why question useful is in establishing someone’s motivation for doing something. Assuming that you have a clear idea of what you want.

When you have an idea of something that you think you want, go ahead and ask yourself “Why do I want this? What will it get me? What will it do for me?

Identify to yourself the benefits of making the change you wish to make. How much do you want them? Is it worth the effort? My experience with this is very straightforward: I will only put effort into something that I really want. Now, you can really rocket-fuel the experience by following this simple procedure:

As I have suggested before, imagine that you are in that future situation enjoying the benefits of the change you have made. See what you’ll see, hear what you’ll hear and feel what you’ll feel once you have achieved that outcome (stopping smoking, achieved ideal weight, earned a certain amount of money, got that promotion, asked that person out on a date etc, etc.). Make the colours bright and really experience it in your mind as you think it would be.

Then, just step out of the experience, dissociate yourself from it and see it, look at it as if you are looking at a picture of yourself in the future, enjoying the benefits of that change. Also, make that picture big, bold and bright.

If at this point you are feeling motivated to make the change, great. If not, think to yourself; do you really want it, or is it just something you think you should do? If you don’t want to do it – don’t do it! (If it’s something you don’t want to do but have to, like pay taxes, there are other techniques for dealing with that.)

Assuming that you do want to make the change, check for a secondary gain. By that I mean, check to see how you will benefit if you do NOT make the change. Have a think to yourself about how there might be a sceondary gain or a hidden benefit of NOT achieving the change; something that might be making it worth not achieving the goal or the change.

Once you’ve taken care of motivation and secondary gain, it is time to check for belief.

Ask yourself or get someone to ask you the following questions: Do you want this? Is this possible for you? Do you know how to do this? Do you deserve this?

Then notice your own immediate response, be honest with yourself or ask the other person to watch and to listen to you closely when you respond. Does it seem like a congruent response (ie. like you really believe it) or are you unsure / incongruent.

If the answer to any of these questions is ‘no’, or if the ‘yes’ response is incongruent (eg. head shaking while saying yes), then there may be an issue of belief. A simple way to start shifting beliefs is through using the good old new age technique of affirmations. (Unless you have learned self-hypnosis, in which case do that; it is far more powerful. You can of course look at my learn self-hypnosis DVDs at my website)

So, to create this affirmation, create a first person present tense sentence containing what you are affirming, then say it to yourself in a positive and encouraging tone of voice (Eg. ‘I am supremely confident’, ‘I am fit & healthy’)

You may find that you have to say your affirmation a number of times before you really begin to start noticing differences, but they do work (plus, lots of people say horrible things to themselves lots of the time anyway, so you may as well start saying nice things to yourself in good tonality.) The way I see it, if you are going to say anything to yourself in your own mind, you may as well say nice and progressive things eh?

Here is a nice idea for you to have a go at, it is one to stretch your flexibility. Practice looking in the mirror and saying ‘I love you’. If, when you do this, your statement seems obviously true and positive, great! Do it twice a day forever. If (as is the case for many people) it seems unbelievably yucky, insincere and horrible, do it anyway. Pretend that you mean it. Keep on doing it for at least three weeks – you may be amazed at what starts to happen. Once it seems obviously true and positive, great! Do it twice a day forever.

Really enjoy the first half of the month of May. Do some different things and let me know what you have done differently and the difference it made, or get in touch with me if you need some inspiration.

Just last week, some pointed to me a quote that has been re-hashed several times before, but is a great one;

“Life’s journey is not to arrive at the grave safely, in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting.’…Holy Cow…What a Ride!!’

EzineArticles Expert Author Adam Eason

Copyright 2005 Adam Eason. All Rights Reserved.

Adam Eason is an author, consultant, trainer and motivational speaker in the fields of hypnosis, NLP, personal development and human potential. His website is filled with information, stimulating articles, resources and uniques products.

Adam’s bi-monthly free ezine is packed with modern, innovative psychological tips, techniques and strategies; all those who sign up receive an instantly downloadable, unique hypnosis session to enjoy in the comfort of your own home.

: 7:06 am: adminThe Technology Way

First of all when you think about tampering with mail such as remailing, forwarding etc. you think “dodgy” or is that legal? Quite simply yes, it is legal but it all depends on what the intent of the service is. I will explain why people need to have a fake mail address.

First of all we need to get some terms stated. I have been in the business for just over two years and there is still some confusion over the topic.

Mail forwarding: is a service that allows you to have your mail sent to a “mailbox” and then they will forward it off to your location. This mail is generally sent in bulk to the recipient and is very useful if you travel, or don’t have a permanent address.

Mail Redirection: is when you have mail sent direct to a mailbox and then it is “remailed” to another location. This is mainly used by organisations or individuals who wish to keep their physical address a secret.

Remailing: is as simple as receiving a letter, re-stamping and addressing the letter then posting it again. This is pretty much what happens when mail is forwarded or redirected.

Mail Drop: is defined as “an address or place at which a nonresident person receives mail, often of a secret nature” (2005) Dictionary.com

So why are there so many names for the same services?
It is pretty simple to understand why there are so many names and that is because the vendors that offer these services are trying to obtain as many hits through search engines as possible, they use phrases such as “forwarding” “redirection” etc.
In doing this they can confuse the customer and they will not have a clear understanding of the services that are available.

What service should I use then?
Mail drops are generally the most defined term and are understandably the most common. I define Mail Drops as a mailbox that has been purchased on your behalf and all mail within the mailbox is sent to your predefined recipient address. Most Vendors provide shared mail boxes, where you share a box with many users for a cheap price, or dedicated services where you actually rent the whole mailbox. You should look at how manageable your account is, can you have multiple predefined recipient addresses, and can you see what mail you have and how much mail you have in the box at any time.

Why would people even use such a service?
Anonymity is the simple answer, or people who choose to keep their identity secret from others. There are many reasons for doing this, the most legitimate reason for using such services is for people who move around and do not have one stagnant address. Although the services are set up by legitimate vendors, there are the customers who wish to evade the law and have private documents sent without detection. These customers can harm or damage the vendor’s reputation and if any prohibited material is detected they can often face heavy charges.

There are many vendors out there who provide this service, I am not going to recommend any particular vendor but I do advise that you shop around and take a look at their history and talk to other customers who have used their services. All the vendors are located in multiple countries; you should take a look at their country of origin, what privacy laws are enforced there, what is their law enforcement like? Then take a look at the site. Read their privacy statement, try to understand it. Make sure you fully understand their terms of service. You do not want to be stuck with a huge fine, or if you’re trying to keep yourself anonymous, you don’t want to have your private information public. Or worst of all have them read your private mail!

Good luck

About the Author

Steve
© Private Mail Services
http://www.private-services.com 2005- Keeping you anonymous

: 6:56 am: adminUniversity of Security

Nowadays more and more people are using a computer. A lot of them use it at their work place, but an increasing number of computer users have also discovered the need to have a computer at home. At the same time the number of Internet surfers increased. This is a good thing because people are realizing the advantages offered by the world of technology. As soon as they discover this, they start using computers and the Internet more and more, but at the same time not considering the threats that are coming in from all sides. They should know that if you don’t protect yourself, nobody will. These threats are now coming from everywhere and they are growing in number and complexity. First threats of this kind were the viruses. At first, viruses were not that harmful. They were designed to perform a simple task, like flashing a single message onto the user’s computer screen. Also the spread rate was slow, because not many people were connected to the Internet. But now the majority of viruses are programs intentionally written to obstruct with, or harm other programs or computer systems. And they are spreading very fast.

Many companies and people have had a lot of troubles because of these viruses. And so the need for antivirus software was born. At first one very simple antivirus appeared and this was enough. Now, as the threat is growing antivirus software are becoming a lot more complex. Some of them have also included a firewall so to better protect the users. In order to increase the competition, other antivirus software producers have also come up with a wonderful idea: to offer free scan online. This was a big help for people that are frequently using a computer mostly for their personal use, meaning it is not attached to a network and uses the Internet only from time to time. Now, they don’t have to spend a lot of money to buy antivirus software that will be used very rarely.

Most of these antivirus programs have to be bought in order for you to use them at their full capacity. Also you have the option to test a so called “free trial version”. These trial versions include all or most of the software’s features, and are available to be checked out by the user for a short period of time, usually 30 days. After these 30 days, the program can no longer be used. Other antivirus software producers use another method; they offer a free trial version that you can keep forever. But it is not fully operational, meaning some of the options of the program cannot be used as they are not activated. After you have tried a program and you consider it is fit for your need, then you’ll have to buy it to protect your computer at its full capacity.

Lately, viruses are mostly spread through e-mails because this is the most common use of the Internet. Also, e-mail viruses are easier to develop. E-mail viruses make use of the ability of having macros or scripts implanted in word documents, spreadsheets, HTML pages, and are programmed to run when the document is opened. But how does an e-mail virus works? When an e-mail with an infected document or program is received, the user unknowingly opens a document/program, which in turn executes a code to open the e-mail directory and to send a copy of itself as an e-mail attachment to a certain number of addresses. Some of the recipients of the e-mail open its attachment and the process repeats itself.

This is where the antivirus program comes in. This program is set to check all incoming and outgoing messages and their attachments. If an e-mail is detected to have a document or program infected with a virus the program offers several possibilities to deal with the threat: delete the e-mail, put it in quarantine or try to disinfect it. Most of the times, these choices are left to the user’s decision. It is up to the user to set the program in such manner to best fit his needs. But not all viruses are coming by e-mail. A few of them use security errors in the operating system or your Internet browser to be launched automatically. But if you keep your antivirus and all the other programs updated, there will be a small chance of being infected via this route.

Nowadays, most viruses are spread in the form of e-mail attachments. This is because some of the worst recent viruses relay on recipients that throw away common sense and launch a deadly e-mail attachment. Commonly the attachments are with extensions that include .bat, .com, .exe, .pif, .scr, and .vbs. Sometimes to avoid the filters of antivirus software, virus creators enclose their malicious code in a .zip or .rar archive file. The file might even have a password to full antivirus programs that scan inside archives. And obviously, the password is included in the message as an image for the convenience of the naive user. As a simple but reliable rule, you should never open an attachment that you didn’t expect to receive, even if it came from someone you know. Also, make sure your e-mail software is configured so it will not automatically open attachments.

Another common way of spreading viruses is file sharing. Many viruses spread themselves throughout open network shares. You can protect your computer not sharing files or directories over the network. But if you don’t have a choice and you have to share your files, you are still able to reduce the risk of being infected by installing antivirus software and keeping it updated. Other ways to become infected with viruses are downloading files or software from the Internet, instant messaging or even web pages.

If the file you are downloading or the computer you are downloading it from is infected with a virus, there is a big chance that your computer will also become infected with the virus. As for the instant messaging, the major risk comes from accepting files from other users on the network. This risk can be minimized by configuring your antivirus software to scan all incoming files and also configure your other programs not to automatically accept files, and not to automatically execute the files you accept. Certain viruses are known to infect web servers. If you visit a website from an infected server, your computer could be infected with the same virus, but this is a very rare method of infection.

There are many different threats that are targeting the computers. Although they are very different, all of them are popularly called viruses. A virus by definition is a self-replicating file, not considering whether it is malicious or not. Another type of the so called viruses are worms; they circulate mainly through e-mail but also spread through a network. A worm is aware he is located in a network and uses it for replicating itself. Trojan horses (or trojans) are mostly used to insert some remote tools into a system in order to give the attacker free access to that system, without the user’s knowledge. Most Trojan horses cannot replicate automatically.

With the increased number of Internet users, the existing threats are also raising as now there are many more computers to attack and more people that don’t know to stay away from these threats. But the antivirus software producers are making it easier for us. There is a lot of antivirus software which cover a lot of threats. All we have to do is install one.

Mike Ber is the owner of the Canadian Domain Name Portal called http://www.Every.ca
He is also a contributing author to Canadian Computer Magazine and http://www.Developer.ca website.