Is Your Company Guilty of 7 of the Biggest Online Marketing Sins?.
I liked this post so much that I thought I’d pass it along for our followers to read. Enjoy!
Is Your Company Guilty of 7 of the Biggest Online Marketing Sins?
Published February 27, 2012 Interesting Post Leave a CommentThis article really spells out how the QR Code will succeed or how it will fail. No ifs, ands or buts… this is what it all comes down to.
Follow the link to check out the article.
By: Matt Toaz – Contributing Author
There’s a new virus going around called Duqu. It gets on to your machine through a vulnerability in Microsoft Word. Typically the file will be e-mailed to you. When you open the attachment you get infected.
If you receive any MS Office documents that you are not expecting (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.), DO NOT OPEN THEM. If someone you do not know sends you one, DO NOT OPEN IT.
If you get a file from someone you know, contact them to verify they specifically sent it to you. Any e-mail you receive with an attachment you were not expecting should be deleted immediately. You should take this approach with attachments all the time.
To help further protect yourself, run Windows Update on your machine, update your antivirus and do a full scan, and just be careful.
If you have any questions, get a hold of me at matt@firestarnetworks.com, or contact Dave at Heavrin-Brown Consultants at dave@heavrinbrown.com or 734.274.5208.
- About Matt Toaz
Matt is an IT security professional and the head honcho at Firestar Networks (www.firestarnetworks.com). He volunteered to write the occasional post to help bring you information to help your businesses. Matt will be writing on the topic of security for the Heavrin-Brown Consultants blog to help us help you stay safe.
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By: Matt Toaz – Contributing Author
We all use e-mail. For some of us it’s our primary means of communication. It’s how we keep up with friends and family, how we get news updates, and how we exchange ideas with clients and business associates. E-mail has become critical.
This is great. E-mail is cheap, easy to use, and fast. I finished typing this article moments before it hit Dave’s inbox. I just attached the word document to the message and hit send. Piece of cake!
Sounds awesome, right? Let’s remember that I’m a security guy and the title of this is “E-mail Safety”, so there must be a catch. Here’s the catch. E-mail was designed to be fast and easy, not secure.
Is it just me or is FB a big PITA?
Published October 1, 2011 Interesting Post , Web Design Leave a CommentSometimes I wonder if it’s just me that Facebook doesn’t like. Almost as if the blasted thing has a personal vendetta against me doing anything the way it’s supposed to be done. I mean, for Pete’s sake, I had to redo, from scratch, the business page for Heavrin-Brown Consultants tonight for the THIRD TIME!!!
The first time it was because I tried creating a business page while logged in to my personal page, and the business page ended up being something a kin to an employer page attached to a personal profile.
Then I found this nifty new tool that FB introduced that would let you turn a personal page into a business page. Cool! NOT! Now I had two business pages that were somehow linked that I couldn’t get rid of without deleting both. Continue reading ‘Is it just me or is FB a big PITA?’
By: Matt Toaz – Contributing Author
One of the most common calls I’ve been getting from friends, family, and clients lately resembles the following:
Caller: “I’ve got something up on my screen that says I’ve got a virus, but it doesn’t look right.”
Me: “That’s the virus trying to trick you into activating you. You’re already infected. It’s just trying to get deeper.
Caller: “But I was just browsing the web! I wasn’t even going anywhere weird. I was on CNN!”
Me: “Yup.” Continue reading ‘Browsing Safely’
An associate of mine sent me this photograph of a QR Code (apparently) leading to the web site of a church here in town. The QR Code is in an advertisement in a rather peculiar place.
The question in his e-mail was, “What, I’m supposed to run behind the bus and get close enough for a clear shot?”
Click on the photograph to see the whole image and then share your opinion if this was an effective use for a QR Code.
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It seems like the last week has been nothing but one big, long discussion about QR Codes and the uses and abuses, and their viability or whether they’re a fad, etc., etc.
Well, I think an article I read yesterday pretty much summed up that QR Codes are starting to rapidly infiltrate themselves into even the most mundane parts of our lives.
Here’s a perfect example. Did you just load the last new razor blade into your razor? Scan the QR Code on the back of the package before you toss in the trash and add them to your shopping list.
Another example is one that I realized this past weekend while wandering around a couple of car dealerships. What? Doesn’t everyone wander around car dealerships at 5:00pm on a Sunday? That’s the best time to do it so you don’t have someone three steps behind you the entire time! Continue reading ‘QR Codes Revisited, one more time’
I was reading an article last week where the author made the excellent point that, “Consumers also need to understand what they can expect to find as a result of scanning a [QR] code, but oftentimes the codes themselves get in the way of the message.”
So, let’s take a step back and look at QR Codes even closer. Not only do consumers need to understand what they can expect to find as a result of scanning the code, sometimes they’re not even sure what the code IS. You know… that square, squiggly thing that’s showing up everywhere. What are you supposed to do with it?
The first thing you’re going to need is an appropriately equipped mobile phone or tablet with a QR Code reader app. I have found QR Quickscan to be the most reliable app on my phone. Once that’s all taken care of you’ll still need to have a connection to the internet if your device doesn’t connect on its own. Continue reading ‘QR Codes Revisited’
