Design Services: Website Design Insight

Spam Karma 2 (SK2) is an anti-spam plugin for the Design Services WordPressblogging platform. It is meant to stop all forms of automated Blog spam effortlessly, while remaining as unobtrusive as possible to regular commenters. Spam Karma 2 is the proud successor to Spam Karma, with whom it shares most of the development ideas, but absolutely none of the code
 

3 months = $450,000

Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is a way for content publishers to make news, blogs, and other content available to subscribers, and you can view all of your RSS content in Microsoft Office Outlook 2007. Using RSS, publishers can make content and updates available for download by subscribers automatically. The content on all Web sites is not available as an RSS Feed, but the list is growing daily. A user subscribes to an RSS feed using an application with RSS aggregation capabilities, such as Outlook 2007.

What’s RSS doing in Outlook?

You spend all day in Outlook, right? We know that besides Internet Explorer and the actual Windows Operating System, Outlook is one of the applications that our users spend a majority of their time in when using their computer. Now think about how often you check the news by reading a bunch of web sites, whether at home or at work.

You know the drill: Open Internet Explorer, go to your Favorites, open the site, find where the newest articles are posted, find one that’s interesting, click it, read it, go back, read the next one, etc. Rinse and repeat with each site that has the content you like to keep track of. And if you find an article worth sharing with anyone, then you have to copy the URL, switch back to Outlook, open a new email, paste the URL in, compose your own text, and send it on its way.

We decided that was way too much work.

Since almost any news, blog, or forum worth its salt pushes out an RSS feed, we decided to bring the news to you by putting it right inside Outlook. You can now easily subscribe, read, and share information from all of these sources by bringing them into Outlook using RSS.

RSS in Outlook is not just about making the process of keeping up on E! Hollywood News easier at work. Think about the number of ways that companies use to post information internally to its employees, like internal blogs, intranets, news sites, clipping services, and so on, many of which are hosted on content platforms that all push out an RSS feed.

 Note   You can find a detailed description of how to get started by actually subscribing to feeds in the article, Introduction to RSS.

But I’ve subscribed to too many feeds — now I’m overloaded. Help!

You can easily subscribe to WAY more feeds than you’ll ever have time to read. Case-in-point, I have 200+ feeds in my current Outlook profile at work, and more than 500+ in my profile at home. How can I possibly deal with that much information? The answer is to let Outlook easily find the information you’re interested in from those feeds. Instead of spending time creating complex folder hierarchies that you then put the individual RSS Feed folders in (Technology, Food, and so on), and then still have to click inside of to read each feeds’ contents, why not use our brand-new and ultra-fast Instant Search to do the work for you.

I have a set of Search Folders that accomplish this for me, helping me easily pull the important content out of the thousands of articles that come down from my feeds. For example, my Daily News search folder is where I go each morning while I drink my coffee to find out what’s going on in the world, while my Office Watch folder alerts me with an unread item whenever someone’s blog mentions any keyword matching the query in the folder, like “outlook,” “office,” “rss,” and so on. I’ve posted a simple set of instructions on creating these two search folders on my blog; try ‘em out!

What about the size of my Inbox?

The more RSS Feeds you subscribe to, the more you space you take up in your mailbox (the Outlook file that contains your Inbox and all other folders). If you’re a home user connected to a regular POP e-mail account then the size of the mailbox is limited only by your hard drive space, but for many folks their work account has limited size maintained by their administrator. Or, maybe you just want to get rid of all the old content from feeds since many publish several articles a day.

What can I do?

There are two things you can do, either separately or together, that can help manage the amount of space that RSS items take up in your mailbox. The first is just move them to a separate Outlook Data File on your hard drive. Since this data file is not kept in your “main” mailbox, the RSS items won’t contribute to the mailbox’s overall size and therefore not cause you to hit your size limit. Once you’ve created this separate data file, it’s just a simple drag-and-drop to move an RSS folder from your current mailbox to the new data file. Outlook is smart and will recognize that the feed’s folder has moved, and you’ll continue to get updates in this new location.

You can also use AutoArchive to automatically move or delete items from RSS folders. AutoArchive is like Outlook’s personal mailbox maid, and it can be easily customized to accommodate the types of content you receive in Outlook. For example, on several feeds I have AutoArchive delete all the content once week, since these are typically news feeds whose content is not that important to keep around. Some of the feeds I subscribe to from inside of work I will have AutoArchive actually copy to a separate data file so I can permanently retain them.

 Note   I wrote a post about AutoArchive that describes how to do all of this in detail. Check it out and let us know if these techniques help!

I hope some of these techniques help you read your RSS feeds more effectively and manage the impact they may have on your information overload.

Happy aggregating!

What is Click Fraud?

The aforementioned acts make the rest of us pay while the culprits get away with theft, which is how you should consider Click Fraud, as theft, pure and simple. Click Fraud occurs when a person (perhaps a competitor) or software (perhaps a Search Engine network partner who earns kick-backs on PPC ads) clicks on your PPC ad over and over and over again, with no interest in your products or services, just the sick, twisted intention of exhausting your advertising budget. While anyone can fall victim to Click Fraud, sites listed under popular or competitive keywords are most susceptible.

Combating Click Fraud

Fortunately, certain engines are privy to Click Fraud activity and have taken proactive steps towards its demise. Anti-Click Fraud technology and investigative departments do their part, sometimes making refunds possible, but do your part in protecting your PPC campaign and keep an eye out for the following signs you’ve fallen prey to Click Fraud:

Sign #1: High tallies of the same IP address

Sign #2: Visitors with low page views and visit times

Sign #3: An increase in traffic or click-through rate but no increase in placement or rank

Sign #4: Clicks suddenly occurring from a specific geographic area where you might not normally have traffic.

Rising above Click Fraud

While Click Fraud is a very real and very negative activity, we don’t think it should deter you from engaging in a PPC campaign. With our team of experts and PPC champions, your account will be under daily monitoring that allows for fast-acting detection and reporting of any suspicious activity.

Do your part to ensure a healthy planet by incorporating these ten simple actions into your everyday life.

1) Replace your incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent lights (CFLs). Look closely at labels when buying light bulbs. Those marked as CFLs last 10 times longer and use 66 percent less energy than incandescent bulbs while delivering the same light levels. As a result, CFLs accrue net savings between $30 and $45 over their lifetimes, depending on your cost of electricity, the wattage size of the CFL, and the lamp’s lifespan (manufacturers make CFLs that last 6,000, 8,000, or 10,000 hours). The return on investment is 15 times higher than leaving your money in a bank account or the average return on Dows-Jones stock investments. CFLs also reduce the release of greenhouse gas emissions and are safer because they burn at a lower temperature (160° F or less) than incandescent and halogen lights, which can burn at temperatures up to 500° F. To learn more download this PDF from energystar.gov.

2) Turn down the thermostat just three degrees in the winter and up three degrees in the summer. You can prevent the emission of nearly 1,100 pounds of carbon dioxide annually.

3) Inflate your car tires. When walking or biking isn’t feasible, you can do something to better protect the Earth while driving. Take a step in the right direction by inflating your car tires. Pumping them up can improve your gas mileage by about 3.3 percent – a savings of about 7 cents per gallon. It’s the right thing to do for your wallet and the right thing to do for the Earth.

4) Turn down the hot water heater. Set your water heater to 130° F. While you’re at it, turn down your house thermostat during the winter to 55° F when you go to bed or leave home. These simple actions can have enormous positive consequences, preventing the emission of more than 1,100 pounds of carbon dioxide over the course of the year, while cutting your energy bill by more than 10 percent. And that’s just from you! Get your friends on board, and the benefits will multiply.

5) Choose your seafood wisely. We can’t afford to wait until 2008. The world’s seafood will be entirely depleted by 2048, according to an early November report in the journal Science. That means the moment to shape up is now. By buying and eating certain types of seafood, you can discourage harmful fishing practices and avoid the more depleted or threatened species. Take a look at Seafood Choices Alliance or Seafood Watch to make smart choices.

6) Purchase EnergyStar-labeled appliances. EnergyStar products are among the top 25 percent most efficient and can provide a 30 percent return or better through lower utility bills. 

7) Wash and rinse in cold water. If everyone in the United States alone switched to cold water with their washing machines, we could save about 30 million tons of carbon dioxide each year – and more than $3 billion in energy costs, collectively. And what’s more? Cold water cleans your laundry just as well as hot water.

Buy locally produced meats and produce. Sounds like a good idea, but you don’t know where to start? Just type in your zip code on Local Harvest’s website to see a list of farms and farmers’ markets close to home, as well as nearby restaurants committed to supporting their neighbors. Buying locally produced food cuts out the middlemen and the vast amounts of energy required to get your products onto store shelves. Most produce in U.S. supermarkets travels an average 1,500 miles before it is sold!

9) Drink more water from reusable glassware. It’s great for your bank account, your health, and your planet. The average American consumed more than 400 beverage bottles and cans in 2006, leaving behind wasted glass, plastic, steel, and aluminum. That adds up to excessive amounts of fossil fuels and hydropower for mining, processing, refining, shaping, shipping, storing, refrigerating, and disposing of those materials. Of course, changing your drinking habits both at home and at work is applicable to just about every other habit, as well. You’ve heard it before and you’ll hear it again: Reduce, reuse, and recycle.

10) Walk, bike, and carpool. In the United States, the car represents one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions. However, you don’t have to give up your car for a healthier planet, just expand your transportation options. You can significantly reduce your emissions by commuting to work. Try combining trips to minimize emissions, which are greatest at the beginning of a journey before the engine has reached optimum temperature and efficiency. When purchasing your next car, make it a fuel-efficient one. Hybrid cars can get twice the fuel efficiency of the average new car, cut greenhouse gas emissions by half or more, and reduce urban air pollutants. Carpooling saves energy, cuts on additional pollution, and allows you to take a turn as a passenger instead of driving everyday. Car-sharing (not pooling) is available in numerous U.S. cities. Car-sharing enables you to rent a car just when you need it. Each car-share vehicle displaces four to eight privately held cars, requiring less parking area and creating less road congestion. If you live within an hour’s bicycle ride to the office (~10 miles), consider biking to work one or more days a week.

Most of us spend a third of our day at the office – and that’s not counting the commute. Apply these energy-saving tips in the workplace to reduce stress on yourselves and on the planet.

1. Turn off the lights. Remember to hit the switch on your way out for that well- deserved lunch break. The energy savings from 10 million employees turning off unneeded lights for 30 minutes a day is enough to illuminate 50 million square feet of office space.

2. Get off mailing lists. The last thing you need is another office supply catalog or credit card offer on your desk. Before tossing out junk mail, call the company’s toll- free service number and ask that your name be removed from the mailing list. Have online retailers e-mail you instead. Almost half of all catalogs are never opened, yet nearly 62 million trees are destroyed and 28 billion gallons of water are used to produce them every year.

3. Put your monitor to sleep. Whether it shows off your vacation photos or a cool 3D animation, a computer screen saver is not at all designed for energy efficiency. It’s intended to save your screen from  “burn in,” not to save energy. Because monitors are responsible for more than one-third of a computer’s energy consumption – even with screen savers – the best way to conserve energy is to set the monitor to sleep or power off when you’re away for an extended period. If you’re gone for 5-10 minutes, enjoy one of CI’s screen savers. Any longer than that, put the monitor to sleep.

4. Use the stairs. Your brain gets exercise all day, why not exercise your body? Get your heart pumping by taking the stairs instead of the elevator. It’s good for your health, and it saves electricity.

5. Make your printer’s toner last. Being cheap is a first date no-no, but it’s okay to be frugal at the office. When printing rough drafts or documents for internal purposes, change the printer’s settings to economy mode and avoid color if possible. Econo-mode uses up to 50 percent less toner and prints twice as many pages as other higher quality settings. Duplex printing also uses half the amount of paper.

6. Provide incentives for commuters. Free food and a year-end bonus are nice perks, but to really make workers happy, help ease their daily commute. The government rewards businesses that encourage their staff to carpool, bicycle, or walk to work under the Commuter Choice Program. Telecommuting and flexible work hours can also save employers by reducing absences and job retention costs.

7. Recycle and reuse paper. Americans toss out about 35 million tons of paper each year. Buck the trend and start recycling – not only standard white printer paper, but all of the magazines, manila folders, and colored post-it notes that decorate your space. If it tears, it can be recycled. Recycled paper manufacturing generates 74 percent less air pollution, and saves trees, water, and energy. To salvage papers that are printed on one side only, flip them over and use for incoming faxes.

8. Purchase 100 percent post-consumer waste, chlorine-free paper. Take note when buying paper – the higher the percentage of post-consumer waste, the larger the amount of recycled material is contained in the paper stock. This means that 100 percent post-consumer waste paper is made entirely from recycled products. Also, chlorine used for bleaching is one of the biggest polluters in the paper-making process. Choose non-chlorinated paper, which has the same quality as the bleached variety.

9. Recycle and reuse office supplies. Do as Mom says and clean your plate, literally. Washing and reusing the plastic dishes and cutlery you get with take-away food is an easy way to cut down on waste at work. Better yet, pack your lunch in reusable containers and pocket your hard-earned dollars! Skip the paper (or worse, Styrofoam) cups and refill your travel mug at the nearby coffee shop instead. It may even get you a discount. Besides aluminum cans and glass bottles, there are many other supplies stashed in and around your desk that are recyclable, such as batteries, printer cartridges, DVDs, CDs, and more.

10. Curb phantom electricity. Many appliances still consume energy even when turned off. Items left plugged into the wall, such as a cell phone charger or laptop adapter, can leak more than 20 watts of power. In the United States alone, “phantom electricity” emits roughly 12 million tons of carbon into the atmosphere. Avoid this by plugging office equipment into a power strip and turning it off at night and on weekends.

this is just a test