Most people immediately delete spoofed phishing emails that make it through their spam filters. These emails appear to come from places like Paypal, Ebay, banks…etc, and the senders are attempting to get you to enter your account/financial details, or click on a link to install malicious code on your computer. A spoofed email looks like the real deal, but if you examine the headers, you can tell it isn’t from that company.

More often than not, the email originates from a domain name that was recently registered, most likely for the phishing attempt. The Whois information is usually private, forged or based in another company. While most people’s immediate response is to delete the email once a phishing attempt is detected, I would recommend reporting the email to the company that purportedly sent it. This will allow them to make an effort to shut the website down and possibly determine who is behind the scheme.

Each company has its own specific place to report suspicious emails, but for Paypal, you may use “spoof@paypal.com.” Additionally, for emails of a spamming nature, you can forward your complaint to the US government by forwarding the email to “spam@uce.gov.” I don’t know how these companies investigate the phising attempts, but phishing hurts us all.

I was installing a couple of Apple updates yesterday, and my MacBook froze up on me, and I was unable to do type or use the mouse pad. Everything completely froze up, and I had to hold down the power button until my computer powered down. No big deal - right? I’ve had this issue happen a couple of times before on other computers, and the computer starts back up without fail…

Well… unfortunately for me, when my computer turned back on, I was prompted to reinstall my operating system. I panicked as I have a ton of information saved on my hard drive, and I infrequently back it up - maybe once every other week or so. I powered down my computer and tried again, but had the same problem. I immediately Read More »

What a perfect idea for Valentine’s Day! Share your relationships gone bad at RelationshipObituary.com. Go ahead, it will make you feel better!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

netRocket, an online bookmark scheduling service recently passed the 100,000 bookmarks milestone. This is huge considering the company recently went live. The upward growth is sure to continue as the amount of information and information sources on the Internet grows. The company made news at last month’s DomainFest domain auction by paying over $300,000 for the domain name Bookmarks.com. netRocket’s service is perfect for domain investors looking to track expired domain auctions and other time-sensitive bookmarks.

Congratulations to the team at netRocket for reaching this great milestone!

The only good news about the 2008 Super Bowl is that my fraternity brother (Ruben Ortiz) starred in the Taco Bell commercial. Oh… and the Red Sox are still World Series Champions.

Courtesy of MobiEnthusiast.mobi, Elliot’s Blog is now available to read on your mobile phone. Although my blog is available on most mobile web browsers simply by typing http://www.elliotsblog.com, following this link from your mobile browser may make it a more pleasant experience.

Just remember, don’t surf and drive!

This hilarious video lampoons what Bill Gates’ last day at Microsoft will be like. It was shown yesterday at the International CES conference, where Bill Gates was the pre-show keynote speaker.

Several weeks ago, on the eve of the strike by the Writer’s Guild of America, I mentioned that the writers strike could be a boon for websites as people tune in online rather than watch reruns and countless reality shows. Now that the strike has been in place for weeks, there are some signs that writers may opt to move to the online distribution channel instead of waiting idly for the contract issue to be resolved.

According to a recent article in The Guardian about Hollywood writers moving online, “Seven groups are thought to be working on forming companies to challenge the dominance of the studios.” It appears that some writers are choosing to bypass the studios and create direct to consumer content via the Internet. Just as direct marketing does, this content can be highly targeted to a specific niche. Writers will have the creative freedom to express themselves, and they will be able to produce material of their choice, without the normal studio oversight.

I don’t have the time to do this, but I think it would be neat if someone set up a website specifically for the striking writers to distribute their work. YouTube and other video sharing sites are great, but it would be neat to have a specific website devoted to the striking writers, to give them the opportunity to display their skills and allow visitors to compensate them.

According to an article in CNN, the gaming industry is capitalizing on the writers strike, and I don’t see a reason why Internet television couldn’t see the same gains.

Gordon is a domain investor who I met and had several conversations on DN Forum and in person at Grand Central a few weeks ago.  He is knowledgeable about SEO and about domain names, and is a genuinely good person.A few days ago, I briefly noticed a new industry blog at the domain name DailyBull.com.  Little did I know, Gordon was the person behind this blog.  I think it’s the perfect domain name for a blog, and it’s great to see that it’s going to be a blog in this industry!

I am a proponent of giving back to the less fortunate when possible, and Gordon has a great idea. In almost every organization with which I have been involved (college fraternity, Interfraternity Council, corporate job…etc) the group raises funds for a specific cause as a way to help, show unity, and show strength.  I like the idea of working together as a community to help a cause that is important to people of all backgrounds.  Kudos to Gordon for this idea.

No matter what causes we support, it is important to give back and help the less fortunate.