Adding Google Plus One Button to your Website

Google +1 integration is pretty straightforward, although these can often be complicated by the fact that most businesses don’t directly manage their own web content or rely on a trusted, efficient vendor to update their website in a timely fashion.
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gmial, gmail, whatever…

Thought I’d share as I had to do a double take! I mis-typed gmail.com and got this wonderful offer, complete with google-colors and derivative footer design. I almost proceeded until I saw the URL I’d been forwarded to:

http://mail-giveaway.com/?sov=138360

Good stuff! They bought gmial.com and have it set to forward to their phishing site. Users answer questions and provide their info and Lord knows what happens then. I’m not sticking around to find out!

Big Game Fishing and You

Sport fishing locations don’t get much better than off the coast of Maui. There are no shortage of game to duel with and on any given charter it’s possible to do battle with a swordfish, a tuna or even a Marlin. If you’re interested in sport fishing, or have an upcoming trip to Hawaii (lucky you), you should check out this article on Sport Fishing. It may just be the surprise hit of your vacation.

Obama finishes what Bush started

Catching up with news this morning, I was pleasantly surprised by news that CIA, after 4 years of what I assume was painstaking intelligence work, tracked Osama Bin Laden to his home of at least the past 6 years. While I’d love to have heard that he was captured, the news that he was killed, removing his visage from the Most Wanted list (once they update their website), this is good news.

To read more, i found the following resources to be the most informative. I’ll be streaming NPR.org as long as they focus the news on this.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/world/asia/03pakistan.html

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2011/05/osama-bin-laden-dead-al-qaeda-islamabad-navy-seals.html

I close by offering my heartfelt support to those who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001. This week will undoubtedly raise emotions not pondered in some years and our thoughts are with them today.

Can I sell alpacas or other livestock on eBay?

I got curious about this in a discussion about a project and tried using their help. After wasting a few minutes trying to get a specific answer from their automated chat system, and after reviewing their help documentation, I gave them a call.

I was told that I’d have to speak to someone else, and that the policy people would have to answer this.

By being logged in, and then choosing “my listing was removed”, and initiating a chat, I’d get around their automated chat and be in touch with their listing policy people.

I did as instructed and got on a chat with nancy.

So no live animals. I figured I’d ask the next question that would be pertinent to the project.

So there you go, you can get (animals) laid on eBay!

Spotting phishing and fake order spam in 5 seconds flat

We get these fairly regularly (1 per week), and occasionally our website maintenance clients forward one to us. Who knows how much time their salespeople waste following up on fake orders, only to decide at the end that the order is fraudulent. Or worse, they ship the order only to find that the payment fails.

Review the following message and I’ll tell you how you know its a BS phishing or fake order spam in 5 seconds flat!
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