Is There A Thief Next Door?

Your new laptop just might be the first computer you have owned that is "Wi-Fi" enabled. That means you can connect to the Internet without having to be connected to the wall. It is a great way to run your business from a remote location and feel a real sense of freedom. But it is also an easy way for dishonest neighbors to steal Internet access from you without you even knowing it. Here is a great article that will help you identify the signs of wireless Internet theft and help you see if you have become a victim.

Is Your Neighbor Scamming on Your Wi-Fi?
By Tom Samiljan, The Gadget Hound

A reader writes: How do I know if my neighbor is scamming on my Wi-Fi?

If loading a web page or downloading an MP3 suddenly moves at glacial pace, your next door neighbor (or some kid parked in front of your house) may be using up your bandwidth. To be sure, you can check your router's logs (accessible through your router's Wi-Fi manager software) to see what other computers are linked up to your network.

Now, you could put a sign on your front lawn or in your lobby warning people to keep off your bandwidth, but the best way to prevent intruders from accessing your network is to enable WEP or WPA encryption on your network—essentially, setting up a password using your router's software. Don't lose this password, as you'll need it to connect any additional computers or devices you want on your Wi-Fi network.

Using someone else's Wi-Fi without their permission is actually against the law because it's considered unauthorized access into a computer network. Last year, a man in Florida was arrested and charged with a third-degree felony for "war driving," a practice where people park in front of people's houses with a laptop and use their Wi-Fi networks. In most cases, it's a relatively innocuous practice—people just checking mail or surfing the web.

Nevertheless, cases have been reported where Wi-Fi scammers have used other people's wireless networks to download porn, get credit card numbers, send hate mail, or download illegal music and video. Besides slowing down your Wi-Fi connection, these illicit activities will be traced back to you, so get with the program and make sure you encrypt your Wi-Fi network. For some more advice on Wi-Fi security, check out Chris' post.

Any "war driving" victims out there?

And here is a response he received from someone who read his article and had a strong opinion about it:

"It is against the law to have Wi-Fi trespassing through my house. I will put up a sign if necessary. My point is, if you leave your car door open on the street, you invite thieves over. Use your WEP key or pay somebody to lock it up. Don't freaking tell me I am stealing your Wi-Fi."

If you have any questions on this matter, contact the professionals at Customer Support. We will gladly walk you through the process of having a safe and effective wireless Internet connection.

Our Ghostly Halloween Post

The late plastic surgeon and author Maxwell Maltz who wrote the book Psycho Cybernetics said that the most important psychological discovery of the last century was the discovery of the self image. His views of success were very controversial at the time. He was a man who believed that we came into this world to succeed and not to fail. And he was derided by some who were surrounded by the masses which lacked the success they had desired to attain. But he discovered that the outer circumstances of those who were not meeting their goals could be changed by following one simple step: quit focusing on the current circumstances and past programming, and start focusing on the circumstances we desire to have.

In his book he talks about a lady who had come to him for plastic surgery. She was born with what she considered to be a very unattractive hook nose. And she wanted him to perform rhinoplasty to give her an attractive nose so she would feel better about herself. The surgery went better than expected, and the result was a beautiful nose. The swelling subsided, and the bandages were removed. When he held the mirror up to her face so that she could see the new nose, her response surprised him. He asked: “How do you like your new beautiful self”? And she replied coldly: “You know, I don’t see much improvement. I still feel ugly.”

She had conditioned herself over a thirty year period to believe that she was ugly. And even though her appearance was dramatically improved, her self image setting was still programmed at the lowest level because of the years of unhealthy, negative self talk.

Dr. Denis Waitley noticed an interesting phenomenon in returning veterans who had lost limbs in the Viet Nam war. He spent time at Walter Reid Hospital visiting with amputees and helping with their rehabilitation. “In reality, at the judgment level of thinking, their limbs were gone” says Waitley. “But for several months, and sometimes years afterwards, the patients would experience an itching or tingling, and even pain in the empty space where the arms, hands, or feet had been. During the night, some would try to get up out of bed and walk. Only after they had fallen would they realize that they had no legs”. These individuals had programmed themselves for many years to use their limbs. And now that the limbs were gone, the automatic response was to follow what they believed about themselves to be true. That phenomenon is called the “phantom limb” by many who have studied it.

We’ve all been programmed in one fashion or another! Maybe we weren’t conditioned to believe that we were ugly. But we might have been programmed to accept mediocrity, failure, or poverty. Possibly we feel the presence of the “Phantom parent” who told us we would never amount to anything, or hear the devastating taunts of classmates making us feel inferior. Maybe the trauma of abuse early in life has us reaching to please a “phantom abuser” who is no longer there. Or possibly the ghosts of failed businesses in the past still hover around, haunting us out of the success we so richly deserve.

Here is a quick test to see if you are being bewitched by ghoulish lies and devilish deceits of false programming from the past. Please take an honest and fearless inventory of what you truly believe about yourself.

1. Do you believe that you came into this world to succeed and not to fail?

2. Do you believe you deserve a better life than you have now?

3. Are you a good person?

4. Are you loved?

5. Are you capable of achieving much more than you are achieving right now?

6. Do you have a destiny that is waiting for your fulfillment?

7. Are you willing to strive, fight, show courage, be persistent, and do whatever it takes to fulfill that destiny?

8. Are you willing to start TODAY?

If you answered “NO” to any of the above questions, you might be just like the lady looking in the mirror. Everyone around her saw a beautiful face. She still felt ugly.

Here is what we see when we look in your mirror. We see someone who is capable of achieving their wildest dreams. We see a person who has reservoirs of untapped potential. We see someone who is strong enough to confront the past, and courageous enough overcome any challenges in the future. We see a champion! And that champion is YOU!

Be all that you were created to be!

The Holidays, Mount Vesuvius, and Me

Here comes the time of year when a major killer arrives on the scene. Not ony do we have family and deadlines to contend with, but we now have a growing business as well. We must make sure that we resist the urge to either shut down completely and go numb, or explode burying all with our toxic fallout. To keep us from being the subject of a documentary on the History Channel, here is an article on that deadly killer called stress.





Feeling Stressed?
Here are some tips to relieve the pressure of everyday life.
By Serena Gordon HealthDay Reporter

SUNDAY, Oct. 8 (HealthDay News) -- You just missed a deadline at work, you're supposed to chaperone your son's school field trip, and your mechanic called to tell you your car's transmission is shot. Stressed to the max?

Everyone experiences stress. And many people are stressed every day. But, stress isn't always as obvious as in the example above. In fact, some people don't even realize how much stress they're under until they suffer serious physical consequences of that stress.

Psychologist Anie Kalayjian, professor of psychology at Fordham University, said she's had patients end up in the emergency room, convinced they were having a heart attack, but instead, it was just the body's extreme response to stress. "If you're a person running around with high energy or nervous energy, you may not realize that you're stressed until you collapse!" said Kalayjian.

According to the American Academy of Family Physicians, some possible signs that you're under too much stress are: Anxiety, back pain, stiff neck, depression, fatigue, trouble sleeping, unexpected weight changes, headaches, relationship troubles and high blood pressure.

"People need to start proactively trying to prevent episodes before they have extreme reactions," recommended Kalayjian.

But that doesn't mean you should make managing stress just another item on your "to-do" list, cautioned Gail Elliott Evo, the integrative medicine coordinator at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Mich. "We talk so much about stress now. It's to the point that people are now feeling judgmental when they experience stress and can't eliminate it. But, unless you're a guru sitting in a temple in Tibet, I don't think you can avoid stress. There will be periods where you'll have stress," she said.

Still, managing stress or reducing it as much as you can is a smart idea, because constant stress leaves your body flooded with stress hormones, which can increase your risk of heart attack and other serious health problems. "Stress causes physical and psychological reactions. It can alter your sleep. It leaves you constantly in fighting-mode and leaves your immune system suppressed. You may get sick a lot," Kalayjian said.

There's no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to managing stress. "Some things will be right for one person but not for another. Be open, and try things. Give something a try, and if it's not right for you, move on to something else. You'll eventually find something that's right for you," said Evo.

Some of the approaches she recommends include: Massage, healing touch, yoga, tai chi, walking, meditation and guided imagery. Kalayjian said a good place to start de-stressing is with deep breathing.

"One minute per each hour of the day, you need to sit and do nothing but focus on breathing. No phones, no lists, no responsibilities. It's almost like how you recharge your battery for your mobile phone. We need to recharge, too," she said.

She also recommends exercise. "Don't wait to feel stressed. Get at least a half an hour of exercise every day. It gets a lot of the toxins and stress out of our bodies," Kalayjian said.

Kalayjian also advocates something she calls "journaling."

"It helps to put things on paper and outside of yourself. You don't have to store it in your heart, body or mind. When we journal, we let go of things and that acts as a release," she said.

She also suggests getting organized. "Many people waste 20 percent of their time looking for things. Try to be organized. Label things. Have organizers. It seems very mundane, but helps tremendously in saving your energy," Kalayjian said.

Evo said many people use a combination of techniques to relieve their stress.

"Be playful with it. Try different things," she said. Kalayjian agreed, adding that people need to "learn how to have a sense of humor, to laugh and make others laugh, too."

Finally, Kalayjian advised that if you try several different methods to "de-stress" and just can't seem to relax, you could probably benefit from seeing a psychotherapist.

More information The National Mental Health Association offers tips on coping with stress (www.nmha.org).


Serena Gordon is a reporter for our good friends at Health Day. For a myriad of articles about health and wellness, visit their site often.

Turn Clippers Into Clickers

Have you considered using Internet coupons to brand your business and build customer loyalty? Maybe now is a great time to augment your marketing campaign to insure your customer base remains loyal. Check out this article by Cathy Peterson:






What Are Internet Coupons All About?
By: Cathy Peterson

Before answering what internet coupons are, it would be better to answer what a coupon is in the first place. What is a coupon anyway? A coupon is something you use in order to get something of value from the issuer of the coupon. A coupon can be in the form of a ticket. It can also be a simple paper that you cut out from a newspaper. The value that you get from a coupon may come in the form of a discount. It can come in the form of a rebate. It may also be something free from an issuing company or any entity for that matter.

Now that we know what a coupon is, let us now try to define what an internet coupon is. An internet coupon is something that you obtain from the internet in order to use to get something of value from an issuer. If a newspaper coupon is a coupon that you get from the newspaper, then an internet coupon is a coupon that you get from the internet.

Businesses use the internet for several reasons. One of the main reasons that businesses use the internet is to reach consumers from all over the world. If a business would like to push a certain product or service, then using the internet would be a good way to get this job done. Businesses issue coupons over the internet to get customers to patronize their product or service. For example, a business can issue a 10% discount coupon over the internet. A user will see this coupon, print it out, and then bring this coupon to the business establishment. The business will now grant a 10% discount to the person who possesses this coupon. In this way, both the user and the business win. The business will be able to move his product or service and in turn, the user will be able to get a discount from the product or service that he needed in the first place.

Internet coupons nowadays are very powerful. They will be able to move businesses to the next level of sales. They will be able to grant consumers all over the world the discounts they deserve from patronizing a product or service. The internet coupons may be the catalyst that will catapult online commerce to the next level.



Cathy Peterson is a writer who has many articles on articlewiz. Her profile can be found here.

Man's New Best Friend

Now that you have decided to start a business where selling online is a large part of your marketing campaign, you have a new best friend. It is your computer. The opening line from the great novel by Charles Dickens “A Tale of Two Cities” says that it was the best of times and it was the worst of times. The same can be said of your computer. It can be the best of tools for your success, and can also be your worst enemy if it doesn’t perform up to its best.

Almost everything you do that will make you successful, from shopping the competition and building your web site, to billing customers and reconciling your bank statement takes place on your computer. It contains important information from product images to personal family pictures. And when our computer decides to go on a vacation (otherwise known as crashing) we can be put in a very difficult situation. Here are some things that you should be doing to maintain your computer on a regular basis to keep it fast and happy.

1. Clean House. There is a great success principle that says we should get rid of what we don’t want to make room for what we do want. And it works for computers also. Every web site you visit has images that are saved on your computer’s hard drive. Even things that you have “deleted” aren’t really deleted. They are still hanging around on your computer. So there is a way to do some spring cleaning year round. It is called “disc cleanup”, and here is how to get it done. Go to “Start” and select “All Programs”. Towards the top is “Accessories” and then hit “System Tools”. You will see as an option “Disc Cleanup”. This nifty little program is a great way for you to let windows flush itself out and eliminate all the junk that has been accumulated.

2. Close The Gaps. Your hard drive will run faster if it gets all the important data close to each other and compacted. This way it doesn’t have to go on a safari to find the information it is looking for. After you have cleaned your hard drive, then do something called “defragmenting”. It literally does what it sounds like: gets rid of fragmented space between data. Follow the same procedures as cleanup, but under “System Tools” look for “Disc Defragmenter”. Even if a window pops up telling you that you don’t need to, do it anyway. It will keep your computer running faster than the road runner on El Paso asphault.

3. Stay Current. There are always new updates that software companies come out with that improve performance and increase security. It is important to update your software with regularity. To update Windows, go to “Start” and then “All Programs”. Towards the top you will find a choice called “Windows Update”. You will need an active Internet connection open, and it will contact our friends in Washington State. But your personal information will be safe, and you can keep your operating system fresh as a baby after a bath. And of course you will want to update your virus protection software a couple times a week. Are you scanning for viruses with regularity? Trust me friends, one virus that takes root can bring the whole computer to a grinding halt. It’s just not worth being undisciplined where your business is concerned.

4. Back It Up. A must purchase for your computer is software that will back up your data. This makes a copy of everything on your computer and copies it to a disc that you can keep in a safe place. I arrived home from a trip to Russia years ago to find that somehow my hard drive was fried. I believe they used some strange Soviet x-ray machine on my laptop and it was deader than a slow possum on a Texas highway. Because I was going to wait until I got home to do a backup, I lost invaluable documents and over 400 pictures that could never be replaced. Back up often and keep your discs in a safe and secure place. If you ever need to restore your computer after a disaster, the original software will be restored, but everything you have collected since the day you received it can not be replaced until you restore backed up data. Go here and search the myriads of data backup software programs that you can try for free. I use one called “Back It Up” that I purchased at Best Buy for around $30.

5. Be a Spy Buster. Lots of sites want to put all kinds of tracking cookies and ad ware on your computer to keep track of where you go. Get rid of it with two of the best programs for spyware removal around: Spybot and Ad-aware. They are both free and can also be found here. Don’t forget to update them often and run them weekly.

Love your computer and your computer will love you! Treat her right and she will be the best thing that happened to your business since the post it note. If there are any questions you might have about these maintenance suggestions, support is only a phone call or a quick chat away. And don’t tell your dog, but there is a new “man’s best friend” in the house. And it’s named “Acer”.