My buddy, Michael Kiernan, has just launched his new blog on a subject that’s very near and dear to me – heart health.

Like me, Michael has a heart condition – though his is more severe than mine.

2 months ago, Michael died on a NY subway train… and stayed dead for 25 minutes. He was brought back to life through a combination of God’s grace, a good doctor sitting next to him (totally by chance) on the train, and a defib unit at the station.

Rather than sit around and whine about having a heart problem, he’s decided to do something about it and help others at the same time.

Michael’s new bog at http://healthyheartguy.com/blog/ is really cool… and I invite you to check out what he’s doing.

Make sure to watch the news video a local tv station did on him.

I’m really proud of Michael for doing this… so please check out his blog and tell him to keep up the great work!

Jim

Watch and Listen To the FTC Interview Right Now!

Last Friday I did a special interview webinar with Mr. Rich Cleland, Assistant Deputy at The Federal Trade Commission about the changes /additions to FTC advertising guidelines as they apply to Bloggers, Affiliates, Online Advertisers and Internet Merchants.

There’s been a LOT of speculation – and outright mistruth – about what the changes mean and the exact groups they apply to (and in which situations).

So rather than join in the speculation and guessing, we went straight to the source and gained an interview with a high-ranking official in the government agency everyone seems so afraid of.

What we found out in this in-depth interview will definitely surprise many and anger quite a few.

But make no mistake, change is coming (actually it’s here as of December 1, 2009)… so you better watch, listen and get your facts straight… and this in-depth interview will help you do just that!

PLEASE – feel free to comment below about this interview content

Option #1: Webinar Video Replay

Click Here Now To Watch the entire FTC Interview – FREE

Option #2: Webinar Audio Replay
“Right” Click Here & “Save As” to Download the MP3 Audio

Register for the Full Interview Transcript Below

Want the transcript? We have the entire interview transcribed… and we have released it as a PDF.

If you’d like the transcript, please sign up with your name and email below and we’ll send you a FREE download link by return email.

You also agree that by signing up for this list you will receive periodic update emails from us. You may cancel at any time.

The following message (below) was sent out by my friend,
Armand Morin.

As you can imagine, everyone is feeling frustrated by the loss
of life and the difficulty in relief reaching the victims.

Earlier this year, I did donate all the proceeds from sales
of my “5-Steps To Getting Anythng You Want” to victims of the
tsunami…. so I’m not sure I 100% agree with the second part
of Armand’s rant… however, I understand his frustration and
I have seen how people are using this for thinly veiled profit
motives.

Maybe a better way to do it is to say, “Hey, if you donate here, here or here for this amount or more… and send me
a copy of your receipt, I’ll GIVE you my product (whatever it is).”
That way we know the money immediately goes directly to the source that needs it… and people’s giving is not delayed by a 3rd party.

I 110% agree, however, that any… repeat, ANY profiteering on the coattails of this disaster should be dealt with swiftly, and the offending parties have their body parts removed 17th century style!

My 2-cents…

Jim

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

From: Armand Morin:
Re: Hurricane Katrina

I normally don’t write about things like this, but sometimes
you have to speak up about things that are just plain wrong!

I have been watching the news about Hurricane Katrina as I am sure
you have been too. My heart goes out to these people and I pray
they get the assitance they need as fast as humanly possible.

What makes me sick are the emails I have been receiving over
the past few days from people “claiming” to help. Maybe they
are sincere maybe not. I don’t know.

————————————————————-
Case #1 – A Scumbag Marketer
————————————————————-

One marketer sent out information about how you can help. I
clicked on the link because I want to help out as much as I
possibly can.

Here’s what made me sick to my stomach…

He had the nerve to actually require you to enter your name
and email address into an optin box in order to get the info!!!

What a marketing SCUMBAG! I normally don’t talk like this, but
this one really got on my nerves. Why not just give the info?

Is this guy really that bad off that he has to profit
from these poor people? That’s about as low as it gets!!!

————————————————————-
Case #2 – Buy My Crap and I’ll Donate (I don’t think so)
————————————————————-

I am certainly not going to buy anyone’s stuff and HOPE that my
money goes to these people. Think about it, it first has to go
to this person and then they have to take out their supposed
costs and then, MAYBE, they’ll forward they money on to a worthy
charity.

I DON’T THINK SO!!!

What is this person thinking? Hmmmm… if I use this DISASTER
which has left thousand of people HOMELESS… I can get my
product into the hands of more people… YOU IDIOT!

Again… another person who seems to be high on crack!

If you want to by a product, then buy a product. If you want
to donate, then donate directly to the source. PERIOD!

You don’t have to buy a product in order to donate your
money to worthy charity or organization. Just do it.

Let me make my stance PERFECTLY CLEAR!

YOU DON’T PROFIT FROM OTHER PEOPLE’S MISFORTUNES!

These people are devastated, they lost their jobs, their homes,
some lost their loved one’s lives, or maybe even their own life
due this major catastrophe…

How dare these people try to profit from this distaster!

I urge you to NOT support these SCUMBAGS!

————————————————————-
If You Want To Help The Hurricane Efforts
————————————————————-

Here’s two links to legitimate organizations to donate you
money to if you want to help.

FEMA – http://www.fema.gov
Red Cross – http://www.redcross.org

Feel free to pass this message on to someone else.

Take my name off of it… I don’t care. I just want to make
sure your kindness goes in the right direction and you are not
putting faith in people who are trying to profit from this.

Help someone and donate what you can today.

Armand Morin

For those of you in the States…Happy Independence Day!

Now even if you don’t celebrate “The 4th of July” like we
do in the U.S., today is still the perfect day to think
about your independence.

And for just that reason, we have 2 important articles to
share with you…

The first is something my buddy Yanik Silver released
briefly but had so many people raving about it that we’ve
decided to republish it for all our subscribers.

And the second article is from Dan Kennedy.

If you haven’t heard of Dan Kennedy let megive you the
quick run-down. He’s a speaker, consultant, business coach,
and author of numerous books as well as his famous ‘No B.S.
Marketing Letter’, which is considered the best business
building newsletter of its kind.

In fact, Dan is widely respected as one of the top marketing
minds on the planet.

Here’s to your independence,

Jim

P.S. One more thing – we’ve managed to secure you a 3-month
‘test-drive’ of Dan’s ELITE Gold Membership as a special
“4th of July” gift. You can read all about it here:

=> http://www.your4thofjulygift.com/jedwards/

=========================

When Is Your Independence Day?

By Yanik Silver

========================

July 4th for Americans is a chance to celebrate our
independence. Trust me, I’m not going to get on a soapbox
and start waving the flag – but I do think it’s important
no matter what country you live in to really think about
that word “independence” and its meaning for you.

My father reminded me that July 3, 1976 was his
“Independence day” since that’s the date my family came
over to the United States from Russia. (Pretty cool since
it was right before the bi-centennial celebration.)

For me, my independence day was on July 1, 1999.

That’s the date I left my father’s business to work on my
own. It was by far one of the hardest decisions of my life.
You see, I had worked for my dad since I was 12 and he
thought I was going to take over the company. I had that
same thought as well until I got the “bug”.

In fact, my wife, Missy, and I were talking about this
recently. She was talking about how when she met me 9 years
ago, I had only one thought: “how to grow my father’s
business”. I would stay late working on new ads and
marketing pieces. I was in early calling my accounts trying
to make sales, etc. etc.

Now I had been studying direct marketing, and results were
really paying off for my dad’s business. (Actually they
still use a lot of the ads I wrote in 1998 because they
still work today.) But with every ad I wrote I was getting
more and more aggravated. Not because the ads weren’t
producing sales – they were – but because of the grief and
politics I had to deal with. Everybody seemed to be an
advertising expert even though they’ve never studied or
read anything on the subject. People mistakenly believe
that if they wouldn’t “read all that copy” then nobody
will. Or if the ad is “ugly” and has no pictures or pretty
graphics it won’t work.

Complete and total crap.

For every ad I wrote I had to fight to get it out there. I
got sick of it and decided I would create my own product so
I could write ads for myself. My first product was to help
dermatologists who wanted new cosmetic patients. It was a
big kit (manual, tapes, reports, diskette, etc) based
around some marketing consulting I was doing on the side
for one of my customers.

I ran my first ad in April 1998 in Dermatologic Surgery
magazine. I got 10 responses so I sent them the 20-page
sales letter I’d written selling this $900 kit. Not one
order.

I waited…

Sent out a 2nd notice to those 10 respondents.

Nothing…

Then I sent a 3rd notice telling them the expiration date
to get all the free bonuses was only 10 days away. Finally
on the very last day of the expiration date I got one order
over the fax machine.

Yipeee!!

I still remember that doctor’s name in Flushing, NY. What
an incredible feeling. That was the start of my
independence. I realized I now had the power to chart my
course as I wanted. That first sale. That’s one of the
greatest feelings in the world – when something you’ve
created is sold. It took me a little over a year after that
first order to realize I wanted my freedom and I finally
quit on July 1, 1999.

Maybe it’s the new confidence you get when you realize
you’ve created something that people want and are willing
to exchange money for. That first sale is usually the
hardest (but also the most rewarding).

It’s wonderful when I help turn on that light in people.
I’ve seen it first-hand working my Apprentices and seeing
them launch their products. How amazed they are by the
money pouring from around the globe. I love it!

And my wife is striking out on her own with a little bit of
my help. She set up her first web site -
http://www.InstantThankYouLetters.com and she’s getting
checks each month.

So when will your independence day be?

If you’ve already achieved it – I bet you can remember it
perfectly. Sometimes the bleakest times that we believe are
terrible actually turn into a perfect opportunity.

Take my good friend, Jim Edwards’, for example. His
independence day came because he got fired. To him that
wasn’t a blessing at first but as he looks back on it -it’s
the best thing that ever happened.

I remember the conversation we had right after it happened.
I was drinking a bourbon and Jim was having a beer. We were
talking about different projects he could try and pursue
and do now. We were throwing around some ideas and we came
up with “33 Days to Online Profits”.

http://www.33daystotoonlineprofits.com

It was right there during that call that we outlined each
of the days and moved forward from there. And “33 Days” has
been a tremendous six-figure income earner for both of us
and it doesn’t seem to let up.

So what can you do to achieve your independence?

I’ll give you a couple things to take to heart. I can’t
remember the author who said this but he said if you show
me what a man does in his spare time I’ll show you the type
of man he’ll become. What are doing with your spare time?

- Watching TV or reading?

- Napping or practicing your copywriting?

- Yakking to your friends or studying direct marketing?

It all comes down to the choices we make every single day.
In fact, you shouldn’t let one day go by without making
sure you are taking at least one proactive step towards
your own independence. Just because the thought of you
doing what you want when you want may seem so far away -
don’t let that stop you from taking those baby steps each
and every day. That’s one of my rules and I hope you’ll
adopt it.

What else?

Learn to be different. The truth is you need to become
extraordinary to achieve extraordinary results. You can’t
be like everyone else (and why would you want to). That
means doing the things other don’t (or won’t) do. That
means not listening to their advice (unless they are doing
what you want to do). Frankly, if you simply did the exact
opposite of what everyone else is doing you’d turn out
okay. Why? If only 5% of people are truly successful and
the 95% are the mediocre majority – doesn’t that mean the
majority is wrong? Don’t engage in their thinking. Don’t
follow their lead. Don’t adhere to the same values and
standards the “95-percenters” do.

Two people who really helped me clarify my thinking on this
were Early Nightingale and Dan Kennedy. (See next article
for his insight and a special gift I’ve arranged for you.)

Please don’t get me wrong – in no way am I trying to be
elitist. I’m not. But it is tremendously important to go
through your day with your eyes wide open. The truth is
most of your friends (right now) probably don’t want you to
change and succeed. That would imply that they are losers.
That would mean they are failures. Nobody is going to
propel you to succeed except yourself.

So get on it and proclaim your own Independence Day
starting T-O-D-A-Y!

* * *

And here’s article #2 from Dan Kenendy for you…

=========================================

“3 Ways To Accelerate Independence”

By Dan S. Kennedy
==========================================

Most people reading this have goals.

If you do not, you need to stop reading, close your
business for a couple days, lock yourself away in quiet and
private and figure out what you want and don’t want. But
let’s assume you have goals. If you do, you would probably
like to reach them faster. After all, we live in a
lightning speed, amazingly impatient world.

What most entrepreneurs’ experience, at some point in their
lives, is what I call the “wealth sprint to independence.”
Yes, life’s a marathon. But almost every highly successful
entrepreneur has had the same experience I’ve had: a short
sprint of 3, 4 or 5 years where you achieve more than in
the previous 15, 20 or 30 years. What makes this sprint
happen? If you knew, could you force it to happen
immediately?

There are many factors in order to accelerate your
independence and I’d like to discuss a few of the most
important ones with you:

(1) INCREASED INVESTMENT IN VASTLY
SUPERIOR MARKETING AND PROMOTION

Virtually everyone who’s done the ‘wealth sprint to
independence’, kicked it off with advertising, marketing or
sales breakthrough or related business breakthrough, such
as premium pricing. For one, a TV infomercial; for
another, joint venture alliances or ‘parasite’
opportunities with other entrepreneurs; for another, adding
tele-seminars; for another use of the Internet.

One way or another, they found a new or better way to apply
some proven marketing strategy or tool to their business
and did so aggressively. This is why it is so vital to be a
very, very serious student of successful marketing. To be
on the constant hunt for that one idea, that one ‘tweak’.

(2) IMPROVED WEALTH CONSCIOUSNESS

I don’t mean to sound esoteric. But, believe me, us multi-
millionaire ‘independent’ entrepreneurs do think about
money differently from the rest of the folk. Profoundly so.
For example, we know that money is infinite, not finite;
that price is incredibly elastic; that everybody finds the
money to buy what they are really motivated to buy; that
it’s always a great economy for the adept marketer.

We have no hang-ups about sales, promotion. This is why it
is very important to associate with such people any and
every way you can, so their unorthodox thinking can become
your thinking.

This is why tele-coaching and coaching groups, tele-
seminars, tapes, books and newsletters from such bona fide
sources are of such immense value. Quite frankly, if
you’re not hitting your independence goals as rapidly and
easily as you’d like, it probably has a lot more to do with
your thinking than your business, its location, its
customers, its competitors or other external factors.

(3) INTENSE EFFORT

We do a lot and get a lot done. I’m amazed and dismayed at
how little others make happen, hour by hour, day by day.
Here’s a good question: if I came to your business on a
field trip and followed you around all day, every day, for
a week, how impressed and in awe would I be at…

Everything you do everyday to attract new customers?
Everything you do to convert leads, to get more value from
leads? Everything you do to analyze your business everyday?
Everything you do to nurture the relationship with your
customers? Everything you do to manage your time
effectively? Everything you do to improve your knowledge
and skill? Everybody you associate with?

Not just one or two things ­ everything ­ lots of things.

If I wouldn’t be all that impressed then you shouldn’t be
either, and you should be striving to up the ante on your
productivity.

**
Recommended Resource: Through a special arrangement that
we’ve set up with Dan Kennedy, you can test drive a 3-month
FREE ELITE Dan Kennedy Gold Membership, which includes 3-
months of his fantastic NO B.S. Marketing Letter.

For complete details click here:

=> http://www.your4thofjulygift.com/jedwards/

**

That about wraps it up.

Enjoy your 4th of July and Happy Independence Day to all our
valued subscribers.

- Jim

We got a letter recently that I think you should read
(below).

Why?

Because it was written by one of the most respected
educators on the entire Internet.

His name is Michael Campbell, and he’s the author of several
best selling ebooks, including “Clickin’ It Rich” and
“Revenge of the MiniNet”

This guy has a solid reputation as a straight shooter and
he’s been successfully selling online for almost 10 years.

Here’s what Michael had to say about this website
=> http://www.minisitecreator.com

-=-=-=-=-=-

“There’s an old adage… you get what you pay for. Never has
it been more true than in the case of Mini Site Creator.

This video series is painful to watch… not for me, but I
feel “his” pain. Jim Edwards must have invested hundreds of
hours into this course. I remember having to learn all this
stuff the hard way, by trial and error, making lots of
mistakes along the way.

Nowadays, I take the basic mechanics of website design for
granted. I think nothing of popping off graphics in
Photoshop, or uploading sites with FTP. Making webpages is
second nature. It’s so easy to blast off a dozen or so per
hour…

But not so for the beginner, dropped off in a land of info
overload and overwhelm… which leads to distraction, which
leads to inaction… heads up… all of you! If you’ve been
buying stuff and hoarding and not really doing anything with
the information you’ve collected, this course will connect
all the dots for you.

This is not just a course on how to create minisites as the
title would have us believe. It is the most complete html
tutorial that I’ve ever seen. You’re shown how to use the
free Mozilla Composer to create your sites, starting from
scratch, and assuming you know absolutely nothing about html
or making web pages.

Some courses tell you to – figuratively speaking – go boil a
pot of water. This course assumes nothing. Jim tells you
what a pot is, where the kitchen is, what water is, how to
put the water in the pot, then put it on the stove, how to
turn on the stove and when to turn it off. That’s the kind
of attention to detail we’re talking about here.

The focus of the course is creating minisites, specifically
landing pages and squeeze pages where you drive your PPC
(pay per click) traffic. But it goes way beyond that, and
you’ll certainly be set free from the land of templates and
site builders after watching this course.

Unlike other beginners’ courses which gloss over the html
part, or kindly refer you to online tutorials, Jim shows
every little conceivable step.

And I do mean everything. Starting with downloading and
installing Mozilla on your hard drive, you’re shown
formatting basics like how to make text bold and centered.
Then from there, we’re slowly lead -in baby steps – all the
way to crafting a sales page, with an ecommerce system,
complete with order page, thank you page and a series of
follow-up autoresponders.

There’s a video for everything. And it’s very well done.

When you complete this course, you’ll be able to make good
minisites, or websites of any kind, from scratch, with
confidence, and be able to whip through hosting, ftp, domain
names, making graphics, autoresponders, Clickbank set up,
and just about everything else you can think of.

(Even I learned a few things, like Jim’s secret “Ultimate
Opt-in Subscription Box” which I plan on implementing on my
own sites

The only downside of this course are the production values.
Compared to the some of the slick and professionally
polished tutorials that are out there, the Mini Site Creator
course is real meat ‘n potatoes kind of stuff.

Jim sometimes messes up and pauses during the videos when
something doesn’t go as planned. He then wonders out loud
why one thing happened when he expected another.

But you know what? He’s human, and that’s exactly the sense
you get when you’re watching this course. It’s just like
being in a live classroom where stuff happens and the
teacher needs to adapt. Although it’s a little quirky at
first, you easily get used to it and it’s almost like having
Jim sitting beside you, guiding you through every step of
the html process.

If you’re prepared to put in the time to learn, this course
will break you free from the use of templates and site
builders, into total html freedom. You’d pay ten times more
to learn this stuff without help. And I’m glad someone
finally and the strength and determination to put together
the most complete web training course -for would be
marketers – that I’ve ever reviewed.

To quote Benjamin Franklin, “If a man empties his purse into
his head, no one can take it away from him. An investment of
knowledge always pays the best interest.”

This course – my friends – is a heck of an investment and
money well spent. Empty this information into your mind and
you’re never likely to go hungry again.

by Michael Campbell

Author of Clickin’ it Rich, Revenge of the Mininet,
and the Internet Marketing Secrets Newsletter.
Visit ==> http://www.InternetMarketingSecrets.com

-=-=-=-=-=-

So if you want to put up your own money-making mini-sites
fast… and learn from someone who knows exactly what they
are doing and, more imporantly, can show YOU how to do it
too… head on over and get more information about the
course right now.

=> http://www.minisitecreator.com

To your success,

Jim Edwards

This week we have another Guest “Tipster!”

This time it’s on the subject of “RSS” (real simple
syndication) and how you can use it to build your online
business by automatically attracting more targeted traffic
to your site.

Enjoy!

Jim

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Hi Jim,

Thank you for the opportunity to share some quick tips on
RSS with your readers.

I’m sure that many marketers realize by now that internet
marketing is in a mild crisis.

On one hand, we’re all struggling to get our marketing
messages and educational content delivered to our
prospects, customers and subscribers, having to deal with
tons of e-mail spam filters and an abundance of messages in
our recipients’ mailboxes.

On the other, getting high organic search engine rankings
is becoming increasingly difficult, since there are tens of
thousands new websites every day, and pay-per-click prices
are reaching new heights almost every week.

For me, the situation got absolutely ridiculous when the
going PPC rate in the Google AdWords program for some of my
keywords was almost close to half of the price I was
charging for my product.

And I’m not smart enough to achieve a 50% visitor/customer
conversion rate:)

But fortunately, we now have RSS to help us out.

RSS really is a vast subject, but here are three basic
tips, based on my “Unleash the Marketing & Publishing Power
of RSS” e-book, that should get you started easily.

Tip #1 – Get Started With RSS Quickly

For those not familiar with this term yet, RSS stands for
Real Simple Syndication. And yes, the name is spot on —
RSS is really simple!

In simple terms, RSS gets content delivered directly to
your desktop or to your browser, but without spam or other
“nuisances”, such as viruses etc. Since it’s not in any way
like e-mail, RSS doesn’t disturb your personal
communications.

You can receive RSS content when you want it and how you
want it, and even unsubscribe from any RSS feed in a matter
of seconds. You don’t like it, it’s out.

The easiest way to get started with RSS and to catch a
least a glimpse of its power, is to start using it
immediately as an end-user.

• If you prefer desktop software, go to
http://www.awasu.com and download their free RSS reader,
using which you will be able to subscribe to RSS feeds and
read them.

• If you prefer to get your content through your browser,
head on to http://www.bloglines.com and register for a free
account.

Of course, there are many other choices, but one of these
two should get you started in no time. Then, simply seek
out websites with little orange buttons saying RSS or XML
or something like that. Each of those buttons usually has a
link behind it — copy that link in to your new RSS
reader, and you’re ready to go!

Just start with Jim’s RSS feed on the right:)

Tip #2 – Start Publishing With RSS Today!

The answer to why you need to start publishing with RSS
today is simple:

• It will get 100% of your content delivered to your
subscribers; no spam filters and no crowded inboxes.

• Publishing your own RSS feeds will help you increase your
search engine traffic and even bring you fresh traffic from
RSS specific search engines and directories.

• It will help you get your content published on other
websites.

• With RSS you’ll have the power to publish your
information as soon as you have it ready, even every hour
if you want to, and no one will mind. You can even get
large audio files directly to your subscribers without any
problems at all.

• And at the end, since RSS requires no e-mail addresses,
you’ll be able to capture the visitors that were previously
too scared to give away their e-mail address to you.

• Getting started can be free! Yes, completely without any
cost whatsoever.

• And the best part: almost any kind of content can be
published via RSS, from e-zines to audio to applications
and product information.

But how to get started?

1. First decide what content you want to publish with RSS
to begin with. You can start with an RSS feed to publish
your news (or blog content, if you have one), another to
publish your e-zine and yet another to constantly
communicate with your existing customers.

2. The difficult choice is deciding on what software to
use. If you’re already publishing your web content with a
content management solution, chances are it already has an
RSS publishing feature. If not, the easiest way to start is
using a desktop feed generator, such as
http://www.feedforall.com or the free

http://www.usablelabs.com/productFeedSpring.html

3. Follow their instructions, create your RSS feeds, and
put them on your website. Create an RSS presentation page
to explain to your visitors what RSS is and then provide
them with the links to your RSS feeds.

Tip #3 – Use RSS to Increase Your Search Engine Rankings
and Drive Fresh Traffic

For many internet marketers, this is the key to why they
want to use RSS. Actually, this tactic even got my e-book
sales page to #1 spots on Google for my key search terms,
such as “RSS marketing” and “RSS publishing”.

The basic procedure is simple:

• Enable other sites and readers to easily locate the RSS
feeds on your site, by putting this line of code in to the
section of the webpages, for each of the feeds
available through those pages:

• Write down the title, description, link and keywords for
each of your feeds.

• Now submit your feeds to all of the relevant RSS search
engines and directories you can find. The best list can be
obtained here: http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/

• Whenever you update the content of any of your website
sections, got to http://www.pingomatic.com and ping the
most important “content directories”. This will tell them
that your content has been updated and will allow them to
list it for their visitors. Just remember to use the actual
URL of your website section, where the content has been
updated.

This should get you started reaping the benefits of RSS
practically immediately….

– Thanks Rok!

It’s no pun intended when I say YOU ROCK, Rok!

I encourage everyone to go check out Rok’s complete guide
to unleashing the marketing and publishing power of RSS, go
to http://www.igottatellyou.com/rok.html Right Now!

To your success!

Jim

This week we’re trying somethig a little different…

I’ve come down with a nasty cold and you don’t want to hear my voice (I sound like “Froggy” from The Little Rascals), so we’re having a first in the history of “I Gotta Tell You”

We’re having a guest “tipster” this week on the topic of “computer security”.

Back when I got started with my first laptop in 1992, computer security meant not leaving your computer on the front seat of your car where somebody could steal it!

Fast forward to today and computer security is a HUGE issue… because thieves can not only steal your computer physically, they can steal your identity, finances, money, credit cards… basically your LIFE!

I’ve had some scares in the last couple years that have made me MUCH more aware of threats to my business and personal finances… and I’ve learned (the hard way) that consciously thinking about computer security needs to be second nature for all of us operating online.

Since I need to go take a nap and get over this cold, I’m going to turn things over to our guest for this week.

His name is Doug Partidge and he’s the co-author of “How to Secure Your Computer Using Free Tools and Smart Strategies”

You can get more information about Doug and his ebook here
=> http://www.SecureYourComputerTips.com

Take it away Doug…

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Hi Jim,

Thank you for the opportunity to share some information with your valued subscribers.

The current state of security for Windows users is at an all time low… even the mainstream media have caught on.

Just about every single day there is another news story about Internet security woes.

The good news is that no one needs to be a victim.

My goal is to share three points from my ebook, “How to Secure Your Computer Using Free Tools and Smart Strategies” that your subscribers can use right now to increase their online security.

Tip #1 – Adware & Spyware Removal

One threat that’s quickly becoming the #1 menace on the Internet is “Spyware”.

In case you’re unfamiliar with Spyware – it’s monitoring software that’s secretly copied on to your PC.

Spyware has one purpose in mind: to sit quietly in the background and record as much information about you as possible.

This is extremely frightening for those of us who love to shop and bank online.

The good news is that there are free ways to deal with this menace.

I’m going to assume that everyone already has an anti-virus program (you do, right?).

In addition to this, you need a dedicated Adware/Spyware removal program – you can’t rely on your Anti-Virus program to find and remove all instances of Spyware.

Ad-Aware Personal from Lavasoft is an excellent free program.

=> http://www.lavasoft.de/

Recommendation: run a full system scan at least once a week.

#2 – Email Security Tip: Send Encrypted Attachments

Email is fast, easy and convenient – what it is not is secure.

The reason email is not secure is because it is sent in what’s known as “clear text” – which makes it susceptible to electronic eavesdropping.

This is an unacceptable risk when you’re sending confidential or financial information.

Help is here:

=> http://www.iopus.com/freeware/secure-email/index.htm

Secure Email Attachment (“SEA”) from iOpus is free tool for creating password-protected and encrypted attachments.

The other benefit is that your recipient requires no special software on their end to decrypt your attachment – they only need the password used when creating the attachment.

Note: SEA only works on Windows computers.

#3 – Fight Spam With Temporary Disposable Email Accounts

=> http://www.mytrashmail.com/ — OK, this is one of my
favorite free resources around!

In brief, here’s how it works (and how it fights Spam).

Anytime you need to provide a valid email account to get a password or download link, instead of using your real email account (for fear of Spam) you can use an account @mytrashmail.com.

It could be anything – e.g. “doug1979@mytrashmail.com” – just like that – i.e. on-the-fly, the mailbox will be created for you. There is no need to pre-create your account.

Please visit their website to get a detailed explanation of the service.

One important caveat: since a password is not required to access these mailboxes – this is definitely not the place to send any confidential or financial information.

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…. thanks for the great tips Doug!

For more information on how you can use free tools and smart strategies to secure your computer, check out Doug’s ebook right now by clicking here => http://www.SecureYourComputerTips.com

Thanks

Jim

PS – What do you think of this “Tips” format?

Did you like it? Would you like to see more?
Let me know in the comments below and we’ll see if this is a trend that we should continue

Have a great weekend!