So one of the challenges of walking outdoors is determining the distance on a map, like maps.google.com. You can kind of estimate the distance but you do not know for sure. Well the solution I found is awesome. Head on over to Daft Logic which has a Google Maps Distance Calculator.

While I am able to measure any custom path I wish to make, (not just on roads, any where) in miles, you also have the option to measure in Kilometers (KM), Nautical Miles (for you pilots), Metres and plain old american feet.

It is a easy way to get most any measurement you will need. Give it a try, I think you will really come to like it like I have.  The below screen shot is just one example of the special route I was creating for a recent walk.

KARTHOST at one time sold COMODO SSL CERTIFICATES we discontinued selling them last year. We now only sell GlobalSign.

This is the Email We received from GlobalSign this afternoon. I would HIGHLY recommend you UPGRADE YOUR WEB BROWSER IMMEDIATELY

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

On March 23 2011, the Certification Authority Comodo announced it had mis-issued 9 SSL Certificates to high profile websites including:

* login.live.com
* mail.google.com
* www.google.com
* login.yahoo.com (3 certificates)
* login.skype.com
* addons.mozilla.org

The Certificates were issued through one of its unnamed Registration Authority (RA) Partners who had been given transferrable trust rights to issue publicly trusted SSL Certificates.

The fraudulent Certificates have since been revoked, however due to the high profile nature of the mis-issued Certificates, Microsoft, Google and Mozilla have issued browser updates to hardcode the revocation status of the Certificates into the browsers.  We advise all GlobalSign customers to update their browsers immediately.

This is a very serious compromise of unprecedented scale.  As further details unfold, our security group will publish a full statement.  However we wish to strongly iterate that this is a completely standalone attack on the Comodo systems.  GlobalSign wishes to confirm to all customers, partners and the industry as a whole that GlobalSign is not affected by the Comodo compromise.

##########

If you would like to discuss this matter further, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Kind regards,

GlobalSign Channel Team

www.globalsign.com
Tel:  1-603-570-7060
1-877-775-4562

If your an owner of an web site (or have any kind of log in on the internet) it’s all our responsibilities to make sure our sites are secure, if you are using some script (web based software like WordPress, Joomla!, forum software etc) always keep your software updated to the latest version or your opening the door to vulnerability to a hack or worse that will not only effect your web site and the data in it, but it could possibly effect your neighbors that share the same web server as you. And that is just not neighborly.

Besides an outdated piece of web based software, one of the easiest ways to hack your web site and the server your web site resides on is for you to use a simple word or set of words as your password and these are easy to guess. And if you want to make a hackers day just use these common passwords:

• Swear words
• Your spouse’s name, or names of friends or your pet’s name (sometimes followed by a single digit like 1 or 2 or 0)
• License plate numbers
• 12345678 (or any string of numbers like this)
• Date of birth – like yours, your spouses, kids or parents
• Favorite sports team, or school you went too or the city you live in
• or the worst, using the word “password” as your password.

Keep in mind that hackers use hacker programs that attack most of the above passwords as well as many other simple variations. They also use what is called a dictionary attack and sometimes combined with a brute force attack. And if you are using any of the previous ways to generate your passwords you are on borrowed time (and you will not like the results).

I fully understand that you want to use a password that is easy to use, and so does that hacker waiting to hack your site. So what do you do? Simple, make sure to use at least 10 characters (least a minimum of 8 characters but more the better). On the majority of web sites passwords are case sensitive meaning upper case and lower case letters are consider different characters, use special characters on your key board like % & @ ~ ! > < )* ^ etc. and of course numbers. Mix it up and come up with a string that you can remember but tough for the hacker. Here would be a random example of a secure password using 10 characters: ^g76E~(ix#
(now DON’T use that password for real)

The easiest way to remember your password is to practice typing it in when you login instead of using your web browsers ability to remember it. Also make sure you have good anti-virus software on your computer to prevent any sniffing of your keyboard. Never click on any emails asking you to login to a site that looks legitimate, if you know the site, type in the web address into the web browsers address address window.

As you see the word “password” is really misleading in today’s internet world. We need to rename password to something more appropriate, like passphrase or passcode. If everyone does their part it will make the internet a more secure place, and especially if you own an ecommerce site, you need to have a plan in place to not only have secure passwords but changing your passwords on a frequent basis, well that would be good advice for all of us.

How do you know the site you are about to land on by clicking that search results page (or any link on the internet) is a safe site? The site you are about to land on could be loaded with spyware, adware, malware and or viruses. Sure you have the latest anti-virus, anti-malware, anti-spyware software on your PC (use the Mac is still a PC – personal computer) but why put a stress test on it, first line of defense would be to just remain clear of these types of sites.

Well there is good news for the Firefox web browser users (Don’t have Firefox? Well get it here at www.GetFirefox.com). One of the neat things about Firefox is you can add-on’s for Firefox (you can do the same with the Google Chrome web browser), at last count there are over 13,000, (13,238 to be exact and growing)  add-on’s for the Firefox browser.

There are two add-on’s for the Firefox web browser that will help to make you site surfing a little safer.

1) WOT – Safe Browsing Tool -This is a excellent tool to get a idea of what kind of site your will be landing on, you will get a warning  if a site has been reported unsafe, as shown in the screen shot below (The WOT icons are shown as circles of Green, Yellow or Red). However the draw back to using WOT is its an opinion of the WOT community, could not be truly factual based, if enough users report your site as having a problem and it really does not have any issues, your site could be unjustly listed as a bad site. WOT add-on for Firefox has been downloaded almost 12,000,000 times (that’s 12 Million) I would recommend any web site owner (especially if your site is a business site) check their status of their site with WOT, if you wish to make a quick check of your web site you can go to www.mywot.com and they have a reputation check tool to check your web sites reputation.

2) To counter some of the drawbacks to WOT, I personally use the McAfee SiteAdvisor in conjunction with WOT. This way I get a true indication if a site has issues, or is just being targeted because others don’t like it. The rating icons are similar to WOT giving you a Green Icon for Safe, a Yellow Icon for Caution and a Red icon for Warning Serious Risks. There is also a Gray icon that lets you know that lets you know the site is Unknown and hasn’t been rated yet.

Below is how the rating systems will show up in Firefox when BOTH WOT and McAfee SiteAdvisor is being used.

If you are a site owner, it would be to your advantage to make sure your reputation on the internet is keep clean and start with downloading the Firefox web browser, if you haven’t done so already. And then adding the above two add-ons to keep ahead of the ongoing status of your own web site reputation. If you own an ecommerce store you need to do this “yesterday” the last thing the owner of an ecommerce store needs when he or she is trying to establish a trust with their potential customers is to have a reputation show up for their web site. And worse yet not even know it.

Remember as a site owner to stay proactive, work hard to develop to trust with the visitors to your site.

Once the favicon.ico file is created it must be placed in your web sites web root directory. Basically the page that your
home page file is located. This can be done easily enough with your web hosting Control Panel file manager, or very
easily uploaded to your web site using your favorite FTP program. To verify that the file has been uploaded correctly
just point your browser to your domain name and then use /favicon.ico after the domain. So for an example we will use www.karthost.com and make sure the favicon.ico file is where we think we put it, we type www.karthost.com/favicon.ico
into our browser and you should see your little favicon image in your browsers window.

But where can you get one of these FAVICON’s made? There is a wonder favicon generator site I personally like to use.

www.Favicon.cc.

Once your on the page to create a quick favicon.ico click on Import Image off your PC:

Creating a Favicon on favicon.cc

Then Click on “Choose File”

Click on Choose File

Then Click Upload Button:

Once you upload and you like the way it looks just click on the “Download Favicon” link under the Preview > Favicon in original size:

Remember your Favicon now needs to be loaded up to your web server. If you are not sure how to do that, then contact
your Technical Support group at your web host. Regardless of of the type hosting you have you can have a Favicon
that you can call ALL YOURS.

Now get out there and make you a favicon!

Hope you found this Blog Post useful, make sure to share the knowledge with your Friends!

Roy Randolph
Head Hostmaster
KARTHOST Web Hosting

The site’s premise is any freelancer can post any service, as long as they charge just $5.00 for the service.

Basically the things you would expect freelancers to offer.

Once the service is posted on the site, any visitor can order the service for $5.00, and the the freelancer has 48 hours to complete the job.

If the job is completed on time, the freelancer is paid $5.00 by the customer.

Some of the services currently offered by freelancers include:

* I will edit your 5 minute or less video on iMovie for $5.00

* I will help you with your resume for $5.00

* Write a 500 word article on any subject for $5.00

* I will design covers for cd/dvd/books for $5.00

* I will send your son or daughter a personalized letter from Santa Claus for $5

These are just of the few of the thousands of jobs freelancers are offering to do for just $5.00.

The categorys are Gift Ideas, Fun & Bizarre, Graphics, Social Marketing, Travel, Writing, Postcards, Advertising, Music & Audio, Tips & Advice, Business, Technology, Programming, Other and Silly Stuff.   Definitely worth visiting and bookmarking.

To find the ‘what would you do for $5.00′ site, visit www.fiverr.com

Well don’t feel alone. What you want to use is the Print Screen capability on your Windows PC or Mac PC, (yes a MAC is a PC “Personal Computer”).  providing screen shots of whats on your monitor to those that are trying to help you can do wonders in getting a problem resolved or just sharing cool stuff with others.

If using a Windows PC you could use the “Prt Scr” button (some key boards the print screen button will show as “PrtSc” or actually it might be spelled out as “Print Screen” in this article we will use “Prt Scr” because that is what it is on my PC) and capture your entire monitor, or use “alt” + “Prt Scr” and only capture the item you have high lighted like a web browser for instance.

To capture the entire monitor……

• Press your Prt Scr button and your image is stored on the Windows Clip board and then simply paste into a word document program, a image editor of choice.

To capture a portion of a screen……

• Make the web browser, or or item on your screen active (just by selecting it) click on the “alt” + “Prt Scr” at the same time and presto, its done. Now just paste the image off the clip board into a word document or image editor of choice.

To Capture a screen with the Mac using Mac OS X  system here is what you will need to do:

• Switch to the screen you wish to do a screen capture of
• Now, hold down Apple key ⌘ + Shift + 3 and release all (Why did they make it harder on a MAC?)
• Using your mouse, click on the screen
• Now you are done. (Yeah!!) You will see a graphical picture file in your desktop. Which is the screen capture picture!

Now to capture only a portion of your screen…..do this…….

• Switch to the screen you wish to do a screen capture of
• Hold down Apple key ⌘ + Shift + 4 and release all key (feel like your playing “Twister”with your fingers?)
• Your mouse cursor will change to “+“
• Now just drag your mouse to select the portion of your screen you wish to capture.
• Now you are done. (Wahoo!!) you will see a picture file in your desktop. That’s the screen capture picture!

BUT WAIT!………………

There really has to be a better way of doing this that is more user friendly and provides you more options, and the good news, there is!

I use a Screen Capture Tool Called “Snagit!” Its a wonderful tool to capture images on your monitor and use to share in email, in Support Tickets, on your web site. In a matter of less than 30 seconds I captured the www.Snagit.com home page and shrunk it down and pasted it in this blog.

Screen Shot Captured using Snagit 10

Snagit is a pretty cool tool and will really make your life easier sharing with others. The price of this FANTASTIC software is $49.95 as of the day of the posting of this article. Its a great price compared to other over priced progams. There is also a Free 30 day Trail of Snagit to allow you time to give it a wirl if you like.

But if you do not have the funds to spare and would like to have the software working longer than a 30 day trail, the good people over at TechSmith, the creators of Snagit, have a similar FREE version both for you Mac enthusiasts and Windows users called Jing.  While not as robust as Snagit, you can’t beat the price! FREE! Head right over to Download Jing to pick up your MAC or Windows version. And it will open up a whole new world of being to be able to share graphics.

For those of you that have made the decision to webmaster your web site, if you have been your own webmaster for any length of time can fully understand how much time it takes to keep a web site up and making it productive.

So finding tools to help make your site attractive more traffic, convert the traffic you have now into sells is important in making your job as a webmaster a little bit easier.

Of course anything we can do to help convert more traffic on our sites is important. One of those things you can do is make sure your site is running as fast as it can to make your load times as short as possible. Load times matter to Google and Yahoo and the other search engines and it should matter greatly to you. And to the search engines load times means a better experience for your site visitor and that helps in making your site pages (remember web sites do not rank, web pages rank) rank higher and in turn more traffic.

Here is a few web pages I would like to point out to you that will help with making your pages faster loading

1) The Yahoo “Best Practices for Speeding Up Your Web Site article is a very good starting point you can view the article here: http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html

2) All webmasters need a Google Webmasters Tool account sign up today for one at Google if you do not have one. Until then make sure you watch this Video by Malie Ohye at Webmaster Central Blog entitled Site Performance for Webmasters.

The tools and items you learn from Malie Ohye in that video will help you with speeding up your web site and in turn making your site visitors experience even better resulting in better Google Search Results for your web pages that make up your web site.

Remember at KARTHOST we are working to help make you Successful!

Roy Randolph
Head Host Master

Is social media a fad?  Not for all and not forever, but for many right here and right now, it is in fact a fad.

There really are no rules for social media, and yet somehow businesses are breaking them.  Social media will not make you money.  Social media is not an advertising tool.  Social media is not a different or more simple version of your website.  Social media is a private residence, and if you are using it to sell, you’re nothing more than a door to door salesman who has just abused the privilege of being invited in.

Most of us dislike direct mail (remember when junk mail was in its prime?).  Businesses didn’t even have to know our name; it just read “Dear Resident of…”.  If you had an address, you got junk mail.  Now consider social media – you have to be given permission to talk to these people.  Once they give you permission do you really think people want to be sold to?  Here is a message for the galactically stupid… stop!  You don’t make friends with someone and then invite them to an “Amway Ambush” do you?  Of course not.  So why would you abuse the privilege to talk to your fans by trying to up-sell, when the medium is clearly not for this purpose?  (The answer: because you’re doing what your boss wants you to do.)

Don’t worry though, social media won’t be a fad forever.  DotComs were a fad, but we still have DotCom companies.  Those that couldn’t generate any real revenue and wanted to pay you in stock, are gone.  Microbreweries were a fad, but we still have micro-brewed beer.  Those that thought venture capital and a creative label would overcompensate for swill I wouldn’t give a hobo, are gone.  And soon enough, businesses that use social media inappropriately, will lose their fans, and they too will be gone.

If you want me to “follow you on Facebook” or “Twitter”, stop stalking me!  The hovering salesman is creepy, and my social media is a private residence.

Chad Pilbeam - Demotivational Speaker

Chad Pilbeam of KickedInTheNoggin.com, is a demotivational speaker that is really a motivational speaker with a different twist, it causes you to think. You can visit Chads web site at www.KickedInTheNoggin.com