McStyles Software

We’ve been busy here, especially during the last several months. McStyles has created over 100 web sites, and is responsible for maintenance for over 100 web sites. Most of the sites we have produced are content sites supported by advertising. Others are business storefront sites.

The work we’ve done recently is a big change from doing primary contracted software development. As it became apparent that Kristyne McDaniel, our primary consultant, was going to need to work entirely from her home office, it was also apparent that it was not possible without a paradigm shift in our business model. We had three contracts last year for contracted software development that was to be done in our own home office, but the clients were not happy with the reduced level of personal contact with Kristyne. After several failed attempts, we decided that our current clients would not be able to make the transition effectively, so we had no choice but to allow those contracts to expire.

Meanwhile, our foray into internet marketing has been slowly gaining ground. While we are not yet fully up to the revenue levels we previously experienced, we believe the climb in revenues will continue and will completely replace our lost contractor programming revenue. This is great news for Kristyne, who has opted to stay near her disabled spouse to the maximum extent possible.

More news to follow soon!

Site design and structure is a lot of work. One of the most important considerations is often overlooked by first-time site owners is content management and structure. Where to put it and how to display it? What is the message that you are trying to get across?

If you don’t consider content management and structure in the design of your site, your site won’t perform at optimized levels. It’s as simple as that.
You won’t be getting good results as far as site visitation.

Does your site have all of these qualities?

• Attention grabbing headlines that make a person look and investigate.
• Compact statements
• Meaningful words: Discover, Learn, Investigate, Make Money, etc.
• Sub-headings that lead the eye from top-to-bottom, left-to-right on each page.
• Graphics that support the brand or products (not stale, seen-it-before clip art).
• Professional sales copy to explain your product.
• Do you have a host that is good and guarantees you plenty of uptime?

If you are debuting your site without all these key factors, you may be in trouble before you even start out.

If you are struggling, you should get a good web consultant or web marketing team to assist you with site development. If your business depends on your web sales, don’t be cheap! Put in the time, effort and money to get a professional to develop your site for you.

When people come to your site, they want to see professionalism and organization. If there want to buy a coat then you need to show them the picture of the coat. People don’t like reading long statements on web sites. They just want brevity and clarity and then want to check out what you’ve got to sell or what type of service you provide.

If your web site is out of whack, get professional help. That even addresses branding because in a lot of businesses, your URL is your brand name. Get help if your business is web dependant!

I am still doing new development work in Visual FoxPro, although at this point all new development has an eye toward changes on the UI side of the equation. While the data files will remain accessible for many years to come, it is likely that the actual application development tool will not stay usable a long time past the planned obsolescence announced by Microsoft.

All but the oldest and most stubborn programmers of VFP applications know other languages as well and keep themselves ready for work in multiple areas. It is only wise to keep options open, whether you are writing in VFP or VB or C# or whatever. At present, a lot of my work is now written in PHP and MySQL. These tools are generally supported on all web hosts. It only makes sense to use the most widely available, reasonably priced, and portable tools.

With every invention known to benefit man, there is always a counterforce trying to destroy or take advantage of its benefits to the user. By now, if you’ve ever used or owned a computer, you’re aware that you have to constantly protect yourself from viruses.

Many viruses are written by computer hacks just to see if they can break or mess up a system. Other viruses are mistakes written by programmers when they are trying to update certain internal programs on your system. The Windows operating system has developed this problem with its newer software but usually, they send you a notice or a software patch to correct the problem.

Every system should have some type of anti-virus software that’s on it and it should start-up with your system so that it can detect any problems right away. If you are using the Internet, virus protection is a must.

Viruses are broken down into different categories but the most damaging virus is the ones that have the .EXE extension. These viruses are deadly because they get inside the internal code of your computer system, known as registers. Once they infiltrate the registers, then your system is history.

There are other viruses called worms, which is just as obnoxious as .EXE viruses. There are other viruses that create folders that hold spy ware programs which can take control over your keyboard strokes. Regardless of the type of virus program, they all can be a headache to deal with and if you don’t catch them in time, they can be a headache to get rid of.

You have to keep up with the viruses as they are developed by intruders so your software packages should have the latest virus definitions to fight these malicious creatures. I have tried several programs, and like ZoneAlarm the best. Get Comprehensive Antivirus Protection with ZoneAlarm Antivirus

Most viruses come through attachments and downloads from the Internet. Many people don’t use the common standard of file recognition. The file recognition rule states that if you are not aware of what the extension or document is; do not download it at all.

An attachment can be a document, .EXE file, JPEG file or even a music file. These files can be small in nature but also very powerful because once you open these files, they can have an adverse impact on your system that you may never recover from.

A great example is the “Typhoid Mary” virus which was an email attachment that attached itself to address books of users in Microsoft Outlook, Eudora or any other email client. The purpose of the virus was to infect these address books and attach itself to emails that were sent out from the system. That means that if you sent an email to a person in the address book and they received it then their address book became infected also. The rule is to never trust a suspicious email which in the subject line looks odd. You should delete that email immediately. You should have a virus scanner to run through all emails as they go out and come into your system.

Downloads are another issue that can give a system problems. If a site is telling you to download software to view a web page, don’t do it at all. The file may contain a certain virus that can embed itself into the applications part of your system and make applications real hard to open and use. Some of these viruses ca record your computer IP or keystrokes and steal personal information that you don’t want to be known to hackers.

Unless you really know the company that the software is coming from, do not download software from the web. The best bet is to leave it alone and go with a reputable company that you know have safeguards and security certificates regarding the download of software.

When dealing with attachments and downloads, take extreme care so that you don’t damage your system.

There’s nothing worse than getting on the internet and using your browser only to get 10 pop up windows in a row. It seems like someone on the other end is controlling your windows and what you see. If you do have that problem, then somewhere along the way, a spyware program that throws pop-up ads on your screen was downloaded or your system was infiltrated by a hacker.

These spyware programs install themselves into your system when you download file-swapping programs. These programs can also track and record keyboard strokes that you use and depending on where you go on the internet, it throws pop up ads into your browser. Spyware can find holes in your browser and will not let you see the site that you want to view until you answer their pop up ad. How annoying and time consuming!

Some spyware programs will develop a folder in your Windows Program Folder called “Common Files”. Even if you go to delete these files from the folder, they seem to multiply or stay there. That’s because they have embedded themselves in the Windows System registry and in other unknown places through your directory. To get these files out, you have the clean the registry, reload it and get rid of the spyware programs all at once!

ZoneAlarm has a spyware protection program that is very efficient. If you don’t have this or another Anti-spyware program (and you should), Ad-aware is a good program that scans your files to find spyware. Now there are two versions, the one that is free that provides limited protection and the program that you pay for that gives you full protection. Stopzilla is another good program that sweeps the folders and the registry of where these programs hide themselves at.

The average user doesn’t have time to clear out 15 pop up windows. Go and check your internet suite package to see if you have the spyware protection on and if not, make sure that you initialize it to stop those annoying pop-ups!

Most of us have been in relationships that haven’t been too good. Somewhere, something got in the way (sometimes it’s another person) which caused everything to go haywire, If you’ve ever had the feeling of things in your life not being in sync, losing sleep and wondering about what got in the way, you try to find out what it is and patch it up before it’s too late and everything is lost.

I won’t break out into a love song but the same goes for your computer system.

Operating software has come a long way in the last twenty years. It has allowed the average computer user to do dynamic things that were unthinkable 15 years ago. Any software can be penetrated and there are holes within the software, especially in Windows and Microsoft programs. Microsoft has online updates and has a routine that can scan your system and automatically update your computer.

You should not ignore these critical updates. Microsoft has a set of engineers that purposely try to hack their own software to see where security holes are so that they can recommend security updates. I know that most people ignore their update flash because they don’t have the time to download the updates, they are in a hurry or it might interfere with the game of Solitaire that they are playing on the computer.

You should run the Windows update program once every week and if Microsoft provides you guidance to run a special program you should run it.
After you run the programs, you should make a backup or rescue disk. This is a lost art because people have become so comfortable with their systems and they don’t think their data can be destroyed. You must have a backup disk available if you want to put your data back on the system after a crash.

Windows XP has a great restore program and I recommend that you study it. If you have a crash that isn’t too drastic, the restore program will actually ask you questions, provide you a restore point (which is primarily a past date) and the system is automatically restored to that point. Keep in mind that it’s good after a restore to run virus protection routines manually.

Your virus protection software also has the option of creating restore disks too.

Patch up your system so that nothing comes in and tears it apart!

Many computer users don’t understand the categorization of computer viruses. They are many different viruses and these viruses are generally found in three categories. Some people say that their computer got hit with a Trojan Horse, b32 Worm, Phyllis, or Bomb virus but these operate differently and aren’t the same as many users think that they are. In any event, you want to try to protect yourself as much as possible against any type of program that can do harm to your computer.

The most common and basic categorization for viruses is pretty simple. The computer virus has been around for years, even in the old ARAPNET programs that the government would use before the internet became part of the public sector for all to use. A computer virus, attaches itself to a program or file, much like we carry germs from a cold or flu, and spreads that virus from one computer to another. I’m starting to think that we as humans have many similarities to a computer!

Well, if you’ve ever had someone spread a cold in your office or home, you know that it can leave an infection. If you have children, then you know if one child gets it, the other child, depending on how strong their immune system is, may not be far behind in catching the same virus, be it cold, strep throat or sore throat.

Computer viruses have a range of effects. Some are not so bad while others can be damaging. It’s like the difference between a cough and rheumatic fever. That’s the range of computer virus classifications.

You have to watch out when you get an executable file (a file with an extension of EXE). This means that the culprit or virus is lurking somewhere in the jungle of programs that you have on your precious system but the virus cannot effect your system unless you open it. If you open it, then chances are if you do not have virus protection software, the virus will spread to other programs, including your emails and email attachments.

Anti-Virus software is the remedy for computer viruses and usually wipes them out with ease. I think I will go run my anti-virus program so that I can be a good example of keeping the germs out of my computer. Hope that you will do the same!

Back in 1974, the funk group, the Ohio Players made a song called “Funky Worm”. What inspired the group to write this song may have been prophetic vision or just plain luck. The “Funky Worm” was similar to what a worm virus does to a computer system

The Funky Worm was a bad concept. The “worm” had the ability to render destruction while being cool and hidden at the same time. Whoever at the internet association must have been a band member of the Ohio Players or a big fan of the group.  Anyway, a computer worm is one bad thing to have on your system.

A worm is a sub-class of a computer virus and they usually spread from system to system. This is the difference. A computer virus usually needs the help of a person (many times through ignorance) to spread amongst computers. A worm does not need that assistance; therefore, that’s why it has its name.

A worm actually has more knowledge of public transportation than the average American citizen. You see, your computer has ports that send data and transmissions out to other computers. Worms hang out at the port like bums trying to get a ride from New York to Florida via these “roads” or “lines of transportation”. It doesn’t even have to pay a fare. Why drive (like a computer virus) when all you have to do is stand at the port and get on the next thing smoking to South Beach?

A worm can duplicate itself on your system so that means that it has the capability to send out children that look just like it! Once again, it seems like these viruses and worms go straight for the email address book. Worms can use emails to send a copy of itself (uninvited of course) to every person that you have in your virtual phone book. Therefore, they have a guest that they don’t want either!

Worms can also crash web servers by duplicating themselves. It can stop geographical systems to stop working. They wreak havoc on system memory and if you are on the internet, take up bandwidth. Worms are definitely BAD!

Again, good virus protection software can catch a funky worm any day of the week. The key is to keep your subscription updated.

Is it by chance that the Ohio Players had this in mind when they wrote that song?

The only thing good about SPAM is that you can have it with anything. It’s really good with potatoes, grits (if you’re Southern) rice or on a piece of bread cooked real good. SPAM has been around for years.

So it baffles me that the computer gods would define something good as SPAM as unwanted, unsolicited email that can include viruses and that is malicious. I’m stumped at that one.

Unsolicited email is also a problem and they can hide viruses too. All of a sudden, you are retrieving your email and you get a subject line called “Cup Cake Brown”. Now who in the world would address themselves as “Cup Cake Brown?” Then all of a sudden, you see these weird characters that look like this:

&866*)*-

Or you’ll see a statement in the subject line that looks like this:

You Need to Do This

Fear not computer user…you are being SPAMMED!

What happens in this case is that software programs are built to emulate and randomize email addresses. If the software is in the ball park of what your email address is, then you automatically get send email that you do not want. This is annoying because some e-mail clients don’t really focus on defeating the problem.

All e-mail clients are installing SPAM controls into their software. Some are weak and some are okay. Usually, web-based SPAM programs included with Yahoo and Hotmail will send your SPAMMED email to a Bulk Mail folder so that you can inspect it before deleting it. E-mail clients, such as, MS Outlook and MS Outlook Express have routines that you can customize to keep unwanted email out of your system.

Opening these emails will cause a boat load of problems and actually sink your system. There is a federal law against SPAMMING that if you get caught, you can be fined or face heavy jail time if you a ruining someone’s data. SPAMMING is a serious offense.

You also have to watch out what you subscribe to on the Internet. Again if the company is not reputable, don’t sign up for newsletters or emails unless you know the company has a reputation and is viable. Don’t let SPAM email turn your stomach!