Hide the email addresses of your recipients!

This is how alot of email addresses end up on SPAMMERS (senders of unsolicited emails, like the Viagra ones) hit-lists. There’s also the possibility that if even just one person of those you e-mailed gets an e-mail virus, every person on that list is at risk of getting it. E-mail viruses check for ALL addresses that person has in his/her e-mail.

So the best way to send an email to many recipients is to send it using the BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) option. It is available in 99.9% of email programs/clients and website-based email.

The example below of how to BCC shows one method using Microsoft Outlook 2007 but to find out how to do it using your email program or website simply use Google to search for “How to BCC in (your email program/website)“.

How to Send an Email Using BCC in Outlook 2007

Open a new email message.

Select “Options -> Show BCC”

Select "Options -> Show BCC"

The BCC field then shows under the CC and you can put all of the email addrersses in.

Enter the email addresses in the BCC field

For more help or information on how to effectively use emails for your business contact us today.

For more information on how Web One Design Studio can develop a security policy for your business or workplace contact us today.

In Australia domain names are administered by AUDA (Australian Domain Names Administrator) whose main role is to mange the use of .com.au domains for “fair and legitimate use”.

When you register a domain name you only have the right to use it, you don’t own it. This means AUDA has the right to revoke your registration if you haven’t complied with the rules of Australian Domain Registrations.

And this is a good thing. Imagine you have a business name and want the matching domain name but someone has already registered it before you. And the registrant doesn’t have a business that suits the domain name but rather is “Cyber Squatting” it in hope that he or she will be able to sell it at a high price to someone who wants it for legitimate use.

You have the ability to appeal the current registrants rights to the domain and AUDA can revoke the registration, meaning you still possibly can register it.

To find out more about AUDA and domain registrations in Australia go to www.auda.org.au

Green Web Hosting

Web One Design Studio is conscious of the fact that all of the Computer/IT equipment used to make and host websites requires a lot of energy to run.

It is estimated that at present, between 3 and 4 percent of all electricity (and the associated carbon emissions) used in the world goes to running data centres.

That is why we are committed to using green alternatives where we can in an effort to reduce our carbon-footprint.

At Web One Design Studio we offer a truly “green” web hosting service for all of the websites we host.

Web One Design Studio is using renewable energy to both power and cool our web servers, whereas a number of green hosts only offset the electricity used to power their servers. That represents a big difference, because servers generate a lot of heat.

For every watt of electricity that a server uses, 1-2 watts of electricity are typically required to cool it. What that means is that Web One Design Studio is investing in about twice as much renewable energy, on a per server basis, as those green hosts only using renewable energy to power their servers.

So, if you’re wondering what else you can do to help reduce carbon emissions, make sure your website is hosted with a truly Green provider, Web One Design Studio.

Season's Greetings from Web One Design Studio

Web One Design Studio would like to take the opportunity to wish you all the best for the Festive Season and a safe and prosperous New Year.

We immediately began to reminisce about the United Airlines saga and how the viral hit on YouTube, “United Breaks Guitars” became an instant hit and did damage to both the airline’s image and their bottom-line (it has been estimated to have cost United $180 million with the stock price plunging 10%).

For those who don’t know the story goes; “Dave Carrol (an aspiring US singer/song-writer) flew United Airlines in the Spring of 2008 with his band. His guitar ended up broken at the hand of employees, and the airline offered no compensation. After almost 12 months of trying to resolve the issue with United and getting no-where, he responded by creating a music video about the experience. Now, United Airlines is feeling the back-lash of public journalism, the social web network, and the millions of airline travellers who can identify with his experience.”

You can read the full story on Dave Carroll’s blog, but this excerpt captures the story behind the video:

“In the spring of 2008, Sons of Maxwell were traveling to Nebraska for a one-week tour and my Taylor guitar was witnessed being thrown by United Airlines baggage handlers in Chicago. I discovered later that the $3500 guitar was severely damaged. They didn’t deny the experience occurred but for nine months the various people I communicated with put the responsibility for dealing with the damage on everyone other than themselves and finally said they would do nothing to compensate me for my loss. So I promised the last person to finally say “no” to compensation (Ms. Irlweg) that I would write and produce three songs about my experience with United Airlines and make videos for each to be viewed online by anyone in the world. United: Song 1 is the first of those songs. United: Song 2 has been written and video production is underway. United: Song 3 is coming. I promise.”

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Since the release of the video on YouTube in July 2009 there has been more than 6.4 million views and over 23,000 comments.

United is obviously aware of the video, and reportedly called Carroll to apologise, but the bigger story is the video itself and how likely United is to continue to suffer from the social media backlash.

The power of social media means the rules of accountability for businesses now takes on a whole new aspect of moral responsibility.

Just imagine you’ve had your laptop for 2 years. You’ve done all of your accounts, proposals, research documents and alot of other valuable work on it, and have saved it all on the hard drive. Now, just imagine your despair when the hard drive fails, or worse, the laptop is stolen and you’ve never done a backup.

It would almost be the end of the world. So as we say at Web One Design Studio; Backup, Backup, Backup!!

So we thought we’d give you some valuable tips for doing simple backups of your PC or Laptop/Notebook.

1. It is a good idea to plan a backup regime so you know when, where and how your backups should be done. We recommend backups to be done at least monthly.
2. Create a folder inside the main document folder (i.e. “My Business”) and store all of your work in there. You can create folders in folders so there’s no limit to the structure but it means you know where everything is when it comes time to back up, and you can simply copy the folder with everything in it.
3. Our preferred method of simple backup is to burn to DVD. The reason we don’t recommend an External Hard Drive or Flash Drive is simply that if they fail or become corrupted you have lost your backup. At least if you have multiple backups on DVD over time, you have not only incremental backups but multiple in the extreme case that a copy hasn’t worked or the DVD is damaged/scratched.
4. Create two (2) copies of each backup and store one  off-site. This means if the worst should happen, such as the office burns down or someone steals the computer and all of your discs (we hope this never happens to you), you have another backup source and can be back up and running relatively quickly.

If you or your business does not currently have a backup regime and you need help in establishing one phone us at Web One Design Studio on 0433 209 315 and one of our trained consultants will help you determine the right procedures for you.

Free Sony Ericsson Laptop Hoax

You may have already received a copy of the email hoax that promises a FREE Ericsson Laptop for simply forwarding the email to your friends.

This is a hoax that has been circulated over the Internet for many years. Sony Ericsson don’t give away laptops (it’s not how they make their money). And the model numbers mentioned in the email are actually that of discontinued mobile phones (as this hoax originated as a FREE mobile phone giveaway).

And to top it off there is a new version of this hoax email that now claims you can get a free Sony Vaio laptop by forwarding the email to 20 people.

The idea is to cause congestion to mail servers with all of the extra emails flying around and to waste people’s time in sending it.

Small things amuse small minds!

In response to the hoax, Sony Erricsson published the following statement on its website:

Hoax Competition Email

12 May 2009

Sony Ericsson has been made aware of an online email campaign claiming that Ericsson will give away a free laptop computer to users who forward the promotional information. The same campaign includes a photograph of the Sony Ericsson logo and mentions an Ericsson contact name and email number.

Sony Ericsson confirms that this email campaign is a hoax. In addition, Sony Ericsson confirms that the Ericsson contact name does not exist.

All competitions and promotions involving Sony Ericsson are run through official channels such as Sony Ericsson’s website or Sony Ericsson’s partners’ websites. Please be wary of any competition or promotion that appears to come from outside of Sony Ericsson or Sony Ericsson’s partners official channels. Examples of these include via spam emails or SMS.

Please do not reply to or forward the email if you receive it.

It is simply a case of “if it seems too good to be true then it probably is!”

For further information about email hoaxes and scams visit - www.hoax-slayer.com

And one the most common and problematic issues that comes with email addresses for business is using the “free” email accounts provided by your Internet Service Provider (ISP).

For example: ISP1 include 5 email accounts with the provision of Internet services such as an ADSL (or broadband) account. Business A subscribes to the ISP1 service and sets up the 5 accounts for staff members to use and the main email contact address for the business.

The first point to be aware of is that this does not send a professional message (or image) about the online business to Business A’s customers but what happens if Business A, who has been using and promoting these email addresses for years, decides to change ISP (for whatever reason)?

The answer is obvious. The ISP email accounts only exist while the account is being paid for.

That means Business A gets the choice of being chained to the ISP or take the risk that when they swap to another ISP they will be able to contact every single customer and person that they have ever given their contact email addresses to and let them know about the new email addresses.

And it’s highly probable that they won’t be able to meaning they are almost certainly saying goodbye to customers and potential income.

And all too often businesses that have a website with their own domain name simply aren’t aware that they have the ability to use tailor-made email addresses within that domain.

So what’s the solution?

Business A needs to register their own Domain Name and have it hosted by a hosting company to receive emails to the accounts they specify within their domain, but ultimately they should also have a website to promote their business.

It is more likely they will keep the Domain Name as long as the business is operating than stay with the same ISP .