Which, frankly, is bloody fantastic.

Now you might think that a technology professional such as myself might support the idea -  sorry, no dice. The technical implementation of the filter has more holes than a block of swiss cheese, here’s just a couple of the key points that have me wondering:

1. Trials of the filter were conducted by just 9 ISP’s, none of them majors, and no information as to the numbers of users each of those ISP’s had signed up to the trial. (Although it’s rumoured that one ISP had just 15 users!
2. If a site is added to the blacklist, who does the adding? And against what criteria? Is there a going to be an unfiltered internet to be monitored for potential inclusions? (Stories of MP’s caught “researching” pornographic websites are sure to abound!) And given that it’s supposed to be a secret list, how do you get your website off of it, if you don’t know you’re on it?

As said technology professional, I won’t be supporting the filter, regardless of its noble aims. The reasons for this are best explained in this excellent analogy left as a comment on a news article that appeared earlier today:

“Unbelievable. Imagine if this was happening in a different portfolio, say one to do with transport.

Say a new, but old fashion toll booth style system was being setup on the Sydney Harbour Bridge to check that children in cars were wearing seatbelts because parents weren’t trusted to buckle up their kids.

The new system can handle only 1,000 cars per hour. If any more cars try to use the bridge they cannot be processed fast enough and the traffic backs up and eventually grinds to a halt.

That’s ok at the moment because currently less than 1,000 cars will pass though the bridge per hour.

However, with the expected growth of the city it is forecast that many 1000′s more cars will be using the bridge every hour very soon after the system will be put in place.

The Government have decided to build and put in place the system anyway to protect the children because something must be done and will only undertake a review of the system should more than 1000 cars try to use the bridge per hour.

Would the people of Sydney allow the Government to spend millions of dollars setting this up knowing that it will fail once more than 1000 cars start using the bridge, which has been forecast and then allow the Government to spend even more money trying to fix it?

Of course not, in fact I doubt everyone else around Australia, not just those in Sydney (who would be affected by this hypothetical situation) would approve of this massive waste of money.

I find it very, very sad that just because the ISP Filtering and the NBN are in a communications portfolio the majority of Australia’s think they’ll not be able to understand the issue and just agree with or eat up what ever Conroy spoon feeds them.

As I was trying to say with the example above, implementing an Internet filter would never be accepted and there would be a huge backlash if the people actually understood what is going on because just as the seatbelt checking stations above would wreck the transportation system in Sydney, ISP Filtering will cause massive problems to the Australian Internet.”

Australia – 55th in the world

Now you can hardly say Australia has a stellar reputation for speedy internet links anyway (a measely 55th in the world, according to the latest Akamai State of the Internet report), and yet this filter could potentially slow them down even more? Madness!

Oh, and if the technical reasons weren’t enough, even the communications minister putting the proposal forward has indicated that the filter can be bypassed and those doing so wouldn’t be prosecuted. Eh?

So, quick recap then:

The Australian Government wants to spend $24million on an internet filter that secretly monitors a (relative) handful of sites, potentially slows down internet access and can be legally circumvented.

Yep, that sounds like a great plan to me… (forgive me for sounding jaded, I do have to disclose that I have little faith in politicians from the outset, but when one of them comes up with a plan like this, can you wonder at it?)

What do you think? Is the internet filter a good idea or a bad one? All comments are welcome.

photo credit: eleanor.black

Of course, as with everything new and shiny, there is always a level of uncertainty, distrust and maybe even fear. Even though the entry cost is low to none, this uncertainty can cause the biggest barrier to its widespread use: that of putting a dollar figure on its returns. Indeed, to some it is akin to finding ‘The Holy Grail’.

Last week, my good friend Rick posted up an interview with Scott Williams, one of Australia’s top personal trainers. In it, Scott talks about how he used Facebook to generate a $40,000+ boost to his bottom line, costing him little more than an hour of his time. You can read the interview here, and once you’re done, please feel free to let me know if you still think Facebook is “just a waste of time”!

Quick update: I caught up with Rick for a chat about this and other things last night; he told me that in the 10 days since he launched his own Facebook Fan Page, the increase in his site traffic has exceeded all his expectations and he now believes it will be a cornerstone strategy in the growth of his business.

Ouch.

Much like going to the dentist, backing up your data is something you know you should do regularly, yet regularly gets forgotten.

A wiser man than I once said:

“In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”

In today’s day and age, Ben Franklin’s statement could also include “…and losing your data”, because believe me, at some point in your computer life, be it through hardware failure, theft or “Oh shit, I hit the wrong key!” it will happen.

(I feel qualified to say this as I used to run a data backup service)

And to bring us back to the dentist analogy, when it does go wrong, you know it’s likely to cost you a small fortune (think circa $2K for a dead hard drive).

Why you shouldn’t be using a USB drive

You’ve probably discovered the idea of using a removable USB drive by now. I like them because they’re simple, and they do solve the immediate issue of duplicating your data. For my mind though, they offer a false sense of security.

Sure, you’ve got a copy of your data, but unless you are super vigilant and doing your backups every night, and then taking that USB drive somewhere away from your home or office, a fire or theft is still going to leave you back at square one.

Look Out, Here Comes A Time Saving Tip!

Here’s a much simpler idea: Online Backup. Download the client software, tell it what you want to backup and when, and you’re done. No really – that’s it; your data is automatically backed up at whatever interval you set, whilst also being offsite and far away from any localised threats you may experience.

As far as choices of online backup services go, there are many. I currently use a free service from Mozy; ideal for a single PC, it allows up to 2GB of data to be backed up (rising to US$4.95/month for unlimited data). A business oriented version called MozyPro is also available, priced from US$3.95/month; it allows you to back up multiple PC’s and servers.

If you’re looking closer to home, there is also a company called Carbonite, offering an unlimited plan for AUD$71.99/ year. If you have more than approx 3.5GB of data, Carbonite is the better value offering; they also have an offer running until the end of January: sign up for a year and get two extra months for free.

Yes, there’s a catch…

Just a quick heads-up when using an online backup service for the first time – you will need a decent internet usage plan, plus a bit of time, depending on how much data you wish to upload, for the first backup to complete.

Got a data backup service you use that you’d like to recommend? Have a data loss horror story you’d like to pass on? Tell us all about it in the comments box below.

Photo: Topato

What’s that got to do with anything you say? See the worn away patch? That’s the mute button. And it’s telling you that traditional methods of marketing, such as TV ads, are failing.

When I Was A Lad…

Back in the old days (y’know, like the 80’s or something), with no mobile phones and only a handful of TV channels, the way to win the race of getting to the customer was to shout the loudest. Known as “interruption marketing”, TV was the champion.

These days of course, we are bombarded with information everywhere we care to look, wander or listen.

This also means there’s been a shift in who holds the power over what we choose to pay attention to. And guess what – it’s us that are holding the power (or the mute button!).

While there are certain outlets for which the interruption method still works (yes, I’m looking at you Harvey), falling revenues, tougher competition and shorter attention spans mean that they are not as effective as they once were. The good news is that its evolution leaves us with something called “permission marketing”.

Permission Marketing? Wassat?

Based on the idea of creating a relationship with those interested in your service, via ‘opting-in’ to information you produce; it’s a boon for small business owners as it turns the ‘one-to-many’ of interruption marketing on its head, giving us a much more budget friendly ‘many-to-one’ relationship instead.

Thankfully, building that relationship is not as hard, or better still, as expensive, as it may sound. For example, email-marketing is hands down the most cost effective form of permission marketing there is, and can be had for free. Yes, FREE.

Calling All Control Freaks!

Another reason to use permission marketing is control. With many methods of permission marketing being internet based, you have the ability to change something you don’t like at your very fingertips. Try doing that with the copy you supplied Yellow Pages three months ago that has the wrong phone number on it…

And building on this, is your ability to test and measure – vital to knowing if your marketing is working. Running an ad on Google AdWords and its not working as well as you’d hoped? Well then, start tweaking! You may see results in as little as 10 minutes.

The Wrap

Permission marketing comes in many flavours, and while I am (obviously) an advocate of its methods, unless you have the type of business that can support it I wouldn’t recommend sealing the coffin on your traditional advertising just yet. Instead, for now look upon it as a secondary channel of marketing; it won’t break the bank, but you will find it earns its keep a lot quicker than other methods.

If you have any comments or questions about this topic, feel free to let me know in the box below. Alternatively, send me an email via the contact form.

So following a quick review of this site in the newly released Site Performance section of Webmaster Tools and not liking what I saw:

Ouch!

So I’ve decided that it’s about time for TCG to get a bit of a site refresh. In the coming weeks, I’ll be making some changes to the site – and re-launching it on the awesome Thesis Theme from DIYThemes.

The iNove theme I have been using has served me well this past 9 months or so, but I’ve been building a few sites on Thesis of late, and all I can say is that if you are wondering whether there is a difference between free and paid WordPress themes – the answer, when it comes to Thesis, is definitely YES!

One of Thesis’ major strengths is its impeccable coding; and having the right code in the right place in the infrastructure of your site, well, it’s like the concrete in the foundations of your new apartment building – you want it there!

(Oh, and before I crack another bad metaphor, good coding can also make your website load quicker.)

I also be launching some new services, so look out for the new site in the new year, and have a great festive season!

Image: Comedy Central

If you’re not aware of the joke around the image above, or the TV show it comes from, the character (known as Cartman), is attempting to have people respect him and his own imagined authority by abusing and screaming at them – reaching a crescendo of “You will respect my AUTHORITY!” Unsurprisingly, he doesn’t meet with much success.

The perception of authority

Unfortunately for you or I, the perception of authority is not something that can be controlled, for it is part of how others see you in your chosen field. There are things you can do however, that can influence a person’s mindset to see you as a trustworthy and authoritative figure.

Someone who has that authority with me is Brendon Sinclair of Tailored Web Services. I first met Brendon around 3 years ago, when I asked him to build the website for a new business venture I was starting up.

Impressing me with his humble nature (Ha!), the way he approached my needs, and his level of knowledge that enabled him to clearly explain the web design & marketing process, I have since happily referred a couple of people his way, safe in knowing they’d be looked after.

Why do you suppose this is?

In short, through those simple actions, he built with me that level of trust and authority that I was looking for, so much so that I still read his newsletters and blog posts today. Oh, and to say he wrote the book on running a web business isn’t untrue – he actually did.

I see naked people

One of his recent emails included a roundup of methods he’s found effective (or not so) in marketing his own business; of all Brendon’s points, the one that stuck out the most for me was this one:

Attending networking events gives some value. Giving speeches and talks generates more business than you can poke a stick at.

Why does this approach work so well?

It all comes back to that level of trust and authority. If people perceive you to have authority over a subject they will come to you first. And standing in front of a room full of people that are listening to you, and you only – well, they’re going to think you must know what you’re talking about, right?

Fortunately for those of us that are scared witless by the idea of standing up in front of a roomful of people, today’s online world allows us many ways to convey our authority of a given subject, without having to imagine everyone in front of us is naked: blogs, videos, emails, and social media such as Facebook & Twitter can all help build your profile.

Why should you use these things?

Advertising is changing; the old methods are dying (which if those furniture and electronic superstore adverts are anything to go by, is a good thing), and if you can get a head start over your competitors by using them now, your name and authority will become synonymous with your industry; much like Brendon’s name is today.

And if your name keeps popping up when a client is looking for the service you provide – who do you think they are most likely to call?

Want to grow your client base? Grow your authority!

P.S. If you are interested in imagining naked people, looking up your local Toastmasters group or chapter of BNI are great places to start.

P.P.S. On second thoughts, please don’t imagine naked people if you go there, I don’t want to be held responsible.

Off to see a new client earlier today, I planned my route using Google Maps. Unfortunately for me, Google Maps had seemingly created a road I needed to travel on out of thin air, and then forgotten to tell the road that it now existed.

What’s worse, is that this is the second time now this has happened to me. I think Google is out to get me lost.

Do you have any tales of technology failures? Leave a comment below.

Take for instance a “special offer” a client of mine recently received. Completely unsolicited, a Melbourne based domain name registrar (who’ll remain nameless) mailed the client a letter offering the ‘.com’ of their Australian domain name for $249 inc GST for 2 years. With a sweetener of a free iPod Shuffle, the MD of the company asked me if it was worth buying. My reply was to send him a screenshot of the same domain name over at Namecheap.com for the Australian dollar equivalent of some $24. Not a bad markup by the domain registrar and it left me wondering just how ‘free’ that iPod really was. Unsurprisingly the MD didn’t go forward with that one.

What concerned me was that it was obviously a tactic that worked for this company, otherwise they wouldn’t be doing it. I shudder to think how many companies may have fallen for this.

The lesson here is to shop around – domain names are available from hundreds of sites across the web, and prices can vary wildly. Educate yourself on a median price and what extras may be included (things like URL forwarding, where you can forward one domain name to a site at another you own. This can be useful if you have a strong brand or want to catch all important traffic to variations of your domain name).

From my own experience I’ve found the above mentioned Namecheap is a good source for .com and .net based names; while Netregistry here in Australia is a good source for .com.au and .net.au names. If you have any you’d like to tell others about, or if you’ve been caught out a similar way and would like to warn others, please let us know in the comments below.

OK, done that? Then let’s begin…

It seems everywhere you turn these days it’s Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Linked In, YouTube, Digg, Delicious… the list is almost endless. And depending on who you’re listening to, they’re either the next big thing, or are a complete waste of time. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the latter are unlikely to be active users of social media. Which is a shame – particularly if they are also a small business owner. Want to know why?

1. It’s cost effective.

It’s free. You can’t get much more cost effective than that.

2. It’s got reach.

Let’s take Facebook as an example. Chances are, if you’ve got kids, or know someone who does, there’s a Facebook account there somewhere, one of the 200 million currently registered (yes, 200 million). But the number of existing accounts pales when compared to the speed of their recent growth: towards the end of March this year, Facebook revealed that in the previous 60 days, the number of people over 35 using Facebook had DOUBLED.

(Hot Tip: If that’s your target demographic, you might want to start taking notes).

3. It gets results.

Social media works: In Kirra, at the southern end of Queensland’s Gold Coast, there’s an awesome wood fired pizza joint called ‘Bread n Butter’. Located in a row of restaurants and not far from an outlet of one of the multi-national pizza companies; the owners faced an uphill struggle to establish themselves not long before the financial crisis hit the region. Recently they’ve started using Facebook to promote the business, posting updates of booking availability, feature nights and special deals. I asked the boys if using Facebook had been successful for them. This was the response I got:

Not bad eh?

So let’s have a quick recap: Using social media, you can promote your business successfully to a lot of people for free. Sounds like a win to me. (Oh, and as an added bonus, you can also test & measure your advertising almost immediately. Try doing that with an expensive TV commercial!)

Still not convinced? OK, hit me up in the comments with your the industry your business is in, and I’ll see if I can come up with a way you can use social media to get your business out there.

(Update: The day after this was posted – Facebook announced they have passed 300 million subscribers. Wow.)

Main Image Credit: Socialize Icons by DryIcons

Image: A Million To One

Did you catch Four Corners on ABC this week? It featured a report on the growth of cybercrime in Australia, indicating it’s a problem likely to get bigger with the advent of a national broadband network. I had been looking forward to the piece – sadly though it turned out to be little more than an exercise in fear mongering, complete with over the top soundbites:

“I expect at some stage in the future there will be a real debate on the benefit of the internet. Should we turn it off?”

Don’t get me wrong, it’s good that the subject is exposed to the masses (I’ve had many enquiries regarding computer security since the show aired), and I’m not going to say that cybercrime isn’t a growing issue; but you can certainly inform people in ways that don’t involve scaring the living bejesus out of them!

Obviously this sort of journalism sells, but getting people running around like a headless chook ain’t going to solve the problem. That’s down to education. So, in the spirit of getting things done, let’s get educated shall we? Here’s 5 things you can do to help protect yourself against cybercrime.

(By the way, these tips aren’t new and they certainly aren’t definitive, but obviously they seem to be one of those things that people still need to be told)

1. Think before you click.

No genuine financial institution will send you an email saying they need to verify your details. The best course of action for anything suspect is to phone the institution direct (and either shift+delete to permanently remove the mail from your computer, or follow the procedure the institution advises to send the mail to them if they want to investigate further.)

2. Keep your computer updated.

Installing the latest manufacturuer patches and anti-virus signatures kind of goes without saying, but I’ll bet many of you don’t do it!

3. Install an Anti Spyware product.

Most of the brand name security manufacturers such as Symantec / Norton & McAfee will have an “Internet Security” product that bundles this with Anti Virus software. If you don’t have one of these products already or have just standard AV software, I recommend “Spybot S&D” which you can download for free, or Windows Defender, also free.

4. Ensure your user account doesn’t have administrator rights.

Hackers like to install software that does their bidding on your PC, but they usually need administrator rights to do it. By only giving the account you log on to your computer with the minimum of privileges, it makes it all that much harder. Microsoft Vista introduced a feature called UAC (User Account Control) to try and fix this problem; sadly it was so poorly implemented that many people turned it off altogether. Happily though, the version in Windows 7 works.

5. Protect your wireless network.

There are many things you can do to aid your protection if you’re running a wireless network in your home or office. First, check the type of security you’re using. If you have a setting for WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) or WPA2 and higher, make sure you’re using it. If your router is slightly older and only has a setting for WEP (Wireless Encryption Protocol), please go and drop some cash on a new one – WEP was cracked a few years ago, so you could be leaving yourself wide open.

Also, make sure your firewall is turned on; change and then turn off the broadcast of your network’s name (known as the SSID) and use a pass phrase (including upper case letters and numbers), rather than a password for the wireless authentication.

Hopefully you found these tips on protecting yourself against cybercrime useful. If you have any more, or if you want to add your own opinion on this topic, please leave a comment below.