If you haven't gotten an email from spammers using a GMail account lately, consider yourself lucky. Spammers using GMail accounts are running rampant these days, and the so-called SEO Spammers seem to me to be the worst offenders, but by no means are they the only spammers utilizing GMail to send their tons of junk.
Gmail is just another Web-based service that is being abused. And though I could argue that Google AdSense has spawned a massive spamming industry, the real issue here is that black hat link spammers are abusing not only Google, but websites as well.
I am getting so fed up with the junk mail, 98% of it coming from gmail accounts, that I am getting real close to just blacklisting all gmail users from even sending me email. There are a few people with Gmail accounts who send me legitimate email, but the bogus form registrations don’t even come close to looking like real people.
That's a drastic measure, and one that will certainly block some good Gmail users, but enough is enough. I, for one, am tired of having my free time eaten up fighting all of the Gmail spam of late. And apparently, Google is doing very little (if anything) to combat this problem. I don’t hold Google responsible for the fact that it enables spamming, but they have a form on their website where you report such abuse, but it seems that no one at Google is doing anything about any complaints that are filed at their site, so why bother? I've submitted several complaint forms, and absolutely nothing is done about them.
Google says that spammers haven’t cracked their Gmail captcha system yet, that the spammers are paying low-cost labor in overseas markets to sign up for Gmail accounts and spam every website they can find.
If spammers continue to abuse Gmail freely, and even worse, if Google does nothing about it, I’m pretty sure a LOT of ISPs and forums will start blocking Gmail. That’s the only solution that we will have if we don't want to waste half our day and resources on stopping spam from Gmail accounts.
Listen up Google, you monsterous beasts of the Internet, you are not beyond being blocked. Is anyone at the Goliath of the web listening?
I'd love to hear your opinion on this problem. Just leave your comment (pro or con) below. I'd love to hear from you.
Until next time…
Ed
Managing Twitter can be a daunting task, especially after you've started following a lot of people, and have a lot of people following (or trying to follow) you. I'll explain more about the "Trying to follow you" comment in a moment.
Once you outgrow the basic foundation for following others using Twitter's web based tool (yeah, the one you get when you first sign up for your Twitter account), you'll soon find it almost impossible to follow your timeline when there are a lot of "tweets" and maybe you haven't logged on for a while. (Even overnight a lot of tweets can pile up. Remember, Twitter is worldwide, so not everyone is sleeping when you are.)
Hands down, the leader in "Twitter Management Utilities" seems to be "TweetDeck". Think of TweetDeck as your browser/organizer for all of your Twitter activity. TweetDeck shows you everything you want to see at once, so you can stay organized and up to date. I highly recommend anyone "tweeting" at all to get started early with TweetDeck. Spend a few minutes going through the features, and you'll be a "TweetDeck Specialist" in no time.
With TweetDeck, you can not only manage your Twitter updates (tweets), but you can also manage your Facebook updates as well. You can choose to send the same message to both Twitter and Facebook simultaneously, or one or the other separately. You choose with one click of your mouse.
TweetDeck updates itself so you don't have to be refreshing anything like you do if you're viewing your Twitter timeline from Twitter itself. Use columns to create your personal dashboard, creating groups to easily manage all of the tweets of those you are following.
TweetDeck is a free download. I suggest you give it a test drive. I think you'll keep it.
Once you've started following some folks, and others have started following you, you'll begin to realize that figuring out who's following you or not, becomes a bit of a challenge. Another neat little utility I discovered that solves this is called "Twitter Karma."
Basically, Twitter Karma is a Flash application that fetches those you follow, and those who follow you, letting you quickly paginate through them. Let's face it, scrolling through page after page after page of followers can be a bit cumbersome. Twitter Karma, by default, lists all those you follow and all of your followers and sorts them by last update, showing those who most recently updated first. You can sort the list alphabetically either ascending or descending by Twitter ID. You can filter the list in several ways: only those you follow, or only followers, all friends or all followers, and mutual friends.
What Twitter Karma allows you to do is basically see ALL of your followers, and all of the people who follow you, all on one screen, with little red and green arrows that tell you at a quick glance just who's following you and who you're following. You then can mass edit your lists, all with one mouse click. You do have to enter your Twitter ID and password, or you can sign in with Twitter and let Twitter's API handle the sign in for you.Try it out, I think you'll bookmark this one.
This neat little utility even tells you when the last time someone you're following has updated, so you can easily stop following someone if they are never updating. Use any criteria you'd like in sorting and updating your entire list. Get more information on Twitter Karma here.
For those of you using FireFox as your browser, a nifty little extension for FireFox is "TwitterFox." TwitterFox notifies you of your friends' tweets on Twitter. This extension adds a tiny icon on the FireFox status bar which notifies you when your friends update their tweets. Also it has a small text input field to update your tweets. If you use FireFox, check out TwitterFox.
Anyone used to blogging and familiar with the Future Post feature of most blogging software will appreciate "twAitter." If you have a Twitter account, you already have a twAitter account. Here are twAiter's main features:
Schedule: Schedule your twitter messages
Recurring: Set your twitter messages to send on recurring basis: daily, weekly, monthly, yearly.
Calendar:Manage your scheduled messages (Twaits) with our powerful calendar tool that works just like your Outlook calendar.
Feeds:Register your blog or business RSS feed with twaitter and have your new posts automatically sent to twitter. (coming soon)
Schedule in Mass:Have a lot to say and a lot to schedule? Upload a file with your messages in twAiter's file format and they’ll be happy to schedule all the twaits for you. (Coming Soon) *subject to Twitter message sending limits.
Personal use of twAiter is free, and businesses are allowed up to 500 messages per month for business use, but according to the twAiter website, they just launched, and no is counting right now anyway. Give twAiter a try.
One utility that I do NOT condone or use is "TwitterMass." TwitterMass fully automates the process of growing your Twitter network by following people based on a keyword universe you create. TwitterMass works in such a way that it rewards people who follow you back and removes people who do not. In the end TwitterMass is a system that fully automates your Twitter outreach and exponentially grows your niche Twitter network.
If you're looking for a utility to automate your followers, this might fit the bill for you. Personally, I prefer to build my followers myself, and I like to choose who I follow. I don't want some piece of software building my list for me. That's just plain creepy to me. But if putting Twitter on auto-pilot is your thing, then check out "TwitterMass."
There are probably a few dozen (or more) other utilities and tools for use with Twitter, but these are the ones I have used (except for TwitterMass). If you know of others, I'd love to hear about them. Leave me a comment and tell me about others you've used, what you like or don't like, and where they can be found. (A link would be great). 
That's it for now. Until next time…
Ed
I have been making my full time living online since 1999. I have learned a lot of things over these past 10 or 11 years, and have learned who to listen to and who not to listen to. Twitter has not changed my way of thinking, it has only expanded the potential for learning more from more people, but it has also opened "Pandora's Box" for spammers who are using Twitter's WHITE HOT popularity to amass huge lists of followers and those they follow.
If the founders of Twitter don't do something to control this, I believe Twitter could self-destruct in time due to the abusive way people are building fake followings. Most of the people building these lists of thousands and thousands of people are not at all interested in what someone has to say, they are in it for one reason: To sell their crap to as many vulnerable people as they can possibly find.
Obviously, this is not always the case, but in the months I've been on Twitter, I would dare say it is true in 98% (or more) of the cases.
Anyone who knows me, or has been "following me" for any time at all, knows I am vehemently opposed to Auto-Follow software for Twitter. Call it a personal beef, call it what you want. I think it is just plain sick that people feel they have to use auto-follow software to build their list of followers.
As of the date of this post, I have actually blocked more followers than I have active followers. Some would call me dumb for doing this, but I am not on Twitter to amass a huge list of followers who couldn't give a rat's ass about what I have to say. I am also not planning to follow 27,456 people, because quite honestly, no one can really do that and get anything out of Twitter. I will follow people whom I think have something to offer. I'm not interested in what you had for lunch today, or that you're taking your dog for a walk.
Twitter, for some, has become one of two things. Either a popularity contest, or a place to spam. If you're on Twitter as a popularity thing because you don't have enough to do, or you're lonely and need the connection to strangers to make you feel important, then okay. If you're on Twitter to spam, I hope the same police who eventually catch the email spammers, also catch you. I put both in the same category of scum. I block everyone who tries to follow me for the sole purpose of trying to sell me their crap. I never knew there were so many "Internet Marketing Experts" until Twitter came along. I'm sorry, that's not why I'm on Twitter, and I don't want others following me for those reasons.
When I get a notice that someone is following me, I check out their profile. I see where I am on their list of those they follow. If I see I am on page 25 of their follow list 10 minutes after they started following me, it's simple. I block them!
If I see they have 32 tweets, and 31 of them are asking people to visit their website where they are selling their coaching, (or some other crap) I block them. Who needs a coach who has nothing to teach or no proven track record? Seems like everyone thinks they can throw up a web page or blog and call themselves an expert in whatever and then try to sell that whatever to an unsuspecting crowd of followers. Not me! If I see they have 46,456 followers and follow 56,219 people, I usually block them immediately, because I know all they are doing is just amassing a huge list of people to try and sell something to or spam them with something. I don't need that… it's not why I'm on Twitter!
I have things to share with my followers, those who truly want to follow me. Not the artificial followers. I don't need them, and don't want them… and I will block them when I catch them following me, and if you're offended by this stand, then I'm sorry. You shouldn't be following me, or even reading this blog.
If you're using auto-follow software, don't be offended when I block you. If you are truly building a REAL list of followers and following those who have something viable to offer you, then chances are, I will follow you, and won't block you when you try to follow me.
Another sore spot for me with Twitter is the Auto-DM (or automatic direct message) that some people use. When I decide to follow someone and the first thing that happens is I get a canned message from them trying to get me to download this, or download that, or watch some video selling me on their services, I can't get to the un-follow link fast enough. And I really get irritated when their canned DM hits my cell phone. (Argh!)
Don't get me wrong. I use Auto-Responders in my business every day. They are a necessity for many things. I just find it appalling that people feel they have to use it to try and amass names on a list with the sole purpose of trying to sell them something.
Twitter has revealed to me just how many desperate people there are trying to figure out ways to make more money online, and are using Twitter to exploit others.
Now you know all the reasons why I am NOT on Twitter, let me just tell you why I am on Twitter.
I am on Twitter to expand my business relationships and give back to others some of the knowledge I've learned over the years from others before me that have given me a lot of their knowledge.
Granted, many of the so-called "BIGs" (Big Internet Guru's), of which I am not, do a lot of selling. They are experts at it, and know how to do it over and over again, usually without making you feel like you've been "sold to". Just like you, I too sometimes get really tired of all the "Product Launches" of the next best thing to hit the Internet. But many of these "BIGs" give a lot of themselves without the expectation of anything in return. I follow a lot of them, and learn a lot by just observing what they do and how they do it. HINT: It's why I follow them. 
Twitter is a great part of Web 2.0 (some even say it is creating Web 3.0). I believe there are a lot of new business relationships being made with Twitter. I have personally made quite a few new business contacts and relationships since starting to Tweet. I hope you have as well.
In my next message here, I'm going to review some Twitter Tools that I use, and why you might want to consider using them as well.
Subscribe to my RSS feed so you won't miss any posts, or follow me on Twitter. (*Just make sure it's not using Auto-Follow Software)
Until next time…
Ed
Is it worthwhile to defragment your hard drive? The answer is yes, but newer drive technology is likely to reduce the speed gains. With that in mind, here are a few suggestions regarding defragmentation:
- Defrag early and fairly often. If you believe the best defense is a good offense, it's probably wise to set up a defragmentation schedule beginning when you've installed software on a new system. If you're running Windows Vista, this is simple. If not, you can use the Windows Scheduler to do the job. The defrag utility will do its best work when there's plenty of free space on the drive. This also allows key system files to be written to the disk in order. Most experts seem to feel defragmentation should be run no more than once a week, but no less than once per month.
- Add more memory. It's not nearly as costly as it used to be and it will improve your computer's performance in virtually every way. In terms of disk storage, more memory enables the system to cache more data, reducing the effects of fragmentation.
- Clean up and add disk capacity. A disk drive that's less than 50 percent full is less likely to be slowed by fragmentation. It's also easier to defragment. Given the vastly reduced cost of disk drives, adding more capacity is a quick and easy speed booster. Don't forget to delete unused files from your hard drive from time to time. The more free space there is, the faster your programs will run.
- Replace old drives. If your disk drive is more than two or three years old, you could speed processing up considerably by replacing it with a new drive that is faster and offers enhanced file caching capabilities. As a bonus, when you copy your existing files to the new drive, they'll be defragmented automatically as an integral part of the process.
Until next time…
Ed
Internet Marketing