Optimizing Your Graphics

While reading a lesson from one of the e-courses
I am getting (yes, I still subscribe to some of
those free courses), I found a fantastic free
site that I know I will be using and thought you
might find a use for it too.

By free, I mean free. You don't even have to
sign up for an ezine, register or anything else!

Now you can significantly decrease your site's load
time simply by optimizing your gif graphics. This
process will decrease your graphic's file size without
sacrificing the graphic's quality. You can optimize
your images right online.

Visit GifWorks for further information.

http://www.gifworks.com/

Guilty By Association

Yesterday I posted an announcement in the newsletter because I thought that it didn’t go out.

I was WRONG!

The mailing went out but I didn’t get it and neither did anyone else who uses the same ISP as I do for my personal email.

I am really upset by this and I’ll tell you why.

One of the autoresponder services I use to send out the newsletter mailings is DemandMail.com. I have used them for a couple of years and have been very happy with their inexpensive service because they allow me set up an unlimited number of autoresponder accounts for one low monthly fee AND they have fantastic tech support.

When I didn’t think my mailings were going out because I wasn’t getting them or the “mailing complete” messages I wrote tech support. I expected to wait about 24 hours to hear a response but got one in just a couple of hours.

According to them, I wasn’t getting my messages they were sending because my ISP was using Spam Cop. They had sent a message from their service, discovered the problem and had to use a different email account to respond to my trouble request.

I immediately wrote my ISP about the matter and requested they remove Spam Cop from my account. It took them about 4 hours to respond with the following – your trouble ticket has been closed and please send the error message you received so we can forward it to Spam Cop to correct the problem.

How can the trouble ticket be closed when I still have the problem?

What error message?

I, the intended receiver didn’t get an error message. I didn’t get any indication that I wasn’t getting some of my email? I checked my email account to see if they had placed my blocked messages in some special folder but found nothing.

Well, to make this long story longer:

1. I have re-opened the ticket and told them to keep it that way until I find out if there was any error message to my autoresponder service.
2. I have requested the error message from my autoresponder service.
3. I checked into Spam Cop and found that I had to go through Alexa to find their contact information.
4. I have sent Spam Cop an email reporting the problem.
5. I also found out that Spam Cop doesn’t block individual email accounts or filter on words. They block messages according to the IP of the sender. In other words, if you are using an autoresponder or hosting account to send out your mail, your mail may not be getting through if they have your services IP on their blacklist.
6. I also know that Spam Cop doesn’t send the email address of the person reporting spam to the service sending the email. Thus, the autoresponder or hosting service can not request proof of opt-in and can not request that you remove the person from your list. As a result, your account may be canceled even if you could have provided proof that the person had opted-in.
7. I also know that some of the “big” places that offer free email accounts and where we all get a lot of spam – like Yahoo and MSN are not blocked.
8. I know that if you aren’t getting all your email you may not know it. And if you do and try to find those that were blocked, you can’t find it.

There are only 8 people on my list who use the same ISP mailbox that I use. So I know those people won’t get my mailings.

But what about all the others? I have no idea which ISPs use Spam Cop so I have no idea how much of my list is not getting my mail.

Am I upset? YES!!!

I have been found guilty of sending spam to myself and others by someone I don’t know and who doesn’t give me the opportunity to defend myself. I have been blacklisted because of some report by a nameless person who may not even know they complained.

I am guilty by association with a service that provides contact information on every page and has a strict anti-spam policy. I am guilty by association because someone, somewhere reported spam sent by someone using that same service.

Was that person guilty of sending spam? I don’t know.

Was that person allowed to offer proof that they weren’t sending spam? No.

Is that person still using the same service? Probably not and here’s why:
“We get some complaints from SPAM Cop without the complainers email or name so we have no way to remove them from anyone's' list. We have had to delete several accounts from our system because of the heavy handed tactics of SPAM Cop.”

May your day be better than mine,
Susan

Does Your Left Hand Know What Your Right Hand Is Doing?

Last week I got a JV offer from the owner of
Spyware Nuker. Nice offer, but the timing
was off since I already bought the product.

Well, I replied to the offer and mentioned
that I had already purchased the product and
use it regularly.

Jon replied that he had another new product
and offered a JV for it. Since I am so happy
with Spyware Nuker, I replied immediately
that I would love to try the new product.

Well, Jon then passed my message on to his
staff because I received a mailing on his
behalf. Unfortunately, they don't read their
mail too well since they offered me a free
key to Spyware Nuker.

I am sure we will sort this mess out but it
did point out a good lesson.

If you have others assisting you in your
online or off line business, make sure
everyone keeps current on what's going
on.

Don't think you know what's happening.
KNOW

Don't assume you know what is being said.
LISTEN and READ

Don't allow spyware and adware to infest
your computer.
Run Spyware Nuker.

Heck, even if Jon and his staff are
confused, they do have a great product
and I do clean my computer with it a
couple of times a week.

To Your Success,
Susan

Copycats - There Should Be Rules

We all know that there are a lot of copycat
programs on the web. Some good, some not.

Now I am not going to throw stones if someone
copies an idea - heck I did it myself by accident.
When I came up with our new forum I thought
I had an original idea only to discover that I
didn't. But that's OK.

Why is it alright to copy things?

Because if we didn't, there would only be one
marketing forum, one hosting service, one
autoresponder service, one vitamin company,
one insurance company, one ...

In fact, without copying things, the whole idea
of viral marketing wouldn't work.

So, copying a good idea and going with it is good
but ...

There should be some rules!!!

And one of the rules should be -
Don't force people to give up something they
may have worked or paid for to join your new,
copied program.

What prompted me to come up with this rule?

As some of you know, I did join a list building
program this last year. Now I don't join these
things often because as I have stated before,
I don't have much luck with them. But Joe is
good friend and subscriber so I decided to give
it a shot and joined under him.

Then last week while surfing I ran across a
fantastic sales page offering The "Bulletproof
List Building System" created by two well know
internet marketers. And since it was free, I
decided to check it out.

Guess what? They had come up with a great way
to market the same list building program I joined
under Joe only they promised - "How To Rocket
Your List From Zero To TENS OF THOUSANDS
Of Red Hot Opt-In Subscribers In 30 Days Or Less!
The SECRET Is In The FREE SYSTEM!"

Wow, I thought. Now I can give Joe and I a real
boost in this program.

Wrong!!!

Here is an excerpt taken from the "readme" file
for those who want to use their program.

Begin Quote
-------

If you have already used opportunity.com to grow
a huge list and do *NOT* wish to CANCEL your
current membership, then we regret that you may
not participate in this automated list building
system. (See the Opportunity.Com membership
agreement and terms of service. We regret that we
have no control over their service terms). We are
however confident that should you decide to
sacrifice your current Opportunity.Com down-line
(if any) to participate in this campaign our system
will enable anyone to match and surpass their previous
down-line tally in record time.

Opportunity.Com does NOT permit it’s users to
open multiple accounts. If you are already an
Opportunity.Com member, please **DO NOT** use
your existing membership details. Simply CANCEL
your current membership and SIGN UP USING THE
LINK PROVIDED IN THIS EMAIL (above). If you are
caught by our automated signup-tracking log
attempting to 'cheat' the system by inserting an
existing member ID, your account will be immediately
terminated and you will lose all rightto email your ads --
even if you built up a downline of 5,000,000. We
promise to do everything we can to protect you from
downline theft and to help you build a larger list
FASTER than you could ever dream possible before.
--------------------
End Quote

I must admit that I don't have a large downline
in the Opportunity.com system so giving it up
would be no great loss. But, I won't give it up.

In fact, after reading the rules for this new program
I wonder about the ethics of those who created it.

Who are they really trying to help?

If they are trying to help me, they would allow
me join under them but not require it.

So the answer is obvious -
They are building their own large list even at the
expense of others.

Not Fair!

To Your Success,
Susan

PS - I am not including a link to the system
mentioned in this article for a good reason
but I will give you my Opportunity.com link.
http://www.opportunity.com/r/smc2002