There are many things that make a bad password. Knowing what components of a password that provide the strongest protection is key.
#1 – Don’t use the same password for multiple accounts.
Using the same password for different accounts is like having the same key for your house, your car, your safe and your bank accounts. Once hackers get ahold of your account password, they will try all your accounts to try and retrieve your sensitive information. Also for system administrators, they will try the same thing with multiple servers on your network. Have a different password for each account.
#2 – Write your passwords down
Traditional security practices tell you that users should not write your passwords down. However, writing passwords down often result in passwords that are difficult to remember and are typically stronger. Passwords that can be easily remembered are more likely to be weaker. Make certain that the hard copy of the password is in a physically secure place so that your list itself cannot be compromised. Never store your list on a computer.
#3 – Know what makes a good password
Having a good password means that it is very difficult to successfully guess it. A good password will posses the following qualities:
- Have at least 6 letters or numbers
- Have at least one letter, number and special character (!, #, %, @, etc…)
- Not an actual word in a dictionary
#4 – Never log into websites through links sent through email
If you receive a link from popular online sites such as eBay or other online banks, don’t click it! It could link to a potentially dangerous site that is designed to steal you password. Always type in the address of a website directly into your browser so you know that the site is legitimate.
#5 – Change your password regularly
The best thing that can be done to protect an account is to change it regularly. Common schemes include appending a number to the end of a special sequence. For example, docat44 can be incremented to docat55. The important thing is that you pick a password that you will use diligently.
Additional reading on password security
Microsoft – 5 tips for top-notch password security
Microsoft – School is in: 7 computer security tips for students
Yahoo! Security Center – Choosing Your Password
January 16, 2006 
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 In a recent post on ComputerWorld, the IRS finished redesigning their website in what is a triumph over the traditional grind for government. Forms are often buried deep inside sections that are difficult to find or even inaccessible. All that has changed with the introduction of the new IRS website. By conducting usability studies, the web designers were able to create an incredibly useful website that allow users to be able to find what they were looking for quickly. One example includes the addition of a section entitled “Most Requested Forms and Publications” that allows visitors to quickly find IRS tax forms. It’s a great start and other branches of government can learn a lot from them.
Where can I learn more about designing usability?
The art of usability is a difficult art to master because of the complicated methods used to measure and design usability. A great resource to get started is a website by Jacob Nielsen, a foremost expert in the field of usability design. His website, useit.com, provides extensive information about the field of usability and how it can enhance user’s experiences.
 A great book to read and learn more about designing usability into websites is called Designing Usability by Jacob Nielsen. It’s a fantastic book that walks a user through all of the considerations that a web designer must take into consideration when designing a website.
January 9, 2006
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In an recent article on ComputerWorld, Google was disclosed to have close to 40% of the US Search volume, giving it a major advantage over the nearest competitor Yahoo! With websites now becoming a crucial part of many businesses worldwide, good search engine placement on Google is crucial for a company’s continued success.
What webmasters can do to improve their Google ranking
The number one thing a webmaster can do to improve their Google search engine ranking is to get links to their website. The core piece of Google’s search technology is it’s amazing index of links. A website that has many links to it will rank very well in Google’s search engine. This is because webpages that have many links usually have good relevant information and Google will reward them by ranking them higher than sites with lesser links.
Great Places to Get Links
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When it comes to designing a website to represent your business, a cheaper designer is not always better. A website is an extension of an organization and should represent it in its entirety. It should be easy to use for users, functional and create a great interactive experience, and it should market itself to viewers to return to your bottom line. To help businesses understand this investment, try thinking of websites as another form of advertising. It simply should earn its value back over time much like radio, print and television and contribute to the bottom line.
The Myth
Many businesses believe that websites are a simple one-time investment that will rake in huge profits overnight. This major misconception leads to a path a terrible road of deceit and predatory online businesses who promise overnight business success for $500.
The Truth
A good investment in a web site is the result of many years of research and development. It comes from understanding your customer and their needs. Building a successful website takes a time and requires a significant investment. Over time, websites gain an extremely powerful advantage that will leave competitors scratching to catch up. A strong business web presence creates value for your existing customers, captures new customers and helps your business stay in front of your customers. Eventually, the website will reach a point where customers can answer their own questions, order their own products and increase their satisfaction with your company. One client of Onepax glowed about their website, “Our customers love our website! By the time they call us they already know what they want, how much it will cost and when they will have it! I’ll take those calls any day!â€
But many times, people are asking the question, “But I thought the Internet boom long past? Doesn’t everyone already have a great website?†The truth: They are dead wrong. Almost every industry can benefit from a website in ways such as reducing the cost of customer service, increasing monthly sales to providing tools for employees, the future is seemingly endless. The key to harnessing the web is by recruiting experienced web developers who can orchestrate business goals and technology into a beautiful symphony.
An Analogy
Good and bad web designers can be compared to housing contractors like roofers, electricians or plumbers. When you hire a contractor, you want them to do their job quickly, efficiently and correctly. I recently witnessed a construction site that hired the cheapest roofer they could find. The contractor showed up late, didn’t have all the materials they needed to repair the roof and even caused some major damage to their roof. The owner of the house had to pay almost two times the original cost for an experience roofer to come in and roof the house. The experienced roofer had to come to the building and remove
the damage caused by the bad roofer.
The same principal applies to good and bad web design. When it comes to your business and your customers, they deserve the very best. But in the business setting, cheap contractors are damaging your reputation, your customer relationship and even your bottom line. How much does will a business loose before they hire professionals? Businesses shouldn’t skimp when it comes to web sites since it could be the first impression your customer has. It provides a channel of advertising for businesses that can draw in customers for pennies compared to traditional marketing methods. The following table drives home a great reason why you should consider investing in a website for your business in addition to traditional marketing for your business.
| Printed Advertising |
Radio Advertising |
Internet Advertising |
| $5-$15/customer |
$3-$7/customer |
$0.15-$3.0/customer |
January 2, 2006
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The key to great placement on Google consists of two major parts. The first part is what the page is about and the second part is how many websites link to the website the page resides on.
Page Content
When it comes to web sites and placement on Google, content is king. Website should contain lots of content that provides relevant information about the site or business. Not only does lots of great content give visitors reason to visit your website, but also gives search engines lots of content to use for searches. It’s a win-win situation! Visitors will love the content and search engines will refer even more visitors. The goal is to fill the website with lots of documents that is related to the topic of the website and provides valuable information to visitors. How-to articles, tutorials or even opinions are great ways to create content. Just keep adding content constantly and regularly.
Website Links
The other component in addition to your page content is the number of links to your website. The Google search engine works off the number websites that link to yours. Obviously, the more links that point to your website, the more popular and important the information on your website is. This technology is known as Page Rank and assigns a number from 0 (lowest score) to 10 (highest score) to let Google know how important your page is. Currently, most websites start off with a PageRank® score of 3 the first time it is added to their search engine. However it is up to you to get more links to your website to increase the PageRank®. The more links you get, the more relevant the pages will appear to users.
The great part about PageRank® is that it’s very difficult to get lots of links with little or no content. It forces people who want to build a better PageRank® to make sure their content is quality and relevant.
How to get started
To get started, check to see if Google knows that your website exists. To check, goto www.google.com and search for links:www.onepax.com and replace www.onepax.com with your own website. If Google shows you a cached version of your homepage, then Google has visited your site. If your website is not in Google, submit your site to Google by using the Add your URL tool. Warning: Do not submit your website more than once every few days or you will get banned!
A great way to check your Page Rank is to download the Google Toolbar and enable the Page Rank feature. Every time that you visit a website, the Page Rank for that page is displayed. It’s a great way to keep up to date with your site’s Page Rank!
A Word of Caution
For those who are considering the $15 for 1 bazillion link campaigns, be careful. A lot of times these companies will give you a lot of links. Google knows about these companies and their massive ‘link farms’ to pages that have no content and often discredits those links. Almost every time, they are a waste of money!
December 29, 2005
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At some point in every business, technical staff or the local computer guru have realized at some point that their task at hand may be out of their ability. Backup solutions, disaster recovery, server upgrades, you name it. Some businesses seemed to share the joint concern that IT consulting consists of a group of consultants who come in and rip apart their current infrastructure and then install a shiny, expensive new piece of equipment that replaces everything that the company would ever need.
I’m sad to say that a lot of the IT consultants out there come in with that approach and mentality. My personal opinion is that IT consultants are there to support their existing infrastructure, not rip it out entirely and start from scratch. Many consultants want to have a quick flip, purchasing new equipment (where they probably get a nice kick-back) and setup their clients with brand new equipment. But what most consultants fail to see is that a company is literally entrusting their life, blood and tears to IT consultants in hopes that they can help them fix it for the better. Coming in and ripping everything out is warranted in some cases where clients were running software that was dated back to the early 70’s, but not in all situations.
When I perform an on-site analysis of a client’s computing infrastructure, I take a very detailed and complete inventory of their computing setup. Specifically I look for servers, workstations and network configuration and understand the whole picture of the client’s infrastructure. Only then can you gain true insight into the client’s infrastructure and make recommendations as to what they can do. More often than not, most of our clients can get away with their current investments. Their needs may be small enough where they are not serving millions of web pages of day or accepting billions of emails in an hour.
What is missing is a life-cycle for IT equipment within the enterprise. Most businesses should replace their end-user workstations every 4 years and replace their servers on the same schedule as well. Often, high intensity applications are promoted to the new machines, but what is important is that companies recycle their IT equipment in phases, not all at once. More often than not, with this in place businesses can replace their entire system every four years. With this slow and methodical approach to keeping their systems current, business benefit in several ways.
Benefits to a 4 year replacement life cycle
- Spread their investment over the four year life cycle
- Investments can be staggered so that each system is gradually replaced every four years (no more so called “forklift†upgrades where everything is replaced)
- System performance is gradually improved consistently. Applications should never reach “critical mass†in which they stop functioning because the system is too old.
- Replacing equipment every 4 years improves reliability since companies don’t have to gamble on antiquated hardware.
- Since the hardware may still have some retail value left, businesses can resell their equipment to help purchase the upgrades rather than taking a complete loss.
The IT consulting industry is slowing moving away from the mentality of “rip and strip†when it comes to outsourcing. I personally have no problem working with existing infrastructures and I often encourage it to our clients so they can get the most for their IT investment. Instead of the “rip and strip†strategy, a slow and gradual replacement strategy will make more business sense and allow any business to get the most benefits out of cycling their hardware and avoid dangerous “forklift†upgrades.
Gabe Brown is a graduate of The Ohio State University in Computer Science and Engineering as well as an author and consultant for Onepax, LLC.
November 14, 2005
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October 10, 2005
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