My Story In Pictures

Too Good To Be True? Five Ways To Find Out

Today I found a notice in my inbox advertising a new website hosting service. I'm perfectly satisfied with iPage but if I wasn't, these guys might have tempted me. They really caught my attention with their excellent offer but I've had cheap hosting before and ended up paying for it via rolling blackouts in which my website would go down for hours because of the junk on the servers. I've learned my lesson; if you buy cheap, you get cheap.

Here are five ways to spot whether or not you're getting a good deal or being taken for a ride.

How Customer Service Makes Or Breaks Your Company

I don't know if this happens to you but one of the banes of my life is unwanted marketing communications. I really can't be dealing with them and the worst thing is that in the age of the internet they really, truly seem to think that sending me unwanted letters is the best way to get me interested in their products. Hint: it's not.

Fake Traffic And What You Can Do About It

To be perfectly honest, I never really bothered about fake traffic one way or the other. I could always delete spam because my blog is set to hold comments in a moderation queue, so I didn't really bother about the ones that slipped past my anti-spam plugins. However, when it caused my hosting account to be suspended, I realised I'd have to do something about it.

ISG Marketing

SMS Marketing services

From time to time I partner with other companies so we can promote each other's services and I can offer services I can't deliver myself. Everybody benefits.

ISG Marketing Solutions is offering a 30 day trial of their SMS/Text Marketing services.

Statistics show that within 10 minutes, 95% of text messages sent are read by the recepient... Imagine 95% of your customers will see your offer within the first 10 mins... no other marketing platform comes close to this. Email only has an open rate of 23%

If you have a list of customers and are not sending them offers with text messaging (as long as they agree for you to send them offers via text) you are missing out on a lot of recurring business.

Try out the service FREE for 30 days. We will work with you to discuss the best type of promotions to send to your customers to help build your customer mobile phone list and the type of offer to send your customers that brings in more business for you.

To get started, Visit isgmarketingsolutions.com/contact, fill out the online form and we will contact you and help you to start connecting and promoting to your customers with sms, and bring in more business for you.

What Is Text Message Marketing?

SMS (Short Message Service) Text Message Marketing is the ability to send “permission-based” text messages to a group of people who have opted-in to your mobile list.

The small, yet powerful, 160 character space is one of the best marketing tools available today.

 

Why Text Message Marketing?

• Most Mobile Users Send and Receive Text Messages Daily


• Text Messaging is the Most-Used Mobile Service


• Consumers ALWAYS Have Their Mobile Devices with Them

 

Text Message Marketing Ideas

• Offer Mobile Coupons and Discounts


• Use Appointment Reminders to Cut Down on “No-Shows”


• Send Text Message Offers on Slow Days to increase traffic

Five Free Tools To Improve Your Website

Anyone who makes a living from working online knows the importance of regularly checking their stats and acting on the clues they give. Below are some tools I've found to improve my site's performance.

Pinterest: The Buzz And The Benefits

Every once in a while a new social media website comes up and there's a bit of a buzz around it. I got into Meengle till I realised it wasn't working for me in terms of putting me in front of potential clients. Zerply is used by some of my peers but it doesn't do anything that the others don't. It's really a creatives' noticeboard. So along came Pinterest and I went, "Meh!" Actually, there are substantial advantages in getting on board.

Choosing a live chat service

I'm experimenting with Live Chat, a customer service application that enables customers to talk to me in real time rather than email back and forth.

I've been casting about to find a way to communicate instantly with potential customers. After a spat with CyberSource, a payment gateway company that seems to view customers as a necessary evil rather than people they want to talk to, I realised that being able to get hold of someone to discuss the service you want to use in real time is better than sitting around twiddling your thumbs while you wait for someone to reply to the email you sent several days before.

Customer service ethics

I always answer my emails promptly because I don't like being kept waiting myself. And I give advice and support to people whether they are already paying me (take note, CyberSource!) or not, the idea being that when they see how speedy and reliable my service is, they'll choose me as their designer. People like to be reassured that they are being taken seriously and that they are valued by their service providers, and this can't happen when emails are either ignored or answered several days after being sent.

Live chat V emails

The beauty of live chat is that you're being seen to NOW instead of waiting for the company rep to get back to you. I've always found it more efficient when I'm trying to get something done on iPage, e.g. setting up an applications program (blog, online shop, etc.) that needs to have the database amended to let me set it up because I don't have to wait for someone to get back to me. I can have it done while I wait, and receive confirmation that it's been done.

Choosing a live chat service

I went hunting for opensource providers yesterday and came across a few. The best ones (free and easy to use) are Volusion and Comm100. I'll talk about Volusion in a separate post. Suffice it to say they are friendly and helpful, but you have to download the software onto your own PC, and if you have a 64 bit operating system like I do, it won't work. I appreciate the effort their operator went to in order to figure this out. I went with Comm100 because they host it on their secure servers so all you have to do is add a bit of code to your website.

Implementation

You set up an account and provide the relevant details. Then you have the option to use custom images instead of the ones they provide for you. As a designer, I was pleased to be able to use my own images to give clients a seamless experience when contacting me. You have to host the images and enter the links into the custom form in order to use them. After choosing all your options for buttons and images, you copy and paste the code into a spot on your website.

Once you've done all that, you go to the monitoring page (you might have to refresh your dashboard page to bring up the link) and choose the online option, then wait for people to chat to you.

I'm very excited about my new feature, and hope to see it being put to good use.

Owning The Narrative: How To Control Your Online Image

The narrative, or story of you, your business, and how you are perceived, encompass all your internet real estate holdings and all the places you go or are mentioned online. It's about the perception of you, what's important to you, and the message you want people to receive, understand, and accept.

You can only really own your narrative if you have the support and consent of your audience. Forget that at your peril. There's no point in complaining about your reputation if you're not doing enough to present yourself in the best possible light. Reputation management companies will offer to bury bad news about you under positive posts in blogs, etc., but if you want to be respected there are some rules you need to follow or you're going to have to spend a lot of money on a professional publicity machine. Everything I'm recommending here is free.

Your professional narrative: your website IS your business

I'm working with a client at the moment. We're at the pre-deposit stage and talking about how the website will look when it's finished and the thing I'm pushing harder than anything else is the need to make it look crisp and professional. The advantage of working with a client who thinks you're great is they trust you, however, when they have ideas of their own you often find you have to work hard to save them from the perils of bad design decisions.

I'm never less than 100% honest with my clients and since understanding how the internet works is as essential to my business as it is to theirs (I describe myself as an internet consultant for a reason), if I think they're making a bad decision I will say so. Let me get this out of the way right now: if you don't have a crisp-looking up-to-date mobile-ready website, call me now on [deleted] or email me on info@wendycockcroftwebdesign.com. Don't wait another minute. The trouble with a shoddy website is it says you just don't give a rat's, which means you'll probably give a shoddy service. Think about it; have you ever bought services from a website that looked dodgy and old-fashioned? Don't make the same mistake they did.

If your website is the first point of contact, how will it drive business to you? Look at what your rivals are doing. Here's where they get it right:

• Immediately visible contact details


• Clear, concise information that tells you what they do and who they do business with


• Pictures that reflect their core business


• Clean graphics


• Navigable website that scales well on a mobile phone


• Attractive colour scheme


• Legible text


• Clear, well-worded content with no spelling or grammar errors

The graphics on your website should be of the highest standard — no dodgy .jpgs with red eyes or fuzzy .gifs. I love animated .gifs and make them myself but please note that people often get annoyed by insistent flashy things going off on the side like mini visual bombs. And don't use huge images. They load slowly.

Your narrative on social media

You know those rather narcissistic posts you see on Twitter or FB that go, "Me me me! Look at me!" They rarely get likes unless the sycophantic followers of popular celebrities have posted them, or they're funny, sad or useful. Anything that provokes a visceral response will be retweeted, liked, or shared. That's how memes get started. Anyway, I've seen FB accounts that receive posts but there's no engagement. I don't get a lot of action on my FB account but I live on Google Plus and Twitter. Sooner or later you've got to decide which of the social media websites you're going to "live" on because that's where you do your marketing as well as yakking about stuff with those people you find interesting. Let's take a look at the essential social media websites.

Twitter

Twitter is what is known as a microblogging site. Many people think it's just about posting inane comments but actually you can post images, videos, and links there. I use it mostly to promote my business via my blog posts. The way it works is quite complex: I use Facebook's Networked Blogs app to receive my RSS stream and broadcast it to Facebook, Twitter, and Linked In, which receives my Twitter feed. I have to post to G+ manually.

You can have conversations with people there by replying to their tweets. It's considered good netiquette to retweet those tweets you like and not to post too many items in a row either by tweeting your own stuff or retweeting other people's. That's spamming and I've dropped a fair few people for doing it. Sorry, but the last thing I want to see is a whole page full of one person's tweets. Use TwitLonger for tweets longer than 140 characters.

Facebook

Facebook is for family and friends. They have business pages where you can post blog updates (Networked Blogs takes care of all that for me) and assorted information and they're great for interacting with other businesses and people. That's the page you have to keep an eye on because failure to respond quickly to enquiries via your Facebook page makes you look bad. Respond every time. It could be a deal-breaker.

Linked In

Linked In is the professionals' network and the socialising is mostly done via groups. You post a topic and people either reply or you sit there looking like a lemon. I've seen some people come a-cropper there by being obnoxious, trolling (starting a fight for the sake of it), or spamming the various threads with links to their businesses. Always be courteous when posting an opinion and work on building relationships with potential clients and employers as well as your peers.

Google Plus

Google Plus is nerd heaven. There are also a number of conspiracy freaks and fascist nutbags who frankly terrify me. This is where I do all the politics, and I've been doing a lot of that lately. I mostly get on with the liberals and there's the odd conservative with whom I have the odd heated discussion but we end up being friendly even if we disagree. After politics it's cats, science fiction, and pop culture. I'm a bit of a grammar nazi so couldn't resist it when Social Media mogul Kim Beasley shared a post that went along the lines of "Are you a sci fu fan? Come and join our hangout later on."

My response: "Is that a typo or is it about martial arts with aliens? Think 'Star Wars' meets 'Blood Sport' and there's cage fighting in the cantina. I can has finance?"

I got a few lols from other Plussers. The point is, in conversations, be friendly and funny, or relevant and reasonable, but never obnoxious. I've got nearly 500 followers at the moment, which is important because sooner or later at least one of them may want to employ me. They'll only do that if they like me enough to trust me, then pay me.

Leveraging social media

Since most businesses have been persuaded to get social accounts, it's a great way of getting customer service issues resolved if you can't get satisfaction over the phone. I've resolved a few things by visiting the Twitter accounts of someone who has annoyed me and leaving a tweet @ them. They don't like receiving negative press so they're pretty quick off the mark when that happens. The pic on the left shows a crook being thwarted by PayPal, who agreed to remove a domain I own from another user's PayPal account even though I'd broken their rules by setting up an account in that fellow's name. When the phone-based customer service didn't work, I took it to Twitter. Job done.

This is a fantastic way of demonstrating good customer service so rather than being annoyed or upset if someone criticizes you on your social media account where others can see their comments, turn the negative into a positive by saying, "Sorry you've had a bad experience, Mr. X," then present them with a solution. You can either get their email address and get all the details sorted out in private or follow them, ask them to follow you back, and do all the back-and-forthing on Twitter. Same goes for Facebook and your other social media accounts. The idea is to get a resolution sorted out and a happy customer at the end... and more customers when they see how well you resolve disputes.

On and offline media

There are a few rules to getting it right in order to own the narrative of who you are and what you do. If you don't take careful steps to manage your image, you're going to have a situation where what you want to project diverges significantly from what your audience perceives.

Discussions

I get so distracted by Google Plus discussions, it's untrue. I've just been involved in a rather spirited one about adverts, ad blocking, and whether or not it's ethical. The way you behave in discussions can make or break your reputation. I'm often seen as well-meaning and idealistic because I am. And since I'm always trying to learn new things I seem childlike to some people because I don't pretend to know things when I don't. I try to be positive because being negative is not an option for me. People appear to perceive me as I actually want to be perceived. While the discussions can get a bit heated, if you want to be perceived as being reasonable, you have to be reasonable no matter what.

Remember that what you say on the internet stays on the internet, even if the moderator removes the comments and deletes the thread because some aggrieved person might screencap your comments and send them viral on Twitter, etc. If you find you're at the name-calling and flouncing-out-in-a-huff stage, get off the internet. Switch off your PC and find something else to do. You don't need a horde of trolls and troublemakers to destroy your reputation when you can do it well enough yourself by flying into a four-letter rage online instead of high-tailing it out of there.

Media

I haven't been the subject of media reports but I do like to read them. Since the American ones I spend the most time on are political in nature, I'm particularly interested in the narratives provided by each one on any given subject. The polarisation between the right wingers and the liberals creates some interesting stories and because this is an election year, there has been some considerable heat in many of the articles. One thing to note is that there is dishonesty on both sides as each of the more extreme ones seek to demonise the other while ignoring the central truths of a given situation.

The lesson for us is that the way each side seeks to portray itself is often very different from the way it ends up being perceived. The US Right wants to be seen as the party of the family and social stability and continuity. They have become American Dad's Stan Smith. The US doesn't really have a left. The Liberals range in opinion from a quasi-Socialist agenda to centre right, as represented by their current president. The uniformity of right wing opinion on the hot button issues (Libertarianism is mostly about breaking down Federal control. They're not centrists, as a rule) is due to the litmus test that I've never seen even the mildest Republican fail.

Building the narrative

To begin taking hold of the narrative in order to change the way you are perceived, you need to start with a clear plan of how you want to portray yourself. I like to be perceived as a fair and reasonable person who is willing to stand up for what she believes on the personal level, and as a competent skilled web and graphic designer on the professional level. For the most part I've achieved this. Try finding any negative comments about me via an online search. Now check out the links on my Testimonials page. They're checkable.

How not to do it

Building the narrative requires collusion with your audience. It's not and never can be a one-sided endeavour because you want them to believe and perceive the story of you and your business that you're telling in your online interactions. This is why the MPAA and RIAA end up being called the MAFIAA. They don't own the narrative of who they are and what they stand for; we do. If they wanted more sympathy they'd have to give up the sense of entitlement they have towards their content, and that's not going to happen in a state-sponsored and enforced monopoly. As it is, any deviation from their preferred narrative is characterised as "misinformation." The correct, and indeed the most common, response to this is "Aww, diddums!" because they never bother to engage with the public except as potential criminals bent on stealing their work. The correct response to that is to support the Pirate Party. Engage with your audience in a positive way, is what I'm saying, if you want to get people behind you and whatever policies you're promoting.

Case study: PPUK's Loz Kaye

Musicians and writers sometimes feel threatened by the Pirate Party's policies because they tend to rely on copyright royalties but I've managed to win some people over by pointing out alternative revenue sources. By doing this, I've taken over the narrative from detractors by giving people an alternative viewpoint to see them from. In the press, we are perceived as being reasonable, decent people. The recent Loz Kaye quote in the BBC's report on ACTA shone a bright light on the digital rights cause. It doesn't hurt that his remarks came across as patriotic, that he's a working musician, that he often blogs about digital rights in the Guardian and the Huffington Post, and that he gets involved in local issues and events like the March Ancoats Canal clean-up. In the slideshow, you can see the back of his head as he labours away. Loz owns the narrative of the UK's Pirate Party because he's a thinker, a professional, and he engages with his audience. He's a great musician, too. See his work. It's a great brush to be tarred with.

Taking over a narrative owned by others

This is the story that prompted this blog post:

She will always be a victim without a name.

It only took a second for Associated Press photographer Huynh Cong “Nick” Ut to snap the iconic black-and-white image 40 years ago. It communicated the horrors of the Vietnam War in a way words could never describe, helping to end one of the most divisive wars in American history.

But beneath the photo lies a lesser-known story. It’s the tale of a dying child brought together by chance with a young photographer. A moment captured in the chaos of war that would be both her savior and her curse on a journey to understand life’s plan for her.

“I really wanted to escape from that little girl,” says Kim Phuc, now 49. “But it seems to me that the picture didn’t let me go.” - New York Daily News

That little naked girl, running in fear and pain from her burning village, grew up owned by a narrative that was exploited over and over again for propaganda purposes. Only the photojournalist who took the picture cared enough to make sure she got medical attention and followed up with her to see to her welfare. Later on, when she was finally free from her Communist minders, she was able to reverse the process and own the story of what had happened to her. It started with her decision to bring out a book and a documentary, which she followed up by becoming a goodwill ambassador. She engaged with her audience to build the image she wanted them to have of her and the plan worked.

Possessing the narrative

Once we have built the narrative and own it, we need to manage it in order to continue possessing it or ownership might slip into other hands. Controlling the perception others have of us relies on getting and keeping their support and belief in us. Lose that and you've lost everything. Even if you have some supporters they won't be highly regarded and you'll pull them down with you. Eventually they might quit and leave you on your own. Here are a few rules to follow in order to remain in control of your narrative.

• Be available


• Be approachable


• Engage with your audience


• Be flexible


• Be reasonable


• Be professional


• Control your temper


• Be transparent


• Be honest


• Be willing to stand up for what you believe


• Be willing to admit it when you're wrong


• Be willing to change or try new things

This is what I do and it works for me. The fact that people who disagree with me on many of those issues that are dear to me still like me and are willing to associate with me nonetheless says it all.

How I can help you

If anyone needs help with social media marketing I can help with that by making templates for social media accounts, advising on how to make the most of them, then following those accounts on mine. Web design and development services include content writing based on the information you provide me with. Graphic design is integral to this and doesn't cost more when it's part of a website building project. If you need any help with your online presence, let me know.

New Google Plus Layout: Bugs And Shrugs

Well Google Plus just changed its layout while Gmail is in the process of transition to a new look, whether I want it or not. 'Scuse me while I moan.

I'm a very firm believer in the old adage "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." And I like to have control over the way my e-spaces look, particularly if I have to pay with my privacy for the privilege. Now sometimes change can be good.

Google Plus

The advent of Google Plus as a haven of nerdity has been a good, good thing. I'm really enjoying it there and even the less enlightened contributors are fun. A recent conversation illustrates this perfectly:

The rest of the time it's lolcats or nerd stuff since that's who I've circled. Anyway they've just changed the layout and I'm finding it annoying. One of the problems is that it seems they have forgotten that screen sizes have changed. Mine has gone from 1024 x 768 to 1600 x 900px and having a wider screen has brought up all kinds of issues I never realised I'd have to deal with. On a screen this size there's too much white space between the comments/status updates and the sidebar. There's an inner sidebar, too. It's short and displays the trends, You May Know and You Might Like, which actually makes it look a bit like Facebook. Apparently they're not planning to put ads on it but this is Google. It runs on ads.

They've shoved all the control buttons to the left and moved other items around. It's a disorienting experience and they really should have consulted us about it. As I said to one user, did they fire their UX team?

If you click on the image to enlarge it, you can see how the change has affected the way I use the service. Please bear in mind that I've used a Firefox plugin to alter the appearance of the page because it was driving me nuts before.

Item 1 is the control panel menu. You can click and drag the buttons to put them where you want them to be on that side.

Item 2 is the settings menu where you can choose between Settings, Help, Send Feedback, or Take A Tour.

Item 3 is where the YouTube button disappeared to.

Item 4.1 is Shareaholic, a Firefox addon I use to share posts I like to Twitter and Facebook.

Item 4.2 is Shareaholic Stats.

Item 5 is the User Styles plugin for Firefox.

Gmail

I'm holding off on using the new look because, quite frankly, it sucks. I've already sent feedback asking for a customization option that permits me to set my own colours and backgrounds as before but to no avail. The settings button gives you a few options for pre-made themes but you can't really make it yours. User Styles has some templates, but true customization is hard because you have to know which bits of code to change and I don't. The only option you really have is to use Chrome, which gives you all the tools you need to customize your Gmail area, but I don't like Chrome and hate being herded. I'd rather do without than be forced to use Chrome. It's arrogant and presumptuous to say I have to use their crappy browser or be limited in what I can do with my User Interface on Gmail. I hope they'll reconsider it.

Is Google Plus Any Good?

I'm amazed at the number of tech blogs that have been writing off Google Plus. I myself wrote it off last year as destined to go the way of the ill-fated Buzz, but that was mostly because I wasn't on it since they weren't letting Apps users on yet and I'd been paying attention to the nay-sayers. Actually, it's not the ghost town some bloggers claim it is. I should know: I virtually live there.

Who uses it?

It's not dead, it's a nerd's paradise. When I first got into it I circled a few people, got nothing from it and got very bored with it very quickly. This appears to be the experience of some of the bloggers who have weighed in against it. The fact is, as Vic Gundotra put it, "You're doing it wrong" if you're not getting into lively conversations there. The trick is to circle active people. If you only circle people who rarely post, you're not going to have the stimulating conversations that keep me going back again and again.

The people who use it span the social and political spectrum but most of them appear to have some interest in tech matters. Many people use it to connect with other people while some users simply want to promote themselves and their interests.

How do you use it?

The beauty of Google Plus is that it's integrated with the other Google services, including YouTube. This is handy if you're linking a video. Web addresses, images and videos automatically link when you post the URL. If you want to get a conversation going, insert the URL of a blog post or news article into a status update. The URL will automatically link, bringing up an excerpt of the post or article. Then sit back and wait for the comments to flood in. Pretty images may attract shares and comments, funny ones usually do. Contentious images or blog posts will bring up a range of responses. Be prepared for creepy or aggressive people. I've had to uncircle a few for Fascist and creepy comments.

What's the difference between G+ and Facebook?

One comment posted by a member put it succinctly: Google Plus is about other people, Facebook is about yourself and what you're doing. That's why you get into conversations on Google Plus. Of course, you have to have a Google account to have G+, and the changes to the privacy policy mean that all Google services are now fully integrated. Facebook has apps that integrate it with other social networks, G+ doesn't. Hopefully that will change soon but there are workarounds to get it to post to Facebook and Twitter.

So how do you find all the interesting people?

Same way I did. I was looking for people to talk to about SOPA when it came out and stumbled across the Internet Freedom Movement. From there I met a range of interesting people, some of whom I circled just because they circled me. I've had to uncircle a few of them because I don't like right-wingers, particularly if they're extreme or misogynist. I can live with the more moderate ones, but scare me and you're out faster than a greyhound from the trap. If you want to control your stream when you've got a spammer, the trick is to create circles and either uncircle the spammer or put the spammer in a circle by himself. I did that to one chap who is very friendly but posts so much he often fills a page with funny pictures with Spanish captions. Since I only know English, but don't want to offend him, limiting him to a circle of his own while moving everyone else to a circle called "Mainstream" was the answer.

Is there any truth in the stories, then?

You have to remember that G+ is a new network. Uptake has been very fast but it's not Facebook and was never meant to be. The fact that it's a social network will inevitably bring up comparisons but G+ is what it is and I love it. Yeah, the figures are probably correct, but even if there were only a few thousand people on it, there are enough to create a stimulating atmosphere and I can talk tech without people's eyes glazing over. I save the light entertainment, etc., for Facebook, where I tend to be more personal. That's what it's for. G+ is for nerds and meeting new people.

Which Social Networking Sites Should You Use?

When a Facebook buddy invited me to Netlog I was delighted because I thought I could use it to promote my business. Actually, it turned out to be a perve-pit full of desperate middle-aged men trying it on with me so I deleted my account. This is what I've learned.

WordPress on Go Daddy. Is It Worth The Effort?

So you've bought some domains on Go Daddy, now you want to set up a WordPress installation. It's easier to get them to do it but that particular site is a minefield of links to offers that are fiendishly designed to squeeze money out of your pocket. Should you do it yourself or leave it to them?

Go Daddy is an Internet domain registrar and Web hosting company that also sells e-business related software and services. In 2010, it reached more than 45 million domain names under management. Go Daddy is currently the largest ICANN-accredited registrar in the world, and is four times the size of its closest competitor.

- Wikipedia

As of last weekend, they sold their 50 millionth. Although I am an affiliate and genuinely think they offer good service I grouch about them from time to time because I'm accustomed to hosts that offer cPanel or variant thereof and therefore find it awkward to use.

Anyway, while trying to install WordPress for my latest client, TEDxSalford, I ran into a wall of trouble I don't usually have to deal with.

Installation

Grouch #1: you have to set up a config file even though WP offers an interface for doing this. The thing to do is launch the Hosting Control account for that particular domain then go into FTP file management. Click on wp-config-sample.php then look for the edit icon with the button picture near the top of your screen. Click that to open the file. Click inside the file then select all the text, copy it then exit. Near the top of your screen is an icon with a piece of paper and a +. Click on that to create a new file. Paste the text from the sample config file into it. Now fill in the details for your database username, database name, password and host. Your database hostname is NEVER "localhost." Go to your database and near the top of the page you will find 'mysql###.securehost.net' or something similar. In my case it ended with .mywebsite.com. Now you can go back to the installation screen you started at and complete the installation.

Plugins

Grouch #2: Go Daddy offers WP-compatible hosting so they can do it for you. Forget this at your peril because all the things you now have to do manually can be done for you if you ask them to do it. First of all, you now need to go back to your FTP file manager and change permissions on the wp-content folder and its children or you'll have no end of trouble installing the plugins you need to make WordPress work as you want it to.

Support

Grouch #3: never before have I uploaded TinyMCE Advanced only to have it wipe out the default text editor from the Visual tab. Bear in mind that if you ask for help from Go Daddy about a product they have not developed themselves you have to take pains to point out that they are the ones at fault unless you have goofed up in some way. In any case, it's their system that makes what ought to be a straightforward job so flippin' hard. Be as polite as you are firm in your dealings with them. I have to remind myself of this because I have been blown off from time to time when they tried to send me to the product developer instead of taking ownership of the problem.

Nine times out of ten they'll send you a scripted response from an FAQ they have about the problem, but nine times out of ten it's the right one so that's fine. You don't need an individual response when a common one will do.

Find out all you need to know about manually installing WordPress on Go Daddy here.

What happened next

If you want to do it the easy way get Go Daddy to do it for you on WP compatible hosting. I don't think it's worth the aggro to do it any other way. To be fair to them, when they take ownership of a problem they're pretty quick at solving problems and getting you going. This is what they told me to do:

To Install WordPress on Your Hosting Account on a standard hosting plan, follow these instructions:

1. Log in to your Account Manager <http://mya.godaddy.com/default.aspx?prog_id=GoDaddy> .

2. From the My Products section, click Web Hosting.

3. Next to the hosting account you want to use, click Launch.

4. From the Content menu, select Go Daddy Hosting Connection®.

5. Click WordPress.

6. Click Install Now!.

NOTE: The Install Now! button displays only when the selected value application is compatible with one of more hosting plans in your account.

7. Select the domain name you want to use.

8. If you don't have a Go Daddy Community <http://community.godaddy.com> profile, enter a display name, agree to the Community terms of service, and then click Next. You have to scroll down the page to find the Next button.

9. Enter a database description and password, and then click Next.

10. Choose an installation directory, and then click Next.

To install WordPress in your root directory (ie, it displays as soon as someone goes to your domain name), remove any text from this field and leave it empty.

11. Enter the Admin Name, Admin Password, Email and Blog Title for your WordPress installation.

12. Click Finish.

WordPress will be installed to your hosting account with the options you selected within 24 hours. When it is complete, you will receive a confirmation email. It's a much slower way than doing it yourself, but it's a lot less hassle in the long run.

Troubleshooting

When things go wrong for me online, I usually turn to t'internet to find solutions and nine times out of ten, it delivers. This is what to do when your Go Daddy installation on the standard hosting package moves more slowly than an elderly snail.

One thing people seem to do best on t'internet is have a good old moan. Apparently it's to do with relative anonymity: we end up doing and saying things we know we'd never get away with in real life.

It was on a WordPress forum where people were discussing the slow performance of their WordPress installations -- a situation I didn't think I'd be able to resolve without moving hosts -- that I discovered something interesting. Go Daddy apparently has a rep who will show up at discussions in which they are being dissed and give advice to solve the problem.

Anyway, there are three steps to the solution they offer and I'm going to go through them one by one because there are good principles at work here.

1. Identify the problem

Sometimes when a problem occurs we're too busy being annoyed about it to actually find out what is going on. In my case, the site was... I don't want to use the word "running" to describe it. It was crawling slow. Page loading time ws 87 seconds which is the kiss of death for a website.

Go Daddy says:

Every time a visitor goes to your WordPress® blog, the server processes PHP scripts and establishes a database connection—in laymen's terms, it's doing a lot of work. The busier (i.e. the more visitors are browsing) your site is, the slower this process becomes.

Slow page loads are problematic as they discourage visitors from visiting your site. The usual culprits are improperly configured or misbehaving plugins or using images that are hosted on other, slower servers.

Have you noticed that the last update to this was in June of this year? The WordPress forum thread in which I discovered the link is two years old. That means they update this article every once in a while, giving us the latest news as it becomes available.

2. Try some common solutions

Go Daddy offers shared hosting. Dedicated hosting means you get a server to yourself. Go Daddy offers dedicated hosting, too, but obviously this costs more. The advantage is that you have more control over what is on the server and therefore are less likely to suffer slow loading on your web pages. It's an established fact that shared hosting is slower if they have a lot of busy sites on their servers.

WordPress has been aware of the problem with shared hosting for a while and developers have come up with some excellent plungins for us to use. I've uploaded WP-Super-Cache and WP-DBManager. The site now loads like greased lightning. The plugins work by loading your web page as a static HTML page to viewers who are not logged in, but even though I am logged in it's pretty fast.

Go Daddy says:

Consider installing third-party plug-ins like WP-Cache, WP-Super- Cache, and WP-DBManager.

Replace links to external images with images uploaded to your WordPress site.

I took the first piece of advice and the second I've been doing for a while now. Hotlinking can hurt you as much as it does the person you're too lazy to upload the image from because you need it to load where it is for you, then project itself on to your site. Text links to external sites are okay. In fact, I usually set the link to open in a new tab because I don't want people leaving my site. I know they could always hit the back button, but sometimes we can (okay, I can) get a bit lost when we're distracted by the content on another site, particularly if it's interesting or useful.

3. Trial and error

Ah yes, cause and effect. Too often it's easy to yell at people when something goes wrong when we ourselves are the culprits. Too many plugins or extensions on CMS like Joomla, Drupal or WordPress can slow them right down.

Go Daddy says:

• Disable all plugins.


• Re-enable plugins one-by-one to see which causes the slowness.

For help using plugins, see Getting Started with WordPress.

When I use plugins, I only choose the ones I need and use DHTML code in the widgets where I can. It saves me a great deal of hassle.

It's important to remember that while Go Daddy hosts WordPress and offers it as one of their applications programs, they didn't make it themselves and can't be held responsible for their performance.

The point is, don't just moan at them if something goes wrong; look for solutions and report the problem to support if you can't find what you're looking for. It works for me.

Loading time at the installation I was working on dropped from 87 seconds to 25.

Update: the WP- supercache plugin keeps disabling itself so you have to change the settings, then change permissions. The whole thing turns into a Kafka- eque nightmare if you failed to get Linux hosting in the first place. NEVER choose Windows hosting. We had to move this site but there are still a lot of complaints about Go Daddy not working with WordPress even on Linux so you might be better off going elsewhere for hosting for it.

Kim Dotcom: "We Gave Studios Access To Megaupload Servers"

Caught in the middle of what turns out to be one of the most complex cases of copyright infringement enforcement in history, Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom has revealed that it was compliance with privacy laws that prevented him from policing his cyberlocker website.

The tangled legal web

German-born Kim Dotcom (formerly Kim Schmitz) is no stranger to controversy or problems with the law. He's a convicted fraudster, for a start. However, his attempt to solve the problem of sharing files with his friends led to an indictment by the MPAA on charges of copyright infringement on a massive scale.

DMCA Safe Harbour

It's no secret that the MPAA, no strangers to infringement themselves, have been trying to get rid of the safe harbour provisions of the DMCA so they can prosecute people for copyright infringement more easily. They've also been pushing for invasive measures to monitor our online lives, ostensibly to aid the law enforcement agencies and protect us from child pornography, etc., but really to restrict our use of the internet to access their content. They've actually admitted, in a statement to CNet, that they believed that a criminal prosecution was the most appropriate way of dealing with "Megaupload's massive infringement" and therefore never intended to bring a civil prosecution. Presumably because the money-grubbing hypocrites would have to pay for it themselves. As it is, the costs are being borne by US taxpayers. Dotcom claims to have been taken by surprise because his legal team had told him that he and his company were protected by DMCA safe harbour and were not liable for the actions of third parties as long as they complied with the takedown notices as and when they were issued.

In most cases, entertainment companies will try to negotiate or at least issue a cease-and-desist letter when they think a service is infringing. If all else fails, they almost always file a civil suit against the alleged violator. According to DotCom, they did not do that in this case, according to CNet reporter Greg Sandoval.

Privacy laws prevented policing the uploaded content

John Campbell of New Zealand's 3 News got an interview with Dotcom in which he revealed some of the complexities that could see the case bogged down in court for years:

• the sheer size and viral nature of Megaupload made it impossible to police. Dotcom claims that the network that running on 1.5 terabytes of bandwidth — about 800 file transfers completing every second.


• In the US and Europe privacy laws prohibited them from looking into the accounts of users to seek out infringing content.

Voluntary scheme gave studios access to remove infringing content

Aware of the scale of the problem, Dotcom provided 180 content owners with the opportunity to remove infringing links via an online form AND direct delete access to Megaupload servers so they could access the system and remove the links themselves. Partners in the scheme included every major movie studio and Microsoft, who removed over 15 million links. He points to the fact that although he has been sued by a porn company and settled out of court, he has never received so much as a cease-and-desist letter from the MPAA. This, he assumed, was because he had cooperated so completely with the studios and was covered by DMCA safe harbour. What he doesn't understand is why he's been singled out while Google and YouTube claim safe harbour and aren't shut down.

However, according to the US government, the tool only removed specific links to files, though, often leaving the file in place and accessible via other links.

ISPs attempt to cap bandwidth to strangle legal streaming services

Meanwhile, Time Warner Cable have launched a tiered services that offers up to 5GB a month of data transmission for a $5 discount off their bill. The deal is sweetened with the ability to opt in and out of a tiered package at any time. A charge of $1 per GB applies for going over the limit and they're offering metered usage. Customers can switch back and forth as often as they like, but if they choose not to switch, nobody’s switching anything for them, they said in their company blog.

This has prompted a flurry of controversy as customers complain of being restricted from using legitimate streaming services like Hulu and Netflix.

Content providers unwilling to switch to streaming or allow full ownership

My kerfuffle with Armovore and the interview with Kim Dotcom have revealed that the copyright holders are aware that streaming and torrents provide a better, faster, more efficient service to users but they're not interested in doing that. In fact, what they appear to be aiming for is to create a digital climate in which we don't actually own the things we buy online — we're renting them and are obliged to pay for each use. The invasive ISP snooping laws the various governments are trying to bring in are designed to facilitate enforcement of this policy.

We don't have to take this lying down. Join the Internet Freedom Movement and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and support your local Pirate Party. Read, share, and educate yourself to stop the slow creep into a police state run by and for big business.

PayPal And The Power of Social Media

A few days ago I wrote about how to resolve problems with PayPal. They've confirmed that the account of the non-payer who is using an email account that belongs to me has been limited and he can not receive money using that email address.

They've got my back, they say, but can't give too much away because even though I'm the one who set up the account I can't be kept in the loop about what happens to it. Fair enough. I was stupid to have added a certain conman's email address to it and got shafted by him. Lesson learned: if I set up an account on PayPal for someone I'll take payment upfront before I do so and after they've paid me for the website.

What I did

I was annoyed when they told me they can't remove details from another person's account. On the phone I was politely informed that it is effectively none of my business because it's someone else's account so I went mad on the social media, leaving messages on Facebook, Twitter, and Linked In. You have to be reasonable when you do this, so I left messages like "Please resolve case ################" and "@PayPalUK I've reported that someone else is using an email address belonging to me on his PayPal account. http://www.twitlonger.com/show/fmjiq1." When I got no response initially I visited their Linked In and Facebook pages and posted this tweet "http://www.twitlonger.com/show/fmjiq1 #PayPalUK #fraud #fb I'm going to tweet this every day until this is resolved." I'd left a message with Mr. Clarke, who kindly responded today, but I'll deal with that in a bit.

@PayPalUK

They followed me and invited me to follow back in order to resolve the matter. It's important to be respectful so I thanked them and got to the nub of the problem. There was a bit of confusion till the facts were properly related but the upshot is they confirmed that there is indeed a limitation on the account. Suspicious, I sent a test payment to info@elitebusinesstobusiness.com and it went through with no problem. When I reported this they told me Stan would not be able to collect his $0.01 because the payment won't complete. There was no indication of this on my end, though, I have to take their word for it but they have confirmed that there is a limitation on the account until the email address is removed.

Facebook

They responded to my message by asking for details and I told them that their people on Twitter were dealing with it. They deleted the message I left. They must get hundreds of these if the fuss on the internet complaint sites is anything to go by.

Linked In

I'd left a message on the Linked In message board and when they replied I told them their people on Twitter were dealing with it. Then Mr. Clarke replied and I realised I still had an ace in the hole: the address Stan had given as his home address is fake, it's for Micron Damp and Dry Rot Control. I took the opportunity to rat about the fake address while admitting that I'd put it on when setting up the website because I'd done it in good faith. "If he blames me I've got a CV he sent me with the address on it," I said, and gave him mine to prove that I'm not the liar. I also pointed out that Stan had tried to con the Kirsty Club and that none of the references on his CV check out. He can have all the evidence I've got if he wants it, including direct contact details for the Midland Hotel and the Kirsty Club.

So there we are; no need for any further complaints and PayPal's got my back. I'm happy to continue to deal with them and to recommend them for transferring money at home or abroad.

BT Tradespace: Why Should you Bother With It?

BT Tradespace, let's be honest about this, is a rubbish website. It's slow, it's butt ugly and it doesn't give you much in the way of styling ability. The support isn't great and usually consists of shrugging and saying there's not much they can do about it. Don't get me started on the navigation: Scott of the flippin' Antarctic would lose another team in there, it's so awkward to use. Is there any benefit in having an account there at all?

The old adage that you get what you pay for has so far held true for BT Tradespace. It's free for the most part and you don't get much bang for your buck. You can pay to upgrade, of course — but to what?

What it is

It's a social networking behemoth that lumbers slowy from one function to another, providing a website of sorts to people who haven't got one. You can, in theory, forego having a website and just use BT Tradespace instead. Functionality includes

• home and about pages


• discussion forums/help/customer service area


• galleries to display images


• news that imports the RSS feed from your blog AND allows you to post items


• selling online via an Amazon app

Who does it better

Facebook. By a country mile. It's faster, easier to navigate, has more interactivity and better apps integration.

So why should we use it, then?

After all I've said about it you'd think it best to give BT Tradespace a very wide berth, but actually there are some advantages to using it, most of which are to do with SEO. The one and only reason I have an account there is to boost my SEO. Nothing else. No one interacts with me there (I presume they're all at Facebook) and I've never had an enquiry from there. I used to offer account setup, configuration, integration and customization there but never got a response for it one way or the other. But you should at least consider having an account there because of the SEO advantages which include

• It makes you put keywords and titles on each image you upload


• It gives you separate areas, each of which has a link of its own


• You can make as many business profiles as you like: one for each of your websites if you have more than one


• The apps integration allows you to connect your Twitter account and your blog


• You can make as many services, community and gallery pages as you want

A brief search of my name alone will bring up a few of my BT Tradespace links on the first few pages. It's one of the things that makes me findable online, so as much as I despise it, I'll update my services pages, galleries and what have you from time to time to keep my content fresh — and add more SEO value to my account.

Buried By Spam: The Right WP Plugin

Today I got absolutely hammered by a persistent spammer (there may have been more than one) who appeared to be using automated software to hit me again and again. Although I had the Spam Free WordPress plugin activated and even blocked some IPs, my efforts had no effect. This is what I did about it.

I've had a few trackbacks on my affiliate marketing websites, Practical Digital and Easy SME, and thought nothing of it. I've also had a few comments pop up from time to time on my posts, and that's fine; those websites work by content marketing so getting conversations going is good, right? But not with dingbats selling viagra, or whatever.

Anti-spam plugin fail

I had Captcha on the comments via Spam Free WordPress and thought that was enough to keep them out. It was for the comment spammers, though I did get a few who were willing to brave the spike-filled pit of Captcha and leave a comment that I ended up deleting. Why do they do it? To give me RSI? Job done. Toerags! Yes, I have a wrist rest. I slouch, to be honest, particularly when I'm tired.

Well the comments spam dried up so one particularly annoying persistent spammer decided to add trackbacks to every single post, occasionally garnished with a comment such as, "Yep, I couldn't agree more." What with? "Buy office equipment?" If you think it's that brilliant, buy some, already! Sheesh! If I was so inclined, I'd add a "Wah wah wah waaaaaah!" sound file to complement that cartoon I made for this post. It's how I feel.

Trackbacks

Trackbacks are a way to notify a website when you publish an entry that references it. When you send a trackback, a link with a short excerpt of your entry will appear on the website you're referring to. I was getting, "We honor those websites we think are the best by linking to them," and links to dodgy keyword farms or websites about treatment for "down there diseases," over and over again with no link or reference to Practical Digital.

Then another wave came in for silver stuff, then some for an exercise and, would you believe, a chicken coop set. There must have been sixty of them in all, and like a game of online whack-a-mole, no sooner had I deleted one than more popped up. They filled my inbox. When I went to have a look at the links, there was no link to Practical Digital or any mention of my website. I went to war.

IP blocking failed, as did sending the comments to spam. I thought it was weird that IP blocking failed, it works on other programs. It's as if IP blocking doesn't work for trackbacks.

The value of trackbacks, when used properly, is that it's basically a link exchange. If someone left a trackback to one of my tutorials and they happened to be web designers, developers or general internet bods, I'd be happy about it. I've had comments before from apps developers and other people worth linking to. That's fine. I just don't want to give a leg-up to some spambot with a shedload of viagra to shift, and that's final. Honestly, when I see adverts for link-building services I find myself wondering if that's how they do it.

Anti-spam plugin win

So there I was, acting out the scene from Fantasia where Mickey Mouse, as the Sorceror's Apprentice, was trying to empty out the water from the basment while an army of brooms dumped more water in — that, but blocking IP addresses in the plugin settings and sending the dodgy trackbacks to spam. I stopped to answer a call from Steve Gordon of Acore Development & Training (I'm helping him with his videos on top of the website management I already do), and found thirty six more in my inbox. I'm not kidding, it was horrible. An avalanche of spam. I really can't be spending my days deleting this unwanted crap, so I went to WordPress to see what plugins they have that provide an holistic anti-spam service. I do believe I've found it.

MP Spam Be Gone

1. Upload the mp-spam-be-gone plugin to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory or via Plugins/Add new/MP Spam Be Gone/Install Now
2. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress
3. Get on with the stuff you prefer to do. What spam problem?

That's it, you're done. Although there's a settings menu, it's not necessary and you don't have to worry any more. The spam is gone, never to return. Seriously, I'm lovin' it. I've had nothing from the spambot since I added the plugin.

It's mildly concerning that there's an options menu but no options. I briefly switched to the Twenty Eleven theme to see if that made a difference. It did; my lovely green three column layout was replaced by a boring two column blog. You don't need them, as far as I can see. As long as the spam is gone, I don't really care.

Update

I'm really pleased to announce that I've been linked and namechecked on Chattoon! Cartoon Daily. They very helpfully posted a tweet with my name on. The cartooning is an incidental thing, it's not my main pursuit, so I'm doubly pleased and a bit humbled by this.

Make Your Own Apps

I came across a post on Linked In this morning about apps and how it's possible to make your own. At first I was intrigued but when I started to use the website I was reminded once again that there is no such thing as a free lunch.

iPhone apps are big business. Apparently, over 70% of the world's population now owns a mobile phone. There are over 425,000 apps for iPhone, and Apple's competitors aren't far behind. Prices for apps vary between free and $300 USD, and people can make their own and make them available to the public, either paid or free. Some people have gone on to make money from their apps.

Becoming a developer

That's all well and good, but as the last article I linked to pointed out, you need to have a good, original idea. Otherwise your app ends up as just another RSS feed reader that displays a list of posts from your blog, as the one I came up with here does. What I ended up with isn't terribly impressive unless you're a web design and internet nerd like me. On createfreeiphoneapps.com you get more of a choice of what you can do with your app, but you need to pay to get onto Apple's developer program. Since it costs the best part of $100 USD and the average paid-for app costs under $3 USD, whatever has persuaded you that your app is the next big thing had better be right because there are better ways of spending that money.

The bottom line is, if you want to make an app that only you and perhaps your immediate circle will use, i.e. the rss feed for your blog, you can make it for free but it might not be approved. If you want to make a decent one that is either useful or popular you may well have to pay for the privilege.

The most popular apps

The most popular apps, according to Apple, are the trivial or games ones. The most popular is Candy Mail, which sells via iTunes for $1.99. People's blogs feeds apps are presumably far down the line. The idea I had was to present people with a way of exchanging business cards via their phones using an app that displays their details in the same way that paper business cards do, but hundreds of people appear to have gotten there first, including these eight developers. Or you could take the lazy way out and use a business card scanning app.

QR Code

I've already mentioned the QR code revolution which is quietly taking over the way we look stuff up online with our mobile phones. It's a pain in the rear to tap in the URLs on our touch screens or using those tiny buttons so QR is a Godsend because all you have to do is get the app required then use your phone to scan it, then you will be taken straight to the website it leads to. Since that is a shortcut to the information people want from a business card, it's probably your best bet for an app - and there are loads of them. This is probably why I keep seeing them on business cards. I'll have to put one on mine.

Conclusion

All I really wanted was an easy way to pass on my business contact details or to advertise my website. It transpires that there have been simple ways of doing exactly that for ages and some of them are free.

Problem with PayPal? Four Steps To Sorting It Out

I set up a website for a client who didn't pay me, then forgot to remove the email address info@elitebusinesstobusiness from the PayPal account I set up for him so he can use it to receive money. When I phoned them to get this sorted out they refused to do anything about it, saying it's a matter between him and me.

The background

I set up Elite Business to Business as a networking website. That's why it has a forum. The idea was that there would be a two-tier membership system with members being rewarded for saving each other money, thereby guaranteeing that none of them would ever go bankrupt. The design and development went swimmingly until I started pushing for payment. When money failed to materialise, I started running checks on him to find out more about him, then discovered that he's basically a con man. I can't take him to court because each of the five home addresses he has given to the people I contacted is probably fake. The one he gave me is of a roofing supplier, and he's nothing to do with them.

He actually tried to defraud the Kirsty Club to the tune of £5000 by getting them to pay for the charity ball he intended to hold at the Midland Hotel in October last year.

I discovered this too late to do anything more than retain control of the website, make sure my contact details are on the domain registration, and refuse to let him have any say on what goes on it until I have been paid in full. Memo to me: take a deposit first.

The complication

He realised I'd left info@elitebusinesstobusiness.com on his PayPal account earlier this month and changed the password in case I went in and removed the other email address. I found this out when the email alert came up in my inbox: info@elitebusinesstobusiness.com diverts to my personal email account. So I phoned PayPal and they offered to put a limitation on the account to force him to remove info@elitebusinesstobusiness.com or lose the use of his account.

I was satisfied with that until, a few weeks later, I received another email alert that he'd gone and changed the password again. I phoned up PayPal again and was blown off with an assertion that this was a privacy issue and the matter was best dealt with through the courts. Here's the problem: if he commits a crime using that email address, it's registered to me, so I'm screwed. I could go to prison for his fraud.

Okay, there I was, up the proverbial creek without a propellent. What could I do about it?

The procedure

I discovered how to do this properly after casting about looking for solutions online. Please note, the consumer websites aren't always helpful, particularly where this stuff is concerned. Here's what you should actually do instead of wasting your time phoning up:

1. Go to their general contact page and post your complaint in there. Resolutions is for buyer/seller issues so don't use that, they'll ask for a transaction number and there's not one for a complaint of this nature. You should receive a response in a few minutes' time. That's to let you know they received your complaint. They'll actually deal with it in a day or two. Give them three.

2. If their response is unsatisfactory, you have to wait EIGHT WEEKS before you can escalate the complaint. I know it's frustrating but there aren't any shortcuts that I know of apart from bothering this chap on Linked In. This might not be effective as he no doubt gets a ton of these a day, courtesy of Mukau Media's blog post about PayPal and how to resolve disputes with them. He might even complain about you to Linked In, particularly if you're rude to him, so if you really can't wait, and you do decide to contact him, be polite.

3. If you've waited for two weeks and got no joy, contact them again and announce that you are going to make a formal complaint to their regulator, CSSF, the FSA, and the FOS. I've linked to the English version of the complaint page on the CSSF website but if for any reason you end up on a page that's in French, click on the UK flag at the top of the page. It's written in French because CSSF is in Luxembourg, where PayPal is registered as a bank.

4. If none of that works, complain on their social media accounts, @PayPalUK, PayPal UK (Facebook), and their Linked In group. You can also have a moan on consumer forums and whinge websites, and see if that works.

If you do have a complaint about PayPal and tried to resolve it, let me know. I like to hear from my readers.

Update

Here is their response:

Dear Wendy Cockcroft,

Thank you for contacting PayPal.

I apologize but we cannot remove any information from another members account.

Thank you for choosing PayPal.

Yours sincerely,

Wendy

PayPal

Copyright © 1999-2012 PayPal. All rights reserved.

PayPal (Europe) S.à r.l. et Cie, S.C.A.

Société en Commandite par Actions

Registered Office: 22-24 Boulevard Royal L-2449, Luxembourg

RCS Luxembourg B 118 349

I'd jumped the gun by complaining to CSSF straight away and they included the complaint in their email as a forwarded message. Okay, I don't do waiting, so I've got on to their Facebook page and Twitter account to make my complaint there. Now I'm complaining about their refusal to deal with identity theft. See it here and please retweet it to help me out.

Update: it's resolved.

Are You Mobile-Ready? Four Free Options For Getting On Board

If you have a website and it's not optimized for mobile viewing or linked to a mobile-friendly version you may find you fall behind your competitors. You can't be complacent about it; more and more people are using their mobile phones to browse websites and the number is set to rise. Don't worry too much about it, though; there are plenty of options to sort it out for free.