10. Local stores are more likely to carry locally produced foods which supports local agriculture.
9. Local business owners contribute to more local fundraising and 501(c)3’s.
8. Local businesses provide a majority of jobs.
7. Local businesses support other local businesses.
6. The business community becomes reflective of this community’s unique culture.
5. The sales taxes I pay support this community and county: fixing my roads, maintaining my recreational facilities, . . .
4. Competition and diversity result in fair prices and more choices.
3. Shopping local reduces my carbon footprint.
2. Local business owners invest in the community and have a vested interest in the future of this community.
1. My hometown is more important than a cheap pair of underwear!
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Friday, January 25, 2008
Charter deletes 14,000 email accounts
Dude, where's my e-mail?
That's what thousands of Charter Communications customers asked on Monday when the company inadvertently deleted 14,000 active e-mail accounts, according to an Associated Press story published on Thursday.
Officials at Charter believe a glitch in software during routine maintenance caused the e-mail accounts to be deleted. The company is offering $50 credits to customers who were affected.
A company representative told the news service that there was no way to retrieve the messages, photos or other attachments that had been sitting in people's in-boxes when they were deleted.
Anita Lamont, the Charter spokeswoman who spoke to the AP, explained how the mistake happened. She said Charter gives each broadband subscriber a free e-mail account. But since many people use other e-mail addresses, the company routinely deletes unused accounts. On Monday, some active accounts wound up being deleted with the inactive accounts. Lamont said it had never happened before.
Charter provides broadband Internet, TV and telephone service in 29 states. The company has about 2.6 million subscribers to its broadband Internet service. The customers affected by the e-mail deletion were spread throughout the country, according to the AP story.
That's what thousands of Charter Communications customers asked on Monday when the company inadvertently deleted 14,000 active e-mail accounts, according to an Associated Press story published on Thursday.
Officials at Charter believe a glitch in software during routine maintenance caused the e-mail accounts to be deleted. The company is offering $50 credits to customers who were affected.
A company representative told the news service that there was no way to retrieve the messages, photos or other attachments that had been sitting in people's in-boxes when they were deleted.
Anita Lamont, the Charter spokeswoman who spoke to the AP, explained how the mistake happened. She said Charter gives each broadband subscriber a free e-mail account. But since many people use other e-mail addresses, the company routinely deletes unused accounts. On Monday, some active accounts wound up being deleted with the inactive accounts. Lamont said it had never happened before.
Charter provides broadband Internet, TV and telephone service in 29 states. The company has about 2.6 million subscribers to its broadband Internet service. The customers affected by the e-mail deletion were spread throughout the country, according to the AP story.
Vista's More Secure
By Kevin McLaughlin, CMP Channel
4:55 PM EST Thu. Jan. 24, 2008 A year after Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) unleashed Windows Vista on consumers, the vendor is proudly affirming that Vista is its most secure operating system ever, and backing up this claim with a slew of comparative data points.
In a Wednesday blog post, Austin Wilson, director of Windows Client Security Product Management at Microsoft, said features like User Account Control and stronger security in Internet Explorer 7 have contributed to Vista's solid security track record.
In its first year on the market, Vista had far fewer fixed and unfixed security vulnerabilities than did Windows XP in its first year: 36 fixed/30 unfixed for Windows Vista vs. 68 fixed/54 unfixed for Windows XP, according to Wilson.
"I think that it's fair to say that Windows Vista is proving to be the most secure version of the Windows to date," Wilson wrote.
In Vista's first year, Microsoft issued patches on 9 separate occasions, compared to 26 occasions during XP's first year, wrote Wilson. In addition, there were three different months in the past year when Microsoft issued patches for XP but didn't issue any for Vista, Wilson wrote.
The combination of Internet Explorer 7 running on Vista protects users' personal information, thwarts phishing attempts, and improves the security of Web transactions by virtue of IE7's support for Extended Validation SSL Certificates, wrote Wilson.
Ric Lollar, a network administrator at Acropolis Technology Group, Wood River, Ill., has cleaned "hundreds and hundreds of malware, spyware and Trojan infections" from PCs over the past year, but not a from single Vista machine.
"I'm very impressed with Vista's built-in ability to ward off browser hijacks, changes to system files and processes and other infections," said Lollar.
User Account Control, which reduces application privileges from administrative to standard levels, has been instrumental in helping Vista fend off certain types of malware that have plagued earlier versions of Windows, wrote Wilson.
However, UAC has been widely criticized for being too active and for interfering with the normal functioning of the OS. But despite its lackluster image, UAC does make people aware of what trouble they could potentially be getting into, says Scott Cayouette, president of IPW Networks in Pompano Beach, Fla.
"UAC doesn't take away the problem of people being impatient and clicking on things, but alerts don't come up that often, and unless you change something, you're rarely going to see it," said Cauyouette.
Of the 23 security bulletins Microsoft has released for Vista thus far, 12 have described a lower impact for users that aren't operating with administrative privileges, which Wilson cites as proof that UAC is having the desired effect.
"This is a great illustration of the importance of User Account Control and why we included it in the product," Wilson wrote.
4:55 PM EST Thu. Jan. 24, 2008 A year after Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) unleashed Windows Vista on consumers, the vendor is proudly affirming that Vista is its most secure operating system ever, and backing up this claim with a slew of comparative data points.
In a Wednesday blog post, Austin Wilson, director of Windows Client Security Product Management at Microsoft, said features like User Account Control and stronger security in Internet Explorer 7 have contributed to Vista's solid security track record.
In its first year on the market, Vista had far fewer fixed and unfixed security vulnerabilities than did Windows XP in its first year: 36 fixed/30 unfixed for Windows Vista vs. 68 fixed/54 unfixed for Windows XP, according to Wilson.
"I think that it's fair to say that Windows Vista is proving to be the most secure version of the Windows to date," Wilson wrote.
In Vista's first year, Microsoft issued patches on 9 separate occasions, compared to 26 occasions during XP's first year, wrote Wilson. In addition, there were three different months in the past year when Microsoft issued patches for XP but didn't issue any for Vista, Wilson wrote.
The combination of Internet Explorer 7 running on Vista protects users' personal information, thwarts phishing attempts, and improves the security of Web transactions by virtue of IE7's support for Extended Validation SSL Certificates, wrote Wilson.
Ric Lollar, a network administrator at Acropolis Technology Group, Wood River, Ill., has cleaned "hundreds and hundreds of malware, spyware and Trojan infections" from PCs over the past year, but not a from single Vista machine.
"I'm very impressed with Vista's built-in ability to ward off browser hijacks, changes to system files and processes and other infections," said Lollar.
User Account Control, which reduces application privileges from administrative to standard levels, has been instrumental in helping Vista fend off certain types of malware that have plagued earlier versions of Windows, wrote Wilson.
However, UAC has been widely criticized for being too active and for interfering with the normal functioning of the OS. But despite its lackluster image, UAC does make people aware of what trouble they could potentially be getting into, says Scott Cayouette, president of IPW Networks in Pompano Beach, Fla.
"UAC doesn't take away the problem of people being impatient and clicking on things, but alerts don't come up that often, and unless you change something, you're rarely going to see it," said Cauyouette.
Of the 23 security bulletins Microsoft has released for Vista thus far, 12 have described a lower impact for users that aren't operating with administrative privileges, which Wilson cites as proof that UAC is having the desired effect.
"This is a great illustration of the importance of User Account Control and why we included it in the product," Wilson wrote.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Malware Quietly Reaching 'Epidemic' Levels
New reports say malware increased by a factor of five to 10 in 2007
By Tim Wilson
Site Editor, Dark Reading
Everybody knew it was bad, but few knew it was this bad.
In separate studies released yesterday, two research firms now say that malware increased between 500 percent and 1,000 percent in 2007, and it shows no signs of slowing down.
"The number of new strains of malware that appeared in 2007 increased tenfold with respect to the previous year," said PandaLabs, Panda Security's research arm, in a report issued yesterday. "Over the last year, PandaLabs has received an average of more than 3,000 new strains of malware every day. This represents a malware epidemic which -- although silent, with little media coverage and no widespread alerts -- is nevertheless dangerous."
The results indicate that signature-based defenses for malware are no longer effective, the research firm said. Some 72 percent of networks with more than 100 workstations -- and 23 percent of home users -- are currently infected with malware, despite having operative antivirus or other signature-based tools in place, PandaLabs said.
Experts at AV-Test, an independent testing organization, also reported skyrocketing incidence of malware yesterday. After a detailed count, the organization said it identified nearly 5.5 million different malware files in 2007 -- more than five times as many as in 2006.
AV-Test counted the number of files with different MD5 hashes, sometimes called "fingerprints." This includes malware which is packed using a different run-time packer or is differently encrypted, the testing organization said.
In 2007, AV-Test found almost 5.5 million such files, up from about 973,000 in 2006 and 333,000 in 2005, the report said. And the trend is accelerating: The group already has identified more than 118,000 different malware files in the first two weeks of January.
The results drove AV-Test to concur with PandaLabs's assessment. "The figures clearly demonstrate that the signature-based approach of current anti-virus software is no longer appropriate," the report said.
By Tim Wilson
Site Editor, Dark Reading
Everybody knew it was bad, but few knew it was this bad.
In separate studies released yesterday, two research firms now say that malware increased between 500 percent and 1,000 percent in 2007, and it shows no signs of slowing down.
"The number of new strains of malware that appeared in 2007 increased tenfold with respect to the previous year," said PandaLabs, Panda Security's research arm, in a report issued yesterday. "Over the last year, PandaLabs has received an average of more than 3,000 new strains of malware every day. This represents a malware epidemic which -- although silent, with little media coverage and no widespread alerts -- is nevertheless dangerous."
The results indicate that signature-based defenses for malware are no longer effective, the research firm said. Some 72 percent of networks with more than 100 workstations -- and 23 percent of home users -- are currently infected with malware, despite having operative antivirus or other signature-based tools in place, PandaLabs said.
Experts at AV-Test, an independent testing organization, also reported skyrocketing incidence of malware yesterday. After a detailed count, the organization said it identified nearly 5.5 million different malware files in 2007 -- more than five times as many as in 2006.
AV-Test counted the number of files with different MD5 hashes, sometimes called "fingerprints." This includes malware which is packed using a different run-time packer or is differently encrypted, the testing organization said.
In 2007, AV-Test found almost 5.5 million such files, up from about 973,000 in 2006 and 333,000 in 2005, the report said. And the trend is accelerating: The group already has identified more than 118,000 different malware files in the first two weeks of January.
The results drove AV-Test to concur with PandaLabs's assessment. "The figures clearly demonstrate that the signature-based approach of current anti-virus software is no longer appropriate," the report said.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Be careful with your business email
By JANE LARSON
The Arizona Republic
Business e-mail often is full of "smoking guns" that can harm a company if and when a dissatisfied employee, customer, vendor or regulator files a lawsuit.
"No one is immune from this — large lawsuits, small lawsuits, large corporate clients or very small corporate clients," Christopher Stuart, a Scottsdale, Ariz., lawyer said last month at the Biltmore Bank of Arizona's small-business seminar.
E-mail users sent 60 billion messages a day in 2006, Stuart said, creating a wealth of communication. And the more communication, the more likely it is that an opposing side can find damaging e-mails.
Stuart advised businesses to consider these three caveats regarding e-mail:
• Discourage non-essential use of e-mail. E-mail can be a speedy timesaver or a handy tool to document transactions, Stuart said.
"What it's not good for is every single time you want to vent a frustration or talk about something that's going on in the office or with a client relationship," he said. It's those nonessential communications that end up as smoking guns surprisingly often, he said.
• Don't push "send" without asking yourself, "Would I write this under the company letterhead?"
Employees should vet an e-mail enough to be willing to stake the company's reputation on what is said, Stuart said.
• Think before hitting "forward." This is especially important with communications that have disclaimers at the bottom, Stuart said.
Attorney-client privilege, for example, is waived if the client forwards an attorney's e-mail regarding legal matters to someone else.
Don't think deleting or erasing information from hard drives will solve the problem. State and federal laws require parties in a suit to preserve potentially relevant information, electronic and otherwise, and courts have imposed penalties on businesses that fail to produce such information.
For example, investment bank UBS Warburg was penalized $29 million for failing to retain e-mails that might have been relevant in a former employee's wrongful-termination case, Stuart said. Phoenix company Mesa Air Group Inc. recently lost a lawsuit in part because the chief financial officer cleaned out his hard drive.
Good uses of e-mail
There are good ways to use e-mail, Stuart said. They include:
• Documenting terms, and your interpretation of the terms, when negotiating a sale. E-mails describing what you think a contract means can help ward off legal disputes later, Stuart said.
• Documenting instructions that you receive from customers. These can help show that the business did what the customer requested, he said.
• Showing respect for customers and vendors in internal communications. These provide positive examples of how a company does business.
The Arizona Republic
Business e-mail often is full of "smoking guns" that can harm a company if and when a dissatisfied employee, customer, vendor or regulator files a lawsuit.
"No one is immune from this — large lawsuits, small lawsuits, large corporate clients or very small corporate clients," Christopher Stuart, a Scottsdale, Ariz., lawyer said last month at the Biltmore Bank of Arizona's small-business seminar.
E-mail users sent 60 billion messages a day in 2006, Stuart said, creating a wealth of communication. And the more communication, the more likely it is that an opposing side can find damaging e-mails.
Stuart advised businesses to consider these three caveats regarding e-mail:
• Discourage non-essential use of e-mail. E-mail can be a speedy timesaver or a handy tool to document transactions, Stuart said.
"What it's not good for is every single time you want to vent a frustration or talk about something that's going on in the office or with a client relationship," he said. It's those nonessential communications that end up as smoking guns surprisingly often, he said.
• Don't push "send" without asking yourself, "Would I write this under the company letterhead?"
Employees should vet an e-mail enough to be willing to stake the company's reputation on what is said, Stuart said.
• Think before hitting "forward." This is especially important with communications that have disclaimers at the bottom, Stuart said.
Attorney-client privilege, for example, is waived if the client forwards an attorney's e-mail regarding legal matters to someone else.
Don't think deleting or erasing information from hard drives will solve the problem. State and federal laws require parties in a suit to preserve potentially relevant information, electronic and otherwise, and courts have imposed penalties on businesses that fail to produce such information.
For example, investment bank UBS Warburg was penalized $29 million for failing to retain e-mails that might have been relevant in a former employee's wrongful-termination case, Stuart said. Phoenix company Mesa Air Group Inc. recently lost a lawsuit in part because the chief financial officer cleaned out his hard drive.
Good uses of e-mail
There are good ways to use e-mail, Stuart said. They include:
• Documenting terms, and your interpretation of the terms, when negotiating a sale. E-mails describing what you think a contract means can help ward off legal disputes later, Stuart said.
• Documenting instructions that you receive from customers. These can help show that the business did what the customer requested, he said.
• Showing respect for customers and vendors in internal communications. These provide positive examples of how a company does business.
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