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Anyone else experiencing this?

I had a client contact me about a week or so ago advising there was inappropriate advert content on her site and to get it removed. I contacted Google and filled in a report about inappropriate content – and got no response at all.  The code has now been removed from her site.

I’m now finding the same thing on a couple of my own sites.  Inappropriate content. Who wants to find sex adverts or content relating to their sexuality on sites that are business related or family oriented?  Not me and I wonder if my readers are wondering about me?

I don’t have control over the adverts that show up but I do believe they are supposed to pick up on keywords on my site and post adverts that relate to that content in some way. I’d repeat here the topics of what those inappropriate adverts were except they might start showing up here too.

I can remove the code and most likely will, where I can, but on a private ning network that I manage I can’t – it comes with the membership site.

Did you know you can report inappropriate or offensive adverts you see?

Just click on the ‘Ads by Google’ title at the top of the advert block and fill in their form.  Use your voice and report what’s not appropriate and perhaps collectively our voices will get something happening.

I don’t know what’s changed or when, but I do know that something has changed and I don’t like it.

Tags: Advertising by Kathie Thomas
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In today’s hurly-burly work environment many business people find it challenging to avoid distraction, stay focused, use their time and energy to maximum benefit, and gain ground on important goals and outcomes. One study by the Families and Work Institute found that one-third of Americans are overworked and more than 50 percent of those surveyed say they are either doing too many tasks at the same time or are frequently interrupted during the workday – or both. In short, we are overloaded!

Time Management In An Instant helps the reader to overcome this feeling of overload and avoid the traps that lead to an unproductive relationship with time. It offers field-tested time habits and expert advice based on the latest research that will help the reader better manage, create and spend their time with more satisfaction and results.

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Tags: Book Tour by Kathie Thomas
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As many of you know I’ve recently renewed my passion for photography in a big way. I’ve been doing a lot of Australiana photography but my recent trip to Canada and Alaska produced over 4,000 photos of landscapes, wild animals, plants and seascapes.  It’s been a wonderful time of travelling and then pouring through photos remembering each place Graham and I visited.

While away overseas I purchased a Canadian Photographer’s magazine and discovered two things I hadn’t yet thought about – Photo Tours (love that idea!) and Photographer’s sites for selling digital downloads of photos as well as print format.

So I’ve begun researching and found some tours done here in Australia and have them on my wish list, but I’m struggling to find a web service for photographers here in Australia that will do the following:

• Provide a website for uploading images
• Choice of templates
• No need to know software
• Large number of images can be loaded
• Use own domain name (if wanted)
• Set up a shopping cart
• Allow purchase of digital images to be downloaded
• Provide printed copies of photos for sale
• Monthly or annual fee that is not out of reach for the average person

I’ve found many sites in the UK and US that provide this service but nothing in Australia.  At least, not on the same scale.  So I’m on a quest and if you know of something suitable, please let me know. The type of sites I’m referring to are:

• www.clickpic.com
• www.theimagefile.com
• www.smugmug.com

I could use any of the above but I want to be able to offer sales in AUD, not USD or GBP and I want to offer local postage delivery costs and not international.

So, if you know of anything I’m all ears!

Tags: photography by Kathie Thomas
8 Comments »

What can you recommend?

Here’s the scenario.  I have been using Spamarrest.com for several years quite happily, for a number of my domains.  But in the past twelve months I feel they’ve changed something in the system.  I was previously able to approve single messages sent from me (test newsletters for example) without a spate of spam also being delivered. Spammers love to use other people’s addresses, you know.  And then some email went missing. I checked with my webhost/mail server and the mail was leaving the server so presumably it was going through spamarrest’s system but not getting to me.  I checked that addresses weren’t blacklisted and were approved, but still nothing.

So I’ve been trying some other systems, with little satisfaction. I’ve tried a number of programs that you can install on your computer and use through Outlook but that means I end up with copious amounts of junk in my Outlook program that I have to delete. I like things to be tidy and it drives me nuts seeing it there. Then I tried another program that you can use for it to check all your email first before downloading it. This seemed good, but I had to process all email first and was spending (wasting) time processing email. If I’ve already approved people as friends or put them on the white list, I just want the email delivered when it arrives – not get holed up somewhere waiting for me to finish processing junk mail before clicking on ‘process mail’.

So, then I found another service that works entirely online and filters your email before delivery with 99.9% success rate (they say). I’ve seen that they work well for large corporates, telcos, banking institutions, etc. They would be perfect. BUT they charge per user and as I provide email accounts for many of my Virtual Assistant team they just priced themselves out of the bargain.  I’m a sole trader, single operating in a small business. But if I use this service that looks great they need to filter the entire domain – not just the email addresses I use.  That would add considerably to my expenses.

So, now it’s over to you. What can you recommend, remembering my criteria:

• Needs to be web based – I don’t want it downloading to my computer first.
• Needs to let me load a safe list (all my contacts) so that their email won’t get held up and I can go process the rest at my convenience.
• Will deliver my email and not lose it.
• Will allow for emails sent from me to me to be delivered without all the trash from spammers.

Any suggestions?

Tags: Technology by Kathie Thomas
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