I’ve had some bad luck lately with technology, but thankfully back-ups saved me from any data loss. If there is one thing I can’t say enough to friends, family and even co-workers, it is “backup your important data”.

These days, with double-digit megapixel digital cameras on the market, video cameras being attached to nearly every phone, and documents and PDF’s everywhere, backing up your important data might seem more complicated than ever, but thankfully, there are a number of tips, tricks, and tutorials that will make saving the digital bits of information that are most precious to you both fast and easy.

Services

Backupify
Dropbox
Mozy
Jungle Disk
Carbonite
Amazon
Gmail

Hardware

Second Internal Hard Drive
External Hard Drive
DVD’s and USB thumb drives

Software

CrashPlan
Cobian Backup
SyncBack
Acronis True Image
GFI Backup

The Extreme Solution

If your business depends on safe data, then learn from a business owner friend of mine. Get a safety deposit box, a multi-hard drive network attached storage device or two, and keep multiple copies of your data at home, as well as a copy of your most important data off site each day. You drop off one hard drive and pick up the stored hard drive each morning on your way to work, making your data more safe than if it was just on one or two drives, and just in one place.

Q&A

How often should I backup my data? – Each file you create has a different value to you, and as such, you’ll want to take that into account, but I would say that you should have a backup done once a day, maybe after your nightly virus scan (which I am sure you are all doing). Some people have the technology and software to sync files as they are changed, which is usually ideal, but again, it depends on how often you use your computer and change files. The important factor is to find ways to minimize possible data loss. You don’t want to have those pictures you just took on your vacation vanish into a digital black hole, unless you are rich enough to go back, and re-take them all.

What is the biggest limitation in creating a backup solution? – Usually it is about how much you can afford. People are usually really hesitant to spend money on a data redundancy or backup solution assuming that they’ll never lose anything important, but with more and more of our lives being put onto computer hard drives, it is imperative that we all strive to find the best solution we can that still fits our budget. If you can’t afford much, buy a USB thumb drive, and subscribe to an inexpensive web backup service. These are usually cheaper than other hardware methods, but aren’t usually as versatile and helpful as more expensive solutions.

The essential thing is that your most important, most relevant data is being backed up. It could mean the difference between losing days and even months of hard work. So yes Offsite Backups are really neccesary!

Social media is a force, a huge force and the wave is only just beginning. From Facebook, to Twitter there are millions of people across the world speaking to each other in a way that couldn’t have been contemplated 10 years ago.

The world is a social place, and the world has just reduced in size due to video, internet, mobile phones, and social media.

I am an excited proponent of social media and I have only scratched the surface of what is possible at the moment.

Here are 10 ways I think social media is changing the world.

10 Ways Social Media Is Changing The World

Our Resume

Gone are the days when a boring old resume will suffice when you are looking to stand out from the crowd of thousands of other boring old resumes.  Our resume is our social media persona, our tweets, our online conversations, our forum messages, and our videos.

Social media was made for people looking to be creative about finding work.

Imagine the scenario where there are two people, Bob and Gill,  in the running for the job of Social Media Manager. Bob has all the right qualifications and all the right experience.  Gill has the right qualifications but has little work experience.  However, Gill is all over the internet talking about her passion which is social media, she is teaching other people how to use social media via videos, podcasts and tweets and her Facebook profile.  Bob doesn’t really use Twitter all that much and has a MySpace profile and not a Facebook one, he likes to keep his private life private, which is okay.  Who do you think is going to get the job?

Our social media profiles will soon be the first thing that employers look at when we are going for a job, I know I would be, despite the legal implications of this.

So when you are online creating your profile remember that whatever you say and do online there is a permanent record of it, so make what you’re saying useful.

The news

The news is no longer going to be managed by big news companies it is going to be spread by the people who are on the scene with FlipCams and who are tweeting about it as it happens.  Look at the recent Haiti disaster, as soon as the disaster struck there were thousands of messages sent via Facebook to friends and relatives all over the world.  Haitians were tweeting about it and giving regular updates about buildings, people and the full scale of what was actually happening.

The news is no longer controlled and regulated, and everyone is a potential news breaker, we  don’t have to rely on  the big news channel to haul their vans and camera crew  over to the scene when we have local people who are more than willing to report on the news as it happens.

This is real freedom of information.

Social movements

With the advent of social networks more and more people are getting involved in politics.  It’s now much easier to contact our local representatives, our MPs (UK), and people who have authority.  The people we are contacting have no real place to hide, and social media has forced the hand of politicians, big companies, media personalities, and made them aware that if they are doing anything unscrupulous there is nowhere to hide anymore.  They can’t buy off a newspaper, they can’t call in favors from friends.  There is always someone willing to tweet it, put a photo on Facebook, blog it, video it, and put it out to thousands of eyeballs within a matter of minutes.

Look at the recent spell of bloggers and tweeters who are creating movements to help the people in Haiti by setting up donation ‘stations’ whereby someone can donate money to help the people in Haiti.  This was organized within a matter of hours of the tragedy.

As Chris Guillebeau says we can plan ‘World Domination’ and it can be done through social media.

Starting a business

Never has it been so easy to start making money as it has online with a blog, a few affiliate products to promote and a whole tranch of social networking accounts.  What’s more, if we are really honest, genuine and passionate about the product we will make even more money.  We become ‘Trust Agents’ (Chris Brogan & Julian Smith), and the more trustworthy we are seen the more money we can make or the more people we can help.

Gary Vaynerchuk is one such person known as a ‘Trust Agent’, his story of taking his dad’s $4million dollar company, ‘Wine Library’ and taking it  to $10million dollars using social media and setting up ‘Wine Library TV’ is inspirational.  If you’ve ever seen Gary’s videos you’ll know him as passionate, knowledgeable,  funny and most of all honest.

We can all start our own business online and if we can earn $100 a month online we can grow it to earn $1000 and then grow it more to earn $10,000.

Customer Service

Big companies are starting to realize the importance of social media for customer service and customer perception.  Whenever you write about a company they have the potential to respond to your query, your complaints and general questions within a matter of minutes.  Companies can set up Google alerts, tweet alerts, LinkedIn alerts whenever someone mentions their company name or chief exec.

An example I had myself was when I wrote a complaint, on my blog,  about the length of time the communications giant BT were taking to fix my broadband issues.  Within a matter of hours I noticed that my site had been linked to from their Intranet (internal website) and accessed over 50 times.  I then received a phone call from someone within BT to apologies and to advise she would personally deal with all my BT problems and gave me a direct number (if you’ve ever tried calling them you’ll know how frustrating it can be).

Another great example of this is from a company called Nakedwines who received a complaint from a customer on their facebook page.  The company responded immediately by calling the customer.  The customer was still not happy and stayed online to complain further.  NakedWines rep responded online by stating they would refund all the money the customer has ever spent with them and make sure their order was received.  The disgruntled customer was finally forced to apologize once they had seen that they had done everything they could for him and close down his account.  This was great PR as it was online, honest and everyone could see what the company had done for the customer.  Had they not responded, and the conversation was one sided it could have gone horribly wrong for the company.

How we meet people

Imagine for a moment you are quite an introverted person, don’t like going out much, and have very few friends, through choice, but love being online, blogging and tweeting.  Using social media sites are a fantastic way to meet like minded people.  There’s only one drawback, a lot of your friends online stay hundreds or thousands of miles away.  With Skype, video and social media in general you can now keep in touch easily and still remain your introverted self as you have the choice to be visible or not.  Strangely enough social media will make media stars of the introverted.

Job hunting

We no longer have to go down to the job centre and look at little 5 x 4″ cards to search for the jobs we want, Twitter has it all, well not quite all yet but it’s coming.  You can search for your ideal job on Twitter using hashtags or specific @ tags.  Using the @ symbol is another way to look for jobs on twitter with accounts created specifically for this such as @microjobs @freelance_jobs @s1jobs_des_gla and there are lots more.  If you want more information about job searching on Twitter here is a link Job Searching on Twitter

Of course twitter is not the only platform.  As we grow more connected sites like LinkedIn And Plaxo are becoming the place to meet your potential new employer or employee.  It’s all about the conversation.  Imagine you are a prospective employer looking for a great freelance writer.  You friend someone you think might fit the bill, you look at the groups they have joined, you look at their conversations and you even talk to them yourself, very informal stuff.  Only you are getting to know the person before they even know you want to hire them so they will be in their natural environment and not on their best behavior as they don’t know you are looking at them as a potential employee.

The music we listen to

The music industry has already been fundamentally changed with the internet and people downloading, legally and illegally, music from the net.  However Social media be the savior for so many bands out there who were hoping for a record label contract: record labels are no longer required.  You no longer have to court the big labels to make your mark on the world, the big labels have to court you once they see how talented you are.

People like Justin Bieber are being discovered all the time through channels like Youtube and Facebook and anybody can become part of the world of  ‘America’s got talent’ or the -X-Factor’.

If you have talent, a video camera, a recording device you can make it big and you will get discovered or make it big on your own, but you still have to have the talent.

How we watch TV

The cable TV companies no longer have the control that they used to over what we watched.  More and more people are discovering TV and films online.  Most TV stations now have some form of media player showing their content online.  I am in the UK and the BBC has a fantastic one called BBC iPlayer.  Just the other night I missed a program I wanted to watch and wanted to watch it as I was twittering away, or catching up with my email.  The program, for anyone interested is called The Virtual Revolution and is a must watch for anyone interested in how the internet has changed the world, one of the guest travelers is Sir Tim Berners Lee.

We are no longer controlled, we have choices now and gone are the days when there are TV schedules, we now make our own schedules.  We can also make our own TV channels with the likes of UStream.tv anybody can have their own channel if they have the incline, the quality content, the knowledge and the guts to go live.  One such person is Chris Pirillo, right now as I type, his site has 307 viewers and all we can see are his computer screens, he has it on 24/7 and every time he sits down to work people tune in, it’s amazing he has had over 14 million views to his channel.

Advertising

Advertisers go where the eyes go and social media is changing the way big companies advertise.  No longer do you need a budget of millions to compete with the big companies who advertise on TV, you just need lots of ‘friends’ , lots of people who trust you, lots of authenticity and you can create your own product launch and make it big.

Gary Veynerchuk recently relayed a story where he advertised free shipping codes for his wine on Radio, on a billboard, and a direct mailing campaign for a cost of $7,500, here is how it went:

Billboard – 170 orders

Radio – 240 orders

Direct mail – 300+

What Gary then done is twittered his free shipping code over the space of 48 hours and received over 1,700 orders and all this was free.

Conclusion

We can’t afford to ignore social media as a force to be reckoned with, it is already here in our faces. If you want to start to take advantage of the wave don’t think it’s too late, it’s only the beginning and it’s exciting to watch.

Use Social Media To Boost Your BRANDING

Want to use social media to change your business, Personal Branding is the way to do it. Check out Personal Branding Theme which leverages all the best tools of social media to make your website one you can be proud of.

A basic fact of doing business in this modern technological age is that you must have a web site. Whether you are a corporate leader, looking to promote your own personal brand, or just plan a family reunion establishing your online presence is important, both personally and professionally. In order to have a web site that projects your own personal identity you must start with selecting the right web host; but with so many options available today, where do you begin and how do you know if you are selecting the best web host for your needs? In this guide to selecting the right web host for your web site we will look at ways to select the best host and a review of some of the top choices available to you in order to help you find the best hosting solution.

To begin the process your first step is to take a look at what your web hosting needs actually are. Do you need to help customers find your business? Are you wanting to establish a community with interactive features for your members or site visitors? Or do you need a great way to showcase your portfolio that lets you sell your talents to potential clients or buyers? Finding a web host that offers a ton of great features is not going to be very helpful to you if you do not know what you actually need or how you can incorporate those features in your web hosting needs. To get you started thinking about what you need and how you can incorporate some of the more popular web hosting features into your online identity, here is a quick over view of the more common features offered by a number of web hosting providers.

Site Builder:  This is one of the important areas that you need to deal with at the very beginning; how will you design your web site? If you already have web design software that you want to use to create your new masterpiece or will be hiring a designer to take care of that aspect of your web site for you then using a host that offers easy FTP access or an easy editor to give your design team room to create will be very important.  You can also find a professionally designed template that you can purchase then customize and upload to your web host.

But what if you are not a web design guru and you do not have a budget large enough to afford the luxury of hiring a design pro? This is where selecting a hosting provider that offers an easy site builder will be very important. Most site builders are WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) drag and drop editors which mean that all you have to do is choose from a selection of predesigned templates and plug in the information and options that you want to add to your page.

Who Is It For: This is perfect for those who do not have a lot of time to put into designing the look and feel of their web site or for those who do not have the design software or know how to create their own web sites.

Blog: Blogs are being used today for everything from personal journaling to full blown magazines but are they an essential component for your web site needs? Blogs can help you to easily update information on your site and communicate with your web site visitors or customers. There are many blog hosts available and most hosting packages include easy to install blogging platforms such as WordPress that allows you to easily customize your blog’s look by choosing for a variety of themes or uploading your own. 
Who Is It For?: A blog is great for web site owners who want to offer regularly updated information or online newsletters for their customers or members on a daily or weekly basis and for those who will be offering more detailed information that they want to use to draw more visitors to their websites. A blog can easily be used to supplement your current needs; for example, a bridal shop could use a blog to display how to articles and feature on selecting the right dress, etc.

Community Features: If you want to engage your site visitors and have them returning to your web site frequently, adding community features can be a great way to go. Community features can range from a simple discussions forum to a full scale content management system that allows users to post articles and comment on content. Adding polls or a guest book is also another simple way to get your customers or visitors engaged with your site.

Who Is It For?: If you want to keep your customers on your site, get a lot of feedback from them, or encourage users to help grow your content then community features will be important to you. You will need to decide what level of visitor interaction will suit your needs in order to determine which community features you need. Those who only want to get basic feedback on a particular issue or two may make due with a simple poll where as web masters who are looking to create a full, robust community will need to find hosting that offers a forum and content management features that allow you to assign users the ability to add content to your site.

Email: If you want to communicate under your own brand, such as Your Name@YourDomain.com then finding a host that provides email services will be important. This is an area where you may want to think long term as well. If you want to offer email services to your site members with your domain then you will need to locate a host that provides larger email services that can be accessed by others. If ; however, you only want email for yourself or other key members of your company or organization then basic email services should work fine for you.

Also, you should consider how you want to access your email. Do you prefer web based email that can be accessed from anywhere or do you want the flexibility of using POP email services that allow you to use an email reading program such as IncrediMail or Microsoft’s Outlook? Knowing which options you prefer will help you to choose the best web hosting solution.

Top Recommendations:
To help you in your search, here is a quick review of some of my favorite options for web hosting.

Site 5 Hosting: This is one of my top picks for hosting with tons of options, great features, and an easy to use control panel that allows you to host single or multiple sites from one easy account. Site 5 has unlimited space and unlimited bandwidth plus they offer tons of preinstalled scripts including blogging platforms such as WordPress, forums, and CMS (Content Management Systems) including phpNuke, Joomla, and others. They have an easy to use site builder for chooser from a series of predesigned templates or you can easily use the ftp option to upload your site designed with software elsewhere. With free unlimited email and easy to manage domain tools, Site 5 is top rate choice that you can also feel good about because Site 5 is a green host and they plant a tree for every new account. With a 30 day free trial and money back guarantee you can not go wrong with this hosting option which is great for all levels of expertise, even those new to web hosting. They also offer Moodle for those needing to add educational elements to their sites or communities.
Who is it Best for? New users and professonals alike, Site 5 is great for anyone looking for a great all in one solution that is easy to use, especially those looking for professional WordPress hosting or need the great educational tools offered by Moodle.
Costs: Rages from $4.95 per month to $13.95 per month depending on package and term with no set up fee.
Cons: You do not get as much control over the design elements offered online; however, you are free to use any design software that you want and upload using ftp.

Homestead: If you do not have a lot of technical ability and you just want easy to use web hosting without a large learning curve, then Homestead is a great choice. You can choose from hundreds of predesigned templates or have complete control with true drag and drop features that allow you to put any element anywhere on your page without predesigned restrictions. You can also easily add a customized web form or predefined guest book to your site with just a click.
Cons: No community features available such as blogs or forums, and no member management to allow visitors or customers to log into your site.
Who is It Best for? Individuals or Businesses who want basic hosting features without a complicated user panel or want complete real time control over the look and feel of their site.
Costs: Packages range from $4.99 a month for a simple 5 page site to $49.99 a month for an unlimited number of sites and pages.

Pro-Stores: If you just need an e-commerce solution instead of a full blown web site then Pro-stores may be a good option for you. You can choose from professional templates, edit customizeable options including html, and even run coupon offers or generate logos for your online store. If you want to establish a full featured, professional online store front, then this is the perfect solution.
Who is it Best for? Retail businesses looking to put their entire product line online in an easy to use, professional store format.
Costs: They offer two packages, $29.95 for up to 5,000 products or $59.95 per month for up to 100,000 products; both with a 0.5% transaction fee.
Cons: Designed for large retail businesses, if you only have one or two items to sell this may not be the best option and a standard web site with PayPal integration may work better for your needs.

In addition to my top picks, you may also want to check out a couple of these other great options:  

• 1&1 Hosting
• Lunar Pages
• Host Gator
• Fat Cow Hosting
• Start Logic

Ed Note: All links above are affiliate links. Clicking on them for your purchase helps support Niki and her great writing.

Every day, you might browse the web without thinking about which browser you are using, or which version you have installed, but with another Zero-Day exploit for Internet Explorer out in the wild, it might be time to reconsider.

The response thus far by security experts has been: “Internet Explorer users should ensure their antivirus definitions are up to date, disable JavaScript and only visit Web sites they trust until fixes are available from Microsoft.” (via Symantec)

Really the response should be, “You aren’t still using old versions of Internet Explorer, are you?” This article will go over some choices you have, and hopefully, despite your attachment to whatever browser you may be using, you’ll keep an open mind.

How Do I Know Which Browser Version I am Using?

The first issue that crops up when I ask people about their browser is that they don’t know what they are using. They’ll tell me that they use the big E on their desktop, or via some custom icon, they load up what they assume to be a custom browser. They’ll tell me that they use the Road Runner browser, or the MSN one, without knowing that essentially, they are using a slightly customized version of Internet Explorer.

The first step to staying informed about security online is to know what vehicle you are using to get you from web site to web site. Even if you don’t know what browser you are using, the following instructions should help.

Click Help and then About. Sometimes it will say About Internet Explorer, About Firefox or About Browser Name (whatever that might be), but either way, you’ll get to the version information you need. Then go to the appropriate site, and see if a newer version is available.

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer Page
Mozilla Firefox’s Web Page
Google Chrome’s Website

Is Internet Explorer Bad?

No, this isn’t one of those BASH IE articles, where the writer spends all day telling you to switch. My opinion is, and always has been, the best web browser is the one that is secure, fast and has the features you want. Other browsers have been able to take a large lead in those areas, and as such are highly recommended, but if you like Internet Explorer, then continue to use it, but I am begging you to upgrade. IE 6 is now far too old, slow and buggy to be safely used to browse around the modern Internet. It would be akin to taking a horse and cart to go the wrong way on the highway.

I’ve heard all of the Pro-IE 6 arguments before. I know you love the simplicity, and IE 6 probably works great for you, but I am flat out telling you that you can’t use it anymore. Upgrade to the latest version of Internet Explorer, get a recent version of another major browser, or get off the Internet. It is for your safety as well as my own. What happens, more often then not, is that your computer gets software downloaded upon it that then steals your information or is used to attack websites, servers, and other computers. By not updating, you are enabling such attacks to occur at an ever increasing rate.

Internet Explorer 8, and the quickly being developed version 9, are decent browsers. They’ve come along way since version 6, and have introduced modern browsing features like tabs, allowing you to browser faster, use less computer memory, and organize your browsing better.

Another Choice: Mozilla Firefox

The standard alternative choice to Internet Explorer, since Netscape started loosing ground, Firefox is fast, easy to migrate to, and highly expandable through its plugin system. If you want a toolbar to track new messages in your e-mail, block advertisements or to see what’s making your web page look wrong, Firefox has extensions that will allow you to easily perform such tasks.

This, among many other reasons, makes it the go-to browser for many people looking to switch from Internet Explorer, or any other “poor” browsing experience they may be having.

Another Choice: Google Chrome

Google Chrome is my browser of choice right now. I’ve switched browsers from time to time and being a geek, that’s just what I do, but the main reason why I use Google Chrome is due to the amazing speed and stability of the browser. Firefox had been giving me issues constantly, as I pushed it too hard and ran into its well known memory leak issue, and so I was on the hunt for a new browser choice for a long time before Chrome came out. When Flash crashes on Firefox, all of your browser windows, and tabs crash along with it. Over on Chrome, only Flash crashes, and where there were once advertisements, movies, and games, I now see black boxes. Once I refresh the page, Flash re-loads, and I get to continue on without any real interruptions.

Chrome is similar to IE8 and Firefox in features and functionality, but blows both of them out of the water when it comes to speed. Chrome isn’t as expandable as Firefox yet, and so many people with specific tasks in mind or with plugin dependency might find it limiting.

Other Browser Choices

Various operating systems have different choices when it comes to web browsers. Very few people using the Mac or Linux operating system will ever open Internet Explorer, in part due to its limited availability, and also due to the stigma attached to the browser in those communities.

The choices for browsers for other operating systems are nearly as varied as the people that use them, though in the Linux world, Firefox seems to be one the front runners. In the Mac OS world, I assume that Safari would be most people’s number one choice, with Firefox probably high up in popularity as well. My favourite when using Mac OS is Camino, a Mac focused Mozilla browser, similar in many ways to Firefox.

There are, of course, dozens of other major browsers out in the market today, and I couldn’t list them all here but the browser you select should really fit your needs, work flow, and really, your only job as a responsible web user is to keep it updated.

What are your favourite web browsers and why? Do you still use Internet Explorer? Let us know why in the comments below.

Please no arguments over which one is best, personal experience decides favourites, not fan boy love.

This site, and millions of others are powered by WordPress, a powerful blogging tool that continues to make waves in the industry due to the wide range of themes and plugins available to be used to personalize or extend the platform. Recently, a new plugin was released called Gravity Forms, and I am a huge fan of it, and so I want to take some time to talk about it.

First, some disclosure. I first saw Gravity Forms long before it was even released in Beta and was able to give some thoughts, opinions and ideas on shaping the plugin. I like to think that some of my advice helped Rocket Genius, the company behind the plugin, but because of this, I also feel like I have invested interest in seeing it do well. Secondly, Gravity Forms powers all the submission and contact forms on this site, and most sites that I run. Lastly, I am part of their affiliate program. If you don’t want to buy through my affiliate link, just head on over to GravityForms.com rather than clicking any links, banners or other “links” in this post.

What is Gravity Forms?

Gravity Forms is really an extension for WordPress, one of the first of its kind. It is a highly complex data acquisition and management plugin that will allow you to create any form needed to collect data from your visitors. The most simplistic version of this is the generic contact form. Everyone adds a contact form to their blog so that they don’t have to give out their e-mail address. Gravity Forms makes creating such a contact form very easy.

Beyond that, Gravity Forms could be used for any type of data collection. Some examples are as follows:

Example 1: Guest Posts – You want to collect guest posts on your blog. Using Gravity Forms, you create a form that allows the visitor to create the post title, put in the post text, and even upload an image to be used with their post. If you set up Gravity Forms correctly, the submitted information will become a post on your blog, usually in draft format. You change it from Draft to Published, and you’ve added user submitted content to your blog.

Example 2: Basic Help Desk – Customer having a problem with something? Create a form with all the details you need to collect and from within the WordPress administration panel, you can see the “tickets” created by users, add notes, star them for importance, edit them, and delete them as they are closed. You can even have admin only fields so you can mark tickets with a status of Closed.

Example 3: Image Hosting Site – Create a form with an upload element, and a few other fields, and quickly you could create an image hosting website, where each image uploaded becomes a WordPress post with that single image as the element displayed. You could even give submitters the power to tag their images to make them easier to find in the future.

Example 4: Visitor Survey – Create a single, long page visitor survey, and collect details regarding their location, ages, and approximate salary levels for use in selling advertising and honing in on the type of content they’d be interested in. Export the data to CSV, open it in Excel or another spreadsheet application and begin to create charts and graphs to visually interpret the data you collect.

Example 5: Limited Time Offer – Want to collect e-mail addresses for a contest or giveaway, but only want the submissions to be open from noon until midnight on one single day? With Gravity Forms, you can set scheduling on the form to do this. You could even limit it to one hundred entries if you so chose.

All of this and much, much more are possible through the use of Gravity Forms on your self-hosted WordPress site.

How Much Does Gravity Forms Cost?

While many of you might be used to getting everything for WordPress for free, Gravity Forms is one of the few Premium WordPress plugins. This “Premium” label means a few things.

• Number One: There are Developers working on improvements and fixes constantly
• Number Two: It includes useful and helpful support.
• Number Three: It costs money.

If you contacted a WordPress developer and asked him or her to replicate Gravity Forms as it currently exists for you, the budget they’d quote you on would be in the thousands. Even some of the cheapest programmers in the world would probably ask for a few hundred. Gravity Forms ranges in licensing costs starting at $39 for a Single Site license, moving up to $99 for a Multi-site license, and capping out at $199 for a Developer’s license.

What Does Each License Type Include?
With a Single Site License, you get to install Gravity Forms on your one site and use it as you see fit, for as many forms and pieces of data you want. Want to create one hundred different forms to collect information on your single blog? The Single Site License will allow you to do that.

With a Multi-site License, you are allowed to use Gravity Forms on up to five of your own sites, otherwise it is the same as the Single Site License.

With the Developer’s License, you are allowed to use Gravity Forms on an Unlimited number of sites, gain access to priority support, and will have access to all of the Gravity Forms add-ons that Rocket Genius has planned to release. They haven’t released any as of yet, but I’ll explain the importance of this soon.

What is it Like to Own Gravity Forms?

One of the early worries people had was, “how can Rocket Genius afford to focus their attention on both updating the plugin and supporting their users when they are making a maximum of $199 per sale?”

When the final version of Gravity Forms came out, I was offered a free copy for my continued input and excitement regarding Gravity Forms, but I ended up buying a Developer’s license anyways. A company I work for felt the passion that I had for Gravity Forms and bought a developer license for themselves. That’s how much I believe in this product.

Since day one, there has always been one of the main team on the forum answering questions as quickly as possible. They are helpful, friendly, and open to both criticism and ideas. I’ve never come across a problem that they couldn’t help me resolve. Also, after less than three months, we are already on version 1.2.1 of Gravity Forms. Each major revision adding new, highly useful features.

Version 1.2 of Gravity Forms added Dynamic Field Population, Bulk Add Predefined Choices, Form Scheduling, Limit Form Entries, Respond to Entries from within WordPress and Role Management Integration. If those don’t mean anything to you, then you need to check out Gravity Forms and see what all of them do. Once you understand what they’ve added, you’ll see your current contact form system looking like the old and rusty jalopy.

Then there is the talk of add-ons for Gravity Forms that would allow it to be used specifically to suit certain needs. Add-ons are things that not everyone would need, and as such shouldn’t be in the core of the plugin. Maybe they want to change Gravity Forms into a new and improved Comment Management solution, or a better Customer Record Manager, or a building block for a new e-commerce tool? These could all be possible with future add-ons.

Isn’t Upgrading Plugins a Pain?

The last few versions of WordPress have been making upgrading plugins easier than ever by allowing you to easily upgrade plugins within the WordPress repository. Unfortunately, WordPress doesn’t allow Premium plugins to be part of the repository, and as such, most Premium plugins can only be upgraded through FTP or other complex, old fashioned means. Thankfully, the folks at Rocket Genius figured out how to hook into this upgrading system, and you can upgrade Gravity Forms from within WordPress, just like it was in the WordPress repository. It is a very slick process and reduces the burden on purchasers to continue coming back to Gravity Forms’ website to download updates.

Bought It, Love It, Want to Be an Affiliate?

Rocket Genius has seen the wisdom in helping pay the people that love their product and spread the good word. I didn’t write this review because I could make some money. I wrote all this because I love what they are doing and hope that every WordPress user buys Gravity Forms and finds some new way to use it or that it makes their lives better when it comes to managing forms and user input on their site.

Gravity Forms is using E-Junkie for their Affiliate management, and it is easy to sign up and get started. For each sale of Gravity Forms, you’ll earn 20% commission. If you love Gravity Forms, it doesn’t hurt to sign up. If you purchase the one site license, and then help sell one Developer and one Single site license, you’ll have paid for your purchase.

Others Love Gravity Forms Too

I hate doing sales pitches, and even more so when it isn’t my own product, and so I thought I’d better have some opinions from others on here as well.

Joost de Valk, WordPress guru, plugin author and WordPress podcaster said, ” I have my own contact form plugin, and yet, I have decided to go with Gravity Forms for all the contact forms on this site, and it’s now the only contact form we use for all our client projects.”

Jason Schuller said, “Gravity Forms was designed with WordPress users in mind. Basically, if you know how to use WordPress, getting started with Gravity Forms will be like second nature.”

Jeremy from Papertree Design said, “I did a quick review shot this particular client a link to the demos and we both decided that it couldn’t get much easier than that. In fact he was sold in less than five minutes.”

Upgrade Your Blog

If you are really looking to make a massive difference with your website and you desire traffic, ease of use, and a fluid custom system to improve your website. Than Upgrade Now. Get The Thesis Theme for WordPress.

If you’ve ever owned anything that needs a battery, you’ve probably had an issue with how long it will last. It always seems to die at the most inopportune time, and that’s partly due to how short the life of most batteries are. Laptops last mere hours, cell phones last a few days, on standby, but wouldn’t it be better if they could last days and weeks?

New technology is slowly getting us there, and recently researchers from Stanford University and Hanyang University in collaboration with LG Chem have made a breakthrough that will allow batteries to contain ten times the charge of current batteries.

Silicon Nanotubes could allow this increase in battery storage to happen. What does this mean for the future? Laptops that last from the moment you wake up to the time you hit the sack for the night, cell phones that last a month between recharges and electric vehicles with similar range as gasoline vehicles.

The main limitation of most high capacity battery technologies seems to be its ability to deal with the constant charge and discharge cycles over a long period of time. Batteries degrade in performance, especially those made from certain materials.

I’ve always thought that better battery technology is key to the future of technology and its integration into society. As more devices like the iPod Touch and the iPhone reach eagerly awaiting consumers, we are quickly finding ourselves needing batteries to keep up with our desires. No one wants to have a device that can’t last all day, especially one that they depend on for notes, information, news, and communication.

As technology continues to advance, we are constantly held back by battery technology as it limits the form factor, size and length of time we can use modern devices. Cameras that miss capturing our children during an important event, cell phones that leave us stranded on the side of the road, cars that have to recharge overnight before getting us to our destination. These are inconveniences that will hopefully be reduced in the next ten to twenty years.

If you want to read more on Silicon Nanotubes, check out an article on Treehugger.

If you have a story on how a battery failed you, please let us know in the comments below.

As a writer, blogger, and lover of the internet I have learned that Google does more for my life than just behaving like a good search engine for celebrity queries and random trivia. It contains productivity tools vital to my time management goals which simplify my life and they could do the same for you. This article will highlight some of the Google sites that I use and how they can be valuable to you too…

SEARCH ENGINE:

Obviously, Google’s popular purpose is to act as a search engine. Whether I am looking for an attraction’s website for the travel posts I write for the UpTake Attractions Blog or am in need of a restaurant’s menu to keep my healthy goals in check, Google is where I turn. But everyone knows this already. What you may not know are some helpful search tips to narrow down your results and speed up productivity. I’ve covered this before on my personal blog and you can step away and read about them here. Just don’t forget to come back, because I’m just getting started on Google’s features.

MAPS:

As Google has with many other online needs, they’ve revolutionized maps with Google Maps, giving people the ability to find places, directions to them, and even views of what the street will look like. One of the best features of Google Maps, and probably one of the most underutilized are the My Maps, which lets Google account holders create their own maps that they can share with friends, family and the world. Place markers, draw out directions, and even circle areas of interest. With easy buttons to share your maps, Google Maps is definitely worth having a Google account for.

ALERTS:

As a blogger with a brand name, I would like to keep track of where it is mentioned online, on blogs and in the news. I also like to find out where people are hiring writers. I’m interested when my region has new events happening. And keeping track of a favorite artist is helpful too. All of these things are possible with the ridiculously easy Google Alerts feature. Just type in the key words, website or terms you want to follow using the tips linked to above and you will receive an alert via e-mail or feed when they occur. You set the words to search for, the environment to be searched and the delivery frequency terms you prefer. Then you let all the information come to you. This is easy as pie and means you can be proactive and in the know.

ANALYTICS:

Stats are really popular in sports. They are also really popular in blogging. I want to know everything I can about who visits my blog, where they found me, what they were searching for, what they spent time on and what they left in the dust. What system are they using to view my pages and where are they located? Do they come back often or are they just doing a drive by? Which topics speak to my readers the most and which ones sit all alone, unvisited?

Google Analytics can tell me all of this information in a variety of ways. I can see basic overviews or delve deeper and deeper. I can compare current data to points in the past and see how far I’ve come and what it was specifically that led me there. If I were so inclined I could even set goals and track their progress, print reports and share them with interested parties. As it stands now I just obsess over them on a regular basis and find them useful in analyzing generic trends. And I also use Analytics on other sites where I work to determine whether or not I’ve reached bonus levels. It helps to gauge how you’re doing and what you can focus on to improve. In my mind that is a great tool to save time and build for the future.

BLOGGER:

Speaking of blogging, Blogger is what I use to host my personal blog. As a newbie blogger I wanted something easy, flexible visually and secure. I wanted to know that all of the time and effort I put forth would result in a site that would be around for a long time. I felt safe enough that Google wasn’t going anywhere soon and therefore their blog hosting system wouldn’t all of a sudden rip the rug out from under me as can sadly be the case with self-hosting sites all over. There is a support system for getting answers to tech questions and the cost is free. Blogger suits my needs for an uncomplicated blog looking for enough options to evolve. And it comes with a built-in community of other bloggers eager to introduce themselves.

FEEDBURNER:

Speaking of the blogging community and visitors, Feedburner allows me to provide an easy option for readers to follow my posts automatically. This is imperative to building a base and spreading the love. I can set up a widget right on my site for people to subscribe via feed or e-mail to each new post I throw up there. Ease of following is the name of the game. Feedburner provides analysis as well, albeit on a smaller scale. I can see exactly what people are using to follow my feeds, know which posts are just getting viewed versus being interacted with, and get a tally of how many people are actually following along on a daily basis. There’s a nice widget for that data as well so I can display it on my blog and let others know that they’ve stumbled upon a place others are interested in.

READER:

Not only do I want to encourage others to follow my blog, I want to keep track of them as well. Google Reader allows me to put all of my blog and website subscriptions in one place. I can create folders to categorize all of these feeds to keep them organized and save me time. Folders can be established to separate the work feeds from the personal ones. They can display the style of the site’s feeds, such as Politics, Sports, Photos, Books, etc. They can break feeds up by region so that if I am ever looking to reach out to people in a certain location, my Reader folders will point me to the right places. The folders can be whatever I want them to be. Subscribe to a feed, tag it with the appropriate folder names and let the sorting begin. Then when I check in with my Reader, things are laid out for me in a more searchable environment allowing me to get in, see what I want, and move on.

PICASA:

I love photos. I love to take them, name them, organize them, display them, share them. Picasa is a bit overwhelming to me in how it searches my laptop high and low for any and all images, sorting them willy nilly when I hadn’t even asked. But I like their editing program and their movie making capabilities. I enjoy creating albums to dump a photo stream right into widgets on my blog. And I can share or block any albums that I want with friends, family or as an easy way to collectively display images for a project. My photos are imperative to my blog and my travel posts. I like having them available in the same place with everything else and that I can control the level of privacy.

CALENDAR:

This is a new discovery to me. I have always been an advocate for plotting out posts, tasks and events at the start of each month. It keeps me organized, on track, and less stressed. A few hours each month planning ahead means that each day, with a quick glance, I know what’s on the docket with a quick glance and then I just take it from there. Otherwise I waste time figuring out what needs to be done and brainstorming ideas each day. However, my methods were very primative. I was a pen and paper kind of gal until I discovered the Google Calendar. This little gem allows me to incorporate color coded events from a variety of segments into one place. I enter my personal blog posts and assign them to my Personal Blog Calendar. Then I assign my travel posts to my Attractions Blog Calendar. Next, I assign my LifeSnips posts to that Calendar. Finally, I throw in any real life events that impact the timing of all of this.

Google Calendar fills in all the major holidays and then, in one beautiful color coded view, I can see how all of these parts come together smoothly as a guide ready to be implemented. This structure gives me peace of mind and keeps me on track during very short windows of time.

GMAIL:

Juggling work and personal tasks can be helped immensely by using separate e-mail addresses. I set up a personal e-mail address long ago on a different system that happens to use my current blog’s brand name. But trying to sort through the work and personal messages coming in wastes my time when I’m trying to focus on one or the other. So I have set up a separate business related account through Gmail.

I’m a big fan of folders to organize and store, and Gmail has a nice Labels system to easily set them up for filtering messages. And having the e-mail system on the same spot as all of the other above features that I toggle back and forth with is just common sense.

To incorporate any of these features or others that I haven’t even explored here, simply visit Google, create a free account and visit your Settings to get Google working for you. All of these features are without cost but something that I consider to be invaluable. They save me time and provide tools to make me money. Google rocks!

Do you wish you had an inexpensive way to host all your images, MP3s, Videos, PDF files? Or even just a simple solution to back up all your computer files without worrying about how much space you have left on your hard drive? Then Amazon S3, a remote file hosting service from the same people that sell you books, could be the solution you have been looking for.

What is Amazon S3?

Amazon S3 stands for Amazon Simple Storage Service and it does exactly as it says, it stores data on it’s servers in order to minimize the data held on your website server or  computer which keeps bandwidth costs down and offers a great way to back up all the files from your computer.

Many websites, big and small are using the services of Amazon to host their images, ebooks, video files, and audio files.  And many individuals are using the reliability of Amazon S3 as a way to backup and share all their personal files from their computer.  The reliability of Amazon S3 is second to none, and the cost makes the service attractive to everyone from bloggers to large corporations.

A really quick guide to hosting, servers and bandwidth

For all the non-technical people out there your website is held on a server, which is like the hard drive on a computer. So all your files for the website are held on a server owned by your hosting company. However, you will have limited space depending on your hosting company.

Your hosting company is the company you pay money to keep your website’s files. You host your website files on their server and they charge you a monthly or yearly fee. The only problem with this is that the server your website files are on will more than likely be shared with other website’s, this is what is known as a shared server. You pay a premium for dedicated servers and you have to manage and configure this yourself, which can be very time consuming if you don’t know what you are doing.

So, with the limited space and limited amount of bandwidth you can use, if your site or blog becomes big, you will quickly find your images, videos, pdf, and zip files all clog up your bandwidth allowance. If you hit the front page of a major social media site as Digg.com Delicious.com or Stumbleupon.com your server could literally crash and be down for hours.

A Word About Servers

There are different types of servers, or hosting, you can use to host your website on, and depending on your level of skill, and willingness to learn, will determine which one you go for:

Shared Hosting: Your website will be placed on a server along with other websites, which could range from a few to a few thousand.  Your hosting company controls it and you get access to a vast range of services it can provide such as one click wordpress install.

Reseller Hosting: You can, if you wish, start a hosting company of your own by becoming a reseller.  This means your hosting company manages the servers and you deal with all enquiries from your own clients. Again you would sell hosting and there would be multiple websites on one server.

Virtual Dedicated Hosting: Also known as Virtual Private Server (VPS).  This divides a server into many virtual servers where each virtual server has it’s own resources without affecting the other. Depending on your host, you may need to manage your own VPS.

Dedicated Hosting: You would get your own server, which would be stored at the hosting company building.  The user has full administrative access to the box, which means you are responsible for the security and maintenance of your own dedicated box.

Managed Hosting: You would get your own server, however you would not get full control of it, this would be done by a team from your hosting company.

These are the four main types of hosting used however there are more such as cloud hosting, clustered hosting, grid hosting and of course having your own physical server at home.

If you have a small website, which will not have a huge amoount of traffic going to it, then shared hosting maybe the answer for you.  If you expect your site to grow and get a lot of traffic then you could look into one of the other three options, again this will depend on your level of technical ability and the price you are willing to pay.

A Word About Bandwidth

Your hosting company will give you a figure for your monthly bandwidth allowance and will be measured in Megabytes (MB) or Gigabytes (GB).

The amount of bandwidth you need will depend on how you intend to use your website. If you are just hosting web pages and have a few pages, then there will be no need to worry about bandwidth allowance. However if you use it for people to listen to and download MP3 files or watch videos your bandwidth allowance will quickly be consumed and your hosting company may start to charge you for the extra bandwidth you have used.

For example, say you have three different website’s:

Website 1 has only got 10 web pages on it with a few images. Each page is around 50 kilobytes (KB).

Website 2 has got around 100 mp3 files for users to download, plus over 100 web pages. Each MP3 file is 5 (MB) and each page, not including the MP3 files is around 50 KB.

Website 3 has a mixture of web pages, MP3s and Videos. the MP3s are around 5MB, and the video files are around 60MB.

Comparison of data storage and different files types

So you would use the same amount of bandwidth to download one MP3 audio file as you would to view one hundred web pages (50Kb) of your site.

Or, you would use the same amount of bandwidth to download one video file as you would to download 12 MP3 files or view 1,200 web pages.

As you can see it depends greatly on what you are using your website for as to how much bandwidth you will need.

Backup Your Computer Files

As mentioned previously you can use Amazon S3 to backup and share all your computer files.  The beauty of having an online storage system for your computer files means you will be able to access them from anywhere in the world as long as you have an internet connection.  You can share photos, videos, important documents and all your mp3 files ready for download with a few clicks of the mouse.

Welcome Amazon S3

If you have a hard time thinking in terms of data and storage think about it this way;

When you are moving home you have lots of furniture  and boxes to store somewhere (data) but you cannot keep it in your own house (your server) you have to rent a storage place (Amazon S3) to hold all your furniture and boxes.  So you are literally renting space from Amazon to host your files.

Now that you can mentally get a picture of what Amazon S3 is about lets take a look at pricing and see how to set Amazon S3 up.

Prices

As you will see from the prices below Amazon S3 is extremely competitive.  You basically pay a set amount per GB to store your files and are charged a set amount per download.  As an example, if you were to store the full contents of your computer harddrive and it was 100GB you would be charged $15 and $0.01 cent every time you requested a file from storage.

Storage

• $0.150 per GB – first 50 TB / month of storage used
• $0.140 per GB – next 50 TB / month of storage used
• $0.130 per GB – next 400 TB /month of storage used
• $0.120 per GB – storage used / month over 500 TB

Data Transfer

• $0.100 per GB – all data transfer in
• $0.170 per GB – first 10 TB / month data transfer out
• $0.130 per GB – next 40 TB / month data transfer out
• $0.110 per GB – next 100 TB / month data transfer out
• $0.100 per GB – data transfer out / month over 150 TB

Requests

• $0.01 per 1,000 PUT, COPY, POST, or LIST requests
• $0.01 per 10,000 GET and all other requests

Amazon S3 is not costly however it is still wise to check out their prices before signing up for the service.

Check out Amazon S3’s prices here.

You can also estimate how much you will get charged using their simple calculator here.

The next page will talk more about using Amazon S3. Go to the Next Page ->

I work all day long with cell phones of all shapes and sizes and because of that, you can bet that I’ve learned a few tricks to keeping a cell phone running all day long. Sure, it’s easy to keep a phone juiced up if you’re not using it very often but what about those of us that are attached to our phones at the hip? Or smartphone users with battery-sucking touch screens that run games and movies and spreadsheets? It’s hard to keep the phone alive long enough to make the bus ride into work let alone the entire work day!

Here are some tips to help you get the most out of your cell phone’s battery life – without breaking the bank or your brain.

1. Turn your phone off. I know, I know — it seems like a silly thing to mention, but hey, I’m guilty of not following this one myself. Are you at a movie theatre? Turn off your phone instead of putting it on silent. Sure, having the ringer off helps to keep the peace (and quiet), but you’d make all kinds of enemies flashing that bright phone light around in the dark theatre trying to check your text messages anyway. Turning it off will spare the battery that two hours of being stuffed in your pocket. Just make sure to turn it back on when you leave the theatre to check for those missed calls.

2. Turn down/off the backlight. Most phones have brightness settings for the phone display to help make the phone easier to read in different lighting. Personally, I get by just fine with the brightness dimmed to the lowest setting. The default setting is usually sell to the highest brightness so play around with different light levels to see what works for you. The lower the brightness setting, the more life you’ll get out of the battery.

3. Be picky about reception. If you’re spending some time in a place where the recepetion is very poor (only a couple bars or worse, no signal at all) you might want to consider turning your phone right off until you can get to somewhere where the signal is better. Having a low signal/poor reception causes your phone to constantly search and struggle to keep your phone connection operating. This drains the battery amazingly fast. If the signal is low enough, it’s entirely likely that you wouldn’t be able to receive a phone call where you are anyway, so why waste the battery?

4. Disable vibrate mode. There are certainly times when having your phone on vibrate mode is appropriate, but keep in mind that this mode uses up a lot of battery power. When you find yourself in a situation where a ringtone won’t disrupt anything be sure to switch modes. The worst possible mode, of course, is having your phone vibrate and ring at the same time. If you can get by with one or the other, consider that option. If you find yourself in a situation where a ringtone will be disruptive and you won’t be answering your phone anyway, make use of your phone’s silent mode or even better — turn it off!

5. Limit Bluetooth, WIFI, and GPS use. All of these services are huge battery hogs. Enable them only when you need them and be sure to disable them when your through.

Batteries on phones are getting better, but with these simple tips, you’ll be more likely to have power for your cell phone when you need it the most. What are your cell phone battery tips? Leave them in the comments below.

One of the weakest links in most security systems, even today, are passwords. People write them down on sticky notes attached to their computers, or make their passwords so simple that with a little time, anyone can access their system.

As we rely on computers and the Internet more and more with our precious data, password security is only going to rise in importance. Many sites have long since enacted basic checks on passwords to limit the chance of a possible security breach. You’ve seen these systems in place before as they ask you for longer passwords, or to include certain types of characters.

They want you to use passwords that look like !qD7_8aC but you’ll never remember that. So how do you create passwords that aren’t easy to guess, simple to figure out and that you won’t have to write down to remember? Well, first we need to look at why passwords like the example above are so secure.

Weak Passwords: Dictionary Attack

Crackers (commonly labelled Hackers) will use a long text file with thousands of dictionary words most commonly used as passwords. Software will run through this list of words to see if your password matches. If it does, the Cracker will have easily, quickly and efficiently gained access to your data.

This is why we need to make sure we aren’t using words or names that can simply be found out by this type of software.

Words like password, school, and even psychologist are bad passwords. The length of the word doesn’t matter in this type of attack, so using longer words, or even combining two words may not keep your data safe from this type of attack.

Weak Passwords: Brute Force Attack

Another technique that Crackers will use is a system called brute force, and it is how it sounds. The software or system will go through all common permutations of letters until it hits on your password. Usually, the Cracker will check what the lower and upper limit for passwords are in a given website or computer system, as many set their minimum password length to 3, 5 or 8 characters, with a maximum length usually around 15 characters long.

Then the software will start at that length, with all “a’s” and continuing on until it gets to “zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz” and so even if your password is “ccradsae”, the top password crackers can break that in less than five minutes. Overall though, Brute Force cracking types of attack usually takes longer than dictionary attacks, but are also more likely to find a positive result, and this is where the majority of our modern password security techniques come into play.

Secure Passwords

With the example I gave above, !qD7_8aC, it isn’t a dictionary word or phrase, and so only a brute force method (given a limitation of the two tactics of course) would work in finding this password. But thanks to the capital letters, the numbers and the symbols, the number of characters the Brute Force Cracking software would have to go through in various permutations is so large that the person attempting to gain access would have to wait a very long time before the computer would come up with this set of characters, thus, we have security thanks to the high time required.

As computer systems get faster, it becomes more and more difficult to keep these passwords secure, and so many companies are looking for a better way of managing user security, but until that happens, we need to protect ourselves.

Making a Secure, Easy to Remember Password

Coming up with a fairly secure and easy to remember password might seem difficult, but there are some easy things you can do to improve it.

First: The more characters the better. Take one or two words. (simplepassword)
Second: Use both uppercase and lowercase letters (SimplePassWorD)
Third: Replace vowels with numbers (S1mpl3P4ssW0rD)
Forth: Add symbols to replace letters or to insert between words ($1mpl3!P4ssW0rD)

From what I’ve read, a password like $1mpl3!P4ssW0rD would take a minimum of three months using a super computer to crack through brute force methods used today. With computers getting faster and smarter, I have a feeling, even a few years from now, a password like this would still take weeks or months to crack.

NOTE: You can’t just use one of the above mentioned techniques. PassWorD is not a secure password, neither is p@ssword or p4ssw0rd. It is the combination of the above techniques that help create a more secure password.

Changing Your Password Often

This of course brings me to my next point, if you are smart, you’ll change your password fairly regularly. It doesn’t take much to take one or two important words or a short phrase, and convert them through replacement to become much more secure while remaining memorable, but even with all the previous steps, if you give a person enough reason to make the attempt, and they are persistent, then they’ll eventually find your password and gain entry.

But, if you change your password in the midst of their cracking attempt, you are basically putting them back to square one, and they have to start over again.

Different Passwords for Different Sites/Computer/Services

The last thing that people should be concerned about is the use of the same password on multiple sites. Not all sites, computers and services secure your information as well as others. This leads to the possibility that one site may accidentally give your password out to the wrong person. If this happens, and you use the same password everywhere, you’ve instantly gave that person access to everything you have protected under that password, and using the information they gleam from various sites and services, they may be able to get more passwords on other sites and services.

Trying to figure out an easy way to make new passwords for each site? Try adding a unique identifier. For Gmail, add gM to the start or end of your chosen strong password. For Twitter, add tw33t or t!. Then you’ll be able to have one main secure password with different identifiers based on the site.

So a password like: My#p4s$ becomes My#p4s$gM for Gmail, and My#p4s$t! for Twitter. Be aware of the upper limitations of the sites you use, as if you are limited to 16 characters, you can’t use something like $1mpl3!P4ssW0rD as the prefix for your identifiers as $1mpl3!P4ssW0rDgM is too long.

Some Good Password Examples

Just looking around at various objects, it can be very easy to create a password that is secure and easy to use.

Pr!ngl3sC4nn (Pringles Can)
d13tC0c4^c0l4 (Diet Coca Cola)
St4rG4t3& (Stargate)
c3lL#pH0n3 (Cell Phone)

Conclusion

Be aware that selling your data online and from your computer is big business, and it is up to you to protect yourself.

In the end, you need to select strong passwords, change them often, use different ones on different sites, and stay apprised of security issues with the sites, services and computers that you use. I hope you all take the time to beef up your password security and are able to stay safe.