Late last night these emails began flooding it, masked in a solicitation for “search engine registration” and they’re after one thing – your money. The only catch is you have to give away your hard earned money over to the scammers for something that is already provided for free.

If you read the fine print carefully you’ll see that…

• “This is not an invoice”
• It’s for “Search Engine Registation”
• It’s a “solicitation”
• “This notice is not in any part is associated with a continuation of services for domain registration.”

At least you won’t lose your domain if you fall for this scam, but you will lose up to $295.

Here’s what to watch for, by email, with the subject line –

Here’s what the letter contains…

The dead give-aways…

The email address I have been receiving these from is Domain Services <domserv227834@hotmail.com>. The email address (if it’s even valid) that they bury in their fine print is unsubscribe@dssubmissions.com, which does not exist. Other emails have used globedomainservices@gmail.com, hidden behind a different version, globedomagbd77782@gmail.com. (The first would actually look more professional, so it’s odd that they set it up the way that they do.) However, you should always be a bit cautious with a notice from a company that does not use their own domain name for their email address. Remember: scammers and phishers are almost always going to use an email account at Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, or some other free email service.

The company name is…. uhm, maybe they’re just shy? The fact that it’s not branded is a big clue, though just having a brand/logo doesn’t imply that it’s on the up and up. The fact that it does NOT have that however, is a good sign you should trash this message.

Conclusion

As with all situations like this, if you’re not really sure what something is, don’t send money. Know who your domain registrar and hosting provider are, and always call or email them if you have questions about something you receive.

1. Specialization. If you drive a Honda, would you prefer to take your car in for service to a generalist or to a Honda specialist? If it’s a matter of routine minor tune-up most mechanics would probably do. If the matter is more complex, such as a timing belt replacement, you probably want to go to someone who knows the Honda engine very well, uses genuine Honda parts or their true Japanese off-brand equivalent, has all the service manuals for your car and can inspect related equipment with thorough knowledge of your car’s standards. Similar to car service, it pays in the web development world to specialize in a more specific set of technologies. This is useful to capture economies-of-scale in both production and marketing efforts.
2. Popularity/Community. The open-source project website WordPress.org is the 50th most popular website whereas Joomla! and Drupal rank neck-and-neck 353rd and 358th, respectively in the United States as of April 9, 2011. Magento, a highly popular commercial CMS, ranks 779th. If you check the podcasts directory in Apple iTunes, WordPress is on fire with dozens of free podcasts compared to the handful for other systems. The number of free and commercial themes, plugins and frameworks available to WordPress starts with around 14,000 free plugins and 1,300 free themes on the WordPress.org official community repository alone.
3. Ease of Use. WordPress is commonly referred to as the most easy to learn and maintain. Why? Because it’s a breeze to install, configure, update and publish content to relative to the competition. We say this from personal experience with which we consider ourselves adequately informed on the current editions.
4. Customization. Popular open-source CMS platforms have more similarities than differences, and are all quite customizable. WordPress as a platform can be used for pretty much anything. Why not adapt the easiest and most popular open-source platform for your client’s specific purposes? After all, adaptations are required for whichever CMS is chosen in order to truly meet the requirements of any good sized project.
5. Architecture. WordPress has a vast API that supports several different types of custom coding. These custom plugin coding options, such as widgets, dashboard widgets and meta boxes, allow for clean, efficient and modular extendability for adding various functionality to many parts of a website. As a framework, WordPress provides many abstractions that free the developer from reinventing the wheel. This includes the database, users/roles, menus, URL mapping, emailing, templating, administrative settings and more.
6. Market. WordPress grew from a popular tool for bloggers and has shown exceptional growth for being used for a wider variety of purposes. Bloggers are content people. Content is king on the web in terms of SEO because that’s mostly what search engines see. The biggest battle content people have with building websites is getting a good design installed, being that they don’t typically like to work with much code. Therefore, WordPress has evolved to think like a writer and a designer.
7. Great for SEO. Using WordPress for your website can be extremely effective when it comes to search engine optimization. The main reason why this is true is because the WordPress platform itself is extremely SEO friendly in terms of how search engine spiders crawl a WordPress website. The WordPress platform offers a built in structure that guarantees online success if followed correctly.
8. Secure. As far as online business is concerned, security is of the greatest importance. If your platform is insecure, this is a threat to everything you do and you just can’t afford to go for an insecure platform. Fortunately, in regards to security, WordPress tops the list. It is true that there is no unhackable software and nobody can guarantee you that even with the most stringent security measures your WordPress site will never be hacked but it does make a difference whether you install a security fortress or an easy target for a beginner hacker.
9. Highly customizable. You will certainly want your online platform to have a unique look. With WordPress this is easy to achieve. There are thousands of themes you can choose from and thousands of plugins to add in order to get exactly the functionality you need. If you are a web designer and/or web developer, you can also use existing themes and plugins and modify them exactly to your liking. Not many other CMS offer such customization freedom!
10. Great community. Last, but not least, another reason why WordPress is such a great online platform is its community. The forums at WordPress.org and the other WordPress-related sites contain tons of threads about everything WordPress-related. Additionally, almost always when you are stuck with a problem and ask for help, knowledgeable and skillful WordPress gurus rush to your help. The WordPress community is simply great and you should experience it yourself.
11. Respects Web  and Typographic Standards. I can write in XHTML, knowing the CMS won’t mess it up. Or I can write in text, knowing it will get converted to standards-compliant XHTML, complete with typographically correct punctuation. Some other high-end blogging software does this, too, but you have to install plug-ins to make it work. WordPress does it out of the box.
12. Pretty in Print. Even though this is the web and not print, as a designer I still care how the type is going to sit in the page. Over 90% of web users never change the default font size. WordPress’s live preview, continuously updated as I write and save, shows me what most readers will see, and lets me revise for better copyfit with one tenth the effort I used to make. Even if you’re not a copy-fitting freak, there’s something about previewing your writing in your layout that’s better than seeing it in someone else’s. There are other great web writing tools out there, but this is the first I know of that lets me see my site as I’m writing. It helps layout, it helps tone, it helps everything.
13. The Need for Speed. WordPress has the potential to run extremely quickly. HQ Secureloads in roughly one and a half seconds and there are a couple of little tricks I use. The chief “trick”, if you can call it that, is to use W3 Total Cache. It’s an absolutely brilliant plugin which caches your site, thus reducing the amount of “work” that has to be done each time somebody loads your site.I’ve often heard accusations levelled at WordPress of the code being “bloated”, but I’ve never seen anything to back this up nor have I seen this reflected in load times. WordPress can be slow if used irresponsibly, but a couple of simple steps and you’ll be flying.
14. Spam Protection. Owners, users and search engines despise blogs or sites that are affiliated with spam activity. Sites or blogs with spam activity can be penalized severely. They will get low rankings or they will get sand boxed. Low rankings mean that a site or blog will not get a sufficient amount of organic traffic (traffic from search engines). WordPress provides plenty of spam protection to help blog masters avoid falling into this pitfall.
15. Social Media Capability. All WordPress Blogs come with social media capability. Social Media is one of the easiest ways of getting thousands of people to visit your blog. There are dozens of social media sites in existence today. Taking advantage of one or several social media mediums can help you get thousands of visitors to your site with ease. Simple integration using a rich theme or a plugin can help share your content easily and get it to reach thousands of eyes.Your Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn social accounts can easily be connected to your blog. More social interaction such as comments and email sign-ups will take place. Your blog can be a social medium for visitors from all over the world.

Any CMS system is a good idea to keep design, content, and logic separated and optimized for your website. Many of the CMSes out there run on modern technologies such as PHP and MySQL that can be affordably scaled to suit sites of all sizes. Some of the CMSes are so popular that you can easily find plugins, themes, and training materials for them. While all of this is true, specializing in the most popular, flexible and open-source CMS is a good way to go.

And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled ’till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store? What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more?

From Flash and the Team at HQ Secure

Microsoft FrontPage was once a popular Web design program. Microsoft stopped selling FrontPage in 2006. The time has come. Our FrontPage support for new sites will end on September 1, 2011, and support for existing sites will end a year after that.

Exactly what will change?

The first phase will occur on September 1, 2011. After that date, it won’t be possible for customers to activate new “FrontPage Server Extensions” on our servers, although existing sites that use FrontPage will continue to work normally.

The second phase will happen on September 1, 2012. After that date, FrontPage Server Extensions will be completely removed from our servers. Any special FrontPage hit counters, guestbooks, feedback forms, or search boxes you’ve created will stop working (although the basic site text and images will still appear). In addition, many people using FrontPage 2002 and earlier will no longer be able to publish changes to their sites from within the FrontPage program.

Why is support for FrontPage Server Extensions being discontinued?

Microsoft hasn’t sold the FrontPage software for more than five years — but that’s only part of the problem. To support special FrontPage features on our servers, hosting companies need to use separate, special “FrontPage Server Extensions” software created by Microsoft. Unfortunately, that software hasn’t been updated in more than ten years, and won’t be updated in the future.

Our engineers have determined that it would be very difficult (perhaps impossible) to make the old FrontPage Server Extensions work with the new Apache 2.4 Web server that we plan to switch to in late 2012. Because of that, we’ll then need to remove the software from our servers.

We’re not unique in this. Most hosting companies have already stopped supporting FrontPage, and most of the rest will probably stop in the near future.

What should I do if I use FrontPage?

Our recommendation is that you switch to a different Web design program or WordPress before September 2012. Convert or create your pages using the new program, then disable the existing FrontPage Server Extensions for your site and publish the new pages. If you do that, you won’t need to worry about anything.

If you’re not sure what program to switch to, we do recommend WordPress.

What if I’m still using FrontPage after September 2012?

If you use FrontPage 2003 on your own computer, you may be able to continue using some parts of it:

• FrontPage 2003 allows publishing using FrontPage’s FTP publishing method to our servers.
• You can replace custom FrontPage hit counters with the Google Analytics.
• You can replace custom FrontPage feedback forms with online form service JotFORM.
• FrontPage guestbook pages and search boxes will not work and should be removed.

If you’re unable to switch your hit counters or feedback forms by September 2012, we can help you with this or do it for you at no charge. (This is an exception to our usual policy of not changing the content of customer sites, because it’s caused by a change on our end.)

Unfortunately, if you’re using FrontPage 2002 (or an earlier version) on your computer, publishing using FTP probably won’t work because it doesn’t include the necessary “passive FTP” feature that’s needed if your connection is on a DSL or cable modem. You will need to switch to something else.

Got questions?

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact us and we’ll be glad to help.

The lowest value that can be given to one of the light sources is 0 (in HEX: 00). The highest value is 255 (in HEX: FF).

HEX values are specified as 3 pairs of two-digit numbers, starting with a # sign.

16 Million Different Colors

The combination of Red, Green, and Blue values from 0 to 255, gives more than 16 million different colors (256 x 256 x 256).

If you look at the color table below, you will see the result of varying the red light from 0 to 255, while keeping the green and blue light at zero.

Use our HTML Color Picker if you need to choose from an almost infinite variety of colors.

Major hexadecimal color codes

Color code chart

Get up and running with WordPress – your local bookstore will have several titles available on using WordPress. Look for the most recent publications if you go this route as WordPress has had many robust updates as of late. In reality, I expect you will most likely figure it out as you go along, so log in and get started with editing existing pages.

Flashy Video Help Library

If you don’t already have the Flashy Video Help Library, you can request it be provided by yours truly Look in your dashboard and get one click access to WordPress video training. The videos are from the WPtuts+ WP101 tutorial series!

Most of the commonly used WordPress functions are covered including but not limited to:

Google is Your Friend

The quickest and easiest way to get help would be searching Google or Bing for solutions to your questions.

Adding images to posts or pages

Help Document: http://en.support.wordpress.com/images/

Video Help: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WnNHEGjBVI

Free Stock Image Resources

Here are the free photography website I use and recommend:

• http://morguefile.com
• http://freephotosbank.com
• http://freestockphotos.com
• http://freerangestock.com
• http://www.freeimages.co.uk/
• http://public-domain-photos.com
• http://photodune.com

The best course of action is to purchase quality stock photography from online stock houses. I have an account at http://istockphoto.com and recommend them highly. Photos for web use cost about two to ten dollars, depending upon the quality/photographer.

Minimum sizes:

Size is dependent upon the dimensions and layout of your WordPress theme. Generally speaking, based upon the themes that I develop:

• Header or full page sized photos should be a minimum of 1000 pixels in width
• Illustrative photos for pages should be a minimum of 640 pixels in width.

Online Photo Editors

• http://www.lunapic.com/editor/
• http://pixlr.com/editor/
• http://fotoflexer.com/
• http://www.picnik.com/
• http://www.freeonlinephotoeditor.com/
• http://pixenate.com/
• http://www.phixr.com/photo/userindex

Desktop Photo Resizers

• http://www.tiptrickmod.com/mac/why-preview-is-the-best-batch-photo-resizer-for-mac/
• http://mac.softpedia.com/get/Graphics/iZoom.shtml
• http://photo-drop.en.softonic.com/mac
• http://www.batchimage.com/product/cm-batch-photo-resizer-mac-os-x

Custom design implemented using of WordPress as a Content Management Engine with a user-managed jQuery image slideshow of full screen rotating background images.

Yes, you can disable the FrontPage Server Extensions.

To disable the FrontPage Server Extensions:

1. Login to the “My Account” control panel
2. Click FrontPage Server Extensions
3. Scroll down to the “Disabling FrontPage Server Extensions” section
4. Click Disable FrontPage Server Extensions

Microsoft completely discontinued their FrontPage Web design software in 2006 (see the “What happened to FrontPage?” section of this page).

That means that Microsoft no longer creates new versions of FrontPage for you to use on your own computer, and they don’t create new versions of the “server extensions” for Web hosting companies.

Will HQ Secure continue to support FrontPage?

To fully support special FrontPage script features (including hit counters, guestbooks, feedback forms, and search boxes), Web hosting companies have to use special “FrontPage server extensions” software provided by Microsoft. However, Microsoft has not made any new versions of the “server extensions” since 2002, and they will not make any new versions in the future.

Because the old “server extensions” are incompatible with upgrades we need to make to our Web servers, we no longer support custom FrontPage server extensions for new sites. New sites will be able to use only the basic non-script features of FrontPage 2003.

If your site already has FrontPage Server Extensions activated, we’ll support that until September 1, 2012. The basic text and images on a FrontPage site will still work after that, but any special parts that requires FrontPage Server Extensions will stop working unless you make the changes below.

What if I only use basic features of FrontPage 2003?

FrontPage 2003 can still be used for basic page design and publishing tasks, even though some special FrontPage features aren’t directly supported:

• FrontPage 2003 allows publishing using FrontPage’s FTP publishing method to our servers.
• You can replace custom FrontPage hit counters with the Google Analytics.
• You can replace custom FrontPage feedback forms with online form service JotFORM.
• FrontPage guestbook pages and search boxes will not work and should be removed.

If you’re unable to switch your hit counters or feedback forms by September 2012, we can help you with this or do it for you at no charge. (This is an exception to our usual policy of not changing the content of customer sites, because it’s caused by a change on our end.)

Unfortunately, if you’re using FrontPage 2002 (or an earlier version) on your computer, publishing using FTP probably won’t work. That’s because it doesn’t include the “passive FTP” feature that’s needed if your connection is on a DSL or cable modem. You will need to switch to something else.

What program should I switch to?

If you’re looking for a DIY way to create Web pages, you may want to consider WordPress.

What about newer Microsoft Web design programs?

Microsoft has replaced FrontPage with other programs, including “Microsoft Expression Web”. That program (which does not use the FrontPage server extensions) works fine on our servers: it can upload your Web site files to our servers using FTP for standard Web design tasks, although it doesn’t offer the same support for certain FrontPage features such as counters. Keep in mind that if you switch to that program, you may have to redesign some portions of your site.

Microsoft also offers SharePoint Designer 2007 as a free download, which offers a similar interface to FrontPage. However, our testing has shown that this program can unexpectedly delete files from your Web site, so we strongly discourage you from using it.

Medi Spa needed a web presence that was on a par with the services they had been providing their clients for years. The site had to speak to prospective client in a way that was commensurate with the type of experience they were likely to have; gentle yet productive.

The website was built upon the WordPress platform to afford the staff the ability to maintain content on a daily basis.