Issue #2682

• WEALTHY: 3 rules that can save you thousands (Tim Clay)
• HEALTHY: Advanced exercise for your arms and chest (Jon Benson)
• WISE: Machiavelli on protecting yourself from traps

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:

• News about the recent attack on ETR’s website (Edwin Huertas)
• You hear this word all the time – but is it used correctly? (Don Hauptman)
• It’s Fun to Know… about tourism
• Add “locution” to your vocabulary

== Highly Recommended ==

Unbelievable Profits – No Matter What the Market Does 

Are you aware that there is a group of people that are happy that the financial markets are going crazy? 

This group is made up of people you’ve never heard of.  They don’t care whether the stock market goes up or down because they make either way…a lot of money. 

One man knows how to make fortunes when stocks go up… and rake in unbelievable profits when stocks go down.

He’s been playing by a whole different set of rules than the regular investors. 

After making so much money for so long, he decided it was time to change sides. Now, he’s going to reveal the information that has made him so much money. 

Why Record Keeping Should Be One of Your Favorite Activities

By Tim Clay

I know… record keeping doesn’t sound very exciting. But the truth is – something as simple as a mileage log translates directly into saved money and time.

Good records save you money because they make deductions possible. (Read: Pay less taxes.) They save you time because they keep Uncle Sam off your back. Not having them puts you in Uncle Sam’s pocket (and maybe even in jail).

Follow these record keeping rules:

Rule 1. Keep all tax records for a minimum of 3 years and long-term records (real estate closings, stock transactions, IRA or retirement plan purchases) for a minimum of 10 years.

Rule 2. Receipts must be dated and include the business name. (Not yours – the name of the business issuing the receipt… even if it’s just a corporate ID #.) To qualify as a “receipt” for tax purposes, logs must be dated and kept continuously.

Rule 3. Sort receipts by date. Having all of each month’s receipts in one envelope is better than having, for example, all your gas receipts for the year in one envelope.

A good way to handle business-travel expenses for tax purposes is to keep a simple mileage log in your car and use the log to store all your travel-related receipts. At today’s standard rate of $0.55 per mile, 10,000 business miles would give you a $5,500 standard mileage deduction. (You can find a sample mileage log here..) On the last day of every month, take the receipts from your mileage log and put them in an envelope. Write “travel receipts” with the month and year on the envelope. Then stash it in a shoebox or desk drawer.

Simple steps like these can save you thousands.

[Ed. Note: Internet Money Club member Tim Clay is an Enrolled Agent (a federally authorized tax practitioner) and a certified QuickBooks Advisor with 25 years of experience. Visit www.AskTaxGuys.com to learn more and sign up for Tim's free tax-tips newsletter.

One of the best ways to reduce your tax bill for 2010 - while building a business that could throw off income for years to come - is to further your education. Learn how you could set yourself up with income for life right here.]

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ETR Insider Report: How to Thwart an Attack That Can Quickly Kill Your Business

By Edwin Huertas

It started with a routine check on our website (which I do every morning)… and finding a crazy-looking warning on our front page – the same warning that several ETR readers wrote in about. Here’s one of the e-mails we received that day:

From: Kelly Brock

Date: Sun, May 17, 2009 at 10:15 PM

Subject: Google reported your site as suspicious with malware

To: AskETR@etrfeedback.com

Hi,

Google has reported your site has been loading with malware and suspicious activities, and has blocked users from accessing it. To be on the safe side, I am not opening the link to your website till all is clear. You might want to check and clarify. Attached is the browser screen. Hope this help.

Regards

Kelly

Our website was under attack.

I immediately started digging, and saw that certain pages of our site were trying to redirect our visitors to a Chinese site called gunbar.cn. That site then tried to pass along a virus to our visitors’ computers.

It seems that an extremely malicious Trojan/Virus had been released on the Web. ETR – along with WalMart.com and Variety.com, among others – was one of its latest victims. Colin Witucki, ETR’s Operations Manager, and I managed to eradicate the virus from ETR’s site. But this experience offers a good lesson for anyone with an Internet business.

If you take the proper precautions – like using reputable anti-virus and malware protection software – this is a one-in-a-million occurrence. And the possibility of contracting a virus is certainly not a reason to get scared away from doing business online.

But it CAN happen.

Here’s what I learned during our own battle – and how you can use it to prevent or thwart any attacks on your site…

This particular Trojan/Virus has a way of infecting a computer without being detected by anti-virus software, and it seems that one of the computers in our office had caught it. A computer can catch this electronic parasite simply by “visiting” an infected website.

It works by first infecting your computer, and then infecting your website using login criteria it steals from your FTP client. (FTP is a software used to upload and download pages from your Web server.) It then begins to upload infected Web pages to your server without you knowing it!

The URL for the virus was originally several variations of gumblar.cn. It had been out for a short time – and I was aware of it – but the version we contracted was fairly new.

This malicious code started slowly and kept spreading until many of the pages on our site were infected. Though I acted as soon as I knew we had a problem, I wasn’t able to catch it in time to prevent our website from being flagged by Google and other online authorities.

Because we were flagged by Google, when people visited our website they were greeted by an ugly red sign that read: “This site has been listed as an attack site.” From that warning page, the ETR site was accessible only by clicking on the “Ignore this warning” link (which, as you can imagine, NO ONE used).

Needless to say… our website was in serious trouble. We could have been blacklisted by Google and other search engines if the problem had not been taken care of quickly.

How WE Overcame This Malicious Attack

It wasn’t easy. It took a lot of work and about five re-submissions to Google’s review board, but we managed to fend of the attack and get our website back to normal.

• The first thing we did was change ALL the passwords on every site we hosted on the server. Once they were changed, the virus had no way to upload itself to the server.

• Colin and I then ran around to every computer in the office (more than 20) and installed virus protection software called Avast! Antivirus. This was the only software we could find that detected this Trojan/Virus.

• Once everyone’s computer was clean, I proceeded to clean out the files on the server. Since the virus had randomized the malicious code (it looked completely different on every page), I wasn’t able to remove it simply by using the software. I had to go in and remove the line of code file by file. There are more 3,000 files on our site, so you can imagine how beat I was after the first 300 or so.

That’s when I decided to try to write a small application that would do it automatically using PHP (a Web programming language). I ran my program on the server – and IT WORKED! It cleared all the malicious code on our pages. And when I submitted to Google’s review board this time (they allow a review request every eight hours or so), they finally removed the block they’d put on our site.

Thank goodness we were able to get out of this jam. Unfortunately, thousands of Websites get infected by viruses every day. That’s why we’re taking every precaution to ensure that it does not happen to us again (including some that – for security reasons – I can’t mention here).

Your first step in detecting and removing this nasty little bug (as well as just about every other worm, virus, or Trojan out there), is to install AVAST! Antivirus.

I can’t say enough about how much help this software was. It helped save our online business. Our office computers had Norton, McAfee, and AVG installed – and NONE of those programs caught this Trojan/Virus.

The little application I wrote was also a big help – so I thought I’d offer it to our readers and website visitors here.

PLEASE NOTE: Use this PHP script at your own risk! The application worked for me – but though it was intended to remove only the malicious code, it does remove lines of JavaScript code that contains similar structures. If you do not know how to use it (there are two lines of code you need to change to suit your needs), I recommend that you hire an expert webmaster to help you. If you do not know of any, post your comment on this article and I will recommend someone.

We dodged a bullet – but how will YOU fare if a virus attacks your business website?

As I said, it is unlikely that you will have a problem if you take the proper precautions. Here are the two most important things you can do:

1. Be vigilant.

This is key. I am constantly scanning ETR’s website to watch for viruses, and I check the site every day for irregularities. You should do the same. You – or your Web manager – should also keep up to date on the latest viruses and how they get access to websites. That way, you’ll be on top of them before they ever affect your site.

2. Take some easy initial steps to protect yourself.

• Make sure your FTP login information and passwords are secure. Write them down somewhere rather than saving them on your site. And give access to upload only to people who absolutely need it.

• Run a daily scan for malicious software (malware). I use malwarebytes.com. [

• Install privacy software that detects and removes spyware from your site. I use spybot.com.

While you shouldn't let the threat of a virus keep you from starting an online business, it is something you should be aware of. A few ounces of prevention - and an understanding of how to thwart an attack - can help keep your website, your visitors, and your business safe.

[Ed. Note: Starting an Internet business may sound daunting - especially when you think of all the "technical" aspects. But that's where ETR's experts come in. Edwin Huertas, MaryEllen Tribby, Charlie Byrne, and other Internet marketing specialists will show you, step by step, exactly how to set up an Internet business. After 5 days with them, you WILL have a fully functioning Internet business with the potential to pull in thousands of dollars every month. Get all the details here.]

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==  Highly Recommended ==

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The 20-Second Push-Up

By Jon Benson

Here’s a great way to develop your upper chest without going to a gym: Do super-slow feet-elevated push-ups.

If you are not strong enough to do regular push-ups, start with knee push-ups. Just balance your body on your knees rather than on your toes, and work your way up to three sets of 20 reps.

When you can do three sets of 20 reps, switch to your toes. Work your way up to three sets of 20 reps.

When you can do that, get a chair and elevate your toes so your body is at an angle leaning toward the ground. That way, you are working more of your upper chest.

Once you can do a few sets of 20 of those, try what I call the 20-second push-up: Lower yourself to the ground in perfect form for a count of 10 (about 10 seconds). Then explode halfway up – but only halfway. Then count another 10 seconds to raise the rest of the way up.

Odds are you will only be able to do a few of these the first time you try. But once you work your way up to sets of 10, you will have wonderful upper-chest development to show for it.

[Ed. Note: Fitness expert Jon Benson just released his in-home fitness plan, The 7 Minute Muscle Body System. It requires only bands, a rubber ball, and your bodyweight to tone your body and help you burn fat. Try it for yourself.

For effective strategies for burning fat, getting fit, and feeling better than ever, sign up for ETR's FREE natural health newsletter right here.]

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The Language Perfectionist: “Mutual” Admiration Society

By Don Hauptman

Are the following two sentences correct?

• “The Minister of Public Security… signed last night in Washington D.C. a memorandum of mutual understanding with his American counterpart….” (The situation involves two people.)

• “A person met through a mutual acquaintance is often more easily integrated into one’s network than a person met on one’s own.” (The situation involves two people and their relationship to a third person.)

In The Careful Writer, Theodore M. Bernstein explains:

“Properly speaking, mutual connotes interaction or recognition between two or more persons or things. The meaning ’shared in common’… is not now considered good usage.” (That sense of the word was popularized by the title of Charles Dickens’s novel Our Mutual Friend.)

Thus, the first sample sentence above is correct, but, judged by the rule just cited, the second one is questionable.

Another language authority is adamant that mutual should be used only to mean “reciprocal.” Instead of “mutual friend,” he advises us to write and say “friend in common.” But that locution strikes my ear as awkward and clunky.

Bernstein agrees: “Because a suitable substitute is lacking, the tendency these days is to accept the phrase mutual friend or mutual acquaintance.”

Although I tend to be a traditionalist on language matters, I can be flexible. We need not blindly follow linguistic rules if they don’t make sense. This is one such case. So my verdict is that both of the sample sentences at the beginning of this article pass muster.

[Ed Note: For more than three decades, Don Hauptman was an award-winning independent direct-response copywriter and creative consultant. He is author of The Versatile Freelancer, an e-book recently published by AWAI that shows writers and other creative professionals how to diversify their careers into speaking, consulting, training, and critiquing.]  

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It’s Fun to Know: Tourism Continues to Drop

Worldwide tourist travel dropped by 8 percent in the first two months of 2009, continuing a downward trend initiated by the financial crisis in the last six months of 2008. Tourism in Europe, with an 8.4 percent drop, has been the hardest hit, followed by the United States with a 3.4 percent drop. The World Tourism Organization expects those numbers to improve somewhat over the year.

(Source: Associated Press)

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== Highly Recommended ==

Recover from the Recession Before Everyone Else

If you’re like several people I know (and yes, myself included) you’ve lost half or more of your 401(k), IRA, stock portfolio, or whatever retirement plan you’ve got going in the last six months.

But you could have it back – and then some – before 2009 ends.

Get your Recession Recovery Plan today.

Word to the Wise: Locution

A “locution” (loh-KYOO-shun) – from the Latin for “to speak” – is a particular word, phrase, expression, or idiom.

Example (as used by Don Hauptman today): “Instead of ‘mutual friend,’ [another language authority] advises us to write and say ‘friend in common.’ But that locution strikes my ear as awkward and clunky.”

[Ed. Note: Become a more persuasive writer and speaker ... build your self-confidence and intellect ... increase your attractiveness to others ... just by spending 10 VERY enjoyable minutes a day with ETR's new Words to the Wise CD Library.]

Copyright ETR, LLC, 2009

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This entry was posted on Saturday, May 30th, 2009 at 5:10 am and is filed under Daily Issues .