From the category archives:

Career

Improve Domain Name Security, Lessons Learned From Domain Name Hijacking

by Aqeel Syed on August 28, 2009

Every bad thing, every hard time I faced in my life, I learned some lesson out of it. These lessons were hard to learn. Infact there is a positive attached with domain name securityevery negative situation. Worst times of your life makes you perfect.

Due to recent domain name hijacking I learned how to safeguard your assets online and to protect your identity. I’m at initial stages of my career as a web entrepreneur so this knowledge that I gained during this bad time will help me in the long run. Off course as a reader you can also benefit from my experiences.

So here we go with some quick security tips.

Domain Name Account Protection

Domain names are the cheapest thing when you build a website, you can buy for a few bucks while you pay lot more (hundreds or thousands of dollars) for hosting every year. Imagine if you are left without your domain name (your domain name is hijacked) what you have got? A hosting account with CMS/template files and a database! These files of your website are of no use for you without a domain name.

Its very important to register your domain name with a registrar that is secure and have a proven security record. I registered my domains with Name.com, they have pretty good security on domain accounts. If my account was hacked it was not the fault of domain registrar, my email account got hacked first and then cracker took control of my domain name account.  However Name.com helped me out and I took my account back.

Hint Name.com offer an added layer of security with their name safe service, $20 yearly fee and you are more protected.

If you are looking for a proven security record. The only domain registrar that has a proven security record is Moniker.com. Moniker offers personalized security questions for each of your domain names. Even if someone cracked your ID & password with Moniker, they cannot move or change your domains without answering these security questions.

Domain registrar support service is also very important, what if your account is hacked and you cannot get to their support department for several days? Please research on their support response time before registering with them.

Your domain registrar should not be a reseller. Yes, if your domain registrar is a reseller, if he is a one man company. What if he closes his business or he get ill or die? Or worst move out of country, what will happen to your domain names? People those are registering domain names in India and Pakistan (or other small countries) with local companies are actually registering with domain resellers, these are individuals (with few exceptions) charging you high prices and putting you at a risk. Always register your domains with ICANN aggregated domain registrar.

Email address that you are using when registering domains is also important. If you (or your company) can afford get a secured email account (paid) for your domain names. Don’t go for free email services.  Every time a domain is hijacked the reason come to know is free email services like Gmail, Yahoo! mail or Hotmail.

Use a separate email address for registering domain names, other then your general/personal email address.

Hint You should use a different email address in billing, contact and administration information in domain who is. Don’t use email address that you used with your account registration (account ID). For example, I registered my domain account with email ID xyz@mail.com while in who is information I used abc@mail.com. This way crackers don’t get know what email address is used to register that domain account.

You can also enable domain privacy to hide your contact details.

Network Integrity Monitoring
One thing that save me from lot of trouble in this domain hijack attempt is ‘Network Integrity Monitoring’. When cracker made changes with my domain names, I got an alert in email instantly and upon investigating I discovered that my domain account is compromised. If wouldn’t had ‘Network Integrity Monitoring’ may be it would have been too late for me to know about that. I got this service from sucuri.net. And another amazing this is, this handy service is free to use.

Your PC security is very important. Always use a good firewall, Anti virus and spyware removal software. Use McAfee Site Adviser when surfing online. Keep your windows updated with latest security releases.

Do you have any other ideas? Please feel free to share using comments.

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11 Week Free Internet Marketing Course

by Aqeel Syed on June 7, 2009

Are you looking for a perfect internet marketing course? Well, as you might have realized, internet marketing


become very famous lately. You can easily find internet marketing courses provided by lots of institutions. Though the course is said to be internet marketing course, some of them are considered scam. They offer ways to make money online but the ways they offer are not applicable. Therefore, if is very important for you to consider thoroughly the marketing course you are going to enroll.

For you who want to enroll into an internet marketing course, you have to understand that it is much better for you to learn from the experts who have practiced the skills they compiled in the course materials. This means you need to consider Shoemoney Xtreme 11 Week Course provided by Shoemoney.com. Shoemoney.com founded by Jeremy Schoemaker, a famous and most recognizable internet marketer and affiliate master.

Shoemoney is one of the best internet marketing people we know. He is master of this trade, with years of experience and doing every trick in the book, he is up with a free internet marketing course.

Which I believe every one should join in, Shoemoney is giving it for free. So go ahead and join it, all you need a valid email address. Don’t forget to verify your email address by clicking on the welcome email by ShoeMoneyX.

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Building A Power Programmer Portfolio

by Aqeel Syed on April 23, 2009

Ali Shah asked here.

“I write useless php and ajax apps for my uncle and for fun but i just want to do some productive stuff, I tried freelancing lol never worked. No one accepts my bids. I am more like learner, I dont consider my self a pro and i won’t. I was doing Bcs but didn’t finish, i will go abroad to do Btech cert. and then bachlors from abroad. I have alot of time in my hands and i want to utilize it in some really good way. I want to make myself a portfolio. I want to make an app. What should i make.?”

Building up a portfolio (a collection of your work) is essential. Many employers will require it before they consider you for a job. Take the time you need to produce something that will impress them–it’ll really pay off.

Graphics designers and web designers those I come to contact have very nice portfolios. But programmers rarely bring any samples of their work to show. Freelancing & job hunting is more competitive then ever now. You need to portfoli-ohhave a clear focus, a good portfolio and you should be excited about you worked on. Build a free app, promote your cool stuff online, highlight and bring it to the attention of employer.

Things that will help:

  • creating your own portfolio site
  • publishing code you have written on the site
  • keeping the published work focused on the job you want

Don’t put your portfolio in your resume, only include your portfolio website URL in resume. Only include bullet points.

If you are fresh out of school you can build few cool apps to demonstrate your programming skills. But if you’re experienced you should display your best work. You have the luxury of chosing your best work and displaying it.

Make sure the code is focused toward what you want to do. If you want a J2EE job, leave out the Visual Basic, Access, PHP, etc.

You can compare yourself with other successful programmers.

Hope it helps you and our readers :)

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