I am very thrilled and honoured to be invited to write for the Blogdrive Help Forum. If you're a Blogdrive member or even if you're not, stop by to find great help articles on blogging.

Technorati: Blogdrive, Blogdrive Help Forum, writing

Here's a nifty new way to get listed. At Big Web Links Directory you can pay to be listed and the more you bid, that will be how high your rank will be. So if you have a million bucks or a little less, you'll be assured to be number one for a long time. And who said money can't buy rank? :D Stop by and check out this cool new concept.

This post was kindly sponsored by Big Web Links.

Technorati: web link directory, technology

I was immensely honoured to wake up this morning to find 2 new favicons in my Inbox from the multi-talented Ilker Yoldas from The Thinking Blog, which I reviewed some time ago. Thank you, Ilker. :)

Technorati: favicon, The Thinking Blog

Email compliance is an often neglected corporate expense, even with spam at an all-time high in corporate emails. Shockingly even higher than that of personal email providers such as Yahoo (the most notorious one since Hotmail cleaned up its act), Gmail, Hotmail, and Gmx. But if you stop and dissect this, it makes sense.

Conglomerates like Google and MSN have put in place powerful spam filters used worldwide in all their subsidiaries. For considerably smaller organisations of 1000 and less, the cost-effectiveness of purchasing an expensive logic-based email security program with a growing blacklist may not make financial sense to them.

This decision is often made by management, which may or may not have any technical knowledge of how spam can damage your infrastructure. As spam becomes more advanced and potentially malicious, it falls to those in the IT department to remind the decision-makers once again how critical securing our email is. After all, when the blame comes, we always get it. :p

Effective security programs, such as BorderWare's Email Security, Compliance, and Anti-Spam solution, need to provide at least the following:

- Content Filtering
- Attachment Scanning
- Compliance Dictionaries
- Encryption
- Audit & Reporting
- Policy Controls
- Redundancy & Clustering

It is essential to filter content (particularly malicious content which can come wrapped in seemingly innocent image and html files nowadays, in addition to the old school exe files). Hence an effective solution must provide at least attachment scanning as well.

More effective are compliance dictionaries and encryption for your and your organisation's own security. Having a white list and black list helps to an extent, but these must be set and maintained organisation-wide by the security administrator.

Having worked in an IT department where security was much needed and not adhered to very well, I realise policy controls will go only so far and attempts at education moot if users are unable to comprehend the extent of damage their clicking on one file containing a worm can cause. Similarly, the security team needs to read the audits and examine all reports frequently, or slippages will simply be missed.

Whether you are an individual concerned about your email security, or an organisation looking to protect your assets regardless of organisation size, get an effective security solution now. Here is one to consider: BorderWare's suite of Internet security programs. Their trademarked (or trademark-pending) and award-winning solutions provide state-of-the-art security for organisations of all sizes.

This post on email compliance was kindly sponsored by BorderWare.

Technorati: BorderWare, email compliance, email security, secure communications

Managing your personal and family finances is an ongoing learning experience. I never tire of surfing to find ways to save money for my family. As many money management gurus love to say, a penny saved is a penny earned.

Here's what we've done so far:

1. Cancelled our cable TV

If no one is using it, then why waste $22 a month on it? That adds up to $264 a year and $2640 a decade. Or an extra pizza meal a month.

2. Cancelled our home phone account

Everyone uses their mobile phone nowadays so that $8 a month to just keep that phone number alive isn't quite worth it. The humble $8 a month adds up to $96 a year and $960 a decade.

3. Cancel memberships that give no return

I had a supermarket membership card but found that the $9 monthly fee exceeded the 5% rebates I received from shopping there. Plus it compelled me to shop there more which wasn't always so convenient.

4. Redeem your points for cash off your bill

Check with your service providers often if you can use the reward points to reduce your bill or subscriptions – the value is usually more than that of any gift or vouchers.

careOne has a wealth of money saving ideas on their website. This one is a gem: Ways To Stretch A Dollar.

If you find yourself already in the red, avoid bankruptcy and talk to a professional about debt management and debt consolidation. There is always an alternative.

This post on financial advice was kindly sponsored by careOne.

Technorati: personal financial management, money saving tips, save money

I've been using Technorati since I started blogging over 2 years ago but only recently did I claim my blogs. According to Technorati:

Strange Machines ranks Rank: 97,490 (195 links from 42 sites)
Five Cats Blog ranks 609,123 (13 links from 7 sites)
TechBot ranks 229,567 (31 links from 19 sites)

Perhaps tomorrow I'll play with some of the widgets... hmm...

Technorati: Technorati, blog rankings

I have been pondering about whether to move my blogs to my own domain. This naturally involves the tempting and very splendid task of having to test out some blogging software.

Primary among the rest are Wordpress(.org) and Moveable Type. General feedback from some kind Posties was that Wordpress is easier to use in general. AnnaBella even sent me the URL for 1500 templates. Kat, however, mentioned that MT may be easier to use but separates the templates which are more helpful.

Now with Blogdrive, the templates are in 3 parts: the main template where all the coding goes, the profile (left nav) and the sidebar (right nav). If MT works like that, I reckon it's a better bet.

Still, we won't know till we test it. Won't we? ;)

Technorati: Wordpress, Moveable Type, domain, Blogdrive, blog

When it comes to money, I make sure I make a budget for every calendar year for our home to make sure we never spend more than we earn and maintain a monthly savings of at least 10% for our retirement and Jack's education.

When I was a little girl, my Mom always pointed out the prices of different things, probably toys, and told me which ones were expensive and which weren't, and to differentiate needs from wants. That gave me a pretty firm grounding on money management.

Money is definitely a necessity so talk of money is the root of all evil is inaccurate. It is only evil when there is an excess (an excess of anything can corrupt) or severe deficiency of (starving conditions or if you are obsessed with comparing with the Joneses), or causes a rift in your family.

Unless you are the Joneses, it is impossible to avoid borrowing money. You need to take loans to purchase a home or a car, you need to pay home insurance to protect your home, you can leverage on credit cards to maximise the interest you earn in your current accounts, you need to reduce your debt by taking on a Bad Credit Remortgage.

Read up on debt advice. For good financial management, the goal is to reduce the amount you owe and maximise the amount you save. Ideally the interest you earn on your investments and savings should exceed the amount you are paying.

This post is kindly sponsored by The Thrifty Scot.

Technorati: financial management, finance, money, savings, investment, debt management

Although they appear to consider each other as competitors, I find that one can use both Multiply and Friendster with similar ease.

Multiply feels more like a home I'm decorating to invite friends over while Friendster feels more like a fashion show where everyone is preening. With Multiply, I tend to add people I consider really good friends or close friends, or people I have something in common with, not mere social friends. On the other hand, with Friendster, I tend to add friends who I may simply know as acquaintances as well as good friends.

The functions are different too. Multiply has a comprehensive photo sharing network, video sharing, blog, recipes, book and movie reviews, all of which suggest a kind of intimacy with the people you are connected with. With Friendster it is all about social networking: testimonials, a brief profile, featured friends, and an optional blog (they have since removed their RSS feed for external blogs).

Whether they both evolve into each other is yet to be seen, but for now, I'll be using Multiply to share things with close friends, and Friendster to simply network.

Technorati: technology, Multiply, Friendster, social networking

I've been a fan of The Thinking Blog since I first stumbled across it via MyBlogLog.

The title is indicative of the blog's central topic of interest, the design is clean, layout pleasant to the eye, navigation logical and easy to use with categories lined up on the top bar, and the text is large for the perpetually eyestrained (me!) yet not screaming to the rest who have good eyesight.

Ilker's posts are thought-provoking and ponderous, and I have enjoyed every single word he has typed, in particular, A Shy Blogger's Avatar and MySpamLog when I realised he was actually not the beautiful woman in the picture, yet was even more compelled to read about this shy blogger, and Safeguard the Web for Children, which drove me quickly to write up one up for my own blog too.

The Thinking Blog is probably one of the most usable and useful sites I have ever visited and will definitely continue visiting. An excellently designed site with brilliant content - a real winning combination.

Technorati: review, website