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For almost as long as there have been emails - spam has been a cause for concern for most. Not only for the targeted individuals, but also for the companies whose brands and addresses have been misused and products sold illegally. This month we turn our focus towards the Sender Policy Framework as a means for domain holders to combat the ever illusive problem of SPAM.
SPF was introduced back in 2005 and has since then become widely used as a means for domain name administrators to defend their domain name(s) from being misused by spammers to send out unconsolidated commercial emails.
Implemented into the DNS TXT record of any given domain name, the SPF record holds a list of addresses, which has been set as valid sender(s) for the given domain name. The recipients mail server can then validate the origin of emails received simply by checking the DNS settings of the senders domain name. Obviously this alone does not guarantee that the emails you send will be cleared by the recipients spam filter. However it should make them a lot less likely to be marked as SPAM.
A company with the domain name test.com wish to configure an SPF record for their domain name. They are using the email server smtp.isp.edu (IP: 123.123.123.123) as their outgoing SMTP-server. Furthermore they have a website application from where they send automated emails to their clients. The web server for this application is located at IP 111.222.111.222.
The SPF record for this setup could look something like this:
“v=spf1 a:smtp.isp.edu ip4:111.222.111.222 -all”
By adding the above record we can tell other mail servers that emails send from @test.com addresses, either via smtp.test.com or via 111.222.111.222, are legitimate emails. Everything else is not and should be dealt with accordingly.
Well, SPAM concerns everyone. From a general point of view you can help in the fight against SPAM. The Sender Policy Framework is designed to become increasingly efficient - The more domain names using SPF records, the more ISPs (Internet Service Providers) would be inclined to implement these checks; thus helping everyone.
From your point of view spammers will be less likely to use your domain name as the sender address when they spam. This should reduce/eliminate bounced emails send back to you in response to messages that you did not actually send in the first place as well as any attempt in spoofing activities using your domain name as the sender.
Last but not least, emails that you send will be less likely not to reach their destination. This should be enough of an incentive for any company to consider implementing SPF records in the DNS of domain name.
To learn more about SPF records, try the one of the following sites.
SPF Introduction
Open SPF, Introduction
SPF Common mistakes
Open SPF, Common mistakes
SPF Wizard
Open SPF, Wizard
Wikipedia
Wikipedia, Sender policy framework
A complete overhaul of the way people navigate the internet has been given the go ahead in Paris. The Internet’s regulator ICANN voted unanimously to relax the strict rules on Top Level domain names, such as .com or .uk, can be relaxed.
The decision means that companies could turn brands into web addresses while individuals could use their names.
Some believe there could be at least 5,000 new top-level domains, but others say there could be demand for billions.
Peter Dengate Thrush, a member of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), said the decision was of “historic importance”.
The new system should come in next year, but ICANN admits there will be plenty of problems, and it may have to arbitrate between different organisations seeking the same name.
Jonathan Robinson, Chief Operating Officer at the domain name management specialist NetNames (www.netnames.com) assesses decision’s impact on the industry.
“While it is clear the Internet domain name structure needs to evolve, the ICANN vote in favour of opening up Top Level Domains (TLDs) leads to complex questions for marketers and trademark owners.
“It can be argued that the expansion of available suffixes is the equivalent of opening a can of worms in terms of online infringement and cybersquatting – it seems logical to assume that as domain numbers increase, so too will the levels of speculative activity.
“Brand owners may find themselves in the position of having to register numerous new domains to protect themselves but, with varying fee estimates that could well turn out to be an untenable marketing expense for some. Nonetheless, the impact on existing domains remains to be seen. In the case of a big brand, presumably any browsers visiting a newly registered domain would be redirected to the original TLD in any case. There will also be question marks over how new domains will affect Search Optimisation and consequent site traffic and PPC advertising rates.
“One thing that does seem clear is, with the final pricing and potential refund and dispute procedures not yet in place for applicants, brand owners and the trademark community will be keeping an extremely close eye on developments in the coming months.
Hidide Article
RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication” – it’s a format for distributing and gathering content from sources across the Web, including newspapers, magazines, and blogs. With RSS you can quickly and easily get the latest updates from all your favourite websites in one place, rather than having to visiting them one by one. To do this you use an RSS reader that automatically checks for news and updates.
Often you will see a small orange feed icon 
saying ‘RSS’, ’subscribe’ or ‘feed’ next to it. Usually you just copy and paste the feed link into your RSS reader. Another great thing about RSS feeds: No spam and complete user control; Unsubscribing to RSS feeds are as easy as it can get – delete it, and it’s gone. Period.
There are many different ‘feed readers’ (also known as RSS readers, RSS aggregators or simply newsreaders) to choose from, but they can be divided into two main types: web-based and application based. Web-based readers have the benefit that you can check your feeds from any computer, while the stand-alone applications often have more features and greater flexibility. Browsers such as Internet Explorer 7, Firefox and Safari also have built-in RSS readers, although these are not as flexible and versatile as using a separate application.
All you have to do is to sign up for an account and you can add as many feeds as you want. Below are a few of the most popular; some sites will have buttons that allow you to add it to these RSS readers automatically. Otherwise, just copy and paste the RSS feed link into your reader and you’re up and running.
If you prefer, you can download an RSS reader and install it on your computer, below are links to a few of the most popular. Some of these are freeware/open source, others charge a licence fee:
Name: Mike Spencer
Location: Holme Lacy, Herefordshire,UK
Activity: Printing Agency
Website: www.spencerprint.co.uk
Hi Mike, you have run your own printing agency, Spencer Print, for a couple of years now. We’ve heard that you are starting a new project of illustrated autobiographical books; could you tell us more about it?
Yes, my colleague and I are producing a series of one off biographies aimed solely at the rich and famous.
Is your colleague the illustrator?
My colleague, Karl Dixon, is an internationally acclaimed cartoonist who has worked on the Dandy Comic. He has now left them to form his own publishing company.
How do you establish the storyline behind the books?
Karl Dixon will interview a client and his family to ascertain all the most personal and cherished moments in their life.
This will then be used to produce a one off autobiography solely for the client and his family which won’t be on sale to the general public.
What will the book look like?
The book will be illustrated with watercolour, on high quality watercolour paper. The book will then be bound with leather, with the option of gold leaf and diamond inlay.
Why are you focused on the rich and famous?
The book will not be cheap. It will sell at a minimum of £1000 per page, with an average book being 40 pages. We are confident that once one book has been sold then every star and rich person will want one. We are also looking into getting a TV programme produced filming the process.
This sounds great, how are you feeling about it?
We are extremely excited by this project and it has huge potential. We only need somebody really famous to sign up, and then the sky’s the limit. We are also going to be producing tutorial DVD’s and running an online course.
How will you promote all of these new services?
When I have more funds available I plan to upgrade my Easily Account so I can run an online store. We plan to sell DVD Tutorials and run an online drawing college. If we can sell just one autobiography to someone really famous, then we believe demand will increase for the books, videos and courses.
Mike, thanks a lot for your time and all the best for your creative projects.
Thank you.
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Name: Paddy Doyle
Location: Solihull, UK
Activity: Professional multi-disciplinary athlete
Website: www.worldsfittestathlete.co.uk
Easily: Hi Paddy, thank you very much for accepting this interview, how are you feeling today?
Paddy: I’m fine thank you
So Paddy, you are the world’s fittest athlete and hold over 160 records, how and what pushes you to reach this level of excellence?
To achieve 166 Course, Regional, National, British, European and World fitness endurance records I have to train every day, duration of training 3 to 4 hours. I hold various World Records under several different sporting catergorys. To be awarded the World Fitness Endurance Title I had to beat three tough multi fitness records they are as follows -
{World Multi Fitness Record}
12 mile walk
12 mile run
110 mile cycle
Weights lifted 312,170 lb
1,250 press ups
1,250 star jumps
3,250 sit up crunches
20,000 metre rowing
1 mile run carrying 44 lb back pack
1,250 hip flexors 3 kilometre’s gym stepper
2 mile swim
{Finishing time 21 hrs 21 min’s 2 sec’s.}
{Guinness World Record Physcial Fitness Challenge}
12 mile run
12 mile walk
1,250 press ups
3,250 sit up crunches
1,250 standing hip flexors
110 mile cycle
20 mile row
20 mile cross trainer
Weights lifted 300,000 lb
2 mile swim
{Finishing time 18 hrs 56 min’s 9 sec’s} Previous World Record Holder Rob Powell “USA”
{World Fitness Champion’s Title Record}
2 mile & 21 metre swim
20 mile row
20 & 1/4 mile cross trainer
10 mile speed march
100 & 1/4 mile cycle
550 star jumps
3010 sit up crunches
Weigths lifted 300,000 lb various lifts
10 & 1/4 run
505 hanging leg lifts
{Finishing time 17 hrs 12 min’s 33 sec’s} previous World Record Holder Rob Powell “USA”
Once I completed the official title records, the title was awarded by the Registry of World Record Holders. The founder and President Dean Gould and USA President Dr David Adamovich.
How long have you been working in the army? What have you learned from this experience?
My military background was serving in the 2nd Battalion Parachute Regiment, RAF Infantry reserves and the Royal Fusilliers, total regular and reserve service 8 years. I found that the army gave me the discipline to succeed. I have a training team consisting of a sports therapist, martial arts instructors and strength athletes, they push me hard in the gym and when we are training in the hills.
And now, what’s your next challenge? A new record?
My next official World Record will hopefully be to represent Great Britain at the World Record Challenge Cup starting on the 1 August to the 10th August, I hope to attempt the record in the USA this all depends on sponsors, one of the record will be the most back of hands push ups in 1 minute carrying 40 lb back pack.
Sharing this adventure is important; could you tell us a bit more about your website and why you’ve chosen Easily?
I decided to build my own web site to share my experiences and pass on my knowledge. Easily.co.uk have promoted my web site and have always found them the be very supportive when I have any technical issues.
What message or advice would you give to our readers?
My message to all readers stay positive, if you put your mind to a challenge, believe that you will succeed. I have always been humble and respectful to all who I have met, and have always treated people equally.
Thank you very much Paddy, we wish you all the best in your coming projects.
Favicon is short for “Favourites Icon”. The name is derived from the bookmark list for Microsoft Internet Explorer which is called Favourites list. When you add a site to your Favourites list, Internet Explorer (version 5 and above) asks the server if it has a file called favicon.ico. If present, this file will be used to provide an icon that is displayed next to the bookmark text.
Other browsers such as Mozilla have also added support for favicons. Depending on the browser, the favicon can appear in a variety of places, not just in the bookmarks list (in fact, it may not even appear in the bookmark list at all). It may be shown in the address bar or the title of a browser tab, for instance.
To create a favicon.ico simply create a 16×16 .PNG or .GIF file and convert it to an icon resource with Chami. If you want, you can add more images to the same icon resource to provide alternative resolutions. Most browsers only use a 16×16 image but in a different context (e.g. when you drag a URL from the address bar onto your desktop) a larger icon may be shown. If the icon resource only contains a 16×16 image, this will be scaled to the appropriate size, so technically there is never a need to add alternative resolutions. However, doing so can increase the quality of the displayed icon.
Keep in mind that for a user with a slow modem a favicon.ico may increase the page loading time by a few seconds if it is too large, so don’t overdo it. Adding a 32×32 alternative should be enough to make sure the image will look good even in contexts with larger icons. Adding even more and larger alternatives is unnecessary bloat. Try to keep the number of colors below 16 and create a 16-color icon using the –colors 16 switch of png2ico (or even create a b/w icon with the –colors 2 switch). This will result in a smaller file that loads faster.
When you create the images to include in your favicon.ico, don’t forget that the icon may be composed against various background colors so you should use transparency rather than a solid background if you want to avoid that your icon appears inside a box. Note, that icon resources only support binary transparency, i.e. a pixel may be visible or invisible but not something like 30% translucent.
To add your new favicon.ico to a web page put it on the server into the same directory as the web page it is for (e.g. www.example.com/foo/favicon.ico for www.example.com/foo/index.html). That is the first place a browser will search. If it doesn’t find an icon there, it checks the top-level directory of the server (www.example.com/favicon.ico for the www.example.com server), so by putting it there you can have a default favicon for all the pages in your domain. Depending on browser and configuration, the favicon.ico is not always rendered, even if it is in one of the above locations, unless the web page explicitly declares its presence. To declare that your web page has an icon, you add the following 2 lines into the <head> section of your page:
<link rel=”icon” href=”favicon.ico” type=”image/x-icon”>
<link rel=”shortcut icon” href=”favicon.ico” type=”image/x-icon”>
Mac computers are quite famous for the intuitive way of using them, here is the list of the most important shortcuts to know:
| Menu commands | |
| Keyboard shortcut | Description |
| Shift-Command-Q | Apple Menu Log out |
| Shift-Option-Command-Q | Apple Menu Log out immediately |
| Shift-Command-Delete | Finder Menu Empty Trash |
| Option-Shift-Command-Delete | Finder Menu Empty Trash without dialog |
| Command-H | Finder Menu Hide Finder |
| Option-Command-H | Finder Menu Hide Others |
| Command-N | File Menu New Finder window |
| Shift-Command-N | File Menu New Folder |
| Command-O | File Menu Open |
| Command-S | File Menu Save |
| Shift-Command-S | File Menu Save as |
| Command-P | File Menu |
| Command-W | File Menu Close Window |
| Option-Command-W | File Menu Close all Windows |
| Command-I | File Menu Get Info |
| Option-Command-I | File Menu Show Attributes Inspector |
| Command-D | File Menu Duplicate |
| Command-L | File Menu Make Alias |
| Command-R | File Menu Show original |
| Command-T | File Menu Add to Favorites (Mac OS X 10.2.8 or earlier), Add to Sidebar (Mac OS X 10.3 or later—use Shift-Command-T for Add to Favorites) |
| Command-Delete | File Menu Move to Trash |
| Command-E | File Menu Eject |
| Command-F | File Menu Find |
| Command-Z | Edit Menu Undo |
| Command-X | Edit Menu Cut |
| Command-C | Edit Menu Copy |
| Command-V | Edit Menu Paste |
| Command-A | Edit Menu Select All |
| Command-1 | View Menu View as Icons |
| Command-2 | View Menu View as List |
| Command-3 | View Menu View as Columns |
| Command-B | View Menu Hide Toolbar |
| Command-J | View Menu Show View Options |
| Command - [ | Go Menu Back |
| Command - ] | Go Menu Forward |
| Shift-Command-C | Go Menu Computer |
| Shift-Command-H | Go Menu Home |
| Shift-Command-I | Go Menu iDisk |
| Shift-Command-A | Go Menu Applications |
| Shift-Command-F | Go Menu Favorites |
| Shift-Command-G | Go Menu Goto Folder |
| Command-K | Go Menu Connect to Server |
| Command-M | Window Menu Minimize Window |
| Option-Command-M | Window Menu Minimize All Windows |
| Command-? | Help Menu Open Mac Help |
| Command-Space | Open Spotlight (Mac OS X 10.4 or later) |
| Command-esc | Front Row Activates Front Row for certain Apple computers |
Find the whole list on their support pages.
A lot of us already know basic keyboard shortcuts like Ctrl+C (copy) and Ctrl+V (paste), but did you know that there are more than 70 of them ? Here is the list of the most important one:
| • | F1: Help |
| • | CTRL+ESC: Open Start menu |
| • | ALT+TAB: Switch between open programs |
| • | ALT+F4: Quit program |
| • | SHIFT+DELETE: Delete item permanently |
| • | CTRL+C: Copy |
| • | CTRL+X: Cut |
| • | CTRL+V: Paste |
| • | CTRL+Z: Undo |
| • | CTRL+B: Bold |
| • | CTRL+U: Underline |
| • | CTRL+I: Italic |
| • | SHIFT+right click: Displays a shortcut menu containing alternative commands |
| • | SHIFT+double click: Runs the alternate default command (the second item on the menu) |
| • | ALT+double click: Displays properties |
| • | SHIFT+DELETE: Deletes an item immediately without placing it in the Recycle Bin |
| • | F1: Starts Windows Help |
| • | F10: Activates menu bar options |
| • | SHIFT+F10 Opens a shortcut menu for the selected item (this is the same as right-clicking an object |
| • | CTRL+ESC: Opens the Start menu (use the ARROW keys to select an item) |
| • | CTRL+ESC or ESC: Selects the Start button (press TAB to select the taskbar, or press SHIFT+F10 for a context menu) |
| • | ALT+DOWN ARROW: Opens a drop-down list box |
| • | ALT+TAB: Switch to another running program (hold down the ALT key and then press the TAB key to view the task-switching window) |
| • | SHIFT: Press and hold down the SHIFT key while you insert a CD-ROM to bypass the automatic-run feature |
| • | ALT+SPACE: Displays the main window’s System menu (from the System menu, you can restore, move, resize, minimize, maximize, or close the window) |
| • | ALT+- (ALT+hyphen): Displays the Multiple Document Interface (MDI) child window’s System menu (from the MDI child window’s System menu, you can restore, move, resize, minimize, maximize, or close the child window) |
| • | CTRL+TAB: Switch to the next child window of a Multiple Document Interface (MDI) program |
| • | ALT+underlined letter in menu: Opens the menu |
| • | ALT+F4: Closes the current window |
| • | CTRL+F4: Closes the current Multiple Document Interface (MDI) window |
| • | ALT+F6: Switch between multiple windows in the same program (for example, when the Notepad Find dialog box is displayed, ALT+F6 switches between the Find dialog box and the main Notepad window) |
For a selected object:
| • | F2: Rename object |
| • | F3: Find all files |
| • | CTRL+X: Cut |
| • | CTRL+C: Copy |
| • | CTRL+V: Paste |
| • | SHIFT+DELETE: Delete selection immediately, without moving the item to the Recycle Bin |
| • | ALT+ENTER: Open the properties for the selected object |
Press and hold down the CTRL key while you drag the file to another folder.
Press and hold down CTRL+SHIFT while you drag a file to the desktop or a folder.
Find all the shortcuts on Microsoft support pages.
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