Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Yahoo Merchant Solutions is a all in one web hosting solution for small business owners. There affordable web hosting packages are packed with many features, such as built in credit card processor, shopping cart, forum, members area, affiliate program etc. It puts together dozen of tools needed to run a successful e-business.
Features:
* Free domain name
* Unlimited disk space
* Unlimited transfer
* Photo, audio, and video galleries
* Use yahoo design tools or your own editing tools. FrontPage, Dreamweaver)
* Use your own designs or pre-made yahoo store designs.
* Experts available to build the a site for you.
* Sell up 50,000 products in your yahoo store.
* Accurate inventory tracking that alerts you when you need to reorder.
* Checkout pages can be designed to match the rest of your website’s theme.
* The option of multi page or single page checkout to increase sales.
* Create custom fields to collect relevant information from your customers.
* A reliable hosting platform.
* Marketing tools to help you with marketing your products.
* Easily authorize orders, issue refunds and print shipping labels.
* Choose any shipping provider and customize rates and fees to fit your needs.
Benefits:
1. 60 days of store setup consulting at no extra charge.
2. 24-7 tool free phone technical support.
3. Helpful extensive guides, tutorials and online help is available.
4. Advance website security encryption.
5. Ability to easily integrate PayPal into your shopping cart.
6. Track sales and more with 40 reports that gives you a 360 degree view of your business.
Webmaster Review:
Ok, there are two feedback that I’ve seen on the internet regarding Yahoo Merchant solutions, and that is either they hate it or they love it. There is no middle ground with this product, my review is probably the only middle ground that you will probably find on the internet.
My experience with Yahoo Merchant Solutions was a good one, I created it to sell video game consoles and accessories. I had no real inventory since everything was shipped from a drop shipper, I was able track all my inventory and sales through Yahoo’s product tracking interface and with over 40 reports you can do far more than that.
I was doing over $10,000 /mo in sales after expenses, which is nothing compared to other yahoo store owners. I accepted all my payments through PayPal which was completely integrated into the yahoo store via the shopping cart. I’ve since then sold the business and the new owner continues to use Yahoo Merchant Solutions to host the store.
If you don’t think my figures are impressive, then maybe you can take a look at anotherYahoo Small Business customer, who has been using Yahoo stores for over 5 years. His name is Brad Fallen and his website is called MyWeddingFavors.com. He is ranked number 3 in Google for the search term “wedding favors”, which is searched for in Google for over 800,000 times a month. He brings in over $500,000/mo which makes my $10,000/mo look like nothing, He has a inventory of over 5000 products all of which is track, handled and manged using Yahoo Small Business solutions.
The bottom line is if you’re a small business owner with a offline business and your looking to make a smooth transition and create an online presence then Yahoo Merchant Solutions is a great choice.
Friday, June 18, 2010
Instant Messenger Hacks: 10 Security Tips to Protect Yourself Especially in a business environment, unsecured IM installations are creating backdoors for hack attacks. This threat has increased manifold because nearly all IM’s allow for exchange of files, images, songs and even peer to peer sharing of entire folders. Also, by putting these 10 habits in place. Every IM client asks you to create a screen name. A screen name usually refers to your email ID. Create a screen name which does not touch upon personal information or your real identity. For instance, my screen name is ‘Braniac’ and not ‘Saikat’. And NEVER provide any personal details including credit cardnumbers and social security number over the internet. Always vet your contact list with people whom you know something about. Talking with Mr. Anonymous at the other end of space may be fraught with risk. It is possible to discover your computer address (i.e. your IP) from an instant message and that usually is the first requirement for a remote hack attack. Don’t believe everything you read and always verify any information or request for information. This is what a spam link might look like – This is probably what you will be bombarded with first. A link tempts you to click it just for the lark. A lot of these links take you to websites which can install spyware stealthily on your computer. For e.g. Viruses and worms with colorful names such as W32.Yalove or W32/Spybot-MQ are potential threats to Yahoo users. An IM client like Yahoo allows P2P file sharing. Do not share unknown content even if the person is known. P2P files, like email attachments can carry viruses, Trojan horses, and worms. They are engineered to seed themselves to other members on your buddy list. Be especially cautious when someone sends you an .exe or a .zip file. Yahoo has an Ignore user or Report as spam so that he can’t disturb you once again. GTalk has a Block user option. Using this option allows you to keep out the unwanted from repeatedly messaging you. The default security settings in chat software tend to be relatively lax. Thus making you open to attacks. Check the settings and preferences of your chat client to apply stricter permission controls. Most IM clients lack encryption features. That essentially means that your messages can be tracked and read by eavesdropping hackers using technologies like packet sniffers or similar ones. Passwords are also a security loophole with hardly any client using strong password encryption. The subject of encryption and strong password protection would require another post by itself. So I hand you over to Tim’s excellent post on How To Secure & Encrypt Your Instant Messaging Chats. Here at MakeUseOf.com we have a lot of posts tagged as ‘passwords’. Why not take a look at ways to set strong passwords. IM client companies spend a lot of effort behind doors to prevent backdoor threats. Newer versions come with bug fixes and enhanced security. For instance, the latest version of Yahoo IM is better integrated with anti-virus solutions like Norton Internet Security and Norton Anti-Virus. So, always update your IM client as soon as one becomes available. If the chat client does not automatically prompt for an upgrade, go to the website and check your version number with the latest available. You can note the version of your particular client by clicking on Help – About… A lot of third party plug-ins are available for download which enhance the chatting experience. It is safer and advisable to always download from the IM client websites themselves or from verified sources. It is an oft repeated habit to click on the [X] button and exit. But this action does not close our IM client completely. Most often, they continue to run in the system tray leaving it ‘open’ for a third person to access it. IMs also have a nasty habit of broadcasting your online presence even if left to run as a background task. Especially in public computers be mindful of logging out and exiting completely. Also, never click on any Remember My Password checkbox during log-in as an added safeguard. For Yahoo Users: Before you get up, delete your Yahoo Messenger profile. It is located by default at C:\Program Files\Yahoo!\Messenger\Profiles. Sometimes we will click a link; sometimes we will download a file. All the precautions in the world will not be able to protect us if we don’t have a secure browser, a good firewall and an anti-virus updated with the latest virus signatures. These three not only protect us from IM attacks but they are the must-haves for any system. Chatting as against emailing is a real time activity. It is in that sense more social than any other form of web communication. The danger is that chatting can lull us into a false sense of security. Just a few fundamental forethoughts help us to turn that false sense into a more conscious sense of security.
Ignore them.
