JimWorld Gazette Issue #63 09/18/1998

Gazette - Issue #63 - September 18, 1998

This week I will be covering the Internet Commerce Expo (ICE)/Los Angeles’98, taking place at the Los Angeles Convention Center. <http://www.iceexpo.com> I expect to come back with a bag full of new information and ideas for you regarding e-commerce. Look for it starting next week.

Scumbag Update
Freeware Plus - Week III
Special Deals For Gazeteers
Goings On
A Tool You Won't Believe - From Ulead
Tips From The Hitman - Part XXXVIII
Sweepstakes Promotion Checklist
Tired Of Being Ripped Off By Credit Card?
Get Linked
Snippets

Link to this issue of the Gazette as http://gazetteworld.com/go/to.cgi?l=g63

SCUMBAG UPDATE

Last issue I told you about the operator of <http://www.cjmcneill.com/submitter.htm> that so loved the JimTool Submitter that he stole it for his own. I also reported that his ISP turned off his site. Big cheer for the ISP!

I spoke too soon. The offending site was immediately turned back on and his ISP refused to respond to repeated inquiries. Another potential Ethical ISP bites the dust.

So I added an IP check to the script and it now rejects calls from any but the JimWorld server. This is one technique you can employ to protect your creations and your server bandwidth from abuse and outright theft. It's easy to do and reliable.

FREEWARE PLUS - WEEK III

This week's Freeware Plus program for you is GIF Runner. A very handy tool.

Want to locate a GIF image anywhere on the web? Just enter the subject of the search and GIF Runner will search every source on the web for graphics matching your subject. Like I said, very handy.

As with all of the Freeware Plus programs, GIF Runner is free. Just download it from the JimWorld site and unlock it with the code 5020.

There is also an updated version of Visibility Analyzer for you to download. This program has proven an overwhelming success with Gazeteers. Find out where you rank in all of the major search engines. Free. Windows only. Not for people behind firewalls or proxy servers - yet. Easier DAO installation for those that had problems with the earlier releases.

The download page is at http://www.jimworld.com/freeware/

SPECIAL DEALS FOR GAZETEERS

iServer
http://www.iserver.com/partners/vpromote/

Ordering a Virtual Server

Check out everything iServer has to offer at http://www.iserver.com, However, when you're ready to order, make sure to go back to the JimWorld home page and click on the link there to get some very special treatment as a Gazeteer. Start with a 30% discount on all of your hosting and options. Plus the special for $25 set-up fees is still in effect. That's a big savings. Check out the other specials they have going on for members, and you can get any of those also. iServer is where this community resides. Very happily, I might add.

GOINGS ON

>> FORUMS

The Get High (Traffic) and Search Engine Forums continue to be the fastest growing areas of our communities. With thousands of tips and techniques for building traffic and sales at your site, they are an essential stop each day for any professional webmaster. If you need some expert feedback about your site, stop in and ask. It's guaranteed to make your site better. And the help and advice is all free, provided by the Gazeteer community members.

>> NEW GAME

Gotten weary of thinking hard enough to beat the Wizard of JimWorld playing the Search Engine Memory Game? Take heart. Now you can challenge the Wizard to a game of checkers. You can find it at the bottom of the JimWorld home page <http://jimworld.com/> The chance to take a break from the Net is proving so popular that I am scouring the Net for the best games for you.

>> NEW VISITOR REMOTE

The JimWorld site has grown to such an extent that it has become confusing to first time visitors. I get lots of email asking for help in getting the most out of all of that content. I found myself sending the same list of pages that the new visitor should visit in order. Handling it by email was time consuming for me and not the best use of time for the visitor. They need the information right away while they are first at the site. What to do? What to do?

Enter the New Visitor Remote. A simple Javascript that launches a small, new browser window that lists the pages that a new user should visit in the order they are listed. Just click on the link and visit the page. When done, bring the Remote to the front and select the next page on the list.

The Remote has become an immediate hit. The first day over 200 people used it and the numbers continue to grow.

Is your site spread out enough that your visitors would benefit from a Tour Guide Remote? Grab mine and just change the links to fit your needs.

>> SITE TOOL SEARCH REMOTE

On the JimWorld home page is another new remote. This one will help you locate tools and scripts to add automation and interactivity to your site. It links to all of the major sources for scripts and programs for on-line use. Try it. You'll find some cool new features for your site.

>> THROUGH THE KEYHOLE

http://keyholesearch.com/

Finding out what people really search for on the search engines is an important need in the webmaster community. The Freeware Plus WordMarket program answers a lot of that need, but as the saying goes you can never have too much money or too many search phrases.

One day last week I gave John Cokos, the author of the Hyperseek directory system <http://www.hyperseek.com/>, a call and flew an idea past him. John has lots of Hyperseek customers running lots of directories all over the Web. What if we could gather up every search word and phrase used on any of the Hyperseek directories and make them available to our community? It would give us access to more real life searches than currently being made available on the Magellan search engine. It also had the added advantage of never having been done before. That is what really lights my fire.

24 hours later John called back to say that it was done. Wish I could work that fast. Even worse, it worked the first time. How does he do that?

The Keyhole is now open for use. It currently is collecting information about every search on the Helpware Directory and on John's very popular http://totally-free.com directory of free stuff all over the Web.

Over the coming week we will be adding several more directories to the list of contributors. Our goal being to tap into the keyword searches of 100 of the Web's busiest directories, making the Keyhole one of the most useful research sites available.

>> DOMAIN NAME LOOKUP

http://jimworld.com/lookup.html
Looking up information about a .com, .org or .net name is fairly simple. Just go to Internic and use their form. But what if you want to check the ownership of a domain name registered elsewhere in the world? How about a .nu name? Is it available?

First you have to go find out what web site hosts the .nu database, then find their inquiry form. Easier said then done.

Try this new tool. It lets you research domain names on 53 different top level domains around the world. 53 different countries from one form. That should make life a little easier. In the coming weeks the list will be expanded from 50 TLDs to every TLD in the world.

>> ACCESS MAJOR SEARCH ENGINE FROM VP

At the bottom of the JimWorld home page is a new tool for you. It's a Javascript that lets you enter your search phrase, select a search engine from the extensive list available and execute the search immediately. Very handy tool to have at your finger tips. If you like it, grab it for your site by viewing the source code of the home page.

>> WHY SO MANY NEW TOOLS ON JimWorld?

I've been getting a lot of mail asking why I've been adding so many new features and tools to my family of sites. That's a valid question. Deserves an answer.

I keep writing about the traffic building power of making your site as interactive and helpful as possible. When you add new tools for you visitors to use to make their time on-line more productive, you win and they win. The Site Submitter is typical of this. It submits to all of the major spidered search engines. While not unique on the web, it is the best one out there. It submits to more engines than most, works fast and gets the job done. For those reasons, it is bringing people back to the sites more frequently.

You wouldn't believe how many free and low cost tools are available on the Net. Something for almost any community. You should look around and see what already exists to serve your community. Try adding a few to your site and watch your community grow.

Today I added a new remote to JimWorld to help you find tools for your site. Go on a search and find something each week to make your site more useful to your visitors. You will be rewarded with increased traffic and a much better reputation for your site. Not bad for a few hours of work.

Many of the tools available on the sites are installations and customizations of commercially available programs. If you find one that you think would be useful on your site, just check the bottom of the page for the Powered By information and visit the developer's site.

>> COMMUNITYBUILDING.COM

A major new member of our family of services is almost ready to go. It has been taking up a lot of my time, but it is turning into a very useful resource for the community. The past couple of weeks I have been using the time I normally put into writing the Gazette to get the site closer to ready-status.

We talk a lot around here about community building, whatever that is. But I have yet to find a site that gathers together all of the skills and tools necessary to help you turn your 2-dimensional web site into a 3-dimensional community. So I built one.

The site is not yet complete, but I wanted to let you know because I need some help. If you distribute a CGI, Java or Javascript tool that would be useful to webmasters wanting to add interactivity to their site, please drop by and submit you resource. There are also categories for sites offering 'How-To' help and sites that index other tool resources.

If you are submitting a script or program, you will need to send me an unlocked copy for review. We will only be listing tools that are high-quality, reliable and easy to install.

The site is still about 2 weeks away from being ready to launch, so if you don't have something to submit, why not wait and visit for the first time when everything is in place?

The site will feature a categorized review of interactive site tools, forums, chat rooms, tutorials, articles, classified ads for consultants, and a brand-new newsletter focusing on skills and resources needed to build an interactive community.

I call it Interactivizing Your Site. Say that 3 times real fast.

<http://communitybuilding.com>

A TOOL YOU WON'T BELIEVE!

If you've been around here for very long, you know that I just can't imagine getting along without the powerful graphics tools and plug-in's developed by Ulead. If I had to give them up, I would start just posting text to my sites and forget the graphics.

The Ulead SmartSaver creates the best looking graphics in the smallest file sizes. Way more compact than any other compression tool I have tested. It is my secret weapon in the bandwidth war.

But, sadly, judging from many of the Gazeteer sites I visit, apparently not all of you have purchased it yet. Shame on you!

Now you can try it - on-line - for free, and discover just how good Ulead software really is.

Ulead has deployed a new site that lets you enter a location of a graphic file and compress it with full control over the many options the software offers. Number of colors, smoothing, subsampling.... See the original on one side and the compressed version right next to it. Switch from GIF to JPG to PNG to see which gives you the best appearance at the smallest file size. No knowledge required. Just try different stuff and look at the results. BTW - don't use PNG graphics on your sites yet. Not enough browsers can handle them without a plug-in.

I ran some graphics through Gif Wizard and then ran them through Ulead's on-line Graphics Optimization Toolkit. Graphics Optimization Toolkit gave better looking results and significantly smaller file sizes. And the Graphics Optimization Toolkit on-line is free.

Go ahead and give it a try. It's free. It works great. Steal another of my secret weapons. If all of my secrets keep going public I'll have to find a new way to make a living.

<http://www.webutilities.com/>

While you're there, download GIF Animator Lite. It's free and works forever. Not as powerful as the paid version, but better than most of the ones you pay for.

Then get the 450 professionally produced GIF animations - free. And the free Photo Viewer. A must have. And the 100 free background tiles.

Ulead plans to launch on-line versions of many of their products, so stay tuned to the Gazette. We'll keep you posted.

TIPS FROM THE HITMAN - PART XXXVIII

Web Site Promotion on a zero budget

This article is a bit of "back to the basics." For some readers it will be old news, but considering the growth of the Internet, and the growth of the Gazette, now past 60,000 members, I hope it will be helpful to some of the newer readers. We all remember how it was, and wished someone would have given us a push in the right direction. So bear with me old timers!

When I first got on the Internet back in 95 and came up with an idea for a business, I was already in a successful business as a landscape contractor. I have been self employed for 25 of the last 30 years and was more than aware of the expenses involved with starting up a new business. But, investigation of the Internet and the way it worked brought me to a conclusion that was contrary to everything I had learned about starting and running a business. What did I conclude? I concluded I could start a brand new business venture on the Internet and do it with no out of pocked expense other than the cost of my Internet Service Provider connection. The very idea was so contrary to everything I had learned in years of self employment that it was probably the single factor most responsible for my decision to give it a go. I could not pass up something so intriguing!

I took a look around the Net and came up with my idea, and I made a self imposed restriction on the new business. It had to carry itself from the start. I made the decision that if the Internet was all it appeared to be, I could make money from the start with no investment other than my time. This was the condition I set for the new business as the acid test. I perceived that for the first time, I could probably build a new business from the ground up without spending a nickel. My goal was that the business would have to generate income on its’ own before I put any cash into it. I would not buy anything until I earned the money to pay for it! It was going to have to be self sustaining from the start. This is an unrealistic condition for any business, except I really thought it could be done on this wonderful new place I had discovered, the World Wide Web!

Well, the fact that I am writing this article, and now work full time in my Internet business should tell you what the final outcome of this grand experiment was. I did make money with nothing more invested than about 100 hours initially of my time to learn HTML, and to get a good understanding of, and become friends with the Search Engines. The initial time spent was all research, practice, trial and error and the creation of my first web page that launched the Web Hitman. Too bad I did not realize that some search engines such as Alta Vista do not even index the word "Web". Go ahead, go to Alta Vista and type "web" in the search box. Boy, did I screw up!

Despite my self imposed handicap, the darn name caught on and has stuck with me. Every time I mentioned I was going to get rid of it someone complained. They liked the name and my logo (my very first animated gif done in Jan 96) and both have stuck with me despite the lousy listings. I think my listing at Yahoo is a couple hundred down the list now (Web Hitman, The) when I first entered it in early 96 I was one of maybe 20 listings total.

I have people contact me all the time who have a budget similar to the one I started with, nothing! Although it is not a self imposed budget for many of them. Believe it or not you can still make a good start and do self promotion on a shoestring or non existent budget. I will try to give you advice on some of the ways I would work the Net if I was starting a new site with no budget.

The fact that you are reading the Gazette means you already have a good start. One of the best things a Web newbie can do is read, read, read, then participate, participate. There are many good sites out there now to teach you what you need to know to learn to do your own page. But the page is not the key, although it is the obvious focal point for your new business. Sites like JimWorld and my own Submit URL are good places to obtain a reading list or a link list to aid you in launching your site. These type of sites go out of their way to give you solid information on do-it-yourself style promotion. But where to start? There is an information overload!

This is a tough question, since I do not know what you have to offer and every site is a little different. If you are trying to start with a cookie cutter page created by an automated program, that looks just like the page 300 other people are trying to promote, you are off to a very bad start, and go back to square one. Learn enough to make a page that is unique to you. This is an article in itself.

I suggest that you start by becoming familiar with what other people with similar products or subjects are doing. Spend time at the search engines, read the fine print and learn to use them to find things and gather information. They are your guide to finding everything for free. Every Search Engine has similarities, and each has some unique features. Read the Help page, learn to use the advanced search features and get really good at using at least one of them that you like best. As I said, reading is the start of a web business, not the web page. You need to get a good feel for what is out there and what you are up against.

Your reading assignment is a bit more involved. You should get signed up with any newsletters you can find that are related to your subject, and you want some that cover promotion. Discussion groups and Newsgroups are also a must. There are thousands of Newsgroups out there, your new search skills will help you find them. Alta Vista is particularly good for finding newsgroups information as is Deja News. The Link Exchange Digest is a good place to start for advertising and marketing information for the newer Netizen. I-Sales Digest is another good one and they have a spin off called I-Webreview that will help you build a better web page via the help of group input. You will also find invaluable information on Internet Advertising in the I-Advertising Discussion group. This one is a bit more advanced in content, but you will get there if you get started now. Use your favorite Search Engine to find the sign-up pages. You want the practice.

Why Newsgroups and Discussion Groups? If you recall, after read, read, read, came participate! Nothing helps the old learning curve along like spending the time to think about and put your questions into print. The very process requires that you give the subject you are going to discuss some careful thought. This is one of the best self improvement tools you can find. Give it a try, sign up, read and lurk for a while, then jump in!

Both Discussion Groups and Newsgroups allow you to have a signature file on your message. The signature file is the business card type information you see at the bottom of many emails you receive. Learn to use signature files on all your email and postings. It is free promotion, and that is what we are talking about. Open promotion is not permitted on these types of groups, but letting people know who you are is an accepted part of the game.

On top of the free advertising, posting to newsgroups and discussion groups helps you establish your presence. The more you participate, the more you will develop name recognition. Name recognition is important in a medium where you do not meet people face to face. Think about it. If you have been reading the Gazette for any length of time, you may feel like you kind of know Jim and myself, and have formed some opinion about us based on the content of the Gazette. But have you ever actually shaken hands with us and said 'Hi?'

I can see I have opened a larger topic than I can cover in just one installment. So, we will just have to continue this one next time.

Until then,

Hayden Mitchell
The Web Hitman
http://www.webthemes.com

SWEEPSTAKES PROMOTION CHECKLIST

As with any other highly visible promotion, sponsoring a sweepstakes requires thorough planning and attention to detail. This checklist will help you understand what bases need to be covered in order to create an effective and efficient on-line sweepstakes or contest promotion.

>> WHY SWEEPSTAKES?

Sponsoring a sweepstakes has many benefits, including:

Drawing attention to your company and building name recognition.
Adding fun to an incentive program and getting people to participate at your Web site.
Adding value to a consumer offer and rewarding customer loyalty.
Prompting people to explore your offerings and learning more about you.
Steering visitors to your Web site.

PLANNING

Establish your promotion objectives.
Determine your promotion budget. Can you afford to hire a promotion agency, or will you be working with a shoe-string budget?
Determine which products will participate in your prize structure.
Determine the duration of your promotion or how often drawings will be held.
Determine the relevant statistical data you want to capture.
Establish criteria for evaluating results and conducting a post-promotion review (lessons learned).

THEME AND DESIGN

Develop a theme or unifying concept for your sweepstakes, making sure that it will appeal to your target audience and reflects your brand or service image.
Make sure that the mechanics of your promotion will satisfy your objectives and can be easily understood and conveyed.
Give sufficient emphasis to the product being promoted.
Comply with truth in advertising standards -- Don't mislead.
Design your promotion site with ease-of-use in mind. Don't make people wait for an enormous splash screen graphic to load.
Establish your online entry requirements -- e-mail message, fill in a form, sign a guestbook, download trial software, instant wins, and so forth. Consider alternate mail-in methods of entry.
Include a visible link to your official rules.
Remember to link your promotion page with your main Web site.

PRIZES

Select a prize structure appropriate to the theme of the promotion.
Determine the number of prizes to be offered based upon your budget and objectives, and what is needed to get attention.
Create the necessary artwork depicting the prizes and their descriptions.
Consider distribution methods for delivering your prizes.

RULES

Don't use another site's official rules for your new promotion. Each promotion needs its own specific set of rules. Cutting and pasting without paying attention to detail can be a very dangerous practice.
Items to consider: Indicate where official entries can be obtained or the requirements for entering on-line. Identify an alternative method of entry if necessary to satisfy the "no purchase necessary" requirement. Disclose eligibility requirements. Who may enter? Specify that mechanically reproduced entries may not be submitted, or entries submitted by an automated entry service. Set a deadline date or dates for receiving the entries and selecting the winners. If you're sponsoring a skill contest, spell out the judging criteria. Specify whether a winner may elect cash instead of merchandise. Identify those states in which the promotion is void. Determine whether affidavits will be required of winners. If so, state it. Explain how people can obtain a list of the winners. Provide the address to which requests should be sent.
Submit rules to attorneys for review if desired.

PROMOTION

If you are going to include traditional promotional materials, consider the following: free-standing brochures, flyers, TV and radio ads, direct mail support, risers, window streamers, coupons, and so forth.
Prepare a press release and take advantage of your local newspapers and radio stations, as well as online mediachannels such as PR Web at www.prweb.com.
Announce your promotion to various subject-matter related newsgroups and to alt.consumers.sweepstakes.
Establish links to your promotion with various sites that list sweepstakes and contests such as:
-- Winning Ways http://www.onlinesweeps.com
-- Huron Online http://huronline.com
-- ThreadTreaders http://www.4cyte.com/threadtreader
-- Contest World http://www.contestworld.com
-- Volition http://www.volition.com
-- The Contest Catalogue http://www3.catalogue.com/contests
-- Sweepstakes Online http://www.sweepstakesonline.com

For a large list of more Web sites to announce to, you can visit the "Addicted to Winning" Web site at http://www.flash.net/~ohnoguy/sweeps.htm
Don't even consider using a bulk mail service to send an announcement. Don't do it!
Establish links with other subject-matter related Web sites.
Explore various message boards for opportunities to announce your promotion.
Use your existing channel of contacts to help create some excitement. Consider swapping advertising banners with one you created specifically for your promotion.
Replace any company-specific banners with promotion-specific banners that you may have with free banner services suchas Link Exchange http://www.linkexchange.com

ADMINISTRATION

Determine who will perform the judging or the process of how you will choose a winner. You need to remove all ambiguity and make sure that all entries are treated equally. Ensure that a random drawing is truly random and unbiased.
Arrange criteria for notifying and verifying winners.
Prepare affidavits of eligibility and releases if necessary.
Arrange for timely shipment of prizes to winners.
Consider methods for announcing the winners: e-mail newsletter, announcement on your Web site, message posted to various newsgroups, press releases, and so forth.

As you explore each of these items, you'll understand why thoughtful planning and preparation is necessary for a sweepstakes or contest promotion. If you have any questions regarding any of the items presented on the checklist, feel free to start a topic on the Get High Contests and Sweepstakes Forum. If you have a specific site-related question or a question that relates only to your promotion, feel free to send mail to Susan at mailto:winningways@onlinesweeps.com

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Susan Donahue is the publisher of Winning Ways Sweepstakes Newsletter <http://www.onlinesweeps.com>. Susan also moderates our Contests and Sweepstakes forum.

TIRED OF BEING RIPPED OFF BY CREDIT CARD?

I got a note the other day from a Gazeteer who asked for help. It seems he recently launched an on-line business as had already started receiving charge -backs from his credit card processor due to orders being placed with stolen credit cards. He wanted to know if I knew of any way to prevent this.

If the term 'charge back' is new to you, it means that someone visits your site, places an order with a valid credit card, you send the merchandise and later the buyer files a complaint stating that he or she doesn't want to pay the bill because of one reason or another. Or the card turns out to be stolen. Either way -- you lose. The bank just takes the money back that they paid you when the order came in. You can fight it, but you can't win.

My first reaction was the guy obviously doesn't read the Gazette very carefully or he would have already seen the great series of articles that were done by T.J. Walker of AntiFraud.Com <http://antifraud.com>. But then it dawned on me those articles appeared a few months ago and the number of subscribers to this humble(?) little newsletter has doubled since then. Keeping that in mind and remembering an article that recently appeared in one of the weekly Internet magazines about what some of the big players in the online transaction game where doing to combat this growing problem, I figured it might be a good time to take a spin back through the AntiFraud.Com web site and the issues of credit card fraud in general.

For those who missed the series of articles by T.J. concerning this issue, let me give you a quick rundown on what AntiFraud.Com is all about. Being primarily in the on-line software business <http://softwaresolutions.net>, T.J.'s company began to experience significant losses due to credit card fraud about a year ago. Having many friends and associates in the same business, T.J. quickly discovered that this plague was not isolated to his company. He also quickly discovered that, at the time, there was little or no information or assistance available to help small, independent companies with this problem.

After many weeks of analyzing the exact methods these scumbags of the Net use to steal from honest merchants, T.J. devised certain procedures and tools to reduce losses to credit card fraud. Taking this a step further, he then put together those procedures and devised on-line tools to assist other businesses who were experiencing similar losses. After many months of testing and refining those tools, AntiFraud.Com went officially on-line, available to assist e-merchants, less than a month ago.

Since the problem of online credit card fraud has only become worse since T.J.'s first series of articles, and he "claimed" to be too busy (some kind of non -sense about launching several new software products and signing up distributors for WebSuite) to re-hash those articles, I thought I would simply take another tour of the AntiFraud.Com web site and do it for him (only because he is the master distributor for our line of WebSuite products).

The array of tools and technology offered to members of AntiFraud is impressive. The two main tools are the automated Email screening process and the Instant Alert Notification system.

Since the vast majority of fraudulent orders are placed through free, web-based, or Email forwarding domains, T.J. highly recommends that orders not be accepted from such addresses. While you would think this might cut into your orders, the fact is virtually everyone who uses one of the free or forwarding services also has a legitimate, ISP issued Email address. Simply put, if you wish to purchase one of our products online, where we can't see you or get your signature on the charge receipt, then all we ask is for positive ID - a legitimate ISP or Domain based Email address that can be traced. Don't EVER take orders from joe@notmyrealaddress.com.

However, since the list of what T.J. calls "redflag" domains numbers over 2000, it is rather difficult to manually screen each order against such a list. For those not using a shopping cart or real-time order processing system, AntiFraud offers a completely automated process for this. In additional to screening out known "redflag" domains, the process automatically sends you an Email containing additional information that can be used to further identify the user.

When I spoke with T.J. on the phone (yes, sometimes I revert back to pre-Email methods of communication), he indicated he was working with a brilliant CGI programmer and would soon be offering an AntiFraud-enabled shopping cart system as an option to AntiFraud members.

And it is those members that power the second major tool of AntiFraud. The Instant Alert Notification system uses the "strength in numbers" principle to protect every member from the thieving predators looking for an easy kill. While the "redflag" screening process can greatly reduce fraud committed by most amateurs, there are a lot of pros out there who have devised more sophisticated techniques of ripping you off.

Using additional AntiFraud procedures and tools, members can learn to easily spot a fraudulent order before actually processing it. Then, using a special form on the AntiFraud web site, a warning can be instantly broadcast to all other members about the dirtbag before he strikes someone else.

There is even a special form that allows members to send a nice little note to the dirtbag's ISP and hosting service notifying them of the illegal activity being committed by one of their users. All this can be done with a few keystrokes and hopefully, if nothing else, will slow the dirtbag down a bit while he searches for another ISP and hosting service.

T.J. also told me that he is working with numerous Windows, CGI and NT programmers to provide a variety of software tools that can assist members to further reduce their losses due to fraud.

While everyone selling on-line is at risk, the hardest hit are thsoe who deliver their product electronically. Dowload software and such. They don't even have a shipping address to start the hunt for the crooks. The product is gone in in the hands of a crook before the merchant even knows he's been had.

All in all, if you are conducting any kind of on-line credit card transactions, it would be well worth your while to take a look at <http://antifraud.com>.

GET LINKED

PartyFinder.net
http://partyfinder.net/

Last chance to get your submission in before the PartyFinder directory opens to the public. Just get over there and submit your site.

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Shimmer
http://www.shimmer.freeservers.com/

Want to see what one high school student can accomplish all by himself? Visit Shimmer, look around and then submit your site to the nicely laid out directory.

SNIPPETS

GIMP Perl Script Developers
mailto:jim@jimworld.com

If you have **experience** developing Perl scripts to access the graphics functions in GIMP (Perl-Fu), and would like to help me deploy a new service, drop me a line. What I have in mind is not for the beginner.

I also have a project for a very good Java developer. There is an applet that I want to upgrade significantly and make available.

No pay, of course. Just lots of good PR.

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WebTV Developer
http://developer.webtv.net/Default.htm

You can now get current information about developing sites that are friendly to WebTV visitors. Articles, forums, free software. Be sure to download the WebTV Viewer (Mac and Windows) to check how your site will appear to visitors using WebTV.

Please don't over react after you see your site on WebTV. While it is important to make you site as friendly as possible to all visitors, you can't accommodate everyone and still have a viable web site. In reality, the number of WebTV users is still pretty small. But there are many things you can do to improve your site for WebTV visitors without making it unusable for other browsers.

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SuiteHost
http://www.suitehost.com/freestuff.cgi

Looking for some tools for your site? SuiteHost has several that could be useful for you. And most are free and hosted on their servers. You don't even have to have CGI bin access to use these. Tools like a free search engine submitter, a multi-search service, instant visitor polls, and a few others. Each time your visitors use these free services, they are shown 2 banner ads by SuiteHost, so you might think seriously about installing any of these tools directly on your server and not losing the traffic to these banner advertisers. Scripts for all of these tools are readily available many places on the Net. Try the new Remote on the JimWorld home page. But, if you don't have CGI bin access, this is a good solution.

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ImageStyler
http://www.adobe.com/prodindex/imagestyler/main.html

It's time to head over to Adobe and download the Beta release of their newest graphics suite. Aimed directly at the Web designer, it has more features than you can shake an ugly graphic at. Windows and Mac versions are available and don't time out until the end of October. The download is a bit stiff at 15 MB but is worth the time if you need more power in creating graphics.

I haven't had a chance to use the software yet but wanted to let you know about it right away. I'll be playing with it this week and give you a review in the next issue.

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Kiddy Porn Busted

Congratulations to The US Customs Service and law enforcement groups in 14 countries around the world. They have shut down yet another large kiddy porn Internet operation. If you have any information about child pornography that you want to pass on to the US Customs Service, send as much detail as you can to mailto:icpicc@customs.sprint.com If you want to give them a pat on the back for the good work they do, just send it to the same address. They'll get it and everyone likes to know that the job they are doing matters to others.

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CoolText
http://www.cooltext.com/

Another on-line logo and button generator. Works well and has some nice buttons to base your graphic on.

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The Censorware Project
http://censorware.org

Seems that the Site Blockers are at it again. So far four of them have deemed The Starr Report unfit to be read by any Americans, young or old. They have blocked access to it not only from schools, but also from any of the public library computers they 'block' for. Sure wish we could get those people hired as White House interns so they could have done to them what they are doing to us.

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Internet Creator
http://www.internetcreator.com/

Forman Interactive continues to give away - FREE - their system to automatically create on-line stores. Just fill in the blanks and this handy tool will create a complete storefront for you, complete with shopping cart, search, secure server, shipping charge calculator and all of the other advanced features you would expect to find in a full-blown ecommerce site building tool. Give it a try. Windows only, no Mac version. I looked all over their site for an email address to request a review copy of the CD-ROM version. Any email address. On any of their sites. None. Guess they don't want their products reviewed by anybody. Can the press find you on your sites?