Chris Bailey's Work At Home Guide

Here is a lovely fraudulent email I received today targeting those of us who own domains.

They use a very clever domain name that took me a minute to catch.

Always beware of emails like this.  This email phishing scam was targeting Network Solution customers and sadly, at least a few will fall for it.

The safest thing to do when you get emails that are supposedly from your webhost, bank, credit card company, etc. is to go to that site directly from a bookmark or typing in the url.  Never go from links in your email to services like this.

Dear Network SolutionsŽ Customer, 

On Thu, 30 Oct 2008 23:23:17 +0100 we received a third party complaint of invalid domain contact information in the Whois database for this domain Whenever we receive a complaint, we are required by ICANN regulations to initiate an investigation as to whether the contact data displaying in the Whois database is valid data or not. If we find that there is invalid or missing data, we contact both the registrant and the account holder and inform them to update the information.

Please note: ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) regulations state that the WHOIS Administrative Contact may initiate and approve domain name registration transfers from your Network Solutions account to other Registrars. If you are not listed as the WHOIS Administrative Contact a transfer can occur without your knowledge if Domain Protect is not enabled for the domain name registrations listed above.

To change the WHOIS Administrative Contact Information for any of your domains, please login to Account Manager:

1. Log in to Account Manager at: http://www.networksolutions.com. (Because I didn’t want to give a link to this thieving site, the url showed the correct address in print, but when you hovered over it, the actual destination url was http://www.networksolutions.com.sys44.biz/ so the fraudulent domain is actually sys44.biz
2. Click on the “Profile & Accounts” tab in the left navigation menu to be taken to a page listing your account details.
3. Click on “Accounts” and select the account you wish to edit.
4. Click “View/Edit WHOIS Contacts” to make your updates.

If you believe someone requested this change without your consent, please contact Customer Service.

If you would like to order additional services or to update your account, please visit us online.

Thank you for choosing Network Solutions. We are committed to providing you with the solutions, services, and support to help you succeed online.

Sincerely,
Network SolutionsŽ Customer Support

One thing that I recommend to people working to make money online is to write about what you know, whatever that might be.

It’s not a guaranteed money maker, but it will help you come up with more frequent and fresh content for your sites to generate traffic.

Last Friday I launched a new site that I will be providing weekly progress updates here and daily notes on my Work At Home Network discussion forums. The first posts will be added tonight and I’ll provide a link from here.

For my own ease in analyzing traffic, the site url won’t be provided for at least a month or two.

I’ll be providing an in depth analysis of all the stats compiled from Google analytics and any income generated from the site.

It may fail. It may succeed. We’ll just have to see.

See you tonight.

Edited on 03/03 to add: Taking longer to get to this than planned. This little experiment should be up soon.

Not that we need more reasons.

Who wants to deal with this at 6:30 in the morning or whatever time you have to get going for work.

First, we have to shovel out of the driveway and warm up the car.

And then it’s out onto the highway dealing with people who drive too slow or too fast for the conditions. Naturally, I drive just right, LOL.

Now, it might be different if work paid me for the extra time. But somehow I don’t think they will.

Yeah, I’d much rather just let it all melt while letting my sites earn money in perfectly sunny cyberspace.

This has been around for a little while, but I just stumbled across it last night.

For those looking to make a few extra bucks, check out the Google Local Business Referrals program. I don’t know how long they will be doing this and there is no guarantee that you’ll be accepted into the program, but it may be worth a few minutes of your time to register your interest.

Here are the highlights of what you do and what you earn, taken from the Business Referral Representative Frequently Asked Questions:

• What will I be doing as a representative?

As a Google Business Referral Representative, you’ll visit local businesses to collect information (such as hours of operation, types of payment accepted, etc.) for Google Maps, and tell them about Google Maps and Google AdWords. You’ll also take a few digital photos of the business that will appear on the Google Maps listing along with the business information. After the visit, you submit the business’ info and photo(s) to Google through your Local Business Referrals Center, and we’ll pay you up to $10 for each listing that is approved by Google and verified by the business.All you need to be a successful Business Referral Representative is a passion for helping local businesses succeed, a love for the Internet (some knowledge of Google is great, too), and access to a computer and a digital camera.

• How much will I be paid? How will I be paid?

You can earn up to $10 for each approved, verified referral you submit. This includes $2 when a business referral is approved by Google; and $8 when an approved business verifies that the information you submitted is accurate. Referrals are approved by Google based on the completeness and quality of data supplied by representatives. Businesses verify their information either by sending us a response postcard or verifying their information online. As long as your earnings total at least $25 a month, you’ll receive a monthly check.

• What are the eligibility requirements for the program?

To be eligible for consideration as a Google Business Referral Representative, you must be authorized to work as a contractor in the U.S., be at least 18 years of age, and be able to complete an IRS Form W-9. You must also have access to a computer and a digital camera.

This obviously won’t make you rich and from what I’ve read so far, that $8 verification carrot is the hardest part to get.

Verification occurs when Google approves your referral($2 to you) and then sends the business a postcard for them to return verifying the info that you provided for Google Maps.

It looks like the average verification percentage seems to run an average of 5%-10% with the highest I’ve seen at about 25%. The high end is achieved by those willing to do a little follow up to make sure the businesses received the post card, filled it out, and sent it back in.

This means your actual income is most likely to average between $2.40 to $4.00 per business referral.

I did sign up and was approved. I think it will be an interesting project and it can also lead to making quite a few business contacts in your own community.

Best of luck to those who decide to give it a shot.

As a Cognigen agent for almost 7 years(start date 03/19/2001), I’ve seen a number of reps concerned about the recent merger/acquisition with Commission River.

IMHO, I think this deal has a lot more potential upside than downside.

As the owner of the Work At Home Network Discussion Forums, I see nearly every “hot” home based business that hits the market.

While I love the fact that Cognigen has always been a no hype, honest home based business opportunity, the simple fact is that their free business model was not a good fit for the traditional style MLM/Network Marketing model.

Because Cognigen was not a pay to play scheme that required us to actually make sales to earn money as opposed to paying recruiting overrides on overpriced startup fees with little focus on sales, Cognigen simply could not compete with the other MLM structured businesses out there.

With the entrance of Commission River into the picture, Cognigen is essentially changing to a model that I believe is a much better fit for the business.

Gone is the 6 level MLM override structure for a much simpler 2 tier pay structure that is much more like the traditional affiliate networks like Commission Junction, ShareASale,  LinkShare, etc.

This will allow agents to earn higher commissions on the own sales and also those of their downline agents.  Since we only have one level of downline overrides, it will also those interested in recruiting sales agents to focus directly on just their front line as opposed to needing to worry if an agent 4 levels down is getting the appropriate help from a dormant sponsor.

Gone is the $100 sales paypoint.  Although I thought this was a very reasonable paypoint that I haven’t had trouble meeting over the last few years, it’s another obstacle removed to gathering agents and keeping them interested.  Now all sales commissions accumulate until you earn enough to get a check.

The owners and primary staff of Commission River are all familiar with the great history of Cognigen and what they have to work with in the agent base.  This should give them an edge in keeping the program attractive to established agents and making the necessary tweaks to help bring back some dormant agents.

I think Cognigen was getting stale and headed towards serious problems.  I hope that the deal with Commission River will help to reinvigorate the program and keep it going for many years to come.

I’ve always been proud to be affiliated with Cognigen and I’m happy to see an effort to stimulate growth.

Those of us who have been around the internet marketing block a time or ten remember more too good to be true scams than we care to count.

Anybody who is looking into one of the latest and greatest we’ll make you rich before you have to pay us a cent offerings called 1on40.com needs to do a little research on two previous similar offerings called Monopolizer.com and MoreThanTraffic.com and use just a little common sense.

Both ofthose turned out to be scams, as expected.

In a nutshell, 1on40.com guarantees everyone will get to the top of “Google, Yahoo, and 38 other top search engines” within 120 days for 5 keywords. And get this, they get you there for free and then you simply have to be the top bidder for your chosen keywords to stay there. Sounds absolutely wonderful, doesn’t it?

Anyone that has even the slightest knowledge about SEO and how search engines work will immediately be skeptical, to say the least. Rightfully so.

Some of the glaring Red Flags:

• The usual extreme hype geared to people looking to get something for nothing
• Guaranteeing something that simply can not be achieved, or at least can not be achieved via ethical means
• Plenty of awe inspiring testimonials, every one of them anonymous
• A site promising to get me to the top of Google that currently carries a Google PR of 0 and is nowhere near the top, if they are even listed at all, in the SERPs for its own obvious keywords
• Just like the Monopolizer and MoreThanTraffic scams, 1on40.com operates out of a drop box in the UK
• Many of the so called “search engines” listed aren’t search engines and a number of them don’t even exist
• etc., etc.

And yes, free businesses can scam you. They rob you of time and sap your energy getting you excited about results and guarantees that are impossible to honor. You are also providing them with at least some personal info at some point.

As always, time will tell the truth. I already think it’s quite obvious how this one will eventually turn out.

For those who decide to take the chance on this, I definitely recommend a throw away email address and don’t use an established domain for your test.

Good luck

Besides being a great game between two high quality teams, last night’s 17-14 victory by the New York Giants over the New England Patriots was a nice little victory for Karma.

As someone who grew up playing team sports, I’ve always had a strong sense of teamwork and sportsmanship.

Being a Pittsburgh Steeler fan, I have always rooted for the AFC representative in the Super Bowl and even though they had handed us a few heartbreaking losses over the years, I did have a lot of respect for the New England Patriots team play and excellent coaching.

I still have a lot of respect for the Patriots as a team and I still think that Bill Belichick is a top notch coach.

However, after the whole “spygate” issue, I lost a lot of respect for Coach Belichick as a leader when it comes to sportsmanship and fair play.

I would never pretend to know or understand the amount of pressure professional coaches and athletes are under to be the best, but Belichick’s early season bust for cheating is just another sign of what’s wrong with high profile sports today.

The fact that Belichick claims that he simply “misinterpreted” the rules about videotaping the other teams sideline is such an insult to everyone’s intelligence and shows cowardice and a complete lack of personal accountability on his behalf.

Given the pressure and intense scrutiny all of these guys are under, I’m not foolish enough to think that Coach Belichick is the only head coach who cheated to get an edge.  He’s just the one who got caught.

If he had owned up to it, I may have still had some respect for him as a leader.  As it is, I still think he is a brilliant coach and knows the game inside and out.  But his cowardly excuse for doing what he did shows a total lack of character.

Congratulations to the New York Giants for their Super Bowl victory and congratulations to the real winner in this year’s Super Bowl, karma.  It’s nice to see justice served.

LOL

Well, I’m not an old man yet, but I sure feel like it with some of the technology out there that I don’t have or use. No Ipod or any other MP3 player. No camcorder, digital or otherwise. No laptop yet. I’m not working at home with a wireless router. My home stereo is about 18 years old. Etc., etc.

At least I have satellite.

My better half has been fine using the old fashioned throw away cameras to take occasional snapshots for the holidays and other gatherings.

I used to be a real gadget guy but have somehow become an old stick in the mud set in my ways.

For my first digital camera, I didn’t feel the need to go all out and get the top of the line model that will be outdated in another month anyway. So I picked up a Sanyo VPC-S750 at Walmart this afternoon.

The biggest issue I saw when reading reviews after I came home was poor battery life. As is often the case, the reviews were mixed, but had more positive than negative.  So far, I haven’t used it enough to have that problem.

One  reviewer also mentioned significant issues with the picture quality and he posted the pictures to prove his point.  They looked terrible.  I’ve taken a few shots and put them in the computer with the SD card and the picture quality was good, so he may have had a defective camera.

For those looking for reviews on the Sanyo VPC-S750, I had a hard time finding any reviews other than at Walmart’s website.

I’ll play around a little more and see if it’s a keeper. Now maybe we can finally sell some of the junk we have around here.

Hopefully this not so old man can figure it out.

In my time on the web, I’ve noticed many of us in the internet marketing world suffer from this horrible affliction.

If you are anything like me, you tend to come up with one great idea after another(well, at least we think they are great ideas )

The main problem with our “genius” is that we often tend to leave many of our projects unfinished as we jump from one to the next. I know I have a veritable minefield of unfinished work and ideas.

As I was searching on the net for others with this affliction, I stumbled across Andrew Wee’s article Internet Marketing Attention Deficit Disorder And A Solution?

I can’t come up with any better advice than Mr. Wee.

The main point of his article and advise is quite simple:

• • Go with the flow: You know you’re not cut out to do one thing for weeks on end, so don’t fight it. Break your day up into several pieces. Focus on product development in the morning (or whenever your peak periods might be), talk to joint venture partners or strategic partners as you feel you’re moving out of your zone. Answer email and tackle customer support issues during your downtime.
  • Focus, focus, focus: This was a major problem for me initially when I was doing consulting. You can take on 20 projects, and deliver below your optimal performance on all of them. OR you could charge a premium and work with your preferred 3-5 clients. If you work in performance incentives and revenue share, you might end up doing better with a select few, rather than attempt to take on the market.
  • Recalibrate, reorient and refocus: Take time out to audit your efforts. Is what you’re doing helping you move toward where you want to be? Evalute and do the equivalent of “testing and tracking” in your business. Jettison projects that are stumbling or backsliding. Declutter experts say there is limited space in your life. If you cut and clear away stuff that isn’t helping you (people, projects and places), you’ll free up more “space” for new things to come in.

Personally,I’m trying to hold off as much as I can on my next “great idea” and am working on what I’ve already started.

Some ideas I’ll be scrapping.  And the rest I willdevelop as fully as possible.

Over the years, I’ve become online friends with a number of people from all over the world, so I guess it shouldn’t be such a shock when I occasionally stumble upon someone in my own back yard.

A perfect example is a nice lady named Deborah Bowman, aka dmbunny on our forums who posted the common Hello, I’m a Newbie thread on her first visit with us back in November.

As fate would have it, she lives nearby and just happened to find our boards. We’re happy to have her on the forums and she’s a prime example of how nice most of us Western PA folks are.

Deborah has just launched her first website and is offering some very fine natural skin scare products from the islands of the South Pacific.  You can also find a link to her Home Business Gazette blog over in our blogroll.

I wish dmbunny the best of luck in her new business venture.