Brian Lawson is an Internet safety and security expert that has been on multiple national and local media outlets.  Together with his team, they have created Action Alert – a 100% free parental control software solution to help parents keep their kids safe from Internet dangers.

It is possible to accomplish your New Year’s resolution, but you have to be smart about it. If you truly want to make a change, why make it so hard on yourself by setting a goal you can never truly reach? It is important to structure the wording of your New Year’s resolution so that it is actually something you can achieve. Here we will examine some of the most common New Year’s resolutions that always fail and why you will never be able to accomplish them.

To Lose Weight

It’s a nice thought, but too many people fail at this resolution every year. Some even go backwards and gain weight, simply because they’ve set an undefined goal for themselves. If you want to resolve to lose weight, you’re going to need to be a little more specific or it will never happen. Exactly how many pounds or inches do you want to shed? This should be a reasonable, healthy goal. Also, if you’re obese, don’t resolve to lose it all at once. Start with smaller goals that will be easier to reach. And how will you do this? Your resolution should be about the things that will actually bring you to your goal, such as resolving to work out four times a week.

To Quit Smoking

Smoking is an addiction. Addictions cannot be stopped just by resolving to stop them. No matter how strong you think your will power is, you are doomed to fail if you rely on inner strength alone. To quit smoking you need help. You also need a realistic plan. Slowly cutting back is a much more attainable goal. It may also require a stop smoking aid, such as medication or a Nicotine patch. Seeking help is not a sign of weakness – it is a realistic approach to something you probably can’t do on your own.

To Be a Better Parent

This is a very noble resolution, but once again impossible. It is impossible because there is no way to measure what being a better parent truly means. How will you know if you’ve accomplished this? A better idea is to set specific, tangible goals, such as resolving to spend an extra hour of one-on-one time with your kids every weekend, or going over homework before bed every night. With these goals you can keep track of your progress and create a real difference in your child’s life that they will see.

To Make More Money

Wouldn’t we all like to do this? You’ll never accomplish this resolution because money doesn’t fall from trees or get handed to you just because you want it. If you don’t have a plan for how making more money is actually possible, you’ll fail. Are you resolving to work more hours per week? Are you resolving to ask for a raise? Start your own business? Take on more clients? Again, a measurable, attainable goal is necessary for your resolution to be possible.

From the creative desk of writer Lisa Hann. All of Lisa’s work is edited using Grammarly grammar checker. Lisa also makes regular use of the Grammar Rules Handbook.

Among the many accusations of Google are two claims I’d like to address: one is the claim that Google is a monopoly and is violating antitrust laws, and two is the claim that they give their own properties preferential treatment in search results.

As to the first point, I’m no lawyer but it seems that the purpose of antitrust laws is to protect the individual. If you live in an area with only one cable provider, then you know exactly how this feels. But Google isn’t dominating the search world because it’s bought out all it’s competition and/or staked out a geographical claim no one can tough; it’s dominating the search world because it’s been giving individuals what they’re looking for.

As to the second point, I don’t see any problem with Google giving itself preferential treatment in search results. Google is a business, not a public service. And not only that, Google is a biased business. Macy’s may have been telling people to go to Gimbels, but not just because they wanted to do something nice for their customers; they were trying to build their own business. Google doesn’t have any legal – or moral, for that matter – obligation to treat their competition equitably. If people don’t like that idea, there are other search engines they can use.

All in all, I doubt anything will come of these investigations. The FTC may have a few recommendations, or at very worse fine Google, but don’t expect to see any radical changes to Google or the online world.

• Phishing and Spear Phishing. Most of us know of the emails that claim to come from a Nigerian prince or someone of the like who needs our help getting many millions of dollars out of a bank account. But what happens when an email comes from a company or person you know? Phishing is when an email comes from what seems to be a friendly source. Spear phishing is even more sophisticated. It may appear to be an email that comes from someone very close to you, someone like your boss or even a relative.
• Turning Into a Major Problem. According to major security and technology firms, spear phishing which is proliferating at amazing rates, is becoming a serious problem for all internet users. Only this week, Google stated this strategy was used to attack hundreds of important Gmail accounts in the US.
• Highly Targeted. Spear phishing attacks are very skilful in the way they can convince you they are from a legitimate source. You may think you are receiving a genuine email from a trusted supplier, bank, company or even colleague. Once you click on the link, or reply to the message, the email will be asking you for specific information. It may even send you to a website that looks exactly like your bank account login page, when it is not. Your information is harvested as you attempt to login normally.
• How to Avoid. Even the best computer repairs and support professionals can only give you advice on how to deal with this threat. The number one rule that applies to any attack of this type is this; no credible company would ever contact you and ask you to login or enter any details. There is no real technology that can be used to identify this kind of email. There are some payment providers that are using verified email technology, which aids in the identification of their emails. eBay in Australia, is one company that has been extensively abused through spear phishing and have developed email identification measures. This still does not mean you should trust every email you get. Your only option is to carefully read and know, if someone is asking you to do something, or to add to your account, then it is probably a phishing attack. Remember, most of these emails are trying to get either your email account information or your banking and credit card information. Therefore, these emails are normally related to either of these.

Spear phishing is becoming so common place, and the tactics are becoming more sophisticated, with emails looking increasingly professional and reasonable. Never respond to any email, even if it looks legitimate. Your bank, your employer, your supplier, would never ask you for any particular information. Spear phishing is not hacking of your computer, but it is hacking of your common sense.

Author Bio: Tom Mallet is an Australian freelance writer and journalist. He writes extensively in Australia, Canada, Europe, and the US. He’s published more than 500 articles about various topics, including computer support and computer repairs.

Quick refresher: ICANN oversees the Internet and examples of top-level domains are .com, .org, .travel, etc.

Well, ICANN will start accepting applications for customized top-level domains at the beginning of 2012. This will allow big companies to get domains like .apple, .google, and .walmart. I’m assuming other companies will also be able to bid on domains like .money, .diet, and .cars.

There are two reasons why, if you’re reading this post, you don’t have to worry at all about these new top-level domains:

1. The new top-level domains are going to cost at least $185,000. If you’ve got that kind of cash sitting around to invest in a TLD, please give us a call.
2. Having a new, fancy, custom TLD will not really improve your business or online search results.

Consider the second point. Search for “travel” and see how many .travel sites come up – practically none. So would your pet supplies website benefit from the .petsupplies top-level domain? Probably not, and you’d be out $185,000.

So instead, keep taking a focused approach on your own website, providing quality content, and improving its organic search results. Don’t think that having the right top-level domain is going to make the difference between millions of dollars in revenue and a floundering business.

It well be interesting, however, to see how many businesses take up ICANN on this offer, how many choose not to , and if there are any battles for some more generic TLDs. Will Payless or Footlocker get the .shoes domain?

Or maybe we can all pool our money together and buy it out from under them.

You, like me, have also probably utilized various online bookmarking services or aggregators to organize your favorite website or specific links.

You may have even, at some point, sent yourself an e-mail like “Don’t forget the milk” or “Pick up Bobby at school”.

But with the free service Evernote, you can make that process a whole lot easier. With Evernote, you can archive links, text, voice memos, pictures, hand-written notes, and more. The software can be downloaded to any computer and most mobile devices, and all the content is automatically synched – allowing it to be accessed from any device almost instantaneously.

Let’s you’re on your laptop and you want to save the article. You could use a bookmarking site like Delicious or your could add another bookmark to your browser. Either is fine, but that means if you want to save a picture or a voice memo or a hand-written note, you have to use a different service – sometimes for each medium.

Instead, you can use Evernote for everything. Each time you add a note, you can include tags as well, which are then easily searchable. So you can easily separate and organize your notes – in addition to the ability to create different note books and different folders.

But perhaps the neatest feature of Evernote is its Optical Character Recognition. You can make a hand-written note, take a picture of it or scan it, and then add it to Evernote. Over time, Evernote will read your handwriting and make that note searchable.

A few things to note:

• If you have awful handwriting (like I do) you’ll need to slow down and write legibly, or else it won’t really work.
• Depending on how busy the Evernote servers are, it would take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours for the OCR to actually kick in.

I’ve only been using it for a few weeks, so I’m sure there are plenty of features I’m missing out on. And while it’s free, you can upgrade to a premium account which increases how much data usage you’re allowed and opens up other features.

Now, as you likely know, I’m no finance expert; I’m no stock market expert; I’m no IPO expert. And I’ve been trying to figure out how the social networking site is worth more than the whole GDP of Slovakia.

They’ve obviously got a bunch of computers and servers and office equipment; that’s got to be worth something. And Facebook does generate over a billion dollars in advertising revenue each year, which is nothing to scoff at.

So how is this website, which has no tangible product it’s selling, worth so much?

I would say it’s three things:

• Influence
• Network
• Information

Facebook obviously has a lot of influence, not only in the social networking sphere but elsewhere (like when Mark Zuckerberg met with President Obama and other leaders). That sort of influence is worth a lot of money since it  can affect legislation, social norms, etc.

Facebook also has a huge network, allowing it to connect with millions of individuals almost instantly. In a world where who you know is just as important (if not more so) than what you know, being able to connect people so easily and efficiently brings with it a tremendous value.

But perhaps the most valuable asset Facebook has is all of the information – pictures, e-mail addresses, phone numbers,and status updates, as well as favorite music, books, movies, etc. Everything you’ve ever told it, it knows about you; and with that knowledge it can create a fairly accurate profile of you – what you like, what you dislike, even what products or services you may potentially be interested in buying.

So all of that being said, is Facebook worth $100 billion? Given the fact that the social media behemoth can influence, network, and personalize better than anything else out there – for more than 500 million people – I would say “Yes.”

They were late to the social networking party, mostly because they were concerned about other ventures (like creating the world’s largest search engine) but also because of former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who admitted that he messed up when it came to Google’s social networking strategy. From a business perspective, they have missed out on a lot of potential opportunity – but it’s not like the company is hurting all that much because of it.

I mean, I use Google to search and many of its tools, and I used Facebook and Twitter for social networking. I need Google to create a social network as much as I need Facebook to create a search engine.

And even though Google just launched +1, it doesn’t mean they’re not still exploring additional options.

Google recently acquired PostRank, which is an analytic tool for social media. It tracks the kind of online discussion a link is getting, and it’s likely Google will start implementing some of that data into their overall search results (similar to what Bing has already been doing with Facebook). Schmidt has also invested into a tool called Backplane, which is a platform geared toward specific interests like sports and music. (Lady Gaga has also invested in the project.)

Google will likely be using these tools to create a more personalized search experience and more tailored results. And with all the money, resources, and mind power the people at Google have, one of these forays into social media is bound to work eventually.

So we’ll all just have to sit back and watch, and then do our best to utilize those opportunities when they present themselves.

Note: This article is intended to provide basic information about how to manage Scareware without getting too technical, but please be aware that you really do need some level of basic computer literacy to manage the issues.

Scareware attacks; Easily recognizable

Scareware attacks start with a bogus warning of a computer security issue with a dialog box for installing security fixes. This warning is usually designed to look authentic, but can sometimes tell you that a type of computer security you don’t even have is compromised.

The minute you see that screen:

• If you’re at work, notify your IT services administrator immediately. The viruses can get into the entire system.
• Don’t touch anything on the page or click on the “dialog box”. It isn’t a dialog box. The page is designed to download viruses if you click on anything, including any X buttons or other features of the warning.
• Close the browser tab. This shuts off any further access to your computer.
• Disconnect the internet connection, whether it’s a router or wireless, so the virus can’t access the internet. You may have the virus, but it can’t do much unless it’s connected to the net, and most importantly can’t start attacking your ID or online money or send your information anywhere.
• Run a full security scan with your antivirus software. This should pick up several Trojans, if they’ve infected your computer. (Also check the software’s “holding pen” or quarantine for anything it may have caught itself, which won’t show up on the security scan.) Don’t be surprised to find anything up to 10 or even more Trojans.
• Run another scan with an external name brand free scan like McAfee, AVG, or the Microsoft services. This is for confirmation that your computer is virus-free. Some of these scans, like the McAfee scan, can also identify cookies, which you can delete with your browser tools.
• Notify your bank that you might have a problem. They will understand, and will also look out for any unusual transactions.

Making absolutely sure you’re OK:

If you’re not technically minded, get help, and get it immediately. Your computer service people can tell you how to manage the problems, or do it for you.

Do not take the risk of possible infections:

People have been cleaned out in a few hours by viruses like these. It’s not worth the risk. Play safe, all the time.

Author Bio: Tom Mallet is an Australian freelance writer and journalist. He writes extensively in Australia, Canada, Europe, and the US. He’s published more than 500 articles about various topics, including computer repairs .

(1) Write page titles that are exciting and actionable.

Yes, it’s useful to get keywords into the page title, but better still is a page title that draws in the reader and brings people to the site. Make that page title something that you would want to read if it was in a magazine. What’s more, try to make many of the titles actionable. In other words, use words like search, explore, learn, discover, find, try or buy. As you’re writing the page title, try to tell the reader and potential customer what they will be doing on that page.

(2) Make sure the content and product descriptions are well written.

This might seem obvious but you’d be amazed how many sites there are out there selling products or services with content that would make you wince. You’ve never seen them? That’s because the content is so bad and they are sitting in the bowels of the search engine, hidden from site. If you’re selling products, make people want to buy them. What are they, why do I need them? Why is my life not complete without them? How would they benefit my life? What are there unique features?

(3) Don’t go overboard on the content and product descriptions.

Having said all that in point 2, you also need to remember that your content and your site need to be precise, concise and not put off people with a short attention span (there are a fair few such people out there).  Strike a balance between good, well written content and not wasting your time on over-the-top language or marketing speak. You’ve got a minute or two to grab your visitor’s attention and convert that to a sale, don’t waste it. Instead be precise using an old fashioned system of headline, content and description and then your sales call to action.

(4) Make sure each page has a way they can get in touch with you.

People like to be able to get more information. Have an email link on every page. In addition they like some assurance that there is someone at the end of the phone, that you are a business made up of real people. Have your phone number on the page too. The same goes for access to all your social media links. Put them in as many places as possible too. It reassures the customer and keeps lines of communication open.

(5) Make sure your site runs well.

Forget SEO and backlinks, how about checking your site is fast enough in its actual day-to-day operating and in its click through speed. Test it from as many computers and as many locations as possible. If the site is slow, people will go. If you find it is slow, talk to your hosting company and also look around the internet for a number of tools which will help you speed everything up.

Once you’ve done all this, by all means think about search engine optimization and backlinks – they are important too. Just don’t forget the old fashioned marketing basics.

Alex is a freelance copywriter based in the UK. He contributes to a number of blogs on everything from cricket to search engine optimisation.