Welcome to Neekdesign News Issue No.8
In this issue, we're highlighting some new sites (including our own),
"Podcasts" talks about a cool new technology, and "Spam: Part II" completes our two-part article on sending and receiving spam.
New Sites
 Neekdesign Gets a Facelift
We've got a new site! We've redesigned the Neekdesign site to better showcase our services - and your websites.
Our revised Services section describes all the things we do - website design, ecommerce, marketing, branding, print and technology. Our articles on design and development have been moved to our new eTools section. We would be delighted if you would email us a quote for your page in our Clients section. Enjoy the new site!
 Joseph Canzoneri & Son Importers, Ltd.
The Canzoneris import organic Italian olive oil from Joseph's grandparents' home town Prizzi Sicily. The family wanted a simple and elegant site to showcase their unique products.
We've designed the new site with a homepage Flash animation that showcases the family's Italian base and integrated the design with Nexternal's ecommerce system. We helped Joseph create an account with Google to utilize Google Sitemaps and Froogle Shoppint cart - giving him an edge on Search Engine Optimization. Please let us know if you're interested in learning more about these applications.
 Ellen Urbani Hiltebrand, Author
Ellen Urbani Hiltebrand recently published her first book, "When I Was Elena", an account of her time spent in Guatemala in the Peace Corps.
Ellen needed an author-centric website to provide event and contact information surrounding the book's release. The site is clean and flexible enough to accomodate plenty of growth, including new books.
"When I Was Elena" can be found at The Permanent Press and Amazon.com
Podcasts
Podcasting enables independent producers to create self-published, syndicated "radio" shows, and allows for syndicated distribution over the Internet. Podcasts are automatically transfered to the user's computer for later use. You may be most familiar with Podcasts from Apple's iTunes, but you can offer a Podcast - and Podcast subscriptions - right from your site.
How it works
Any digital audio player (like an iPod) or computer can play podcasts. Podcasting is a mechanism by which computer files are transferred from a web server to a client which pulls down XML files containing the addresses of your media files. Through RSS feeds, video, audio, and other media such as photographs and text are transferable by podcast.
Creating audio files
We prefer short and frequent broadcasts between 10 and 15 minutes. The main thing is... can someone on your end periodically create a 10 to 15 minute audio or video file?
If you create your own audio files, you can upload each .mp3 file to your web server (we'll create a special directory for them). We'll also create an XML file/RSS feed for your subscribers.
Five things you'll need to record good audio:
- A sound-input card or USB interface. These can be purchased for as little as $30. A nicer one will produce better sound quality and will permit hooking up two nicer microphones at once for interview-type recording. A mid-priced card is perfectly good ($149).
- At least one microphone. Typically, the more you spend the better you'll sound; but you shouldn't need to spend more than $40 - $50 for recording spoken words. If the primary use is to record web-delivered voice, a simple microphone will be fine.
- Recording software. Audacity handles everything from recording to mixing to making MP3s and WAV files for playing over the internet.
- A quiet space.
- A good voice with consistent volume.
Neekdesign can help you with your first recording. To add Podcasts to your site, we'll need your audio file, an introductory page and a podcast archive page for your users.
Benefits
Podcasts allow you to reach a wider audience and to get your message out in a personable format. Whether you're delivering a discussion on how to pair wines with your next meal, the latest update to your shareholders or a how-to on your products and services, Podcasting gives you the flexibility to provide audio, video and graphics all in one package.
More Information
Spam Part II: Receiving it
Everybody hates spam. How can I avoid receiving it?
How and why do I get spam?
If you have your email address on a website, you will receive spam. Hackers are constantly hacking - it's nothing personal, they just want to see if they can do it. In most cases, they've built an automated program than crawls web pages, much like Google's spider, and gathers up emails. As soon as someone opens up one of the infected attachments, the auto-functions take over, scan their hard drive for email addresses and send out spam.
Why aren't my filters foolproof?
Filters are responsive, invasive medicine. There aren't any products out there yet that are preemptive and adaptive to viruses and worms. Windows is the worst propagator of viruses and worms. There are some written for Unix and Mac (VERY few), but Microsoft is easy to hack. Anyone with a PC is an easy target to become the host of a virus.
How do I identify spam?
There are the obvious spam emails - various drugs advertisements and unseemly calls-to-action, low mortgage rate offers, advertisements from banks you know you don't have an account with - but what about emails that have your name in them or seem to come from reliable sources like PayPal or eBay?
Spammers send emails to scare you into clicking on embedded links or opening attachments. If you don't recognize it, don't open it. Anything that says it comes from your "technical support team" is hooey. Neekdesign is your technical support team.
If you receive an email from PayPal or eBay, and you do indeed have an account with them, open your web browser and type in their URL rather than clicking on the links provided in the emails. These could be fake links inspired to get your account information. Be wary if a link doesn't look right.
What can I do?
We could remove email addresses from your website altogether, but it's good practice to have email available to your customers. All you can do is limit your website email addresses, keep your spam filters updated, delete every unseemly email you get, never open a strange attachment (especially if it has a .exe or .pif extension), and make it standard practice to run and update your virus software.
More Information
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