• Never advertise the Email address assigned to you by your Internet Service Provider (ISP).  Doing so can "hook" you to an inferior ISP.  If newer, faster, cheaper, service becomes available in your area, or if you simply don't like them, you can't quit an ISP who owns your Email address. If the ISP goes out of business...again, you lose your Email address, the one you or your business may have advertised for years.

• Are you "hooked" to your ISP?  If your Email address contains anyone else's name but yours, yes.  More bad news...it's been discovered that more and more Email messages (the ones your ISP doesn't want you to see) are being blocked without their customers' knowledge.  That's mostly a tactic to keep you in the dark about changing technology, lowering prices, and to keep you as a  customer.  AOL has class action suits filed against it for a variety of reasons, including not allowing users to see rival services, full search results or web sites on the Internet. 

• Run in the opposite direction whenever an software vendor tells you how "FREE and easy" their stuff is to download or install. Truth is, with the new animated web sites, the 'net is getting more, not less complicated. It's changing by the hour.  YOU must keep your computer up to date...if only to keep YOUR data secure.  "Easy" ISP's and FREE software vendors are not looking out for you, sorry.  AOL's merger with Time Warner, as an example, was about making money, eliminating competition, controlling how YOU use the Internet.  

• Every Windows computer comes loaded from the factory setup to allow anyone who wants to have access to your hard drive anytime that you're "online". Even if their software is not turned on they'll look in your system whenever they want. Real audio, for one, does this to find out what CD you listened to last week or bought from a competitor. More unscrupulous types (hackers) will look for unprotected ports on your machine (yours and umpteen million others with one push of a button) and run their damaging software in an attempt to crack passwords or erase hard drives...just to say they could do it. The good news is that some people are working day and night to fix these flaws in the internet, until then...

• What's the solution? Change your Windows settings, and Install a good firewall! These two things will stop unauthorized entry, and alert you to the IP address of anyone who tries to access your computer. Virus protection is another thing, and also very important. Here's a good place to start looking out for yourself: www.grc.com

• Advertise an alias Email address...register your own "dot" com!!  This frees you from your ISP and gives you autonomy over your Email. It also allows you to track your advertising. There are several reasons to register your "dot com" immediately: 1) while it's still available, and  2) it's the only way to get an "alias" Email address, like an 800 number, to advertise and stay with you no matter how many times you change your ISP or move. 3) (yourname).com takes advantage of web browsers which are designed to go directly to your web site when someone forgets your address but not your name. This only works with ".com" sites.  For her past customers kathypeters.com is unbelievably easier to find, to advertise, to remember, to type than:

http://www.realtor.com-Detroit-kathypeters-home.htm-uid=7654321&cur=

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