The Internet has begun to change all that. The ability to measure the impact of an ad simply by counting how many people click on it, and to link advertisements to search-engine results, in large part drove Internet advertising to $9.6 billion in 2004, a 33% jump from 2003, according to Interactive Advertising Bureau reports… ‘We look for subsegments of Internet users who care about certain things,’ explains Breen Vogel. ‘We find them when they’re online, we intercept their activities, and we start a relationship with them.’ ”

This doesn’t sound like a “relationship” to me! “intercept their activities” sounds like just another intrusion into a customer’s life.

Are you providing value to your customers? That builds relationships!

At Fort Myers web design office, we look at a lot of websites – some we love, but many we critique (to put it mildly). There are so many websites on the internet that have some really big issues, issues that significantly hurt their bottom line. Sometimes I can not believe how many websites get it wrong. Here are just a few of the mistakes we see other businesses make on their sites:

1. Duplicate content. If your website has content that another site also has, you are significantly impacting your Google rating. The complicated algorithm Google utilizes to rank sites functions a little bit like a human in that if you’re saying the exact same thing someone else is saying, it pushes you down to the bottom. If you have duplicate content (i.e. two separate sites with same the same content), revise immediately.
2. Lengthy pages. This is another content mistake a lot of businesses make. They publish really long pages that require the user to scroll down forever to find the information they want. This presents a frustrating challenge for website visitors.
3. Ugly, harsh colors. Do not use colors that burn people’s retina. Use colors, rather, that mesh well with your logo and present a professional feel. Appeal to your website visitors’ reasonability and visual sensibility by avoiding a flashy, ugly website.
4. Animation. Ugly, animated GIFs (photo files) detract attention from your overall message. Your visitors will be disoriented and experience a sense of confusion, which should be the exact opposite of what you want. Avoid ugly, flashy, animation – placing those types of files on your site feels very gimmicky.
5. Boring. Many websites are confusing, and as a result, boring. Visitors don’t immediately understand what the site is about, which should never be your intention. Rather, visitors should understand immediately who you are, and what your visitors’ response should be.
6. Playing music. Similar in nature to number 4, music playing feels very annoying and gimmicky to viewers. Plus, in terms of web design, its very early 2000s.
7. Unreadable fonts, misspelled words, and/or tiny font. Resist the urge to use unreadable script, confusing fonts, misspelled words, or very tiny fonts. All of these are website mistakes that I see on a daily basis.

If some of these mistakes appear on your site, get rid of them as soon as possible. Revising or redesigning your website might be the most important thing you do to further your business’s goals and mission.

E-discovery has taken over from DNA as the most popular form of evidence in trials. The prevalence, and importance of email is our personal and professional lives is well known. That makes it fertile ground for litigation and the gathering of evidence. Email archiving makes the gathering of evidence in this way possible.

E-discovery is the method by which lawyers can request email information from companies to aid an investigation. Email archiving is mandated by law for just this reason. There are several things any business needs to know about e-discovery, and we’re going to discuss them here.

E-discovery applies to any electronically stored information (ESI). That includes social media, Instant Messaging, chat, and email. An email archive solution should include all ESI to fully comply. As new electronic communication methods evolve, the solution will have to include those too.

Alongside email data, instant messages and social media, ESI can also include databases, email attachments, email headers, and even metadata within an electronic document. A solid email archive should be able to store data in its original format, without destroying any of this data.

The main piece of legislation for civil cases is the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP). It outlines obligations under the rules to assist in bringing cases to court. The rules are numerous, but there are three main rules that are useful to know.

They are:

• Rule 26 General Provisions Governing Discovery; Duty of Disclosure. This rule outlines the process for discovery including exemptions to the discovery process and a meeting between parties to discuss the organization of the process.
• Rule 34 – Production of Documents, Electronically Stored Information, and Things and Entry Upon Land for Inspection and Other Purposes. The main rule relating to e-discovery.
• Rule 37 – Failure to Make Disclosures or Cooperate in Discovery; Sanctions. This rule states the court cannot sanction the responding party for failing to provide ESI that was lost as a result of routine computer operations.

It would be useful for any business operating in the US to know each of these three rules. They form an important part of e-discovery, and will probably make their presence known at one point or another.

Another aspect of e-discovery is preserving the stored data from destruction while a case is being prepared. There is a mechanism called a Litigation Hold, which is designed to stop companies destroying incriminating data before it’s brought to court.

When a company is informed of an impending civil litigation, a Litigation Hold may be requested to enforce the preservation of all email archives to ensure the data is available for evidence. All data overwrites, destruction or other removal has to be stopped until the case is finished.

E-discovery and email archiving is a huge, contentious subject. It takes a trained lawyer to know the vagaries of such things, so it’s essential to seek professional legal advice if you receive an e-discovery request and you aren’t sure what to do.

Hosted Exchange pricing is one of the most compelling arguments used in convincing people to use software as a service, or outsourcing their email services. On the surface it looks like a basic calculation. Setup costs plus running cost versus monthly fee for per seat licensing. It isn’t always that easy though, contrary to what many would have you believe.

The standard calculation is upfront costs vs. monthly ones. For example, for a 5 user mail system the calculation is often illustrated as follows:

• Cost of Exchange server hardware                      $3000
• Small Business Server with 5 Licenses                        $560
• Anti-virus for Small Business Server                     $400
• Backup tape drive                                           $420
• Setup fees                                            $1700
• Annual estimated maintenance cost @$100 month       $1200
• Total cost for first year                                 $7380

The hosted model looks something like this:

• Cost of Exchange server hardware                            $0.00
• Small Business Server with 5 Licenses                        $0.00
• Anti-virus for Small Business Server                     $0.00
• Backup tape drive                                           $0.00
• Setup fees                                            $0.00
• Annual estimated maintenance cost per server           $0.00
• Monthly mailbox cost per user $15×5                   $75
• Annual charge for 5 mailboxes @$15 per month each   $900
• Total cost for first year                                 $975

On the surface hosted Exchange pricing looks to have proved a compelling case. However, these are simplified examples. What it doesn’t take into account is bandwidth, tolerance, SLAs and support.

Many hosted service providers will have a robust support system that offers 24/7 support for issues, but that isn’t a given. Neither is tolerance. To survive long, the service provider needs to utilize server clustering or virtualization to keep downtime to a minimum, but that again, is not a given.

Bandwidth is a big issue, especially as net neutrality is becoming such a hot topic. Hosted Exchange pricing doesn’t take into account the end-users bandwidth costs, which can be considerable unless they rent a fixed pipe. With our email habits often including large files, such as .pdfs or CAD drawings, bandwidth becomes a problem.

In an in-house situation, the only bandwidth problems are the internal network or where the business emails externally with any frequency. These issues can be managed internally. A 10-base-1000 internal network costs relatively little to implement, but buying that kind of bandwidth from an ISP can cost considerably more.

However, to balance that argument, the costs for an in-house Exchange Hosting system is also oversimplified. Servers don’t work in isolation, they need a network, security and availability to be productive. That doesn’t often get factored into a calculation. While it can be argued that most organizations already have a network in place, it isn’t always sufficient to cope with the extra traffic.

Then there is maintenance. Costing it at $100 per month is a very simplistic, and in our opinion generous amount. A server technician costs much more than that, and this calculation is only good in larger businesses where the cost per head is split among many servers.

Hosted Exchange pricing is a complicated process, and one that needs to be undertaken thoroughly in order to get it right. Be wary of these oversimplified pricing illustrations and make your own. It might save you some money.

exchange archiving solution

The main changes to the lawisthe requirement of hedge fund, private equity and venture capital managers to have to register with the SEC as investment advisors. Up until then, they were excluded from the main SEC regulations regarding compliance.

The idea behind the changes to hedge fund compliance was to further the original goals of the legislation. To improve regulation and supervision of financial institutions and to establish adequate supervision of the financial markets. Both of these goals were designed with a view to protecting investors and customers from abuse.

The side-effect of these measures was to promote better international cooperation and seek to improve international regulation of financial markets. The reputation of Wall Street and our large financial institutions hasn’t been great for the past few years. That makes it necessary to bolster that with robust regulations to show the world we are getting our house in order.

There have been too many high profile financial failures over the past years. Add the fact that our banks caused the global recession, and we have a lot of work on our hands to rebuild confidence in the way we do business. This new Act is a small step on a long road, but a step in the right direction.

The changes mean that investment advisers need to produce financial reports on their funds. That includes information on how its managed and a risk assessment. This is to protect investors and improve transparency throughout the sector.

Specific requirements for archiving are listed below. These are all things needed to ensure hedge fund compliance but are already in the public domain. It’s just previously hedge fund managers didn’t have to comply.

• All incoming and outgoing information must be stored in its original form
• It has to be easily retrievable and searchable
• It has to be time-stamped
• All data has to be stored in the main office for the first two years
• Data has to be retained for five years but can be archived after two
• Data has to be put into tamper proof media
• Data has to be stored in a secondary, separate backup location
• Be able to access and provide archived data promptly
• Be able to provide data in its original format

Many financial institutions will have these measures in place already as they comprise existing law. However, those who specialize in hedge funds, or are regarded as separate entities will need to ensure they comply with these requirements.

Those listed above are just the highlights of the new law. For a complete copy of the requirements it’s important to contact an attorney or the SEC direct. As with other financial institutions failure to comply with hedge fund compliance rules is viewed very dimly indeed.

Many larger email hosting customers use Outlook or another desktop management program. These programs download and upload email through the program to the email account associated with the program. These email accounts require that the upload/download speed work at all times. It must also be rather speedy to ensure that emails are sent and received on a regular basis. Check with your email hosting provider about SMTP lag times or restrictions. Some providers may limit the amount of “pushes” that can be done within one hour. Other providers may not visibly limit the number but secretly limit the amount that can be sent each and every hour.

There are a number of different ways in which an email host can charge for accounts. The host can either charge per account or for the entire plan for a company. It depends upon the account. Many hosts implement limits on total file attachment size. Anything over ten MB is extremely generous for a host to give. Do not neglect checking into the hosts IP address. Some email hosting companies have been abused or abused their servers themselves. These servers sent out spam emails and were blacklisted by major ISP’s. This simple black listing could cause problems with the deliver ability of messages as well as cost you a number of customers.

There are a number of tools available to check how many websites are hosted on a specific server. It is slightly more difficult with an email hosting company but is still able to be done. While it is common for companies to put hundreds of websites onto one email host server, it is important to check server specifications. Any server that has a load higher than the number of processors should not be handling any more new accounts. Also, ensure that these servers have adequate processing power. One dual core processor is not enough for a server with hundreds of thousands of email accounts. Any web host that is providing this type of service should be avoided at all costs!

Customer service is the last step in the email hosting chain. While no one ever wants to have to speak with customer service that does not mean that it does not happen. In fact, it may be much more common than you think. Talk with customer service about any small problem and see if they will help you. Pricing may be the final factor but without a good customer service team, an email hosting company has nothing!

Email hosts still need to be verified before they are used by any type of business. Most reputable email hosts will allow for a trial account to be created so that any fears can be put to rest. SMTP download speed, account settings, HTTP headers and test emails can be sent to ensure that the account will meet your needs. Email hosting can be a difficult business to succeed in. Excellent customer support is rare to find. Companies that provide it often do not have an excellent quality product. Finding a combination of both an excellent quality product and superb customer support is not impossible.

Email hosting is all about redundancy. Hosts need to have redundant systems in place to ensure that you continue to receive email even if your main server down. This could be due to a power outage or a hardware problem. Typically, another server in another data center will pick up the slack. However, hosts who want to save money and do not want to pay for the extra cost will try to skimp. Talk with your email host to ensure that at least double redundancy is in place for your email hosting solution.

SMTP lag time is a big problem among web hosts. Having your email download to your computer is important to some individuals. Depending upon whether or not it is important to your email hosting solution, you should check the SMTP download time on multiple machines. Most of the time you will not encounter a problem, should you notice one, contact the support at your email host.

Each email hosting account should cost no more than three dollars per month. This price allows a host to provide excellent quality support and a first class product. The email hosting company should not offer “unlimited” disk space or “no size restriction” attachments. They are simply not going to be able to back this up should they be faced with a situation of abuse. It is always better to deal with an email hosting company that sets definite limits rather than a company that oversells what it is able to provide. It shows that the company actually respects their customers as well as is honest about their product.

Email hosting can be one of the most difficult web products to select for your business. Email is so vital to so many different functions of a business. Whether it is communication with a client or receipt of an invoice, email powers almost everything. Check out the many specialized email hosting providers before making a final decision on who hosts your email.

That is, until they need it. There may be a question about an older order or someone may be confused about a detail of a meeting. They can consult the older email archiving feature. That way they will be ready to go and not have to contact the other person again. Email archiving increase productivity by over 50% among individuals who use it within their web mail or desktop email clients. Email archiving is quite similar to search through your email. A user is typically able to pull up an email by entering the email address, subject line or keywords that they are looking for. The more details they know, the better luck they will typically have with accessing the email.

Email archiving is a relatively new feature to be added to many web mail programs as well as desktop clients. Google Mail commonly known as Gmail is infamous for its archive button. Google is also the king of search and their email archiving product is extremely good. Businesses who are interested in using it can sign up under the Google Apps for Business program. This program gives each business user an email address under the corporate domain name as well as access to Google Docs and Calendar. Email archiving on Google Apps for Business can save a business time from having to contact customers to ask for clarification as well as time searching for an old email conversation.

Email archiving also makes it easy for bad people to access your email. You need to ensure that you have a strong password. Criminals who are smart can search for “credit card password” or “bank statement” and find which bank you bank with. They also can reset these passwords and delete these emails from your account. This takes a matter of minutes, thanks to the email archiving software. However, with a secure password this will never become a problem for you.

Have a to do list that needs to be updated? Well, check your recent client requests with client archiving. Need to see which unread messages have been sent to the archive? No problem! Email archiving software does not have to be difficult to use either. Even older users or younger users who have never used it before understand the basics of how to use the software. Best of all, users are able to quickly consult emails and then get back to the task at hand. Secretaries for email at some major companies have already been eliminated. Interns are able to search for keywords through email archiving software, solving the problem of an onslaught of email.

The most relevant rules fall under the Administrative section of the Privacy rule of HIPAA. They stipulate that adequate safeguards are in place to protect email and any other media electronic or otherwise that contains Personal Health Information (PHI). Any record that includes details about your health or medical information is regarded as PHI and falls under the HIPAA email compliance rules. The Privacy rule is a stipulation of what we would all hope was what most organizations would consider good email etiquette anyway. Practices like making emails secure, checking the address before sending to prevent information being sent to the wrong people, and checking attachments and records to ensure the right information gets to the right people.

HIPAA Email Compliance is one of the many parts of the legislation that is enthusiastically enforced. It’s something that both the government and the consumer both agree on, and should take steps to ensure is complied with. We all know that information is a commodity, and is a valuable resource that many entities would pay good money to access. Ensuring your own medical information is secure is as important as the government ensuring compliance of HIPAA.

The cost of becoming compliant was significant for many organizations when the law was first passed in 1996. Fortunately, the measures needed to become compliant benefit the business as a whole, so while it was a significant effort to comply with the HIPAA Email Compliance rules, it wasn’t wasted money.

To become compliant, companies have to secure their IT systems, especially email servers and storage. They also had to increase building security, employee security and ensure their email system was safe and secure. These are steps that many companies were taking anyway to secure proprietary data. Others weren’t so careful and had to spend thousands of dollars securing systems, upgrading security and taking other measures to safeguard information. The added benefit of this was that every company involved lessened the risk of their own data being accessed as well as that of their clients or employees.

Of course now, HIPAA email compliance is only one of the myriad of legislation that business has to contend with in order to be completely legal in the American marketplace. Since Enron, there has been a raft of new accountability legislation from several entities that stipulates that email has to be stored securely, used securely and be available for inspection at any time. The modern marketplace is a complicated one and the average company needs expert legal assistance to even start trading.