Isulong SEOPH

In 1997, I decided after 15 years as a practicing CPA that it was time to put down my pencil and explore a new venture on the exciting new internet which, while perhaps not exactly in its infancy at that point, was still at least a pimply faced teenaged medium still unexplored by most accountants.

I founded CPAsites.com and made a life for myself and a few other employees by designing and managing websites for CPA firms across the country. We had no competition in the early, heady days of the late 90’s and were able to quickly secure a name for ourselves by offering quality sites to quality firms. Read the rest of this entry »

If you are a parent, as am I, I think we can agree there is little else more important than keeping our children safe and protected. It’s difficult enough keeping them safe from the unscrupulous people we read about in the news, but dealing with children and the Internet takes it to a completely new level.

Many young people find instant messaging and e-mail a convenient and fun way to talk with their friends. If you have children, like me, when they’re not on the phone, they’re talking with their friends on the Internet. We have very strict rules and guidelines about who they can talk with and for how long. We have given them detailed instructions on what to do when they receive e-mail from someone they don’t know or receive an anonymous instant message. Read the rest of this entry »

There you are busily typing away on your PC or your Laptop, and all of a sudden the strangest thing happens. The screen goes black, extinquished like a candle in the wind.

A message appears saying: “The file hal.dll is missing or corrupt. Windows can not start.” Well you know that 95% of computer glitches are solved by a simple reboot, so click…oops, can’t click, no Windows. Ok then, you reset, and you think you are sure to be OK when the reboot completes. Read the rest of this entry »

Over £5 billion pounds was spent on online shopping in 2004. The Internet was the fastest growing retail sector last year, attracting one in four shoppers. The growth rate for the online market was 27.4 per cent, six times better than for the traditional retail market. This looks set to rise as more and more people look for more convenient ways of shopping. It’s easy to search for a product and then purchase it – all at the click of a button and from the comfort of your home. You have a fun time shopping, browsing, reading and gathering information about products, and you don’t have to take time out from your busy schedule to fight traffic, crowds and queues to buy the perfect gift for your recipient. Read the rest of this entry »

Millions of people make purchases online, but many people are still wary. They fear the unknown and have many doubts and questions about who they are dealing with. They are afraid of being scammed, and rightfully so. Online shopping can be a completely safe and rewarding experience provided you are dealing with a legitimate, reputable retailer. But how do you know if they are legitimate??? Here lies the “fear of the unknown.”

Well, as with anything in life, there are precautions to take, questions you should ask yourself, and signs to look out for. Provided you are careful with who you decide to purchase from, online shopping can be a very convenient and pleasurable experience. Read the rest of this entry »

If you use emails actively in your communication, you must have received various messages claiming to be from Ebay, Paypal and a number of banks. A recent email as if from U.S. Bank Corporation that I received contains the subject “U.S. Bank Fraud Verification Process” and in the body of the mail it says “We recently reviewed your account, and suspect that your U.S. Bank Internet Banking account may have been accessed by an unauthorized third party. Protecting the security of your account and of the U.S. Bank network is our primary concern. Therefore, as a preventative measure, we have temporarily limited access to sensitive account features. To restore your account access, please take the following steps to ensure that your account has not been compromised:”. It continues with a link to a webpage, which looks very similar to original web page of the bank. Read the rest of this entry »

Well, if that would have been said to me by my father when I was 2 years of age, I would have understood. But when today, my own computer tells me that when I am 34, I wonder why I spent $1500 on my computer hardware and software just to enjoy the (un-realized) benefits of this great and revolutionary information technology?

Today’s cyberspace is hazardous. None of today’s PC users can claim that they never had a computer virus issue or a PC security breach. Now, if you count today’s number of PC users worldwide, they will soon be 1 billion by 2010 according to analysts. Read the rest of this entry »

For many, the daily walk to the mailbox evokes mixed feelings: The glee that your favorite monthly magazine – or a friend’s hand-written letter (quite a surprise in the e-mail age) may be waiting is countered by anxiety of how many bills the postman left you.

Now, imagine coming across your phone bill, thicker and heavier than normal. When you open it, instead of “statement stuffers” from the phone company’s marketing department, the bill is dozens of pages long ending in a one-month total of almost $5,400. Read the rest of this entry »

For many, the daily walk to the mailbox evokes mixed feelings: The glee that your favorite monthly magazine – or a friend’s hand-written letter (quite a surprise in the e-mail age) may be waiting is countered by anxiety of how many bills the postman left you.

Now, imagine coming across your phone bill, thicker and heavier than normal. When you open it, instead of “statement stuffers” from the phone company’s marketing department, the bill is dozens of pages long ending in a one-month total of almost $5,400. Read the rest of this entry »

One evening, during the graveyard shift, an AOL technical support operator took a call from a hacker. During the hour long conversation the hacker mentioned he had a car for sale. The technical support operator expressed an interest so the hacker sent him an e-mail with a photo of the car attached. When the operator opened the attachment it created a back door that opened a connection out of AOL’s network, through the firewall, allowing the hacker full access to the entire internal network of AOL with very little effort on the hacker’s part. Read the rest of this entry »