The Benefits of Organic Fertilisers

These days, in a tight market, it's becoming increasingly important for farmers to make the most of their soils. One way to do this is by using organic fertilisers. As soils are farmed more aggressively, compaction becomes a major problem. This compaction decreases root penetration and makes it more difficult for worms to move through the soil. Compaction can be reversed through in-ground composting as witnessed at John and George De Palma's dairy farm in Muckatah, Victoria.

Sunshine Coast Plasterers

Having just been doing some work on my house I can recommend some Sunshine Coast plasterers who did a great job using the latest dust-free techniques. The head guy is called Mark and you can find his details at www.plasterersunshinecoast.com.au.

Environmentally Sustainable Bamboo Flooring

Bamboo floors are environmentally sustainable being harvested from controlled bamboo forests which take one tenth of the time to grow as traditional hardwoods. Make sure you ask whether the flooring you're about to buy is manufactured using non-toxic glues and water based coatings in a waste free environment. Some cheap products use cheap manufacturing which inevitably involves cutting corners and using toxic chemicals.

Logo Design Sunshine Coast

Need to re-brand your business? Or starting up a new business? Want a professional logo designed from $199? Visit Logo Design Sunshine Coast.

Budget Shower Screens

Budget Shower Screens Brisbane offer low-cost, quality shower screens, mirrors and sliding wardrobes. They service the Greater Brisbane area which stretches from Beenleigh in the south to Caboolture in the north. But have a word with Paul, who's a local, and he's happy to deal with Sunshine Coast people too. Shower screens and mirrors come as frameless, semi-frameless and framed. Sliding wardrobe doors come in framed and semi-frameless.

XP Hackers

Hi-tech criminals are "escalating" attacks on an unpatched bug in the Windows XP help and support system.

Microsoft said it had seen more than 10,000 machines hit by the attack that, so far, it has not found a fix for.

Windows PCs falling victim will have control of that machine handed over to attackers.

Microsoft said the attacks had gone from theoretical to real very quickly and urged users to take steps to protect themselves.

'Nightmare' attack

Microsoft revealed the upturn in attacks in a blog post saying that it had been monitoring activity around the loophole since it was first revealed on 10 June.

Found by Google engineer Travis Ormandy, the loophole revolves around the Help and Support system built into XP. Mr Ormandy found that it was possible to exploit its ability to give remote aid and apply fixes to ailing machines.

Initially, said Microsoft, it only saw "innocuous" attacks by researchers attempting to replicate what Mr Ormandy had found.

Real exploits turned up on 15 June and these have been enthusiastically adopted by hi-tech criminals.

Writing on the Microsoft Security Centre blog, Holly Stewart said it had started seeing "seemingly-automated, randomly-generated" web pages that host the exploit.

A variety of trojans, spam tools and viruses are being downloaded to compromised machines, she said.

Rik Ferguson, senior security researcher at Trend Micro, said: "It's certainly very serious and is now being actively exploited by what appears to be several different groups as you can see form the multiple payloads being delivered."

Carole Thierault, senior security consultant at Sophos, said attacks like this were a "nightmare" to defend against if people did not regularly update or use anti-virus.

Statistics gathered by Microsoft suggest Portugal was taking the brunt of the attacks but users in Russia and Croatia were also being hit. More than 10,000 machines had been hit at least once by the attack, it found.

To avoid falling victim, Microsoft advised users to turn off the part of the Help and Support system that is vulnerable. It has produced an automated tool that can do this for users.

Mr Ferguson from Trend Micro said there were other steps users could take to stay safe.

"It is important to ensure that your security software is capable of identifying and blocking malicious websites," he said, "as you can be sure that the criminals behind this will be constantly updating their malicious files to try and avoid traditional security."

Microsoft said it was working on a lasting fix for the loophole.

Original article on www.bbc.co.uk

Aboriginal Art

A new aboriginal art gallery has opened up in Palm Cove. Pandanus Gallery deal direct with the indigenous artists and provide exhibitions and promotions for upcoming aboriginal artists.

We've been lucky enough to create their website which links with the Artists Management System used by aboriginal communities throughout Australia.

If you're up in Palm Cove, check it out. They're on the Esplanade at the Drift shopping complex.

Affordable Websites

At Sunshine Coast web design company, Ion e-Business we've been working hard over the past 6 months to come up with affordable solutions for small businesses. Now we've got several products that every small business can afford. Check out our website and see what's going on: www.ionebusiness.com.au.

My Pets Wardrobe

My Pets Wardrobe are a dog clothing company specialising in dog clothes, dog fashion and accessories. We are pleased to announce their upcoming new e-commerce website integrated with Paypal. My Pets Wardrobe have been a success story up until now, starting out selling their gear in markets around Queensland. We wish them continued success for the future and look forward to helping them acheive their goals through our new website design.

Purchase Direct Wholesale Clothing

We are pleased to take on board a new client in the form of wholesale clothing distibutor Purchase Direct, based in Noosa Heads. What started out as a consultation into performing search engine optimisation work has turned into a full e-commerce project. We will now be doing a new web design, search engine optimisation and pay-per-click management of their Google Adwords.

Google is eBay Critic

The Australian competition watchdog has accidentally revealed Google as the anonymous source of a submission that is highly critical of eBay's proposal to force its users onto the PayPal payments system.

The submission in question is a 38-page critique of the eBay plan which it calls "anti-competitive", arguing that there would be no net public benefit if eBay were given the green light to proceed.

The digital "fingerprint" that links Google to the submission posted on the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) website was discovered by David Bromage, a disgruntled eBay user and model train enthusiast from Canberra.

He examined the hidden so-called meta data in the downloaded submission which was posted as a PDF document and found this nugget: "Microsoft Word - 204481916_1_ACCC Submission by Google re eBay Public _2_.DOC".

Translated it means that the PDF was created from a Microsoft Word document with the filename "204481916_1_ACCC Submission by Google re eBay Public _2_.DOC".

A few hours after Bromage's discovery was posted on the AuctionBytes website yesterday, the PDF submission on the ACC site was taken down. It returned later on Thursday afternoon, this time without the incriminating meta data.

The submission was made in response to a call last month by the ACCC for interested parties to comment on eBay's application to grant it immunity from prosecution under the Trade Practices Act ahead of the PayPal changes.

The US-headquartered auction company argues that the public benefits of the move - including enhanced transaction security - would outweigh any detriment to the public caused by a reduction in competition in the online payments market.

PayPal - which is owned by eBay - allows online sellers to accept credit card payments and money transfers without having their own merchant credit card accounts.

Currently, merchants can also accept credit cards, direct debit, money orders and cheques, but from June 17 eBay wants to allow only PayPal or cash on delivery.

The ACCC's response to eBay's request is being closely watch around the world. eBay is using Australia as the guinea pig and a green light by the Australian regulator would lead to the change being rolled out across eBay's global network of auction sites.

The plan is also not popular with many eBay users because the auction company extracts a fee for use of the PayPal system, in addition to auction fees.

More at SMH.

Sunshine Coast Web Design

'Environmentally Friendly' Search Engine

A new Australian green search engine seeking to capitalise on web surfers' eco-guilt has been barred by Google from using its search technology and advertising platform.

Ecocho.com.au, launched just a week ago, promises to buy carbon offset credits that will result in two trees being planted for every 1000 searches made through the site. It gives users the option of searching through either Yahoo or Google and serves up their ads alongside search results.

But like other green search engines, it is questionable whether Ecocho really is any more environmentally friendly than regular Google search.

Furthermore, Ecocho's founder, Tim Macdonald, is also the co-founder of Found Agency, a high-profile search engine optimisation company that has been penalised by Google for breaking its rules in the past.

Google Australia spokesman Rob Shilkin said Ecocho was barred because it broke Google's AdSense policies.

Google's policy is that publishers running Google advertising must not "compensate users for viewing ads or performing searches, or promise compensation to a third party for such behaviour". By promising to plant trees, Ecocho broke those rules.
"The site was in clear violation of our terms of service and we had previously warned the owner of past violations," Shilkin said.

"We have now stopped serving ads and search results to the owner's sites."

An angry Macdonald accused Google of not applying its rules consistently, saying other green search engines using Google technology had been allowed to operate without issue. However, the other search engines, such as Blackle.com, do not explicitly promise to plant trees in return for searches.

Macdonald said his company met with Google in January and went through the project "in some detail" but was not informed it would be breaking the rules.

He would not say how much profit his company was making from the site but acknowledged the cost of planting the trees would be less than the advertising revenue.

"It is a business, it's not a not-for-profit, we've been very transparent about that," he said.

The benefit of specialist green search engines is questionable because Google itself has invested heavily in green initiatives. Google claims it is carbon neutral, whereas the servers powering sites such as Ecocho are not.

When questioned over this, Macdonald said: "We've got a lot of users on the site who are using it from all over the world saying that it's a great idea."

Another green search engine, Blackle.com, based in Sydney, has also been criticised for cashing in on web surfers' eco-guilt.

The site is a custom version of Google with a black rather than white background, which its creators said could save thousands of watts of power a year because it takes less juice for a monitor to display black than white.

However, that claim was proved false by extensive testing, which found the power saving benefits were negligible or non-existent. Like Ecocho, Blackle profits from advertisements appearing next to search results.

In May last year, Macdonald's company, Found Agency, saw its Google ranking tumble after it was caught unfairly manipulating its search rankings.

At the time, Found's other co-founder, Zak Asani, admitted to the Search Engine Room website that the company liked to test Google's boundaries.

"We've got between 1500 and 2000 websites running at any one time that we use to test the boundaries," he said.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Tools

I thought I'd share with you a few tools that I use when going about my day-to-day search engine optimisation (SEO) business.

Multiple Data Center Google Search

This tool tells you how your website ranks in a variation of Google data centres. Usually, if your ranking results differ through the data centres then this means that indexing is usually taking place.

Link Popularity Checker

Link popularity is important because it is a major factor used by search engines to determine a website's position in the search results.

Page Rank Checker

This tool will automatically check the Google page rank of any website.

Future Page Rank Checker

This tool will query Google's various data centers to check for any changes in PageRank values for a given URL. Usually all data centers will output the same, but if queried during an update, you might get a glimpse of any upcoming changes in your chosen URL's PageRank value.

Domain Age Checker

A website’s age is one of the major factors used to rank it in the search engines. Use this tool to find the age of any domain, including your competitors’ or ones you might want to purchase. Older domains may get a slight edge in search engine rankings.

I hope these tools prove useful.

ion e-business web design

Google Announces Job Losses

Google has announced its first sizeable cuts, with the axing of 300 jobs at its online advertising unit DoubleClick.

The lay-offs make up about a quarter of DoubleClick's 1,200-strong workforce in the US. Worldwide, DoubleClick has about 1,500 employees.

Google's chief executive Eric Schmidt has suggested that overseas operations, employing a further 300 people, will also be affected at a later date.

It is a first for Google and perhaps not one they want to trumpet too much.

In a statement, Google said: "Since our acquisition of DoubleClick closed on March 11, we have been working to match and align DoubleClick employees in the US with our organisational plan for the business.

"As with many mergers, this review has resulted in a reduction in head-count at the acquired company."

Privacy concerns

Some workers have been laid off already, while Google says others are being offered transitional roles, or contract jobs, which are expected to end after the two companies are fully integrated.

In a blog posting in March, Mr Schmidt gave a heads-up that job cuts would be likely and that those outside the US would be made "in accordance with local law".

At over $3 billion (£1.5bn), Google's purchase of DoubleClick is its largest to date and completed less than a month ago, after being held up by regulators for a year.

At the time, the deal was heavily criticised and resisted by non-profit privacy groups which argued that it would give Google unprecedented access to information about consumers' online behaviour.

Microsoft and AT&T also opposed the transaction, which was approved by the Federal Trade Commission in December.

Conflict of interest?

On top of the news of the lay-offs, Google says it also plans to sell a DoubleClick unit called Performics Search Marketing.


That arm of the business helps marketers place adverts on search engines, including those owned by Google and its main rivals in the field, Yahoo and Microsoft.

It has always been felt that this represented a conflict of interest for Google.

In an official Google blog, Tom Phillips, director of DoubleClick Integration, writes: "It is clear to us that we do not want to be in the search engine marketing business.

"At Google, maintaining objectivity in both search and advertising is paramount to our mission and core to the trust we ask from our users."

Industry watchers maintain that the decision to sell off Performics Search Marketing makes good business sense and that Google's primary focus is to get paid as much as possible for the adverts that appear on its pages.

Rumours abound that Google is already in talks with a third party to sell the business for an undisclosed sum.

Although on his blog Mr Phillips maintains no buyer is waiting in the wings, he does concede there has been quite a bit of interest "from a number of current partners".

Danny Sullivan, editor of SeachEngineLand.com, praises the much anticipated sell-off and says it was not unexpected.

Google said the business would continue to run as a separate entity until the division was sold.

Kasmara Wongaling Beach

Kasmara located in Wongaling Beach, is Mission Beach’s latest private gated estate sitting on a slightly elevated beachfront position on prized Banfield Parade, and just a few footsteps to the tranquil waters of Wongaling Beach.

This fourteen lot real estate sub-division is unrivalled on a 3.6 acre beachfront location, sensitively designed to maximise the ocean views from twelve of the fourteen lots.

Currently under development and selling off the plan, these fully serviced Wongaling Beach real estate lots range in size from 600m2 to 1022m2 and are set around a substantial garden oasis, with a Balinese style pavilion overlooking the large ornamental lily pond. Extensive use of native vegetation throughout Kasmara will create a natural environment bringing an abundance of birds and butterflies.

Wongaling Beach real estate Building covenants are in place to create tropically designed homes that blend in with the surroundings and promote sustainable living. You can design your own, or Award Winning Architect Chris Van Dyke has a range of Concept Designs for Kasmara that you can choose from. (Get in quick, available free to the first seven buyers only.)

Adjacent to the new Woolworths Shopping Village (due for completion June 08) is the Wongaling Beach Shopping Centre and the Mission Beach Resort is located only a short walk away. Excellent restaurants are close by and two great golf courses are a short drive inland, or for those who prefer to fish or snorkel the Great Barrier Reef and nearby islands beckon. Others wishing to take in the magic of the rainforest can enjoy any number of surrounding walks, or right out front you can walk the length of Wongaling Beach, South Mission Beach or North Mission Beach.

If it’s the friendly relaxed lifestyle that brings you to Mission Beach, then don't miss out on this opportunity to live in your own private gated estate in Kasmara, Wongaling Beach at a very affordable price.

Contact Andersons Real Estate or visit the Kasmara Wongaling Beach website for more information.

Hi-Tech Thieves Steal PINs

An international gang of fraudsters is ripping off bank customers at ATMs across Sydney, using high-tech devices to copy card details and access their accounts.

More than 100 customers of one bank lost money after their cards were "skimmed" at ATMs.

The crooks place dummy card scanners over the slot where cards go into the ATM to read the card's magnetic strip. Tiny cameras are hidden above the ATM to record the secret pin number being punched in.

St George Bank had to call up to 100 customers last week to tell them their cards had been cancelled as they had probably been skimmed.

Arncliffe pensioner Annette Cruger was told by St George Bank's fraud section her account had been illegally accessed in Canada over the weekend and $1100 had been stolen.

"The bank said they had to call 80 to 100 customers who had been 'skimmed' at ATMs and the bank had to cancel their cards to stop more money being stolen from their accounts," she said.

"The bank did not seem to know where the card had been skimmed as they asked me which ATMs I normally use so they could cross-reference it with others who had been skimmed."

Fraud squad head Detective Superintendent Col Dyson said his squad busted an international skimming gang of Bulgarians two years ago who had plundered $1.6 million from 600 accounts, but he could not say if the same gang was back.

Seven gang leaders escaped the police net and fled to Canada where they raided Australian accounts at ATMs around Toronto using cards copied from the Sydney operation.

Superintendent Dyson said even more high-tech skimming devices were appearing overseas which use a touch sensitive cover over the keypad to record the pin numbers, transmitting the code to a laptop computer up to 100 metres away.

Detective Sergeant Peter Meagher said the skimming devices were cleverly disguised.

But all the experts agree there is a perfect low-tech solution to the high-tech crime: shield your hand typing in the pin code so the hidden camera can't see it.

How it works

1. Crooks attach covering to top or side of ATM cabin to that contains a tiny camera to record the secret pin code being punched in the keypad.

2. Attach replica of slot opening where card is inserted which reads the magnetic strip and stores it before it goes into ATM.

3. Overseas crooks are using keypad covers that transmit the numbers to a laptop up to 100 metres away.

4. Crooks retrieve devices after 20 to 30 uses, copy magnetic strip data onto blank card and use secret pin number to access account.

SMH

YouTube On The Blink

Most of the world's internet users lost access to YouTube for several hours after an attempt by Pakistan's government to block access domestically affected other countries.

The outage highlighted yet another of the internet's vulnerabilities, coming less than a month after broken fibre-optic cables in the Mediterranean took Egypt offline and caused communications problems from the Middle East to India.

An internet expert likened the cause of the outage to "identity theft" by a Pakistani telecommunications company, which accidentally started advertising itself as the fastest route to YouTube.

But instead of serving up videos of skateboarding dogs, it sent the traffic into oblivion.

On Friday, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority ordered 70 internet service providers to block access to YouTube.com, because of anti-Islamic movies on the video-sharing site, which is owned by Google Inc.

The authority did not specify what the offensive material was, but a PTA official said the ban concerned a trailer for an upcoming film by Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders, who has said he plans to release a movie portraying Islam as fascist and prone to inciting violence against women and homosexuals.

The block was intended to cover only Pakistan, but extended to about two-thirds of the global internet population, starting at 1847 GMT yesterday (0547 AEDT Monday), according to Renesys Corp, a Manchester, New Hampshire, firm that keeps track of the pathways of the internet for telecommunications companies and other clients.

The greatest effect was in Asia, were the outage lasted for up to two hours, Renesys said.

YouTube confirmed the outage today, saying it was caused by a network in Pakistan.

"We are investigating and working with others in the internet community to prevent this from happening again," YouTube said in an emailed statement.

A YouTube spokeswoman did not immediately respond to an emailed question on whether the clips that offended Pakistan's government had been removed. Several clips with interviews of Wilders were still up on the site this afternoon.

Two apparent errors allowed the outage to propagate beyond Pakistan, according to Todd Underwood, vice-president and general manager of internet community services at Renesys.

Pakistan Telecom established a route that directed requests for YouTube videos from local internet subscribers to a "black hole", where the data was discarded, according to Renesys. Pakistan Telecom's mistake was that it then published that route to its international data carrier, PCCW Ltd of Hong Kong, Underwood said.

The second mistake was that PCCW accepted that route, Underwood said. It started directing requests from its customers for YouTube data to Pakistan. And since PCCW is one of the world's 20 largest data carriers, its routing table was passed along to other large carriers without any attempt at verification.

"Once a pretty big network gets an error like that, it propagates to most or all of the internet very quickly," Underwood said. As he put it, Pakistan Telecom was impersonating YouTube to much of the world.

Pakistan Telecom and the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority were unavailable for comment tonight local time.

Rex Stover, vice president of sales for PCCW Global in Herndon, Virginia, said the company was still trying to figure out what happened and why.

SMH

Website Design, Web Development and Online Marketing

A website can be a very effective marketing tool for your business. Imagine having advertising coverage available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week across the globe - that is what a web site enables you to have. There are many factors in successful website design not least of which is the ability to find the website in the search engines.

We are a website design, web development and software development company based on the Sunshine Coast and in Mission Beach, Queensland, Australia. Our experienced web developers and designers will give you their creative input and help build you the right online identity for your business.

Our website design services include: choosing and registering the best domain name for you; web hosting; graphic design; web design; website development; content management systems; web site updates and fast technical support.

For more information on our services visit the following links to our websites:

Sunshine Coast Website Design
Mission Beach Website Design

We look forward to speaking to you.

ion e-business