Conficker Virus Apparently No Joke

Malware creators love to target April Fool's Day with their wares, and the latest worm, called Conficker C, could be one of the most damaging attacks we've seen in years according to Christopher Null: The Working Guy in an article titled, "Beware Conficker worm come April 1." The malicious program is thought to have already infected between 5 million and 10 million computers, and is such a great threat that there's a $250,000 bounty from Microsoft for anyone who catches the program's author.

In an article titled, "No joke in April Fool's Day computer worm," by John D. Sutter, one quick way to tell if your computer may have been infected is to check to see if you've gotten automatic updates from Windows in March. If so, your computer is probably fine. If not, you should go to http://safety.live.com/.

If you use antivirus software, you should check to see that you've received their latest updates as well. These programs may have also been disabled by Conficker C.

Remember, your best line of defense against computer crashes of any kind is to regularly back up all of your data.

Scared of Social Media Marketing? Don't Be!

So you'd like to delve into the social media marketing scene, but you're afraid... well, maybe not afraid, but you don't have the first clue where to start. I think you're in the boat with a lot of freelancers who haven't gotten their feet wet in the social media pool yet.

Because social media marketing seems so complicated--with a huge learning curve--a lot of people feel like it's a waste of their time to become informed. I beg to differ and so does Michael A. Stelzner. He's so commited to making people comfortable with Social Media Marketing, that he's written a report, AND he's giving it away for free!

In his report titled "SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING INDUSTRY REPORT, How Marketers Are Using Social Media to Grow Their Businesses" (March 2009), Michael has spent a lot of time and energy sharing the results of this industry report. He says,

If you're in charge of marketing your business, you'll want to closely examine what's on the following pages. My team turned over every rock, looking for the "not so obvious" findings among this content-rich data.

We set out to uncover the "who, what, where, when and why " of social media marketing with this report. Nearly 900 of your peers provided the kind of insight that previously has not existed.

If you're pondering starting social media marketing, it's my hope that these findings will help push you over the edge. If you're already onboard, feel free to examine what the really experienced marketers are doing (and use this study to persuade others.

Check out Michael's report. It's my hope that you'll begin to see that Social Media Marketing will be a great marketing avenue for your freelance writing career.

Writers: Use Cheap Ink!

As writers, we tend to use a lot of ink. My business expense for ink and paper alone is probably about 70 - 80 percent of my budget. Well, there's good news. PCWorld did an extensive study, and they say that it's safe to go "cheap" on your ink expense.

In their article, "Cheap Ink: Will It Cost You?", PCWorld found that inexpensive third-party or remanufactured printer ink cartridges may be worth the savings. An added bonus? They sometimes yield more prints than their new, branded counterparts too! From the article:

PC World teamed up with the Rochester Institute of Technology, a respected research university known for its top-notch laboratory for testing imaging products. Using popular ink jet printers from Canon, Epson, Hewlett-Packard, Kodak, and Lexmark, we ran side-by-side tests of brand-name and third-party inks to compare image quality and fade resistance. We also tracked how many pages each cartridge churned out before running dry.

Our tests show that all of the third-party inks in our test group yielded more prints per cartridge--on top of costing less--but that, with some notable exceptions, the printer manufacturers' ink we evaluated usually produced better-quality prints and proved more resistant to fading. Of course, our conclusions apply only to the printers we tested. We couldn't test all of the printers that are available (partly because you can't get third-party ink for all of them), so we picked a set of mainstream inkjet printers from recognized brands as a way of taking a snapshot view of the ink market.

If you print photos, the cheap ink may not work for you because it is less resistant to fading, but if you're primarily print text, PCWorld says there's every reason to choose the cheap stuff. Your estimated savings? $30 on a black-ink replacement cartridge compatible with an HP 45 inkjet printer according to PCWorld.

What other ways have you saved on business expenses?

FedEx is offering free resume printing...

FedEx is offering free resume printing today, March 10, 2009. From their press release:

FedEx Office (formerly FedEx Kinko’s), an operating company of FedEx Corp. (NYSE: FDX), today announced plans to offer its printing services in an effort to help job seekers across the nation. The company will host "FedEx Office Free Resume Printing Day" on March 10, 2009, offering to print up to 25 copies of each customer’s resume for free.

As reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor, the nation’s unemployment rate rose to 7.6 percent and the number of unemployed persons increased to 11.6 million in January 2009. With so many people looking to get their printed resumes in the hands of recruiters and hiring managers, FedEx Office is prepared to help.

The company invites customers to take advantage of this one-day event by visiting any of its 1,600+ FedEx Office Print and Ship Centers in the United States during regular business hours. This offer is good for 25 black-and-white resume copies per customer and is only valid for orders placed and picked up in-store. Customers may place orders by submitting their resume in printed format or as a digital file, and the copies will be printed single-sided on resume-quality paper.

"We understand that the economy has affected many people in a very profound way, and we want to help," said Brian Philips, president and CEO of FedEx Office. "Printing resumes is one small way we can use our resources to help those who need it."

To find the nearest FedEx Office Print and Ship Center, visit www.fedex.com or call 1-800-Go-FedEx (1-800-463-3339).

Go out and get your free resumes!

Economic stability...We can all use some of that!

A blogger friend of mine just spilled the beans today that he isn't being paid for his blog posts. He had been posting quite intermittently and it was becoming apparent that something was wrong, but there were no real explanations...until today.

The really sad part? The company that he blogs for is very well known by writers (think magazine)--and it's really a shame. Seriously, this company knows full well that writers don't eat if they don't get paid.

If nothing else, they should have told him that they were struggling financially--that they weren't going to be able to pay him any longer and let him go on his way. He'll probably do that at this point anyway, but they should have been up front with him.

This story is nothing new to writers these days. There are new instances daily of writers who aren't being paid for work that they've done. Plus, with the current economy--and magazines closing left and right--the pool of freelance writers just keeps getting larger and larger. What's a writer to do to stay calm? Make a plan and get creative!

One way to start planning--with some calm--is to check out Heather Boerner's new 30-day challenge at Serenity for the Self-Employed. Her new series is called the 30-Day Economic Stability Challenge. Check out today's post here.

I plan on following Heather's blog throughout the month, and I hope to learn a lot! Thanks for such a timely challenge, Heather!