Month: October 2007

Java.com Features First Bluetooth Mobile Bicycle Computer

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Java.com, a division of Sun Microsystems, features the first Bluetooth Mobile Bicycle Computer, created by SoundOfMotion for mobile devices. "Stop lugging your cell phone as dead weight while cycling. Put it to work as a bicycle computer" said SoundOfMotion's founder. The innovative Bluetooth wireless motion sensor is at least 250 times more accurate than traditional cycling computers. It accurately measures speed and acceleration, and could measure torque and power without any additional sensors.

Vancouver, BC (PRWEB) October 5, 2007 — Java.com, a division of Sun Microsystems, features the first Bluetooth Mobile Bicycle Computer, created by SoundOfMotion for mobile devices.

Java.com is a wonderland of applications, games, animated greeting cards, screen savers, personal productivity products, and "infotainment" services. It's the ultimate go-to-market showcase for their applications, delivering over 25 million visitors a month. Java powers over 1.5 billion mobile devices.

The bicycle computer includes a Java Verified™ application for mobile devices and a specially designed Bluetooth wireless motion sensor, mounted on a wheel. The new cycling computer application offers many features not found in traditional bicycle computers, such as a large color display, travel data downloads and sound simulation. Priced at $69, first adopters can pre-order a Bluetooth wireless motion sensor for their bicycles at a significant discount. The mobile application is available for download from www.SoundOfMotion.com

The innovative Bluetooth wireless motion sensor is at least 250 times more accurate than traditional cycling computers and almost 2000 times better than GPS. This unique sensing technology accurately measures speed and acceleration, and could measure torque and power without any additional sensors.

Using the advantage of a large color display, common in many mobile phones, the application displays speed, acceleration, distance and time in large color digits, making it easy to read while pedaling in the sun or at night. Detailed travel data can be stored on a phone and uploaded to a computer.

One distinct safety feature of the device is a sound simulator. Cyclists often collide with cars and people on city streets because drivers and pedestrians just can't hear an approaching bicycle. Imagine, if a bicycle could sound like a horse, or a steam train?

Current sound themes simulate a motorcycle, horse and steam train. Like ringtones, users could also compose their own sounds. Riders could easily control the sound volume without taking their hands off the handle bar.

The sound simulation safety feature was originally created for commuters but quickly gains popularity among teens and tweens. Some BMX racers embrace the sounds of dirt bikes to create the effect of a real motocross race. At the same time the sound simulation technology allows audible control of speed and acceleration without looking at the display. Just listen to customized sounds corresponding to a range of speed and acceleration.

The Bluetooth mobile bicycle computer has been released for the North American markets. SoundOfMotion plans to deliver the device for European and Asian markets in 2008.

Sensoray Releases Small Format USB Frame Grabber

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Latest USB frame grabber from Sensoray provides hardware video capture & compression in a small form factor.

Portland, OR (PRWEB) October 5, 2007 — Sensoray announced the newest addition to their USB video capture line of products, the 2251. The 2251 provides MPEG and JPEG video compression to Linux and Windows computers via a high speed USB connection. The 2251 accepts an NTSC or PAL composite analog video source. Adjustable resolution and bitrate selections allow the user to define their quality and storage requirements. Sensoray includes a Software Development Kit, SDK, with all of their 2251’s with support for Linux and Windows based computers. The included SDK supports multiple units per computer.

News Image
Motion Detection
The 2251 supports motion detection in three user programmable regions of interest. For each separate region of interest, the user can set up different levels of motion detection sensitivity. Within each of the regions of interest, motion can be further localized to a 16×16 pixel block.

Synchronous Audio:
The 2251 supports synchronous audio capture from a line level input.

Availability and Pricing:
The 2251 is available immediately with pricing starting at $226. Quantity price breaks are available.

About Sensoray:
Sensoray designs and manufactures OEM electronics for video imaging, data acquisition and machine control. Offering drivers for Windows or Linux, and live technical support, Sensoray is committed to helping ensure easy and rapid development. For more information, visit www.sensoray.com.

 

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NCH Software Releases MailBase Email Archiving Software

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NCH Software announce the release of MailBase, a powerful free automatic email archiving utility for businesses supporting multiple email accounts.

Canberra, Australia (PRWEB) October 4, 2007 – NCH Software, specialists in business, audio and video software applications, announce the release of MailBase Email Archiver.

"With email being the most common form of communication between business the process of archiving emails is so important," said Stephanie Lee, marketing manager for NCH Software. "MailBase provides business with a free and comprehensive way of automatically archiving email to safe guard against the possibility of losing vital correspondence in the event of a crash or other unforeseen technical problem."

MailBase runs on a business' server and can support an unlimited number of email accounts. The software automatically creates storage folders for each email address and users can access their archived emails through a web panel from a web browser (such and FireFox or Internet Explorer).

Before an email is sent or received, MailBase creates a copy of it and stores it in the storage folder. Users can view all emails even if they have since deleted an inbox.

"MailBase is currently a free program," said Stephanie, "and it joins our other free business applications such as Express Invoice, Meo File Encryption, FileFort Backup Utility, our FTP clients and Eyeline Video Surveillance."

All of NCH Software's applications can be downloaded for free from www.nchsoftware.com and specialized business audio applications can be found at www.nch.com.au.

NCH Software is a leader in business, audio and video technology. Since 1993 our software development team has released more than 40 Windows, Mac, Linux, Palm and Pocket PC applications which are now leaders in their classes and have been awarded for software excellence. We continue to develop new programs for a growing number of platforms and solutions. Visit us at www.nchsoftware.com.

Holonyx Releases RESTORE Backup and Recovery Software into Open Source Community

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Holonyx Inc. has released RESTORE, a Linux-based enterprise network backup and recovery solution for Windows, Novell NetWare, Mac OS X, Unix and Linux systems as an open source project.

Loveland, CO (PRWEB) October 4, 2007 — Holonyx Inc. has released RESTORE, a Linux-based enterprise network backup and recovery solution for Windows, Novell NetWare, Mac OS X, Unix and Linux systems. RESTORE is scalable to a complete backup solution for multiple workstations and servers in distributed network environments. RESTORE is also being released as an open source project.

News Image

"RESTORE delivers powerful administration, ease of use, and scalability to meet your backup and recovery needs today and grow with you to meet tomorrow's requirements," said Garret Acott, President of Holonyx.

RESTORE provides scheduled backups as well as the capability to back up computers in multiple physical locations. In addition, no client agent is required for RESTORE; the systems being backed up need only grant RESTORE secured access.

RESTORE also offers a unique feature to hosting providers – the ability to resell backup services along with their current web hosting services. Using RESTORE, resellers of the hosting provider can offer backup of local PC's or servers along with web hosting to their end-user customers. End-users will also be able to restore the files of their hosted websites should local copies become lost or damaged, and be able to select from multiple versions backed up at different points in time. Both of these backup and restore capabilities offer the hosting provider and resellers new revenue opportunities in addition to basic hosting and e-mail functionality they offer now.

Holonyx is placing RESTORE into the open source community and download packages are available at http://sourceforge.net/projects/restore Holonyx Ruffdogs technology division has long been a major player in the open source community and has contributed to numerous open source projects including SME Server, guilinux and MyPHPNuke.

Some of the features of RESTORE include:

 

  • Browser-based – Access your RESTORE system remotely from anywhere using the Internet. This allows users and administrators to run backups or check status at any time.
  • Heterogeneous Operating System Backup – Backup Linux, Unix, Mac OS X, Windows (95, 98, 2000, ME, NT, XP, Vista) and Novell NetWare.
  • Multiple Revisions – Restore from selected backups made at different points in time.
  • Incremental Backup – RESTORE will backup only the files that have been modified since the previous backup took place, optimizing disk space and bandwidth usage.
  • Security – Set up what you want your users and groups to access.
  • User-initiated restore – Users can restore their own files without IT involvement.
  • Access Backups via WebDAV- RESTORE provides a secure environment for accessing/editing/managing files on web-servers.
  • FTP Sites – Allows your company to backup websites and online storage.
  • Error Reporting and Notification – RESTORE will email the administrator and users of successful and failed backups.
  • MySQL support – Backup MySQL databases.

For more information on Restore, visit http://restore.holonyx.com/

About Holonyx
Holonyx Inc. is a business development technology corporation focusing on technology development, operations and manufacturing process improvement, and marketing services. Contact Holonyx at:
Holonyx Inc.
6865 Sherman Street
Loveland, CO 80538
Phone: 970-232-2050
Fax: 970-232-2050

www.holonyx.com

Email Troubleshooting: Back to Basics

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Email has undergone a major transformation in the past decade . What began as a simple means to send a quick message has evolved into a business critical application.  This increased use of email as a primary communication method has placed an emphasis on maintaining the availability of this service to the users. One of the best methods for diagnosing problems with email is what I refer to as “getting back to the basics”.

    Getting back to the basics means separating the email application software from the protocol itself.  Application software can be either an MUA (Mail User Agent) such as Outlook or Thunderbird, or an MTA (Mail Transport Agent) such as Exchange or Postfix. We will concentrate on working with the underlying protocols only.  Troubleshooting  software beyond basic configuration (proper user name and password, correct mail server IP and port number, mailbox setup, etc.) is beyond the scope of this article.

    There are 3 main protocols we will deal with when troubleshooting email. SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) is used to send email. The SMTP protocol “pushes” messages, whether it's from the desktop to the internal email server, or from one email server to another. It is important to keep in mind that this is a “best effort” or “store and forward” protocol which means that there is no guarantee of successful delivery. POP3 (Post Office Protocol 3) and IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) are used to retrieve email. POP3 and IMAP “pull” messages from an email server to the desktop. POP3 downloads the entire message to the desktop when an email is read. IMAP downloads only the email header information when a mail check is performed, the message itself is actually opened and read right on the mail server (making IMAP a bit more bandwidth friendly). Both of these protocols send login credentials to the mail server in clear text unless the secure version of the protocol (POP3S or IMAPS) is used. While there are other proprietary email protocols in use, we will concentrate on the aforementioned 3 which are considered the standards for internet email transport.

    The most important tip I can give is to pay very close attention to any error messages you may receive related to mail delivery. If a user states “I sent an email, but I got an error message back”, you need to tell that user to copy the error message down verbatim. Email error messages are usually very specific about what the problem is. Here's an example:

This is the Postfix program at host mail.mydomain.com.

 

I'm sorry to have to inform you that your message could not

be delivered to one or more recipients. It's attached below.

 

For further assistance, please send mail to <postmaster>

 

If you do so, please include this problem report. You can

delete your own text from the attached returned message.

 

         The Postfix program

 

<joeshmoe@budweiser.com>: host mail1.synacor.com[64.8.70.127] said: 553 sorry,

  your envelope recipient is in rejected. either it has been deactivated or

  does not exist (#5.7.1) (in reply to RCPT TO command)

 

    The above message comes from my mail server (mail.mydomain.com) and is telling me that my message to joeshmoe@budweiser.com could not be delivered. Specifically, the mail server for “budweiser.com” (mail1.synacor.com[64.8.70.127]) said that the recipient (joeshmoe) either doesn't exist or his account has been deactivated. Note the “553”, this is an SMTP reply code. Anything in the 500 range means “permanent error”, the 400 range means “temporary error/will try again”, and anything in the 200 range means “success/OK”.

    Troubleshooting sending (SMTP) errors is done on the command line using the SMTP commands. If you suspect a problem between the desktop and the internal mail server you should do this from the desktop, if the issue is suspected to be outside of your network you need do this from the mail server itself. We'll make a connection to the recipients mail server and attempt to send a message “by hand” using some basic SMTP commands and see what happens. If you are testing from the desktop, you already know what the mail server's IP of FQDN is, if you are testing from your internal mail server to an outside server, you need to look up the name or IP of the recipient's mail server. This can be done with “nslookup” (Windows) or the “dig” command (Linux). Once we know how to get to the recipient's server, we'll make a telnet connection to port 25 (SMTP), then we'll introduce ourselves (the “helo” or “ehlo” command), and finally we will send an email and see what type of reply codes we get. Open up a terminal or command prompt and let's get started!

Look up the mail server:

thughes@thughes:~$ dig mydomain.com mx
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;mydomain.com.                        IN      MX
;; ANSWER SECTION:
mydomain.com.         736     IN      MX      5 mail.mydomain.com.

Make a connection (telnet) to that mail server on port 25 :

thughes@thughes:~$ telnet mail.mydomain.com 25
Trying 73.42.65.188…
Connected to mail.mydomain.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 mail.mydomain.com at your service ESMTP NO UCE  

(notice the 220…that means OK)       

Now, introduce yourself by typing “ehlo <something>” (I typed “ehlo howdy!”):

Trying 74.41.65.188…
Connected to mail.mydomain.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 mail.mydomain.com at your service ESMTP NO UCE
ehlo howdy!
250-mail.mydomain.com
250-PIPELINING
250-SIZE 10240000
250-ETRN
250-STARTTLS
250 8BITMIME

If you get an error when using the “ehlo” (extended helo) command, the server probably doesn't support the extended version of the command so just use the standard “helo” command. Again, notice all the 250 codes, these mean that this server supports all of the listed options.

Let's send an email:

Type “mail from: <your email address>” (the “<” and “>” are necessary in this command)

Trying 74.41.65.188…
Connected to mail.mydomain.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 mail.mydomain.com at your service ESMTP NO UCE
ehlo test
250-mail.mydomain.com
250-PIPELINING
250-SIZE 10240000
250-ETRN
250-STARTTLS
250 8BITMIME
mail from: <thughes@fwpm.com>
250 Ok

(There's that 250 again)

Type “rcpt to: <recipient's email address>”

Trying 74.41.65.188…
Connected to mail.mydomain.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 mail.mydomain.com at your service ESMTP NO UCE
mail from: <thughes@someotherdomain.com>
250 Ok
rcpt to: <thughes@mydomain.com>
250 Ok

(250 again)

Now we need to add some data to the email, so type “data” and hit the “enter” key,  then type “SUBJECT:” (add a subject), hit “enter”, type “FROM:” (type the from address), hit “enter”, type “TO:” (type the to address), hit “enter” twice, and then type the body of your email. When you're done typing your message, hit the “.” key and you should get a message that the email was sent (“queued”) on the recipient's server, then type “quit”. All of the commands that I typed in the following example are in bold type:

Trying 74.41.65.188…
Connected to mail.mydomain.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 mail.mydomain.com at your service ESMTP NO UCE
mail from: <thughes@someotherdomain.com>
250 Ok
rcpt to: <thughes@mydomain.com>
250 Ok
data
354 End data with <CR><LF>.<CR><LF>
FROM: mickeymouse@donaldduck.com
TO: thughes@mydomain.com
SUBJECT: test email

This is a test email
.
250 Ok: queued as 56CBE3B018E
quit
221 Bye
Connection closed by foreign host.

This message was sent successfully (“250 Ok: queued as 56CBE3B018E”). If there was a problem, the reply code would have told me exactly what the problem was. You may also have noticed that when I typed in the “FROM:” field, I used an address other than the one that I used in the initial “mail from:” command, this is because the “FROM:” in the headers of the email do NOT have to match the original connecting (“envelope”) sender. This is how spammers spoof email (heh heh).

    Alright, delivery works, now we need to test mail retrieval. Let's do some POP command line magic next. First, we need to telnet to our internal mail server on port 110 (995 for POPS):

thughes@thughes:~$ telnet mail.mydomain.com 110
Trying 192.168.12.80…
Connected to mail.mydomain.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
+OK dovecot ready.

Now we need to authenticate by typing “user <username>”, hit “enter”, then type “pass <your password>” and hit “enter” again:

thughes@thughes:~$ telnet mail.fwpm.com 110
Trying 192.168.12.80…
Connected to mail.fwpm.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
+OK dovecot ready.
user thughes
+OK
pass *********
+OK Logged in.

We're in!  Now type “list” to see all the emails (they are listed numerically, the first number  is the message number, the second number is the message size), type “retr (message #)”  and hit “enter”, and your message will be displayed. Type “quit” to disconnect from the POP server.

    Finally, let's try email retrieval using IMAP. Telnet to the internal mail server on port 143 (993 for IMAPS) and log in by typing “a01 login <user name> <password>”:

thughes@thughes:~$ telnet mail.mydomain.com 143
Trying 192.168.12.80…
Connected to mail.mydomain.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
* OK dovecot ready.
a01 login thughes ********
a01 OK Logged in.

Next, lets list our mailboxes. Type “a02 list “” “*”” and hit “enter”:

ao2 list "" "*"
* LIST (\NoInferiors) "/" INBOX
* LIST (\NoInferiors \UnMarked) "/" "Trash"
* LIST (\NoInferiors) "/" "Ebay"
* LIST (\NoInferiors) "/" "Sent"
ao2 OK List completed.

Now we can enter a mailbox:

a02 select INBOX
* FLAGS (\Answered \Flagged \Deleted \Seen \Draft Junk $Label1 $Label2 $Label3 $Label4 $Label5 NonJunk)
* OK [PERMANENTFLAGS (\Answered \Flagged \Deleted \Seen \Draft Junk $Label1 $Label2 $Label3 $Label4 $Label5 NonJunk \*)] Flags permitted.
* 1142 EXISTS
* 3 RECENT
* OK [UNSEEN 1131] First unseen.
* OK [UIDVALIDITY 1157335433] UIDs valid
* OK [UIDNEXT 26939] Predicted next UID
a02 OK [READ-WRITE] Select completed.

Fetch the headers for the first email in the list:

ao2 fetch 1 all
* 1 FETCH (FLAGS (\Seen) INTERNALDATE "18-Aug-2006 09:43:33 -0400" RFC822.SIZE 21975 ENVELOPE ("Thu, 17 Aug 2006 13:06:55 -0400" "Official: Jul-Aug 2006 (ISC)2 Newsletter" (("(ISC)2 Management" NIL "management" "isc2.org")) (("(ISC)2 Management" NIL "management" "isc2.org")) (("(ISC)2 Management" NIL "management" "isc2.org")) ((NIL NIL "thughes" "mydomain.com")) NIL NIL NIL "<LYRIS-1619473-1789-2006.08.17-16.13.08–thughes#mydomain.com@isc16.isc2.org>"))
ao2 OK Fetch completed.

Read some mail:

ao2 fetch 1 body[text]

(This should show you the message body)

Close the connection by typing “ao2 logout”:

a02 logout
* BYE Logging out
a02 OK Logout completed.
Connection closed by foreign host.

   
    That's about it for command line troubleshooting using the basic protocols. The point of the preceding exercises is to confirm that mail can be sent and received. If you are successful using the command line to send/retrieve mail but it doesn't work when using applications such as Outlook or Thunderbird, you can now concentrate your efforts on troubleshooting the software application and configuration.

    The logs on your mail server can provide a wealth of information to aid you in diagnosing problems. Becoming proficient in reading the logs is one of the most important things you can do. Take a look at the mail logs and learn how to read them. Try to follow an email through the logs from the time it hit the server until it was delivered to the recipient.  

    Email headers are also a valuable source of information. You can view the complete headers in most email clients by choosing an option such as “view > all headers”, right clicking the email and choosing “view internet headers”, etc. The exact method depends on which client you are using, Google it if you can't figure out how. Headers are read from the bottom up (use the time stamps as a reference). Below is an example of a full set of headers (I added the comments in bold):

Return-Path: <apache@isc18.isc2.org>
 X-Original-To: thughes@fwpm.com
 Delivered-To: thughes@fwpm.com

This is my mail gateway delivering the message to my mail server:

 Received: from fw.fwpm.com (unknown [192.168.12.1])
by mail.fwpm.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 280A23B019E
for <thughes@fwpm.com>; Mon,  1 Oct 2007 10:51:03 -0400 (EDT)

This is my mail gateway processing the mail internally:

 Received: from fw.fwpm.com (localhost [127.0.0.1])
by fw.fwpm.com (Postfix) with SMTP id 4E54FAC07F
for <thughes@fwpm.com>; Mon,  1 Oct 2007 11:08:13 -0400 (EDT)

This is the spam processing and scoring on my mail gateway (spamassassin):

(sender vscan@fw.fwpm.com)
 X-Spam-Checker-Version: mailDefender 3.1.3 (2006-06-01)
 X-Spam-Level: S
 X-Spam-Status: No, hits=1.9 reqd=5.0 tests=NO_REAL_NAME=0.55,
SPF_HELO_SOFTFAIL=0.1,SPF_SOFTFAIL=0.1,XD_DYNAMIC_IP=0.9, XD_MULTIPART=0.2
Bayes=0.5
 X-Spam-Report: *  0.9 XD_DYNAMIC_IP At least one relay is a dynamic IP *  0.6
NO_REAL_NAME From: does not include a real name *  0.2 XD_MULTIPART Email
contain several alternative views *  0.1 SPF_SOFTFAIL SPF: sender does not
match SPF record (softfail) *      [SPF failed: ] *  0.1 SPF_HELO_SOFTFAIL
SPF: HELO does not match SPF record (softfail) *      [SPF failed: ]

This is my mail gateway receiving the email from the sender's server:

 Received: from isc18.isc2.org (isc18.isc2.org [216.12.146.142]) (using TLSv1
with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate
requested) by fw.fwpm.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id E5E2BAC07E for
<thughes@fwpm.com>; Mon,  1 Oct 2007 11:07:48 -0400 (EDT)

This is the sender's server receiving the mail from an internal process:

 Received: from isc18.isc2.org (isc18.isc2.org [127.0.0.1]) by isc18.isc2.org
(8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id l91F7mL0022786 for <thughes@fwpm.com>; Mon, 1
Oct 2007 10:07:48 -0500

Here's the message:

 Message-Id: <200710011507.l91F7mmV022784@isc18.isc2.org>
 Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary
 Content-Type: multipart/related; boundary="_———-=_1191251268227820"
 MIME-Version: 1.0
 X-Mailer: MIME::Lite 3.01 (F2.73; B3.07; Q3.07)
 Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2007 15:07:48 UT
 To: thughes@fwpm.com
 From: service@isc2.org
 Subject: (ISC)2: Confirmation of change to CISSP CPE Record
 X-AVAS-Signature: pfilter.pl Version 1.73
 X-AVAS-EmailID: 20070901-110749-7603
 Status: RO
 X-UID: 26809
 Content-Length: 761
 X-Keywords:
 X-Length: 3068
 
=== This is a system generated message from (ISC)2 ===

Dear T. Hughes:

This email message is blah…blah…blah.

    As you can see, the headers provide a detailed record of mail routing. You can use the time stamps at each hop to determine where any latency in delivery may be. Another trick is to use the header information to verify a spoofed email. If an email appears to come from somebody you know but looks suspicious, view the headers to determine the IP address of the original sending server. Perform a “whois” lookup on that IP address; if it comes back as registered to a Chinese or Eastern European domain (for example) you can be certain it is a spoof.

    Lastly, I want to comment about email security. Today's users tend to send anything (including very sensitive or personal information) via email without any thoughts of security or confidentiality. Email is not secure! As mentioned earlier, SMTP, POP3, and IMAP are all clear text protocols. This is akin to sending your snail mail on postcards instead of inside an envelope, safe from prying eyes. There are a few basic precautions you can take to secure your email. One would be to use POP3S and IMAPS to retrieve mail. Secondly, you should configure your mail server to support TLS (Transport Layer Security). TLS will allow encrypted SMTP communication with any recipient's server that also supports TLS. It should be noted that you must configure TLS to be optional, if the receiving server does not support TSL the communication will fall back to plain text.
Thirdly, I would suggest the use of an email encryption application (such as Zix mail) to ensure sensitive information is transmitted securely. Finally, user training is a must. Your users need to have a basic understanding of how email works. They need to know that it is neither secure (in it's default configuration) nor guaranteed to be delivered to the intended recipient.

    I hope you have found the information and tips in this article interesting and informative. Feel free to contact me if you if you have additional input or would like further information about the techniques I have presented.

Todd Hughes is a Network Security Analyst and long time Linux fan in the Upstate New York area. Send your Questions, comments or feedback to: thughes@fwpm.com.

Copyright  Todd Hughes  2007. Printed by permission.

 

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Fighting Back Against Scammers? Scammed.us Launches

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Online scams are a huge problem today. There is a new solution for everyone who has been scammed. Scammed.us is a service that allows regular everyday people to post about how they were scammed. Whether paying for a service or product and not receiving it, or even if dishing out a lot of money to be part of a project and have yet to hear back from anyone.

(PRWEB) October 3, 2007 — Scammed.us is a new free service that allows members to create their own domain in order to make sure that others know of their unfortunate scam. Users simply register, file a report, and then create a sub domain such as scammersname.scammed.us. It is as simple as that.

Members use that free sub domain to let others know of the scammers that were involved. Users can put in specific details, names, addresses, and anything that the feel is helpful to let others know to stay away from those people.

Users of Scammed.us can use a variety of tools that will allow them to be more in depth with the scamming report. These include image hosting for screen shots, as well as photos proving they were scammed. They can provide live links so that when people click on it they know to stay away from that particular site.

Everyday, more and more people are using www.scammed.us as a way of letting the world know that if they plan on doing business with someone that they should check them out first. So far there are only a few scamming reports but this website is going to be huge, especially with the amount of online fraud that goes on in today's Internet. It is unfortunate that the Internet would need such a site such as Scammed.us, but there are always going to be crooks out there looking to make an easy buck.

This is not a website in for people to bash others they do not like. The reports must be filed honestly in order to make the most of this innovative website. If a member has been scammed it is a great idea to file there simply because when people do their research these days the scammers will be found at scammed.us. That means if someone were scammed by ABC freelance and a search is done on about ABC freelance, then chances are they will come up with a scam report about them. Once they read that, then they will reconsider giving any business to ABC freelance and the job will be done. Members will have successfully helped just one more person to save their money from a total scam. Sooner or later, with enough reports, the scammer will be out of business and users can sleep better knowing they made it happen.

Ever been scammed? Now there is a way to help others avoid scammers.

Entrepreneur Launches Massive Effort to Provide Expert Answers to Internet User Questions

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A new web site called QandAs.com enables Internet users to ask questions and get answers directly from experts in a wide range of topics.

Overland Park, KS (PRWEB) October 3, 2007 — A new web site called QandAs.com enables Internet users to ask questions and get answers directly from experts in a wide range of topics.

"With millions of active blogs and content sites feeding the Internet with mountains of content every day, it becomes increasingly challenging to find specific and reliable answers to questions," said Eric Hazen, president of idea19 the company that owns and operates QandAs.com. "We pride ourselves on providing accurate information in a concise and witty manner."

  Faster than calling an information hot line and more personal than using a search engine, QandAs.com gives Internet users the means to ask a specific question, which is then routed to an expert QandAs.com researcher (Specialist) who composes and delivers a direct answer to the question. A majority of the Q&A sessions are then logged on the website where visitors can search and view the knowledge base.

Have you ever wondered where to find local Restaurants? Are you looking for recommendations for advertising your online business? Do you even know how to issue a Press Release?

QandAs.com have answers to these and other questions in a variety of topics including Autos, Business & Entrepreneurship, Careers & Employment, Entertainment & Fashion, Finance & Insurance, Food & Drink, Health & Fitness, Home & Garden, Law & Taxes, Loans & Mortgages, and Technology & Tourism.

Some key features that separate QandAs.com from the likes of industry leaders Yahoo! Answers, About.com and Mahalo are:
1. QandAs.com only allows Specialists to answer questions.
2. QandAs.com implemented a Q&A platform with comment section.
3. QandAs.com is answering and publishing question and answer sessions within our website instead of linking out to other sources.

Our goal is to provide more than 15,000 comprehensive Q&A sessions logged over the next 12 months!

To ask your question or to apply to become a Specialist, visit QandAs.com.

About idea19
The idea19 network provides Internet users with answers to questions on a wide range of topics through the QandAs.com web portal. QandAs.com writers are Specialists in their topics of interest that do the research necessary to provide accurate, insightful answers to user questions on any given topic. The prevalence of blogs and online publishing equates to an incredible amount of information and reference material. Credibility and accuracy are the backbones of idea19, and the answers provided on QandAs.com are comprehensive and concise. For more information, visit our corporate site at Idea19 . Get answers to your questions at QandAs.com

Integrated Mobile Electronics Set to Launch Portable Media Player Docking System

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Integrated Mobile Electronics (IME) announced today that their long-awaited IME Docking System is entering production. The company anticipates delivery of the first units into customers' hands in the next 6-8 weeks. Aggressive promotional incentives are being offered to early adopters on various car and audio specialty forums.

(PRWEB) October 3, 2007 — Integrated Mobile Electronics (IME) announced today that their long-awaited IME Docking System is entering production (www.imedock.com). The company anticipates delivery of the first units into customers' hands in the next 6-8 weeks. Aggressive promotional incentives are being offered to early adopters on various car and audio specialty forums.

"I'm excited to be offering the first system that's going to work for the majority of players," says Jonatan Cvetko, CEO of IME. "Not needing to rewire your car ever again, getting rid of messy cables, and being able to bring audio and video into your car with your portable media player is IME at its best."

The IME Docking System is a groundbreaking, integrated package allowing most cars to interface with portable media players from Apple, Microsoft, and SanDisk, with support for even more models on the horizon. By choosing the desired player interface and indicating their car make/model during the ordering process, customers will receive an IME Docking System specifically engineered to work with their setup. Should the customer own or purchase a different media player, they need only purchase an Additional Dock instead of an entire System. The System itself has an MSRP of $249.99, while Additional Docks are $89.99.

About Integrated Mobile Electronics
IME is an industry leader in portable media player car integration systems. IME was founded in 2003 by CEO Jonatan Cvetko, with the intention of allowing consumers a flexible and enjoyable media experience in their car. IME believes that versatility is never a compromise for quality. Most of all, IME understands that consumers should always have the freedom of choice to change their mind – and their portable media players. IME will be there to supply uncompromised, high quality audio & video from the player directly into the car's stereo system.

MaxFilings Offers Free Domain Registration for Businesses Incorporating Online

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MaxFilings business incorporation service provides free web site domain name registration for businesses incorporating online. Organizations can get a head start in online promotion when they incorporate or form an LLC today by registering the web address for their site at the same time.

Tampa, FL (PRWEB) October 3, 2007 — Today's competitive business environment demands that new companies get in the online marketing game from the onset of the business. Marking online business territory and establishing a brand presence early on gives start-ups an immediate advantage, and creating a web presence is an important first step. MaxFilings business incorporation service (www.maxfilings.com) has partnered with SEO Advantage, an online promotions firm, to provide free web site domain name registration for businesses incorporating online.

Free web site domain name registration is available to any company incorporating online through the MaxFilings business incorporation service. The promotion includes one year of registration. (More details: www.maxfilings.com/promotion.php) The MaxFilings and SEO Advantage partnership also provides those incorporating online access to additional promotional services such as graphic design for logos, business cards, corporate stationery and web sites, as well as specialized services including search engine optimization.

"This is an excellent opportunity for business owners to incorporate online and, at the same time, establish a web presence," commented Jim Reuning, Senior Vice President of Operations of MaxFilings, Inc. "Partnering with SEO Advantage to make essential web marketing services available to newly formed businesses is one more way MaxFilings provides exceptional value beyond any other online incorporation service. This partnership certainly helps our customers hit the ground running as they incorporate online and grow their businesses successfully."

SEO Advantage Marketing Director Lisa Banks said, "We are enthusiastic about this partnership, as MaxFilings truly offers an affordable, simple means for forming a business online. The free domain name registration is designed to help new corporations and LLCs start promoting themselves online right away, and also gives them a sample of other beneficial online marketing services like website design, search engine optimization and copywriting. We look forward to providing these services to MaxFilings customers, and we hope the new companies we serve will continue to work with us for all their promotional needs as they grow."

The free domain registration promotion is available for a limited time only. Companies are encouraged to submit their online incorporation or LLC formation at www.MaxFilings.com as soon as possible.

More information on the promotion can be found at www.maxfilings.com/promotion.php and more information on forming a corporation is available at www.maxfilings.com/incorporation-knowledge-center/form-your-c-corporation.php

About MaxFilings:
MaxFilings is an online incorporation service that lets businesses incorporate or form an LLC online easily in 10 minutes, or just start organizing all their information until they are ready. There is no charge to store incorporation information in the secure MaxFilings system, and there is never any obligation to order. MaxFilings' incorporation fees are very affordable, and an extensive online incorporation library for business owners researching their choices is available at www.maxfilings.com/incorporation-knowledge-center. In addition, newly incorporated businesses have access to online promotional services such as business cards, PR, web sites, and SEO services through partner company SEO Advantage. For more information, visit www.maxfilings.com.
About SEO Advantage:
SEO Advantage, Inc. is a professional search engine optimization firm providing online marketing services for small and medium-sized businesses. SEO Max represents SEO Advantage's leading-edge technology in SEO/SEM offering excellent ROI, backed by exceptional customer service and the Web's Best Guarantee™. The company also offers comprehensive analytics and reporting, copywriting and press release optimization, web design, pay-per-click advertising management, and additional online promotional services. For more information, visit www.seoadvantage.com.

Small Businesses Hurt Themselves in Relationships With Bankers, According to New Paper

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Most small businesses fail to develop their side of their relationship with commercial bankers, and this undermines both their ability to raise capital and the services they receive. In a just released paper, John I. Todor, Ph.D., managing partner of The Whetstone Edge, LLC, interviews R. Blake Hendrix about the proactive steps that the small business person should be taking to improve their lot.

Pleasant Hill, CA (PRWEB) October 2, 2007 — "More than 70% of small businesses fail to develop their side of their relationship with commercial bankers and this undermines both the funding and financial expertise they receive," says R. Blake Hendrix. In a just released paper, John I. Todor, Ph.D., managing partner of The Whetstone Edge, LLC, interviews Hendrix about this statement and probes to find out what proactive steps the small business person should be taking. This interview is available now at www.thewhetstoneedge.com/papers/clients.pdf.

"Relationships are critical to business" says Todor. He cites a recent study by the Economist Intelligence Unit where over 90% of business executives believed that customer relationships, not products or services, were the key to competitive differentiation in today's marketplace. "But relationships" he adds, "are about the interactions between two parties and both parties must be actively involved for it to product mutual benefits." However, "much of the advice and strategies are directed at only one side–what the business should do to cultivate better relationships with their customers."

In the interview, Todor questions Hendrix about the ideas in his new book "Accounting, Finance and Presentation for Small Business." In particular, he queries him on the client's role in building mutually productive and profitable relationships in a B-to-B environment.

Hendrix, a former commercial banker and now a consultant to small businesses, explains in down-to-earth terms how many clients take a self-defeating approach to working with vendors and service providers.

"Two clients with essentially the same profile on paper can end up with dramatically different financial packages as well as the guidance and expertise they get from a bank" Says Hendrix. He points out that the difference is in the relationship, and the client can do a lot to tilt the scale in his or her favor. "That's why I wrote this new book" adds Hendrix.

The complete interview is available for free at www.TheWhetstoneEdge.com/papers/clients.pdf.

About Blake Hendrix and saltmineconsulting.com
Hendrix draws upon 20 years experience facilitating small businesses. His practice stresses perspective and simplicity in defining and solving the issues that confront the small businessperson. His keynote is integrating Strategy, Logistics and Tactics to achieve the goals of the organization. "Accounting, Finance and Presentation," is his second book directed at helping small businesses thrive. Learn more at www.saltmineconsulting.com.
About John Todor
John I. Todor, Ph.D., is the managing partner of The Whetstone Edge, LLC, a customer experience consulting and training firm that applies scholarly research on human behavior to buyer-seller dynamics including customer loyalty, trust, retention, customer service, CEM (Customer Experience Management), and marketing strategy. He speaks and consults worldwide on the underlying psychological principles that lead to customer satisfaction, trust, loyalty, and long-term, high lifetime value that profoundly affect customer care, acquisition, and client relationships. His latest book is "Addicted Customers: How to Get Them Hooked on Your Company." More information is available at www.AddictedCustomers.com or www.TheWhetstoneEdge.com.