Category Archives: Internet

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Google Analytics and WordPress

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As part of Google’s attempt to provide us with a solution for everything, Google now provides a service called Google Analytics to help you analyze traffic on your website. This solution appears to be geared primarily toward maximizing your revenue using Google AdWords. However, you need not be using AdWords to gain a benefit from this service. I have used Analytics for a few weeks now and I am pleased with the information that it provides in a very simple and easy to use format.

For those of you who, like me, use WordPress to blog, this website provides you with instructions to enable you to easily add Analytics to your WordPress website.

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Craigsnumber

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Not long ago I wrote about 10 Minute Mail, a service that provides you with a temporary email address. Now Tom Mighell at Inter Alia has pointed us toward Craigsnumber, which gives you a temporary phone number that lasts from one hour up to one month.

Any calls placed to that number are automatically forwarded to a number that designate. Numbers are available for a variety of major cities, including Atlanta, Chicago, San Francisco, and Washington D.C.

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A New ADA Claim: Addicted to the Internet

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A man has sued IBM for violating the Americans with Disabilities Act when it fired him for using an adult oriented chat room while working. The man claims that he is a sex and internet addict that deserves protection under the ADA.

I am no expert on the American’s with Disabilities Act. Therefore, I will not comment on the viability of his claim. I will say, however, it certainly makes for an interesting story.

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A New Twist to an Old Scam

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The Detroit Free Press reports on a county treasurer who was charged with embezzling public funds to invest in an online Nigerian banking scam. The Free Press reports that the man had transferred at least $72,500 of his own money to the con artists before he allegedly sent up to an additional $1.25 million in public funds.

The news story is an interesting read, with the best quote coming from a spokesman for the Attorney General who said “Every part of this makes you wonder, ‘What was he thinking?’ ”

I have seen many news stories about these scams and people being taken advantage of by them. However, this is the first story I have seen in which a person stole money to invest in one of these scams.

These scams (which are commonly known as 419 scams) appear to still be finding victims. I know that I have warned a least two people of these scams when they contacted me to seek help setting up accounts to transfer the money.

It looks like that, in addition to warning our friends and family about these scams, we also need to be warning our public officials.

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RSS

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Many people, even those who are quite familiar with the internet do not know what RSS is.

In its simplest terms, RSS is a technology that allows you to identify the things that you want to read and have those items aggregated together in a single place for you to read, without having to go to a bunch of different websites. Although RSS is traditionally thought of as a blog technology, many “regular websites” are now using RSS now.

RSS Reed IconIf you are using the latest version of either Firefox or Internet Explorer, identifying those pages that have an RSS feed is very easy now that both browsers use the orange RSS icon.

Law Practice Today has an informative article on RSS and written by Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell. You can also find a series of tutorials on RSS. Ken Adams also has a post on his blog in which he recommends that his readers use an RSS reader. I have to say that I agree with him. If you read any blogs at all, you should be using an RSS reader.