It’s no secret that the key to building a successful website is generating continuous, organic traffic and developing quality backlinks. Generating traffic and building quality links takes times and effort. Here are a few things you can do to get the ball rolling:

1. Write fresh content related to the topic of your website and submit your article to article directories and ezines.  You will receive both traffic and backlinks from the signature that is placed at the bottom of your article.
2. Submit your website or blog to good quality directories.  If possible, try to find a niche directory that relates directly to your topic.  For example, if you have a child care website find a directory that relates to child care, children, families, or parenting.  Some directories are free and some require payment.  The fee that is charged is typically to cover the time and effort utilized by an editor to adequately review your websites.  Do not be offended if your website is rejected.  Continue to create fresh content, then resubmit at a later date.  I would like to recommend Best Directory Search as they are a good quality directory that approves sites quickly for inclusion, brings me quality traffic, and offers coupons. To submit to their directory, visit, www.bestdirectorysearch.com and enter FORUM for the coupon code. You will receive a deep discount on your submission.
3. If you are not already immersed in social bookmarking, then it is time to start.  Be sure to register with social bookmarking sites such as Digg, Stumbleupon, and Twitter.  The more active you are with these types of sites, the more traffic you will see.
4. Forum posting is another adequate way to build traffic and generate good backlinks.  When registering with a forum, be sure to read the fine print.  Do they allow signatures?  How many posts do you need to make before you can “advertise” your site in the signature?  Are they a do follow forum?  Also, make sure you post in forums that are relevant to the topic of your website or blog.  Search engines give more credit for backlinks that come from forums related to your website or blog topic.
5. Leave comments in blogs that allow do follow and are related to your website or blog topic.
6. Check out the Alexa ranking information about your competitors.  Alexa now shows how many backlinks a website or blog has.  Click on that number and you can see where your competitors are getting their backlinks from.  Visit those sites and establish yourself on that particular forum or blog.  Also, try submitting to the same directories that your competitors have used.

These actions need to be done on a weekly basis.  Set a goal for how many of these can be achieved each day or each week.  Once you have a good foundation, watch your traffic rank and page rank skyrocket.

I had a Windows Vista or XP machine and for some reason this key was not clearing after a reboot. So this error occured in a loop scenario. Error you may see in the event log:
Symantec Endpoint Protection (SEP) Installation fails with the following error “Symantec Endpoint Protection has detected that there are pending system changes that require a reboot. Please reboot the system and rerun the installation.”

The following was actually listed for a server 2003 box but worked fine for me on both Vista and XP.
I rebooted the machine and then tried to install the client again, but the same error would appear.

I found that there was a registry entry that was giving me grief with the install, and here are the instructions that I used to fix the problem.

1. Navigate to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SessionManager\PendingFileRenameOperations

2. Back up the registry key
3. Delete the registry key
4. Install the software without restarting the computer first (Restarting the computer may result in the registry key being placed back in the registry before installation.)
5. Restore the registry key from the backup location/ this is up to you. I did not restore it and worked just fine.

Enjoy

I never thought I would be enjoying creating scripts but I find myself into playing around with scripts at times due to the nature of my job. Here is something I can share with anyone that needs a simple script that does the job It can either be launched locally or you can use a command line function to launch it remotely.

-Open a notepad window
-Copy paste the code below
-Replace the value in the code that corresponds to your need
-Save file as .vbs
-Done

strComputer = “.”
Set objWMIService = GetObject(“winmgmts:” _
& “{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\” & strComputer & “\root\cimv2″)
Set colFolders = objWMIService.ExecQuery _
(“Select * from Win32_Directory where Name = ‘c:\\replacethisvalue_with_yours’”)
For Each objFolder in colFolders
errResults = objFolder.Delete
Wscript.Echo errResults
Next

I am often faced with this question…and don’t really have an answer for it yet….
Encryption without management or centralized control is like a car without an engine.
So how do you bridge the two together? How do you empower your domain admins with the tools they need to make that leap?

There are several products out there claiming to do the job out of the box…right…well for you to choose. I am only suggesting this product because I came across a small company in my area that had these drives and are successfully implementing security at all endpoints. The company is called IronKey, food for thought here….

Here are some of the specs and information on the product:
Intelligent Self-Defending Secure Storage
IronKey Enterprise combines the world’s most secure flash drive with enterprise-class centralized remote management. The solution allows you to easily manage thousands of IronKey devices and enforce device-specific policies. Strong encryption protects critical data from loss while intelligent anti-malware controls keep out worms and other malicious code.

* Always-on hardware encryption with no software or drivers to install
* Active anti-malware protection
* Centralized remote administration of IronKey drives—securely online or with an optional onsite virtual server
* Remotely disable or destruct rogue drives
* Enforce security policies such as password length and strength
* RSA SecurID ready
* Full cryptographic capabilities include embedded Public Key Infrastructure and digital certificates
* Provides a high-speed and reliable platform for virtual machines

View Demo on product, click here

WINDOWS XP and or Server 2003

Problems with TCP/IP networking can be difficult to track down; from experience I can say that I spent countless hours trying to determine root cause of an issue. There are also a variety of troubleshooting tools, which makes this even harder since one has to make a decision on the tool selection when face with such issues. First make sure you have a clear picture of the issue and a good understanding of the tool you are about to use for this purpose.

Many TCP/IP issues are related to incorrect configuration of networking componenets. With respect to this, the netsh Diag context is a really good at helping you discover what is going on. Typing at a dos command prompt will provide usefull information. Also placing a /v at the end of that line will provide additional information. A good resource is a command line book from MS press :http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/Books/6787.aspx

Home computer slow?

As many of you know, there are many potential threats that must be guarded against in order to keep any PC in operating condition. Some of these threats include spyware, viruses and hardware failures. Another problem often and mistakenly overlooked is registry corruption.
Whenever software is altered or removed from a PC, corruption builds up in the registry. Also, removing hardware from a computer results in registry corruption because when hardware is removed the hardware’s device driver will be deleted and this will result in at least some registry corruption.
Registry Corruption Is Unavoidable
Though altering or deleting software will cause registry corruption, there are other hidden things in today’s computer world that will also cause it. There was a time which we prayed to keep registry corruption off our computers. Now, we are forced to accept registry corruption as a way of life and deal with it.
If one had great resolve, he/she could probably go a very long time without removing any of his/her hardware or software from a computer. However, there is another kind of software people don’t install or buy installed on their computers.
This software is spyware, adware, viruses and all those other types of parasites. Yes, even though they are unwelcome software programs, software programs are what they are.
How dangerous is spyware and relation to registry corruption?
We have no choice but to delete spyware and other similar types of programs from our hard drives due to the nature of them. They not only slow down and eventually ruin your PC; they also have the ability to steal your personal information.
Registry corruption is another kind of problem. Until recent years it used to be a lot easier to work around because the older operating systems used so many fewer files. If corruption were a problem, adding more RAM would usually take care of the matter.
Spyware & Registry Cleaners, why?
Today’s OS’s, like Windows XP and Vista and Windows 7 to come, have great big registries. So, a computer must use a great deal of computing power to perform each operation. Registry corruption adds more obstacles to these operations and this result in a computer that operates below its potential speed.
So, registry cleaners are necessary tools because they keep the operating system free of the extra workload registry corruption saddles it with. Aside from causing the operating system to complete each command in a slogged down fashion, a heavy dose of registry corruption or a possibility that the registry may inflate above the OS registry size limit could cause a major operating system failure. End result is the typical system error at boot up. So, cleaning the registry with a good registry cleaner often is my recommendation, not only from knowledge but also personal experience. There are many tools out there. Just Google registry cleaners or visit pcmag.com or spyboot.com or safer-networking.org for further information.