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Visual Maps of Your Linkedin Professional Networks

2/02/2011

5 Questions to Ask Before Going For Funding

11/01/2011

When we are considering or thinking about to get fund to grow the business, we should re-consider by asking 5 questions.

How much is my business worth, today?
What is the money really for?
Can’t you fund your expansion yourself?
What is your projected revenue for the next five years?
Do I have a strong executive team to manage growth?

BlackRock funds raise stake in St Joe Fla. land co. (reuters.com)
Successful Stocks With Long-Term Upside (forbes.com)
Hedge Funds Beat Global Markets in 2010 on Growth (businessweek.com)
Hedge funds deposits climb in November (sfgate.com)
FundWatch: Fund industry calls for money-market fund backstop (marketwatch.com)

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Stop Chasing Money and Start Chasing Passion

3/01/2011

I’m big fan of Tony, founder of Zappos. I would like to share something, interesting, inspiring and enjoy your time when you’re creating something creative, using your creative mind.

I thought about how easily we are all brainwashed by our society and culture to stop thinking and just assume by default that more money equals more success and more happiness, when ultimately happiness is really just about enjoying life.

In a recent blog post for the Huffington Post, author of Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose, and CEO of Zappos, Tony Hsieh discusses what the meaning of happiness is to him and the process on how he found it:

Image via Wikipedia

“I made a list of the happiest periods in my life, and I realized that none of them involved money. I realized that building stuff and being creative and inventive made me happy.”Have you ever really thought about what makes you happy? Is it a successful career? Your family? Giving back to the community? Track your “highs” and “lows” to determine your own personal core values by taking the “Mountains and Valleys Core Values” exercise.

Read the full Huffington Post article by Tony Hsieh, here.

Content credit goes to Official blog of Tony Hsieh

Silicon Alley Insider: Amazon Is Paying Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh Only $36,000 (businessinsider.com)
Brands Have More Fun in 2011 (personalbrandingblog.com)
Four Lessons on Culture and Customer Service from Zappos Founder, Tony Hsieh (blogs.hbr.org)
Reunion 2010: Warren Bennis and Tony Hsieh, “Leadership For the 21st Century” (fredzimny.wordpress.com)
Tony Hsieh: Zappos Founder: Your Culture Is Your Brand (huffingtonpost.com)
Tony Hsieh: Here’s Why I Quit My Corporate Job At Oracle With No Real Plan (businessinsider.com)
Tony Hsieh: Here Is Why I Sold Zappos To Amazon (businessinsider.com)
Zappos Only Hires People Who Are Weird And Lucky In Life (businessinsider.com)
Hey, Entrepreneurs, Skip The MBA And Use The Money To Start Businesses (businessinsider.com)

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How to take down a WordPress site

2/01/2011

: Image via Wikipedia

Security issues, most concering issues and I always looks for stable things from WordPress but somehow I still don’t feel safe about WordPress. It happens frequently, if you missed, hacker hacked — you simply hacked too. Lets see, how without botnet, expert hacker — anyone can hack your wordpress site.

I recently spoke at A4U in London on the topic of Negative SEO with Dave, Ralph and Marcus.

Someone asked me after the session if they needed to be aware of anything to help protect their blog from damage. Bear in mind what I am about to explain is probably illegal and this isn’t a guide, its a warning on how to avoid the problem.

So, is it possible to take down a wordpress site without knowing hacking or renting a botnet, paying a hacker etc etc

Yes probably…

Say you have a wordpress site and haven’t prevented directory browsing in your plugins directory (add a line to your .htaccess that says ‘Options All -Indexes’ to prevent that).

The competition could look for plugin names in your source code then confirm it exists by browsing the plugins directory. If they then found a plugin that wasn’t too popular they could set up a way of trying to dupe you.

They could set up a one page site about that plugin with an announcement saying that they had taken ownership of the plugin and now supported it.

They could email you saying that they had taken over the plugin from its author and that you needed to upgrade your version due to a potential security issue and helpfully attach a zip file of the new upgraded plugin.

You might trust them and install that new version. The new version however isn’t that new, its the same as the old version but now they have inserted a few lines to add a hook in the header.

These lines insert the verification code for Google Webmaster Tools.

Now you have a competitor who has verified control of your domain on a fake google account.

They can remove files (removal request on the root?)
They could mess with the config of the www v non www

In short they could make your site disappear

So to avoid: -

Never accept a plugin from anywhere other than wordpress and vet the code
Watch the notifications in Webmaster Tools to spot anyone else getting verified for your domains.