Hello Kolb Net Works Clients and Friends,
Greetings from Williamsport and congratulations to the baseball team from Tokyo, Japan, winners of the 2003 Little League World Series.
See http://msn.espn.go.com/moresports/03LLWSindex.html for more results. A local note: it was cool seeing the Outback blimp hover around town all last week!
 

KNW News:

Project web glitch: www.knwsupport.com  has been experiencing some domain name resolving issues, which are being worked on. In the meantime, we’ve hooked up a workaround path – http://support.kolbnetworks.com  now goes to the same web site as www.knwsupport.com. All the file paths to client webs are the same, too.

Correct KNW staff Email addresses: All KNW staffers have 2 email addresses, one for internal use (has knwsupport.com in it) and one for external use (has kolbnetworks.com in it). If you have an email address for any of our staff that uses knwsupport.com please update it to kolbnetworks.com – usernames are the same. This will help us get your email reliably. Let me know if you have any questions.

After much research, we’ve purchased and installed email newsletter management software. We’re currently in the testing phase; look for this newsletter to switch to the new system (including personalization) next month.

If you’re just starting your email newsletter effort, an Outlook distribution list or Notepad file will do fine to keep addresses. After you have a couple hundred addresses on your list, you’ll probably be interested in using our email newsletter manager services to simplify your list management, help with newsletter creation and provide tracking. Once you’ve got 10,000 or so email addresses, we can connect you to a larger firm that offers large list management.

Special offer – we’re looking for a test user to try out the new email newsletter manager system (which resides on our development server and is accessed through a web browser). Contact us before September 8 to enter for a chance to win 3 free months of trial email newsletter manager use!  Simply email or call us (570.326.2888) to enter.  If entering by email, please supply your name, title, company name, address and phone.  Also let us know if you are currently sending newsletters via email or postal mail.  A winner will be drawn at random on September 10.

Tom and Heather Lee are moving west to Denver, Colorado during his vacation (August 27 to September 3).  (View picture of Tom and Heather on the 2002 company Holiday card http://www.kolbnetworks.com/2002card.htm ) Tom will still be working for us full time, using video conferencing and our Virtual Private Network (VPN) to remain connected. His email address remains the same: tom@kolbnetworks.com. Drop him an email message if you need his new phone number.  He’ll be back to work September 4.

Email Virus Report:

Are you getting a bunch of emails with subjects such as; Re: Your Details, Re: Your Application or Re: Thanks? I'm getting a bunch of these myself, and a number of clients have reported similar things. It does not mean your computer is infected with a virus. It is a side effect of the SoBig virus that is currently active on many computers.

When a person's computer gets infected (by running an email message attachment from an infected email), it scans that person's system and harvests email addresses from the address book, htm, txt and other files. This is where the virus probably picked up your email address. Then, it sends out a bunch of infected emails, sometimes using these harvested email addresses as it's FROM field on a message. This is what creates "bounce backs" if the email address it's sending to is no longer valid. It can also result in a message from an email virus checking systems reporting that your email message (which of course, was not generated or sent from your computer) was carrying a virus.

The best thing to do for this virus is to make sure your virus checking software is up to date and running on your system, checking and blocking email attachments. The next step is to run your virus checker completely every day or week (this can usually be scheduled to happen automatically, look for a SCHEDULE menu or tool).

And of course, don't open any email file attachment if you don't know what it is and who it came from. Do not execute any .pif, .vbs or .exe files.

More info at http://www.cert.org/incident_notes/IN-2003-03.html
 

Web Site Tips:

Domain name registration – There are several companies that scan through domain name registry data and fax or email “renewal notices” to people when their web site domain name comes up for renewal. It’s best to renew with whatever company you are currently signed up with. If you have any questions feel free to contact me. We offer domain name renewal at cost as a service to our clients.
 

Additional Services:

Did you know that Kolb Net Works also offers ancillary design services including:

• Web Development / ECommerce / Database / Maintenance / hosting
• Multimedia Production: CDROMS, web sites, Video spots
• Domain Registration
• Search Engine Optimization
• Email marketing
• Streaming Media live broadcast and archive
• Flash & Shockwave Development
• Logo Design / Development
• Print Ads
• Brochure / flyer / newsletter design
• Poster design / Buttons / Election campaign
• Postcard design
• Kiosk development
• Ad Campaign Development
• Radio spot writing and producing
• Voice over narration / On Hold messages

 
Interesting Internet Site:

www.kartoo.com  - this search engine interface gathers data from top search engines and displays the results in a graphical manner, instead of the usage text listing. It takes a couple tries to get used to its interface. It’s an interesting use of Macromedia Flash to present data.

 
Newsletter Tips:

We have several books that have useful email marketing information here in the KNW Williamsport office that local clients are welcome to check out including: “Poor Richard’s Email Publishing”, and “101 Ways to Promote Your Web Site”.  The James V. Brown library also has 2 other good books available on email marketing.

Note: Graphical versions of current and past newsletters are online and can be viewed at: http://www.kolbnetworks.com/newsletters

As you start your email newsletter address list, please include my email address so I can see how you’re doing.

Regards,
-----
Kathy Kolb
President, Kolb Net Works, Inc. - Powerful Web Solutions
http://www.kolbnetworks.com --- (570) 326-2888 --- kathy@kolbnetworks.com