FYI - You did not win 500,000,000 dollars from the bank of Nigeria

This is a friendly reminder about email scams and deceptive practices. We have seen a rash of clients with infected computers lately. The scam artists are out there and they prey on unsuspecting victims. We receive a daily barrage of junk mail and lofty claims in the titles of our mail too. Some claim to be from trusted sources like Google Adwords like the one we got the other day saying a company received our Adwords check by mistake of 25k.  Below are some terms that spyware is also known as.

Tracking Software: Keyloggers, Screen Scrapers, and Remote Monitors

Virus and spyware removal are big business and infected machines can cost you productivity and downtime issues or grind your business to a halt. Simple best email practices should be shared with all your office workers to avoid these problems. If you become infected and you are on an office network notify your systems admin at once. If you run your own systems and are unable to remove these pests contact a reliable local computer shop.

Please avoid opening any email you do not recognize. Most email programs now offer scanning services that test the email for spam and validity. But make no mistake, these programmers who write this stuff are crafty. Please check the email by the preview feature and not opening the email. If your machine becomes infected it can cause all kinds of trouble for your business or personal machine.

Many of these programs are what's known as Trojan horse viruses that tell you that all your information is being stolen and if you click here and pay 50 bucks all will be well. Don't do it. This gives these scam artists more reason to write more viruses. It will actually perpetuate the problem.

This has been a public service post from your friends at Blackball Online Marketing - Pittsburgh Business Marketing Services.

Pittsburgh Municipality Mt. Lebanon Launches Free Online Public Alert System

Sometimes we find a service that just needs mentioning. Pittsburgh's Mount Lebanon Borough with Phoenix Business Technologies Group (a Pittsburgh company) has launched a fantastic product. The LeboALERT is designed to notify residents of Mt Lebanon and surrounding communities of all sorts of things; from the mundane to the extraordinary.

Cutting edge technology allows for a very simple set up process via the Internet. We signed up for free and it took all of 3 minutes. Options include delivery by text message, email, phone, and a few other methods.

Residents from other surrounding communities such as Upper St. Clair, Scott Township, Castle Shannon, Dormont, Bridgeville, and Carnegie can also sign up for free. This public service was designed for the safety and convenience of the Mt. Lebanon community and surrounding boroughs and townships.

We would not be surprised to see many others jump on board with their own systems once the word gets out. Our vision would be to have all of our neighborhoods linked together sharing information in an emergency situation. Empowering residents with timely information is a sign of good government and this is definitely an example of that.

It has always been a practice of Blackball Online to inform and educate our readers and we wanted to share this with you. We hope you didn't mind the free info even if it is slightly off our usual topics.

To sign up or view the official page click this LeboALERT link. Additional information for your community is available from the developers of the LeboALERT.