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• A Brand New Year Edition, January 2002

• Editor: Don Hunter don@arkvalwebworks.com

• Publisher: Arkansas Valley Web Works 

• http://www.arkvalwebworks.com/

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1. What’s Up?: A Buried Biscuit.

2. Web Page Help: Topica To The Rescue.

3. Web Issues and Stuff: Lessons Learned

4. Promotional/Advertising: A Yard Full Of Cards, Pards.

5. Web Humor and Entertainment: Burka Anyone?

6. Ark Announcements: The Significance Of A New Look.

7. Both Sides Of The Coin, (Words of Wit and Wisdom)

My dog Peaches was busy burying frozen biscuits in the backyard. After all if they don’t bounce back you go hungry. She was a dog on a mission, her mind entirely devoted to the task at hand.

"Look at that stupid dog," my Göödie gal said.

"She’s not stupid..., she’s smart," I argued.

"You’re just jealous because she likes me better than you," Göödie remarked.

"She does not, she likes her Daddy best," I said, "our personalities are just alike."

"I don’t see you burying biscuits in the backyard," she said.

"Yea, that’s true," I countered, "but it’s just because you haven’t caught me yet."

Topica is the leader in email newsletters and publishing solutions. Whether you’re like me looking for a way to better organize your subscribers’ list and make mailings more efficient or you’re a large business with mass e-mailings to hundreds of thousands, http://www.topica.com might just be the publishing solution you are looking for.

You can start your own lists for subscribers and then manage them right from the Topica site, (called My Topica). You can add/delete subscribers easily and send your newsletter out to everyone on your list all at once. It’s a real time saver once it is set up.

You can also sign up for other newsletters that interest you in many categories. Some include art and design, books, movies, and TV, developers, food and drink, health and fitness, internet, music, news and information, personal finance, personal technology, small business, software, sport and recreation, travel and leisure, women and family, and more. Over 100,000 businesses and individuals use Topica email services.

Thanks go to Topica for coming to the rescue for my newsletter. I wasn’t being surrounded by sharks or anything that drastic; but Topica did make it easier for me to manage what was trying to become unmanageable. And that’s all I wanted in the first place.

I guess it had to happen eventually. Perhaps with the sheer volume of email I receive it should have occurred sooner. Yes I was the brunt of a hoax.

It is my usual practice never to open email attachments unless I trust who is sending them. Most viruses are spread through email by way of attachments. I reasoned, "Don’t open the attachments, don’t get the virus." That strategy worked well for me for almost three years; but as I was to learn it was not enough protection against those meaning to do harm.

Sometimes, as in this case, it started out with the most innocent of intentions. In fact it was intentions to do good deeds, not harmful ones. I received an email from a trusted source that said they had contacted a virus that had infected everyone in their address book. As such it had also infected mine as well. I was instructed to delete any files called ‘sulfnbk.exe’ from my system because that was an infected file.

I did a search on my computer for the file in question and sure enough, there it was. I promptly deleted the file and set about to tell everyone on my subscriber list about the incident, with the desire to kill the infection before it spread any further. I thought I had done my good deed for the day.

Early the next morning I got a shocking email from one of my subscribers. I had inadvertently helped perpetrate a hoax. The email said that the hoax instructs people to delete a legitimate Windows file from their computer called ‘sulfnbk.exe’. I checked the URL that was enclosed in the subscriber’s email, http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/sulfnbk.exe.warning.html , and sure enough both me and my source had been duped into a hoax. Those perpetrating the hoax got me to do the damage for them.

I promptly set about to inform everyone on my mailing list that I had been taken in and the remedy to fix my foul-up. I felt, and still feel really bad about it. I have subsequently acquired a copy of the sulfnbk.exe file so if any of my subscribers are having problems let me know and I will send you a copy with instructions on how to put it back where it belongs.

Just when I’m starting to gain the trust and loyalty of those who enjoy my newsletter something like this had to happen. But I guess what is done, is done. All that remains is to learn a lesson from the experience.

Knowing life, he said philosophically, there are lots of lessons to learn from the incident. "The primary one would seem to be to double-check your resources before you go shooting off your mouth, Don", I chastised myself. I could have sworn I told those negative self-criticisms to stay in the trunk. Maybe I need to get another trunk.

Sometimes the best of intentions are more lessons learned.

My yard is full of biscuits and..., well never mind that’s not important. But Card Yard is full of neat e-cards to send your friends. There are cards for every occasion. Many are unique only to Card Yard so you don’t have to worry about sending something everyone has already seen. Why they’ve got more cards and categories than Carter has little liver pills, and that’s a lot. You can browse by category or alphabetically too.

CardYard is the brainchild of my friends Tommy Dean and Shannon Taylor of Sunset Creations, http://www.sunsetcreations.com, and Dennis Gaskill, better known on the web as Booj of Boogie Jack’s Web Depot, http://www.boogiejack.com. As usual as with everything they do, they stress quality first; but it just so happens there is lots of quantity too. That usually means they have been working at it for awhile to achieve those results, and they have.

So for a yard full of cards try Card Yard at http://www.cardyard.com Pard. December’s E-Smile lets you see what a mean guy Santa Claus really is.

Poor Rudolph, I’ve missed many turns on foggy nights and never got stuffed and mounted because of those minor transgressions.

"Wouldn't it be a switch to make the Taliban men wear burkas to get a little portion of their own medicine," I questioned. For those unfamiliar with the term, a burka is that garment you've seen covering the bodies and faces of women in Afghanistan. Sarcastically I was musing about how big the burka custom would go over in the western world, NOT! A twinkle of inspiration gleamed in my eye. I might have just stumbled on the next big fad. I'll call it burka.com and people can order on-line.

Different models might include:

The Business Burka looks especially appealing with colorful bow ties. Yes, its really uni-sex.

The Politician Burka: Great for those unscrupulous individuals in need of a cover up.

The Nudist Burka: A blindfold in your choice of colors as long as it is black.

The Bubba Burka: For good ole boys and girls. Chaps and Stetson included.

The Bikini Burka: The bikini that’s not. A must have for any father of teenage daughters.

The Baseball Cap Burka: The mask folds up into a bill for shading your eyes at sporting events.

The Burka Bib: A must have for any meal that involves food.

The Burka Raincoat: All you have to do to repel water is to hold out your arms. Can also be used as a tent in emergencies.

I can see it now, more of a scoop than the hula-hoop, more of a splash than the pet rock, more of a tickle than a tricycle. They'll put me in the Inventors Hall of Fame. I'll be rich and famous. NOT!

My Mom loved sunflowers. Mom had a collection of sunflower things, dishes, crockery, glasses, coffee cups, wind chimes, and the list goes on. Sunflowers brought cheer into her life and therefore into the lives of those who knew her.

"Sunflowers grow in some of earth’s more inhospitable places," she explained, "sunflowers represent the positive even in some of the most negative of circumstances."

Through all the horrid events that have occurred over the past months there still has been shining beacons of positive light always there. Sort of like sunflowers growing in an arid environment, it’s face gazing at the sun for its inspiration.

Was it any wonder then that I chose to place sunflowers in the header and background graphics on my site? It only took changing the scroll bar colors to make the sunny transition a completed one. (See http://www.boogiejack.com/css004.html for a great tutorial on how to do it yourself).

Accentuate the positive. That’s what I always say.

"War is the unfolding of miscalculations."