Easy setup and integration! Accept payment within minutes. After months of confusing research looking for the best fit to our business (Amazon Register, Google Checkout, SquareUp, Paypal, Stripe) the search is over! We have operated our consulting business by relying solely that our clients would pay us using checks, that is until today… Xero.com has been our preferred option for accounting & invoicing needs. Xero also offers easy integration with many payment services including PayPal & Stripe. When you send the invoice link to their email via Xero and they now click on the Green Pay Now button and pay. After they pay this is how your company name looks on their credit card statement. (this one was a small test transaction) What your Stripe.com Dashboard looks like when the payment has successfully charged (same $0.50 payment from above). How to set up a Stripe.com account & integrate it with XERO: Go to https://stripe.com Click “Sign Up” Enter your email Enter a password Create your Stripe account Stripe will ask information about you including business name, address, tax ID, banking information etc. Once you complete those steps and are verified (takes 2 minutes if you had the information handy) you can go to Xero’s website Go to https://www.xero.com Log in (or sign-up if you’re new) Go to Settings > General Settings Under Features click Invoice Settings Click Payment Services and Add Payment Service Select Stripe from the list Enter your business name under Name Select credit cards you want to accept via check boxes Select Payment account where the money will be deposited Click Connect to Stripe You will be redirected to the Stripe website for authentication Under Xero on Active Payment Services click Edit to the right of Stripe Click on Invoice Themes and select the themes to use it with (most users just have one Standard Theme) Click Save Now when you create an email invoices to your clients via Xero, they have a green “Pay now” button. All the client has to do is click it, Enter their Name, Card number, Expiration and security code and click Pay Congratulations, you just got an online payment. Wohoooooo! How’s that for an accomplishment in just 5-10 minutes of work?
Category: Tech
Password security – Heartbleed bug
Bad news. A major vulnerability, known as “Heartbleed,” has been disclosed for the technology that powers encryption across the majority of the internet. This means that the little lock icon (HTTPS) we all trusted to keep our passwords, personal emails, and credit cards safe, was actually making all that private information accessible to anyone who knew about the exploit. This might be a good time to change your passwords everywhere—especially your high-security services like email, file storage, and banking, which may have been compromised by this bug. We hope the following information is helpful and if you are still in need of help you can contact us for a consulting session. What to do next: There is really no simple way to prevent your accounts from being affected by future bugs or security breaches but for this specific but here are some of the options to see if the web services you have accounts with are affected by the bug. Manual check: You can check your websites manually using the tool offered by LastPass https://lastpass.com/heartbleed/ Automatically: -> Sign up for a Free LastPass account <- Manage all your passwords from one location. Please create a super-strong password when signing up for LastPass as this is your master-key to all your passwords. Watch the video below on how to set up LastPass. After signing up for LastPass and using it to input your passwords you can then run their security check which will tell you what sites you are member of are vulnerable. If you already have a LastPass account you can read this link on how to run the Security Check. http://blog.lastpass.com/2014/04/lastpass-now-checks-if-your-sites-are.html Below is a partial list of passwords you should change based on the Heartbleed bug fixes. Change these passwords now (they were patched) Airbnb Google, YouTube and Gmail Facebook, Instagram Yahoo, Yahoo Mail, Tumblr, Flickr OKCupid Pinterest Wikipedia Etsy GoDaddy Netflix USAA DropBox EventBrite FatWallet Reverbnation Economist FitBit CreditKarma Don’t worry about these (but change them if you used the same passwords as on the websites above) Amazon Apple, iCloud and iTunes AOL and Mapquest Bank of America BECU Capital One bank Charles Schwab Chase bank Citibank E*Trade Evernote Fidelity Healthcare.gov HSBC bank Hulu LastPass LinkedIn Microsoft, Hotmail and Outlook PayPal PNC bank Scottrade Target TD Ameritrade Twitter U.S. Bank Vanguard Walmart Wells Fargo Sources: http://money.cnn.com/2014/04/10/technology/security/heartbleed-passwords/index.html http://mashable.com/2014/04/09/heartbleed-bug-websites-affected/
Change your passwords: Comcast mail servers hacked
Change your passwords Comcast hushes about serious hack. On February 6, NullCrew FTS hacked into at least 34 of Comcast’s servers. It appears that Comcast, the largest internet service provider in the United States, uses Zimbra as an internal communications platform. NullCrew exploited an unpatched security vulnerability, CVE-2013-7091, to gain access to usernames, passwords and other sensitive details from Comcast’s environment. Comcast customers have not been not told to reset their passwords. But they should. Steps to change password: Go to https://customer.xfinity.com/users/me/update-password Sign in with your current email and password Comcast will ask you for your current password and for your new password Remember: Password Requirementsa) 8-16 charactersb) Include at least one letterand include numbers or special characters like !”#$%&’()*+,-./:;<=>?@[\]^_`{|}~ Must not containyour first name,last name, User ID or UsernameDo not include spaces Hit Save and you’re done.(You might be asked to re-enter the new password on your smartphone or other programs as well)
Twitter Privacy: How to stop broadcasting your exact location
Be smart about your privacy, every tweet you send may include your exact location. While this might be a great feature for some people or businesses, the majority of twitter users are unaware of how precise their location information is (hint: it’s within a few feet accuracy). This is your standard tweet with location enabled. Here is what someone sees if they click on it or use other mapping tools. Twitter is sort of helpful when it comes to learning how to disable it but when was the last time you looked at the help pages of twitter anyways? Turn off location broadcasting on twitter using this simple guide. Using your computer, log into twitter (regardless of what device you use to tweet from) Remove your location data from all of your previous Tweets (including mobile) by clicking on Delete all location information in your Security and privacy settings (http://twitter.com/settings/security) While you’re there make sure to also uncheck the box for “Add a location to my Tweets” How to disable location services on Twitter for iOS: Go to your device’s Settings app and select Privacy. Tap Location Services. Tap the on/off switch for the Twitter app. How to disable location services on Twitter for Android: The Twitter for Android app will automatically have access to your location. To turn this off you will have to disable your phone’s GPS services. REMEMBER: Facebook, Instagram, YOUR CAMERA & other applications do the same so be smart! Sources: https://support.twitter.com/articles/118492 https://support.twitter.com/articles/122236-how-to-tweet-with-your-location
What Brilliant Geeks should do for SEO
This is a guest post by Donnie Cooper of Inboundable.com thinks we should do for our company’s SEO (Search Engine Optimization).Some of the advice in this post is specific to us and some applies to any other business with a website as well. Create awesome content Post blogs with super easy steps to follow of how to’s when you get customer questions. Everyone is professional. It’s boring, and no one talks about it. Be yourself. Now that you are yourself, rewrite your site’s content completely. Speak at local events about how people can use what you do, & create an online course with the videos. When you attend social events like lessconf, make friends and follow up to build & keep the friendships strong. In short, easy to understand items- list your services in your navigation. Everything else put under “About Us”. Match every page on your site with a keyword you’d like to rank for (select “exact” on the left, not the defualt “broad”. Get attention Do a little free work if you have to, but help a big local company and create a case study of it. Post that on your home page with a testimonial from the owner (and some staff), and write a guest post for their blog talking about some cool new thing they’re doing for their customers and mention briefly how your company helped with it. Build wordpress plugins that will help your customers and promote the fact that you know wordpress so well, that you build plugins. Come up with useful ideas for a client you want to work with. Write a blog post about “how xyz company can get more customers”. For an example, come up with a great SEO plan for a boston restaurant and talk about how they need a better design (which they do), and how they can beat everyone else in google maps. Spend 10 minutes every week asking yourself which websites could send you leads if they linked to you, and how can you be creative enough to make them want to link to you. If you do nothing else, do this one item. Do a great job at making friends on twitter, and communicate with them and others. Tags and such Make sure you do all the best practices for optimizing your code Don’t spend more then a week doing this. Almost everyones’ SEO sucks becuase they spend 80% of their efforts on things like tags when they should spend 5% or less. Most importantly Pay attention to the blogs of startup companies as much or more then you do seo blogs. Great startups get marketing done, full time seo’s spend too much time studying. Take little steps at a time, think in 10 minute size activities. spend more time marketing yourself than you do learning. Don’t wait, start now. “A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow, Get 80% solution and start executing” – Jack Welde CEO of Smartling.
Notes from LessConf 2013 – Inspiring, Fun, Friendly
First comes the story we all asked each other when we met…”How did you hear about LessConf?” Most answers were, oh I was here before or my friend told me about it. Mine is just a bit different and it happened on February 17, 2013 when I stumbled upon a blog post called “Top North American Conferences for Entrepreneurs” on the Clarity.fm blog http://blog.clarity.fm/top-north-american-conferences-for-entrepreneurs/ If you visit the site you will see that there is a long list there but while scrolling through the list I got to the section titled “Have Your Mind Blown (Inspiration)” and what I saw next was love at first sight with LessConf. LessConf (April 11-13, 2013; Panama City Beach, Florida) Pack a diaper because you are going to pee yourself many times. LessConf is the place to go to laugh, listen to amazing speakers and leave smiling. More importantly, it’s the place to be if you want to challenge conventional thinking. The LessConf website only confirmed the love with its most awesome descriptions and weird design of floating bubbles. What is LessConf? LessConf is not like other events you’ve heard about. Sure there’s speakers, after parties, people with laptops, it has been called “Summer camp for startups”, “the best time of my life,” and even “the world’s worst conference”. Fast Forward to April 11, 2013 when I landed at the Panama City airport all alone, nervous and excited at the same time. Thoughts were going through my head…”what if they don’t like me?”, “what if this isn’t for me since I’m not a programmer or coder?”, “what if…” and then I snapped out of it while sending an email to the group as I didn’t see anyone with a LessConf sign like we were instructed. That’s when I met my first SuperFriends of the weekend, Nathan & Kim @FirstNate whose cool product PromoFLy already has me hooked now, you too should have a look www.getpromofly.com. Other soon to be SuperFriends were slowly gathering around us until we got to about 20 people that then squeezed into vans sponsored by GitHub and headed to our destination at the Bay Point Wyndham Resort where we signed our life away in about four separate waivers and received LessConf T-shirts and other items from our gracious sponsors. What followed next during dinner that night had some people running as live animals from ZooWorld came out of their cages. There was a crocodile, a parrot, a snake, a lemur, a hedgehog and even a baby kangaroo that became a twitter celebrity that night. Of course the Charfigy.com bull tried stealing the kangaroo’s fame at the afterparty when it started dancing to AndyD’s music. More entertainment that night was provided by the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus (thanks Steph & Keith) who were ever so patient and supportive in teaching others how to juggle. Personal accomplishment was when I went from not being able to juggle one to juggling with three. After a long first night and low on sleep we were ready for the un-named speakers scheduled to inspire us on April 12. 2013, and inspire they did! The Martin Theatre in downtown Panama City was the venue of choice (and a great one at that). The first speaker to take the stage was Jack Welde – CEO of Smartling.com He a technology early-adopter, serial entrepreneur, and combat-decorated Air Force pilot. Some of Jack’s quotes & advice: “A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow” “Get 80% solution and start executing” Have a Back Up Plan OODA Loop – “Observe -> Orient -> Decide ->Act” Commander’s Intent: key element to help a plan maintain relevancy and applicability in a chaotic, dynamic, environment.”Small changes can have a big impact” Broad View (Don’t micromanage) High Level Goals Mid Level Objectives “Communication is negotiation””Aviate, navigate, communicate” OverCommunicate “Sound cool on the radio” keep calm like Captain ‘Sully’ Sullenberger who landed in the Hudson river… see video Sound cool to the rest of the world even if business is in trouble “If they are shooting at you, you’re doing something right” “Invest in training” “Learn how to learn” “Take care of your people” Our next speaker was AJ Leon of PursuitOfEverything.com AJ used to be an unremarkably average financial executive in Manhattan until he decided to stop living the life he was supposed to live, and start living the life he was destined to live. Now, he spends most of his time changing the world. He is a writer, designer, entrepreneur, humanitarian and world traveler. Some of AJ’s quotes and advice “Musings from a Life Reinvented”: “Your life is always just one brief moment of audacity away from remarkable” Starting from scratch -you don’t have to choose, you can create “Define your moments or they will define you” “This is not your practice life, this is all there is” “Most people are waiting for a glitch” I was trapped “The more money you make, the harder it is to walk away” A lottery or inheritance to go on that trip they’ve been dreaming of a big bonus to use and start their own business or… a cup of Starbucks coffee to burn the sh*t out of them so they can sue for money “I was making an extraordinary amount of money but I hated my life, I despised my work” “I hated myself for trading my life for more money” “You can, and should rebel against a system that tries to tell you what your life should be like” “We all dream of escaping the office, but we don’t change what we do after getting out.” “Everything from tomorrow on is unwritten, be the protagonist and write your own novel” ” We got rid of almost everything we owned except what fit into a backpack” “Taught ourselves how to travel the world on the cheap, bartered by creating websites or services etc” “You can choose options that are given to you or you can reject all options and set out to create from scratch” Up to bat came Ryan Ohara who works over at Dyn Inc. in Business Development He is
U.S. government alert: disable Java to avoid hacking attempts
(If you get overwhelmed while reading this you can always contact us for help!) 1/12/2013 – The U.S. Department of Homeland Security urged computer users to disable Oracle Corp’s Java software, amplifying security experts’ prior warnings to hundreds of millions of consumers and businesses that use it to surf the Web. Hackers have figured out how to exploit Java to install malicious software enabling them to commit crimes ranging from identity theft to making an infected computer part of an ad-hoc network of computers that can be used to attack websites. Who is Affected? Both Windows and Apple users are at risk. Solution This and previous Java vulnerabilities have been widely targeted by attackers, and new Java vulnerabilities are likely to be discovered. To defend against this and future Java vulnerabilities, consider disabling Java in web browsers until adequate updates are available. As with any software, unnecessary features should be disabled or removed as appropriate for your environment. Disable Java System-Wide in Mac OS X Open “Java Preferences” from /Applications/Utilities/ Uncheck “Enable applet plug-in and Web Start applications” Uncheck “ON” next to Java SE Disable Java on Windows Open Control Panel and launch the Java applet. Click the Security tab. In previous versions this tab just allows advanced users to manage Java-related certificates. It now displays a security-level slider and, more important, a single checkbox titled “Enable Java content in the browser.” Un-check this box, click OK, and you’re done. On Specific Web Browsers Chrome? Enter chrome://plugins in the browser’s address bar. Scroll down to Java and click the link to disable it. Safari, choose Preferences, choose Security, and deselect Enable Java. The easiest way to disable Java in Internet Explorer is to avoid using this browser. Firefox users can click the Firefox button at the top and choose Add-ons from the resulting menu. On the Plugins tab, click the Disable button next to “Java(TM) Platform.” Bonus Tip: The best way to avoid any viruses is to always use common sense and do not click on things that seem too good to be true (Free Downloads etc) unless you trust the page you’re on…and links on social media pages or posts from your “Friends” on Facebook should not be trusted !
Is your password secure? Change it NOW!
Is your memorable password secure? Could a hacker quickly crack it? If your passwords consist of: numbers only or lowercase letters only or are shorter than seven characters you are at the highest risk for a cyber hacking. The most secure passwords include eight characters, numbers, upper case, lower case letters and punctuation. Top 5 most common passwords used by people include: password, 123456, qwerty, abc123, monkey These passwords are very commonly used. It would be cracked almost instantly. If you want to know how fast your password can be cracked go to www.howsecureismypassword.net and enter it. Let’s put it to the test with a weak and a strong password. johnsmith (It would take About 6 hours to crack your password ) all lower case johnsmith1 (It would take About 169 days to crack your password ) adding a number johnsmith1$ (It would take About 769 years to crack your password ) adding a symbol Johnsmith1$ (It would take About 71 thousand years to crack your password ) adding an UPPERCASE —– As if this wasn’t bad enough that we use insecure passwords, many websites as of late have been hit with data breaches. According to New York Times: A group of hackers, posted online the user names and passwords for what appeared to be 453,492 accounts belonging to Yahoo, and also Gmail, AOL, Hotmail, Comcast, MSN, SBC Global, Verizon, BellSouth and Live.com. The breach comes just one month after millions of user passwords for LinkedIn, the online social network for professionals, were exposed by hackers who breached its systems. The breaches highlight the ease with which hackers are able to infiltrate systems, even at some of the most widely used and sophisticated technology companies. The lesson we can learn from this is to not use the same password for every website because if one is compromised, the hackers use common sense to try the password on other popular services including Facebook, twitter, yahoo etc. In the recent months around 20% of our Brilliant Geeks customers have had their email accounts compromised to the point where their friends have received links to spammy websites advertising weight loss or work from home etc. Our recommendation is that you ACT NOW! Change your email password and any other password you might be worried about being compromised. The inconvenience of changing it now will save you a ton of headache of explaining to your friends or business partners as to why you sent them random links to click on. To make sure your password is secure enough go to www.howsecureismypassword.net and enter it. It is best that it takes your password at least 100 years to crack according to the calculation. If you have further questions you can always contact us at [email protected].
DNSChanger Malware Set to Knock Thousands Off Internet on Monday
What is DNSChanger? DNSChanger is a class of malicious software (malware) that changes a user’s Domain Name System (DNS) settings, enabling criminals to direct unsuspecting internet users to fraudulent websites and otherwise interfere with access to internet services. An estimated four million users were affected worldwide. To avoid these victims losing access to internet services, the FBI worked with the Internet Systems Consortium (ISC) to set up and operate a temporary but correct DNS solution. This temporary solution will be switched off on 9 July 2012. Users infected by DNSChanger will be unable to access internet services when the temporary DNS solution is switched off. How to check if you’re Infected? Go to http://www.dns-ok.gov.au/ (At the time of this writing the US version is being bombarded with people accessing it) If it all checks out fine you should see some green text saying: “You do not appear to be affected by DNSChanger” If you are one of the few infected you can either follow instructions on the page or Contact Brilliant Geeks and we’ll help you with it.