There is a huge scandal developing about the behaviour of Godaddy.
The owner of FamilyAlbum.com was surprised to find that he no longer owned the domain, which had not expired.
Godaddy had received a complaint about invalid email address and sent an email to this invalid email address demanding the owner correct his invalid email address and predictably when no action was taken by the unaware domain owner (whose mailing address and phone number were correct!) godaddy grabbed the domain to itself and then either sold it for profit or kept it and with it valuable typein traffic.
Godaddy's explanations are vague and the domain still points to godaddy's inhouse domain parking program which makes godaddy a lot of money for each click and the domains new owner is hidden by godaddy service Domains by Proxy.
It seems to me that it would be common sense to try other contact methods instead of email when the whole basis for the godaddy complaint is an invalid email address!
If I would have any valuable domains at godaddy I would be transferring them away right about NOW to another registrar who cares about their customers and their customers business and domain property and is NOT trying to screw their customers for profit the first chance they get.
That this kind of a thing happened means that godaddy is prepared to destroy their customers business without a second thought for undeliverable email address even while phone number and mailing address are CORRECT!
Imagine your best earning website domain taken away on whim like this because of invalid email...
http://domainnamewire.com/2007/02/28/godaddy-responds-to-deletion-over-invalid-email-address/
http://domainnamewire.com/2007/02/27/godaddy-deletes-domain-name-for-inaccurate-email-address/
Friday, November 27, 2009
6 Steps to Registering a Successful Domain Name
Domain names are Web addresses that tell visitors where to find your online business. Yet did you know that domain names are also one of the most powerful tools used to build successful online businesses?
Choosing a memorable, relevant domain name is only the beginning. In order for your domain name to really go to work for your business, it will need to help you attract visitors and search engines alike while also supporting your brand. Network Solutions Domain Name Scorecard is an online quiz that's designed to help you determine how well your domain name is performing -- and help you find ways to improve it. This quick, informative quiz addresses the six key areas of domain name registration, including:
Registering Alternate Domain Name Extensions
Why stop at registering a domain name such as janesbagels.com when registering multiple extensions – such as janesbagels.net and janesbagels.org – can help you capture a wider audience? When visitors arrive at the alternate extension domains, you can redirect them to your website.
Registering Domain Names to Protect Your Brand
A visitor may intend to visit janesbagels.com, but mistakenly type jansbagels.com instead. By anticipating these typing errors and registering them as domain names, you can catch visitors before they are led astray by a competitor who may use the same strategy to lure your visitors to their own site.
Registering Descriptive Domain Names
Registering domain names that describe your products and/or services is another helpful domain name strategy. In the example janesbagels.com, relevant descriptive domains may include references to breakfast or catering. Adding a geographic element, such as a city name, is also a good way for local businesses to capture visitors in their immediate area.
Extending Your Domain Registration Term
While many people renew their domain name registration annually, it is possible to renew for an extended term. This option, along with auto-renewal services, can help you avoid losing your domain name due to forgetfulness. Also, search engines view a long-term domain name commitment favorably when indexing your site.
Electing Private Domain Registration
In today's world, private domain registration is more of a necessity than a luxury. Yet many continue to neglect this critical component of domain name registration. For a small monthly fee, private domain registration can keep your personal contact information out of the WHOIS database, where it is available to the public through a simple domain search.
Securing Your Domain Name Registration
By locking your domain name, you protect it from both unauthorized activity and human error - your own. When your domain is locked, a third party cannot transfer your domain to a different registrar without your consent. Domain locking also prevents you from making accidental changes to your domain name servers, which can disrupt your website and business email.
In as little as 30 seconds, Network Solutions' Domain Name Scorecard quiz can give you an overall score based on your domain name's rating in these six key areas. You can then use this information to unlock your domain name's full potential as a business building tool.
Choosing a memorable, relevant domain name is only the beginning. In order for your domain name to really go to work for your business, it will need to help you attract visitors and search engines alike while also supporting your brand. Network Solutions Domain Name Scorecard is an online quiz that's designed to help you determine how well your domain name is performing -- and help you find ways to improve it. This quick, informative quiz addresses the six key areas of domain name registration, including:
Registering Alternate Domain Name Extensions
Why stop at registering a domain name such as janesbagels.com when registering multiple extensions – such as janesbagels.net and janesbagels.org – can help you capture a wider audience? When visitors arrive at the alternate extension domains, you can redirect them to your website.
Registering Domain Names to Protect Your Brand
A visitor may intend to visit janesbagels.com, but mistakenly type jansbagels.com instead. By anticipating these typing errors and registering them as domain names, you can catch visitors before they are led astray by a competitor who may use the same strategy to lure your visitors to their own site.
Registering Descriptive Domain Names
Registering domain names that describe your products and/or services is another helpful domain name strategy. In the example janesbagels.com, relevant descriptive domains may include references to breakfast or catering. Adding a geographic element, such as a city name, is also a good way for local businesses to capture visitors in their immediate area.
Extending Your Domain Registration Term
While many people renew their domain name registration annually, it is possible to renew for an extended term. This option, along with auto-renewal services, can help you avoid losing your domain name due to forgetfulness. Also, search engines view a long-term domain name commitment favorably when indexing your site.
Electing Private Domain Registration
In today's world, private domain registration is more of a necessity than a luxury. Yet many continue to neglect this critical component of domain name registration. For a small monthly fee, private domain registration can keep your personal contact information out of the WHOIS database, where it is available to the public through a simple domain search.
Securing Your Domain Name Registration
By locking your domain name, you protect it from both unauthorized activity and human error - your own. When your domain is locked, a third party cannot transfer your domain to a different registrar without your consent. Domain locking also prevents you from making accidental changes to your domain name servers, which can disrupt your website and business email.
In as little as 30 seconds, Network Solutions' Domain Name Scorecard quiz can give you an overall score based on your domain name's rating in these six key areas. You can then use this information to unlock your domain name's full potential as a business building tool.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Cross-Domain Security
Hi everyone, Bryan here. Peleus Uhley, Senior Security Researcher at Adobe, has written a guest post for the BlueHat blog on potential security issues with cross-domain access permissions for web sites. I’d like to encourage you to read Peleus’ post and also to expand on it a little to talk about the SDL requirements around cross-domain access.
Normally, the Same Origin Policy prevents web pages from interacting with resources hosted on domains other than the one they were loaded from. This is done for security reasons; without the SOP it would be trivial for malicious sites to steal or alter data on other sites. However, there are so many great legitimate uses for cross-domain access (like creating client-side mashups) that several technologies have been developed to allow it under limited, opt-in circumstances. These technologies include:
· Flash’s crossdomain.xml policy file, also used by Silverlight
· Silverlight’s clientaccesspolicy.xml policy file
· IE8 XDomainRequest object
· XMLHttpRequest Level 2 Access-Control headers
· JavaScript document.domain property redefinition
Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with any of these (although I have argued in the past that cross-domain XMLHttpRequest would destroy the internet). The problem with using these is that it’s easy to inadvertently expose data to sites you don’t intend to expose data to. Using wildcard domains when determining which domains have access permissions exacerbates this problem. The canonical example of this (no pun intended) is the crossdomain.xml setting
This setting basically opens the web site up to cross-domain access from the entire internet.
To help prevent sites from unintentionally exposing data to malicious external domains, the SDL requires any site with authenticated access to enumerate the specific domains it is allowing access to – no wildcards allowed. Otherwise, the site is free to make its cross-domain access as permissive as desired.
The original draft of the SDL cross-domain requirement was slightly different. Initially, the requirement included restrictions on the use of wildcards based on the depth of the wildcard (i.e. two-dots vs. one-dot vs. no-dots) and whether or not the site provided a “private API”. If a site contained only completely public resources, then it was allowed to use wildcards at the two-dots level or greater; for example, *.live.com would be allowed (two dots) but *.com would not (one dot). If a site had any resources only accessible by authenticated users, then no wildcards were allowed; all domains with cross-domain privileges had to be explicitly enumerated in the appropriate policy file or header.
However, we later realized that this requirement draft was both overly complicated and overly restrictive. If a site is completely public – no authenticated access, no private or sensitive data – then there’s really no reason to restrict its access at all. The reason for this is that cross-domain attacks are luring attacks. To succeed, the attacker needs to lure a victim into performing some action on the attacker’s behalf. For example, a cross-domain attack against a stock trading web site might cause the victim to send the attacker the complete details of his stock portfolio, or might cause the victim to make unintended trades. But in a completely public site, there’s no personal data to steal and no possible authenticated actions to forge. There’s no reason for an attacker to perform a luring attack – they already have the same access to the same data that everyone else has.
When we realized that our requirement was too restrictive, we changed it to its current form. However, let’s re-examine the requirement in light of Peleus’ research on cross-domain access chaining. (To give an extremely brief summary for those who haven’t read it yet: cross-domain permissions are transitive. If site A grants privileges to site B, and site B grants privileges to site C, then site A is implicitly and perhaps unknowingly granting privileges to site C.) For the completely public site the potential of privilege chaining is a non-issue in terms of SDL requirements; we’ve already said it’s acceptable to grant global access if desired. However, the situation is more complicated for the site with authenticated actions.
It is true that even with wildcard domains being prohibited, there is still the possibility that one of an authenticated site’s allowed domains could chain access to a potentially malicious third site. Unfortunately, short of banning cross-domain access entirely, there is no way to completely prevent this possibility. In most situations it would be impossible to map out a list of 3rd and 4th and nth order chained domains at development time, and furthermore it would be pointless since the list could change at any time even after the app has been deployed.
In light of this research, we will be evaluating ways in which we can adapt the cross-domain requirement to continue to prevent unintended access from third-party domains. However, the requirement as it stands now remains useful and relevant. It raises the bar for attackers while imposing minimal design constraints and minimal time investments on the part of the development team.
Please let us know if you have any feedback on this requirement. Do you feel it’s too restrictive? Or maybe it’s not restrictive enough? Feel free to write us or leave a comment here.
Normally, the Same Origin Policy prevents web pages from interacting with resources hosted on domains other than the one they were loaded from. This is done for security reasons; without the SOP it would be trivial for malicious sites to steal or alter data on other sites. However, there are so many great legitimate uses for cross-domain access (like creating client-side mashups) that several technologies have been developed to allow it under limited, opt-in circumstances. These technologies include:
· Flash’s crossdomain.xml policy file, also used by Silverlight
· Silverlight’s clientaccesspolicy.xml policy file
· IE8 XDomainRequest object
· XMLHttpRequest Level 2 Access-Control headers
· JavaScript document.domain property redefinition
Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with any of these (although I have argued in the past that cross-domain XMLHttpRequest would destroy the internet). The problem with using these is that it’s easy to inadvertently expose data to sites you don’t intend to expose data to. Using wildcard domains when determining which domains have access permissions exacerbates this problem. The canonical example of this (no pun intended) is the crossdomain.xml setting
This setting basically opens the web site up to cross-domain access from the entire internet.
To help prevent sites from unintentionally exposing data to malicious external domains, the SDL requires any site with authenticated access to enumerate the specific domains it is allowing access to – no wildcards allowed. Otherwise, the site is free to make its cross-domain access as permissive as desired.
The original draft of the SDL cross-domain requirement was slightly different. Initially, the requirement included restrictions on the use of wildcards based on the depth of the wildcard (i.e. two-dots vs. one-dot vs. no-dots) and whether or not the site provided a “private API”. If a site contained only completely public resources, then it was allowed to use wildcards at the two-dots level or greater; for example, *.live.com would be allowed (two dots) but *.com would not (one dot). If a site had any resources only accessible by authenticated users, then no wildcards were allowed; all domains with cross-domain privileges had to be explicitly enumerated in the appropriate policy file or header.
However, we later realized that this requirement draft was both overly complicated and overly restrictive. If a site is completely public – no authenticated access, no private or sensitive data – then there’s really no reason to restrict its access at all. The reason for this is that cross-domain attacks are luring attacks. To succeed, the attacker needs to lure a victim into performing some action on the attacker’s behalf. For example, a cross-domain attack against a stock trading web site might cause the victim to send the attacker the complete details of his stock portfolio, or might cause the victim to make unintended trades. But in a completely public site, there’s no personal data to steal and no possible authenticated actions to forge. There’s no reason for an attacker to perform a luring attack – they already have the same access to the same data that everyone else has.
When we realized that our requirement was too restrictive, we changed it to its current form. However, let’s re-examine the requirement in light of Peleus’ research on cross-domain access chaining. (To give an extremely brief summary for those who haven’t read it yet: cross-domain permissions are transitive. If site A grants privileges to site B, and site B grants privileges to site C, then site A is implicitly and perhaps unknowingly granting privileges to site C.) For the completely public site the potential of privilege chaining is a non-issue in terms of SDL requirements; we’ve already said it’s acceptable to grant global access if desired. However, the situation is more complicated for the site with authenticated actions.
It is true that even with wildcard domains being prohibited, there is still the possibility that one of an authenticated site’s allowed domains could chain access to a potentially malicious third site. Unfortunately, short of banning cross-domain access entirely, there is no way to completely prevent this possibility. In most situations it would be impossible to map out a list of 3rd and 4th and nth order chained domains at development time, and furthermore it would be pointless since the list could change at any time even after the app has been deployed.
In light of this research, we will be evaluating ways in which we can adapt the cross-domain requirement to continue to prevent unintended access from third-party domains. However, the requirement as it stands now remains useful and relevant. It raises the bar for attackers while imposing minimal design constraints and minimal time investments on the part of the development team.
Please let us know if you have any feedback on this requirement. Do you feel it’s too restrictive? Or maybe it’s not restrictive enough? Feel free to write us or leave a comment here.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Domain Security
Private Registration
Many of your customers may feel vulnerable to deceptive practices with their personal information publicly available on the Internet. SRSplus® Private Registration provides you with a solution to your customers' privacy concerns by displaying alternate contact information (c/o SRSplus) in the public WHOIS database listing. SRSplus serves as the gatekeeper.
For the low cost of $5.00 per year, you can offer this value added service that your customers will appreciate.
SRSplus Private Registration provides your customers with:
Privacy – Alternate contact information will be used to keep personal information private
Protection – Reduces e-mail from spammers, guards against identity theft and deters unsolicited telemarketing calls and direct mail
Value – For a low incremental cost, your customer will have the peace of mind that their e-mail address, home address, or phone number information will not be mined from WHOIS and misused
Key features of Private Registration:
E-mail Masking – Your customer’s private registration e-mail address changes every 14 days. E-mail received at this address will be filtered for spam and important messages forwarded to the designated e-mail account.
Synchronized Expiration – Our Private Registration service fee is pro-rated so that the expiration date can be synchronize synchronized with the expiration date of the existing domain name registration.
Full Control – Unlike other proxy services, the customer remains the registrant and holds all the rights on the domain name
Partner WHOIS Listing – You can include your customer service information in our WHOIS listing so that your customers know how to contact you.
Private Registration is available through Partner Manager and our API, so you can offer Private Registration on your Web site.
When you offer this valuable privacy service to your current domain name customers, you’ll earn incremental revenue. Kick off a campaign and see immediate impact to your bottom line.
Domain Protect
SRSplus is committed to protecting you and your end-customers against accidental or unauthorized domain name transfers. Domain Protect adds an extra layer of protection to your customer’s domain name registration, guarding it against unauthorized domain name transfers.
Key features of Domain Protect:
Enabled for free with each new .com, .net, .org, .biz, .info, .us and .name domain name registration
When turned on, helps to block the transfer of a domain name to another registrar. It provides protection from “domain hijackers” or others who may attempt to authorize a transfer of your customer’s domain name registration.
Renew and make modifications to the domain name registrations, including legal name changes.
Easy on/off feature allows you turn off the Domain Protect feature if you are having the Registrant validated for an SSL certificate or if you wish to transfer a domain name to another registrar.
Auto Renew
Auto Renew helps to protect the domain name registrations and other services in your account from a possible lapse in service, and potential deletion, in case you or your customer accidentally forget to renew services. With Auto Renew, you have more control and peace of mind knowing your domain name registration(s) and other service(s) are safely renewing year after year
Many of your customers may feel vulnerable to deceptive practices with their personal information publicly available on the Internet. SRSplus® Private Registration provides you with a solution to your customers' privacy concerns by displaying alternate contact information (c/o SRSplus) in the public WHOIS database listing. SRSplus serves as the gatekeeper.
For the low cost of $5.00 per year, you can offer this value added service that your customers will appreciate.
SRSplus Private Registration provides your customers with:
Privacy – Alternate contact information will be used to keep personal information private
Protection – Reduces e-mail from spammers, guards against identity theft and deters unsolicited telemarketing calls and direct mail
Value – For a low incremental cost, your customer will have the peace of mind that their e-mail address, home address, or phone number information will not be mined from WHOIS and misused
Key features of Private Registration:
E-mail Masking – Your customer’s private registration e-mail address changes every 14 days. E-mail received at this address will be filtered for spam and important messages forwarded to the designated e-mail account.
Synchronized Expiration – Our Private Registration service fee is pro-rated so that the expiration date can be synchronize synchronized with the expiration date of the existing domain name registration.
Full Control – Unlike other proxy services, the customer remains the registrant and holds all the rights on the domain name
Partner WHOIS Listing – You can include your customer service information in our WHOIS listing so that your customers know how to contact you.
Private Registration is available through Partner Manager and our API, so you can offer Private Registration on your Web site.
When you offer this valuable privacy service to your current domain name customers, you’ll earn incremental revenue. Kick off a campaign and see immediate impact to your bottom line.
Domain Protect
SRSplus is committed to protecting you and your end-customers against accidental or unauthorized domain name transfers. Domain Protect adds an extra layer of protection to your customer’s domain name registration, guarding it against unauthorized domain name transfers.
Key features of Domain Protect:
Enabled for free with each new .com, .net, .org, .biz, .info, .us and .name domain name registration
When turned on, helps to block the transfer of a domain name to another registrar. It provides protection from “domain hijackers” or others who may attempt to authorize a transfer of your customer’s domain name registration.
Renew and make modifications to the domain name registrations, including legal name changes.
Easy on/off feature allows you turn off the Domain Protect feature if you are having the Registrant validated for an SSL certificate or if you wish to transfer a domain name to another registrar.
Auto Renew
Auto Renew helps to protect the domain name registrations and other services in your account from a possible lapse in service, and potential deletion, in case you or your customer accidentally forget to renew services. With Auto Renew, you have more control and peace of mind knowing your domain name registration(s) and other service(s) are safely renewing year after year
How to Register Your Own Domain Name
If you have a web site, you should seriously consider registering your own domain name. A domain name is a name like "thesitewizard.com" or "thefreecountry.com", which you can use to refer to your website. Note that you do not have to be a company or organisation to register a domain name. Any individual can do it too.
Importance of a Domain Name
There are a number of good reasons for having a domain name:
•If you ever change your web host, your domain name goes with you. Your regular visitors or customers who knew your site name as www.thesitewizard.com (for example) would not have to be informed about a change of URL. They would simply type your domain name and they'd be brought to your new site.
•If you are a business, a domain name gives you credibility. Few people would be willing to do business with a company with a dubious URL like http://www.geocities.com/whatever/12345.
•If you get a domain name that describes your company's business or name, people can remember the name easily and can return to your site without having to consult their documents. In fact, if you get a good name that describes your product or service, you might even get people who were trying their luck by typing "www.yourproductname.com" in their browser.
•If you want good sponsors (advertisers) for your website, a domain name is usually helpful. It tends to give your website an aura of respectibility.
Registration Overview
Getting a domain name involves registering the name you want with an organisation called ICANN through a domain name registrar. For example, if you choose a name like "example.com", you will have to go to a registrar, pay a registration fee that costs around US$10 to US$35 for that name. That will give you the right to the name for a year, and you will have to renew it annually for (usually) the same amount per annum.
Some web hosts will register it and pay for the name for free (usually only the commercial web hosts), while others will do it for you but you'll have to foot the ICANN fees.
My personal preference is to register the name directly with a domain name registrar rather than through my web host. I've heard stories, in the past, of less-than-reputable web hosts that registered the domain under their own name, making them the owner of the domain rather than you (although I don't know if such web hosts still exist today). Registering with a domain name registrar allows me to make sure that I am registered as the owner, the administrative and technical contacts. Being the owner is vital — if someone else places himself as the owner (such as your web host), he can always decide to charge you some exhorbitant fee for the use of the name later, and there is little you can do. The various other contacts are less vital, but still play important roles. For example, the administrative contact's approval is required before a domain name is transferred out of a web host. If he/she cannot be contacted, the technical contact is used.
Although some web hosts suggest that you put them as the technical contact, you may prefer to keep yourself as one, so that when you want to transfer your name to a new web host, you don't have to wait for your old host to approve the transfer. Apparently a few have been known to take their own sweet time to do this, while unscrupulous ones have actually refused to do it.
Domain names disappear extremely fast. Many people claim that all the good domain names are gone. I doubt that — but it is probably true that most good domain names that are descriptive of products and services have been taken. If you want a domain name for your site, I suggest you act now, or face the anguish of having lost that name later. After all, US$10 (more or less) for a year's ownership of the name is pretty cheap when you realise that you're cornering a good name for your website.
Step By Step Instructions
If you want to register a domain name, here's what you need to do. Please read it all before acting.
•Think of a few good domain names that you'd like to use. It won't do to think of only one — it might already be taken (it probably is!). You can find some tips on choosing a good domain name from my article, Tips on Choosing a Domain Name, at http://www.thesitewizard.com/archive/domainname.shtml
There's more to it than meets the eye.
•You will need either a credit card or a PayPal account to pay for the domain. This is a requirement of most if not all registrars. It will allow you to claim and get the domain name immediately on application. This is not an option (unfortunately).
•If you already have a web host, obtain from your web host the names of their primary and secondary nameservers. Don't worry if you don't understand what these things mean. Just save the information somewhere. The information can usually be obtained from their FAQs or other documentation on their site, usually under a category like "domain name" or "DNS" or "domain name transfer" and the like. If you can't find it, email them. You'll need the information to point your domain name to your website after you buy your domain. Don't worry if you don't have a web host yet. Just read on.
•If you do not have a web host, you can always allow the registrar to you to park your domain name at a temporary website specially set up for you. This way you can quickly secure your domain name before it's too late and still take your time to set up the other aspects of your site. As far as I can tell, many registrars automatically park your domain by default whether you ask them to or not, so if this is your situation, you probably don't have to do anything special to get it done. Some of those registrars also provide you with a free email address at your own domain name while it is parked at their site, like sales@example.com (where "example.com" is your domain).
List of Domain Name Registrars
There are numerous domain name registrars. Listed below are just a few, along with my comments, if I know anything about them. Note that the domain name industry is highly competitive, with prices wildly fluctuating throughout the year, every year, so it's impossible to really mention accurate prices below unless I spend all my time updating this page. Please check their sites for the latest rates. (Note: all prices are in US dollars.)
•World's Largest Registrar - GoDaddy.com — This extremely popular registrar (possibly the biggest today) offers .com domain names for $9.99 (plus 20 cents) per year ($6.99 plus 20 cents if you transfer from another registrar). They have a web interface to manage your domains, free web redirection (where people who visit your domain will get transferred to another URL of your choice), free starter web page, free parked page or free "for sale" page, and an optional private domain registration where your domain is registered in the name of a proxy company. They offer .com, .us, .biz, .info, .net, .org, .ws, .name, .tv, .co.uk, .me.uk and .org.uk. Note that (as with all registrars) the exact price varies depending on which domain you are registering (for example some domain extensions are more expensive than others). Both credit card and PayPal payments are accepted.
•Dotster.com — This fairly popular registrar provides fairly cheap domain prices ($15.75 plus 20 cents per domain), a convenient web interface to manage your domains, an optional privacy facility where your domain name is registered in the name of a proxy company, etc. They offer .com, .net, .org, .biz, .info, .us, .ca, .tv, .name, .cc, .de, .sr, .md, .co.uk, .us.com domains, etc. If you're transferring a domain here from other registrars, the price is even cheaper ($6.99 plus 20 cents). Both credit card and PayPal payments are accepted here.
•Register.com — This domain name registrar has been in business for a very long time: they were one of the biggest around when I started my first websites. They are currently running an offer (only via the above link) where they charge $9.99 per year for a domain name with a free business email account. Although the offer will expire eventually, you can apparently continue to use the $9.99 price for the life of the domain as long as you stay with them. Domains qualifying for this offer include .com, .net, .org, .biz, .us and .info. Country-specific domains have different prices. Note: the special offer link is rather flaky. If you don't get the $9.99 offer the first time you click it, but instead get their normal $35 price, return to this page again (for example, by clicking the Back button on your browser), and click the link again. The $9.99 offer should appear the second time you click it (or at least it did for me). [I've no idea why it works that way; I don't run their site.]
•Moniker — This domain name registrar allows domain name registrations for a plethora of top level domains (TLD), including .com, .org, .net, .info, .mobi, .biz, .us, .co.uk, and so on (the full list is too long to include here). Prices for domain names differ, depending on the extension. Their normal prices are about $10.49 for .com, $6.04 for .net, $10.95 for .org, $5.49 for .info, etc, although at the time I write this entry, it seems like they are having a sale, with $7.59 for .com, $5.59 for .net, $7.97 for .org, and so on. Their web interface allows you to manage matters pertaining to your domain, such as DNS, web forwarding (where you forward visitors to your domain to another URL of your choice), etc. You also have the option to add "Whois privacy", where your domain is registered in the name of a proxy company. Both credit card and PayPal payments are accepted by this registrar, although PayPal payments have a surcharge.
•1&1 Internet — This is primarily a large web host that is also a domain name registrar. You are charged $6.99 for .com, .org, .net, .us domains. They also offer .info domains for $0.99 (first year only) and .biz at $8.99. The fee includes private domain registration, which means that your particulars are hidden from public view (done by registering the domain in the name of a proxy company). You also get a free email account, DNS management, domain forwarding and masking, and a starter website with each domain. Both credit card and PayPal payments are accepted by this registrar.
In addition, as mentioned earlier, a number of commercial web hosts will give you a free domain name if you are hosting with them, as will many (if not all) of the registrars above.
After You Register Your Domain Name
If you're not sure what to do after you register your domain name, please read the The Beginner's A-Z Guide to Starting/Creating Your Own Website.
Conclusion
Once you decide, you should not procrastinate. I've lost more than one domain name by procrastinating (I lost the latest one by only one day). After all, at the price you're paying, it works out to be less than $1 a month for the majority of the registrars.
Importance of a Domain Name
There are a number of good reasons for having a domain name:
•If you ever change your web host, your domain name goes with you. Your regular visitors or customers who knew your site name as www.thesitewizard.com (for example) would not have to be informed about a change of URL. They would simply type your domain name and they'd be brought to your new site.
•If you are a business, a domain name gives you credibility. Few people would be willing to do business with a company with a dubious URL like http://www.geocities.com/whatever/12345.
•If you get a domain name that describes your company's business or name, people can remember the name easily and can return to your site without having to consult their documents. In fact, if you get a good name that describes your product or service, you might even get people who were trying their luck by typing "www.yourproductname.com" in their browser.
•If you want good sponsors (advertisers) for your website, a domain name is usually helpful. It tends to give your website an aura of respectibility.
Registration Overview
Getting a domain name involves registering the name you want with an organisation called ICANN through a domain name registrar. For example, if you choose a name like "example.com", you will have to go to a registrar, pay a registration fee that costs around US$10 to US$35 for that name. That will give you the right to the name for a year, and you will have to renew it annually for (usually) the same amount per annum.
Some web hosts will register it and pay for the name for free (usually only the commercial web hosts), while others will do it for you but you'll have to foot the ICANN fees.
My personal preference is to register the name directly with a domain name registrar rather than through my web host. I've heard stories, in the past, of less-than-reputable web hosts that registered the domain under their own name, making them the owner of the domain rather than you (although I don't know if such web hosts still exist today). Registering with a domain name registrar allows me to make sure that I am registered as the owner, the administrative and technical contacts. Being the owner is vital — if someone else places himself as the owner (such as your web host), he can always decide to charge you some exhorbitant fee for the use of the name later, and there is little you can do. The various other contacts are less vital, but still play important roles. For example, the administrative contact's approval is required before a domain name is transferred out of a web host. If he/she cannot be contacted, the technical contact is used.
Although some web hosts suggest that you put them as the technical contact, you may prefer to keep yourself as one, so that when you want to transfer your name to a new web host, you don't have to wait for your old host to approve the transfer. Apparently a few have been known to take their own sweet time to do this, while unscrupulous ones have actually refused to do it.
Domain names disappear extremely fast. Many people claim that all the good domain names are gone. I doubt that — but it is probably true that most good domain names that are descriptive of products and services have been taken. If you want a domain name for your site, I suggest you act now, or face the anguish of having lost that name later. After all, US$10 (more or less) for a year's ownership of the name is pretty cheap when you realise that you're cornering a good name for your website.
Step By Step Instructions
If you want to register a domain name, here's what you need to do. Please read it all before acting.
•Think of a few good domain names that you'd like to use. It won't do to think of only one — it might already be taken (it probably is!). You can find some tips on choosing a good domain name from my article, Tips on Choosing a Domain Name, at http://www.thesitewizard.com/archive/domainname.shtml
There's more to it than meets the eye.
•You will need either a credit card or a PayPal account to pay for the domain. This is a requirement of most if not all registrars. It will allow you to claim and get the domain name immediately on application. This is not an option (unfortunately).
•If you already have a web host, obtain from your web host the names of their primary and secondary nameservers. Don't worry if you don't understand what these things mean. Just save the information somewhere. The information can usually be obtained from their FAQs or other documentation on their site, usually under a category like "domain name" or "DNS" or "domain name transfer" and the like. If you can't find it, email them. You'll need the information to point your domain name to your website after you buy your domain. Don't worry if you don't have a web host yet. Just read on.
•If you do not have a web host, you can always allow the registrar to you to park your domain name at a temporary website specially set up for you. This way you can quickly secure your domain name before it's too late and still take your time to set up the other aspects of your site. As far as I can tell, many registrars automatically park your domain by default whether you ask them to or not, so if this is your situation, you probably don't have to do anything special to get it done. Some of those registrars also provide you with a free email address at your own domain name while it is parked at their site, like sales@example.com (where "example.com" is your domain).
List of Domain Name Registrars
There are numerous domain name registrars. Listed below are just a few, along with my comments, if I know anything about them. Note that the domain name industry is highly competitive, with prices wildly fluctuating throughout the year, every year, so it's impossible to really mention accurate prices below unless I spend all my time updating this page. Please check their sites for the latest rates. (Note: all prices are in US dollars.)
•World's Largest Registrar - GoDaddy.com — This extremely popular registrar (possibly the biggest today) offers .com domain names for $9.99 (plus 20 cents) per year ($6.99 plus 20 cents if you transfer from another registrar). They have a web interface to manage your domains, free web redirection (where people who visit your domain will get transferred to another URL of your choice), free starter web page, free parked page or free "for sale" page, and an optional private domain registration where your domain is registered in the name of a proxy company. They offer .com, .us, .biz, .info, .net, .org, .ws, .name, .tv, .co.uk, .me.uk and .org.uk. Note that (as with all registrars) the exact price varies depending on which domain you are registering (for example some domain extensions are more expensive than others). Both credit card and PayPal payments are accepted.
•Dotster.com — This fairly popular registrar provides fairly cheap domain prices ($15.75 plus 20 cents per domain), a convenient web interface to manage your domains, an optional privacy facility where your domain name is registered in the name of a proxy company, etc. They offer .com, .net, .org, .biz, .info, .us, .ca, .tv, .name, .cc, .de, .sr, .md, .co.uk, .us.com domains, etc. If you're transferring a domain here from other registrars, the price is even cheaper ($6.99 plus 20 cents). Both credit card and PayPal payments are accepted here.
•Register.com — This domain name registrar has been in business for a very long time: they were one of the biggest around when I started my first websites. They are currently running an offer (only via the above link) where they charge $9.99 per year for a domain name with a free business email account. Although the offer will expire eventually, you can apparently continue to use the $9.99 price for the life of the domain as long as you stay with them. Domains qualifying for this offer include .com, .net, .org, .biz, .us and .info. Country-specific domains have different prices. Note: the special offer link is rather flaky. If you don't get the $9.99 offer the first time you click it, but instead get their normal $35 price, return to this page again (for example, by clicking the Back button on your browser), and click the link again. The $9.99 offer should appear the second time you click it (or at least it did for me). [I've no idea why it works that way; I don't run their site.]
•Moniker — This domain name registrar allows domain name registrations for a plethora of top level domains (TLD), including .com, .org, .net, .info, .mobi, .biz, .us, .co.uk, and so on (the full list is too long to include here). Prices for domain names differ, depending on the extension. Their normal prices are about $10.49 for .com, $6.04 for .net, $10.95 for .org, $5.49 for .info, etc, although at the time I write this entry, it seems like they are having a sale, with $7.59 for .com, $5.59 for .net, $7.97 for .org, and so on. Their web interface allows you to manage matters pertaining to your domain, such as DNS, web forwarding (where you forward visitors to your domain to another URL of your choice), etc. You also have the option to add "Whois privacy", where your domain is registered in the name of a proxy company. Both credit card and PayPal payments are accepted by this registrar, although PayPal payments have a surcharge.
•1&1 Internet — This is primarily a large web host that is also a domain name registrar. You are charged $6.99 for .com, .org, .net, .us domains. They also offer .info domains for $0.99 (first year only) and .biz at $8.99. The fee includes private domain registration, which means that your particulars are hidden from public view (done by registering the domain in the name of a proxy company). You also get a free email account, DNS management, domain forwarding and masking, and a starter website with each domain. Both credit card and PayPal payments are accepted by this registrar.
In addition, as mentioned earlier, a number of commercial web hosts will give you a free domain name if you are hosting with them, as will many (if not all) of the registrars above.
After You Register Your Domain Name
If you're not sure what to do after you register your domain name, please read the The Beginner's A-Z Guide to Starting/Creating Your Own Website.
Conclusion
Once you decide, you should not procrastinate. I've lost more than one domain name by procrastinating (I lost the latest one by only one day). After all, at the price you're paying, it works out to be less than $1 a month for the majority of the registrars.
7 Tips to Finding a Great Domain Name
With the web becoming more and more important as a media to communicate to your customers/clients finding a great domain name is becoming more critical. A great domain name will pay you huge dividends in the future. Before you choose yours read my 7 top tips listed below.
Tip 1- Keep It Short : As far as possible keep it short. Long domain names are more difficult for the user to key in. In addition email addresses that utilise the domain name are also more difficult to spell and key in.
Tip 2 - Try To Use The Keyword: If you are hoping to do well in the search engines like Google, then try and get your top keyword in the name. So for example if you are a plumber and your business name is NJH, then a good one would be NJHplumbing.com. Perhaps you own a rental property in Cornwall then another example that you might consider would be HolidayCornwall.com. This will give you a big advantage in Google as a lot of importance is placed on the domain name.
Tip 3- Do Not Use Difficult To Spell Words : This is a real killer if you choose a domain name that is difficult to spell a lot of people will just give up, for example if you are a heating engineer I personally would not use the word engineer in the domain name as people may struggle with that, so before you buy think "would everyone be able to spell this word".
Tip 4- Should You Use A Hyphen : For example if cornwallholiday.com is not available should you try for cornwall-holiday.com. There are pros and cons to this point. My advice is yes; if the name without the hyphen is not available then go for the one with the hyphen. You then get what you want.
Tip 5- Character Types, What's Allowed : Domain names can only be made up of letters, numbers and dashes. Spaces and symbols are not allowed. In addition domain names cannot be case sensitive.
Tip 6- Use a Domain Name Suggestion Tool: You can bet your life that the domain name you want has been taken. If that is the case use a "domain name suggestion tool" - key this into Google and lots will appear. I personally like this one http://gi.net/domain.php?action=domain_suggest (I only use this for suggestions I do not buy through them although I am sure they are very good).
Tip 7- Buy the Domain in Your Name: When you buy a domain name be sure to buy it in the entities name that you want to own it, for example it may be in your name or your companies name. A friend of mine paid his web designer to buy the domain name, the web designer purchased it in his own name, a year later they have fallen out and his x web designer legally owns the domain name.
In these days we need to be more creative in our advertising, having a website is becoming a necessity rather than a luxury. It should form part of our advertising and marketing push to obtain more work. I hope the tips listed above help you in finding a great domain name.
Tip 1- Keep It Short : As far as possible keep it short. Long domain names are more difficult for the user to key in. In addition email addresses that utilise the domain name are also more difficult to spell and key in.
Tip 2 - Try To Use The Keyword: If you are hoping to do well in the search engines like Google, then try and get your top keyword in the name. So for example if you are a plumber and your business name is NJH, then a good one would be NJHplumbing.com. Perhaps you own a rental property in Cornwall then another example that you might consider would be HolidayCornwall.com. This will give you a big advantage in Google as a lot of importance is placed on the domain name.
Tip 3- Do Not Use Difficult To Spell Words : This is a real killer if you choose a domain name that is difficult to spell a lot of people will just give up, for example if you are a heating engineer I personally would not use the word engineer in the domain name as people may struggle with that, so before you buy think "would everyone be able to spell this word".
Tip 4- Should You Use A Hyphen : For example if cornwallholiday.com is not available should you try for cornwall-holiday.com. There are pros and cons to this point. My advice is yes; if the name without the hyphen is not available then go for the one with the hyphen. You then get what you want.
Tip 5- Character Types, What's Allowed : Domain names can only be made up of letters, numbers and dashes. Spaces and symbols are not allowed. In addition domain names cannot be case sensitive.
Tip 6- Use a Domain Name Suggestion Tool: You can bet your life that the domain name you want has been taken. If that is the case use a "domain name suggestion tool" - key this into Google and lots will appear. I personally like this one http://gi.net/domain.php?action=domain_suggest (I only use this for suggestions I do not buy through them although I am sure they are very good).
Tip 7- Buy the Domain in Your Name: When you buy a domain name be sure to buy it in the entities name that you want to own it, for example it may be in your name or your companies name. A friend of mine paid his web designer to buy the domain name, the web designer purchased it in his own name, a year later they have fallen out and his x web designer legally owns the domain name.
In these days we need to be more creative in our advertising, having a website is becoming a necessity rather than a luxury. It should form part of our advertising and marketing push to obtain more work. I hope the tips listed above help you in finding a great domain name.
How to Use a Good Domain Name Suggestion Tool
Domain name is an important part of your online business. Without a good and meaningful name, you can never expect to make your business a success. You can choose a good domain name by using a number of online domain-name suggestion tools. Here are some simple tips to choosing a domain name by using one of the domain-name suggestion utilities.
Choose your theme: Theme and subject of the domain name form an important part of a domain name. You may wish to decide on the main theme of your web site. Once you choose the theme of the web site, pick a name that relates and works well with the main theme. Let us say that you are dealing with selling flowers online. Then, you may wish to pick up a domain that reflects this glower selling theme. For example, choosing a theme enriched domain name like onlineflowerselling.com will work very good.
Find the domain name: Experts prefer and recommend .com as your preferred domain name. Most successful online entrepreneurs like to find a name based on the keywords. These keywords always relate to the main theme of the web site. If you are selling red flowers, then you must choose domain keywords that reflect the flower-selling theme. For example, you can choose a keyword like red flowers, online flowers or virtual flowers.
If you do not own a domain name then you can make use of a number of online domain tools to find your name of choice. Before buying one, you may also wish to use a keyword search tool to check the availability of good keywords. Let us say that you want to find keywords that relate to orchid flowers. Then, you will need to find all keywords that connect to orchid flowers and online sales of orchid flowers. This means that your keywords will be a combination of themes like orchid flowers that you want to sell online to your virtual customers. For example, you can choose keywords like online orchid flowers.
Tip: Most popular keyword search tools are
www.keywordtracker.com and
www.keyword.adwords.com
Now that you have your preferred keywords, you can use free online domain name tools like
http://www.nameboy.com/
http://www.domaininformer.com/tools
Enter your keywords plus domain extension in the search bar and find out the availability of the domain names. If it is available, then you can place an order for it almost immediately as someone may pick up that name before you.
Registering domains: You can register your domain name only when it is available. To find whether the name of your choice is available or not, you can make use of a free online utility called Whois database. Just enter the keywords Whois on the search-engine address field and enter the web portal. Now, you can type the domain name of your choice in the Whois search data entry box and hit Find button. Now, the database will inform whether the domain name is available or not. If it is available, you can buy the name immediately by paying the required registration fees.
Choose your theme: Theme and subject of the domain name form an important part of a domain name. You may wish to decide on the main theme of your web site. Once you choose the theme of the web site, pick a name that relates and works well with the main theme. Let us say that you are dealing with selling flowers online. Then, you may wish to pick up a domain that reflects this glower selling theme. For example, choosing a theme enriched domain name like onlineflowerselling.com will work very good.
Find the domain name: Experts prefer and recommend .com as your preferred domain name. Most successful online entrepreneurs like to find a name based on the keywords. These keywords always relate to the main theme of the web site. If you are selling red flowers, then you must choose domain keywords that reflect the flower-selling theme. For example, you can choose a keyword like red flowers, online flowers or virtual flowers.
If you do not own a domain name then you can make use of a number of online domain tools to find your name of choice. Before buying one, you may also wish to use a keyword search tool to check the availability of good keywords. Let us say that you want to find keywords that relate to orchid flowers. Then, you will need to find all keywords that connect to orchid flowers and online sales of orchid flowers. This means that your keywords will be a combination of themes like orchid flowers that you want to sell online to your virtual customers. For example, you can choose keywords like online orchid flowers.
Tip: Most popular keyword search tools are
www.keywordtracker.com and
www.keyword.adwords.com
Now that you have your preferred keywords, you can use free online domain name tools like
http://www.nameboy.com/
http://www.domaininformer.com/tools
Enter your keywords plus domain extension in the search bar and find out the availability of the domain names. If it is available, then you can place an order for it almost immediately as someone may pick up that name before you.
Registering domains: You can register your domain name only when it is available. To find whether the name of your choice is available or not, you can make use of a free online utility called Whois database. Just enter the keywords Whois on the search-engine address field and enter the web portal. Now, you can type the domain name of your choice in the Whois search data entry box and hit Find button. Now, the database will inform whether the domain name is available or not. If it is available, you can buy the name immediately by paying the required registration fees.
GODADDY is fraud..Money scam..Creditcard detial..No service.GODADDY.COM..Scandal Auckland Internet
We have hosted two sites with GODADDY.COM since last two years. We were regularly paid renew fees, but they charged us renew fees & other charges before it expire.
They automatic take out money from our credit card.We never placed any order for renew.
This year also we have paid hosting fee for 1 year but after six months they again charged on our credit card.
We never place any order.
Also now we can not see any hosting account or any detail of our website in our account. Our site is running but we can not make any changes.We did compalin two times but no reply from company.
If you are hosting anything with GODADDY.COM please beware & check your credit card statement. They automatic charged you any time.
We think this is big fraud with us....Beware..
Nehal
Auckland
New Zealand
They automatic take out money from our credit card.We never placed any order for renew.
This year also we have paid hosting fee for 1 year but after six months they again charged on our credit card.
We never place any order.
Also now we can not see any hosting account or any detail of our website in our account. Our site is running but we can not make any changes.We did compalin two times but no reply from company.
If you are hosting anything with GODADDY.COM please beware & check your credit card statement. They automatic charged you any time.
We think this is big fraud with us....Beware..
Nehal
Auckland
New Zealand
Saturday, November 14, 2009
How to Change or Spoof MAC Address in Windows XP, Vista, Server 2003/2008, Mac OS X, Unix and Linux
MAC address (Media Access Control address) is a quasi-unique identifier consists of a six byte number that attached to most network adapter card or network interface card (NIC). As such, all network cards, whether it’s of Ethernet NIC, Gigabit Ethernet NIC or wireless 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi or HiperLAN adapter, should have different MAC addresses, which also known as Ethernet Hardware Address (EHA) or adapter address.
In operating system, MAC address is often represented in 12-digit hexadecimal number. For example, 1A-2B-3C-4D-5E-6F. In practical usage, layer 2 MAC address is converted from layer 3 protocol addresses such as Internet Protocol (IP address) by ARP (Address Resolution Protocol), which then allowed each host to be uniquely identified and frames to be marked for specific hosts on broadcast networks, such as Ethernet. After translated (or when a host on LAN sends its MAC address to another machine which does n ot configured not to accept unrequested ARP replies on the network for preemptive caching), MAC address is cached on source PC ARP table for later use. Content of ARP table on each computer can be viewed by typing arp -a in Windows or arp in Linux. MAC address thus forms the basis of most of the layer 2 networking upon which higher OSI Layer protocols are built to produce complex, functioning networks.
There are many reasons or possibilities that an user may want to change the MAC address or a network adapter, which also known as MAC spoofing. For example, to bypass the MAC address filtering on firewall or router. The trick can be used to get pass the network access restriction by emulating a new unrestricted MAC address, or to gain access connection by spoof an authorized MAC address after sniffing the legitimate MAC address out of the air in MAC filtering Wi-Fi network.
Beside, hackers or enthusiasts also spoofing another host’s MAC address as their own in order to receive traffic packets not meant for them, although ARP poisoning technique is more commonly used. However, changing MAC address can still keep the real information from been detected and logged by various services such as IDS, firewall, DHCP server, wireless access points and etc, and is essential protect user’s privacy. MAC spoofing also potentially trigger a Denial of Service (DoS) attack by causing routing problem with duplicating MAC address exists in the network, especially those similar with gateway and AP router’s BSSID (Basic Service Set Identifier.)
Whatever the reason, it’s pretty easy to change the MAC address or perform MAC spoofing on most of today’s hardware, listed below. Actually, the original MAC address is burnt and imprinted to the network card, and cannot be changed. However, operating system can spoof as if there is different MAC address for the network interface card using tricks below.
Change the MAC address in Windows
1.Go to Start -> Control Panel. Double click on Network Connections (inside Network and Internet Connections category in Windows XP). The, right click on the active network connection with network adapter that you want to change the MAC address (normally Local Area Network or Wireless Network Connection) and click on Properties.
Above steps work in Windows XP, Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003. For Windows Vista, access to NIC’s properties is from Control Panel -> Network and Internet -> Network and Sharing Center -> Manage Network Connections.
Alternatively, if you already know which network adapter that’s responsible for your network or Internet connection, go to Device Manager and open the properties dialog by double click on the NIC itself.
2.In the General tab, click on the Configure button.
3.Click on Advanced tab.
4.In the Property section, select and highlight Network Address or Locally Administered Address.
5.To the right, “Not Present” radio button is by default selected as value. Change the value by clicking on radio button for Value:, and then type in a new MAC address to assign to the NIC.
The MAC address consists of 6 pairs of numbers (0 – 9) and characters (A – F) combination. For example, 88-17-E8-90-E2-0A. When entering the new MAC value, omit the dash (-), for example 8817E890E20A.
6.Click OK when done.
7.To verify the change of MAC address, go to command prompt, then type in one of the following commands:
ipconfig /all
net config rdr
8.Reboot the computer if successful to make the change effective.
Note: To restore or reset back to original default MAC address, simply set back the option to “Not Present”.
Change the MAC Address of NIC in Windows via Registry
1.Open a command prompt.
2.Type the following command and hit Enter.
ipconfig /all
3.Record down the Description and the Physical Address (is MAC address) of the active network connection (discard those with Media Disconnected state).
For example, in figure above, Description is Intel(R) Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN and MAC address is in the format of 00-XX-XX-XX-XX-XX.
4.In the command prompt also, type the following command and hit Enter.
net config rdr
5.Record down the GUID for the MAC address for the active connection’s NIC which MAC address to be changed. The GUID is contained within the { and } brackets right in front of the MAC address as shown in figure below.
6.Type regedt32 or regedit in Start -> Run box or in Start Search for Windows Vista. Note: for Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000, regedt32 must be used.
7.Navigate to the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
8.Expand the {4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} tree, and there will be more sub-keys in the form of 0000, 0001, 0002 and so on.
9.Go through each sub-key starting from 0000, look for subkey that has DriverDesc value data that matches NIC description copied from step above, that want its MAC address to be changed. In most cases, it will be similar to the network adapter card name.
To verify that the subkey found is indeed a correct one, check the value of the NetCfgInstanceId, which should have the same value with the NIC’s GUID taken from step above.
10.Once a sub-key is matched to the network interface card that MAC address want to be spoofed, select and highlight the subkey. Right click on the sub-key (for example, 0000), then select New -> String Value. Name the new value name as NetworkAddress.
Note: If NetworkAddress REG_SZ registry key is already existed in the right pane, skip this step.
11.The double click on NetworkAddress and enter a new MAC address as its value data.
Note that the 12-digit MAC address in hexadecimal format, and should be entered without any dash (-). For example, 1A2B3C4D5E6F.
12.Reboot the system to make the new MAC address effective. Alternatively, if you don’t want to restart the system, try to disable and then re-enable the network adapter in Device Manager.
13.To verify the change of MAC address, go to command prompt, then type in one of the following commands:
ipconfig /all
net config rdr
Note: To restore or reset back to true original hardware burned-in MAC address, remove the NetworkAddress registry key that is been added.
Alternative: Third party tools and utilities to change the MAC address in Windows operating system are plenty, for example: SMAC (direct download link to smac20_setup.ex, supports Windows Vista, XP, 2003, 2000), Macshift (direct download link to macshift.zip, for Windows XP), BMAC (almost identical SMAC MAC changer clone by moorer-software.com), Mac MakeUp (direct download link to macmakeup.zip, for Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista), MadMACs (MAC Address Spoofing And Host Name Randomizing App For Windows, directly download MadMACs.zip), EtherChange (direct download link to etherchange.exe), and Technitium MAC Address Changer (for Windows 2000 / XP / Server 2003 / Vista / Server 2008).
How to Change MAC Address (MAC Spoofing) in Linux and *nix
To change your MAC address in Linux and most Unix-like (*nix) system, run the following script commands:
ifconfig down
ifconfig hw
ifconfig up
For example, the command looks lik “ifconfig eth0 down hw ether 1A:2B:3C:4D:5E:6F”. First command brings down the network interface, second command change its MAC address while third command bring up the interface again. Note that in some cases, to bring down and bring up the network interface, the following commands have to be used:
/etc/init.d/networking stop or /etc/init.d/network stop (in the case of Fedora Core 5)
/etc/init.d/networking start or /etc/init.d/network stop (in the case of Fedora Core 5)
Alternatively, for Fedora Code 5 Linux with Iproute2 tools installed, the following commands also can change the MAC address to spoofed version:
/etc/init.d/network stop
ip link set address 1A:2B:3C:4D:5E:6F
/etc/init.d/network start
For example, “ip link set eth0 address 1A:2B:3C:4D:5E:6F”. To check whether the MAC address has been spoofed, use ip link ls eth0 or ip addr ls eth0 instead of using ifconfig eth0.
How to Make the Spoofed MAC Address Permanently Even After Reboot in Linux
Edit the ifcfg-eth0 file (or other similar file if you’re changing different interface), add the following variable line to the file:
MACADDR=12:34:56:78:90:ab
Then run service network restart to make the change effective immediately.
How to Make the Spoofed MAC Address Permanently on Restart in Debian
Edit the /etc/network/interfaces file and add in the following variable line to the appropriate section so that the MAC address is set when the network device is started.
hwaddress 02:01:02:03:04:08
For example, “hwaddress ether 02:01:02:03:04:08″.
Alternative: GNU Mac Changer (for Debian, Slackware, ArchLinux, Mandrake, Crux and other RPM-based distributions such as Fedora, Red Hat, CentOS, ASPLinux, SUSE Linux, OpenSUSE and etc.
How to Change MAC Address (MAC Spoofing) in BSD or FreeBSD
Issue the following commands in shell:
ifconfig down
ifconfig
ifconfig up
First command brings down the network interface (optional), second command change its MAC address while third command bring up the interface again (optional). For example, the command looks lik “ifconfig xl0 link 1A:2B:3C:4D:5E:6F” or “ifconfig fxp0 ether 1A:2B:3C:4D:5E:6F”
How to Change MAC address in Solaris
The shell command to change the MAC address in Sun Solaris is as below:
ifconfig
For example, the command looks like “ifconfig hme0 ether 1A:2B:3C:4D:5E:6F”. Note that the change is temporary that does not persist after a reboot. To make this change permanent, the command can be placed in a runtime control script (/sbin/sh).
How to Spoof MAC Address in HP-UX
It’s possible to change MAC address using HP-UX SAM. Select Networking and Communications, then selecting the interface, then click on Action -> Modify -> Advanced Options. Finally, change the value of station address, which is MAC address name in HP-UX.
How to Spoof and Change MAC Address in OpenBSD
Use the following command to change MAC Address to spoofed MAC in OpenBSD (after version 3.8):
ifconfig lladdr
For example, “ifconfig bge3 lladdr 1A:2B:3C:4D:5E:6F”.
How to Change to Spoofed MAC Address Permanently in OpenBSD
To make the MAC address changed at boot before network connection is established, and even before parsing of hostname.* file, edit the /etc/netstart file to add in the following lines before the line of “# Now parse the hostname.* file”:
if [ "$if" = "INTERFACE" ]; then
ifconfig lladdr
fi
# Now parse the hostname.* file
....
How to Change MAC Address in Mac OS X
Since Mac OS X 10.4.x (Darwin 8.x) onwards, the MAC address of wired Ethernet interface can be altered in Apple Mac OS X in a fashion similar to the Linux and FreeBSD methods. To do so, type the following command in Terminal.app:
sudo ifconfig en0 ether aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff
or
sudo ifconfig en0 lladdr aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff (for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard)
where en0 is the network interface (numbered from en0, en1, en2 …) and aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff is the desired MAC address in hex notation.
Alternative: MacDaddy (download MacDaddyX.dmg, support Airport wireless adapter)
In operating system, MAC address is often represented in 12-digit hexadecimal number. For example, 1A-2B-3C-4D-5E-6F. In practical usage, layer 2 MAC address is converted from layer 3 protocol addresses such as Internet Protocol (IP address) by ARP (Address Resolution Protocol), which then allowed each host to be uniquely identified and frames to be marked for specific hosts on broadcast networks, such as Ethernet. After translated (or when a host on LAN sends its MAC address to another machine which does n ot configured not to accept unrequested ARP replies on the network for preemptive caching), MAC address is cached on source PC ARP table for later use. Content of ARP table on each computer can be viewed by typing arp -a in Windows or arp in Linux. MAC address thus forms the basis of most of the layer 2 networking upon which higher OSI Layer protocols are built to produce complex, functioning networks.
There are many reasons or possibilities that an user may want to change the MAC address or a network adapter, which also known as MAC spoofing. For example, to bypass the MAC address filtering on firewall or router. The trick can be used to get pass the network access restriction by emulating a new unrestricted MAC address, or to gain access connection by spoof an authorized MAC address after sniffing the legitimate MAC address out of the air in MAC filtering Wi-Fi network.
Beside, hackers or enthusiasts also spoofing another host’s MAC address as their own in order to receive traffic packets not meant for them, although ARP poisoning technique is more commonly used. However, changing MAC address can still keep the real information from been detected and logged by various services such as IDS, firewall, DHCP server, wireless access points and etc, and is essential protect user’s privacy. MAC spoofing also potentially trigger a Denial of Service (DoS) attack by causing routing problem with duplicating MAC address exists in the network, especially those similar with gateway and AP router’s BSSID (Basic Service Set Identifier.)
Whatever the reason, it’s pretty easy to change the MAC address or perform MAC spoofing on most of today’s hardware, listed below. Actually, the original MAC address is burnt and imprinted to the network card, and cannot be changed. However, operating system can spoof as if there is different MAC address for the network interface card using tricks below.
Change the MAC address in Windows
1.Go to Start -> Control Panel. Double click on Network Connections (inside Network and Internet Connections category in Windows XP). The, right click on the active network connection with network adapter that you want to change the MAC address (normally Local Area Network or Wireless Network Connection) and click on Properties.
Above steps work in Windows XP, Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003. For Windows Vista, access to NIC’s properties is from Control Panel -> Network and Internet -> Network and Sharing Center -> Manage Network Connections.
Alternatively, if you already know which network adapter that’s responsible for your network or Internet connection, go to Device Manager and open the properties dialog by double click on the NIC itself.
2.In the General tab, click on the Configure button.
3.Click on Advanced tab.
4.In the Property section, select and highlight Network Address or Locally Administered Address.
5.To the right, “Not Present” radio button is by default selected as value. Change the value by clicking on radio button for Value:, and then type in a new MAC address to assign to the NIC.
The MAC address consists of 6 pairs of numbers (0 – 9) and characters (A – F) combination. For example, 88-17-E8-90-E2-0A. When entering the new MAC value, omit the dash (-), for example 8817E890E20A.
6.Click OK when done.
7.To verify the change of MAC address, go to command prompt, then type in one of the following commands:
ipconfig /all
net config rdr
8.Reboot the computer if successful to make the change effective.
Note: To restore or reset back to original default MAC address, simply set back the option to “Not Present”.
Change the MAC Address of NIC in Windows via Registry
1.Open a command prompt.
2.Type the following command and hit Enter.
ipconfig /all
3.Record down the Description and the Physical Address (is MAC address) of the active network connection (discard those with Media Disconnected state).
For example, in figure above, Description is Intel(R) Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN and MAC address is in the format of 00-XX-XX-XX-XX-XX.
4.In the command prompt also, type the following command and hit Enter.
net config rdr
5.Record down the GUID for the MAC address for the active connection’s NIC which MAC address to be changed. The GUID is contained within the { and } brackets right in front of the MAC address as shown in figure below.
6.Type regedt32 or regedit in Start -> Run box or in Start Search for Windows Vista. Note: for Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000, regedt32 must be used.
7.Navigate to the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
8.Expand the {4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} tree, and there will be more sub-keys in the form of 0000, 0001, 0002 and so on.
9.Go through each sub-key starting from 0000, look for subkey that has DriverDesc value data that matches NIC description copied from step above, that want its MAC address to be changed. In most cases, it will be similar to the network adapter card name.
To verify that the subkey found is indeed a correct one, check the value of the NetCfgInstanceId, which should have the same value with the NIC’s GUID taken from step above.
10.Once a sub-key is matched to the network interface card that MAC address want to be spoofed, select and highlight the subkey. Right click on the sub-key (for example, 0000), then select New -> String Value. Name the new value name as NetworkAddress.
Note: If NetworkAddress REG_SZ registry key is already existed in the right pane, skip this step.
11.The double click on NetworkAddress and enter a new MAC address as its value data.
Note that the 12-digit MAC address in hexadecimal format, and should be entered without any dash (-). For example, 1A2B3C4D5E6F.
12.Reboot the system to make the new MAC address effective. Alternatively, if you don’t want to restart the system, try to disable and then re-enable the network adapter in Device Manager.
13.To verify the change of MAC address, go to command prompt, then type in one of the following commands:
ipconfig /all
net config rdr
Note: To restore or reset back to true original hardware burned-in MAC address, remove the NetworkAddress registry key that is been added.
Alternative: Third party tools and utilities to change the MAC address in Windows operating system are plenty, for example: SMAC (direct download link to smac20_setup.ex, supports Windows Vista, XP, 2003, 2000), Macshift (direct download link to macshift.zip, for Windows XP), BMAC (almost identical SMAC MAC changer clone by moorer-software.com), Mac MakeUp (direct download link to macmakeup.zip, for Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista), MadMACs (MAC Address Spoofing And Host Name Randomizing App For Windows, directly download MadMACs.zip), EtherChange (direct download link to etherchange.exe), and Technitium MAC Address Changer (for Windows 2000 / XP / Server 2003 / Vista / Server 2008).
How to Change MAC Address (MAC Spoofing) in Linux and *nix
To change your MAC address in Linux and most Unix-like (*nix) system, run the following script commands:
ifconfig
ifconfig
ifconfig
For example, the command looks lik “ifconfig eth0 down hw ether 1A:2B:3C:4D:5E:6F”. First command brings down the network interface, second command change its MAC address while third command bring up the interface again. Note that in some cases, to bring down and bring up the network interface, the following commands have to be used:
/etc/init.d/networking stop or /etc/init.d/network stop (in the case of Fedora Core 5)
/etc/init.d/networking start or /etc/init.d/network stop (in the case of Fedora Core 5)
Alternatively, for Fedora Code 5 Linux with Iproute2 tools installed, the following commands also can change the MAC address to spoofed version:
/etc/init.d/network stop
ip link set
/etc/init.d/network start
For example, “ip link set eth0 address 1A:2B:3C:4D:5E:6F”. To check whether the MAC address has been spoofed, use ip link ls eth0 or ip addr ls eth0 instead of using ifconfig eth0.
How to Make the Spoofed MAC Address Permanently Even After Reboot in Linux
Edit the ifcfg-eth0 file (or other similar file if you’re changing different interface), add the following variable line to the file:
MACADDR=12:34:56:78:90:ab
Then run service network restart to make the change effective immediately.
How to Make the Spoofed MAC Address Permanently on Restart in Debian
Edit the /etc/network/interfaces file and add in the following variable line to the appropriate section so that the MAC address is set when the network device is started.
hwaddress
For example, “hwaddress ether 02:01:02:03:04:08″.
Alternative: GNU Mac Changer (for Debian, Slackware, ArchLinux, Mandrake, Crux and other RPM-based distributions such as Fedora, Red Hat, CentOS, ASPLinux, SUSE Linux, OpenSUSE and etc.
How to Change MAC Address (MAC Spoofing) in BSD or FreeBSD
Issue the following commands in shell:
ifconfig
ifconfig
ifconfig
First command brings down the network interface (optional), second command change its MAC address while third command bring up the interface again (optional). For example, the command looks lik “ifconfig xl0 link 1A:2B:3C:4D:5E:6F” or “ifconfig fxp0 ether 1A:2B:3C:4D:5E:6F”
How to Change MAC address in Solaris
The shell command to change the MAC address in Sun Solaris is as below:
ifconfig
For example, the command looks like “ifconfig hme0 ether 1A:2B:3C:4D:5E:6F”. Note that the change is temporary that does not persist after a reboot. To make this change permanent, the command can be placed in a runtime control script (/sbin/sh).
How to Spoof MAC Address in HP-UX
It’s possible to change MAC address using HP-UX SAM. Select Networking and Communications, then selecting the interface, then click on Action -> Modify -> Advanced Options. Finally, change the value of station address, which is MAC address name in HP-UX.
How to Spoof and Change MAC Address in OpenBSD
Use the following command to change MAC Address to spoofed MAC in OpenBSD (after version 3.8):
ifconfig
For example, “ifconfig bge3 lladdr 1A:2B:3C:4D:5E:6F”.
How to Change to Spoofed MAC Address Permanently in OpenBSD
To make the MAC address changed at boot before network connection is established, and even before parsing of hostname.* file, edit the /etc/netstart file to add in the following lines before the line of “# Now parse the hostname.* file”:
if [ "$if" = "INTERFACE" ]; then
ifconfig
fi
# Now parse the hostname.* file
....
How to Change MAC Address in Mac OS X
Since Mac OS X 10.4.x (Darwin 8.x) onwards, the MAC address of wired Ethernet interface can be altered in Apple Mac OS X in a fashion similar to the Linux and FreeBSD methods. To do so, type the following command in Terminal.app:
sudo ifconfig en0 ether aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff
or
sudo ifconfig en0 lladdr aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff (for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard)
where en0 is the network interface (numbered from en0, en1, en2 …) and aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff is the desired MAC address in hex notation.
Alternative: MacDaddy (download MacDaddyX.dmg, support Airport wireless adapter)
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Bad Credit Mortgage Refinance
You Can Lower your Debt Even if you have Bad Credit
You’ve heard the commercials: “Bad Credit? No Credit? No Problem!” but they might sound too good to be true for someone who might have had difficulty paying the mortgage and now has a poor credit score. It’s a frustrating feeling of being in a position to get behind on payments knowing your FICO score and your credit history will be adversely affected.
But there are ways to obtain help with paying the bills, get a lower interest rate on your mortgage or to even consolidate debt into a mortgage payment.
Home Equity Loans
Home equity loans can help homeowners who have experienced problems with bad credit. Home equity loans are mortgage loans that are secured by your home. This is something that you should consider very carefully if you have a history of not being able to meet your financial demands. If you default on a home equity loan, you can lose your home. However, this is an option to help you get caught up with debt and make other financial payments and also have some money available if you need home improvements.
Equity in a home is calculated by taking what you currently owe on your home and deducting it from what your home is worth according to a financial institution. If you have some equity built up in your home, you can quality to receive that equity in the form of a low interest home equity loan.
Lower Interest Rates
A bad credit mortgage refinance is possible even if you have a not-so-great FICO score. A bad credit mortgage refinance will help homeowners by allowing them to receive lower interest rate leading to a lower monthly mortgage payment. Take a good look at your current bills, especially your credit card bills. Sometimes your credit card bills can charge you exorbitant interest rates and additional high fees for late payments, over-the-limit payments and more. See what you are paying credit card companies and then adetermine if obtaining a mortgage refinance is possible. If it turns out that you will be saving hundreds of dollars on your mortgage payment by refinancing, then it will make sense to apply for the refinance.
You can consolidate your debt into one payment by obtaining a bad credit mortgage refinance plan. This will eliminate a lot of those high fees. Again, keep in mind that your home is on the line. If you have a history of defaulting on debt or otherwise having a history of non-payments, think again before you apply for a mortgage refinance. You could lose your home if you don’t make the payments as promised.
The benefits of a bad credit mortgage refinance are that you can start to rebuild your credit history by wiping out existing debt, paying off credit cards, and making one payment to a mortgage company. Your credit score is based on whether or not you make payments on time and how many open lines of credit you have. If you have a lot of new credit card accounts, this will adversely affect your credit.
But if you make timely payments without missing any, you will see your credit score go up. Once you have a great credit score, you will be able to easily obtain loans for cars, credit cards, etc., at much lower rates. Also, by only having one payment to remember to pay, you may be less likely to miss a payment when you’re trying to juggle a lot of bills at once.
A great way to make sure your mortgage payment is paid on time every month is to set up an automatic draft from your bank account. You will never have to worry about missed payments or late fees again. Just make sure you have the money in the account when the payment is withdrawn.
If you are in the market for a bad credit mortgage refinance do some checking online or with a reputable financial institution before you apply. There are fees or interest ‘points’ that sometimes are added onto the loan so make sure you talk with a knowledgeable professional before pursuing a loan. Compare rates and fees as well – a half of an interest point makes a big difference in your payment. Make sure it is a financial decision that makes sense for you before you sign on the dotted line.
You’ve heard the commercials: “Bad Credit? No Credit? No Problem!” but they might sound too good to be true for someone who might have had difficulty paying the mortgage and now has a poor credit score. It’s a frustrating feeling of being in a position to get behind on payments knowing your FICO score and your credit history will be adversely affected.
But there are ways to obtain help with paying the bills, get a lower interest rate on your mortgage or to even consolidate debt into a mortgage payment.
Home Equity Loans
Home equity loans can help homeowners who have experienced problems with bad credit. Home equity loans are mortgage loans that are secured by your home. This is something that you should consider very carefully if you have a history of not being able to meet your financial demands. If you default on a home equity loan, you can lose your home. However, this is an option to help you get caught up with debt and make other financial payments and also have some money available if you need home improvements.
Equity in a home is calculated by taking what you currently owe on your home and deducting it from what your home is worth according to a financial institution. If you have some equity built up in your home, you can quality to receive that equity in the form of a low interest home equity loan.
Lower Interest Rates
A bad credit mortgage refinance is possible even if you have a not-so-great FICO score. A bad credit mortgage refinance will help homeowners by allowing them to receive lower interest rate leading to a lower monthly mortgage payment. Take a good look at your current bills, especially your credit card bills. Sometimes your credit card bills can charge you exorbitant interest rates and additional high fees for late payments, over-the-limit payments and more. See what you are paying credit card companies and then adetermine if obtaining a mortgage refinance is possible. If it turns out that you will be saving hundreds of dollars on your mortgage payment by refinancing, then it will make sense to apply for the refinance.
You can consolidate your debt into one payment by obtaining a bad credit mortgage refinance plan. This will eliminate a lot of those high fees. Again, keep in mind that your home is on the line. If you have a history of defaulting on debt or otherwise having a history of non-payments, think again before you apply for a mortgage refinance. You could lose your home if you don’t make the payments as promised.
The benefits of a bad credit mortgage refinance are that you can start to rebuild your credit history by wiping out existing debt, paying off credit cards, and making one payment to a mortgage company. Your credit score is based on whether or not you make payments on time and how many open lines of credit you have. If you have a lot of new credit card accounts, this will adversely affect your credit.
But if you make timely payments without missing any, you will see your credit score go up. Once you have a great credit score, you will be able to easily obtain loans for cars, credit cards, etc., at much lower rates. Also, by only having one payment to remember to pay, you may be less likely to miss a payment when you’re trying to juggle a lot of bills at once.
A great way to make sure your mortgage payment is paid on time every month is to set up an automatic draft from your bank account. You will never have to worry about missed payments or late fees again. Just make sure you have the money in the account when the payment is withdrawn.
If you are in the market for a bad credit mortgage refinance do some checking online or with a reputable financial institution before you apply. There are fees or interest ‘points’ that sometimes are added onto the loan so make sure you talk with a knowledgeable professional before pursuing a loan. Compare rates and fees as well – a half of an interest point makes a big difference in your payment. Make sure it is a financial decision that makes sense for you before you sign on the dotted line.
Refinancing a Mortgage With Bad Credit
First of all, don't panic. Although banks have tightened up their lending standards considerably, it is still possible to get a refinance or a mortgage for a new home purchase even with a blot on your credit history. That's the good news.
The bad news is that getting a refinance or other mortgage gets progressively more expensive the lower your credit score is. So the whole question may not be so much whether you can refinance your mortgage, but whether you can do so on terms that make the process worthwhile.
So why do you want to refinance? Are you looking to take advantage of the current low rates in order to save a percentage point or two off your current mortgage? Do you have an interest-only or option ARM that's about to reset to a much higher monthly payment? Or perhaps you've suffered a financial setback and would like to refinance your remaining balance back out to 30 years to bring down your monthly payments?
Should you seek to refinance your mortgage?
Depending on how poor your credit is, you may have difficulty refinancing into a lower fixed rate than you have now. Interest rates are tied to credit scores and the lower your score, the higher the rate you're going to pay. And if your poor credit rating is due to missed mortgage payments (by 30 days or more), you likely won't be able to refinance - a loan modification is probably a more realistic option. However, if your poor credit is due to other factors, such as high levels of credit card debt, and you're currently paying a high rate on your mortgage, it may be worthwhile to refinance even if you don't qualify for the lowest rates now available.
It also makes sense to refinance, even if you can't qualify for the lowest rates, if you have an ARM that's about to reset to a higher rate or monthly payment. Because interest rates are low right now, it isn't likely that a regular ARM will reset to a significantly higher rate right now. But if you have an interest-only or option-ARM that's about to reset, you could be facing dramatically higher payments if you don't refinance.
Get rates from multiple lenders
The key to refinancing with bad credit - or any time you're looking for a mortgage, in fact - is to shop around. Different lenders and brokers cater to different parts of the market, and some of them specialize in loans to people with weak credit. But you've got to shop around. Obtain your credit score (more on that below) and contact 6-10 lenders and see what sort of terms they offer. You can also contact several mortgage brokers, who can track down the lowest rate and terms for you - but you'll need to pay a small slice to them as well.
So how much will you have to pay? According to the Fair Isaac Corporation, which developed the FICO credit rating system used by lenders, you can still get a fairly good rate with a score as low as 660 - about 5.5 percent on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage as of Aug. 14, 2009. Higher scores mean lower rates - saving about two-tenths of a percentage point for each step upward to scores of 680, 700 and 760 or above.
But below 660, rates increase rapidly, by about half a percent for every 20 point drop - to about 6 percent for a score of 640-659, and 6.5 percent for scores of 620-639. Rates for scores below 620 are not listed, but will be even higher, if you are able to get financing, which may require a co-signer on the loan in the current economic climate.
Fixing your credit score
So before you start shopping for a mortgage or refinance, you'll want to know your credit score. You can obtain it from any of the three major credit reporting agencies - Experian, Equifax and Transunion. Note that while you're entitled to obtain a free copy of your credit report from each of these every year, you'll normally have to pay to obtain your actual credit score.
When you get your credit score, you may be surprised to find it's higher than you expected. If you initially had to take out a subprime mortgage due to weak credit, your score should have improved considerably if you've stayed current on your payments for a year or two.
Once you have your score and credit report, check to see if there's anything you can do to bring it up, if your score is low. Many people are surprised to learn that they can improve their score dramatically within 30 days simply by paying off high-balance credit cards. If you have savings or other resources you can draw on to pay down revolving debts, it might make sense to do so if refinancing would provide a significant economic benefit for you.
This is one of the places where a mortgage broker or lender can be of assistance. They may be able to help you identify things you can do to bring your score up over the coming months or perhaps a year. Depending on how soon you need to refinance, this could be a better strategy than trying to refinance immediately - even if rates go up overall, the rate that you qualify for might be lower if you can improve your score.
The bad news is that getting a refinance or other mortgage gets progressively more expensive the lower your credit score is. So the whole question may not be so much whether you can refinance your mortgage, but whether you can do so on terms that make the process worthwhile.
So why do you want to refinance? Are you looking to take advantage of the current low rates in order to save a percentage point or two off your current mortgage? Do you have an interest-only or option ARM that's about to reset to a much higher monthly payment? Or perhaps you've suffered a financial setback and would like to refinance your remaining balance back out to 30 years to bring down your monthly payments?
Should you seek to refinance your mortgage?
Depending on how poor your credit is, you may have difficulty refinancing into a lower fixed rate than you have now. Interest rates are tied to credit scores and the lower your score, the higher the rate you're going to pay. And if your poor credit rating is due to missed mortgage payments (by 30 days or more), you likely won't be able to refinance - a loan modification is probably a more realistic option. However, if your poor credit is due to other factors, such as high levels of credit card debt, and you're currently paying a high rate on your mortgage, it may be worthwhile to refinance even if you don't qualify for the lowest rates now available.
It also makes sense to refinance, even if you can't qualify for the lowest rates, if you have an ARM that's about to reset to a higher rate or monthly payment. Because interest rates are low right now, it isn't likely that a regular ARM will reset to a significantly higher rate right now. But if you have an interest-only or option-ARM that's about to reset, you could be facing dramatically higher payments if you don't refinance.
Get rates from multiple lenders
The key to refinancing with bad credit - or any time you're looking for a mortgage, in fact - is to shop around. Different lenders and brokers cater to different parts of the market, and some of them specialize in loans to people with weak credit. But you've got to shop around. Obtain your credit score (more on that below) and contact 6-10 lenders and see what sort of terms they offer. You can also contact several mortgage brokers, who can track down the lowest rate and terms for you - but you'll need to pay a small slice to them as well.
So how much will you have to pay? According to the Fair Isaac Corporation, which developed the FICO credit rating system used by lenders, you can still get a fairly good rate with a score as low as 660 - about 5.5 percent on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage as of Aug. 14, 2009. Higher scores mean lower rates - saving about two-tenths of a percentage point for each step upward to scores of 680, 700 and 760 or above.
But below 660, rates increase rapidly, by about half a percent for every 20 point drop - to about 6 percent for a score of 640-659, and 6.5 percent for scores of 620-639. Rates for scores below 620 are not listed, but will be even higher, if you are able to get financing, which may require a co-signer on the loan in the current economic climate.
Fixing your credit score
So before you start shopping for a mortgage or refinance, you'll want to know your credit score. You can obtain it from any of the three major credit reporting agencies - Experian, Equifax and Transunion. Note that while you're entitled to obtain a free copy of your credit report from each of these every year, you'll normally have to pay to obtain your actual credit score.
When you get your credit score, you may be surprised to find it's higher than you expected. If you initially had to take out a subprime mortgage due to weak credit, your score should have improved considerably if you've stayed current on your payments for a year or two.
Once you have your score and credit report, check to see if there's anything you can do to bring it up, if your score is low. Many people are surprised to learn that they can improve their score dramatically within 30 days simply by paying off high-balance credit cards. If you have savings or other resources you can draw on to pay down revolving debts, it might make sense to do so if refinancing would provide a significant economic benefit for you.
This is one of the places where a mortgage broker or lender can be of assistance. They may be able to help you identify things you can do to bring your score up over the coming months or perhaps a year. Depending on how soon you need to refinance, this could be a better strategy than trying to refinance immediately - even if rates go up overall, the rate that you qualify for might be lower if you can improve your score.
Mortgages: The ABCs Of Refinancing
Refinancing a mortgage means paying off an existing loan and replacing it with a new one. There are many common reasons why homeowners refinance: the opportunity to obtain a lower interest rate; the chance to shorten the term of their mortgage; the desire to convert from an adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) to a fixed-rate mortgage, or vice versa; the opportunity to tap a home's equity in order to finance a large purchase; and the desire to consolidate debt. Some of these motivations have both benefits and pitfalls. And because refinancing can cost between 3% and 6% of the loan's principal and - like taking out the original mortgage - requires appraisal, title search and application fees, it's important for a homeowner to determine whether his or her reason for refinancing offers true benefit.
Securing a Lower Interest Rate
One of the best reasons to refinance is to lower the interest rate on your existing loan. Historically, the rule of thumb was that it was worth the money to refinance if you could reduce your interest rate by at least 2%. Today, many lenders say 1% savings is enough of an incentive to refinance.
Reducing your interest rate not only helps you save money, but increases the rate at which you build equity in your home, and can decrease the size of your monthly payment. For example, a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage with an interest rate of 9% on a $100,000 home has a principal and interest payment of $804.62. That same loan at 6% reduces your payment to $599.55. (To learn more about the home costs, see Mortgages: How Much Can You Afford?, Home-Equity Loans: The Costs and The Home-Equity Loan: What It Is And How It Works.)
Shortening the Loan's Term
When interest rates fall, homeowners often have the opportunity to refinance an existing loan for another that, without much change in the monthly payment, has a shorter term. For that 30-year fixed-rate mortgage on a $100,000 home, refinancing from 9% to $5.5% cuts the term in half to 15 years, with only a slight change in the monthly payment from $804.62 to $817.08.
Converting between Adjustable-Rate and Fixed-Rate Mortgages
While ARMs start out offering lower rates than fixed-rate mortgages, periodic adjustments often result in rate increases that are higher than the rate available through a fixed-rate mortgage. When this occurs, converting to a fixed-rate mortgage results in a lower interest rate as well as eliminates concern over future interest rate hikes.
Conversely, converting from a fixed-rate loan to an ARM can also be a sound financial strategy, particularly in a falling interest rate environment. If rates continue to fall, the periodic rate adjustments on an ARM result in decreasing rates and smaller monthly mortgage payments, eliminating the need to refinance every time rates drop. Converting to an ARM may be a good idea especially for homeowners who don't plan to stay in their home for more than a few years. If interest rates are falling, these homeowners can reduce their loan's interest rate and monthly payment, but won't have to worry about interest rates eventually rising in the future.
Tapping Equity and Consolidating Debt
While the previously mentioned reasons to refinance are all financially sound, mortgage refinancing can be a slippery slope to never-ending debt. It's important to keep this in mind when considering refinancing for the purpose of tapping into home equity or consolidating debt.
Homeowners often access the equity in their homes to cover big expenses, such as the costs of home remodeling or a child's college education. These homeowners may justify such refinancing by pointing out that remodeling adds value to the home or that the interest rate on the mortgage loan is less than the rate on money borrowed from another source. Another justification is that the interest on mortgages is tax deductible. While these arguments may be true, increasing the number of years that you owe on your mortgage is rarely a smart financial decision, nor is spending a dollar on interest to get a $0.30 tax deduction.
Many homeowners refinance in order to consolidate their debt. At face value, replacing high-interest debt with a low-interest mortgage is a good idea. Unfortunately, refinancing does not bring with it an automatic dose of financial prudence. In reality, a large percentage of people who once generated high-interest debt on credit cards, cars and other purchases will simply do it again after the mortgage refinancing gives them the available credit to do so. This creates an instant quadruple loss composed of wasted fees on the refinancing, lost equity in the house, additional years of increased interest payments on the new mortgage and the return of high-interest debt once the credit cards are maxed out again - the possible result is an endless perpetuation of the cycle of debt.
Should You Refinance?
Refinancing can be a great financial move if it reduces your mortgage payment, shortens the term of your loan or helps you build equity more quickly. When used carefully, it can also be a valuable tool in getting your debt under control. Before you refinance take a careful look at your financial situation, and ask yourself: How long do I plan to continue living in the house? and How much money will I save by refinancing? (For more information, see The True Economics Of Refinancing A Mortgage.)
Again, keep in mind that refinancing generally costs between 3% and 6% of the loan's principal. It takes years to recoup that cost with the savings generated by a lower interest rate or shorter term. So, if you are not planning to stay in the home for more than a few years, the cost of refinancing may negate any of the potential savings It also pays to remember that a savvy homeowner is always looking for ways to reduce debt, build equity, save money and eliminate that mortgage payment. Taking cash out of your equity when you refinance doesn't help you achieve any of those goals.
Securing a Lower Interest Rate
One of the best reasons to refinance is to lower the interest rate on your existing loan. Historically, the rule of thumb was that it was worth the money to refinance if you could reduce your interest rate by at least 2%. Today, many lenders say 1% savings is enough of an incentive to refinance.
Reducing your interest rate not only helps you save money, but increases the rate at which you build equity in your home, and can decrease the size of your monthly payment. For example, a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage with an interest rate of 9% on a $100,000 home has a principal and interest payment of $804.62. That same loan at 6% reduces your payment to $599.55. (To learn more about the home costs, see Mortgages: How Much Can You Afford?, Home-Equity Loans: The Costs and The Home-Equity Loan: What It Is And How It Works.)
Shortening the Loan's Term
When interest rates fall, homeowners often have the opportunity to refinance an existing loan for another that, without much change in the monthly payment, has a shorter term. For that 30-year fixed-rate mortgage on a $100,000 home, refinancing from 9% to $5.5% cuts the term in half to 15 years, with only a slight change in the monthly payment from $804.62 to $817.08.
Converting between Adjustable-Rate and Fixed-Rate Mortgages
While ARMs start out offering lower rates than fixed-rate mortgages, periodic adjustments often result in rate increases that are higher than the rate available through a fixed-rate mortgage. When this occurs, converting to a fixed-rate mortgage results in a lower interest rate as well as eliminates concern over future interest rate hikes.
Conversely, converting from a fixed-rate loan to an ARM can also be a sound financial strategy, particularly in a falling interest rate environment. If rates continue to fall, the periodic rate adjustments on an ARM result in decreasing rates and smaller monthly mortgage payments, eliminating the need to refinance every time rates drop. Converting to an ARM may be a good idea especially for homeowners who don't plan to stay in their home for more than a few years. If interest rates are falling, these homeowners can reduce their loan's interest rate and monthly payment, but won't have to worry about interest rates eventually rising in the future.
Tapping Equity and Consolidating Debt
While the previously mentioned reasons to refinance are all financially sound, mortgage refinancing can be a slippery slope to never-ending debt. It's important to keep this in mind when considering refinancing for the purpose of tapping into home equity or consolidating debt.
Homeowners often access the equity in their homes to cover big expenses, such as the costs of home remodeling or a child's college education. These homeowners may justify such refinancing by pointing out that remodeling adds value to the home or that the interest rate on the mortgage loan is less than the rate on money borrowed from another source. Another justification is that the interest on mortgages is tax deductible. While these arguments may be true, increasing the number of years that you owe on your mortgage is rarely a smart financial decision, nor is spending a dollar on interest to get a $0.30 tax deduction.
Many homeowners refinance in order to consolidate their debt. At face value, replacing high-interest debt with a low-interest mortgage is a good idea. Unfortunately, refinancing does not bring with it an automatic dose of financial prudence. In reality, a large percentage of people who once generated high-interest debt on credit cards, cars and other purchases will simply do it again after the mortgage refinancing gives them the available credit to do so. This creates an instant quadruple loss composed of wasted fees on the refinancing, lost equity in the house, additional years of increased interest payments on the new mortgage and the return of high-interest debt once the credit cards are maxed out again - the possible result is an endless perpetuation of the cycle of debt.
Should You Refinance?
Refinancing can be a great financial move if it reduces your mortgage payment, shortens the term of your loan or helps you build equity more quickly. When used carefully, it can also be a valuable tool in getting your debt under control. Before you refinance take a careful look at your financial situation, and ask yourself: How long do I plan to continue living in the house? and How much money will I save by refinancing? (For more information, see The True Economics Of Refinancing A Mortgage.)
Again, keep in mind that refinancing generally costs between 3% and 6% of the loan's principal. It takes years to recoup that cost with the savings generated by a lower interest rate or shorter term. So, if you are not planning to stay in the home for more than a few years, the cost of refinancing may negate any of the potential savings It also pays to remember that a savvy homeowner is always looking for ways to reduce debt, build equity, save money and eliminate that mortgage payment. Taking cash out of your equity when you refinance doesn't help you achieve any of those goals.
Life Insurance Quote
Variable Universal Life Insurance Quote: What It Is and How to Get It
Life Insurance QuoteHave you heard the term variable life insurance before? Do you know what it means and how it can help protect you and your family in the event of your death? Do you know how to get such a life insurance quote?
Variable universal life insurance is a form of life insurance that increases in value over time. You may like to think of it as a type of investment that rewards the investor for his patience. Until today, purchasing a variable life insurance policy has been an expensive affair. Luckily, with insurance becoming more and more affordable, nearly everyone can pay for some type of variable life insurance policy today. Getting a life insurance quote is recommended.
When you purchase a life insurance policy, you are in effect investing your money in mutual funds. These offer flexible premiums and are highly effective if you want to save money while avoiding state and federal taxation. When getting you life insurance quotes, be sure to ask and understand exactly what it includes.
Variable life insurance quotes policies are also highly flexible and will allow you to decide how much you intend to pay in premiums each month. For example, if you have extra cash, you can invest it in your policy knowing that it is exempt from taxes as it accumulates. If you have a temporary cashflow problem, you can choose to pay nothing for a month. Then instead of paying a premium, the charge will be taken out of the funds you have already built up.
Undoubtedly, the best way to find a variable universal life insurance policy is to conduct your research online. You can visit numerous insurance company websites or you can do a comparison of costs on a general insurance website. You can also request quotes from companies after completing a form detailing your employment status, general health record and the type of coverage you're looking for in a life insurance policy. You can ask questions and seek clarification using chat functionality on many of these websites, or place telephone calls through to customer service representatives using a toll-free number.
Of course, you'll want to know that as well as getting the most insurance for your money, you're also investing in a serious company where your funds will be safe and secure. To ensure that you are taking out your variable universal life insurance policy with a reputable company, you should check out the websites of A.M. Best (ambest.com) and Standard and Poor's (standardandpoors.com). These sites regularly carry out health checks on the insurance industry and the information your find there will help put your mind at rest by providing you with detailed information on the trustworthiness and reliability of your insurance company.
Seeking Out A Really Good Term Life Insurance Quote On The Internet
Life Insurance QuoteYou buy life insurance before you actually need it. If your health is a problem than getting a quote on life insurance is problematic since it will be more expensive or not attainable depending on your health situation. Here are some suggestions on when you should buy life insurance and how to purchase it.
To find out the cost of term life insurance you need only go online to find sites that will give you a free quote. Alternatively you could contact a real life insurance agent who would also be happy to help you with a free quote on term life.
When you check online you may be asked to type in your zip code. At that point the website will provide you with several online quotes for term life. You can then decide on one and request an application from the appropriate insurance company.
Newlyweds who may desire a long term year policy or those who are considered as being high risk, may be able to save money. The least expensive way to provide protection for your family in the event of your dying is term insurance.
Term life is for a specific amount of time and provides coverage as long as the premiums are paid up when the beneficiary dies.
Since there is no accrued cash value, term insurance is less expensive than whole life insurance. The policy is designed to cease at a particular time which the insurance company hopes will be prior to the death of the insured.
It is best to buy enough insurance to cover all debt and lost income. Quotes are available for terms of coverage ranging from one to 30 years. The most popular choice is fifteen years. Coverage ceases at the end of the term.
There are policies that guarantee renewal rates but they get higher with the age of the insured. There are companies that will payout the death benefit before death in the case of a terminal illness. This usually costs more but is worth it.
If you make information regarding your health available before purchasing coverage, you can reduce your premium. Because term is not for all it is best to obtain a good term life insurance quote before purchasing.
For those who cannot afraid to pay the higher priced premium attached to whole life insurance, may find that term is the answer for them. Therefore you need to check out the various premiums available for different types of coverage and to consider what you can afford.
What Is Life Insurance?
Life insurance is a means of protecting an individual and his or her family from the financial point of view. As means of protection of the individual, life insurance creates a supplementary income for a certain moment in life through assuring a capital or a sort of retreat benefit.
Life insurance is the financial resource of an individual’s family during the happiest moments of his or her life but during unhappy moments as well, like decease or invalidity. Moreover, life insurance comes to support an individual when he or she, after an accident, needs financial support.
As means of protection for the family, life insurance brings a compensating income under the conditions of losing that person who was responsible with bringing money to the house, maintaining normal living conditions to his or her beloved persons in the family.
Besides, life insurance, through its possibility of being transferred, liquidates financial debts like bank credits, avoiding family ulterior debts.
Apart from protection, life insurance is a way of saving money for a long time, with protection against inflation.
Who needs life insurance?
Life insurance is beneficial for any person who thinks that at the age of retreat can get more money than a usual retreat benefit. Or you may save or use money received as insurance premium, which is a serious sum at the end of the period covered. Or, in the case of an accident or decease for any reason, you need life insurance in order not to leave your children in a difficult financial situation. Or you may think of your husband or wife who survived your decease, or to the rest of your family, or of course of your children. How will they live? How will they get on with every day expenses? What will happen if an accident will lead to invalidity and it will be impossible to live decently in normal conditions offered by the actual social assistance system?
Your capacity to get an income can be considered your most important capital, because through it you can fulfill your dreams and wishes, you can offer your family comfort, safety and peace. Unfortunately this capacity to get income, your health and your work force are not guaranteed. If an unhappy event will lead to your incapacity to work, invalidity or even decease, the income need will continue for all those who depend on you from the financial point of view. Consequently the necessity of getting life insurance is absolutely essential.
What is College Loan Consolidation?
The college student loan consolidation refers to the type of loan which we called the refinancing. This is the type of loan in the form of financing the student life until his or her completion of education. The contract has been done for the loan repayment to that body from which the student takes the loan for the completion of studies. The loan which has to be taken by the students for the achievement of higher studies is called the Stafford loan and includes the feral Stafford loan too. The federal Stafford loan is the type of loan which the students can take from the government funds to complete their education.
The loans are given to the students with the fixed rate of interest charged. Now there are so many financial institutions and the large companies are offering such student loan facilities. These loans have so many categories in which the private student loan is so common among the college students. These are the loans given to the college and universities students, either to themselves or to their parents students and some times their parents applied for such loans in every country. The government offers the loan facilities to those students and the parents who do not have much money to fulfill their children's needs. .
This loan is also called the financial aid to the students in order to finance their education expenses. In many educational institutions, the loans are available for only those students who are involved in tuition or teaching of the students of college or university. However, now with so many restrictions and financial expenses arises from that's why too many financial companies are formed. These are also available online in order to finance who are in need of money for the completion of education but these loans should be in the form of consolidation like repayment and are repaid with the minimum amount of interest. However, beside all these facilities the process if obtaining the students loan is so complex that many students do not prefer to take the loans to complete the education they goes to apply for taking part in some other fields in order to finance their education expenses.
The loans are given to the students with the fixed rate of interest charged. Now there are so many financial institutions and the large companies are offering such student loan facilities. These loans have so many categories in which the private student loan is so common among the college students. These are the loans given to the college and universities students, either to themselves or to their parents students and some times their parents applied for such loans in every country. The government offers the loan facilities to those students and the parents who do not have much money to fulfill their children's needs. .
This loan is also called the financial aid to the students in order to finance their education expenses. In many educational institutions, the loans are available for only those students who are involved in tuition or teaching of the students of college or university. However, now with so many restrictions and financial expenses arises from that's why too many financial companies are formed. These are also available online in order to finance who are in need of money for the completion of education but these loans should be in the form of consolidation like repayment and are repaid with the minimum amount of interest. However, beside all these facilities the process if obtaining the students loan is so complex that many students do not prefer to take the loans to complete the education they goes to apply for taking part in some other fields in order to finance their education expenses.
"10 Sure-Fire Steps To Making A Six Or Seven-Figure Income In Your Business..."
Here's one of Brian Kay's top rated newsletter's on selling insurance ideas and selling insurance strategies...
I'm going to reveal 10 sure-fire steps that anyone can use...
To Make A Six Or Seven-Figure Income Selling Insurance In the Next 12 Months!
But, before I begin, I must warn you - failure to diligently follow any of these steps could prevent you from attaining the success you want to achieve in your life.
Please read this issue with an open mind. Then immediately after reading it, I want you to take immediate and massive action to incorporate these selling insurance ideas into your life.
So, without further ado, here are the 10 sure-fire steps for success...
Step #1 - Become An Avid Reader.
I know a lot of you are probably saying "But Brian, I don't have time to read books. I'm so damn busy selling insurance, taking care of my family, etc."
If this describes you, my response is "Make time for it!"
A veteran top producer in the insurance industry once said, "Most advisors are too busy selling insurance to make any real money!"
There are only 2 ways to learn new things. One is through your own experience. The other more effective way is through other people's experiences.
Learning things on your own through "trial and error" is very costly and time consuming.
There are very few things that you will ever do that haven't already been done before. So why waste your valuable time and money "reinventing the wheel".
Buy good books from bona fide experts in the subject areas you want to learn and start reading them.
Spend some time in the sales and marketing section of a good bookstore like "Barnes & Noble" and browse for a while. I GUARANTEE you will find some great new books to read.
I recommend you devote 1 full hour a day to reading. The benefits will be enormous.
Step #2 - Subscribe To Good Newsletters.
I personally subscribe to over a dozen high priced (over $100) newsletters a year written by true experts who are "doing" what they teach others how to do.
I recommend that you subscribe to marketing newsletter to keep up-to-date on hot new techniques and ideas for your business.
There's nothing better than getting fresh new ideas and perspectives once a month from experts in their field.
Most good newsletters offer money-back guarantees, so if they don't live up to what they promise, you can get your money-back.
So as soon as you put this newsletter down, find some other good newsletters to subscribe to - I promise it will be worth the investment...
Step #3 - Attend Boot camps And Seminars.
There is no better way that I know of to learn a skill than attending a seminar or boot camp by a successful business expert.
I personally spend well over $10,000 a year going to high-priced boot camps and seminars offered by people I respect in the marketing and financial aid industry.
I can honestly say I have always made, at least, 10 times my investment in these seminars back within 1 - 3 months after attending.
In addition to the incredible information being shared, you also have the opportunity to network with other success-minded people in your industry.
I conservatively estimate that attending these seminars and boot camps has easily put an extra $100,000 in my pocket a year!
If you don't attend seminars or boot camps because "you can't afford it" - you're making a huge financial mistake!
Borrow the money if you have to - it's the best possible investment you will ever make in yourself or your business. Period.
Step #4 - Invest In Audio, Video And Written Training Manuals From Self-Made Entrepreneurs.
Let me start out by asking you a question...
"If someone spent 5 or 10 years of their life and hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars perfecting a skill, would you be willing to pay them a modest fee to learn that skill?"
Well, if you're answer is "No!", then you're a dumb bunny!
It makes no sense going out and trying to "reinvent the wheel" when someone else has already gone through great pain and sacrifice to learn that skill for you.
I always get a kick out of people who call me and say things like...
"Why Is Your Software So Expensive?", or
"Why Is Your Seminar Kit So Expensive", and so on...
This type of question alerts me to the fact that this person places absolutely no value on good synthesized information.
My usual response to these kinds of questions is...
"Do You Have Any Idea How Much It Would Cost You If You Went Out And Tried To Develop This On Your Own?"
Many people are "Penny Wise and Pound Foolish!"
They're so busy trying to save themselves a couple of bucks that they end up costing themselves thousands of dollars.
Train yourself to think differently.
If someone spends the time and money to put something together that you need in your business, gladly pay them for it as long as it's a good deal.
Don't nickel and dime them or yourself - It will end up costing you a lot of money in the long run...
Step #5 - Have The Right Attitude.
The right attitude is that you will make your business work regardless of what obstacles are thrown in your way.
In business and in your personal life, there will always be problems that will arise.
Deal with these problems immediately, and don't wonder "Why do bad things always happen to me?"
Bad things happen to everyone. But successful people handle bad things or problems differently from unsuccessful people.
They don't assume it's the end of the world or that it's bad luck, they just deal with it and go on with their lives.
If you don't have this attitude, work on it!
Step #6 - Learn From Your Mistakes.
Everyone makes mistakes. Few people correct them.
I think mistakes are excellent experiences as long as you learn from them.
When I make a mistake, I own up to it, and try never to make that mistake again.
Unfortunately, many people keep committing the same errors over and over again because they never took the time to sit down and learn from their mistakes.
Also, don't focus your time worrying about the mistake. Instead spend 99% of your time thinking about a solution.
If you take this approach, you will grow immensely in your business and personal life.
Step #7 - Stop Blaming "Conditions" Or Making Excuses For Lack Of Success.
Everyone loves a good "scapegoat" to blame for their failures or lack of achievement.
However, if you really want to become successful, you have to own up to your shortcomings, and realize that your success or lack of it is totally 100% your responsibility!
I hear people telling me excuses like "It's a slow time of the year. I think I'll put more effort into this business in a couple of months", or "I'm really busy right now, I don't have the time to build this business", or "I tried an ad (once) and it didn't work!"
All of these lame excuses are justifications for not being more successful.
Stop Making Excuses And Start Making Things Happen...
Step #8 - Find Good Mentors.
I owe a lot of my success to good mentors.
When I first got started in business, I went and sought out people who had already achieved what I wanted to achieve and asked them for their help and guidance.
In some cases, I offered to pay for their time. But, in most cases, these people were so flattered that I acknowledged their success, they were more than happy to share some of their wisdom with me.
In some cases, they would allow me to tape record my conversations with them over the phone. In other cases, they would allow me to take them out to lunch.
Find these people. Flatter them and don't let your ego get in the way. Pay them the respect they deserve, and don't try to prove how smart you are.
Just sit back, ask lots of good questions and listen intently to what they have to say.
If you don't already have several mentors in your life, go out and find great people to model yourself after. Believe me, it will be well worth the effort.
Step #9 - Delegate.
In the beginning, it's O.K. to do everything yourself.
But if you want to grow your business - you better learn how to delegate.
For example, many of you do your own telemarketing. You personally address, lick, and stamp your postcards and envelopes.
What a complete waste of your valuable time!
In effect, you are doing $5 or $6 an hour work instead of doing $150 an hour work.
Your time should be spent doing only those things that you can't pay someone else to do.
In my opinion, 90% of your time should be spent meeting with prospects and customers - not doing administrative busy work!
Step #10 - Have Fun!
This is going to sound kind of corny, but you've got to enjoy what you're doing or you shouldn't be doing it.
There are lots of ways to make money out there, so why not pick something you love.
You also spend more time working than any other activity in your life - so why not enjoy the time you spend at work?
I can also tell you that every millionaire I've ever met, and I know quite a few, all love what they do!
They don't think of it as work, they actually consider it more enjoyable than many other leisure activities or sports.
That's the way I feel about what I do, and you should too.
Well, there you have it. Follow these 10 steps and I GUARANTEE you will see tangible, immediate results in your business and personal life.
Is Insurance Selling Painful For You?
It's not your fault -- and there is a better way
Old "tried and true" insurance selling techniques that were once successful have completely lost their effectiveness over the years. That's why I developed a insurance selling approach that will quickly and automatically puts you ahead of the game and instantly in a league above your competition.
The truth is that companies are inundated with insurance selling people offering them similar products and services.
INSURANCE SELLING MYTH # 1 - "Sales is a numbers game." But, sales is only a numbers game when all you know is traditional insurance selling. Yes, you can call people over and over, chase them until they listen to you so that you just go away. However there is a better - easier method of building trust and getting your product or service message across - all on one call. Simply by changing your insurance selling approach you'll make FEWER CALLS and MORE SALES.
INSURANCE SELLING MYTH # 2 - "Use a sales script." People can tell when you're reading from a script, even if you think you're pretty good at it and getting away with it. There's nothing personal about it and people can pick that up. Being artificial just puts you into the typical "Salesperson" category. If you can learn to get your message across in a different way, you'll eliminate the negative triggers that can lose your sale within seconds.
INSURANCE SELLING MYTH # 3 - "Focus on closing the sale." Are you "going in for the kill" with your insurance selling techniques? - If you are, you could end up killing your deal instead. Old insurance selling techniques do nothing more than pressure the client or prospect, and as a result they naturally want to retreat away from that pressure - and that pressure is YOU! By learning to avoid the "push and pull" dynamic between you and your prospect, you'll be able to move the insurance sales process forward to get the result you want.
Welcome to Unlock The Game™
Unlock The Game is a radically honest insurance selling approach based on integrity and common sense. It challenges traditional insurance selling mindset and helps you achieve better sales results.
It's the missing link -- a new mindset and language that converts selling into a natural conversation between you and your prospect.
It offers you a new way of thinking about selling, from insurance selling -- the most dreaded selling experience of all -- to the end of the sales process.
You don't have to abandon the selling skills you already know -- Unlock The Game gives you a new approach and new tools to help you let go of old behaviors that bring you negative results.
It's incredibly effective.
Best of all, it's easy to learn.
Old "tried and true" insurance selling techniques that were once successful have completely lost their effectiveness over the years. That's why I developed a insurance selling approach that will quickly and automatically puts you ahead of the game and instantly in a league above your competition.
The truth is that companies are inundated with insurance selling people offering them similar products and services.
INSURANCE SELLING MYTH # 1 - "Sales is a numbers game." But, sales is only a numbers game when all you know is traditional insurance selling. Yes, you can call people over and over, chase them until they listen to you so that you just go away. However there is a better - easier method of building trust and getting your product or service message across - all on one call. Simply by changing your insurance selling approach you'll make FEWER CALLS and MORE SALES.
INSURANCE SELLING MYTH # 2 - "Use a sales script." People can tell when you're reading from a script, even if you think you're pretty good at it and getting away with it. There's nothing personal about it and people can pick that up. Being artificial just puts you into the typical "Salesperson" category. If you can learn to get your message across in a different way, you'll eliminate the negative triggers that can lose your sale within seconds.
INSURANCE SELLING MYTH # 3 - "Focus on closing the sale." Are you "going in for the kill" with your insurance selling techniques? - If you are, you could end up killing your deal instead. Old insurance selling techniques do nothing more than pressure the client or prospect, and as a result they naturally want to retreat away from that pressure - and that pressure is YOU! By learning to avoid the "push and pull" dynamic between you and your prospect, you'll be able to move the insurance sales process forward to get the result you want.
Welcome to Unlock The Game™
Unlock The Game is a radically honest insurance selling approach based on integrity and common sense. It challenges traditional insurance selling mindset and helps you achieve better sales results.
It's the missing link -- a new mindset and language that converts selling into a natural conversation between you and your prospect.
It offers you a new way of thinking about selling, from insurance selling -- the most dreaded selling experience of all -- to the end of the sales process.
You don't have to abandon the selling skills you already know -- Unlock The Game gives you a new approach and new tools to help you let go of old behaviors that bring you negative results.
It's incredibly effective.
Best of all, it's easy to learn.
Cracking Password Protected Zip Files
What is FZC?
FZC is a program that cracks zip files (zip is a method of compressing multiple files into one smaller file) that are password-protected (which means you’re gonna need a password to open the zip file and extract files out of it). You can get it anywhere – just use a search engine such as google.com.
FZC uses multiple methods of cracking – bruteforce (guessing passwords systematically until the program gets it) or wordlist attacks (otherwise known as dictionary attacks. Instead of just guessing passwords systematically, the program takes passwords out of a “wordlist”, which is a text file that contains possible passwords. You can get lots of wordlists at www.theargon.com.).
FZC can be used in order to achieve two different goals: you can either use it to recover a lost zip password which you used to remember but somehow forgot, or to crack zip passwords which you’re not supposed to have. So like every tool, this one can be used for good and for evil.
The first thing I want to say is that reading this tutorial… is the easy way to learn how to use this program, but after reading this part of how to use the FZC you should go and check the texts that come with that program and read them all. You are also going to see the phrase “check name.txt” often in this text. These files should be in FZC’s directory. They contain more information about FZC.
FZC is a good password recovery tool, because it’s very fast and also support resuming so you don’t have to keep the computer turned on until you get the password, like it used to be some years ago with older cracking programs. You would probably always get the password unless the password is longer than 32 chars (a char is a character, which can be anything – a number, a lowercase or undercase letter or a symbol such as ! or &) because 32 chars is the maximum value that FZC will accept, but it doesn’t really matter, because in order to bruteforce a password with 32 chars you’ll need to be at least immortal..heehhe.. to see the time that FZC takes with bruteforce just open the Bforce.txt file, which contains such information.
FZC supports brute-force attacks, as well as wordlist attacks. While brute-force attacks don’t require you to have anything, wordlist attacks require you to have wordlists, which you can get from www.theargon.com. There are wordlists in various languages, various topics or just miscellaneous wordlists. The bigger the wordlist is, the more chances you have to crack the password.
Now that you have a good wordlist, just get FZC working on the locked zip file, grab a drink, lie down and wait… and wait… and wait…and have good thoughts like “In wordlist mode I’m gonna get the password in minutes” or something like this… you start doing all this and remember “Hey this guy started with all this bullshit and didn’t say how I can start a wordlist attack!…” So please wait just a little more, read this tutorial ’till the end and you can do all this “bullshit”.
We need to keep in mind that are some people might choose some really weird passwords (for example: ‘e8t7@$^%*gfh), which are harder to crack and are certainly impossible to crack (unless you have some weird wordlist). If you have a bad luck and you got such a file, having a 200MB list won’t help you anymore. Instead, you’ll have to use a different type of attack. If you are a person that gives up at the first sign of failure, stop being like that or you won’t get anywhere. What you need to do in such a situation is to put aside your sweet xxx MB’s list and start using the Brute Force attack.
If you have some sort of a really fast and new computer and you’re afraid that you won’t be able to use your computer’s power to the fullest because the zip cracker doesn’t support this kind of technology, it’s your lucky day! FZC has multiple settings for all sorts of hardware, and will automatically select the best method.
Now that we’ve gone through all the theoretical stuff, let’s get to the actual commands.
[eminimall]
Bruteforce
The command line you’ll need to use for using brute force is:
fzc -mb -nzFile.zip -lChr Lenght -cType of chars
Now if you read the bforce.txt that comes with fzc you’ll find the description of how works Chr Lenght and the Type of chars, but hey, I’m gonna explain this too. Why not, right?… (but remember look at the bforce.txt too)
For Chr Lenght you can use 4 kind of switches…
-> You can use range -> 4-6 :it would brute force from 4 Chr passwors to 6 chr passwords
-> You can use just one lenght -> 5 :it would just brute force using passwords with 5 chars
-> You can use also the all number -> 0 :it would start brute forcing from passwords with lenght 0 to lenght 32, even if you are crazy i don’t think that you would do this…. if you are thinking in doing this get a live…
-> You can use the + sign with a number -> 3+ :in this case it would brute force from passwords with lenght 3 to passwords with 32 chars of lenght, almost like the last option…
For the Type of chars we have 5 switches they are:
-> a for using lowercase letters
-> A for using uppercase letters
-> ! for using simbols (check the Bforce.txt if you want to see what simbols)
-> s for using space
-> 1 for using numbers
Example:
If you want to find a password with lowercase and numbers by brute force you would just do something like:
fzc -mb -nzTest.zip -l4-7 -ca1
This would try all combinations from passwords with 4 chars of lenght till 7 chars, but just using numbers and lowercase.
*****
hint
*****
You should never start the first brute force attack to a file using all the chars switches, first just try lowercase, then uppercase, then uppercase with number then lowercase with numbers, just do like this because you can get lucky and find the password much faster, if this doesn’t work just prepare your brain and start with a brute force that would take a lot of time. With a combination like lowercase, uppercase, special chars and numbers.
Wordlist
Like I said in the bottom and like you should be thinking now, the wordlist is the most powerfull mode in this program. Using this mode, you can choose between 3 modes, where each one do some changes to the text that is in the wordlist, I’m not going to say what each mode does to the words, for knowing that just check the file wlist.txt, the only thing I’m going to tell you is that the best mode to get passwords is mode 3, but it takes longer time too.
To start a wordlist attak you’ll do something like.
fzc -mwMode number -nzFile.zip -nwWordlist
Where:
Mode number is 1, 2 or 3 just check wlist.txt to see the changes in each mode.
File.zip is the filename and Wordlist is the name of the wordlist that you want to use. Remember that if the file or the wordlist isn’t in the same directory of FZC you’ll need to give the all path.
You can add other switches to that line like -fLine where you define in which line will FZC start reading, and the -lChar Length where it will just be read the words in that char length, the switche works like in bruteforce mode.
So if you something like
fzc -mw1 -nztest.zip -nwMywordlist.txt -f50 -l9+
FZC would just start reading at line 50 and would just read with length >= to 9.
Example:
If you want to crack a file called myfile.zip using the “theargonlistserver1.txt” wordlist, selecting mode 3, and you wanted FZC to start reading at line 50 you would do:
fzc -mw3 -nzmyfile.zip -nwtheargonlistserver1.txt -f50
Resuming
Other good feature in FZC is that FZC supports resuming. If you need to shutdown your computer and FZC is running you just need to press the ESC key, and fzc will stop. Now if you are using a brute force attack the current status will be saved in a file called resume.fzc but if you are using a wordlist it will say to you in what line it ended (you can find the line in the file fzc.log too).
To resume the bruteforce attack you just need to do:
fzc -mr
And the bruteforce attack will start from the place where it stopped when you pressed the ESC key.
But if you want to resume a wordlist attack you’ll need to start a new wordlist attack, saying where it’s gonna start. So if you ended the attack to the file.zip in line 100 using wordlist.txt in mode 3 to resume you’ll type
fzc -mw3 -nzfile.zip -nwwordlist.txt -f100
Doing this FZC would start in line 100, since the others 99 lines where already checked in an earlier FZC session.
Well, it looks like I covered most of what you need to know. I certainly hope it helped you… don’t forget to read the files that come with the program
FZC is a program that cracks zip files (zip is a method of compressing multiple files into one smaller file) that are password-protected (which means you’re gonna need a password to open the zip file and extract files out of it). You can get it anywhere – just use a search engine such as google.com.
FZC uses multiple methods of cracking – bruteforce (guessing passwords systematically until the program gets it) or wordlist attacks (otherwise known as dictionary attacks. Instead of just guessing passwords systematically, the program takes passwords out of a “wordlist”, which is a text file that contains possible passwords. You can get lots of wordlists at www.theargon.com.).
FZC can be used in order to achieve two different goals: you can either use it to recover a lost zip password which you used to remember but somehow forgot, or to crack zip passwords which you’re not supposed to have. So like every tool, this one can be used for good and for evil.
The first thing I want to say is that reading this tutorial… is the easy way to learn how to use this program, but after reading this part of how to use the FZC you should go and check the texts that come with that program and read them all. You are also going to see the phrase “check name.txt” often in this text. These files should be in FZC’s directory. They contain more information about FZC.
FZC is a good password recovery tool, because it’s very fast and also support resuming so you don’t have to keep the computer turned on until you get the password, like it used to be some years ago with older cracking programs. You would probably always get the password unless the password is longer than 32 chars (a char is a character, which can be anything – a number, a lowercase or undercase letter or a symbol such as ! or &) because 32 chars is the maximum value that FZC will accept, but it doesn’t really matter, because in order to bruteforce a password with 32 chars you’ll need to be at least immortal..heehhe.. to see the time that FZC takes with bruteforce just open the Bforce.txt file, which contains such information.
FZC supports brute-force attacks, as well as wordlist attacks. While brute-force attacks don’t require you to have anything, wordlist attacks require you to have wordlists, which you can get from www.theargon.com. There are wordlists in various languages, various topics or just miscellaneous wordlists. The bigger the wordlist is, the more chances you have to crack the password.
Now that you have a good wordlist, just get FZC working on the locked zip file, grab a drink, lie down and wait… and wait… and wait…and have good thoughts like “In wordlist mode I’m gonna get the password in minutes” or something like this… you start doing all this and remember “Hey this guy started with all this bullshit and didn’t say how I can start a wordlist attack!…” So please wait just a little more, read this tutorial ’till the end and you can do all this “bullshit”.
We need to keep in mind that are some people might choose some really weird passwords (for example: ‘e8t7@$^%*gfh), which are harder to crack and are certainly impossible to crack (unless you have some weird wordlist). If you have a bad luck and you got such a file, having a 200MB list won’t help you anymore. Instead, you’ll have to use a different type of attack. If you are a person that gives up at the first sign of failure, stop being like that or you won’t get anywhere. What you need to do in such a situation is to put aside your sweet xxx MB’s list and start using the Brute Force attack.
If you have some sort of a really fast and new computer and you’re afraid that you won’t be able to use your computer’s power to the fullest because the zip cracker doesn’t support this kind of technology, it’s your lucky day! FZC has multiple settings for all sorts of hardware, and will automatically select the best method.
Now that we’ve gone through all the theoretical stuff, let’s get to the actual commands.
[eminimall]
Bruteforce
The command line you’ll need to use for using brute force is:
fzc -mb -nzFile.zip -lChr Lenght -cType of chars
Now if you read the bforce.txt that comes with fzc you’ll find the description of how works Chr Lenght and the Type of chars, but hey, I’m gonna explain this too. Why not, right?… (but remember look at the bforce.txt too)
For Chr Lenght you can use 4 kind of switches…
-> You can use range -> 4-6 :it would brute force from 4 Chr passwors to 6 chr passwords
-> You can use just one lenght -> 5 :it would just brute force using passwords with 5 chars
-> You can use also the all number -> 0 :it would start brute forcing from passwords with lenght 0 to lenght 32, even if you are crazy i don’t think that you would do this…. if you are thinking in doing this get a live…
-> You can use the + sign with a number -> 3+ :in this case it would brute force from passwords with lenght 3 to passwords with 32 chars of lenght, almost like the last option…
For the Type of chars we have 5 switches they are:
-> a for using lowercase letters
-> A for using uppercase letters
-> ! for using simbols (check the Bforce.txt if you want to see what simbols)
-> s for using space
-> 1 for using numbers
Example:
If you want to find a password with lowercase and numbers by brute force you would just do something like:
fzc -mb -nzTest.zip -l4-7 -ca1
This would try all combinations from passwords with 4 chars of lenght till 7 chars, but just using numbers and lowercase.
*****
hint
*****
You should never start the first brute force attack to a file using all the chars switches, first just try lowercase, then uppercase, then uppercase with number then lowercase with numbers, just do like this because you can get lucky and find the password much faster, if this doesn’t work just prepare your brain and start with a brute force that would take a lot of time. With a combination like lowercase, uppercase, special chars and numbers.
Wordlist
Like I said in the bottom and like you should be thinking now, the wordlist is the most powerfull mode in this program. Using this mode, you can choose between 3 modes, where each one do some changes to the text that is in the wordlist, I’m not going to say what each mode does to the words, for knowing that just check the file wlist.txt, the only thing I’m going to tell you is that the best mode to get passwords is mode 3, but it takes longer time too.
To start a wordlist attak you’ll do something like.
fzc -mwMode number -nzFile.zip -nwWordlist
Where:
Mode number is 1, 2 or 3 just check wlist.txt to see the changes in each mode.
File.zip is the filename and Wordlist is the name of the wordlist that you want to use. Remember that if the file or the wordlist isn’t in the same directory of FZC you’ll need to give the all path.
You can add other switches to that line like -fLine where you define in which line will FZC start reading, and the -lChar Length where it will just be read the words in that char length, the switche works like in bruteforce mode.
So if you something like
fzc -mw1 -nztest.zip -nwMywordlist.txt -f50 -l9+
FZC would just start reading at line 50 and would just read with length >= to 9.
Example:
If you want to crack a file called myfile.zip using the “theargonlistserver1.txt” wordlist, selecting mode 3, and you wanted FZC to start reading at line 50 you would do:
fzc -mw3 -nzmyfile.zip -nwtheargonlistserver1.txt -f50
Resuming
Other good feature in FZC is that FZC supports resuming. If you need to shutdown your computer and FZC is running you just need to press the ESC key, and fzc will stop. Now if you are using a brute force attack the current status will be saved in a file called resume.fzc but if you are using a wordlist it will say to you in what line it ended (you can find the line in the file fzc.log too).
To resume the bruteforce attack you just need to do:
fzc -mr
And the bruteforce attack will start from the place where it stopped when you pressed the ESC key.
But if you want to resume a wordlist attack you’ll need to start a new wordlist attack, saying where it’s gonna start. So if you ended the attack to the file.zip in line 100 using wordlist.txt in mode 3 to resume you’ll type
fzc -mw3 -nzfile.zip -nwwordlist.txt -f100
Doing this FZC would start in line 100, since the others 99 lines where already checked in an earlier FZC session.
Well, it looks like I covered most of what you need to know. I certainly hope it helped you… don’t forget to read the files that come with the program
How To Use the Remote Shutdown Tool to Shut Down and Restart a Computer in Windows 2000
This article applies to a different version of Windows than the one you are using. Content in this article may not be relevant to you.
Visit the Windows XP Solution Center
This article describes how to use the Remote Shutdown tool (Shutdown.exe) to shut down and restart a local or remote Windows 2000-based or Microsoft Windows NT 4.0-based computer.
Shutdown.exe is available on the Microsoft Windows 2000 Resource Kit CD-ROM only. It is a command-line tool that you can use to shut down or to restart a local or remote computer that is running Windows 2000 or Windows NT 4.0. If you want to schedule a computer to shut down and restart at a specific time, use Shutdown.exe in combination with the at command or Task Scheduler.
Note Shutdown.exe for Windows 2000 is no longer supported and is not available for download from Microsoft. This tool is available on the original Microsoft Windows 2000 Resource Kit CD-ROM only.
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Description of the Shutdown.exe Tool
Shutdown.exe uses the following syntax:
shutdown \\computername /l /a /r /t:xx "msg" /y /c
You can use the following switches with Shutdown.exe:
\\computername: Use this switch to specify the remote computer to shut down. If you omit this parameter, the local computer name is used.
/l (Note that this is a lowercase "L" character): Use this switch to shut down the local computer
/a: Use this switch to quit a shutdown operation. You can do this only during the time-out period. If you use this switch, all other parameters are ignored.
/r: Use this switch to restart the computer instead of fully shutting it down.
/t:xx: Use this switch to specify the time (in seconds) after which the computer is shut down. The default is 20 seconds.
"msg": Use this switch to specify a message during the shutdown process. The maximum number of characters that the message can contain is 127.
/y: Use this switch to force a "yes" answer to all queries from the computer.
/c: Use this switch quit all running programs. If you use this switch, Windows forces all programs that are running to quit. The option to save any data that may have changed is ignored. This can result in data loss in any programs for which data is not previously saved.
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Examples
To shut down the local computer in two minutes and display a "The computer is shutting down" message, use the following line in a batch file or type it at a command prompt, and then press ENTER:
shutdown /l /t:120 "The computer is shutting down" /y /c
To cancel the shutdown process, type the following line at the command prompt, and then press ENTER:
shutdown /l /a /y
To shut down and restart a remote computer named "Support," use the following line in a batch file or type it at a command prompt, and then press ENTER:
shutdown \\support /r
To schedule the local computer to shutdown and restart at 10:00 P.M., type the following line at a command prompt, and then press ENTER:
at 22:00 shutdown /l /r /y /c
To schedule the local computer to shutdown and restart at 6:00 P.M. every weekday, type the following line at a command prompt, and then press ENTER:
at 18:00 /every:M,T,W,Th,F shutdown /l /r /y /c
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Troubleshooting
The specified computer may not shut down when you use the Shutdown.exe tool to shut it down. This behavior can occur if the Unlock Computer dialog box appears on the desktop, or if the computer is locked. For additional information about how to resolve this issue, click the article numbers below to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
307635 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307635/EN-US/ ) Remote Shutdown Results in Logoff When Unlock Computer Dialog Box Is Displayed
288180 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/288180/EN-US/ ) The ExitWindowsEx() Function May Not Log Off the User or Shut Down the Computer If the Computer is Locked
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Visit the Windows XP Solution Center
This article describes how to use the Remote Shutdown tool (Shutdown.exe) to shut down and restart a local or remote Windows 2000-based or Microsoft Windows NT 4.0-based computer.
Shutdown.exe is available on the Microsoft Windows 2000 Resource Kit CD-ROM only. It is a command-line tool that you can use to shut down or to restart a local or remote computer that is running Windows 2000 or Windows NT 4.0. If you want to schedule a computer to shut down and restart at a specific time, use Shutdown.exe in combination with the at command or Task Scheduler.
Note Shutdown.exe for Windows 2000 is no longer supported and is not available for download from Microsoft. This tool is available on the original Microsoft Windows 2000 Resource Kit CD-ROM only.
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Description of the Shutdown.exe Tool
Shutdown.exe uses the following syntax:
shutdown \\computername /l /a /r /t:xx "msg" /y /c
You can use the following switches with Shutdown.exe:
\\computername: Use this switch to specify the remote computer to shut down. If you omit this parameter, the local computer name is used.
/l (Note that this is a lowercase "L" character): Use this switch to shut down the local computer
/a: Use this switch to quit a shutdown operation. You can do this only during the time-out period. If you use this switch, all other parameters are ignored.
/r: Use this switch to restart the computer instead of fully shutting it down.
/t:xx: Use this switch to specify the time (in seconds) after which the computer is shut down. The default is 20 seconds.
"msg": Use this switch to specify a message during the shutdown process. The maximum number of characters that the message can contain is 127.
/y: Use this switch to force a "yes" answer to all queries from the computer.
/c: Use this switch quit all running programs. If you use this switch, Windows forces all programs that are running to quit. The option to save any data that may have changed is ignored. This can result in data loss in any programs for which data is not previously saved.
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Examples
To shut down the local computer in two minutes and display a "The computer is shutting down" message, use the following line in a batch file or type it at a command prompt, and then press ENTER:
shutdown /l /t:120 "The computer is shutting down" /y /c
To cancel the shutdown process, type the following line at the command prompt, and then press ENTER:
shutdown /l /a /y
To shut down and restart a remote computer named "Support," use the following line in a batch file or type it at a command prompt, and then press ENTER:
shutdown \\support /r
To schedule the local computer to shutdown and restart at 10:00 P.M., type the following line at a command prompt, and then press ENTER:
at 22:00 shutdown /l /r /y /c
To schedule the local computer to shutdown and restart at 6:00 P.M. every weekday, type the following line at a command prompt, and then press ENTER:
at 18:00 /every:M,T,W,Th,F shutdown /l /r /y /c
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Troubleshooting
The specified computer may not shut down when you use the Shutdown.exe tool to shut it down. This behavior can occur if the Unlock Computer dialog box appears on the desktop, or if the computer is locked. For additional information about how to resolve this issue, click the article numbers below to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
307635 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307635/EN-US/ ) Remote Shutdown Results in Logoff When Unlock Computer Dialog Box Is Displayed
288180 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/288180/EN-US/ ) The ExitWindowsEx() Function May Not Log Off the User or Shut Down the Computer If the Computer is Locked
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