TsunamiNews :: June 2008
New Work
Check out some of Tsunami Marketing's latest projects:
Saddle Up
We envy the staff of Silver Falls Ranch. Everyday, they escort wide-eyed visitors on horseback through the pristine forests, valleys and streams of Kauai’s enchanting North Shore. Even their horses are happy with the arrangement. For the Silver Falls Ranch brand marketing campaign, we created a new logo, comprehensive media plan, a line of custom apparel and a new website. The site features an easy to use reservation system (tied directly into the A3H commerce database) from which patrons create a profile of themselves and Silver Falls Ranch can match the perfect horse to each rider for a great riding experience. Mosey on over and take a peek:
www.SilverFallsRanch.com
Discover Kauai — Again
Since we first launched the Kauai Visitors Bureau’s (KVB) website four years ago, the interactive world has changed quite a bit. Computers are capable of higher processing speeds, data is flowing faster over the net and more travelers are utilizing the web as a primary travel research tool. With this in mind, we recently re-launched KVB’s site with an updated design and added functionality. Since most visitors now have broadband internet at home, we were able to incorporate larger images and video. Our retooled interface also gives visitors more opportunities to link to KVB members’ websites. The only thing we didn’t include was a warning label about the overwhelming urge to come to Kauai after visiting the new site:
www.KauaiDiscovery.com
Wahooo!!!
Enough said…
www.WahoooGrill.com
Give Back while Moving Forward
We’re not quite sure how Val does it. Between keeping the zoo animals here at Tsunami Marketing in line, attending numerous client functions, and training and competing throughout the US as a highly ranked USTA tennis player, she still makes time in her busy schedule to give back to the local community as a volunteer for Kauai Hospice. Since 2003, Val has been volunteering up to thirty hours each month to this incredibly important organization.
Val recently stepped down from a two-year term as the organization’s president and is now in the role of assuring a smooth transition with the new president. During her tenure as president, Val worked with numerous paid staff, consultants and volunteers in a team environment which helped facilitate Kauai Hospice’s most successful fundraising effort to date — the “Compass to Compassion” Capital Campaign. The proceeds generated through this campaign, along with funding provided by a Kresge Grant and a large anonymous donation, allowed Kauai Hospice to build its very own facility — The Harry and Jeannette Weinberg Center for Compassion located in Lihue.
“When Val took over as president of Kauai Hospice during a time of transition—working first with an interim director who then became the director—Hospice was facing a number of problems and issues. Val provided strong leadership, commitment, and compassion as she and the new director, along with the Board of Directors, brought organization and direction to the agency. Her ability to work with the staff and the board, with equal care and aloha, produced positive and on-going results. She gave generously of her time, and brought spice, cheer, charm and calm to some difficult issues. Kauai Hospice is indebted to her for her two years as president, an invaluable service, and her continuing commitment as a board member,” said Roberta Weil, Kauai Hospice’s new president.
Val’s reflection of her time as president is filled with great accomplishment, lasting friendships and a strong desire to continue the important work as an Executive Board Member. “I am very much looking forward to the many new developments and improvements that will come with our new President, Roberta Weil and new Executive Director, Lori Miller. Their diligence, expertise and harmonious dispositions will surely help us make a huge impact on the lives of our humble community and help deal with the obstacles we have ahead. With changes in Medicare funding and increasing numbers of non-insured patients, Kauai Hospice is in particular need of community donations and support in any number of ways. If you have ever thought about volunteering or donating, please do so now — it is one of the most memorable and rewarding experiences I have ever had.” Well said, Val.
If you would like more information about volunteering or donating to Kauai Hospice, please visit their website at www.KauaiHospice.org.
Val recently stepped down from a two-year term as the organization’s president and is now in the role of assuring a smooth transition with the new president. During her tenure as president, Val worked with numerous paid staff, consultants and volunteers in a team environment which helped facilitate Kauai Hospice’s most successful fundraising effort to date — the “Compass to Compassion” Capital Campaign. The proceeds generated through this campaign, along with funding provided by a Kresge Grant and a large anonymous donation, allowed Kauai Hospice to build its very own facility — The Harry and Jeannette Weinberg Center for Compassion located in Lihue.
“When Val took over as president of Kauai Hospice during a time of transition—working first with an interim director who then became the director—Hospice was facing a number of problems and issues. Val provided strong leadership, commitment, and compassion as she and the new director, along with the Board of Directors, brought organization and direction to the agency. Her ability to work with the staff and the board, with equal care and aloha, produced positive and on-going results. She gave generously of her time, and brought spice, cheer, charm and calm to some difficult issues. Kauai Hospice is indebted to her for her two years as president, an invaluable service, and her continuing commitment as a board member,” said Roberta Weil, Kauai Hospice’s new president.
Val’s reflection of her time as president is filled with great accomplishment, lasting friendships and a strong desire to continue the important work as an Executive Board Member. “I am very much looking forward to the many new developments and improvements that will come with our new President, Roberta Weil and new Executive Director, Lori Miller. Their diligence, expertise and harmonious dispositions will surely help us make a huge impact on the lives of our humble community and help deal with the obstacles we have ahead. With changes in Medicare funding and increasing numbers of non-insured patients, Kauai Hospice is in particular need of community donations and support in any number of ways. If you have ever thought about volunteering or donating, please do so now — it is one of the most memorable and rewarding experiences I have ever had.” Well said, Val.
If you would like more information about volunteering or donating to Kauai Hospice, please visit their website at www.KauaiHospice.org.
Phishing For Trouble
We’ve all seen the emails and heard the horror stories about phishing fraud. Those pesky email messages sent by scammers posing as a bank or reputable institution, requesting private account and/or financial information in an attempt to steal credit card, banking, or identification data. Most of the online populace has become savvy to these bogus requests, but many are not aware that these same criminals are utilizing this email phishing technique to essentially steal websites.
The email looks legitimate; stating that “unauthorized” activity has been detected on the account of your web hosting company (or a similar message) and to click the link provided to confirm your account information and activity. It causes alarm, and since the scammer is not asking for financial information, you may be more willing to click the link and provide the data necessary for the criminal to take control of your website.
So, why would scammers want to “steal” your site? The reasons are less obvious, but the consequences can be just as—if not more—severe as having your credit card information stolen. Some of the potential dangers of scammers hijacking your domain include:
1. Redirecting your website to an obscene or offensive site, degrading the quality of your company’s image and products. And worse, if you have customers that enter personal or financial information on your website, the scammers can capture their information for themselves.
2. Scammers can hold your website ransom, demanding money to return it.
3. Redirecting all email associated with that domain, possibly allowing the capture of personal or financial information.
4. Stealing or degrading page rank listing in Google and other search engines.
The best way to avoid these scams is to practice the most basic online rule of thumb – think before you click. Be highly suspicious of anyone asking you to update your account information through an email, or even a phone call request. Do not simply click on a link that is provided in the email request. Legitimate institutions do not request information in this manner. Instead, bookmark your account’s log in page for access or type in the institution’s known website address manually. When taking a suspicious phone call, ask for a call back number and verify that number belongs to the organization being represented.
It is also extremely important to avoid using the same email, username and password combination on multiple accounts, and when establishing a password, make it obscure. Utilizing numerals and other symbols such as the pound sign (#) or ampersand (&) provides a drastically stronger level of security for your account information.
The chance of you actually receiving a phishing email is dramatically reduced due to Tsunami Marketing’s on-going efforts to reduce the onslaught of these fraudulent emails (See article, “Where’s My Email?”). However, the possibility is always there that one will sneak through from time to time. So practice common sense; protect your website hosting account information just as you would a credit card number or bank account, and utilize unique username and password combinations. For more information on securing your online account data, visit: http://www.microsoft.com/protect/yourself/password/create.mspx.
The email looks legitimate; stating that “unauthorized” activity has been detected on the account of your web hosting company (or a similar message) and to click the link provided to confirm your account information and activity. It causes alarm, and since the scammer is not asking for financial information, you may be more willing to click the link and provide the data necessary for the criminal to take control of your website.
So, why would scammers want to “steal” your site? The reasons are less obvious, but the consequences can be just as—if not more—severe as having your credit card information stolen. Some of the potential dangers of scammers hijacking your domain include:
1. Redirecting your website to an obscene or offensive site, degrading the quality of your company’s image and products. And worse, if you have customers that enter personal or financial information on your website, the scammers can capture their information for themselves.
2. Scammers can hold your website ransom, demanding money to return it.
3. Redirecting all email associated with that domain, possibly allowing the capture of personal or financial information.
4. Stealing or degrading page rank listing in Google and other search engines.
The best way to avoid these scams is to practice the most basic online rule of thumb – think before you click. Be highly suspicious of anyone asking you to update your account information through an email, or even a phone call request. Do not simply click on a link that is provided in the email request. Legitimate institutions do not request information in this manner. Instead, bookmark your account’s log in page for access or type in the institution’s known website address manually. When taking a suspicious phone call, ask for a call back number and verify that number belongs to the organization being represented.
It is also extremely important to avoid using the same email, username and password combination on multiple accounts, and when establishing a password, make it obscure. Utilizing numerals and other symbols such as the pound sign (#) or ampersand (&) provides a drastically stronger level of security for your account information.
The chance of you actually receiving a phishing email is dramatically reduced due to Tsunami Marketing’s on-going efforts to reduce the onslaught of these fraudulent emails (See article, “Where’s My Email?”). However, the possibility is always there that one will sneak through from time to time. So practice common sense; protect your website hosting account information just as you would a credit card number or bank account, and utilize unique username and password combinations. For more information on securing your online account data, visit: http://www.microsoft.com/protect/yourself/password/create.mspx.
Where’s My Email?
Be patient young grasshopper. Some of our clients may have noticed a delay in receiving emails from some of their contacts. Not to worry – this minor delay (usually between 3 to 45 minutes), due to “Grey Mail” filtering, is for your protection and results in a huge decrease of junk, spam and phishing emails. This normally only occurs with the initial message from a new contact – once verified, all subsequent messages from this new contact will be received without a delay.
If you are experiencing delays in excess of 45 minutes, contact your account representative, and our team will help correct the issue through a number of different techniques.
In our own internal tests, this filter eliminates about 10 times the amount of unwanted emails received. Simply put, it keeps the bad out and lets the good in. You’re our hero, Grey Mail Filter.
If you are experiencing delays in excess of 45 minutes, contact your account representative, and our team will help correct the issue through a number of different techniques.
In our own internal tests, this filter eliminates about 10 times the amount of unwanted emails received. Simply put, it keeps the bad out and lets the good in. You’re our hero, Grey Mail Filter.
Have You Hugged Your Server Today?
We did, and we’re comfortable enough with ourselves to admit it openly. Our newly found love is due to a recent web and email server hardware update that has catapulted Tsunami Marketing and our clients into a new realm of web interaction.
Since we created our first website over fifteen years ago, the rate and volume of data being transferred over the net has increased exponentially. To stay ahead of the curve, we decided to take a proactive approach - one that not only maintains the flow of information, but will continue to keep our clients' websites and emails fast and secure well into the future.
Our new hardware update through Rackspace features a world class data center with Cisco PI X 506 firewall, the latest in security measures and ample back up power, reduced exposure to spam emails, direct connect to the internet backbone with guaranteed 100% network uptime, a multi-homed network that ensures maximum access speed, immediate support for any web hosting or email issues and daily backups of all mail and web data. Need more enticing? How about Dual AMD Opteron 270 Dual Core processors, four gigs of RAM and three 130 GB SCSI hard drives in a RAID 5 configuration. Loosely translated from geek-speak to English, that means "Super Fantastic Fun Time on the Internet."
The reason we decided to partner with Rackspace was simple — they are the best at what they do; and that lets us concentrate on what we are best at - creating highly successful websites and branding campaigns for our clients and the best possible internet experience for their clientele.
Since we created our first website over fifteen years ago, the rate and volume of data being transferred over the net has increased exponentially. To stay ahead of the curve, we decided to take a proactive approach - one that not only maintains the flow of information, but will continue to keep our clients' websites and emails fast and secure well into the future.
Our new hardware update through Rackspace features a world class data center with Cisco PI X 506 firewall, the latest in security measures and ample back up power, reduced exposure to spam emails, direct connect to the internet backbone with guaranteed 100% network uptime, a multi-homed network that ensures maximum access speed, immediate support for any web hosting or email issues and daily backups of all mail and web data. Need more enticing? How about Dual AMD Opteron 270 Dual Core processors, four gigs of RAM and three 130 GB SCSI hard drives in a RAID 5 configuration. Loosely translated from geek-speak to English, that means "Super Fantastic Fun Time on the Internet."
The reason we decided to partner with Rackspace was simple — they are the best at what they do; and that lets us concentrate on what we are best at - creating highly successful websites and branding campaigns for our clients and the best possible internet experience for their clientele.
Learn Something New Today
TsunamiNews is your online resource for technology developments, marketing insights, production tips, and updates about Tsunami Marketing and our current projects. To subscribe, follow this link: http://clients.tsunamimarketing.com/news/. You can opt out any time.