The following is a primer we posted to the Green America business list-serv in response to a user who had questions about Twitter.

Twitter works a bit differently than the other social media services available. It is designed for quick, spontaneous messages (tweets) and communication between you those following you, and those you follow.

Every Twitter user has a custom Home page (when logged in to Twitter your Home page is http://www.twitter.com).

1. How to Tweet

When you tweet, your messages show up on your profile as well as your followers’ home page. You are limited to 140 characters per tweet. A recent tweet from someone we follow summed it up best: “Realizing that tweeting is like writing a haiku”, because it is almost a game or puzzle to try and squeeze a good message into just 140 characters.

I log in several times throughout the day and view my Home page to see the latest posts from the hundreds of people we follow. If there is something applicable to our business or industry, or something that might be of interest to our followers, we retweet that message (basically, copy and paste the message and tweet it as though you wrote it, except you pre-pend the message with “RT” to signify you are re-tweeting someone else’s post). In the course of retweeting, it is courteous to include the user’s twitter sign (so if we retweeted a post from a user, we would format it like this):

RT @username (then the message)

Twitter also makes use of hash tags (a phrase or word preceded by the # sign). Within Twitter applications this becomes linked to a search results screen showing all tweets referencing that hash tag. If you have something of relevance to ecology, for example, you might post a tweet and include #eco at the end. The “#eco” portion of your tweet would then be visible to all viewers as a hyperlink pointing to this results page:

http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23eco

This would show all tweets mentioning the hash tag “#eco”. When a hash tag or phrase becomes so popular it is mentioned and used hundreds and thousands of times, it may rise to the level of a Trending Topic (which appears in your Twitter righthand navigation menu) so you can see popular topics. More often than not, the Trends are not very applicable to you and seem to be used by teenagers or other people who are bored. Lots of spam and porn tweets always appear in the Trending results.

But as for hash tags, you can brand your messages so others using those tags will get to know you. For example, Portland, Oregon residents could try tweeting with a hash tag of #pdx. Portlanders doing the same would then be able to immediately search for and find tweets by other Portlanders (without necessarily having to follow them) simply by searching for tweets mentioning “#pdx”.

2. Re-Tweeting and Mentioning

On your Twitter account, you will notice a link in the righthand menu that is formatted as “@your_username”. By clicking on that link you will see EVERY post on Twitter containing your Twitter sign (so anyone mentioning you or re-tweeting you would show up here). This can be very useful as you can immediately see if there is any buzz astir about you or your business.

Many times, if you mention someone they will see that and start following you. So it can be a good thing to mention Twitter users you are following, you like, or would like others to know about. It can be a great way to build up your Twitter follower list.

Additionally, when someone mentions you it is courteous to publicly thank them in the format “@username thank you for the mention!” or something along those lines. That way, in addition to your followers, other people following that Tweeter or those searching on their call sign will see that you just referenced them.

A final thought about Mentions is the use of hash tags above to signify events like #followfriday or #ecomonday. On these days, it is a common practice to say “thank you” to those you follow who have provided you great information by tweeting a list of those Twitterers, and adding the hashtag to help that tweet show up in popular search results.

Here is an example tweet I posted a while back:

#ecomonday @GreenEcoVoice @dmwolford @TomatoDesign @Kenhiatt @GreenPosting @redirectguide @greenbizconf @EarthShareOR @operationcarbon

Anyone searching for #ecomonday would then have seen my tweet show up. It contains a number of great people to follow. If you weren’t following these Twitterers, you would now know about them, could read their profiles and then decide if you wanted to start following them.

What is nice is when people reciprocate your mention of them, by mentioning you! It is all about building up notice for one another.

3. Direct Messaging

Many Twitter users post private messages openly to their followers, which then become visible to anyone viewing your profile. We prefer to send a private message (known as a Direct Message) to our followers. This only goes to that follower and enables private exchange of information. Direct Messages are performed by posting a Tweet with the following format:

DM username (then the message)

Note we left off the @ from @username. DM’s are simply done in this way, probably to save on that one little character from the 140 limit.

Note that you can ONLY send Direct Messages to people following you. Otherwise, your only option would be to post a general Tweet and include the Twitter user’s sign in your message to get their attention, as it would show up on their @username screen.

4. Tweeting via Mobile Devices

Nice features of Twitter include the ability to upload a picture (which is then hosted by a third-party service such as TwitPic) and have a shortened link returned that you can include in your tweet.

We use a Twitter application called TweetDeck loaded on our iPhones. It enables us to log into our accounts and post tweets directly from our phones. It also lets us upload photographs we have taken, and will handle the uploading automatically if we simply select a picture from one of our camera’s image library.

Here is an example of a tweet we posted from a networking event we attended this past Tuesday:

Doing a round of introductions, have met many great businesses and some of our clients, too. http://twitpic.com/dkn1h

The link clicks through to the (admittedly poor) photograph I took in the dimly lit room while other businesses were introducing themselves. The beauty of a Twitter application like this is it enables real-time updates and posts regardless of where and when you happen to be.

Canvas Dreams will be at the Green Festival in booth 665 in San Francisco this November, and you can bet we will be tweeting every few minutes with updates and pictures from the event, especially thanks to phone applications like Tweet Deck.

If you have a basic mobile phone, you can still set up Twitter to retweet text/SMS messages you send it from your phone (though you’d pay a text message fee to your mobile provider in that case).

5. Twitter: Breaking Down the Wall

Beyond the social aspect, Twitter cuts down barriers between industries, political systems, and generally enables people of every walk to chat with someone they might never have an opportunity to otherwise meet.

We actively follow, and are followed by, members of local government, major news media, national journalists and politicians, movers/shakers of environmental causes, non-profit organizations, international corporations… the list goes on and on. The beauty of Twitter is its openness of sharing information, and its ability to get around traditional communication roadblocks to enable a truly free exchange of knowledge for all who wish to participate.

6. Why Follow? So You Can Be Followed.

You can make use of Twitter.com’s many features to start building a list of people to follow. In about half of the cases those followers will turn around and follow you.

If you begin tweeting messages, you will start to gain followers independently who simply like your tweets and are interested in what you have to say. In time you will probably turn around and start following some of them as well.

Ultimately, you will have a mix of people you follow but who do not follow you, people who follow you but whom you do not follow, and people you follow who follow you as well. A bit of overlap happens and from looking at the mix, you can really get a sense for what a given Twitterer is doing, who they appeal to, and who appeals to them, etc.

I’d suggest logging into Twitter and then clicking on “Find People”. You can search for people by name or twitter sign, or by theme/industry (such as “eco”, “green”, “music”, “reading”, etc.) and quickly you will start to find people of interest to follow.

Once you have gotten a list of those people, you can then look at who they are following (or who are following them) and find even more people you might like to follow, yourself.

Whenever you start following someone, they will receive an email from Twitter.com introducing you. This can lead to a lot of interesting introductions. Be sure to check out the person first (as about 1/3 of followers are potentially spam/porn/going-to-be-deleted-by-Twitter-but-haven’t-yet) and if you are satisfied they are legitimate, DM them back (since they are following you) so you can start a private exchange and go from there. Or, you can tweet about them (such as “Thank you @username for following me on Twitter”) and that will broadcast their sign to your other followers.

 

Basically… have fun… experiment around with it… even try to break it. Play with the 140 character limit and just relax. In time you will start to appreciate the quickness and efficiency of the tweets and you may be surprised just how custom of a Home page you can create all based on who you are following.

8. A Two-way Street

A final thought about using Twitter is that you may note many Twitter users follow almost as many people as are following them. Twitter is a two-way street and users look to see just how integrated you are in the Twitter community.

– They want to see that you Tweet regularly or they will leave.
– They want to see that you have a lot of people following you.
– They want to see that you are following a good number of people or at least some noteworthy people.
– What you tweet and how you tweet will determine the types of people that follow you.

It’s very much like any other networking service. In the absence of knowing you personally, your followers and potential followers will try to get a feeling for how you operate and what your values are, based on all of the above. Are you friendly or rude? Professional or unprofessional? Are your Tweets useful or pointless? Do you retweet others’ tweets or primarily generate your own interesting comments?

All of these things will determine the makeup of your followers and through extension help others understand who you are, what you are interested in, the issues of importance to you, and ultimately, the “face” of your business.

9. Twitter Abbreviations

What does TY mean? Thank You. What about RT? TMB? DM? The list is pretty extensive. Because of the 140 character limit, frequent Tweeters have adopted acronyms for common phrases to help convey a message while not reverting to the obnoxious phone-text terms like “U” in place of “you” or “2″ instead of “to” or “two”.

A brief synopsis of the most common abbreviations and their use follows:

Abbreviation	Meaning	Usage
DM	Direct Message	DM username (message) — sends a private message to someone following you
PRT	Partial Re-Tweet	Notes that you are retweeting only a portion of someone else’s tweet
RT	Re-Tweet	You are retweeting someone else’s message. Always include attribuation as RT @username (original message)
TIA	Thanks In Advance	Asking for info, being polite in anticipation of the reply.
TMB	Tweet Me Back	Asking someone to tweet or mention you in reply to an inquiry or comment.
TY	Thank You	Used as @username TY, to signify thanks for someone sharing info or mentioning you.
YW	You’re Welcome	Response to a TY.

10. Summary

Twitter isn’t for everyone.

We’ve been able to find some very good business uses for it. As a lightweight and immediate form of communication, it’s perfect if you have quick notes, announcements, special offers, coupons, service alerts, just about anything that relates to you or your business… but that’s just us.

It does require time to keep up, just like any social media tool. You have to work it to make it work for you. But it can be an effective way to stay in touch with people and businesses you might never otherwise have a chance to know. Likewise, they have the ability to get to know you. The more you use it, the more likely others are to learn about you and what you are up to.

There are many other facets to Twitter, third-party services designed to raise others’ awareness to your Twitter profile (such as wefollow.com), and add-on applications, but I will hold off on those for a future post.

I hope this information helps!

Thank you,

David Anderson

Since becoming an accredited member of Green America in 2008, Canvas Dreams has worked hard to educate our customers and business associates about the importance of adopting sustainable business practices.

 

Over the past several months, Canvas Dreams has been working on a plan to dovetail sustainability education into our web hosting service lines. It seems a natural fit that with right instruction, a small business could learn how to effectively utilize technology to operate more efficiently and environmentally responsible and ultimately improve their bottom line. We have been working closely with Ken Hiatt at Peraska.com, who provides sustainability for business large and small, to figure out ways our companies can work together to support not only our customers’ needs, but also the local business community as a whole.

On Wednesday of this week I had the wonderful opportunity of meeting Desiree Wolford, the Business Membership Coordinator for Green America. Along with Ken Hiatt and Shelly Buschel (Canvas Dreams’ Sales Manager), the four of us sat down over a few lattés at the cafe below our data facility in downtown Portland, Oregon, and had a three-hour chat. Desiree had flown out from Washington D.C. for business and stopped through Portland for a few days.

We discussed many things, such as the role technology can play in helping a company become more sustainable. Ken shared his experiences of educating companies in very simple ways to improve their efficiency. Even companies resistant to change for whatever reason can adopt a sustainability program and put it into action with very little difficulty. The key to helping businesses, especially small companies in the present economy is by empowering them with real working knowledge on how to streamline their procedures, operate with fewer resources to accomplish more, shave off overhead through technology, such as VoIP telephony or even distributed networks with remote workers. We talked through several scenarios, and came to understand the real need for sustainability education in the current market, and companies such as Peraska and Canvas Dreams that are willing to provide the knowledge and take the time to educate people willing to learn.

The single most important thing I gained during our conversation was putting a real-life, human face on the name “Green America”. It is an organization that is there for a reason and is working for some very important goals in this world. On behalf of Canvas Dreams, I would like to personally thank Desiree for taking the time out of her schedule to meet with us. It was a real pleasure, and I hope our feedback will improve Green America to better serve all its members.

 

- David Anderson

Canvas Dreams is overly honest about the realities of sustainable web hosting. That is why you will not find any mention of “carbon neutral hosting” or “100% green hosting” anywhere on our site. We are a “sustainable host” — one that works to balance out and limit the environmental impact of running our service as much as possible — but we are still mindful of the fact that the equipment, resources, and energy we use cannot be 100% neutralized.

There simply is no such thing as a “100% green” web host in the world — unless you can show us web servers made of biodegradable plastic and non-toxic metals.  All networking equipment and web servers use precious and toxic metals and materials. Most RAM, motherboards and CPUs used in server components are manufactured with halogen, lead, and mercury — all of which are environmentally damaging metals and gases.

Solar-powered web hosts often don’t take into account that the electricity might be clean, but this does nothing to address the amount of toxic chemicals and metals used in the production of solar panel arrays, which can be extremely concentrated due to the manufacturing process for each solar panel, not to mention the chemicals used in the manufacturing of the battery backup systems. As for the wind farms used to generate electricity for Canvas Dreams? 280 tons of metal go into each Vestas wind turbine at the wind farm we use. The foundation for each turbine requires hundreds of tons of concrete and rock. All of this material is shipped in by truck convoy and shipping freighter with parts from around the world, and that requires inordinant amounts of diesel and gasoline. It can take many years before a wind turbine is able to offset its own carbon footprint and start operating in the black.

All that said, Canvas Dreams believes its commitment to environmental responsibility is one of the more stringent in the industry. We do not purchase green tags from any random source or service. We work directly with Portland General Electric and purchase 100% wind energy from a wind farm just 100  miles up the Columbia River from our data facility. We research and implement web servers that require less energy and create less waste through smaller chassis profiles and components. We have even developed a new line of “greener” mini servers that rival the performance of one of our enterprise-class servers — yet weighs 90% less, draws 80% less power, has a CPU made with a lead/halogen-free process, and has 95% recyclable/reusable packaging waste.

We operate an extremely efficient NOC (network operations center) 24/7, with many staff members working remote 80% of the time through a secure VPN, distributed phone system, and web-based control systems. This means our company can telecommute 80% of the time, reducing our use of gasoline (or even mass transit) by a similar factor. It is so well integrated, however, that if you ever call for support, you’ll never know if you are reaching a support staff member in our downtown Portland office, or from their home — this is part of our commitment to reducing our impact without sacrificing quality of service to each of our customers.

An aggressive recycling program means we are able to responsibly handle our waste stream with only 1-2% actual disposal that ends up in a landfill. The rest is recycled, or disposed of through a certified e-waste recycler (which literally grinds down motherboards and parts to be turned into new circuit boards and appliances). We are always looking for ways to reduce our footprint in the day to day operations of our business.

Beyond this, Canvas Dreams is working with local efficiency consultants to help advise our customer base how each person/business can reduce waste and operate more efficiently. After all, that is the cornerstone of sustainability. We have many trade shows and speaking engagements coming up this year to help lead businesses and other members of our industry to demonstrate just how simple it can be to run a “greener” business.

Finally, we have a firm commitment to raising the bar on customer service. Any hosting provider can offer power, bandwidth, storage space and server tools. In the many years we have been in operation, we have found that customer service is the single most important service we provide. Helpful, friendly service from people who actually care about your livelihood, the security of your web site, and the success of your business — those are things many web hosts simply fail to achieve. We have had many interactions with other “green” hosts who completely lack any level of service, up to the point of posting on some industry threads fairly dismissive and disheartening things about former customers. In our minds, you cannot be a sustainable host without the commitment to customer service as well. The two go hand in hand, and that is precisely why we feel Canvas Dreams is true in its commitment to sustainability at every level of the process.

Thank you,

David Anderson
Principal, Canvas Dreams, LLC

A few years back, GoDaddy started pushing multi-year domain registrations, claiming it would improve the domain’s visibility on search engines. The basis for this was an article published that domains used by spammers or fraudsters tend to be registered for only one year, since in that timeframe they are likely to be shut down or blocked. This coincided with some information that Google was proactively taking steps to filter out spam/fraud web sites from their index. The inference was therefore made that one way to circumvent having your domain incorrectly filtered as a spam/fraud site would be if you were to register it for more than one year. Even a 2-year registration would suffice.

Nothing has ever been published or openly acknowledged by search engines that having a domain registered for 2 or more years will increase your visibility in their indexes. And, there are hundreds of factors that go into determining whether a site is legitimate or not. If you run a valid web site or service, your chances of being filtered out for those reasons are almost nil.

Instead, GoDaddy has latched onto this concept, and it’s been a huge success. We have migrated a number of customers over to our hosting services over the past few years from GoDaddy who had registered their domains for 10 years, simply because GoDaddy said it would help improve their search engine visibility. Obviously, there are holes in their marketing message, and customers are in our judgement being misled by GoDaddy into lengthier and lengthier registrations for the wrong reason.

Now, it is a sound practice if you want to register your domain for multiple years. For web-savvy companies that perform a WHOIS lookup of your domain, they will note that your domain is not set to expire for many years. This can sometimes serve as an indication that you are planning to keep the company running for many years, and are not a fly-by-night operation. That goes back to the original basis for GoDaddy’s marketing message of multi-year registrations. But in the bigger picture, only a small fraction of your site’s visitors will likely understand what a WHOIS lookup even means, let alone perform that lookup on your domain.

Ultimately, it really comes down to your personal business decision as to whether you want to register your domain for more than one year at a time. In reality, you will see few if any benefits of even a 2-year registration, let alone 5 or more years. On the flip side, GoDaddy certainly sees the benefit, and that is why they are continuing to promote this message despite the many online postings challenging the accuracy of their pitch.

Best regards,

David Anderson
Principal, Canvas Dreams, LLC

Earlier tonight, we read of a company’s poor results with its SEO efforts. They proposed dropping SEO altogether and instead starting up a link exchange network.
There are many facets to this issue, and many potential reasons why the SEO didn’t work out, but thankfully there are many options still available to them.

Link exchanges are valuable and can assist with marketing efforts, but they should not be used entirely in lieu of SEO. That the company was burned by SEO vendors does not negate the need for proper SEO to be done on the web site if they want to achieve the highest rank possible.

The following are a few points that came to us tonight and which we wanted to share want about SEO and how it works. In the post below, we used the term “you” to mean, “you the reader who is considering your options for SEO”.

1. SEO Basics

Every search engine works differently from the next. The key with SEO is to figure out which engine you want to optimize your site around.

Yahoo and MSN tend to stick to traditional site optimization algorithms, such as the use of Meta tags, the placement and overall “weight” of keywords used throughout your site, ALT tags to provide text to graphics that otherwise would be invisible to indexers, etc.

These search engines are extremely easy to manipulate, and it is not uncommon to be able to achieve page 1 results for simple SEO procedures that just play off the rules employed by these engines.

At the same time, it should be noted that Google accounts for about 80% of all web-based searches. Yahoo is about 9%. MSN is 4%. So it is a pretty clear-cut case that if you optimize around Google’s rules, you’ll stand a 10- to 20- fold return on your investment as compared to Yahoo or MSN.

2. Google, and a thing called “Pagerank”

Google tends to put an equal weight on both site optimization, and inbound links. Google’s algorithms count every inbound link to your web site as a “vote” of importance for your site. Google also pays attention to whether the hyperlink was made from an image or text. If it is readable (index-able) text, then Google gives your web site bonus points for the text used in the link. For example, if you have a bunch of text links pointing to your site, and the visible text read, “eco-friendly fabrics”, then your web site would be more likely to turn up in search results whenever someone searches Google for that exact phrase.

There is no question of the value Google places on inbound links, and the text string that is linked to your site. All of that directly builds up a value for your site, known as “pagerank”. Google pagerank rates from 0 to 10. The higher the pagerank of your homepage (and sub-pages), the more likely they will be to turn up for any type of search performed by a Google visitor who uses search phrases used on your web site.

It is also important to note that Google doesn’t simply count the number of inbound links to your web site, but also the pagerank of every web page it indexes where your link appears. Let’s suppose you exchange links with another web site. You place a link to their site from a page on your site that Google has given a pagerank of 4. The other web site links to you from a page that has a pagerank of 1. Google will as a result place much more importance on the link you are providing the other site by a factor of 4, because your pagerank 4 link has outweighed the other site’s pagerank 1 link inbound to you.

3. Page Structure and Keyword Optimization

At the same time, all search engines, including Google, pay a lot of attention to the overall effenciency of your web site’s HTML, the behind-the-scenes code that is served to end users’ web browsers (regardless of whether you have a database or not) as they view your web site. Google analyzes your web site, looks carefully at the HTML, and checks for proper use of Meta tags (which directly form the visible title and description that appear when people find your site in Google search results).

Google also looks for the use of scripts, the number of times your keywords appear in the ALT/TITLE tags of key images on your site, the weighting of keywords both in your meta tags and in the visible text of your pages.

Additionally, Google will in fact penalize you for keyword “spamming” — the use of the same keyword too many times on one or more pages of your web site. You may drop suddenly in ranking or from the Google index altogether if you employ keyword spamming on your site.

Overall, it is important to know how search engines like Google are looking at your site and what precisely they are using when they consider whether your site’s SEO is good or poor.

4. The Magic Recipe for SEO Success

A properly employed SEO campaign is a careful balance of:

• Inbound links
• Consistency in the use of hyperlinked text found in those inbound links
• Proper web page architecture and adherence to SEO rules
• Analysis of real-world ranking results, and continual refinement

The third bullet point is where many companies fall short when they opt for SEO and are disappointed. They do not hire the right SEO vendor, or are wooed by promises of “page 1 rankings” and just cut a blank check. They get an immediate boost in ranks and then drop to zero. By that time, the SEO vendor is long since gone.

No one SEO provider can guarantee you page 1 rankings, because in the end it really does come down to the value of the content appearing on your web site. It comes down to how well it was written, how flexible your web site’s architecture is if major structure changes are required, and so forth.

Without knowing any of these things, no single SEO provider can offer you a guarantee, and it is up to you and every other web site owner to consider this when you decide your site is ready for SEO.

What an SEO vendor *can* reasonably offer you, however, is an improvement by making some very simple changes, because the vast majority of web sites in existence have never been analyzed by software that is widely accessible on the market today.

5. Do-it-yourself SEO: WebCEO

WebCEO is an international company with locations in the U.S. and Ukraine. They tap into real-time rules and data used by Google and other engines.

They also subscribe to real-time searches so they can tell you exactly what the global Internet audience is searching for — and then advise you on the right way to shape your campaign to benefit from this.

They let you compare your own SEO campaign against direct competitors, line by line, search phrase by search phrase. And as you track your site’s performance online, WebCEO will tell you how your site is gaining, and losing, with the use of specific keywords and phrases as compared to your competitors.

The single biggest value in WebCEO that we’ve found is the near-instant web page analysis. You can input a URL of a single page, or an entire site (it will scan the site and pull the top X # of pages/levels), and then analyze the structure of every page. A neat, printable report is generated describing about 200 aspects of every page of your site, with specific instructions on what to fix, based on the search engines you told it to compare your site’s optimization against.

Best of all, you don’t have to be an SEO vendor, or even a web guru, to use this system. WebCEO can be purchased directly, or, if you just want a simple analysis tool, you can download a free version (which is somewhat limited but will still let you analyze what is right/wrong with your web site and offer suggestions to fix it). If you are going to use it for an extended period of time, you can subscribe to their real-time search results so you are kept up to speed of live searches that your audience is trying out — and that can help you keep in tune with your potential customers.

6. Summary

Search Engine Optimization is something many hear about, but upon which few know how to act. It is not rocket science, nor is it magic. It is a careful balance of statistics (raw data) and art (creativity in how that data is used).

The proper form of SEO is one that gives a web site a kick start and lets it run for a while on auto-pilot. A poorly-executed SEO strategy is one that requires consistent stats review, site revisions, and search engine resubmission.

Best regards,

David Anderson
Principal, Canvas Dreams LLC

If you sell products or services online, one way to prevent fraudulent orders is to implement anti-fraud detection into your shopping cart or web site. There are several subscription-based services out there and many are designed to integrate into existing cart systems.

They take the details of an order — customer contact information, phone, address, etc. — and cross reference it with the information for the credit card provided (including name and billing address for the card, Bank identification number, etc) — and finally cross reference all of the data against the user’s physical location on the Internet, as well as the ISP they are connecting through (to filter out anonymous proxies).

For example: If someone orders using a U.S. credit card, but they are doing so from an ISP in Europe, the fraud detection service considers that a potential threat. If a customer is using a credit card with billing information and bank identification information in Florida, but they are connecting to your site from an ISP in Seattle, Washington, the fraud service will let you know that as well.

All of the information is tabulated and worked down to a simple ‘fraud score’ which is then passed back to the merchant, along with all the details. If it’s a low number, chances are the order is legit. If the number is high, chances are it’s a fake order/fraudulent. If it’s somewhere in-between, the merchant should pick up the phone and contact the customer directly

Canvas Dreams uses a service like this (called Max Mind) for our hosting signup forms, and it has been near-flawless at identifying whether a customer is legitimate or fraudulent. Max Mind is available at a very affordable monthly rate that is based on the number of fraud checks you need to perform in that given month. You can learn more about it here:

http://www.maxmind.com/

There are many other ways to defend your business against fake online orders, but a tool like this can really take out the guesswork in the overall fight against fraud.

Sincerely,

David Anderson
Principal, Canvas Dreams LLC

We recently had the opportunity to speak with Brent Young at E-Tech Recycling, an e-waste recycling service that has a local presence in Beaverton, Oregon. It was an eye-opener to speak with him point-blank about his industry, and the realities of what can and cannot be recycled, as well as a recent National Geographic article on e-waste (which detailed the “black fires” of east asia where young children melt plastic off of wire and then sell the cleaned copper).

Brent indicated that it’s too easy to simply label yourself as an e-waste recycler. If you claim to be one, people and business flock to you. It can be an extremely profitable business, and unfortunately, many recyclers do not do it correctly. Many just collect e-waste and sell it to whoever will take it (and is supposedly credentialed).

One thing is that U.S. legislation has supposedly made it illegal to ship e-waste to certain countries, or certain types of e-waste, without proper certification. The laws are that you have to sell/ship it to a “certified” e-waste company overseas that is buying it from you. The problem though is that the paper trail ends there. So a well-intentioned e-waste company here may have done their due diligence, collected the scrap, and sold it to an overseas recycler, while the overseas company buying it may just turn around and dump it, or sell it to local buyers in that country who are not licensed.

The point is that enforcement of e-waste legislation is extremely difficult as it transits country borders. Now, according to Brent, there are a host of ISO certifications and other standards that an e-waste company needs to pass before they can brand themselves a legitimate outfit. What I gathered from him, however, is that beyond certification, it comes down to the e-waste recycler doing their own research and homework in order to understand exactly where the e-waste will end up — as well as what other options may be available.

On a positive note, Brent was extremely forthcoming about what CAN be recycled — and it’s a lot more than you might consider. Most every e-waste component can be safely broken down, separating out toxic materials, grinding up circuit boards into a near-powder (which can be used to make new circuit boards), plastics melted at low temperatures to be turned into new appliances, and so forth.

He also shared with me information about CTR (cathode ray tubes) which are increasingly piling up as people replace old monitors and TVs with newer plasma and LCD types. It turns out, there are only two recycling plants in the world that can effectively melt down CTRs (which contain leaded glass and many other toxins) into component parts. But more importantly, many developing nations are now actively purchasing old, small CTRs because they can be re-used in NEW televisions in countries – and the smaller CTR size is perfect for a small household where space and electricity are in short supply. RAM, CPUs, and other components from computers can be stripped out and reused for computers in developing countries, as well. So it’s not just about disposing of e-waste, it is also about finding ways to reuse an existing item so it does not become e-waste.

The National Geographic article on e-waste had an important conclusion towards the end. It described a handful of recycling plants in the U.S. which can literally devour all e-waste and find a use for it. Up above I noted about the circuit boards… a 3′ cubic bin of ground up circuit boards sells for a lot of money — and it can be immediately shipped to a few plants (I believe one is in Switzerland) where it can be reprocessed into materials for new circuit boards. This big plant stands 150′ tall, and supposedly it’s only a matter of time before there are enough in the U.S. to be able to handle almost ALL e-waste generated by this country.

The real challenge is to educate consumers about their options, and connect these and other certified e-waste recyclers with the proper channels so it can be a simple matter for the average American consumer to recycle their e-waste safely and efficiently.

Thank you,

David Anderson

Principal, Canvas Dreams LLC

Canvas Dreams offsets 100% of its electrical use by purchasing new, renewable wind energy from PGE, the local power utility. When we joined PGE’s Clean Wind program last year, we did so because it was the closest we could get to having a wind farm directly plugged into our hosting facility.

 

On June 19, 2008, we were delighted to become offical Bronze-level members of PGE’s Clean Wind program, and are now a featured business in their online resource, www.GreenPowerOregon.com.

 

We also received an official certificate in recognition of our participation.

 

 

 

 

As a Pacific Northwest web hosting provider, we at Canvas Dreams want to limit our impact on the environment. The major resource we use in the operation of our business is electricity. In addition to our servers and network equipment, power is used by the cooling, security, and fire suppression systems at our data facility.

Canvas Dreams utilizes energy-efficient servers and employs conservational technology where possible. Our newest line of greener dedicated servers use ultra-efficient CPUs created through a lead- and halogen-free manufacturing process, generate little heat, and draw considerably less power than do our enterprise servers. Still, for every Watt of power used by our hosting infrastructure, another Watt is used to cool the heat generated by our systems.

From an energy usage standpoint, web hosting is a costly business, and as such, its impact higher on the environment as compared to other industries. For this reason and many others, Canvas Dreams joined Portland General Electric’s Clean Wind energy program.

 

Clean Wind enables us to purchase renewable wind power generated at wind farms in the Pacific Northwest, including the Klondike energy facility and PGE’s new Biglow Canyon wind farm project. The new power is fed onto the grid to offset our consumption of electricity from non-renewable sources. Unlike some carbon offset programs, PGE’s program enables us to purchase new electricity from local wind sources to directly benefit the Pacific Northwest environment and economy.

As a business member of Clean Wind, we have chosen to offset 100% of our web hosting infrastructure with clean wind power. Not only is it one way for us to give back to Northwest businesses who have supported us, it is also one small step to helping the environment that has given us a home.

The online world is one that is being redefined every day. When a contract is signed by two parties online, what is or is not considered legally binding? Is an email enough to signify consent? On which year’s legal basis would you judge an email to be a binding document, or how might you verify the validity of consent submitted through an online form?

With technology advancing so rapidly, an email used as evidence to signify legal consent in 1997, for example, could be heavily scrutinized in 2008 because of the advances with anti-fraud and authentication technologies (which could determine whether a given person in fact did or did not send the digital message to begin with) that have been implemented in the years since.

Along the same lines, when you agree to purchase or use a service online and check the “I Agree” box, just how binding is that, really? Even a digital signature box (where you “draw” your signature using your mouse/cursor) is at best only a gist of what your actual hand-written signature might actually look like. So what it comes down to is reasonable expectation on the part of both parties to employ adequate means of identifying both the entity issuing the contract, as well as the party signing it.

In 2000, the E-sign Act was enacted under President Clinton, and created to help define the legal structures governing what would or would not constitute a valid “digital signature”. In no way does it stipulate that one must sign their name as a signature in a box, as opposed to merely checking an “I Agree To These Terms” box when agreeing to and “signing” a digital contract online.

The full text of the Act can be found here:
http://www.ftc.gov/os/2001/06/esign7.htm

The breakdown Wikipedia article can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esign

What it does do is set forth reasonable terms by which both the buyer and seller of a service may enter into a legally binding contract that is enacted digitally. If the customer can adequately prove they are the ones purchasing or signing up, and the seller can adequately verify the information to be correct (such as through the use of anti-fraud screening software that cross-references the customer’s IP address, billing information, phone number, etc), then both parties are acting within the scope of the E-sign Act, and for all intents and purposes it can be considered a legally-binding agreement.

At the same time, as a legally-binding agreement, there is a thing in contract law called the “spirit of the contract”, a legal philosophy that a binding agreement should not have unreasonable expectations or hidden rules which conflict with the purpose of the contract. If the contract seems adversely weighted in favor of one party, then in a court of law you could call into question and argue against the overall spirit of the contract — and subsequently, the contract could be declared void by the legal system.

But even more importantly than that, a contract implies an agreement between both parties. In exchange for paying for a service or product, a buyer expects the seller to deliver those services or products. If the seller does not, the contract is broken, and it can be argued that the seller failed to deliver on their part of the deal. That can throw the entire contract out the window, leaving the seller without much legal weight to enforce any other aspects of the agreement. Additionally, it can open up the door for legal actions to be taken by the buyer to recoup their losses caused by the seller.

And that really is the bottom line. Not whether a digital contract can be called into question because there was no physical signature, but instead whether the legal basis for the contract is legitimate. And, whether it can be reasonably proven that both parties did agree to enter into that contract, and one of the parties failed to meet their obligations. In that sense, whether it be for an online service like web hosting, a product you buy through an e-commerce store, or one that you sell to someone through eBay, a signed digital contract works the same as a signature-based paper contract.

David Anderson
Principal, Canvas Dreams LLC