Ethos Technical Information

YouSendIt Ethos FTP Information

We have a new service (and hence procedure) for uploading and retrieving files via FTP. We now subscribe to YouSendIt.com. YouSendIt lets you send, track and receive large files electronically. This is a web service that specializes in file transfer through the use of email and a special FTP hosting solution. YouSendIt is a much simpler way to send and retrieve files than using our dedicated FTP server. How does this service work?

To send a file you simply go to the YouSendIt website at http://www.yousendit.com. Click the login button on the right side of the screen.

At the login page, you will type the following login information for our Ethos Account:

email userid: mbeale@earthlink.net
password: schatz60

This will bring you to a web page with a form on it where you can upload a file to be sent to the intended recipient.

To send a file:

1. You enter the recipient's email address and an optional message if needed;

2. Attach your file and click the "send it" icon;

3. Your recipient receives an email that lets him/her immediately click on a link and download the file.

There are a few conditions and features you need to be aware of when using this service:

The maximum size of each file you can send is 2 GB.

There is a monthly download bandwidth limit which is currently 200GB. This means that we can upload or download a total of 200 GB worth of files in any given month. For example, this limit allows us to upload the equivalent of 2000 100MB files in a 30 day period... That should be plenty of bandwidth for our current needs.

The period of time your files remain available for download is 14 days. After 14 days the files automatically delete. (Note: you can change the period of time your files remain available for download by setting a file expiration time when sending a file but this should only be done on a very limited basis.)

You can track the delivery of files to ensure that your intended recipient has received them. The tracking and security features (password protection, certified delivery, return receipt) allow you to verify that an intended recipient has received and has downloaded your files.

There is a special Dropbox feature where people can send files to us: This gives us the ability to receive files from others on our own Dropbox page. The best part is that there is no configuration required for people wishing to send us files utilizing this approach.

Our Ethos Dropbox is located at the following url: http://dropbox.yousendit.com/ethosdropbox

RSS & Safari - What you should know

A number of people have asked me recently about RSS. What is it and how would I use it in surfing the Web? Here, I will give you a brief definition, why it might be important to you, and a link to a site which explains how to set this feature up in Safari 2.x on the Macintosh.

RSS (Rich Site Summary) is a format for delivering regularly changing web content. Many news-related sites, weblogs and other online publishers syndicate their content as an RSS Feed to whoever wants it.

Why RSS? Benefits and Reasons for using RSS

RSS solves a problem for people who regularly use the web. It allows you to easily stay informed by retrieving the latest content from the sites you most frequently visit. You save time by not needing to visit each site individually. You ensure your privacy, by not needing to join each site's email newsletter. The number of sites offering RSS feeds is growing rapidly and includes big names like Yahoo News, CNN, MSNBC, etc as well as individual publishers or personal bloggers.

What do I need to do to read an RSS Feed?

Typically, you would need special software like Feed Reader or News Aggregator which allows you to grab the RSS feeds from various sites and display them for you to read and use. The newest version of Safari 2.x has an RSS Reader capability built-in. In order to use Safari 2.O or higher, however, you need to be running Mac OS 10.4 (Tiger) or higher.

Using the RSS capability built in Safari 2.x, you can scan articles from several websites in one window, be notified when a website has new articles, and use a bookmark to search specific websites for specific terms.

An RSS feed provides the titles and summaries for many articles on a website. Safari displays this information in a simple list. You can search the list for articles on a specific subject, choose the length of their summaries, and sort them by date or title. See the screenshot below as an example:

To find an RSS feed using Safari 2.x for a website:

• If Safari can find the RSS feed for the site you're viewing, an RSS button appears in the address bar. Click it to view that feed. To return to the website, click the button again.

• Choose Bookmarks > Show All Bookmarks, and click All RSS Feeds. Safari lists all RSS feeds from your Bookmarks menu, Bookmarks bar, and Bookmarks library. You may find the one you want here. If an RSS feed appears in more than one location, it's listed multiple times. The Parent column displays the folder that the RSS feed is in.

• Search the website for links to its RSS feeds, and click one. (RSS feeds are sometimes called XML feeds.)

Many websites have more than one RSS feed. For example, a newspaper's website may have separate feeds for news, sports, and entertainment articles. The RSS button in the address bar displays just one of those feeds. To find the others, search the website for links to them.

For a more detailed introduction to RSS and how to setup your RSS Feeds using Safari, I recommend visiting MacDevCenter.com Safari's RSS page.

How to set up an "Out of Office" or "On Vacation" responder in Microsoft Entourage

This question has been asked so many times that I thought it would be useful to post the instructions here.

The process is fairly easy.

Vacation rules can be set up in Microsoft Entourage to respond to incoming email messages. You need to leave your computer running and make sure a schedule is set up to collect and send mail from your email account at regular intervals (like every hour or two) - a vacation rule will not work unless Entourage is automatically set up to collect and send mail.

This means you will need to set up a schedule to send and receive mail continuously, that you have your computer on while you are away, and you keep your internet connection active.

You need to go to Tools > Schedules and set your Send and Receive All schedule to work in regular intervals you choose. Entourage must, as well, stay open while you are gone.

If you are completely new to using Rules in Entourage, check out this page first.

Set up a rule that looks like this:



Important points to note are:

Make sure the Execute selector is set to "if all criteria are met...";

the first selection criterion is "Is Not from a Mailing List";

This is critical. "Out of Office" responders sent to mailing lists annoy a lot of people and can, in the worst case, cause a mail loop because you keep responding to your own vacation Notice.

Now click on the Reply Text... button and type the text of the reply to send to each person who mails you.

Click on the Enabled checkbox to activate the rule.

Flickr Online Photo Sharing - A potential new service

This is to let people know that we now have the capability to put our client image libraries online using an online photo sharing service like Flickr.

What does this mean to Ethos and our clients?

With respect to client image libraries, there are a number of important benefits:

(1) All client images can now be uploaded to one central location and shared and reviewed amongst interested stakeholders. No more having to search the Ethos CD archives for images or identifying previous client business collateral to pick out images. The client, the marketer, the designer as well as any other interested party can simultaneously review their respective images in real time through any web browser to identify and pick up an image for a project.

(2) Because all the client's images are stored online through the photo sharing service, images are accessible 24/7 from any location with internet access and a web browser. Moreover, all images stored online are automatically archived and backed up - forever...

Both the disk space and the number of images are unlimited under any given account. The only limit is the individual file size of an image which is limited to 10 MB. (That is equal to a 11x17 high resolution print ready image with high-quality JPEG compression.)

This means that you can store literally from 1 to 1,000,000 images without being charged for additional disk space or image quantity...

(3) When storing an image online, the service provides features that can assist us in tracking images. This includes the ability to add titles, descriptions, keywords (metatags for searching), comments, etc to an image. Also, as you publish photos online, they are automatically compressed and resized by Flickr in the following sizes - (e.g., the service automatically peels off interim resolutions of the image for various uses like icons, the web, and various print usages such as advertisements, brochures and full page covers):

• 75x75 pixels
• 100 pixels (on the longest side)
• 240 pixels
• 500 pixels
• Large (which will be 1024 pixels if it exceeds that length)
• The original size (if you have a pro account)

OK what are the limitations of the service?

As previously mentioned, there is a 10MB per photo limit.

Also, because Flickr is a social networking photo sharing service, the default status is to make all images public to every member on Flickr. This means that anyone who pops by Flickr can see your photos.

Fortunately, you can make images private so that you can control access to your image library. To do this you designate people as "friends" by inviting them to become members of your photo library. This only works if the people you are inviting are already Flickr members.

Thus in order for people to see your private image library, they must be invited by the originating account holder and be a member of Flickr. Fortunately the basic Flickr membership is free. After you designate access privileges for your friends and set the appropriate privacy level on your photos, your friends can see your photos under the "Contacts" link at the top of each page in their respective Flickr account. To do this you need to set your photos to be visible to only your friends. You can choose this option as you upload your photos to Flickr, for individual photos already uploaded, by using the Organizr feature within Flickr, or as the default setting for all your uploads.

For a demo of how this service might work here at Ethos, click on the example Ethos Photo Library

The specific url that can be accessed by any guest user (that is they do not need a Flickr account) is:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ethosmarketing/

Then click on the icon on the right side of the web page labeled "kvcc" to bring up the KVCC image library. You can click on any of the thumbnail images to call up the respective individual image. You can review various image sizes by clicking on the ALL SIZES icon above the image you selected...

Remember, that this image library is currently accessible to anybody on Flickr or who knows the respective URL listed above since it has been published publicly for this demonstration...

VTC Training Subscription Renewed

Just a reminder for everyone that Ethos has renewed its subscription to Virtual Training. This service has a number of online training courses for the software we use on a daily basis here at Ethos. You can check out the Virtual Training website and peruse their current course offerings.

If you do not remember the USERID and Password to login to the actual courses, please see me and I will give you the login information. This service has been renewed through November 30 2007...

WebMail Instructions for Remote email access

To login remotely to your email account over the internet, open a web browser, such as Internet Explorer and type in the following URL into the address bar:

http://www.ethos-marketing.com/webmail

This will take you to the login screen for you email account.

Once the login screen appears, you will be greeted with an interface similar to the following:

Type your User Name (or ID) in the text field beside UserID (your userID is the combination of the initial letter of your first name combined with your full last name, e.g., jwhited, tdarling, etc.):, and your password in the text field beside Password: (Ethos employees should know what our company-wide default password is).

If you like, you can click the checkbox next to "remember my UserID", and your UserID will automatically be inserted for you the next time you visit Webmail and you will only be required to enter your password.

Once you have entered both of these fields, you can click "Login", or hit the "Enter" key on your keyboard. If you entered your correct UserID and Password, you will be directed to your Inbox.

If it is your first time logging into Webmail, you will be taken to your settings configuration. Please see Basic Settings Configuration.

BASIC SETTINGS Configuration
The basic settings configuration allows you to change various preferences to suit your e-mailing needs. If you are a first time Open Webmail user, you will be directed to your settings configuration control panel, rather than your inbox. However, you probably want to get your webmail up and running as soon as possible.

These are the main sections in the settings configuration:
• Personal Information
• Display Preferences
• Message Reading Options
• Message Operation
• Message Replying Options
• Message Filtering Options
• Calendar Options
• Miscellaneous Options

For many users, the default settings are quite adequate. If you do not wish to change the settings at this time, click the save button at the bottom of the page. This will bring you to your email box where you can read, send and administer your email.

Webmail is the most robust remote email client Ethos has used to date. It provides a number of advanced features like autoresponders (automatic reply messages for your incoming email), ability to read html email, an online web calendar, online daily list lists, and various other advanced features. I recommend reading the online manual or help menu at the bottom middle of the screen for more information on accessing these features and customizing your email options.

Ethos FTP info

We have a new location (and hence procedure) on the Ethos Web Server for uploading and retrieving files via FTP. Here is the new configuration information you will need to successfully access our FTP directory.

Our FTP Directory location is a folder labeled “files” on our website. You can get to this folder via the following protocol:

ftp://ftp.ethos-marketing.com/files

userid: ethos
password: schatz60

How do you use this information to actually access our FTP site? There are basically 2 ways we recommend depending on which computer platform you are using.

For the Macintosh, we recommend using Fetch FTP. You can download a trial version at

Fetch Softworks

Our FTP information needs to be entered into the Fetch FTP client software to work correctly. Here is a screen shot for the configuration menu for Fetch:

Once you have entered this info, just hit OK and you should be taken to our FTP directory where you can retrieve or upload files.

For people using a Windows-based system, you will need to use an FTP client like CuteFTP or some other Windows-based FTP software.

The configuration info for our Ethos FTP server is as follows:

Ethos FTP server:  ftp.ethos-marketing.com
Directory: /files
User ID:   ethos
Password:  schatz60

This information needs to be entered into your FTP client software to work correctly

This will load the file directory where you will see the folders and files on our FTP server, which he then can copy, delete, rename and move in much the same way as he would work with his local folders and files.

That's it.

Ethos Domain Name & Hosting reseller services

This is to let people know that we have become a reseller for domain name and web hosting services. What does this mean?

With respect to domain names, this means that we can now easily register domain names, administer them and transfer them at your or your customer’s request. This greatly simplifies the process of registering domain names for clients as well as making it easy to transfer domains should a client wish to self administer their own domain name in the future. Previously, this process was an administrative nightmare which required faxes, forms and various other technical procedures which made the registration and transfer process cumbersome. The benefit for us as a Marketing group is that we can register a domain name on behalf of a client in order to reserve the domain name upfront as part of a marketing project or communications platform. We can then at a later time easily transfer the domain to the customer, if so desired.

The other benefit to us is that we can register domains at 10-20% less cost than the national registrars typically charge such as NetworkSolutions.com or Register.com. Below is a simple cost comparison grid for Network Solutions Domain Registration service and our domain registration pricing.

If you wish to register or check on a domain name, please see me.

The other news is that we will also be able to provide or refer hosting solutions for clients. This is a reseller arrangement. This does not mean that Ethos is in the business of web hosting but rather is able to provide a solution which can facilitate clients in the web development process. Under this scenario, the best fit here is a client who does not currently have or who wishes to develop additional website(s). From a strictly development standpoint, it will be easier for us to deploy websites for clients under this arrangement. It reduces the administrative cost by allowing us to directly setup accounts, beta test the site at the actual server location, and outsource advanced programming features such as content management, ecommerce, forms processing, etc. at a reduced cost. One of the major benefits here is that it should allow us to speed up the deployment process without sacrificing quality along the way.