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jack_fox

How to Measure Resource Utilization? - Teamdeck.io - 0 views

teamdeck.io/...o-measure-resource-utilization

shared by jack_fox on 15 Jul 20 - No Cached
  • My recommendation would be to use both methods of calculating resource utilization. Compare the actual (recorded) utilization to the estimated one (based on the bookings) and analyze the differences.
  • Resource utilization = Recorded working hours / Available hours
  • Resource utilization = Planned working hours (bookings) / Available hours
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • If you decide to include time off in your calculation, keep in mind that your team’s utilization can be significantly lower during peak vacation
Rob Laporte

Wireless Network Watcher - Show who is connected to your wireless network - 0 views

www.nirsoft.net/...wireless_network_watcher.html

Utilities

shared by Rob Laporte on 29 Apr 18 - No Cached
  • Rob Laporte on 29 Apr 18
     
    "Wireless network survey software"
jack_fox

The Ultimate Web Server Security Guide @ MyThemeShop - 0 views

mythemeshop.com/...web-server-security

site code & design

shared by jack_fox on 16 Oct 20 - No Cached
  • They could insert links into the site to boost their SEO rankings. Hackers can make a killing selling links from exploited sites. Alternatively, a hacker could deface the site and demand money to restore it (ransom). They could even place ads on the site and use the traffic to make money. In most cases, an attacker will also install backdoors into the server. These are deliberate security holes that allow them to come back and exploit the site in the future – even if the insecure plugin has been replaced.
  • Unfortunately, under WordPress, every plugin and theme has the ability to alter anything on the site. They can even be exploited to infect other apps and sites hosted on the same machine.
  • Theme developers are often relatively inexperienced coders. Usually, they’re professional graphic artists who have taught themselves a little PHP on the side. Plugins are another popular line of attack – they account for 22% of successful hacks. Put together, themes and plugins are a major source of security trouble.
  • ...102 more annotations...
  • Each person who uses your system should only have the privileges they need to perform their tasks.
  • Don’t depend on a single security measure to keep your server safe. You need multiple rings of defense.
  • Security exploits exist at all levels of the technology stack, from the hardware up. WP White Security revealed that 41% of WordPress sites are hacked through a weakness in the web host.
  • While it’s important to use a strong password, password cracking is not a primary focus for hackers.
  • the more software you have installed on your machine, the easier it is to hack – even if you aren’t using the programs! Clearly, programs that are designed to destroy your system are dangerous. But even innocent software can be used in an attack.
  • There are 3 ways to reduce the attack surface: 1. Run fewer processes 2. Uninstall programs you don’t need 3. Build a system from scratch that only has the processes you need
  • A really good authentication system uses multiple tests. Someone could steal or guess your password. They could grab your laptop with its cryptographic keys.
  • If you want to run multiple processes at the same time, you need some way of managing them. This is basically what a kernel is. It does more than that – it handles all of the complex details of the computer hardware, too. And it runs the computer’s networking capabilities
  • programs exist as files when they are not running in memory
  • SELinux’s default response is to deny any request.
  • SELinux is extremely comprehensive, but this power comes at a price. It’s difficult to learn, complex to set up, and time-consuming to maintain.
  • AppArmor is an example of a MAC tool, although it’s nowhere near as comprehensive as SELinux. It applies rules to programs to limit what they can do.
  • AppArmor is relatively easy to set up, but it does require you to configure each application and program one by one. This puts the onus for security in the hands of the user or sysadmin. Often, when new apps are added, users forget to configure AppArmor. Or they do a horrible job and lock themselves out, so their only option is to disable the profile. That said, several distributions have adopted AppArmor.
  • Generic profiles shipped by repo teams are designed to cover a wide range of different use cases, so they tend to be fairly loose. Your specific use cases are usually more specific. In this case, it pays to fine-tune the settings, making them more restrictive.
  • GRSecurity is a suite of security enhancements
  • In the future, this could become a viable option. For now, we’ll use Ubuntu and AppArmor.
  • Apache is a user-facing service – it’s how your users interact with your website. It’s important to control this interaction too.
  • If your Apache configuration is bad, these files can be viewed as plain text. All of your code will be visible for anyone to see – this potentially includes your database credentials, cryptographic keys, and salts.
  • You can configure Apache to refuse any requests for these essential directories using .htaccess files. These are folder-level configuration files that Apache reads before it replies to a request.
  • The primary use for .htaccess files is to control access
  • If an attacker knows your WordPress cryptographic salts, they can use fake cookies to trick WordPress into thinking they have logged on already.
  • If the hacker has physical access to the computer, they have many options at their disposal. They can type commands through the keyboard, or insert a disk or USB stick into the machine and launch an attack that way.
  • When it comes to network-based attacks, attackers have to reach through one of the machine’s network ports.
  • For an attacker to exploit a system, they have to communicate to a process that’s listening on a port. Otherwise, they’d simply be sending messages that are ignored. This is why you should only run processes that you need for your site to run. Anything else is a security risk.
  • Often, ports are occupied by processes that provide no real valuable service to the machine’s legitimate users. This tends to happen when you install a large distribution designed for multiple uses. Large distros include software that is useless to you in terms of running a website. So the best strategy is to start with a very lightweight distro and add the components you need.
  • If you see any unnecessary processes, you can shut them down manually. Better yet, if the process is completely unnecessary, you can remove it from your system.
  • Firewalls are quite similar to access control within the computer. They operate on a network level, and you can use them to enforce security policies. A firewall can prevent processes from broadcasting information from a port. It can stop outside users from sending data to a port. And it can enforce more complex rules.
  • Simply installing and running a firewall does not make your host machine secure – it’s just one layer in the security cake. But it’s a vital and a powerful one.
  • First of all, we need to configure our software to resist common attacks. But that can only protect us from attacks we know about. Access control software, such as AppArmor, can drastically limit the damage caused by unauthorized access. But you still need to know an attack is in progress.
  • This is where Network Intrusion Detection Software (NIDS) is essential. It scans the incoming network traffic, looking for unusual patterns or signs of a known attack. If it sees anything suspicious, it logs an alert.
  • It’s up to you to review these logs and act on them.
  • If it’s a false alarm, you should tune your NIDS software to ignore it. If it’s an ineffective attack, you should review your security and block the attacker through the firewall.
  • That’s why it’s essential to have an automated backup system. Finally, you need to understand how the attack succeeded, so you can prevent it from recurring. You may have to change some settings on your Firewall, tighten your access rules, adjust your Apache configuration, and change settings in your wp-config file. None of this would be possible without detailed logs describing the attack.
  • Every web server has a breaking point and dedicated DOS attackers are willing to increase the load until your server buckles. Good firewalls offer some level of protection against naive DOS attacks
  • a tiny number of sites (less than 1%) are hacked through the WordPress core files
  • Major DNS attacks have taken down some of the biggest sites in the world – including Ebay and Paypal. Large hosting companies like Hostgator and Blue Host have been attacked. It’s a serious risk!
  • Right now, due to the way the web currently works, it’s impossible to download a web page without the IP address of a server. In the future, technologies like IFPS and MaidSafe could change that.
  • So there are 2 benefits to using a CDN. The first is that your content gets to your readers fast. The second benefit is server anonymity – nobody knows your real IP address – including the psychos. This makes it pretty impossible to attack your server – nobody can attack a server without an IP address.
  • When CDNs discover a DDOS attack, they have their own ways to deal with it. They often display a very lightweight “are you human?” message with a captcha. This tactic reduces the bandwidth costs and screens out the automated attacks.
  • If any of your DNS records point to your actual server, then it’s easy to find it and attack it. This includes A records (aliases) and MX records (mail exchange). You should also use a separate mail server machine to send your emails. Otherwise, your email headers will expose your real email address.
  • If your hosting company refuses to give you a new IP address, it may be time to find a new service provider.
  • WordPress uses encryption to store passwords in the database. It doesn’t store the actual password – instead, it stores an encrypted version. If someone steals your database tables, they won’t have the actual passwords.
  • If you used a simple hash function, a hacker could gain privileged access to your app in a short period of time.
  • The salt strings are stored in your site’s wp-config.php file.
  • Salts dramatically increase the time it would take to get a password out of a hash code – instead of taking a few weeks, it would take millions of years
  • You keep the other key (the decryption key) to yourself. If anyone stole it, they could decode your private messages! These 2-key cryptographic functions do exist. They are the basis of TLS (https) and SSH.
  • the most secure systems tend to be the simplest. The absolute secure machine would be one that was switched off.
  • For WordPress sites, you also need PHP and a database.
  • A VM is an emulated computer system running inside a real computer (the host). It contains its own operating system and resources, such as storage, and memory. The VM could run a completely different operating system from the host system – you could run OSX in a VM hosted on your Windows machine
  • This isolation offers a degree of protection. Let’s imagine your VM gets infected with a particularly nasty virus – the VM’s file system could be completely destroyed, or the data could be hopelessly corrupted. But the damage is limited to the VM itself. The host environment would remain safe.
  • This is how shared hosting and virtual private servers (VPSes) work today. Each customer has access to their own self-contained environment, within a virtual machine.
  • VMs are not just for hosting companies. If you’re hosting multiple sites on a dedicated server or a VPS, VMs can help to make your server more secure. Each site can live inside its own VM. That way, if one server is hacked, the rest of your sites are safe.
  • Even with all these considerations, the benefits of VMs outweigh their drawbacks. But performance is vital on the web.
  • Containers (like Docker) are very similar to VMs.
  • Because we’ve cut the hypervisor out of the loop, applications run much faster – almost as fast as processes in the host environment. Keeping each container separate does involve some computation by the container software. But it’s much lighter than the work required by a hypervisor!
  • Docker Cloud is a web-based service that automates the task for you. It integrates smoothly with the most popular cloud hosting platforms (such as Amazon Web Services, or Digital Ocean).
  • With containers, you can guarantee that the developer’s environment is exactly the same as the live server. Before the developer writes a single line of code, they can download the container to their computer. If the code works on their PC, it will work on the live server. This is a huge benefit of using containers, and it’s a major reason for their popularity.
  • A complete stack of these layers is called an “image”
  • The core of Docker is the Docker Engine – which lives inside a daemon – or long-running process
  • another great resource – the Docker Hub. The hub is an online directory of community-made images you can download and use in your own projects. These include Linux distributions, utilities, and complete applications.
  • Docker has established a relationship with the teams behind popular open source projects (including WordPress) – these partners have built official images that you can download and use as-is.
  • when you finish developing your code, you should wrap it up inside a complete container image. The goal is to put all the code that runs your site inside a container and store the volatile data in a volume.
  • Although Docker can help to make your site more secure, there’s are a few major issues you need to understand. The Docker daemon runs as a superuser It’s possible to load the entire filesystem into a container It’s possible to pass a reference to the docker daemon into a container
  • The solution to this issue is to use a MAC solution like SELinux, GRSecurity or AppArmor.
  • Never let anyone trick you into running a strange docker command.
  • only download and use Docker images from a trustworthy source. Official images for popular images are security audited by the Docker team. Community images are not
  • there are the core WordPress files. These interact with the web server through the PHP runtime. WordPress also relies on the file system and a database server.
  • A service is some software component that listens for requests (over a protocol) and does something when it receives those requests.
  • Using Docker, you could install WordPress, Apache, and PHP in one container, and run MySQL from another. These containers could run on the same physical machine, or on different ones
  • The database service container can be configured to only accept connections that originate from the web container. This immediately removes the threat of external attacks against your database server
  • This gives you the perfect opportunity to remove high-risk software from your host machine, including: Language Runtimes and interpreters, such as PHP, Ruby, Python, etc. Web servers Databases Mail Servers
  • If a new version of MySQL is released, you can update the database container without touching the web container. Likewise, if PHP or Apache are updated, you can update the web container and leave the database container alone.
  • Because Docker makes it easy to connect these containers together, there’s no reason to lump all your software inside a single container. In fact, it’s a bad practice – it increases the security risk for any single container, and it makes it harder to manage them.
  • If your site is already live on an existing server, the best approach is to set up a new host machine and then migrate over to it. Here are the steps you need to take:
  • With a minimal Ubuntu installation, you have a fairly bare-bones server. You also have the benefit of a huge repository of software you can install if you want.
  • If access control is like a lock protecting a building, intrusion detection is the security alarm that rings after someone breaks in.
  • Logging on to your host with a superuser account is a bad practice. It’s easy to accidentally break something.
  • Fail2ban blocks SSH users who fail the login process multiple times. You can also set it up to detect and block hack attempts over HTTP – this will catch hackers who attempt to probe your site for weaknesses.
  • With multiple WordPress sites on your machine, you have 2 choices. You could create a new database container for each, or you could reuse the same container between them. Sharing the DB container is a little riskier, as a hacker could, theoretically, ruin all your sites with one attack. You can minimize that risk by: Use a custom root user and password for your database – don’t use the default username of ‘root’. Ensuring the db container is not accessible over the internet (hide it away inside a docker network) Creating new databases and users for each WordPress site. Ensure each user only has permissions for their specific database.
  • What are the benefits of using a single database container? It’s easier to configure and scale. It’s easier to backup and recover your data. It’s a little lighter on resources.
  • you could also add a caching container, like Varnish. Varnish caches your content so it can serve pages quickly – much faster than WordPress can
  • Docker has the ability to limit how much processor time and memory each container gets. This protects you against exhaustion DOS attacks
  • A containerized process still has some of the abilities of root, making it more powerful than a regular user. But it’s not as bad as full-on root privileges. With AppArmor, you can tighten the security further, preventing the process from accessing any parts of the system that do not relate to serving your website.
  • Docker Hub works like GitHub – you can upload and download images for free. The downside is that there’s no security auditing. So it’s easy to download a trojan horse inside a container.
  • Official images (such as WordPress and Apache) are audited by the Docker team. These are safe. Community images (which have names like user/myapp) are not audited.
  • a kernel exploit executed inside a container will affect the entire system. The only way to protect against kernel exploits is to regularly update the host system
  • Containers run in isolation from the rest of the system. That does not mean you can neglect security – your website lives inside these containers! Even if a hacker cannot access the full system from a container, they can still damage the container’s contents.
  • Under Ubuntu, AppArmor already protects you – to a degree. The Docker daemon has an AppArmor profile, and each container runs under a default AppArmor profile. The default profile prevents an app from breaking out of the container, and restricts it from doing things that would harm the system as a whole. However, the default profile offers no specific protection against WordPress specific attacks. We can fix this by creating a custom profile for your WordPress container.
  • The net effect is that it’s impossible to install malware, themes or plugins through the web interface. We’ve already covered this to some degree with the .htaccess rules and directory permissions. Now we’re enforcing it through the Linux kernel.
  • There are versions of Docker for Mac and PC, so you’ll be able to run your site from your home machine. If the code works on your PC, it will also work on the server.
  • Tripwire tends to complain about the entries in the /proc filespace, which are auto-generated by the Linux kernel. These files contain information about running processes, and they tend to change rapidly while Linux runs your system. We don’t want to ignore the directory entirely, as it provides useful signs that an attack is in progress. So we’re going to have to update the policy to focus on the files we are interested in.
  • Now we should install an e-mail notification utility – to warn us if anything changes on the system. This will enable us to respond quickly if our system is compromised (depending on how often you check your emails).
  • Rootkits are malicious code that hackers install onto your machine. When they manage to get one on your server, it gives them elevated access to your system
  • Tripwire is configured to search in key areas. It’s good at detecting newly installed software, malicious sockets, and other signs of a compromised system. RKHunter looks in less obvious places, and it checks the contents of files to see if they contain known malicious code. RKHunter is supported by a community of security experts who keep it updated with known malware signatures – just like antivirus software for PCs.
  • If your hosting company offers the option, this would be a good point to make an image of your server. Most cloud hosting companies offer tools to do this.
  • With an image, it’s easy to launch new servers or recover the old one if things go horribly wrong.
  • We’ve hidden our server from the world while making it easy to read our content We’ve built a firewall to block malicious traffic We’ve trapped our web server inside a container where it can’t do any harm We’ve strengthened Linux’s access control model to prevent processes from going rogue We’ve added an intrusion detection system to identify corrupted files and processes We’ve added a rootkit scanner We’ve strengthened our WordPress installation with 2-factor authentication We’ve disabled the ability for any malicious user to install poisoned themes or plugins
  • Make a routine of checking the logs (or emails if you configured email reporting). It’s vital to act quickly if you see any warnings. If they’re false warnings, edit the configuration. Don’t get into a habit of ignoring the reports.
  • Virtually everything that happens on a Linux machine is logged.
  • You have to make a habit of checking for new exploits and learn how to protect yourself against them. Regularly check for security patches and issues in the core WordPress app: WordPress Security Notices Also, check regularly on the forums or mailing lists for the plugins and themes you use on your site.
  • network level intrusion detection service – you can fix that by installing Snort or PSAD.
  • The only way to guarantee your safety is to constantly update your security tactics and never get complacent.
Rob Laporte

What Google Thinks of Your Site - Search Engine Watch (SEW) - 0 views

searchenginewatch.com/3640693

seo site code & design

shared by Rob Laporte on 22 Jun 10 - Cached
  • Internal Links Listings Sitelinks have been around for years, about five to be exact. Another important SERP feature that has also been around this long are site's internal links in the SERP listings. The occurrence of this isn't always deemed by branded or domain related searches as well as having a first place listing. These horizontally placed links located between the SERP listing description and URL are most often a mirrored replication of the anchor text of the text links you possess on your home page. To perform optimally at getting Google to display these, make sure the text links are placed in the first few paragraphs of copy to help increase your internal page CTR. Also, ensure that the anchor text is identical to the destination pages overall keyword focus. Having placement of internal links in Google SERPs is Google's thumbs up that you have a proper internal linking to keyword strategy.
  • Hierarchical Category Links One of the most recent SERP listing features you can use gauge Google's perception of your site are the hierarchical breadcrumb links placed in the URL line of SERP listings. These began to appear half a year ago and, like the internal link placement above, also don't require first place ranking, brand, or domain related searches to appear in SERPs. Receiving the hierarchical category links are achieved by utilizing a network of breadcrumb navigation across the internal pages of your site. To create an optimal process of breadcrumb linking, make sure you've applied your keyword strategy alongside the information architecture of your site content. Your URL structure should include keyword rich and content relevant category/folder naming conventions and ensure that site content falls into the appropriate categories. Furthermore, having a breadcrumb navigation in which the category links closely mimic the folder path of the URL helps to indicate to Google how the content of your site flows and that you have taken steps to properly deliver site content to search engines as well as users. Taking into consideration these Google SERP features will allow you to gain insight as to how Google understands the most important elements of your site from an SEO standpoint.
Rob Laporte

BruceClay - SEO Newsletter - FEATURE: Takeaways from SMX Advanced Seattle 2010 - 0 views

www.bruceclay.com/...smxadvancedrecap.html

seo social media local & mobile marketing

shared by Rob Laporte on 22 Jun 10 - Cached
  • You & A with Matt Cutts of GoogleGoogle's new Web indexing system, Caffeine, is fully live. The new indexing infrastructure translates to an index that is 50 percent fresher, has more storage capacity and can recognize more connections of information. The Mayday update was an algorithm update implemented at the beginning of May that is intended to filter out low-quality search results. A new report in the Crawl errors section of Google Webmaster Tools indicates "soft 404" errors in order to help webmasters recognize and resolve these errors. Keynote Q&A with Yusuf Mehdi of Microsoft Bing is opening up new ways to interact with maps. The newly released Bing Map App SDK allows developers to create their own applications which can be used to overlay information on maps. Bing Social integrates to Facebook firehose and Twitter results into a social search vertical. Bing plans to have the final stages of the Yahoo! organic and paid search integration completed by the end of 2010. Decisions about how to maintain or integrate Yahoo! Site Explorer have not been finalized. Bing's Webmaster Tools are about to undergo a major update. Refer to the Bing Webmaster Tools session for more on this development.
  • Bing's program manager said that the functionality provided by Yahoo! Site Explorer will still be available. It's not their intention to alienate SEOs because they consider SEOs users, too.
  • The Bing Webmaster team has built a new Webmaster Tools platform from the ground up. It is scheduled to go live Summer 2010. The platform focuses on three key areas: crawl, index and traffic. Data in each area will go back through a six month period. Tree control is a new feature that provides a visual way to traverse the crawl and index details of a site. The rich visualizations are powered by Silverlight. URL submission and URL blocking will be available in the new Webmaster Tools.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • The Ultimate Social Media Tools Session Tools to get your message out: HelpaReporter, PitchEngine, Social Mention, ScoutLabs. Customer and user insight tools: Rapleaf, Flowtown. Tools to find influencers: Klout. Forum tools: Bing Boards, Omgili, Board Tracker, Board Reader. Digg tools: Digg Alerter, FriendStatistics, di66.net. Make use of the social tools offered by social networks, e.g. utilize Facebook's many options to update your page and communicate your fans by SMS. Encourage people to follow you using Twitter's short code.
Rob Laporte

How to "Recycle" PPC & Analytics Audience Data for SEO | Seer Interactive - 1 views

www.seerinteractive.com/...nalytics-audience-data-for-seo

roi planning SEM & other tools SEM Industry seo ppc

shared by Rob Laporte on 07 Jun 19 - No Cached
  • opportunities to “recycle” data we already have to find new and different insights. Think about it–if you’re working at a full-service agency, your overall team may have access to a client’s Google Analytics and Adwords, SEMRush, STAT, HotJar, SurveyMonkey, SpyFu, Twitter Analytics, etc.
  • To get started on connecting utilizing other teams’ data, you have to pay attention to what the other teams are doing.
  • the key to integration
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • To find opportunities for recycled data, you’ll need to work collaboratively with all teams on the project: SEO, PPC, and Analytics.
  • For this post, we’re going to focus on opportunities to use “recycled” data for SEO strategy.
  • If you work with different channel teams in your day-to-day, it’s easy to become complacent in your own world with your own data. By taking a look at what you have access to as a team, you’ll be able to get outside of your typical resources and can find recycled data opportunities to use for your client–without having to request more from your already strapped-for-time POC.
jack_fox

Organic+Local+Paid: A Holistic Approach for Fast-Changing Local SERPs - BrightLocal - 0 views

www.brightlocal.com/...-for-fast-changing-local-serps

local & mobile marketing seo roi planning ppc

shared by jack_fox on 02 Sep 19 - No Cached
  • Focusing too much or solely on organic will present long-term growth roadblocks as local organic real estate continues to disappear and become more volatile
  • A typical unified local SERP campaign will include: Optimized GMB listing
  • Online reputation strategy (responding to reviews is just as important as gaining new ones) Google Local Services Ads (if applicable) Geo-focused PPC strategy (see below – use PPC to supplement organic visibility) Retargeting (GDN, YouTube, social channels) Local link building (referral traffic is going to be the new DA) Aggregated reporting Citations and NAP consistency
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • City-level keyword tracking does not tell the whole story and may be resulting in a distorted or limited view of data.
  • Once you have a better understanding of the client’s visibility in local and organic, you can create a strategy to utilize PPC to supplement visibility in zips where the client does not have organic reach
  • If they are not in the map pack or the top five in organic, the client will essentially be invisible in local search.
  • jack_fox on 02 Sep 19
     
    "Pricing"
jack_fox

The Ultimate Cheat Sheet for Taking Full Control of Your Google Knowledge Panels - Moz - 0 views

moz.com/...-sheet-google-knowledge-panels

seo

shared by jack_fox on 14 Feb 19 - No Cached
  • Posts can be up to 1500 characters, but 150–350 characters is advisable.
  • Google has let Top Contributors to its forum know that it’s okay for businesses to contribute knowledge to their own Know This Place section
  • Review snippets This section of the Knowledge Panel features three excerpts from Google-based reviews, selected by an unknown process.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Avoid repetition in category choices
  • Do call out desirable aspects of your business in the description, but don’t use it to announce sales or promotions, as that’s a violation of the guidelines.
  • The most popular solution to the need to implement call tracking is to list the call tracking number as the primary number and the store location number as the additional number. Provided that the additional number matches what Google finds on the website, no serious problems have been reported from utilizing this strategy since it was first suggested in 2017
Rob Laporte

SBA Loans Under the CARES Act - Updated as of April 25, 2020 | Blogs | Coronavirus Reso... - 0 views

www.foley.com/...ns-under-the-cares-act-updated

SEM Industry

shared by Rob Laporte on 01 May 20 - No Cached
  • The PPP provisions of the CARES Act were further interpreted by the U.S. Small Business Administration (“SBA”) in four interim final rules issued on April 2, 2020 (the “Interim Rule”), April 3, 2020 (the “Affiliation Rule”), April 14, 2020 (available here), and April 24, 2020 (available here), and Frequently Asked Questions issued on April 6, 2020 and updated through April 24, 2020 (the “FAQs” ). In conjunction with the issuance of the Affiliation Rule, the SBA also issued a two-page explanation of the affiliation principles applicable to the PPP (the “Affiliation Guidance”). The Interim Rule provided important information on the calculation of the loan amount, and added some further requirements. The Affiliation Rule and Affiliation Guidance clarified the affiliation principles that apply to applicants. The FAQs provide some additional clarification regarding the application of the affiliation rules and interpretation of the CARES Act, including guidance on how to calculate “payroll costs” and how a relationship with a third-party payroll provider and/or Professional Employer Organization (“PEO”) should be viewed for purposes of the PPP. The FAQs make it clear that borrowers and lenders may rely on the SBA’s guidance in the FAQs and the Interim Rule available at the time of application. Specifically, the FAQs provide that the government will not challenge lender PPP actions that conform to such guidance.
  • Unlike most typical SBA loans, the PPP Loans are unsecured loans requiring no collateral, no personal guarantee, and no showing that credit is unavailable elsewhere.
  • A 2-year term (decreased from the maximum maturity of 10 years under the Act), An interest rate of 1% (increased from prior Treasury guidance that set the interest rate at 0.5%), Principal and interest deferred for 6 months.
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  • Moreover, the applicant must acknowledge that the funds will be used to retain workers and maintain payroll or make mortgage payments, lease payments, and utility payments. The FAQs further clarify that providing an accurate calculation of payroll costs and applying the affiliation rules is the borrower’s responsibility. Lenders are only expected to perform a good faith review of the payroll cost calculations, the depth of which should be informed by the quality of the documents provided by the borrower.
  • Payment of State or Local tax assessed on employee compensation. Question 16 of the FAQs clarifies that payroll costs are calculated on a gross basis; provided that payroll costs do not include the employer’s share of payroll costs (e.g., FICA).
  • Important Note: Question 7 of the FAQs clarifies that the CARES Act exclusion of any employee compensation in excess of an annual salary of $100,000 applies only to cash compensation. Therefore, non-cash benefits, including employer contributions to defined benefit and defined contribution retirement plans, payment for the provision of group health care benefits and insurance premiums, and payment of state and local taxes assessed on employee compensation, are not counted in calculating the cap and, therefore, those non-cash benefits may be included as a payroll cost
  • The loans may be used for the following expenses/costs from February 15, 2020 through June 30, 2020
  • Interest on debt incurred prior to the loan
  • Payroll costs (as defined above) Costs related to the continuation of group health care benefits during periods of paid sick, medical or family leave, and insurance premiums Employee compensation
  • rent with respect to leasing agreements that had been in place before February 15, 2020
  • electricity, gas
  • transportation, telephone
  • internet access for such services that began before February 15, 2020
  • Note, however, that (i) at least 75% of the forgiven amount must be used for payroll costs and (ii) the amount of the PPP loan forgiveness may be reduced if the borrower reduces the number of employees or salaries and wages (for employees with annual salaries of $100,000 or less by more than 25%).
  • The reduction penalty will not apply to the extent the borrower restores their workforce count and salaries/wages by June 30, 2020.
  • The FAQ issued on April 8, 2020 also clarified that the lender must make the first disbursement of the loan no later than 10 calendar days from the date of loan approval, so lenders and borrowers do not have much flexibility in choosing when the 8-week timeframe begins.
  • Rob Laporte on 01 May 20
     
    "Unlike most typical SBA loans, the PPP Loans are unsecured loans requiring no collateral, no personal guarantee, and no showing that credit is unavailable elsewhere."
jack_fox

wifi - Should an IT Security Policy allow employees use public Wi-Fi? - Information Sec... - 0 views

security.stackexchange.com/...low-employees-use-public-wi-fi

shared by jack_fox on 31 Jul 20 - No Cached
  • Given the negligible cost of local SIM cards compared to the expense of business travel, it's best to use them in favor of public wi-fi, together with other security measures (encrypted mail, encrypted files, low privileges, compartmentalization, monitoring, VPN). Even secured wi-fi is still someone else's network, someone local that can be impersonated and that gets two-way access to your traffic.
  • Mitigating the threat posed by these security flaws is difficult, but if one must connect to public "hotspots," then the best approach is to utilize a VPN.
  • jack_fox on 31 Jul 20
     
    "The best solution is, IMO, to ensure the laptops used for travel aren't holding sensitive information, and aren't plugged into the vulnerable parts of the intranet (assuming zero-trust is not in place). On top of that, ensure the personnel on travel follows at least a minimum of security practices, such as not using open networks and not mailing sensitive data without end-to-end encryption."
jack_fox

Local SEO Ranking Factors 2020: What Affects Local Rankings? - 0 views

www.brightlocal.com/...-ranking-factors-for-local-seo

local & mobile marketing

shared by jack_fox on 17 Dec 20 - No Cached
  • Keywords in GMB landing page title
  • Quality / authority of inbound links to GMB landing page URL
  • Topical (Product / Service) keyword relevance across entire website
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Google My Business Factors That Don’t Impact Rankings But that’s not to say that you need to utilize every aspect of GMB if you’re only looking to boost your rankings. Elsewhere in Whitespark’s survey, the experts agree that many GMB-related factors do not impact rankings: Keywords in the GMB description Keywords in GMB Services Enabling GMB Messaging Keywords in GMB Products Keywords in Google Posts Enabling an Appointment URL Frequency of Google Posts Quantity of Google Posts
  • If your business has more than one location, create a separate, localized web page for each one, including name, address, phone number, office hours, contact details, etc. Not only will this make it easier for the people visiting your site to find the specific location they’re looking for, but it could also affect local rankings for each of the locations your locations are in.
Rob Laporte

The Skills Your Employees Need to Work Effectively with AI - 0 views

hbr.org/...ed-to-work-effectively-with-ai

SEM Industry AI_LLM SEM & other tools

shared by Rob Laporte on 15 Nov 23 - No Cached
  • In fact, it is the human ability to understand context — which AI tools lack — that necessitates the need for greater human skills
  • specific qualities to look for in talent: “People that can be creative and innovative in the way they find solutions — problem solvers.” Broader research backs this up: A study of 1,700 global companies found that companies that excelled on human capital metrics were four times as likely to have superior financial performance.
  • One of the greatest values of experienced workers is domain expertise — deep knowledge of one’s environment. As AI takes over more tasks, there is a significant danger of atrophy of skills and loss of this kind of knowledge.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • Further, generative AI is shown to be more useful as a co-pilot for senior employees that can sift through AI “hallucinations” — inaccurate information presented as fact — and take the output as an aid. Inexperienced employees, however, may not be discerning enough and need a path to develop this knowledge. The sentiment was echoed by Ted English, former CEO of TJX Companies and current executive chairman of Bob’s Discount Furniture, who told us leadership requires “a lot of instinct, experience, and knowledge. Some of it you can’t get from a machine. Technology reinforces and allows you to make a more confident decision.”
  • The first layer of the framework is intentionality. In this context, we mean that a company’s business model should be purposefully designed around AI capability, rather just applying AI to existing processes. Spencer Fung, president and CEO of Li & Fung, a global supply-chain and logistics company, gave us an analogy: “Companies acquiring AI without a new business model is like a company digitizing a horse and carriage — while the competition has created a digital automobile.”
  • Next comes integration across all functions of the enterprise, with horizontal communication and AI as the enabling layer — in other words, getting rid of silos.
  • The real challenge, however, is implementation. Garry Kasparov, former world chess champion, has written that winning performance does not come from combining the best technology with the best people — but from the best process of combining. To achieve this, talent must be familiar with AI capabilities and know how best to utilize them.
  • However, AI is an evolving technology, and that necessitates a business add slack to the system to allow opportunity for learning.
  • Competitive advantage cannot be achieved without humans in the loop. Rushing to replace talent with AI is a huge mistake. Why? First, AI is copyable. What is not copyable is a unique business model, processes, and thoughtful integration of humans.
  • Second, AI is based on historical data that may not hold true in a volatile global business environment.
  • Third, AI is subject to hallucination and “drift,” where output is either fabricated by the AI or simply inaccurate.
Rob Laporte

How to make better SEO reports for the C-suite - 0 views

searchengineland.com/seo-reports-for-c-suite-393922

roi planning SEM Industry

shared by Rob Laporte on 08 Mar 23 - No Cached
  • This is perhaps the most crucial element when sending an SEO report to your CMO. Reports that fail to emphasize SEO’s influence on revenue can make the C-suite think the channel is unproductive.
  • Initialism: CWV, CSS, JS, API, GA4, XML, CTR, CMS, CPC, DA, LSI.
  • Corporate fluff: Circle back, touch base, agile working, low-hanging fruit, caveats, bandwidth, cascade to the wider business, take things on board, utilize all the tools in the box, results-driven, reinvent the wheel, etc.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Focus on creating a documented strategy closely aligned with the overall business strategy.
  • Relationships and training
  • "...[L]ack of 'what to do next'"' actions (with a why)
  • and the losses
  • Why it matters.
Rob Laporte

Entities, topics, keywords: Clarifying core semantic SEO concepts - 0 views

searchengineland.com/words-relationships-seo-431696

seo

shared by Rob Laporte on 26 Nov 24 - No Cached
  • Step 2: Use mentions schema Utilize mentions schema to specify additional entities related to your core entity.  If you’re discussing the Mediterranean Diet, you might mention entities like “Olive Oil,” “Fish,” and “Exercise.” { "@context": "http://schema.org/", "@type": "Article", "mentions": [{ "@type": "Thing", "name": "Olive Oil" }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Fish" }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Exercise" }] } Step 3: Use ‘SameAs’ for authoritative sources When you mention other entities, use the “SameAs” attribute to link to their authoritative sources, such as Wikipedia pages or scientific studies. { "mentions": { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Olive Oil", "sameAs": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olive_oil" } } Step 4: Visualize using tools Tools like Schema Zone can help you visualize your schema structure.  Plug in your URL to see if your schema correctly highlights your core and related entities. Step 5: Test and monitor Use Google’s Schema Testing Tool to make sure your schema is correctly implemented. 
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