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This is the almost weekly SexSwap News-Tips-Trix and it goes to all members of SexSwap and SexSwap2 and AsianSwap and GaySexSwap and SexSwap2000 Banner Exchanges. It contains information on SexSwap, Porn, Tips'n'Trix, and software reviews for the adult webmaster. I perform all literary stunts without the use of nets, safety-cables, spell checkers, or grammar fixers, and this tends to leave the reader in a state of bewilderment...you will get used to it.

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IF YOUR WEBSITE IS NOT INCORPORATED
YOU COULD BE IN A WORLD OF HURT
www.val-u-corp.com/sexswap.shtml
As an unincorporated sole proprietor you have no liability protection if your website is ever sued. We all know that being an adult webmaster can be danger-ous. Don't take unnecessary risks. We can help you incorporate in the Tax-Free state of Nevada for less than you think! Call Val-U-Corp Services, Inc. toll-free at
(800) 555-9141 or visit us at
www.val-u-corp.com/sexswap.shtml

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Our first ever text based add ... history in the making. =) We have three new sponsor this week! Thanks for being the guinea pigs =) Val-U-Corp, ClickMedia, and All Sex In One. Val-U-Corp can set you up a sought after Nevade Corp. ClickMedia pasy $40 per trial membership! And All Sex In One has every niche of European content available. I haven't decided exactly how to do it but I think for now I will high-light the sponsor with a double bar. There has been strong demand for the as so far which is sort of fun :) If you want to advertise in SexSwap News, email Dan-the-Man at spark@gammae.com and Daniel can hook you up with all our info. We are doing things all by hand now but hope to automate in the future.

Man O Man. It is yet another HELLA issue of sexswap news and I still have a lot of babbling to do before the day is over. It is going to be a FULL PULL
www.fullpull.com/

I had no idea that magazine existed. Where was I? Yes! I really am enjoying the emails this week from readers on SPAM. I think most webmasters who have tried spamming voiced similar concerns to my post last week. I am glad to see we have all felt the pain =) May says it best in that email spam gives you BAD KARMA each day. Dan really cuts to the chase with his article HOW DO YOU COLLECT. I think you will all enjoy these comments. There are also more fun articles on chatbots and cookie set times. May and Jay write in with a terrific story about vegas and I catch May red handed, she is halla PRO =) Juicy Jill just sent me an ICQ about a computer programming contest you don't want to miss. I immidiately thought "programmers are going to pee panties on this one". I am even going to go into my yearly tyrade on paysite math. I need to drink some more coffee and plunk the keyboard a little more.

on with the show

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BANNER TESTS AND SOME RESULTS.
I have been testing banners of and on this week for the banner exchange. I think I probably tested 15-20. Most of them are here. Some of my new ones aren't...I got too tired and lazy. I'll give you some true stats you might find interesting. There are 3 very good banners in the system right now and they seem to pull almost 1.25% overall. This is over a 24 hour period. You might ask then why do the top 100 banners have a click rate of 1.6% or more at times? This is do to statistical error caused by small population samples. Right now the criteria for the list is "Sites need a minimum of 50 viewings of their banner and 5 clicks to be included on this list". If we make the list stricter (ex. 50000 showings), then lots of people would never have a chance to get on it and so I leave it a litle lose. Right now I would consider any banner over 1% as a pretty good banner. The rates change all through the day so when I test, I try to test a known banner and a new banner. My best was a banner that tied the best one. When I tested it was 1% but so was the baseline one so I believe it was a pretty good test. I haven't tried any of my top designs yet in rotation. Here are some of the banners I have been testing with some of their results...I put the banners on a white and black page to see how they will look. The top banner is from the system...I can't remember if I drew that or if someone else did a few years back.
trix.sexswap.com/banner_test/index.html
trix.sexswap.com/banner_test/index2.html

those are my test banners..one at the top is very old. the rest are all new. I thought for sure I had a new idea that would work....I thought that if I used todays date on a banner, it would send the click rate through the roof. It didn't help a bit. Here are some tips that I have found

1. that banner must look good on both black and white screens
2. red does not seem to help much
3. blue and purple showing fresh and clicked links seems to help
4. smaller and thinner type seems to work better that fat bold type

I have only cracked the 1% mark once and will give it another try this week :) Feel free to use any of those banners..I made them all this week except the enter exit one which I made 2 years ago I believe. My old favorite banner was Enter but it has gone downhill a bit. I am making all the banners in that new PhotoShop Elements. It is like a cheap version of photoshop and I find it perfect for this style of banner. I will try to write a tutuorial on it for next week. If you want to buy a copy, its $99 but has rebates to make it $39
www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00005AATF/taunt

and there is a free demo version link on this page if you want to play along next week
www.adobe.com/products/photoshopel/main.html

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HELLA PAYSITE MATH REDUX
There are so many things I want to talk about on revisiting this topic. I have some fun graphs formulae :) HEY! take this all with a bag of salt. I am not a math professor. If you disagree and have some proof...please email it in and I will add it to future issues of sexswap news -> andy@lips.com

YOUNG JOHNNY MUST CHOOSE
Young Johnny the webmaster has three choices in front of him. I made these numbers up to make the math easier. I think you have seen numbers like this on some affiliate programs. Johnny has a choice of these cash programs

a) $40 per sign up
b) 50% recurring on a $5 trial with $25 a month
c) 60% recurring on $22 a month
d) 4 cents a click raw unfiltered
e) 8 cents a click filter 50% unique

His sponsor gets 50 sign-ups a month and the average customer stay is a little over 3 months. He sends out 50,000 clicks a month raw or 25,000 filtered at about 50% unique. Which program should he choose? The is a trick questions (if I did my back of envelope math correctly). All 5 programs are very close to being identical in total payout. Most affiliate programs offer many methods of payout. This is almost the same as Protor and Gamble having 20 laundry detergents...they all clean close about the same. The affiliate programs tend to payout the same. I know many of you want to believe that if you go with a % rebilling deal, that your pot of gold will grow exponentially. This is simply not mathematically true. A sign up is a sign up and the filters used in all programs make the payouts very close in all systems. Many mega paysites might offer 10 pay programs. Here is a great example. Cyberotica is very good at offering many ways for webmasters to earn income.
www.fantasymanmoney.com/programs.html

My point is that although these programs all look different, they generally all pay out the same based on sing ups and revenue.

TELL ME ABOUT THOSE GRAPHS
One of my half-life playing good friends is also a successful adult webmaster and helps run several paysites and affiliate programs. I went by his site last week and I saw this wild graph. This really is what got me going on the above topic. The graph had two lines. there was a lonely flat line that was perfectly flat across the board. Then there was an exciting line from the bottom left of the graph to the top right. The lonley flat line was "Pay Per Sign Up". and the rocket to the moon line was "Percent Of Recurring Billing". I showed Legendary Lars and we had a big belly laugh and dried the tears from our eyes. =) This is just not mathematically logical. I wish it was this easy... simply join a 50% recurring program and your income grows bigger the longer you stay. The truth is that YES your income grows in a percent recurring billing program...BUT it only grows til you hit the day of the average customer stay. On that day, the graph goes FLAT, just like the pay per sign up. (assuming a constant non changing traffic pattern). Let me say that again with an example. If the average customer stay is 3 months, then your graph grows until the 3 month point and then goes flat. You are now churning. People are coming and going and your membership levels do not change. I haven't told you th whole story but let me show you the TOP GRAPH. Just look at graph one...this is the graph I see on some paysites offering a percent of recurring billing plan. In my opinion, the top graph is in error.
trix.sexswap.com/paysitemath.html

Now let's say you buy into what i said above with Young Johnny. You then shout "I've got it...the graphs look like #2". Take a look at the second graph and the lines are equal. This is not correct either but probably closer to the truth. Are you ready for the secrets to be revealed? Have that rum and coke mixed and ready to go. This is why they pay me the big bucks Yolanda. 8^)

SECRETS REVEALED
the difference between PAY PER SIGN UP and PERCENT OF RECURRING are payout timing. Huh? What you talking about Willis? When you choose pay per sign up, you are pay in the fastest manner possible. You get all cash up front and the affiliate program floats the cash to you early. They do not make their entire money until the end of the customers average stay. For example...if you are paid $35 a signup and the average stay is 3 months (at $20 a month), then the affiliate program does not start to make their share of the money until late in the second month. In two months they billed $40 but remember hey paid you $35. They get the bulk of the money in the last month in this made up example.

In a shared percentage of recurring billing system, you delay total payout for the time in which the average customer stays. if the average customer stays 3 months...you will not be at your peak in income until the third month. One neat thing about this is that since there is a lag, when you close all your traffic down, you will make money 3 month after you stop sending traffic to the affiliate program. I am generalizing and sure there will be stragglers that got 12 months...but 90% will be in the average range.

Now look at the bottom graph on the page
trix.sexswap.com/paysitemath.html

this is what I believe is the true math. This is a person sending their constant traffic to a site from January until september and then stopping all traffic sending at that point. You know what!!! I even drew this 3rd graph wrong. Damn! think up something new every day...it is even more clear now. The 4th graph is the truth of the timing in affiliate systems.
trix.sexswap.com/paysitemath.html

You may notice that if you put the two trangles together on the ends of blue graph, it would equal the front of the red graph. What's this all mean? It means you cash out your chips earliest in PER SIGN UP systems and there is a BILLING LAG in recurring systems. This is why I have ALWAYS preferred per sign up. If you like getting cash after you stop working, then you may prefer recurring percentage.

TELL ME MORE TURD LICKER
Calm down their Sally. There is more. Again, take it all with a bag of salt. These are my theories. I believe 'King Karl' and 'Legendary Lars' agree with me fully on these issues. There are many webmasters yet that would not. I see it all as math and have yet to be disproven. Now we go into the area I really like since almost no one wants to believe this when they first see it. The truth hurts when running paysites. It sure hurt me the first time I saw it. Now again, I am making some sweeping generalizations here and I will try to add asterix points as I go. I am going to show you a very fast, simple and accurate method of calculating how long your customers stay. This is for the ANY PAYSITE doing $20k a year to $20M a year. I am making some assumptions. This exampel site has only one method of billing and that is credit card or 3rd party billing. There are two formulas

AVERAGE CUSTOMER STAY FOR SITE W/ NO TRIAL (JUST MONTHLY)
J = new people who joined
R = old people who were rebilled.

you new readers ready for the sex girl

AVG STAY = R / J + 1

Whoa! Is that Calculus? Is that some kinda witchcraft? Is that nuclear phyics? It took me 6 months and a few high school math teachers to eventually get to that formula as simple as it seems. On ANY day of any week you can plug your numbers into it if you do not offer free trials, and you will get your average customer stay* If you know your count for the week, you can use it. If you have your average new joins for the month and total rebills for the month, you can use that. Take a month and average down to a day if you wish to get more accurate. If you have 30 rebills today and 10 joins...guess what, average customer stay is 3 months. More on this in a moment.

Let's just think of some examples. Work backwards...it is easier. Let say I stayed 4 months...I would JOIN and a month goes by, REBILL and a month goes by, REBILL and a month goes by, REBILL and a month goes by. I think it is easier to write that as
J R R R

the formulas is R / J + 1 = 3/1+1 = 4 months. Try it with any average month and work backwards. You still with me? Ready to tar and feather me? Stay cool Reggie.

AVERAGE CUSTOMER STAY FOR SITE WITH TRIAL (say 3 days)
J = new people who joined
R = old people who were rebilled.

AVG STAY = R / J

When you offer a free trial, say 3 or 5 days, my main formula is a little off but it is easy to play with that extra 3 days later. I prefer to IGNORE THE TRIAL for the initial calculations. Let's walk through an example. Let's say the average in this case is 3 months... but this time the site has a free trial. It is easier to see it working backwards knowing the average to start. I JOIN and 3 little days go by, and then REBILL and month goes buy, and REBILL and a month goes by, and REBILL and a month goes by. Notice my earlier formula would now be wrong. I did not stay 4 months. I did stay 3 months and 3 days.
J R R R
=3R / 1J = 3 months average

ASTERIX
1. these formulas are only accurate for a site that is stable...not growing for shrinking.
2. If a site is growing, these nubers are understated. If a site is shrinking, these numbers are overstated.
3. The amount of error for a growing or shrinking site would be proportional to the acceleration or deceleration of the growth. If you just started 6 months ago and are growing like a rocket, there will be big error. if you have been in business 18 months and are slowly growing, the amount of error is small.

HOW CAN WE USE THIS INFO
You can now quickly figure out a gross income. If yo charge $25 a month and your average stay is 3 months, then you are grossing around $75 per signup. NOTE ON PAID TRIAL and if you offer a trial of 3 days for maybe $5, add that in at the end...so if you have an average stay of 3 months and charge $5 trial and then $20 a month...that is $65 total gross. This will better help you when you run an affiliate program. I personally believe 50% or more of affiliate programs do not have a clue on how long the average customer stay is and what they are making per signup. I believe many misunderstand cashflow as income when cashflow is cashflow and net is net and you must know what you are making and paying out.

WHAT IS THE AVERAGE STAY
I have seen the books of $20k a year paysites and $20M a year paysites and applied these formulas to many sites in between. The average stay that I have seen is 2.5 - 3 months. I can hear the cursing and swearing now. If I had $100 from everyone who said to me "but I have some customers there 9 months". Jimmy, I don't give a rat's ass, you also have just as many quitting after the free trial or short trial. We have to look at the totla average. the nest thing I love to hear is "but we have teh rarest content...we have these girls and and...they are SEXY and and they have REALLY BIG TITS and and they get into these positions". Well I hate to say it but...guess what, who doesn't have that!!! Legendary Lars and I love to say that one back and forth...it is a crack up. I hate to tell you, but the average stay is about 2.5 months. Just since you already don't believe me, I'll call it 3 months. It makes mathematical sense. If its 3 ...3 x $25 = $75. There is $35 paid to the webmaster...$20 goes to bandwidth, content, payroll...leaving maybe $10 - $20 to the bottom line. If websites were averaging 8 months...guess what...that is a gross of say $200 a customer...do you not think there would be some $150 a sign up affiliate programs? I do.

ASTERIX
there are some sites that are better than average. I believe that dating sites probably have a slightly longer stay since people are dating. There are also some amateur sites where the girl is the focus of the site...like a Carol Cox...these sites are a little different since the person who joins almost becomes part of a community and gets to chat with a girl who to him is like a movie star that he is in touch with....some of these sites have stronger numbers. BUT 95% of porn sites have vey similar numbers.

WHAT'S DOES THIS ALL MEAN
You old time readers know my song and dance. You new readers might have flames shooting through your nose...it means

1. CONTENT HAS ALMOST NOTHING TO DO WITH AVERAGE STAY RATES

2. SIGN UP FRONT END HAS EVERYTHING TO DO WITH YOUR BOTTOM LINE

3. SEX IS AN IMPULSE BUY

As hard as so many sites try and try and try....you can ad content til you are blue in the face and if you change your average stay rate by 14 days, I would shit my pants. Why? Because the avg stay rates on mega sites are very very similar to those of small buck johnny sites and there is a huge range in volume of content on those two sites.

How on earth do you make more money? You make more money by TEST TEST TEST that freaking front-end to your site...the area where you ask for the cash. THAT IS THE SECRET TO PAYSITES. Front end is everything!!!!!! If you can increase your front end signup ratio from 1/1000 to 1/900 and you get 20,000 hits a day...you just made yourself $48,000 MORE dollars a year if you make $60 a singup gross. Why do some sites have way better signup rates then others? It can't be the content because I have no idea what is in the members section? How can I ...I haven't signed up yet? Sites have better sign up ratios than others because they are doing something right that the current sex crazed public want. It is that simple 3 page design that is so very critical to making the most money. Yes you need content...but not like what most people think.

that last tyrade took it out of me =) You still with me Shelly Ann?

PROS AND CONS OF AFFILIATE SYSTEMS FROM OWNER PERSPECTIVE

PER CLICK CONS
1. old
2. loaded with crooks
3. has to be tied into ratio or get robbed blind
4. payout is early or front loaded
5. need very good software to avoid fraud

PER CLICK PROS
1. the little guy likes it since he makes a buck or two where he could go two weeks without a sign up
2. people like to see money accumulate by the second

PER SIGN UP CONS
1. must bankroll the payout on the front
2. fraudulent webmaster might get paid before you catch him
3. must know your gross and net accounting well to avoid overpaying

PER SIGN UP PROS
1. many webmasters prefer this method so you may get far more signed up to your program
2. simpler tracking
3. might be able to pay a little less than % recurring since you are paying all at once
4. fairer than old clicks since you only pay if there is a purchase
5. easier to close program or sell site (more on this next week)

PER SIGN UP CONS
1. more accounting involved than per sign up
2. less webmasters may sign up if they are per sign up saavy

PER SIGN UP PROS
1. easiest nut to crack financially since you do not float the signup
2. fair because you only split when there is a purchase

THREE TIPS FOR THE ROAD
Traffic Sellers. If you are in percent recurring billing programs, you might consider trying "per sign up". You will accelerate your billing cycle

Pay Site Owners. If you can, test a new front-end every 3 months. You will know in 24 hours if it is better or not. It might make you a world of difference.

Pay Site Starters and Owners. If I was doing a new front end, would find out WHAT'S HOT. and today, you can't tell me you haven't heard of BANGBUS. That site is on fire. If I was looking for a new front end or new paysite niche, the exploited babe area seems HELLA. You better believe that I would be seriously looking at developing =)
WINNEBAGOWOMEN.COM
MINIVANMAMMAS.COM
SUVSKANKS.COM
TRICKEDTEENS.COM
RICEBURNERBLOWJOBS.COM

hee hee hee. Just jokes but you see my point. Find out whats hot. Work that niche to try and get highest sign up rate possible with a new site and or new front end aimed at it.

LEGENDARY LARS ADS ONE POINT
the truth is if the people pay out $40 then they are making like $40 on the person maybe $35 over the life of the average customer.... They all make their money off of the exit consoles. email collecting and stuff like that

Lars makes a good point. As competition increases in the adult sector, some sites actually pay out more than they make on the signup. This can lead to dangerously thin margins. the sites then use other methods to make money of the member. These methods include the sale of demographic date, email name collection, upselling to live one on one video chat, and more.

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AH HA! MAY LING SU CAUGHT IN PINK STILETTOS!
And not even 3 weeks after telling me she is an 'amateur' =) Hee hee heee. Now I know her tricks. She is a PRO. Once you slip on those high heels baby, your amateur days are long gone :) Here is the proof in the bottom picture
www.maylingsu.com/home.html?

Jay and May wrote in about their trip to vegas and said they had the wildest time possible. May Ling Su met Max Hardcore, and since she is his biggest fan, she and he did an insane shoot together! Pink stiletto's featured in pic on the bottom of this page.
www.maylingsu.com/Max.html

I wrote May and asked what Mr. Max Hardcore was like in real life
May writes
Max Hardcore was a total gentleman, or otherwise he would not have gotten in my pants! His team treated Jay and me so well, and we had a great experience. Sure was educational to see the whole process through from collecting ID's and paper work all the way through the shoot. Max and I had a great time. We even hung out afterward. Right now, I'm on his home page at www.MaxHardcore.com - which is very exciting! Max Extreme 19 is the tentative name of the video I'll be in. Soon, very soon. =(^..^)=

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SPEAKING OF SPAM LAST WEEK
here are just the sort of things I personally would fear in a spam campaign. this sort of thing can haunt you..especially when you are getting death threats. If you are not paranoid yet, try running a heavy spam campaing.
news.com.com/2100-1023-827511.html

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BAG OF SALT TABLE O' TRIX CONTENT

COMMENTS ON PAYSITE MATH from BillyBob
COMMENTS ON CHAT BOTS from Stephen
HOW LONG SHOULD A COOKIE LAST? from James
CORRECTIONS TO MY SENDMAIL INSTALL from Craig
HOW LONG SHOULD A COOKIE LAST? from Craig the Programmer
SURE I CAN SPAM - BUT HOW DO YOU COLLECT from Dan
SHOULD I START TO SPAM? HELL NO! from Craig
COMMENTS ON 1800 FLOWERS from Jerry
SPAM EMAIL LIST CREATION TRICK from Guru-O-Gif
NOW HERE IS A SLICK CHAT BOT from IceDemon
BULK EMAIL SPAM -> BAD KARMA from May
RAID LEVELS EXPLAINED from Guru-O-Gif
AVOID HIJACKING by Darren
QUICK REFERENCE CARDS FOR UNIX LINUX AND MORE from Wyatt

MORE NEWS
/******************************************
SPEED OF CHIPS ACCELERATING NOT SLOWING from Richard
www.nytimes.com/2002/02/04/technology/04CHIP.html?todaysheadlines

NASA HACKER GETS STIFF JAIL TERM
www.msnbc.com/news/699760.asp?0si=-

FRAGMENTATION OF WALLSTREET from SignGuy
www.bcentral.com/articles/isyndicate/hr/3c5a24cd.2cce.1.asp?cobrand=msn

RECORD COMPANIES UNDER THE GUN IN NAPSTER CASE from Richard
news.com.com/2100-1023-827552.html

SOFTWARE HARDWARE
/*****************************************
SENSEBOARD KEYLESS KEYBOARD from David
David writes
Since I'm always reading about cool stuff in your SexSwap letter, I thought you would like the following:
www.senseboard.com/products.htm

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CLICKMEDIA.COM IS THE NICHE TRAFFIC CONVERTER
www.clickmemedia.com
Get Paid up to $40 per Trial Sign-up to any of our 6 Hot Niche Pay Sites. How about $0.50 per confirmed email address + a $10 Upsell on our all new 4Free Sites. Don't forget about our $250 Productivity Bonus & $300 Performance Bonus.. Each Month we add fresh banners, buttons and Fullpage Ads to ensure our webmasters are getting the best conversion ratios..
www.clickmemedia.com

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TRIX
/******************************************
COMMENTS ON PAYSITE MATH from BillyBob
BillyBob writes
I see you are doing paysite math again :) We have been working out the value of a click by tracking the (outclicks) sent from our html page, and NOT what the sponsor counts as uniques.. You can then get a $ value per unique outclick which gets rid of all that $50 , $60 a sign-up bullshit that many programs promote.. On a side note, is i send 100 uniques to 20 sponsor programs, they count between 30% and 96% of them depending on the program... Some of the more accurate being MaxCash and ARS

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COMMENTS ON CHAT BOTS from Stephen
Stephen writes:
There is little or no chance of AOL suing you for running a chat bot. Unless you had some crazily large chat bot network spamming tones of AOL chat rooms 24/7. Even then I don't think you could keep enough AOL accounts alive to do that. Because running a chat bot is against AOL's TOS and they will cancel your account. I just wanted to add that I am not a lawyer and don't know anything about if its legal or not. But you always need to ask your self when it comes to the law is it worth it for someone to sue you? What would the gain be for AOL (besides you stopping) and is it worth the price? I say no...but its something to think about...

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HOW LONG SHOULD A COOKIE LAST? from James
James writes
I beleive on our regular pay per trial sign-up the cookie is valid for 24hrs, this to me seems fair..On our 4free sites, the cookie is set for 1yr, on the upsell part.. (the webmaster that sent the confirmed surfer, get paid out on all sales that surfer makes to our paysites for 1yr from the date they became a confirmed email subscriber...On a side not check out
198.87.240.244/new/rates.html
We started implemting this at the beggining of the year, paying webmasters more, that make us more money , and cutting thepayout on accounts that loose us money.. We have accounts sending 50 sign-ups a month and like 3 conveted, where others sent 50 a month and 40 converted. Just did not seem fair to me to have the strong carry the week...The average conversion from trial to monthly is 33.4% over a three month period. So for Feb payout we look at the conversions over months Oct, Nov Dec. 2001..

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CORRECTIONS TO MY SENDMAIL INSTALL from Craig
Craig the Programmer writes

> FEATURE(`virtusertable',`has /etc/mail/virtusertable')dnl

should be FEATURE(`virtusertable',`hash /etc/mail/virtusertable')dnl
^
>7. While still in this directory run the following command
>sh Build install.cf
>sh Build install-cf

sh Build sendmail.cf
sh Build install-cf

>8/ no go from the big sendmail directory into the one inside it
>cd /var/lib/sendmail-8.12.2/sendmail
>9/ go back out a directory to main one
>cd ..
>10/ now go into makemap directory

You missed the actual sendmail installation command =)

8a/ sh Build install

>17/ maybe create some missing files
>touch aliases
>touch local-host-names
>chown smmsp mailertable
>chown smmsp domaintable
>chown smmsp aliases
>chown - R smmsp /etc/mail

also while in the /etc/mail directory

newaliases

to create the aliases.db

>18/ at this point we hit some snags and Craig reached into his black sack
>tricks and issued these all powerful commands...use with caution as they
>explode
>chmod go-w / /etc /etc/mail /usr /var /var/spool
>chown root / /etc /etc/mail /usr /var /var/spool
>mkdir /var/spool/mqueue

The mkdir is also back in step 6 so we can remove it from step 18. Also these commands should be prior to the makemap commands, remember we had problems WITH the makemaps because the permissions were faulty.

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HOW LONG SHOULD A COOKIE LAST? from Craig the Programmer
Craig writes
On webmaster referral programs. Having been both on the sending and
receiving end of such programs I would have to say that a referral cookie
should only be 24 hours (in my opinion) and at worst not last longer than 48
hours. There's a couple of things to consider when doing such things:

1 - Cookies don't last all that long anyways....it's been a while since I've
checked up on this but I believe the major browsers have set limitations as
to how many cookies can be on a system, and once that limit is
exceeded....cookies start being purged starting with the oldest....and since
many sites set cookies for everything from site tracking to online shopping
carts I'd say a cookie wouldn't last more than a week on the system of the
average surfer.

2 - Be fair to your webmasters. Let's say for example a surfer visits the
site of Webmaster A and clicks through to the pay program....decides...nah
it's not right for him....a month later Webmaster B manages to get that same
surfer to go back to the pay site and this time the surfer signs up. Seems
a little unfair that Webmaster A would get the credit for it if Webmaster B
was the one who got the surfer to pay. (of course easy solution to this is
a simple check, if the URL coming into the site contains a referral code,
assign a new cookie for the new webmaster)

3 - Easily exploitable if the cookies last a long time....let's say for
argument sake the cookies are configured to last a year and the cookies will
actually last that entire year. Let's say webmaster A creates a number of
high traffic TGPs. You have say 2 or 3 sites in your service....when the
surfers leave the TGPs he launches a number of popup consoles going to each
of your sites. Granted the normal surfer will click those off quickly but
depending on the connection and the surfer's reflexes...what if the cookies
managed to be placed on the browser before the window was closed....now for
the next year if that surfer winds up buying a product from you that
webmaster will get the credit for it even though initially they did no work
for you whatsoever (although you might be able to avoid this by setting the
cookies further into your site)

4 - The longer you allow the cookies to remain, the less potential net
revenue you as the proprieter of the program could make.

Personally I almost always denounce the use of cookies to any of my clients
with referral programs. In my personal opinion I don't see it as a major
sales pitch to webmasters, overall what will make your program great is the
sales ratios...and although I can't quote the number differences I can't see
how there could be a major change in clickthru/signup ratios with the use of
cookies. I find it hard to believe there are many surfers who will go to a
site, decide it's not right for them and then change their mind if presented
with the site again a few days later. I know back in the days of old when I
shopped around for sponsers to use for my websites...I always cared about
ratio and payouts moreso than anything else. Perhaps I'm wrong in my
thinking but I believe the use of cookies to 'aid webmasters in getting more
signups from their referrals' is a novelty that in the end doesn't hold up
to it's promise.

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SURE I CAN SPAM - BUT HOW DO YOU COLLECT from Dan
Here is a very interesting email from Dan. The point is...even if you can spam anonymously, you can't ever collect anonymously. Dan set the record straight with trick info

Dan writes
1) If I wanted, I could spam 100% anonymously and have a real return address that could not be shut off and a real webpage that could not be shut off, I have access to that exact software.

2) Ok, now that is exciting, what do I spam? Adult? ok, you can't spam affiliates as the surfer has to end up on thier site somehow to pay. You can get your own merchant account, but then the anti-spammer would have your info. You could spam something that people would send you money in the mail, (tried it years ago and got alot of people hanging out by my mail drop). So what do you spam and how do anonymously collect the money?

3) Trust me when I tell you that I have access to software, return email addresses and web hosting that I could spam 3 million a day. But can you sell and how do you collect the money. You tell me.

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SHOULD I START TO SPAM? HELL NO! from Craig
Craig the Programmer writes
Well I'm no spam nazi. I get annoying letters on a regular basis and
typically I just setup filters to remove them. There's only been one time
I've ever complained to an ISP and that was because the spammer decided it'd
be fun to send the same message to me 40 or 50 times. However I am against
spam, 100%. I'm even more against spam that tries to pretend like I had
signed up for an opt-in list.

I won't kid you, I know a number of the larger porn organizations
spam...they're usually smart enough to keep their parent company out of the
light but there definately is a darker side to most porn companies. I agree
a lot with what you have to say on the matter Andy....spam is such an old
tactic nowadays the final results I don't think that they remotely make up
for the problems caused by it....that is of course unless you've got money
to burn initially. I know from experience some of the larger internet
pipelines will allow some mass spamming for a price....granted they "don't
know anything about it", the only time it becomes an issue is if another
major provider complains...which again requires a little bit more palm
greasing. However I don't think the money is made from sales to their
sites....I think most spammers make their money by selling their spam
services to smaller but profitting companies looking for a way to expand
their revenue....and with the help of some good lawyers you can do a pretty
good job of covering your companie's ass if ever you are exposed.

Anyways back to the topic at hand =) I tried my hand at one point at
spamming....it was a painful painful thing....and that was back in the time
before automated anti-spam programs, the RBL and the media twisting the word
so much that the word spam is so feared by ISPs they'll back into a corner
and wimper like a wounded puppy if they receive a single complaint. I
remember with my last dial-up host, I sent an email to a friend of mine
which accidentially got caught by his spam filter....I lost my email
privileges from the 1 complaint...he even called them to try to sort it out
but they didn't care. The bad four letter S word is just too scary of a
thing for ISPs.

Moral of this ramble: If you are looking at getting into the
business....don't spam! You'll be shutdown from your chance of financial
success before you know what hit you. =)

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COMMENTS ON 1800 FLOWERS from Jerry
Jerry writes
I'm sure 1800flowers gets atleast 100k hits a day. 5000 hits would be that everyone who landed on there site and bought flowers.

Guru-O-Gif writes
right BUT...this is not porn and no one is flooding them with weak TGP traffic so I am guessing the sales ratio is better than 1:1000....maybe 1:200....so you are right, but I still think it is not a huge amount of hits for that many employees :) If the ratio is 1:200 then that is 1,000,000 a day...a huge amount but again, I think the Hun and Voyeur web get this and they don't use 2000 employees.

Jerry writes
I'm sure they have conversion ratios also, like 1:20 20 x 5000 = 100k. That's a very low ratio try 1:100 100x5000 = 500k They use exits, links, mail just about every form of traffic generation out there. As far as employees: flower designers, delivery people, buyers, order-takers, management, marketing, accounting, ect. I'm sure they are employed but not by that large of a margin. : )

Guru-O-Gif writes
the other thing is...they don't usually send flowers..they send the order to a local flower shop..like FTD does and share the commish...and so you need even less workers in my opinion.

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SPAM EMAIL LIST CREATION TRICK from Guru-O-Gif
Here is a trick I just invented out of necessity. You might want to use it to spam the heck out of everyone that has ever spammed you. Who knows, maybe the people who spam are more willing to sell you stuff since they are already known as sellers. When I send out the emails each week, there are a pile of bounces....just people who have accounts where the email is now bad. This week I moved all the bounces into a folder in my email client. You will recall I use Calypso but I imagine most clients have very similar features. I then selected all these emails and chose SAVE TO ARCHIVE and this saves every email....tons of them, as one giant text file which I call z.txt. Now I have a giant messy text file. I grab my $49 email sucker which I love called Email Pro...there are 100s of these around. Let me see if I can find an url for this one
www.a1soft.com/emext.htm

I then aim this software at that file and say "suck those emails" and it sucks them all into a new file you can call anything. Now I have a list of emails of all the bounces..but there is some crap emails in there...from the servers that I not really emails so I remove them by hand which takes about ten minutes. Now I have a terrific remove list to filter against the send outs.

Now you could take this a step further, grab every email in your history and make an alarmingly large file and suck from it. You will be spamming your friends and relatives though too :)

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NOW HERE IS A SLICK CHAT BOT from IceDemon
Done in flash and speaks as she or he repsonds to your typing. Very neat.

IceDemon writes
With all the talk about bots in the newsletter recently, I decided to put up a chatbot. If you got some extra time, you might want to check it out at
icedemon.com/destiny/

She even has a voice if the plug-in is installed. The voice is kinda crappy though. I'm still working on it to get the bugs out and to provide some actual 3D interaction so that she actually moves and does stuff (like her lips will move and she can strip dance for you). I'm thinking of using this on my sites by the end of next month.
icedemon.com/

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BULK EMAIL SPAM -> BAD KARMA from May
May writes
we used to email SPAM, and couldn't take the hate. We are both a couple of softies, and didn't want to fight so hard for our traffic. Our buddy hosts some of our sites, and he doesn't care if we spam, but we just got tired of the hate mail, and bad karma. There are a million ways to skin that goat called "traffic", but why ruin our good time in doing it? We are in this for fun, so we decided our spam software was a waste of positive energy. Now get this, I hate junk mail, it kills trees etc. We are such California recycling granola heads that junk mail really gets on my nerves. Why do people hate email spam more than piles of paper trash in their mail box every day? I tell you, anyone reporting email spam should put in the effort to end paper abuse instead. Trees matter more to me than deleting a few emails, so I think people that report email spam are confused, and should direct their energy somewhere more needed. Go plant a tree and stop bugging my host and ISP about an email you received.

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RAID LEVELS EXPLAINED from Guru-O-Gif
I had no idea there were so many levels until I stumbled onto this site. level 10? Level 53? Wow
0 www.acnc.com/04_01_00.html
1 www.acnc.com/04_01_01.html
2 www.acnc.com/04_01_02.html
3 www.acnc.com/04_01_03.html
4 www.acnc.com/04_01_04.html
5 www.acnc.com/04_01_05.html
6 www.acnc.com/04_01_06.html
7 www.acnc.com/04_01_07.html
10 www.acnc.com/04_01_10.html
53 www.acnc.com/04_01_53.html
0/1 www.acnc.com/04_01_0p1.html

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AVOID HIJACKING by Darren
Darren writes
read your letter how your browser was hijacked. This happened to me all the time, which is why I mostly use Netscape (older versions) to surf with.

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QUICK REFERENCE CARDS FOR UNIX LINUX AND MORE from Wyatt
Wyatt writes
Here are some free quick reference cards for your newsletter. I was looking for one for the vi editor, and remembered you had listed a few refrence cards in your newsletter in the past. Here are a few links for several free quick reference cards.
www.quickreferences.yucom.be/quickrefs.htm
www.refcards.com/

INTERESTING SITES
/******************************************
MR GRUMBLES from Jay
After the Halloween classic singing "we want some candy", Jay has returned with his latest flash creation known as Mr Grumbles.

Jay writes
www.MrGrumbles.com
After Vegas I thought it would be cool to have a derelict type guy wander through a red light district mumbling obscenely, and the viewer could somehow navigate Mr. Grumbles to enter different dives, strip clubs, and so on. It's a fun twist on a simple doorway site. I plan to add a lot more to it, but it's already so funny that all my friends are now speaking "Mr Grumbles Slang", and asking for "real estate" on the "strip"

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MOREOVER NEWS FOR YOUR SITE from Bruce
Bruce
w.moreover.com/
You have probably heard about this site long ago, but I've been seeing it a bit lately and it seems fairly slick. It will automatically search for info / keywords and place links with brief descriptions right on your site. eg. check out this site. on the right in the box titled " from the web"
www.economist.com/

GURU OF GIF
/******************************************
ROCKETMAN FOR SALE
After posted that link to the portable drink dispensing backpack, Joe wrote in and said he actually had one for sale? Small world or what.

Joe writes
Hey Andy, I actually have one of these for sale if you can believe it ... If anyone is interested, please send them my way!
mjw@loveworks.com

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GOOGLE PROGRAMMER CHALLENGE - WIN 10 LARGE from Juciy Jill
I saved a damn good story for the end. Juicy Jill just sent this in. If you are a programmer, I think this will be the content to win. If you win this, I think it would be like winning the Masters. You would be PRO-LEVEL to the 4th degree. Here is what Google states on their site

Google is providing a selection of about 900,000 web pages in pre-parsed and raw format, together with a "ripper" program that provides a framework for processing the pre-parsed data. Your mission is to write a program (most likely by adding code to the ripper) that does something interesting with the data, in such a way that it would scale to a web-sized collection of documents. Part of your job is to convince us of why your program is interesting and why it will scale; other than that, you're free to implement whatever strikes your fancy.

www.google.com/programming-contest/

Is that too freaking slick or what! Porn programmers write some of the faster gnarly code and have great ideas. This could be a great test of your mad skillz. Check out the filtes they ask for...same ones they use!!

Detecting common templates in pages, and separating out the common structure from the individual content.
Classifying links on a page.
Detecting pages that are near-duplicates of one another.
Clustering pages by topic or type.

Imagine this for a second...imagine you write those filters and WIN and insert a backdoor so you can move all your pages to #1...hee hee hee. Just being silly =)

www.google.com/programming-contest/

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YOU NEED EUROPEAN CONTENT?
allsexinone.com/
AllSexInOne.com Content Broker is here! Solo girls or guys? Hetero/gay/lesbian hardcore? Fetish? The young ones? Mature ladies? Old and ugly tarts? ...? ...? ...You name it, we have it ... and if it is not online we have it in stock! Create complete and dynamic member areas with your own layout using our unique database ... create subsets from amateurish series for your girl-next-door site and select top gloss material for your online magazine. Come see for yourself.
allsexinone.com/

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those are my stories

chow mein wayne

Andy
andy@lips.com