Tips to ensure highest possible email Delivery

You will need take to following steps to ensure the bulk emails you send aren't going to the junk folder
1. Use your own domain in the SMTP level MAIL-FROM address.
2. Set up a branded tracking domain.
3. Include a plain text message with each HTML message.
4. Write anchor text for links that are words, not URLs, when using click-tracking.
5. Set up DomainKeys/DKIM for your domain. This is Important.
6. Apply for Return Path Certification

Use PayPass At Easter Show

The commonwealth bank has launch their new credit cards and debit cards with the contactless interface for the Easter show. The merchant terminals at the show will be adopting this technology for the first time in Australia.

For more details
http://www.commbank.com.au/about-us/news/media-releases/2010/250310-royal-easter-show.aspx

Security Shortcomings of the Contactless Smart Cards

Smart cards with contactless interface(using Rfid protocol) is growing. This technology has now been used in credit cards, passports, epasses, etc.

However what are the security shortcomings of the contactless (using rfid protocol) smart cards, especially if the decryption of the data happens on the card reader.

I came across set of videos done by e-tech. This show how important is to have adequate security in contactless smart cards. Most of the smart cars that these guys show uses the rfid protocol.

The Cartes Asia 2010

The Cartes 2010 will be held in March 16th to 18th in Hong Kong. They have been promoting their card technologies for the last 24 years and this will be great opportunity for businesses in all sectors to explore new technological frontiers. Over 150 leading companies in various sectors will be present at the event, covering a range of products and services including:
• Card manufacturing, personalization, test tools
• Engineering, software, systems
• Readers, terminals, mobile technologies, smart objects
• Biometric, identification and authentication technologies
• Access control
• Trusted platforms and services
• M2M, RFID technologies
I’ll be there to check out what’’s new in SIM cards and payment gateways. You might even see some new products rolled out at an Australian Telco near you ;)

For more info: http://www.cartes-asia.com/

Mobile phones replacing your credit card ?

The mobile consumers around the world see their mobile phone as a payment gateway and the Telco’s interests in it. 

There is increasing interest from Telcos and consumers alike at the possibility of using mobile phones as payment gateways.

Surprisingly, I first saw this concept in Sri Lanka while I was there on business last January. Essentially, the service allows mobile phone service subscribers to use their phone in the same way as they would use a credit card.

Interested users start by registering with their bank and their mobile service provider. The registration process authorises the telco to make debits from your credit card. At POS, you would give the salesperson your mobile phone number (in lieu of your credit card). The number is entered into the terminal along with the amount to be charged. You receive a text message on your handset and must reply with the PIN code you nominated at the time of registration to authorise the transaction.

As I understand there are four steps to the transaction

1.     Customer verification by the Telco

The mobile service provider sends a text message to the customer requesting the secret PIN code. This step guards consumers against unauthorised use (by third parties who have access to your mobile phone number and/or handset)

 Credit card verification

The Telco then communicates with the customer’s bank to determine whether the nominated credit card was successfully debited

Telco communicates with POS terminal

If both verification steps above are successful, the sales terminal will receive electronic confirmation of the transaction. If one of two verification steps fails, the original request will be declined.

POS terminal confirms successful transaction

The Telco is informed that a reply has been received for the original request (either approved or declined). If no reply is received the transaction will be annulled.

I figure there are two main advantages of the “mobile phone credit card” over the traditional credit card. Firstly, the consumer does not need to carry the credit card around. Secondly, the carholder does not need to be present for the transaction to be successful (as long as the PIN is known, the transaction can be processed)

The most obvious shortcoming of the system is that a customer needs to have a credit card available to register for the service. There is a time lag associated with the system (swiping a credit card through the terminal is much faster than the to-and-fro text messaging that needs to happen for the transaction via mobile phone!)

An interesting direction for service providers to consider is to eliminate the credit card altogether. Consumers would be able to credit transactions to their mobile phone account. They would either receive a bill with these included charges at the end of the billing cycle (post paid) or the available credit would simply decline (pre paid). The system would be independent of the customer’s bank giving the Telco more control and more flexibility to further develop the service.

Telstra Australia has demonstrated the viability of this concept with their Big Pond Music products. Consumers are able to purchase tracks/albums against their account by entering their mobile phone number and PIN code.

I would love to see this concept associated with a technology such as NFC to streamline communication between the terminal and the consumer.

Notes on NFC

Near Field Communication or NFC, is a short-range high frequency wireless communication technology which enables data exchange across short distances (max. 10cm). The technology is a relatively simple extension of the ISO/IEC 14443 proximity-card standard that places both the interface and reader of a smartcard into a single device. An NFC device can communicate with both existing ISO/IEC 14443 smartcards and readers, as well as with other NFC devices, and is thereby compatible with existing contactless infrastructure already in use for public transportation and payment. (Courtesy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_Field_Communication)

The Telco that manages to fine tune the concept of payment via mobile phone, ideally with a technology such as NFC has the potential to corner an emerging market (read, big bucks!) and really stand apart from the competition in what has become a pretty homogeneous market. 

How to get Microsoft products under splar Model in Australia

How to get Microsoft products under splar Model (The Services Provider License Agreement).
We are planning to resell Microsoft products as a part of the service we provide to our customers.
Microsoft Services Provider License Agreement enables you to do this with no upfront costs.
You will be only charged for what you used in previous months in monthly basis.

For more info:
http://www.microsoft.com/serviceproviders/licensing/spla.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/serviceproviders/licensing/default.mspx

How to apply for the agreement in Australia:
First you need to register in the partner programme. (You will need a Hotmail or live.com account for this)
Go here and register:
https://partner.microsoft.com/Australia/40032508

Once you get accepted you will get an email from Microsoft with the organisation number.
Now you will need to register with hosting community
Go here and register:
https://partner.microsoft.com/40057328
You will require the organisation number that you get in the confirmation email from Microsoft to do this.

From here you need to register with a SPLAR distributor.
I’ve used Newlease to do this for us.
http://www.newlease.com.au/partner/default.aspx

How to stop jboss doing the domian verification

How to stop jboss doing the domian verification

The problem:

This VPN uses two-way SSL to authorise a connection between the client and the server. Our issue was that although the thrid party has created an SSL certificate using the ssl.xxxxx.com.au domain, we were required to use a private IP to call the webservice instead of ssl.xxxxx.com.au. We found that the handshake fails becuase JBOSS is unable to complete domain verification for SSL authorisation and drops the connection as a result. On a consultant's advice we attempted to switch off this verification option in JBOSS without success (possible in Weblogic though, weblogic has the option to switch off the domian look up)

Solution:
To fix the issue, I added the host name (ssl.xxxxx.com.au) to the windows host file of the IP that we were required to call.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosts_file

JBOSS recognises the domain look up as a match and authorises/maintains a stable connection.

What is Facebook ?

Facebook is a social networking platform that allows friends and families to communicate with each other. At its inception, Facebook had a mere 150 user profiles. Now it has grown to more than 150 million active user accounts.

Advantages of advertising on Facebook

Check out the Facebook Stats
Statistics

General Growth
• More than 150 million active users
• More than half of Facebook users are outside of college
• The fastest growing demographic is those 30 years old and older
User Engagement
• Average user has 100 friends on the site
• More than 3 billion minutes are spent on Facebook each day (worldwide)
• More than 13 million users update their statuses at least once each day
• More than 3 million users become fans of Pages each day
Applications
• More than 800 million photos uploaded to the site each month
• More than 5 million videos uploaded each month
• More than 20 million pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) shared each month
• More than 2 million events created each month
• More than 20 million active user groups exist on the site
International Growth
• More than 35 translations available on the site, with more than 60 in development
• More than 70% of Facebook users are outside the United States
Platform
• More than 660,000 developers and entrepreneurs from more than 180 countries
• More than 52,000 applications currently available on Facebook Platform

Source: http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

A glance at the numbers and any online marketeer or webmaster would understand why Facebook advertising is such an important market to enter.

Aspects of Facebook that set it apart from other social networking sites

1. Correct and consistent user information

One of the main differences between Facebook and other social network platforms like Myspace is that Facebook is exclusive. A user’s profile can only be viewed by other users if they have been previously approved by the profile holder. For this reason, the personal information provided by users is likely to be correct.
For example, if a user states his/her relationship status as single, there is a good chance that he/she is really single.

2. Large audience

Over 20% of Australians hold active Facebook profiles and the majority of users visit their account often. Therefore, advertisers have quite a large and diverse audience to work with.

3. Targeting

Advertisers have access to users’ demographic information. As a result, advertisers can display advertisements on the pages of their target market by filtering users for specific parameters (age, gender, relationship status). For example, an advertisement for a women’s weight loss product can be designed to appeal specifically to a particular demographic and displayed to the target group. This strategy makes for maximum ROI and is much more efficient in generating conversions than a generic advertisement at a non specific audience.

4. PPC based

There are a number of different ways to use Facebook as a tool to brand and advertise your company

1) Direct Advertisements

I have considered how Facebook can be used as an advertising tool in the previous section.

2) Facebook Groups and Branding

By creating a Facebook group for your product or service and sending out requests to your existing clients to join is an excellent way to run a recommendation campaign. Keeping with our weight loss example, you could create a Facebook group for your existing clients to share experiences with other clients. When your clients join the group, their personal page will display this information for friends to see, effectively recommending your product to your existing client’s network.

3) Facebook Applications

Facebook applications are dynamic tools that users add to their profiles and use to share information with their network. By developing a Facebook application that is related to your business activities and advertises your products and services you have in your hand an interactive tool that is a step up from a banner advertisement.

Facebook applications have the advantage of creating their own market. Banner advertisements are restricted in scope because it is only displayed to users who fit a set profile. Applications are simply placed on Facebook Platform for users to view and add if it stimulates their interest. Another advantage of applications is that at the time of adding an application to a personal profile, the user is prompted to actively recommend the application to other users in their network, opening up the door to viral marketing.