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It seems like everyone nowadays has an iPhone or iPod Touch that they use to access their emails. As it turns out, one of the most popular questions we have from our clients now is “How do I setup my email account on my iPhone?” This can be confusing for new iPhone owners, so we came up with these simple steps to get you up and running.

At JVF Consulting we rely on Liquid Web for our hosting, so the steps we follow are specific to their requirements. If you do not use Liquid Web for your email routing, the following settings may not work for you, so beware.

1. If you're setting up an email account for the first time on your iPhone touch the Settings icon on the home screen. Next select Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Accounts and choose Add Account....

2. To setup your POP3 email account choose Other.

3. Select Add Mail Account under the Mail section.

4. Fill in your name, email address and password. Then click Save.

5. You will then be promted to enter your email account information. First select the POP button at the very top of your screen.

6.  Next, continue entering your email account information.
    * Incoming Mail Server

      Host Name: mail.####.com (Be sure to replace #### with your domain name.)
      User Name: username+####.com (Be sure to use a “+” sign where the @ symbol would be.)
      Password: Enter your current case sensitive password.

    * Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP)
      Host Name: mail.####.com (Be sure to replace #### with your domain name.)
      User Name: username+####.com (Be sure to use a “+” sign where the @ symbol would be.)
      Password: Enter your current case sensitive password.

When complete, press Save.

Step 7. Your iPhone will then verify your account information. During this process you will get a "Secure Connection Failed" error stating the smtp certificate is not valid. Press Continue to proceed.

Step 8. Next you will see another "Secure Connection Failed" error stating the certificate is not valid. Press Continue to proceed.

Step 9. Upon successful completion you will be taken back to the Mail Settings screen. You should now have a fully configured POP email account on your Apple iPhone.

A few months ago I wrote an article about the UCEProtect network spam list and how their practices are extortion.

Well today, we’ve ran across another problem with UCEProtect! While troubleshooting a clients bounced email message, I ran a test for blacklist listings using MXToolBox.

Everything came back clean, except for one, backscatterer.org. This is a new one to us, so we did a little investigation. Visiting their website was déjà vu, it reminded us of the UCEProtect website, and as it turns out, they’re one of the same. Visiting their contact page you will see “BACKSCATTERER.ORG is run by the UCEPROTECT-Network”.

As it turns out Backscatterer is NOT a blacklist, It's a Sender Callout Abuser list! Nobody should be blocking mail based solely on data from a backscatter list. The only thing any mail administrator should do with this list is to use it when determining whether to flag a message as possible spam.

Since our clients mail recipient is using Backscatterer as a blacklist, we need our IP address removed. To have our IP address removed they want us to pay 50.00 € Euro's (EUR) to process our request and remove our IP. That's almost $67 dollars! This is totally unacceptable, and just as illegal as UCEProtect! The only other way to have your IP address removed is to wait 4 weeks after the last abusive action.

When visiting the Backscatterer contact page you can see just how professional the company really is.

“There should be no need to contact us:
We have heard all possible excuses why people think they can not stop their systems backscatter or doing sender callouts. If you have chosen to be a lazy or selfish netcitizen letting your system backscatter or doing sender callouts you perfectly match listingcriterias. Your recipients and we are tired of all the fake bounces, misdirected autoresponders and verify calls wasting our resources, and therfore you got blocked.

OUR BLOCKLIST - OUR RULES. NO ONE GETS A FREE RIDE HERE.

We don't make exceptions to our list, so it is futile and a waste of your time to contact us and ask for delisting.”

These statements make their company sound like a complete scam, how could a professional organization perpetuate such a business model? Why would any professional company associate themselves with Backscatterer?

If you are having mail delivery problems due to a backscatterer like us, you have our sympathy. We recommend not paying fees to anyone and addressing the matter with the mail administrators of the target mail server directly. We are sure they would be very interested to know that they are blocking legitimate mail based on a UCEPROTECT service.

AT JVF Consulting we recognize the effort of the list to inform mail server managers of any known RBL lists that contain their server names, but do not condone the use of it as a blacklist.

Brentwood must control its future, reduce crime, revitalize their economy and improve property values.  That’s why you should vote Yes on Measure F.

San Francisco, CA April 30, 2010 – Jason Franco, President of JVF Consulting, LLC announced the launch of the Put Brentwood In Control custom political website. The new website provides insight about Measure F and its effect on the community and its surrounding areas. Leaders in Brentwood brought forward Measure F in an attempt to respond to the concerns that voters had with 2005’s Measure L.

Measure F creates Brentwood’s own Urban Limit Line. This new growth control tool will allow Brentwood’s voters to decide where and if we allow development around the city’s border. Currently, these decisions are controlled by countywide voters and the Board of Supervisors. Local residents should decide, not outsiders nor nearby cities.

Through the use of the World Wide Web the new website is loaded with in-depth information about Measure F and explains the details about establishing zoning and an agreement defining City and land owner rights and obligations. Measure F will protect the City from unnecessary growth and also will prevent either Antioch or Oakley from encroaching on Brentwood.

"The launch of this website reinforces Brentwood’s position on measure F.” stated Jason Franco, President of JVF Consulting, LLC. “With a commitment to keeping their citizens current with information, Put Brentwood In Control is now the leading authority for Measure F.”

The Put Brentwood In Control website is powered by the cutting edge technology of JVF Amass, the best Content Management System on the market today. The website was also designed by the leader in custom website design, JVF Consulting, LLC. With the power of Amass CMS, Put Brentwood In Control is able to make revisions to their live custom website on the fly, all through a rich user-friendly interface.

Voters in Pittsburg and San Ramon have their own Urban Limit Lines. So do the voters of Antioch. In fact, Antioch’s Urban Limit Line is right next door to Brentwood. Antioch’s voters have the power to approve development plans and expand Antioch into the land between our two cities. This would impact us and we would have nothing to say about it. Measure F would put much of this land into Brentwood’s control.

About Put Brentwood in Control
Currently, outsiders control what happens around our borders. Brentwood residents only have a 5% say about what happens to the existing, countywide Urban Limit Line. Measure F gives Brentwood’s voters 100% control. Our neighbors and City Council know what’s best for Brentwood. We should decide, not them. For more information visit: www.putbrentwoodincontrol.com

Contact:
Jason Franco
JVF Consulting, LLC
(925) 479-9768
http://www.jvfconsulting.com

Last week we deployed another successful Magento ecommerce website. To track the visitors we signed up for a free Google Analytics account, and then plugged their tracking code into the admin section of the Magento administrator area. When we applied the API, the site quickly confirmed that the tracking code was in place through the Google Analytics dashboard.

We then waited 48 hours, and then logged in to see how many visitors hit the site. Turns out that none of the visitors were being tracked! Using the error console within Firefox we reloaded the page, and found the problem instantly. Turns out the Magento coders totally messed up when creating their Google Analytics API. Take a look for yourself, here's the JavaScript they used:

    (function() {
        var ga = document.createElement('script');
        ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true;
        ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') +
        '.google-analytics.com/ga.js';
        (document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0] || 
        document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0]).appendChild(ga);
    })();

    _gaq.push(["_setAccount", "UA-XXXXXXXX-1"]);
    _gaq.push(["_trackPageview", "/"]);

This is how it should read:

var _gaq = _gaq || [];
_gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-XXXXXXXX-1']);
_gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);
(function() {
var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true;
ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') +
 '.google-analytics.com/ga.js';
(document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0] || 
document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0]).appendChild(ga);
})();

As you can see the Magento coders have it all out of order, and forgot the most important line of code that created the “_gaq” object:

var _gaq = _gaq || [];

We can only assume that this API is broken on all Magento builds! To fix this, remove the tracking code from the Magento Google API in the admin area, then use the JavaScript given to you by Google Analytics, and place it in the footer of your website. Whala! Your site is now tracking visitors appropriately with no errors in the error console.