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Open source software (UNIX and its plugins, other software) and web applications (Servers, forum applications, email applications, programming languages, etc.) have attracted the people all around the world. And they are gradually becoming the dominant in many areas. This is due to many important characters common to these open source software. I will describe some of them in this post.

The most significant attribute of any open source software or web application is the complete availability of the source code. This enables the developers to customize or improve these software and applications according to their requirements. Most of these are available for free download and usage. And they have a huge user and developer community around the world. Many of them contribute to the improvements of the software or web application. If anyone gets stuck with open source software or a web application, he/she can get help from the user and developer community. This is very important and economical compared to the high priced software and their vendors.

Open source software and web applications are always more reliable compared to others. When there are any bugs (errors) anyone can report to the main developer or company and they will fix it in the next release version.

As most of them are freely available and reliable, more than 50% of the computer users around the world use at least small open source software or a web application. But when it comes to web applications, open source web applications are dominating. For an example, if you take web hosting, Apache Tomcat server is dominating as a reliable and less complex server. And most of these tomcat servers run on UNIX based systems which are also open source. Due to this most of the web hosting services charge less for web hosting plans hosted in UNIX servers compared to Windows servers.

In my personal view, I think that the open source software will make the world happier and a safer place to live in the coming future. They will definitely win the competition with high priced software and web applications and more and more people will embrace the open source software and web applications saying BYE to the highly priced ones.

I start a series of posts from today to inform you about the biggest and worst scam ever happened and still happening on the internet. I thought to write about this because I received an email which I know that a scam. I will add the whole email and the response I sent today in this article. When the conversation continues, I will add more posts as a series with emails I excahanged to inform you about this scam. Normally these people send emails as a private accountant or a wealthy girl trapped in a refugee camp in an African country experiencing a civil war according to the information I found out. There may be other forms of the person. But the content of the emails they send normally convey the same idea, A huge amount of money (normally few millions of US $) and he or she needs your help. They find your email from the web directories, Forums or community websites. Ok read the following email that I received carefully.

—–Original Message—–

From: brownpetera1@peoplepc.com [mailto:brownpetera1@peoplepc.com]

Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2008 2:25 AM

Subject: Greetings to you

From Peter Brown.
Crockford Lane Basingstoke Hants
RG24 8WB. London UK.
Tels: +(+447045749371, +44 7045710463)

Greetings to you !

I did a lot of searching and prayers before choosing your contact from your countrys website / business online register. It is with trust and sincerity that I approach you for assistance to transfer some funds into your foreign bank account. Please do accept my apologies if my mail does not meet your personal ethics. I want to introduce myself and this business opportunity to you. My name is Mr. Peter Brown, A Private Accountant based in London. Honestly it will be my humble pleasure if we can work together.

I would like you to stand as the next of kin to my deceased client who made a deposit of US$6 Million (Six Million U. S Dollars Only) with a bank here in London few years back. He died in an auto crash with his wife and only child without any registered next of kin and as such the funds now have an open beneficiary mandate with a reputable Bank here in London which means that any person from your country can stand as the next of kin of the deceased person for claiming the inheritance funds without any risk involved. If you are interested in this kind of this transactions, Please do let me know immediately so that I can give you comprehensive details on what we are to do next. I urgently hope to get your response as soon as possible. Call me immediately at: +447045749371, +44 7045710463 email me peterbrown0@live.com Regards, Mr. Peter Brown, From London UK.

This is the reply I sent today and he or she will definitely send a reply soon.

Hello Peter,
I’m very interested about your offer. Please provide me more details.
Thanks

They will send more details on how to transfer this money and sometimes they will ask my details also. And sometimes from the next email or email after that, they will ask me to send few thousands of US Dollars for the procession of this deal. Let see what they will send in next email.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Free stuffs (also called as freebies) are available all over the internet. They come in different kinds of forms like free software, mp3s, videos, various consumer products, magazines, money, email, web hosting, eBooks, screen savers and many more. Sometimes you have to register in their websites to get their free offers. Some websites ask you to fill a questionnaire to get the free offer. There are certain things that you should know before you download any of these free offers. This article gives some important things that you should consider when you download free stuff.

The most important thing that you must do before download anything from the internet is installing trusted anti-virus software and an internet spyware detection and removal tool. Otherwise your computer will be attacked by various viruses and spyware which will ultimately destroy your computer in various ways. I mentioned you this because about 99.99% free stuffs are carriers of various computer viruses and spyware with or without their knowledge.

Some free stuff like free software, mp3s and videos are used by websites as marketing tools for their promotions of new products or existing products. Sometimes they are given away freely as trial versions. You will have to pay to get the fully functioning version. There are cracks (These days mainly as Torrents) available for trial software to make it a fully functional software. But these cracks may also carry the unwanted viruses and spyware. If you want to find free fully functional software, you better find open source software as they will make the least damage or zero damage to your computer. But make sure that you download them from their original developer.

Various free stuffs like consumer goods (soaps, perfume, cream, food, etc.) are not always good for your body and health. These are offered sometimes to get a feedback from you after using them. Sometimes companies test their new products on you like scientists test on rats and rabbits. You have to be very careful when using these kinds of free stuffs. You better check the vendor’s profile and reputation.

Free offers like money are 99.99% scams and you will get into trouble. My advice is that never get into money free offers. No one will give you free money. The people pretend to give money actually try to get money from you.

EBooks, email and webhosting free offers are less harmful compared to others. These are used as a medium for marketing products and services. Yahoo GeoCities, Gmail, free eBooks offered by various internet businessmen are some examples for these kinds of free offers.

The reality that you must understand is, no one offer free offers if they don’t get a benefit from them. Each and every free offer is designed in such a way that the offerer will benefit from it by some way. Therefore you better be careful when using or downloading free offers.

Coupon codes are the special type of codes which are published by various types of businesses. This is done in large scale by online shopping websites (e-commerce websites) to promote their newly launched products or existing products. These codes are mostly offered by the e-commerce websites who starts their online business to attract new customers. But there are many well established online companies who offer coupon codes and referral codes to keep their existing customer base. This article describes about these two types of codes and how you can benefit from them.

Coupon codes

Coupon codes are offered by the e-commerce websites directly to their customers for a specific time period or product. They expect more customers and more sales by offering these coupon codes. They normally advertise in their own website and other websites. They will offer a code which includes characters, numbers or both. When you find these kinds of coupon codes all you have to do is, go to the website of the offer. After selecting the specific product(s) they will allow you to put your coupon code. If you put a valid one, you will get a discount for the product that you are going to buy. Sometimes you will get free products for the coupon code. When you plan to buy a good or service online, it will be beneficial for you if you search through a search engine about the product or service whether there are any coupon codes available. If you find one, it will definitely save you some money.

Referral Codes

Referral codes are slightly different from coupon codes. But you will get the same results. Referral codes are offered to the existing customers of an e-commerce website to give it to others. The existing customer will be paid a commission for every new customer referred by him/her. The new customer will be given a discount too. The referral codes are mainly offered for the new products or new businesses. If you have a referral code, all you have to do is follow the same procedure that I mentioned in coupon codes.

Before using a coupon code or a referral code you must find out whether they are valid for the time frame or product that you are going to purchase online. And you must also keep in mind that whether it is a needed one to buy. Otherwise you will be wasting your hardly earned money even though you get a discount for a specific product or service.

There are many websites who are dedicated to provide coupon codes and referral codes. But I must tell you this. Some of them are scams. And never pay for any coupon or referral code. Normally referral codes are distributed freely in those websites as they also get a commission.