New feature to distinguish Ojolie ecards from fake ecard scams

The article Has the E-Card Scam Storm Blown Over? describes the situation of the recent fake ecard scams.

Greeting card scams became so rampant at the start of the summer that the FBI issued a public warning about the practice.

“If you get an e-mail claiming you’ve received an e-card from a generic ‘friend’ or ‘family member’ rather than from someone whose name or personal e-mail address you recognize, the e-mail is fraudulent and should be immediately deleted,” John Hambrick, unit chief of the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center said in a statement issued July 25. “Do not follow any of the instructions in the e-mail or click on any link.”

The statement explained that fraudulent e-mails claiming to contain an electronic greeting card from an unnamed individual, such as a “friend” or “classmate,” were flooding e-mail boxes everywhere.

These “phishing” e-mails, it continued, which falsely claim to be from legitimate greeting card companies, instruct consumers to click on a link in the e-mail message to view their e-card. Clicking on the link can potentially introduce a virus into a consumer’s computer.

According to the article, the situation has improved.

As the summer ended, though, scammers moved on to other things, Cluley, of Sophos, maintained. “Recently, they’ve been offering things like links to the latest Beyonce video or links to free computer games,” he said.

However, the public in general may still be suspicious of any ecard email. That is why we have added a new feature in our site to distinguish Ojolie ecard emails from fake ones.

In addition to the existing feature that includes the sender’s full name in the ecard email subject, e.g. “Frederikke Tu has sent you an ecard from Ojolie.com”, we have added an optional email subject field and an optional email message field in the “send card” page. Click here to see a complete sample page.

You can add a personal email subject and message that will be included in the ecard pickup notification email sent to the recipients. It will personalize and distinguish your email from the recent fake ecard email scams and increase the chance that your ecard will be viewed by the recipients.

Instead of the typical email subject, your personal email subject will be used instead, with your personal email message included inside the email.

2 new ecards

We have added a new card a few weeks ago called ‘Lily’ ; it celebrates the union of two of nature’s awe inspiring spectacles – the unfolding of a lily and the iridescent flight of a hummingbird. Suitable for almost any occasion or just send it for no reason in particular!

Lily

We have also just added a new card called ‘Jolly Birthday’ featuring Hopscotch the kitten and Spriggs the puppy (in case you’re wondering he is named after English Pirate Francis Spriggs) making a well intended mess. The card has a fixed greeting of Happy Birthday in addition to the personal greeting options.

Jolly Birthday

In addition we are already working on the cards for the holidays and a few new features for the site, so there is more to look forward to.

Celebrate Independece Day with the New “Hope” ecard

We have added a new card called ‘Hope’ featuring the wonderful musical composition of Respighi, inspired by nature and the flight of the dove.

The message of hope and peace is one that resonates at any time in our lives and history. With the upcoming Independence Day celebration for our members in the United States, the card is also well suited for that occasion.

Hope

Celebrate Father’s Day!

Celebrate all the wonderful fathers you know by sending one of our greetings on June 17th. Remember you can schedule greetings now to be sent on Father’s Day or for any other occasion so you don’t forget any important dates.

We have added a new card for Father’s Day, featuring a polar bear that has a relaxing tumble in a field of arctic flowers. So if you know someone who deserves some rest and relaxation, and who doesn’t, then this is the card!

We have also added a birthday card with children in mind, featuring Oli the baby elephant, although it sure appeal to many a grown up.

A Perfect Day

Oli’s Surprise

These other cards are also well suited for Father’s Day:

You’re Puuurfect

Encore

Stay-at-home mother’s work worth $138,095 a year

According to Salary.com, stay-at-home mother’s work worth $138,095 a year. See the article from Reuters for the full story.

I definitely think the taking care of the kids and household is a lot of work. I am doing my part to help out.

Even though every day should be Mother’s Day (or Father’s Day) in my opinion, May 13th is the day we choose to celebrate mothers around the world. Remember to show your appreciation to all the special women in your life who are mothers, on the day or any day. I and my kids are still looking for the gift for my wife.

Timothy

Ecards for Mother’s Day

Even though every day should be Mother’s Day in my humble opinion, May 13th is the day we choose to celebrate mothers around the world. Remember to send an ecard to all the special women in your life who are mothers. Even if you have something special planned for your own mother, an extra ecard will be sure to delight.

We have added a new card for the occasion, featuring mother cat and her playful kitten. In addition, here are a few other suggestions for suitable cards.

Best Mom New

http://www.ojolie.com/index.php?step=preview&ec_id=19

Origami

http://www.ojolie.com/index.php?step=preview&ec_id=18

Tulip

http://www.ojolie.com/index.php?step=preview&ec_id=13

Encore

http://www.ojolie.com/index.php?step=preview&ec_id=7

Warm wishes for a Happy Mother’s Day!

Collector-Worthy Ecards

What is your perception of ecards? The typical ecards that I come across depict either a couple of crudely drawn cartoon characters singing and dancing frenetically or a nauseatingly sweet puppy saying something like “I wuv you”. Thats why we started Ojolie.com. Ojolie ecards are truly different from average, run-of-the-mill ecards. It’s a different level of computer graphics – less commercial and more fine art. We represent a new niche of ecards – one that will charm our audience with elegance, personality and creativity.

When the recipient sees the Ojolie.com. link on their email, we want them to have a sense of anticipation. We want them to have the same joy that one has when they receive a paper greeting card in the mail. This new idea in ecards transcends the ordinary to create original works of art that are translated to the computer screen for your enjoyment or that of friends and family. Our initiative here at Ojolie is to change the face of ecards and up the ante to include those who previously may have been left out of the loop because of the lack of sophisticated, stylish ecards on the web. Our hope is that the door will be opened for a whole new throng of ecard enthusiasts. So welcome to Ojolie!

How To Protect Yourself Against Bad Ecards

From Greeting Card Scams Foist Trojans of About.com,

Be extra suspicious if (a) the greeting card doesn’t address you by name; (b) the card sender’s name isn’t included in the body of the email or the name isn’t familiar; and (c) it’s not a holiday, a birthday, or any other occasion that might warrant a card. If the card requires that you install a special viewer or tries to download a file to your system, treat it like a trojan. Cancel the download and scan your system with up to date antivirus software. Be extra vigilant. If you receive a card from someone you know but you aren’t quite sure it’s legit, compose a new email to that person and ask if they sent you a card. Don’t reply using the email you received – the From address just might be bogus.

In addition, you should always install anti-virus and/or anti-spyware softwares. When you are brought to the “bad” websites that try to install malwares/spywares to your computer, the security softwares will stop them.

Here are the FREE anti-virus and anti-spyware that I am running on my system.

The main thing that is different from the paid version is that when you schedule a periodic scan of your system, the software scans your whole computer. You are not able to specify the drives or directories that you want to include or exclude. But for most people this is not really a problem.

The main thing that is different from the paid version is that when there is a new update, the application will stop; the icon in the system tray will grey out. You just need to manually click the update button, and the application will continue working.

You can have all of them installed in your system to maximum security. I don’t have any conflict between them so far.

While traditional security companies had gotten relatively good at addressing technical threats like viruses, they were failing to prevent a new breed of “social engineering” tricks like spyware infections, identity theft scams, and sites which send excessive e-mail. To address this challenge, we built a system of automated testers which continually patrol the Web to browse sites, download files, and enter information on sign-up forms. We document all these results and supplement them with feedback from our users, comments from Web site owners, and analysis from our own employees. The software for Internet Explorer and Firefox summarizes website safety results into intuitive red, yellow and green ratings to help Web users stay safe as they search, browse and transact online.

The NoScript Firefox extension provides extra protection for Firefox, Flock, Seamonkey and others mozilla-based browsers: this free, open source add-on allows JavaScript and Java execution only for trusted domains of your choice (e.g. your home-banking web site). NoScript’s unique whitelist based pre-emptive script blocking approach prevents exploitation of security vulnerabilities (known and even not known yet!) with no loss of functionality…
You can enable JavaScript/Java execution for sites you trust with a simple left-click on the NoScript status bar icon, or using the contextual menu, for easier operation in popup statusbar-less windows.

Let me know your free security setup!