Regina Smola speaks at Niche Affiliate Marketing System Workshop (NAMS6)

Just returned from Niche Affiliate Marketing System Workshop in Atlanta, GA. It was the 6th NAMS workshop, my third, and it was absolutely incredible! There were around 300 attendees that all feel like part of my family now.

I had the pleasure of presenting two security workshops 🙂

My first workshop was “Website and Internet Security: Take action before you lose sales, loyal followers, customers’ trust, traffic, content, and your Online reputation.” I had three experts join me and answering questions as well, David Perdew, founder of NAMS and MYNams, Allen Dresser, the Internet Tech Guy, and Kyle Greenwood, owner of an Apple repair store.

David knows firsthand what can happen when your websites gets hacked, so he was a perfect expert to help on this topic. He shared his personal horror story on how his websites and online accounts were hacked and the pain he went through to get everything safely back online.

David gave some fantastic tips on how to protect your sites AND your online accounts. And how super important it is to use unique strong passwords for each account you log into.

Allen told the true (and scary) story of  what happened to his wife, Sheri, when she was in the bookstore using her laptop and a hacker opened her notepad program and typed “H-E-L-L-O” to her. Even though he had enabled all the protection he could on her laptop. He provided tips on computer/internet safety and stressed the importance of working on a secured network and having computer backups.

Kyle let the Mac users know that it's a myth that Mac's can't get viruses. It's an ongoing and increasing problem and we need to utilize tools such as anti-virus programs and firewalls to help Mac users stay safe.

He also agreed to help those Mac users with remote technical assistance (if you need help, please leave a comment).

I loved helping others keep their computers more secure, surf the internet safer, and protect their websites. It was thrilling to have the audience participate by sharing their security techniques and asking great questions too.

My second workshop was “WordPress Plugin Audit Workshop!” This was a hands-on workshop covered how to check the safety of your WordPress plugins, compatibility and support, and a monthly security audit plan.

It gave me such warm-fuzzies to know that I was able to help the attendees use safer WordPress plugin practices and have a monthly security plan of action.

I also was an aide and helped Charlsa Perdew (an amazing and beautiful person) with registrations and assisted attendees with computer or Internet related issues.

It was shocking to learn how many people didn't know how to tell if they were connected to a secured wireless network. I'm glad they know now.

While in a class, I was helping someone change his Windows hosts file so he could see his new WordPress blog while it was still propagating. Alarm bells went off in my head!!! Warning! Warning! Will Robinson! His computer was infected with a nasty virus. When we opened the file in notepad, we jumped back. The hosts file was filled with a mile long list of  IPs and porn sites. Yikes! Later that night, he did a full system virus scan and got it all cleaned up.

Another participant told me she was up till 2am removing over 300 spam users that had registered for her WordPress site.

Note: Make sure you have “Anyone can register” unchecked under General > Settings in your Dashboard.

Several people told me that I made them paranoid about their passwords and had spent hours changing them to much stronger ones. YEAH! I also helped people with using *RoboForm and LastPass to manage their passwords. What a time saver they are to use!

We also did alot of hanging out at the beautiful hotel and networking with each other at meals, the NAMS reception, at Lynn Terry's Private Brainstorming Group meetup, my “Have Dinner with Regina” party, and by the fire pit. It was my best NAMS ever!

I would like to personally thank David Perdew for putting NAMS together! If it wasn't for David and NAMS, I would not be where I am today. I have learned valuable lessons on the do's and don'ts of running my Online business and I learn how to become more successful every day by attending NAMS events and being a MyNams member.

A big thank you to all the expert instructors for doing such a great job! They included David Perdew, Lynn Terry, Kathleen Gage, Dan Morris, Denise Wakeman, Nicole Dean, Jeff Herring, Dr. Ellen Britt, Chris Cobb, Mike Stewart, Kevin Riley, Bob “The Teacher” Jenkins, Karon Thackston, Paul Evans, Doug Hudiburg, Mark Hendricks, Mike Stewart, Terry Dean, Felicia Slattery, Alan R. Bechtold, Sid Hale, Susanne Myers, and Dr. Pauline Wallin.

A huge shout out goes to Michael Schultz (aka Magic Myke and one of our WPSL Team members) for sharing his technical genius to make NAMS 6 a success!

Sending a giant virtual hug to Kurt Scholle for working his butt off taking green-screen pro head shots and tons of pics of the event.

Kurt was also an aide providing all kinds of techy help and the room boss for the 200 level.

You can see all of Kurt's NAMS pics at: Nams6 – Day 1, Nams6 – Day 2, Nams6 – Day 3. I've also posted some on my Facebook.

And a special thanks to all the other aides too (including Cindy Bidar who has joined the WP Security Lock Team) for helping make NAMS6 happen and run so smoothly.

You can become a *MYNams member for only $9.70/month (use coupon code: MYNAMS90). Hurry, the price is going up on Friday, August 26, 2012 at 5pm EST!

Get ongoing training and support, discounts & bonuses, accountability groups, and a private community to help with your business success.

Leave Your Feedback

Got questions or comments about being a MyNAMS member? Did you attend my live workshops? Would love to hear from you. Please leave your comments below.

Securely yours,

Regina Smola
WordPress Security Expert
Follow me on Twitter
Follow WPSecurityLock on Twitter
Become a Facebook Fan