So, the first step is looking at the schools you are interested in, and checking their accreditation.  There are two types of college accreditation, regional accreditation and national.  Regional accreditation is the most important, as regional accredited schools are recognized by all employers, and their credits are transferable from school to school.  So if you find that you don’t like this school as much as you thought you would, from a regional accredited school you can transfer your course credits to a new school.

Now after you have a list of schools that interest you, with regional accreditation, you can move on to the next step.  Here you want to compare all the important factors.  Cost being a major one, think about how much the schools cost, because this student debt will take you some time to pay off.  Now you want to look at student population and student teacher ratio.  Schools with fewer students are usually more desirable, as are schools with a higher number of teachers compared to students.

Also make sure to look at the school’s graduation rate and how many credits are necessary to earn either an Associate’s or Bachelor’s degree.  You want a school with a higher graduation rate, and with an acceptable amount of credits required.  The more credit’s a school requires, the longer it will take you to earn them, or the more money they will cost.  So take that into account when picking an online college.

Now you should have a fine tuned idea of which schools interest you the most.  From here you should get into contact with a school representative and discuss your interest.  Contact all the schools you’re interested in, and make sure you don’t make a decision until after you’ve voiced your questions and concerns to every school individually.

What changed in the 1st decade?

• In the decade that is passing by, Blogging, video sharing, pod casting, and rich media content has come huge.
• Web which was nothing but a cheap imitation of broadcast media in the beginning of the decade has changed, and now it is more of a conversational media.
• Top-down approach of communication of web 1.0 (web in the beginning of 2000) gave way to two way communication.
• Comments and feedback become a huge force on the Internet.
• People became social.
• Friendster went out and got replaced by Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn.
• People felt the power of 140 characters as twitter, plurk, identi.ca, and like flourished.
• Sharing has become a new nature
• People started voicing their concern with click of a mouse.
• Broadband become ubiquitous.
• Computer is not only medium for web access. More and more people started using handheld devices to access the net.
• Techcrunch, lifehacker, boingboing, and the likes become more popular on the net then AOL, Times and other biggies.
• Being on the first page of Digg has become cooler than being on the top 10 list of the New York Times.
• Social bookmarking became a huge force.
• Search engine became more intelligent.
• Cloud computing is a serious business now.

This is in no way a complete list of what has changed in the first decade of the twenty-first century.

What to expect in 2010

• Authority will rule.
• People with real knowledge about their field will become more important.
• Web will go semantic
• Search engines will become more intolerant of shoddy SEO practices
• Web will become personal and portable
• Big content sites like ehow, about.com will become prominent.
• Broadband will become more popular.
• You will be more important as an individual than as member of tribe.
• Technology will go open source.
• Chrome OS will see the light of the day.
• Wolfram Alpha will become a default search engine for hard data.
• Bing will put a big dent in Google search.
• More and more SEO will happen for Bing.
• Search result will become more personal and local

These and several other changes will happen in 2010. Let’s wait and see how it unfolds, but for now let’s bid adieu to 2009. Bye, Bye 2009!

In this article, I have tried to provide a workable “feedback seeking system” which you can use to get a proper feedback. You can also modify the system, if you feel something is missing.

Step 1: Define your feedback goal

Why you want a feedback and on what? The answer to this question matters a lot. A generic feedback like, “all is good” or “there is some problem here and there, but the rest is good” will not do any good. Set a target for why you want a feedback. If you have written something then the feedback you can seek could be related to your writing style, coherence, grammatical and punctuation errors, or overall understandability. You can subdivide your work in this way and ask for feedback about the particular thing you want to know.

Step 2: Qualify your feedback source

Do not seek feedback from anyone and everyone. It will do no good. A proper feedback should come from a qualified source. Ask your senior, your client, your boss, your teacher, or anyone who is more qualified than you are on the subject for the feedback. A washerwoman’s feedback on the structure of your SQL database will serve nothing.

Do not ask your family or the closest friend who knows everything about your project for the feedback. Good or bad, it will never give you the feedback that you can use.

Step 3: Ask targeted question

Ask questions relevant to the feedback goal you set in step one. Do not pose generic question, as it will not fetch desired answer. Ask a targeted question and listen patiently for the answer.

Step 4: Promise anonymity

If feedback sought is for something or someone else then assure your source that his or her identity will be kept hidden if he or she wishes to do that. And if the feedback is about you then tell the feedback source that his or her honest opinion will not tarnish your relationship. This is very important.

Conclusion

Do not lose heart if you do not get positive feedback from all quarters. No matter how smart your source is, he or she can still be short-sighted or wrong. Show confidence in your ability.

Anonymity

Best part of online counseling is that you need not unearth your identity, you can remain anonymous and keep your identity hidden. You need not convey your true identity, you may choose not to share personal details. You may take help of career counselor with different identities every time. You may find out different guidances, different views when you approach the counselor with different identities. Anonymousness may help you to get genuine help from the counselor.

You can choose anyone, anywhere

If you choose a career counselor for guidance, you may end up with limited numbers of choices in your city, locality or country at the best. As a result, you may deprive yourself from the guidance of best counselor. But when you are opting for online career counselors, you have lots of options open. You may choose a counselor from anywhere in this world. You need not worry about geographical boundaries. You will have access to best quality counselor from all across the world.

You may choose multiple ways

f you are opting for online counseling you may have multiple options. You may interact with the online counselor via voice chat, talking on the microphone and even choosing webcam for viewing. On the other hand if you wish not to talk, you may simply choose text chat. So you have multiple options before you.

Less distractions, shoot listed questions

Online counseling is equipped with less distracting elements. There are no physical distracting elements around to confuse the student. In online counseling the student can remain focused and shoot all questions to the counselor while referring to the questions already listed beforehand.

Online counseling is picking up fast. Make the best use of it.

Save phone bills

When the heart goes fonder and lovers just can?t stay away from talking to each other for hours, what could be better than voice chat and that too free of cost? All you need is an Internet connection besides headphone and microphone. You need not worry about long hours of telephonic conversations, long distance calls and horrifying bill at the end of the month. You can even leave your T-Mobile BlackBerry Bold cell phone off and ditch the cell phone plan. Voice chat has bridged the gap between distant lands. Not only for lovers, it is extremely good communication device for business work, job interviews, technical help, customer care services, making friends online, communicating with friends and family. If you have a webcam, you can even see the person while talking. That?s like a cherry on the cake.

Work while talking

Voice chats involve you, but not your hands. While you keep doing voice chat, you can still continue doing other works like typing, checking mails, text chatting with others etc. Unlike phone conversation or text chat your hands are absolutely free to work on anything. Voice chats can increase your productivity, efficiency besides strengthening your communication process.

Group talking

People not only indulge into one to one conversation, but also interact in group. Yes, you can invite multiple users to join in a voice chat and all of you can interact together, at the same time. Group chat can be extremely fun while connecting with old college group of friends and when all are settled in distant places. It can be a real fun session. When employees are at distant places it’s easier for the leader to get all on voice chat and clarify work at the same time to avoid ambiguity and confusion. Group voice chat will save your both time and money of calling individuals separately and clarifying work.

Long distance work

Voice chats have opened avenues for freelance writers, designers, website programmers, and other freelance work aspirants since people need not meet face to face to get work or submit the same. It is true globalization. People all across the world can work with each other, without even knowing each other personally. Voice chat has enabled people to work with anyone, anywhere irrespective of face to face contact or personal knowing. It has opened doors of opportunities all across the world for both employer and the employee. They interact, clarify, work and meet expectations. Even interviews are conducted through voice chat.

Voice chat is seeing new innovations with every passing year. Stay updated, start voice chatting.

Here is the list of top 10 factors that affect search engine ranking.

1. Use of Keywords in Title Tag

If I am allowed to work on only one aspect of a site, I would work on the Title Tag . Put all your keyphrases in your title tag, but also remember not to overstuff it! For best results you gotta optimize each page individually.. Lets say your first page has information about “free antivirus” then you should have key phrases like – “free antivirus, download antivirus, best antivirus” etc. Lets say your second page has information about “firewalls” include keyphrases like “free firewall, best firewall” etc.

2. Keyword Use in Body Text

Now its pretty obvious that if your web page doesn’t contain any information about Antivirus but still contains key phrases like -– “free antivirus, download antivirus, best antivirus”, it aint gonna work!! The point being, please make sure that you have the text in the webpage that you have on your title tag!! Don’t worry about the density of the key words. There is no relation between the density of the keyword and its rank on the search engine

3. Relationship of Body Text Content to Keywords

Remember, google is google because its got some serious smart guys working for it, so don’t be under the impression that fooling them is gonna be easy. Just stuffing a key phrase into a completely unrelated page wont do you much good.

4. Keyword Use in Domain Name

Some disagree with the importance of this one, though I feel it does not play a major role, why take a chance? Especially if you want to start a new site.. That said, remember that you choose to lose more than gain if you have an established site with a good pagerank! Note that there are websites that offer excellent services when it comes to web hosting

5. Keyword Use in Page URL

Again different SEOs take different sides on the importance of this one. I believe it is of some importance, but doesn’t make sense to change the urls for an existing site with a decent pagerank.

6. Keyword Use in ALT Attributes and Image Titles

I think this is extremely important. Maybe even more important than url and domain name. Experince shows that image optimization is a wonderful way to make a page appear higher on the search list to a desired query

7. Keyword Use in H1 Tag

Inspite of critics deeming tweaking with H1 tags as useless, its been proved otherwise. Head up the body text with an H1 containing the keyphrase.

8. Keyword Use in H2, H3, H… Tags

Since we have used it in H1, why not use it in H2, H3, et al..

9. Keyword Use in Bold/Strong Tags

I deem this method as moderately important. It helps Google in analysing what your page is about and what can the reader expect to find on it.

10. Keyword Use in Meta Description Tag

Definitely important. Each page should have a custom title and meta description tag. The ability of the Meta Tag to make it appear on the search list should not be underestimated.

All said and done, it should be remembered that CONTENT is the king!!

But then, making a generalized statement saying that ‘all money making opps online are fake’ is not true. The internet has made it possible for people to outsource work to the cheapest vendor, irrespective of where they are, and get paid irrespective of other normal factors that affect employment. In fact, if there was no internet, the BPO industry which has changed the economy of dozens of countries would not have existed!

Here are some of the real ones, and remember – most of the programs that pay you to work from home would not require you to pay an up front fee.

• Resell products

Some of the internet’s most profitable work from home ventures is reselling products online. A provider or a manufacturer that does not have the necessary resources to market, will prefer to pay other people to market, and even if they have a marketing team, reselling is hugely profitable, as it opens up access from around the world. For instance, selling and registering websites is a business that is extremely popular and pays very well. Take a look at http://resellers.gossimer.biz/ for an illustration. There are several more kinds of products / services. Do your own research.

• Work from home

The real one – not the namesakes that flood the internet. Websites like elance, guru and oDesk have created platforms to bring together clients and providers. They charge a fee on every billed transaction, and that is a win-win-win situation for the portal, the buyer, and the customer. But you need to have genuine qualifications to work there, as they require your certifications. Try them out.

• Blogging – Advertising

On the internet, advertising is king, and with the advent of online ad services like Google AdSense, it has become possible for people to make money from their blogs and websites. However, you need to have real good content, or you can sell ads on behalf of another website. Try out a program that looks good.

• Selling

If you are not into reselling, you can try selling some real products online. Sites like eBay and many more help you create an online store which you can register on for free. You have tons of resources available for you to market your store online, and if your services are good, you are in for some serious money!

These are just a few of the good opps online. If you are serious about working from home, your best bet would be to ask your way around, and see which are the ones that are really good.

All the best!

With the economic crisis right here, right now, many businesses are diverting their funds from payroll (very unfortunately) to marketing and advertising with the idea that that is the best investment for their immediate and future growth.

The past:
Newspapers (print ads): Great eye catching graphics and slogans. But aren’t we all now trying to “go green”? How many of us still get the paper delivered to our door? Isn’t it easier and quicker to “go online”? Why bother thumbing through all those pages when we can just type in a keyword and click search.
Television advertisements (commercials) range from a few seconds to several minutes (also program-length infomercials). Advertisements like this have been used to sell every product imaginable over the years. And can cost millions! But so many of us would rather use our favorite tool, the REMOTE, to channel surf, or at least mute those dreaded minutes of commercial time.

Food for thought:
We are in crisis mode, and that is when people turn to brands they know and trust, which translates to value. So, companies will be looking for more cost-effective ways to reach their target audiences. And that is online marketing, with almost instant feedback as to what is working and what isn’t, via the web pages you search, the newsletters you sign up for, the ads you click on, etc…

Many companies now have forums or blogs which create feedback from consumers so the new buyer can get that very important recommendation from the end user, much like a recommendation from a friend or family member.

The future (NOW):
Many experts predict that internet advertising in the USA will continue to rapidly increase within this economic downturn forcing a reduction in overall advertising spending. Many companies will be transferring much of their marketing budget from traditional (TV and print) to the new online media, which will most likely become the major avenue of advertisement over the next few years at a very high rate.
The snowball effect:
Online audiences watch what they want to watch, when they want to watch, and where they want to watch. It’s not just your grandmother’s PC anymore! Cell phones, Blackberrys, Iphones, MP3’s, etc… This audience is sure to increase as technologies progress and becomes more and more available.
There’s no turning back now…online advertising IS the future.

I am sure you’ve heard of de.li.cio.us. It redirects to delicious.com, but as a .us domain and social bookmarking site, I can’t help thinking that their creativity was first sparked from the lack of interesting domain names available. If you can take something short and to the point from your search on word navigator, your next step would be to check it’s availability.  The following guidelines can speed up the process:

• Since there are 3,563 words that end in -us at the time of this posting, the easiest thing to do would be to copy and paste each list (by length) into a text document, which took me about 7 minutes.  You probably won’t take as long, if you copy and paste only half of all the words.
• In the document, click Edit and Select All. Proceed to toggle the bullets off.  Then use Ctrl+F and type us into the search box.  Click on Find All. You will notice that the -us ending has been selected for all of the words.  Now click on Replace All. Your document should no longer have any of the -us endings.
• If your document is 75 pages long, perhaps it would be best to weed out words before continuing.  Or you can copy and paste the words in only chunks (maybe 30 words) at a time into this domain name regristration search (clicking on the us extension, while unselecting the com extension), so that your internet browser doesn’t freeze up during the process.

Of the first thirty words I submitted, 14 were available.  Here is my example chunk with unavailable .us domain names crossed out:

fagaceo.us                          furacio.us
felonio.us                          furfuro.us
feracio.us                          garrulo.us
ferocio.us                          gingero.us
fervoro.us                          glaireo.us
filaceo.us                          glamoro.us
flavoro.us                          globulo.us
fractio.us                          gluteno.us
frivolo.us                          glutino.us
froufro.us                          granulo.us
fugacio.us                          gummato.us
fulgoro.us                          gumptio.us
fulguro.us                          hazardo.us
fulmino.us                          hilario.us

Honestly, if I were a business looking for an attractive and modern domain name, gumptio.us would be my first pick!  If you don’t know, gumptious is an adjective that means enterprising (synonym to energetic, industrious, up-and-coming).  Or how about furacio.us?  Hurry up, domain names like these will soon fill up the Web 2.0 (or is it 3.0) scene!  If you really don’t care what the domain name is and just want to set something up quickly, your best bet would be to submit one or two words into a domain name suggestion tool.

Start an Online Business – providing specific products and services has a good business potential. Currently, popular online trades include internet marketing, web design, and copywriting. It’s easy to start a business nowadays. But it is important to find the right people who will help you succeed. In addition, building relationships with the internet community is critical.

Join Get-Paid-To Websites – although the income potential of this technique is quite limited, it can provide easy extra income. Completing surveys, surfing the web, and signing up for trial offers are just some of the ways you can make fast money. There are many offers like this online. If you intend to join get-paid-to sites, it is important to differentiate legitimate sites from scams.

Find a Virtual Job – there are a lot of online jobs in today’s economy including online self-coaching, virtual assistance, and technical support. There are also consultation networks such as Bitwine that allows anyone to set up their profile and offer advice for pay on the web. A lot of these jobs involve communicating with clients directly through virtual means whether it is through emails, instant messaging, or online telephony.

Freelance Work – offering your specific services in exchange for money can be done on the internet as well. Services such as programming, copywriting, and web design are highly in demand on the internet today. Other freelancing jobs include translation, transcription, and proofreading. There are many freelance marketplaces that connect you to potential clients.

The only people making any money off this scam are the ones selling you their LIST. The other thing that happens when you get to their web site is that they collect your information and pretty soon you’ll get millions of advertisement emails from people wanting to:

• Give you a credit card (Read the fine print! There are usually exorbitant fees associated with these credit card offers!)
• Sell you insurance
• Sign you up for FREE stuff
• Get you to enter their contest

Again, what happens when you click on any of these so-called “Offers” is that somebody somewhere will try to collect your name, email address and phone # and any other information they can come by.

The other thing that happens though, and this is worse, is that they can covertly install spyware, Adware and other types of malicious software on your computer. Now you’ve got a whole new set of problems. You’ve got to purchase one of those anti-spyware programs to get all that junk off your computer.

But there are legitimate ways to earn a living online. More and more people and companies are realizing how easy it is to hire a “virtual assistant” or data entry person who can accomplish their tasks from anywhere in the world simply using their computer and the internet.

This may well be the future of mankind’s workforce. Who knows? It’s certainly catching on. But you must do your own research into these companies. And you must be wary of all the fakes that are out there. There will always be scammers and people looking to earn a quick, easy buck.

As with all of life, you get what you put into any project. Even online work is going to require hours and effort on your part in order to get that paycheck.

Many people believe that in order to build a website, one must learn HTML or any other type of programming language. You can find free HTML editor to use and this is one way to make a website the easy way.

Probably if you are still a beginner, the hardest part for you might be learning how to build a web page. You better forget about learning how to use Dreamweaver because you might find it very difficult. Learning to build websites can be fun and at the same time you can also gain profit. You can make money with affiliate programs. At first, I really did not know anything about using Dreamweaver or FrontPage in building websites. What I do was I kept on searching and finally found some programs that really gave me a jump start. These programs are the ones who helped me in making money online daily.

There are a lot of reasons why it is important to build your own websites; one of them is because it is cheaper. Once you learn how to make your own website, then there’s no need for you to call for anyone in case you need some changes.

Using blogs to generate traffic is the best and the only free website building tool that you need to use. It is the best way to learn how to make your own website for free. If you will browse the internet you can find that there are tutorials which show you the ways on how to build a web site using different free blogging software.

Of course, you can’t be an expert right away. For me, I was using trial and error on building my website. After learning more and more, you will find that your website will get better and better.

Know more about the steps in building a website. It is also important to know how to build a money making website. You can make money online using free search engine traffic.

But it might be necessary to ask ourselves: is it possible to eradicate ID theft/ phishing, or at the very least make it so rare as to become almost a non-issue? Do we have the technology to overpower these malicious individuals, and make their ‘art’ so difficult and so financially unproductive so that we end up forcing them to look for legitimate ways of spending their free time?

My answer is an emphatic No. unlike the vehicle industry which takes years to produce a more advanced simple gadget like a carburetor, computer innovations present us with almost daily new, easier to use, hip devices which make life so much fun. Therefore no government can ever discourage the internet revolution and its ever astounding innovations, unless they want to risk a countrywide mutiny.

But could hackers/phisers be successfully re-integrated into the law-abiding populace? Should criminal activity be seen to be encouraged? What about the victims? But if we will never defeat the miscreants, then what is the alternative?

My view, however unpopular, is this: in exchange for leniency/possible outright forgiveness, I’d propose the hacker and the “phisher” to be presented with two alternatives:

1. A sort of a six month moratorium, where total cooperation with law enforcement agencies should lead to their being absorbed into a special IT security institute – a sort of a half-way house – with good pay, but 50% of it goes to reimburse their victims.
2.  For those who refuse to come out of their dark criminal world- a long jail term plus hefty fines should await them. I think the reasonable ones would take the former option.  

At present, ecommerce expands steadily as more consumers discover the convenience and perks of shopping online. Consumers can attest to obtaining more savings through discounts and coupons versus the traditional purchases in stores and shopping malls. More than the convenience and the savings, there are ultimately more products available at the click of your mouse. This growth goes hand-in-hand with more opportunities to make money through advertising and marketing. Following are ways that people can take advantage of online opportunities:

Affiliate Marketing – Success stories of those endowed with marketing prowess proliferate in the web by serving as affiliates of major websites offering products and services online. Some set up their own website, blogs (online journals), or online magazines and advertise products and services. Income can either be a monthly fee or commission-based, or a combination of both.
Blog Advertising – Those who have the gift of writing set-up online journals and get paid for articles that advertise products or services. Payment is made per article with fees that vary depending on the popularity of the blog. The more viewers and readers that your blog has, the higher you can charge for each article. Famous blogs charge as high as $500 per article and are known to earn thousands per month on advertising.

Job Opportunities – There are websites that bring together part-time or fulltime job seekers and contractors who need jobs to be done. Payment can either be fixed or on per hour basis for computer programmers, web designers, graphic artists, writers, and many more.

Other than collateral business that ecommerce brings, some also make money online via foreign exchange trading or stock and options trading. Of course, these are high risk opportunities and suited for those who have experience in the finance industry. More than opportunities, they can also be classified as high risk investments. Just as many have flourished, many have likewise perished.

However, let us provide a word of caution to those who will dare to venture the internet in the hopes of increasing their earnings. Similar to any growing industry, it is also a place where thieves and scammers operate to steal the hard-earned money of honest consumers. Whether you are investing or taking on a job, do your homework and learn as much as you can about the risks involved. Get feedback from those who have entered the same venture or ensure that the reputation of those you do business with is flawless. Learn about internet security and identity theft. Discover the scams that have already been made. With the limitless information the internet offers, data and even advice from the wise will not be difficult to find.

Everybody has a say these days which could be an advantage to most but it also carries a certain level of disadvantage. Wise albeit sarcastic people have said that everybody is an expert on the World Wide Web. But that is the beauty of it all, being given the chance to speak up and be heard. That is possible with the World Wide Web. You do not have to be a graduate of journalism in order to speak up.

If you do not have your own site yet, creating one is easy. You have to decide whether you want to avail of the free blog hosting service provided by many such as BlogSpot, wordpress and others or if you want to avail of web hosting services for a price. The cost is at a minimum. There are pros and cons to each. The most glaring advantage to the free sites is the fact that the site is free. But there are more advantages to a paid domain especially if you will venture to money making schemes such as paid advertising eventually. The advertisers look more kindly to the paid domain ones. Another advantage of paid web hosting sites is the customer service support they give to their clients 24/7. You are assured that they will get back to you as soon as they are able. Knowledge in HTML is no longer needed as web hosting services whether paid or free made sure that their features are user friendly. So even a child can make his or her own site on the web. However, it is also best to learn a little how it functions so you will know what to do when you encounter errors and you will know how to improve your site.

Those who are still undecided whether they can make money or not via the World Wide Web avail of the free blog hosting service first. They eventually convert or migrate their site to a paid one. Having your own site is not easy work. In fact, contrary to what people think, it takes a lot of patience and hard work to become successful in it. You have to build your readers, update it as frequently as you can, build your readers, improve your traffic and gain higher page rank. All these will make you money whether you are selling goods, services or both.

So what are you waiting for? It is time to join the band wagon. There is enough space for everyone.

Of course if you aren’t paying attention to the news, nothing can probably save you.  But if you are watching your balance sheet, reviewing spending, and accounts receivable, and looking for ways to cut unnecessary costs you’ve got part of the idea under consideration.

It’s probably also good time to cut back on advertising and marketing – NOT!

There is no better time than now to build a new website.  It’s easy.  It’s affordable.  Carpe diem.  Seize the day. 

This depression won’t last forever and there is no better time to profit from it than now. 

Your competition is dropping like flies.  They can’t pay their bills.  They are laying off talented employees and closing their doors.  You can acquire their liquidated inventory for pennies on the dollar.  Their customers already know you and are looking for someone reliable to do business with.

But how to get the word out without spending those dollars that are more precious than today ever? 

Media and print are the expensive dinosaurs of yesteryear.  They went the way of brick and mortar stores when the internet exploded into our lives.

It’s never been easier or more affordable to build a website.  Gossimer offers 3 Website Builder packages rich with marketing features.

Email marketing, search engine optimization, e-commerce – these are all smart ways to drive new customers to the front door without spending the big bucks.

“But,” says the senior partner, “We can’t afford a programmer and all that expensive equipment.”

That’s when the light bulb goes off.  He thinks of his grandson, the computer nut! 

In days it’s all agreed to.  Grandpa is paying for college anyhow.  And grandson is helping with the business he will someday inherit by putting up the fresh new website with the “What You See Is What You Get Products” by Gossimer.

Innovative and creative ideas have kept them in business for the past 75.

And that’s how to keep the family business alive for the next 25!

Protecting Yourself At Home

The best way to protect our computer when you have Wi-Fi is to make sure that you have an up-to-date antivirus program installed on your computer. Most anti-virus software will automatically scan your computer to check for any possible threats or viruses. By enabling a WEP or WPA (encryptions on your computer) you can help prevent any intruders from accessing your computer and installing a virus or worm on it. This is very important for wireless internet users as any half-way decent hacker can use your Wi-Fi connection to get into your computer.

When you look for a router for your wireless internet, make sure to get one that has a firewall installed on it. This will greatly reduce the chances that someone will be able to hack into your computer. If you find that your router does not have a firewall installed on it, there are firewall software programs that you can add to your existing router.

Disable the SSID link on your wireless internet. The SSID link is a network that the Wi-Fi uses that regularly broadcast over the air. If you disable the SSID, that means that others can not access your network. This means they won’t have access to your computer either.

Protecting Yourself At Public Wi-Fi Spots

If you have the proper software on your computer, you will be able to go places like local coffee shops, hotels, and airports which are hot spots for wireless internet. This means that you can log onto the computer from these places and share the network. Sharing the network means that you may have a greater chance of someone accessing your computer information or sending a virus into your computer. A good idea when using wireless internet at a public place is to never put any personal identification on your computer at that time. Don’t give your social security number at that time to anybody or order anything online with a credit card while using the public internet.

Guidelines for the Things You Have to Look at when Choosing a Web Hosting Plan

In today’s world, more and more, the internet is playing a larger role in our lives. People use it to express themselves. Companies use the internet to sell their products to wide range of people. This is where we get our news and ideas. The internet has become so important that it now dominates our lives.

How do they do it? You may ask. Well, the answer lies in websites. As you go through the World Wide Web, you can view thousand upon thousands of websites. There are websites for keeping in touch. There are websites used in commerce. There websites that lead to other websites. The diversity and activity just makes you want to jump in on the fun by creating a website of your own.

If you are a person of humble means with little to no technological inclinations, building a website for the World Wide Web can be a daunting task. This is where a web hosting service can help. The web host service provider can get you web presence for what ever purpose it may serve you. Whether it is for fun or for business, a web hosting service will set your website up on the internet.

However there are hundreds of web hosting services out there that are claiming to be the best, making it hard to choose from all of them. This guide will show you what to look for.  Follow these simple steps and you will be able to find the best possible web hosting service that will fit your need and budget.

Action Steps

What are your needs?

List down all the things you will need in your web hosting. Do you need more space? Or, is a higher bandwidth a greater concern?  If you are a total newbie and you do not know what to do, then you should be looking at the plan that offers add-ons that will help you develop your website the way you need it to. Then you must look at your budget. How much will budget allow you to spend? The more features you add on the more expensive it will likely get.

I recommend: You could learn more about web hosting by going www.wikipedia.com and typing in web hosting. They have a very informative article about web hosting. You can also learn more about the history in this article.

What is your skill level?

Have you been working in the internet for long? How much do you know about setting up your website? These are some of the questions you need to ask before you choose the web hosting package for your website. If you have below average knowledge and you do not have enough free money to pay a consultant to handle this it would be best to sign up with a hosting package that will help you set up your site for free.

I recommend: Try the free features of the web hosting packages from www.gossimer.biz, where you can get free software for forums, blogs, shopping carts and image galleries. For an additional fee you can also take advantage of their plans for site building software.

Look at your budget

You do not want to pay to the teeth for a web hosting package, so you have better shop around. Get a second, third and fourth option. Don’t be fooled by the lower prices though. Some plans might offer a lower rate but could offer fewer features.  Review the rate carefully and look at what each company offers before making a decision.

I recommend: Use review sites like www.hosting-review.com to compare rates and review their features. If you do not have the budget to buy web hosting, check out this article about free web hosting and how it can work for you or against you.

List down everything and compares

With all the information you have collected so far, choosing the right web hosting plan for you can get a bit confusing. Start by listing down all things you need for your website. The next thing you need to list down the plans that you can actually afford. Then, list down the features that you really need. A lot the unnecessary expenditures come from buying features you don’t really need.

I recommend: docs.Google.com has a set of tools that are totally free. You can use this to collaborate with other members of your team to see what works for you and your entire organization.

Try it out and then make a decision

There are some web hosting companies that offer free trials on their web hosting services. Give these a try first before committing to a contract. If you like their services and it fits your needs, then, by all means, go for the one that you have seen work.  In case your free trial does not work out keep one of the plans you like as insurance. Remember to take note of the expiration date of the free trials. Read through the fine print as well. You don’t want to go back and return the product only to find out that you are no longer qualified.

I recommend: There are a lot of web hosting companies out there that offers free trial periods. One such company is www.homestead.com which is a company owned and operated by Intuit.

Tips and Tactics

• Choose phone over email support. When choosing a company to host your website it would be best to have phone support. Email is an effective means of communication most of the time but it can fall through the cracks. For really urgent issues, it would be best to go directly to a phone support personnel.
• Leave room for growth.  Murphy’s Law states that all empty space will eventually be filled. The same goes for a website.  As you start slow you will eventually grow your business. As your business grows your need for greater bandwidth and server space will grow. Leave room for growth without breaking your budget.
• Do it right the first time. If you are working on a website for the first time and you have no experience with computers, you would be best served getting someone to build your website for you.  Try to find affordable web services in the internet. If your budget does not allow for an outside hire, try finding a hosting company with easy to use tools for web development

Recommended Solutions Providers

• If you are looking for the most bang for your buck then www.gossimer.biz and their many free features should be perfect for your needs.
• Comparing web hosting rates is a long and tedious process. The review site www.hosting-review.com compares the rates for you while reviewing all the features.
• Intuit’s free web hosting service http://www.homestead.com/ provides free web hosting service by one of the largest business software company in the world
• Google Docs is a surprisingly powerful free online service that allows you to create presentations, documents and spreadsheets while collaborating with other people on the internet.

Best Sites to Learn More

• YouTube has some informative videos like this one: www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9nie_l9sKc.
• There is a detailed explanation of web hosting and what it does in www.Wikipedia.com
• Joining forums like www.webhostingtalk.com can be a great way to communicate with web hosting professionals. It is better to get the information straight from the horse’s mouth.

 Best Blogs and Forums

• http://blog.lunarpages.com/2008/12/19/look-back-at-wordpresss-past/ – This blog has interesting insight on web hosting and the origins of the popular Word-Press.
• www.bytesforall.com – This blog is jam-packed with useful information about web hosting
• www.webhostingtalk.com – This one of the largest forums about web hosting in the internet with over a million posts and thousands of threads.

The internet is slowly becoming a more and more dangerous place, where a sliver of information can soon turn to a heap of trouble. This is especially true for companies that have an online presence in the internet.

In most cases there is a level of anonymity that comes with working in the internet. However, the Internet Coalition for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, does require mailing addresses, phone numbers and email addresses of domain name owners and users to be supplied by domain owners and subsequently this information ends up being displayed for the whole world to see in Whois directories.

This action can leave you open to be a victim of time consuming spamming, inconvenient direct marketing tactics and even possibly lead to identity theft. As your information becomes available to the public, more people can use it to further their personal gain.

Consider the fact that 27 million Americans have been the victim of Identity theft in the past five years. These numbers are very conservative since only a few people report these occurrences due to the fact that they don’t understand what is happening. This is a growing problem that a lot of businesses fail to address.

Gossimer has seen this problem and looks to help businesses deal with it. With their close collaboration with www.Id-protect.org and their host of useful domain and web publishing tools they aim to provide businesses with the most complete web solutions out there. They provide our customers with the option of detecting unauthorized automated programs that are trying to harvest Whois information through your domain.

Whois Privacy Protection shields you from possible loss of time and effort dealing with continuous spamming and direct marketing tactics. It also shield you from possible financial loss brought about by identity theft.

The losses brought about by identity theft can be very costly. It can bring un-repairable damage to a company’s reputation. Insurance can help cover the losses but an ounce of prevention is always better than a gallon of cure.

Its amazing growth does come at a small price. As we incorporate the World Wide Web more into our lives we become more dependent to it. We use the internet more in the work we play. We rely on the internet for instant information we need. We even use it to convey our thoughts in popular blogs and forums.

This dependence leaves you susceptible to attacks from people without the purest of intentions. These internet threats can come in different forms. One of the most popular forms of internet threat can be seen in malicious software or otherwise called “Malware”.  Malware can come in many forms including Trojans, worms and viruses.

Trojans are programs that act as a useful program but allow other people to access information in your computer or deliver a damaging payload to your computer. Worms are programs that copy itself over and over without the need of a host program. This is in contrast to a virus which does the same thing but needs to attach itself to a host program to achieve this.

Another threat to your internet security is Phishing and Phishing sites. Phishing is the unauthorized gathering of information by a fraudster. This can be done through the use of Phishing sites that use automated means to pull sensitive information from your computer.

Another growing threat in the internet comes from scammers and hackers. Scammers are nothing more than fraudsters trying to separate you from your money. They can pose as charity groups or organizations in need of aid asking for a donation from your credit card. They then use the information you supplied through your credit card to steal your identity and cost you thousands of dollars.

Hackers are different from the normal scammer because they not only deal with the personal side of fooling someone but they can also go the technological route. Hackers are usually computer programmers that break through your security measures through the use of their skill in computers.

These are just some the threat you need to worry about when you are looking to the internet to expand your business. The people at Gossimer understand these risks and approach them holistically to provide the best security for your business website, business email and your domain name.

The key initiatives of their security strategy revolve around five key objectives: The privacy of your vital information; the integrity of your data; the protection of your data from being deleted or destroyed; the proper of identification and authentication of users; and the protection of your network service from hacking and internet attacks.

Internet security is a serious issue that needs to be addressed for the proper implementation of the web in your business. Contact Gossimer today and they will discuss how their solutions can specifically address your concerns about the internet and its security.