Side Job Became Full Time

It is kind of scary when a side job that you love can become so successful that you have the option to quit your normal 9 to 5 position. Now you are faced with doing something that you really love and making a great income but leaving behind the safety and stability of a corporate job. So, when you are looking at home business opportunities make sure that you ask yourself this question. Are you ready to be honest with yourself as your side job can become a full time passion and full of money making capabilities that your “stable” job could never offer.

I have a group of friends that meets together once a week to discuss different business ventures we are all interested in. One friend of mine looking back on her year of work said that her success was a double edge sword. She did better than expected but not good enough to make the ultimatum with her corporate job. Her home business opportunities were really taking off but she needed a monthly income to support the business. We are now busy brainstorming different ideas for her so that maybe she can rely less on the funding portion of the home business to really get it off the ground.

October 15, 2008. Commerce, Hall Of Websters. No Comments.

Identify What Broadband is & Rejoice in Seeing TV Programmes Over the Internet

Broadband is ultra fast speed www access, & is notably faster than dial-up access over a modem. If you yourself are browsing this broadband guide then you are maybe looking at buying net access for the very first time, or looking to upgrade to broadband.

The primary perk of fast broadband is you are able to watch telly over the internet, this has became truly popular with ITV launching their new software which will allow surfers to view the most current episodes of Star Trek. With fast internet access you yourself might also download classical music and romantic movies at a much higher speed than dial-up access.

Broadband is easy to hook up. The 1st task surfers will need to do is sign up with an ISP, also known as an Internet Service Provider, & the broadband business will supply you with a broadband connection via your home connection. If surfers already have a broadband provider then make sure you seek a broadband comparison online website for impartial advice and guidance on the cheapest offers. You can quickly see the most inexpensive deals with a broadband comparison website by just typing in your street name & then the site will return a list of internet packages in your location. You yourself will be under no contract to register with any broadband while surfers browse the high speed broadband offers.

Once users have signed up with your ISP the corporation will arrange a time for connection & supply users with any required wireless routers & software. The wireless routers & CD software might well come with step by step guides & most broadband companies will often offer you IT advice if needed.

Once you have successfully connected to the net you will probably start to revel in the quick speeds of broadband. If users are going to get music, telly programmes such as Stargate or scary movies please be wary of any download limits people may have on your www package. Rock music and TV downloads such as Stargate can take up most of your ‘download allocation’ as the broadband firm are large in file size. Compare broadband packages and deals with a comparison site.

July 8, 2008. Hall Of Websters. No Comments.

Long Copy Sales Letters on the Web: Hype or Not?

I have written before about long sales copy on the web. But I have more to say on the subject.

First, let me be clear about what I’m saying here. I’m not talking about long content pages within dozens of other pages on a site. I’m talking about stand-alone pages…a long, direct response sales letter online, often with its own domain name.

Next, let me say this: long copy works, online and offline.

If you can hold someone’s attention with your writing, a long page gives you the space to deliver all the benefits, cover all the features and address a myriad of reader questions and concerns. So long as the letter carries momentum and holds the reader’s attention, people will keep scrolling.

And you’ll get a better conversion rate than you would with a shorter page. This is true offline, and on the web also.

However, what I have found is two distinct approaches to the long, online sales letter. Both work, but do so in different ways.

>> Long copy style #1: Selling with Hype

You probably know the kind of page I mean. Here’s an example of the kind of copy you can expect:

“Income For Life is the same program being praised by the true experts as “…a new breakthrough method that will probably lead more people from broke to millionaire status than ‘Think & Grow Rich,’ ‘Rich Dad, Poor Dad,’ and ‘The Science Of Getting Rich’ Combined!”"

The copy style is fast, packed with superlatives, thick with unsupported promises and bulging with testimonials given by people who appear to sprinkle amphetamines on their wheaties.

The template for these sales pages is fairly consistent. Lots of highlighted subheads and indents. A breathless pace…and the promise of a better life. Success. Wealth. Happiness.

Well, we all want to be happy and most of us could do with some extra wealth.

But how is it that this approach works so well? Many of us look at these letters and are incredulous. And many of us would claim never to be persuaded by such an approach. But hundreds of thousands of people are.

How come? This copy approach has a hypnotic quality to it. It makes promises with such strength and enthusiasm. And in some way, it tempts us into a state of submission. We submit to the endless waves of promises and testimonials. We succumb to the thought that maybe, just maybe…this might work…and we might find that extra wealth or happiness.

And yes, even you will turn off your critical faculties from time to time. If you have ever purchased a lottery ticket you have been in this ’space’…where your desire for a better future overcomes your more rational thinking process. Hey, someone has to win. Right?

The same is true if you have ever felt your brain go soft in the face of an enthusiastic car or electronics salesperson. One half of your brain knows you are being persuaded to buy extra features you don’t need and probably can’t afford. The other part of your brain is whispering in your ear, “Hey man, chill. This feels good. Go with the flow, listen to the man.”

This happens to us when we WANT to hear what we are hearing. When we WANT it to be true. When we allow ourselves to dream.

This is how hype works. It deepens our state of submission and creates a state of almost dreamlike optimism.

And it works.

The significant downside to this approach is that most of us wake up from the dream and find that the promises were empty. Or, to put it another way, we bought the ticket, but didn’t win the lottery.

So if your aim is to build long-term relationships with your readers, prospects and customers, using hype is not the way to go.

>> Long copy style #2: Selling with a Human Connection

The second style of long copy approach is quite different. Again, these are often stand-alone pages, many screens long. Again, you’ll find the headings, the subheads, indents and testimonials.

But you’ll find a very different approach in the writing style.

If you have ever read a sales letter from Bill Bonner, Ken Evoy or Allan Gardyne… this is the kind of writing I’m talking about.

These are still long, enthusiastic letters…and the pace still draws you down, line after line.

But here are some differences, and they are very significant.

- Within the text you will hear the genuine voice of the writer. You’re not being sold with copy written by the ‘Dream-O-Matic 2000′ - you’re being sold by a recognizable human voice, the voice of Bill, Ken or Allan.

- You are not succumbing to that state of dreamlike submission and suspending your critical faculties. You remain quite rational and quite clear in your thinking.

- You are hearing a voice that sounds and feels infinitely more trustworthy.

- You don’t have to suspend your disbelief. Instead, you feel comfortable and believe what you are reading.

At the end of a letter like this, you make a choice…buy or not to buy. And it’s a choice you are much less likely to regret.

Online sales letters like these are the children of traditional direct response letter writing. Good direct mail letters are written in this second way - by making a genuine connection with the reader and earning his or her trust.

There is a big upside to this second approach. It builds trust and loyalty. If your strategy is to build a list of happy prospects and customers who will come back again and again, this is the style you will want to adopt.

>> Conclusions

Long copy works, and it works in more than one way.

If you can reach a big enough readership (no small feat) and want to make big money, right now, hype might work for you.

But if you want to build a long-term list of repeat customers… be yourself and write to your audience with an enthusiasm that is built on a foundation of honesty and respect for your readers.

About the Author

Nick Usborne is a copywriter, author, speaker and advocate of good writing. You can access all his archived newsletter articles on copywriting and writing for the web at his www.ExcessVoice.com site. You’ll find more articles and resources on how to make money as a freelance writer at www.FreelanceWritingSuccess.com

May 17, 2008. Hall Of Websters. No Comments.

Transferring Your Existing Website to a New Hosting Provider

You’ve already got a website, but your current hosting provider can no longer meet your needs, provide adequate service, costs too much, or is going out of business. You need to move your website to a new host. How do you do this? This situation arises all the time, but many people don’t know where to begin. This guide is designed to help you understand what is involved in a hosting transfer so that you can transition from one host to another as smoothly as possible.

Step 1: Determine What You Have

Before you move anything, you need to know what you’ve got to transfer so that you can determine your requirements of the new hosting provider. Ask yourself these questions and find out the answers. You may need to ask your website designer or your current hosting provider for some of this information.

If you can gather all of this information then you are in good shape. As with anything, preparation and good record keeping is the key to success.

Step 2: Find a Host That Can Meet Your Needs

Now that you know what you have, it’s time to look for somebody who can handle it. Check out different hosting companies, look at their packages to see what they offer, and contact them and ask what they can do to assist you in moving your website. A good host should not just be able to support your website on their servers, they should be able to help you move it as well.

If the new host you are looking at runs a different setup or a different type of server than your old host, find out how that will affect you. Some of your settings such as e-mail servers may change, you might have a different type of website control panel, you might gain some new options that you didn’t have before and you might lose some that you did.

Step 3: Set Up the New Camp Before You Break the Old One

Before you cancel your services with your old host, you need to make sure that everything is set up and running to your satisfaction on the new host. This is necessary to avoid having a broken website and interruption of your e-mail service once the hosting is transferred. The ideal is to leave your old host active up until the activation of the new host’s DNS, and to have a fully configured and operational website waiting for it when the domain is repointed. This will provide the smoothest possible transition from one host to another.

Most hosts provide a way for you to access your site prior to changing the DNS on your domain name. You should be able to access your control panel, upload your files, and perform all the operations necessary to recreate your website and e-mail accounts on the new host’s server. Tutorials should be provided on how to use all of the tools and features that the host provides you to perform these tasks, so be sure and read them. If you are still unsure how to proceed with anything, request assistance from the host’s support department.

Step 4: Notify Your Customers

If you have customers who regularly visit your site for purchases or information, you need to notify them that you are making administrative changes to the site and that it may be temporarily unavailable. While downtime may be what you’re trying to avoid, it’s better to be safe than sorry, and it shows your customers that you care. You may notify customers by email or by posting a notice on your website where it will be seen by those who need to know. Be sure to include a target date for your move in the notice.

Step 5: Move Your Domain Names

At this point you should have all of your files transferred, your e-mail accounts set up, shopping cart installed, etc. on the new host’s server. However, officially you are still being hosted by your old provider. Now it’s time to use that domain management information you found in Step 1. First you need to find out the names of your new host’s DNS. There should be a minimum of two, and they should look something like this:

NS1.YOURHOST.COM
NS2.YOURHOST.COM

You will need to enter this information in the DNS section of your domain manager for each domain that you wish to repoint to the new host. If you are parking multiple domains on the same site, make sure that the new host’s DNS is programmed to handle all of the parked domains and not just the one you are setting up the primary hosting account with.

The process of changing DNS does not occur instantaneously. Most DNS servers update their records at 12 or 24 hour intervals, although sometimes it may take as long as 48 hours. When you change your domain’s DNS, a notice is also issued to routers all across the internet that your domain is now using different DNS so that they can update their DNS tables accordingly to point your domain in the right direction when a request is issued for it in their sphere of influence. This notice does not spread evenly or instantaneously, which means that while Houston might recognize the move almost as soon as it happens, Berlin might not be able to see your new IP address for another 24 hours. This process generally completes itself within 48-72 hours.

Step 6: Test Your Site and Cancel Your Old Provider’s Services

Once you have repointed your domains and given the DNS system a couple of days to propagate the changes, you should be checking out all of the functions of your website once it is live on the new server to make sure that everything is operating as expected. Once you are satisfied that you no longer need to retrieve any information from the old host, then it is safe to cancel your services with them.

© Copyright 2005 by Stacy Clifford
Stacy Clifford is the founder of ChiliPepperWeb.net and has spent four years assisting customers in understanding how their web services work.

May 16, 2008. Hall Of Websters. No Comments.

The Characteristics of Flash Professional 8

The filters help in creating more compelling designs with the help of built-in filter effects like drop shadow, blur, gradient level, glow, level and color adjust. Filters are actually visual effects that are applied in MovieClips and in text fields, being at the same time natively supported and rendered in real time by Flash Player. The FlashType is a revolutionary new font rendering engine that provides clear, highest-quality font rendering. It helps in making small fonts look very clear, and at the same time, greatly improves the readability of the font. There are various options available here for choosing the font rendering, with each options being optimized for different case uses. The best way of optimizing font rendering here is by using the new custom anti-aliasing feature, found in Flash Professional 8. Then there are the blend modes. This is something that Flash Professional 8 offers over what other design tools offer. Here one has control over blend modes, thus allowing graphical effects to composite for full dynamic user inactivity. The control over the velocity of animated objects is easy and custom easing in the Flash Professional 8. It provides for independent control over position, scale, color, filters and rotation. There is also an improved text tool here that allows one to resize a text field using four new and improved text handles.

In Flash Professional 8, there is also the re-rendering of vector objects, simply by flagging an object as a bitmap. Thus the object gets cached as a bitmap, where the vector data is maintained in such a way that at any point, the object can be converted back into a vector again. With enhanced stroke properties, Flash Professional 8 also provides one with a choice from a variety of cap and join types. One just has to apply a gradient to a stroke and give better stroke intersections with stroke hinting to the animation. Lastly, one has an advanced gradient control in Flash Professional 8 that gives tighter control over gradients.

This article was written by Thomson Joseph a freelance website designer and website promotion expert websites, www.digitallabz.com/flash-web-site-design-company.html, info@digitallabz.com and www.articlenetworks.com You can republish the articles without changing the content and the bio box.

May 8, 2008. Hall Of Websters. No Comments.

Website Design Info - Part 2

This is the second of eight articles about website design. Our discussion will deal with some of the issues which need to be considered when developing a new online presence. You may have already thought of some of these, but perhaps there are probably things which you haven’t even considered.

In the last article, we gave some thought as to what the company wants to do with its online presence. This article discusses what kind of name the online business will have, or “What kind of ‘dot’ do I need.”

The Company
The Great American Widget Company is a manufacturer of widgets, that common household item that many find indespensible. Until now, however, Great American has been a ‘brick and mortar’ business. With the founder’s son just out of college, he is looking forward to expanding the company’s business on the Internet.

.com
.net
.org
.biz
.us
.tv

What’s with all the dots! What kind of a ‘dot’ do I need?

Good question! First, let me say that if you’re in business and wish to advertise your products or services on the Net, you must have your own domain name and a good hosting provider. Keep your domain name as simple and focused as possible.

A marketing maxim that if you’re advertising to the general public, is that it is vitally important to present a simple, memorable message. Web addresses are no exception to this. A well-chosen domain name can be absolutely essential to your enterprise on the Internet. Some of the words used here may be new to you and sound “technical”, but don’t worry about it - just think of it as background material. And, as you get more familiar with the web, it all comes together.

Okay, that said, let’s talk about the different types of domain names, and “Just what is a domain name?”

In simple terms, a domain name is a human-language equivalent of an address on the Internet. The text for the name is called the URL, or Uniform Resource Locator. The URL for the ABC news organization is abc.com.

The name actually represents a number, or more correctly a series of numbers, roughly comparable to a telephone number. Like a telephone number, an Internet address is unique and no two are the same. And, like a telephone number, it serves to connect “callers” to one specific place on the Net.

There are advantages to using names instead of just the numbers alone. The most obvious is that people can more easily recognize and remember a meaningful word than a long string of numerals. The website abc.com is located at 199.181.132.250, which is the IP address for the site. That number is called an IP Address, meaning Internet Protocol address. Internet Protocol is a standard for network communications, which is used throughout Net.

Another, major advantage is that a domain can be moved to a new machine, where it will have a new number, but the name will remain the same. The DNS (Domain Name System) records are simply altered to reflect the change, and access to the domain continues unchanged.

An Internet domain may be the “home” for any number of things: web sites, mailboxes, files for downloading, even entire computer networks. You see domain names as part of practically every Internet address. In the e-mail address info @ US-Email-Service.com (a mailbox), the domain name is US-Email-Service.com. In the Web address http://www.yahoo.com (a web page), the domain name is Yahoo.com.

Occasionally, you will see the numeric address instead of the domain name. http://209.59.173.179/ is a perfectly serviceable address and it has the same function as http://US-Email-Service.com.

It is sometimes useful to match up a domain name with its IP Address, or vice-versa. This is commonly done with a utility called “dnslookup”. There are many dnslookup “gateways” scattered around the Web.

Now we’ll examine the name itself. Domain names have at least two parts, separated by a dot or period.

The part after the dot is called the Top Level Domain (TLD). The Top Level Domain serves to broadly categorize the name as to its type or purpose. Common TLDs include .com (commercial), .org (organization), .edu (educational institutions), .net (networks), .gov (U.S. government) and .mil (U.S. military).

Today, however, you can be a .net even if you are not a network. (MyCompany.net Sounds big and important, doesn’t it?)

There are also hundreds of country TLDs, such as .us (USA), .fr (France), .de (Germany), etc. These are in more general use outside the US.

Additional “generic” TLDs (gTLDs) have been proposed and will probably come into general use by sometime in 1988. Domain names ending in .firm, .store, .web, .arts, .rec, .info, .nom and possibly many others will become widespread on the Net. All this is due to the exponential growth of the Internet and the continued quest for meaningful names.

Addresses ending in .com are by far the most common at present; they’re generally intended to be commercial in nature, although at present the .com TLD actually serves as a catch-all for virtually all domain names that don’t fit the other, more specific TLDs.

The part of the domain name before the dot is the Second Level Domain (SLD). If you’re registering a name, you have considerable freedom of choice in what this will be. So long as the name you choose does not already exist under the same TLD, and is not obviously a famous trademark owned by someone else, its registration is generally allowed. An SLD can contain up to 24 characters: letters, numbers and dashes are allowed.

Databases of domain records are maintained by InterNIC, the primary name registry on the Internet in the US, and by a variety of similar agencies throughout the world. Accessed through a utility program called WHOIS, these databases are easily accessed from throughout the Net. There are a number of sites that permit you to look up DNS information, the most common of which is www.whois.net.

Incidentally, you may do well to remember that your own domain registration will become a publicly-available WHOIS record. For instance, perhaps you have a phone number or e-mail address you’d rather not share with literally the entire world… The company that registers your domain name will usually offer a means to keep your information private.

If you are thinking about getting a domain name of your own, use the link below and see if it is available for you. Or you can try different combinations. And when you find the right one, you can register it right away so your neighbor doesn’t get “your” name! You can check out names you like here.

Richard Hill makes it easy to learn how to use an autoresponder, showing what they are and how to get the most out of them. Click Here to get your copy of the Free eBook “Autoresponder Cash Flow NOW!”.

© 2005 Richard F. Hill - All Rights reserved

Richard Hill makes it easy to learn how to use an autoresponder, showing what they are and how to get the most out of them. Go to http://www.US-Email-Service.com/arcfn.htm to get your copy of the Free eBook “Autoresponder Cash Flow NOW!”.

May 4, 2008. Hall Of Websters. No Comments.

Valuable small tools

If you want your postcards to really be the valuable tool that
it is for your business or company, there are things you need to
remember:

Focus on your mailing list. As much as possible, make sure that
they will go to the prospects likely to avail of your products
and services. And has a history of taking on offers that
interests them. There are mailing list brokers you can get this
info about.

Be a friend. It is best to make your postcards appear like a
message from a friend than an advertising medium. A postcard
that looks friendly will create a pleasant feeling to your
readers. This will eventually lead to a sale. Do not be like
those types that people ignore because they sound harsh and
unfeeling.

Forget the sales pitch. Do not attempt to close sales directly
from your postcards. For one, the space is not enough to provide
all the information that prospects need in making a decision.
Use it them to generate sales inquiries instead.

Get straight to the point. Postcards are “ready to read” upon
delivery. Take advantage of that point. Getting right to the
point is capturing the readers’ attention instantly. Sometimes,
readers do not read more after their initial impression.

Go first class. Try to send your postcards via First Class Mail.
It only costs an extra few cents more than Standard Mail.
Sending them through this is guaranteeing that you will get more
replies. Just shows how you value your cards by spending some
extra cash on them.

Good timing. Send your postcards so that they will arrive on
Tuesday and Wednesday. It is a known fact that mails delivered
on these days are usually lighter and your postcards would not
be put with a lot other mail to be delivered. Try to avoid being
delivered on Monday. This is the busiest mail delivery day for
most people.

Economizing designing and printing. Spending a lot on designs
and printing of your postcards is not advisable. Having elegant
and colorful layouts can be very expensive and does not do much
to improve reply rates. Simple postcards to appear just like
simple messages from a friend can be printed from your own
computer.

So the next time you want an abundance of traffic going into
your site or a surge of sales lead, try sending out postcards
that follow these simple tips. Then sit back and see the result.

For comments and inquiries about the article visit
http://www.losangelesprintingservice.com

April 28, 2008. Hall Of Websters. No Comments.

Direct Hyperlinks - Recommendations of the World Wide Web

Links are much like referrals in the real world. When you hang out with people smarter than you then this in turn will eventually make you smarter because of your fellowship which in turn will give you more perceived value. Referrals or links have three very important things in common: more people you know the better, the more quality people you know the better, and not knowing everybody the better.

At first, starting out in business you probably did not know numerous people. But as you got more clients, your sphere of influence becomes broader. Thus allowing you the ability to recommend them to others. With links, it is the same way. Link popularity is dependent upon the number of incoming links you have, thus giving your web site more exposure and higher rankings.

As part of the World Wide Web, links operate the same fashion. A link ( referral ) from an .edu is thought more to be more authoritative because of the source, thus giving you a great referral. Do not forget Bad company corrupts good character.Accordingly if you begin joining with fishy people then your site placements will go down.

In addition to be cognizant to the fact that if you get a vast amount of friends over night, then red flags start popping up and your website usually gets punished by the search engines.

At Magnetiks, a Houston SEM company should help you build your links regularly over time thus ensuring continued web presence on the World Wide Web.

April 26, 2008. Hall Of Websters, Links + Linkage, Marketing. No Comments.

How to Make a Web Page

In brief, this is how to make a website:

1) Select a domain name. Visit http://www.nameboy.com/ to find out if your name is available, and what other options exist.

2) You need to purchase the domain name. Probably the easiest way to do this is to go to a web host like http://www.ipowerweb.com/ or
http://www.hostrocket.com/ or http://www.hostsave.com/ where you can
purchase the domain name and web hosting space bundled together as a
package.

3) When your domain name and hosting account are setup, create your website. There are many resources available on the web to show you how to create a website. The basics are as follows:

a) A webpage is coded in plain text

b) The file is saved as a .html or .htm extension

c) You apply tags around the text to make the browser render the text in a specific way.

d) The html file can be saved on your computer, and it can be viewed in your Internet Explorer browser. You will have to upload it to your web account for it to be visible to the world.

e) The home page of your site must be named “index.html”

A starting point for more information is
http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/General/Internet/WWW/HTMLPrimerAll.html but if you go to Google, there is a lot of information available on this subject.

Sampson Cooper is Technical Services Manager at Widebore Communications. Visit Widebore Communications for all your website design and management needs.

April 22, 2008. Hall Of Websters. No Comments.

How to Choose the Correct Web Host

Hello, my name is Will Wilder. I’ve been in in the business of
web design since 1999. I have had some pretty awful experiences
with web hosts, as well as some excellent ones which resulted in
nice looking websites! So I hope that this will help you avoid
running into the problems with crappy web hosts and help you
know which ones are the best.

Quality web hosting is the most important part of creating a
website. It is usually the one thing that will make or break a
website. So realize that if you don’t choose your web host
carefully, you could end up spending a lot of money for a poorly
looking site. And it’s not like “Oh, I’ll switch next month,” or
anything like that. Most web hosts require you to make a
comittment of at least a year, sometimes longer. So how do you
tell which ones are worth buying? First, you must understand
what a quality web host SHOULD offer… to see the rest, go to
this site:
http://www.internetproductsreview.com/_mgxroot/page_10734.html

April 2, 2008. Hall Of Websters. No Comments.