Yazir

The Internet is a wonderful place. Anyone with an Internet connection can stay in touch with family and friends via email. Starting an Internet business is easier than ever and can even lead to the lifestyle of your dreams. And, thanks to eBay, you can even hold a “virtual garage sale” without worrying about the weather or bothering the neighbors.

But the Internet is also a DANGEROUS place to be. In fact, YOU are at RISK right now.

Computer security is the most important issue of being on the Internet. Just consider the following statement – startling I know, but VERY true.

“If you are connected to the Internet and you don’t have current anti-virus software, ALL security updates to your Operating system and browser, as well as a firewall properly configured, you have a virus or adware on your computer RIGHT NOW!”

That is what I’ve been telling clients of my computer repair business recently. Some of them listened and took action. Others didn’t and had to learn this important lesson the very hard way.

Let’s look at the problem first, then I’m going to give you FIVE ways you can solve that problem today!

First: the facts.

Fact 1. There are three types of programs that are attacking your computer right now: Spyware, Malware, and Adware. All three are programs that get downloaded to your computer as part of a legitimate download, then hang around sending data like your credit card numbers to the villains who write them.

While this article is too short to define each, all three types are a threat. For now let’s call them all adware.

Fact 2. In the last 12-18 months I have not seen ONE unprotected computer that doesn’t have a virus or adware.

Doing computer repair on a daily basis for a living I see a LOT of computers. Some units have OVER 50 pieces of adware on them. Please understand; these people are just like you and me, not some 14 year old gamer who will download anything. They THOUGHT they were being careful enough, and were shocked when they discovered that they had a problem.

Some of these machines even had anti-virus software, but weren’t updated with the latest security patches.

Fact 3. While onsite or phone support service calls used to involve bad hard drives, equipment failure, or adding new devices, about 80% of all service calls now involve virus and adware removal.

Fact 4. It’s getting worse. The adware and virus creators are getting smarter, and the software is getting much harder to remove.

Here is what you can do TODAY to solve the problem, a problem you might not have even been aware existed, yet could cost you untold hours of frustration as well as put your financial life at risk.

Step 1. Be aware! Does your computer run slower now than when you bought it? Do some software programs no longer work or “hang up”? Does your browser go to some strange home page? If so, the odds are 99.9% that you ARE infected.

Step 2. Install anti-virus software that automatically updates. There are several good choices out there that fit that criteria, Norton, MacAfee, AVG, PC-cillin are the top brands. The important thing is to make sure that the software is setup to update the virus signatures automatically.

Step 3. Install all security patches for your operating system. Go to the Microsoft site and run a test of your computer and software. It will tell you what updates you need to install and even install them for you.

There is no cost and it is extremely effective against many of the virus and adware out there. Go here to check your system: www.microsoft.com and look on the menu on the left for Windows Update and click on that. Depending on what operating system you have, it will take you to the appropriate update page. Also turn on auto-update if your operating system allows that feature.

Step 4. Install a firewall. A firewall looks at network traffic coming into or going out of your computer. Viruses or adware that may try and infect you is scrutinized and rejected. Windows XP has an included firewall (automatically turned on in the SP2 update) that can help but you may find a 3rd party program like Zone Alert (www.zonelabs.com) to be a better choice.

Step 5. Now that you know the danger, use a generous amount of common sense in reading email and surfing the web. If you get an email attachment from anyone you don’t know, don’t open it, ever!

If you know the person sending the attachment but it looks questionable, don’t open it. You may also want to set your email to open only in text mode, that keeps any html (that can run a program) from doing any harm.

Never, and I mean never, click on a hyperlink in an email to fill out any financial, password, or login data. No legitimate vendor will ever ask you to do this under any circumstances.

When you are surfing the web and a window pops up and asks you to install a program, just say no. If you don’t recognize the company or publisher, don’t do it. You can go into your browser security section and make changes so that no outside source can make any installations or changes with out prompting you to approve.

Keep current backups of all your important data. We all know to do this, but so few actually do it. No matter the method – just do it!!!! If disaster strikes, your critical data will be safe.

By following these five tips you will have peace of mind knowing that your online experiences, be they playing games or making money or something totally different, are safe as well as enjoyable.

Protect your data, and your peace of mind, by taking action on these five steps today.

In today’s world of globalization and wide spread of computers,
Internet has become increasingly popular way for communication,
for expressing yourself, for sharing your mind with everybody.
Popular types of resources include web blogs, instant messaging,
chats, forums and many others. Just a few clicks and everybody
in the world knows about your point of view on politics,
culture, science, relationships, whatever, since quickly
evolving technologies bring Internet to millions of people
around the world.

But no good comes without bad. The worst thing to consider
about many modern technologies such as Internet is a complete
lack of privacy. Sitting at the front of your computer
screen and surfing the net you are being watched constantly, by
many people and organizations, interested or not. How is it
possible? Let’s see.

Internet is based on IP – Internet Protocol – special network
protocol designed at the beginning of 70s for U.S. defense
purposes, but has become widely used solution today (take a look
at href='http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.shtml' rel="nofollow">Internet
History for more information). Basically, most today’s
computers are connected by IP, and its extension, TCP/IP. We
will not dive into details of TCP/IP here, but rather give a
short explanation and point to major privacy concerns. Main idea
of IP protocol is a set of independent nodes (computers)
connected somehow between themselves, each node has unique
identifier assigned to it, and special rules exists which help
computers exchange data with each other through intermediate
computers, called “IP routers”. The unique identifier is called
IP address, and every networked computer must have it in
order communicate to others. To view your current IP
address, run “ipconfig” from command line under Windows, or
open web site like href='http://www.netconceal.com' rel="nofollow">www.netconceal.com or href='http://www.showmyip.com' rel="nofollow">www.showmyip.com.

Ok, but what’s wrong with my IP address? Like a regular
address (e.g. your postal address), IP address identifies
your location, no matter how you are connected to the Internet.
For example, DSL connection from your home is managed by ISP
(remember, you have to sign agreement with ISP, and your actual
and billing addresses are there). Wireless connections, such as
GPRS or WiFi are being tracked as well (GPRS stations are able
to determine your position with a mile precision, WiFi are even
more location-bound), and service providers always register and
identify you as a subscriber. Try web sites like
www.ip2location.com to see this in practice (the information is
not exactly precise in all cases, but remember, technology
improves daily!).

Every time you surf the Internet, your IP address is publicly
visible to everyone on target network resources, therefore, your
actual location and even name and age can be tracked as well. Of
course, this costs something (they need to contact web site
owner or hosting provider, and ISP or WiFi access point owner),
but interested parties can implement this fairly easy. This is
very serious point to consider. For example, you submit blog
article, and express your opinion about politics, criticize
something or make really controversial statements. That’s was
just an opinion, relax, everybody. But someone, being, for
example, a religious fanatic or simply paranoid, can find you
and shoot you right at your home. What’s the hell, why? That’s
true, simply because he knows EVERYTHING about you, your IP
address, and thus your name and physical location, since all web
sites keep logs of IP addresses accessing them (once you submit
your post, web site records a number of entries in its log file,
putting together your post and your IP address).

Just for demonstration, 4 simple steps to know everything about
specific person:
1. Retrieve web site logs (not a
problem for site owners, they already have them). How can these
logs be retrieved by anyone? Simply by contacting web site
owner, and many of them will give theirs logs away with
easyness, don’t worry. Just send e-mail using published contact
information (click link like “Contact Us”), write words like:
“Some guy who is using your site is suspected in credit card
fraud, he has stolen my money already!”, or “The person with
nickname ‘blackjack’ from your site is promoting child porn, we
need your web site logs for investigation, thank you.” and 99% -
you’ll receive desired logs.
2. Analyze logs. For
example, get timestamp of specific blog post and search for
records matching this timestamp, then compare URLs of web site
request and extract IP address from log entries.
3.
Obtain IP address owner (the Internet Service Provider,
ISP). Use www.ip2location.com, it displays ISP. For well-known
ISPs like Verizon – you’re almost done. Otherwise try looking it
up in Google and find their web site. Half an hour and you’ll
surely find it.
4. Contact ISP, supply IP address,
and say something like you did in step (1), and they’ll easily
reveal user of their IP address, because they don’t want
problems with that user. That’s it.

Is there any way to protect you against this? Relax, really
good solution exist and the rest of this article will point you
right there.

Basic idea of all privacy solutions is faking of your real IP
address. How is it accomplished? Solution is based on
intermediary computers, which are placed between you (the person
who wishes to hide himself from everyone) and target web sites
(and other network resources – such as instant messaging, file
sharing etc). Those computers are called ‘Proxy Servers’. How
does Proxy Server work? Very simple: it’s just like a very
simple tunnel between you and web site, all data sent by you to
web site or received by you from web site are passed through
proxy server as is, using special SOCKS protocol (don’t mess
with foot socks, it’s just a coincidence . What’s the
difference? Exactly, target web site sees Proxy Server IP
address, but not your real IP. And web site logs keep Proxy
Server IP but not your real one as well. Sound great, but how to
use this?

Anonymous Proxy Server lists are published throughout the web
on special web sites, for example www.proxyblind.org. Actually,
proxy server list looks like a simple sequence of IP address :
port number pairs, for example:
123.43.12.96 : 1080

98.15.13.17 : 1080
150.19.87.31 : 1080

Choosing proper Proxy Server from such lists can be a tedious
task, some of them may be valid, and some are not. You just test
them one by one, select valid ones and save them for further
usage. This work must be repeated each time you want to use
proxy, since Proxy Servers get closed very often. After choosing
proper Proxy Server, you have to connect your application (web
browser, instant messenger, whatever) to it and work. Try
configuring your application for use with proxy server. For
example, MSN, Yahoo! and ICQ support SOCKS proxies, but some
programs do not. Microsoft Internet Explorer and Firefox web
browsers also support this, but you must select another kind of
Proxy Server – HTTP proxy (in opposite to SOCKS proxy).

Special software was developed to address the issues listed
above – NetConceal Anonymizer, it keeps you free from manual
proxy server checking, SOCKS configuration and supports ALL
applications. Actually, a few clicks to href='http://www.netconceal.com/hide_IP_address.php' rel="nofollow">hide IP
address and become anonymous.

Download
NetConceal Anonymizer now and try it. Once the installation
is done, NetConceal Anonymizer is started automatically, now
click the ‘Launch Web Browser’ or ‘Launch Other…’ buttons.
Proxy selection is done within a minute, then application is
started and you can use the Internet fully anonymous, since your
real IP is invisible to everyone. Too good to be true? Please
try it before criticizing.

To learn more about NetConceal Anonymizer software, check out
the www.netconceal.com
web site and contact us if you need more help, we are really
glad to help you with evaluation and ongoing usage.

Read related
topics about anonymity and Internet privacy.

If you have a business and you want to tell more people about your business and what service you offer to the public or what product you’re selling. Putting your business on the Internet today offers you the chance to reach millions of people everyday and it’s as easy as finding the right website host who will work with you to get your web page up and running so you can start making more money. Millions of people everyday move through the internet to the merchant’s web site. From there, a person decides they want to purchase something, so they move to the online transaction server gathers, saves, and encrypts all the information the person gives. Once this person has placed his or her order, the information moves through a private gateway to a Processing Network, where the issuing and acquiring banks complete or deny the transaction. This generally takes place in no more than 5-7 seconds. There are many different payment systems available to accommodate the varied processing needs of Ecommerce website development merchants, from those who have a few orders a day to those who process thousands of transactions daily. With the addition of Secure Socket Layer technology, E-Commerce is also a very safe way to complete transactions. There are several basic steps involved in becoming E-Commerce Enabled.

Getting an Internet Merchant Bank Account Web Hosting Obtaining a Digital Certificate Finding a Provider of Online Transactions Creating or Purchasing a Shopping Cart Software

You want to be able to accept credit cards over the internet; you will have to apply to your bank for an Internet Merchant Bank Account. This can be relatively easy or somewhat difficult, depending on which country you live in and what bank you are with. In the US , this is a fairly simple procedure. Many banks offer Internet Merchant Accounts, and most Online Transaction Providers will support them. See your bank for details. Since the vast majority of Online Transaction Providers are located in the US and are restricted in their ability to interact with banks outside their own country, international merchants have very little choice. An international merchant has to find a way to get a US merchant account, embark on the equally difficult task of finding a local Online Transaction Provider, or utilize one of the few companies that services the international market. Also, many banks outside the US have very restrictive policies regarding internet accounts. Luckily, the situation is improving, and most Online Transaction Providers will help you with this if you get in touch with them.

In the ratings section, I have included information on which providers give international service. Here are some additional issues to keep in mind when you apply for a Merchant Bank Account:

A US merchant account can take up to a month to come through.

If you already have a merchant bank account, you will probably also need to upgrade it to an Internet account.

Ensure that your bank accepts Internet merchant accounts and has credit card processors that can connect to FDC, Paymentech or CyberCash.

Your account must be able to handle Card Not Present transactions.

Q: I recently received an email that supposedly came from eBay that said someone had attempted to log into my eBay business account without authorization (whatever that means). The email instructed me to click a link to re-enter and confirm my account information to make sure that my account had not been hacked. Being naturally paranoid I contacted eBay directly and found that my account had not been hacked and that this email was actually from someone trying to steal my eBay account information. Is there nothing that can be done about this kind of thing? — Wesley C.

A: The only thing you can do, Wesley, is be thankful that your paranoia kicked in because you were about to fall victim to just one of the latest attempts by thieves to steal your personal and credit card information.

As you discovered, the email you received was not from eBay, but from someone using a forged email address that gave the impression that the email was really from eBay. If you had clicked the link to “re-enter and confirm” your personal and credit card information, you would have been taken to a website that probably looked a lot like eBay, but was really a fake site created for the sole purpose of stealing your information. You would have been instructed to enter your eBay account information and other personal information, including your social security number, checking and savings account information, driver’s license number, and credit card number. In the end you would have supplied the thieves with everything they need to steal your identity.

The eBay scam is just the latest in a long line of sophisticated attempts to steal personal information through online means. Customers of PayPal, Amazon, Dell Computer, eTrade, Bank One, and many other online merchants have been the target of such scams in recent years.

The shear number of eBay customers is the main reason that eBay has become the most popular target of scam artists trying to steal personal information from individuals and businesses alike.

As we talked about way back in 2003, thanks to the Internet, stealing someone’s identity has never been easier. At any given moment, there are thousands of Internet thieves using all manner of high tech wizardry in an attempt to steal personal and business information from unsuspecting souls, and many times they can gain access to this information simply by asking the person to provide it through fraudulent means, like a fake email.

While most people are familiar with identity theft, most business men and women never think about it happening to them, at least on a professional level. Consider this: if a criminal can learn your business checking account number or the number of your company credit card, they can steal far more from your business than if they had simply knocked down the door and carted off your desk.

Here are a few ways to protect you from business and personal identity theft.

Never give out your first name, last name, business name, email address, account passwords, credit card numbers, bank account information, PIN number, social security number, or driver’s license number.

Change your online account passwords every 30 days. Believe it or not, a hacker who steals your personal information can often guess your online account passwords in about two minutes. If your Charles Schwab online account password is your birthday or the name of your first born or family pet, count on a hacker cracking that code faster than you can say “Open Sesame.”

Never provide personal information in response to an email or telephone call. Just because someone calls and says they are from Dunn & Bradstreet and need to confirm your business information does not mean they are really from Dunn & Bradstreet.

Never give your business credit card number over the phone to place an order with someone who has called you unsolicited. If you are interested in what they are selling get their number, check out their company, then call them back to place the order.

If you think that you have become the victim of identity theft or think someone is trying to steal your identity or personal information you should report them immediately to the Federal Trade Commission. You will find more information on their website at http://www.consumer.gov/idt heft/.

For more information on what to do if identity theft happens to you visit http://www.privacy rights.org/fs/fs17a.htm.

You should also remember that no reputable online company will ever ask you to log in and completely re-enter your account information. Think about it. They already have this information. Why would they ask you to provide it again? The answer is: they wouldn’t.

Be careful out there.

Here’s to your success

There are many rural areas where DSL (direct subscriber line) or cable Internet service is not available. If you live in one of those areas and want fast, reliable, high-speed Internet service, satellite Internet is what you’re looking for.

Though not as fast as DSL or cable Internet service, satellite Internet service is much faster than 56K dialup service, and is available to anyone in the United States who has a clear view of the southern sky.

Satellite Internet Service Features

* Satellite Internet service is up to 10 times faster than dialup service, so you can surf the web and download files in a fraction of the time it takes with dialup.

* Satellite Internet service is always on, so you don’t have to wait to connect to the Internet.

* Satellite Internet service is separate from your phone line, so you can surf the Internet and talk on the phone at the same time, plus you won’t miss any telephone calls.

Satellite Internet Compared to DSL and Cable

To give you an idea of the differences between high-speed services, here’s a comparison of satellite TV service from DirecWay, versus DSL and Cable service from EarthLink. For more information on these services click on the links below.

Speed

* Satellite Internet service: Up to 10 times faster than dialup service (700 Kbps download speed and 128 Kbps upload speed.

* DSL Internet service: Up to 70 times faster than dialup service (up to 3 Mps download speed and 128 upload speed).

* Cable Internet service: Up to 100 times faster than dialup service (up to 5 Mps download speed and 384 Kbps upload speed.

Monthly Service Fee

* Satellite Internet service: From $59.99 per month.

* DSL Internet service: $19.95 for the first six months, then $39.95 thereafter.

* Cable Internet service: $29.95 for the first 6 months, then $41.95 thereafter.

Equipment Cost

* Satellite Internet service: $499.98.

* DSL Internet service: Free.

* Cable Internet service: Free.

Installation

* Satellite Internet service: Free.

* DSL Internet service: Do it yourself or pay an installer.

* Cable Internet service: Free.

Activation Fee

* Satellite Internet service: None.

* DSL Internet service: None.

* Cable Internet service: None.

Email Accounts

* Satellite Internet service: 5 accounts.

* DSL Internet service: 8 accounts.

* Cable Internet service: 8 accounts.

Virus, Spam, and Spyware Protection:

* Satellite Internet service: Yes.

* DSL Internet service: Yes.

* Cable Internet Service: Yes.

Customer Service

* Satellite Internet service: 24/7 toll-free telephone and Internet service.

* DSL Internet service: 24/7 toll free-telephone and Internet service.

* Cable Internet Service: 24/7 toll free-telephone and Internet service.

DirecWay Satellite Internet Service

DirecWay is the largest and most reliable satellite Internet service. Most other satellite TV providers are actually DirecWay affiliates, meaning they use DirecWay’s equipment and satellites, but offer different services.

DirecWay offers two satellite Internet plans:

Plan A — You pay $99.99 per month for 15 months, then $59.99 per month thereafter.

Plan B — You pay $499.98 for your equipment and installation, then $59.99 per month for service.

Bottom Line

Because DSL and cable Internet services are faster and cheaper than satellite service, I recommend clicking on the links below to see if they are available in your area.

If not, then satellite is the way to go if you want high-speed Internet service.

Click on the following link for more information on satellite Internet service, or these links for ordering information and the latest offers from DISH Network satellite Internet service or DIRECTV satellite Internet service.

If you are still designing with tables then you are missing out on a lot of the benefits of cascading style sheets (CSS). Tables were not supposed to be used for designing but unfortunately it has been the standard for a long time.

Not any more.

1. Separate content from presentation. An external style sheet can contain all the styles for your web site, then if you want to change the content you only have to edit one style sheet. This is great for a web site that
contains hundreds or thousands of pages.

Imagine if you had to edit each page..it would take you forever.

2. Google benefits. Google gives more weight to content closer to the top of your HTML document. Search engines spider the content that comes first in your source code. With CSS you can easily structure the
content to appear first with the rest of the source code following it. This will help outrank your competitors who may have their navigation appear first and their content last..

3. Fast loading pages. Tables slow down the loading of your pages because the spider has to crawl through each table. If your tables are nested inside each other your page will load even more slowly. Designing
CSS-based web pages will speed up the loading of your pages considerably because the styles are all contained in one style sheet.

4. Small file size. CSS will reduce the file size of your html document. If you look at a web page that is designed with CSS you will notice that the size is very small compared to one designed with lots of tables. This
also helps reduce load times.

5. Reduce clutter. CSS allows you to get rid of a lot of extraneous html code therefore making your site code neater and cleaner. This makes it easy to alter the code if you need to make edits.

6. Eliminate javascript. Many people surf the web with javascript turned off because they don’t want to be vulnerable to viruses or allow pop-ups. This means that the beautiful javascript navigation you produced will not
be seen. You can often achieve the same affect with CSS navigation. These allow for rollovers and other pretty affects and are much more user friendly.

7. Accessibility. If you use CSS2’s aural properties it provides information to non-sighted users and voice-browser users. The CSS2 “media types” (used with @media rules) allow authors and users to design style
sheets that will cause documents to render more appropriately for certain devices such as braille devices, speech synthesizers, or tty (text telephone) devices.

Learn more about Accessibility Features of CSS
http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS-access

8. Save time. CSS will allow you to design your site much faster than tables because there are some styles you can use for every site.
I store “often used” CSS snippets in a special file where I can easily access them for any site I design.

9. Save money. CSS will shorten the project development process and eliminate design obstacles that occur from using tables. If designing many web sites you will be able to use the same style sheets or just make a
few modifications to them. You will still charge for the design project but it won’t take as long as when using tables thus making you more money in a shorter time period.

10. Flexibility of design. You can use pixel precision in your web site designs. By adjusting the margins and padding of the CSS you can easily adjust the position of your content.
You can also create very modern designs that can’t be duplicated with tables. For example you can use a background image for a header then place your content over it using the H1 tag for better page optimization.

11. Way of the future. The future of the web is moving towards better accessibility with web sites so they can be viewed by as many people as possible.
This may be enforced in future web standards therefore if your web site is still using tables or deprecated tags it may become obsolete or disappear from the search engines.
This could really hurt your business.

12. Print friendly. When a user chooses to print a web page an alternative CSS document can be called up. This document can specify that formatting, images and navigation disappear and just the page content
appear on the printed version.

See creating print style sheets

http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/articles/webrev/200001.html

Conclusion

If your site is still mostly using tables for its design, you may want to consider doing a redesign. It may take a lot of work now but if you leave it for too long
it will be MUCH MORE work plus will be missing out on all the benefits of CSS outlined in the points mentioned above.

Get Highly Effective Web Site Design,
Marketing Tips and Tricks
by visiting the author’s Web Design Discussion Blog

Herman Drost is a Professional Web Designer, SEO
Specialist, Article Writer and Publisher of
the Marketing Tips Newsletter.

So you’ve decided about your website design and now you are ready to have your website hosted!

When choosing the right web host, they are several factors to consider:

I. How often is the web server up?
II. Does the server provide SSL?
III. Does the server provide for server side scripting? (e.g PHP, ASP?)
IV. Free or paid?
V. What is the upload limit? What is the file limit?
VI. Customer support?
VII. Suggestions

Appendix A – Web host provider reviews

—————————————————————–

I – How often is the web server up?

Once you’ve signed up with a web host provider, you don’t want your website to be down or taking forever to load. This can have a serious dent in traffic as it could turn off potential returning visitors.

Search engines also do not rank web pages that are always down well, so you should expect next to nothing traffic from Search Engines if your website is down most of the time or takes forever to load.

A good way to find out if a web server is up usually is to check out reviews by different persons who have already used the web host. I’ve included a link to a web host review website at the end of this article in Appendix A.

II – Does the Server provide SSL?

If your website is a hobby website, and you won’t be doing any transactions on your website, SSL protection is not needed.

However, if you plan to do any transactions in the future; its important that you choose a webhost which provides SSL protection upfront.

SSL is an encryption method which helps to encrypt any sensitive information like credit card info, names, etc

If you signed up with a web host who does not offer SSL protection; it’s usually more costly if you then decide to get it installed than if you signed up with a web host provider who already provides SSL protection for transactions.

Examples of web host providers who provide Automatic SSL do this are www.powweb.com and www.ipowerweb.com

III – Does the server provide for server side scripting? (e.g PHP, ASP?)

Most web host providers provide for server side scripting but it’s still important to make sure that they do.

Server side scripting allows the webmaster to create pages which change in realtime.

For example, if you are running a business, and you have all of your products stored in a database, a server side script will generate the pages that the customer sees according to which category/product the customer chooses.

If a web host provide does n provide functionality for server side scripting, it’s dated and you should stay far away from it www.powweb.com, www.ipowerweb.com and www.lunarpages.com all provide functionality for Server Side Scripting.

IV – Free? Paid? Which one?

Another important factor to consider is whether you want to sign up with for Free or Paid web hosting. Companies such as www.geocities.com, www.tripod.com, www.freeservers.com offer free hosting.

The main disadvantage with free hosting is that the hosters usually run ads on your home page;
some like in this example http://www.pac-dodger.tripod.com (see near the top)

I suggest a free hosting website if you budget is very tight and you don’t mind ads running on your website.

The paid option for website usually offers better customer support that free web hosting. Some packages are next to nothing.
I’ve found www.powweb.com to be exceptionally reasonable($7.77 a month last time I checked). Both www.ipowerweb.com and www.lunarpages.com are also top web host providers at great prices.

Lunarpages has a reputation of reliability and great customer service. Powweb has the reputation of being the largest and offering the best of every (most web space, most bandwith, etc). Ipowerweb is generally good.

V – What is the upload/bandwith limit? What is the file limit?

Upload and bandwidth limits are important if you are going to be hosting large image files or if you want to provide downloads to your users. If you are just making a simple hobby or business website, www.powweb.com, www.ipowerweb.com, and www.lunarpages.com can all handle your bandwidth requirements.

If you are looking for more space; I suggest www.powweb.com.

VI – Customer Support

Customer support is very important when signing up for a web host provider.

I’m an experienced webmaster, and on signing up with a web host provider I usually still have questions which need to be addressed.

Some web host providers even provide forums where customers like yourself can log in and post questions to other customers and web host staff.

I find this very valuable; the only place I’ve found this so far was www.powweb.com

VII – Suggestions

There are thousands of options to choose from but my top three are below:

I would suggest www.lunarpages.com if you are looking for great customer support.
If you need lots of webspace; consider www.powweb.com
If you want general all around good service, sign up with www.ipowerweb.com

Other GREAT solutions are:

Apollo hosting – www.apollohosting.com
ValueWeb – www.valueweb.com
Globat – globat.com

Appendix A

Great website for web host reviews. Reviews all web host providers listed in the article above
http://www.thehostplanet.com/reviews/reviews.html

Kevin Allman is a webmaster with over ten years Internet experience. He runs a Search Engine Optimization
website at http://www.pzeta.org/seo_global/ which contains many articles on how to optimize your website.

Instinct or random selection is not how one selects a domain name. It is to be done with great thought and purpose. There exists a philosophy to it. Consider the following:

• A common and sensible method would be to use the name of your site as the domain name. Like www.writerfind.com is a sensible domain for a site where one can locate writers or www.dictionary.com for an online dictionary. When the purpose of the site is a part of the URL it makes it easy for customers to remember the site and for new browsers to click on it.

• If the domain name is for an industry then you could think of using a generic name. Select a name that represents one hundred percent the market segment, www.autoinsurance.com would represent to a “T” the auto insurance business.

• Choose a domain with a.com extension. If that is not available then the alternate should also be a top level domain type.

• A short domain name is recommended over a long one just for the sake of easy recollection. However a long domain name can contain more key words and this could be a benefit where search engines are concerned. Research your options carefully. A long name works if it is dead on and meaningful.

• The golden rules are a domain name should be easy to remember, easy to spell, and easy to pronounce. In other words tongue twisters are out. It must be simple on all counts.
• Consider all marketing aspects like brand recall. Many profitable enterprises have a domain name that is the brand identity of their business. Examples of successful brands are Hot Mail, Google, Ebay, and Amazon.

• Pause to think and:

A. Write down clearly the focus of your site and its business goals. Namely “what is my site about?”

B. List the key words.

C. Use the description and key words to coin a domain name that represents clearly the two important factors. Make a list of as many as you can.

D. Next test availability at a domain name search engine.

E. If .com is not available check for .net and so on.

F. Be sure to zero in on a name that will serve its purpose. Never choose a domain because its there.

G. Still in a quandary then use domain name research tools.

H. If you find the perfect name is bought by someone then consider buying the domain name from them. This would depend on your budget.

I. Alternately use suffixes for the domain name like universe, world, links, resource, business, inc, store, directory, guide and so on.

The key is to think globally. The World Wide Web has no boundaries. Musts are recall, presence, and functionality.

Paul Wilson is a freelance writer for www.1888Discuss.com/domain/ , the premier REVENUE SHARING discussion forum for Domain Forum including topics on domain trading, domain registration, domain sale and offers, adult domain and more. He also freelances for the premier Domain Site www.1866Domains.com

http://www.Nabaza.com/webchall.htm

Top 10 Webmaster Challenges

Webmasters deal with a myriad of complex design challenges every day. This article will discuss the top ten challenges and provide solutions and tips for solving each problem.

Browser Compatibility You must design your Web site so that it is viewable on both browsers: Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE). Netscape Navigator is very strict when it comes to HTML tag completion, but IE isn’t. You need to view your site first using Macromedia Dreamweaver before publishing to the Web. Make sure you’ve run the command convert to ensure your site is version 3.0 browser compatible. If you’re using Netobjects Fusion to create the layout of your site, make sure that all layer objects are converted into tables. This is highly recommended if you want to reach a broader and wider audience.

Online resources: A) Dr. HTML, located at www2.imagiware.com/RxHTML/ B) Web Site Garage to check your links, located at websitegarage.com

Graphics Optimization Web graphics play an essential part in your Web design, because it conveys the emotion and impact of your site. Always make sure that all of your graphics are in .gif and .jpg format. Unless your site deals with photography, minimize the use of the .jpg format. You can use Macromedia Fireworks to minimize the file size, especially the slicer feature if you need to place a large photo on your site. Another option is the export preview of Macromedia Fireworks. This allows you to remove unwanted colors in your graphics, thus decreasing file size.

You can also do this online by using one of these online utilities: A) GIF Optimizer by Media Builder, www.gifoptimizer.com B) JPEG Cruncher and GIF Cruncher, www.spinwave.com/crunchers.html C) Windows-based graphics optimizer, CyberView Image Lite (JPEG Compressor), www.cyberviewcd.com/cvimage/index.html D) Advanced GIF Optimizer, www.gold-software.com/ago.html E) Photo Crunch (JPEG Compressor), www.imroncorp.com/photo.htm F) JPEG image compression FAQ, www.faqs.org/faqs/jpeg-faq/part1/

Keeping the Site Fresh I think this is the bulk of a webmaster’s work, if you want your site frequently visited. You can keep your site fresh by really working on new content on a daily or regular basis and by making it interactive. As with content, you can make use of www.moreover.com, www.subportal.com, www.newshub.com, and other content syndication sites to provide the content for your site automatically. Let them do the hard work for you! If you place a tag, they will email you with new content. As for the interactivity, offer your visitors web-based email accounts, a message board with a chat room, a search engine crawler, and banner ad rotation. This is easy, and provided by Everyone.net. Searching your site is another way to easily provide information to your visitors. You can get a site search engine from www.picosearch.com and www.atomz.com.

Pushing Information to Your Visitors A Web site is a “pull” promotion, but as a webmaster, you also need to be thinking about how you can “push” information to your visitors, users, or subscribers. You can publish an ezine on a weekly or monthly basis just to let your users be informed about the latest technology you’ve added to your site. As for the mailing list, you can get a free mailing list from www.egroups.com, www.topica.com, or you can choose a paid service such as www.aweber.com or www.getresponse.com. As for the content, you can get lots of articles from bbs.weblord2000.com, or try one or more of my articles that can be found on the same Web site.

Driving Traffic Webmasters shouldn’t forget to announce your Web site. Accomplishing this is easy for Web sites that already have a lot of traffic, but even sites that are starting out with 5 or 10 members can benefit from the viral marketing of online recommendation software. Services include www.recommend-it.com, www.evite.com, and www.ewomp.com.

Dealing with Spammers Unfortunately, the reality of the Internet is that people will spam and flame on a daily basis. Web-based email addresses like the ones set up by www.everyone.net are spam-proof. You can set up your account so that any emails sent without your address in the “to” box can be directed automatically to the trash or spam folder. However, flames and hate emails are a different field. You shouldn’t try to get even or retaliate. These people are not a joke. It might cost you your ISP or your e-life. Instead, check out www.spamcop.net. It does the nitty-gritty work of automatically reporting misbehaving people to their postmasters. Usually, it’s helpful to get the ISP, or at least the IP address of the suspected person.

Stickiness! Webmasters are also faced with the challenge of keeping their site sticky. CBSMarketwatch.com is a good example of a sticky site. This stock/investment related site contains timely news and excellent company data. The vast amount of information results in a good number of page views per visitor. Plus, visitors return on a daily basis to get the latest-and-greatest market news and stock data. Lots of page views per visitor AND repeat visits. now that’s what you could call really sticky.

Here are some additional suggestions: A) Make your site a portal of information. It encourages your visitors to return and stay. Hotsheet.com is one example of a one-page portal. B) Add games to your site. You can get some here: www.uproar.co.uk or at www.pogo.com/affiliates. C) Make your site interactive with a guest book, forum, tell-a-friend link, webring, customizable news, contests, polls, e-card, and free for all links. Bizland.com allows you to sign up for an account and place the code on your site. D) Provide links to freebies, get-paid-to-surf sites, contests, incentives, jokes, quotes, mp3, and gnutella. Just don’t forget to opt in for at least their email address before they can actually download stuff from your site.

Find Your Web Host It’s critical to find the right Web host. Although you may need to get your own server when your site gets one million page views per month, most sites that are starting out do not require the complex and expensive task of managing your own servers. There are many Web hosting providers that are willing to provide starting at 40gb of Web space. You can also look and compare different Web hosting providers on these sites: www.webhostdir.com, www.hostfinders.com, www.hostindex.com, www.hostsearch.com, and www.findahost.com. I always recommend the advanced search, which allows you to specify your budget and the specific features you will need.

Think Globally Keep the site international in its appeal. Babelfish.altavista.com allows you to place snippets of code into your site that will automatically translate your English site to a different language, such as Spanish, Italian, German, or Polish. As webmasters, we must remember that we cannot filter countries on our site. We must be able to communicate with them.

Search Engine Submissions Webmasters love to promote their sites on message boards, newsgroups, link exchanges, and even email, but they often forgot the best source of traffic. Submission sites like www.jimtools.com, www.weblord2000.com/submit.htm, and www.beseen.com can be used to submit your site for free. You don’t need to submit to all of them, only to the major ones, like Yahoo, AltaVista, Google, Hotbot, Infoseek/Go.com, Lycos, and Northern Light. I hope that you have found these tips helpful. For more information, please visit my site, www.webtor.org.

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Take a look at this scene: A woman crossing the street, looking to her left then to her right. She was on her way crossing the street, when a car, careening at top speed down the street, hit her then went on its way, leaving the blooded woman sprawled on the street, dead. Or this: A man hastily crossing the street suddenly slipped and fell, in the way of an incoming vehicle. He got hit, went flying a few feet, then landed, battered but alive, on the pavement, while the driver of the vehicle rushed over and try to get help… These two scenarios are just some examples of accidents that happen simply by crossing the street. This is what is called pedestrian accidents. Road accidents involving pedestrians account for more deaths and casualties in the streets worldwide. In most cases, these pedestrians end up dead or suffering serious injuries and damage when they get into this kind of accident. Negligent and dangerous drivers are the most commonly pointed causes of these accidents. The victims either get hospitalization and money benefits are the usual claims the victim gets. Sometimes these are not enough to sustain for them. The most common casualties endured in these accidents are brain injuries, bone fractures, paralysis and coma and not to mention, death. Some pedestrians blame themselves for getting into the accident in the first place. They feel that it was their fault that they got hit by the vehicle. This is the usual reaction that the victims have because they do not want any further questions about what had happened. Some are even willing to just settle for an amount agreed by both parties. There are certain factors to be considered that may have led to the accident. The more obvious one is the part of the driver. Even though the fault is not entirely by them, it is still considered negligence on their part. Other factors are the kind of environment on which the accident occurred. It may be that the street already has many faults defects, or the strategical location of the event. Victims of these accidents tend to just forget all about it once they have been given financial and other kind of support. One thing they usually do not do is seek professional assistance on persons that are experts on this field. Getting the right legal advice would bring answers to many questions the victim tend to forget about. It is only fair that the right kind of action and solution to this problem should be done in these cases. Because people are not anymore safe, much so, as long as they are pedestrians.

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