Linux vs. Windows Web Hosts

One of the important decisions you would need to make for your online presence is where to host your site. If you do not know what hosting is, it simply means that you need to upload your pages on a web server which will publish them to the Internet.

There are companies that provide hosting services on a shared or dedicated basis and charge you a monthly fee. Basically, you rent disk space and bandwidth for your website. Now there is choice here – you can host your site on a Windows based server or a Linux based server. And in this article, I will try to explain the pros and cons of each option and also help you to choose a cheap web site hosting service.

• It does not depend on what operating system you are using currently. If you are using a Windows based computer to develop your HTML pages, you can as easily host the site on a Linux server as on a Windows server. The same holds true if you are working on a Linux platform. Once you learn how to upload your site and make changes, you can be comfortable using any server.

• One of the main considerations is whether your site is mostly static or also has interactive content. Static would mean that you simply have an information oriented website used to create an online presence. Interactive websites on the other hand would mean you have facility for filling up forms, performing transactions, shopping carts and so on. Interactive features are usually programmed in languages like ASP, ASP.NET, Perl, PHP, Python, or Java. If you are using ASP or ASP.NET which are developed by Microsoft, then you have no choice but to choose a Windows server since these languages do not work on Linux. However, if you are using PHP or Perl, then it is possible to run your site on both Windows and Linux.

• In terms of stability and performance, both Linux and Windows match up evenly and it would really depend on the system administrator’s expertise. However, Linux servers are known for having a higher up time. If you are specifically looking for cheap web site hosting, then Linux is a better option. This is because Linux is a free operating system developed by open source programmers, which makes the cost of hosting your site on a Linux based server lower. You can obtain more web space and bandwidth on a Linux server than on a Windows server for the same amount of money.

One more thing, it is possible to port your site from a Linux server to a Windows server but it may not always be possible to do the other way round. Therefore, it is better to start with a Linux web hosting service.

One option I would recommend is PronetHosting.net. This is one of the fastest growing hosting companies in the USA. When you host your site with their servers, you get

• Unlimited space and bandwidth on their shared servers
• E-commerce ready shopping carts
• No set up charges
• Free domain name
• 24x7 support
• 30 days money back guarantee

The company is running a one time offer in the month of July 2009 wherein you can get a full one year’s subscription on their Linux web hosting for just $4.95. This is an offer that cannot be let go. Most other web hosting companies charge you at least $10 per month.

To know more about the offer, click the banner below.

The GDI Opportunity

How To Avoid Getting Scammed On The Internet And The Fundamentals Of Online Business

Of late, there are many websites telling you that it is possible to make a lot of money online easily. They talk of making $5000 per month and some even talk of making that much in a single day. There are others that sell you dreams of life long residual income so that you can have complete financial freedom. Now who wouldn’t want to be a millionaire? We all want money and are looking for easy ways to make it. And we are really desperate to get rich quick whatever be our current situation.

However, this desire makes us blind to the ways in which shrewd conmen and scamsters extract money from us by showing us flashy dreams. In reality, all these people are extremely sharp marketers who have the knack of telling you things that will make you immediately produce your credit card and give them money.

In return, if they ever do, they only teach you their “so called” secret which is nothing more than the insight that you can get people to pay you if you show them how they can make money. They want you to join the gang. If you really look at this whole thing objectively, it seems pretty ingenious.

So are all these opportunities nothing but scams?

Well, unfortunately, most of them are. Sites which promise to make tons of money on full auto-pilot without doing anything – offers that are too good to be true – are almost always scams. It is not that such schemes are only available on the internet. There are plenty of them in the outside world, only that we don’t come across them so often. But on the internet, everyone is linked to everyone else and therefore there seems to be a lot many of such deceitful activities.

But I am NOT dismissing the whole of the internet business scenario as something to be avoided. In fact, if you can keep yourself from getting caught by those cheats, you can really learn how to earn on the web. Sadly, whenever a new entrepreneur ventures on the internet alone, there are all these wolves waiting to fleece him. And unless he has some mentor to guide him and to show him the right choices, he will have to keep his wits about him and learn the hard way.

Why should business on the Internet be any different from normal business?

In fact, it is not. When you really see that business is business whether done in your store or on your website, you are going to need products to sell, prospects to sell to, and customers to service and advertising to promote your products and build a brand. How you do it on the internet might be a little different or more efficient that what you do normally, but the fundamental principles must remain the same.

In order to develop your online business, you must learn how things work, understand internet users, their needs and demands and then develop your products, advertise, generate leads, convert them and thus earn money. Like any other normal business, you need to spend on product development and advertising before you can expect to earn. If you earn more than you spend, you make profits, else you are in loss.

Those who have understood that the REAL need of people is money, make products that offer “Instant Wealth”. It is the perfect application of the basic principle of marketing – Identify the needs of the people and fulfill them with your products. Another variation of this is to assume the role of the professor and teach people how to make money.

So where does the serious entrepreneur begin?

To earn money on the web, it is NOT necessary for you also to become a marketing guru or a shrewd businessman who is making obnoxious promises of turning others into millionaires. Look at the situation as if you are starting your own business and there was no Internet.

Would you not ask yourself – What are you really good at? What knowledge and skills you possess? What demand would you like to fulfill? Would you not go out and research people’s needs, interests, and behavior? Would you not identify your target market and decide on means of reaching out to them? Would you not draw up your budget and revenue projections? Well, you will need to do all this, Internet or no Internet.

When you get this picture clear, you will realize how you can leverage the Internet. Obviously, you will have to go through the learning curve – the social networks, the feed engines, the blogs, the video marketing, article marketing, search engine optimization, keyword research and all the nuts and bolts and spanners and drills of this machine. There is no escaping this.

The abundance of niches

You don’t have to develop a “make money” product in order to earn money. You can make your bucks in almost any other niche. There is absolutely no dearth of niches on the internet. Practically, there is a niche for every single person, since he is completely unique. There is no one quite like you in the whole of the universe, no one else knows exactly what you know and no one else can do what you can do.

People will always say that there is more money in the insurance industry or in the pharmaceuticals industry but that does not prevent the average entrepreneur selling car wash solutions and making a profit. Similarly, on the internet, there are niches which are more lucrative than others but that does not mean that you can’t earn money in the niche you like.

One of the greatest powers of the internet is targeted reach. Whether your specialty is playing the guitar with your legs or cooking a frog soup, you will see that people will search and reach you ultimately if you keep offering what you know. And there are no barriers of country or age.

Developing an internet business needs tremendous patience, hard work, ability to learn what it takes and a single minded focus on your chosen niche.

The Micro Niche Finder

If you know what you like, then there is no problem. But if you are not yet sure of where your passion lies, you can still earn money by taking advantage of niche markets with more demand and less supply. One tool which I have found to be really useful to find out niche markets is the Micro Niche Finder, created by James Jones.

The tool neatly integrates with Google and discovers niche markets which have a high number of searches per month but do not have many websites supplying information or products for them. These are ideal markets to make profits. The tool gives you the opportunity to earn money in 5 different ways

1. Writing articles to promote affiliate products (like what I am doing with this article)
2. Forum marketing using Yahoo Answers
3. Creating and marketing niche PLR products
4. Creating niche Squidoo lenses to make profits
5. Discover other niche areas in which you are interested

It is a fantastic tool but slightly expensive for beginners ($97). But I would seriously recommend this to all internet marketers as it is a really handy tool to have in your toolkit. It comes with an 8 week money back guarantee, if you are not satisfied. In addition, I also recommend joining James Jones’s Underground Niche Marketing Newsletter wherein, he shares with you many more ways in which other people have profited from his software.

Here is the link Micro Niche Finder.

Finally, I would say that the learning process is never perfect. You will stumble when you learn to walk, you will fall when you learn to ride a bicycle and you will fumble with the gears when you learn how to drive a car. Remember your past experiences and know that when you are beginning on the internet, it is exactly the same situation. But when you learn you will really become a successful entrepreneur.

Sure Shot Ways of Earning Money Online Starting Today

If you are anything like me, you like to sit at home and work independently far away from the burn-out pressures of a 9-5 office job. Firstly, because not many jobs are 9 to 5! If they were, I might still consider joining an organization. But in most companies, you start at 9 but never know when you would end the day. In addition, there is a sense of constant urgency and activity as if there is a crisis which never seems to get over. As soon as one ends, there is another one waiting for you. And finally, there is the ‘persona’ you have to maintain that goes along with your designation or your company. If you don’t, people think you are odd.

Now I am not disheartened. The situation is never as serious as it is made out to be. And if you really love what you are doing in your 9 – 9 jobs, then it is perfectly alright. But that kind of a lifestyle is not for me. So I decided to move on from my corporate job and started thinking of what to do from home. As I kept browsing the internet to spend my time, I started finding out the various money making opportunities that are sprouting all over the internet. Now, I have used the internet for over 5 years but mostly for using email, browsing sites or downloading stuff. But only now I saw it as a great platform to build my home business.

I am sure if you are reading this page, you want to know how to earn money online. So I will help you because I don’t want you to waste your time in searching for the best opportunities. I do not claim to know all the possibilities but I will tell you what I do.

Dead-ends

Initially, I was over-excited and simply fell for all the sites that promised instant money - sites that paid to read ads, to open emails and to surf other sites. I enthusiastically clicked on links and saw my account balance grow. But when I reached the payment threshold, I was not paid anything. You will see numerous such sites that offer $1.00 to read an email and 50 cents to click an ad. This site cashmails.biz offers $100 per email and $50 per click. Most of these sites do not pay. They have a membership option. But I don’t know if members are paid. They are simply a means of increasing the traffic to the sites they advertise.

Another means that is highly talked about is paid surveys. You need to register on survey sites and give your opinion on various market research studies conducted by companies. One of the sites that got me excited in my early days was AWSurveys.com and earnparttimejobs.com but later on I realized they were scams. Some people claim to have received money from them, but I cannot guarantee.

I did find some sites that were genuine such as valuedopinions, corpscan, but they do not have a lot of survey inventory. They send you surveys probably once a month and many times, you do not qualify for them. Sites like PermissionResearch and OpinionSquare are also genuine but they do not cater to the Indian audience.

A trickle

If you are from India, YouMint.com and RupeeMail.com are sites that pay you for reading emails. YouMint pays 20 paise per email and RupeeMail pays 25 paise. You need to click an awful number of ads to make any money. However, if you can refer your friends, then you can earn a share of their earnings. But even after that, it is all small change.

Another interesting site is PickJack.com. You are required to answer questions and for every 10 correct answers you get to post a question. Depending on how many people answer your question correctly and how they rate your question, you get paid. Again the amount is small. In fact, one of my first earnings was from this site, a measly $0.1 (Rs.5 or less) but I was happy that something is working.

On MyLot.com, you can contribute opinions and ask questions, start a thread on any topic and get paid for it.

If you want to earn money online, you need to have an account on either PayPal or AlertPay. Start with PayPal and get it linked with your bank account. You can then transfer your online earnings directly to the bank. PayPal charges you Rs.50 for transferring amounts less than Rs.7000. However; their exchange rate is Rs.1.50 less than the market rates for dollar and they charge a per transaction fee of 2.4% to 3.4%. But you have no choice. Get your personal account today by clicking the banner below



Something to talk about

Finally, I discovered a way to earn by offering services. Now, there are several websites which bring together people who want to get projects done and freelancers who offer their services in return for payment. There are all sorts of projects including simple writing, data entry, graphic designing and even software programming.

As a service provider, you need to bid on projects which you think you can complete on time with high quality. I started making my first serious bucks on GetAFreelancer.com. This site has good number of projects. However, if you are a beginner then you might have to wait for sometime till you get your first project. The thing is that there is a lot of competition and buyers are very selective about who they select.

But the good news is that there is a great demand for quality. If you can differentiate yourself with your work, then you will get more projects. Other websites which offer similar freelance work are EUFreelance.com, elance.com and many others. Payment is done through the internal system and the site charges you a certain commission – about $5 per project.

If you want to be on your own, then freelance work is a good place to begin. It will sustain you and even generate a full time income.

Find more freelance jobs on GetAFreelancer

Blogs

One of my friends told me that blogging is a great way of earning money using Google’s Adsense program. Basically, Google puts its context specific ads on your blog, which you can create within 5 minutes on blogger.com. Whenever someone clicks on the advertisement, you get paid. However, before you get too excited, note that Google has strict policies on content. They want you to have good content on the blog which must be active for at least 6 months before you apply. Even then it is not easy because you will need to generate traffic to your blog before you can earn any amount for the clicks.

Affiliate programs

For two months, I tried hard but did not understand how to earn money on the net. And I used to be depressed by seeing so many people claiming to have earned millions sitting at home. Anyway, I registered for a course which taught me ‘affiliate marketing’.

This is an interesting concept and I was pretty excited. As an individual you can join as an affiliate of another company which wants to sell products. When you promote those products through your site or blog and if someone buys the product using your link, then you get paid a commission.

So where do you find such companies? Register on commissionjunction.com and clickbank.com. Then select the companies you want to work with and start promoting their products. Now there is much more to it than I have described. But it is possible to earn money through these programs on complete autopilot. I will explain more about this in another blog post. You will need to understand how Google Adwords program can allow you to create and publish pay per click ads for your affiliate products.

NPN Global

This is another opportunity I have registered for recently and I am very impressed with it. I believe this something that you can consider as a long term money making program. It is not easy to start because there are many things to set up but if you are serious about online marketing, I would recommend this program highly. It costs you $10.75 per month and for every member you refer to the program, you get back $5 and also get a perpetual commission. You can make upto $50000 in a year if you sponsor 1 person per month for 12 months. Now that's substantial!

I am giving away a FREE Report on this fantastic program, leave your name and email id in the box below to access the report instantly.

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Ghostwriting – 9 Ways to Make Money Anonymously

Writing for someone else is called Ghostwriting. Today, there are many freelancers who are writing in this manner for a number of authors who are published on online sites like ezine.com and amazines.com. This is quite similar to manufacturing companies which make their products in China or some other country and put their brand on it.

Ghostwriters have come in very handy to many authors in achieving their objectives. Many of the following activities are done by experienced ghostwriters today
• Creating website content – Complete content of a website is given to a ghostwriter, who has experience in such matters
• Updating blogs – Many people want to maintain a high popularity of their blogs but do not find the time to write personally. So they hire the services of a ghostwriter to regularly add content to their blogs
• Writing articles – This is the most common form of ghostwriting. People pay writers for their articles and then transfer the article rights to them. Thus the ghostwriter cannot claim that the article was written by him since he has been paid for his services. Article marketing is an effective tool for promoting one’s business but it is difficult to produce 20-30 articles per day so it becomes imperative to hire one or several ghostwriters. You can also take their services to post the articles to various article directories. This will require a certain amount of trust between the buyer and the writer.
• E-book writing – Many marketers get e-books written by ghostwriters, who are good at writing promotional collateral
• Academic writing – Even your college or university projects can be completed by ghostwriters. This kind of writing is more specialized since it involves some research and writing in a specific citation style like MLA. However, the remuneration is also higher in these cases.
• Rewriting – Since it is difficult to find quality writers, many buyers have suffered at the hands of poor ghostwriters. They end up with articles or content that cannot be used as it is. Therefore they are forced to search for a better writer to rewrite the earlier stuff.
• Software programs – Many companies hire the services of freelance software developers who are able to deliver quality code in a short time. Since it is not possible to employ a large pool of developers, it saves money to use the services of freelance coders for a short duration.
• Copywriting – Many agencies extend their creative resources by announcing copywriting projects. All ideas and compositions are eventually purchased from the ghostwriters.
• Reviews – If you have a real good flair for writing, you can do film reviews or book reviews.

Current rates for ghostwriting vary from $0.5 to $5 per 500 word page. Although this depends on the spending capacity and the urgency of the buyer, the average rate is around $1 for 400-500 words. For academic writing, the rates can be as high as $10-12 per page with double spaced lines. Good writers are always in demand so if you want to make money through this route then improve on your writing skills. There are several websites like GetAFreelancer, essaywriters and freelancefree from which you can source your ghostwriting work.

6 Effective Tips for Ghostwriting

Ghostwriting has become a popular avenue to make a quick buck. There are many people willing to pay writers to produce articles and other content. The writers do not have a right to the ownership of the article once they have been paid. Therefore, they are called as ghostwriters. Writing is a skill and good writers are in high demand in the online world. Here are 6 tips for effective ghostwriting.

1. Love what you write. Writers who do not love their work fail to produce high quality content. Individuals turn to ghostwriting for two reasons – to make some extra money or to fulfill a hobby. However, if the focus is too much on money then the individual is not concerned about his work. For instance he may take up writing articles on poker about which he has no knowledge. Obviously the final article may have gaffes which the writer will not know. So you must choose subjects in which you have a certain degree of comfort.

2. Adhere to instructions. Buyers pay for articles but require them to meet certain criteria. These are usually related to search engine optimization and the usage of keywords. As a ghostwriter, you must religiously adhere to the guidelines provided. Any deviation from them will affect the objective. For instance, certain articles require using the keyword 5-6 times within the body apart from the title. Many buyers have a strict deadline and expect you to follow that. You may be asked to submit 5 articles every 24 hours and you must do so strictly.

3. Take the opportunity to learn. Writing can be rewarding experience. Even if you know the subject, there is ample scope to learn new things. You may need to research certain aspects of the topic and learn in the process. You may learn different writing styles which will enhance your skills. For instance, in academic writing there are various citation styles such as MLA, APA, Harvard and Oxford. When you get an opportunity, try out a different style.

4. Use good language. This is the foundation of writing. If you do not have a strong grasp of grammar, you will not be able to construct proper sentences. Having a good vocabulary at your command is highly essential to write good articles. Tools available in MSWORD can help to some extent in finding synonyms and antonyms or to correct spelling mistakes but the overall responsibility to write clearly rests on you.

5. Align with the objectives. Every buyer has an objective is asking you to write articles. Try to understand this objective and then align your writing with this. For instance, if the objective is to promote products and services, then your content must be written in a highly focused and penetrative manner to highlight the product’s features. On the other hand, if the objective is to write for article directories, then the keywords must be optimized

6. Polish your work. Even if you are a good writer, it helps to reread the article and polish some sentences and replace some words before submitting it. Many times, a ‘an’ gets typed as ‘and’ and changes the meaning of the sentence. Avoid such lapses by proofreading your work.