What shared hosting actually means is that it is a shared server that has several different accounts on it. Shared hosting is more affordable because servers are expensive, but by having several different accounts on one server the cost and resources are shared, usually making it possible for hosting companies to offer shared hosting at an affordable price.

You still get your own account and can set up your own domain and your own website. In fact, many shared hosting accounts allow you to set up multiple domains on one shared hosting account. This is a great way to have multiple websites at a very affordable price.

If you have a small business, or you are a hobbyist, you definitely need your own website. Having a personal site is a great way to promote yourself to peers and associates. It can even be put on your resume. It can also be therapeutic to have a personal site or blog, where you can write about your interests or your life in general. You can also use your website to sale items, promote your offline business, or make a little extra cash with advertising or affiliate offers.

No matter what you need a hosting account for, shared hosting is an affordable way to your own your site. This a much better option, than risking losing your work and intellectual property on some free blogging site.

Even though, I have had shared hosting in the past, I usually stick to reseller accounts now. A reseller account is similar to shared hosting, but you get more resources and you can have multiple accounts. Many reseller accounts use WHM and cPanel software. The WHM is a control panel for the entire reseller account. The cPanel accounts are created within the WHM and are used to set up individual hosting accounts.

Just like the name says, when you have reseller hosting you can actually sell some of the server space from your  account. So that others can host their sites on your account. These accounts are great for web developers who want to offer a full fledged solution for their customers. They can set up the account, create and manage the site, and host the account. They can be a one stop shop for their web customers.

Plus, it is easier to have control over the type of hosting, when you are creating and managing a site. With competition ever present, and many businesses wanting to offer more. There are one stop shop web design sites, that will create and host your site and even manage it. From upgrades, and backups, to SEO services, with a reseller account you can offer your customers everything they will need to have  successful site.

Another great use of a reseller account is for individuals who have many websites and would like to put each site on it’s own separate cPanel account. This offers many advantages such as ease of use and security by keeping all of your sites separate. If one site gets hacked, it is a lot easier to fix, than restoring several sites, with add on domains on one account.

Having every site on it’s own account also makes selling, transferring, and moving sites, much easier. If you sell a site on an auction site like Flippa, instead of going through the hassle of trying to move the site. You can just give the buyer all of the account passwords and they or their hosting company can download and transfer the files they need. Then when everything is all set up on their server you just delete the entire cPanel account, and use the resources for your next site.

If you want to run a web business or be in control of your online presence both of these shared hosting and reseller hosting accounts are great options. The one you choose will depend on your individual needs and your budget.

I also have had bad luck with designer sunglasses. I love nice glasses and when I can afford it I usually will pick up some really nice glasses. Then for some reason I will drop them and break them. This happened with my new Revos and with my new Dior sunglasses. So I usually end up going back to wearing my old sunglasses, which have probably been dropped also, and have a scratch or something.

Today it is time to break my curse of the sunglasses and I need your help!

There is a money saving website called NoMoreRack and they have deals on brand name and designer stuff. If I can get 20 people to register for the site I can get a free pair of designer sunglasses. Because these sunglasses will be won with love and the help of 20 friends, I believe the curse will be broken.

To register all you need to do is enter an email and password. No purchase or strings attached. Then you too can get a referral code to break your own curse of the sunglasses. Plus, the first people to register get a 10$ gift card.

Click Here To Register And Break The Curse!

Thanks to everyone! If you do register leave a comment below so I can contact you about the 10$ gift card codes. Please use an email you check when you fill out the comment form. Thanks again, and have an amazing weekend!

Using Rollip is easy you just sign up and browse through the different affects you would like to use. They offer 40 different affects, these  include:

• Classics
• Vintage
• Added Character
• Black/White Sepia
• Styled Lenses
• Glow Styles
• Black/White Added Character
• Extreme Stylized
• Bold Tones
• Drawing Styles

Once you have chosen your style you upload the photo that you would like the affect applied to. In just a few seconds you will get a preview of your new stylized photo. You can choose to download the photo at this point, or keep checking out new styles. If you do choose to download the high quality version of your photo you will need to purchase some credits in order to do so.

I was fortunate enough to get access to free credits. So the first 30 people who sign up through this link will get 30 free credits. I did a test run and everything worked flawlessly. I clicked on the sign up link, entered my email and password, and my account was immediately created and credited with 30 free credits. Here is the download link if anyone wants to check out the service and get the 30 free credits. This will be on a first come first serve basis so after 30 people sign up. The free credits will be gone.

Merry Christmas From Rollip And It’s Write Now Sign Up Link

Even if you miss the free offer you can still sign up and test out the service. They only charge for high quality downloads and the prices are reasonable. One warning, playing around with this service can be addicting. It is really interesting to see how the different affects look on your photos.

Here is my test run using Rollip. The first photo is my original Christmas Squirrel photo. The subsequent photos are the same image with different affects applied.

To get a better look at the photo click on it to enlarge. Also even though I uploaded a quality photo from my digital camera and used the high quality choice for my Rollip download, I had to lessen the quality of the web images for faster loading times. So your actual images on your computer will be much more intense.

My Original Christmas Squirrel

Christmas Squirrel Vintage Style

Christmas Squirrel Drawing Style

Christmas Squirrel Glow Style

Web Servers

Most web hosting companies have servers that run 24/7 with backup power and redundancy, which usually just means backup servers and discs, so even if the server that your actual site is hosted on has an issue, the backups will kick in and your site will stay online.

cPanel Hosting

There are a lot of different hosting companies out there so we have a lot of choices when choosing our hosting. Some things to look for in a hosting company, are up time guarantees, support options, reliability, and ease of use. Do they offer standard software installations, such as WordPress and web site builder software? I also prefer web hosts that offer cPanel which is a control panel for working with your hosting backend. It is the industry standard and even though some companies have their own proprietary software, having cPanel is a plus.

Backups and Transfers

Some advantages to having cPanel on your hosting account is ease of use for backups and transfers. There are times when you outgrow the services of your current webhost and you may want to transfer your sites. Having cPanel also makes the transfer of the site easier if you sell your site and need to move it to the new owners host.

Doteasy Web Hosting

For new web publishers probably one of the most compelling arguments for choosing a host is ease of use and price. That is where Doteasy comes in. They have a special service where you can get free hosting for a year if you register a domain with them. The hosting will be free but you will have to pay for the cost of registering the domain, which you would have to pay for anyway.

Free Hosting and 4.95$ Domain Registration

Doteasy charges 25$ a year for domain registrations but if you want to take advantage of the free years hosting they have a coupon where you can register a domain for one year for only 4.95$ which is a bargain price anywhere. The coupon code for 4.95$ domain registration  which includes one year of free hosting from Doteasy is 0910V7N. This coupon is active and works. I gave it a test last night.

Hosting Upgrades

If you don’t want to register your domain with Doteasy, they have other comparable hosting options as well. The ultra plan is only 7.95$ a month and offers, 1000 MB of disk space and 20 GB of monthly data transfer. It also includes what I consider essentials in hosting, if you create WordPress sites like i do. It uses the cPanel control panel, offers Fantastico which makes installing WordPress and other blogging and content management software a cinch.

Fantastico and Software Installation

They even offer openX which is an add server that can be quite daunting to install manually. Plus bulletin board software, site builders, and all of the software you would expect a quality hosting company to offer. Of course you will get access to MySQL databases and phpmyadmin which are essential for running WordPress and many other advance CMS systems.

Unlimited Hosting

If you outgrow the Ultra Hosting you can move up to the Unlimited Ultra Hosting which is 9.95$ a month and offers unlimited disk space and monthly data transfer. They also have options for Windows hosting plans if that is something you are interested in.

Free Web Forms

Another thing I like about Doteasy is they offer a lot of different software and scripts including a web-form application that looks really promising. I attempted to create a web form for ordering custom web sites through Dreamweaver and it was a very difficult task. With the Doteasy Web-form Application you can just drag and drop the fields you are interested in and somehow it works. You don’t have to mess with databases and making everything sync. This service is also free for a basic web-form service but there is a monthly fee for added capacity.

Reliability and Support

Two things I always look for when choosing a web host are reliability and support options. Doteasy has a 99.9% up-time guarantee, which should cover the reliability. They also offer support tickets, email support, and free phone support during business hours. I am usually fine using the support ticket system. But there are times when you need to talk to an actual person and having free phone support is a plus. Some hosting companies don’t have phone support at all or charge for phone support. Sometimes if your site is down you need to talk to a real person.

As with any hosting company you get what you pay for and bandwidth costs money. The nice thing about starting out with an affordable Doteasy plan or testing the waters with their free hosting is that you can always continue to upgrade your account. Usually as your bandwidth needs grow so does your online income so moving up to a more expensive plan is usually part of the process of you making more money.

I have several websites and I try to host them on different servers. Doteasy is on my list of hosting plans to try out next. The website seems intuitive and easy to navigate and they have tutorials and a knowledge base that should be able to get any beginner started. If you are new to web publishing you can test the waters with Doteasy with a minimal investment and as your web business grows Doteasy will grow with you.

The most time consuming part of this is the content creation and frankly creating content for niche sites can get pretty boring. So most of us turn to outsourcing for a lot of our content. Unfortunately this is much more difficult than it sounds.

My adventures in outsourcing article, is long overdue and I’ll come out with it soon. But for now, I just need to explain a couple of things that many niche writers just don’t get.

A smart marketer will put a lot of thought into the main keyword of their article and supporting keywords to attract as much search engine traffic as possible.

A skilled and clever writer should be able to incorporate many of these words without repeating themselves over and over and saying nothing.

Keyword Density

You really don’t want to have a keyword density over 3% you just want your main keyword in the title and then used towards the beginning of the article and if the article is long enough it can be used at the end of the article and maybe once in the middle. 

To calculate keyword density just take the number of times your keyword is used in the post and divide it by the number of words in the post. Then multiply that number by 100 and you will have the keyword density expressed as a percent.

If the article isn’t very long then you don’t want to over do it. Then take the supporting keywords and work some of them into the article if possible.

I have dealt with so many outsourcers who just seem to keep repeating the main keyword over and over, even if this is unintentional don’t do it. Your a writer for goodness sake, you should have a vocabulary large enough to not repeat the same term over and over in a 300 word article.

Say Something Unique

The next important step is to not bore the readers to death even though it may be about a boring topic, say something unique, spice it up a bit. I have had people tell me that they have written this and that and are over educated and over experienced. Yet, they write  niche articles telling me what a candle is or what a Teddy bear is.

We all know what these things are, can’t you think of something else to say. After all you are a highly credentialed experienced writer. Heck you even asked for a raise before even creating one article for me.  Nobody wants to read a 400 word essay on what a candle is. Just because that is the keyword doesn’t mean the article can’t take a unique position.

If your keyword is candle use the word in the title and once at the beginning of the article, then sprinkle in some other words as you explain, why you like candles, or how they add ambiance to the room, or how Sting used a million white candles in his music video. It’s OK to have an opinion and write something human for humans. You are not a dictionary robot and no one wants to read your boring drivel.

Easy Research

An easy way to research a niche article is to go to Amazon or some other product site and look over the product and some of the reviews, then in your own words write some unique opinion or idea that the product has inspired.

Please don’t give me a rewritten version of the ezine articles I wrote last week. Or don’t create an ezine article for me that is a rehashed article of the posts on my blog. You may not know my sites or articles, but I sure know when you are giving me a rehashed version of something I have already written.

I’m not saying that you have to waste hours researching the topic or creating breakthrough articles. Just try to get a quick overview of the topic. Then take a moment to form an opinion and write something unique. No one wants a rehashed definition of what a candle is. Plus when we pay someone for an article we don’t want to have to rewrite it. We already created emails and keyword lists and instructions, these things take time and effort, then to get an article back and have to rewrite and pay for it, prompts people to write long angry posts like this one.

Keep It Positive

Another thing to keep in mind is the tone of the article. If it is going on a site or article to promote a certain product, that means we want the reader to get a positive feeling about the product. Please don’t decide that you are a Pulitzer quality writer and you are going to go negative about the product we are trying to promote. Your writing skills are not that good. Leave the Psychology to the real Internet Marketers, and just create an article that is either impartial or positive.

Don’t Suggest Going To The Mall

Another filler paragraph that I find in a lot of the content is something like this; “if you want to buy brown Teddy Bears the first thing you need to do is decide the style of Brown Teddy Bear you want. There are many different places you can buy Brown Teddy Bears such as the Mall or Target or many other specialty stores.”  WTF, I don’t want the reader buying their Teddy Bear at the Mall, they are supposed to buy it from the link on the site! What in the world do you think we do with this stuff we ask you to write?

Keyword And Other Words In Title

The next thing is the title. I have tried to give the writers leeway to create their own titles, that way the title will reflect the direction they choose to take the article. That doesn’t mean I want you to title the article Candle. That’s not a title that is the keyword!

I know there are some really fast and creative niche writers out there. The bottom line is, it doesn’t matter how educated or smart you think you are. All we really want is some decently written unique content, that can incorporate a few keywords, without repeating them excessively, and not sound like you are writing the new unabridged dictionary for Amazon. It’s OK to have an opinion and express it, you don’t have to be an expert to write something about a product that is interesting enough for someone to actually read.

Niche articles are great for creating content for specific targeted sites. They are also good for article marketing purposes to generate traffic and backlinks. Often times when people attempt article marketing they will create content and publish it on directories. This still goes hand in hand with my original premise that these should be interesting articles.

It will also cloak the links and has a full tracking function. It also gives you the option of adding the no follow tag with the click of a button. But the most advanced feature of Instant WordPress Link is the  in-text advertising feature. Which will create a little pop up box when the users mouse hovers over the highlighted word. This is an advanced feature but it is easy to set up. You will need to get a free account from Shrink The Web which will only take a couple of minutes.

With this tool tip feature you can create a title, text, and even add an image. You can also edit the color of the pop up box and the text. I haven’t had any trouble getting this plugin to work. And a creative marketer could find a lot of ways to use a tool like this, without annoying the reader. I like the idea of instant clickbank links, or if you are selling an ebook you can have an image and a popup going to your product.

This is a well thought out easy to use tool. It speaks for itself but if you go to the sales page there are simple explanations and clear no nonsense videos. If you don’t already have a tool like this Instant WordPress Link may be for you.

Make Money Blogging is a nice overview for the beginning blogger. The information is concise and to the point and it’s a quick read. In fact, I must have found it engrossing because I was surprised when I got to the end. In spite of this being a quick overview, it is filled with links that one could spend several hours on. For instance the link on creating a logo from 99designs or the link on understanding Google’s TOS are things one could spend a day on.

A couple of  things, I liked about the eBook, were that he started from the beginning. Instead of trying to push his web hosting link on the newbie blogger he actually suggested starting out with a free blog service like Blogger or WordPress.com.

This is actually what I did when I began blogging. I created a family blog on WordPress.com. This enabled me to become comfortable with writing and web publishing, and to familiarize myself with WordPress, before I moved on, to the more complicated challenges, of purchasing a hosting account and domains, and dns, and ftp, and all of that fun stuff.

He is also honest and says that you might as well start learning HTML and CSS because you will need this knowledge when working on the web. I see so many gurus who say that anyone can make money online with no technical knowledge at all. It’s true that you don’t have to be a coder to setup WordPress and create a simple blog, but sooner or later, you will have to start learning, how to use some coding skills, to modify your theme and create links and ads and many other things as well.

Another thing I like about Daniel is his story. He started blogging in 2005 and quit his job in 2006 to blog full time. Today he owns several successful blogs and a membership site, and makes a 6 figure income. If you are interested in learning how to begin blogging or have some gaps that need to be filled in then Daniel’s free Make Money Blogging eBook is definitely worth taking a look at.

Many professionals already working in the field of internet hosting and web design don’t need to go back to school for credit programs, but they do want to stay current on new trends, concepts and software options. Using open courseware classes is a terrific option since they are free, are designed for self-study and can be accessed literally 24/7 from any computer with internet access.

There are many different courses to choose from but for those already working as web designers or those just getting started the following 10 courses will be of particular interest.

1. Software Applications for Web Applications – this program, offered through ArsDigita University allows the students to actually develop an interactive website based on a real world client’s specifications. The site will include a database, cookies, SQL as well as scripting language and HTML.

2. Open Web Mapping – students will learn how to incorporate open source standard software code to add interactive maps to website designs. Mapping servers and parameters of programs will be examined as well as how to customize these programs to meet individual website requirements. This program is offered through Penn State, College of EMS.

3. Database, Internet and Systems Integration Technologies – this MIT practical applications course is designed to allow students to understand how different technologies can be incorporated into website design. The course will cover http, html, XML, SOAP, security as well as data networking protocols and system integration.

4. Communicating in Cyberspace – this course encourages students to think about how different forms of visual communication online are effective and influence the web. This program is offered through MIT OpenCourseWare and is designed to represent a broader view of online communication.

5. WebAIM: Web Accessibility In Mind – developing websites that are accessible for people with different abilities and disabilities is the core component of this program. Offered through NAGT Cutting Edge (SERC) students explore how different technologies or applications enhance website design for a wider audience.

6. UNU Media Studio Blog – this study reflects the unique and multidisciplinary approach to developing open source documentaries and interactive content for the world wide web. The information on the site is tagged and categories for ease of searching and reading.

7. Blogs, Wikis and New Media For Learning – a very current look at the Web 2.0 user generated materials now popular as aspects of webpages and sites. This course is designed to address how blogging, RSS feeds, social bookmarking, photo sharing, podcasts and video sharing have influenced web design in an interactive website design. This course is offered through Utah State University OpenCourseWare. 

8. Designing Sociable Media – an MIT OpenCourseWare program, this course looks at how social websites have influenced and changed both online interactions as well as in-person communication. This understanding can help web designs in developing sites for specific types of target audiences as well as for the general public.

9. International Politics In The New Century – another MIT OpenCourseWare program, this reflective course takes a look at how online gaming with a political focus has changed how opinions are formed and modified. This information can be very useful to web designers with clients that wish to share specific political or organizational opinions.

10. An Introduction to E-Commerce and Distributed Applications – offered through The Open University OpenLearn, this course focuses in on different e-commerce options and applications for sales websites. The course will allow web designers to learn the pros and cons of different online sales programs as well as security issues.

Stephane has a blog called Follow Steph and is the owner and creator of Landlord Max which apparently is the easiest property management software available. I am actually a landlord as well,  so I can relate to Stephane on a couple of fronts.

In Blog Blazers Stephane profiles 40 top bloggers. He gets them to share their secrets to creating high-profile, high-traffic and high-profit, blogs by asking each blogger a series of 23 questions.

What I found interesting about this, was how so many of the bloggers, had the same answers for certain questions. For instance; “Which websites do you recommend for any new bloggers starting to blog?”, the overwhelming response for this question was Darren Rowse of Problogger.net.

There were other similarities between the bloggers answers as well. One of the things I enjoyed about this list is the list of bloggers themselves. Many of these blogs I have read and have even been subscribed to at one point or another.

But some of them, were blogs that I hadn’t heard of, so I got an opportunity to check out a new blog, plus get a little background information on the blogger themselves.

One of the blogs featured in the book which I had heard of, but had actually never visited, was Manolo’s Shoe Blog.  After reading the entertaining and quirky responses of Manolo of the Shoe Blogger.

I was pleasantly surprised and had to check out the site. It is fun and entertaining, and might teach you a little about fashion. One of the features I found especially entertaining was the Gallery Of Horrors.

I’ll admit that I don’t know a lot about fashion, and I am still a bit confused on this point. But, I believe that Manolo The Shoeblogger and Manolo The Designer are two different people. Please correct me if I’m wrong.

 Never the less, these two individuals have more in common than Italian Accents, they are both creative and interesting individuals who are publicly sharing their gift.

Many of the other bloggers featured in Blog Blazers were people whose blogs I have been subscribed to at one time or another. Although, I’ve been trying to ditch my feed reader for a long time. Since, I need to do more work and less reading for pleasure.

 A recent move to a new computer has enabled me to start fresh with a feed reader with close to zero subscribers and I plan on keeping it that way.

If you are a blogger, and you need inspiration and insight, Blog Blazers is the perfect resource. It will not only give you ideas, but you can learn the views and tips from the pros.

Learning from example can be a lot faster then learning on your own. If you are not a blogger you may even get more out of this book. It will be a nice introduction to several successful blogs and the inside scoop on how the creators think.

There really is nothing better than reading a good book and then writing a review about it. Except maybe going on a couple of Italian Lakes Holidays. When many picture Italy they think of monuments and quaint cobble stone villages, or beautiful ocean scenes. But have you ever heard people talk about vacationing at Lake Como this is one of the Italian lakes in the Northern Region of Italy, along with lake Garda, Maggiore, Lugano.

These lakes have long been  favorite vacation spots of the rich and famous, and I think it would be fabulous to vacation there as well.

This is review #5 in my free book review series. I enjoy personal development books and websites. I like it when I’m encouraged to think and look at things in a different way. So when I had an opportunity to review “A Life Worth Living”, by William F. Giruzzi, I seized it.

This is a rather short book at 114 pages, that revolves around the main theme of our thoughts creating our situations.  Therefore my review will be somewhat short as well. The beginning of the book starts with an example asking us to draw a line between two points on a piece of paper. Most everyone draws a straight line. Even though the pathways between the two points are actually unlimited, everyone draws the same path.

So why were we limited to this one path, when so many exist? These limitations seem to exist in our minds. These same limitations in our minds limit the way in which we choose to live our lives.  This concept, I enjoyed, because I do believe, that how we think, affects our actions, and our actions are what create our circumstances. So far, I’m in agreement.

Then it gets even better and talks about how people spend 30 or 40 years working in jobs that they say they hate. They complain at work, and complain about going to work, and dream about, quitting time, weekends, and vacation time. Then the author asks, “why people continue doing something they don’t really enjoy for such a long periods of time”? Why would they choose this? Then a light bulb goes off, they must of thought they had no choice at all.

Which makes a nice point about how the choices we choose create our way of life. Each chapter builds with examples, from illustrations to short stories that emphasize new points and concepts along this line. There are also exercises and questions at the end of each chapter to help the reader discover their own thought processes.

Then things get a little more complicated when the concept of a creating a new paradigm is introduced. Saying that what we are experiencing now is our life in this design. This design of life that was created by our thought processes and those before us.

I love the concept of our decisions creating the life we currently have, and changing our thoughts can change our lives, or even better, we can use our thoughts to create the life we want. But, I get a little lost when Giruzzi starts speaking of creating a new paradigm. A paradigm, so that our way of life is designed so that good things happen naturally for people.

From the middle on this is the main point of the book. And that all sounds well and good. But I almost feel like I’m missing a concept. Good things happening naturally for people sounds great. Giruzzi emphasizes this new paradigm several times.  I almost feel like I am missing part of the puzzle, or he is intentionally leaving out part of where he is going with this.

Over all this book poses some thought provoking questions and creates some nice points that I agree with. The good things happening naturally for people plan sounds nice but didn’t quite resonate with me for some reason. But it’s a quick read, and getting people to think differently and open their minds is a good thing. It’s possible that my life experience is so different than Giruzzi’s that his new paradigm doesn’t work for me, or maybe I’m just reading too much into it.

If you read the book you can decide for yourself. You can find out more about William F. Giruzzi and A Life Worth Living at his at A Life Worth Living Now.