Global Economy Continues to Weaken – Consider Investing in “Online” Properties
Greetings from Siddharth Rao’s blog! As we get closer to Christmas and the end of year 2008, people in the US are still fighting to keep their jobs. “Layoffs” is latest buzzword around everyone out there. The economy continues to weaken and the following year 2009 does not appear to be very promising (at least the first two quarters).
Like I said in my previous blog post – the Internet world is not seeing any “recession”. A lot of people are actively considering the option to take up the learning curve; and invest their time (as well as money) towards a “virtual real-estate”. If you ever wanted to build a web site around anything – now is the best time to do it.
For someone who has no idea about it – building/developing a web site can be like stepping in a land of crowded people who don’t talk/understand your language. I have received many requests from my friends in the recent weeks; to help them build their web site. So, I would be dedicating a series of next few blogs towards systematic step-by-step tutorials – for building a simple yet advanced web site from scratch.
The perfect audience would be those who have some technical/computer background and understand the basics of the Internet world. Someone who just learnt how to send emails a few weeks ago - are out of scope for these tutorials.
There are hundreds of tools and utilities attached with respective technologies, which one can use – when considering to build a web site. For a newbie – this can be way too overwhelming. In my posts – I would be using/showing one specific way, of making a web site (using a set of tools/technologies); which I believe is simple yet powerful; and highly efficient.
Most of the tools and technologies that I would use and recommend are from the open-source community (and hence, free)! In my next blog post – I’ll start out by giving an introduction of an advanced “Content Management System” (CMS) called “Joomla”. You would be using Joomla as your framework and foundation – for your web site project.
So stay tuned and gear up if you are serious about learning web site development. Using the tutorials that I am going to post here, you can build a web site for almost any theme or topic. Please subscribe to my blog RSS feeds by email - so that you will be notified whenever I make a new post.
Holiday Shopping in a “Recession”
It’s that time of the year again - when people shop like crazy. December is the month that accounts for highest amount of net sales - for almost every company, be it a product or service company. The mindset of buying “Gifts” for yourself or for some loved one gets you on the spending spree; and there is absolutely nothing wrong in it.
However, this year - it appears that a majority of people; are worried about their jobs (if they still have one secured). Indeed - US is in the middle of an economic recession; and this blog post talks about some smart money saving tips to help you enjoy your holiday season shopping; while keeping a check on your pockets!
The mantra for this holiday season is “Shop online with discount coupons“. A lot of people still don’t understand the benefits of shopping “online”. Except for some specific products (where you have to see it before buying it; like clothes for example) - most of the products/services can be bought online at prices much cheaper then retail prices. Even for products that requires you to wear/see it - you can always try it out in the store, take a note of the size, color, etc. and come back home to order the same thing online. You’d be saving a sizable amount on the very same item.
In addition to that - several companies have special holiday discounts that are only applicable to online purchases and are time sensitive. Add up those discounts and you’d be surprised to see the final price tag come down to as low as half the original price (sometimes even lower). The result - you get to buy all those gifts you wished for, at almost half the original price. The shipping costs are very reasonable and in most cases, waved off if the order amount is over a particular value. Again - as a part of special holiday discounts, you might as well get free shipping on your order.
Another great option is to go for “gift cards” - especially if you are planning on buying gifts. These gift cards are loaded with discount coupons and can be emailed to anyone. The recipient can then use it to shop for their item online or print it out and take it to the local store. It also gives them the flexibility to choose what they want. Check this out!
If you did not know - there are tens of thousands of web sites online, where you can get discounted prices on almost everything that you look for. All you have to do is open up your browser and search for what you need. The Internet world is not seeing any recession. If the Internet had been a real world - you’d be seeing a lot of construction work everywhere.
Yes - hundreds of web sites are getting launched every day on the World Wide Web. With time - it is only going to grow more and more. If you only have the patience to sit back and search online for some time – you can get any item you need; for a discounted price.
So - shop smart, shop online! : - )
Commission Junction Website Hacked?
*Update: Turns out they had a “technical glitch” on the front end of their web site which was fixed in about five hours…
Whoooh!! It looks like something is terribly wrong with Commission Junction (CJ). I tried hitting the home page several times this morning and here’s a screen shot of what I see. Unfortunately, I can’t read much of it since it is not in English.
CJ Website Hacked?
Does anyone out there know what the hell is going on with CJ? It is one of the largest online advertising companies and I am still wondering if it’s just me or this is a serious technical hick-up for CJ? I know it’s still early Monday morning for California (where this company is head-quartered) – but hey, someone should be on a “production on-call” – I would suppose.. ; - ) (especially on a “Cyber Monday)!
If you have any idea what is going on with CJ, please leave a comment below.
Choosing a Paid Web Hosting Service
Greetings from Siddharth Rao’s Blog and a “Happy Thanksgiving” to all US based readers!
Following up on my previous post about free web hosting services, in this post - I’ll talk about paid (cheap) web hosting services. Free web hosting is always the first choice for most beginners; however there are many limitations that would make one think about switching to a shared hosting service.
A shared hosting service requires you to pay a small monthly fee (as low as $3/month) – and you get unlimited space / huge bandwidth for web hosting. This type of web hosting is usually provided from a shared server, meaning that one hosting server shares several accounts. That is why the company can afford providing this service for such a low monthly fee.
Since it is a paid hosting plan, your site would not have any advertisements from the hosting service provider. Also, there are a range of added benefits that you get which includes databases, dozens of open-source ready-to-install server-side applications, analytics services, a C-panel (or a graphical interface to manage your hosting account), one (or more) FTP accounts, and more. You have complete control of how and what you want to put up on your web site(s).
Another benefit of opting for a paid hosting service is that you can have multiple web sites hosted off the same hosting account. You can have many sub-domains configured for your web site(s) as well. You can also install custom/3rd party applications or content management systems for your web site(s) and manage/update them efficiently and easily.
With that said – how do you go about choosing a shared web hosting service? Well, basically you have to ask yourself – how much traffic and bandwidth usage is my web site going to get? Secondly, you should decide if you are going to require many databases for your web sites. Depending on these two factors, you will have to choose around services and plans for paid hosting.
Choosing a shared web hosting provider can be an arduous task. With so many companies out there and hundreds of web sites talking about comparisons, reviews and biased rankings for the top web hosts, it is indeed a hard decision to make. In my experience, I’ve worked with five major web hosting companies so far and I’ve found three of them to have attendant problems which are never surfaced till you happen to go through it, or fall victim to it.
One of the biggest problems I’ve found with shared web hosting providers is support during downtime. Meaning that if their hosting server has a problem, all shared hosting accounts that are set up on that server will be unavailable to anyone. At such a time, I’ve experienced wait times of over two hours on the phone when I wanted to reach out to them for support. Although we can’t complain much at the price we pay for a cheap shared hosting, it is always a testing time for a web hosting company when it comes to customer service on shared hosting servers.
To round up my experiences and findings so far, I’ve found two web hosting companies that are by far the best – when it comes to shared hosting services as well as support. They are “GoDaddy” and “BlueHost”.
The best part of GoDaddy is that they give you the option to pay monthly – for your shared hosting account. Almost all other hosting providers require you to pay upfront for at least 6 months or a 12-month plan. With GoDaddy, you can have the flexibility to pay each month and not make a bigger investment. However, if you choose to pick up a 6-month/yearly plan – you get discounts on the total amount you pay towards the hosting service. I would highly recommend it to anyone who wants to start out and has a low budget. As a matter of fact – this web site is hosted on GoDaddy as well : - )
Talking about BlueHost, they do not have a monthly paying hosting option. You have to sign up for a minimum of 12-months of hosting. However, they offer a lot of value and options with your hosting account and for the price you pay, it is by far the best bargain one can get. They are also renowned for their outstanding customer support and consistent up time of servers, even for shared hosting accounts. So, in terms of long-term reliability, BlueHost would stand out of the competition. I have some other (bigger) sites hosted off BlueHost and I’ve loved their service so far.
Before I conclude this post, here are a few coupons for additional savings – should you plan to buy a hosting account (or just a domain) from either GoDaddy or BlueHost:
GoDaddy Coupon Codes:
BlueHost Coupon Codes:
- Get 20% OFF Any Hosting Plan (coupon applies at checkout)
Good luck with all your web-endeavors !! : - )
Choosing a Free Web Hosting Service
The rate at which people are turning to the Internet and making web sites for a variety of reasons – is increasing rapidly. With that said, choosing a web hosting service that is suitable to their needs is very important. There are tens of thousands of web hosting companies that offer several types of web hosting services. So how does one go about deciding – which one to choose? This post is very basic, for beginners and not for advanced web masters.
Usually, a lot of starters out there try to look for a web hosting service that is offered without any cost. While it is okay to look for a free web host, you must bear in mind that there are significant limitations – especially if you’re planning on developing a dynamic web site. Most free web hosts have advertising banners/pop-ups enabled on your page and would not offer databases.
So, free web hosting is only good if you are planning to host a simple static web site. On the flip side, if you are willing to pay - you can get the best packages for as low as $3/month. Anyway, in this post – I am going to outline the basic points to consider, when looking at free web hosting services.
There are four primary points to consider while comparing free web hosting services: “amount of space”, “file size and upload limits”, “FTP access” and “server reliability”.
The most important thing to consider when choosing a free web host is the amount of space allocated by the hosting service for your site. This is important as more space you have for your web site, the better, as you can upload files and get more flexibility. Typically, these free hosting services offer only 10 MB (or up to 25 MB) of space and you have to think if this is enough for all your pictures, videos, and other thingamajigs you want to put in your web site.
The second consideration has to be given to server reliability. I hate clicking on a link that takes me to a page; which says “server error” or takes ages to load. Nowadays, access to information in the fastest time possible plays a very important role - as everyone prefers instant access to information.
Another consideration to make is the limitation that the web hosting service sets, with respect to the types and sizes of the files that will be uploaded for your web site. Free hosts usually put a limit on this since their services are shared with other people who also need free web hosting like you. But there are some hosts that will give you enough freedom to create a presentable web page. So it’s just a matter of research on your part to find these free web hosting service providers.
FTP access is usually offered by almost all free web hosting providers, these days. This is very useful for beginners as you just choose the files as if you were just attaching them to your email and uploading it to your web site. If you are just a beginner, choosing a web host with FTP access will greatly work to your advantage.
There are, of course, other considerations to make when choosing a free web host but the four considerations mentioned above will give you the most basic criteria for comparison between free web hosting services. In my next post, I’ll talk about shared (paid) hosting providers and highlight the top two providers that I have worked with, in the last five years.
Phone call from Google™ - recommending a “Jumpstart”
I got a call from a Google™ Adwords™ representative this morning. For a few seconds, I was wondering what would this be all about? Since I had recently started using Adwords™ PPC advertising on a slightly higher scale for my web sites – I had all sorts or things spinning up my head as I initiated the conversation with this female.
However, I soon realized that this is a “sales rep” trying to educate me about a program called “Jumpstart”. I asked her to send me some more details by email and scheduled a phone call for the following week. This would give me time to research and gather more information and facts about this program and talk accordingly.
So what is this “Jumpstart” program all about? By searching online – I could find out that this program was launched by Google™ about 3-4 years ago, as a part of it’s effort to give a helping hand to small businesses/advertisers – in order to help them understand Adwords™ and create a solid foundation for their business, as far as online advertising is concerned.
In this program, Google™ will assign a team of “specialists” for creating your Adwords™ campaign, with all the ad groups, keywords and ad copies. They start off by scheduling phone conversations with you to understand your advertising/business goals for the respective web site(s). They give you the choice to set the daily budget, however give a recommendation what it should like be. Also, they monitor the campaign activity and progress on a daily basis and optimize it based on your business goals/objectives. They provide this “helping hand” for 45 days. After that – you are supposed to manage the campaign(s) by yourself. They would still be available for any support/questions at any time. How much do they charge? - Like any other Google™ service, it’s FREE !!
Hmm, sounds pretty good at the outset. However, only someone who has actually used this service can actually tell if it really works the way they describe; and more importantly – how beneficial this really is? While I’m indeed going to give it a try, I’d appreciate responses/comments from anyone who has been a part of this “Adwords™ Jumpstart” program.
First “Welcome” Blog Post
Welcome to Siddharth Rao’s Blog. The site is now officially “live”…
Phew, I finally kept up to my deadline to get this out there by Nov 15. I’ve been thinking about starting a blog since months. I would primarily write on various topics, mostly related to technology. I hope to build up this blog as a platform for “on-demand” useful information - which can be applied immediately by anyone.
I’m using Wordpress as my blog CMS. I am not a very professional user of WP - but I like what I see, so far. It is very easy to use, has a terrific support community and best of all - it’s FREE !!
Although this is a personal blog, you would find several product (or service) reviews as well. Most of these products or services would be the one’s which I have personally used and found it to be useful. Besides that, I would also post some core technical procedures, troubleshooting issues and workarounds on several tech subjects.
On a final note - I’m down with the first post! I’ve silently launched my personal blog without much shout-outs or pre-launch stunts. I’ve only received a few dozen page views on the “about me” page so far, as a result of search engines indexing my site. Let’s see how far I can take it out there - in the internet world…