• Barter For Business – Cost Free Trading

    Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: General | Response: 0

    Whether you are a designer, traffic broker, content provider or, web host the one thing that will connect your business in some form is that other webmasters at some point, will want the services and products that you offer. With this in mind, you are instantly at an advantage the reason for this advantage will become apparent in this brief article.
    Bartering Goods And Services.

    Bartering is a business practice that is as old as mankind itself, from the stone age right up to the present day individuals have been trading their goods and services for other goods and services of like value. This is where your advantage comes into play. Perhaps you are a web hosting company in need of design work or, perhaps you are a designer in need of traffic, either way, there will always be other webmaster who want the services you offer and, in return they will offer services that you require. This is the absolute fundamental basis of the barter system, trade one product or service for another in order to improve the way in which you do things.

    Finding A Company To Barter With.

    The problem that so often arises when bartering is involved however is finding a vehicle for you to start the bartering process. More often than not you can find someone on a message forum that will be willing to barter your services however, this is not always the case and so, you should turn to email to instigate the initial contact.

    Asking For A Barter – How To.

    First and foremost, before sending an email or making a post asking to barter your services or products you should compile a list of items that you need, this could be content, advertising, graphics work or even web hosting, either way, by having a clear concise list of what you are in need of and, more importantly, what you can offer in return prior to sending an email will help you out immensely.

    Now that you have your list of services you require and what you can offer in return it comes to the initial contact, the first thing you should do is explain what it is you are proposing as clearly as possible, explain why a barter with you will become a win/win situation for the both of you as well as making sure you drop a compliment or two about their company in the email. Also, you should prove why offering your services in exchange for theirs will be a fair trade, by doing all of this at the first point of contact you stand a much better chance of them accepting your trade proposal.

    Bartering – Recap.

    Bartering is a strong tool that can help you build your business from the very second you start it however, with this strong tool also comes the opportunity for it to become a strong negative when running your business. To much time concentrating on bartering services can take away from running your business to its fullest, rather than trying to barter services all the time, ensure you build a good capital up so you are able to invest in services to build your business. Either way, whether you choose to barter or not, this method has been proven in success for thousands of years, why not try it out for yourself?

    Article written by Lee.

  • Formatting HTML Text Using Tags

    Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: WebDesign | Response: 0

    Formatting HTML Text Using Tags.

    As we know there are many elements to a website from graphics to text. In this article we are going to have a closer look at text and, more importantly how we format the text to look like we want it to.

    The text of the HTML pages we create, as you already know goes inside the <body> tag of our HTML pages but, unless you are using a WYSIWYG editor you can not just click a button and make it appear bold or italic therefore we need to get to know some of the text property tags that can be used to enhance our HTML text. Lets take a look at some of these now.

    <b> Any text inside these two tags will appear bold on our page</b>
    <i> Any text inside these two tags will appear in italic on our page</i>
    <u> Any text inside these two tags will appear to be underlined on our page</u>
    <big> Any text inside these two tags will appear BIG on our page</big>
    <small> Any text inside these two tags will appear small on our page</small>
    <sub> Any text inside these two tags will appear subscript on our page</sub>
    <sup> Any text inside these two tags will appear as superscript on our page</sup>

    There are also things called ‘heading tags’ these will work the same as the formatting tags mentioned above however there are only six of them and they look like this <hx> with the x being replaced by a number from 1-6 the lower this number is in the tag the LARGER our text will become so for example:

    <h1> Will be the largest heading text</h1>
    <h2> Will be the next smallest heading tag</h2>
    <h3> Will be smaller again </h3>
    <h4> Will be one size smaller again</h4>
    <h5> Will be the second to smallest heading size</h5>
    <h6> Is the smallest of the heading tags</h6>

    Also, you should remember that it *IS* possible to use more than one of the text tags in any single line of portion of text on our web page so for example, if i wanted to have bold underlined italic text my tags for the text would look like this:

    <b><i><u>This text is bold, in italics, and underlined</u></i></b>

    You will notice from the above example that the tags were opened and closed in the same order they were created this doesn’t have to be done like this but, in the long run, it is easier for you as a webmaster to code your pages this way.

    Hopefully this article has given you a further understanding on how we can format out text and you will be bale to put this into practice on the next site you build.

    Article written by Lee

  • Using .htaccess Effectively

    Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: WebDesign | Response: 0

    The .htaccess file is an ASCII text document that can be placed in any directory on your site. It can be used to control access to files and directories, and customize some server operation in your site. A .htaccess file can be created in any word processor but must be saved as text only. You must use FTP software in ASCII mode to upload or edit your .htaccess file. For the examples provided here, place the .htaccess file in your root directory.

    There are a variety of functions that you can control using .htaccess some of the more useful of these are explained below:

    Custom Error Messages.

    Add the following to the .htaccess file::

    ErrorDocument 404 /notfound.html

    After “ErrorDocument” specify the error code, followed by a space, and then the path and filename of the .html file you would like to be displayed when the specified error is generated, each specific error code is detailed below with the recommended codes to be used in the .htaccess file in bold :

    200 OK
    206 Partial content
    301 Document moved permanently
    302 Document found elsewhere
    304 Not modified since last retrieval
    400 Bad request
    403 Access forbidden
    404 Document not found
    408 Request timeout
    500 Internal server error
    501 Request type not supported

    Using the codes above your error section of the .htaccess file should look like this:

    ErrorDocument 301 /notfound.html
    ErrorDocument 400 /notfound.html
    ErrorDocument 403 /notfound.html
    ErrorDocument 404 /notfound.html
    ErrorDocument 500 /notfound.html
    ErrorDocument 501 /notfound.html

    Redirect to a Different Folder.

    Add the following to the .htaccess file:

    RewriteEngine on
    RewriteRule ^/oldfolder(.*)$ /newfolder/$1 [R]

    This redirects the user from /oldfolder/anyfile.html to /newfolder/anyfile.html, when the .htaccess file is uploaded to the otherwise empty “/oldfolder” directory.

    Denying User Access.

    Add the following to the .htaccess file:

    <Limit GET>
    order allow,deny
    deny from 000.00.00.
    deny from 000.000.000.000
    allow from all
    </Limit>

    This is an example of a .htaccess file that will block access to your site to anyone who is coming from any IP address beginning with 000.00.00 and from the specific IP address 000.000.000.000 . By specifying only part of an IP address, and ending the partial IP address with a period, all sub-addresses coming from the specified IP address block will be blocked. You must use the IP addresses to block access, use of domain names is not supported

    Redirect a Machine Name.

    Add the following to the .htaccess file:

    RewriteEngine On
    Options +FollowSymlinks
    RewriteBase /
    # Rewrite Rule for machine.domain-name.net
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} machine.domain-name.net $
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !machine/
    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ machine/$1

    This will redirect requests for the machine name machine.domain-name.net to the directory machine on the site domain-name.net.

    Different Default Home Page.

    Add the following to the .htaccess file:

    DirectoryIndex filename.html

    Then a request for http://domain-name.net/ would return http://domain-name.net/filename.html if it exists, or would list the directory if it did not exist.

    To automatically run a cgi script, add the following to the .htaccess file:

    DirectoryIndex /cgi-local/index.pl

    This would cause the CGI script /cgi-bin/index.pl to be executed.

    If you place your .htaccess file containing the DirectoryIndex specification in the root directory of your site, it will apply for all sub-directories at your site.

    Preventing Hot Linking.

    Add the following to the .htaccess file:

    # Rewrite Rule for images
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} <URL of page accessing your domain>
    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://<same as above URL>

    You would replace the <URL of page accessing your domain> above with the domain name and path of the page that is referring to your domain. For example: www.theirdomain.com/users/mypage/

    The RewriteCond directive states that if the {HTTP_REFERER} matches the URL that follows, then use the RewriteRule directive. The RewriteRule directive will redirect any reference back to the referring web page.

    Using the above you should, safely be able to publish your sites on the internet knowing that you will not be privy to bandwidth thieves via hotlinking and also, that you will not lose any traffic through pages that are ‘not found’.

    Article Written By Lee

  • Domain Name Registration Services What To Look For

    Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: Domain Names | Response: 0

    Once upon a time, if you wanted to register a domain name, you could only do it by visiting Network Solutions at http://www.networksolutions.com/ and paying them whatever they asked for, about $35.00 per year.

    Then ICANN, http://www.icann.org/, The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) that is the non-profit corporation that was formed to assume responsibility for the IP address space allocation, protocol parameter assignment, domain name system management, and root server system management functions previously performed under U.S. Government contract by IANA and other entities, decided to change the rules.

    The initial testing phase of the new competitive Shared Registry System for the .com, .net, and .org domains quietly began to take place in April of 1999.

    It started with five participants who were the first to implement the new system for competition in the market for .com, .net, and .org domain name registration services.

    Previously, registration services in the .com, .net, and .org domains were provided by Network Solutions, Inc. under an exclusive contract with the United States government.

    In the two years since this program began, things have really changed.

    Just this last week, ICANN reported that two of their registrars, Tucows and New York-based Register.com, had recorded more new registrations for Top Level Domains (dot-com, dot-net and dot-org) than VeriSign’s Network Solutions.

    This marks the first time ever that VeriSign’s Network Solutions was out-sold by any of the registrars and signals that their past dominance of domain name registration is certainly fading.

    Why?

    Because besides others being allowed to make domain name registrations, these new registrars are also cutting prices.

    The Rules have most certainly changed.

    The Shared Registration System (“SRS”), ICANN’s accredited registrars program, allows people to submit application to become a registrar along with a non-refundable $1000 filing fee.

    After someone is accepted into the program then they must pay a yearly fee of $5000 to maintain their status as an accredited registrar.

    This situation has created a very competitive environment which can only be beneficial to all of us as the price to register a domain name has fallen like a rock from a very tall building.

    However, if you plan to register a new domain name using a virtual unknown registrar, make certain they do indeed have the legal accreditation from ICANN by visiting the ICANN web site and viewing their posted list of ALL accredited vendors:
    http://www.icann.org/registrars/accredited-list.html

    It will only take you a few moments to make sure you are dealing with a reputable vendor of domain names. Those few moments will make the entire process legal and worry-free.

    Article written by Lee

  • JavaScript Know How

    Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: Scripts | Response: 0

    JavaScript can be one of the most useful additions to any web page. It comes packaged as standard in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and, Netscape Navigator and allows webmasters to perform field validations, mouse-over’s, pop ups and a whole entourage of other nifty little features on our sites.

    In this article we will show you how to:

    – Display the browser name and version number
    – Change the text in the status bar of the browser
    – Use an input box to get text from the user
    – Use a message box to display text to the user
    – Change the title of the browser window

    Before that, however, we need to know how to setup our web page so that it can run the JavaScript. JavaScript code is inserted between opening and closing script tags: <script> and </script>, like this:

    <script language=”JavaScript”>

    –> JavaScript code goes here <–

    </script>

    These script tags can be placed anywhere on the page, however, it’s common practice to place them between the <head>and </head> tags. A basic HTML page that contains some JavaScript looks like this:

    <html>
    <head>
    <title> My Test Page </title>
    <script language=”JavaScript”>

    function testfunc()
    {
    var x = 1;
    }

    </script>
    </head>
    <body>
    <h1>Hello</h1>
    </body>
    </html>

    For the examples in this article, you should use the basic document format I have just shown you, inserting the JavaScript code between the <script> and </script>tags. When you load the page in your browser, the JavaScript code will be executed automatically.

    Displaying the browsers name and version number.

    The “navigator” object in JavaScript contains the details of the user’s browser, including its name and version number. They can be displayed in a browser using the document.write function:

    document.write(“Your browser is: ” + navigator.appName);
    document.write(“<br>Its version is: ” + navigator.appVersion);

    I run Windows 2000 and Internet Explorer version 6, so the output from the code above looks like this in my browser window:

    Your browser is: Microsoft Internet Explorer
    Its version is: 4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0b; Windows NT 5.0)

    Changing the text in the status bar of the browser.

    To change the text in the status bar of a browser window, just change the “status” member of the “window” object, which represents the entire browser window:

    window.status = “This is some text”;

    Using an input box to get text from the user.

    Just like in traditional windows applications, you can use an input box to get some text input from the user. The “prompt” function is all you need:

    var name = prompt(“What is your name?”);
    document.write(“Hello ” + name);

    The prompt function accepts just one argument (the title of the input box), and returns the value entered into the text box. In the example above, you get the users name and store it in the “name” variable. You then use the “document.write” function to output their name into the browser window.

    Using a message box to display text to the user.

    You can display a message box containing an OK button. These are great when you want to let the user know what is happening during their time on a particular page. You can use a message box to display the “name” variable from our previous example:

    var name = prompt(“What is your name?”);
    alert(“Your name is: ” + name);

    The “alert” function takes one argument, which is the text to display inside of the message box.

    Changing the title of the browser window.

    To change the title of a web browser’s window, simply modify the “document.title” variable, like this:

    document.title = “My new title”;

    One bad thing about the “document.title” variable is that it can only be manipulated in Microsoft Internet Explorer. Netscape’s implementation of JavaScript doesn’t allow for modification.

    In Closing.

    As you can see from the examples in this article, JavaScript is a powerful scripting language that can be used to enhance a visitor’s experience with our site. However, you shouldn’t use JavaScript too much because in some cases it can annoy visitors and send them packing before your site even loads!

    Article Written By Lee

  • Promo Material – Make The Most Of Your Marketing

    Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: Promotion | Response: 0

  • How To Claim Back European V.A.T

    Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: Billing Solutions, General | Response: 0

    With the recent legislations requiring US businesses to charge Value Added Tax to EU Member state customers for purchases of digital product / image downloads there are many new questions going around enquiring how companies and small business owners can claim the VAT back this is what we will look at in this brief article – The basics of claiming back your VAT from Europe.

    What Is V.A.T?

    Value Added Tax (VAT) is a consumption tax levied on goods and services in many countries across the globe. Over the last decade, legislation in the tax systems of Europe, Canada, Japan and South Korea allow for a refund for the majority of non resident entities, worldwide to a refund of VAT in most instances however, especially in the business world, registration must be achieved prior to claiming back your VAT and, preferably before the purchase of Vat able goods takes place.

    Who Is Entitled To A VAT Refund?

    Most businesses will be entitled to receive a VAT refund however, as the laws vary from country to country, the best way for you as a business owner to find out the laws as they affect you is to contact your company accountant who, should be knowledgable enough to inform you of what you need to claim back from each of the EU member states where V.A.T has been charged.

    What Products Can I Claim V.A.T Refunds For?

    Most typically value added tax recoverable expenses can take form as one or more of the following items:

    Business Property Expenses.
    Transportation Costs.
    Inter-company Billing.
    Marketing + Promotional Services.
    Exhibitions, Conferences + Business Meetings.
    Importation V.A.T.
    Digital Downloads (Business Related).

    How Do I Register For V.A.T?

    When a company inside the domestic US conducts transactions in the EU countries where value added tax registrations may be required the registration for the VAT refund should be done prior to the transaction taking place however, on occasions which vary from individual EU member states this registration process may be done retroactively. By becoming registered to claim your VAT back the company is legally required to d the following:

    1) Register for the VAT in the EU country where the transaction takes place.
    2) Account for VAT on all invoices or receipts issued to your European customers.
    3) Deduct the V.A.T incurred from your European suppliers of goods or services.

    Value Added Tax – An Overview.

    When all is said and done, other than the obvious need to increase your pricing structure for certain global markets registering for and, charging value added tax actually has a great deal of benefits. You now get to claim addition refunds from any expenses that you incur from the day to day running of your business, your promotional activities become vat’able so you can now increase the level of global marketing you do and, claim full value back from the EU member states (where applicable). basically, registering in the EU member state will enable your business to grow on a global scale and, at the same time, afford you the luxury of being able to market your goods and services to a greater client base at virtually no cost to yourself this is a good thing especially when you take a look at the growth that international internet usage is making each month.

    Article written by Lee

  • Favicon.ico – What Does It Do?

    Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: WebDesign | Response: 0

    Favicon.ico is the name of the graphic Internet Explorer 5+ uses in the address bar and when someone views their favorite bookmarks. There should be one beside the address of this page now if you are using IE5+. If you want to see favicon.ico in action among your favorites bookmark our site now by right clicking and selecting ‘Add to favorites’.

    Internet Explorer looks for this file in the same directory as the HTML page currently being displayed, if it cant find favicon.ico it will then display the default Internet Explorer icon in the address bar. As for viewing of favorites, IE will check its temporary folder to see if favicon.ico is there again, if it is not located it will display the default white background with a blue ‘e’ icon.

    For a webmaster there are three main advantages to using the favicon.ico ‘trick’.

    The first, is that it helps to brand your site with a nice little icon that is easy to recognize.

    The second, is that it makes your website more professional.

    The third, is that your entry will stand out in surfers bookmarks over the others. This is especially good as, if you can get a surfer back to your site then you have another chance at making a sale.

    Many internet users have a multitude of site bookmarks so, you need to use favicon.ico to give you an edge. I highly recommend using it and, now I’m going to tell you how.

    First, you will need to create an icon file which is exactly 16 x 16 pixels. If the icon is larger or smaller IE5+ will just ignore it. As for the colors in it, 16 is standard. You can use more colors if you want but, the more colors you use, the larger the .ico file becomes and, the longer it takes to load.

    You now know the standards the favicon.ico file has to be, now to actually create this file you can take one of two routes.

    The first is to convert and existing 16 x 16 BMP or GIF graphic with 16-32 colors into an .ico file using converter software making sure to save it as favicon.ico.

    You know the standards the favicon.ico file has to be, now to actually create favicon.ico . The easiest way of creating a favicon.ico file is to convert an existing 16 X 16 BMP or GIF graphic with 16 – 32 colors into a .ico file using converter software making sure to save it as favicon.ico.

    Once you have created your favicon.ico file all you need to do is to upload it to any directory on your server that contains html pages. This way, when IE5+ searches for favicon.ico it will be bale to find it regardless of which page you are on.

    That’s nearly all the areas of favicon.ico covers apart from, what if you want different icons for different parts of your website? Can this be done? The answer is yes it can. All you have to do is place the following HTML code between the <head> and </head> tags of your web page.

    <LINK REL=”SHORTCUT ICON” HREF=”differenticon.ico”> (SHORTCUT ICON should be kept in uppercase).

    Now when someone adds a web page with that code to their favorites, IE5+ will not look for favicon.ico but will look for differenticon.ico and if it’s there it will display it, if not the default icon will be displayed.

    Using favicon.ico or the SHORTCUT ICON code is nice way to add a unique touch to your site, and of course will result in more repeat visitors than if you were not using it – which is always good for any webmaster.

    Article Written By Le

  • Marketing Campaigns – Testing Your Variables

    Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: Promotion | Response: 0

    Irrespective of the medium, an online advertising campaign needs to be tested and optimized constantly in order to provide you with the optimum results. This is where advertising testing can play an important role in your marketing strategy. Despite the advantages to testing your online marketing campaigns, relatively few companies actually go out of their way to see what what works, what doesn’t and, more importantly, why.

    Steps To Testing Your Ad Campaign.

    1) Set expectations as to how you envisage your campaign to perform. This in itself will guide you’re optimization methods. An example of this is, if you expect your ad medium to get a 15% click thru rate or a, 10% conversion rate, you have justification in making adjustments to your campaign if the creative you are using does not perform to your level of expectation.

    2) Don’t get tied into a campaign, If you are going to be purchasing an advertising campaign on a resource site, ensure you have an ‘out clause’. This out clause will enable you to terminate the campaign as long as it has run for a set amount of time, usually, many resources will be happy to give you an out clause especially, if after testing your marketing materials, the results you were hoping for have still not shown themselves.

    3) Consider the variables in your ad campaign, usually, webmasters only think of the one variable in their advertising campaign – Price. However, there are many more variables to be looked at for example, if you are doing a mail drop, the subject line of the email, format and, copy text of the email body itself, all of these things can have a drastic effect on any given advertising campaign, at any given time and often, these can, and most probably will, fluctuate from site to site where you are purchasing ad space.

    4) Stats tracking, tracking your campaign makes it easier to test and review how your advertising medium is working for you, many sites offer live stats for your ad campaigns however, some still do not, where this isn’t a problem in itself as, most companies you choose to advertise with will be more than happy to provide you with statistics as and when you need them after all, you are paying for their services and support.

    5) Pull the plug on campaigns that are not performing, however, ensure you have changed your creative several times before doing so, often, you will find a simple change such as a new creative can drastically increase your marketing efforts. Also, do not just pull advertising as you feel like it, if your campaign has only been active for a week, don’t expect hundred / thousands of hits instantly, often it takes webmasters a while to realize there are new ad mediums running on the sites they visit so often.

    Online Advertising – Review.

    By constantly assessing and testing your advertising campaigns you can pull some interesting figures which can help you long term however, don’t rush into pulling campaigns that you have only just started. Give it a few days, change your copy text and creatives and, if that doesn’t work talk to the company, they will be able to offer you advice and help on improving your sales from your advertising medium after all, they want to keep your business.

    Article written by Lee

  • Cleaning Up The Myths On Scrubbing

    Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: Billing Solutions | Response: 0

    Time and time again on message boards I see the same old topics regarding scrubbing usually preceded by some company being accused of scrubbing their webmasters surfers to much and the webmasters sales being lower because of the sponsor ‘scrubbing’ their surfers however, the reality of this is, it isn’t the sponsors who control how much or how little the surfers credit card transactions are ‘scrubbed’.

    The E-Commerce Dilemma.

    Irrespective of whether you are an online bookmaker, bakery or adult pay site owner the fact of the matter remains that only credit card fraud is on the increase and, in addition to the rise of online credit card fraud the methods in which the perpetrators of these crimes carry them out is also changing often combating the methods put in place by the online transaction processors to stop this happening luckily however, this is where ‘scrubbing’ comes into effect.

    So What Is Scrubbing?

    Scrubbing is a method used by the credit card processor that the companies who’s site you are sending a surfer to uses. Scrubbing is in effect, a method of calculating the probability that any single transaction (or group of transactions) could be fraudulent. That is to say, is being carried out by someone other than the true owner of the credit or debit card.

    Scrubbing is probably the single most useful tool provided to our sponsors by the credit card processors to ensure that every transaction that gets sent to them is credible and, once the transaction is allowed (or not) a part of the information contained with the transaction is sent to a central database to help other clients of that processor guard against receiving unlawful transaction purchases.

    How Does Scrubbing Affect Me?

    As a webmaster, believe it or not, scrubbing is actually a good thing for you. You know that each transaction processed is first of all a legitimate one and, secondly, you know that the sponsor who you are using is not going to go bankrupt due to excessive illegal transaction. This means that the sponsor can improve the services they offer YOU as a webmaster to assist you in making more money.

    In essence, the scrubbing of credit card transactions at a sponsors level increases the amount of money you make long term not only with that individual sponsor but, with every other sponsors who uses the same transaction processor.

    Article written by Lee.

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