It’s been an interesting day.  I’ve had a job related assignment to review online backup services including the free backup online and online data backup services that you’re starting to see advertised now more and more heavily.

We tested three well known online backup service products on Windows 7 and Windows Vista SP2.  The results were not pretty.  I found I could not recommend any of them.  In fact, they were so new and so unfinished, that I am not allowed to even name them or discuss them here.

I posted as much on a message board (forum) I hang out on and got a response in just a few minutes that I should try Mozy.  Good call.

Click This Link To Try Mozy Free Online Backup Service

I signed up for the free online backup mozy account in about 1 minute.  I downloaded the software and installed it and that took about 2 more minutes.  It instantly worked on both my test machines and that was that.  Problem solved.  Time for lunch, I am a happy IT guy.

The Mozy free online backup service is limited to 2gb, but that’s more than enough to store most users documents.  In fact it’s pretty generous.

It runs in the background and takes care of your online backup service automatically.  You can select the load it has on your system and that makes sure that you never know it’s running.  In fact it’s running right now and my personal machine, which became our third test machine runs as fast as ever.  Even playing SPORE and Command and Conquer 3 Red Alert showed no signs that Mozy was running a backup.  If you could feel something (perhaps on older slower machines) you can move the slider from ‘Quicker Backups’ to ‘Faster Computer’ and your problem is solved.

Mozy is a secure online backup service and they are serious about data security.  You can use their algo or you can go for alternatives.  I went with their native Blowfish encryption and in my opinion lacking any nuclear secrets in my documents, it should be way more than good.

Mozy may be new to you and the company behind it is new to me and it’s named Decho.  They have a comprehensive ‘about us’ page that can fill you in on the details.  I can tell you that this software is not new.  It’s up to date, it’s extremely well polished, and it lacks a certain raw feeling that the other products had (and they failed to perform).  I have a feeling that this has been worked on for quite a while and I am endorsing it for our internal and external client projects on the basis that it performed flawlessly in all our tests.

For individuals they offer the free online backup service up to 2gb storage and $4.95 for unlimited storage (cheap at twice the price).

For companies it’s based on the number of computers an other factors but it’s still cheaper than the cost of deploying your own systems and hardware to do the job.

If you are at a large corporate location you might have the scale needed to get a better ROI on an internal solution, But (that’s an acronym for Behold the Underlying Truth) we’re all trying to get closer to our customers and that means more field offices, smaller work groups and less opportunity to achieve economies of scale for internal solutions.

I say save the money and outsource small to medium sized offices to Mozy.  This is an no brainer.  You can deploy it in under a day including client training.

See some pictures of the install process and Click This Link To Try Mozy Free Online Backup Service

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Yahoo Search Marketing Promotion.  This deal is no deal. Where I am from it’s called fraud.

Recently I was asked to set up an online advertising campaign to promote a friends business.  I was going to set up a Google Adwords account for them, but I saw this great offer from Yahoo Search Marketing Small Business and decided that I’d set up both an Adwords account and a Yahoo Search Marketing account using this advertiser coupon / bonus / credit.

Please note the nice young lady with the sign.  Oh sure she looks friendly enough, but watch out! She bites!  Just to the right above the ’sign up’ button,  plain as day you can see the $100 credit offer.

Will you get the credit?  Absolutely not! A customer service inquiry got me the answer that the promotion was not valid and that they could only offer a $25 credit.  Other reports online say that I was lucky to receive even that.

Notice the little tiny ‘1′ on the left side of the sign up button?  Check the fine print on the  bottom of the very same page where is says $100 and you’ll see that they are going to give you “$0 credit into the account”.

So at this point, Yahoo has my friends $30 and my friend has been cheated by Yahoo.  What did I do?  I got another friend to sign up and I used a page that says it will give you $100 on the top and in the fine print.  Guess what?  They still will not deposit the credit. Having had two experiences with this on different offer pages for two different peoples accounts, I can tell you that this is a repeated pattern of criminal behavior on the part of Yahoo.  If I didn’t have two responses from their customer service reps to show, then I would not say that, but I’m calling it like it is.

Attn Yahoo: You can respond any time and tell us all exactly how sorry you are and what you are going to do to correct this for my friends and for the millions of customers out there that you are currently cheating.  Come clean and this post gets updated.  Come really clean and make good and I’ll even delete it and call it a temporary error on your part.  Until then in the interest of public safety in avoiding online scams, the post stays.

Please consider an MSN account in addition to your Adwords account.  Both companies actually follow through on their offers and the performance on MSN, although lower traffic, has been startlingly good.

This has been a Dave Williams Public Service Announcement - File under Staying Safe Online

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Godaddy Website Hosting

I’m hosted on Godaddy right now .   I thought it looked pretty good.  It’s extremely popular, it’s the worlds largest registrar of new domains and the company seems extremely stable and well managed.

All the shared hosting plans have one fatal flaw.  You do not get access to raw web logs.  Imagine Google bans you from Adsense and you need those logs to prove your innocence!  Imagine someone starts hacking your website and you’re web log analyzer cannot see it an warn you.  This is clearly unacceptable.

It’s still a great deal and I am sure that a lot of people will choose this service.  Just be aware of the above caveat.

I switched to HostGator and have been extremely happy in server performance, standards support and customer service.  I am delighted to be at HostGator.

Go on over to HostGator and sign up - I did!

Don’t forget to use the Hostgator discount coupont code: wordpress to get that discount.

For those that would like godaddy coupons… read on:

Website Hosting Plans From Godaddy Include the ‘Economy Plan”

3 mo:$4.99/mo
12 mo: $4.74/mo
24 mo: $4.50/mo
36 mo: $4.25/mo

And then you can use our Godaddy Coupons to save even more:

OYH3 - $2.50 off / $7.45 any .COM (renewals too… just used it)

BTPS7 - 20% any order of $50 or more

OYH1 - 10% off whatever

OYH2 - $5 off a $30 purchase

BTPS4 - 10% off anything

chill1 - 10% off

HostGator Website Hosting

HostGator is a major player in discount web hosting and has been around a long time just like Godaddy.

HostGator servers test out to be just as fast as Godaddy servers, even from international locations.

Hostgator signup, setup and configuration are completely free of the over the top marketing minefield that Godaddy puts you through.  It’s a simpler, cleaner process.

Hostgator gives you complete log access unlike Godaddy who only gives you summarized information.  Again, you need log access to defend yourself in case someone wants you to prove something about your website.  The example being Google Adsense among many.

Other than marketing fluff features, there is nothing that Hostgator lacks when compared to Godaddy.  An example of “marketing fluff” would be Godaddy’s questionable “Traffic Blazer” service and it’s extremely non-usefull connection to Google Webmaster Tools. They work much better when accessed from outside the Godaddy configuration panel.

What you get in Hostgator is discount, excellent quality web hosting and a budget price, but it’s real web hosting.  You don’t sign up and then find out that they’ve given you a bunch of fake features and not given you the “industry standard” expected features like log file access.   Hostgator even gives you good old familiar CPanel access instead of a nightmare to navigate proprietary system you face at Godaddy.

Needless to say I am moving this site to HostGator.  In addition to the above reasons to Leave Godaddy, the value for money is fantastic at HostGator.

Here’s some examples:

$7.95 each month gives you:

UNLIMITED WEBSITES
UNLIMITED DISK
UNLIMITED TRAFFIC

Add the hostgator discount coupon code “wordpress” and you get started for 1 cent.

Conclusion HostGator eats Godaddy

It’s not even a close match.  A standards based technology platform and excellent value for money beats hype any day.  I’ve done a throrough check of what’s included in the plan and everything you need is already included.  Unless your needs are extremely extravegent, you probably won’t have to upgrade any time soon and as your websites grow, divide and conquer, you’ll already have enough space for them.

Go on over to HostGator and sign up - I did!

Don’t forget to use the Hostgator discount coupont code: wordpress to get that discount.

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The answer is LAST.FM , LASTRIPPER and STATIONRIPPER.  Free MP3 Download for all operating systems and all platforms.

The amazing news is that this method works equally well under Apple MAC OSX, Windows XP, Windows Vista and Linux!

The dream is to build a virtual radio station based on music you like that keeps adding fresh tracks as new music comes out AND THEN download, tag them and load them into itunes automatically every day so you can load them into your iPod or Creative Zen in my case.

I’ve got it and at least one of the methods (probably the best one) is ABSOLUTELY FREE and that’s “The Last Ripper”.  The only downside to the Last Ripper is no direct support for iTunes, but iTunes can import the songs anyway.  Station Ripper directly supports iTunes, but has some issues and some advantages of it’s own.

Everybody knows that you have to RIP a cd to create MP3’s but what if you could RIP a streaming audio radio station off the internet?  Now you can have an MP3 library of epic proportions for free and it would automatically update itself every time you run the software.

Step 1 is to go to http://last.fm and register for a free account.  Download the Last FM player to your desktop so you don’t have to go to their website to listen to your favorite music.

Step 2 is to go to http://thelastripper.com and download the ABSOLUTELY FREE LastRipper.

After you install The Last Ripper you’ll need to go to the options screens and configure it.

Configuring The Last Ripper is easy.  Just go to the options screen as above and enter your newly created Last.FM user name and password.  When that’s entered press the OK button.

Next Click the LOGIN button. Oddly enough you now have to press the OK button to exit the Login screen.

You’ll see this next if you are on Windows XP or Windows Vista:

You’ve already got music heading into the directory you configured under the ‘Options’ menu.  It will amazingly enough record the music under the name of the album and artist.  Over time you will build up a musical library based on this artist and similar artists that the Last.FM system predicts you might like.

Make sure to log in to Last.FM and “TRAIN” your Last.FM radio station as to what you like and don’t like.  You can click the “BAN” or the heart shaped “LOVE” buttons.  When you’re pretty happy with the result, don’t click the “ARTIST” buttons anymore in The Last Ripper, but instead click the “Recommendations” button.  The recommendations are based on your starting band and your likes and dislikes.  Over time it will get a better idea about what you want and this will become the channel you want to record with The Last Ripper.  Since The Last Ripper has no LOVE or BAN buttons, you have to complete the training of Last.FM using their online website or the Last.FM player, which is well worth downloading.

What you will not get with The Last Ripper is any sound.  You can rip, but not listen to the tracks that are being recorded as MP3’s.

Separate your activities into two modes.  When you want to listen to Last.FM, use their downloaded player.  When you want to RIP, use The Last Ripper (in which you cannot listen).  It is possible to do both at the same time.

So far all this wonderful technology has been free, but lets take a look at a more powerful option that is not free called Station Ripper.

You can Download Station Ripper as a free trial from that link.   Station Ripper can rip Pandora, Last.FM and Shoutcast.  Unlike The Last Ripper, it can RIP multiple streams at the same time which allows you to record many thousands of songs per day into MP3 format.  It’s multi-format, multi-site abilities also set it apart from The Last Ripper and are probably worth the money you would have to pay for Station Ripper.

In  The Station Ripper, you can see I have clicked the red “Record” Button for a station and it appears in the bottom section as being ripped.  I selected two stations and you can see that two stations are being ripped to disk simultaneously.  That’s pretty neat and the secret of getting thousands of songs per day into your MP3 collection.

Station Ripper however has some problems. Firstly, under Windows Vista, it does not always cleanly connect to media player.  This prevents you from being able to RIP and listen at the same time.  The seond limitation is that it does not always get the beginning and end of the songs correct and so sometimes the MP3 you create includes the promotional material from the radio station you are ripping.

Another benefit of Station Ripper is it’s ability to interface to iTunes and populate it’s song directory.

Station Ripper also downloads the album art which I really like.

The other really serious benefit of Station Ripper is that the sources are not limited to Last.FM and while Last.FM’s audio quality is quite good, there are people out there streaming audio at 96k and even 256k which results in near studio quality recordings to your MP3’s.

So what do I use?  I haven’t been able to decide on one versus the other.  I like Last.FM for it’s ease of use, but I prefer the audio quality of Station Ripper.  So right now, I am happy to use both.

Please check the Video Post of both of these tools in action - Last.FM - Station Ripper and The Last Ripper - How  to Use Them

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I’ve been playing with squidoo and I’ve created my first lens (only a quick stupid test) Vista SP2 Beta Review.  I know it’s no great lens or anything, but really, do we need another content aggregator?  Isn’t my Yahoo personal page and My Google personal page all the other stuff already quite enough?It’s got a section for eBay so they can get eBay commission.  It’s got a section for Amazon so they can get Amazon Bucks.  It’s got a section which I used to promote (shamelessly) this blog.  It’s also got a section for RSS feeds from other source and that’s where I am having trouble accepting Squidoo.

Google recently ‘Slapped’ Squidoo and lowered all their rankings.  I get it.  90% of the content on the ‘lens’ is duplicated somewhere else.

Don’t get me wrong!  The ‘idea’ of squidoo is a great one.  Let users point other user to great products and web content.  I get it.  It’s like looking through a lens.   The problem with the lens metaphor is that once you click on a link, the lens is gone.  Wait! I was looking through that! :)  I think that this idea will be incorporated more into search engines and I’d expect someone from the big three will eventually buy Squidoo.

If I am missing the point on Squidoo, then ’slap’ me through the comments.

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Use these Godaddy coupon codes for hosting and other services at Godaddy

I host at Godaddy (Recently Changed to HostGator) and I’ve got to say it’s been a very professional service.  Sometimes I find the menus a bit hard to navigate, but in the end, everything you need to succeed is right there for you.

I have used Siteground in the past and been extremely impressed by their technical support.  I hope Godaddy can measure up.

Website speed has been excellent and I don’t believe downtime will be a problem.  We measure website speed using some proxies in different regions so we can see not only the USA based performance, but what our international reader experience as well.

Godaddy Discount Coupon Codes you can use when ordering services:

OYH3 - $2.50 off / $7.45 any .COM (renewals too… just used it)

BTPS7 - 20% any order of $50 or more

OYH1 - 10% off whatever

OYH2 - $5 off a $30 purchase

BTPS4 - 10% off anything

chill1 - 10% off

chill2 - $5 off $30

chill3 - $7.45 .coms

hash1 - 10% off

hash2 - $5 off $30

hash3 - $7.45 .com registration

gdd1101c - 10% off any order of $40 or more

promo10 - 10% off your entire order

promo530 - Save $5 off any order of $30 or more

promo749 - Save $3 on .com registrations, transfers and renewals

Please note that these codes change all the time and we’ll try to update this list, but we cannot control when a code might expire.  You might want to try several codes.

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I’ve been having a lot of problems with my ISP’s domain name resolution service.  So what does a DNS problem look like you say?  It’s when you try to go to websites that you know exist, but for some reason your browser just cannot load the site.  You click refresh about 5 times and magically it’s all better.  If you see that kind of error while browsing, then you my friend have a DNS problem.So what you’d like to get is some really fast, really reliable DNS server and use that instead, but which one?

Easy answer – OpenDNS is global and probably has a DNS server very close to your location.  OpenDNS has the lowest failure rate of DNS servers I tested using a randomized list of 10,000 domains and OpenDNS had the fastest response times.

It really does speed up your browsing!  It’s actually a little surprising since I’d never thought about the fact that DNS lookup is something that happens every time your browser loads not only a page, but ANY element of that page that is offsite (such as hit counters and the like).

OpenDNS includes anti-fishing and family friendly (optional) blocking services as well.

Through their PhishTank system they can automatically prevent you from being able to visit a reported fishing site automatically and without you having to install any software on your computer.  That’s amazing!

TEST your current system and go to a TEST (Not Real!) fishing site called www.internetbadguys.com.  All the databases have this listed as a fishing site so you can test your browser. Again, it’s not really a fishing site!  If your browser lets you in, then you are not protected.  If you have OpenDNS then you’ll get the screen as folllows informing you that it has protected you from visiting some really bad guys.

Run, don’t walk to OpenDNS for a faster, better, safer internet.

Click the button to join and you’ll be set up in no time.  They walk you through the process very nicely with a step by step tutorial.  It’s going to take most people less than 10 minutes.

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Moola is a great place to have some fun and waste some time. If you are a 14 year old computer wiz you can actually make some money also.

The concept behind Moola is simple. Advertisers pay money to Moola to advertise on the site. Moola then gives that money to it’s members.

There is a catch though! You have to fight other members to get it! Each time you play an online game you bet some of your ‘Moola’ and the other person matches it. If you win, you get their moola. Moola is redeemable for REAL MONEY wherein 1 Moola is $1.

So if you’re good at the games you can earn money on moola. In fact School kids are at home playing this to get extra cash right now and according to some I’ve chatted with they earn between $200 and $500 each month! I haven’t yet earned that much, but it IS possible to do so and it’s good fun.

This is a Flash Tutorial (short and fast running) about Moola

Since you cannot ever deposit your money into Moola it’s safe and sane for everybody. Moola pays you. You never pay Moola or another member.

So head over to Moola, get a free account and start winning.

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1. Making Money Online - The Internet is a virtual location where I live and work Making money online, through the Internet is what I do....

Making money online, through the Internet is what I do. I think about it the same way as someone who lives and works in New York City.

The internet has distinct advantages over a place like New York as a place to work. The internet is around the world and in every corner coffee shop.  My office can be wherever I’d like my office to be.  Sometimes a tropical island on the beach or a rented apartment in Barecelona.

In short as a virtual location, the internet offers more freedom than any 9 to 5 job.  Sometimes I put my laptop down on on a restaurant table by the sea and start working and I just think, “Who in the world has an office as beautiful as this?.

The internet is also more fair and treats it’s employees better than any company because you get paid exactly what you are worth.

Like any other location, real or otherwise, there are a lot of people and a lot of jobs and a whole lot of ways to make money.

My top suggestions are to learn everything you can about Wordpress, Google Blogger, Google Adsense and Google Webmaster Tools.

Build great sites and do it with integrity by adding content that will really help and interest people.   Share your experience and knowledge.

From there you can use those tools and other platforms to build relationships with Amazon, Clickbank, Commission Junction and others.

There are a lot of good books on making money from blogs.   Check amazon for the latest.

The internet - A place to be and a place to work.

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