My Web Design

Starting Your Own Hosting Company

2007-07-13T13:26:00.000-07:00

How To Become A Web Host

A question that is asked quite frequently. First and foremost we must point out that web hosting is not a get rich quick scheme or an easy business to run. It takes alot of patience, computer and technical knowledge and a solid background in Computer Science to run a successful and solid web hosting company. Some may disagree with this, especially with the innovation of “Control Panels” that makes it easier for anyone to get a pre-built server and start hosting sites. In reality, it’s not really that simple. Yes you can lease a dedicated server from a provider and start hosting sites once you are familiar with the control panel BUT a very important point to remember is those control panels still have their limitations. If you do decide to start your own hosting company, here are some basic questions to ask yourself *before* starting a hosting firm.

1. How much time do I have to invest into this company?

In this day and age, most clients are expecting 24 hour support. Are you able to be on call 24 hours a day to handle all the technical and sales requests that will be coming in once you start your company? Prompt support is a very key aspect of having a successful hosting business, so this is one of the first questions you should ask yourself before starting your company. Am I able to offer the support my clients will need?

2. Familiarity with the latest software and platforms?

Have you done your homework in terms of researching what are the latest software, how they work and the pricing. It is very important to be familiar with the software that needs to be installed on the server(s) that you will be using to host your client’s websites. For instance IIS when using Windows 2000 server is something you will need to be very familiar with, if you are going to be hosting sites on a Windows Server. On a good note, Microsoft offers a huge library of information on all their software, but it will take a serious time investment to be familiar with all the options available, security leaks, and you have to be always on the look out for the latest patches. In terms of Linux, this is a bit more complicated. A strong command and knowledge of SSH (Secure Shell Security) is needed. Even if you have a control panel such as Cpanel which offers a program called Web Host Manager, a strong background in Telnet Commands will be needed or you will be lost.

3. Financial Investment

Are you willing to spend the money necessary to start making some money? In many cases you will need to make some serious finanacial investment when starting your own hosting firm. Be very weary of the fact that many of the software on the market are not cheap, and the type of servers most of your clients will be expecting their sites to be hosted on, will not be cheap either. Many expect their site to be hosted on Dual Pentium servers that are sturdy and reliable, so some investment will be needed. On the other hand, there is the cheaper way, which is to simply lease a dedicated server that offers a high amount of bandwidth from another hosting firm, and then host your clients sites on that server. It’s an easy way to start your own company with little investment, BUT be forewarned that with network outages, server crashes, you will have little or no control unless you can contact your dedicated server provider for a prompt reboot or resolution of the network problem.

4. Hiring of Employees?

Will you be hiring any employees to start, or will you be a one man show until the business picks up? If you choose to not hire any employees then obviously your financial investment is less, BUT your time investment into the business has now skyrocketed. No employees will mean you will have to handle all the technical and sales requests along with any other problem that may occur. It is important to weigh this aspect carefully as it could make or break you.

5. Resources/Steps To Start A Hosting Company.

a. Registration of Company Name

Do a search on the internet for trade name registration in your particular state. This will allow you to register a DBA known as Doing Business As name within your particular state. This option is the easiest way to have an actual business name instead of using your actual real name. If you would like to go straight ahead and become a Corporation instead of just using a DBA then you can use a site such as MyCorporation.com to get started with your own Corporate business.

b. Purchasing of Servers/Leasing of Servers

If you decided to purchase your own servers, you have a few options. You can get a server custom built by manufacturers or you can even go the option of leasing your server from a company such as Dell or Gateway. They offer a monthly leasing to own plan. If you decide to lease a Dedicated Server , then you can review offerings from companies such as Rackshack.net, Eservers.biz, Rackspace.com, Cyberworldservers.com, webserver.com.my, exabytes.com.my, mesrahosting.net, malaysiahoster.com just to name a few. Each of those companies will allow you to lease a server on their connection, set a specified amount of bandwidth, and allow you to host your client’s websites on the server you lease from them.

If you starting small we highly recommend using a Cpanel Reseller Account from JVHosting. You may find out what Reseller Hosting in one of our other guides listed below or on JVHosting.

c. Office/Data Center Space

With the purchase of servers, you’ll need office space or as some say a Data Center to house these servers. You will have to look around for space in your local city for the best location with enough space for growth to house your servers and your connection.

d. Bandwidth Providers

If purchasing your own servers direct, you’ll need a provider that can run a line to the server through a router to feed the bandwidth. Some companies that offer bandwidth are : Level3.com , Twtelecom.com, Verio.com, and for cheaper bandwidth you can use Cogentco.com. Each of these companies will allow you to have bandwidth in your data center facility.

These are just some of the *basic* steps necessary to get started with your own hosting firm. The task may seem daunting, but it can be achieved with hard work and dedication. The web hosting market may seem saturated with new hosting companies forming literally each day, but there is still room techncially for another good company. Once you can offer the support and reliability your customers need then you will grow as a firm mainly through word of mouth. If you treat your customers good, they will refer others to your service. In a nutshell, hosting is not an easy business to start, but it can be a profitable and rewarding one when the necessary steps are taken.

We hope that this helps anyone who is trying to get into the hosting biz!

Web Style & Guide - Part 01-A

2007-07-12T22:55:00.000-07:00

Before you begin

Planning a Web site is a two-part process: first you gather your development partners, analyze your needs and goals, and work through the development process outlined here to refine your plans. The second part is creating a site specification document that details what you intend to do and why, what technology and content you'll need, how long the process will take, what you will spend to do it, and how you will assess the results of your efforts. The site specification document is crucial to creating a successful site, as it is both the blueprint for your process and the touchstone you'll use to keep the project focused on your agreed goals and deliverables.

Planning

Web sites are developed by groups of people to meet the needs of other groups of people. Unfortunately, Web projects are often approached as a "technology problem," and projects are colored from the beginning by enthusiasms for particular Web techniques or browser plug-ins (Flash, digital media, XML, databases, etc.), not by real human or business needs. People are the key to successful Web projects. To create a substantial site you'll need content experts, writers, information architects, graphic designers, technical experts, and a producer or committee chair responsible for seeing the project to completion. If your site is successful it will have to be genuinely useful to your target audience, meeting their needs and expectations without being too hard to use.

Although the people who will actually use your site will determine whether the project is a success, ironically, those very users are the people least likely to be present and involved when your site is designed and built. Remember that the site development team should always function as an active, committed advocate for the users and their needs. Experienced committee warriors may be skeptical here: these are fine sentiments, but can you really do this in the face of management pressures, budget limitations, and divergent stakeholder interests? Yes, you can — because you have no choice if you really want your Web project to succeed. If you listen only to management directives, keep the process sealed tightly within your development team, and dictate to imagined users what the team imagines is best for them, be prepared for failure. Involve real users, listen and respond to what they say, test your designs with them, and keep the site easy to use, and the project will be a success.

What are your goals?

A short statement identifying two or three goals should be the foundation of your Web site design. The statement should include specific strategies around which the Web site will be designed, how long the site design, construction, and evaluation periods will be, and specific quantitative and qualitative measures of how the success of the site will be evaluated. Building a Web site is an ongoing process, not a one-time project with static content. Long-term editorial management and technical maintenance must be covered in your budget and production plans for the site. Without this perspective your electronic publication will suffer the same fate as many corporate communications initiatives — an enthusiastic start without lasting accomplishments.

Know your audience

The next step is to identify the potential readers of your Web site so that you can structure the site design to meet their needs and expectations. The knowledge, background, interests, and needs of users will vary from tentative novices who need a carefully structured introduction to expert "power users" who may chafe at anything that seems to patronize them or delay their access to information. A well-designed system should be able to accommodate a range of users' skills and interests. For example, if the goal of your Web site is to deliver internal corporate information, human resources documents, or other information formerly published in paper manuals, your audience will range from those who will visit the site many times every day to those who refer only occasionally to the site.

Design critiques

Each member of a site development team will bring different goals, preferences, and skills to the project. Once the team has reached agreement on the mission and goals of the project, consensus on the overall design approach for the Web site needs to be established. The goal at this stage is to identify potential successful models in other Web sites and to begin to see the design problem from the site user's point of view.

Unfortunately, production teams rarely include members of the target audience for the Web site. And it is often difficult for team members who are not already experienced site designers to articulate their specific preferences, except in reference to existing sites. Group critiques are a great way to explore what makes a Web site successful, because everyone on the team sees each site from a user's point of view. Have each team member bring a list of a few favorite sites to the critique, and ask them to introduce their sites and comment on the successful elements of each design. In this way you will learn one another's design sensibilities and begin to build consensus on the experience that your audience will have when they visit the finished site.

Content inventory

Once you have an idea of your Web site's mission and general structure, you can begin to assess the content you will need to realize your plans. Building an inventory or database of existing and needed content will force you to take a hard look at your existing content resources and to make a detailed outline of your needs. Once you know where you are short on content you can concentrate on those deficits and avoid wasting time on areas with existing resources that are ready to use. A clear grasp of your needs will also help you develop a realistic schedule and budget for the project. Content development is the hardest, most time-consuming part of any Web site development project. Starting early with a firm plan in hand will help ensure that you won't be caught later with a well-structured but empty Web site.

Developing a site specification

The site specification is the planning team's concise statement of core goals, values, and intent, to provide the ultimate policy direction for everything that comes next. Designing a substantial Web site is a costly and time-consuming process. When you're up to your neck in the daily challenges of building the site, it can be surprisingly easy to forget why you are doing what you are, to lose sight of your original priorities, and to not know on any given day whether the detailed decisions you are making actually support those overall goals and objectives. A well-written site specification is a powerful daily tool for judging the effectiveness of a development effort. It provides the team with a compass to keep the development process focused on the ultimate purposes of the site. As such, it quickly becomes a daily reference point to settle disputes, to judge the potential utility of new ideas as they arise, to measure progress, and to keep the development team focused on the ultimate goals.

At minimum, a good site specification should define the content scope, budget, schedule, and technical aspects of the Web site. The best site specifications are very short and to the point, and are often just outlines or bullet lists of the major design or technical features planned. The finished site specification should contain the goals statement from the planning phase, as well as the structural details of the site.

Goals and strategies

What is the mission of your organization?
How will creating a Web site support your mission?
What are your two or three most important goals for the site?
Who is the primary audience for the Web site?
What do you want the audience to think or do after having visited your site?
What Web-related strategies will you use to achieve those goals?
How will you measure the success of your site?
How will you adequately maintain the finished site?

Production issues

How many pages will the site contain? What is the maximum acceptable count under this budget?
What special technical or functional requirements are needed?
What is the budget for the site?
What is the production schedule for the site, including intermediate milestones and dates?
Who are the people or vendors on the development team and what are their responsibilities?

These are big questions, and the broad conceptual issues are too often dismissed as committees push toward starting the "real work" of designing and building a Web site. However, if you cannot confidently answer all of these questions, then no amount of design or production effort can guarantee a useful result.

Avoiding "scope creep"

The site specification defines the scope of your project — that is, what and how much you need to do, the budget, and the development schedule. "Scope creep" is the most prevalent cause of Web project failures. In badly planned projects, scope creep is the gradual but inexorable process by which previously unplanned "features" are added, content and features are padded to mollify each stakeholder group, major changes in content or site structure during site construction are made, and more content or interactive functionality than you originally agreed to create is stuffed in. No single overcommitment is fatal, but the slow, steady accumulation of additions and changes is often enough to blow budgets, ruin schedules, and bury what might have been an elegant original plan under megabytes of muddle and confusion.

Don't leap into building a Web site before you understand what you want to accomplish and before you have developed a solid and realistic site specification for creating your Web site. The more carefully you plan, the better off you will be when you begin to build your site.

One excellent way to keep a tight rein on the overall scope of the site content is to specify a maximum page count in the site specification. Although a page count is hardly infallible as a guide (after all, Web pages can be arbitrarily long), it serves as a constant reminder to everyone involved of the project's intended scope. If the page count goes up, make it a rule to revisit the budget implications automatically — the cold realities of budgets and schedules will often cool the enthusiasm to stuff in "just one more page." A good way to keep a lid on scope creep is to treat the page count as a "zero sum game." If someone wants to add pages, it's up to them to nominate other pages to remove or to obtain a corresponding increase in the budget and schedule to account for the increased work involved.

Changes and refinements can be a good thing, as long as everyone is realistic about the impact of potential changes on the budget and schedule of a project. Any substantial change to the planned content, design, or technical aspects of a site must be tightly coupled with a revision of the budget and schedule of the project. People are often reluctant to discuss budgets or deadlines frankly and will often agree to substantial changes or additions to a development plan rather than face an awkward conversation with a client or fellow team member. But this acquiescence merely postpones the inevitable damage of not dealing with scope changes rationally.

The firm integration of schedule, budget, and scope is the only way to keep a Web project from becoming unhinged from the real constraints of time, money, and the ultimate quality of the result. A little bravery and honesty up front can save you much grief later. Make the plan carefully, and then stick to it.

Make Associate Programs an Extra Income

2007-07-12T22:35:00.000-07:00

Do you have a connection with another site that can offer something new? Then you should know more about an associate program or sometimes called partnership program. This is where the companies selling products or services online gives a part of their profits as a commission on any sales you create for them by introducing new customers.

These have become very popular for both companies who are looking for an increase in sales and websites who have been inadequate in producing some earnings. Whether you have a website that sells a certain product/service or a website that has nothing to sell, you should not stop from joining related associate program for your website, product or service because it can give you additional earnings.

Some companies who offers associate program usually weigh their compensation rates in terms of those sites that send the most clicks and converted actual sales. When somebody reaches an industrial site and make some purchase from the site, you will get a commission for that as a return.

You will greatly benefit when you join any associate programs that are related to your business that definitely would sell other products or businesses to your clients. Indeed, it’s really an additional source of gaining cash.

The examples of companies that have affiliate programs are the software retailer Beyond.com and bookseller Amazon.com wherein anyone can have affiliation with these commercial sites and direct people to visit them.

By using the associate program, every one has a chance to add a significant value to any website. And a good quality website can become more valuable and dynamic if it offers a wide variety or different products and services as an associate.

There are also several types of associate programs like the Web Cards. This is an associate program that pays one dollar to affiliates each time a consumer asks for a free sample of their merchandise. The product is actually a postcard of an image or a website. Wherein the user does not need to spend some money yet an affiliate gets a small fee for it. One should remember that associate programs increase the usefulness of a site only if the commercial site offers the users something valuable. An associate program may affect the accessibility of a site, but it will make it easy and convenient for users, they may visit a site searching for a product or service that it does not offer. However, the site can at least direct the customer to another site that offers that particular product or service. People would definitely like to revisit a site that leads them to a good purchase. That is a very important factor to have a good rapport with the client.

For the success of an associate program, it is necessary to make sure that the content of a site matches the program. Otherwise, the visitors may get irritated. For example, if one has a website on watches, it is better to keep away from giving a link to a pastry shop. It will just give a negative impression to the customers about the products and the company.

When joining an associate program and reselling their products or services, there are critical things that needs to be considered because your customers are also counting on you for the good recommendations that you will make and your reputation will depend on it.

It is really valuable if one would join an associate program because of the benefits that they will get, but if you are serious in joining a program you should first get and try the product or service of the company before recommending it to somebody or to a customer.

Eleven Common Web Page Design Frustrations

2007-07-12T22:26:00.000-07:00

And How To Cure Them
Information is the ultimate reason for your web site’s existence. Your Web site should transparently communicate its content. Anything that interferes with the immediate and intuitive transfer of information between you and your web site visitor undermines your web site’s success.

All too often, however, design interferes with communication. The following are my Top Eleven Web site design frustrations along with suggestions showing how you can cure them. Use these as a guide to improving your Web site.

1. Long lines of text
Long lines of text create boring, hard to read Web sites. Visual boredom results when type extends in an unbroken line from the left to the right margin of the screen. Long lines are tiring because your Web site reader’s eyes have to make numerous left-to-right shifts. It’s also easy to get lost making the transition from the last word of one line to the first word of the next.

Short liner lines of type, like used in this web site, also creates white space to the left and right of each paragraph. This white spaces frames your message and also provides space to place secondary text or visual information (like my book covers, for example!)

If you are using Microsoft Publisher™ 2000, you can use columns to control the placement of text. With programs, like Microsoft® FrontPage™ 97 you can use tables to reduce line length and build visual contrast into every page. With Net Objects Fusions, you can create guides to control text placement.

If you are creating your Web site using HTML, use the Block Quote tag to indent text from the left and right edges of the screen.

2. Large, meaningless graphics
Large graphics take longer to download than small graphics. Long downloading times are justified if the result is meaningful information. All too often, however, your reward for waiting for a graphic to download is only a large logo or an overly-complicated image map.

Respect your Web site visitor’s time! Restrict large graphics to occasions where they communicate valuable information.

Equally important, when including photographs, use thumbnails—or reduced sized images—which visitors can click on to load larger versions.

3. Lack of contrast
Foreground/background contrast is necessary for your visitors to easily read your message. To succeed, words have to be clearly separated from the background.

To ensure maximum legibility, avoid text on top of gray or screened backgrounds, i.e. blue text on a light blue backgrounds. Avoid placing text over patterned backgrounds.

If you want to add color, or visual interest, to your page, place the backgrounds to the left or right of the text, rather than behind the text.

4. Bright backgrounds
Bright colors have their place on the Web, but usually not as background colors. Large amounts of bright reds, oranges, yellows or lime green backgrounds are visually tiring and certain to reduce the time visitors spend at your site.

Instead, choose subdued background colors. Restrict bright colors to a few high-impact words, illustrations or graphic accents.

5. Dead ends and broken promises
Strive for consistency. Anything that looks different is likely to be interpreted as a link. Many Web sites, for example, use subheads set in a different color than the text they introduce. These can be easily confused with links.

Always check, and double-check, links to make sure they lead to the information they promise. Avoid links to pages that do not contain the promised information. Avoid links to “work in progress” locations.

6. Lack of consistency
Consistent colors, layouts and type enhance your firm’s image and project credibility and professionalism. Your firm’s image is undermined, however, when different colors and layouts are used on different pages of your site.

You’ll frequently encounter well-designed Home Pages where the text is neatly indented from the edges of the screen, but when you get deeper into the site, you encounter different background colors and long lines of text. Change undermines credibility and, at worse, can cause visitors to wonder if they’ve visiting a different site.

Take advantage of your software program’s text styles feature to maintain consistency. Styles also make it easy to redesign your site with minimum effort.

7. Pages that cannot be printed
Whenever I encounter a Web page I might want to refer back to later, I print it out using my color printer. This works well, unless the text was set in a light color-like white or yellow against a black or blue background. When your print from your browser, the Web page’s background color is not printed. This means you print white or yellow ink on white paper. . . hardly readable!

Avoid light text colors if there is any chance at all your Web site visitors may want to print your pages.

8. Centered text
Centered text appears everywhere on the Web, in headlines, titles, even extended text passages. It is is harder to read than text set flush-left/ragged-right. Centered text forces readers to search for the beginning of each line.

Centered text also doesn’t look as good as flush-left text because the space surrounding the text is divided between the left and right sides of each line, instead of being concentrated to the right of the text.

9. Unnecessary graphic accents
Graphic accents, like horizontal rules dividing topics, can easily clutter-up a page and project an amateurish “My First Web Site!” image. Instead of using horizontal rules to break-up a long articles, insert subheads which preview the text that follows.

To reinforce the impact of the subheads, set them bold and surround them with white space above and below them.

10. Oversize pages
Many Web sites force visitors to scroll sideways, in order to see the endings of words along the right-hand margin. This is unsightly and frustrating. It is often caused by long words placed in table columns too narrow to accommodate them. It can also occur when you create your Web site on a computer with a monitor set at a higher resolution than your typical Web site visitor’s.

When using tables to organize text placement, check every page of your Web site before posting it. Build in a margin for error by searching for short words to replace long words. Most important, design for the lowest common denominator monitor setting, typically a 640 by 480.

11. Accidental spacing
The appearance of many Web pages is undermined by unnecessary spaces between words or extremely short lines. This are usually caused by the Web site creator inserting Paragraph Break commands that looked good on their particular browser and screen resolution, using their Web site browser’s typeface and type size. But, viewed using a different screen resolution or typeface, these Paragraphs breaks often appear in the middle of a line.

Instead of using HTML Paragraph Break tag to break lines, use tables or columns. Column widths will remain the same, regardless of the default typeface or type size used in your Web site visitor’s browser.