Natural, Herbal and Home Remedies for the Treatment of Acidity
Here are Some of the Common Herbal and Home Remedies for Curing Acidity:

Basil Leaves: Chew a few basil ( tulsi ) leaves to get relief from burning, nausea and gas (main symptoms of acidity).

Sleep with your head and shoulder on a high pillow for elevation. This will help in getting acidity away.

Clove: Take one piece of clove and suck it slowly.

Milk Products: Consumption of milk and other milk products is also very good for curing acidity.

Maintain Upright Posture: Maintaining an upright posture for some time after taking food, this will help in preventing reflex.

Harad - Chewing a piece of harad also helps in curing acidity fast.

Apple Cider Vinegar - Take a mixture of 2 tsp of natural apple cider vinegar and mix it with 2 tsp of raw honey in a glass of water before meals. This remedy is very good for persons suffering from acidity.

Lemon Juice: The juice from lemons introduced to your body causes it to become alkaline. Drink water everyday with lemons squeezed in it to get rid of acidity completely.

For Advanced Stage of Acidity: Those in an advanced state of acidity should be kept on only milk or some other milk products and fruits. Milk also should be given in limited quantities of about 250 to 300 milliliters-every hour. Person suffering should not be given any leafy vegetables as they may even worsen the condition.

Fruits: The fruits like watermelon, banana and cucumber are very good for persons suffering from acidity.

Tulsi, Neem, Black Pepper and Peepal - Take a dried blossom of tulsi, rind of the neem tree, black pepper and peepal in even quantity and then grind them nicely to make a powdered form. The suffering person may be given 3 gms of this powder daily as a first thing in the morning and in the evening with plain water. This remedy will help in getting rid of all the acid (the main cause of acidity) from the body in the form of urine and sweat. But remember, never to take milk over tulsi leaves which might afflict your skin.

Chebulic Myroblan: Drinking daily 1 tsp juice of chebulic myroblan mixed with 1 tsp of amla (Indian gooseberry) juice is an age old remedy for the treatment of acidity.

Unripe Foods: Unripe foods with high pectin content should also be avoided as they may worsen the condition.

Almonds - Almonds are also very effective in relieving acidity from its root. You may take 5-6 almonds daily till the symptoms of acidity persist.

Vanilla Ice Cream: Eat a cup of vanilla ice cream or drink a glass of cold milk to get heartburn and acidity relief within minutes.

Cabbage Juice: Cabbage juice is another remedy which helps in preventing acidity from occurring.

Jaggery: Keep a small piece of jaggery (gur) in your mouth and slowly suck it. Repeat it every hour till acidity subsides.

White Vinegar: Intake of 1-2 tablespoons of white vinegar also provides relief from acidity.

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Jim Rohn: Help Quotes
A good objective of leadership is to help those who are doing poorly to do well and to help those who are doing well to do even better.

William John Bennett: Help Quotes
A kind and compassionate act is often its own reward.

Mahatma Gandhi: Help Quotes
As long as you derive inner help and comfort from anything, keep it.

Sir Thomas Browne: Help Quotes
Be charitable before wealth makes thee covetous.
Helen Keller: Help Quotes
Believe, when you are most unhappy, that there is something for you to do in the world. So long as you can sweeten another's pain, life is not in vain.

Elizabeth Bibesco: Help Quotes
Blessed are those who can give without remembering and take without forgetting.

German Proverb: Help Quotes
Charity sees the need, not the cause.

John Ruskin: Help Quotes
Every great man is always being helped by everybody; for his gift is to get good out of all things and all persons.

William Arthur: Help Quotes
Flatter me, and I may not believe you. Criticize me, and I may not like you. Ignore me, and I may not forgive you. Encourage me, and I may not forget you.

Aeschylus: Help Quotes
God loves to help him who strives to help himself.

"What Does Love Mean?"



A group of professional people posed this question to a group of four through eight year olds, "What does love mean?" The answers they got were broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined. See what you think:

"Love is that first feeling you feel before all the bad stuff gets in the way."

"When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn’t bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That’s love."

"When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You know that your name is safe in their mouth."

"Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other."

"Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your french fries without making them give you any of theirs."

"Love is when someone hurts you. And you get so mad but you don’t yell at them because you know it would hurt their feelings."

"Love is what makes you smile when you’re tired."

"Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK."

"Love is what’s in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen."

"If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate."

"When you tell someone something bad about yourself and you’re scared they won’t love you anymore. But then you get surprised because not only do they still love you, they love you even more."

"There are two kinds of love: Our love and God’s love. But God makes both kinds of them."

"Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday."

"Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well."

"During my piano recital, I was on a stage and scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling. He was the only one doing that. I wasn’t scared anymore."

"My mommy loves me more than anybody. You don’t see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night."

"Love is when mommy gives daddy the best piece of chicken."

"Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day."

"I let my big sister pick on me because my Mom says she only picks on me because she loves me. So I pick on my baby sister because I love her."

"Love cards like Valentine’s cards say stuff on them that we’d like to say ourselves, but we wouldn’t be caught dead saying."

"When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you"

"You really shouldn’t say ‘I love you’ unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget."

"God could have said magic words to make the nails fall off the cross, but He didn’t. That’s love."

What is Joe Job

Joe Job is an e-mail spoofing attack in which someone sends out huge volume of emails that appear to be sent from an innocent source. Many times Joe Job occurs as an act of revenge and it's forged to take down the target's reputation online. In hosting business you may encounter a Joe Job conducted by an angry user you discontinued a service for or simply by a competitor who feels you've become irritatingly dangerous.

Why Should I Know About Joe Job

While it sounds something not worthy of attention right now, you might find this information very useful when it comes to the point of being a target. As already said, a Joe Job is just a regular email campaign that uses your company email address and company URL. The usual Joe Job does not send the advertising emails to hundreds, thousands or millions of email addresses but it does this multiple times per account. Possibly hundreds of copies are sent to an individual account. The sole reason of this is to irritate the recipients and to get your company into bad reputation, blacklisted and in a lot of trouble.

How do I know if I'm Joe Jobbed?

Article provided by WebHostGear.com

The first thing you'll notice is receiving email bounces in your inbox. As soon as you realize this it is imperative that you recognise the situation immeditately because the next phase is getting irritated emails from the recipients threating you with the court of law, blacklisting of your servers, contacting your ISP to close your service. In some cases, if you do not take any action, all of the above will apply. So stay calm and act quick!

1. Set Up a Spam Information Page

The spam email most probably includes a link to your company site. Set up an announcement on that page that will explain in brief that you are a target of an identity theft attack called Joe Job. Also explain that this is something that cannot be prevented in advance by security measures and that you're working on cutting down the malicious internet user and the spam will stop in the following few days. Remember to attach an example of the spam email with headers and explain that the source email address is spoofed. Also note that the source IP is the machine that is really sending the emails and that it does not belong to your company. Apologise the incident sincerely and ask the visitors for help.

2. Use The Possible Unsubscribe Link Into Your Advantage

Many Joe Job emails have an unsubscribe link on them that directs the user onto your server on a 404 page further frustrating the user. Take use of this URL and redirect it to your spam information page.

3. Remove All The References To Your Phone Number On Your Site

If you really want to solve this problem, remove the phone numbers on your site. Soon you'll be flooded by angry calls if you do not. You can list a voice mail number on your site in place of your phone number. Remember to put in a nice notice on the side explaining that you're under an Joe Job and that you've set up a voice mail during the attack. So you can work on stopping the attack. Also provide a link to your spam information page.

4. Give Up Your Email Account

It is useless waste of time trying to save your email account. Just give it up and set up a small autoresponder that will explain the situation and provide links to your spam information page and to your contact information page where people can find your contact form. Avoid simply providing a new email as the attacker might just switch the attack to the new email. Apologise, ask for understanding and help. Keep this email short and small as otherwise you would probably be DoSed by the amount of responders you need to send.

5. Contact Your Providers

Inform your providers that you're under an attack and that that they probably will receive complaints about you. Give them a link to your spam information page and apologise. Even though it is not your fault. Remember that the angry users will not only contact you, but your ISP, your domain provider, merchant providers and any other provider that you use on your site. Also provide valuable information on how to slow down or even stop the attack. Do not forget to provide your new email address!!!

6. Post The Joe Job on UseNet

Once you're signed in to UseNet, look for group called news.admin.net-abuse.email (Commonly called NANAE). Leave a post where you explain you're under a Joe Job and remember to provide a link to your Spam Information Page. Your post will most probably encouter sceptisism by anti-spam fanatics but just ignore it. You didn't post it for them. Your post will most probably be read by the people that run anti-spam services such as spews.org. They will not reply you but they will consider the situation before adding you to their databases as a spammer.

7. Contact The Authorities

Don't count on having any concrete help from them. The reason you contact the authorities is that you will have official records of the incident in case you need to defense yourself when a prosecution comes as an option at a later date.

Conclusion

Stay calm, accept that a Joe Job cannot be prevented. Also accept that some victims of the attack will never believe you. Also remember that you will most likely get sympathy from some users. Acting fast, will minimise the losses.

The Benefits Of Having A Website

When you're searching through the Internet you will find endless amounts of information, about everything, and all at your fingertips. The Internet is the largest source of knowledge in the world. Why is this? Because anyone can get their information on there. All you need is a web site and a resource generous web hosting company.

Many people think that getting their website on the Internet is an expensive venture, fortunately though, this need not necessarily be true; if you find the right web host, the benefits of having a web site will definitely outweigh the costs.

There are many different ways to benefit from having a web site, whether it is for personal gain, or to aid your business success. Those who have their own personal websites generally use them to further an interest or a hobby; having a web site is a great way to share and exchange knowledge with others. Businesses on the other hand use a website to promote and market their goods and services, while cutting back on such expenses as postage, couriers and advertising, etc.

These are but a few key benefits of owning a website:

Increased awareness of products and services - Businesses can now greatly expand their markets, no need to constrain the focus to only the local scene, but by using the Internet, businesses can venture into international and regional markets, with greater ease. This dynamically changes the nature and the marketing activities of some businesses, possibly encouraging the business to expand the diversity of its products and services, to meet these new markets. Websites, in their nature, allow hundreds and thousands of items to be on view 24/7; thus encouraging wider viewing, and extended trading hours.

Article provided by WebHostGear.com

Freedom - With the freedom of being able to post your information on your website, hence on the Internet, at any time of the day; available information of all variations is increasing at a huge rate. The freedom to browse anywhere and interact with anyone is enough to tempt the smallest of businesses and the most introverted of people to get on the Net; hence Net users are increasing in numbers, at an alarming rate, approximately 50,000 per day. Businesses are buzzing on the Net, they have found a way to compete on an even field, with even the largest of corporations; and within a daily increasing customer marketplace.

Cost advantage - Net businesses are extremely aware of how they can profit by being on the Internet; they can advertise their products and services without the huge costs, and delays of printing, publishing and distribution. The market is a global one, which adds greater value to the costs outlaid for promotion and marketing; compared to the limits of offline. E- commerce facilities can be incorporated into the website, transforming 2D screen visuals into user reactive models, for example, consumers can order their products and services online, greatly reducing administration expenses. Reduction of telephone calls to potential customers; follow ups by email; newsletters digitally made, promoted by email or downloadable from the website, with reduction of distribution costs; less promotional material sent out, printed and wasted; extended trading hours without a human presence; are just a few ways to cut costs.

The current opinion is that any business not on the Internet now or in the near future is not only missing out on the rewards of this new and vibrant industry, but is adding itself to the list of "the forgotten".Don't waste time scratching your head wondering what the Internet can do to benefit your business, you will be left behind; instead, think about how you can take advantage of this new and cheap form of industry awareness. Look for a web designer, or web developer, get a quote, and tell them what you need.

Are Flash Hosting Tutorials Worth It?

he single largest expense facing hosting companies today is its supports costs. Typically, they will see close to 50 percent of their monthly expense go to customer support. Costs are driven up by customer inquiries that often deal with routine and seemingly simple tasks. How do I set up my email? How do I FTP my site to the server? How do I make DNS changes? These are just a few of the most commonly asked questions. In an effort to assist hosting companies in reducing overall customer support costs, in 2002 DemoDemo.com pioneered the ultimate customer support and help desk aide � the online hosting tutorial.

Flash tutorials, when properly produced, keep the viewer�s attention throughout. Of course, it is also essential to design the tutorials in a concise format.The key is to keep them short, dynamic, informative and easy to follow. Each DemoDemo tutorial covers one specific task. When your customers want to know how to perform a task, they simply click to play, sit back and actually see how it�s done. Visual by nature, people prefer to see how it�s done rather than read how it�s done. It�s basic human nature.

Generally, web hosts will place our tutorials in their Help Desk or Customer Service areas. One particularly effective method is to include links to the tutorials in the Welcome Email sent out to new customers. Many web hosts report an immediate drop in support tickets by as much as 80%. When you consider that support generally accounts for approximately 50% of a typical web host�s monthly expenses, that�s a lot of savings!

Article provided by WebHostGear.com

With a visual aid such as an online tutorial, end users can open a browser window and view the tutorial while performing the tasks in a separate window. And with a DemoDemo tutorial, the user can stop, pause, rewind and start at any time. This allows full control, allowing the customer to set the pace in the lesson.

The reality is that customers don�t want to read long boring FAQs to learn how to perform a task. If they can�t figure it out, they are more than likely going to e-mail or call, driving your overall support costs higher. DemoDemo tutorials enable hosting companies to provide their clients with an alternative source of information that is concise, informative and easy to follow. They are so effective that sending in a support ticket becomes entirely unnecessary � exactly what hosting providers are hoping for.

But what it boils down to in the end is reducing overhead. Flash tutorials are a very cost effective way for a web host to significantly reduce support costs�and show customers how to get the job done without having to submit a ticket. You will now find over 1200 tutorials available at DemoDemo.com

WHAT IS A BRAND?

If you think only big corporate names need to think about things
like brand names, think again. Your brand says a lot about you
and your business, and that's as true for a one person home-
based operation as it is for a multinational conglomerate. In
this article we look at how creating a strong brand for your
business can help you set yourself apart from the pack and lay
the right foundation for the future growth of your business.

WHAT IS A BRAND?

Your brand is more than just the logo on your letterhead and
business cards or your business name. It is your corporate
identity. An effective brand tells the world who you are, what
you do and how you do it, while at the same time establishing
your relevance to, and credibility with, your prospective
customers.

Your brand is also something more ethereal. It is how your
business is perceived by its customers. If your brand has a high
perceived value, you enjoy many advantages over your
competition, especially when it comes to pricing. Why do you
think people are prepared to pay stupid money for items of
clothing with the initials "CK" on them? Perceived value.
Perceived value as a result of very effective brand promotion
resulting in very high brand awareness.

Article provided by WebHostGear.com

Now, I'm not saying we all need to rush out and start creating
brands that are going to be recognized the world over. Most of
us simply don't have the time or other resources necessary. What
I am suggesting, however, is that it is possible for your brand
to dominate your niche.

WHY DO I NEED TO CREATE MY OWN BRAND?

=> Differentiation

We touched on this in the previous section when we looked at
what a brand is and how it can be used to increase the perceived
value of your products and services. The main reason for
creating your own brand is to differentiate yourself from your
competition. New websites are a dime a dozen. So are home-based
businesses. You need to constantly be looking for ways to set
yourself apart from your competition. Your brand can do that for
you.

=> More Effective, Efficient Marketing

Another good reason for creating your own brand is to make your
sales force (even if that's a sales force of one - you) more
effective and efficient.

Imagine if you didn't have to spend the first 50% of your time
with a new prospect explaining who you are, what you do and how
you do it. What if your brand had already communicated that for
you? You can spend 100% of your time focusing on sales rather
than educating your prospects about your business

Another benefit of branding is that the efforts you expend
increasing your brand awareness through promoting and marketing
your brand to your target market automatically transfers to your
products and services. So, even when you're advertising your
brand, you're indirectly also marketing your products and
services.



HOW DO I CREATE MY OWN BRAND?

OK, so you're convinced you need to create your own brand. Where
on earth do you start?

We saw earlier that your brand needs to say who you are, what
you do and how you do it. It needs to do all these things at the
same time as establishing your relevance to, and building
credibilty with, your prospective customers. Needless to say, it
is absolutely essential, if you are to build your own brand,
that *you yourself* have a firm grasp of who you are, what you
do and how you do it. If not, you're going to have the devil's
own time getting that message across to anyone else, let alone
establishing your relevance and credibility.

=> Write A Mission Statement

So, let's start by creating a mission statement. What is the
mission of your business? Obviously you're in business to make a
profit. But making a profit is a byproduct of a successful
business. Focus instead on how you choose to achieve that
profit. What are your core values?

A good place to begin thinking about your mission is to put
yourself in the shoes of your customers. Put yourself in their
target market. Let's say your business is web hosting. If you're
in the market for a web host, what things are important to you?
Different people will be looking for different benefits but you
can bet that they want their website to be accessible to site
visitors so reliability will be high on their list. Price is
also likely to be high on the list as is 24/7 technical support.
What about add-on features such as unlimited email aliases, cgi
support and what-not? These things will be highly important to
some and less important to others. So focus on the benefits that
are likely to be highly relevant to the majority of your target
market. Let's settle for our purposes on reliability, price and
technical support.

Your mission statement might read something like this: "I strive
to earn a fair return on my investment of time and money by
providing affordable webhosting with guaranteed 99% uptime and
24/7 telephone technical support". That's a pretty general
statement and if you decide to focus on a particular niche of
the webhosting market, such as small business, you may want to
more narrowly focus on that group in your mission statement.

Now that you've written your mission statement, you can begin
thinking about creating a brand that reinforces and supports
your mission. So, getting back to the fundamental questions of
who you are, what you do and how you do it, you can now begin to
think of your business in these terms. You're a webhosting
provider, you host websites of small businesses and you do that
by offering cost-effective webhosting solutions, guaranteed 99%
uptime and 24/7 telephone technical support.

When you create your brand, you need to keep the who, what and
how firmly in mind but also use the brand to establish your
relevance to your target market and build credibility with that
market.

Let's turn now to the nuts and bolts of creating your brand.

=> Describe What You Are Branding

List out your business's key features and characteristics, your
competitive advantages and anything else that sets you apart
from your competition.

Using our webhosting example, you'll focus primarily on the
objectives from your mission statement namely, reliable, cost-
effective webhosting solutions supported by 24/7 technical
support.

=> Identify and Describe Your Target Market

Decide whether you want to target the entire webhosting
community or only a segment of it such as small business
websites. Describe your market.

=> List Names that Suggest the Key Elements from Your Mission
Statement

The key elements from your mission statement were reliability,
cost-effectiveness and customer service. List names that are
suggestive of these elements. Let's use Reliable Webhosting for
our example. (I don't claim to be a creative genius.)

Don't limit yourself to real words, though. A coined name with
no obvious meaning is a perfectly legitimate name provided it
conveys something about your business. You will find coined
names easier to trademark and secure domain names for too - a
definite plus!

How to Set Up Your Hosting Companies Backend

How to Set Up Your Hosting Companies Backend
Learn how to setup a hosting business from a behind the scenes look at what you need to consider before jumping ship such as billing, support, accounting and more.

What is a backend?

I�m sure many business people and �scholars� have much better definitions of this than me, but I like to think of it as the guts of the business that make things run behind the scenes. When I think of a backend as it pertains to web hosting, I consider the following elements:

-Billing system

-Order processing

-Support system

-Accounting and recordkeeping

Billing system

As you contemplate your billing system, the first piece of information you should look at is what types of payments are you going to accept. Hopefully, you�ve already outlined this in your business plan. Will you take Paypal, or will you accept credit cards through your own merchant account, or will you accept checks and money orders by mail? Accepting payments by mail significantly complicates your business, so I would suggest not accepting payments by mail, or if you do�only accept annual term payments.

Article provided by WebHostGear.com

The easiest payment system to implement, and my recommendation, is to use a third-party payment processor such as Paypal or 2Checkout. These third-party payment processors allow you to accept credit cards, debit cards, and e-checks securely through their web-based system. They also allow you to create automatically recurring billing, which is the most powerful billing tool that all resellers should implement. Rather than having to bill your customers each term (month, quarter, etc), the third party payment processor will automatically bill your customer on their due date, based on the terms of the subscription that you created. In other words, if you create a $10/month subscription, it will automatically charge your customer $10 on the day they sign up, and then it will charge them $10 on the same day of each subsequent month. This is a huge timesaver, by automating the billing process you can eliminate the need to bill your customers at all.

If you do wish to send your customers a formal bill, or if you aren�t using automatically recurring payments, there are several software programs that can help automate the process for you. The ones specifically designed for web hosting that I would recommend are WHMautopilot, Lpanel, and Modernbill. There dozens of other billing programs available, but I recommend those ones because they also have auto-setup scripts and various client-management features built in to them, which we will discuss next.

Order processing

This part of your backend can basically be broken down into two options: manual processing, or automated processing. Manual processing is pretty much self-explanatory. Your customer places an order and pays using one of your available payment methods. When you receive the order and payment, you go into your Web Host Manager (WHM) and set up the client�s account, and then send them a welcome email with the pertinent information. Using this method there are a few different ways you can set up your order form to collect the information you need. The most important piece of information you need is the domain name. If you use only Paypal as a payment processor, Paypal has a form tool which will allow you to collect up to two form fields along with each order.

For example, you could set up your form so that the customer types in their domain name and username along with their order. When you receive the order confirmation from Paypal, this information will be included. Another method is to simply use a form mail script. This is easily implanted using a two-part order form. In the first part, they type in their applicable information and click "submit", thus emailing you the form. When they click submit, they are then redirected by the form mail script to your payment page. The third method is to use a shopping cart application which integrates the collection of data and payment processing. The advantage of manual order processing is it can help reduce the possibility of fraud and abuse because each order is screened by you as you process it.

Automated order processing saves a lot of time for the reseller, and also creates a smooth ordering process for the customer. Automation is a huge key to building a successful online business, and this is one form of automation that I would highly recommend. An automated order processing program collects the pertinent data from your customer, directs them through their online payment, and then interacts with your web server to set up the account and then sends out a welcome email to your customer.

The programs I would recommend are WHMautopilot, Lpanel, and Modernbill. I am certain there are several other equally viable software programs available as well. The risk of automated order processing is the potential for fraud, and abusers such as spammers signing undetected. However, I would say the benefits of automated order processing typically outweigh the risks. If a customer on the other side of the world orders at 3:00AM, they don�t have to wait for you to wake up and check your email. Your program will go to work for you and set up the account. On top of performing all of these tasks, it also creates a nice customer database which can be used for billing and a number of client administration tasks such as suspending accounts, performing server checks, etc. Just make sure you manually review each order after it has been set up. This will help catch fraudulent customers before they have a chance to run their malicious activities (like spamming) on your server.

Support system

Your solution for a support system depends largely on your own aptitude and preference. If you are familiar with the web hosting platform (such as cPanel) and with basic server administration tasks, you may wish to support your customers yourself. This is especially true while your business is in the startup phase with only a few customers, or if you intend to keep your customer base small. If you choose not to be your own support tech, there are a few alternatives. The obvious one is you could hire a support tech to work for you. While this is often the most ideal situation, most startups can not afford to hire an additional person initially.

A more affordable solution may be to outsource your technical support to a company who specializes in providing support for web hosting companies. Many outsourcing companies are located in technologically advanced areas in low-cost countries such as India. Outsourcing to an overseas company can be a very cost-efficient solution, but can also result in additional problems and challenges so you want to make sure you adequately research your solution before making any commitments. Outsourcing companies typically offer one or more pricing solutions including per-ticket, per-customer, per-server, flat fee per month, or per representative hired.

There are also other creative support solutions available. One solution I�ve seen work with success is creating a community forum where customers can help each other, guided by more experienced moderators and administrators. A host can offer free hosting to moderators in exchange for their help in running the forum. Other forms of bartering have been done successfully as well. For example you could provide free hosting in exchange for 5 hours a month of answering trouble tickets in your helpdesk.

As for the support options themselves, again hopefully you�ve outlined this in your business plan. Are you offering email only, or a helpdesk, live chat, or telephone? Email and telephone are self-explanatory; if you�re even considering starting your own business I�m sure you know to use email and the telephone. Live chat is a nice option if you decide to use it, however you need to be diligent in being available or it could be counteractive. Have you ever seen a site that offers live chat, but the operator is never available during business hours? I think it shows a lack of professionalism, and I rarely buy from such companies. On the other hand, if you run it properly it can be a valuable tool that helps you get customers problems resolved in one chat session rather than a back-and-forth email or support ticket conversation. To run live chat you could simply post your IM screen name (handle) for one of the popular IM platforms such as AIM, MSN, or Yahoo. The other method would be to use a web-based chat client from a free download, or on a subscription basis from a chat provider.

Regardless of whether you offer any other methods of support, the one method I will strongly suggest is an online helpdesk where customers can submit trouble tickets. There are several free helpdesks available, as well as more powerful applications available for purchase. The helpdesks I would recommend are Kayako or Perldesk, both available on a monthly or yearly subscription. Some client management programs such as Lpanel also have a functional helpdesk integrated into them. It is best to choose a helpdesk that supports email piping. In other words, you can send an email to support@yourcompany.com and it automatically opens a helpdesk ticket. Then when you answer the ticket, it also sends an email reply to the client, who can then reply from within their helpdesk account or by replying to the email.

Accounting and recordkeeping

This side of the business can easily be overlooked by enthusiastic startups, and is often the less-favorable task for creative entrepreneurs. However, a solid accounting and recordkeeping system is essential to the long-term survival of your business. If you use an automated system such as WHMautopilot, Lpanel, or Modernbill, it will automatically keep track of much of your financial information which is a useful tool and database.

However; regardless of whether you use one of those programs, I would suggest keeping an offline record of your customers and financials. This could be done through an accounting application like Quicken, or with a customized database in Access, or using a simple spreadsheet (which is my preferred method) in a program like Excel. I personally prefer Excel for its simplicity. Your records should include the following information at a minimum:

-Customer name

-Domain name

-Billing Due date

-Subscription ID number

-Price

-Size of plan

-Email address

In addition to your customer information, it is good to keep track of your overall finances using at a minimum a general ledger and P&L (profit and loss) statement. These documents are much simpler than you may think; in fact if you know how to balance your checkbook you�re almost there. Your general ledger is basically a list of all the expenses and revenues for the month. Again this can be a simple Excel spreadsheet.

Your expenses would include any expense related to the business such as your reseller account, advertising costs, support costs, Paypal or merchant fees, etc.

Your revenues are the money that you receive from your hosting clients.

You can then add up your expenses and revenues for the month, and if your revenues exceed your expenses, you made a profit! A P&L statement simply summarizes the information from your general ledger in a format used by most businesses to gain a good overview of a company�s financials in one page. I�m not going to give you an Accounting 101 class here in this e-course because you can easily find a lot of information about P&L�s and accounting on the web.

If you�ve done your accounting each month, your taxes should be a breeze, especially if you remain a sole proprietor with no employees. All you need to do is take the information from your year-end P&L statement and fill out a schedule C (profit or loss from a business). NOTE: This is NOT official tax advice. I am not an accountant, and you should consult your tax adviser before filing your tax return.

Regarding business status, the simplest type of business with the least amount of paperwork is a sole proprietorship. You can remain a sole proprietor as long as you don�t have any employees. If you wish to remain a sole proprietor, you can avoid hiring employees by only using help on a contractual basis (in other words they are a contractor vs. an employee). There are several restrictions in this regard (you can�t set a contractor�s hours, etc.), so it would be best to do some serious research and/or consult an attorney before making any contractual or employment arrangements.

How to Install Shoutcast on Linux

How to Install Shoutcast on Linux

What is shoutcast?

SHOUTcast is Nullsoft's Free Winamp-based distributed streaming audio system. Thousands of broadcasters around the world are waiting for you to tune in and listen. You can start your own radio station and stream music and live shows. See an example of hundreds of world-wide stations at shoutcast.com

How do we install shoutcast?

Generally you dont want to run shoutcast as root as that can be really bad and a security issue, instead we'll create a shoutcast user:

1.) Login to root through SSH on the server.
2.) adduser shoutcast
3.) passwd shoutcast

Now it will ask for a new password set this and remember it.

Now login as the new shoutcast user, or you can su to the user. (Or you can logout completely and log in under the shoutcast user).
su shoutcast


Installing shoutcast

Lets grab shoutcast from nullsoft:

Article provided by WebHostGear.com

1) wget http://www.shoutcast.com/downloads/sc1-9-2/shoutcast-1-9-2-linux-glibc6.tar.gz

Lets extract shoutcast:
2) tar -zxvf shoutcast-1-9-2-linux-glibc6.tar.gz

Lets tidy up the directory:
3) rm -rf shoutcast-1-9-2-linux-glibc6.tar.gz
mv shoutcast-1-9-2-linux-glibc6 shoutcast
cd shoutcast

Shoutcast has now been installed!


How to configure shoutcast?

Now we need to edit the configuration file.

pico sc_serv.conf
or you can use vi which I prefer, a bit more advanced to use.
vi sc_serv.conf

Ok lets set some important configureation options. Change these settings in the file:

MaxUser
Password
PortBase

uncomment AdminPassword and set an admin password.

Now at this point you can go threw the settings and change them to what you want or you can save and start shoutcast and it will work perfectly.

to save crtl+x (if using pico) or :wq if using vi

How do i start shoutcast?

./sc_serv sc_serv.conf

vps hosting

If you want hosting that is somewhere in-between shared hosting and dedicated hosting you might find Virtual Private Server hosting a good alternative. People in the hosting industry often refer to VPS hosting as that thing filling the gap between the two mentioned forms of web hosting.

What Virtual Private Servers do is to display a type of virtualization where one single server gets divided into several virtual servers. Each one of these virtual servers has the capacity of running on its own machine.

One of the things that make VPS hosting so popular is the fact that it allows grass-root access for its clients without bringing along the hassle that could come with dedicated servers. A typical client for VPS hosting is an individual or business that need their hosting to be stronger and more customizable than shared hosting.

Their ability to establish sandboxes, one single physical server with two virtual private servers, is another reason to why Virtual Private Servers are so highly popular. We can mention one example: say that you have a popular website on one server and then you have a second which is a copy of the first on the other. Now you will be able to test important updates on your copy so that you do not mess around to much on the original.

URLJet Offers Just Uptime Server Monitoring Promotion for All Customers

URLJet (http://www.urljet.com), the largest and only exclusive provider of vBulletin message board Web hosting, announced today it has partnered with Just Uptime (http://www.JustUptime.com) to offer all prospective and existing customers a free month and a half of website monitoring, complete with instant text message and email downtime alerts.

Although URLJet already provides fully-managed and monitored hosting services, Just Uptime will allow clients to independently confirm URLJet’s internal monitoring records. Just Uptime website monitoring will perform checks on HTTP/HTTPS, TCP/UDP, DNS, and POP3/IMAP/SMTP. Response checks will be performed from a series of diverse geographical locations and occur at resolution of between 1 and 60 minutes.

“Most hosting companies would run from the idea of independent website monitoring, but we are stepping up to the plate and asking our customers to perform whatever audit they can on our uptime promise. We stand behind our services and hope Just Uptime website monitoring will add further credibility to our already outstanding record of superior uptime and speed,” said Todd Reagor, URLJet CEO. “Ingrained in this business is the need for transparency and the willingness to prove you are the best. That’s what we are doing.”

“Server monitoring is essential for anyone with an online presence, and with our partnership with URLJet, we will be able to allow owners of vBulletin message boards to monitor the performance and availability of their website. It adds a layer of comfort and peace of mind,” says Luke Kendall, Just Uptime product manager.

Dedicated servers from URLJet are specially optimized for vBulletin message board installations. With other 50 performance tweaks to Apache, MySQL and PHP, and additional enhancements made to vBulletin itself, URLJet dedicated servers provide the optimal environment to host a message board. Unlike other hosting providers that do not support 3rd party scripts, URLJet fully manages an installation of vBulletin on client servers. All dedicated servers also come bundled with URLJet File Guardian, powered by R1Soft Continuous Data Protection—providing real time backup of both vBulletin files and the MySQL database.

To learn more about URLJet, please visit http://www.urljet.com.

To learn more about dedicated servers from URLJet, please visit http://www.urljet.com/vbulletin-dedicated-servers.php.

To learn more about website monitoring through URLJet’s partnership with Just Uptime, please visit http://www.urljet.com/uptime.php or http://www.justuptime.com/urljet.

About URLJet
Located just north of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, URLJet has been providing performance hosting for vBulletin forums around the world since 2002. Hosting plans range from entry-level shared hosting plans to robust, fully-managed dedicated servers built for massive message boards.

Google Webmaster Tools

Google Webmaster Tools is a no-charge web service by Google for webmasters. It allows webmasters to check indexing status and optimize visibility of their websites.

It has tools that let the webmaster:

* Check and set the crawl rate
* List internal and external pages that link to the site
* See the PageRank of your site
* See what keyword searches on Google led to the site being listed in the SERPs, and the click through rates of such listings
* View statistics about how Google indexes the site
* Submit and check a sitemap
* Generate and check a robots.txt file
* Set a preferred domain (i.e prefer wikipedia.org over www.wikipedia.org or vice versa).

[edit] Criticism and Controversy

The list of inbound links on Google Webmaster Tools is generally much larger than the list of inbound links that can be discovered using the link:somewebsite.com search query on Google itself. Google is tight lipped about the discrepancy. The list on Google Webmaster Tools includes nofollow links that do not convey SEO authority to the linked site. On the other hand, the list of links generated with a link:somewebsite.com type query are deemed by Google to be "important" links in some ill-defined sense.
[edit] References

* Ma, Liz (2008-07-14). "Introducing the Google Webmaster Tools Access Provider Program". Google Blog. Google. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/introducing-google-webmaster-tools.html. Retrieved 2009-02-21.
* "Webmaster Tools shows Crawl error sources". Webmaster Central Blog. Google. 2008-11-13. http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/10/webmaster-tools-shows-crawl-error.htm. Retrieved 2009-02-21. (this reference needs to be updated or removed)

[edit] External links