Imagine how it feels to really want to tell a webmaster that he's done a great job, and you cannot find an easy way to do so. It's enough to make anyone annoyed ... upset enough not to come back? Perhaps not, but after working so hard to get a visitor to your site why anger someone who only wants to tell you that you've done a good job?

On our site we have gone through many different guestbooks. Like many sites, we began with standard remotely hosted versions. In general, these did job but as our site matured we jumped from service to service, attempting to find one that suited our needs. After much searching, we decided to maintain our guestbook by hand (what a pain that was), until stumbling on best guestbook script we have ever seen. Once we installed vizbook we realized we were in guestbook heaven.

Anyway, virtually all of remotely hosted guestbook services will do job. If your site is based on a web host that allows for user installed CGI routines, then vizbook comes highly recommended.

User Installed Scripts

User installed guestbook scripts are most definitely preferable to remotely hosted versions. If you are allowed to install your own scripts, then by all means do so - you will get a much better guestbook.

Vizbook http://www.dtp-aus.com/cgiscript/vizbook.shtml I personally tested virtually every guestbook script that was available on cgi-resources (http://www.cgi-resources.com). Once we stumbled upon script called vizbook, we realized we had found perfect guestbook. Let me emphasize that point - this guestbook is absolutely incredible. It has everything, and was even completely customizable to match our site perfectly. If you can install CGI scripts on your server, then there is no other choice as far as I am concerned.

Remotely Hosted

Many sites take advantage of many remotely hosted guestbook services that are available. The advantages of using a remote service include:

- The maintenance required to upkeep guestbook is minimal and generally consists of reviewing entries.

- Your bandwidth and disk quotas are not affected by guestboook.

The disadvantages include:

- Remotely hosted guestbooks are supported by advertising, which means banners. These cause visitors to be drawn away from your site.

- Configuration of remote guestbooks is usually very limited, so guestbook will not match your site.

- You are stuck with features provided by guestbook provider.

As I explored internet more and more I began to gain an understanding of how it all worked. There are a number of ways that money can be made by giving away things for free.

The first thing that must be understood is relationship between producers and affiliates. A producer produces a product or service of some kind. In order to sell products (and dramatically expand their ability to reach potential buyers) a producer will allow others to sell on their behalf in return for monetary compensation. Since, as you will see, free stuff is intended to or actually does produce income for producer, it is quite common for an affiliate to get a small fee for giving things away.

Some of ways that giving away free things actually makes money are explained below.

Advertising supported products - Many products are "free" because they display one or more advertisements at a time. You have dubious honor of getting to view these ads as you use product. The advertisers pay to display those advertisements.

Upon closer examination it turns out that these products are not as free as they appear. In general they load advertising banners and text from a central server on a periodic basis. This results in increased bandwidth utilization, which makes your connection slower while using product.

In addition, it is very common for advertising based software (and some hardware, believe it or not) to covertly send data about your system and surfing habits back to that same server. These products are becoming known as spyware, and, in my humble opinion, they should be avoided at all costs.