Protect Your Online AssetsWritten by Michael Martone
Many of us have spent countless hours developing and refining our websites. Also, if you deliver electronic content (ebooks, art work, software) you have spent much time creating these goods as well. Don’t risk losing everything! Make sure you can always get back to where you were by having multiple backup versions. First a couple of basic points: Most hosting providers perform backups on a regular basis (weekly, daily, or on demand); You should always have a local copy on your own home computer or burned to CD. Now with that said, there are still some open issues. What if your hosting provider only provides weekly back-ups and you make a change to your site, publish it with your editor (or FTP it), and then discovered some mistakes that were difficult to roll back from, and now hosting provider has backed up your mistakes? If you don’t change your content much this may not be a problem. Most of us have Zip disks or read/write CD drives at this point, but not everyone. Also, what if your local copies are destroyed say in a home fire, or if your local computer disk drive crashes and you had no copy (come on -- admit it, I know you're out there)? In interest of protecting your online assets, it is important to save your website to an online storage site. Most businesses store their important data files offsite, and here is a way for you to do same--for free. Many web-based storage sites allow plenty of space to store large files, so you can save daily or weekly snapshots of your site as needed. You can also register for more than one of these sites; and good news is that there are still a few that are FREE! I will tell you how to find them shortly. First, here is an example of how you could use these services. If your hosting provider creates weekly backups (say on Sundays), you can make a snapshot of site prior to publishing any changes and save it to online file storage site. This way you can always rollback if there is a problem. (Make sure you zip it before you store it!) Once hosting provider executes its weekly backup, you can decide whether to delete online storage version. Personally, I know that sometimes backups are not checked by hosting providers, and if they are not diligent about verifying saved data or replacing old tapes, you may find that one day you need a file or two restored, that data is corrupted.
| | The Power of PersonalityWritten by Terri Seymour
The Power of Personality Copyright 2002 Terri SeymourOwning an online business and publishing an ezine can be very frustrating, AND rewarding! There can be 100's or even 1000's of websites and/or ezines that are almost exactly like yours. What can you do to make your online business stand out from rest? The number one answer to this question is - add your own personality to your business and in your ezine. I subscribe to probably over 100 ezines and most of these I do not even read. The ones that I like to read are ones that contain some personality. I like to know that there is an actual person that I can identify with or get in touch with if I have any questions. You are main thing that makes your business unique! Use this to your advantage. *Connect with your readers. This is whole purpose of your ezine. By doing following, you will make that very important connection. *Let them get to know you. Have a section in your ezine where you talk to your readers and open up to them. I am not talking about pouring out all your personal problems to them, but share part of yourself that makes you who you are. Share little tidbits of your life so they know that you are a real person and they can connect with you. *Treat everyone with respect and courtesy. This is one that unfortunately some people forget these days. This one goes both ways for readers and publishers. You have to remember we are all in this together, so let us treat each other as we would want to be treated. Yes, Golden Rule, which I believe in strongly!!
|
