Most of us pay for privilege. My flagship site, Graphictruth, [ http://www.graphictruth.com ]is such an effort. It pays for itself most months - but only just.

It's my ambition that it will do much more, but long before profit, there must be content.

What if you simply cannot afford twenty to thirty dollars a month it takes to get a great interface? Or what if you simply don't have knowledge or time to set one up? What good does it do you to have a host that can run perl and php if you haven't vaguest idea what those things mean? What if you just want to write, or share pictures?

You need something like Bravenet! [ http://www.bravenet.com/cserv.php?pid=4&tid=4&afilid=821317112 ] Bravenet seems to have a solution for every common online desire - including hosting - and while you pay for service by tolerating their advertisements - hey, TANSTAFFL! While ads are aggressive, they do not get in way of your content.

I've been using Bravenet resources for several months now, because it allows me to avoid incurring further costs and lets me get experimental. It's a trade-off, of course. The ads detract from professionalism I'd prefer. But unlike other "No-Cost" solutions, Bravenet is scalable and upgradeable to meet highest standards.

I've never once been able to set up an eCard interface. I've tried, and there seems to be a jinx. Even when they work, they take up space and eat up my bandwidth.

Now, I don't want to be a one-stop-shoppe for e-cards. I don't want to devote that sort of time to it. I don't need thousands or even hundreds of cards.

My eCards are items of whimsy, little bits of commentary, often topical and possibly intended as a companion to an article of mine. Because I use this service, I don't HAVE to think commercially. If I change my mind, I DON'T have to change my solution - I simply hand them price they ask. Since that price includes all hosting and software and traffic overhead, it's damn reasonable. I can even pay to have their branding removed.

This is what I call SEO 101 approach: