Net Gambling House

Although we are aware of Linux adoption by large enterprises, most people do not know that there are sizeable numbers of installations in small and medium businesses (SMBs) as well. This base is set to grow as server vendors lob tailor made Linux servers and applications at SMBs.

Country manager, pSeries & Open power, IBM says, “Unlike large enterprises, SMBs do not have to face the challenge of migrating legacy applications. The popularity with SMBs has helped Linux grow at 30 percent globally”.

The general consensus is that Linux did better in 2004 than anyone had predicted. Director Enterprise Marketing & alliances, Customers solution Group, HP India says, ” As per IDC India, Linux in the server market grew by 48 percent in OND, 2004 over JAS, 2004, while the windows and Unix markets showed a modest 3 percent and 3.4 percent growth respectively during the same period.”

For any OS to succeed, applications need to be made available. SMBs can be major draw for Linux servers as it offers them lower TCO and tighter control on their IT spends. Since many SMBs already have home grown applications, a proprietary OS will be the single largest area of spending. It is here that Linux offers a big advantage.

The availability of version 2.6 of the Linux kernel in Red hat Enterprise Linux 4 and Novell’s SuSE 9 will give a big boost to vertical scalability. As SMBs become a part of the global supply chain, they want enterprise applications on Linux to keep their investment low. This trend will be a key enabler for the Linux server market worldwide.

Why Linux Based servers?

Cost is a factor and Linux offers better security as the source code of proprietary software is always kept a secret. With a community supporting it, any security hole in Linux is quickly found and patched.

Linux not only lets an organization save on software costs, it also offers long term long term saving on hardware. Instead of being forced to upgrade software with Linux, an SMB can take control of its IT strategy. Chief technology officer of IDBI bank says, “You decide when you wish to upgrade, not the vendor, hence you get tighter control on your spending.” This can be particularly important for users, such as SMBs that cannot afford to keep up with the pace of change in commercial software.

Business application and Linux

There is credit to Oracle for driving the Linux server market. During the early part of 2004, Oracle came up with a value offering. It offered pre- configured Oracle E-Business Suite special edition on Lintel Boxes for a 10 user License for $36,000USD. The traction of this offering was seen towards the end of 2004 when we closed a dozen deals that were in various stages of implementation, says General Manager, Oracle India. This is a testimony that SMBs are opting for Linux servers. SAP is following Oracle in making application available on Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Customized and certified

All server vendors including HP, IBM and SGI are throwing their weight behind Linux and each has a SMB specific business strategy with significant initiatives to lure them.

HP has announced that some of its high end computing tools from the HP-UX environment are ported onto Linux and made available to SMBs. This includes a clustering solution called HP service guard for high availability of applications and management tools such as Systems insight Manager(SIM) and open view that offer third party integration. Additionally HP is creating a reference architecture stack, including hardware, OS, database and Middleware. HP certifies a stack so that customers can feel more confident on deploying their core business application on Linux. Linux servers are popular in high performance computing(HPC) environments such as research labs.

IBM has recently launched a new family of eserver Openpower systems based on its Power5 processor specially designed for Linux. The Power5 comes with a micropartitioning technology called Virtualisation Engine(VE) wherein each processor can be sliced into ten virtual partitions with each partition acting as a new server. IBM’s eserver Openpower 710 is a single CPU processor with 3 HDDs and 512 MB memory with RAID level 1 and 5. This eserver offers SMBs an affordable alternative to higher priced entry level Unix or Linux system. Openpower offers a 64bit platform at a price point of a 32 bit offering. We believe that it is the right product for the mass market.

Sun Microsystems has the Sun fire V20 and V40 severs based on the 64 bit AMD Opteron processor, which has been successful with SMBs. It also offers the Solaris 10 Opetron combination. Sun is aiming to position Solaris 10 as its trump card to take the fight to commercial Linux with support – email, phone and onsite – available at a small price. Advanced scientific research, elite foods, Sage Design systems, Centre for DNA fingerprinting and diagnostics, are Sun customers running there core application on Linux.

Linux servers are used by SMBs for CAD analysis, CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) and FEA(Finite Element Analysis). Linux systems are rugged as they come with SGI Propack over and above the standard Linux Kernel. This gives customers the ability to scale there computing environments with independent I/O, memory and power supply.

Banking on Support

Linux is getting traction and getting into commercial business applications in verticals such as manufacturing, small banking and hospitality. Availability of tally o Linux will result in a new chapter being inked in the Linux server market. Red hat has 950 ISV partners who develop applications that run on its Linux distributions. Linux offers secure and scalable solutions to meet SMB requirements. IBM has 35 to 40 pure Linux partners that offers consultancy and assist it in integrating and implementing services for its customers who are using Linux.

jayant@jkserverlink.com

http://www.jkserverlink.com

The ecommerce hosting solutions you select determine the impact of your website and the possible response from costumers. As a matter of fact, the site you choose make or break the ecommerce business you about to embark upon. Your customers are your prime targets so it is relatively significant to partner with ecommerce hosting service providers that are reliable and ethically business oriented.

The Basic Steps in Choosing Ecommerce Hosting Solutions

1. Review, evaluate and compare existing ecommerce hosting service providers.

2. Take an overview of the service they provide their clients, such as the technical support, maintenance of websites, etc.

3. Look into the security, space, speed, uptime and email services covered by the hosting provider.

4. Scrutinize some other added valuable features like an easy to maneuver control panel, software availability, access and scripts options, such as that of the FTP access for file sharing, and the entrée to server logs and reports.

A tantamount of security features covered by your ecommerce hosting solutions synonymously generates customer trust. When costumers become at ease with negotiating through your website, they are willingly prompted to divulge their personal data to you over the net. With the refuge of secured servers and encryption features, your clients’ confidence in your firm is enhanced.

Your website’s hosting server speed is of great importance. People prefer to do online shopping, as it is more convenient and easy. If it takes too much of their time to wait for your website to download, you are definitely driving the possible profit away! When deemed necessary, your ecommerce hosting solution must provide you with the most valuable expansion options. The email services which your hosting services support must not restrict you to send and receive large files. Moreover, an uptime resolution must well be maintained or else customers will be driven away from your ecommerce business.

When your ecommerce hosting solutions are able to sustain your website with top-notch quality and reliable services, you can expect reaping a fruitful ecommerce business with a myriad of clients coming your way.

There are couple steps that you need to follow to get your website up and running with a web hosting company. First you need to find a domain name for your website.

*Domain Name – The Name that you use for your website. Ex: www.cheap-web-hosting-information.com

*Web Hosting – With this service people are able to see your website. Web Hosting is where you host your site.

A domain name is the name that you use when people visit your page (ex.cheap-web-hosting-information.com) that’s my domain name. Once you have your domain name in mind then some of the cheap web hosting companies will allow you to get a domain name for free if you buy a web hosting package from them but If you don’t want to get the domain name from the web hosting company then you can go to godaddy.com and buy your domain name from them. Don’t include http:// or www when you are registering your domain name.

After you get your domain name register and if you still don’t have a web hosting company then you need to start looking for cheap web hosting packages. One thing that you need to have in mind is that it doesn’t matter if the hosting package is cheap or not the main thing you have to look for it, is the programming language that the web hosting supports. Some of them support more than one programming language but others support only one. So try to find first the web hosting companies that have the programming language that you are going to use and then look for how cheap are the web hosting packages.

You can find more articles or more information about Cheap Web Hosting, Web Design, Webmaster and more at www.cheap-web-hosting-information.com/

Making Money in 2002! So You Want to Make Some Money This Year?

Webmasters and small business owners who are lured online by the tremendous profit potential are often overwhelmed by the enormous amount of information they have to sift through, especially if they are trying to maintain their web site as well as market it and provide some customer service!

Arghh!!!!!

======================== How Do You Eat An Elephant? ========================

One bite at a time!

That is how you have to manage your online business as well!

Whether you are lucky enough to only be responsible for a single task, or if you wear all the hats you need to set clear cut goals and attack them one at a time.

It is easy to become swamped these days, it is hard to focus when you are up to your knees in crocodiles!

===================== Stop What You Are Doing! =====================

You may be the most organized person, or the most self motivated (or not) but if you don’t have something concrete to keep you going eventually the ship will flounder!

Take a moment to sit down and evaluate your business objectively.

1. Look at your expenses.

Decide what is absolutely necessary, Millions of dollars are wasted unnecessarily every year in expensive domain registrars, inflated hosting costs, useless software and ineffective marketing.

Be serious about your return on investment for every dollar you spend.

2. Look at your revenue.

How do you make your money? What can be done to improve the product or service? Are you diversified? Can you add additional revenue streams?

Set some revenue goals. How much do you want to make this year? Break it down into monthly, weekly and daily figures.

How much do you have to sell or what do you need to do to meet that number?

Lay it all out for the next 365 days and go ahead full speed, don’t let anything stop you and you’ll be amazed where you end up!

============================= That’s Right, Create an Action Plan! =============================

Take your revenue and expense information and put it together.

You will not succeed without a clear cut plan of action with daily, weekly and monthly goals. Set your goals in concrete, post them where you can see them every day, next to the computer, on the fridge, whatever it takes!

Take the time to do it properly, just once.

Do yourself a favor. Prove you are one of the fittest, destined to survive online!

Make some money in 2002!

Happy Marketing!

Mike Beriault Editor, Surf22

Questions? Send me an email: mike@surf22.com

Think again. The deal with web templates is, we assume, that we can just purchase the web template off a website and then start publishing our website in a matter of minutes, right? We’re thinking of an easy-to-use and completely dummy-proof web template that just about anyone can fine-tune and publish, right?

The truth is…this is not the case.

As a freelance graphic designer who has been freelancing for the past 8 years, I continue to get lots of new clients who plead with me to help them change and publish their web templates for them. Some of them have purchased non-exclusive web templates which could cost anything between $20 and $100 each template. Some of them thought that they would make their lives a little bit easier if they purchased the exclusive templates…which can cost about $100 – $400 each web template.

They pay, download the file, open it in their Adobe Photoshop program and realize that…shucks, they don’t know how to change a thing and publish the website. It’s not as easy as those web template designers make it out to be. I should know – I work with those templates all the time.

Cripes, the slices
One of the biggest problems people encounter when dealing with a web template is that they don’t know how to change the slices to suit their needs. When you add your own logo or insert your own company tagline, the size of that portion might change. Therefore, you’ll need to resize the slice. A slice determines the portion of that image that makes up the cosmetic aspects of the web page.

Converting PSD to HTML
Sure enough, the package might include a HTML file for you to change and publish but after you’ve made some changes to the web template, republish the HTML file, everything has to change in the HTML files. For people who don’t deal with web publishing, they may not know how to implement the changes in the Photoshop files into the HTML files.

Conclusion
In conclusion, even though you’ve purchased a web template, it may not be the end of your problem. In fact, it could be the start of a whole new set of problems! hence, even when you’ve purchased the best web template you’ve ever seen, you may STILL need a web designer to deal with the web template you’ve purchased for you.

Which, sometimes I think, defeats the whole purpose, don’t you think?

Marsha Maung is a freelance graphic designer and copy writer who works from her home in Selangor, Malaysia. She loves nothing more than blowing bubbles in the park with her 2 kids, Joshua and Jared. She designs apparel and premium items at http://www.allmomstuff.com and is the author of “Raising little magicians”, and the popular “The Lance in freelancing”. More information can be found at http://www.marshamaung.com

Due to the large number of people offering website design services in Birmingham, there is always a bargain to be found.

Web design companies in Birmingham are in a very competitive market and some offer some great deals at various times of the year.

People who are just starting out in a career building custom design websites will often offer their services at a very reasonable rate, basically to build up a portfolio. Once they have established themselves they then tend to increase the amount they charge.

I have even heard about one person who for a very short period of time was building websites for free! This is an extreme case though.

A friend of mine called Dave was looking to have an internet prescence for his small business a number of years ago. He did not have a huge budget, however was looking for a person or company to create him a professional looking website which would be search engine friendly.

He tried looking in many areas including yellow pages, ebay, bargain pages and also by asking his friends, to see if they knew of anybody.

He also searched in Google for the search term, very cheap website design in Birmingham. There were many different websites listed, after a few phone calls, he managed to find a very good deal.

There are plenty of people offering quality website design services, who do not charge huge fees, just keep looking and you are sure to find them.

—————————————————————– —————

If your website generates large volumes of traffic, a dedicated server is likely the best choice. Many web sites start by using a shared hosting plan but as they grow they need to scale their site to meet the added requirements. A dedicated server is the most effective way to do that.

Dedicated servers are used strictly for your website. There are no other sites sharing the resources on the machine. This lets you have ultimate control over the way the server is configured.

If you need more storage or more RAM, the hosting company can add that for you (at an added cost naturally). If you need to install a particular program or operating system, you can do that.

When looking for dedicated hosting services, there are a few things to keep in mind.

First, ensure that you have a technical support and administration plan in place. This could be someone in your own company or the hosting company may provide these services for you.

Be sure the hosting company has planned for redundancy in case of system failures. If your server crashes, there needs to be a backup in place that can take on the load with minimal downtime for your website.

If your hosting company is managing the server for you, make sure they have a maintenance schedule in place for things such as security upgrades and operating system patches.

These kind of security updates are released on a regular basis, and you need to be sure that your web server is updated so it isn’t vulnerable to attack.

Web hosting companies are not all created equal. When choosing your hosting provider, you need to be sure that they are going to be able to keep your site up and running consistently.

If your website is large enough to justify a dedicated server, you can’t afford to have any downtime.

Designing a professional looking web site involves much more than simply displaying text between your body tags. In order to organize your page, you must use tables.

A table is an HTML element, also referred to as a “tag,” and is used to display your web page content in an organized fashion.

Your page can be set up in columns and rows, you can display your table cells with or without a border, and you can even have a color or image patterned background.

Tables can be used in an unlimited number of ways including:

• Organize your text and images

• Display your text in a newspaper format

• Add color and image backgrounds to text areas

• Display charts

If you’ve never designed a web page, your first step will be to learn some basic HTML. You can find a beginner tutorial at NCSA Beginner’s Guide to HTML:
www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/General/Internet/WWW/HTMLPrimer.html

When you begin designing your web page, you may want to consider placing all of your page content within a table. This will enable you to adjust your table’s cellspacing to keep your text from displaying too close to the left border of your page. The higher the cellspacing value, the further away from the left border your text will be displayed. In addition, tables will enable you to display your page content in rows and columns rather than one big block of
text.

Tables are created with the < TABLE >< /TABLE > tags. The < TABLE > tag begins the table code and the < /TABLE > tag ends the table.

In addition to the table tags, you must also specify the number of rows and columns your table will contain. To do this, you must use the < TR > tag, which specifies the beginning of a table row and the < TD > tag, which will display your table data. The < TD > tag should be placed in front of any information you would like to be displayed within a cell. The < /TD > tag will close the cell. All of these tags will be placed between the < TABLE > and < /TABLE > tags.

Basic Table Structure:

< TABLE BORDER >
< TR >
< TD >Content< /TD >
< /TR >
< /TABLE >

If you’re just starting out, you may want to use a simple table format that will display your navigational links on the left or right hand side of the page, and your text and other information on the rest of the page — in two columns.

When working with tables, make sure you create your tables with a border. This will enable you to see exactly where your borders are so that you can make sure everything is displaying properly. Once your page is complete, you can remove the border.

The following table code will create the basic layout for a web page with two columns. The first column will span 20% of the viewers’ screen. The second will span 80% — for a total
of 100%.

< TABLE BORDER CELLSPACING="10" CELLPADDING="10" WIDTH="100%" >
< TR VALIGN="Top" >
< TD WIDTH="20%" > < /TD >
< TD WIDTH="80%" > < /TD >
< /TR >
< /TABLE >

Notice the table width is set to 100%? This width will display the table across 100% of the viewers’ screen. The cellspacing and cellpadding are set to 10 so that the text won’t display right up against the left edge of the page, and there will be some space between the cells.

Once you have the basic page layout finished, you can begin adding your content. Your first step will be to delete the placeholder . These placeholders were placed between the < TD > and < /TD > tags to enable the borders to display — empty table cells do not display within a web browser.

Your logo and navigational links should be displayed within the left column, which is the smaller of the two columns. All of your page content will be placed within the other column.

Keep in mind, the top left corner of your web page will not only be used to display your logo, but should also contain your most important keyword phrase. Make sure you include an image alt tag displaying your keyword phrase within your image code.

To spice up your page, you can create additional tables with color backgrounds and borders to divide your content into sections.

All of your text and additional tables will be placed between < TD WIDTH="80%" > < /TD >. Simply replace the text with your content and table codes.

For example, the following table can be used to display an introduction to your product, article, review or whatever you’d like.

Keep in mind, you don’t want to place all of your information on your main page. The key is to include highlights of your site on your main page with a link to further information.

The example link at the bottom of the table can be used to direct your visitors to further information. You can use the colors of your choice and adjust the width to suit your needs.

< TABLE BORDER="0" CELLSPACING="0" CELLPADDING="2" ALIGN="Center" WIDTH=80% >
< TR >
< TD BGCOLOR="#919C9C" >< P ALIGN=Center >
< FONT face="Verdana,Helvetica" SIZE="2" COLOR="#FFFFFF" >< B >Your Table Heading< /B >< /FONT >< /TD >
< /TR >
< TR >
< TD BGCOLOR="#000000" HEIGHT="2" >< /TD >
< /TR >
< TR >
< TD BGCOLOR="#CCCCCC" >< P ALIGN=Left >your text here< /TD >
< /TR >
< TR >
< TD BGCOLOR="#000000" HEIGHT="2" >< /TD >
< /TR >
< TR >
< TD BGCOLOR="#919C9C" >< P ALIGN=Center >
< FONT face="Verdana,Helvetica" SIZE="2"
COLOR="#FFFFFF" >< B >Link to further
info< /B >< /FONT >< /TD >
< /TR >
< /TABLE >

Keep in mind, when displaying text within each table cell, to specify a specific font, you must use a font tag within each table cell.

Once you complete your web page, make sure you remove your table border. That’s all there is to it.

If you’re not confident in your ability to design a professional looking web site, Template Monster offers a large variety of highly professional site templates.
http://www.templatemonster.com

If you’re in need of a professional logo, Gotlogos will design a beautiful logo for your site for only $25. http://www.gotlogos.com

Take your time and test different table designs. Try adding new rows and columns and change the background and border colors. The more you practice, the better you will become.

Gook luck with your new site!

Copyright © Shelley Lowery

About the Author:

Shelley Lowery is the author of the acclaimed web design course, “Web Design Mastery” (www.webdesignmastery.com) and “eBook Starter – Give Your eBooks the look and feel of a REAL book” (www.ebookstarter.com)

Visit www.Web-Source.net to sign up for a complimentary subscription to eTips and receive a copy of Shelley’s acclaimed ebook, “Killer Internet Marketing Strategies.”

You have permission to publish this article electronically, in print, in your ebook, or on your web site, free of charge, as long as the author bylines are included.

You may have the longest lists of prospective clients and major businesses that you can send your business cards to. You may try to send it to them over and over again until their mailboxes and emails are full of stuffs about you. You may die trying to do all those things and still not get the attention and response you want to achieve.

Try as you might you cannot get people to notice you with even a glance. If having a perfect business card and continuously giving them out is not getting you anywhere, then you must be doing something wrong. Or more like, you must not be doing something.

After you have the perfect business card and the perfect lists, the thing to consider if these people would be likely to give them second glances or even try to hold them for a minute.

What is missing?

Personality. That is what is missing and lacking in business cards.

Most of the business cards may have the most beautiful styles and designs but if it lacks personality, then it does not really make a big impact on the persons receiving them. Some of the most common types of business cards are full of jargons and is lacking in warmth. The things written are also so full of clichés and are oftentimes overused. All in all, they do not really mean anything to the receivers.

The result? It does not engage and pull them into trying to contact you and get to know you more. They would probably just set it aside among the rest without even throwing your business cards a single glance.

The messages that usually stand out are those with a different tone to them. That is personality showing through. What can move the readers, make them stop and listen, now matter what it is you are presenting, is the genuine voice that speaks to your audience.

If you want to create a corporate identity or trying to market yourself, company and services, try to let your personality show through. Do not be afraid to let the people see some of the “real” you that is reflecting in your cards.

Remember that what you are offering may be like everyone else’s so that does not set you apart from the many choices that they have. Put some personality in your business cards and see the result it will have.

For comments and inquiries about the article visit http://www.businesscardsprintingonline.com

Recently there was a segment on 20/20 (an investigative TV show in the USA) regarding buying Jewelry on EBay. They reported that they bought fifteen items, and only fourteen of the fifteen were legitimate. They interviewed an IGI Gemologist who said that most of what’s offered as diamonds on online sites are no better than “frozen spit”.

Of course John Stossel of 20/20 carefully said that there are many legitimate purveyors on eBay. My experience has been similar to what was broadcasted AND I AM A JEWELER! I mistakenly thought that I could sell my jewelry on eBay and at least recover my costs and perhaps just a little profit.

Given the fact that JeffreyDesign is offering legitimate, genuine gemstones, silver, gold, designer bracelets, necklaces, rings, pendants and just about everything else you might find at a ‘brick and mortar’ jewelry store (except the bright lighting) at discount prices put me in the mix with the majority of scam artists selling Cubic Zirconia, claiming they were “diamonds” and the CZ’s they’re selling aren’t even good CZ’s! (Yes there is a difference.) Often they offer “Gold” rings but you find out they are 9kt or a thin layer of gold plated over brass or some other base metal.

So how do you know what you’re getting? Never buy without asking lots of questions first. Sure, I sell some Cz’s but I tell you what they are. Other sites put it in fine print! Yes some of my rings are Gold Vermeil (which is solid 14 or 18kt gold rolled over .925 Sterling Silver) but I tell you that (IN LARGE PRINT) whereas many adverstise vermeil as simply “Gold” which it simply isn’t. (Not that there is anything wrong with it)

Ask the questions, and see how responsive the seller is. Do they feed you back a bunch of hype or are they truly interested in helping you get what you wanted? at JeffreyDesign we have built our business on helping people get EXACTLY what they want at a reasonable price and we no longer sell on eBay because we don’t want to be lumped in with the Wild Wild West of jewelry forgers.

Remember, ask questions. See how quickly and thoroughly they respond to you. Educate yourself on jewelry buzzwords like “diamondique” or suchlike words (hint: they mean CZ) Beware of eBay Jewelry. Beware of retail Jewelers too!