Now a year later I have around ten times as many customers, a respectable page ranking in Google (more about this later), first page search engine rankings (SERP’s) in MSN with respectable SERP’s in Yahoo and Google still needs some work.

Although I still have a long way to go (in truth I will always have a list of more stuff to do) I’ve made a good start and by all accounts done quite well considering my limited resources. I have found that there are a great deal of free or very cheap resources you can utilise for building and promoting a business online and this is what I shall be passing on through this series.

Although the following guide talks about starting an online business selling printing consumables in Australia you can apply much of it to other business types and I would imagine in other countries.

Why do you want to be in business & does having an online business suit you ?:-
Often people go into business with intention to get filthy rich overnight and then find themselves trapped with a crumbling edifice that consumes their lives but they have no passion for. So the question is why do you want to be in business to begin with? If your answer is something like ‘to make tons of money’ at some point you will need to rethink this as it wont be enough anymore. Of course I want to make more money than I currently do but it’s the lifestyle I will have when I have more money that creates my goals for next year, five years etc.

Personally my desire was to create a place on the internet people could go and shop with peace of mind knowing that they would be getting great service, great prices etc. My focus is always on developing good relationships with my customers and I believe this psychology actually affects my attitude to how I run my business as I am constantly looking for ways to better serve my customers needs rather than trying to figure out how to make more profit. I can honestly tell you that I rarely think about building my business in terms of profits, rather I try to identify ways to improve products and services to give current customers more bang for their buck and attract new clients.

As to whether what you wish to do would be suited to having your business online this is a trick question really because I can honestly say that it doesn’t matter what you do, you should definitely have a website for it ! If you have any doubts about whether its worth spending time and money getting your business online you can go to http://www.nichebot.com/ type a word into the box that represents a likely keyword for your business and look at what’s in the count column to see how many people have used that word or words in the last 60 days. Then it’s up to you as to whether you would like these people coming to your site as an additional source of revenue or whether you’re happy to let them go to your competition.

Anyway its about time I got into the good stuff so here goes…….

Registering your business & domain name:-
Your business name and domain name – You obviously need to decide on a business name and may have already done so but what may not be so obvious is taking into consideration your websites domain name BEFORE you choose a name for your business. Basically a domain name is what you call your website so for example the domain name for my website is “cartridgespecialists.com.au” and generally speaking you would have your domain name ending with either .com.au or .net.au and this makes you subject to the laws of Australian domain name registration as explained below.

If you are going to register a website ending in either .com.au or .net.au there are some rules you need to know about. Australian rules of domain name registration state “The domain name you order should have either be an exact match, acronym or abbreviation of the supplied business registration, or it should bear a close and substantial connection to the domain name”, so before you rush out and register that really cool business name you’ve just thought of its worth your while checking first to see if the domain name has been taken or not.

You don’t have to register your domain name ending as above, you can choose to register an international domain name such as .com or even use the name or a place or person instead of an Australian domain or in addition to. In fact this can be a smart thing to do if you’re looking for as many ways as possible to protect the name of your business or something you’re selling.

Choosing & registering a domain name – To choose a domain name you need to go to somewhere like Netregistry to see what’s available and as I mentioned above you’ll want to do this at the same time if not before registering the name for your business. There are quite a few places you can go to for checking whether the domain name you’ve chosen is available or not. The one I used is the one mentioned above but you don’t have to use them there are plenty of others. Its worth shopping around though as the prices vary quite a bit and it makes no difference at all who you register your domain name through as they all have to access their data from the same place meaning as soon as you register your domain no one else can get it even if they go to a different site to the one you used.

Using your top keywords in your domain name – If possible you should have the main keyword/s for your business in your domain name as it helps quite a bit with promoting your website online and getting lots of people to come to it. Keywords are something we’ll be covering later in much more depth but they are the words people use when they search for information on the internet using the search engines (you’ve heard of Google right ?). Whatever business you’re in start thinking about the likely words people are going to use to find you on the internet. For example for my business ‘ink, toner & cartridges’ are the 3 top keywords people use in my industry when doing searches in google, yahoo etc.

Register for more than 1 year – When you register your domain name you should do so for at least 2 years as it will help you promote your website to the search engines and it’s not expensive at all really.

Sole trader, partnership or company? – This is very straightforward and is simply a matter of going to the government dept in your state that handles the registration of business names and companies. I’m not an accountant so I’m not going to go too much into which type you should use except to say that you should not choose one of these on the basis of wanting to protect your business name, logo or something the business sells that you’ve invented. Trademark and patents are designed for this and there are lawyers you should consult who specialise in setting them up.

Expired domains – I’ll go into this more later on but thought I’d give you a little taste of it now. Now that you know a little about domain name what do you imagine happens to the ones that people decide not to reregister each year or 2 years ? Well they go back into the pool and become available for the next person to grab but until someone else registers that domain again what about all the people (otherwise know as ‘traffic’) who are still trying to find that site ?
That’s right expired domains can be a great way to get traffic to your new site immediately for a very low cost and you can replicate this as many times as you want even if you only register an expired domain for a year it can be a very worthwhile exercise !! More about this later….

Well that’s for the first article in the series there’s a checklist below to help you keep on track. Hope you enjoyed it and stay tuned for the rest………..

What do I have to do checklist…………
For the sake of keeping it simple I’ll assume that you’ve chosen to register as a sole trader (this is where most of us start out anyway) in Victoria. Of course these figures vary from state to state for the business name and how much you pay for your domain depends on where you get it from so shop around!

1. Part 1
a) Register a business name ($100.00)
b) Register a domain name ($45.00)

Ink and Toner Cartridges: How Do I Start an Online Business From Home on a Low Budget? Part 1 is a post from: Provins Sirock Technology Site

There are:

• Games played using e-mail.

• Games played on a browser window by using a web address.

• Games played using Internet Relay Chat, Telenet, MUD client, or a Web based forum.

• Games that are graphic need stand-alone software that permits players to play with or against one another using an Internet connection.

The first game, MUD, was developed in 1978, and the market has burgeoned since then.

To play, one needs:

• A reliable Internet connection.

• A personal computer or game console.

• Selected software required by specific games.

One can play simple board games like scrabble, or bingo, or games like poker, mahjong, and pool. Another popular category is simulation games—these imitate real-life situations and cover aspects like combat, city planning, strategies, as well as flight simulation.

For serious gaming the computer performance must be optimized. This can be done by:

• Running the disk defragmenter and organizing the computer files. This should ideally be done once a month at least.

• Correct folder and file errors by using scandisk—use once a week and the computer will give trouble free performance.

• Clean your hard drives—get rid of Internet files, temporary files, as well as files in the trash/recycle bin. Clear the cache and uninstall programs that are not in everyday use.

• Update the operating system software. Download any new security patches. Keep video drivers updated.

• Clear space on the hard drive—store files on a back up system.

• Clear any spyware you have inherited from websites.
• Minimize number of programs running—when playing a graphic intensive game if there are too many programs running simultaneously the graphics will become choppy and game will be slow.

• Delete add on game files—wall papers and other paraphernalia will just clutter the computer.

• Run an anti-virus program regularly but disable it when you are loading/playing games. Antivirus programs slow down games.

• Always shut down the computer properly.

The Internet allows gamers to compete with people across oceans, on the other side of the world and anywhere in the universe. Some use PCs while others use consoles. What you use is a personal choice and depends on issues like costs and so on.

Before you buy a game you must:

• Consider “system requirements” – some games can run on systems that are not exact others need specific hardware.

• Find out if the game is single player or multi-player. Many games need the Internet—and, the broadband connection is more efficient than the dial-up connection. Many like Xbox Live only work on a broadband connection.

• Find out if the game can be played using a mouse/keyboard or whether it will need a full-featured joy stick.

Be wise and try a demo before making an actual purchase. Playing a demo benefits the player as well as game developer. Many online games offer free trial periods —beta testing is a great opportunity to find out if the game suits your taste as well as pockets.

Do your research thoroughly—usually there are several games competing for players within a genre. Read game reviews before taking the final step.

Essential Tips on Gaming for Newbies: The World of Internet Games is a post from: Provins Sirock Technology Site

You may remember these timers from your CCNA studies as well, and you should also remember that these timers should not be changed lightly. What you might not have known is that if you decide to change any and all of these timers, that change must be configured on the root bridge! The root bridge will inform the nonroot switches of the change via BPDUs.

Hello Time is the interval between BPDUs, two seconds by default.

Forward Delay is the length of both the listening and learning STP stages, with a default value of 15 seconds.

Maximum Age, referred to by the switch as MaxAge, is the amount of time a switch will retain a BPDU’s contents before discarding it. The default is 20 seconds.

The value of these timers can be changed with the spanning-tree vlan command shown below. Verify the changes with the show spanning-tree command.

SW1(config)#spanning-tree vlan 1 ?

forward-time Set the forward delay for the spanning tree

hello-time Set the hello interval for the spanning tree

max-age Set the max age interval for the spanning tree

priority Set the bridge priority for the spanning tree

root Configure switch as root

SW1(config)#spanning-tree vlan 1 hello-time 5

SW1(config)#spanning-tree vlan 1 max-age 30

SW1(config)#spanning-tree vlan 1 forward-time 20

SW1(config)#^Z

SW1#show spanning-tree vlan 1

VLAN0001

Spanning tree enabled protocol ieee

Root ID Priority 32769

Address 000f.90e1.c240

This bridge is the root

Hello Time 5 sec Max Age 30 sec Forward Delay 20 sec

Bridge ID Priority 32769 (priority 32768 sys-id-ext 1)

Address 000f.90e1.c240

Hello Time 5 sec Max Age 30 sec Forward Delay 20 sec

Aging Time 300

Interface Role Sts Cost Prio.Nbr Type

—————- —- — ——— ——– ——————————–

Fa0/11 Desg FWD 19 128.11 P2p

Fa0/12 Desg FWD 19 128.12 P2p

Again, you should always take great care in changing these timers. Those defaults are set for a reason – helping to prevent switching loops!

Cisco CCNP / BCMSN Exam Tutorial: Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) Timers is a post from: Provins Sirock Technology Site

When it comes down to choosing between Directv or Dishnetwork, you need to focus on what you watch the most! Are you a sports fanatic? Are you a person that likes watching movies, with non-stop action? Do you want programming that is safe for your children? Do you like sexy movies?

Whatever your choice may be, Directv seems to be the sports dominator! If you cannot not live without sports, then Directv is the clear winner! Hands Down! Imagine watching the football game with crystal clear clarity! Picture what your friends will say, when you have Directv, and they come over every sunday!

One impressive point about Dish Network, is the “new” Dish Family! If you are concerned about, what influences your children, then Dish Network will bring “joy” and “fun” to your home. Just think, your children can watch all their favorite shows and you can rest assured, that they will not see any type of violence or bad language.

“Let’s face it, kids get curious and this will be one powerful way, you can control what goes into their minds and ears. This is the finest, in satellite tv control!”

The pricing for Directv or Dish Network is outstanding, considering the basic packages. You can go with the basic package and pay a small amount every month. Directv offers more, when it comes to sports, with NFL Sunday!

People get afraid of the prices, but when you look at what you really want, it is very easy. Look at how much people pay for cable! Do you want to pay for cheap cable and then six months later, watch as your spending money disappears! This is the satellite tv age, not the cable age.

As both companies get more competitve, you will see more deals and amazing rebates. Both Directv and Dish Network give free products and outstanding rebates. When you compare both networks you will see Directv is the winner! With all the deals, which ever you choose, it will only get better!

You will see a lot of Directv dishes, wherever you live and the reason is customer service! Even more of a reason, is Directv’s rebates! You get a free DVR after rebate and Tivo! The DVR allows you to record your favorite shows and movies, while Tivo gives you the ultimate control!

Tivo will automatically find and record programming that you request for later viewing. Imagine a search that can record the show by title, channel, actor, and keword! You can literally watch what you want when you like. Say good bye to the tape-based recorders and hello to watching a program that gives you the option of not recording reruns. Also, you do not have to reprogram every week. Directv gives you the dream and it is for your convenience.

People, the search is over and it is Directv! I love movies and I love being able to watch, what I want, when I want! Directv, combined with Tivo, is a miracle for the lover of movies and sports. You have the selections you want and the price is very affordable.

Is Direct TV Right For Me? is a post from: Provins Sirock Technology Site

In basic terms, gloss is a facet of visual perception in various objects and surfaces. The interaction of light with the physical characteristics of a surface is what creates gloss. Materials that are smooth and shiny appear to be very glossy, while rough objects appear to have little to no gloss at all.

What a gloss meter does is measure the light that is reflected by a light source at a specific angle, called a specular reflection. In simple terms, you shine a specific amount of light onto a surface and measure the reflection that is being generated. Now, when measuring gloss, you can’t just shine any old light in any old way onto a surface. It is a very exact and specific science to properly measure gloss.

So, why would someone want to measure gloss with a gloss meter? Well, humans tend to gravitate and act more favorably towards glossy or shiny objects versus dull-looking items. So, it’s important that an object that is supposed to look glossy actually does look glossy. A gloss meter can measure and detect if there are any defects with a product or item.

Being able to create a consistent gloss factor is very important. If you are producing a large number of the same item, then you want to make sure that all those products meet certain standards, and that includes gloss. If one object is significantly glossier than another object, then there may be something wrong with the material or workmanship. A gloss meter, by measuring the specular reflection, can provide that information that otherwise the naked eye would miss.

There are many different types of gloss meters, and many different ways to measure gloss. The standard practices is that an object with a reading of about 85 is considered to be low gloss. Something with a reading of 60 is labelled as semi-gloss and 20 is considered to be high gloss.

Measuring gloss is a unique combination of angles, math, light, science and craftsmanship. If you are building a table, the rough finish will not be glossy. Therefore, you would have to polish or finish the table in order to get an acceptable gloss reading. Not enough gloss and the table will look to dull and rough, and if it’s too glossy, it may be unappealing. So, how can you tell when the table is just right in terms of gloss? With a gloss meter, of course!

All About Gloss Meters is a post from: Provins Sirock Technology Site

Control exactly how long and at what time your kids can access the PC. Vista User Time Manager (http://www.vistafolder.com/) is not only easier than its competitors, but comes with several access schedules that were proven to work superbly under various circumstances. Each schedule controls the number of hours and minutes your kids can use the computer on a daily and weekly basis. Don’t want to push too much control on them? It’s easy to set Vista User Time Manager to shut down the computer when it’s time to turn the lights out.

Vista User Time Manager is not just easy to use, it’s also a powerful and highly customizable parental control tool. Besides the convenient pre-defined access schedules, Vista User Time Manager allows configuring just about any aspect of its behavior. Set your own schedules depending on certain days of the week, working days or weekends, set allowed time intervals and specify daily and combined time limits. Ever thought of limiting your kids to just 30 minutes of using your computer per day, weekdays only, from 4 to 6pm? That’s easy. Want to allow an extra couple of hours on a weekend before 9pm? That’s not difficult either. In addition, you can set an aggregate limit, allowing your kids, for example, to access the PC for no longer than 3 hours a week in total.

Vista User Time Manager can control not only when your kids can access the computer, but also what they can access. A flexible access control system extends Windows security features by allowing you to specify which files and folders that will not be accessible to the kids.

Sounds complicated? Well, there are several great schedules to start with! Not happy with any of them? Changing one to suit your needs and saving it as your own is a matter of a minute or two.

If you have many family members of different age groups, setting different access policies might be a requirement. Older kids will probably need more time and at different hours doing their homework than the younger ones. There is absolutely no need to create and maintain a separate schedule for each kid in the family! Vista User Time Manager makes it easy to group users to create group policies. When you change a schedule, the change will apply to all group members at once.

Controlling the time is great, but how does it look from the kids’ viewpoint? Vista User Time Manager does nothing disrupting. Just before the allowed time allotment is about to expire, Vista User Time Manager pops a gentle message informing the user and suggesting that they log off. Of course, you can set your own message and timeouts. If the child does not log off before the time expires, Vista User Time Manager performs the logoff automatically by closing applications and logging off the account. If that happens to be you who are working on the computer at that time, simply entering your master password will prevent the logoff.

Vista User Time Manager fully supports Windows XP and the newest Windows Vista.

Vista User Time Manager is an invaluable tool for anyone having kids and computers. Try your copy for free by downloading from: http://www.vistafolder.com/

Control Time Your Kids Can Access the PC is a post from: Provins Sirock Technology Site

I was also intending to format and give away my old computer, so I could not afford to lose any of this data in the process.

I sat down at my old computer and listed all of my important files to assess exactly what and how much data I needed to transfer over to the new laptop.

Including my pictures, MP3′s, Office documents, work backup’s and so on, I was looking at transferring about 20 Gigabytes worth of data, it seems to build up so quickly! Thank goodness for my new laptop’s 100 Gigabyte Hard Drive, which will allow me to transfer all of my data to it and still have room for a lot more. I know that the main application programmes (Word, Excel and so on) from my old computer will all have to be reinstalled on to the new laptop from their original install disks, but how do I get all the rest of the data over to the new laptop?

Floppy disk? – no way, even if my laptop had a floppy disk drive I would need about 14,000 disks!

CD or DVD? – Both my new laptop and my old computer have CD ROM drives, to get all my data over using CD’s I would need about 30 disks as well as some software to package all the data up nice and tidily across the 30 disks, viable but a lot of work and time needed. DVD’s would be better but my old computer does not have a DVD drive! There must be an easier way.

USB Memory Stick? – Not really a viable option, the maximum capacity of the USB Memory Stick that I can afford is 512MB, so this would require about 40 swaps from the old computer to the new and as my old computer is only USB1.1 which transfers at 1.5 mega bytes this process is going to be possible but really slow.

Networking? – Apparently I could network my two machines together with a “Cross Wired Network lead” and a copy of “Networking Computers for Dummies”, but unfortunately my old dinosaur of a computer does not have a network card! Network cards are cheap enough but I still don’t want to spend any money on this old computer and really don’t fancy fiddling around inside the desktop. Although it does sound good to be able to connect the two computers together and transfer the data through the cable.

This is when I came across a very handy cable called a USB Data Link Cable. Apparently I can just plug one end into the USB port on my old PC and the other end into the USB port on my new laptop and then as if by magic, I should have a USB Network between both computers. Now this sounds more like it! Both my computers have USB ports and even though my old computer is USB1.1 and my new laptop is USB2.0 the cable should work anyway, although the transfer rate will only be at the lower USB1.1 speed.
After finding more about this cable on the Internet I found out that it is also known as a USB File/Data Transfer Cable. Once connected, the transfer of data is done quickly and effortlessly by simply dragging and dropping files from one window to another, just as you normally would when moving files around on your system. So I ordered one online right away.

The USB Data Transfer Cable arrived the next day and I got down to the business of getting the thing to work, the hardest part was working out the blatantly “translated” instructions. All I had to do was install the included software from the CD, once only on each of my computers, then plug the cable into a USB port on each computer and run the software. Two Windows Explorer type windows appeared, one showing files on the laptop and the other showing files on the PC, then I simply dragged and dropped files between the two computers.

I was amazed, this USB cable solution was fantastic. It was so easy to set up and turned out to be the cheapest option by far at only £15 and much less hassle than any other option, almost too good to be true, magic!

Iggy Discovers USB Networking is a post from: Provins Sirock Technology Site

There are various items needed for essence running. These include:
Boots of lightness
No weapons or armor
27 Pure Rune Essence

Something, such as Law Runes, to take up inventory space and therefore quicken the banking process

So how do you get started? Check out forums. There you will find people looking to hire essence runners. Once you find a potential employer, here are several things to keep in mind:
How much does the employer pay?
Are you provided with essences?
Are there bonuses available?
How many runners do they have?
How many essences are required per run?
What is the employer’s runecrafting level? (More runes can be made from the same amount of essences in certain levels.)

In order to essence run successfully, you must trade the essence unnoted. It is also essential that you trade them at the correct temple. Remember to travel light. This means lightweight armor, boots of lightness, and bare essentials in your inventory.

Also, common courtesy will go a long way. Be sure to thank the crafter who traded with you. It is, after all, a free service. In order to avoid being neglected, only say “law me plz” if you are inside the Altar and no one is trading with you when you are to the side. Also, having two pouches does not mean that people will trade you twice. It just slows down the process. Finally, if you are inside the Altar, stand to one side. Avoid the line where the crafters are.

When earning runes, it’s important to know how you can use the type of rune you are running. First, there are four elemental runes: air, water, fire and mind. These are used in spells. Airs are generally best for lower level mages, as they are used for offensive spells. Higher-level mages will benefit most from fire, as they are used in god spells. Body runes are good for stat reduction spells. You will generally use only a few cosmic runes, as they have limited uses. Natures are among the most useful runes because they are used for high alchemy. Lastly, law runes are best for pure mages.

Armed with a few basics, you can try your hand at essence running and maybe you’ll learn your own tricks of the trade.

Essence Runescape is a post from: Provins Sirock Technology Site

Having said that, we’re going to briefly review the basics of multicasting first, and then future tutorials will look at the different ways in which multicasting can be configured on Cisco routers and switches.

What Is Multicasting?

A unicast is data that is sent from one host to another, while a broadcast is data sent from a host that is destined for “all” host addresses. By “all”, we can mean all hosts on a subnet, or truly all hosts on a network.

There’s a quite a bit of a middle ground there! A multicast is that middle ground, as a multicast is data that is sent to a logical group of hosts, called a multicast group. Hosts that are not part of the multicast group will not receive the data.

Some other basic multicasting facts:

There’s no limit on how many multicast groups a single host can belong to.

The sender is usually unaware of what host devices belong to the multicast group.

Multicast traffic is unidirectional. If the members of the multicast group need to respond, that reply will generally be a unicast.

The range of IP addresses reserved for multicasting is the Class D range, 224.0.0.0 – 239.255.255.255.

That range contains a couple of other reserved address ranges.

224.0.0.0 – 224.0.0.255 is reserved for network protocols only on a local network segment. Packets in this range will not be forwarded by routers, so these packets cannot leave the segment.

Just as Class A, Class B, and Class C networks have private address ranges, so does Class D. The Class D private address range is 239.0.0.0 – 239.255.255.255. Like the other private ranges, these addresses can’t be routed, so they can be reused from one network to another.

The remaining addresses fall between 224.0.1.0 and 238.255.255.255. That’s the “normal” range of multicast addresses. These addresses can be routed, so they must be unique and should not be duplicated from one network to the next.

In my next BCMSN / CCNP multicasting tutorial, we’ll take a look at the different ways in which Cisco routers and switches interact to forward multicast traffic.

Cisco CCNP / BCMSN Exam Tutorial: Multicasting And Reserved Addresses is a post from: Provins Sirock Technology Site

Apple Estimates that around 20% of the iPhones that are being sold are being unlocked. Wich means breaking it free from network restrictions, so you can use any SIM card and any provider in your iPhone.
Benefits of unlocking are clear: You can make cheaper calls, use local SIMcards when you travel and your not bound to any contract to be able to use the iPhone.

Peter Smit told us that there are many unlocking solutions available onlina and offline. One solution is even better then the other when you beleive the marketing stories.
Fact is that 90% of the people who try to unlock their iPhone by themselves, have no idea what they are doing.

“When you unlock your iPhone you are flashing the core of your Phone, this brings many risks. In some of the cases you will permanently damage your $400,- Dollars iPhone, or load it with virusses or other malware that is constructed into the unlocking software” Unfortunately there are a lot of people who are still willing to take this risk. Many of them end up with a $400, broken – unusable ‘brick’.

“In many cases we are able to repair the broken phones via a new software flash, but it some cases there is no option left then to dump the phone in the garbage, as Apple does not give any warranty to unlocked phones.”

The lesson to learn is to be careful if you want to unlock your iPhone. Benefits are clear, consider the downsides of unlocking as well. And IF you decide to unlock your precios gadjet, make sure you do it with a service that understands what they are doing.

iPhone Unlocking Dangerous is a post from: Provins Sirock Technology Site