Many less experienced webmasters (and webmistresses!) are nervous about using “PHP” and other web coding languages. But ignoring such technologies means that you miss out on a lot of good stuff.

In my latest “trick”, I show you how easy it is to use a tiny snippet of PHP code which lets you make changes to many web changes almost instantly simply by changing and re-uploading a single file.

It’s ideal for changing headers, footers, menus and many other parts of a page which are the same throughout a website. You can get all the details of this trick here:

http://www.IanSays.com/WMTricks/13

There are some products which simply don’t get the exposure that they deserve! I am reminded of one such example several times a week, when I use Waihon Yew’s “My Affiliate Assistant”. I use it to keep all the affiliate information safely stored away - product details, referral links, my cloaked links and so on.

I liked it so much that I gave Waihon one of my rare testimonials - and I persuaded him to donate the Standard Edition of the software to add to your Download Library - and it’s still there.

But good though the Standard Edition is, it doesn’t compare with the power of the Enterprise Edition, which I use.

You see, “My Affiliate Assistant” isn’t just a database program. That’s one small aspect of the software.

Waihon has incorporated a battery of affiliate tools, some of which are pretty unique, and have a few sneaky affiliate link tricks which I’ve only seen in linking systems costing a lot more than this.

Go and have a look at Waihon’s sales page - but a warning before you do. It’s rather ugly! It might be one of the reasons why “My Affiliate Assistant” isn’t getting the exposure that it deserves. So, Waihon, if you’re reading this (he’s an “Update” subscriber), please smarten up your sales page! Here it is:

http://www.IanSays.com/IUse/MAA

Remember, I don’t give testimonials lightly. I meant every word I said in my testimonial on the above sales page for “My Affiliate Assistant”.

This new Club, which I launched a week ago, has been as popular as I hoped it would be. As you will have seen from my last two “Update” emails, Club Members get, for a very low monthly fee, a fresh supply of new products each month, all of which come with Resale or Private Label Rights.

They also get, if they want to use it, a fully automated sales site to sell a variety of “Hot Topic” reports. Members can set up their site by just filling in 3 boxes. And there’s a whole ton of other benefits which I’ve described in detail in earlier “Updates”. I’m not going to go into detail again. You can see everything here:

http://www.PrivatePLRClub.com

One important benefit that Members get is… ME! In the past week I’ve spent a lot of time willingly helping Members with all sorts of issues, and I’ll be continuing to do so.

And that has led me to make an important decision about the Club.

There are just ten Charter Memberships remaining. When those places have been taken up, I’ll stop accepting any new Members!

This will enable me to devote time to helping existing Members and to give them the service that they need. When the time is right, I’ll re-open the doors for new Members. I haven’t decided whether I’ll keep the low Charter Membership fee or whether I’ll raise it.

When the doors close, the sales page for the Club will have a sign-up form for people who want to be notified when I start accepting new Members. People on that list will have priority when I do open the doors again.

So, if you haven’t yet joined my “Private PLR Club” and you want to lock in your Membership at the low Charter Members rate, please go here quickly.

http://www.PrivatePLRClub.com

If you see a sign-up form on the page, then I’m afraid that you will have been too late. The best thing to do then is to put yourself on the announcement list to get priority when I open the doors again.

I’m sorry to be so rigid, but I’d sooner give an excellent service to existing Members than just be interested in getting extra revenue from new Members.

Oh, and here’s just one of the many unsolicited testimonials I’ve had from Members in the first week:

“I just had to drop you a line to say thank you for such a great membership site. The trouble, as you rightly outlined is finding good products to sell if you are a newbie or don’t have the time to create your own. I am very happy with what I’ve seen so far. I know from your previous efforts you are going to make this site even better. My hat off to you sir.” - Colin Ceres, London, UK

“Screencasting”, according to Wikipedia, is the “digital recording of screen output, also known as ‘video screen capture’”. With screencasting software you fire up the software and then do whatever you want to capture - maybe software, maybe a website. You must have seen such videos dozens of times, [FIRSTNAME}!

Most internet marketers, including myself, use the up-market software, “Camtasia”. But for many people, Camtasia is too expensive.

So, given that website video is almost a “must” these days, what are the alternatives. “Cam Studio”, from which Camtasia originated, is f’ree or low-cost. It’s open source software, so there are a few variations around.

But what else is there? My eyes were opened when I came across a Wikipedia page devoted to screencasting software.

I know about “Jing”, and in the Download Library right now, there’s a video showing you how to use the Firefox plug-in “Capture Fox”. But most of the other software on the Wikipedia page I hadn’t heard about. Some links on the page go to another Wikipedia page, which gives more details about each software. Others go direct to the supplier’s web page.

So, if you’re looking for screencasting software, I suggest that you have a look at the page:

http://www.IanSays.com/Wiki/Screencast

Google’s search engine, I often think, is a bit like Microsoft software - 95% of people only use 5% of the features. And it’s usually because many people are unaware of the many search parameters that can be used. You can find details of advanced search operators here starting from this page:

http://www.IanSays.com/Google/AdvancedSearch

Let me give you an example, and it’s a powerful one. This search technique lets you find recently published articles on EzineArticles.com with more than a certain number of page views. It’s a great trick to identify up-to-date and popular sub-niches within a broader niche. Here’s the search term in full:

KEYWORD site:ezinearticles.com “This article has been viewed 2000..199999″ “Article Submitted On: * *, 2009″

That’s all on one line, by the way. So, you put in your keyword followed by a space and then the rest of the search term.

The two dots “2000..199999″ will find any number between those two values. So if you want to find articles with 5,000 or more page views, change “2000″ to “5000″. The two asterisks are wild card characters substituting for the month and the date that the article was submitted to EzineArticles.com

That particular search term on its own is a valuable research tool. But, with a bit of creative thinking, you can use these, and other advanced search operatives to really put more power into your Google searches.

You’ll be very familiar with the links in “Update” which start with “IanSays.com”. These links are the front end of a very powerful link tracking system, GoTryThis (”GTT”), which I’ve been using since July 2006 - and it cost me nearly 200 bucks. And that was an “early bird” price! The price went up considerably and people still kept buying it. Very soon, John Reel, the owner shut the doors after 2,500 people had bought GTT.

Very little happened over the next couple of years and then John started hinting about version 2 of GTT, which, he said, would be very different and even more powerful. He wasn’t wrong!

A few weeks ago, version 2 arrived, creeping out like a new-born kitten, blinking in the sunlight. OK, I know that kittens are born blind, but you get the picture First, just 50 existing GTT users were allowed to upgrade, then another few batches followed on. And eventually it was my turn.

It wasn’t a smooth ride. The new software was still in “beta” and there were a few bugs in the system. But John Reel provided excellent service for me, and now everything is running smoothly.

In the last couple of days, John has decided that the software is now stable enough to be made available to a limited number of the general public. And that includes you! You can read John’s short (and slightly quirky) sales page here:

http://www.IanSays.com/GTT/ThePower.htm

When you’ve watched the short video, go to the “Get Started” button, and you’ll be in for a pleasant surprise. On this page, which shows all the different options, instead of having to lay out mega bucks, as I did, you get the full power of GTT for a small monthly fee - if you opt for having your tracking hosted on the powerful GTT servers. If you want the system on your server, that’s when the mega bucks kicks in!

I switched immediately to the inexpensive hosted version, and I’ve not regretted my decision. Yes, I know that I’ll be paying out each month. And yes, I know that I’ll be using this service in the years to come. I’ve already been a happy user for two years. But I feel that I have peace of mind knowing that my mission-critical system is on the GTT servers.

In just a couple of days about 200 of the 500 slots have gone. So if you’re interested in using the same tracking / cloaking system that I use, then have a look at the features of GoTryThis:

http://www.IanSays.com/GTT/ThePower.htm

And if you have any questions you want to ask me about GTT, I’ll try to answer them.

I always like to try out new types of search engine, and recently I found a really different one: Wolfram Alpha

Wolfram Alpha uses all sorts of databases, li.sts and websites where it can find information that is known to be true. You can enter “population UK France USA” and it will give you the numbers and useful graphs. It can tell you what the weather was in major cities on any given date, or the age of the oldest person.

It’s fascinating to play with - but it ain’t a search engine! The British-born (now living in the US) co-creator, Stephen Wolfram, describes it as a “computational knowledge engine”. If you’ve got time to spend, you might enjoy exploring what Wolfram Alpha can do:

http://www.wolframalpha.com/

Last week I talked about Ewen Chia’s “Internet Millionaire Blueprints”, and how I had a “backdoor pass” which could get you access to Ewen’s internet business plans site at a lower price than Ewen was selling it for. The details are here:

http://www.webmasterscheatkit.com/im-blueprint/

Quite a few subscribers asked “Hey up, Ian! What’s going on?”. Well no, they didn’t say “Hey up!” - that’s a bit of my Yorkshire dialect

OK, let me explain. JayKay Bak, the respected internet marketer who runs the “Unselfish Marketer Vault” membership site, was one of a few people who lashed out a lot of dollars to get the rights to distribute Ewen’s “IM Blueprints”

Then JayKay embarked on an ingenious marketing ploy. He sold “co-ownership” rights to IM Blueprints exclusively to his Vault members. I took up his of’fer and I’m now paying him a monthly fee to “co-own” the product. I can sell at the same price that Ewen used to sell at - or, I can, if I choose, sell at a much lower “backdoor price”.

And that’s what I chose to do, for you and all my other “Update” subscribers. So you pay me and JayKay delivers the monthly content. It’s a triple-win situation.. You get a very low price for the IM Blueprints content, and JayKay and I both get income. Neat!

I thought I’d describe the whole process because I didn’t want anyone to think that something shady was going on.

Now have a look at this rather strange two-part page, and see how you can benefit:

http://www.webmasterscheatkit.com/im-blueprint/

Someone (I forget who) sent me a link to a new video made by Howie Schwartz. Yes, he’s trying to sell something! But his video gives a huge amount of information about how to use Google’s “Related Searches” and the new “Wonder Wheel” to carry out niche and keyword research.

It’s rather lengthy, and you might want to fast forward through some of his promotional stuff, but you’ll probably learn a lot from this video:

http://www.howiesultimate.com/google-tool.html

No, it’s not an affiliate link. There’s no way that I’m going to endorse a training product costing $10k!

By the way, I’ve found that some of the Google changes are not implemented simultaneously throughout the world. I got slightly different data from google.co.uk than Howie got from google.com