Entangled in the World Wide Web
I am just a learner who likes to delve in websites as a hobby.
Hobbies are what make life so enjoyable for me. I have tried
many other things - watercolor and pastel painting, organic
gardening, kayak making, dinghy sailing, kite making, origami,
stock photography, cartooning, carpentry, rock collecting, snake
rearing and many other unusual pursuits. Somehow, as time goes
on, and for some particular reason, they gradually become just
bits of historical and passing interests for me. Amidst these
passing interests, the Internet comes along.
From the first day I learned to surf the Internet, I became
impressed by it. I could not recall whether it was the
incredible amount of knowledge that can be found there, or was
it the quality of the reading medium that struck me. But it did.
I was hooked. At that time, I was gathering information on how
to make a kayak. Well, not all the information was exactly the
way I had wanted it, but by carefully piecing all the bits and
pieces of information together, I managed to use them to make a
fully functional kayak, custom made to suit me.
Deep down inside me, I was so excited by this technology, that I
wanted so much to get involved too.
Then a MLM company that calls themselves SkyX (Not their real
name) came to the scene. They were supposedly going to
revolutionize the world of online business in Malaysia. They
were an American company that operated their business very much
like a pyramid scheme, with their main products being a web
design software, some learning tool and web hosting for one year
that teaches one how to make websites. To me at that time, it
was the product I was looking for. Being so very new to the
Internet, I did not try to look at other options.
That’s what the company wanted! The trap has been sprung. Sweet
talking me with their attractive carrot bait, the members made
me lose my grip on myself and I succumbed to their enticements.
Although I was aware that people have been conned into pyramid
schemes before, I was somehow swayed by their explanations about
multi-level marketing concepts and how their business structure
was a bit different from pyramid schemes. They really knew how
to play on my emotions and weakness to their advantage.
They had all the workings of a well-established network that
gives support to all the members, organizing presentations and
holding functions. What did I do then? Since I was already part
of the network, I had to do my part in getting more members. If
not, I won’t recover my money. So for a very short while I did
just that.
Eventually, this American Company was sued and it went bankrupt.
That was the end of the chapter. My money just went down the
drain! It was a bitter and expensive lesson to learn. But the
lesson was well learned. I bit the bullet, picked up the pieces,
and behaved as if nothing had happened. I was determined to make
full use of what I had purchased. Looking back at the situation,
I recalled that taking part in MLM activities was never on my
agenda in the first place. Learning how to make websites was.
And so from that clumsy beginning, making use of the product,
and working on it when I had the time, and completely at my own
pace, I managed to learn the rudiments of web designing. I
borrowed books from the library to supplement my knowledge. I
learned basic html language, color notations, picture editing
and other simple steps. The websites that I created were so very
crude.
But it was fun and exciting for me. It’s a new toy. And it’s
magical.
After surfing for some time on the Internet, the knowledge in me
gradually grew. I picked up bits and pieces everywhere. By the
time, the MLM collapsed, I was already well versed in html
language and I was no longer that fresh. I had also acquired the
necessary photo editing skills to make presentable websites.
I bought a scanner and started to generate images for my
websites. Unfortunately, most of my photographs were
transparencies. So I had to copy and develop them into photo
prints before I could scan them.
I searched around for a few web-hosting companies that offer
free hosting and decided to try out my new skills on them. It
took me some time but I got around getting used to their
routines eventually. My first efforts on these free hosting
companies were nothing to boast about. (Although I did get
feedback from people who said that they were good. Surprise,
surprise!)
I also learned to use the search engines, and I found them very
useful. They opened up a whole new way of finding information
for me. Almost any subject could be found with just a click from
the mouse.
As I dug up more information both from the Internet and also
from library books on designing, and handling images, I became
more and more proficient. I learned how to use ftp to upload my
files to the host server. This saved me a lot of time. Most
important of all, I saved on Internet call charges on my
telephone bill.
Reading through what the experts say, I came to the conclusion
that one of the most important characteristics of a good website
is the content and its loading speed. I have observed some sites
that give very flashy and impressive animations, but
unfortunately, were rather slow loading. I decided in favor of
functionality.
My websites must be fast loading and full of content. I also
found out that to make the page load fast, the file size of the
images should be small. So I optimized all my web photographs
accordingly to jpeg and gif format to make their file sizes
small.
Then I looked at other things like making my websites crawler
friendly. (The spider at the search engines will crawl inside
the Internet to find your site. This spider is not the creepy
crawly type that will give you the goose bumps, but they work on
the web just like a real spider)
Although I am aware that the html software editor that I use is
not so efficient in generating clean html, and that it adds a
lot of extra html tags that are redundant, thus making the files
bigger than required, I will leave it as it is for the time
being. There are still many other things that I still want to
explore and develop.
One of them is e-book creation. E-books are one of the most
efficient ways to present information to people. They can be
published completely with text, images, color, hyperlinks,
animation, and sounds on CD’s and diskettes. They can also be
downloaded through the Internet, or sent through emails. (But
first make sure that the email server can handle the file size)
Making e-books presented a need for a completely different range
of knowledge and skills that are built up upon each other. It is
not as easy as it looks. For those who do not know much about
computers, Internet and web designing, it can be quite a
struggle!
For these people, I have got a solution. Perhaps they could use
my service to design e-books. I have the knowledge and the skill
that people can use. People can make use of this service at E-book Maker
Think for a while. Almost anybody has something to say that is
valuable to another person. Each person has his or hers own
experience. A secondary school student may know how to make a
cute and adorable doll out of easily obtainable cloth materials.
A housewife might want to reveal a special recipe that is handed
down from past generations that could become the springboard to
fame.
A retired carpenter or hobbyist may know how to make a special
piece of furniture that will fit some space in the living room
of an apartment. A car enthusiast may know of some tips about
choosing and testing a used car. A sports enthusiast may like to
share his secrets of scoring at a certain game. A gambler may
have some insider tips that he wants to sell. All these are
knowledge that can be tapped and sold.
Talk about the Global-Economy! This is it! Anybody is capable of
contributing to the Global-Economy. If the information is
useful, and it can be written down, or illustrated, there will
surely be someone on Planet Earth who wants to pay to learn from
it.
E-books have the advantage over books printed on paper.
Distribution is instantaneous, cost is low, and format is
colorful and interactive, and most important of all,
self-publishing for the unknown author. You don’t even have to
find a publisher for your e-book! And you don’t have to sell it
locally. You can expose it to anywhere on the Internet.
Although the Internet has leveled the playing field somewhat, I
found that the major players are still dominated by companies in
the USA. When I scouted around for a reasonably priced facility
that will enable me to receive payment for credit card
purchases, I could not find many around that will accept
participants from my country.
Well, after searching for sometime, I did find one that suits my
budget - a reasonably priced one that I can use. You can check
it out at 2checkout. Their
services are excellent.
Next I went into affiliate marketing. The concept is simple. My
website serves as a storefront for other merchant’s advertising
banners. When people who are attracted by the merchant’s
banners, click on them, they got transported to the merchant’s
website. If the visitor buys anything, a percentage of the
purchase price will be paid to me.
I find that some small money can be made from this. It depends
on how well you design your website and how well you encourage
your visitors to click on the banners. Your website has to be
carefully designed and the wordings selected to induce people to
go to the merchant you represent. Some merchants pay 5%, some
10%, and some more. By carefully choosing the merchant to match
the contents of your website you will get more click-throughs.
More click-throughs means more sales. It’s a numbers game.
Any marketing person will know that the more visitors I have,
the more the potential for a sale. So I have to find out how to
bring in visitors. The most logical step is to tackle the search
engines. It is estimated that 80% of all the traffic comes from
the search engines.
This time I explored search engine optimization. How do I place
myself near to the top of the search engine listings? By
optimizing for the search engines, people will be able to search
for my website and it will come out near the top and not
somewhere in the thousandth position. But it’s a continuous
learning process. Search engines are constantly changing their
algorithm to beat spammers. Yes, there are spammers on websites
too, webmasters who tries to beat the search engine rules.
As my web knowledge improved, I became more and more
adventurous. I noticed that many websites have forms that allow
visitors to fill up and the owner of the website will receive
the information. It’s a great way to collect data. So I found
out how to do that. It’s great fun receiving messages from
somebody from the other end of the world.
Then there are scripts. They can do magic on the website. Dates
can be automatically displayed and updated. Calculations can be
done. Images can be changed automatically. Counters can display
the number of visitors. Guest books can be signed. They are
fantastic pieces of code done by talented programmers.
Since they are so marvelous, I had to make use of them. Some of
the scripts were described as simple. Indeed most of them are
very simple to use. However, when I looked at their source
codes, they are extremely gibberish to me. I really marvel at
the work done by the programmers of these scripts. Perhaps in
the future, I might want to pursue this line of programming
activity. I can see great possibilities there.
At this moment, cgi scripts catch my attention. Cgi is short for
Common Gateway Interface. They need a bit of tweaking in order
to work because they must run on the web server on the host.
Recently I had the chance to install a cgi script on a server.
It took me a few days of tweaking and communication before it
worked, as it should. They are not for the faint-hearted
beginner. But once the beginner has acquired the necessary
knowledge, these scripts shouldn’t be a problem to install. Once
they work, you can forget about them, because they will run by
themselves, automatically.
Would the learner in me be able to teach people? Perhaps it
might. After going through many years of hands-on and
disciplined study of websites, software, and the Internet, maybe
I have acquired sufficient knowledge that people might be
willing to pay to know. Perhaps this might be the subject of
another e-book.
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About the author:
Many years of working experience in Marine, Facilities,
Construction has given the author material for writing e-books
and articles related to engineering, and management. Subscribe to
facworld ezine More information at Marine and M & E
November 21st, 2006 at 5:51 pm
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