Essential Basic Tools And Software
September 18, 2008 by Albert
Filed under Make Money Online Basics
As an online entrepreneur, it is important for you to understand and learn how to leverage on tools and software to get the most out of your online business. While some of the tools and software may requires a certain degree of investment to begin with, I’m glad to tell you most if not all of the basic tools and software are free to begin with.
Which is why making money online remains one of the best ways for a regular person to make passive income online as the startup capital requires is pretty minimum. Most of the tools and software that you will require initially are free to begin with. As your online business grows and when you can afford it, you can upgrade to more premium services which should accelerate the growth of your online business.
Here’s a list of paid and free essential basic tools and software that will help you make money online and grow your business:
• Anti-Virus Software
• Article Submission Software
• Directory Submission Software
• Video Submission Software
• Chat Software
• Email Software
• Feed Reading Software
• FTP Software
• Graphics Editing Software
• HTML Editing software
• Web Browsers
• Rewriting Software
Anti-Virus Software
Protecting your computer and data is a must for any online entrepreneur which is why having anti-virus software is so very important. You do not want to be caught losing your important data to viruses, trojans etc. There are many free and paid versions of anti-virus software available. You can probably start off with these free anti-virus software before moving on to more secured paid versions.
• AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition
• Avast Home Edition
• Avira Antivir Personal
Article Submission Software
Having a good article submission software is going to save you much time and effort in promoting your website. A good article submission software will help you to automate your submission process and let you focus your time and effort on other parts of your business. The article submission software that I used and which I highly recommended is Article Post Robot. There are other good article submission software around but Article Post Robot is one that serves me very well all these time.
Directory Submission Software
A directory submission software is a must if you want to get index in the search engines quickly. Basically, a directory submission software helps you to semi automate submission of your websites to hundreds if not thousands of feed directories, web directories and RSS directories. This is vital as manual submission is very tedious and takes up a lot of time. While there are some directory submission software that are fully automated, I have not done enough research to validate whether these software are the real thing. In the meantime, having a semi-automated solution is the next best thing. I highly recommend using Directory Submitter. I have been using Directory Submitter for a long time and this nifty software has helped me get my websites indexed quickly in the search engines. You will never go wrong with Directory Submitter.
Chat Software
There are many types of chat software around but I would recommend using Gtalk which is free and can synchronize with your gmail email account. A chat software will allow you to communicate with people easier and on a more personal note.
Email Account / Software
To receive and send out emails for personal or business purposes, you need an email account and an email software to manage your emails. Personally for me, I find that I can do everything with just Gmail. Before I was a convert, I used Yahoo! Mail as my choice of web based email account. Now, I practically cannot make do without Gmail. As for email software, you can try other alternatives such as Mozilla’s Thunderbird and Eudora.
Feed Reading Software
To get updated on the latest news and happenings in your niche is going to be very easy with a feed reading software. You can check out this post on a list of desktop and web based feed reading software that you may use to get updated on your favorite news sources.
FTP Software
For a good FTP software, you can go no further than FileZilla. I have been using FileZilla ever since I started making money online. It is a very fast FTP software which allows you to upload and download files easily. Speed is very important especially if you have a lot of files to download and upload.
Graphics Editing Software
Photoshop is one of the best graphics editing software out there although it is not free and cheap by any means. However, this is a worthy investment and one software that you should get as soon as possible. Changing and redesigning graphics is part and parcel of being an online entrepreneur and this is a skill that you should master the basics at the very minimum.
HTML Editing Software
Dreamweaver is my choice of HTML editing software. Although there is a learning curve attached to it, but once you master the basics, getting a simple HTML site up is going to be a piece of cake. Other HTML editing software that you can look at are Coffee Cup, FrontPage and NVU.
Rewriting Software
There are two programs that I highly recommended. One is WordFlood and the other is Power Article Rewriter. Both rewriting software will allows you to rewrite all those PLR articles that has been lying on your harddisk and put them to good use. You can also choose to spin your original and unique content into many different versions and submit them to various article directories to build links and drive traffic to your websites.
Video Submission Software
If you are going to use videos for promoting your websites, you should get a video submission software to help you automate your submission of videos to various videos sites. Using videos is a good way to build links and generate traffic to your websites fast. You can try Video Upload Pro which is a very good video submission software by the same person behind Article Post Robot.
Web Browsers
My choice of browser has to be FireFox. There are lots of plugins available to make this browser the top choice for online entrepreneur. Other worthy browsers are Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Opera and Safari. For your information, I used all five as I sometimes code and modified wordpress themes for my websites.
Basic CSS
September 13, 2008 by Albert
Filed under Make Money Online Basics
CSS or Cascading Style Sheets is a type of stylesheet language that defines how a document would look like. It commonly used to style a website or documents written in markup languages such as HTML and XHTML. Even though HTML can be used to define how your site would look, web designers still find HTML very cumbersome to work with.
As websites started to get more sophisticated, it become more complex to write and maintain websites in HTML. With CSS, web designers have more control over stylistic capabilities of a document without the complexity of HTML. This allows web designers to focus more on the design aspects of a website rather than coding.
Having a basic understanding and knowledge of CSS will allows you to change the look of any website or blogs as and when as you like. Nowadays, it is very getting very common for webmasters to download free templates and themes for uses. However, one downside to these free templates and themes is that there is no exclusivity. Most likely, the template or theme that you are going to use for your site is being used by tens if not hundreds of other webmasters. To counter this, you have to edit and change the look of the free templates or themes. Many templates and themes use CSS in their presentation and it is important for you to master some basic CSS skills in order to edit or change them.
Here’s a list of sites which you can learn basic and advance CSS skills:
• CSSBasics.com
• W3.org
• W3Schools.com
If you have a site which have tutorials for basic and advance CSS, feel free to contact me for inclusion to the list. However, acceptance may depend on the quality of your site. 
Basic HTML
September 8, 2008 by Albert
Filed under Make Money Online Basics
HTML which stands for Hyper Text Markup Language is a language specifically used for websites. It is a type of language or text which allows websites to display text and images. HTML uses a lot of tags to define the way website look and feel. Without HTML, I simply cannot imagine how the internet would look like, although another language or format would probably come along and take its place in history.
Well, I’m not going to go into any details regarding HTML but I will direct you to a few sites whereby you can learn some basic HTML skills. If you want to make money online, it is very important for you to master some basic HTML skills as most if not all online make money activities involve some HTML at one stage or another. I learn most of my HTML skills from W3Schools which I still use today if I need to refer to anything in an instance.
Here’s a list of sites which you can learn basic and advance HTML skills:
• HTML.net
• HTMLDog
• W3.org
• W3Schools.com
If you have a site which have tutorials for basic and advance HTML, feel free to contact me for inclusion to the list. However, acceptance may depend on the quality of your site.
Basic Computer Skills
September 5, 2008 by Albert
Filed under Make Money Online Basics
There is nothing more frustrating for a newbie than getting stuck at the very first hurdle. To a newbie, it seemed that there are so many things to learn yet so little time to digest and accomplish anything. From understanding how to operate your computer, the various terminologies and language used online to a whole host of technical issues, newbies feel so overwhelmed that they give up even before they get started.
If you want to start making money online, you need to learn how to build a site from scratch, upload and download files to installing links. Before you can do all these, you need to learn how to operate your computer and some other basic computer skills such as emailing and surfing the net with confidence first. That is the first step to you being an online entrepreneur. After that, you can tackle other more advance skills.
I will not go into details on the various basic computer skills as there are a whole lot of sites that can do a much better interpretation than me. Rather, I have listed down below essential basic skills and knowledge that you need to learn and master from before moving on to more advance skills and knowledge. Here you go:
Basic Computer Skills
• Bookmark websites
• Copy, cut and paste files
• Creating folders and files
• Downloading files
• Installing programs and software
• Operating a computer
• Receive and send emails
• Saving Files
• Unzip or unrar files
• Using the mouse
• Using the search engines
• Using web browsers
• Web Surfing
• Word processing
You also need to learn the various terminologies commonly used online. You can check out the “Glossary” section for a better understanding of the terms that you encounter online. The list above is by no means comprehensive as there are definitely more things that may stump a newbie. If you feel that I am missing out on certain important stuff, feel free to contact me.
Remember there is nothing to stop you from learning and mastering these essential basic computers if you put your heart and soul into it. Take things one step at a time and you will reach your goal in no time.
What Is RSS And How It Works
One of the very first obstacles that a new blogger may find is the huge amount of technical terms being used in blogging or online and understands the meaning behind these terms. RSS which is the abbreviation for Really Simple Syndication is one of the terms that constantly stump new bloggers. When I first get started on blogging, I had a hard time trying to understand what RSS is all about and how I can utilize it properly.
In a nutshell, RSS is a web format which allows web publishers to publish their content for readers to read in a RSS reader also known as a feed reader or aggregator. This allows your readers to read your latest updated content without having to visit your blog or website. The idea behind RSS is to allow a reader to consolidate all his favorite sites in one place without having to visit all the sites one by one. This makes it convenient and efficient for people like me who simply do not have the time to visit sites one by one.
The formatting language behind RSS is XML. XML is the language used by software and websites to distribute the content to an RSS reader. Unless you are into the technical aspects of the internet, there is no reason for you to delve into XML. Just understand that XML is the language that is powering the technology behind RSS.
There are many types of feed reading software and they are mainly classified into 2 main types, web based and desktop base. For desktop based feed reading software, you need to install them into your computer in order to access your feeds and your feeds can only be access from the computer you have install the software on. Which is why more people prefer to go for web based feed reading software such as Google Reader. I have put down a list of web based and desktop based feed reading software below. The list is by no means comprehensive but these are some of the more popular ones around so I figure they will be useful to you at some stage.
Desktop Based Feed Readers
• Awasu
• FeedDemon
• Newzie
• RSS Bandit
Web Based Readers
• BlogLines
• Google Reader
To subscribe to a feed, you simply have to look for the RSS icon. If you cannot see any RSS icon, just look for the word RSS, Atom or Syndicate. It all refers to the same thing which is a RSS feed. RSS is going to be at the forte of online technologies for years to come, so it is important for you to keep abreast of any new developments in RSS technology.
