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Web Hosting - Why Backups Are Essential One thing most web site owners have little time for is... anything! Anything other than focusing on their site content and the business or service it supports and the information it provides, that is. That means that administration often suffers, as it frequently must. There's only so much time in the day. But the one thing that you should never let slide are backups. They are like insurance. You rarely need it (you hope), but when you do you need it very badly. Performing regular backups - and testing them - doesn't have to be a nightmare. A little bit of forethought and effort and they can be automated to a high degree. And, they should be tested from time to time. Even when a backup appears to have gone without a hitch, the only way to know whether it's of any value is to attempt to restore the information. If it can't be restored, the backup is worthless. Even when the web hosting company provides the service, there is still some planning involved for the site owner. Hosting companies often rely on one or both of two methods. They backup everything (called a full backup), then backup anything which has changed since the last full backup (called an incremental backup). Of special interest are any configuration files that have been tailored. If you've modified the default installation of a software package, you want to be able to recapture or reproduce those changes without starting from scratch. Network configuration files, modifications to basic HTML files, CSS style sheets and others fall into the same category. If you have XML files, databases, spreadsheets or other files that carry product or subscriber information - about items purchased, for example, or people who signed up for a newsletter - those should get special attention, too. That's the lifeblood of your business or service. Lose them and you must start over. That can break your site permanently. It should go without saying that all HTML and related web site files that comprise visible pages should be backed up regularly. It isn't necessary to record every trivial change, but you can tailor backup software to exclude files or folders. Usually they're so small it isn't worth the trouble. But in some cases those small changes can add up in scenarios where there are many thousands of them. Here again, the backups are worthless if they can't be used. Even if the hosting company charges for doing so, it's worthwhile to test once or twice a year at least to ensure the data can be restored. That's especially true of database backups, which often involve special software and routines. Database files have a special structure and the information is related in certain ways that require backups be done differently. Developing a backup strategy can be straightforward. Start simply and review your plan from time to time, modifying it as your site changes and grows. But don't neglect the subject entirely. The day will come when a hard drive fails, or you get hacked or attacked by a virus, or you accidentally delete something important. When that day comes, the few minutes or hours you spent developing and executing a backup plan will have saved you days or weeks of effort.

Yes, Freebies are Real! If you tell someone that something is free, they immediately start looking for the catch. After all, the words of wisdom ?there is no such thing as a free lunch? have usually been proven true for people time and again throughout life, and so a healthy cynicism towards free stuff usually springs up with good reason. If you are one of these skeptical types, however, you may be missing out on some really great stuff. The truth is that you CAN get free things that are really and truly free, and yes, actually worth having. You just have to know where to look. OK, here is where the caveat comes in. The definition of ?free? often depends on the definition of ?cost.? As any economist can tell you, cost really doesn?t only come down to how much money you have to hand over to get something. There are additional costs, like inconvenience and time spent doing something. And true, some freebies have these ?non monetary? kinds of costs associated with them. You have to balance all of the costs with the value of the free stuff you are getting and decide if it is worth it to you. The two biggest costs associated with freebies? Time and convenience are at the top of the list. Time is a big factor in many free offers. Companies want a bit of your time in exchange for their free products. Indeed, some companies literally want hours of your time. Have you ever taken advantage of one of those ?free weekend vacation? offers in which you received free accommodation in a beach house or condo for a weekend in exchange for suffering through a long presentation and intense sales pitch? For some people, they can handle the presentation and have no qualms about refusing to buy anything and the free vacation more than makes up for it. Other people would rather pay any price to avoid having to listen to one of these spiels. So, while these weekends are freebies, for some people, they cost too much. More often, a company wants your time in a less obvious way ? they want you to spend time filling out forms. These forms may simply be your name, address and email address, or they may be very lengthy, quizzing you about buying habits and the like. The reason the companies want you to do these forms is often for market research, and they are more than happy to give you a freebie in exchange for this. Many people find the time spent filling out these forms will worth it to get a great free product. Convenience is the other cost involved with many freebies. Time and convenience go hand in hand in some cases ? after all, it may not be especially convenient to fill out form after form simply because it is time consuming, but convenience takes another hit from freebies in the form of spam email. Often, signing up for a freebie can land you on a spam email list, and for some people, getting tons of spam is so inconvenient that they would rather pay full price. The truth about all of these costs of freebies is that the freebie is in the eye of the beholder. You have to decide what you are willing to put up with in order to get a free product. Once you know the limits to your freebie costs, than you can cash in on some really great products that don?t cost you a dime. When you spend five minutes filling out a form and get rewarded with a free DVD player that you have been wanting, you will realize that there are free things out there to be had.

Check Volition.com for the Best Free Stuff Connections on the Web The web page itself states that it is ?the oldest free stuff site on the Internet?. In its design, it is very similar to very many of the free stuff pages on the web. Links and listings are used to guide free stuff and freebie seekers to their desired products. The site depends largely on visitors mailing in new links with freebies or suggesting new promotions. Similar to many other pages on the internet that offer free stuff, there is now guarantee and any offer that is accepted needs to be checked by the customer for validity. Internet fraud is a very real problem and especially in classified sections, internet fraud can trap many inexperienced and even experienced internet users. Volition offers one section, where users can sign up for movie prescreening tickets. These tickets are available for a list of participating cities for the newest movies on the market. Not any minor movies, the big Hollywood ones can be prescreened for free when signing up regularly for the ticket contest. The web page itself tries not to offer links and freebies that are commonly available on the Internet and tries this way to stand out form other free stuff online pages. The web page?s web master keeps the links up to date, but should a user experience any problems or find links that are not working any more it is important to let the web master of the page know. Only this way the page can stay up to date and as a good resource for anybody who is looking for free stuff. Another great section on volition is the section where users can find links to places that pay their visitors and signed up member?s money to participate in certain things. Users can get paid for participating in surveys, for e-mailing, for shopping, for Internet surfing and much more. Even if one is not really in need of money, these links are worth to be checked out, even just for fun. One great way to earn money is by shopping. Mystery shoppers are paid by big companies to do what most Americans like best, buy, buy and buy more products. To be able to check out this earning possibility the web page offers links and supportive advice from people that are just doing that. Classifieds are also part of the web page. This section offers products for sale. Anything from cars, to personal and regular buy/sell ads can be found in this section. Well worth checking out when somebody is looking to pay less on an item. For a whole different crowd, the web page also offers links for web design. Someone that is interested in having his or her own page can get started by visiting one of these useful links displayed on volition. These links offer anything from web design tutorials to free code and free gadgets for web pages. The links also direct users to places that offer free web space, where one can post the newly created homepage. Some people are more interested in advice form others or to interchange topics with others. For these people, volition offers a great variety of different forums with all kinds of topics. One big part gives advice and answers questions that are related to mystery shopping, other forums talk about games, entertainment and travel. Additionally the page offers links to interesting and fun pages. Pages that sell art supplies, pages that offer fun online games such as hangman and pages that offer other games and topics of interest. Whatever it is on might be seeking, it might be found on this free stuff online web site available to anyone.