Welcome To My World…
Stephen Spry is a freelance web designer and Internet publisher who has been working online, full-time, since late 1995. I currently operate in excess of 25 sites of my own in a variety of niches… including employment, self improvement, internet marketing, small business advice, self employment, and article marketing, and also operates several significant regional and global web directories.
Throughout my Internet “career”, my primary focus has been to help small business owners succeed on the Internet by providing a wide range of useful and relevant information… without all the B.S. that seems to accompany this industry!
I’ve always wanted a more “obvious” place to bring together a lot of the things I do… A place where you can get a feel for what goes on in the life of a full-time, self employed, Aussie Internet veteran webmaster and Internet publisher.
So welcome to my world… and while this site is brand new (Easter 2009) it will shortly reflect on what I’ve done since 1995 trying to earn a living online, so that you too can benefit from my experience!
Please feel free to start or contribute to the discussions underway on this site. I really look forward to hearing from you!
Cheers
Stephen
Forget Twitter… Helloooo TipDrop!
Move over Twitter! A very strong challenge to your reign as king of the micro-bloggers is coming from a nifty new service called TipDrop!
Instead of asking “What you are doing?”, TipDrop wants to know “What do you know about that?”
TipDrop users can:
- create their own tip sheets on topics, and/or
- respond to tips left by others
With a voting system to ensure credibility of tips submitted, spammers will not be welcome and will find life hard! And, along with some Adsense revenue sharing, TipDrop users might be able to make this actually “pay” for them… literally!
Find out more about TipDrop here…. and make sure you search for my page (user = saspry) and see how I am trying to contribute to this great new “social-knowledge” site…
And then work out how it will be of use to you:) Just don’t go overboard with any self-promotion or your credibility will suffer!!! Contributing to the community by responding to others tips will be a useful way to learn how to use this site.
As Jonathan says… TipDrop is like Twitter meets Wikipedia meets Digg.
Sounds good to me!
Besides… I really am not that interested in knowing what people had for brekkie! Sorry Twitter.
UPDATE
After the first week, TipDrop is going from strength to strength, and already has an Alexa rank around 100k, which is unbelievable after such a short time! And lots of great improvements that have already been made are going to make this the place to really kick some social ass!
Five Steps To Getting Started OnLine…
I’ve just written a new post as a result of recent dealings with a couple of my “students” whom I picked up after they dived into their new Internet businesses with lots of enthusiasm, but with no real clue of what they should be doing : )
Which is pretty much the case for lots of newbies to the online marketing world I suppose…
And as a result, Five Steps To Getting Started OnLine is probably one of THE most important pieces I’ve ever written!
Strong words Stephen… but I wonder how so many thousands of people can launch an online business without ever looking at these steps???
No wonder the failure rate for new online businesses is so high!
Please don’t make the same mistakes!
Look to these Five Steps To Getting Started OnLine before you take on ANY new Internet based venture!
Protecting Your Computer
While this list could well have been added to my earlier post on What Software Do You NEED?, I felt that it needed a special place to emphasize it’s importance! So here’s my essential collection of additional software you also need to help protect your computer.
While I mainly use a Mac myself, I also use a PC from time to time, so I need to make sure it is safe from all sorts of nasties. I’ve installed the following software to do just that…
Web Hosting - BEFORE You Jump In…
One of the first things people do online is get their web hosting organized… often without really doing too much thinking about what their needs are actually going to be.
And that means they:
- might end up with the wrong sort of web hosting company and/or
- waste their money with the wrong plan, and/or
- have the hassle of moving to a new company
… all for not doing just a little bit of thinking right at the start!
What Software Do You NEED?
To get your online business up and running, there’s some software you need to get your hands on… most of which is free to download!
Open Office is a big download at around 140+MB, and is the “free” equivalent to Microsoft’s more expensive “Office” suite of applications. It includes word processing (with built in PDF maker), presentation and spreadsheet software, available in multiple languages and formats to suit Windows, Mac and Linux.
Adobe Reader is a multi-platform program which allows you to read PDF files (Portable Document Format). This is one of the most common ways in which ebooks are produced and distributed.
So You REALLY Want To Work OnLine?
There’s no doubt about it… lots of people find the idea of kicking the boss and working for themselves very attractive… and doing it online is seen to be a way of easily realising that ambition.
But before you hand in your pink slip and quit your day job, let’s have a quick look at what characteristics I reckon you need to give yourself the best chance of actually making it work for you.
Probably THE most important thing you need to have is…