Today, I came across a nifty tool that would let you see what other websites are hosted on the same server as your website.  While I could appreciate the use for a website marketer checking out IP addresses of websites, I didn’t really see too much of a use for everyday users.  But, I thought that it might be fun and interesting to see what other sites used the same web hosting company as me.

It was as simple as typing in the name of my website to see searches starting to come up on my screen.  There were not many sites that I had ever heard of before, but I decided to keep looking through the list to see if I could find any interesting sites.

Sadly, there were only two sites that caught my eye.  The first was a world wide website directory that I could submit my website to.  From the site submission, I figured that I could get some more traffic to my website and increase my search engine rankings.

The only other site that I found and joined was a free SEO education forum.  I thought by joining the forum, I would be a part of a valuable community that talked about marketing websites.  Even though I have some experience doing website marketing, I know that I don’t know everything and there is room for me to learn new things.  By joining the forum, I am putting myself in a situation where I can learn from others.

Reading through the rest of the list, there were no other interesting websites (except for my own of course).  Chances are I will use this tool in the future to try and find other sites that are using my same web hosting company - who knows what I will find next time!

When my husband and I divorced, after thirteen years of marriage, there were so many changes that I had to make in my life. One of them was that I had to look for affordable individual health insurance. We had always been covered by his company, and I suddenly found myself with no coverage.

I wanted to make sure that I had personal accident insurance coverage, as I have seen way too many people lose everything that they had because they did not have sufficient coverage for emergencies such as these. I never wanted to be in that situation and I was going to do what it took to insure that this did not happen.

I also looked into individual vision insurance, as I wear both eye glasses and contact lenses. It was so stressful for me and I definitely will not take these sorts of things for granted ever again. I wish I had been more knowledgeable about such things before I had to worry about it, but the coverage had just always been there.

My best friend has been living with me for the past few years. When we started our senior year of high school, her parents decided to move back to Romania. As she had her whole life here, it was opted that she stay behind and finish out her high school and then join them the next summer. That is when my parents offered that she live with us.

After high school, she decided to stay and attend college here. We decided to get an apartment together, as we would be going to the same school and we got a long so well together. It was a great experience for us. Shortly into our second year, her mother got sick and she left school to go be with her in Romania.

Last week, her mother passed away, and I wished more than anything that I could be there for her. I asked my mother to please send flowers to Romania and she did. I have also talked to my friend on the phone every night. She is doing alright, considering the circumstances, but she cannot wait to come back home. I can’t wait either. I miss her so much.

Since starting work at a big office in the city, I have been constantly plagued by headaches and fatigue. I knew that there could possibly be many factors involved with this, such as the long commute, but I was not quite sure how to narrow it down to what exactly it was that was causing this.

My doctor suggested that it could have something to do with all of the electro magnetic fields in the new office building that I was working in. I decided to look a little bit further into this. I decided to get some more information online and did a search when I got home that evening.

I wanted to see if there was a connection with headaches and EMF. I was surprised to see all of the different symptoms that this could cause. I also looked into what could be done to prevent this. I found numerous protection devices and decided to try one out. It has helped to cut down on the headaches. It did not completely eliminate them, but at least I can concentrate now.

I thought that I would see what it was like having a computer with Linux on it.  I dusted off an old laptop to try it out and the install went great. In fact, everything went really smoothly.  That is until I did something by accident.

I deleted my data.

Well, I didn’t delete the whole thing, but I did get rid of the whole ext3 filesystem.  I think the loss of data on the filesystem was because I was tinkering with some commands I really didn’t know much about.

Not willing to give up, I looked for disk recovery software that allowed ext3 recovery as a feature.  After a bit of hunting, I did find some options and tried one of them out.  I was able to do a complete Linux recovery.

I think next time I try something new, I will make sure that I know what I am doing before I try it out - I don’t want to have to go through this again.

In a nutshell, setting up a website is pretty easy.  Just like building a house with Lego, all you need is to gather the building blocks, follow a plan, and put them together.  Building a website is a series of steps to create a final product, but if you don’t know the steps to take, you will have problems, or maybe not end up with a final product at all.

But if you do have a roadmap of steps to follow for creating a website, then chances are you will succeed - just remember that building a website isn’t the end of the process - there is still site maintenance and marketing as well.

So, to start off, you need to decide on a name, topic, and goal for your website.  Will you be blogging about your favorite hobbies?  Or will your site be an online store selling baby clothes?  You need to figure this out before you do anything - without a clear purpose for your site, there is no point in purchasing a domain name, or considering setting up a site at all.

Once you have your goal in mind and have your domain name registered, you need a place to setup your business.  For an online website, you will need a web hosting account.  There are many companies and even ones that supply them for free, but you should host your site at a web host that has glowing web hosting reviews.  Usually if many people say a particular service is good - it will be a good place to host your website.

The last basic step is coming up with a unique website design.  You could either do this yourself, or hire a professional web design firm to do it for you.  By creating a unique look for your website, you will be remembered instead of being passed by as just another website.

The above list is not all inclusive, as we have not talked about marketing, maintenance, and content building.  But, it should be enough to give you a start - and through that first step, you will be on your way to having you first site.

I don’t know about you, but I love writing.  I spend a lot of time writing articles with the goal of submitting them to gain some one way links back to my websites.  I can usually write two or three 500 word articles each day jam-packed with good content about my niche.

But after the fun part is over, it comes time to submit my sites to the article directories - which I hate.  It just seems so tedious filling out the same forms time after time on different websites - time which I could be spending on writing more articles.

A friend of mine suggested utilizing a company that provided SEO services to help speed up the process of article submission - and free up my time to write some more good quality articles.  This way I could focus on what I love, and get the backlinks that I am looking for with the service.

I have just ordered one package to try it out - I’ll report back on how it went at a later date.

A lot of people get all caught up in the excitement (and paperwork) when they are incorporating their business.  There is a bit of a learning curve when it is the first time, and the entrepreneur may miss some key points.

Quite a few people get hung up on definitions, such as what is the difference between setting up an S corporation or LLC.  Depending on your lawyer, you may get a nice, easy to understand English definition, but quite often you get a somewhat cryptic answer.  But, the lawyer will be able to guide you through the steps needed for your new corporation to take shape.

Let me tell you though, that even with your professional advisor, quite often something is forgotten.  One of the most important, yet forgotten tasks of setting up your new company is coming up with a succession plan.  This plan lays out what is required when either you move on or pass away.  It sets out a roadmap for the company to follow when you are no longer at the helm - which is important to continue operations and helps alleviate confusion.

Just like a will, a Succession plan is often overlooked, but an essential step in your incorporating process.

This year, I have decided to do something a little different.  Instead of buying the traditional flowers, chocolates and other disposable goodies, I thought that I would buy my wife something a little more personal and meaningful to her.

The idea came to me one day when I was out with my wife the whole day.  Until that day, I never realized how much time she spent on her cell phone - you would swear that it was attached to her ear.  During this time we spent together, I heard her say that the Motorola ringtones on her phone were getting boring, and that she wished that she had other ringtones.

Talk about an obvious gift idea!

So, I decided that I would get her a membership to download ringtones - all I had to do is find a site first.  After a quick search online and browsing through a number of the results, I did eventually find a few good MP3 ringtones and managed to find the perfect one for her - Superstar - it was the first song that we ever danced to.  I am going to sneak her phone and upload it - and see if she notices.

As a recent immigrant to Canada from Australia, I was quite relieved when I got a copy of an immigration interview sample. It did not look all that difficult and I thought I would do alright at it. My sister and her daughter have been here for over five years and when my niece got sick, I knew this is where I needed to be as well.

My sister helped me with the citizenship practice test and she was thrilled with how well I handled myself. I think it means a lot to her to have someone from home over here to help take the burden off of her shoulders a little bit.

I am off tomorrow to take my G1 practice test. I thought that by helping out with some of the driving to doctor’s appointments and hospital visits, my sister would have a little bit more time to take care of her self. I know that I made the right decision by coming here, because I have not a single regret.