Welcome to spokanevalleymarketing.com
|
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.
Events of copyright infringement The Events of Copyright Infringement: Innocent People Infringing Accidentally Copyright infringement is in the news a lot lately – it’s hard to miss stories about kids being carted off to jail or seriously fined for downloading music or movies off the internet. I’ve even heard about a lady was fined for tens of thousands of dollars because of the events of copyright infringement – her grandson downloading music, and she couldn’t prove it wasn’t her. The events of copyright infringement are complicated – and not easy to define. Surfing the internet has its advantages and disadvantages, that’s for sure. We’re able to find useful information quickly, but how close are we pertaining to copyright laws? Do we even know what is and is not acceptable? A couple of the more pertinent questions have been asked below: If you hear a great new band, and then download a song from MySpace, is that legal or not? The events of copyright infringement are not only limited by Kazaa, Morpheus, or some other file sharing peer to peer (P2P) service. If you download a song - no matter if you’re on a website or a MySpace page - and it isn’t coming from the artist themselves, you may want to think about downloading it. Chances are, if it’s not coming from them, you can’t have it – unless it is under a Creative Commons License. Creative Commons gives the exact ways in which you can use the license – and many times those are completely free and legal to download – so make sure you check if it’s under a CC License. If I’m writing a paper, or article, and I want to quote another website, can I? First of all, did you know the minute you write or create something, you hold the copyright to it? ESPECIALLY if you’re writing it online – it’s very easy to track things in the internet page. So, if you’re writing a blog, all the things you’ve written (no matter good or bad) are there permanently, thanks to archive.org, and you can review last versions of your web pages. Sometimes, people we can use – rather heavily – someone else’s work in our own, and think we’re small and anonymous. That no one will notice by the time you get it down – you’re just ‘borrowing’ it. Before you begin quoting anyone’s website – from CNN to your local neighborhood hardware store – you need to ask the person who holds the copyright if you can. Usually, they’ll let you if you attribute to them. Depending who you talk to, you’ll either have to pay royalties or license rights to republish. If you don’t ask before you quote, you’re beginning the events of copyright infringement and you are opening yourself up for a lawsuit. As you can see, the events of copyright infringement can begin at any time, beginning with normal ‘everyday’ activities. It’s just as easy to infringe on as it is to be infringed upon. Make sure you check your copyright using CopyScape or some other service, and you can check your work against other works on the internet, and make sure that you’re not infringing someone or vice versa. In this day it’s easy to protect yourself from getting infringed upon, and the events of copyright infringement are easy to track. It’s easy for innocent people to get caught in copyright infringement, like children they didn’t know what they could and couldn’t do. Make sure, in all you do, that you’re striving to do the best you can, and you’ll be certain not to fall victim to your own infringing demons. Dove Beauty Product Lover? Get Free Products! The Internet is a great resource for many things in everyday live. Whether someone loves food, toys or health care products, it is available on the Internet. Many companies even offer free samples of their new or changed products to customers. One of these companies is Dove. The Dove web page offers anyone free samples, trial sizes and sometimes even full size promotion offers to anyone interested. On the companies web page a whole page is dedicated to their current offers and free samples. The free samples of Dove are available to anyone over 18 years of age living in the United States. The promotions and trial sample products change frequently and therefore there is not guarantee that one can get the product seen on the page a few days or weeks ago. The trials are shipped directly to the customer’s home and area true product of Dove. Anything from lotions to hair care and other company products might be offered for trial on this page. Sometimes the company also offers coupons, discounts and rebates for certain products on this web page. Getting free products for dove beauty products lovers is actually very easy. All the dove lover has to do is visiting the Dove Special offers page and fill out a form to request the sample or samples. From there the company takes care of the rest and ships the products to the customer while supplies last. The forms that the customer has to fill generally ask for the name, address, e-mail address and birth date. As with so many things on the Internet, one should move carefully giving away certain information. While name and address are necessary for delivery of the product and this information does not bare such a great risk, it is okay to give away this information. When it comes to the birth date and e-mail, one should be more careful. The birth date of a person can be used in identity theft, and even though this is a big company and the company itself will not steel the identity, the Internet is the medium the user uses to enter the information and therefore it is necessary to be cautious. It is always better to not have ones birth date float in cyberspace available for anyone seeking to do wrong. Many dove lovers have commented that they did not have any problems or increased mail after entering their e-mail address, but if one worries about this kind of thing, there is always the possibility to use a free e-mail account, that is used as a dummy in such cases. Sometimes, some of the Dove offers are not listed on the free samples page at Dove right away, since they are part of another promotion and therefore it is also essential to check some of the other freebie pages for Dove sample offers. The various freebie online pages offer a collection of all links that currently lead onto free Dove products and are therefore very useful in the search for samples. Since the Internet is not always the answer, dove lovers also should make sure to check stores for any promotions. Often time’s companies sent stores free samples to distribute to their customers to get them trying something new, and to spread their product to a wider variety of customers. This is the harder way to get to free samples, since these promotions are not generally on a calendar as such and therefore one has to either know when through store employees or has to be a t the right time at the right place. The best bet for Dove lovers is still the free sample page that the company offers. |