Yesterday we spoke about picking a name and hosting a blog yourself, so today we are actually going to get started with hosting a blog. There are two kinds of hosting which you should be aware of.

1. Shared Hosting
2. Virtual Dedicated Hosting (or otherwise known as VPS hosting)

The first is by far the cheapest solution (with some plans costing as little as $3 a month). Unfortunately it is cheap for a reason. At its essence, shared hosting is about storing many people’s websites on the same computer. This means that you can spread your resources more evenly, instead of having one website per computer you can have hundreds or thousands. The problems arise when some of those websites start requiring a lot of CPU power because then the computer hosting them gets overwhelmed and crashes. Then all the websites on that computer go out like someone hit the light switch and won’t come back on until someone at the hosting company fixes the problem.

The problem is compounded because a lot of hosting companies offer waaayyy more to their customers than they can possibly fulfill. This means that they get a lot of customers and then find out that they really don’t have the infrastructure to actually fulfill all the orders!

Still it remains a very cost effective method for getting ahold of hosting for a start-up blog. On the good side — if you have the right shared hosting provider, then it can be VERY easy to get started on their service versus the Virtual Dedicated which may require more technical skills than a shared hosting provider.

For the purpose of getting started I’d recommend looking into shared hosting. There are a lot of hosts out there, but here are some of the ones which I have heard to be good:

• Dreamhost (aff)
• Knownhost
• Media Temple

I have personal experience with Dreamhost and Media Temple. I have a shared hosting account with Dreamhost, and although they are ok with keeping the websites on the internet (they have had some downtimes in the past) they are REALLY easy to use and get started with.

Media Temple has a good VPS server solution for not too much. I pay about $50 a month to get a server which has never gone down as far as I can tell. However, like I mentioned earlier it is a bit more technical than Dreamhost so for the rest of this tutorial I am going to focus on using Dreamhost. But before I run you through signing up with Dreamhost, I’d recommend doing a little research of your own and seeing what hosting service works best for you, and if there is anyone else out there that you’d rather work with. Google is your friend. I just find Dreamhost as an easy to use tool which is a good way to get started into the blogging world.

If you make the decision to go with Dreamhost

Once you get signed up I have a short video which will get you started with hosting your first website.

Upon signing up, you’ll be able to register your first domain name for free as a gift for doing hosting with them (see why I asked you not to purchase in the last article?)

If you decide to go with someone else

If Dreamhost is not for you, then the best thing to do is to get ahold of someone techie to help you install wordpress on the host you got. There are a lot of people who will do it for you for cheap or free and you can find them anywhere from around your local neighborhood to doing a google search for them. People are often happy to help you get setup with your wordpress blog. Though, be careful who you share your username and password with!

Regardless of who you choose:

You should have a wordpress blog that is installed and up and running! We are getting closer and closer to a finished blog that is ready to roll, and we have only made it to step two! I look forward to chatting with you on step three!

God Bless,
-Dan

If you have no idea about how to use wordpress but some blogger somewhere (like myself) told you that it is the cat’s meow when it comes to blogging, then this is the wordpress tutorial for you! I want to take people who are completely unfamiliar with wordpress through getting their own self-hosted wordpress blog.

Why Self Hosted?

WordPress.com hosts blogs for people who want to get into blogging but don’t want to pay any money to do so. This seems like a wonderful idea on the surface, but there is one major flaw with hosting with other blogging services. You do not own the content. Never have I seen copyright be such a big issue in my life, but copyright is a BIG DEAL when it comes to blogging. When you post an article to WordPress or Google’s blogging service or any blogging service which you do not host yourself, then you are giving them rights to the content. Also, the domain name “yourname.wordpress.com” is not your own either. Yaro Starak told a story about a blogger who used Google’s blogging service to host several blogs. The guy actually built a blogging empire with the help of Google. However, something went wrong and Google misjudged one of the blogs on his account as spam. Instead of inquiring with him about the issue, they just deleted his entire account! Yes, that means that even the blogs which weren’t flagged as spam went with it. He was left with nothing, and all of his search engine rankings were gone and all his work was simply over.

Therefore self-hosting becomes a big issue when it comes to blogging because if you host the blog yourself, not only do you have sole rights to the content you post to your blog, but you also own the domain name which the blog resolves to. That means when someone types in “yourblogname.com” they will ONLY find you, and not a “this blog was removed because it violated our Terms of Service agreement” message.

Step 1.) Picking a name and topic for your blog

This is one of the most difficult things for me. When I am starting a blog I am usually at a loss for a decent name. I can think of lots of names which have a level of meaning but they are not useful when it comes to trying to capture search engine ranking. But here are some tips I have heard from other bloggers in the past:

1. Pick a name which is self-explanatory. That means that someone should be able to deduce what you are writing about simply from reading the title of your blog. Take my novaEbusiness.com website for example. If you read that and think for a moment, it should become apparent that the content on the website is about e-business. The title of this blog is a tad bit more difficult to figure out — but “Tech Mindset” is about building the mindset to use technology effectively. The name needs to be self-explanatory.
2. The name needs to be catchy. The fewer syllables, the better! It needs to stick in people’s minds — a meaningful name will go a long way, but keeping it short helps as well. People just simply can’t remember long names.
   A solution to long names, though, would be to compress them into memorable acronyms. You will need to be careful about what you stick in people’s mind’s though because they will only be able to remember one (or MAYBE) two names.
3. The domain needs to be available. If you get the perfect name, you need to be sure that the domain name is available. Don’t buy a domain name yet until you read part two of this series!! You can probe for available names (and possible alternatives if the one you want is taken) at Go Daddy. While I don’t recommend GoDaddy for hosting or domain names they are easy to use to find new domain names with. So go check out their site and use their quick and easy tool for finding out if your idea for a good domain is free. Next lesson I’ll show you two good ways to actually get ahold of the domain name you searched out in this lesson! Remember not to purchase quite yet! Just find one that works for you.

Once you have a good domain name then we can move on to the next part in this series. I’ll have it up ASAP!

In the mean time — let me know the name you chose in the comments form below! I would love to hear from you!

God Bless,
-Dan

This site is starting to come together. I (with James’ and another website’s help) managed to squish the bug that was making it impossible to have this theme up for more than a few days at a time. It was strange, something about having two iterations of the same website. Anyways, thats all done with so the theme won’t revert again (I hope.)

I’m spending most of my time with this site organizing the content, so please be patient with me. I put in several hours earlier this week adding tags to every post I had written ( thats a lot of posts!) Now I am going to be organizing the content into the pages you can access above. I also setup the ezine, so please take a moment to subscribe to that (for a really nice treat too.)

I want to embark on getting this site and you, the reader, on a journey towards becoming computer literate. We are in for quite a ride together. I want to show you that it is possible to like using computers (no, really, I’m not joking ~_^.)

So thats the news of the hour. Enjoy the site as I spend some time reorganizing and then off we go on content galore.

God Bless,
-Daniel Kolansky

Never-the-less, be blown away by open source software in this video.

Enjoy!

God Bless,
-Daniel Kolansky

To start with I have one of the most basic (but also one of the coolest) tricks Windows Vista has to offer.  Check out the video here: Cool Startmenu Trick.

Hope this video helps in your everyday work!

God Bless,
-Daniel Kolansky

This article is very technical — wayy above those that I have posted previously. Unfortunately, it seems to be necessary if you want to use bluetooth devices in windows Vista. Yes, that means syncing your PDAs, using Printers, or Wireless Headphones/Headsets with Vista (Skype, anyone?).

I just purchased a Vista machine this past week and I have been slowly setting it up to be able to do the things I need it to do on a regular basis. One of the reasons I bought the machine was so that I could perform screencasts on windows Vista for all of you. That way I could show you how to do some of the secret things Windows Vista blocks from your normal view. I had purchased a bluetooth headset so I could record these screencasts without having to hold a microphone. Unfortunately, I had to go through this mess to get bluetooth running on my Vista machine. I am using a 64 bit machine but this seems to be a problem on both 64 and 32 bit versions of Vista.

I found this article which was a great help in setting up my Vista machine. It will get Bluetooth running. That is, if you can understand what they are telling you to do. It is mostly straight forward but a lot of these terms will be foreign to you.

If you are trying to follow along in this article and you are having trouble. Maybe I can help you with my business. Please take some time to visit: GoKolansky LLC. I wish that this was an easier process but it does not seem to be, sadly.

So I wish you the best of luck and please contact me if you need any additional help!

God Bless,
-Daniel Kolansky

Many people don’t know that their home stereo has the ability to hook up to their computer’s audio out port. Any stereo that has an aux playback or space for RCA/Quarter Inch inputs can get their computer routed through their stereo system giving much richer sound than most normal computer speakers.

So if you are looking to be able to play your Napster collection through some decent speakers take a look into getting your computers sound out sent to your stereo. A radioshack or best buy representative should be able to help you figure out how to get the conversion to go through.

God Bless,
-Daniel Kolansky

Be sure to get the following sensitive areas:

• The power supply fan and ventilation areas.
• Any fans located on the computer’s case.
• The CPU fan and heat sink.

I was just talking to someone yesterday who said that he had his equipment in an unfinished basement and after a while just the dust from walking on the floor had completely coated all of the circuit boards in his electronics down there.  This is serious stuff that doesn’t take long to fix. So go for it!

God Bless,
-Daniel Kolansky

1. You pick up the phone and call everyone that you know who would even be remotely related to the problem. For instance I have at least three different companies involved with this website which I could sort out in order of relevency. Since I don’t understand the problem, which is a common thing, I could call everyone related and spend my time making their lives miserable.
2. You spend endless hours trying to fix the problem yourself. You will likely realize that you spent too long working on the computer when it starts getting light out again — if you know what I mean.

Thankfully, there is a third option.

You take a step back. In a book that I am reading for school the author puts forth the idea that a large amount of the energy expended in an average day is spent trying to identify what is wrong with ourselves, what we do, who we interact with, and what they are doing. We spend so much time on the wrong that we don’t have enough time left for the right. I could wrestle with this website overnight and possibly get it fixed, or I could find a good temporary solution until I can sort out the problems with the new theme. The question is: does what you are doing about the problem ethically fit in with the goals that you have in mind? Should I make someone else’s life painful because my website isn’t working perfectly? Should I spend all night trying to fix it at the expense of my time tomorrow? No. All I need for this website is a way to get what I write about computers sorted out and sent to you. Thats it, no problems to overcome. Heck I could leave it how it is and still be ahead in the game. It isn’t something to lose hair over….yet.

So to be most effective at troubleshooting I need to give it a little bit of time so that I can focus on a solution instead of focusing on the problem.

Do the same and you’ll make yourself and a lot of people around you happier about working with your technology.

God Bless,
-Daniel Kolansky

What is Phantom Power?

Phantom power is the power that your electronics use when they are turned off. For instance, your VCR is likely never fully off. Instead it goes into a low power mode so that it can turn itself on to record a show as well as show the clock. You likely have several items in your home that have this functionality built into them. They are all drawing power on a regular basis. This newsletter I got (Loundon County: Clarion) claimed that phantom power usually costs a homeowner more than when they are actually using the electronics.

How do I avoid phantom electronics?

Thankfully, this is quite simple. Just unplug your electronics when you are finished using them and have previously turned them off. I used to have my entire computer (back when I had a desktop) plugged into one surge breaker which has a switch on it that I could use to turn off the entire machine. This was great because it turned off my monitor and PC and speakers all at once without having to turn off each piece of the machine one at a time. I could just shutdown the computer and when it was off I would just flip the switch saving tons of money from phantom power.

You can do this too. It is good for the environment and it is good for your pocket book!

God Bless,
-Daniel Kolansky