Always Remember To Back-Up Your Files!

This topic crops up more often that not, and we always seem to read about it every other day! So if you haven’t gathered what I’m talking about yet, then it’s to do with backing-up your files and folders.

I learned the hard way yesterday when I was working on my new blog theme! I was in the middle of editing the stylesheet and must have accidentally deleted most of it without ever noticing a thing! So I carried on as normal, and clicked the ‘Update’ button and then refreshed the screen (Ctrl + R) to take a look at the changes, and boy did they look a little strange this time!

So at first I wondered what on earth had happened and went back to undo the change I’d just made in the stylesheet. (At that point, I thought that changing the ‘padding’ had caused the problem!) I scrolled down and then it hit me, at least half the stylesheet was missing!

Sorting this problem was going to take me a good few hours, and possibly even more. I spent the time getting things back to normal (Although some parts still need work done on them today!), and I refresh the page once again hoping that things are back on track. But NO there was still a problem somewhere and I just couldn’t find it. I was almost ready to call the experts in because of it!

It got to the point were I had to start from the top, and work my way down. I remembered that I was doing something in the header.php file and so I checked there first. BANG! - I found the problem in 2 mins flat! It turned out that I had an extra </div> tag were I shouldn’t have. (Talk about bad luck?!)

The main point I’m trying to make is if I’d had a back-up, then I could have just re-uploaded that and been able to get on with my modifications. Instead I had to get this sorted. (While I’m here, the new theme will be with us pretty soon. It all depends on when I get it complete. HEHE)

I learned the hard way with this, but imagine if you lost EVERYTHING in your hosting account or even your Aweber signups! I can guarantee now, that it wouldn’t be a very nice sight!…

So spend 10 minutes now and go back-up your files and folders!

Popularity: 96% [?]

How Clean Is Your ‘Income Producing’ Office?

As we all know, the most important part of making your income online is by creating your own products right? Well I’d actually say YES and NO!

(Why you ask?)

Well I can phrase this several ways, but what about if I ask you this question… “What Do You Create The Products On?” Now that isn’t the only question I could have asked, but I hope you can see were I’m going with this?!

If it’s me, I feel that your computer plays a HUGE role in generating this income and it should therefore be kept in a good condition and not loaded up with what some people call junk. So most people will have a desk for their computer, that sits somewhere!

But were does that important desk of yours sit? For me at the moment, it’s kinda under the stairs as that’s the only place we have room for it! However, if I had my own way…then I’d have built myself an OFFICE in the attic/loft.

(Now onto the fun part!) How clean is your office? You would think that if it was nice, clean and tidy then you’d work harder. So if your looking at your office now, and don’t know were everything is…then you need to clean it out today!

My ‘office’ isn’t very tidy at all, but it isn’t very messy either! But what I really am after is a separate office with some units for me to keep all my important information in. (Another solution I might try is buying some plastic folders to put all my project ideas into!)

So if you currently don’t have an office-office then why not think about converting a small room in your house into one?! (I would do that, but then my younger brother wouldn’t have anywhere to sleep! HEHE) Plus I guess it’s also nice to leave ‘work’, were you can then go and relax on the sofa watching the TV and having something to eat.

When I do manage to grab my OWN office, then I’ll definitely tell you what the benefits are, but also if there is anything bad as well!

(That’s all for today and enjoy the rest of your weekend! I never knew I could write so much just about an office!…)

Popularity: 73% [?]

Get A ‘Seasoned PRO’ To Do The Work For You!

So Mark, what on earth are you talking about now?

Well it’s the simple process of OUTSOURCING some of your business tasks. When using this kind of method, it is going to allow you to get on with other tasks that could be more fun than writing 25 articles for example!

A prime example is Lee McIntyre! In the March videos for Standing Start Profits, he shows us how you actually go about creating a project on GetAFreelancer.com were Lee’s actually looking for… (I better not say without prior permission!)

Another (fantastic) example is me! You see, I’m having a short report written for me (complete now), and it’s only costing me $50. Now think of the endless possibilities with what I could do with it. I could turn it into a brandable report, hence sending me some traffic and hopefully sales in the process. I could even sell it at $7 for example, and use a well known script. ($7 Secrets)

So with this brandable report, many people could go and insert their Clickbank ID’s and sell the report on their websites. Another GREAT way is to give it away for free to someone who subscribes to your mailing list. (A service like Aweber!) - Now you could still sell it on eBay if you like, but that would need to be through the Classified Ad’s section since they have changed their policy!

When these type of books turn viral, in fact when any report turns viral, then it’s a simple way of generating targeted traffic to the salespage! So if your salespage copy converts well, then they should hopefully purchase the product!

Now then, how have your thoughts on outsourcing changed? (That is if they have!)

Popularity: 17% [?]

Password Protect Any Webpage - The SIMPLE Way!

Have you ever found the need were you need some protection for a single page on your website? You know, maybe the download page were the username and password are sent out to the user via email after they have purchased. Or maybe the fact that your only going to allow certain people to see your ’special offer’ that you spent ages creating.

Well today, I have your answer! And NO, it’s not going to cost you a single penny unless of course you do decide to invest in some gear with 1000’s more functions. If you want to protect MORE than the one page (eg, a membership area) at a time…than this code isn’t for you. Although, please do keep reading as you may need it for future.

So lets get onto the basics. The visitors are required to enter a username and password into the login form to view the page content. YOU decide these 2 values from inside the code, and to be honest…is perfect for protecting your download pages. You would just need to find a way of telling them what to use.

<?php
// Define your username and password
$username = "someuser";
$password = "somepassword";

if ($_POST['txtUsername'] != $username || $_POST['txtPassword'] != $password) {

?>

<h1>Login</h1>

<form name=”form” method=”post” action=”<?php echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']; ?>”>
  <p><label for=”txtUsername”>Username:</label>
  <br /><input type=”text” title=”Enter your Username” name=”txtUsername” /></p>

<p><label for=”txtpassword”>Password:</label>
  <br /><input type=”password” title=”Enter your password” name=”txtPassword” /></p>

<p><input type=”submit” name=”Submit” value=”Login” /></p>

</form>

<?php

}
else {

?>

<p>This is the protected page. Your private content goes here.</p>

<?php

}

?>

Now from past experience, I know that it’s NOT good to copy any code in Wordpress because it does tend to mess a few things up! So that’s why I’ve decided to help you out here. I have placed the code into a text file were you can visit and just copy then paste into what relevant file you like.

== >> http://www.mark-mcwilliams.com/passprotect.txt

When you do insert this code into your web-page and go to save, you’ll need to call it ’something.php‘ instead of the usual .html - I’m also hoping to implement this code into a few pages on my site. I’ve even setup a test page, and tried it out myself and it’s simple enough to do.

However…if you would rather buy some software, then there are really only 2 that I can recommend.

• DL Guard
• My Digital Dispatch

So anyway, please do let me know what you think in the comments below.

Popularity: 38% [?]

Have You Registered YourName.com Yet?

Once again it’s pouring down with rain here in the UK. Not to mention this cold that’s just hit me, but I’m not letting it stop me from providing my readers with information!

Now, you’ve maybe heard other marketers like John Thornhill or even Lee McIntyre talking about this from time to time. If you remember from that ‘interview‘ I had with John, he mentioned it there too.

When I first started out online, I really didn’t know were I was or what in fact I was doing. I searched eBay several times and I eventually came across PlanetSMS (John Thornhill) and started from there really.

The IMPORTANT thing I never did, was to register MarkMcWilliams.com - People will do searches on Google maybe even Yahoo looking for YOU! So after a bit of time, I eventually went to register Mark-McWilliams.com because the other one had been TAKEN!

Fortunately for me, MarkMcWilliams.com had been registered a few years before so it couldn’t be helped. However, I am on the lookout for when it does expire…cause I’ll be jumping on it like a hound.

The thing I’m trying to tell you is go register YourName.com domain today! Get a blog setup on it, then start typing away. If you know nothing about Wordpress, then you could always get someone to do it for you. Although, if you have cPanel then there is a program called ‘Fantastico De Luxe’ were you can install it from.

Back on track of things, you can use your domain and add a ‘recommends’ directory were you can create nice looking affiliate links. I mean, what’s better?

http://markmcw.smsdigital.hop.clickbank.net

http://www.mark-mcwilliams.com/recs/sms_mentorship

Come on, I hope you were going with the second link there!

I hope you’ve learnt a thing or two from this post today. And as always, if you need to know anything else…then just drop me a line in the comments below.

Popularity: 29% [?]

A Product Launch Isn’t All What It Seems!…

Well, as most of you are currently aware of. I’ll soon be launching my VERY first product! It’s called Support System Simplified, and now that I’m getting closer and closer to completion…it’s amazing how many tasks crop up that still need to be done! I mean, take a look at some of the things that come to mind this very minute…

• I still need to finish writing the report! - I know that I could have just left it as it was, however I’d rather do the updates and offer the buyer even more.

• Submit product for Clickbank’s approval! - Again, this is something that I had known about when I started…although you sort of forget about it during the product creation process.

• Setup the opt-in boxes and insert in the right place! - As you can imagine, I need to make sure that each list has been setup in the correct place. Otherwise there might be a few unhappy customers.

• Download page needs to be created! - I mean, how else would I get the product to the buyer? There’s also another way of using some software like DL Guard, were it sends the buyer to a secure download page.

• Contact potential JV partners! - This is important and is something that I’ll be doing very very soon. I hope to get some known names to promote my report one way or another!

Although knowing me, I’ll still have another 10 tasks on top of that to complete!

However, as a ‘newbie’ we all make mistakes…and I’m sure that when you started (or are at the moment) you made mistakes that you’d almost ‘laugh’ about now-a-days. It’s all a learning curve, but it will help me in the long-run as I continue my quest to become a full-time marketer!

I’m aware too that the ‘Clock Is Ticking’ so to speak. I’ve already had quite a lot of interest over on the Standing Start Profits forum were I’ve been interacting and actually been talking about my product. There are a few of the members that REALLY can’t wait for it…

I’d love to hear what experience you’ve gained from launching a product. But also from a ‘newbie’ perspective too. Just post your comments below.

Popularity: 21% [?]

A Quick Guide To Creating A Favicon For Your Site

After my post yesterday, a few people have come back to me and asked how exactly they create their own favicon too. So to help them out, and you of course, I’ve decided to blog about it! Let’s begin…

1. As with my logo, you can see that I has an emblem too. Well when I had my logo created, I asked the designer if they could supply me the emblem on it’s own too. As well with the actual logo. Any graphic designers would do the same I’d hope.

2. Once the files have been sent too you. It’s time to convert the file into it’s correct format. That is however unless your designer has already done this for you. It will never harm to ask though! The format for a favicon is .ico

To help you out with the process, I have found a very good converter that you can use online. It’s FREE to use and very easy to work with. So take a look today… http://www.htmlkit.com

In fact, you can convert any image you like into a favicon with that converter. Why not try that out for yourself…

3. With your file converted, you need to upload the favicon file to the folder of your site. Any FTP client will do the trick, SmartFTP or even FileZilla.

4. Next, you need to enter the following HTML tag to your site. Don’t worry, it’s really small.

<link rel=”icon” href=”http://www.domain.com/favicon.ico” type=”image/x-icon” />
<link rel=”shortcut icon” href=”favicon.ico” type=”image/x-icon” />

Note: Don’t copy or paste this code direct from the page. Wordpress tends to mess up the little quotation marks when you do that.

The above code needs to be entered after the <head> tag, and before the </head> tag.

5. Upload your updated site.

Well, that’s it complete. Your favicon will now show whenever you visit your site, you’ll be able to see it in the address bar…or beside any of your bookmarks.

I hope you found this quick guide interesting and useful. As usual, I’d love to read any comments you leave…

Popularity: 25% [?]

New Logo And Changes Coming Too Mark-McWilliams.com

Advancing in my online career and with the importance of creating a brand, I decided upon myself that it was about time to have a logo created for my business. In fact, check it out below…

So, what are your thoughts on it? I even took the emblem, as suggested by a good friend, and used it to create a favicon. That too helps with branding.

Definition of a Favicon: A favicon, or favourites icon is a small graphic that is associated with a page or website. The favicon allows the web developer to customize the site in the web browser, both in the tab bar that is displayed in many browsers as well as in the bookmarks when a site is saved.

But what are the ‘changes’ that I’m talking about? Well, if you take a look at the whole of my blog…you’ll find that there’s not much room for me to put items anywhere. So hopefully I’ll be able to sort that problem out. It just involves a PHP programmer and some cash!

I’m also doing this too benefit YOU, the readers of my blog! I want this to he a huge information and resource center. However, I’m not going to go into much detail at this point…I still need to clear a few questions that I have first. But the minute I have some more info, you’ll be the first to find out.

I hope this is going to work out for the best, but if not…then I’ll make good with what I’ve got!

Popularity: 17% [?]

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