When I first reached the point where I needed to move from shared hosting to something bigger and better, I kept seeing VPS being bandied about as the right solution, but it was hard to find out what VPS really *was*. I already knew that I couldn’t afforded a dedicated server, so I was fairly certain that the mid-range VPS solution (Virtual Private Server) was what I wanted, but I felt like I was stepping into that decision with blinders on. (In fact, I was, but it didn’t take long after making the decision to figure out what it all meant).

So, I think it’s a good idea to give a brief description of the differences between shared hosting, vps hosting, and dedicated hosting. Then, if you need to make the move to something bigger/better than your current shared hosting, you’ll at least have enough information to start research on what you need.

Shared Hosting – The Low End

Benefits:

• Cheap. You aren’t risking much money on a site that may never make you a dime.
• Fully managed by host. You don’t have to worry about keeping the hardware or software upgraded, or manage the server in any way. The host takes care of it all.

Drawbacks:

• Shared Disk Space, Ram and CPU Resources. Your site is sharing those resources with many other sites (usually a few hundred, sometimes many more than that). If there are enough resources left for whatever your site needs to display, it gets it. If those resources have been used up by someone else’s site, tough luck, kiddo. This is usually the reason your site ends up outgrowing shared hosting. Once it becomes popular and is getting bucketloads of traffic, there will never be enough resources on a shared server to allow your site to work properly.
• Restrictions, restrictions, restrictions. Shared servers, for security purposes mostly, must restrict your access to certain features that would normally be available to you on other types of hosting. These restrictions may vary depending upon the host, but things at the server level such as SSH access and the ability to add custom server configurations are often restricted from shared hosting. These restrictions usually don’t affect most sites, but if your site needs it, and your shared hosting restricts it, that’s an ugly problem to have.

Dedicated Hosting – The High End

Benefits:

• No Shared Resources. All of the server’s resources are yours and yours alone. Only your site(s) live on this server, so no resources are being taken away from you to give to others.
• Completely Configurable To Your Specific Needs. The dedicated server is yours to mold however you wish. Need some new web gizmo running on your server? No problem. Just install it and use it. You can think of this server as being just like the computer you have at your desk. It’s yours. Do what you want with it.

Drawbacks:

• Expensive! Your site needs to be bringing in enough income to justify the high price of going with a dedicated server.
• Requires technical skills to manage. You’d better have a good working knowledge of running a web server, because you’ll be responsible (in most cases) for running this one. If you’ve never done it before, you’re in for a shock. It’s a steep learning curve for the newbie. Some dedicated plans come fully managed by the host, but you can be sure your expensive plan just got a lot more expensive if you add fully managed service to the plan.

VPS Hosting – The Middle Ground

Benefits:

• Dedicated RAM & Disk Space, Shared CPU. While a VPS server will still share the CPU resources amongst your site and the other sites on the server, your site will get its own dedicated RAM and disk space. This is a big improvement over shared hosting.
• Server-Level Configuration. Just like a dedicated machine, you can configure the server however you wish.
• Burstable Memory. On at least some VPS plans, you get burstable memory which allows your site to be able to handle sudden traffic spikes (such as the Digg effect). The most painful thing to watch is a site that hits the front page of Digg but shuts down because it can’t handle the load. Burstable memory is designed to help alleviate that problem.
• Scalability. Like a dedicated machine, a VPS gives you room to grow. As your needs change, you can add more databases, expand to ecommerce, or add new sites. The VPS will handle most sites’ needs until they become powerhouses.

Drawbacks:

• Usually requires more management on your part. Although you won’t need the level of skills that you’d need for a dedicated plan, you’ll probably find that you’ll need to learn a few more things than you ever thought you’d know about running a web server. Many VPS plans come with semi-managed service, which means that some of the management is done by the host; leaving some of the management left to you. In general, the host will usually handle all the hardware and server software management, and you’ll need to handle any custom software issues. This threw me for a loop the first time I moved to a VPS plan. I recommend getting as much information as possible from the host as to what you’ll *really* be doing behind the scenes. You need to know if you can really handle the management tasks or not. This is not something your grandma can generally handle, so keep that in mind.
• Not Cheap. Ok, but that’s really only a slight drawback, as it really isn’t all that expensive either. More than likely, if your site is to the point where it needs to upgrade from shared hosting, it’s probably bringing in enough income to handle the added hosting fees. So in my mind, this is a non-issue.

Armed With Basic Knowledge

Now that you have a general idea of what a VPS is all about, you can start to research properly. Don’t upgrade with blinders on like I did. Have an understanding of what the move from shared hosting to a VPS plan will mean, and your experience of the upgrade will be better.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2010. | Permalink | 11 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: dedicated server, Shared web hosting service, Virtual private server, web hosting
This feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this in your news aggregator/reader or on DazzlinDonna, then the site you are looking at is probably infringing upon my copyright.

Imagine opening up a store in a mall somewhere, and just when the profits start rolling in, the mall decides to close down forever, but they don’t tell you. In fact, they not only fail to inform you, but they place tons of dynamite around the mall, and completely blow it to smithereens. Your store is gone in a flash, and no matter what you do, you cannot get your store and its inventory back, nor can you get compensated for the loss of any of it.

Does that scenario sound ridiculous? Of course it does. But that’s exactly the risk people take every time they create a new site/blog on a free hosting platform like Blogger or WordPress.com. At any moment, those platforms could decide, on a whim, and for any reason, to delete your site forever. Period. End of story. Buh-bye.

Let’s take a look at a recent example, shall we? Look at Ning’s latest decision to go strictly paid. Everyone who built a community on Ning has two choices now: upgrade to a paid version or lose the community. (See Ning’s Bubble Bursts: No More Free Networks, Cuts 40% Of Staff). Luckily, Ning gave a warning, so at least they didn’t just nuke communities without telling the “owners”, but it’s still a huge blow. Notice how I put “owners” in quotes? That’s because Ning is the owner, not the people who created and grew the communities. That’s the whole point I’m trying to make.

Be The Owner. Be In Control.

If you only want to blog about your cat and your lunch, and you never ever want to turn it into anything more serious or professional, then by all means, take whatever risks you want. But if you intend to build a site or blog that has a chance of earning you income, or that may become popular enough to sell someday, then I urge you to own and host your own site on your own domain. Here are the pros and cons of choosing to self-host a WordPress blog on your own domain, for example, rather than choosing the free option of wordpress.com.

Pros of self-hosting WordPress blogs:

• Credibility: A self-hosted blog on yoursite.com immediately lends more credibility and professionalism to the site than one hosted at yoursite.wordpress.com.
• Affiliate Approval: If you plan to monetize your blog with affiliate ads, you’ll only be approved by some affiliate networks if your site is on its own domain.
• Place Ads: Want to place ads of any sort on your blog? You can do that with your own self-hosted WordPress installation, but not with wordpress.com.
• Don’t Display Ads For Someone Else: You aren’t forced to display ads that makes someone else money (like wordpress.com).
• Unlimited Plugins: Choose from the vast abundance of scripts, widgets, code, and plugins that are available world-wide to enhance your blog, rather than just the few pre-approved ones that wordpress.com allows. Or make your own!
• Unlimited Themes: Choose from the vast abundance of themes that are available world-wide to beautify your blog, rather than just the few pre-approved ones that wordpress.com allows. With a self-hosted blog, you can also get a custom theme created just for you!
• Sell It: When you own your own domain and site, you can sell it any time you want. Imagine building the site into a powerhouse that gets tons of traffic and then selling it for big money. Think you can sell a popular blog hosted on wordpress.com for lots of money? Forget about it. You can’t sell yourblog.wordpress.com for even a penny.
• Move It: When you own your own domain and site, you can easily move it to another host any time you want. (WordPress.com does have an export feature, but the process isn’t as easy, because you’ll need to deal with a new domain name, losing search engine rankings for the old URLs, and redirecting old URLs to new ones to get those rankings back before the next century begins).
• No Dynamite: No worries about a free host suddenly deciding on a whim to delete your site and account. Although all hosts have terms of service rules that you have to comply with, and technically, your site and account can be deleted from your host if you break those rules, you haven’t lost the domain. You can just set up yoursite.com on another host. You can’t do that with yoursite.wordpress.com.

Cons of self-hosting WordPress blogs:

• Maintenance Is On You: You have to maintain it, upgrade it, and deal with anything you might break. This can be scary, I understand that, but it shouldn’t override all the pros listed above.
• Price: It’s not free. But it’s not expensive either.

Don’t Hand Over Control Before You Start

It’s your site. One day, it might even be your livelihood. Don’t give up the control that will make that feasible before you ever even begin. Just don’t do it.

Don’t hate me for repeating myself. Don’t give up control before you ever even begin. Just don’t do it.

Other Useful, Semi-Related Tips For Maintaining Control Over Your Site or Blog

• Don’t ever host your self-hosted blog or site at the same place where you purchased your domain. If you buy your domain from godaddy.com for instance, don’t sign up for one of their hosting plans. Why? Because then you’ll put the control of BOTH your domain name and your site’s content in one company’s hands. Some of the same problems I’ve already discussed would also apply in this situation. Use one company for your domain registrar and a different one for your hosting company to avoid having any one company be able to delete or destroy or steal your entire site (domain name and contents). I recommend Godaddy for domains and Hostgator for hosting because they meet all my needs and satisfy all the recommendations I list below, but feel free to choose whoever you want. Just don’t put all your site eggs in one company’s basket.
• I recommend choosing a host that uses Cpanel. Cpanel is a standard web host administration application and that means there’s plenty of help if you need it. It also means that you can be fairly confident that you’ll be able to access and control pretty much everything necessary in almost any situation imaginable.
• I recommend choosing a host that lets you have SSH access, for both secure access to your files and ease of moving a large site if you ever need to. (Even if you don’t know what SSH is, and never think you’ll use it, it’s good to have the option down the road).
• If you already own a site (like yoursite.com), and want to add a blog to it, install WordPress in a folder of that same domain, such as yoursite.com/blog/. Dont host your blog on a different domain from your site’s current domain. Blogs are great for generating interest and acquiring links, and ideally, you want all that interest and link-love to accumulate at yoursite.com. Although there can be some cases where placing a blog on its own domain might be useful, if you are just starting out and don’t know what those cases might be, then it’s probably not the right thing for you to do. (Remember: this tip only applies to people wanting to add a blog to an already-existing site. If you don’t already own a site, and are starting a new blog, and only a blog, then ignore this tip completely).

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2010. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Blogger, self-hosted, WordPress, WordPress.com
This feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this in your news aggregator/reader or on DazzlinDonna, then the site you are looking at is probably infringing upon my copyright.

We all hear about how often people’s sites get hacked. This tool won’t stop that from happening, but here’s what it *will* do.

Let’s say a hacker places some malicious code in either some existing files on your site, or in new files on your site. Regardless of which method he used, he got in and accomplished his goal. Now, unbeknownst to you, your site is either:

1) serving hidden links to unsavory places
2) or redirecting just search users to unsavory sites that is then infecting those users’ computers with malware
3) or some other equally nefarious thing.

Either way, your site is toast, even if it looks perfectly normal to the naked eye. You may have no idea anything has happened until one day (maybe weeks later) you realize that you’ve been kicked out of Google’s SERPs (search listings).

Now you frantically start trying to find out why, and maybe, if you’re lucky, you realize you’ve been hacked. Then you have to begin the process of finding the files with the malicious code. Good luck with that!

That’s the basic problem. My new tool will help with that problem to some extent.

What it won’t do…it won’t prevent the attack. There are other things you should be doing/using to help win that battle. But if you lose that battle, and the attack happens, my tool kicks into gear.

My tool, called MonitorHackdFiles, is like a sentry for your site. It watches your site, and when it detects a file has changed (or been added), it notifies you via email and tells you which file(s) was changed. Now you know very quickly that you’ve been attacked, and you can react just as quickly. Now you can take whatever measures are needed to lock the site down, and with luck, you’ll avoid ever having that malicious code show its ugly face to Google, other search engines, or users.

It’s entire goal is to watch and notify. What you do with the information is entirely up to you. But what you don’t know, CAN hurt you.

Back when I owned webchicklet.com, I put more info there about this tool. You can read it here.

Download the MonitorHackdFiles script for free, run the 5 minute install, and let it guard your site for you automatically.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2009. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Google, search engines, search listings, Web Site Hackers Today
This feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this in your news aggregator/reader or on DazzlinDonna, then the site you are looking at is probably infringing upon my copyright.

I used to be like most people who would answer those questions with the following answers: “Huh?”, “No”, “No”, “Yes!”

I also burned through several computers and even more hard drives in the last few years. Each time, I wished I’d had a backup, but I didn’t.

I am fairly certain all that is behind me now. I’m a stickler for backing up, but I don’t have to even think about it anymore. That’s a good thing, because my memory is terrible, so I would never remember it on my own.

What’s the very best way to backup your computer? Automatically and off-site. You don’t want to rely on your memory (because then it won’t happen), and you don’t want it in the same location as your computer. These days, that is now extremely simple to accomplish with Online Backup services.

There are a few million online backup services these days. Ok, I’m exaggerating a bit there, but really, there are tons of companies that are vying for your business in the online backup field.

I had planned to present a long list of online backup companies, with comparison data on each, to help you decide which to use. But I changed my mind. Why?

Any service designed for someone like me – someone who likes things easy and at the right price – needs to pass 3 tests. (Four actually, if you want to include the requirement of backing up off-site, but since all online services would automatically pass that test, I’ve skipped that).

The 3 tests are:

1. Unlimited (backup as much data as needed)
2. Automatic (no need to remember to do it)
3. Less than $5/month

Amazingly enough, I was only able to find 2 services that passed all 3 tests.

• Most passed the second requirement of being automated (although not all did).
• Very few passed the “I’m cheap” test, but there were a few more than 2.
• But only two provided unlimited backup at such a cheap price (that I could find).

Most services charge x dollars per x gigs backed up, and depending upon how much data you have, that could mean nickel and diming you to death. It’s certainly possible that I missed a company that fits the requirements when I did my researching, but that’s ok. The two that meet the requirements are really great and there’s no reason not to pick one of them for your online backup service.

Ok, enough blah blah blah. Which two online backup services are the winners?

Mozy has unlimited backup for $4.95/month (or you can even limit yourself to 2 GB for free, if you want). If you want to save a little more money, you can choose the 1 year payment plan, which gets you one month free, or the 2 year payment plan, which gets you three months free.

The first backup will take a while, but after the first full backup, only files that have been added or changed are backed up, making it lightning fast. Backups occur at scheduled times.

There are 4 ways to restore files with Mozy. The first restore option is to simply right-click on the file or folder in Windows Explorer that you want to restore and select “Restore Previous Version.” You can then select the version to restore, from the most recent version up to 30 days back. You can also restore from the web (mostly useful if you either don’t have Mozy installed or you need to restore less than 20 GB), or you can restore from a virtual drive on your computer. Finally, you can choose a DVD Restore for large restores (order a copy of all data on dvd. This costs extra, but the DVDs are shipped overnight via fedx).

Carbonite offers nonstop unlimited backup for 49.95/year, which is $4.16/month, so it’s a tad bit cheaper than Mozy. Unlike Mozy, it doesn’t schedule backups. Instead, the moment you add or modify files, Carbonite swings into action to back up your new or updated data.

As far as I can tell, there are 2 ways to restore files with Carbonite. You can either click on the Carbonite Backup Drive found in your “My Computer” directory, or you can restore from the web.

Both Mozy and Carbonite are simple to use. If I had to pick, I’d say Carbonite was slightly easier to use, but both are straightforward and easy. Both come pre-configured with “suggested” files to download such as your documents, music, and photos. Both allow you to manually adjust those suggestions, of course. Both are set and forget. Once you spend the few minutes it takes to configure the software, you pretty much never have to think about it again – unless, of course you need to restore files. Again, the process is fairly simple to restore for both Mozy and Carbonite.

I can easily recommend either service. Which do I use – and why? Well, because I live in a rural area and therefore am limited to using satellite service for “high-speed” Internet access, my access is actually limited on a daily basis due to some regulation that imposes usage thresholds (FAP – Fair Access Policy). My satellite service does not place restrictions on usage during a two hour period in the middle of the night, so they encourage all automated usage processes (such as remote backup of files) be scheduled during this time. If I schedule my remote backup during that 2-hour time frame, I don’t have to worry about the transfer counting towards my FAP usage, so I won’t be penalized for using too much bandwidth. For that reason, I cannot use Carbonite, since it isn’t a “scheduled” service. I can’t tell it to only backup to the remote server during that 2-hour time frame. For most of you, that limitation won’t apply, so Carbonite will work fine for you (and may even be preferable to have it upload as files change throughout the day). But for me, it’s just not a workable solution, so Mozy is my remote backup service of choice.

[slightly off-topic] BTW, satellite internet service is the worst choice you can make, so unless it’s your only choice, don’t even consider it. If you have no other choice, be sure to read up thoroughly on the subject of FAP. Oh, and if you want my advice on whether you should pick Wildblue or Hughesnet … Hughesnet is by far the better satellite service in my experience, and I’ve used both. [/slightly off-topic]

Mozy
Carbonite

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2007. | Permalink | 14 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Carbonite, Internet access, Microsoft Windows, Mozy, off-site, online backup, online backup field, online backup service, Online Backup services, remote backup, remote server, satellite internet service, satellite service, workable solution, Yes!
This feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this in your news aggregator/reader or on DazzlinDonna, then the site you are looking at is probably infringing upon my copyright.

The very worst thing that can happen to a site is to lose it – I’m talking about having all of its files and data deleted. This might be because of your web host’s server problems. Servers have hard drives crash all the time. If you have a great host, they’ve got a recent backup of your site and all its data, and they will restore it pronto. But for some reason, no one I know, ever seems to have that great host.

You need to assume that no matter how much you love your web host, something will go wrong, and they will NOT be able to restore your site. What’s the plan for that? Back it up yourself. Every day. Without fail. Automate the process if you can, but if not, do it manually. There is a HUGE chance you will be glad you did one day.

For one of my sites, I have a host that runs a backup of both files and databases and stores them all in one convenient folder (outside of public view). I use an automated service called BQBackup to grab those files and databases every night and store them for me. I have another site on a different host that doesn’t do this, so I have to log into CPanel every night and download its backup file manually. I wish I could automate that as well, but the manual process will have to suffice for now. But it’s worth it! I urge you to implement some sort of site backup plan for both your files and database. You might also want to have a second host picked out in case you ever need to quickly switch to a new host. I’ve needed to do that before as well.

Ok, that covers site backup disasters. What happens if you personally cannot get online? Do you have a backup plan for when your Internet connection will be down for an extended period of time? Or what about your own computer? What if YOUR hard drive fails or something else causes your computer to crash and burn? Is your data backed up? (I use Mozy for this). Do you have a second machine you can use temporarily? Do you have a backup Internet connection you can use?

I urge you to consider all of these scenarios. Each of these disasters has happened to me on more than one occasion. It has taken years for each subsequent disaster to sink into my stubborn brain, but I’m finally prepared for almost any disaster I can think of – whether it’s in real life (like a hurricane) or a business or site disaster. I’m ready. Are you?

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2007. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: backup Internet connection, bqbackup, databases, files, Internet connection, Mozy, online backups, site backup, web host
This feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this in your news aggregator/reader or on DazzlinDonna, then the site you are looking at is probably infringing upon my copyright.

What are RSS feeds? A feed is a special file that lists summaries or full posts from sites or blogs, with a link to the original post. This feed might contain the last X posts from one blog, or it might be a mashup of posts from several sources, all related to one topic. As an example, this blog publishes a feed of the last 10 posts. If I wanted to, I could also put together a feed that lists the last 10 posts of several news sites. There are infinite ways that RSS feeds can be put together in a mix-and-match fashion, but for learning purposes today, we’ll just concentrate on the simplest model – One Blog – One Feed – Last 10 Posts. That is the most common application of the RSS feed that the average person deals with. If you look to the right, you’ll see a large purple button. This button points to this blog’s RSS feed, which lists the last 10 posts I’ve written. (Note that RSS feed buttons are usually orange – I’m different that way).

Of what use is an RSS feed? The ability to subscribe to feeds simply makes it easy for you to keep up with all the blogs or sites you might be interested in. If a blog or site publishes a feed, you can subscribe to that feed, and you’ll be notified any time a new post is made. This keeps you up to date at all times, and you don’t have to remember to visit the site. Many people subscribe to lots of feeds (I subscribe to 80 or so), and I certainly wouldn’t want to have to remember to visit all of those sites every day. Instead, new posts get delivered to me via my feed subscriptions. I can see all the new posts in one place anytime I choose. Where is that “one place”? These feeds all reside in my feed reader.

What is a feed reader? A feed reader is simply an aggregator of feed content. It checks for updated feeds and stores them all together for our browsing pleasure. There are many feed readers available and choosing one is really a personal preference. Most are free, but some are paid. Frankly, I won’t even consider the paid options, because the free options are simply too good to pass up. There’s no way I could possibly list or test all of the feed readers, but I’m happy to pass along a couple of good examples of each type of reader. I suggest you look at or try the ones that seem most compatible with your style and choose whichever fits you best. (All the ones I list here are free).

Browser-Based Feed Readers

Browser-based feed readers are already installed and available right in your browser, so you really don’t have to do anything to use them. Both IE7 and Firefox let you know if a feed is available on the address bar by showing you a little orange feed button. You can click it to subscribe to the built-in browser’s feed reader. While this is the simplest, already installed method, it’s definitely not the most robust, but it may be all you need.

Desktop Feed Readers

Desktop feed readers are conventional programs that you install on your computer. This is my favorite type of reader because I don’t have to take the extra step of going anywhere online to see new feeds. Here are a couple of choices of desktop feed readers you might want to consider.

GreatNews – This is the one I use, and I haven’t yet been able to find anything I like better.
Snarfer – Very nice reader with a really cute logo mascot.

Web-Based Feed Readers

This category focuses on feed readers that are online only, and their primary focus is that of a feed reader.

Bloglines
Google Reader

Web-Based Start Pages with Feed Capabilities

This category is also online only, but the primary focus is that of a start page with aggregated content from various sources, including RSS feeds. The look and feel is different than the normal feed reader design.

Netvibes
Pageflakes

Test the various types of feed readers and see which one suits you best. You can use my feed as a test by subscribing to it in each of the readers and seeing which works best for you. Then, any time you come across a site and see that it has a feed (the orange RSS button – or purple in my case), you can click that button to subscribe to it in your feed reader. From then on, you’ll be able to easily keep up with any new information from that site.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2007. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Browser, Web-Based Feed Readers This category focuses, Web-Based Start Pages
This feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this in your news aggregator/reader or on DazzlinDonna, then the site you are looking at is probably infringing upon my copyright.

A good friend of mine just finished creating a WordPress plugin called Login LockDown that aims to make that task much, much more difficult for a hacker. The plugin records makes a record of the IP address every time someone attempts to login to the WordPress admin. After 3 unsuccessful tries (number is configurable), the IP address is locked out from any further attempts for an hour (also configurable). You, the admin, can unblock an IP if needed.

I installed the plugin and it installed without a hitch. I then tested it, and it worked flawlessly.

I HIGHLY recommend that everyone install this WordPress security plugin to prevent any problems with hackers taking over your blog.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2007. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: admin, hackers, login lockdown, plugin, protection, security, vulnerability, WordPress
This feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this in your news aggregator/reader or on DazzlinDonna, then the site you are looking at is probably infringing upon my copyright.

Music and lyrics published before 1922 are in the public domain, but sound recordings of any music never go into public domain. You can record those old public domain songs yourself if you want. That can be used legally. Or you can record your own original music and use it however you want, of course. Anything else requires that you shell out some money to license something.

Unless you plan on using a lot of recorded clips, the pricing isn’t too bad, so it’s not a big issue. A one-time fee of around $20 is certainly doable, but of course, paying that kind of money many times would be prohibitively expensive for many of us. But if, like me, you only need one clip, then ponying up $20 isn’t too big of an issue.

So where do you get these clips? I bought mine at PD Info, and I also checked out Music2Hues, which I think may be affiliated with PD Info. I spent several hours on PDInfo’s downloads page, listening to clips from each of their categories.

So, now you know how to get your own cool music clips for your next project. Good luck!

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2007. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: licensing, music clips, public domain, Youtube
This feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this in your news aggregator/reader or on DazzlinDonna, then the site you are looking at is probably infringing upon my copyright.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2007. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: colors, gray on black, legibility, Site Design, unreadable
This feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this in your news aggregator/reader or on DazzlinDonna, then the site you are looking at is probably infringing upon my copyright.

Oh well, I’ll just use my brand new Lexar USB Flash Drive as a backup drive. For now, I’ll just copy my Documents folder over to the flash drive once in a while, and I’m also backing everything up nightly to Mozy Online Backup, so that should suffice.

I wish the Portable Apps idea had panned out, but I think my workarounds will work fine.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2007. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: backups, drawbacks, Mozy, online backup, portable apps, slow, usb flash drive
This feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this in your news aggregator/reader or on DazzlinDonna, then the site you are looking at is probably infringing upon my copyright.