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Guest post by: Dr Don Yates Sr PhD Become an Author

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Congratulations on your Decision to Start or Grow your Business Online. This handbook will help put you on the path to building a successful online business while avoiding the scams. It is written with an offline business mindset meaning that we are serious about your business and what it takes for you to prepare yourself. Online, it is not a 9-5 job any more than an offline business. It is not a hobby! While you may have to treat it as a part-time job due to other work commitments until it grows, it should be treated as I will do it when I can or want. Discipline yourself and follow a daily plan of action to build your business.

Doing business online is a far cry from just becoming an affiliate or getting your own domain, building a website and off you go!

Whether a Newbie or a Seasoned Online Profession, we can all learn something here. This Chapter is about you and a proper start for Your Business. Successful users on the internet take care of their personal development, find and use proper tools and resources, and maintain their office equipment.

Keep yourself informed, the internet, tools, and resources change often and fast. New material is added daily, a handbook such as this can only get you started, and like any business, you will have to keep it going, growing and profitable.

Herein we offer you some tips to get on you the right path, a blueprint if you will, on how you can do that.

So you have either been in the online business or looking to get into it. I call this section “Get Comfortable” because this online venture is not a 5 – 20 minutes a day job, no matter what you are told by others. If you have been online for a while, then you probably already know that.

Your website(s) have to be marketed, regardless if it 100% autopilot, no sponsorship required, we do the marketing for you, or any of the other “hype” stories that you have or will be told.

Set up you ads, spend your money, and wait for the next time you need to top off of advertising budget. Make several ads, ads need to be monitored, tested - to see what works, what doesn’t work- ultimately what brings in and converts the buyers.

Setup and periodically run your email advertising program. Get leads for your email and check your ads for spam. You need to learn advertising and marketing techniques. And the list goes on....

You either have to buy credits to run your ads, or your click or surf the sites hour after hour to earn credits to posts your ads. Ads often have to be posted on a daily basis, so you have to access each site daily to post your ads. Ads posted to various free, or Free-For-All (FFA), ads blasters, etc.; these often require confirmation, so after you have posted your ads, you need to check your email to confirm the posting.

To think, read, write and work without the TV, and other distractions – especially if one of your income opportunities includes Forex. Adjust your online work hours for your day job, if you have one, and for the best time to work without distractions.

Forget the chat rooms, social networks, Skype, etc. which is time consuming or limit your time to these methods of creating business for yourself. Get a good chair and desk, table or workstation of proper height for your keyboard to minimize your discomfort.

A favorite of the work-at-homers: Work in your pajamas, shorts or whatever. Sounds great, but I recommend that you treat your online venture like any job. No, you do not need a tie, but get up shower and shave, brush your teeth (you get the point ladies)

Whether full-time or part-time treat your online job as a business and not a hobby. Your advantage is that you can do it at home. Great: No buses, no traffic and none of all those other inconveniences that you put up with in having to leave the house for an outside job. You will feel better, work better, and be more productive

I get very uncomfortable and frustrated when I am trying to do something and my computer and other equipment are not working properly. I need this equipment to do my job, if they do not work properly; how can I be productive?

I have with been with Microsoft since the very early days and do not have any Apple experience other than testing and having compatibly problems, so my comments here are Windows based.

If you can afford it, get a good high-speed computer, printer/fax combination, broadband or wireless modem, and a bigger monitor. Additional memory is cheap so it is value for dollar to upgrade your memory and graphics

Social networking, even email requires that your computer be able to cope with the video and graphic demands made of it. Check your computer Windows Experience rating.

Whether you are buying a new computer or using and older one; check your Windows Experience Index base score to see what you might do to improve your computer’s performance

Go to Start Control Panel, System and Maintenance, Performance Information and Tools; Check Your Computer’s Window Experience Index Base Score. Click on Window Experience Index link

Illustration Removed - See download Chapter 11

This screen will advise you of the weak points in your computer that you might make an upgrade to improve performance, again check the memory. Usually, the memory and graphics will be your computers weak points. Again, if you are buying new, be sure to check this before your leave the shop. The above picture shows a rating of 4.8, which is the memory ram. Below is same machine after it has been upgraded.

Illustration Removed - See download Chapter 11

A necessary starting point to maintain and protect your computer

A computer virus is a computer program that can copy itself and infect a computer. The term "virus" is also commonly but erroneously used to refer to other types of malware, adware, and spyware programs that do not have the reproductive ability.

A true virus can only spread from one computer to another (in some form of executable code) when its host is taken to the target computer; for instance because a user sent it over a network or the Internet, or carried it on a removable medium such as a floppy disk, CD, DVD, or USB drive. Viruses can increase their chances of spreading to other computers by infecting files on a network file system or a file system that is accessed by another computer.

Most personal computers are now connected to the Internet and to local area networks, facilitating the spread of malicious code. Today's viruses may also take advantage of network services such as the World Wide Web, e-mail, Instant Messaging, and file sharing systems to spread. Wikipedia

As an active online user, you must protect your computer and files from any such attacks. Windows defender helps, but I prefer to supplement windows features with a third party solution.

While there a many paid commercial and free software available to you, I have had satisfactory results for a free program for personal use offered by Avast, although I have since upgraded to full-protection. This software program automatically runs in the background and is updated to keep your virus detection current. Free version available. Avast

New computers normally come with a trial version of virus software leaving it up to you to accept and upgrade or not. I delete and install Avast

The daily use of your computer will result in various defragmented files; i.e. a piece of the file here and another there. To improve the computers performance, it is necessary to periodically clean your computer hardrive; usually the “C” drive. Then defrag your registry and your computer drives. However, Windows will defrag the drives, but does not defrag the registry.

WINDOWS TOOLS

Windows Update: Keeping your computer software updated can reduce your changes of a getting a computer virus, better operation and performance. Window update can update both windows and other Microsoft problem as the same time

• Go to Start – lower left hand windows logo
• All programs
• Find “Windows Update”
• Click and let it run

If you leave your computer running all night, you can set the update software to update the computer automatically; however, it will reboot itself to install the changes. Therefore, if you have Forex trades going, then your Forex sites will be offline until you open them again.

If there are a lot of updates, then it is recommended that you run the update program again to get updates to the updates. Change happens!

Window update can update all your Microsoft products

Recycle Bin: When you delete a file from your computer, it is temporarily stored in the Recycle Bin. This usually gives you an opportunity to restore the file to its original location if you discover that the file should not have been deleted.

To permanently remove files from the computer and reclaim any hard disk space they were using, you need to permanently delete files from the Recycle Bin. You can choose to delete individual files from the Recycle Bin or empty the entire Recycle Bin at once.

• Click to open Recycle Bin.
• Do one of the following: To delete one file, click it, and then press DELETE. To delete all of the files, on the toolbar, click Empty the Recycle Bin.

You can also empty the Recycle Bin, without opening it. Right-click the Recycle Bin, and then click Empty Recycle Bin. To permanently delete a file from your computer without first sending it to the Recycle Bin, Click the file, and then press SHIFT+DELETE.

Disk cleanup can also delete your recycle bin

Disk Cleanup: If you want to reduce the number of unnecessary files on your hard disk to free up disk space and help your computer run faster, use Disk Cleanup. It removes temporary files, empties the Recycle Bin, and removes a variety of system files and other items that you no longer need.

Click to open Disk Cleanup.

• In the Disk Cleanup Options dialog box, choose whether you want to clean up your own files only or all of the files on the computer.If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.
• If the Disk Cleanup: Drive Selection dialog box appears, select the hard disk drive that you want to clean up, and then click OK.
• Click the Disk Cleanup tab, and then select the check boxes for the files you want to delete.
• When you finish selecting the files you want to delete, click OK, and then click Delete files to confirm the operation. Disk Cleanup proceeds to remove all unnecessary files from your computer.
• Disk cleanup can also delete the files in the recycle bin

Defragment: Your Hard Disk Fragmentation makes your hard disk do extra work that can slow down your computer. Disk Defragmenter rearranges fragmented data so your hard disk can work more efficiently. Disk Defragmenter can run on a schedule, but you can also defragment your hard disk manually.

• Click to open Disk Defragmenter.If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.
• Click Defragment Now.

Disk Defragmenter might take from several minutes to a few hours to finish, depending on the size and degree of fragmentation of your hard disk. Although not recommended. You can still use your computer during the defragmentation process.

If you have not defragmented your computer in a while, then you should repeat the process a second time.

I prefer the free third party solutions offered below for defragging my computer. Often they offer more features and in this case are faster and more visible. Find tools to defrag both the hardrive and the registry. Often third party vendors will provide good and viable alternatives to the Microsoft’s Windows

One Vendor with various free tools, including both registry clean up and defrag, that work well for me may be found at Auslogics Auslogics is easy to use, fast and nice graphic interface for the Disk Defrag, registry cleaner, etc.

Again, recommend performing the defrag more than one, as each pass defrag the majority, but another pass may find more. For the amount of work that I do online, I often need to defrag at least once a week with maybe 2-3 passes

While you are there, see the other products Auslogics has to offer. I like their Boost Speed Program.

As you add programs to your computer, some that you will use only on occasion will be installed in your start up folder. This results in unnecessary programs trying to load when you start up, which slows you down

For the more computer savvy: Got to the Widows logo located at the lower left corner. Type “msconfiq” in the bottom box. The link will show in the window under Programs. Click and this will bring up a new screen

Click the “Start-up” tab and unclick those programs that you don’t need at start-up. Keep your Microsoft, virus and related programs. Click “Apply” and restart your computer. Try it, if you are uncomfortable, then do nothing and let someone else do it for you. Do so, at your own risk.

Update Checker updates other programs on your computer for better operation and performance

Just managing your affiliations, traffic and other sites, providing signup details for a new site, remembering user name, ids and passwords name for logins can be very time consuming. Window, Google and other offer some help, but the long standing, best rated software that I have found and use is RoboForm

RoboForm includes a password generator which is convenient to generate and save different passwords for multiple sites, as has been recommended herein. If you maintain a lot of sites, as I do, then the upgrade is great, but not necessary. Upgrading enables you to click and the site loads and logs you in. The free version will log you in after you have loaded the site.

While you are there see what else http://download.cnet.com has to offer for free

Adobe Reader http://get.adobe.com/reader/

1-Click Answers http://www.answers.com/main/download_answers_win.jsp

Edit Pad Lite http://www.editpadpro.com/editpadlite.html

Free PDF to Word Converter http://www.hellopdf.com/

Firefox Browser http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/personal.html

Free Open Office hhttp://download.openoffice.org/

Success often comes to those who look, feel and act the part. Success radiates through others. If you feel good about yourself, then your chances of success improve. In most cases, to be successful, you need to surround yourself with good people. However, since you are most likely working alone, surround yourself with the proper tools and equipment to make your feel successful. Just as you need to keep yourself informed and up to day, you also need to keep your computers and equipment running at its top performance. Get comfortable and enjoy your online experiences.

We have already talked about doing your own due diligence as part of your decision to join a new program.

Now try to escape or close the first tab, if there is a discount of some kind, it will usually pop-up. Then if you are still interested, your entry cost has gone down; however, you will lose some digital product or something. At least you have a second or third choice, cheaper entry cost. Then if the program works, you can upgrade from your profits.

If you still like the original deal better; then complete your signup up on the second site that you made, before this experiment.

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