How to cloak your URLs for free
It irritates me that there is an easy way to cloak your URLs using free software, yet people sell tools for an arm and a leg that do this simple job.
All you need is the following:
- Wordpress
- PrettyLink plugin
That’s it!
There is a paid version of the PrettyLink plugin, but you don’t need it. I don’t have it; I don’t even know what extra benefits it confers.
What you need to do is to install Wordpress onto a domain; search for the PrettyLink plugin and install that; and you’re done!
Not only will PrettyLink set up the redirects for you, it will also track the following information for you:
- Number of clicks through your link, and number of unique visitors through your link. (The two may be different because somebody may click through your cloaked link more than once.)
- The date, time and IP address of each visitor.
- The referrer details, if presented. This is the site they were on when they clicked on the link to get to your site.
It’s really pretty straightforward stuff. If you’re going to install it somewhere, I recommend that you install it on the root domain of a site; that way, the links you define can look something like:
http://www.example.com/mycloakedlink
For many of you, it should be really easy to install. About one hour should see the process done.
If you don’t know how to do it but you’re OK with installing scripts generally, it shouldn’t take much longer than that.
If you’re not really good at installing scripts but you would like to install this, would you be interested in a video that shows how it’s done? I can produce one, and if I do, I will make it available for a nominal fee.
If that’s of any interest to you, please leave a comment and let me know.
The AdWords webinar
My AdWords webinar is coming up shortly. The deal is here:
Here’s the important questions:
1. If you purchased a ticket for the training, what questions do you want to have answered during the webinar?
2. If you HAVEN’T purchased a ticket for the training, what questions do I need to answer for you so that you WILL buy a ticket?
Remember, the webinar is scheduled for Wednesday at 23:00 GMT which is somewhat earlier than that in the USA (typically 5 to 8 hours earlier, depending on your time zone), and somewhat later in the rest of Europe and further east. So, to influence this training, I need you to answer these questions now.
Thanks,
David
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The Bite-Size Free Resources List
The purpose of this post is to list the free resources I use, or have used, in my business, which I will also briefly review.
Office suite
Openoffice.org is my office suite of choice. It comprises a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation package, graphics editor, database and mathematics editor.
I really like it! There are several reasons why I like it in preference to Microsoft Office:
- It’s free;
- It uses menus like Office 2003 did, which are far more intuitive to me than the current ribbon bar used by later versions of Office;
- It can produce PDF files out of the box;
- It’s available for alternative operating systems; you don’t need to be running Windows to use it.
Accounts
GnuCash is the package that I like. However, it is not easy to use for a beginner to book-keeping (in my opinion). It will only use a system known as double-entry book-keeping; it does not have a single-entry book-keeping capability, which you will be more familiar with if you have used software such as Quicken in the past.
It is reasonably powerful. It can prepare invoices, track jobs, and the like.
Screen capture
For years, I used CamStudio for screen video capture, along with simultaneous headset audio. CamStudio is very powerful and flexible, and it comes with a lossless video codec which makes the videos look great. It is not that easy to use. Expect a learning curve with it if you intend to use it. Also it is not 100% reliable, especially for longer recordings.
However, CamStudio is not a complete solution. It does not provide any editing facilities. I have had moderate success with VirtualDub, but it has crashed on me every now and again.
You then need to get your video into a format suitable for website upload. Ffmpeg2theora is the tool that I’ve used for this purpose. It converts your video into ogg video format (using Theora codec for video and Vorbis codec for audio) which can be used directly by Firefox and Google Chrome in HTML5 video pages.
Of course, you need to support more than just Firefox and Google Chrome. You will therefore also need to put Cortado on your server, and modify your HTML5 video code so that any browser that doesn’t understand what to do with HTML5 video, or Ogg Theora-encoded video, can use the Java applet as a fallback.
Other services that exist include ScreenToaster (check the conditions of the licence agreement, especially if you intend to use them to stream your videos) and the free version of the Dimdim webcasting solution, which has the ability to record the webcast. With these services, limited or no editing is possible.
If I would have the ability to roll back the clock and make a change to my system from the earlier days, I would not use free programs anymore for screen capture. I would instead use Camtasia Studio. The only issue I have with Camtasia Studio is that it is geared up to create MP4 files, and the codec for such files is protected by patent law and therefore subject to licensing rules. This does not apply to the European Union where (at the time of writing) software patents cannot be created, but it does apply in USA and Japan. I don’t know the status in other countries.
Audio recording and playback
The choice here is simple. Audacity is an excellent multi-track audio recording and playback program. It has many advanced capabilities and works really well. I own a copy of Goldwave which is more powerful, but I find myself using Audacity quite a lot.
Graphics design
The GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) is excellent. It is a bitmap image processing tool with many capabilities, including support for layers and transparency. It can be a bit difficult to use, and there’s a learning curve associated with it. However, there is also a learning curve associated with e.g. Adobe Photoshop Elements.
Paint.NET is a simpler general-purpose graphics program to use than GIMP. I understand that it is far easier to use than GIMP, and I’m about to try it. There is also a PSD file plugin available that provides Paint.NET with the functionality to open Photoshop PSD files and work with them.
The instructions for how to install the plugin can be found here.
I have just found out about XHeader, a tool specifically designed for the purpose of creating attractive header artwork for web sites. I can’t say anything about it yet because I’ve only just installed it.
File compression
There’s no need to go with WinZip at all. 7-Zip is an excellent, free program that will create Zip archives or more compact 7z archives for you.
Media player
I think VLC media player is fantastic. It can incrementally increase or decrease the speed of audio or video playing, and it does this without pitch-shifting the audio; furthermore, it actually makes a very good job of it. It can also do video format conversion (transcoding) for you.
Others
This post is a work-in-progress. I expect to update it periodically with new information as and when I have it. Please add your comments about the free software you use in your business!
Updates
13 March 2010: Added paint.net and PSD plugin details.
GoToWebinar price hike
None of the links in this post are affiliate links and make me money in any way.
If you want to use webinars in your business in the future and you want to be able to allow more than 100 people into your webinars, the price of GoToWebinar is going through the roof.
I pay $99 per month for my level of access, which provides me with the ability to host webinars with up to 1000 attendees. The cost of that level of access is rising to $499 per month. For 500 attendees, the price will be $399 per month. There will still be a tier at $99 per month, but you’ll only be allowed 100 attendees at that price point.
Details are here:
http://www.gotomeeting.com/fec/webinar/gotowebinar_pricing
But don’t sign up through that link! If you want the same deal that I’m on, I understand that it’s available until the end of the month (February 2010) from here:
http://www.gotowebinar.com/s/TAF
I think you get a 45-day free trial as well. But I can’t provide any guarantees that this information is accurate. If you find that it is, please post a comment and let the readership know.
I am told that if you lock in the $99 per month rate and do not let your subscription lapse, you will be able to continue with that plan at that price until such time as you do let your subscription lapse. (Well, you could select an alternative option. But you wouldn’t, would you?)
I posted about DimDim.com as an alternative to GoToWebinar some time ago, which was somewhat cheaper. That’s another option, but I can’t recommend it. Their free version works fine on my PC, but their paid version doesn’t. I tried out their 1000-person level ($75/month) and I just couldn’t get the service to work at all. I also submitted a support request and heard nothing back. That was a real shame, as DimDim had some nice features, like talking-head webcam shown during the webinar (if you want to do so).
I was really amazed though when somebody from DimDim.com called me and asked me how the trial was going. I explained that the paid version of the service didn’t work on my PC, even though the free version did. It was specifically sharing the screen that didn’t work. Then the guy asked me if I wanted to purchase a subscription! I was kind of like thinking, “Did you not hear what I just said?”
Fortunately, I was able to set up to use GoToWebinar for the four-hour e-commerce site course that I’m currently running in place of DimDim. So it’s for that reason that I am unable to recommend DimDim any longer.
I’ve finally done it: Camtasia Studio
I never really intended to get into Camtasia Studio. I always thought that the price tag was too high for a screencasting program.
As many of you know, I’ve been using Camstudio for screen capture, Virtualdub for editing, Ffmpeg for video conversion, Audacity for audio capture, and so on.
The good thing about these tools is that they are free software. You can get the source code for each of them if you want it, and you can change it if you need to do so The bad thing about them is sometimes they don’t work as well as you would like them to work! Often it is the case with Camstudio that audio and video will fall out of step, for example. I only found out recently how to deal with this issue. Or if you are doing a long recording, it will often simply fail with Camstudio.
I’ve been getting to the stage where it is impractical for me to continue with this approach, so I decided to try the 30-day demo of Camtasia Studio. I started that 27 days ago.
This was like a breath of fresh air! Everything is integrated into the one package. Screen capture, video editing and video production is all handled.
No, it’s not perfect. But it saves so much time. And time is money; especially so in internet marketing, which is an ultra-competitive niche.
So I purchased my license key for it yesterday. I wasn’t really all that happy about having to shell out about £210 (£178 plus VAT I think it was), but I can no longer afford the time to mess around.
This is something I really should have done years ago. Maybe things would have been different if I had done it then.
Everybody makes mistakes, and “track corrections,” as a pilot would say, are part of the business. I am an advocate of free software, but I’m no Richard Stallman. If I need a tool for my business and it costs money, then I should realise that I need to buy it.
There’s a path that’s beaten by marketers far more successful than I. I will be paying more attention to that in the future.
Rapid E-Commerce Site Webinar Course
I’m considering a webinar or webinar course (which depends on how much material I have to cover) on the specific topic of how to set up a site using Wordpress and eShop, and some other plugins, in four hours or less.
Please add your thoughts and tell me what questions you would need such a course to answer.
Also, assuming that I do run with this, I would do this course on a weekday evening. When should each webinar start ideally for you?
Loading ...Many thanks!
Wordpress E-Commerce Plugins
The main purpose of my post today is to tell you that I’ve found a way to increase my efficiency in terms of getting products up for sale quite a lot. Here’s the story.
I can set up products for resale quite easily, but it’s still a pain in the neck. I have to set up the sales page. I have to make sure my links for terms and conditions, privacy policy, etc, are present at the bottom of the page. I have to integrate the product into my e-commerce solution. I have to link to the product from my home page. I have to test the checkout process. I have to check the download links work. Add analytics to all pages. Yada, yada. You know the story. And I’m not even bothering to optimise for SEO.
I reasoned recently that there must be a better way, and there is. You can get just about anything for WordPress. I decided to take a look at e-commerce plugins that might be available for it.
I came across many, but there are two that are really popular.
WP e-Commerce has had 400k downloads at the time of writing. This is definitely the most popular plugin. You can see the details here:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-e-commerce/
That product has a free, basic version, and a pro edition that you can purchase if you want it to do more. There’s many little modules that you can purchase to add functionality as well.
However, the product only has three out of five stars. I also saw on forums that there seem to be questions as to its reliability. Since I want WordPress to work for me and not the other way around, I decided to continue my search.
The second most popular e-commerce plugin for WordPress is called eShop:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/eshop/
82k downloads at the time of writing. One of those downloads was me! I didn’t see anything bad written up for it, and although it’s simpler, it seems to do everything that I need from an e-commerce plugin. It can use PayPal, and that’s fine for me.
It will protect your downloads so that only purchasers can gain access to them. It will send an email to the customer telling them how to download if they forget to click on the Return to Merchant button. You can use it for physical products if you wish, as well.
And it’s free. There’s no “better” version for paying. There’s a donations button, and I might well be making use of that.
I was able to set up a new Wordpress site, add terms and conditions and other similar pages, Piwik analytics, get the eShop plugin installed along with ones to support analytics, SEO and comment spam blocking (although I may not enable comments on that blog), and get a resale rights product up and running on it within about four hours last night, I would say. I tested it through the PayPal sandbox and it’s working OK.
I don’t think that’s bad going. If you thought that you need a ton of money to get started as a product seller, those days are well and truly over.
So, what do you think? Why not get yourself set up quickly as a merchant, and start selling some resale rights products?
Why not make a game of it; see if you can get it done in four hours!
It’s a relatively simple process, but if there is any interest for it, I’m prepared to set up a webinar and show you how it’s done.
Accounting software
I had a hard disk crash earlier this month. I didn’t lose much data, because I really try and make sure that I’ve got it all backed up as much as possible. But it was my last XP system, and it had Quicken 2000 on it, which is what I use to keep my books.
Why does nobody talk about keeping books? In all the courses I have seen about internet businesses (and that’s a lot), nobody ever mentions this. The fact of the matter is that if you want your business to become anything at all other than a hobby, you’re gonna have to keep books (or get someone to do it for you).
I don’t like keeping books. I’m pretty good with math, but I just find it boring. I also think much of it could be automated, and that’s something I’m looking to achieve in the future. But I’ll tell you what! I always feel good after completing the book-keeping. It’s like doing the tax return. I hate it when it comes round to be done, but then once it’s done, it’s nice to see that I’ve made some money during the year, and to know exactly where I stand on my income tax repayments.
So, anyway, back to the package I use. As I said, I used to use Quicken 2000 by Intuit; I own a fully-licensed copy of it. But Intuit don’t sell Quicken 2000 in the UK any more. I could have gone for QuickBooks, but then we’re talking about spending more money.
I was already aware of an alternative that might work OK, so I thought I might try that. GnuCash is free, open source software that has enough in it to meet my needs. That includes things like multiple currency payments, generating invoices, depreciating assets, and generating the reports that allow me to do my tax return. And I like free software products. They don’t cost me any more money as I grow my business (which I have started to do; my wife now handles some of the help desk requests), and many of them are excellent quality.
The documentation that comes with it is OK. It’s not brilliant, but it does briefly explain the principles of book-keeping and get you started. Some of it goes into technical details of file formats and similar, and you probably won’t need that, but it’s good that it’s there. Realistically, I would suggest either getting advice from an accountant or buying a book on the subject if you’re new to book-keeping.
I just thought I’d open a discussion regarding what you use. Do you use GnuCash? Quicken? Sage? Anything else? Any good or bad experiences to relate? Post a comment here! Thanks.
David
Profits from Free Products
Profits from Free Products is a report that I created that discusses in detail one of my successful product launches. I talk about a quality product that I provide for free, and show how I make money out of it by building a list; selling a product on the back-end; and automating the affiliate-gathering process.
The purpose of this post is for people to ask questions about the process and for me to provide answers to those questions.