I will tell you of a journey. For me, it started many years ago. Long before I ever had a website, I began this journey. The one thing people need to do before they ever have a website or web business, in my opinion, is to become familiar with the web. How does it operate? How can you find the things you need? How do I avoid those who prey on others? How do I avoid the sick sites of porn and nastiness?



In this quest, I got lost from the start. When I first observed the internet it was a maze of pictures, words, and sites. I did not understand how it all came together. This was at a time when my next door neighbors began a web domain startup company. It was located in a small basement apartment with one server. They even offered web service. This was a dialup with only 14,400 kb speed. Today, this company is big. They have bought out competitors, becoming a major player in the internet business. This provided my important first hand lesson. It shouted out loud that there was money to be made in this business and that anyone could do it.

The next lesson I had to learn was to negotiate the internet. This was not easy. The porn sites, sales sites, and other sites I did not want to visit were everywhere. Soon I learned that in the everyday business of the internet, do not put your email and contact info out. If you do, within a day, you will be swamped in your mail by companies wanting to sell you something. So today, this lesson is still seen. I have a number of email addresses. There is one I never put out in anything on the internet. It is for my close friends and those I want to contact me. The other emails are for my everyday correspondence in the web business. By being careful in putting out personal information, emails, and phone numbers, the risk of piracy is cut down. The bad guys can't find you if they don't know you exist.

That was until ?spy software? came into my life. Overnight while surveying the web through the search engines, ads would pop up on my desk top. If they did not pop up there, it would be while I was surfing the net. Out of nowhere these ads would offer me everything and tell me how much I needed them. Then I got some ?malicious? spy removal tools, and other ?spy software? from MSN. Then these bad guys started disappearing. Now, only those things I want are on my desktop. I also avoid sites that have too many popup or sales ads. These are annoying and don't serve any purpose.

I managed to learn quickly that by going through my ?options? on the internet explorer in the tools area, that those sites I deemed bad would not be visited. I could limit the cookies these sites wanted to gather, and even visit only certain rated sites. The cookies tell others who you are and where to find you, which was one thing I did not want. Some sites, however, would only operate with cookies. I allowed cookies only for the reputable sites with security and validation. By doing this, and putting the options on my email to high, the porn sites and other garbage on the net stopped flowing in.

Now in the course of my journey I have not made a million dollars or even thousands. But by being careful and learning about the web, I have managed to save myself thousands. I have done this by watching where I put my information and how it is handled by others. Being careful to go to sites where their security certificate is validated by my software is a major boon. No one wants the secret information like social security numbers and the like to just float around cyber space like a satellite around the earth.

I have also saved thousands of dollars by learning web master duties. I literally became a crazed person going through seventeen hundred lines of script for a tiny error so it would work. This was done by first buying a WYSIWYG editor [What You See Is What You Get] editor. A good one comes from Microsoft, another one comes from Serif, and there are many others out there. The first site I did was simple and was just a template on a web host site. I experimented and made myself learn html. To me it was Greek, but with persistence I learned it. Then I started up my WYSIWYG editor and developed two web sites. These were not the best, but hey, I was learning.

Today I develop websites, write script, and generally know my way around a website. This is because of persistence, and learning from others. I do not use others to do my websites. Over time pushing myself to learn code, php, html, java, graphics, and other web related items, I have managed to save myself many dollars.

From the start to where I am today, the web has been fascinating and also frightening. It has been my friend and my foe. But over time I learned how to navigate by search engines, develop links to my sites, promote my site, and do some business on the web. I learned to avoid porn and garbage sites. Along with this lessons on security came to the forefront and saved me from losing ?privacy? to others. Given time and persistence, you too, can save dollars and learn how to manage the web.