Acknowledgements
(Below are some products and services that I have used; I am not affiliated with any of the companies or organizations mentioned below, just a satisfied customer or user)
This is an excellent, easy-to-use, and cost competitive web hosting service. It was extremely easy to establish service and get my web page up and running. The maintenance interface is comprehensive and intuitive. My experience so far with the performance (speed, up-time, etc.) of the service has been very good. It offers everything I need and a lot more.
Initially a “blog” platform, WordPress is now a full-featured web site content management system. This free tool makes web site creation and maintenance extremely easy. I was able to figure it out quickly. I installed a copy on a computer on an internal network without any problem. Blue Host includes mechanisms for easy installation on their system. Creating pages and web logs is quick and easy. The management of categories, users, and list of web links is also straightforward and feature rich. The look of the web site can be changed via “themes” which are readily available from numerous internet sources. WordPress’ features can be extended by means of “plugins”. Some of the plugins used on this web site are named below.
WordPress Plugins:
Manage WordPress Backups. Beta Release. Backup DB, Files & Folders, use .tar.gz, .zip, Exclude List, etc. By Roland Rust.
This plugin will generate a sitemaps.org compatible sitemap of your WordPress blog which is supported by Ask.com, Google, MSN Search and YAHOO. By Arne Brachhold.
Social bookmarking By Ankur Kothari.
This makes search queries look at pages and posts instead of only posts. Based on the original Search Pages pluginby David B. Nagle. David was inspired by a WordPress hackcreated by Rob Schlüter. By InternetOfficer SPRL.
Now you can add tags to pages too (native Worpdress 2.3 tagging support) - Works ONLY with Wordpress >= 2.3 By Michele Marcucci.
This theme is described on their web site as follows:
“A very fast loading and search engine optimized Adsense Ready Wordpress Theme, BlueSense is specifically designed for all types of niche websites and will suit a wide variety of content and user preferences.”
“Built for heavy monetization with Adsense, the entire theme’s colors are perfectly blended with Adsense units on both homepage and single post pages for a maximum click through rate.”
To quote their web site, “PayPal is the safer, easier way to pay and get paid online. The service allows anyone to pay in any way they prefer, including through credit cards, bank accounts, buyer credit or account balances, without sharing financial information.”
This service provides free telephone conference calling services. The numbers are not necessarily local - a long distance charge may apply. However, conferences can be scheduled in advance, and other features enabled. They have recently released a Microsoft Outlook Add-In which allows scheduling conference calls quickly and easily.
The pdf995 suite of products - Pdf995, PdfEdit995, and Signature995 - is a complete solution for your document publishing needs. It provides ease of use, flexibility in format, and industry-standard security- and all at no cost to you. The free version launches your web browser to display an advertisement for thier products. This is eliminated if the nominal registration fee is paid. The security features of Signature995 are very good and somewhat unique among software packages like this.
PDFCreator is a free tool to create PDF files from nearly any Windows application.
OpenOffice.org is a multiplatform and multilingual office suite and an open-source project. Compatible with all other major office suites, the product is free to download, use, and distribute.
Open source desktop publishing
FWD enables anyone with a broadband connection to communicate over the Internet, whether it be instant messaging, voice, or video. FWD offers the largest number of advanced features, for free, including: Voice Mail, CallerID, Call Waiting, Multiple Presence and more. The service can be used using their free software “Communicator”, an IP phone, or an analog phone connected to an IP adapter. Calls can be made to other FWD users as well as to others on certain “peer networks”. Calls can also be made to “800″ numbers. This allows me to call into my corporate conference bridge service and free up other lines.
A powerful database management system, providing a quick and flexible way to put a web based front end to any database. DBMan is distributed as Shareware. It is free to download and evaluate the program at no cost for 30 days. After that it is US$100 for commercial use; however non-profit and individual users may continue to use it for free if they register the program and keep the “DBMan Powered By” line on bottom of the all DBMan pages. Users who purchase the license do not have to keep the link.
This is a very flexible, customizable program. It can be adapted easily to meet a variety of needs. Be sure to also check out JPDeni’s DBManual and the DBMan Unofficial FAQ.
