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Web Hosting - Do It Yourself Administration, Things to Consider The choice of whether or not to try to administer your own web site brings with it a host, pun intended, of issues. For most web site owners, the primary focus is naturally on creating, maintaining and enhancing the site. That often is just part of managing an entire business, for which the web site is just the means to an end. That implies there will be little interest in or time left over for technical administration like database maintenance (tuning, space management, security, bug fixes), establishing and maintaining backups to ensure they're successful and usable, email administration, disk space management, applying operating system fixes for bugs and security, and other tasks. But cost is always a factor in any business. Paying for technical help can burden the budget of a new and struggling business. Consulting fees can range from a few dollars an hour to over $100. On the lower end, the poor skill level and quality of work will make it not worth even that small amount. On the higher end, you can quickly rack up expenses that will bust your business. Permanent employees are usually somewhere in the middle of that range when you add up salary, employment taxes and more. Often, server and/or web site administration can be paid for as part of the web hosting package. That cost is usually lower than independent contracting help, but those staff are usually tasked with maintaining dozens if not hundreds of servers and sites. They can, therefore, give very little individual attention to yours. Often, novice web site owners are intimidated by some of the technical requirements for server or site administration. But, as with anything, a little familiarity can show that the knowledge required is more modest than one might expect. Administration in many cases involves fairly elementary, and frequently repetitive, tasks. These can be learned easily. Using a test site or a free hosting service is a good way to practice and learn without risk or cost, other than time invested. Once that initial hurdle is jumped over, administration can be done quickly and some even find it interesting. It allows the site owner to exercise additional control over the total product, and there's satisfaction in being able to say 'I did that' even if you prefer not to do it forever. That real-life learning experience also allows the site owner to better judge any consultants or staff that are hired. It's much easier to judge if someone is providing you with an accurate assessment of a problem if you've solved it yourself. Any time-estimate they provide to fix it can also be better calculated if you've had to do it yourself. Every web site relies on a variety of factors, usually unseen, in order to continue to function properly. But the fact is that they misbehave from time to time. Deciding whether to tackle those problems yourself depends on your available time and skill set, and what it will require to get things back on track. In other words, it's a standard cost-benefit analysis that everyone has to undertake every day in life.

Online Writing Labs: You have One Available for You (online writing labs) There are numerous colleges and universities around the United States and the world that offer online writing labs. The labs are designed to offer help and instruction for any writing matter. Most Online writing labs are only available to the students of the offering college or university, but there are a few that are open to the general public. Virginia Tech has an online self help section and email help available for questions you have about grammar. The online writing labs are beneficial to both the writer in need of the help and the person helping them. The helper or tutors are usually graduate students working for their degree they benefit from the additional teaching practice. The students are getting proofreading, critiquing, and feedback along with any help they may need. The online writing labs were created by the schools to offer extra help to their students in their writing. They offer support in most areas of writing including choosing a topic, grammar help, revising a draft, and editing. They provide tutored help in these areas to students and faculty. Many online writing labs are set up to help you in three ways; online self help, email support, and one on one personal support. The online self help applications are available 24 hours a day. For the email support you email in your paper or project and you will receive a response with in 24 hours. The one on one personal support is a great way for students to learn how to do their own proofreading and editing. The tutors will help show the students what to look for and how to find their own mistakes. This is a great opportunity for help with someone other than a teacher. Even though the online help is available student are encouraged to use the writing lab tutors on a regular basis to improve their writing skills. Purdue University has an online writing lab they call OWL. It offers a wealth of information that virtually anyone can use. They offer a highly detailed step by step instruct of the writing process and huge section on professional, technical, and scientific writing. A section in job search writing that walks you through everything, from your academic coversheet to writing a personal statement, step by step. General Academic writing and research and citation help. This is the best site for offering its advice absolutely free. This site definitely deserves to be bookmarked on your computer if you are a serious writer, a student, a teacher, it really doesn’t matter. The University of Richmond has a program they call Writing Center. Although not as complex as Perdue’s they offer online self help topics for writers. Starting with the writing process to grammar and punctuation, it is another option for you. The University of Wisconsin has the Writing Center that offers some help with the basics. One thing to keep in mind that many of the universities and colleges that offer these many take them offline in between semesters and on breaks. If you are a student, many of you have an online writing lab available at your school or one that reciprocates with your school. Though the general public have self help online help available to them, chances are your school will offer some sort of one on one help to guide you through your work. Check it out it could be very beneficial to you. If you don’t have one available, it is highly recommend checking out OWL at Perdue or search the Internet. There are a lot of self-help online writing labs available to you.

Everywhere You Look There are Creative Writing Prompts (creative writing prompts) As glamorous as creative writing prompt sounds, it is nothing more than they start of an idea for your writings. A prompt could be virtually anything from a picture to a dream, whatever gives you that “Oh that would be a great story” feeling is your prompt. Like a movie preview it gives you a taste of what is to come or a sample at a store that makes you want to buy the product. It could be a single word or a collaboration of words. Whatever it takes to get the story into your head and then onto the paper would be considered a creative writing prompt. The need of finding creative writing prompts often stems from having writers block. If coming up with your own prompts has become difficult don’t worry. There a literally millions of prompts out there. You just need to find the right ones for you. Take the Internet for example. Do a search for creative writing prompts. You now have pages and pages of story starter’s right at your fingertips. You have many options available while searching for prompts. From one or two words starters to a brief synopsis of an idea they are available to you. Some sites offer daily prompts. They will even email them to you. There are many books available with nothing but lists of prompts just waiting to be turned into great stories from your mind. There are a lot of writers that feel that using lists of prewritten prompts by someone else is cheating. They feel that all prompts used must be their own. But truth be told, there is not a creative writing prompt that has not been wrote about. It is the creation that comes after the prompt that makes the writing your own. The prompt is not what your creative writing is all about, but a springboard for your imagination. It is merely what opens the portal to your imagination, to your passion, and to your thoughts. Sitting at your computer and staring at the blank page will most likely give you a headache before a great idea. Go outside, close you eyes, and clear your mind. Listen to the sounds around you. What do you hear? Children’s laughter, neighbors chatting, or ever the birds chirping. Let those sounds drift away and your mind float. Slowly letting things come back into your mind, your last trip to the beach, your kids at the playground, your spouse cooking dinner any of these can be an idea jogger that gets the creative writing flowing. These thoughts alone could spark a hundred ideas just waiting to be words on your canvas. It also may help to keep a notebook with you at all times. That way whenever you have a great idea you can jot it down before it escapes you. Many writers only use creative writing prompts from outside sources. They are given to them by editors and publishers telling the writer what they want you to write about. Some writers work better this way being given the idea and running with it. Others prefer using their own. Creative writing prompts not only help initiate ideas, they also help spark your memory for you to write about your own past experiences and adventures. You can use them for writings on your website or blog. Whether you use outside sources for your inspiration or use your own it does not affect the integrity of the words that complete the idea. The story behind the prompt is the vision of your creative abilities, not the prompt itself.