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One important requirement for starting a web development business is to have a hosting server to store the websites online. For starting up, the easiest way is to sign up a hosting account at a web hosting company that will allow you to host more than one domain. This way, the websites will share the same resources and you can minimize your start-up cost. Most often, a website doesn’t use a lot of resources like storage space and bandwidth so it is fine to put multiple websites on the same hosting account. However, if a website generates a lot of traffic, or it has a lot of large files such as videos, then you may want to consider putting it on a separate account so that it won’t affect the other websites.

Make Money from Hosting

A web hosting account is usually less than $100 USD per year. You can charge your clients $5 - $10 per month. So you only need to find one or two clients and you will be able to cover up the hosting expense. For the rest of the clients, you have the choice of either charging them or giving them first year free hosting if you want to build-up a better relationship with them. Also, you don’t have to sign up a hosting account until you have found your first client so you don’t really need to pay for the hosting at your expense.

Which Hosting Service?

So where can you sign up a hosting account? I have been using Bluehost’s service for a couple years and I think their package is a very good deal. If you sign up 2 years with them, the rate is only $6.95 USD per month. They let you host maximum 999 domains, 307200 MB of storage space, 307200 MB of monthly traffic, create 2500 email accounts, and much more. This is more than enough for hosting small scale websites which is our target. Also, I am 100% sure that you can install Joomla on Bluehost without any problems. For more information about Bluehost, please go here.

My client is trying to downgrade his new HP laptop from Windows Vista Home Premium to Windows XP Pro. However, after he boots up the laptop with a Windows XP Pro installation disc, the installation process couldn’t proceed because it could not find a hard drive. The problem is that the laptop is using a SATA hard drive and Windows XP was not designed to support SATA by default. Normally on a desktop computer, you will need to press F6 at startup to tell the installation wizard that you can provide additional drivers from a floppy disk. Because this is a laptop, it doesn’t have a floppy drive so it is hard to get the drivers in.

SATA Native Support

Fortunately, for some laptops, there is an option in the BIOS to disable SATA Native Support. After disabling this option, in return for lower hard drive performance, Windows XP should be able to recognize the hard drive in the system and you can proceed with the installation as usual. No additional drivers should be required with this method. In the BIOS from the HP laptop that I am troubleshooting for my client, it even gives you a tip about disabling the SATA Native Support option when using an older operating system. (i.e. Windows XP is old!)

Recently, two of my friends just bought a new D-Link router to replace their old one. After installing the new routers, both of them were experiencing problems with their MSN Messenger. They were not able to sign in and send messages. After testing different configurations in the router, it was determined that the problem was related to UPnP. If UPnP is turned off in the router, then MSN Messenger is working fine. If UPnP is turned on, then the problem comes back again.

Searching on D-Link’s website, you would be able to find in its FAQ regarding the use of MSN Messenger with D-Link router and UPnP. They have documented a step-by-step tutorial on how to setup Windows XP properly to work with UPnP. You can find the tutorial here.

What is UPnP?

So what is UPnP? UPnP stands for Universal Plug and Play. In short, UPnP is a technology to simplify the networking of devices on a home and business network. Some network applications doesn’t work well with Network Address Translation (NAT) behind a router to share a public IP address with other applications on the network. UPnP comes in here to automatically configures the settings so that the network application can function properly behind the router. MSN Messenger is one of those applications that doesn’t work well with NAT by default. Because UPnP is not configured in Windows XP, therefore when you plug in a UPnP enabled router to your network, MSN Messenger may encounter problems like not able to sign in and not able to send messages.

So if you are having problem with your MSN Messenger behind a router, then you may want to check the UPnP settings in Windows as well as in your router.

A couple years ago, when I was working for a web hosting company, it was may first time to get to know about Joomla and what content management system (CMS) is. I was amazed by how easily it is to setup a CMS website with just a few clicks. The installation process was so similar to installing a program on Windows.

Meeting Business Requirements

Since then, I have been playing around with Joomla and I have even used it to setup a few websites for some business clients, making some money out of the small projects. There are a lot of plug-ins for Joomla that can meet specific business requirements. For example, a wedding centre has asked me to setup a website for them with the following requests:

1. able to sell wedding gowns, tuxedo, invitation cards, decorations, and other related products
2. able to post customer’s wedding photo in categories
3. suitable for marketing to different ethnic groups
4. easy communication with customers
5. able to play music album online

With Joomla, it is capable to meet all of the business requirements above with its built-in functions as well as 3rd-party plug-ins.

1. Using Virtuemart for Joomla, I could setup an online shopping cart that has full range of features including shipping and payment modules.
2. Using Easy Gallery, I could setup a photo gallery capable of dividing the photos into a category tree.
3. Using Joom!Fish, I could setup a language selection function that will translate the website into different languages to target different language-speakers.
4. Joomla already has a built-in form for users to submit questions directly on the website.
5. I could integrate Youtube videos on the website.

As you can see, it is easy for anyone to start a website development business using Joomla even if you don’t know any programming. Although you will probably not be making a thousand dollar website (if you are, then you can contract someone to help you out), a few hundred dollars per project should not be a problem.

In the next few weeks, I will show you how I would start a website project after getting a job order and walk you through the way to meet the typical business requirements of a website.

One of my clients has a standalone storage box that is capable of acting as a FTP server for file sharing. He wanted to set it up so that his clients can upload files to him using FTP. His storage box is plugged behind a wireless router that is connecting all the workstations in the office. However, he is not able to setup his FTP server so that people outside his office can connect. He has tried many settings, such as opening all the required ports, putting the storage box in DMZ, and enabling/disabling passive mode. However, the closest outcome is that the FTP client is able to login but can not list any remote directories.

The problem is that internal IP addresses are being forwarded in the FTP connection. Therefore, the FTP client can not establish the connection correctly. To resolve this problem, some FTP client has the option to ignore the FTP server’s Passive IP address (ie. the internal IP). This will allow the FTP client to establish the connection with the FTP server correctly. Unfortunately, not every FTP client has this feature so you will have to look for one that supports it. The gFTP program in Linux has it and its pop-up tip explains the problem clearly.

If you know which other FTP clients can ignore the internal IP, then please share the info with us.