If you browse the internet, the chances are good that sooner or later you will come across adverts that are tailored to your browsing location and mention the nearest significant town to your location e.g. meet singles in YOURCITY.

The way this is done is actually quite simple as the advert will have a script that looks up your IP address (Internet Protocol address) and alters the text accordingly. For reference I have pasted two widgets below, the first which will show your nearest city to your browsing location and the second which shows your IP address and allows you to get a bit more information about it

It should also be noted that the IP address is what is used by companies to locate illegal file sharing, which I in no way condone of or approve. It is also used to region block web content on sites like Hulu.

Can I Change or Mask my IP Address?

Yes and No, taking the negative part first it is not normally possible to simply “give” yourself a new IP address. There are however 2 possible steps to work around this, the first is to use a proxy server and the second is to use a virtual private network (VPN).

The problem with both of these is that it can be difficult to find free ones and the best cost money. On a personal level I occasionally use the free VPN Hotspot Shield. While it has a few drawbacks the most notable being that it is supported by adverts and you have a 5GB monthly download limit. It is free, and is useful if you occasionally want to access region locked content as it gives you a US IP address.

If you do even a moderate amount of browsing on the internet then there is a good chance that you will come across adverts that offer you something for free, this can include a guide to making money e.g. by posting ads on google, or increasingly commonly a free trial of a product promoting weight loss e.g. Acai Berry Tablets.

These offers will normally have three things in common:

1. You have to give your credit card details to them in order to pay a small amount for postage and packing
2. By signing up for the trial you are actually signing up for a monthly subscription
3. You only have a short time to cancel (typically 5-14 days) until your card gets charged

Aside from not clicking on the ads or visiting the sites, there is one easy step to take which will minimise your risk of falling prey to these schemes;

CHECK THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS BEFORE YOU SIGN UP TO ANYTHING

In order to protect themselves from legal action, these sites will almost always have a terms and conditions document linked from the main page, typically in small text at the bottom. You then need to find the part relating to the free trial and how much it actually costs and decide if it is worth the risk of signing up.

Initially setting up a blog/website can be fairly daunting, especially if you have never done so before. As it can be difficult to find a guide to the best way to go about it, here is my not so brief guide to selecting a host for your website.

Initial Questions

Do I really need to have a hosted website?

This should be the first question you should ask yourself, as it may be that you can do the job just as well using a free option such as Wordpress.com or Blogger. If the main reason you want a hosted website is that you dont want a madeupname.freeblog.com address but a custom domain name then don’t worry as many of these sites now have options to use (and buy) custom domain names through them. Another advantage of sites like Wordpress.com and Blogger is that they can also generate traffic through directing other users of their service to your blog.

These sites do have some limitations however, firstly Wordpress.com does not allow money-tization of their blogs and your choice of layouts is quite limited. You may also have to pay to do some things that you can do for free on hosted websites. Overall though for people just starting out they can be a very useful first step. On a personal level I have used both Wordpress and Blogger and prefer Wordpress despite the money-tization restriction.

Main Advantages of Free Blog Hosts

• Do not cost anything to initially set up
• Can generate traffic from other users of the service
• Help gather an initial “following” for your site

Main Disadvantages of Free Blog Hosts

• Can have restrictions on money-tization of blogs
• Limited Choice of Layouts
• Can charge to customize your blog

Let say you already have a free blog and are looking for the next step, or for whatever reason a free blog host is not for you. The next question you have to ask is.

What type of Hosting?

After you have decided that you are going to have a hosted website, the next question you need to ask is; What type of hosting do I need? Broadly speaking there are three types of hosting available going from “worst to best”: Shared Hosting, Virtual Private Servers/Virtual Dedicated Servers and Dedicated Hosting.

Shared Hosting

For the vast majority of people a shared hosting plan should be sufficient to meet there needs especially when starting out, and relatively cheap hosting plans are readily available. The main problem with shared hosts occur when your site has outgrown them.

While many hosts now advertise “unlimited” bandwidth, this is slightly misleading as it should be described as “unlimited until your website uses a proportion of the CPU/Memory of the server it is on”. When that occurs you can get into all types of difficulty with your hosting provider and may even lose your website (if you don’t back it up).

Choosing a Shared Host

To be honest there is very little to choose between shared hosts, since unless you are generating a lot of traffic causing strain on there servers or they are a “bad” company the only time you will need to get in touch with them is if you want a new service, to renew a service or cancel a service.

That being said there are a few things you should look out for

1) Bandwidth and Storage Limits

While a lot of hosting providers now offer “unlimited” bandwidth and storage some do not and you need to ensure your package is up to the job. If using a largely text with a few images based site work on the assumption that 5000 hits = 1GB bandwidth

2) How many “databases” per account and is the PhP and SQL up to date

A database can be thought of as an application or add on to your website like a forum, shopping cart or Wordpress installation. There is a good chance that you will want to run something like this (note the more “applications” you run the more CPU resources you will use), and each one will probably require a separate database so ensure that you will have enough for what you want your site to do.

In terms of PhP and SQL if you want to install Wordpress you will need PHP 4.3 or greater, MySQL 4.0 or greater. Though you should probably make sure that the host is running version 5 of both.

3) What do I get for my money?

You should also look to see what else comes with the package, many hosts throw in a domain name for free on certain packages and other “goodies” such as a site builder. You should also look out for hidden “setup” fees especially on basic packages. Another thing to note is that most prices are exclusive of VAT so you will need to add a bit of money to that fee.

Another thing to ask is how easy is it to set up your “databases”/”applications” some hosts have a control panel (cPanel) which allows you to install these quite easily using a fantastico script, otherwise you may have to do it manually which can be overwhelming for some people.

4) Who do I Use?

This site is hosted by and I found it quite easy to arrange to buy my domain name and hosting package. They also have a lot of additional services available. On a side note if you have hosting elsewhere and want to buy a domain, or just want to buy a domain name and “park it” they are a good place to buy it from, This is because they allow you to “park domains” with them and it is also relatively easy to have the domain name pointed to another host.

The poor points of the service I have noticed are that there cheapest package does not have any databases making it more difficult for new web users. I also found it relatively difficult to get Wordpress up and running as they do not have the Fantastico script (at least not on the package I am on), and the Domain/Hosting Management is poorly designed in comparison to others I have used. There hosting packages are also slightly more restrictive in terms of bandwidth/storage/databases than you can get elsewhere.

I also have sites hosted by . I found their prices to be a bit more expensive than the cheapest hosts, but to offer a good quality package. They also use cPanel and the fantastico scripts making it easy to set up “applications” like Wordpress.

The main problem I have with hostpapa is that it is relatively difficult to buy additional services from them! as I wanted to get an extra domain name and it took a few days to get sorted.

At the end of the day the best thing to do is have a look around and decide which provider is best for you remembering that you get what you pay for, feel free to post details of any good or bad hosts in the comments section

Advantages of Shared Hosts

• Relatively Cheap
• Can Customise and Money-terize your site more readily than with free sites like Wordpress
• Lots of Choice

Disadvantages of Shared Hosts

• Bandwidth not really “Unlimited”
• Bandwidth can be “squeezed” due to popular websites on the same server
• Issues can arise when the site grows too popular
• Quality of Service between hosts can vary considerably

Knowing When To Upgrade

This is a very difficult question to answer as bandwidth used will be different for each site and depend on what you are hosting on your site sites hosting flash games/videos will take up more bandwidth than sites that just host text and images. There is also the issue that shared server limitations are often caused by spikes in traffic.

That being said using an estimate derived from my text and image based shared hosted sites is that 5000 page views is roughly equivalent to 1GB of bandwidth I would say that if you are on an “unlimited plan” and consistently getting more than 3000 page views per day you may need to start thinking about moving to a VPS or Dedicated host. The other issue is spikes so it may be most days you are below that but occasionally get sharp rises in page views which can also cause issues.

Knowing when to upgrade will of course be partly dependent on what hosts and package you are on, as with the better shared hosts you may still be comfortably within their bandwidth/CPU limits. My advice would be that if your think your site is popular (regularly gets over 3000 hits per day) get in touch with your hosting company to see if you are at risk of exceeding there CPU or Bandwidth limits.

Virtual Private Servers

Virtual Private/Dedicated Servers are the next step up from Shared Hosting, but operate on a similar principle in that you are on a single server with multiple users. The main difference is that you now have a guaranteed “slice of the server pie”. To put it simple if a VPS and Shared Host both had 100 CPU “units” and 50 users, each VPS user would have a guaranteed slice of 2 CPU “Units” but no more, while on a Shared Host every user could potentially use up to 100 “Units”. This means in theory your website could run better on a Shared Host than on a VPS especially when comparing high end shared hosting vs low end VPS.

The advantage of VPS is that you do get a guaranteed share of resources and are not at the mercy of other sites on your host, and that your website is normally more secure and you have a dedicated IP address. You also can have control server management, though this can be overwhelming for some users.

Advantages of VPS

• Guaranteed Amount of Server Resources
• More Control over Server
• Typically better performance than Shared Hosts
• Website More Secure with its own IP address

Disadvantages of VPS

• Typically More Expensive than Shared Hosts
• Unmanaged packages can be demanding to control
• Low end packages could give you worse performance than Shared Hosts

Dedicated Hosts

If you have exhausted all other options for your website, and it has outgrown shared hosting and VPS then you will have to go for dedicated hosting. There is not really that much to say about Dedicated Hosting since you get as the name suggests a single server dedicated to your website(s), but as you might expect it also normally costs the most of any of the hosting options, and can have the same problems as VPS if you get an unmanaged package.

Advantages of Dedicated Hosts

• A whole server to yourself
• Even more freedom in what you can run

Disadvantages of VPS/Dedicated Hosts

• The cost

Even with the best junk mail filters at least some of the e-mail you receive is likely to be scam or phishing e-mails. There are however a number of relatively simple steps you can take to spot these straight away.

To start off with I will give you 4 types of e-mail that are almost certainly scams

Almost Certainly a Scam

1. Someone you never heard of is offering you alot of money for helping them do something or for claiming an inheritance.
2. You get an e-mail from a web “lottery” claiming you have won.
3. Official looking e-mail from a bank/ebay/paypal saying your account is at risk of being shut down for some reason. That dont mention any information that specifically identifies you or your account.
4. Official Notification Sent from a free email address (hotmail, yahoo, google etc) or e-mail address that has nothing to do with the company.

Still Not Sure

If you are still not sure there are 2 simple steps you can take to double check if an e-mail is genuine or not

1. Does the e-mail identify you in anyway, as many organisations will have your name or account number included in the e-mail proving that it comes from them.
2. View e-mails as text rather than html. This will remove all the images hiding links and allow you to see where you will actually be going when you click on the link.

Final Safety Steps

You are fairly sure that an e-mail you have received from an organisation is genuine, however to be safe you should NEVER click links in an unsolicited e-mail (one you have not asked for or are not expecting) especially if it requires you to log into an account afterwards. You should instead manually enter the address of the organisation in a browser (or use a bookmark) to ensure you are going to the right site. With some organisations you may also have a copy of the e-mail left in a private messages section as well.