A Non-techie’s Guide to Setting Up a Professional Blog

How To Start A Blog

First Published Date : March 12, 2009 ADawnJournal.com

I get emails from my readers asking how to set up a blog. I always reply and try to briefly explain to them how to set up a blog in simple terms. Sometimes these replies turn out to be long emails, which  made me think: instead of replying to each individual separately, I can just write a post explaining everything.

Today, I will discuss how to set up a blog even when you are not a tech-savvy person. If you have always wondered if it is possible to start a professional-looking blog without knowing programming codes, DNS, FTP, domain forwarding and so on, this post is for you.

Before we start, you need to know what a domain name is and you can learn it by reading this post How to Make Money from Domain Names. I am going to explain three different blogging platforms you can use to start your blog. Once you finish reading, you should be able to decide on your own which path best suits your needs.

Option 1 – Use Free Hosted Blogging Platform

This is the easiest way to setup a new blog. It should not take you more than ten to fifteen minutes to write your first post and see it live online. A hosted blog service that hosts your blog for free is the actual owner of your blog. Because they own everything, you have no control over your blog. If they want, they can delete your blog or ban you from posting at any time. Some of the more popular hosting platforms are WordPress, Blogger, and TypePad. With a hosted blog, you do not need any domain name. Your blog address will be like yourname.blogspot.com. To start your own blog, just visit any one of these sites. If you know how to surf online, you can also set up a blog with these hosted blogging platforms.

Option 2 – Use Paid Hosted Blogging Platform

Squarespace is a paid web publishing or blogging platform that lets you create a professional-looking blog very easily. Squarespace provides a lot more flexibility than those mentioned above. It provides you with all the tools, design templates, and hosting to create a professional-looking blog. Using Squarespace’s setup, you can have a professional-looking blog live online in an hour. You do not need to have your own domain, but you can choose to go with your own domain if you want. In that case, you need to buy a domain with a domain registrar like GoDaddy,HostGator, or Bluehost. Then you have to point your domain to Squarespace. This is not hard to do. The Squarespace website has step-by-step instructions on how to do it. A Dawn Journal was actually hosted by Squarespace for eight months when it started.

Option 3 – Use Stand Alone Blogging Platform

A stand-alone blogging platform is hosted by you on your own domain. This gives you full ownership, controls, rights, and privileges to your blog. You need to have your own domain name and web hosting (server space) to host your blog. A domain name and hosting plan are not expensive. It would cost you about $10 annually to have your own domain and about $7-10 monthly to buy web hosting. WordPress is a popular stand-alone blogging platform and I recommend it strongly. The problem with Option 3 is that it requires technical literacy to install WordPress on your domain server.

But what can you do if you are not tech-savvy enough to do it by yourself? Have someone else do it for you. If you have friends or relatives who know how, ask them to do it. If you don’t have anyone, I recommend using Kevin’s Free Instant Blog Setup services. Kevin is the one who looks after all my websites, and he can setup your WordPress blog in a snap. How much is the cost? It’s free. Yes, you heard it right. He will do it for free; however, there is a small catch. You have to sign up for hosting through Kevin’s website. Kevin is an affiliate with those web hosting sites mentioned on his blog, and he gets paid by those sites when you sign up through his site.

If you already have a domain and web hosting, Kevin can still do it for you for minimal fees. Contact him directly through his contact page for more info. The reason I recommend Kevin is because he is knowledgeable, friendly, and someone you can rely on. Let’s say after one year you messed up your site and need help to fix it, or you decide to change your site design (template), or you would like to install new stuff – Kevin will do it for a reasonable cost. In this line of business, you can easily get ripped off if you don’t know who you are dealing with. Also, you will be able to find similar free installation services by doing a Google search with these keyword phrases: free WordPress blog installation service.

Final Word

If you are just trying to start a blog to see if this is for you, I recommend going with Option 1. I started my first few blogs with Blogger.com. If you are looking to start a professional blog all by yourself, I recommend Option 2. If you are serious about blogging, want to blog for the long term, and have Internet entrepreneurship in your mind, I recommend going with Option 3.

How Not To Be Depressed

Beat the Blues – With Natural Optimism

One of the most common causes of people today failing to achieve their best potential is a tendency to become depressed. With global recession, manmade and natural disasters wreaking havoc every day, and the many irritations of living your life in an increasingly complex world, no one can be blamed for occasionally heaving a sigh and wondering if things will ever improve. Fortunately, for most, something comes along to distract you from such gloomy thoughts, you get back on track, and life goes on.

For some people however, they seem to have had too many blows, too many things go wrong all at once, and they feel the classic symptoms of depression – locked in a place that they feel will never improve, they feel worthless, hopeless, guilty and sometimes angry at the situation they have got themselves into.

Perhaps everyone has had this type of feeling on occasion, but most will somehow pull through, and find for themselves, in the midst of the gloom, something positive and useful to do.

It is this ability to find the worth in a negative situation, and to be able to turn a bad experience into something from which you can learn and grow that will separate the world’s survivors, from those who will simply become depressed and go down in the undertow. 

People have different ideas about what is depressing and what might be a disaster for one person might be easily managed by another. That in itself gives a clue to the fact that all experience of depression is in fact subjective – there are no universal events or factors which will give you depression – only your attitude to them. Even events such as bereavements, job losses, loss of your home, major injury or illness do not need to cause you to have depression. You might have grief, and anger or pain, but you will find that depression is not the same as these most natural emotions, depression happens when you get stuck in a place where how you want things to be, simply is not going to happen.

People such as sportsmen, entertainers, salespeople or anyone who is focused on a goal, will often feel depressed if the goal cannot for one reason or another be achieved. If that failure continues to be the only focus of a person’s life, then they will continue to feel a failure and depressed. When a person meets with a failure, in order not to become depressed, they need to move on from the moment, and look for what they can do next. It has been said that it is not how many times a man is knocked down that forms his character – but how many times he gets up. That is the key to beating depression – no matter how low you feel, reach out to others, take what help you can get, realize that life is not about what happens to you, but how you deal with it, and you will start to get your life back on track.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Simplepersonaldevelopment.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to Ahmed Dawn Dot Com site. This article originally published on the above website on Feb 4, 2010

Tims Rewards Program – What to Know

Tim Hortons New Loyalty Program

Canadian coffee chain Tim Hortons started its Tims Rewards program, which is long overdue. Compared to other coffee chain loyalty programs, Tims Rewards provides more value and is easier to understand.

You can earn Tims Rewards either by using a physical plastic card or using the Tim Hortons app on your phone. You don’t need to buy to collect rewards via the app, but you have to scan it when you pay.

The Tims Rewards structure is fairly simple. You need seven eligible transactions more than $0.50 to get one reward. Rewards can be redeemed for any size brewed coffee, tea, or baked good.

Transactions have to have a gap of at least 30 minutes to be considered eligible for rewards. Meaning if you buy 7 items one after another, those will not count as eligible.

Tim Hortons is allowing members to bank up to 5 Rewards for 120 days. Transactions beyond 5 rewards will not be eligible and rewards will expire after 120 days.

It looks like to me Tims Rewards is based on transactions, rather than items. For example, if you buy 3 items such as a coffee, bagel, and a donut, it will count as one transaction to give you one rewards, not 3 rewards.

Tims Rewards loyalty program is generous and my take is that Tim Hortons is more interested in retaining its customers by offering them more. There are many competitors on the market and without a good rewards program, Tim Hortons would be losing more customers to other chains that are more innovative in offering freebies and rewards to their customers.

You can watch my Tims Horton Tim Rewards Video here. To sign up for Tims Rewards, visit Tims Rewards website.

Free Home Phone Comes To Canada

Canadians Can Now Have Free Home Phone

First Published: ADawnJournal.com March 25, 2009

What Is VOIP

The Internet has transformed the way we live, work and play. Also, it has revolutionized the way we talk to each other. Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is a technology that allows you to make calls over the Internet. VOIP technology lets you can make regular phone calls directly from your computer, VIOP phone, or a traditional phone connected to a router/adaptor.

What You Need To Make Internet Calls

If you would like to make calls from your computer, you will require these:
– high speed connection
– a headset
– microphone
If you have a laptop or a computer that you purchased not long ago, you may already have built-in speakers and microphone installed. If this is the case, you don’t need any additional microphone or headsets.

If you would like to make calls using a regular phone, you will require:
– high speed connection
– a telephone adaptor/router

Is There Any Free VOIP Provider?

VOIP has been my special area of interest since its beginning. In January 2004, when Primus offered VOIP service in Canada for the first time, I was one of the few individuals to try it. I have always been keeping an eye for free VOIP service provider. So far I have not had much luck. However, about a week ago, when I was searching for free home phone on the Internet, I came across this company promising free home phone service.

FreePhoneLine

Freephoneline.ca has launched free VOIP home phone service with many features. Some of these features are:

Caller ID
Enhanced Voicemail
FollowMe Service
Unlimited Local Calling
Unlimited Free Long Distance Calling To Major Canadian Cities

How Does This Work

There are two ways you can use FreePhoneLine. You can make calls using a soft phone or a hard phone. A soft phone is a software that you install on your computer to make calls using your computer. A soft phone exactly looks like Yahoo or MSN Messenger. A hard phone is a physical phone. You will need high-speed Internet connection, an analog telephone adaptor/router, and a hard phone (a real phone you use to make calls from home) to make calls using a hard phone. Your computer does not have to be on to make call via hard phone.

Does FreePhoneLine offer 911 Service?

Yes. As this is a real home phone replacement, 911 service is available. Check FreePhoneLine website for more information.

Will I Be Able To Keep My Existing Home Phone Number?

Yes, you will be able to keep and transfer your existing phone number to FreePhoneLine’s network for a onetime fee. Check their website for more information.

What’s My Take

After reading this article, I don’t suggest you to cancel your home phone service right away. What you can do:

– Try FreePhoneLine soft phone for a month and see if you like it or not
– If you like it, don’t cancel your regular home pone yet. Try it as your secondary home phone
for a couple of months.
– If you are fully satisfied, then cancel your regular home phone

I have been using the soft phone version of FreePhoneLine. So far, I am satisfied with the sound quality and all cool features. It’s loaded with features which a regular phone will never be able to offer. For example, Enhanced Voicemail lets you forward your voicemails to your email, FollowMe feature lets you forward your calls to your cell, home, or work phone. However, unquestionably the best FreePhoneLine feature is – it’s free. Nothing can beat that. Visit Free Phone Line here – FreePhoneLine

Rabat (Morocco) : The Garden City

Rabat: A Unique City Morocco

If you are ever traveling to Africa, the one city you need to check out is without a doubt, Rabat. Rabat is a unique and stunning city that will delight any traveler who makes their way to it.

Rabat, which means “Fortified Place” has been inhabited for thousands of years, including by the Roman Empire. Currently, the city has a population of 650,000 people and it is the capital of Morocco, rather than Casablanca as many assume. It is also the second-largest city in the country and the capital of the Rabat Sale Zemmour Zaer region.

The city is located on the Atlantic Ocean, at the mouth of the Bou Regreg River, giving it beautiful views and landscapes around it. There are several smaller bedroom communities around Rabat including Sale and Temara, which give the region a population of 1.8 million. The city used to be a very important port city, but these days it is more geared towards textile, food processing and construction. Sadly, some multinational corporations do operate sweatshops in the area.

Tourism has also become very popular in the city thanks to the many foreign embassies and the effort to get tourists to the city. Casablanca is more famous, but Rabat is working hard to get noticed.

Rabat is popular among Europeans because of its warm Mediterranean climate. It has a mile temperate climate with cool weather in the winter and warm days in the summer. Throughout the year, the nights are cold due to its proximity to the desert. When the day comes along, the temperature usually rises by about 15 degrees Celsius. The high in the winter, at its coldest days, usually reaches only 17.5 degrees Celsius.

So, what is there to do in Rabat? Well, quite a bit actually. Here are the most popular sites in the city:

• Chellah: This is the old city that was founded by the Carthaginians and conquered by the Romans, then passed to the Arabs over time. It has been abandoned and settled a great deal over time and parts of this old town are still visible.

• The Old Medina: One of the largest open air markets in the world, the old medina is a must see for anyone who is interested in seeing what Morocco is all about, and it is these stunning markets

• Kasbah of the Oudaias: This is a deserted Kasbah that was used during the reign of the Almohads back in the early part of the second millennium AD. The Kasbah was deserted following the death of Yaqqub al-Mansur in 1199 AD.

• Hassan Tower: This is an incomplete mosque that was going to be the world’s largest when construction was started in 1199. It only reached 140 feet, half the 260 feet that it was intended to be. This is a very important part of the historic and tourist aspects of the city.

So, take a trip out to Rabat and see this amazing city for yourself, you will not be disappointed.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Travelnowsimply.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to Ahmed Dawn Dot Com. This article originally published on the above website on Nov 13, 2010.