Category: Technology

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Banging My Head on the Desk! Writing a free Traffic Sharing Exchange

URLPromote Free Traffic Sharing Exchange

Writing a free Traffic Sharing Exchange web app to help people promote their websites.

Have you ever felt like you wanted to pound your head on the desk out of sheer frustration? That’s exactly how I felt more times than once during my recent foray into writing my first free Traffic Sharing Exchange web app design. 

In fact I was so frustrated at times, I was close to putting a pillow on the desk to prevent from forming a callous on my forehead. It frustrated me to the point I would have seriously considered trading the whole ordeal for a session of hugging my cactus for comfort! All jokes aside, it was one of the most frustrating experiences I have ever had. 

Self inflicted hell?

So why put myself through the self-inflicted 9th level of computer coding hell? That’s a very good question! And one that I asked myself many times whilst building this web app. Why? Because I wanted to do something good for the world. I wanted to give something back and provide a free service that could genuinely help people get some much needed free traffic to their websites. 

The next question I can already hear you asking… Did I succeed in my quest to provide a free Traffic Sharing Exchange web app that actually helps people get free traffic to their websites? The short answer is: Yes I did! After 3 weeks of head pounding frustration, I finally got there! 

Onion peeling or writing a free Traffic Sharing Exchange?

The complexities of the app were akin to the layers of an onion and a tree-hugging hippy’s emotions after chopping it. Whilst I don’t condone anthropomorphizing vegetables, I can now appreciate and understand the nuanced and conflicted feelings one might experience when dealing with such mind numbing levels of complexity. 

What started as a simple idea, soon grew into a Uranus sized pain in my… Grass! (Note to self: I need to mow my lawns). So what made it such a challenge? Why was it so frustrating? And why did such a simple idea become so complicated? Most of the iceberg like complexity came from security concerns. Knowing that this app would soon be released into the wild and as a public facing app, all manner of security would be required. 

The allure of the simple idea…

 “Providing a free Traffic Sharing Exchange web app” 

It spurred me on in my quest to give something back to the world. The idea really was just the tip of the iceberg. What I thought would be a quick afternoon of easy and fun coding, turned into a mammoth 3 weeks of coding slog. One thing led to another and as I would complete one function, the security consequencs would open up another layer of the complexity onion. 

A walk in the park or an almost insurmountable effort?

I’m sure for a classically educated coding professional, all of this would have been a walk in the park. But for someone like myself who is a self-taught coding amateur, it seemed like an almost insurmountable effort.

There were times when I would edit the code, upload the code, test the code and nothing would change. So I’d go back to the drawing board and make more changes and add more debugging statements to write to my error log. Clear my browser cache, run in incognito mode, save it again, upload it again, yet still nothing! No changes, no errors in the log and no solution to my problem. So I would rinse and repeat, re-check my code, rewrite some functions, change my approach several times until suddenly it would work the way I foresaw it.

When it dawned on me the releif was palpable!

It wasn’t until I hit a SSL snag that it dawned on me. I had completely forgotten that my webserver was running through Cloudflare, which adds a proxy layer and web cache to your website’s DNS. All this time I had been wrestling with a cloud based DNS cache. No wonder it was taking several attempts to get my edits to propagate.

At this point, I was 2 weeks in. I had second guessed myself a hundred times. I’d even employed the services of AI to check and double check my code. That was yet another layer of sheer hell. Wrestling with an AI that would help me fix one part of my code only to subtly screw up another section without me even realizing. It was almost like the AI was intentionally sabbotaging my efforts. It seemed like there was real resistance to me releasing this web app. Like some mysterious force didn’t want me to give this to the world. 

Finally its done! I almost feel like an expectant father in the delivery waiting room. Or like Mufasa when Rafiki held up Simba… “The circle of life” Gosh now I’m bursting into song! What an emotional rollercoaster! So without any further ado, I give you… 

“URLPromote” Free Traffic Sharing Exchange! 

Its a simple yet powerful concept that will assist you in your website promotional efforts. As you promote your site, your efforts will compound using this free system, to build you an exponentially growing source of free traffic… 4 generations deep!

If you enjoyed this article… Like, follow and subscribe. You’ll encourage us to keep writing more like this 🙂

You can find our socials here. If you’d like to stay up to date with what we have in the pipeline, you can subscribe to our mailing list here. Thank you for reading, you’re amazing!

This article contains affiliate links and we may receive a commission if you click on any of these links. Images created with www.kittl.com

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Unlocking Creative Potential? Should We Trust AI?

Artificial Inteligence. Should we trust AI

Use AI to remain competitive or hold fast as the last bastion of humanity, potentially getting left behind? Should we trust AI?

Could AI really be “Public Enemy No.1”?

There is no disputing it. We are living in the era of technological revolution. AI (Artificial Intelligence) is changing the way we live, communicate and work. It seems however that the deeper we go into this AI revolution, the more uneasy some people seem to feel. Perhaps much of this distrust has been fuelled by the likes of the Terminator franchise of movies. But there also remains the fact that jobs are already being laid on the altar of so-called “progress”. So should We Trust AI?

The unease has been steadily growing. Should we trust AI?

This unease has only grown amongst the writer community of late. Thanks in part to the advent of AI based writing tools that are delivering undetectable content. Well at least they are indistinguishable from human generated text when viewed by a machine.

But most of us living and breathing human readers, can spot an AI article as quickly as you can say: “Copy-paste”. 

This is mainly due to the fact that AI writing simply lacks soul. Its rhythms and nuances are machine-like, logic based, almost mathematical. It’s just too vanilla. And It could just as easily be written by a German car engineer. Rather than through the flamboyance of an artistic author like you or me.

Aren’t we being a little melodramatic?

Although some do indeed look upon AI with dread, worrying that it might replace us as human writers. We ought to take a step back before we throw the baby out with the bath water. Should we really cast AI into outer darkness? Relegating it to the place of foe, before we’ve given it even the slightest chance to potentially shine as a friend?

We’re Irreplaceable Baby

Due to AI’s lack of soul, it will never be able to fully replicate us nor replace us. It simply can’t feel the way we do. It can’t tell you what it feels like, to wake up in the morning with a head still half full of sleep. Craving that morning cup of coffee. 

The sensation you experience as your lips meet the rim of that mug and you take the first sip. AI might happen to know, through its assistant microphones… That as we take that first sip, we let out the almost involuntary expression of “Ahh”. But it really has no idea why.

How about the euphoric feeling as you walk out into the morning air. The sunlight dancing upon your cheeks, as you breathe in the morning freshness. The contrast of cool air and warm sunlight instantly makes you smile. You feel alive because you are alive! 

Need I even mention the moments when your watching a movie, so well directed and acted, that you find yourself welling up in tears. That’s what we know and feel. That’s something a machine will never know and never feel.

  • So are we justified in feeling threatened?
  • Should we abandon our dystopian fears to the wind?
  • Should we trust AI?

These are all valid questions that are still begging to be answered. Tell us what you think in the comments section.

Don’t worry about tomorrow, today has enough trouble of its own

As writers who are amateurs and professionals alike, we have an opportunity to acknowledge, harness and utilize AI services. We can deploy them as helpful tools assisting us to enhance our skills and create new opportunities to express ourselves.

From improving writing performance, to inspiring creative vision

when we’re trying to write the proverbial golden goose article, that just keeps on laying the golden eggs. 

Image created with www.kittl.com

AI provides the potential for us as writers to excel beyond what we otherwise would. In a fast paced, quick changing, competitive environment, it could potentially give us the edge we need to truly shine.

Streamlining the Writing Process to produce better content

AI services like Koala.sh and Blogify.ai are revolutionizing writing processes through the automation of what we have always had to do the hard way. The research, the collation, fleshing out the article structure, dividing paragraphs, spell checking, adding subheadings in the right places. These otherwise menial tasks can now be automated with the aid of powerful AI algorithms.

Their use can provide guidelines, propose amendments and even automate the entire writing process. Adding AI generated images, headlines, article layout and even providing filler content. 

The writers who utilize these tools can work more efficiently, 

save time, and then focus on replacing the filler content with their own exceptional writing, changing out the soulless AI placeholder headings for their own catchy well thought out headings. Replacing the machine like paragraphs with their own stories and real human experiences. Adding the human touch, adding their personal flare, their unique style, their panache and their passion.

Better than a spell checker! AI can actually enhance our writing quality

Another area that AI tools can help us truly shine, is in the area of writing quality. Among the AI-powered tools that are accessible for improving the quality of writing are Grammarly, Quilbot and Otter.ai. Whether it’s correcting grammatical errors, increasing readability, or transcribing oral materials into text.

These AI services are powerful companions

They are services that can actually help us writers on our journey. Through their use as authors, we’re empowered to sharpen our prose, perfect our style, and ultimately engage our audiences with better crafted, more engaging content.

Unleashing your creativity! Loosing the shackles of the mundane

The creativity and innovation AI brings to writing has moved beyond conventional writing assistance. Websites such as Anywords.ai allow writers to use AI-generated prompts to develop new ideas and move past writers block. Then you have AI art generators such as Kittl which is like Canva on steroids. 

AI music composers, photo upscalers like ImgLarger which is able to upscale an image to 8K resolution with no degradation in quality, thanks to its advanced AI algorithms. 

And Text-to-Video services like Invideo which open up all sorts of new avenues, easily adding the edge to your articles or blog posts.

And then you have the likes of Wondershare who offer a complete suite of AI tools. Everything from Filmora which is their flagship video editing product to PDFElement which is their impressive PDF editor are now all impregnated with their powerful iteration of AI functionality. 

All of this enables us as writers to explore diverse types of creativity apart from the usual text-based content. 

These tools not only expand the field of creative input but also inspire us as writers to be more experimental. Expanding our opportunities to cross the limits of our craft. The utility and functionality they provide can quickly turn an otherwise dry article, into an information powerhouse. Filled with relevant images, videos and even music to match the overall feel of the article.

After looking at these benefits, the elephant, whilst now nicely dressed in a pink tutu is still delicately pirouetting across the room: Should we trust AI? 

Do we use AI to remain competitive? Or do we hold fast as the last bastion of humanity, potentially getting left behind in the process? Perhaps we need to look at what else AI is able to offer.

Fostering collaboration and accessibility for those who need it most

AI driven collaborative tools like otter.ai give way to smooth communication and coordination between writers, editors, and stakeholders. Through digital meeting, interview and brainstorming transcription. These technologies make sure that the valuable ideas and insights are recorded accurately no matter where people are.

Services like… 

  • VoiceOver: The screen reader directly integrated on iPhones. 
  • TalkBack: The equal of VoiceOver but for Android smartphones. 
  • Siri: iPhone’s famous virtual assistant. 
  • Cortana: The virtual assistant made by Microsoft and used on Windows. 
  • Google Assistant: Google’s app activated by voice control, and integrated in Google Nest speakers and Google Home products. 

These are all services and devices that utilize the power of AI to provide greater accessibility and inclusivity to those most vulnerable amoungst us.

Dispelling misconceptions, sure! But should we trust AI?

AI services, which undoubtedly bear many benefits, are still a source of anxiety for many. The level of distrust in relation to the writing profession is almost palpable. Nevertheless, it remains that AI is only an extension and facilitation of our own human creativity. It cannot and never will be a replacement for it.

Through AI collaboration, we as writers can use technology to supplement our strengths. 

We can bypass our weaknesses and discover new facets of our creativity. Embracing AI doesn’t have to mean lowering our human quality of writing. Rather, it has the potential to make us as writers, more imaginative and creative than ever before, by freeing us from the more mundane, task oriented aspects of writing.

In closing, lets boost our writing!

AI services open great prospects for writers to take themselves to the next level. Producing remarkable work in a world where creativity and innovation are in a state of constant flux. By adopting AI as writers, we’re optimizing our work efficiency. We’re boosting our writing quality, unleashing our creativity and promoting our collaboration to the next level.

Take a look at this article we wrote outlining the usefulness of some of these AI tools. 

It’s truly incredible what can be achieved. In a fraction of the time it would have taken to manually create the same content. So should we trust AI? Click the link below to read on.

AI Revolution
There is no disputing it. We’re living in the era of AI revolution. It’s not too often that you come across a piece of disruptive…sites.getthe.info

What mind blowingly amazing AI tools have you discovered? Don’t say ChatGPT or Google Gemini or Bing Copilot… As I’m pretty sure we’d have to be living under a rock to not have already heard about those 🤣 But what other impressive AI tools have you discovered?

If you enjoyed this article, like, subscribe & share. You’ll encourage us to keep writing more like this 🙂

You can find our socials here. If you’d like to stay up to date with what we have in the pipeline, you can subscribe to our mailing list here. Thank you for reading, you’re amazing!

This article contains affiliate links and we may receive a commission if you click on any of these links. Images created with www.kittl.com

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Building Your Online Presence

Building Your Online Presence

The in’s and out’s of why a professionally hosted website matters

“If your business is not on the Internet, then your business will be out of business.”

 — Bill Gates

Who looks in the yellow pages these days?

Building your online presence in the form of a website or app is crucial these days in ensuring your business success. Long gone are the days of people using the physical yellow pages to look for your business. If people can’t find you online, they will find your competitors. 

New technology for a new generation of customers

Many customers even prefer the use of online chat or email, over using a traditional phone line to contact sales and support staff. Times certainly have changed and so have the customers who support your business. 

While a quick and dirty listing on Yellowpages, Yelp, Linkedin or a Facebook page might have cut the mustard at some stage, those days have indeed gone and the customers here today are indeed changing.

Getting Serious About Being Online

At some point in time you’re going to need to get serious about building your online presence. This involves obtaining a domain name reflective of your business or brand. And also securing a professionally hosted website capable of the speed and performance you’ll eventually need..

Start as you mean to finish. Go for flexibility so you can grow

Often people start out using a point and click website builder on one of the popular platforms like Wix or Squarespace. That might seem like the right option for someone starting off, however at some point you will most likely meet with success and your website traffic will take off. 

Your web hosting needs will change and develop into possibly requiring software implementations such as SAAS or custom server installations. This is where people often regret having built their website on one of these more limited platforms.

Choose a Web Hosting Company to Partner With

A better course of action is to choose a web hosting provider that is able to provide the flexibility and scalability that you’ll inevitably require. You’ll want to find a web hosting company that can basically hold your hand the whole way through, without the need of potentially disruptive external server migrations. 

Scalability is the key here. Whilst there’s no point paying for a high performance dedicated or cloud hosting plan when you’re first getting started. You’ll want to ensure that upgrading to this is as easy as flipping a switch or a toggle in your web hosts control panel.

Find a long term partner with whom you can grow

Do your research and partner with a Web Hosting company that you feel comfortable with and confident in building your online presence. You’ll want to find a company that you’re happy to partner with over the long term, as there is nothing worse than having to migrate to another company and face all the potential disruption to your website and your customers.

Scalability is Key in Building Your Online Presence

These days many web hosting companies offer truly scalable cloud based options where you’re only billed for the resources your site actually uses. So if you experience a huge spike in traffic, your website is able to cope easily with the extra strain on resources, without going offline. 

Pay for what you actually use, not what you might use

The beauty of this, with the right web hosting provider, is that you’re only billed the extra when the spikes in traffic happen. So for example if you’re running a bookings site that only has two major events per year. You’ll pay for the smallest plan for perhaps 10 months of the year and only pay the extra for the two months where the bookings go off the charts.

The Dilemma of Site Speed

Another thing to consider when it comes to running a successful website is the dilemma of site speed. 

It’s a known fact that most website visitors will only stick around for 4 seconds waiting for a website to load. 

If your site takes longer than the infamous 4 seconds, then you’ll be losing site visitors before they’ve even had a chance to view your content. This can be devastating when it comes to PPC advertising, where you’re paying for peoples visits and depending on them to convert into paying customers.

Do the due diligence, do your research

Make sure when doing your research, that you look closely at the web hosting companies server speeds. One of the main factors to consider here is server location. If you’re opting for a cloud based plan, then usually this is well sorted through the use of CDN’s and globally distributed cloud servers. 

Location, location, location

However if you’re opting for a cheaper shared hosting plan, you should check to see where the server is located. If most of your customers are based in the US, then there’s no point opting for a server based in Asia and vice versa.

Choose The Right Server Setup for Building Your Online Presence

Another consideration is server setup. Are you opting for a fully managed server or are you opting for a self managed VPS? While a self-managed VPS or Dedicated Server can give you the ultimate flexibility. It does mean that you’ll also need to mitigate any potential problems you may encounter. 

Do you want the ease of a managed server or the freedom and flexibility of a self-managed server?

A fully managed server might add a few limitations like perhaps a choice between only 2 web server implementations or perhaps 1 or 2 operating system choices. But it does mean you’ll have some top gun experts on hand to fix the problems if and when they arise.

So many options, so many choices. Let us help you choose

It can be a daunting prospect sifting through all of the available options out there, trying to pin down the best web hosting company to partner with, in building your online presence and trying to find the one that fits you and your business the best, can be quite the task. 

That’s why we’ve done some of the heavy lifting for you and reviewed some of the top web hosting companies in the business. Take a look at our quick and simple web hosting reviews by clicking the link below.

Hosting Reviews
Welcome to Hosting Reviews A quick and easy, no-nonsense guide to finding the best web hosting solution for you. In…sites.getthe.info

Why Bother with a Paid VPN Service? Let Me Count the Ways

If you enjoyed this article, like, share and subscribe. You’ll encourage us to keep writing more like this 🙂

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Why Bother with a Paid VPN Service? Let Me Count the Ways

The evil of Geo Restrictions

Why bother with a paid VPN service? Chalk it up to the age old wisdom: “A stitch in time saves nine”

Ahh, the Wicked Wild West of the internet. A place where your personal data is sold to the highest bidder and floats around the World Wide Web like a lost sock in the clothes dryer. Why bother with a paid VPN service? Well there’s one good reason right there. And dare I rub salt into the wound by even mentioning your favorite Netflix show. You know?! The one that has somehow become like the proverbial unicorn, available only in mystical lands on the other side of the flaming planet. Ohh yes, that’s another great reason.

I’m so over it! And I’m sure you are too. Normally I’m the kinda guy who will pay for your lunch, buy you dinner, shout you to the cinema, I’ve even been known to give the odd car or two away. Actually I’m up to my fourth but that’s not my point and that’s another story.

Am I just cheap?

I relish buying expensive things, because I can. And the thing is, I seem to have no problem giving those things or even thousands of dollars away. But ask me to spend two or three dollars a month on a VPN and I’ll be telling you to take a hike!

Why do I seem to have such an aversion to spending a tiny bit of my hard earned cash on such an important thing? I think as one of the Gen X’ers who grew up with the invention of the internet transforming our lives. I seemingly became used to getting everything I wanted from the internet for free.

Free this and free that. There were the glorious days of Napster, for all the free music you could muster. Then Limewire too. There were free product samples in every direction. It was free samples galore! And almost whatever you needed online, there was some company offering it for free in exchange for your precious Compuserve or Netscape address.

I know, I know, there’s no free lunch

At the end of the day, as we all already know, there’s no such thing as a free lunch — unless of course I’m the one buying it for you. But for the most part, you certainly get what you pay for. And if you’ve ever tried using a free VPN then you’re already well aware that you’re getting what you paid for. That’s right, pretty much nothing!

You’re getting no real value from a free VPN, as the people who run them have to make a living somehow. So they’re either selling you ads, or selling your data or perhaps much, much worse, in some cases they can be intercepting your tunnelled traffic, viewing it in an unencrypted state and then exploiting your passwords and other high value targets such as crypto deposits or banking credentials.

So what and where does that leave us? At some point you just have to come to terms with it, and realize that the minuscule cost of a good VPN, is simply part of the cost of doing business these days on the internet. A paid VPN service promises to encase your online activity in a safely encrypted tunnel, shielding you from cybercriminals and geo-restrictions alike.

Why do we really need yet another subscription?

So why bother with a paid VPN service? Is a paid VPN really necessary? Why should we bother with such a service? Allow me to whisper a few ghost-like stories with you over the cyber campfire. Stories of ransomware nightmares and Netflix-induced geo-restriction rage.

Let’s begin with everyone’s favorite horror scenario: Ransomware attacks! Consider for a moment, you’re casually scrolling away on your computer, not a care in the world. Perhaps looking for a nice new recipe or catching up on the latest cat memes. When you’re rudely interrupted with a screen that has suddenly taken over your computer. The sheer terror grips you as you realize the ramifications of what has just taken place. The belligerent message demanding Bitcoin payment, coldly confirms it.

Congratulations! You have just become the next accidental star of your own ransomware horror flick. If only you had paid the two or three measly dollars and got that paid VPN service. The one that includes anti-virus and anti-malware. Your data would have been encrypted and your online actions would have been kept private from those prying eyes.

Suddenly, these cyber criminals’ threats would have been as useless as a one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest. Although nothing these days is foolproof, having a decent VPN and an online security package can make a huge impact for your online safety. Trust me, receiving a warning that the software you’re trying to install is potentially infected with malware, is literally worth its weight in gold, or Bitcoin!

Yet another entertaining reason why we need paid VPNs

Now, let’s discuss the bane of practically every Netflix fan’s existence… Geo-restrictions! Doesn’t that word make your skin crawl? As I say it, as I type it, all I can picture is some pasty-white Nazi-like corporate vampire with a greasy slick comb over. No, with a middle part! Yes! A hair part right down the center of his greasy head! Spluttering saliva with his eagerness to speak it! That filthy word, forced through his pathetic gritted-teeth smile… “Geeeeeeo-restrictions”.

We’ve all been there: Filled with anticipation as we settle down for a cozy night in, only to have our balloon popped with that dreaded “This content is not available in your country” notice. Talk about tearing the heart and soul out of an otherwise great night! Shame on these greedy corporate scum.

This is perhaps the one that’s enough to push me over the edge. Will I flip the switch on the paid VPN service? It sure would be nice to simply launch my VPN, choose a server in the country of my choice, and then do what I set out to do in the first place. Watch my movie! After all, I’ve already paid Netflix for the privilege. I just need to be in the country the corporate overlords have determined, to squeeze the maximum profit out of me.

With a paid VPN subscription you can change your destination to route through whatever country you prefer, technically meaning you are watching that stream from that country. It’s potentially a very gray area, but it does mean you can watch all of the Netflix originals you want that you’ve already paid them to watch.

But wait there’s more — sorry no steak knives this time 🙂

Why stop there? There are numerous advantages to using a commercial VPN service. From protecting your sensitive data to avoiding government censorship, the options are as limitless as the internet itself.

So why bother with a paid VPN service?

Because in a world where online threats are practically everywhere and geo-restrictions are the current corporate weapon, a stitch in time saves nine. And a little digital safety goes a long, long way. So I’ve done some research and a fair bit of the due diligence for you, and looked up a bunch of details on several of the world’s best VPNs. I think it’s better to be safe and entertained than sorry and frustrated.

So, if you’re like me and are now in the market for a decent VPN service, then take a look at this quick and simple VPN review I’ve put together…

EXCLUSIVE REPORT – Best VPN Review
Welcome to Best VPN Review A quick and easy, no-nonsense guide to finding the Top VPNs in the market. These days…sites.getthe.info

Building Your Online Presence

If you enjoyed this article, like, subscribe and share. You’ll encourage us to keep writing more like this 🙂

You can find our socials here. If you’d like to stay up to date with what we have in the pipeline, you can subscribe to our mailing list here. Thank you for reading, you’re amazing!

This article contains affiliate links and we may receive a commission if you click on any of these links. Images created with www.kittl.com