eBook Download Shop Blog

Social Bookmarking is a hot topic and I have been wondering how some people manage to get a BOOKMARK button added to the end of all posts on their Blogs.

Searching the internet I found a free WordPress Bookmark plugin supplied by AddThis and have installed it on this Blog.

This Plugin (the new drop-down version) will automatically insert the AddThis widget below each post in your blog (see it below this post). It’s very easy to install, you don’t even need to change anything in your templates. Here are the instructions:

1) CLICK HERE to download the software onto your computer
2) Unzip the file
3) Upload its contents into your wp-content/plugins directory
4) Log into your Wordpress blog, click on the ‘Plugins’ tab, and click ‘Activate’

This Plugin supports Stats. If you want to get bookmarking statistics (e.g. top bookmarked posts over various time periods), open the .php file and set the ‘addthis_username’ variable to, well, your AddThis username.

Note that this free software is not just restricted to use on Blog Posts; you can also use the Bookmark icon on a normal website, MySpace page or in a newsletter.  You can get the code for these other uses from within your AddThis account area.

Have fun!

It has now been about 2 months since I started this Blog and began my journey. So far I have used this Blog as a way of sharing the problems I encountered setting up my website and the letting you know the solutions I found. Hopefully you have found my Blog Posts useful as there are several more I would like to make about the technical problems of setting up a website, however I have neglected to keep you up to date with the business side of things so you are probably unaware of what has been going on in the background.

A couple of weeks ago I decided I could benefit from formal Internet Marketing training. I have enough technical knowledge to feel at ease using the internet and building websites but very little experience of actually making money from any activities on the net. I therefore had a look around the many different courses that were available and decided to join the Step-By-Step Internet Course (www.stepbystepinternethelp.com). I have to admit that one of the reasons I opted for this course was that it is completely free. Bearing this in mind I was not expecting much support however I am finding that the support is exceptional and the tutors very friendly and helpful. Again, bearing in mind I am already technically competent I was expecting the course, which is aimed at complete beginners, to be extremely basic and not much use to me; yet the basics, such as creating a simple website and using FTP are covered in a series of very good eBooks you receive free when you sign up and it is not very long before the Project Leader (Carol Smith) gets down to business and has her students brainstorming ideas for themes and niches they want to build their business on. The course it broken down into very manageable steps each prompting students like myself to take action and am finding the methodical way it is teaching me the process of building my Internet Marketing career invaluable.

I will keep you up to date with my progress via this Blog as I work my way through the course. I am currently at the brainstorming stage (Step 5).

Once you have had a Blog, or website, for a while you begin to appreciate the value of your subscribers and sometimes want to share something special with them which you do not want the entire internet community to have access to. Perhaps, for example, you have developed a handy piece of software that you wish to share only with your subscribers, or you have a special selection of hand-picked Free Gifts for them.

One way around this would be to publish a simple “Free Gifts” download link in your newsletter. This can be ok but sometimes you may like the extra reassurance of password protecting the download page. You can then publish a new password in each newsletter with the reassurance that only current subscribers will then be able to access your protected webpage.

There are many programs available to create, and manage, Membership Areas on websites but these can be expensive, complex to set up and way over the top if all you want to do is password protect a single webpage.

I got around this problem for free by using a simple PHP script and thought I would share this script with you in case you also find it useful.

You can see the basic script in action by going to:
www.blog.ebook-download-shop.co.uk/Subscribersonly.php
and using the username “subscriber” and password “letmein”.

My “Subscribersonly.php” webapge begins with the following partial script:

<head>
<title>eBook Download Shop Newsletter Subscribers Only Area</title>
</head>
<body>
<?php
if (isset($_POST["entered_username"]) && isset($_POST["entered_password"])
&& ($_POST["entered_username"]==”$current_newsletter_username”)
&& ($_POST["entered_password"]==”$current_newsletter_password”))
{
?>

I then typed in all the HTML text from my private webpage followed by the second half of the script:

<?php
}
else
{
  if (isset($_POST['entered_username']) || isset($_POST['entered_password']))
  {
     print “<p style=\”color: rgb(255, 0, 0);\” align=\”center\”>
           <b>Oooops! Incorrect Login!</b></p>”;
  }
  print “<form method=\”post\”>
  <h3 style=\”text-align: center;\”>Please login using the details from our latest newsletter:</h3>
  <div style=\”text-align: center;\”>Username <input name=\”entered_username\” type=\”username\” size=\”16\” maxlength=\”16\”><br>
  Password <input name=\”entered_password\” type=\”password\” size=\”16\” maxlength=\”16\”><br>
  <br>
  <input name=\”Login\” value=\”Login\” type=\”submit\”></div></form>”;
}
?>
<p> </p>
</body>
</html>

That is it. Simple and to the point. You can of course have a lot of fun fancying-up the appearance of the webpage as much as you desire but the above script is the basic guts which you need to password protect your page.

I hope you found this free Webapge Password Protect script useful.  Unfortunately this Blog template sometimes messes up the formatting of my PHP code snippets but if you are one of my newsletter subscribers you can, as usual, download the files mentioned in this tutorial from the subscribers area of our website.

When browsing websites I notice that many have been set up to display a little icon next to their website address in my web browser:

I felt that I would like my own website to have it’s own little Favourites Icon (called a favicon ) and after reading up a bit about them realised that although there are many software programs sold to help you create them they are actually very easy to create for free. I therefore thought I would write this short Blog Post to show you how I created mine for free in case you would like to do the same.

The first task is to create your icon. I used the “Paint” program included free as part of Windows. All you need to do is create a 16 pixel by 16 pixel drawing using only the 16 colour bitmap palette.

Warning: A 16 pixel square is SMALL! Try to keep your icon simple or it will just be a blur!

The icon I created, and saved as 16 colour bitmap called “favicon.bmp” looks like this:

I then used the free image viewer program IrfanView to view my icon file. While viewing it I clicked on “FILE > SAVE AS” and saved it as “FILE TYPE = ICO – Windows Icon” with the name favicon.

Once I had my “favicon.ico” file I used FTP to upload it into the root directory of my webspace.

I then used a Text Editor to add the following extra line to my “index.html” file just before the “</header>” tag:

<link REL=”SHORTCUT ICON” HREF=”http://newsletter.ebook-download-shop.co.uk/favicon.ico”>

I uploaded my modified “index.html” page and when I viewed my webpage my little favicon magically appeared! Amazing; I had created my own little favicon for free without spending a single penny. Why don’t you try it!

Have fun!

These last few days I came across a problem:  I have an eBook that I wish to give to selected people but which I wish to hide in a secret location on my website so they have no idea where it is stored.  In this secret location I also have several other eBooks for other customers to download but I want the download directory’s physical location to be hidden so that even when someone downloads an eBook they have no idea where it is stored so cannot browse, or steal, any of the other eBooks stored there.

If I was going to sell my eBook I could use one of the several Digital Download software packages (such as SmartDD Lite which I give free to my newsletter subscribers, or MyDigitalDispatch) to interact with PayPal and manage downloads but what if I wanted to give my eBook away free and was looking for a much simpler, no cost, D.I.Y solution?

I find it easier to explain through example so lets take the eBook “Opening an_AWeber Account Made Simple” and go through the steps of creating a cloaked link for it.  I have put a copy of this eBook HERE.  What I want to do is hide it in a secret location in my webspace and then create a cloaked link to it.  While we are doing this I also want to add a counter to the link so I can see how many times the eBook is downloaded.

The first problem is that if someone clicks on my bare Make Money Online link then the eBook will open up in their web browser.  This is good as it will enable them to read it, but bad because their web browser will show them the location of the eBook.

The first task is therefore to pack the eBook into a ZIP file so that it will not be automatically opened in a web browser but downloaded instead.  There are several ZIP programs but I prefer to use WinZip.  You can download a free trial version from HERE.

Once you have zipped your eBook try typing it’s location into your web browser and the web browser should, this time, ask you if you want to download the file rather than opening it (click HERE to see what I mean).

The next task is to hide your zipped eBook file in a secret location in your webspace.  For this example I have created a subdirectory called Secret_Location and moved my eBook into there.  The secret location of my eBook is therefore now: http://www.blog.ebook-download-shop.co.uk/Secret_Location/Opening_an_AWeber_Account_Made_Simple.zip.

But I now have a problem in that there are several other files stored in this location and I want to to stop people I am giving this link to from stealing these other eBooks.  The first thing to do is to create a simple “index.html” file.  If I gave someone the above link and they knew a bit about websites they would know that to list all the other files in my secret location all they would need to do is type in the directory name and miss off the file name and their web browser would show them a list of all the files stored there.  One way to get around this is to use your Text Editor (such as Windows Notepad) to create a simple file containing the following:

<html>
<head>
<title>Error</title>
</head>
<body>
<p style=”text-align: center;”>You are not authorised to view this directory</p>
</body>
</html>

Save this files as “index.html” in your secret directory.  Now if a hacker types your secret directory’s location into their web browser they will simply see a warning message rather than a list of your eBooks.

To recap: so far we have converted our eBook into a ZIP file, created a secret directory in our webspace, uploaded the zip file into this directory, created a hacker warning file and also up loaded this into our secret directory.

Now that we have done the basics the fun starts as we firstly want to create a cloaked link to this eBook to hide it’s location and then add a download counter.

Our aim is to be able to give people a link such as:
www.blog.ebook-download-shop.co.uk/Recommends/Opening_an_AWeber_Account_Made_Simple

The first thing we need to do is to create a directory called “Recommends” and then within that directory to create another directory called “Opening_an_AWeber_Account_Made_Simple”.

Once we have created these directories then we can use a Text Editor (such as Windows Notepad) to create the following file and save it as “index.html” within our new Opening_an_AWeber_Account_Made_Simple directory:

<html>
<head>
<title>Opening an AWeber Account Made Simple</title>
<meta http-equiv=”refresh” content=”2;URL= http://www.blog.ebook-download-shop.co.uk/Secret_Location/Opening_an_AWeber_Account_Made_Simple.zip“>
</head>
<body>
<p style=”text-align: center;”>Please wait for a few seconds while download starts…</p>
</body>
</html>

Now you can tell people the link to your eBook is:
www.blog.ebook-download-shop.co.uk/Recommends/Opening_an_AWeber_Account_Made_Simple

And they will have no idea at all that your eBook is actually stored in:
www.blog.ebook-download-shop.co.uk/Secret_Location/Opening_an_AWeber_Account_Made_Simple.zip

We have therefore created our first cloaked link.  If your webspace is PHP enabled then you can make this cloaked link more useful by adding a download counter to keep track of how many times your eBook has been downloaded.

If your webspace is PHP enabled then we can delete the index.html file we created earlier within our MakeMoneyOnlineForNewbies directory and, instead, upload the following three files:

A file named “index.php” containg the following:

<?php
 $hits = file_get_contents(”counter.txt”);
 $hits = $hits + 1;
 $handle = fopen(”counter.txt”, “w”);
 fwrite($handle, $hits);
 fclose($handle);
 Header(”Location:http://www.blog.ebook-download-shop.co.uk/Secret_Location/Opening_an_AWeber_Account_Made_Simple.zip”);
?>

A file named “counter.txt” containing just the single character zero.

0

and a file named “downloads.php” containing the following:

<?php
$hits = file_get_contents(”counter.txt”);
echo “My eBook has been downloaded “.$hits.” times”;
?>

The download link that we give to customers to download their eBook still remains:
www.blog.ebook-download-shop.co.uk/Recommends/Opening_an_AWeber_Account_Made_Simple

But now we can see how many times our eBook has been downloaded by simply running the “downloads.php” file in our web browser:
www.blog.ebook-download-shop.co.uk/Recommends/Opening_an_AWeber_Account_Made_Simple/downloads.php

I hope you found this Blog post useful.  If you are one of my newsletter subscribers you can download the files mentioned in this tutorial from the subscribers area of our website.

Hello Big Wide World!

As I have mentioned in my ABOUT ME page; I am currently only at the start of my long journey along the path the earning a full-time living online.  My online income is currently insignificant and I am no guru; but I would like to use this Blog as a medium to share what little experience I have already gained.

As I also mentioned; I am fully aware that with so much information overload and with everyone trying to sell everyone else almost every product immaginable, it is easy to colapse confused and exhausted then get caught in the trap of forever seaching for, and reading about, the latest and hotest techniques but END UP NEVER ACTUALLY DOING ANYTHING.

I would therefore like to start this Blog sharing the simple steps I have taken so far in preperation for my journey.

The first thing I done was to seek out a group of like-minded people to accompany me along the pathway.  To achive this I signed up to John Thornhill’s 90 Day Powerseller program which has an excellent and very helpful members-only forum and provides access to an enormous range of info products with Resell Rights which I can use to start bringing in some income.

I opened an eBay account and a PayPal account.

I have purchased my own Domain Name and webspace.

I have installed the free eBook website shop from the 90 Day Powerseller Members Area.

I have subscribed to the Aweber Autoresponder Service ready to start building a subscriber list for my newsletter.

I have purchased an excellent eBook about creating your own info product and am using a “taster” version of it free of charge to people who sign up to my mailing list.

Finally I have set up this Blog with the hope that the experiences I share along my long journey to a full-time online income will be an encouragement and help to others.

So there you have it.  This is the start of my journey.  With trembling feet and shaking hands I make this, my first entry in my Blog, and, with new eBook website poised to receive visitor and my empty mailing list waiting for it’s first subscriber, I take my first small step out into The Big Wide World and begin my journey.

Wishing you sucess,
Ian.