Internet Business Software

Here's the quick list of NECESSARY software:

• Antivirus Plus
• HTML Editor
• Email Utility
• FTP Tool
• Compressor/Extractor
• PDF Reader
• Graphics Software

Unfortunately, these days, you have to worry about much more than a group of geeky propeller-heads attacking cyberspace just because they can and because they have nothing better to do. Nowadays you also have to protect yourself against spyware, addware, identity theft, crippling spam, and even hackers. A few years ago, who would have thought you'd have to be concerned with hackers mucking around on your home computer? That was something that only happened to big corporations as part of the industrial espionage game or from the result of one hacker trying to outdo another. Hey, like it or not, welcome to the 21st century.

Most of you probably have an antivirus program such as Norton Antivirus or McAfee Antivirus installed on your computer, and chances are it came with the system when you purchased it. While both of these are excellent protection against viruses, they simply do not provide enough protection. Antivirus software only protects against viruses, worms and trojan horses. It does not even address the other attacks mentioned above. So, what is one supposed to do?

Well, you could just stick with the antivirus software and hope that nothing happens. Or, you could do what some other folks do and download a few addware and spyware removal programs and run them occasionally or when you run into problems. You could also let your email utility handle the spam issue, assuming it has the capability. Then, every time you get something lodged in your system that these programs can't handle, you can go to one of those computer security sites and follow the list of instructions - download this, run that, reboot into safe mode, run this again.... and spend your entire day cleaning your system. Ugghh! Who the heck has time for that nonsense? On top of that, none of these address the real threat of hackers and identity theft. For that, you need a firewall.

Your best solution is something that provides protection from all these threats so that none of them ever make it to your files and hard drive. In other words, cure the disease, don't simply treat the symptoms. After learning my lesson the hard way, I got smart and purchased the eTrust™ Internet Security Suite from Computer Associates. This package is reasonably priced, easy to install, and protects against all of the attacks we've been discussing. It features antivirus, firewall, anti-spyware/addware, and anti-spam software. Computer Associates was offering some pretty nice rebates at the time of this writing, so now might be an excellent time to get your computer and your business protected. Here's the link again:

- eTrust™ Internet Security Suite

HTML Editor
When it comes to actually building your web site(s), there are different options available to you and we'll talk about some of them in a later section. The option, however, that gives you the most flexibility in how you run your business and where you host your business, is to design and create your own web site. To do this you need to be able to generate the authoring language of the Web - HTML or Hypertext Markup Language. HTML is a very easy language to learn, even if you don't have any programming experience and you can find countless online tutorials to help you along the way. But if you don't want to learn HTML, you can still create your own web pages with a special type of HTML editor.

An HTML editor provides a webmaster with an interface that makes the job of creating and altering web pages much easier. Some HTML editors provide a great deal of support in the form of buttons and commands that automatically create specific HTML code. These are called code editors. There are also HTML editors called visual editors that lend even more support by allowing one to create a web page simply by dragging and dropping images, text, and so on. The actual HTML code is created in the background. These are also called WYSIWYG editors or "What You See Is What You Get". Using a WYSIWYG editor makes it so you can create your own web pages without knowing a lick of HTML.

Like anything else, WYSIWYG has its pros and cons. One obvious pro is that you don't have to know HTML. It is also easier to use and makes it possible to create a web page in less time. One of the cons is that many WYSIWYG editors create non-standard, proprietary code that makes it a nightmare to make certain types of changes later. You are also limited in your ability to make global changes across a web site and it is much more difficult to switch to a different editor at a later time.

One of the most popular HTML editors on the market today is also one that I highly recommend. It's called the CoffeeCup HTML Editor 2006 by CoffeeCup Software, Inc. and it actually combines a code editor and a WYSIWYG editor into one program. You can use either the visual editor or the code editor to create your web pages and you have the ability to switch back and forth between editors while working on the same page. This makes learning HTML even easier and positively flattens the learning curve. Some really cool features of the CoffeeCup Editor are embedded JavaScripts and DHTML (Dynamic HTML) scripts, a built in FTP tool, access to free web site templates and an embedded image mapper. It also has a built-in Sitemap creator (very handy) and a cascading stylesheet (CSS) creator. You can take a look at all the features and some screenshots here:

- CoffeeCup HTML Editor Features

Email Utility
It should be fairly obvious that you need email to survive online. As long as you are comfortable with the email utility you are currently using, that will be sufficient for conducting your internet business. When managing affiliate sales, you'll want to make sure that your email program makes it easy to configure, separate and manage multiple email accounts. This includes easily specifying the source email account on outgoing mails.

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FTP Tool
For those of you who don't know, FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. Once you begin building your web site, you're going to need a reliable and easy to use FTP tool for transfering your files to and from your web host server. FTP is a standard protocol and does not involve anything fancy or unusual. For your needs as an internet business person, you can readily get by with any of the countless free FTP tools available. One of the best places to find freeware and shareware applications is tucows. Tucows, by the way, is an acronym for "The Ultimate Collection of Winsock Software". Even though it's name is a bit misleading, tucows does not just help you to find Winsock related software these days. In fact, you can find software for Macintosh, Linux, and PDAs in addition to Windows.

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Compressor/Extractor
At some point you've probably downloaded a file with a *.zip extension, or a 'zip' file. This is a file that has been compressed to preserve bandwidth and to speed up file transfer time. To uncompress and extract the file(s) from a zip file, you need an extraction utility. Probably the most popular extraction utility today is WinZip which you likely already have and use. If you don't, you can download it for free from Tucows. You can also find free compression/extraction utilities for Mac and Linux at tucows.

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PDF Reader
A PDF file is a Portable Document File and is essentially a self contained document that is portable across multiple platforms (ie. Windows, Mac, UNIX, Linux, DOS, etc.). Because it's self contained, the document looks the same no matter which platform it's being viewed upon. The free Acrobat Reader from Adobe is required to view PDF files. If you don't already have it, you can download it from here.

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Graphics Software
If you're going to be creating your own web pages, a good graphics program will be necessary. With this you can create your own logos, design images for business cards, and create, modify, and optimize images in general for your web site. I recommend Paint Shop Pro (PSP), originally made by Jasc Software, but now acquired by Corel. PSP will take care of most graphic needs you'll ever have in web design and it costs far less than any other product, such as Adobe Photoshop. You can get the newest version directly from Corel.

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Now let's move onto a discussion about the different types of internet connections and what to look for from an Internet Service Provider. Even if you're happy with your current ISP, you may still want to read this next section.

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