As an old computer hack from 40 years back, I get really up tight when I see companies taking advantage of people with simple needs. I have written software and spent thousands on software other people wrote, but today when I just wanted to keep a little database on some websites I maintain, it took me more time than I care to admit to find that simple little inexpensive program I needed.

But find it I did and I downloaded the free version and had my database up and receiving information in a matter of minutes. This is the way the Internet should be and I bet there will be more than one paying customer I send their way with larger needs they can make some money from.

So if you want to catalog your hobby or even keep names and addresses, take a look at www.FileAmigo.com

What a breath of fresh air after spending a couple of hours looking at stuff the size a corporation would need that wanted to suck a few hundred bucks out of my bank account.

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There are so many Web Hosting deals out there from free to high priced dedicated servers, it’s hard to pick the sweet spot. You want enough support to make sure you can stay online, but you don’t need a full time expert and the fee that comes with it.

A lot of my friends just need a place to put up a few Splash Pages and maybe a nice page to tell their story about why they’re online and how things are going. For that much, you don’t need high end hosting, but a free host is not going to have any commitment to keep you running.

The other day I was browsing around and ran into what I think is a sweet spot indeed. The basics for ONE BUCK a month. Plenty of space and bandwidth, but no databases unless you pay a little more. They do include PHP so you can run scripts and I have one to track how many downloads I get that works sweet. You don’t need your own domain name which saves a little more because they let you use the username you pick out as a subdomain on their space, like http://oldbuddy.angryhosting.com

There’s a PDF report linked on that page with some details on using Splash Pages you may find interesting. Check it out for yourself. If you don’t need any more power than what they offer, why pay more?

If a picture is worth a thousand words, this should be worth at least a million!

I would love to read your comments on this.

We’ve all been there, you want to satisfy your curiosity to see what’s on the other side of that email capture form on a webpage you visit, but you don’t want to get all the spam it will surely result in down the line.

It still floors me that so many online marketers are living in the dark ages and trying to build a list of email addresses that mostly never get read just so 2% of those who don’t know any better might see their message and 1% of those might even buy something. Not much better odds than spamming everyone, is it?

Enough pontificating, here’s the answer http://mailinator.com/

Now here’s a couple of simple tips:

Scroll down the left column and you’ll see an address they made up for you, so copy and paste it into your email client to send a test email. You know you want to, so go ahead it’s free.

Then go back to the home page and enter that address in the Check Your Inbox and click Go!

See it works and you didn’t have to sign up for anything. Now simply bookmark this Inbox page so you can come back and check your incoming junk mail anytime you need to, like to validate your email address to get something you want.

Now look at the top of your Inbox page and copy the Alternate Address to put into all the capture forms trying to block you. That keeps anyone else from seeing your email unless they can guess the real inbox name, highly unlikely.

Not a perfect solution yet, but certainly a step in the right direction and as easy as it gets.

Since I’m involved in activities that generate spam, it goes without saying that free email accounts are a necessity and my hands-down favorite is Google’s Gmail. The one reason that puts them head and shoulders above the rest in my opinion, is the ability to forward automatically to another account.

You can have as many as you want, so I use one main account to act as a receiver and several disposable accounts that forward to it. If I get one that starts getting flooded with spam, it’s a simple matter to delete it and set up a replacement.

Click on Settings at the top of your account page and then Forwarding to set up where you want it to end up. Make sure you use the drop down box to delete Gmail’s copy so they don’t pile up.

There are tons of other useful features (like built in chat) but forwarding should be enough to get you interested, then you can have fun discovering the rest.

I had a few friends check this blog out and one of the questions I got back was how much did I pay for the header graphic I used? I decided years ago. that if I were going to commit to learning this stuff I would have to invest in some good tools (but not too much).

The template for this blog layout was free from Wordpress (there’s a link at the bottom). The hand with the two cents is a stock photo I bought for one buck at Dreamstime and I put it all together with an older version of Photoshop Elements I picked up on Ebay for less than $20 (with a discount). A great investment that has served me well for many years.

The bottom line is, none of this stuff requires anything more than a real interest in learning and basic computer skills. Then when you get a bug like I did when I thought of this concept, you can have it online in a few hours for not much more than the cost of the domain name. I think my total investment came to about $25 for a whole year. It has already made that back and I just started.