Joe Moody’s Web Adventures

I occasionally have people people ask me if there’s a better way to share large files than sending them through email. The fact is email is usually the worst way to share large files as many providers don’t accept emails larger than certain size, and it can dramatically slow down email software when the files are downloading.

A much better method is using an FTP server from a reliable FTP Hosting company. FTP, or file transfer protocol, is what webmasters have used for years to publish websites online. Basically it’s a way of moving files from your computer to a server (or uploading) and then someone else can retrieve the file from the server to their computer (downloading).

The better FTP hosts allow you to create private FTP folders for multiple people, each with their own unique login (username and password).  This allows, for instance a graphics company, to allow their clients to send them images, the graphics designers can then edit the images and then the customer can retrieve the finished product, without tying up the email.

The best FTP Hosting company I know of out there is OLI — they not only offer everything I described above but also offer access to Web-FTP which allows you full access to FTP folders to upload and download etc. using just your web browser. It’s so easy soon you’ll be uploading in your sleep.

So I was trying to teach my nine-year-old son, Jack, how to set an alarm to wake up in the morning for school. Yeah I could set my own alarm and go wake him up, but I’m a DIY type of guy, like the whole “teach them how to grow corn, don’t just give them corn” philosophy.

Jack learned how to set the alarm easily, and everything seemed great. That was until our two-year-old son, Mack who has a passion for electronics, wasted no time making Jack’s alarm clock his the newest toy.

Placing the clock up high didn’t help either, as little Mack loves pulling the plugs on stuff.

Then I discovered iPing.com. It’s a service that lets you setup wake-up calls online for free. The phone is near Jack’s room so I figured this was perfect.

So until Mack figures out how to login to websites and adjust settings, I think we’re good.

Check out the site at http://www.iping.com

Ok so we’ve seen the promises that we too can “work from home” by setting up affiliate websites and then sit back and start raking in the money.

I’m putting this to the test in my latest online adventure…

By the way affiliate websites are sites where you create links to products from online retailers like Amazon.com, if anyone clicks a link on your site to get to the product and then makes a purchase, you get a commission, usually a percentage of the sale.

I happened to acquire a pet carriers website recently (hey, I’m a webmaster, these things happen — like a mechanic who acquires an old car the owner no longer wants or needs).

This site already receives a decent amount of traffic and is pretty well placed on Google under the search term pet carriers.

The site also used to sell a brand of dog carriers, cat carriers and even bird carriers.

Now that the owner isn’t selling his product and no longer needs the domain, I’m using it as a testing ground.

I first signed up with the mega-affiliate site Goldencan and they connected me to a pet supplier. I setup links to the pet supplier on the pet carriers website.

Stay tuned and I’ll post here how it goes. I have no bias and nothing to gain (I already make a living online) and just want to see if this affiliate stuff actually has any merit to it.

Stay tuned … or subscribe using the links in the upper right corner.

As a big fan of Curb Your Enthusiasm, the brainchild of Larry David who previously helped write and produce Seinfeld, I was completely let down by the season premier.

It showed signs of what happens when writers run out of new ideas so instead they get more extreme in their plot points.

First, Larry’s fictitious manager Jeff has sex with a mentally impaired person on the drop of a dime (Larry goes to the bathroom and comes back to find Jeff in her bedroom romping away.)

Second, Larry tries to race home to break up with his girlfriend before she’s told she has cancer, reasoning that you “can’t break up with someone who has cancer.” But apparently it’s perfectly OK to break up with someone a few minutes before they are diagnosed.

Not believable and not funny.

I was accustomed to laughing out loud at least several times at Larry’s often mundane but hilarious social faux-pas. But during this first episode of Season 7 I didn’t laugh out loud once. I even tried but it came out more like a forced cough.

Of course we are also getting ready for the Seinfeld reunion episode of Curb, but after seeing this first installment I can only guess it’s just another ploy to keep viewers watching as the true hilarity of Larry David now seems like a parody of itself.

The actors too often were smiling at their own cleverness, another sign of how success can spoil authenticity.

Now for a word about the nature of true comedy, it’s supposed to be uniting and affirming of the goodness of human nature, often by allowing us to laugh at the bad. But if the characters are making decisions that are so inherently wrong that is destroys any possibility of a truly happy ending, then we might as well be dealing with tragedy.

I will watch the next episode and if things improve, I’ll be back here with an update.

Today, it would raise more than a red flag if a flight school student said he didn’t need to learn how to land a plane.

But what we’ve learned goes beyond the added vigilance. Our evolution went something like this:

9-11: Denial
9-12: Anger until the end of 2004
2005 to present: Acceptance

We accept there will always be those who hate us, no matter how much we either bomb or appease.

We accept we can’t convert the world to democratic capitalism, but that America was founded on such principals and should remain that way.

We accept that the Cold War is over unless we behave like it still exists, then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

We accept that world power isn’t in how many nation-states we have influence, but in how much the nation-states and their people respect us.

We accept that that no matter how much bad America has ever done, the good outweighs it. We’re the most charitable country in the world.

We accept that leading by example is the best way to hinder the propagation of our enemies.

We accept that the founders didn’t want an expanding empire, they wanted a free country protected by safe and secure borders.

We’re still struggling with this acceptance, but at least we’ve reached that stage.