Resources

Tips for Starting an Affiliate Program

Do you have a website where you sell products or services? If so, bring traffic to your site by starting an affiliate program. It’s a simple and affordable way to promote your site and the benefits are out of this world. You’ll save money on site promotion that will pay your affiliates and you’ll have money left over.

What is an Affiliate Program?

When you use an affiliate program, you offer others the opportunity to promote and sell your products and services, then pay them a commission for doing so. These people are known as affiliates.

Benefits of an Affiliate Program

Your products and services will be sold and it won’t be up to you alone to promote your website. Your affiliates do the job for you.

With little effort on your part, banners and links to your website are visible to thousands of people world wide twenty-four hours a day, all year long. This increases your website’s visibility.

By using an affiliate program, your business will appear to be huge and your credibility will be prominent.

An affiliate program will increase your sales dramatically. The days when only big sites set up and run an affiliate program are over. Setting up an affiliate program is simple. There’s more than one way to do so. Let’s take a look at some of the choices.

Hosting Companies

Hire a hosting company to set up an affiliate program. Many hosting companies will provide and set up the affiliates for you on your website free of charge. However, before you hire a hosting company, you will need to decide the objectives of your affiliate program.

Will you ask the hosting company to clone your website, or can script be installed and affiliate sales be tracked on your present site? Be sure to look at a range of affiliate programs before you decide on one. Different affiliate programs will have different options. You need to choose one that will meet your needs and allow you to meet your sales goals.

Another way to run an affiliate program is to hire someone to install the script on your website. After that, you will run the affiliate program yourself. This puts you in the driver’s seat and gives you full control over the affiliate program. However, if you wish to go this route, you need to have the capability to accept online credit cards through our own merchant account.

Questions?

• Before you set up your affiliate program, ask yourself the following questions:
• Will you give each affiliate a unique ID to simply track your sales?
• Is a flat rate or percentage commission the right way for your to pay your affiliates?
• Will affiliates only be from your country, or do you wish to have international affiliates?
• Will you pay affiliates for completed sales, or only for leads and clicks?
• Will you pay your affiliates who make sales directly, or will you construct a two-tier system and pay affiliates for both referrals and sales?
• Do you want your affiliates to market all of your products and services, or only a select few?

Merchant Account

If you have your own merchant account but want your affiliates to track and care for your affiliate program, use one of the many online services that do so for a set fee.

If you don’t have your own merchant account, use affiliates who provide a checkout and tract the affiliate sales.

Setting up an Affiliate Program

When choosing a hosting service that will set up an affiliate program, look at things from the affiliate’s perspective. In order to run a successful affiliate program, you will want your affiliates to by happy. Keep things simple! Offer a selection of banner sizes and text links. Provide real-time statistics and an e-mail service that will send your affiliates notification of sales.

Promotion

Check online for sites that provide marketing information on affiliate programs. There are a wide variety of these sites to choose from.

Whatever options you chose for your affiliate program, you will be amazed at the increase in sales in a very short time period. Affiliate programs can increase your website productivity and make it one of the best on the Internet.

Why does my Facebook page only show half of it as there are no scroll bars on either side?

Faulty display of the Facebook page seems to be a common occurrence. Sometimes even less of the page is showing for users of this popular social site. It is possible that your settings have changed on your computer, especially if you have recently updated any of your applications. In particular, the page display problem could arise if the settings for Java have changed or if you need to update it.

Run the Java Test

Now would be a good time to run the “Java Test.” This will check your installation of Java and let you know if it is functional. Simply visit this link: Java Test. If your Java is working properly, you will see the famous “Dancing Duke Logo.”

If your Java is experiencing a problem, then you won’t see the logo. If that happens, you will probably have to enable Java on your computer or complete an uninstall and reinstall of the Java application and enable it. Check your settings first and make sure that you have it enabled before you go through the trouble of uninstalling and reinstalling Java.

Update Java

If your version of Java is working correctly, make sure that you have the latest updates for it. If you do update, make sure that you enable Java on your computer.

Update Internet Explorer

Occasionally, problems with Java can occur if you haven’t updated to the latest version of Internet Explorer. You should be using IE 7. If you aren’t using IE7, visit this link, Internet Explorer Upgrade, and install the latest version of IE.

Enable Java in Internet Explorer

Follow the steps presented here to make sure that you have Java enabled on your computer. Even if you did this previously, do it now so that you can check to make sure the settings did not change.

1)      Open up Internet Explorer.

2)      Click on “Tools.”

3)      Click on “Internet Options” in the menu.

4)      Click on “Advanced.”

5)      Navigate to the option to enable Java. Check off the box in front of this option.

6)      Select “ok.”

7)      Restart Internet Explorer to apply the settings.

Enable ActiveX and Active Scripting in Internet Explorer

You might also need to enable ActiveX and Active Scripting in Internet Explorer.

1)      Open up “Internet Explorer.”

2)      Click on “Tools.”

3)      Click on “Internet Options” in the menu.

4)      Click on “Security.”

5)      Click on “Default Level.”

6)      Click on “ok.”

Random Troubleshooting Suggestions

If the setting for the page layout is set too wide, you will lose all of the side bars on the display. Have you recently changed the display settings for your monitor?

Select the “Update Feed” button on the screen. This might offer a temporary solution for you.

Sign into your logon page fresh. Don’t click on a saved link to log in as this might be automatically looping you to the bad display.

Clear the Internet cache including cookies and history.

I have a problem. The other day my teen’s friend downloaded this MSN thing for the messenger. She said it was an update. Right after we were getting all kinds of pop ups everywhere. I removed the program and then was going to do a scan when our computer froze. So then I tried to unfreeze it. Nothing was working. I pressed Ctrl alt delete. Nothing. I had to shut it off. I did the reset button. Nothing will get this computer to turn back on. The light in front that would be green when on is flashing yellow. It does not sound like the motor is running when I try to turn it on. Any suggestions?  

Troubleshooting an Unresponsive Computer

Computer Crash After “Update”

It sounds as though you have inadvertently downloaded a virus. It is not uncommon for malware programs, spyware and adware to be disguised as useful programs like updates or security software to increase the chances that users will allow them access to their systems.

Flashing Yellow Light and a Power Problem

Before we troubleshoot a virus on your computer, let’s spend a minute on that flashing amber light. If it is your Start button that is usually green when the power is on that is flashing yellow, it could be a power supply problem. Since your computer is flashing yellow when you are trying to turn it on, it might be stuck in sleep mode. Try pressing the power button to awaken it. Assuming that this won’t work, unplug the power cord from your computer and let it rest for a few minutes. Plug something else into the power outlet to make sure that the power supply is good, then plug the computer cord back in and try turning the computer on.

Run Updated Virus, Adware and Spyware Scan

If your system boots up at this point, don’t open any programs or go online, as this might advance the virus. Open your security software and run a virus scan right away. You should also visit the antivirus manufacturer’s website and look for any available updates. Also, it is a very good idea to download and run an adware protection program like AdAware as well, since it sounds as though your original problem was an adware program posting unwanted pop-ups.

Boot into Safe Mode

It is unusual for a malware program to be as effective as the one you are describing, it usually takes some time for the virus to advance to the stage where your computer won’t boot up, but assuming for now that this is the problem, we can try to get you back on your computer. If your computer doesn’t boot after the power cord experiment, you can try to get on your computer in Safe Mode.

Booting into Safe Mode in XP and Vista

You should turn your computer off, even if that means unplugging it, then boot up, pressing the F8 key repeatedly. The Windows Advanced Options Menu should appear. If it doesn’t, or if you receive a keyboard error, try again, this time waiting slightly longer to start pressing F8. Choose Safe Mode from the menu, then press Enter. Your computer should boot into Safe Mode and you can then try to troubleshoot the virus. To avoid the necessity of going online in Safe Mode, you can load the antivirus program from a CD.

Hi. My Bebo has changed. I am English and it has switched to Spanish. Could you help me?

Hola Senorita. Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. It took me a few minutes of exploring Bebo to figure this one out. But I’ve found the solution!

First, What is Bebo?

Bebo.com is a social networking site featuring videos, channels, blogs, fiction, groups, and applications. Honestly, I had never tried it out until today when tackling your question. I had to sign up for an account in order to access the Help section, which didn’t say a whole lot about changing the language in Bebo. So, I was on my own.

Going International on Bebo

It turns out that you can set Bebo to display in the following languages: French, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, German, Polish, and English. If you want to change the Bebo language, you simply need to go down to the lower right corner of the screen and look for the flag beside the copyright notice. In your case, you should see a red and yellow striped flag and the word “Español.” Click this word and pick English from the list.

Changing the Font on Bebo  

In your original question to Filetonic.com, you mentioned also that the font had changed. This one is a mystery to me. I thought at first that the language change may have also affected the font, but when I switched back and forth between English and Spanish, I couldn’t tell any difference. The only other thing I could think of was that changing skins might also change the font style.

I did find a cool little Web site that you can enter specific text into and have the font change automatically into several different styles. From there, you can cut and paste the desired text into your Bebo site.

Filetonic readers and Bebo experts, I’m asking for your help. If anyone knows how to change the font in Bebo, could you post the instructions here?

I have installed yahoo messenger the icon is showing on front page, but giving me a message about not being able to find the file to be able to open it.

Troubleshooting a Yahoo Messenger Installation

Causes of Installation Errors

Sometimes there are problems with the contents of download and installation files, or errors that occur in the transfer of program files. Without knowing more about your computer and the operating system that you are running I would have to say that you have most likely downloaded a corrupt file or an otherwise dysfunctional Yahoo Messenger application.

Remove the Corrupt Installation and Program Files

In this case you need to uninstall the program and remove all traces of the corrupt files. It is important that you first remove the downloaded application completely before attempting a new download and installation. You can follow the steps below - for either XP or Vista - to remove the Yahoo download and its associated files.

1. For Windows XP: Open the Start Menu, then Control Panel, and then Add/Remove Programs. Find the Yahoo Messenger application from the list, click to choose this program, and then select Uninstall.

For Windows Vista: Open the Start Menu, then Control Panel, and then Uninstall a Program. Find the Yahoo program and then click on it to uninstall.

1. In order to ensure that the corrupted file is removed open the Start Menu, then My Computer, then C: drive, and then Program Files. From this list, find the Yahoo Messenger folder, click to select, and then delete.

1. Reboot your computer to allow the changes to take effect.

Install a New Yahoo Messenger Program

Now you are ready to install a new download of Yahoo Messenger. There have been some reports of bugs and other problems with version 9 since it was released in beta so you might consider sticking with the previous version if you continue having problems, which are available here.

Install on Windows XP

The installation process for XP is straightforward. Click on the installation icon to launch the install wizard and then follow all the prompts through to the Finish to ensure a functional installation.

Install on Windows Vista

If you are installing Yahoo Messenger on Vista, you will need to download the program to your desktop, not your C: drive, as the installation wizard will suggest. Once the program installer is saved on the desktop, right click on it and then select Run as Administrator so that the program will install properly.

I have been trying to get a pod cast (www.history.org/mediapodcasts.cfm#CharltonsCoffehouse). When I type this in, I get a box which says it cannot be downloaded, pick a plan to use to download it. So I pick one of the choices and it simply puts me into another page with all sorts of options but nothing to click on to read what the podcast says… Is there an easy way to access this podcast w/o jumping through all these hoops?

Using the address you gave me, I tried to get to this podcast and had the same trouble. It brings up an error message from Adobe, but when you click the links, it won’t tell you what the problem is.

Wrong Podcast Address

The problem you’re having is that the address for this podcast is wrong. By doing a little Internet search, I found another way into this podcast on History.org. Click on this link and then scroll down to the bottom of the page. At the very bottom, you’ll see the podcast for August 18^th, 2008 which is titled “Charlton’s Coffeehouse” and the caption starts off with “A long-absent address returns to Duke of Gloucester Street. . .” I clicked on the “Listen Now” button and it came right up. If you have Quicktime 7 on your computer, you can view the enhanced podcast.

Ways to Find Internet Information

The longer the Internet address, the more likely that something is going to be transcribed incorrectly. A way around this is to click on links directly, like the one we have embedded into this article. Another way is to highlight an address that you find printed on the web, right click it to Copy and position your cursor on the address bar of your Internet homepage. Right click again, choose Paste and the address will appear just as it was in the original document.

Google Search

If you know what you want, but you don’t know where it is located, just do an Internet search on Google and chances are, you’ll find what you need. I found this podcast by typing in “Charleton’s Coffeehouse, podcast” (without the quotes). The history.org site was the third one on the list in the search results. If you know the website you want, you can expand your search criteria as in “Charleton’s Coffeehouse, history.org” and it will narrow it down even further.

As a history buff, I found this website really interesting. I’m going to go and listen to a few of these podcasts and learn a little bit about Colonial Williamsburg. I hope this helps you and that you are soon doing the same.