These days, there is less concern about sharing or hosting files on your own online profile or via one of the big free services like Live Spaces, Dropbox, and so on. However, there are still times where it would be better if particular files were not associated so closely with your name (competitor information, for example). And, even with generous online storage limits and high bandwidth traffic limits capable of handling most legitimate sharing purposes, there are still occasions where hosting on a dedicated file sharing service is better.

There are literally hundreds of online file sharing services, but some of the most popular are Rapidshare, Hotfiles, Depositfiles, and Fileshare. These file sharing websites offer anonymous free file hosting storage and sharing with varying features. You can require a password to access files or just allow anyone who gets the URL to be able to download the file.

Free Online File Host Services

Unlike social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter, or specific purpose file sharing services like Flickr and Photobucket, the file sharing websites like Rapidshare and Depositfiles allow users to share any type of file. They also allow bigger files to be uploaded and most importantly do not require files to be associated with the user wishing to host the files online.

Therefore, a user could host all manner of controversial, topical, or large files and documents with little fear of repercussions or harassment.

For a researcher, access to exactly this type of books, research reports, notes, and white papers is very important. Rather than waiting days (or weeks) for an interlibrary loan of a doctoral dissertation written by a Harvard PhD candidate or just as long for one of the numerous law journals or other publications produced at colleges and universities around the country, an electronic version can often be found online with some diligent searching, or even with the help of a friendly librarian or fellow researchers.

Take a break Citibank rewards catalog 2010 review.

The catch to this utopia of free file hosting and unlimited bandwidth downloading for free is that it is not really free at all. Rather, each file hosting service permits anonymous users to download a small amount of material at a time. Some services go so far as to restrict free downloads to just one file per day or some equally low amount of megabytes in a 24 hour period. To get around this restriction, the file host offers a premium membership for a monthly fee or annual fee.

File Sharing Collaboration Strategy for Business

In theory, paying for access to unlimited files shared online would be a good business strategy. However,  there are simply too many of these file sharing services out there, and it seems that every uploader has their favorite. To buy memberships to all of them would be absurd. Even a collection of premium memberships to Rapidshare and a handful of other major players could cost hundreds of dollars per month, not to mention the administrative burden of managing all of the premium accounts, usernames and passwords.

It is a situation crying out for a type of co-op where researchers, freelance writers, students, and others could each purchase a premium membership to one of the file sharing services and then share access between members of the cooperative. Of course, that requires either the insecure sharing of passwords and usernames while hoping for the best, or waiting on the person with the right membership to find download and then either re-upload or otherwise distribute the files needed to the original requester. Some sort of online service could manage the process for individual coops, but would need to be low profile to avoid being banned or blocked by the sharing services.

In the meantime, there is a very elegant solution allowing users to download for free from any file host like RapidShare, DepositFiles, HotFiles, and more. It is an open-source program called JDownloader. JDownloader works by handling all of the waiting, logging in, and downloading of files on the file hosts. If a captcha must be entered, JDownloader displays an unobtrusive pop-up box at the necessary time and the user can quickly enter the required Captcha without having to monitor a timer or countdown manually.

Furthermore, the software will wait on the user’s behalf for the next free time to open up, whether that is one hour or 24 hours and then automatically start downloading the requested files. It is not an instant process by any means, but online research requests can be queued up and then retrieved over a few hour or overnight if necessary.

JDownloader monitors the clipboard for URLs and then automatically adds them to its download queue to be reviewed by the user before the downloads are started. Downloading a dozen links off of a website requires simply right-clicking and choosing Copy URL for each link. No real waiting is required, because by the time the user can copy a new URL to the clipboard, JDownloader has already added it to the list of file downloads.

If you need to get a handful of books or files off of multiple file sharing websites, give JDownloader a try. It might just be the solution you are looking for… at least until I figure out that co-op thing… or someone beats me to it

A final break if you need one for small business owners using section 179 deduction on taxes.

Free file sharing storage downloading is complete.

More small business strategies await you.

Download Faster Any File Sharing Site Rapidshare Hotfile DepositFiles with JDownloader is a post from Best Hubris. All content exclusively written by Freelance Writing Business of ArcticLlama, LLC

Today, I have questions rattling around in my brain, some of which are more important than others, some of which could change the way do things or handle my workflow, and some of which are nothing more than minor concerns that an inquiring mind wants to know about.

1. Is it really worthwhile / doable / smart to use WordPress to manage a normal "static" website?  The truth is that static websites generally aren’t really all that static, but they do have a more set structure, unlike a blog. Often, the changes and tweaks made to a page are relatively minor and it seems like overkill to fire up Dreamweaver CS4 just to add a link to a freelance writing samples page, for example.  On the other hand, I get more flexibility and understand more of what is going on from a non-WordPress angle. (My HTML / XHTML / CSS is stronger than my PHP / mySQL.)
2. Why can’t I find a non-complicated way to make lists on a website with explanation text?  Take the list you are looking at. Ideally, there would be a number followed by the question.  Then, underneath that there would be this explanatory text instead of having to rely on the bold to separate the question from the text.  I know it can be done, but it’s just so much effort to click all the buttons to make it happen or keep all of the <ol> <ul> <li> code straight.
3. Is Technorati (or any others) really that important? Unfortunately, the worlds of web design, search engines, SEO, and social networking are all dominated by techie types.  That means that when it comes to things like Technorati, Digg, Twitter, or whatever, the volume tends to be disproportionately loud.  Is getting indexed, listed, or whatever on these sites worth the time and effort?  Or, more specifically…
4. Is It Better To Add Technorati Specific Tags to Posts, or Will WordPress’ Ping Take Care of It?  Considering that I have no real interest in trying to force my way to the top of Technorati or any other site by any means other than writing good stuff, do I get any benefit from taking the extra time to "tag" my posts with Technorati tags? 
5. Do All Those Incoming Yahoo Glue Links Count for Anything?  My incoming links for some of my sites are filled with links that come from Yahoo Glue.  Do I get anything out of those? 
6. What If Google Knows What It Is Doing? Pretty much all SEO techniques both on-page SEO tactics, and off-site SEO linking, assume that Google needs a lot of help getting its index and search rankings results right. In other words, that Google isn’t a very good search engine.  That doesn’t seem right does it?  I mean, it’s the #1 Search Engine in the world for a reason.  Microsoft has tried 3 times to create something that even comes close and couldn’t.  Does it really make sense then that Google’s search results are so delicate that they can be heavily influenced by something as simple as changing a few HTML tags?
7. If Google Knows What It Is Doing, Then Why Do So Many Search Results Suck? As a corollary to the above, why are some search results so terrible?  Is it that Google’s famed reliance on incoming links, or links pointing to a webpage or website, makes it too vulnerable to being conned into ranking lesser sites above better ones?  This seems especially true when it comes to authoritative websites.  Consider this search for california school rankings

The obvious authoritative source is the actual rankings published by California.  In fact, both of the sites that rank higher are nothing more than interfaces tacked onto the data provided by the third link.  A search for california school ratings produces a similar result except that the #4 result becomes the #2 result.

There are much worse examples, this is just the one I came up with off the top of my head for a quick blog post.  Fortunately, the other sites listed above the official one aren’t scam sites or obvious web spam.  They are both trying to milk free publicly available information to show advertising and get people to sign up (get email addresses) and perhaps even pay for "premium" information.

The fact that the official California API results ranks so high, however, is a testament to Question #3.  Look at the Academic Performance Index (API) page from the California Department of Education, and you will see a website that has no redeemable SEO qualities whatsoever – in the traditional sense, at least.  And, yet, there it is at #3.

Like most "official" websites, they have better things to do than keyword research, emailing other websites to beg for links, and so on.  On more competitive keywords, this is often much worse, with scam sites or obvious web spam ranking above the official resources. 

The worst examples are often those where the higher ranking sites offer biased or otherwise slanted information, while the official, unbiased, sites rank much lower.  This is because of a combination of using every SEO trick in the book, and then the fact that like minded supporters will link to the websites that promote their point of view, rather than the straight factual websites which might include information that they don’t like.

Search your favorite, financial, political, governmental, or judicial topic to find examples.

Back to Work

Ok, I’ve spent too much time writing this today already.  Off to make money freelance writing.  Don’t worry, I’ll be back later.

A Question of Greatness is a post from Best Hubris. All content exclusively written by Freelance Writing Business of ArcticLlama, LLC

What have I found so far? It seems that a lot of writers out there who claim to be professional writers aren’t that good. People seem AMAZED at my writing, and frankly while I think it is good, I’m not sure it is amazing. I guess it is all based on comparison though. The other thing is that many writers out there don’t know how to behave in the business world. I get thanked, that’s right THANKED, for calling people back or responding to their emails, or questions. I work for you, remember?

Apparently though that is the exception rather than the rule. It would seem the bar is set pretty low in professional writing. That must be why I see so many writing ads that seem comical in how much qualifications they try and get. My personal favorite is the recent post looking for someone with 7 to 10 years experience in writing in an online university setting. Um…guys? 10 years ago was 1998. When do you think the whole online university thing really got going? eCollege is the first one I remember and they MIGHT have been around in 1998, but they were the only ones.

That’s a pretty small candidate pool if you are only willing to hire people who worked for eCollege in 1998. So, I’ve started ignoring the job qualifications and just applying based on whether or not it sounds like something I want to write about. I keep getting responses, so I guess they can’t find those guys. I wonder if other fields work like this. Do you think an engineer ever looks at a posting for someone with at least 10 years experience with hybrid-cars?

Professional Writing is a post from Best Hubris. All content exclusively written by Freelance Writing Business of ArcticLlama, LLC

I used the first browser on Windows when you had to install Winsock (the TCP/IP protocol) manually because TCP/IP didn’t come with Windows, all you got was NetBEUI (known throughout the computer world as NetKablooey).

Anyway, my first business was a [tag]startup[/tag] to design and implement [tag]web pages[/tag] for local businesses. How good of timing was it? Well, let’s just say it was 1997 and I had to explain to most people what the heck the Internet was and why in the world they would even care. Most people I talked to couldn’t get it. “So it’s like TV?” (If you ever get bored, read the first Internet cases to come before the Supreme Court and laugh your butt off at their questions as they try and understand it.) So, I was there perfectly poised to be on the front edge of the Internet boom. Just a small business with 50 clients would have been snatched up for a $1 million. So what happened? Well, I never got going. You see, selling web sites is no different than selling anything else. You have to talk to the people you want to sell to. I had one business where I had an “in” because I knew a guy working with them. I spent a week building up my courage and practicing what I would say. Every time I looked at the phone I got major butterflies in my stomach. When I finally called and they didn’t say “YES! That would be AMAZING!” on the first call, I hung up and never called back. I never called anyone else either.

The point of this is simple. If you are going to go into [tag]business[/tag] you have to be able to [tag]sell[/tag]. These days, I need never pick up the phone. I can do fine just responding to posts and ads, and so on. But, to be big, to make the big bucks I’ve always dreamed of will take a little bit more. Frankly, I’m still not ready for mass phone [tag]selling[/tag]. I cold called my way through 5 years as a professional financial planner, and I hated every second of it. Still, this time will be different because I love what I do and I am determined to succeed. My plan? Become an expert recognized in the fields I want to work in. How? By writing and publishing insightful, original, and useful advice and commentary. That is what Best Hubris is all about.

What’s your plan for [tag]marketing success[/tag] in your business?

Your First Business is a post from Best Hubris. All content exclusively written by Freelance Writing Business of ArcticLlama, LLC