Ask Owen

I’ve found a really cheap hosting provider in India who looks much cheaper than any other company I’ve ever seen. What’s the catch?

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I just bought a new LCD screen for my computer and I’ve noticed that there’s a spot on the screen that seems to be permanently green. What can I do about this?

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My hosting provider says they support Ruby on Rails on their “features list”. What is this and do I need it?

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I’ve had Vista on my laptop for a few months now and sometimes when I start up there’s a lot of hard disk activity for around 5 minutes Is this normal?

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It seems like everybody is pumping money into trying to drag people to their websites by advertising on Adwords, spraying banners all over the Internet or trying to get as many people to sign up to their mailing list as possible. What should I be doing to differentiate myself from the masses?

You’re right when you say everyone is trying to do whatever they can to try and attract people to their website. One thing you need to keep in mind is that the Internet is a great equaliser. It allows different companies to compete with one another regardless of their size or where they are in the world. And if you think about this is means that it’s really hard to compete for the same clients as everyone else. There’s always going to be someone more aggressive than you are, ready to pump more money into advertising than you are. So how do you go about being different from any else?

The answer lies in making a name for yourself. Why do you drink “Coca Cola” instead of “Mom and Pop Cola”? Why would you prefer to by Nivea moisteniser instead of of one by a company called Brindo? The answer is that we tend to be drawn to brands we know, brands we are comfortable with. And this is the key to success, both online and offline. Put your efforts into building a brand and you will reap the rewards. I’m going to complement this advice with some from Danny DeMichele , an Internet Marketing Consultant who has an excellent blog post on the matter in which we voices his opinion:

It is my belief that the internet will do a dramatic shift from its’ early pioneers of young people building seriously profitable garage-based businesses to large brands dominating the space.

I agree with him wholeheartedly and unless you start investing in your brand from now, you’ll end up being washed away. I like readying Danny’s blog, he always has strong internet marketing consulting advice and although there are quite a few internet marketing consultants out there, I pretty much always agree with his advice.

So good luck with your online business and don’t forget, the more you read and watch what other people are doing, the more you can improve.

My hard disk has started making clicking sounds and when I start up Windows it said that it detected problems with my disk. I have some pretty important data on the disk (including our company’s accounts). Should I be worried?

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I’d like to give my website that little extra oomph to make it stand out from other websites. I’ve been playing with video recently and was wondering if I can use this to help enhance my website?

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My hosting provider shows me a graph of how much bandwidth I’m using and I’m getting dangerously close to my monthly quota. I wouldn’t like to exceed it and be liable for more bandwidth charges. Is there anything I can do to reduce it?

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