Pros And Cons Of Linux. Is It Right For Your Business?

What is Linux? 

Linux is an operating system, like Microsoft Windows, MacOS, or Unix.  It was created as a hobby by Linus Torvalds, a student at the University of Helsinki in Finland.  What most people don’t know about Linux is that its source code is available to anyone.  The Linux source code is called the kernel and it is the base of the Linux operating system.  Because the source code or kernel is free, it has enabled hundreds of companies and individuals to release their own operating systems based on the Linux system.  These operating systems or formats are often referred to as Linux distributions. 

Each distribution has its own set of features and functionality that makes it unique.  While Linux is generally considered free-ware and people associate that with no cost, that is not always the case.  Some distributions are available for download for free and others are available on CD or floppy disk and have a small charge associated with them. You can find a list of distributions at http://www.linux.org/ and a list of applications at http://www.Linux.org/apps/

Because if the adaptability of Linux it has been embraced and supported by a number of operating systems and software programs.  For example, IBM, Hewlett-Packard and other giants of the computing world have embraced Linux and support its ongoing development and openoffice.org and Mozilla run on Linux.  US retailing giant Wal-Mart began selling Linux systems back in 2002 -  if Wal-Mart isn’t mainstream, nothing is. 

What are the benefits of Linux?

Many people fear that Linux is going to be difficult to work with or that it will be difficult to find software that will run on Linux however Linux is a very standard operating system, compatible with just about any software you need.
 
Beyond being a standard operating system, Linux supports open source software which makes it a very economical operating system, especially if you program your own software.  It offers many free or low cost applications which include, basic desktop applications like web browsers, email programs, word processing programs, spreadsheets, graphics programs, and file managers.

Linux can easily operate as a central server for your business. With Linux, you can serve your own web pages up for public consumption and handle your own email.

Linux doesn’t require top of the line hardware though many recommend you have at least 256 MB of RAM and at least 4 GB of space in your hard drive.

Linux is considered to be extremely stable and doesn’t need to be rebooted periodically to maintain performance levels. Think about the last time you sat at your computer and it froze.  Not fun, right?  That doesn’t happen with Linux if it is configured correctly. 

Linux isn’t going to be replaced anytime soon and when bugs are found in the system, a developer are quickly on the job and often times a solution is offered within a matter of hours, not months or years like many other operating systems.

Linux is also fast and can handle a number of tasks at the same time. 

Linux also claims to be one of the most secure operating systems isn’t plagued with the viruses that other operating systems generally deal with. 

Linux is free from having to upgrade it or deal with proprietary file formats and licensing fees.  You don’t have to register it due to its open source format.  

You can have both Linux and windows on your computer.  (You’ll have to partition them on your hard drive and you can only boot them one at a time.)

Drawbacks of Linux

There is no 1800 customer service number to call.  However, most distributions offer a support number or email to call if you find a bug.  They also generally come with installation instructions.

You cannot run applications for MS windows on Linux.  However, there are Linux emulators or applications that enable you to run some windows applications on your Linux system.  They operate like a translator.  Some of these ‘translation or emulator’ products are free and others are available for a price.

Linux is not able to run some advanced financial applications or reproduce some proprietary multimedia formats.

Tips and Advice:

Choose a popular distribution has a large developer community. A large developer community means that you’ll find the programs that you need easily and you will be able to install them with the same ease. The more well-known distributions have prepared programs in ‘packages’ that are easy to install. On top of this, there are tools designed especially for a particular distribution to manage these packages to make sure that programs run correctly right away. The website Distrowatch.com maintains a comprehensive list of the most popular distributions.

Get the latest version of your chosen distribution.  The newer the Linux distribution version, the better the hardware support. The number of glitches you’ll get in the installation process decreases with the newness of the version of Linux you choose.

Consider paying for your Linux distribution.  It is true that you can get a full-featured Linux operating system free of charge by downloading it from any number of sources. This is an excellent alternative to an operating system like Windows, which either comes pre-loaded with a newly purchased computer (which gets figured into the cost), is bought separately or copied ‘illegally’. In most people’s experience, the popular Linux distributions are easy to install. However, if you do run into some glitch (normally hardware related), you may have a frustrating experience. Although there are a number of excellent Linux support forums out there, personalized advice on your particular problem may be hard to find.

Use an appropriate computer.  if you want to use Linux to do the same things that you would with Windows XP or Mac OS X, then you’ll need the newest computer you can get your hands on. Avoiding ‘elite’ video cards and new, exotic hardware will also work in your favor because you won’t have to deal with hardware support which may be inferior to hardware support from other operating systems. 

Bottom Line:

Linux is a fantastic and powerful operating system that can handle most or all of your operating needs.  It is secure, fast, reliable, and generally extremely cost effective.  When purchased or obtained through a reliable distributor and installed and configured correctly there are virtually no drawbacks to running Linux.  Additionally, you don’t have to give up your windows if you don’t want to.

MemberSpeed Content Management software can run on any Linux Any Linux based Hosting Platform (Preferably RHEL 3 or above).
 

Discover The Answer To The 10 Most Common Affiliate Marketing Management Questions

1. Is affiliate marketing right for my business?

Affiliate marketing is one of the most powerful and effective means of gaining new customers, regardless of your product or service.  Affiliate marketing exposes your business to new customers and can get you out of your marketing rut.  Additionally, when you initiate an affiliate marketing campaign, you’re in control.  You determine the commission rate you pay and pay only when your affiliates make a sale.  It’s a no loss operation for you because you only pay when a sale is made. 
 
2. What are the startup costs?

When you start an affiliate program you have the choice of handling the operations yourself or having it managed by an affiliate network.  The costs for either choice are reasonable and generally start around a few hundred dollars.  Additionally, as a business owner don’t forget that many of your costs may be tax deductible.  To start an affiliate marketing program in house, costs will include:

Affiliate Management Software

Affiliate marketing support including a website that answers affiliate questions and a means for them to contact you if any issues arise.

Affiliate marketing materials including banner ads, copy, coupons, and promotional content.

An affiliate marketing contract agreement

Tracking software to track cookies, click throughs, payments, etc…

If you choose to hire an affiliate network to handle your program they generally charge a flat fee or a percentage of what you pay out each month.

3. How much time will it take out of my workday/workweek?

Most experts agree that it will take you about an hour and a half each day to manage your affiliate program.  They also recommend you to budget more time in the first few months of your program, approximately two to three hours a day.  Even the most efficient affiliate managers spend about 45 minutes a day managing their affiliate program. 

Professional affiliate managers generally spend an average of 40-80 hours a month dedicated to managing, tracking and promoting your affiliate program. 

4. Should I use an affiliate network?

Do you have an extra 3 hours a day for the next two or three months?  Do you have an hour a day to devote to managing your program after the initial three month program is complete?  An affiliate network, while it may be a bit more expensive on the outset, can help you focus your time on other profit generating tasks.  Additionally, an affiliate network can help expose your affiliate program to a wide variety of experience affiliates, which means more money in your bottom line and more exposure overall. 

That being said, there are a tremendous number of effective in-house solutions including some you’re likely already familiar with like 1shoppingcart.com and affiliatepro.com.  These programs will help you stay 100% in control of your affiliate program and are effective at managing your program.   

5. How should I pay affiliates?  What type of commission works best?

This is a very important decision because it not only affects your profits, the right commission rate will help you recruit top-notch affiliates.  The general rule of thumb is to set your default commission rate at a rate you can afford to pay while leaving room for time limited commission increase offers, promotions, and private offers.  For example, if you can afford to pay 50% of your gross profit margin, pay 25% instead and tier it so that after a sales goal is reached they earn 30% or you can bump it up to 50% during the holidays or during typically low sales times. 

6. How do I recruit affiliates?

Your customers may be your best affiliates.  After all, they already appreciate and enjoy your products or services.  A simple link on your website is a good place to start.  Here are a few ways to find quality affiliates:

Online forums.  These are excellent places to meet and greet and connect with like minded individuals. They’re also a good resource for affiliates who are interested in, motivated, and qualified to sell your products and services.  Using a forum, you can announce your affiliate program. Be careful to not ‘sell’ on the forum as most forums look down on this and may kick you off.  Additionally, you can include a link to your affiliate site in your signature. 

Find websites that link to your competitors and approach them about being an affiliate for you.  Likewise, you can find affiliates using your favorite search engine and contact them about joining your program. 

One last way is to join an affiliate network or become listed on an affiliate directory.  This will ensure that affiliate marketers who are searching for new products and services to promote.  However, keep in mind that many beginner marketers also seek products and services to promote via affiliate directories and they may lose interest and motivation before they ever make a sale.  This isn’t a strong deterrent because they don’t get paid unless they make a sale, however it should be noted. 

7. What is the best way to communicate with my affiliates?

Email is the general tool of choice, which makes an auto responder a fantastic tool for basic emails like the welcome email, introducing promotions, coupons, sending links and banner ads, and answering Frequently Asked Questions.   It is also generally advisable to have an email address, fax number, and telephone number available for when affiliates have questions that are not answered by your frequently asked questions web page or when they simply want to speak with you. 

8. How do I motivate affiliates?

Money motivates no doubt about it.  That being said, affiliates are also motivated by feeling that they’re important to you.  This means when they ask for your time, you give it.  Additionally, promotions, bonuses, prizes, contests, and commission increases are all tools to motivate and inspire affiliates.  Constant communication, like sending a weekly or monthly Ezine, will also help remind your affiliates that you’re out there and invested in their success. 

9. Do I need to hire an affiliate manager? 

The answer to this question really depends on your needs.  How large is your company?  Do you have the time to manage your program?  Do you have the skills to manage your program?  An affiliate manager is the person that:

Recruits affiliates

Communicates with affiliates

Develops, tracks, and reports on promotions

Develops programs to enhance affiliate program

Motivates affiliates

Tracks sales and pays affiliates

Monitors your competition

These are all extremely important functions and if you have the time to handle them yourself, excellent!  If you do not, then consider hiring an affiliate manager. 

10. How do I find/hire an affiliate manager?

Outsourcing an affiliate manager is fairly easy to do.  There are hundreds available with a quick online search.  You can ask associates, inquire at online forums, or post an advertisement seeking someone to fill the position.  Depending on the complexity of your affiliate program, you could consider a well qualified virtual assistant for the job.  The skills your affiliate manager will need are:

Organizational skills

Communication skills

Attention to detail

Knowledge of online business, internet marketing, and basic ecommerce operations

Basic html and graphic experience are a plus

Because they’re going to be representing you, you’ll want to make sure they’re personable.

Technorati Profile

IonCube Technology and How Encoding Technology Can Secure Your Web Code

What is IonCube?

Quite simply IonCube is a software product packaged and sold by IonCube, a company based in the United Kingdom.  The software is specifically designed to protect software or scripts written using the PHP programming language from being altered in any way.  This means they cannot be viewed, changed, or run on unlicensed computers. 

Before establishing IonCube, Nick Lindridge designed and developed ultra high performance order routing and exchange connectivity technology for one of the UK’s leading market making firms that was later acquired by one of the major US financial institutions as a direct result of his involvement. 

With more than 15 years experience in software development, operating systems, languages and compilers, database engine technology, and PhD research into innovative microprocessor design and system architecture for high performance object-oriented parallel-processing hardware, IonCube was formed and released in 2002.  It has since become the industry standard solution for encoding software.  It is used in over 70 countries around the world to encode PHP and protect software development, business information, and sensitive company data. 

How does it work?

PHP scripts are uploaded and an encoded version downloaded in return.  If you’re using a Linux operating system then a command line tool is used. 

Benefits of IonCube

Quite often hackers can pirate programs and use them for nefarious purposes or worse, distribute your program to the world.  The encoding IonCube provides protects you from hackers stealing your software and it cloaks it so that they can’t even see it. 

Beyond the obvious fact that your code is protected, IonCube is said to run faster than open source PHP on some servers. 

Encoded files run on a variety of operating systems

It allows users to encrypt XML files, Smarty template files, or images.

You can use the software to create license files that restrict access to encoded files

Users have their choice of ASCII or Binary encoded file format.

It allows for the prevention of file tampering by using digital signatures.

It is compatible with Open source extensions

It allows users to designate files to expire on a given date or after a time period

You can also restrict files from being run on any combination of IP addresses and/or server names or to run on specific MAC addresses.

IonCube is available for several operating systems including, Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and OS X.

An initial 12 months of support and product upgrades are included for FREE,

Product levels that range from entry level to Cerebus.

IonCube offers speedy encoding performance

Offers an easy to use Graphic User Interface, GUI, which makes using the product simple and straightforward for almost anyone.

Forum that enables you to connect with users and speak with moderators to have your questions and concerns addressed.  http://forum.ioncube.com/

Membership services including information about upgrades, new products, and support.

Obfuscating HTML Encoder enables you to create a script to encode your website HTML so people cannot see your code.  It also makes it impossible to copy your text or pictures, which means you won’t find your copy pasted into an article or sales page on someone else’s website. 

The software is extremely secure and developers use several techniques to ensure that it is the most secure solution available.  The techniques include: encoding compiled binary code rather than plain text source, using a secure execution engine at runtime, and implementing protection against reverse engineering into our products themselves.

Encoded files cannot be restored to their original source, which means that hackers simply cannot decode them – there is no source code to decode.

Excellent customer support.  IonCube has a reputation in the industry of offering top notch customer service to their customers.   

Other Products IonCube Offers

IonCube Online Encoder.  This simple service enables you to encode a single file and can cost as little as .50.  It is an extremely cost effective way to use the product and it give you the opportunity to explore the software without committing to the full product.

They also offer a Standalone Encoder for those that don’t want to purchase the full software package.  This package comes with everything we’ve discussed in the article and cost $199

The IonCube Package Foundry offers users the ability to create remote web application installations.  They also offer a free trial of this product so you can see if it is right for you.  Like the encoder it offers the GUI interface.

Obfuscating HTML Encoder enables you to create a script to encode your website HTML so people cannot see your code.  It also makes it impossible to copy your text or pictures protecting you from copyright infringement!

How do you decide what, if any of the IonCube Products are right for you?

The solution is quite easy.  Visit the website and download an evaluation or a free trial version of the software.  The reputation of IonCube is stellar in the industry and they’ve partnered with several strategic partners including HP and Asial.  Additionally, you can visit their forum and ask questions, read comments, and seek answers to your problems.  If you are on the fence, visit the website from time to time and see if they are offering any specials.  Occasionally, you’ll find license discounts, bundle discounts, or special offers, which can be ideal for a business on a budget.

Note: MemberSpeed Membership Site Software uses IonCube Encrypted Technology on all its software.

Knowing What You Want.  How To Hire The Right People.

The first step in hiring the right person is to define what you are looking for and what responsibilities and tasks will be handled by the person in this position.  This means, to begin, you will need to compile a list of the job’s responsibilities, tasks, and communication needs.

This definition might include:

Desired business experience

Education requirements

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

Tasks, Duties, and Responsibilities

Objectives and Accountabilities

Competencies

Work Schedule

Compensation and Benefits.

Each of these aspects involves some layers of definition and decision and I’d like to break them down individually and discuss each beginning with Business Experience.

Business Experience

Business experience is defined by experience in the work force and also experience in a particular industry and potentially in a similar position.  You must consider all facets.  Does your company want 15 years in the work force and 15 years of relevant industry experience and responsibility or is 10 years of relevant industry experience a must?  Keep in mind that none of them are default requirements.

Your position may require absolutely no industry experience but several years at an executive level.  Your position may also require 15 years of industry experience but no time at an executive level or if you’re filling an entry level position, maybe it doesn’t require any experience at all.

To determine the desired level of work experience for any position there are several questions you might consider:

1. Are the desired experience requirements consistent with the job’s responsibilities?

2. Can an employee perform the job with less experience? Why or why not?

3. Is the background of the incumbent employee influencing your experience requirements?

4. Are you being objective or subjective when determining experience requirements?  Meaning, are you comparing it to your own experience or what is actually necessary for a person to competently perform the job?

5. Are you compromising on experience requirements to fill the job quickly?

6. Are your requirements realistic?

7. Are your requirements in accordance with all employment laws and regulations?

By narrowing down exactly what you are looking for in an employee’s experience and understand exactly why you are establishing those parameters, you will be better able to focus your candidate search and better able to make a smart hiring decision.

Education Requirements

Your education requirements follow a similar pattern of questioning as your experience requirements.  Ask the following questions:

1. What education is necessary to successfully perform this job?

2. Why is this education necessary?

3. Can this position be performed by someone with less education?

4. Are the education requirements consistent with other positions inside the company and the industry?

5. Is the educational background of the incumbent employee influencing the decision?

6. Are you being objective or subjective with these requirements?

7. Are you compromising due to a need to quickly fill the opening?

8. Are your requirements realistic?

9. Are your requirements in accordance with employment laws and regulations?

These questions serve to clarify the position and the requirements.  It is easy to set too low or too high of standards and therefore possibly miss the perfect candidate.  Additionally, by being as specific as you can be, you’ll be that much faster at eliminating candidates that do not fit your profile and finding those candidates that do.

Objectives and Accountabilities.

What do you want your new employee to do for your company?  What are your goals for this position?  I don’t mean what are their responsibilities and duties.  This is where you’re setting the bar for your new employee.  Establish goals that you want to see them achieve and then set about to find an employee that can achieve them.

Along with a position’s desired objectives comes accountabilities.  How will the employee be held accountable for failures and rewarded for successes.  Who will determine failures and successes?  What is their reporting procedure and relationship with supervisors?  This structure is important because you need to look at a potential employee’s previous accountability structures and also discuss with them how they have been held accountable and how they prefer to be held accountable.

Make sure that their experience and successes match or mesh with the way that your company handles accountability.  For example, some companies prefer to offer financial rewards based on successes.  If that is your candidate’s experience and it is not how you plan on rewarding success then that needs to be addressed.  Additionally it is important to speak with references to find out if accountability measures were successful with that candidate and if not, why.

Answer the following questions to determine reporting relationships and accountability measures:

1. What position or positions does this job report to?

2. Where does this position appear on the department’s organization chart?

3. What employees or positions report directly to this job?

4. What is the relationship between this position and other positions within the company and within the department?

5. Will position and/or department be rewarded for accomplishing objectives?

6. If yes, then how will they be rewarded?

7. If no, then how will successes be acknowledged?

8. How will position be held accountable for not meeting set objectives?

By answering these questions and laying down a firm list of expectations, procedures, and policies, you’re eliminating doubt and indecision from the mix.  You’re optimizing your time spent searching for the right hire, and you’re potentially saving your company money.

Competencies

Competencies encompass many desired attributes that you want in an employee.  They can include:
Knowledge,
Skills,
Attitudes,
Actions.

For any position you would want to determine the candidate’s effectiveness on the job by evaluating their ability to:

Achieve Results
Communicate Effectively
Demonstrate dependability
Sustain a level of Organizational Knowledge
Make Effective Decisions
Plan and organize
Problem Solve and show good Judgment and decision making skills
Be Productive
Take Responsibility
 
Decide ahead of time how you want the position to accomplish and perform these behaviors, keeping in mind that this is not a comprehensive list of behaviors.  You may want to add, subtract or modify your behaviors to fit the specific position that you will be searching for.

For example, you want your employee to make effective decisions.  How will you go about determining if they are capable of making effective decisions?  First you need to determine how you will evaluate the effectiveness of a decision.  Next you will need to outline a few interview questions, and potential reference questions, that will address this specifically.  Continue this process for each of the required behaviors.

Next, you may want to determine what personal behaviors are desired, why they are necessary for the position and how you are going to evaluate a candidate’s competency in the following areas:

Ability to build trust
Honest
Excellent Interpersonal Skills
Positive Attitude
Able to recognize the achievements and contributions of others
Able to constructive resolve conflicts
Shows respect for others
Supports Diversity and Understands Related Issues
Understands Alternative Perspectives

You’ll also want to look at behaviors that center around the success of the organization including:

Commitment to Continuous Quality and Improvement
Continuous Learning and Development
Creativity and Innovation
Customer Orientation
Vision
Flexibility and Adaptability
Leadership and Initiative
Teamwork and Cooperation

When you’re hiring at the executive level there are additional behavior considerations including:

Evaluating Employees
Enable and Empower Employees
Encourage Teamwork and Group Achievement
Identifies and Supports opportunities for Employee Development
Leads Change / Achieves Support of Objectives
Embraces diversity

That’s a long list of behaviors to consider when you’re searching for the right employee but it’s not as difficult as it may seem.  Many of the behaviors are already defined in the basic job description that you have developed without even thinking about it in specifics.  Once you list the behaviors that are desired, why they’re desired, and how you plan on evaluating if a candidate possesses those behaviors then the last thing that you need to do is ask the questions at the interview. 

Work Schedule

This is an easier one to determine because policies are presumably already established.  If it is a new position then decide the work schedule, including the times of day that you want the employees to start, end, and how many hours a week you expect them to be there.  Also determine in advance which days, if any, are paid holidays, vacation days, personal days etc.  If alternative work schedules are available, like telecommuting or working four 10 hour days, then determine that as well.

Compensation and Benefits

You may not have any decisions to make here.  There may be a company wide benefits package and policy and your work here is done.  However if there is any leeway or decisions to be made here, like is there room to negotiate salary requirements with extra vacation, then those decisions need to be made in the beginning.  Before you start looking for your next star employee!  Know that benefits can be a prime negotiating tool and possible selling point for the right employee.

Once you know what you want in an employee and are committed to taking the necessary steps to find that person, you’ll need to know where to look.  The best people aren’t usually answering want ads placed in the local newspaper (though there are occasionally diamonds out there to be found). 

Practical Uses of PHP

It almost goes without saying that you will want your business website to be compelling, interactive, and secure.  All of these characteristics will make your website more effective at bringing in and keeping customers.  But how to go about it in a way that is stable, cost-effective, and easy to manage?  One popular solution is to use the server-side scripting language PHP to help you solve those problems.

What is PHP?

Created in 1995, PHP originally stood for “Personal Home Page”, however it is now generally understood to mean “PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor”.  It was originally designed to create dynamic or more interactive web pages.  It is a widely-used, open-source, general-purpose scripting language.  PHP is a “high-level” language, meaning that it’s generally more human-friendly (and easier to learn) than other programming languages such as C, ASP or ASP.net.

PHP was originally designed for use in Web site development, but rapidly grew to become a much more robust language.  PHP’s primary use is as an “embedded” scripting language, which means that the actual PHP code is embedded in HTML code.  When used in this way, PHP enables your web server to process web pages before they’re displayed in the user’s web browser.
Benefits of PHP

PHP is popular because it can be embedded directly into HTML coding. 

PHP can be used on all major operating systems and is supported on most web servers. 

PHP’s main focus is development for the web, so it has a quick development time and can solve scenarios much quicker than some of the other web design languages. 

The latest version of PHP is a very stable and mature language used for web programming much like Java and Microsoft C#.

It is open source so it is free! 

Database: It is very easy to write simple scripts which allow your Web site to interact with a database.

Cross-Platform: Both the PHP engine and the PHP code can be used on almost any platform, making it extremely versatile.

Development Tools: You only need a text editor to work on PHP; you do not need any development environment or compilers.

What can you do with PHP?

PHP generally runs on a web server, taking PHP code as its input and creating Web pages as output, however you can also use it for command-line scripting and client-side GUI applications.   PHP is an extremely versatile language which enables you to create high-end, stable Web sites with plenty of bells and whistles. Here are just a few of the things you can do with PHP:

Make HTML Web Forms

Store Information in Databases

Remember Web site visitors (cookies and sessions)

Work with Arrays

Work with Files (File Management and downloads)

Parsing and Generating XML (also useful for large quantities of products on e-commerce)

Check which browser your visitor is using

How does PHP Work?

As its name (”PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor”) suggests, PHP derives its power by “preprocessing” hypertext on the server side.  This generally means that when the PHP script (saved as a .php file) runs on your web server, it performs the programmed actions, and returns HTML code that will then be sent back to your customer’s web browser.  The PHP script itself is not included in the HTML that is sent to the browser, so the PHP code is invisible and secure to the user.

For example, let’s consider the following simple PHP statement.  (This example is merely to show the basic syntax of PHP in action.  Any detailed discussion of PHP code is beyond the scope of this article.)

<?php echo “<p>Hello World”; ?>

In this statement, <?php is the PHP opening tag, ?> is the closing tag, and echo is a PHP instruction that tells PHP to output the text that follows it as plain HTML code. The PHP software processes the PHP statement and outputs the following:

<p>Hello World 

This is a regular HTML statement that is delivered to the user’s browser. The PHP statement itself is not delivered to the browser, so the user never sees any PHP statements.

Using PHP to Improve Your Website

PHP has many capabilities features designed specifically for use in Web sites, including the following:

1. Securing Your Website

PHP can be used to secure your website (or certain areas of your website) so that your customer must enter a valid username and password.  This can be used to reward preferred customers and to build an exclusive “membership” component of your business.

2. Working with Web Forms

PHP can display an HTML form and process the information that the user types in.  This can be an excellent way to learn more about your customers by asking them to provide profile information, and to collect information about their specific interests.

3. Communicate with Your Databases

PHP is particularly adept at interacting with your databases, and storing information from the user or retrieving information that is displayed to the user.  PHP handles connecting to the database and communicating with it, so it’s not necessary to know all of the technical details for connecting to or exchanging messages with the database. You tell PHP the name of the database and where it is, and PHP handles the details. All major databases are currently supported by PHP.

4. Customer Loyalty Functions

You can also use PHP to create a number of different functionalities on your website that will further help you to build customer loyalty, including interactive polls, a guestbook, and a message board.

The popularity of PHP continues to grow rapidly because it has many advantages over other technical solutions.  PHP is fast (because it’s embedded in the HTML code, the time to process and load a Web page is relatively short), PHP is free (it is open-source software), and PHP is versatile (is runs on a wide variety of operating systems, including Windows, Mac OS, Linux, and most Unix variants).

Perhaps most importantly, PHP is a very well-established language.  There are many user-run Internet communities that make very large amounts of information (and scripts) available.  With so much experience behind it, using PHP for certain dynamic features can be a cost-effective and low-hassle way of increasing the stability of your website.