For this tutorial, you’ll need to be running your apps in PHP and can configure it, and have the ability to install software to your server. If you’re still reading, I’ll assume you’re comfortable with both. Let’s go!

Important update: see bottom of post

The Usual: Memcache

You may be familiar with memcache. Memcache is a simple, fast, in-memory caching system that is used for caching data that is requested often. By using memcache, you avoid the need of repeatedly pulling information from disk or from a database query. This speeds up serving requests and reduces the need for disk accesses.  It can easily be made to expand the caching across servers, so you are not bound to the memory limits of a single server. Your memcache storage can be as large as the added memory of many servers.

Memcache and Sessions

In PHP, user sessions are stored on disk by default. This is fine for keeping track of sessions for small traffic and a small number of users, capable of being handled by a single server. But once your site is getting heavy traffic, the repeated disk accesses for session files will start to slow down requests, as well as exhausting the filesystem’s capability of handling many files per directory.

Should you decide to increase the number of servers to handle the traffic (using a load balancer) you’ll run into the next challenge: users who hit one server on one request may not end up on the same server on the next request. So the session that had their logged-in state may be on server A, but on next request they get routed to server B which doesn’t have a session for them, or may have a logged-out session for them. So the user ends up being logged in or logged out, and it’s at the whim of the load balancer.  Some load balancers are smart in that they will keep a user “stuck” to one server for session’s sake.

The next logical step is to put sessions in memcache or in the database, so that it won’t matter what server the user ends up on, their session will still be available for the request. Putting sessions in the database is better than files, but still involves a database request for page request.  The better option is to put sessions in memcache. Since all servers share the same memcache storage pool, each has access to all the sessions, and the session lookups are super fast.

The Problem with Memcache

Memcache is great, but once you start running low on memory (as you cache more info) lesser-used items in the cache will be destroyed to free up more space for new items. This can result in users getting logged out.  Also, if one of the servers in the pool fails or gets rebooted, all the data it was holding is lost, and then the cache must get “warmed up” again.

What’s a developer to do?

Membase, the Next Big Thing

Membase is memcache with data persistence. And it doesn’t use something like memcache, it is memcache. So if you have code that already is using memcache, you can have it use membase right away, usually with no change to your code.

The improvement of having data persistence is that if you need to bring down a server, you don’t have to worry about all that dainty, floaty data in memory that is gonna get burned. Since membase has replication and persistence built-in, you can feel free to restart a troublesome server without fear of your database getting pounded as the caches need to refill, or that a set of unlucky users will get logged out.  I’ll let you read about all the many other advantages of membase here.  It’s much more than I’ve mentioned here.

Membase is a NoSQL solution, so if you’ve been looking to try one out but haven’t had data problems big enough, this is your opportunity to jump in.

Membase server comes in two flavors: community and enterprise. The community version is open source, and doesn’t have some of the high-end features of the enterprise version.  But for our project here and many of your projects, the community version will be more than enough.  Enterprise is not necessarily for the bootstrapped. You get more features and support, but you’ll pay thousands for it.

Who’s using it? Between Membase and its cousin, Couchbase (based on CouchDB) there are a number of high performance and high-traffic sites using them.  And all ReadyPrompt sites use it.

The Tutorial

Let’s start in on the real meat and potatoes here.

I’m going to focus on an Debian/Ubuntu-based package install, since I’m fond of it and stopped liking installing from source years ago. Those on other Linux platforms should be comfortable here, however.  No worries, folks.

Cleaning up old Junk

Since Membase provides memcache within its install, we don’t want any previously installed memcache stuff hanging around and messing up our mojo.

These are the Ubuntu packages you’ll want to get rid of:

• php5-memcache
• php5-memcached
• memcache (may or may not exist as a package for your Linux flavor)
• memcached

That’s right, get rid of them. Just apt-get remove ‘em.

In addition, to make sure you remove any memcache.ini or memcached.ini that may be sitting in /etc/php5/conf.d

Then run:

service apache2 restart

to restart apache.

Getting on the Right Memcache

You’ll notice I listed memcache and memcached. We’re going to stick to memcached for the remainder of this tutorial. Yes, it matters.

Getting the code

Since we’re staying away from the Enterprise version here, let’s go straight to the download page.

As you can see, there are binaries available for a number of platforms, including 64-bit versions.

After downloading, let’s run (on Ubuntu 64-bit):

dpkg -i membase-server-community_x86_64_1.7.1.1.deb

Like I said, once it’s done with a very quick install, you’ll have memcached installed and running. You can run this to see the services it runs, including its bundled memcached:

ps –aef | grep mem

Now point your browser to http://yourserverip:8091

If the browser just spins or gives you an error, you’ll need to edit your firewall to allow TCP access to port 8091 from outside.

When the membase admin on your server shows up, you’ll see this nice welcome:

On the next screen you’ll enter the path to where you want data to be stored (or leave it as default), and memory size option for setting up a new cluster. We’re going to do a cluster of one for this tutorial.

Next, you’ll set how much memory you’ll want for you first bucket. Oh yeah, I didn’t discuss buckets. You can save things to separate buckets. Investigate.

I also set it to have 1 backup copy via replication.

Next to last detail: enable software notifications:

 
The very last step is setting a username and password (not depicted).

Once you’ve set your password, you’re in! Soon you will see these graphs full of very hot lines.

The next step is to install php5-memcached:

apt-get install php5-memcached

This will also install memcached, as you can see from the output:

Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information… Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
libevent-1.4-2 libmemcached2 memcached
Suggested packages:
libcache-memcached-perl libmemcached
The following NEW packages will be installed:
libevent-1.4-2 libmemcached2 memcached php5-memcached
0 upgraded, 4 newly installed, 0 to remove and 39 not upgraded.

This additional memcached will conflict in a subtle way with the one membase installed. Not to worry. Just get rid of it:

apt-get remove memcached

You should have a new file that php5-memcached made for you: /etc/php5/conf.d/memcached.ini

with this as the content:
extension = memcached.so

Changing PHP to Handle Membase Sessions

Since membase is sitting right behind memcache, you’ll still use memcache session handling. Edit your php.ini file (or add a custom ini file to conf.d directory) with this:

session.save_handler = memcached
session.save_path = "localhost:11211"

Now just restart apache and you’re done.

service apache2 restart

If you fire up a phpinfo() you’ll see this in your session section (edited for brevity):

You should see “memcached” as one of your registered save handlers, as well as your session.save_handler.  You should see the save path as above also.

Updating Your Existing Memcache Code

If you are already using memcache as a caching mechanism for other things, you’ll need to make sure you’re using the Memcached library. It’s not greatly different from the Memcache library, so converting your code to use it should be trivial.

You’ll need to change lines like this:

$memcache = new Memcache;
$memcache->connect(‘memcache_host’, 11211);

to this:

$memcache = new Memcached;
$memcache->addServer(‘memcache_host’, 11211);

The expiration you use for set() operations does not need to change. Read more about expirations here.

In general, I don’t like to deal with Memcached library directly. I wrap it in a utility class so that if I need to add more membase/memcache servers in the future or change the way I create hash keys, I only have to do it in one place.

If needed, at any time you may restart membase by issuing:

service membase-server restart

Hope this tutorial helped you out.

Update (Nov. 4th, 2011): After further checking and integration, some frameworks require php5-memcache. Installing both php5-memcache and php5-memcached  causes no weird side effects. They are just separate libraries for talking to memcached.

Update (Nov. 5th, 2011): You’ll notice over time that the items in cache are increasing and rarely decreasing, and it’s nothing to be afraid of.  Explained here in a post by Mikkel Ovesen.

Update (Jan. 6th, 2011): Some colleagues have run into troubles with this approach, as PHP’s memcached does not store session expiration correctly. That means that when your membase runs out of memory, it stops working instead of freeing up old sessions. I’m researching and will update when I find out a solution.  Please comment below if you can help.

Call to Action

Did you discover anything new or helpful you’d like to share about this tutorial? Let everyone know in a comment below!

Early Friday morning, I was thinking that if I could get an instant domain search going, I could hook it up to Hover.com and send them traffic (because they’re awesome) and get some affiliate revenue when someone bought a domain with them.  After work Friday I started coding, and Sunday night I finished it: http://dotcomornothing.com  Ah, weekend projects.

At the time I started coding, I wasn’t a Hover affiliate.  I didn’t have an appropriate site to mention on the affiliate application, so this site was made before I even filed for approval. Glad I was approved. Whew!

The folks at Hover were pretty enthused to see this, and the dev team was stoked:

Woot! That was awesome. I ran it by the Dev team and their reactions were, "See? Now THAT”s how we like to see people use our [~stuff~]". LOL

Actually, funny that you were able to figure that out with the domain look-up, because that’s new and you couldn’t do that before. Dev just updated some code recently, so they’re quite impressed with themselves now, because this is exactly what they wanted to happen.

I know the integration of the coupon code is non-existent, but hopefully they will have a way to integrate that in so you won’t have to copy/paste it.  Just not supported right now except thru this link: http://hover.com/ReadyPrompt

Why Hover? I’ve been a big fan since last November. You may remember my post “Ditching GoDaddy for Hover”.

There was some coding trickiness to building the site, and there is a lot of optimization and caching going on, but it’s blazing fast and helps you cut through the jungle of reserved domains to help you find the next great domain.

For some explanation on the name and some SEO fodder, I had to put some hidden text in the page:

For anyone buying a domain for a new startup, it’s an important, and sometimes terribly expensive choice.  This post by Fred Wilson: Finding And Buying A Domain Name is a good start, and is immediately followed by an outstanding comment on why dot com is the only TLD that matters and continues on to how to negotiate a dot-com name by contacting the domain owner cold.

Here’s the deal. The only domain name that matters for your startup is .com. Dotcoms got their name in the 90s because they represent business. Dot-com is the money TLD. Even companies like del.icio.us and bit.ly eventually had to buy their dot-com counterparts. There’s just too much mindshare about .com.

With domains, it’s “fake it till you make it”, so if your startup is successful with a .ly, .it, .us, or whatever, that’s great, but know that you’ll have to break down and get a name-appropriate dot-com once your business blows up.  One exception is short URLs. When going short, dropping one character and having that .co, .ly or similar is nice to have. I’ve got rdpt.co.

Now go get yourself a “fresh from the oven” dot-com!

Next post: How to Cache PHP Sessions in Membase

OK, this is where the real action happens. Once you’ve got your business and personal accounts separated, it’s time to take the plunge and get your LLC.  There are any number of companies that would jump to help you: The Company Corporation and LegalZoom are just two.  But since I’ve had good experience with LegalZoom in the past I used them.

I’ll guide you through the whole process, which takes about 30 minutes.  Let’s go!

Whether you’re here to incorporate or do an LLC, they can handle either, and for just about every state. But for the purposes of this, we’re going with a Delaware LLC.

Step 1:

Get to LegalZoom’s LLC start page.

There are three packages you can choose, but you don’t have to worry about picking which until checkout.  There’s something here for everyone from the budget-conscious to the impatient high-roller.  I chose the middle package (Standard), because I wasn’t in a huge hurry, and because I’m a sucker for fancy stuff like leather-looking binders and company seals:

Before we go too much further, here’s a rundown of the price I paid for the whole deal:

I chopped off the part where it states that the purchase price is tax deductible, subject to IRS limitations.  Also, if you are a little queasy on the total, they offer an installment plan over 2 months.  It also mentioned that a typical lawyer would charge $1839 for a LLC. Wowzers.  Anyway, enough with narrow filler. On with the show.

I’ll hit on some of the screens you’ll see and give you some extra info on what they are asking. The little help parts on the forms were quite helpful in making informed decisions about which paths to take.

Step 2:

I won’t go over every screen (although almost all are here), but some key ones.

The answers you see above are my answers, and not necessarily the defaults. See the “How did most people answer this question?” parts? Those were helpful, but I sometimes went against the wisdom of the crowd.  The main question here that I had to think on was whether to use percentage for membership share or business units. Business units are arbitrary and not tied to a dollar amount.  So you could express 2 members sharing 50/50 ownership by 50% each, or in terms of half the business units. I went with business units since I viewed them like shares, and are easier to divide in large numbers or small numbers without needing to go into 5 decimal places.  I think in the big picture it may not matter as much, but do your own research to see what works best for you.

On this screen where you add members, enter your initial investment in the LLC, and what percentage of the business, or how many business units it represents. Here I chose one million business units as the entire business unit pool, since I am the only member.  You can choose the initial size of the business unit pool at whatever you like, but I chose to go large on the number, since I view them as shares.

I decided to go with officers, and as such crowned myself CEO.  That’s right.

Below the officers you must define rules on how decisions for the company will be made, and who the IRS contact will be.  Think hard about the decision on how ownership interests will be handled.  As soon as you add one more member to your LLC, this decision could make or break you.  And don’t get too hung up on getting everything perfect here. You can change these my amending your company articles later, but I wanted to have it solid from the beginning.

Step 3: Taxation and the EIN

These next questions determine how you wish your LLC to be taxed.  The big question is if you want to be taxed as a sole proprietor, which I do for simplicity’s sake, and so I don’t contribute too much profit to Uncle Sam.

The questions above pertain to the SS-4.  I decided in an earlier step to spend an extra $30 and have LegalZoom prepare my SS-4 form, which is how you get your EIN (Employer Identification Number) which acts kind of like your company’s Social Security number.  It turns out that you don’t really need an SS-4 for requesting it since I ended up requesting the EIN over the phone with the IRS, but you’ll still need your signed and dated SS-4 in your records. And it also makes it easier to request the EIN over the phone since they will ask you questions from the form.  Nice to have it handy so you don’t fumble on the phone with the IRS.

That’s a short one, also pertains to the SS-4.

Step 4: Pay Up

Pick the package you want and lay your money down. This was the total for the “Standard” package with overnight delivery and Tax ID number form preparation.

Post-pay instructions:

There is a bit of time built in to the delivery process, since LegalZoom must prepare papers for the Delaware Secretary of State and send and get approval.  See the 35 days above? If it really took that long the overnight shipping might have been a waste, but maybe I was lucky because it didn’t take long at all.  Check out the status page:

Was ordered July 7th.  Took only 14 days to process and was delivered on the fourteenth day. So I don’t feel too dumb for paying for overnight.  Go LegalZoom!

Step 5: Aftermath

Once you get the package from LegalZoom there will be a few things to sign and you’ll need to get on the horn and call the IRS to get your EIN.  That takes about 10 minutes, mostly wait time on hold.  Once you get your EIN, it’s immediately effective.  Now you’re in business!

At this point, you can set up your business account. Your bank will need your copy of the letter from Delaware Secretary of State showing that your LLC was recorded.  LegalZoom will send you this with your packet. If you get your Delaware LLC through LegalZoom, you’ll need to call LegalZoom’s business assistance number and request a “bridge letter”. This letter connects you, your LLC, and your registered agent so that your bank will know that you are a representative of your LLC.  The reason they need this is because they will check the Delaware Secretary of State’s website and do an entity search.  Since LegalZoom is responsible for maintaining your registered agent, the registered agent will show up in this search, and not your name.  This bridge letter fills in the gaps by connecting you with the business.  They will email it to you soon after as an attachment.  Print it out and take it to the bank.

Note: Keep in mind that LegalZoom will set you up with a Delaware registered agent, and will bill you $159 per year a month later and every year afterwards on the anniversary of your LLC’s inception.

I hope you enjoyed this short series. I hope it helps many of you in protecting yourselves and also legitimizing your business in the business world.  Now let’s kick some tail.

Next post: Don’t Worry About the 3 Percent

Part I: Why you need one, and your options

This is the first of a three-part series on how to set your startup with a Delaware LLC. I recently did this, and will guide you through the process. Let’s get started.

Sole Proprietorships are good if you are very small

When you’re first starting your business and you’re making a few bucks, you don’t have to worry too much about getting sued. For one, you may only have a few customers, you’re making them happy, and they are paying you. But as time goes on and your customer base grows, it’s realistic to expect that something will go wrong.

Perhaps you host websites for businesses and you have a few hours of downtime due to an outage or something similar outside your control. Or perhaps you infringe on a patent you didn’t know existed. Or you lose a customer’s data that they deemed vital and irreplaceable. By damaging others, even in ways you may consider insignificant, you open yourself up to the greater possibility of a lawsuit.

If your business is a sole proprietorship and your business is sued, the judge can go beyond the assets of the business and a judgment can extend into your personal income and savings. You could lose every penny you have, and perhaps even future earnings. A judgment that your business funds can’t cover could even mean having to sell your car or home. The reason a sole proprietorship is so weak in terms of protecting your assets is that a sole proprietorship, by its name, indicates that you are the sole owner. That includes sole owner of the liability and debt. In addition, whether your sole proprietorship’s bank account is intertwined with your personal account or not is irrelevant. The business is all you and that’s all the judge will see. In a sole proprietorship there is no legal distinction between the owner and the business.

Enter corporations and LLCs

Once you move into the realms of corporations and LLCs, the business transforms into its own entity in the eyes of the law. It is separated from you, and is taxed appropriately. There is a work-around coming ahead, so don’t let the tax thing scare ya.

Both corporations and LLCs protect their investors/shareholders/members from liability should the company become a target of litigation.

Corporations

Read more on Corporations at Wikipedia.

C-Corp

A C corporation has the advantage of having multiple levels of stock: preferred, common, etc.  There is no limit on the number of members who can join the company as shareholders. Profits made by the C-Corp are taxed separately from dividends paid to shareholders.  Therefore, the corporation is taxed on profits, then the dividends are paid to shareholders, who then pay capital gains taxes on the dividends. This is referred to by some as double-taxation.

C Corporations are typically a better fit than LLCs for startups seeking investors such as venture capitalists and angels, due to the flexible share types. You could always convert to a corporation from an LLC if needed.

S-Corp

In contrast to a C-Corp, an S corporation is not subject to income tax. The shareholders pay tax on their share of the profits. This is similar to an LLC from a tax point of view.

S Corporations can only have up to 100 members and one class of stock.

LLC (Limited Liability Company)

A Limited Liability Company, or LLC, is a special type of business that can have one or many members with voting privileges in the company. There is no limit on the number of members, and depending on the state the LLC was formed, members could be individuals, corporations, and partnerships.  Each member is granted either a percentage of the company or a share of the total business units. I’ll discuss business units in part three of this series. An LLC has the advantage of pass-thru taxation. It can be taxed like a corporation, partnership, or even as a sole proprietorship, where the taxes are paid easily on the single owner’s personal tax form. The method is declared on form SS-4 when applying for an EIN (Employer Identification Number) from the IRS (and if you wish your LLC to be taxed like a corporation, file form 8832). More on this also in part three.

LLCs also have it easy compared to corporations as far as the paperwork and maintenance of the business. Read more on LLCs at Wikipedia.

Why Delaware?

Delaware LLCs (as more and more states do nowadays) allow for single-person membership.  In addition, under the business-favorable Delaware LLC law, LLCs do not have to have annual member meetings. And the paperwork needed to maintain the business is minimal.

Some states such as California have steep annual fees to maintain an LLC. The Delaware LLC franchise fee is only $250 per year.

To maintain a Delaware presence, should you live in some other part of the country, you will need a registered agent. Fees for this can range from around $100 per year to close to $300 per year depending on the agent you use. The agency I’m with costs $159/year.  For this you get an agent who will contact you should any paperwork come from the Delaware government or in the event your business is sued. They are your business’ representative in Delaware.

Also, Delaware has no sales tax or intangible personal property tax.  Delaware also allows the owners and managers of an LLC to remain anonymous.

Whether you decide to go Corporation (C or S) or LLC, you’ll find that Delaware is a favorable choice for either.

Legal disclaimer: I’m not your lawyer and I’m not your mom, and you shouldn’t believe everything you read on the internet. Make sure you do your own research.  And eat your vegetables.

In the next post, I’ll go over the first step in protecting your personal assets – separating all your personal accounts from your business. It’s vital to do it and do it right, or you may forfeit the legal protections that LLCs and corporations offer.

Next post: Separate your Business and Personal Accounts

After using GoDaddy for about 4 years, I ditched them and switched all my domains to Hover.

Why?

GoDaddy is the Hooters of the domain registrar world. Their self-controversial “too hot for TV” ads are a pathetic attempt to stand out in the competitive domain registrations space. I’m not their target market because I look for quality, and sex appeal does not compare to quality. I don’t want to support GoDaddy for the same reason I don’t go to Hooters or bikini barista drive-thrus. You may have really good hot wings or coffee, but I don’t want to support or encourage that type of marketing. Let your product speak for itself, without the sexy gimmick.

I was even going to use a screenshot to show how ridiculous their marketing is, but I’d rather promote Hover.

GoDaddy adds so many extra services to the checkout process, the vast majority of which I would never need, and makes me uneasy that I’ll add something on accident and regret it.  The only additional service I ever used beyond domain registration was the private registrations through Domains By Proxy, which I profiled in a separate post. DBP is good stuff.

Hover.com

Hover is a nice little oasis in the polluted world of domain registrars.  Their service is simple and it works.

I first heard about them on This Week in Tech (TWiT).

For $25, they will handle all your domain transfers for you, whether you have 1 domain or 1000. For each domain you transfer, your initial registration fee is only $10 each.  For that, you get the domain registration PLUS anonymous registration service.

And it’s anonymous registration service that you don’t need to make another account for on another site. It’s built-in to Hover.com.

For all other domains you register afterwards, the price is $15/year, which includes anonymous registration.  With GoDaddy, my domain renewals were $18.47 per year ($9.48 for domain registration, and $8.99 for anonymous registration). So you actually save money with Hover.com.

Use my coupon code “ReadyPrompt” and save 10%: http://hover.com/ReadyPrompt

With Hover.com, you get complete DNS and Name Server control.  Check out the nice UI (update: Summer 2011, they made the DNS UI even better, not as pictured):

The customer service ay Hover is outstanding. When you call, you get a person answering the phone.

The gent who handled my domain transfers recreated all of the DNS and MX records, switched the name servers, and filled in all of the contact records.

The “Hover”

Hover also offers a free service on all of your domains: the ability to create a “Hover”.  I’m still trying to wrap my head around the concept, but it has to do with forwarding. You can create a subdirectory on your domain that will go to another location, or make your domain forward to an entirely different domain altogether. Some nice DNS magic.

But transferring domains is expensive…

I understand.  I went ahead and did all of mine at once, and now I have all of my domains set until 2012.  So I won’t have to worry about it next year.

Remember that when you transfer you’re also adding a year to the expiration.

You can transfer one at a time as your domains get close to expiration, but I was just ready for a change.

Next post: Protect your Startup with a Delaware LLC

Whether your site is a content site, an e-commerce portal, a museum site, or something else completely, you’ll likely have fans.  Fans come in two types: sneezers and non-sneezers.  The word “sneezer” comes from Seth Godin’s Purple Cow.  A sneezer is someone who wants to tell others about your site or product.  Usually because there is something remarkable to talk about.

Furthermore (from my brain now), sneezers like to have a way to spur that conversation.  This is where merchandising comes in.  By selling shirts, hats, shoes, and coffee mugs, you provide a way for others to get your product name out there.

You Won’t get Rich from T-shirts

Unless you’re George Lucas, you’re not going to get rich from merchandising.  Even if you come up with some hit meme, the margins you’ll get from the t-shirts, hats, and thongs won’t get you far.  It’s just nice to get a check now and then when you least expect it.

Amazon aStores

A few years ago, I tried selling products (Korean keyboards and keyboard stickers) and it just didn’t pay off.  The margins were too small to keep it up.

A good alternative is using Amazon aStores.  The service allows you to set up a store at Amazon with your branding, with products you choose.  The nice thing about it is that it takes care of itself.  You don’t need to worry about shipping products or handling returns, and you get a small affiliate amount from each sale.

For my aStore at zKorean, I set up some pages, each with keywords and categories of products that I want to display.  Over time, Amazon will load in new products that match, meaning you don’t need to go in regularly to add more.  It’s just automatically managed for you.

Zazzle

I’m not going to list all the things you can make at Zazzle, because it’s way too many.  But check it out.  Yes, you can make Keds, but also posters, binders, postage, calendars, and so much more.

Cafepress

I use Cafepress for zKorean, and I did something a little different.  Yes there are zKorean shirts and mugs, but also items for TaeKwonDo (many zKorean visitors are looking for TKD vocabulary).  So even if your site isn’t anything too awesome to sneeze about, perhaps you can find something in it worth merchandising.

Cafepress also has a wide array of cool stuff to slap your design on: keepsake boxes, beer steins, license plate frames, and more.

And the hoodies are warm.  That’s what I’m wearing on the About SND page.

Size Matters

An important point I must make is that your logo needs to be VERY large and high-quality if you want it to look good on printed matter.  For more details, read this oldie.

Next post: What I’ve Been Up To

So how do you avoid this?

The trick is to display your email in a way that the user viewing the site sees the email address and can click it or copy it into their email program, while robots only see a jumble of characters that to a machine does not look like an email address.

There are a number of sites to help you.  My favorite is David Grayson’s Email Hider: http://www.davidegrayson.com/emailhider/

What it will do is replace some characters with HTML entities, which are readable by your browser and will display as normal characters.  The probability that a character in your email will be replaced is determined by the second number.  The closer it is to 1, the more characters will be replaced.  0.6 is a good balance.

There are other sites, too.  You can find them using a search for “email obfuscator”.

I don’t recommend making an image of your email address because then your visitors will have to copy it visually and try not to make mistakes, which is common in long email addresses or noisy images where your email address does not appear clearly.

An Extra Note

Avoid using certain email addresses with your domain. Very common addresses like info@yourdomain, webmaster@yourdomain, and sales@yourdomain are already built-in to spam lists.  It’s better to use something friendly but also less common.  Let’s get original and creative, yes?

Next post: when your server is in a bad neighborhood

The complete fax solution is a combination of 3 things: eFax, a scanner, and your local Kinko’s.

Incoming Faxes

So a client or customer wants to send you a fax and they will not be swayed.  Go to eFax and get a free account.  The fax number they provide for free will probably not be a local number for your startup, but since you’re not paying for phone charges, it’s not a problem.

Publish your fax number on your contact page, and once someone sends you a fax you’ll get an email from eFax.  In order to view your fax, you’ll need to download the viewer they provide.

Outgoing

When it comes to outgoing faxes, your client may say to fax an item, but you can always offer to send them a PDF by email.  Since PDF is a ubiquitous and user-friendly format, the customer will most likely prefer it.

This scenario is common when you need to print, sign and fax back.  In this situation, I print from my laser printer, sign it, scan it using my scanner and save it and email as a PDF.  Many scanners these days include software that allows you to save scans in PDF format (even multiple pages).

This scanner does the trick: the Canoscan LiDE 200.  It has a small footprint (9.9 x 14.4 inches) and is even powered by USB cable so it doesn’t hog an outlet on your power strip.  It’s small and thin enough to fit in a backpack or briefcase and take with you.

If they stand adamant that only a fax will do, head over to your local Kinko’s and spend $5-$10 (depending on length) and make your customer happy.

Another option is to send that fax via email.  It leaves your email box and ends up rolling out of your customer’s fax machine.  MyFax offers this service for $10/month and it’s a good option for road warriors.

Next post: publish your email the right way

You’ve come up with a brilliant startup idea, and perhaps have even completed the site, but at this point it’s just working wireframes.  It’s ugly.  It’s time to employ your design skills to make it appeal to people.  But if you’re like me, your design skills are not up to the task?  So what do you do?  Hire a design firm at thousands of dollars?  That could work but it kind of goes against the cheapskate theme I have going here.  What you need are some attractive, ready-made site designs!

ThemeForest

For site themes, there are hundreds of really bad theme sites and thousands of horrible themes.  ThemeForest is a shining island in a sea of mediocrity.  ThemeForest offers HTML and PSD-based site themes, and the quality is surprisingly good.

 
For the quality, you’ll pay surprisingly little.  Themes range from $15 to about $35, and for that you will be getting a theme that has been used on a few other sites, but it will look attractive and will suffice until you’re raking in megabucks and can afford custom work.

In addition to basic site templates, they also offer almost as many WordPress, themes.  In fact, many times you’ll be able to find a site theme and its matching WordPress theme from the same designer.   Many times, these WordPress themes are heavy modifications that turn your WordPress blog into a complete content management system.  Pretty amazing stuff.

ThemeForest also offers themes for Joomla, Drupal, Magento and even email.

Shop Locally

There must be thousands of nascent web designers out there looking for a chance to design a cool website for you and get it on their resume.  It won’t be free (unless they offer), but it will be cheaper than a full-time, experienced web designer.  Checking on Craigslist under Resumes/Jobs Wanted or your local university or community college are good places to try.  Community colleges tend to have web design classes for college-aged students and adult education, so you’ll find people who are getting their feet wet in Photoshop and other graphics toolkits.

When you’re deciding, take a look at some of the ThemeForest stuff, as well as sites mentioned in these posts:

• http://net.tutsplus.com/articles/web-roundups/inspiration-character-illustrations-in-website-design/
• http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/01/22/35-beautiful-and-effective-ecommerce-websites/
• http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/07/30/50-fresh-portfolio-websites-for-your-inspiration/

You’ll get a good idea of what modern design looks like.  Look for elements like these in your designer’s portfolio.

GraphicRiver

If you’ve got a good design, but need something to make it look a little more vibrant, a special design element, or just some rock textures, GraphicRiver (a site in the same family as ThemeForest) is an affordable way to fill in the gaps in your design.  The items are quite affordable, and you’ll get $2 off each purchase for using funds in your pre-paid account.

 
Even if you’re looking for something as simple as a Twitter background, this is a good place to start.  In fact, if you shop around GraphicRiver, you’ll probably discover some elements that resemble elements on this site.  I bought quite a few files and modified them to match my design.

Call for Comment: Are there sites you recommend for good templates or design elements? What experience have you had with your local web designer?

I’m not going to go into deep analysis of all these services, because I haven’t used them all.  To be honest, most of this will be truth, half-truth, rumor, and conjecture.  So enjoy.

MailChimp

I’ve used MailChimp for a couple of zKorean campaigns.  They have a massive feature list, way too much to go over here, but I want to mention a few things beyond the list I mentioned at the start of this article.

Customizable Newsletter Signup Form

In order to make sure people you send mail to really want mail from you, it’s best to have them opt-in instead of opt-out.  The “Become an Insider” link on this site is a link to my MailChimp signup page: http://eepurl.com/oaj1

I like it because it mimics aspects of my site, instead of some bland, sterile form.

Full-featured API

For the programmer types who want to do everything from the comfort of their own site, the API allows you to sync users, subscribe/unsubscribe users in your campaign lists, and display report data in your own way.

Plugins

Not much of a programmer?  Grab one of the plugins made for your platform (there are many).

Pricing

MailChimp has flexible and affordable pricing plans, whether you send campaigns often or not.  Their pricing plans have you in mind.

What I don’t like

The only problem I had was during the email composition portion.  I found myself starting over again a few times.  A friend also has some frustration during creation and expressed that he wanted to go back to ConstantContact.

ConstantContact

ConstantContact goes beyond email marketing to include surveys and event marketing.  So once you have a solid list of customers, you can create a complete momentum loop for your business, whereas you get feedback from customers through surveys to help you build better products, and event marketing in order to meet your customers and further your business relationship.

NutshellMail

ConstantContact also offers NutshellMail, which sends you an email regularly that contains all mentions of your company or brand across LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and others.

Pricing

The pricing plans for ConstantContact are remarkable because they really have the customer in mind, not with a finance spreadsheet in mind.

Pricing plans for email marketing are based on flat monthly rates based on the size of your contact lists.  So you can send as many campaigns as you want without affecting your monthly fee.  And non-profits get a pre-pay discount.  Nice.

For surveys, pricing is purely on responses received.

For event marketing, you only pay for the number of open events you’re running, and is unlimited on participants.

You shouldn’t be penalized for running a successful, popular, interesting event

Cool, right?

MadMimi

Was mentioned by Seth Godin, so I’m passing it along.  And you gotta like the about us photo.  I like the feel of this company.  They have developers and owners answering support calls.

The campaign creator is a really nice tool, with an intuitive, easy to use, and very pleasing interface.  Their templates are well done and fresh, and won’t make your campaign look frumpy.

And don’t let the simple site fool you.  There’s a wealth of analytics, a good API, and mass features that await you.

Emma

Emma is different from all the above in that it’s a custom shop by default.  They design customized email stationery for your business so your campaigns really pop.

Even though it’s custom, it’s affordable, and since you’re sending campaigns in order to continue a business relationship, interest your customers, and get them to act, the Emma custom design concept is a smart one.

 
Like all these services mentioned, Emma supports your campaign with campaign email distribution, analytics, response tracking, and list management.

Next post: don’t let your startup get you sued