Money and Personal Finance

Dedicated servers are something that many website owners here discussed often in chat rooms and on website support forums. While many new website owners will sign up for a shared hosting plan business owners that are affordable and maintained by a web hosting company other owners have invested in dedicated servers. A dedicated server is a server that is used by only one company for their website or websites. In the past owning a dedicated server was extremely expensive and required a lot of maintenance and technology knowledge.

These days having a dedicated server is much easier and a bit more affordable than it was a few years ago. Web hosting companies that previously offered only shared servers have now made dedicated servers available to their customers. This allows users to sign up for a hosting account the same way that they always have only now they will not be sharing a server with other account holders. The price for this service is more expensive than a shared hosting plan but still much more affordable than purchasing and managing private equipment. In addition to being more affordable investing in a dedicated server that is maintained by a third party is much more convenient. Neither you nor your staff has to worry about constantly monitoring your new server for downtime or errors. The web hosting company will perform the exact same support and troubleshooting services as they always have.

There are many benefits to having a dedicated server but the primary benefit in most website owners’ eyes is that they no longer have to fear downtime being caused by another website owner’s site. Many website owners do not realize that when sharing a server their site is in the hands of many other website owners who may not be very knowledgeable or responsible. Poorly designed sites with bad coding and other problems have led to entire servers crashing. Even if a sites coding does not disrupt the server, the sites traffic can sometimes lead to problems.

Many shared hosting plans limit the bandwidth being used by each account that is using the server in question. The web hosting company will either charge heavy fees for overuse or temporarily limit access to a site if it has exceeded a certain bandwidth amount. Unfortunately there are always times when a web hosting company does not notice an overage until it has already caused a server failure. This sometimes happens when a website uploads new content or starts a new traffic campaign that leads to a sudden burst of traffic. When a server is down your company will be penalized as traffic and potential customers are lost when they reach a site that is not active.

To avoid downtime and errors that are caused by shared hosting it is best to invest in a dedicated server. Dedicated servers are perfect for website owners that simply cannot afford to be down often and for website owners that expect a lot of traffic daily. Having a dedicated server will not only cut down on downtime, it will also make your website load faster and work more efficiently for your visitors.

You have certainly heard people talking about life insurance, its benefits and how you need to get it, but they have probably not told you why you should have one. You may have even asked them, “why buy life insurance?” You are probably wondering why life insurance is really important. The answer for this is not complicated, fortunately, and it extends past the money alone. It takes in all aspects of your life and encompasses many things that you may not have considered before. A few of the reasons are listed below so that you can have a better grasp on it if you have ever asked yourself: “Why buy life insurance?”

First off, you may be asking yourself: “Why buy life insurance before I am old? Why buy life insurance when death is so far away?” You may have the idea that this is something that young people do not need to concern themselves with. Many times, however, the exact opposite is true. You have to think about the logistics of the world after you are gone. If you are ninety years old when you die, do you have children living with you who need to go to college? Do you have a whole family who counts on you for support?

The answer is probably no. When you are younger, however, these things are very real. You need to think about what will happen to your loved ones without you. What do you think your worth is to your loved ones? Even if don’t know it, though young, your family is investing in you with expectations that YOU will make significant contributions to yourself, your family and society. Do you want to let them down if the unexpected happens?

Now, perhaps you live alone. Perhaps you do not have a family and you think you still are too young to need a policy. However, do not forget that someone will have to pay for your funeral and all of these expenses. Most likely, this will be your nearest of kin. You may ask yourself: “Why buy life insurance? Why buy life insurance if I’m not sure that they will need it?” In a very real sense, they might. They might be having their own financial challenges, don’t be selfish, and think of them.

From a monetary point of view, you could ask yourself: “Why buy life insurance when I cannot afford it? Why buy life insurance to create extra bills?” What you need to consider is that it only gets more expensive as you grow older. The companies will evaluate you based on the risk you pose to them. An older person, then, will have to pay more since they will naturally die sooner. Getting a plan sooner in life is a good way to get it for less.

Finally, you may think: “Why buy life insurance when I do not have any sickness? Why buy life insurance before I have a disease?” The problem with waiting is that some diseases and medical conditions will make it impossible for you to get a policy. The truth is that in most cases you can only get one before you are sick. Once you are sick and diagnosed it goes in to database called MIB-Medical Information Bureau. This is what the entire industry uses before approving life insurance.

Unfortunately, nobody’s health is guaranteed. One day you wake up fit as a fiddle and the next moment; bang! something comes up. Something on health or otherwise happens not because we wish it but because life happens. At this point, it may be too late, due to the term pre existing condition. So please think again and instead of asking; “why buy life insurance?” Ask yourself-what kind of name and legacy do you want to leave behind? The choice is yours.

If you’re thinking about buying a home, you probably already know that a lot of people will have different opinions about it. Some will encourage you to buy a house, some will think that it’s not a very important thing. When you’re making up your mind about this, learning more about what makes home ownership so great will essentially help you overcome any issues you may feel about the process. Of course, buying a home should be carefully planned out and prepared for. There’s an ideal time to be thinking about investing on a house. Both financial and emotional preparedness is very important in this process.

That being said, here are five compelling reasons why home ownership can be a great idea for you:

1. The pride of being a home owner – A lot of people look forward to buying a house because they feel they are putting their roots down on the ground. They’re looking forward to raising a family in that house and staying there for the long term. Aside from that, having your own house means that there are no restrictions on what you can do inside it. You can put up shelves, photographs, repaint the walls, add fixtures, change the flooring, virtually anything you can think of.

2. Property appreciation – Of course, real estate markets move in cycles. Sometimes it goes up, sometimes it goes down. If you look through Celebration homes for sale, for example, you’ll see that list prices go up and down over the years, but the general trend for property value appreciates. If you look at the general performance of Celebration real estate properties historically, you’ll find an upward trend, which is probably true for most real estate properties as well.

3. Tax deductions on mortgage interest – While your mortgage balance is smaller than the price of your home, your mortgage interest (which is the largest part of your mortgage payments) is considered fully tax deductible. There are also a lot of other tax deductions applicable especially for first time home buyers. You may want to visit the IRS website for more information about this, so you can take advantage of tax shelters that favor home owners.

4. Capital gains exclusion – Not all people think about staying in the same house for the rest of their lives. If you have had the house for five years and it has been your primary home for at least two you can sell it and $500,000 of the profit ($250,000 each for individuals) will be considered tax-free.

5. Building equity – Mortgage reduction builds up equity slowly over the years. You can be comforted by the fact that unlike renting, as you pay money every month for your mortgage, the property builds equity. Each payment reduces the principal and, in effect, your obligation. In some states, you can even take out equity loans, which has a significantly lower interest rate than taking out loans on your credit card. This could come in handy during times when you need money for whatever purpose. Some states restrict the use of home equity loans, though.

So you’ve just about got your head around the basics of cloud computing, you’ve been told that it’s an amazing advancement for your business and it’s the way forward, but what now? Technology and marketing research specialists, Gartner, has said that by 2012 80% of America’s 1000 biggest businesses will pay for a cloud computing service, but what does that mean for you? Why should you bother investing in the cloud? Here are some of the biggest benefits of cloud computing:

Scalability: The biggest buzz word surrounding cloud computing is scalability. The ability to increase or decrease your cloud capacity as the network usage fluctuates which means, in theory, you shouldn’t suffer from any crashes or downtime as you can simply contact your cloud provider and increase capacity. The main advantage of this to both personal users and businesses is that you only pay for what you use and the process of altering capacity takes just minutes.

Remote Accessibility: The obvious major advantage of cloud computing is its accessibility. Whether you’re a big business or a personal user you’re able to access your data from any PC with an internet connection, as long as you remember your log-ins of course.

Quality of Service: As with choosing any web host, choosing your cloud host comes with a check list. Some of the main points on the list are often quality of service and up-time, something which is vital for a network running solely on internet connections. Cloud providers will often employ skilled practitioners to manage the networks and make sure that down time is as close to zero as possible. Along with this you should expect 24/7 support from your vendor and immediate action to be taken if your network goes down. Though it may be annoying for you to sit at the other end twiddling your thumbs if your network goes down, it should give you some piece of mind knowing that professionals are sorting it out.

Security & Backup: A great advantage of the cloud, especially for businesses, is the option of having real-time or frequent automatic backups. This results in little data loss and takes away the hassle of sourcing a backup provider and paying a separate cost. With security, the cloud’s allusiveness means that cloud servers are less prone to attacks/hacks as the location of data is unknown. Again, for businesses, you have the option of an internal cloud with provides even more security, hiding your cloud behind a firewall or passwords.

Cost & Efficiency: Implementing any new system into a business is never easy work, but without the need to purchase and set up a load of new hardware, moving a business into the cloud is as easy as it’s ever going to get. Most of the work is left in the hands of the cloud provider, as well as most of the costs. This advantage means that you’ll be able to focus on any changes within the company and leave the rest to the experts. (It is important to note that financial advantages of the cloud are often only seen in the long term – see Disadvantages of Cloud Computing.)

Doing Your Bit: Though it’s not necessarily a deal breaker when it comes to making the decision to move into the cloud, the satisfaction of being more environmentally friendly is an added bonus. The limited hardware will reduce your electricity usage and expenses while the lack of equipment required to cool and run servers will reduce your dangerous emissions to the environment.

Although cloud computing certainly has its benefits, if you’re considering the cloud for your business or even want to discuss the latest trend, then its also important to look at the downside too.

Billboards are income properties without the usual landlording concerns. Perhaps the biggest problem with investing in billboards is that there are limited opportunities to do so in most areas.

I like the idea of a billboard investment. No toilets to fix, no tenants to evict. Just lease the space, let the renter do all the painting, and collect the income. Of course it might be necessary to upgrade the billboard or repair it every ten years or so, but that just doesn’t compare with the regular problems that come up with other rental real estate.

The best way to make money with billboards used to be buying property and then putting billboards on it. However, this is getting more difficult all the time. Many communities are limiting the number of billboards allowed, or just plain outlawing all new ones.

One way around this that I have seen is to have billboards that aren’t billboards. The most common example is old truck trailers that have been made into “mobile” billboards. These presumably don’t fit the definition of a billboard, and so are left alone. It is just a truck trailer parked near the highway that happens to have advertising on it.

I’m not sure if these are legally secure enough to make advertisers fell comfortable. If not, the rates would be much lower. I might try this if I had a property alongside a highway or busy road, but I wouldn’t invest in property based on this scheme.

Buying billboard Properties

The new laws and regulations almost never make existing billboards illegal. They are grandfathered, meaning they will be allowed as long as they are there. It may not be okay to replace them, but they can generally be there as long as they can be repaired. These are the properties that you will want to look for to make money with billboards.

The math is relatively simple compared to most real estate deals. On the expense side, you have your financing, property taxes, insurance, and occasional repairs. Advertising for advertisers is usually done on the vacant sign itself, for the cost of the paint. If these expenses are less than the monthly rent coming in, you have positive cash flow, and it may be a good investment.

You’ll want to know how long the lease has to run. Billboards can remain empty for months, so you have to account for that if you buy one with a lease about to expire. Look around at how many empty billboards there are to get an idea of how easy or difficult it will be to get it rented out again.

Do some research on rental rates before you start shopping for properties. Find out the range of rents in the area, as well as information on vacancy rates, if you can. Then, as you narrow your search, get the average rates for other billboards on the same streets where your prospective properties are for sale.

You want the rates on a property you buy to be in line with others in the area. It’s even better if they are low. In that case you might pay a price based on the existing rates and raise the rent when the lease is up.

Ideally you want a property that will have decent cash flow from day one, and has a long term lease with a client who has repeated renewed the lease. Then you might just take that easy return on your investment for many years as the rent also pays off your loan.

There is a strategy that I hesitate to mention, because it seems unfair to me. But it can be profitable. I heard about from an investor who bought a lot real estate with billboards in Arizona. Once he had enough properties in city, he lobbied for a ban on all future billboards,and joined any groups that were doing the same. He urged the city council to “beautify” the city by banning new billboards, knowing that they would always “grandfather” existing properties, including his.

Once the law passed, future competition was eliminated. No new billboards could be erected, despite a city that continued to gain population and businesses. The result, of course, was predictable. Advertising rates on the existing billboards skyrocketed over time. He said he was making a lot of money on the ones he had.