Blogger BlogNet97797

The internet has given us some great opportunities to learn a language and the possibilities for the future are truly staggering. In the past, learning a language required us to buy books and learn on our own (with no audio and no feedback or interaction) or take a class (which can be expensive and inconvenient). But, today the improvements of technology and the accessibility of the internet have given us many more opportunities to improve our language learning experiences, and in many cases, for free.

Of course, learning on your own (or at least supplementing your classroom or tutor study on your own time) requires some self-discipline and motivation. There is no one to tell you what to do but yourself. Try to stick to whatever lesson plan you make for yourself. Keep at it every day and don't give up. In time, you can give yourself a good foundation in your target language for free.

There are lots of individual websites devoted to a specific language. The more popular languages like French, Spanish and Japanese have a lot of choices for beginning and intermediate students. Even some of the less commonly studied languages have sites with tutorials, free lessons and resources. For the vast majority of languages that you may be interested in studying there is something out there for you, so take a look around.

FSI is one of the great all-time language learning methods. Many of their older courses are now available online for free at FSI Language Courses. These courses are free because they were created by the US government and are public domain. Much of the audio is out of date compared to newer (and more expensive) courses, but the method is excellent. It's a great way to get a free start with learning a language.

The internet abounds with great resource sites like language forums, blogs, penpal sites and podcasts. All of these kinds of resources are excellent complements to your book, tutorial, class or other language method. They provide audio, video, real life vocabulary and interaction with other learners and native speakers.

Don't forget the library for the most common language books and tape or CD collections. Most libraries have at least introductory language courses on tape or CD. All libraries have extensive books on learning languages. The library is an often-overlooked resource for access to free language learning materials.

Keep at it and use some of the suggestions in this article in small doses to complement a tutorial or other language method. Try adding lots of audio and video to actually hear the language and use forums, blogs and penpals to begin to interact with other learners and speakers.

Combining different approaches can create synergies that enhance the effectiveness of an all-purpose tutorial or language method. Take advantage of these free resources to get the most effective and fun language learning experience possible!

Ron is a long-time language enthusiast, exploring Spanish, French, Swedish, Cornish, Esperanto and others. Learn more about studying a language on your own at Language Learning Advisor This guide for self-study language learners has reviews and recommendations of language learning methods and products, links to online learning resources, learning tips to maximize your study time and effectiveness and articles on language learning.

A simple message this one, but a really crucial one, research your domain registrar, choose them with care. A bad registrar can kill your on-line business, stone cold dead!

I have recently shared a customer's nightmare with a supposedly reputable domain registrar. All they wanted was their domain pointing to a different DNS server (the server that tells the internet where your website is), a simple request, they received no response from any of their emails. I didn't like their silence and suggested we actually move the domain to my registrar instead, more emails sent, more silence, weeks of it!

This was a big problem for both the client and myself. The client had a product launch and wanted to use my technology. The problem being my technology requires my DNS servers, not somebody else's! Time was ticking, they had become prisoners and I was about to lose a development job! Thankfully it was wrestled from them in the nick of time, but that could have been a product without a decent website.

Worse can happen, another developer I know had some domains registered with a company that lost their records completely. Thankfully none of these were business critical but if you lose control of your domain you may not be able to prove you own it or ever regain control.

When registering a domain, here are three simple tips:

• Will you own the domain or will the registrar? This is a common way to be caught out, many of the 'register for free' sites do this, you need to check the small print. The registrar could be the ones who end up making money out of your carefully built reputation, you could end up starting again under a new name.
• Do a search, are there lots of complaints about a registrar online? I just Googled a registrar and found hundreds of pages of complaints, including news articles on high profile tech sites and 3 whole forums dedicated entirely to moaning about them - one has over 750 members.
• What do they charge for? Quite often registration is cheap, but if you wish to change something you find yourself slapped with a $50 bill. Again, check the small print; look at their terms for moving for example.
• Don't make assumptions. The registrar my customer was using is a subsidiary of one of the biggest and most respected ISPs in the UK, yet they have a track record of failing to respond to customer requests and server failures. Big does not necessarily mean good, this applies to web hosting in general as well.

I can't stress this enough, with an established online business your most precious asset is your domain name. Don't risk your business for the sake of saving a few dollars!

Good luck with your new venture!

David Pook is a web developer with a specialty in large content managed sites. He has worked on both public facing and intranet sites in the public and commercial sectors including sites with over 50,000 fully managed pages.

He has recently formed Sqoo Media where he has developed a flexible and easy to use content management system with the aim of taking his experience to smaller organisations to free them from the prison that is static content.