Posted by JP
Thu, 03 Jan 2008 06:11:00 GMT
Ok, mostly profit!
Here's the gist of it: you write web applications or make websites for a living. Eventually, your clients need to host them. This is an often overlooked opportunity for profit. Either they sign up with a host or, if they don't want to get their hands dirty, they let you handle it.
Either way, you're making money. Here's how:
Step 1
Sign up with a host like Site5, which offers an affiliate program. By the way, you can host your Ruby on Rails applications on Site5. So far, I've been extremely satisfied. There's also Dreamhost that offers 97$ per referral + 5$ per sub-referral (or a 10% of the referral's bill amounts + 5% of their sub-referrals). I haven't hosted any sites at Dreamhost so I can't vouch for the quality of their service, but I've heard that they're a good place to host. They support Ruby on Rails as well. I use 1and1 for sites that don't require Rails. They do a fine job of hosting PHP sites. 1and1 also offers affiliate rewards.
Step 2
Refer your clients, those who want to manage their own server, to that same hosting service. In the case of Site5, you get 85$ (or 97$) for each new customer you bring.
Step 3
Host your clients, those who don't want to bother with the details of a host. There's a few good reasons to do so.
First of all, you'll be the one doing future maintenances on the site or application. Second of all, since you actually have to babysit the website, you can charge a monthly fee for doing so. The amount is up to you, depending whether the client is high maintenance or not. This way, you end up actually billing for small tasks which are often touchy to bill (10 minutes here and there actually add up at the end of the year).
I suggest billing a fixed amount in advance (e.g.: 30$ per month, for hosting and babysitting). The amount is arbitrary and really depends on the situation at hand, but you get the idea
Step 4
Sit and wait for the money to come in. First of all, you'll be getting referral money, which will most likely cover your own personal and professional hosting expenses. Second of all, you'll be getting paid to host your other client's applications. First thing you know, you'll make some decent money.
You actually will end up doing some maintenance every now and then, but first thing you know, you will have a nice little revenue stream coming in, just for doing what you'd be doing anyways.
You're happy, and your clients are happy too.
In case you're wondering, my affiliates program revenue alone already covers all my hosting expenses, so basically, I'm making money while spending none.
Try it out and see for yourself.
Posted in Tips | Tags affiliates, hosting, money, rails, site5 | no comments
Posted by JP
Sun, 10 Jun 2007 06:47:00 GMT
Ok, it seems that Typo's Flickr plugin was working well, but slowly leaking memory. That resulted in my hosting provider contacting me and asking me to fix the problem.
I "solved" the problem by removing the plugin from the page's layout as I don't have any time to fix this right now. The world can do without my flickr sidebar!
Posted in Announcements | Tags flickr, site5, typo | no comments
Posted by JP
Thu, 24 May 2007 09:43:00 GMT
So yesterday, after upgrading Typo, I had this problem:
http://www.jponrails/blog/
would work but
http://www.jponrails/blog
wouldn't (400 Bad Request).
The problem is my blog runs with Mongrel FastCGI so in my public_html folder, I have a symbolic link that points to my application's public folder. Somehow, if you don't put the trailing slash, you get a 400 Bad Request error. I need to investigate this further, and I will as soon as I have some time.
I searched on the web for a mod_rewrite-based fix. All the fixes I found would work without the trailing slash, but they would break when you put the trailing slash! Not very useful...
That's until I found this blog entry on LavaFactory. That link I put is broken for some reason, so try clicking here and scrolling down a bit.
Here's the code I pasted in my public/.htaccess file:
# Trailing slash fix
RewriteBase /blog/
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d
RewriteRule ^(.+[^/]+)$ $1/ [R]
RewriteRule .*/blog/(.*) http://www.jponrails.com/blog/$1 [L,R]
RewriteRule ^([^.]+)$ $1.html [QSA]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ dispatch.fcgi [QSA,L]
Posted in Tips | Tags apache, bestpractices, deploying, fastcgi, mod_rewrite, production, rails, site5 | no comments
Posted by JP
Wed, 23 May 2007 10:59:00 GMT
So I spend the better of the last few hours upgrading Typo. I now have a custom gem-based Typo install instead of the default Site5 install, which means that I now have the latest version of Typo.
Everything should be running relatively smoothly now. Please notice that I managed to get the Flickr sidebar feed running properly.
Woot.
Posted in Announcements | Tags flickr, gem, site5, typo | no comments
Posted by JP
Mon, 26 Feb 2007 18:29:00 GMT
First post!
Welcome to JP on Rails. This blog is about what I do for a living: software development. It's powered by Typo, a Ruby on Rails based blogging engine and hosted on Site5.
I chose Typo because it's simple and elegant and because it's based on Ruby on Rails. Since I'll be using this site, as its name implies it, as a vehicle to discuss my experiences with the Rails framework, I decided to use a tool that's built on that technology.
Although many posts will concern Rails, I'll also share my thoughts on a variety of subjects, such as development methology, problem solving, creativity, productivity, technology and the Internet.
So, without further ado, let's get this ball rolling. Enjoy.
Posted in Announcements | Tags announcements, rails, site5, typo | 2 comments
