At least one desktop computer:
At least one, because a second might serve you well to handle secondary tasks like uploading completed files, storage of completed files, and a more robust Operating System. (The examples and other descriptions here assume you have one workstation/PC).
Note: The requirements for WebMerge by itself are considered a minimum:
Windows: NT/2K/XP/Vista/7.
512 MB total system memory.
200 MB disk space.
800 x 600 min. screen resolution.
For creating data driven affiliate web sites, the following might be considered a minimum:
4GB total system memory.
500GB spare disk space.
Processor speed 1.6 GHz (minimum).
Remember the speed of the processor governs how fast the page creation process will take, so if you want to make an investment in a processor that takes you from 500MHz to Quad-Core 2.8 GHz, it is money well spent (and it is relatively cheap).
Software:
Once again, our focus here is on using the page generation tool called WebMerge. PHP and other scripts are outside the scope of what we’ll be talking about. You are welcome to try the evaluation version, but it is limited to building/using only twenty records/pages. WebMerge will usually pay for itself within three months of your purchase.
Excel or similar spreadsheet program:
As stated above, you’ll also need something to manipulate the data feeds prior to having WebMerge make pages for you. You’ll need this tool in order to clean up your data feed (more about that later), and format it so that the pages you generate are different (better) than other folks. You don’t have to do these things, but you will be better off for it. That’s a little secret that not everyone catches on to, and is one place where differences are added in. It is also a great place to add value to what the visitor sees.
If you use MS Excel 2000 or 2003 you’ll have a program capable of looking at feeds with up to 65,000 records. This is a good start, and will cover most of the feeds out there. If you need something more robust, you can look at Microsoft Excel 2007 (one-million records!), MS Access, or Calc from www.openoffice.org. Something with a strong search and replace capability is also very important in this type of program.
What about your operating system?
First, almost any MS Windows or Mac OS will work (Windows NT/2K/XP/Vista/7). However, the later versions of Windows are a little more robust in handling large numbers of files. A really trick setup is to have WebMerge installed on a Windows machine or Mac, with a second computer running Linux, and connected through a LAN. This is all far less expensive than you might imagine, and is worth thinking about.
FTP Program:
A good File Transfer Protocol (FTP) program can be used to transfer the files to your web server (host). The FTP program is also used to retrieve the feeds from either your server, or the merchant’s server. There are many available, and if you have done much of anything on the web, you already know about FTP.
Web hosts like GoDaddy have web interfaces that allow uploading. Regretfully, these are not suitable for our purposes (toomany files - not enough time).
You can also let WebMerge upload the completed work automatically, using a built-in ftp application.
Your Internet Connection:
Earlier we discussed handling large files, or large numbers of files in the case of your completed work? Well if you don’t want to be spending your entire life uploading to your site, a DSL or Cable type high-speed connection is mandatory. A 56K dial-up connection is simply not robust enough to accomplish uploads of more than a few dozen pages.
What about my MAC?:
What about it? It will work just fine, system 8.0 or later please.
Everyone has their own “really cool” setup. Let us give you some hints about what might help you with a good combination of software and hardware.
A second computer running Windows NT, or Linux (Linux Preferred). We say a second computer, because WebMerge will not run on Linux (yet). The advantage of using a second computer, is that it can take care of the storage tasks for you and best communicate with your web host. For example, you can run WebMerge on a XP machine, and write the files over to the more robust Linux box, where handling a large number of files is never an issue. Once there, your files can be easily uploaded right from the Linux box via many free built-in ftp applications. If you have a shell account for your hosting account, these can also be run right from the Linux machine with a terminal window. You may in effect, have the same kind of machine your web host has - they talk to each other. Okay, that sounds a little too romantic, but you get the idea.
Our experience with Linux has been really good. We took an old PC, with a 500MHz processor speed, and downloaded the latest "images" for a very popular Linux distribution (ubuntu). We then added a new 50GB hard drive, and some extra system memory. Total investment was less than $100. Installing many of the Linux distributions has become far less painful than before than the old days, everything is menu driven, and quite simple. You will still need patience though, to get it running the way you want. Don't forget, many distributions of Linux are free.
NEXT SECTION - What is a data feed?
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