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 95/98/98SE/NT/2K/ME/XP.
64 MB total system memory.
5 MB disk space.
800 x 600 min. screen resolution.
For creating data driven affiliate web sites, the following might be considered a minimum:
512MB total system memory.
10GB disk space.
Processor speed 500MHz (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 3GHz, it is money well spent (and it is 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. It will take about that
long to get your pages indexed, and begin getting traffic from the search engines.
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 Excel 2000 or later, 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 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 95/98/NT/2K/ME/XP). 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.
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 very desirable. If
you have a 56K dial-up connection, it will work, and may even
be okay to start, but moving to the high-bandwidth world is a
smart investment you’ll never regret.
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 (at this time we are testing to see if it can be ported over with Wine). 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 Win98 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 350MHz processor speed, and downloaded the latest "images" for Mandrake 9.2. We then added a new 30GB 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.
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