After spending the last several years running Linux on my main computer, I finally gave up and decided to move back to Windows.  Here, I will briefly cover some of the reasons why I made this decision, and then outline many of the steps I took to make it happen.

Why Linux?

The first questions that may come up for many of my readers is, "Why were you using Linux in the first place?"

Since much of my business is online, and there have been situations where I needed to go into the web server and make changes to support various scripts, I wanted to have a Linux machine at home where I could explore without having to think about how my explorations would affect the public websites.

At first, I installed Linux on a completely separate computer.  After verifying that nothing would blow up, I took the next step and installed it onto my main computer, where both Linux and Windows were available as a "dual boot" setup.  Each time I booted up the computer, I could choose to use either Windows or Linux.....Read more »

It's Friday, and I just sent out an ezine issue to nearly 2500 people yesterday.  If this number represented a live audience to speak in front of, it would be awe-inspiriing to step out on stage in front of that many people.  As far as email lists go, however, it's a relatively small audience.

But that's okay, because my focus is elsewhere right now, and strangly enough, it's something that will also help build my mailing list.....Read more »

Six weeks into this new venture, and as you'd expect, I've learned quite a few things.  Mainly that this is more work than I originally anticipated -- quality articles are hard to find, and few of my previous partners actively contribute articles, preferring to let me do the work to find articles they've written and publish them myself.

I'm also finding that many of these same partners have not been announcing the publication of their articles to this site, and as such, the only real audience has been subscribers from my own lists.

To be completely honest, I expected some of this.  I know everyone is busy, and some people may not see the logic of a co-op marketing venture.  I still feel the concept will work, although it may work better AFTER I start actively recruiting new partners for it.  So far, I've been focusing on helping my previous partners before taking that step.

On the positive side, I see this site's Alexa ranking improving every day.  As I write this, PragmaticSolutionsNow.com has an Alexa ranking of 519,724, meaning there are only 519,723 websites getting more traffic than we have here.  Considering the many MILLIONS of websites out there, I'd say we're doing good, especially for a site that's been around less than 2 months.....Read more »

As the first blog entry here on Pragmatic Solutions Now!, I want to address something that will be of interest to the majority of early subscribers, who happen to mostly be folks with Internet businesses of their own.  I tend to see blog posts as being more "personal" than articles, and as such, there probably won't be as much organization here as in my regular articles.  On the other hand, you'll have an opportunity to get a feel for my inner thinking, if that interests you at all.....Read more »