This is for those of you who are interested in making money off your blog or the Internet in general.

Clickbank has now opened its doors to the Philippines. That means that Filipinos can now promote Clickbank products (be an affiliate, in other words). You can browse through their product catalog and choose whatever product you think your users might be interested in, ranging from diet pills to stock trading software.

Of course, this means you have to have a host. For the cheapest hosting, I recommend WebHostingPad. With a coupon, you can get umlimited space and bandwith for only $2.99 a month for 12 months. I would have committed to their hosting, except that they didn’t accept Paypal payments. Bummer! (I switched to HostMonster instead, and so far so great.)

Now that I’ve bought and paid for some much-needed hosting, I can finally try this affiliate marketing I’ve been hearing about for so long. I’d love to convert this blog over to WordPress but then I would lose too much linkjuice from all the changed links. (Is there a way to save site structure when moving over from Blogger to WordPress? Anybody?)

And… I’m off to tinker with my CPanel!

It’s true. My dream come true!

Dreamhost is offering free hosting with DreamHostApps. You can create a free subdomain on dreamhosters.com so your blog will look like yoursite.dreamhosters.com. You could also use a domain you already have or register a new one with DreamHost ($9.95).

You get WordPress, Drupal, phpBB, ZenPhoto, MediaWiki, Google Apps and Gmail totally freely hosted by DreamHost for life. (They said it on their blog so it’s their word not mine.)

DreamHostApps is in beta stage so they might start charging a fee once it’s out of beta, but only to new users. Or this could be a big publicity stunt, and they’re not really going to charge anything for it, they just want loads of people signing up thinking it’s some exclusive opportunity that’s expiring soon.

Who cares? It’s free hosting! Sign up or you’re totally missing out!

P.S. Eh. I spoke too soon. Hosting is limited, there is no file-level access so you can’t actually upload your own themes or plugins. In time, it may rival Blogger (DreamHostApps offers subdomains, free apps plus unlimited content, storage. It’s awesome). But for now, it’s best they keep it free. People start creating themes for DreamHostApps!

When researching for a host provider, it is best to cover all your bases.

Web Hosting Geeks is a good place to lurk, definitely. The website covers everything you need to know about a particular web hosting provider, such as how much the hosting costs, how much space is offered, and how much traffic is allotted. The informative site also reports on what bonus features are offered per provider (these are commonly free domain names and marketing bonuses).

Web Hosting Geeks’ concise but complete report per host provider is a great tool for potential clients. A summary of the web host’s packages and pricing claim top real estate in the report, followed by an overview of the features offered by the web host. Reviews are contained in an inline frame so as not to clutter the page, and less important information such as awards garnered and average uptime of the web host over the years are listed at the bottom of the page.

Most importantly, Web Hosting Geeks is filled with web hosting reviews and ratings made by customers of the host providers. Even the top rated web hosts have some (or even more!) irate clients so it’s important to read through all the comments left by both satisfied and unsatisfied reviewers, to come away with a fair understanding of a provider’s good and bad points, and to decide how you feel about the product.

You can see the dedication that Web Hosting Geeks puts to customer reviews by reading through the pages of reviews each web host provider has. InMotion Hosting, for example, has ten pages full of reviews and comments about the site. Even more significant, reviews on the site are categorized. Highlighted are webmaster reviews, customer reviews and RealMetric reviews.

With the huge number of blogs existing in the world, and millions being created every day, it is thankful to know that some web hosts excel at providing hosting for blogs. BlueHost has been crowned Best Blog Hosting, and true enough, BlueHost is hailed by many bloggers as the best web host provider available.

If your needs are a bit different, then it’s time to crawl the different awards that Web Hosting Geeks has doled out. Best Dedicated Hosting goes to Startlogic Inc, Best Budget Hosting goes to WebHostingPad (at  $4.95 a month, who can argue?), and if you’re unsure of your specific category, then it’s safe to go with InMotion, which gets the top spot for best web host provider overall.

To keep updated with reports on hosting and the Internet at large, visit Web Hosting Geeks maintains a web hosting blog for its visitors. Common topics are content management systems (CMS), domain names and ecommerce. If you are new to the world of domains and hosting, this is a great source of information for you.

Whatever your hosting needs are, remember not to commit to a web host without a little bit of research. And if Web Hosting Geeks is the first place you’ll go to, then it’s a lot of research in a little bit.

Ever since I verified my Paypal account, I started investing in domain names.

A domain name gives credibility and remeberability (if that’s even a word!) to your site. I used to have this super long URL: RandomDetoxification.blogspot.com. I had it for about three years, but my friends could never remember it. I must have lost many potential followers with that hard-to-remember domain name. Now that my domain’s at RandomDetox.com, I’m sure my first-time visitors will remember it and are able to return whenever they want. I’m also #1 on Google when you search for the keyterm “random detox“.

I have other domains like JunkFoodHeaven.com, BodySoulDetox.com, Free-Games.Me.UK and several others. I haven’t developed any of them fully yet, they’re just sitting on my domain manager waiting for when inspiration hits. Hopefully soon.

The first domain I ever bought was from a local domain reseller. That was for a client of mine. The rates were cheap, they used CPanel and the uptime was average. Unfortuately, the bandwidth proved to be too limited, and the available space too little as well. I’ve upgraded my client, fortunately, but that first year gave me a lot of headache.

The second domain I bought was for myself. Again the rates were cheap, but this host proved to be worse than the first one. My website was down four days in a week. I could hardly access CPanel because the connection was so slow. Plus, the company support system responded after a whole week.

It was only after browsing through web hosting tutorials that I found a cheap place to buy a domain name (GoDaddy go!) and a good place to host a domain (BlueHost consistently outperforms the rest).

As a newbie domain buyer, it never occured to me that there were websites that actually dealt with web hosting rating and web hosting awards so that customers could make an informed choice.

An example of an up and coming website is WebHostingRating.com, a site where oldtimers (or all customers, really) actually rate hosting companies based on customer satisfaction, affordability, reliability, uptime and techical support.

The first page of WebHostingRating.com features the Top 10 web hosting providers of 2008. As expected, Bluehost Inc figures near the top at #2. InMotion Hosting bags the top spot.

However, none of these top ten providers may be the best for you. For example, you might specifically be looking for a good place to host your blog. Then Globat.com may just be your answer, offering unlimited domains and subdomains, a bit of marketing credit and blog-friendly content management systems like WordPress and Joomla for only $7 a month.

On the other hand, if you need hosting for a full-fledged website with services like unlimited emails, parked domains, spam and virus protection, with FTP, PHP, MySQL and more, but have a limited budget then the place to go is InMotion Hosting which offers all these for only $10 a month.

Web Hosting Rating provides all these information, including each company’s detailed plans, and whatever discounts they may be offering, plus real reviews from actual customers.

So the next time you (or I) decide to buy a domain name and a hosting package, don’t just rely on the advice of a friend. Check the advice of many, and make an informed choice.

Well, I up and did it. I’ve been stalling for the longest time, ‘coz I’m quite comfy here in Blogger. I’ve been here, what, 3 years now? I’m not sure… I don’t celebrate anniversaries (…should I?). Anyways, it’s been a fun free ride.

But having your own domain just looks so cool. A few years ago you’d have to pay $35 a year and that was just registration. Now registration only costs $6 a year while hosting costs as little as $3 a month… or less!

Anyways I decided on getting the domain name BodySoulDetox.com. I didn’t get RandomDetox.com, but maybe I should too. I just feel that the word “Random” is used far too much among blog names, so I thought maybe I’d try something new. (I’m so not good at making up blog titles! My last title was Self Absorbed Female, hehe.)

I’m still testing the domain thing so I’m not gonna be moving yet. Or maybe I won’t move at all, I’ll just use my domain with Blogger. We’ll see.

I feel like a child — no, no… I feel like myself — in a grocery store. Hehe. Excited.

Urgh I’ve had a rash of bad luck lately.

Right before coming home from Manila I broke my eyeglasses so I’ve been abusing my contact lenses by wearing them all day resulting in eye strain and headaches.

Last week I attended a Christmas party and ended up losing my ATM along with P1000 worth of cash. Ouch.

Today I’m down with the flu. I wasn’t able to attend my high school reunion last night at Antonio’s and I probably won’t be able to make it to Sta. Cruz Island tomorrow. Huhuhu.

But I’m trying to cheer myself up by posting this pic of me on the 24th, busily unwrapping presents from Gim and putting on my new bracelets. He gave me three bracelets, a shoulder bag and a pair of earphones to replace the ones that recently broke. He’s such a sweetie.

I’m hoping my streak of bad luck has ended, beginning with my recent P300 win at Auction.ph. They’ve got another giveaway, this time the prizes are these:

• Creative 2.1 Subwoofer System
• Php2,000 Gift Certificate on any Nokia Stores
• Shell-Ferrari Model Cars
• Apacer USB 2.0 Drive
• 20 pcs. Auction.PH T-Shirts
• 2 accounts for 1-year Free 1GB Hosting and Domain

I definitely want that Nokia gift certificate! I’ve been meaning to buy a new cellphone, since a Sun Cellular cell site has just been built right beside our house! Yay, a good signal from Sun, finally!

So what are you waiting for? Go join that contest!