Ok, so Phil keeps coming to this site to try to get clients for his web hosting business. (I will drop you a line by the way) Then there are people like me who come to this site to purchase things. This site will make money and the regular visiters will too so will keep coming back.

If I can build up a big enough visitor base for my site maybe I could make money selling advertising or the like.

But what's to prevent those people from coming to my site and just downloading 40 years worth of knowledge onto their computer and then never coming back? I have to put all that knowledge to print so I'm about to spend months putting this together and I don't want my efforts to be in vain. There pretty much is a finite amount of information about the product that folks will drop by the site for. It's not like I can keep adding to it as time passes. It is what it is.

Is there any way to prevent the un-authorized use of the material I present or is it just there for the taking? Can the material be encoded or encripted or something? There has got to be some way to prevent what I'm going to call theft.

Thanks again for putting up with all my questions. I wish I could sleep.

blemieux42,

As Phil pointed out, the host is the company that you use to host your website. Sometimes folks self host, but that gets to be a pain to keep the server up and provide enough bandwith for the visitors. You can find free hosts, but they get their pay by placing their ads on your site. There anr many companies that will host your site for a very reasonable fee. I think I paid $9.00 for my two domains and then something like $4.95 per month, but you can find less expensive hosts.

Protecting what you have on the internet is a subject that comes up a lot. It is not easy, but there are a lot of sites that do have ways of protecting their intellectual property. One way to to only offer a small amount of information freely on the site, and sell the remainder via a book (hard copy or pdf). If it is an image, watermark the online image. Another option is to put all your information in a password protected section of your site, and only those paying customers have access.

Hope this helps, and keep asking questions.

Just to clarify, this is not the only reason I'm here, or the main reason (no offense was taken). My main reason to be here is to learn from the more experienced users of CC software and webmastering. The second reason is to try to help others, as I learn on the fly. And finally, yes, if I can help others out that need server space I let it be known that I have that capability.

Phil

Phil, thanks for not taking offense to me using you as an exanple. None was meant. I just wanted to make sure my question was understood by using an example and since you were a fresh post, and fresh in my mind, I used you. And BILLR, you have the patience of Job! Thanks for all the straightforward easy to understand answers.

And thanks to all for steering me in the right direction. I have a lot to chew on so I think I'll do just that. I hope you will all continue to keep tabs on this thread as I'm sure I'll have more questions.

I'm going to concentrate my efforts for awhile on putting my knowlege to words. I'm building some pages in MS Wordprocessor then will get the trial version of VSD and see how it works for me. Then I hope to purchase the software and start building a site.

I will be able to move my words and pictures from Word Processor to the page I'm working on in VSD correct?

Thank you all again! Bill

Back to my querry about the good people of the world helping themselves to my material then never needing to have to return to my site.

My Home Page is going to have, let's say, 10 different links for the visitor to choose from. He chooses link #3 which takes him to a page of general information about the link he's chosen. That page has another 10 links(sub-catagories) to get him to the specific information that he's looking for, which will incude step-by-step instructions, pictures(via other links), troubleshooting, an old guys perspective, a forum, etc. But in order to keep each page from becoming a mile long, I'm going to incorporate a link to view each picture, or some other related topic, that goes along with the text.

My guestimation of the number of pages and photos are around 100 each. Since all the photos will be together in a folder and unexcessable as a whole to the general public, and without any markings on them to link them to any certain text, by design, isn't this somewhat secure? I mean, someone could download all the text sure, one at a time times a hundred, and do the same with the photos, and putting them together could be done by someone with some time on their hands, but would it be worth it?
I don't know. How many people out there would do that (and have a book sitting on the work bench)rather then to just bring up my site and have all they want right there without having to do all the extra work?

Comments? Suggestions? Please by bold and forthright. Thanks...

Here is an article how to copyright your website. See second paragraph.
http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-protect.html

As for your images being in a folder and unexcessable as a whole to the general public. Once the images are on the web all one has to do is right click on the image and save it on their computer. You can put in a code disabeling right click but this does not protect your images as they can do print screen on their computer and they got your image as well. The best way to protect your images is to put a water mark in the middle making it harder to remove the watermark.

As to someone copying your whole website the chances are very small. What you most probably will have is that people copy text they need for some reason. If you disable right click then they will not be able to use copy/paste of text which will deter some, on the other hand there are always other ways to get the text if they really want to.

Putting your text and images on the web makes them public to everyone to view and use, that is the idea of internet. To be honest even if you would publish it in a book people could copy your work i.e. scan the text and images and use it as well.

This is only my opinion and others here my have other suggestions.

If you put information on the web, it can be read, copied, printed...I mean, isn't that what the web is all about?

You are correct that chasing down a multitude of web pages, links and images to try to re-created your work would be a royal pain, and most people would not do it. If you truly think/believe that your website will be in such demand, you should be proud and happy about it. Look into a copyright for your site if you feel you will be loosing money, but chasing down someone half way around the world because they copied text for a school project from your site is not practical.

On the subject of "dissable right click"...I am against it. Watermarking your images is much kinder to those with special needs. An injury prevented me from using my right hand/arm for a period of time. I had to use the mouse with my left hand and I switched the mouse button functions, as I found it easier to work the mouse that way. Every website with "no right click" scripts could not possibly work for my new mouse settings. By switching the mouse buttons, "left click" was now "right click" so I could not even click any link, email, not even a "next page" button without trigering the "right click has been dissabled" warning.
And yes, most people can get around that anyway and still copy your stuff.

You can't count on people coming back to your site. If they like it and feel they 'need' it, they will most likely bookmark it and come back. I dare say that I re-visit maybe .05% of all the sites I have surfed over the years, if that. It's a numbers game. You need loads of visitors to get 1 repeat customer, just like any other business.

That's enough babble from me today. I wish you the best of luck on your project. Hope I get to see it completed some day.

I would advise against doing a copy and paste from a word processor. You will likely be copying hidden items in with your text that the word processor uses to format everything.

What you can do, is copy from the word processor, paste to a pure text editor such as MS Notepad. Now a copy and paste to VSD should work nicely.

If you have your word processor open in a window, Notepad open in a window and VSD opened in a window, you can copy from the word processor then click on Notepad. Now hold down the CTRL key and press V, release and then press A, release and press C, release and finally, click on the VSD text box and paste. It works very fast. The time in Notepad is three quick actions of CTRL-V, CRTL-A, CTRL-C and you are on to VSD.

Bill (& Bill)

Most Word Processors have the option to "Save As" a "Plain Text" file. From there you could open in notepad and copy/paste. You should even be able to copy/paste from the Word Processor after you make the file you're working on a "Plain Text" file.

Phil

Phil,

Good point. I tend to copy just parts of a file, and cleaning the small part via Notepad has become a habit. I will try to remember that I can convert a MS Word file to text, but at my advanced age, the memory may be fading.