Lately their has been a war brewing between WickedFire and Warriror Forum.  I shouldn’t say brewing, shots have been fired.  It looks like it’s over now though.  However this article isn’t about that, its about some retarded Warriror Forum member posting in our Buy/Sell/Section trying to *snicker* basically be your agent.

His main goal to get you more of a payout on an offer and take a part of the increase your making.

Hello,

I would like to give a new idea a try.

Are you currently doing an affiliate offer on a CPL, CPA, CPS basis for a network or in house program? I’ve found that many internet marketers do not get what they deserve for their work. Very few of them actually negotiate the best price possible. To see more about what I’m talking about, read my ramblings (number 1) here: Two Things I’ve Learned to Profit in the World of Internet Marketing

I’m looking for someone who can generate good quantities of results, let’s say, a minimum of a couple thousand dollars/month. I will guarantee that I can find a better price offering, for the exact same (or similar enough) form (something that should have the same conversion rate for your traffic). If I do, and you accept to take on the project I will get 50% of the increase, you keep the rest. You have no obligation to take the new offerings I find for you…therefore you have nothing to lose.

So for example…if you’re selling payday loans and taking $70 CPA. If I negotiate up to $120 CPA, you will get $70 + 25 = $95, and I will get $25 on each CPA you make on the new campaign.

I like to negotiate, and get the best offerings possible. If you’re not comfortable talking to affiliate managers on the phone to get what you deserve, or just take what you were given, you’re missing out big-time. Think you’re getting the best offer? You may be wrong, what do you have to lose?

If you’re interested, let me know what campaign you’re doing, your landing page form, your currentl payout, and what your current results are.

The sad thing is a few of you out there, if not for out intervention, would have actuall let this guy do it.  Sounds like a great deal until you understand payouts and paybumps.

What is it really about?

It’s about you EPC (Earnings Per Click), it’s not about what your payout is.  Your EPC = (X – Y) / Z.  X being the ammount payout to you, Y being the ammount you payed for those clicks, and Z being the number of clicks.

You’ll see EPC’s on tons of networks offer pages, but they’re not that accurate consider they’re for network wide.  Never use the EPC listed on the networks site to determain if you should try and run the offer, it’s way too deluted.

Are you trying to make a point?
Yes.  What I’m telling you is just because he goes out and get’s you a better payment doesn’t actaully mean you’ll make any extra money.

For example:  I’m running a weight loss product offer, payout is $35.  Out of 100 clicks I had 6 conversions (6% conversion rate) at $35, or $210.  My average CPC (Cost Per Click) was $1.53, so in total I spent $153 on clicks.  My EPC = (210 – 153) / 100 = $0.57.

XYZ network says they can get me on the same offer but with a $40 payout.  Sounds great, a $5 increase.  Now just for the sake of math, let’s say out of 114 clicks I had 6 conversions  (~5.3% conversion rate) at $40, or $240.  This time my CPC is still $1.53, for a total spend of $174.42.   My EPC = (240 – 174.42) / 114 =  $0.575.

What went wrong?  Why didn’t I see a any increase to my EPC?

Just because someone can beat a payout doesn’t actaully mean you’ll make more money.  You see there’s only so much of the pie to go around, so in order to give you a higher payout all the network does is basically change how often your offers convert by scrubbing.

Any network could really give you any payout they wanted – and if they want to keep your traffic they’ll “give” you what ever you want.

How do I get the best deal?

1. Work with a few different networks.
2. Ask for bumps, it’s easy.  Ask your AM what he can give you and you can do that pretty much even before you run an offer.
3. Run the same or similar offer from another network also and split test EPCs.  It’s the only way you can tell who’s actually paying you more.
4. Keep track of your EPCs when you get bumped, if your EPC is going up keep trying to get bumps.

Getting pay bumps is something you can do, you don’t need anyone to do it for you.  Now go make monies.

Changing themes, things going to be up and down because I’m too lazy to do this on a backup server and migrate it over.

[edit] Pretty much done at least for the time being.  *joy!*

It’s hot and fresh from the oven (or your ass)!  I’m talking about your blog posts.

Blogs are so important to the internet landscape it’s crazy.  From link building, to ranting, to landing pages – blogs take the cake.  How you handle how you blog produces is your job.

One of the sometimes overlooked by n00bies basics is, your ping list!  What is a blog ping list?

Wikipedia Entry: Ping (blogging):

In blogging, ping is an XML-RPC-based push mechanism by which a weblog notifies a server that its content has been updated.^[1] An XML-RPC signal is sent to one or more “ping servers,” which can then generate a list of blogs that have new material. Many blog authoring tools automatically ping one or more servers each time the blogger creates a new post or updates an old one.

What does that really mean in laymans terms?  Simple, every time you make a post to your blog, your blog sends a message to a server that lets it know that the blog has been updated.  For many reasons, the bigger your list the more coverage your going to get.  Blog pings help in many ways, like getting your content refreshed in Google Blog search, to how often the Google Bot will come to your site and add more of your content to it’s index.  Heck, just getting your site indexed for the first time you ought to be chugging the pings.

It’s like shooting off a bunch of fire works in a dark room.

Anyways, been building my list for a while.  It’s probably over-kill.  Before this post I was at 141 and after a little searching I was easily able to get it up to 187 – mind you it already was a great list.

http://rpc.pingomatic.com

http://api.feedster.com/ping

http://api.moreover.com/ping

http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping

http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2

http://ping.amagle.com

http://ping.bitacoras.com

http://ping.blo.gs

http://ping.feedburner.com

http://ping.rootblog.com/rpc.php

http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php

http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php

http://rcs.datashed.net/RPC2

http://rpc.blogbuzzmachine.com/RPC2

http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger

http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080

http://services.newsgator.com/ngws/xmlrpcping.aspx

http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2

http://topicexchange.com/RPC2

http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2

http://www.blogoole.com/ping

http://www.blogoon.net/ping

http://www.blogsnow.com/ping

http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi

http://www.lasermemory.com/lsrpc

http://www.newsisfree.com/RPCCloud

http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php

http://www.snipsnap.org/RPC2

http://www.wasalive.com/ping

http://www.weblogues.com/RPC

http://ping.myblog.jp

http://ping.fc2.com

http://ping.kutsulog.net

http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc

http://xping.pubsub.com/ping

http://ping.snap.com/ping/RPC2

http://rpc.bloggerei.de/ping

http://rpc.twingly.com

http://www.bloglines.com/ping

http://www.holycowdude.com/rpc/ping

http://zhuaxia.com/rpc/server.php

http://pinger.blogflux.com/rpc/../rpc/.

http://pinger.blogflux.com/rpc/../rpc/

http://pinger.blogflux.com/rpc/../rpc//

http://pinger.blogflux.com/rpc/../rpc///

http://pinger.blogflux.com/rpc/../rpc////

http://pinger.blogflux.com/rpc/../rpc/////

http://pinger.blogflux.com/rpc/../rpc//////

http://pinger.blogflux.com/rpc/../rpc///////

http://pinger.blogflux.com/rpc/../rpc

http://blogupdate.org/ping

http://rcs.salon.com/RPC2

http://www.weblogs.com/RPC2

http://www.blogsdominicanos.com/ping

http://www.zhuaxia.com/rpc/server.php

http://ping.weblogalot.com

http://mapufacture.com/georss/ping/api

http://www.blogpeople.net/ping

http://hamo-search.com/ping.php

http://newsblog.jungleboots.org/ping.php

http://ping.speenee.com/xmlrpc

http://blogdigger.com/RPC2

http://holycowdude.com/rpc/ping

http://rpc.tailrank.com

http://www.xianguo.com/xmlrpc/ping.php

http://www.feedsky.com/api/RPC2

http://audiorpc.weblogs.com/RPC2

http://api.my.yahoo.co.jp/RPC2

http://ping.blogs.yandex.ru/RPC2

http://ping.wordblog.de

http://blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates

http://blogsearch.google.ae/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.at/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.be/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.bg/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.ca/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.ch/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.cl/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.co.cr/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.co.hu/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.co.id/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.co.il/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.co.in/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.co.it/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.co.jp/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.co.ma/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.co.nz/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.co.th/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.co.uk/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.co.ve/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.co.za/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.com.ar/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.com.au/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.com.br/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.com.co/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.com.do/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.com.mx/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.com.my/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.com.pe/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.com.sa/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.com.sg/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.com.tr/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.com.tw/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.com.ua/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.com.uy/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.com.vn/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.de/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.es/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.fi/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.fr/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.gr/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.hr/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.ie/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.in/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.it/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.jp/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.lt/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.nl/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.pl/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.pt/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.ro/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.ru/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.se/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.sk/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.tw/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.us/ping/RPC2

http://ping.namaan.net/rpc

http://r.hatena.ne.jp/rpc

http://rpc.reader.livedoor.com/ping

http://rpc.technorati.jp/rpc/ping

http://www.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php

https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZFinance.woa/wa/pingPodcast

http://ping.blogoon.net

http://www.newsisfree.com/RPC

http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2

http://api.moreover.com/RPC2

http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates

http://bblog.com/ping.php

http://pinger.blogflux.com/rpc

http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC

http://blog.with2.net/ping.php/

http://blogbot.dk/io/xml-rpc.php

http://hamham.info/blog/xmlrpc/

http://ping.ask.jp/xmlrpc.m

http://ping.blogoon.net/

http://ping.blogranking.net/

http://ping.fc2.com/

http://ping.kutsulog.net/

http://ping.namaan.net/rpc/

http://ping.rss.drecom.jp

http://pingoo.jp/ping/

http://rpc.twingly.com/

http://tailrank.com/import

http://wasalive.com/ping/

http://1470.net/api/ping

http://bitacoras.net/ping

http://blogdb.jp/xmlrpc

http://blogmatcher.com/u.php

http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc

http://coreblog.org/ping/

http://mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatt

http://www.lasermemory.com/lsrpc/

http://ping.amagle.com/

http://ping.blo.gs/

http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/

http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc

http://ping.blogmura.jp/rpc/

http://ping.exblog.jp/xmlrpc

http://ping.weblogs.se/

http://pingoat.com/goat/RPC2

http://rcs.datashed.net/RPC2/

http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/

http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/

http://rpc.newsgator.com/

http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php

http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b

http://www.bitacoles.net/ping.php

http://www.blogoole.com/ping/

http://www.blogoon.net/ping/

http://www.blogroots.com/tb_populi.blog?id=1

http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php

http://www.mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatter/ping.php

http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php

http://www.weblogues.com/RPC/

http://xmlrpc.blogg.de

http://xping.pubsub.com/ping/

Wordpress users goto Settings –> Writing –> (bottom of the page) Update Services.  Paste it in.

Happy blogging.

For the love of someone’s god (because he sure as hell isn’t mine), how many times do I have to tell you delinquents to stop using GoDaddy?

Do you know how bad it breaks my heart to see some poor sap who just had his domain jacked by Godaddy, and are holding it for $200 in ransom?!  That’s no lie either, it happens all the time.  The thing is you wouldn’t think it could happen to you, but all it takes is some disgruntle fuck to turn your domain into a $200 paper weight.

GoDaddy are extortionists, and they all should be put in jail.  Check out NoDaddy.com all the info you would want and their forum is full of hatters too.

I also see all the horrendous reviews for the web hosting too.  If you actually use both, you ought to just end it.  Your life that is.  Just put the bullet in the gun and pull the fucking trigger because that would be much less painful than what could happen to you by being a GoDaddy customer.

Make the right choice for domains and user NameCheap (which I personally use and prefer), or Moniker.   If your serious about your domain names, then do the right thing and host with someone who won’t fuck you over.

NameCheap benefits:

1. Their cheap!
2. Free whois privacy!
3. Free SSL certificates!
4. A control panel that doesn’t suck!
5. Fast propagation!

I don’t think you need any other reasons.  They clearly out-gun GoDaddy.  Stop being a sucker, stop over-paying, and stop being dicked around.  They bend the rules and fuck you over – what’s up with the 60 day holds?

OK So here’s the rundown on services that are good, that you should use.

Domains – NameCheap.com – A great registrar that is fast and cheap.  Free whois protection, free ssl certs.  Pure Win!  Current coupon codes: INTERFACE ($7.95 new register domains for up to 3 years (WAS $8.81 LAST WEEK))  – SWITCH2NC (Domain transfer for $6.99 (com, net, org, biz, us, info only)) – SPRINGSUN ($8.81 new register)

Shared Hosting – HostGator.com – Baby (Crock) Plan $7.95 / mo it’s everything you need to get started.  Use coupon code WORDPRESS to get the first month for ONE CENT ($0.01)!  Some people love em, some people hate them.  It’s shared hosting, get over it or get a VPS.  I personally have had great success with them.

UnManaged VPS – VPSVille.com – Tons of options.  Latest Linux distros.  Nice control panel.  Knowledgeable staff.  Great prices.  Data Centers all over the place.  Can get multiple class-c IP’s isn’t a problem. Enough said.

Managed VPS – LiquidWeb.com – I don’t think I have ever heard of a service that people have talked so well about.  You get what you pay for.

There your set.

12. Virtual Hosts

Now that we have everything up and running, there’s just some last minute work to be done so that we can easily just upload stuff via FTP and not have to move it to the /var/www (which you can’t move files too without sudo).  First make sure you are in your home directory:

cd ~

Then we create a directory for our web files.

mkdir www

Lets also quickly make a simple html file, so we can tell that the changes have taken effect.

cd www

nano index.htm

Past this into the file:

<html><body><h1>Home WWW!</h1></body></html>

Ctrl + O, then Enter to save.  Ctrl + X to exit.

Now lets open our virtual host file:

sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default

The top part of it ought to look like this:

<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost

DocumentRoot /var/www/
<Directory />
Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride None
</Directory>
<Directory /var/www/>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
AllowOverride None
Order allow,deny
allow from all
</Directory>

Where you see “/var/www/”  Change it to “/home/username/www“. This is an incredibly simplistic virtual hosts file.  As of right now all it does is brings all traffic, regardless of IP address it’s directed at, or domain and sub-domain.  I’m sure I’ll write a virtual hosts guild later down the road.

Restart Apache:

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Now you should be able to naviate to your servers ip or domain name yet set up and instead of it saying “It Works!” it should say “Home WWW!”.

From not on just upload all your files to the /home/username/www directory.

13. Unattended Upgrades

Because you may not want to log in every single day and run updates just install the unattended-upgrades package:

sudo apt-get install unattended-upgrades

Not every single package can be upgraded without user interaction, you may want to log in at least every couple of days and run apt-get update and apt-get upgrade just to make sure.

14.  Keep server time up to date

sudo apt-get install ntp ntpdate

Your system should stay up to date and time.

15. Webalizer

For traffic stats and the such:

sudo apt-get install webalizer

Conclusion

You know have a working server environment.  There’s more you could do, like install Bind9 if you want to host your own DNS rather than use someone elses.  You could install a free control panel like ISPconfig.  Take time, do some reasearch have fun!

8.  Setting up FTP

To start install the FTP Server:

apt-get -y install vsftpd

Now all we have to do is configure it:

nano /etc/vsftpd.conf

We don’t want people logging in anonymously so change “anonymous_enable=YES” to:

anonymous_enable=NO

You also want to uncomment [remove the # in front] these lines:

#local_enable=YES
#write_enable=YES

Ctrl + O, then Enter to save.  Ctrl + X to exit.  Now restart the ftp deamon:

/etc/init.d/vsftpd restart

We can’t really test this until we get another user set up, so lets Lose the Root account.
9.  Losing Root

It’s never a good idea to be running root for long periods of time in any Linux distro and Ubuntu is no exception.  So we are going to create ourself a user, and ditch root, so that root can not be logged into via traditional means.

In order to gain root privileges as a user you use a command call sudo (super user do).  In order to have the privilege of using sudo you have to be part of the admin group.  So lets create the admin group:

addgroup admin

Now lets create a user [replace username with desired username]:

adduser username

You’ll be prompted to create a password, don’t forget it.  I suggest it to very long [20+ characters] and random, because you can’t be too parinoid.  Use google there are many password creators out there.  Now we have to add the user to the admin group:

adduser username admin

For some reason this footprint doesn’t match up with official Ubuntu documentation so we have to make it so users in the admin group can have sudo privileges:

nano /etc/sudoers

Add the following lines to the end of the file:

# Members of the admin group may gain root privileges
%admin ALL=(ALL) ALL

Ctrl + O, and Enter to save.  Ctrl + X to exit.  Now logout:

exit

Reconnect to the server using your new username:

username@vpsipaddress

Enter the password you created for the user.

Now we make the root account inaccessible to any login attempt:

sudo passwd -l root

If your sudo is not working correctly pull a reboot though your VPSVille Control Panel.

8.5 Test FTP

Basically anytime after you have created your new user you can test the FTP server.  The username and password are your users username and password.

10. Mail Server

This next part is kind of long, if you experience problems with openssl I suggest just restarting the server, I find that works.

Make sure you in your home directory:

cd ~

First off lets start with installing a mail server:

sudo apt-get -y install postfix libsasl2-2 sasl2-bin libsasl2-modules procmail

Go Ok on the next screen.

General type of mail configuration: [enter]
System mail name: [enter]

Now we need to configure it even deeper:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure postfix

Your going to be asked a bunch of questions:

General type of mail configuration: <- Internet Site
System mail name: <- server.someaddress.com
Root and postmaster mail recipient: <- [blank]
Other destinations to accept mail for (blank for none): <- server.someaddress.com, localhost.someaddress.com, localhost.localdomain, localhost [change this one]
Force synchronous updates on mail queue? <- No
Local networks: <- 127.0.0.0/8 [::ffff:127.0.0.0]/104 [::1]/128
Use procmail for local delivery? <- Yes
Mailbox size limit (bytes): <- 0
Local address extension character: <- +
Internet protocols to use: <- all

Next do:

sudo postconf -e 'smtpd_sasl_local_domain ='
sudo postconf -e 'smtpd_sasl_auth_enable = yes'
sudo postconf -e 'smtpd_sasl_security_options = noanonymous'
sudo postconf -e 'broken_sasl_auth_clients = yes'
sudo postconf -e 'smtpd_sasl_authenticated_header = yes'
sudo postconf -e 'smtpd_recipient_restrictions = permit_sasl_authenticated,permit_mynetworks,reject_unauth_destination'
sudo postconf -e 'inet_interfaces = all'

Open smtpd.con:

sudo nano /etc/postfix/sasl/smtpd.conf

Add the folling lines to the end of the file:

pwcheck_method: saslauthd
mech_list: plain login

Create an RSA key:

openssl genrsa -des3 -rand /etc/hosts -out smtpd.key 1024

Your gonig to be prompted for a pass phrase.  Go find an online password generator and generate a password, its recommended to be AT LEAST 8 characters.  Use that for the pass phrase, remember that password.

Generate a Certificate Signing Request:

openssl req -new -key smtpd.key -out smtpd.csr

You’ll have to enter the pass phrase you entered before.

You’ll also be prompted a few questions,  You could really leave them all blank.  I don’t think it even really matters.  Fill in as you see fit:

Country Name (2 letter code) [AU]:
State or Province Name (full name) [Some-State]:
Locality Name (eg, city) []:
Organization Name (eg, company) [Internet Widgits Pty Ltd]:
Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []:
Common Name (eg, YOUR name) []:
Email Address []:

Please enter the following 'extra' attributes
to be sent with your certificate request
A challenge password []:
An optional company name []:

Finally create the security certificate:

sudo openssl x509 -req -days 365 -in smtpd.csr -signkey smtpd.key -out smtpd.crt

Enter your pass phrase again.

Do:

openssl rsa -in smtpd.key -out smtpd.key.unencrypted

Enter your pass phrase again.

Change the name of the file:

mv -f smtpd.key.unencrypted smtpd.key

Do:

openssl req -new -x509 -extensions v3_ca -keyout cakey.pem -out cacert.pem -days 3650

When it asks for a PEM key I just entered the same pass phrase I had been using.  You’ll be asked the same questions as you had answered earlier.

Change file permissions:

chmod 600 smtpd.key

Create final directory for these:

sudo mkdir /etc/postfix/ssl

Now move everything to its final directory.

sudo mv * /etc/postfix/ssl

Configure Postfix to provide TLS encryption for both incoming and outgoing mail:

sudo postconf -e 'smtpd_tls_auth_only = no'
sudo postconf -e 'smtp_use_tls = yes'
sudo postconf -e 'smtpd_use_tls = yes'
sudo postconf -e 'smtp_tls_note_starttls_offer = yes'
sudo postconf -e 'smtpd_tls_key_file = /etc/postfix/ssl/smtpd.key'
sudo postconf -e 'smtpd_tls_cert_file = /etc/postfix/ssl/smtpd.crt'
sudo postconf -e 'smtpd_tls_CAfile = /etc/postfix/ssl/cacert.pem'
sudo postconf -e 'smtpd_tls_loglevel = 1'
sudo postconf -e 'smtpd_tls_received_header = yes'
sudo postconf -e 'smtpd_tls_session_cache_timeout = 3600s'
sudo postconf -e 'tls_random_source = dev:/dev/urandom'

You need to know your hostname:

hostname

Then:

sudo postconf -e ‘myhostname = hostname‘

I suggest using your servers hostname, but you don’t have to.  You could easily make it mail.somedomain.com or whatnot.

Restart Postfix:

sudo /etc/init.d/postfix restart

Authentication will be done by saslauthd. We have to change a few things to make it work properly. Because Postfix runs chrooted in /var/spool/postfix we have to do the following:

sudo mkdir -p /var/spool/postfix/var/run/saslauthd

Now we have to edit /etc/default/saslauthd in order to activate saslauthd. Set START to yes [NOTE: lower case "yes"] and change the line OPTIONS=”-c -m /var/run/saslauthd” to OPTIONS=”-c -m /var/spool/postfix/var/run/saslauthd -r”:

sudo nano /etc/default/saslauthd

#
# Settings for saslauthd daemon
# Please read /usr/share/doc/sasl2-bin/README.Debian for details.
#

# Should saslauthd run automatically on startup? (default: no)
START=yes

# Description of this saslauthd instance. Recommended.
# (suggestion: SASL Authentication Daemon)
DESC="SASL Authentication Daemon"

# Short name of this saslauthd instance. Strongly recommended.
# (suggestion: saslauthd)
NAME="saslauthd"

# Which authentication mechanisms should saslauthd use? (default: pam)
#
# Available options in this Debian package:
# getpwent  -- use the getpwent() library function
# kerberos5 -- use Kerberos 5
# pam       -- use PAM
# rimap     -- use a remote IMAP server
# shadow    -- use the local shadow password file
# sasldb    -- use the local sasldb database file
# ldap      -- use LDAP (configuration is in /etc/saslauthd.conf)
#
# Only one option may be used at a time. See the saslauthd man page
# for more information.
#
# Example: MECHANISMS="pam"
MECHANISMS="pam"

# Additional options for this mechanism. (default: none)
# See the saslauthd man page for information about mech-specific options.
MECH_OPTIONS=""

# How many saslauthd processes should we run? (default: 5)
# A value of 0 will fork a new process for each connection.
THREADS=5

# Other options (default: -c -m /var/run/saslauthd)
# Note: You MUST specify the -m option or saslauthd won't run!
#
# WARNING: DO NOT SPECIFY THE -d OPTION.
# The -d option will cause saslauthd to run in the foreground instead of as
# a daemon. This will PREVENT YOUR SYSTEM FROM BOOTING PROPERLY. If you wish
# to run saslauthd in debug mode, please run it by hand to be safe.
#
# See /usr/share/doc/sasl2-bin/README.Debian for Debian-specific information.
# See the saslauthd man page and the output of 'saslauthd -h' for general
# information about these options.
#
# Example for postfix users: "-c -m /var/spool/postfix/var/run/saslauthd"
#OPTIONS="-c -m /var/run/saslauthd"
OPTIONS="-c -m /var/spool/postfix/var/run/saslauthd -r"

Next add the postfix user to the sasl group:

sudo adduser postfix sasl

Now restart Postfix and start saslauthd:

sudo /etc/init.d/postfix restart
sudo /etc/init.d/saslauthd start

Test to make sure it’s up and running:

telnet localhost 25

Then:

ehlo localhost

Then:

quit

You should see some kind of output like this:

telnet localhost 25
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.localdomain.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 your-localhost-name ESMTP Postfix (Ubuntu)
ehlo localhost
250-your-localhost-name
250-PIPELINING
250-SIZE 10240000
250-VRFY
250-ETRN
250-STARTTLS
250-AUTH LOGIN PLAIN
250-AUTH=LOGIN PLAIN
250-ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES
250-8BITMIME
250 DSN
quit
221 2.0.0 Bye
Connection closed by foreign host.

You’ll see the three commands on lines 1, 6, and 18.

11. Courier-IMAP/Courier-POP3

Do, NOTE: All one command!

sudo apt-get -y install courier-authdaemon courier-base courier-imap courier-imap-ssl courier-pop courier-pop-ssl courier-ssl gamin libgamin0 libglib2.0-0

You will be asked two questions:

Create directories for web-based administration? No

SSL certificate required OK [only option]

Lastly:

sudo postconf -e 'home_mailbox = Maildir/'
sudo postconf -e 'mailbox_command ='
sudo /etc/init.d/postfix restart

End Part 2

I originally wanted to get more done in this section, but it’s so long and I had lots of trouble with openssl because of the way Ubuntu is set up and when in the process we have to do it.

We have a fairly good server setup and we are on the home stretch, however we need to creat a stucture that will let us upload files to the server effectivly.  We’ll cover that and more in Part 3.

Based on a request I’m going to take you guys through setting up your own VPS for AM / IM work.  This includes setting up LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP).  We are going to be working with Ubuntu Linux 8.10, as it’s a fairly easy, secure setup.

Make sure you select Ubuntu 8.10 Minimal for installation.

In order to log into your VPS your going to need an SSH client.  Us who already run Linux can just use the SSH command from the command line / terminal.  Others, like Windblows users will have to get and SSH client.  I’d recommend PuTTY.

For the sake of time and propagation, I’d point a domain to the VPS Ville DNS.

1.  Logging into your VPS

You’ll get an e-mail from the host with a root password and your vps’s IP address.  Linux users can log in with the command:

ssh root@ipaddress

Others using a client should be something similar, minus the ssh.  I don’t have a client in front of me though so I can’t say.

You’ll see a prompt:

root@vpsipaddress’s password:

Enter your password and press enter.

2. Repositories

With this OS footprint installed we get to same some time, we don’t have to install SSH, our host files are set correctly already.  So we just get to move into the fun stuff.  Let’s get our repositories in line.  You download all your files from the repositories so it’s important you have all the important ones included.  VPS Ville gives you a slimmed down list, not that there’s anything wrong with that, I just prefer to have EVERYTHING open so I’m not fumbling around later if I need some package.

Your also going to have to get comfortable using nano.  nano is a UNIX file editor.  There are other editors out there, for example vi, but I think nano is easiest to use.  Lets open our repository (source) list:

nano /etc/apt/sources.list

Make your list look like this:

deb http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ intrepid main restricted
deb-src http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ intrepid main restricted

deb http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ intrepid-updates main restricted
deb-src http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ intrepid-updates main restricted

deb http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ intrepid universe
deb-src http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ intrepid universe
deb http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ intrepid-updates universe
deb-src http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ intrepid-updates universe

deb http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ intrepid multiverse
deb-src http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ intrepid multiverse
deb http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ intrepid-updates multiverse
deb-src http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ intrepid-updates multiverse

deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu intrepid-security main restricted
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu intrepid-security main restricted
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu intrepid-security universe
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu intrepid-security universe
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu intrepid-security multiverse
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu intrepid-security multiverse

To save press Ctrl + O, then Enter to save.  Then Ctrl + X to exit.

Now we have to update our package list:

apt-get update

Install any upgrades that may have come down:

apt-get upgrade

Finally reboot your server.  You can do this fromt he VPS Ville Control Panel or simply by typing:

reboot

3. Disable AppArmour

From my understanding you don’t really need AppArmour, and it can cause many headaches.  So let’s get rid of it.  Note:  There all separate commands.

/etc/init.d/apparmor stop
update-rc.d -f apparmor remove
apt-get remove apparmor apparmor-utils

4. Install Initial Software

Stuff we need to get other stuff done right now.  Note: This is all one command!

apt-get -y install binutils cpp fetchmail flex gcc libarchive-zip-perl libc6-dev libcompress-zlib-perl libdb4.3-dev libpcre3 libpopt-dev lynx m4 make ncftp nmap openssl perl perl-modules unzip zip zlib1g-dev autoconf automake1.9 libtool bison autotools-dev g++ build-essential

5. Apache/PHP5/Ruby/Python

Lets get our web-server up and running, whatever language you want!

First we install Apache:

apt-get -y install apache2 apache2-doc apache2-mpm-prefork apache2-utils apache2-suexec libexpat1 ssl-cert

Then PHP, Ruby, and Python as Apache modules.  Note: It’s all one command!

apt-get -y install libapache2-mod-php5 libapache2-mod-ruby libapache2-mod-python php5 php5-common php5-curl php5-dev php5-gd php5-idn php-pear php5-imagick php5-imap php5-mcrypt php5-memcache php5-mhash php5-ming php5-mysql php5-pspell php5-recode php5-snmp php5-sqlite php5-tidy php5-xmlrpc php5-xsl

Double check your DirectoryIndex file:

nano /etc/apache2/mods-available/dir.conf

Looks like:

<IfModule mod_dir.c>

DirectoryIndex index.html index.htm index.shtml index.cgi index.php index.php3 index.pl index.xhtml

</IfModule>

Next we have to enable a few Apache modules that we’ll need.  Note: All separate commands!

a2enmod ssl
a2enmod rewrite
a2enmod suexec
a2enmod include

Now restart Apache:

/etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Type your VPS’s IP address into your browser, you should say:

It works!

Now lets test PHP5, first we create a simple file:

nano /var/www/phpinfo.php

Put this in the file:

<?php phpinfo(); ?>

Press Ctrl + O, then Enter to save.  Then Ctrl + X to exit.

Now navigate your browser to http://yourvpsip/phpinfo.php and you should have see your server configurations.  PHP is successfully installed!

6. MySQL

Let’s get our database on!  Note: All one command!

apt-get -y install mysql-server mysql-client libmysqlclient15-dev

There will be two promps, or two screens that will ask you for a root password.  Don’t forget this password!

Now we need to check that MySQL is bound to our loopback address 127.0.0.1 instead of just localhost.  My setup already was, yours may also.

nano /etc/mysql/my.cnf

Find the section of the file that looks like this, and make it look like this if it doesn’t already:

# Instead of skip-networking the default is now to listen only on
# localhost which is more compatible and is not less secure.
bind-address            = 127.0.0.1

Restart MySQL if you made changes:

/etc/init.d/mysql restart

Check to see if MySQL is running:

netstat -tap | grep mysql

It should look something like this:

tcp        0      0 localhost.localdo:mysql *:*                     LISTEN      8148/mysqld

MySQL is running Success!

7.  phpMyAdmin

Now lets get ourselfs an interface that we can use for MySQL:

apt-get -y install phpmyadmin

It might ask you what server to configure for, obviously choose apache2.

Now it wont work right out the box, we need to add a line to our Apache configuration:

nano /etc/apache2/apache2.conf

Go to the end of the file and add this line:

Include /etc/phpmyadmin/apache.conf

Ctrl + O, then Enter to save.  Ctrl + X to exit.  Now restart Apache:

/etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Hopefully now that domain name you added the the VPS Ville DNS has switched over and you can use that now.  Try http://domainname.tld/phpmyadmin, your can also try http://vspipaddress/phpmyadmin.  You should get the phpMyAdmin login screen, Username is root and password is what you set during the MySQL installation.

Viola!

End Part 1.

This ends the first part of the journey of setting up your own Ubuntu Linux VPS.  At this point we have a workable server environment but we are still missing many peices.  We don’t have an FTP server.  We don’t have a mail server.  We are stilling running in root, which is a security no no in Ubuntu.  Those will be covered tomorrow.   There’s still a bit after that so stay tuned!

I grabbed a VPS from VPSVille.ca this week.  Found out that they have a data center in LA now!  I don’t that is supose to be totaly public info, but it’s an option when selecting server location.  Also I e-mailed support because it was taking them a while to set up, and they told me it was brand new and they where still working out some of the kinks.

The bad thing?  Instead of $30 CAD its $30 USD, about $6 more USD.  They don’t have the US page up yet so keep that in mind.  Super fast so far though, so I guess I can justify the price – and if you can get more IP’s for free, then all the better.  Just keep it in mind if you sign up there.

Meanwhile I have learned a ton of stuff about setting up a server that I never have done before so it’s been a great learning experience.

—

Also this week I stumbled on Mozillas Bespin.  Looks like this could be THE code editor to end all code editors.  It’s really in its infancy though.  Open source + community = prosperity, inovation, and customization.  Pretty pumped.

Happy day after V-Day.  Hope everyone got a little something, something. *wink* *wink* *nudge*

We are going to take a break from the programing / VPS’s / technical bullshit (and what not) for this article to focus on one of the more volatile type of offers out there that you can run.  There’s been a lot of discussion about them lately, people don’t understand what goes on behind the doors.

There are special kinds of offers that your likely to run into in the internet marketing (IM) game, there called submits.  Although there’s arguably a few different kinds of submits, today I am referring to e-mail or zip submits.  We will discuss what they are, some terminology, and what to watch out for.

Submits look like great money makers.  The goal is to have the user submit their e-mail / zip / whatever to the page.  Here’s an example:

Anyone else notice how fucked up the hand in this image is?

Submits on normal pay around $1-$2 (usually on the lower side) for non incentive traffic, and typically under $1 for incentive based traffic.  What’s incentive based traffic you may be asking?  Basically it’s when you tell the user that your going to do something / give something extra to get them to use the service.  It could be money, or items, or whatnot.  The important part is your sweetening the deal to get the user to fill out this form.  This in turn would yield less return for the website and hence pay you less.

Compared to a CPA (Cost Per Action) where the user has to buy something, these look like great money makers, after all the user just has to put in their e-mail right?

Ah, if only it was that easy!  Notice how on the LP (Landing Page) it says “Just For Participating”, or often times you’ll see “with participation”, either way there is more than meets the eye.  The system is set up to have the user complete other offers which in turn makes the site money.  After the user completes X amount of offers eventually the user gets the offer advertised to them (in this case a McDonald’s gift card).  That’s the jist of it. Whether or not the user would ever actually ever get the gift card is another question all together.  You’d have to be half bat shit crazy, and actually want to lose some money, to compleatly make it though the ladder of crap you have to do.

Why They Suck

If you ran submits for even a couple days you’d realize something really fucking bizarre happens – that is assuming the offer is relatively new.  What you would notice is probably decent conversion rates, and then out of the blue – total tankage.  You’d be scratching you head wondering why all your traffic magically stopped converting.  It’s quite simple, it’s called scrubbing.  There is also another term that is similar called shaving.  You don’t want to confuse the two, even though both terms are used interchangeably for the most part.  So I’ll let MaxSteve of MaxBounty from WF fill in the details from a post:

There really are two completely separate actions being discussed in this thread. Shaving and scrubbing. Although the end result is very similar (lowered conversions), the reasons are significantly different. Briefly:

Real-time scrubbing: A merchant validates the surfer data real-time and counts a lead only if it passes all of the validations. You might see conversions go down month-to-month if a merchant adds new validations that are important to their business model (i.e. we can no longer accept leads from Alaska, because we cannot resell them to anyone). However, you should not see leads get reversed once they’ve been credit to you.

Delayed scrubbing: A merchant validates as much as they can real time, but cannot validate everything at that time. So you might get a lead credited to you, but reversed a couple of days later. This typically applies to higher CPA campaigns that require credit cards. For example, if someone had purchased a satellite dish system on Monday, you’d get the lead credited to you on Monday. But if they called and cancelled their order on Wednesday, the merchant would go ahead and reverse the lead.

Scrubbing is legitimate and happens across the board on all campaigns as it is a reflection of a merchant’s evolving business model.

Shaving: A merchant (or network for that matter) find themselves in a position where they are not meeting their revenue targets, so they put code in place to RANDOMLY not credit leads to an affiliate or RANDOMLY reverse the leads already credited.

This is extremely shady (fraudulent actually) and no merchant or network would risk their good reputation to do this.

You Just Got Shit On

Here are some common stinky situations:

Situation A) The merchant has been in the game for a while, has a lot of e-mail addresses.  The user submits their e-mail, however this address is already in the merchants system.  Very possible considering that merchants typically run multiple offers.  The lead is not unique and is scrubbed.  Did not meet quality guild-lines.

Situation B) The offer has been running for a few days, there’s a few people pushing all kinds of traffic at the offer.  Even though it’s a non incentive offer, some user is throwing a ton of incentive based traffic it at it.  Some other users are throwing some really shitty traffic from some ghetto website at it.  Whatever, it doesn’t really matter.  All the merchant knows is that the traffic coming in overall isn’t producing the kind of results they need to see.  Merchants don’t like pay if they aren’t making money, so it’s simple shave the shit out of it until its profitable on their end.  Remember they are not here to lose money.

Special Submits

Some networks try and create “no scrub” submits, and from what I hear that’s bullshit too.  A marketing ploy to the marketers – awesome!

What You Need To Know

• Always talk to your AM first and see if they have any inside info on how long the offer has been running and how it’s performing.  You would not want to start running an offer while it’s in tank mode.  They should have an idea on how much scrubbing is going on.
• While talking to your AM have them submit a test lead to check the tracking.
• Be prepared to move to another submit very soon, could be as little as a few hours if you got some bad intel.
• There’s been a few networks totally dropping submits lately, or at the very least getting rid of the incentive traffic version.  From what I understand these merchants haven’t been wanting to pay up for the leads.  I’m not saying all the submit merchants are like that that, but it was really weird that a few places dumped them off in a weeks time.  Not that there isn’t a lot of bad traffic being sent to them or anything……
• Don’t be surprised if they get deactivated on a network wide scale, without warning.  Yeah, that’s always fun.
• You have to have a source of cheap traffic, you should be aiming to stay (depending of the offer) under 20 cents.
• Incentive offers, I think, get scrubbed / shaved horrendously.  I’d advise just staying away, far away.
• Work with a network that does a lot of submits.  They are likely to have a better relationship with the merchant.

Conclusion

That’s about it, go out there and try them out.  There’s money to be made in them, don’t get me wrong.  Kind of a pain in the ass, and you have to be on your toes, but could be worse.  Now go make monies.

Geo targeting, we have all seen it:  “Meet Sexy Women From [city] Who Want to Blow Your Balls Tonight!”.  However pulling off that effect is not normally as easy as you’d think.  Luckily someone was thinking about us.

Its called geoPlugin.  It supports both PHP and JavaScript locally, but also can return data via JSON or XML so really you could use this with a wide variety of languages.  You just have too do some extra coding is all.

It’s free!  What are you waiting for?