Oh, you flourishing gig economy, what are we going to do with you

I was on fieldnation for the past year. The key word here is "was" I am here to tell you about all the corks and nuances I discovered after completing 80 WOs

Fieldnation and work market are really the same thing in my opinion. Slightly different rules, but the same buyers.

First, the good

They let you have all the freedom a gig worker could ever dream of. Take a month off or work 20 hours a day, it is really up to you. No notice to give, no asking anyone for schedules. It is all up to you.

The pay can also be good, if this was all you were doing, $600-$1000 a week is not out of the question. If you are a skilled low voltage technician with a good bit of networking and host configuration knowledge.

It is also a good way to meet recurring buyers, if you impress buyers they can and have contacted me to work outside the platforms.


Now, why I "was" working on these platforms

The number one most horrible thing is the often total lack of humanity. What I mean is every single time you do a job, you are risking everything you have worked for. The rules of fieldnation are so strict, if you firesale one time, as everyone does occasionally, you can be banned forever.

This never happened to me. I actually didn't mind it, it forced me to adopt strategies that worked every time, but it leads into the real reason I have basically quit.

Stress

The amount of stress involved in lining up all these WOs, making sure you 100% will not have any issues, will never have to come back another time because you ran out of something. The talking to people who do not speak English. It is so taxing, I just hate it.

You are essentially on call 24/7 for no pay. If a WO comes up, you must apply or accept within 20 minutes to even have a chance of getting it.
They also have the "route" system. Where companies take and put you in a pool of literally 300 other techs and then they "route" them all the same WO at the same time. You must accept or decline these within 5 minutes or someone else will jump on it.

Often for routes you do not even get to read the statement of work. If you do, then by the time you hit accept it will be gone. Extremely frustrating.


So, there is the stress, there is also the distrust.

As I was saying, "if you firesale one time you can be banned" this ties into how literally no one you talk to will trust you to even be able to tie your shoes.

They will assume you are totally unqualified because, chances are the last 10 techs they had, were.

This creates two types of people:

The one who treats you like a baby and the one who looks for the slightest thing to yell LOOK, I TOLD EVERYONE THESE PEOPLE DON'T HAVE A CLUE.

Both are horrible to work for/ with.

Now let's get into actual scams.

This is the reason I have a 4.8 instead of a 5-star rating. Buyers will list a WO at an hourly rate, let's say $70 an hour, they will then say this job is going to take 4–6 hours. So, you think that is a good deal, I have no problem driving an hour for a job of that size.

Well, when you get there, it is blatantly obvious this job was never going to take more than an hour. So now you are left out to dry. You blocked off 6 hours because had you not, and it actually took that long, and you had booked something else, kiss your account goodbye.

The reason I dropped to 4.8 stars is because twice I was not having that. I just called the PM and said you need to let me expense an extra couple of hours, I drove an hour for a 20-minute job that you said was going to take all day.

Instead of telling me no, they just gave me bad ratings because that's fair, I guess.

Overall, I feel these platforms are more toxic than anything else.


A lot of the techs are not qualified, a lot of the buyers will take advantage of you. The only people raking it in are the companies running them and taking a % off the top of all transactions.

The literal destruction of American infrastructure

I said it, these platforms are devaluing American businesses. Don't believe me? Here are some of the racks I worked on over the past year.

There are many more than this, but you get the idea. I call it "ravaged by contractors".

WordPress has become one of the most popular content management systems (CMS) in the world, with over 40% of websites being built on it. While there are numerous website builders available, including Wix, Squarespace, Shopify, and Joomla, WordPress stands out for several reasons. In this article, we will examine why WordPress is better than other website builders and why you should consider using it for your next project.

WordPress is free and open source

WordPress is a free, open-source platform that can be downloaded and installed on your own server. This means that you don't have to pay any fees to use it, and you have complete control over your website. Other website builders, such as Wix and Squarespace, require you to pay a monthly or yearly subscription fee to use their platform. This can add up quickly, especially if you have multiple websites or need advanced features.

In addition, because WordPress is open source, it has a vast community of developers who contribute to its code and plugins. This means that there are thousands of free and paid plugins available to add functionality to your website, such as contact forms, SEO optimization, and social media integration.

WordPress is highly customizable

One of the biggest advantages of WordPress is its flexibility and customization options. With WordPress, you can create any type of website, from a simple blog to a complex e-commerce store. WordPress offers thousands of themes and templates to choose from, as well as the ability to create your own custom theme or modify an existing one.

In addition, WordPress allows you to easily add and manage content, such as blog posts, pages, and images. The WordPress editor is easy to use and offers a variety of formatting options, such as headings, lists, and images.

WordPress is SEO-friendly

Search engine optimization (SEO) is critical for any website to rank well in search engine results pages (SERPs). WordPress is designed with SEO in mind and offers several features to help optimize your website. For example, WordPress allows you to easily add meta descriptions, titles, and keywords to your pages and posts. It also offers plugins such as Yoast SEO and All in One SEO Pack that provide advanced SEO features, such as XML sitemaps, canonical URLs, and social media integration.

In addition, WordPress offers clean and optimized code that is easy for search engines to crawl and index. This can help improve your website's loading speed, which is also a factor in SEO rankings.

WordPress is secure

Security is a major concern for any website owner. WordPress takes security seriously and offers several features to help protect your website. For example, WordPress regularly releases updates to address security vulnerabilities and bug fixes. It also offers plugins such as Wordfence and iThemes Security that provide advanced security features, such as two-factor authentication, malware scanning, and firewall protection.

In addition, because WordPress is open source, it has a large community of developers who contribute to its security. This means that any security vulnerabilities are quickly identified and addressed.

WordPress is scalable

Whether you're building a simple blog or a complex e-commerce store, WordPress is scalable and can grow with your business. WordPress offers a variety of plugins and themes that can add functionality and features to your website as your business grows.

In addition, WordPress can handle high levels of traffic and is designed to be scalable. This means that your website can handle an increasing number of visitors without experiencing downtime or performance issues.

WordPress offers excellent support

Finally, WordPress offers excellent support for its users. Because WordPress is so popular, there is a vast community of developers and users who provide support through forums, blogs, and social media. In addition, WordPress offers documentation, tutorials, and support forums to help users troubleshoot any issues they may encounter.

To Conclude

Overall, WordPress stands out from other website builders for its flexibility, customization options, SEO-friendliness, security, scalability, and excellent support. While there are other website builders available, none offer the same level of control, customization, and functionality as WordPress.

In conclusion, if you're looking to build a highly customizable website, SEO-friendly, and secure, then WordPress is the way to go. With its vast community of developers and users, there is always someone available to help you troubleshoot any issues you may encounter. Whether you're building a simple blog or a complex e-commerce store, WordPress is the CMS of choice for millions of businesses worldwide.

ChatGPT, ChatGPT, ChatGPT. Oh my, it has taken the world by storm, hasn't it? Every time you read any news site or even TV, there it is.


I have been getting questions about it, so I thought a good demonstration would be to simply ask it to write an article. I asked "write me an SEO optimized article including pictures on the topic "how AI will change web design/ development"

It is a pretty good article, I don't know what it was doing with the picture links all at the bottom, but I just copied exactly what it had output. It is overall not the best SEO optimized, but definitely passable.

So, here it is:


Sure, here's an SEO-optimized article on "How AI Will Change Web Design/Development" with pictures.

Title: How AI Will Change Web Design/Development: The Future of Smart Websites

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the potential to revolutionize web design and development, making it easier and more efficient to create attractive and functional websites. As AI technology advances, it is becoming increasingly integrated into the web development process, providing developers with new tools and techniques to improve the user experience and create smart websites that adapt to the needs and preferences of users. In this article, we will explore how AI will change web design and development, and what it means for the future of smart websites.

  1. AI for Web Design

AI can be used to analyze large amounts of data about user behavior and preferences, which can be used to inform web design decisions. For example, AI can analyze the user's interactions with a website, including clicks, scrolls, and time spent on the site, to identify areas of the website that may be causing confusion or frustration. This information can then be used to improve the website's layout, content, and navigation, making it more user-friendly and engaging.

  1. AI for Content Creation

AI can also be used to generate content for websites, including text, images, and video. For example, AI-powered content generators can analyze the user's browsing history and preferences to create personalized content that is tailored to their interests. AI can also be used to automatically optimize website content for search engines, making it easier for users to find and improving the website's search engine ranking.

  1. AI for Website Optimization

AI can be used to automatically optimize website performance, including page load times, image optimization, and caching. AI-powered tools can analyze the website's code and structure to identify areas of improvement, such as reducing file sizes, compressing images, and improving server response times. This can result in faster, more responsive websites that provide a better user experience.

  1. AI for Chatbots

AI-powered chatbots can provide a personalized and interactive experience for website users. Chatbots can use natural language processing and machine learning algorithms to understand and respond to user inquiries, providing quick and accurate answers to common questions. Chatbots can also be used to provide personalized recommendations and guidance, helping users navigate the website and find what they are looking for.

  1. AI for Security

AI can also be used to enhance website security by detecting and preventing cyber threats. AI-powered security tools can analyze website traffic and user behavior to identify potential threats, such as suspicious login attempts or malicious activity. AI can also be used to automatically update website security protocols and patches, keeping the website secure and protecting user data.

In conclusion, AI is already changing the way websites are designed and developed, and it will continue to have a significant impact on the industry in the years to come. By leveraging the power of AI, web developers can create smarter, more efficient websites that provide a better user experience and stay ahead of the competition. As AI technology continues to evolve, we can expect to see even more innovative uses for AI in web design and development.

Image sources:

  1. https://www.pexels.com/photo/man-using-white-laptop-computer-on-brown-wooden-table-215955/
  2. https://www.pexels.com/photo/man-holding-microphone-6912424/
  3. https://www.pexels.com/photo/code-coding-computer-data-574077/
  4. https://www.pexels.com/photo/happy-woman-talking-to-robot-4164066/
  5. https://www.pexels.com/photo/cyber-security-network-technology-concept-4173228/

Webserver hosting comes in all sorts of sizes and shapes, depending on your needs you have to choose an optimal webserver that suits your organization.


Here's a list of the various types of Webserver hosting options:

Each one of these has its own variants, upsides and downside which we will list:


Dedicated Webhosting:

Dedicated webservers as described, they are a dedicated server maintained only for individual/personal organizations and nothing else.

They are single handedly the fastest and can handle more for the given resources compared to other offerings.

Dedicated webhosts have variations such as:


Bare Metal webservers

These dedicated webservers are quite simply the most basic webservers that are very lightweight and fast as they have no overhead

It's as simple as a dedicated computer, running a light OS, and hosting the webserver.

Pros:

Cons:


Virtual Host webservers

Virtual Host webservers are just like the aforementioned webservers, the catch being the hosting OS runs on top of a Hypervisor/Virtual Container.

This helps with maintenance of the system and control over the hosting system.

Bare Metal webservers are quite more cumbersome to deal with in maintenance situations.

Pros:

Cons:


Shared Web hosting:

Shared webservers in essence are servers that do shared tasks along with webhosting such as hosting other servers on the same system.

Since multiple tasks run on the same system, The resource usage is dynamically managed.

However if one task is in a state of using heavy resources it will affect other tasks.

Shared hosting can also be bare metal or virtually hosted.

Pros:

Cons:


Virtual Private Server Hosting:

VPS services essentially provides the same kind of experience as a dedicated host but are organized in the same way shared hosts do.

Your webserver will be hosted a on cloud with limited resources, but it has full control for maintenance and is given various protection services like anti-DDoS protection, etc.

VPS services provide peace of mind as it doesn't involve too much of the design process for a proper hosting setup.

Instead, it's a set it and forget it type of service.

For more detailed info about VPS services check here.

Pros:

Cons:

Hostinger is a popular VPS that offers this service.


So which kind of hosting should I prefer ?

Shared and Dedicated webhosts fall into more of a similar category of self-hosted webservers, whereas other services like VPS fall into the cloud-hosted/external hosting services.

If your organization doesn't have a complex need and just needs to host a simple static web page, external hosting might be a cheaper option.

Given the complexity and available resources, self-hosting might seem more reasonable.

If you expect less traffic but want to be able to manage the server on your own, consider self-hosting.

For larger commercial organizations, self-hosting again might seem more reasonable.

If you are a single individual or a smaller commercial business, cloud-hosted/external hosting is just much more feasible, considering network limitations as well.


Wrap-up:

In short, we were able to list down the various options for hosting a webserver for an Individual's needs.

may it be commercial or Individual.

If you host a webserver, a very important that its running optimally and is in proper conditioning.

Here is a small guide to various easy diagnostic tests you can check to see if you webserver is running up to grade.


Getting the tools setup:

Depending on your OS distribution running your webserver the installation methods may vary, However all the tools are all usually the same.

All of them can be invoked from the command line terminal or SSH shell, given that your webserver may be running on a remote system.

The tools include:


Ping:

ping is a simple utility to see if your system is able to respond to systems on the network and check latency.

This comes pre-installed on almost every operating system.

A simple command to check if you are able to communicate with google DNS servers for example:

ping 8.8.8.8
ping checking latency between pc and google's DNS server

Htop:

Htop is a simple system utility to see system runtime stats like CPU usage, RAM usage, processes, etc. kind of like a task manager.

Install it on:

Ubuntu, and Debian derivatives:

sudo apt install htop

Fedora, OpenSUSE, and other RedHat derivatives:

sudo dnf install htop

Manjaro, and other Arch derivatives:

sudo pacman -S htop

Run it with:

htop
HTOP system task view

Uptime:

uptime is a simple utility to see how long you system has been up and running for.

This comes pre-installed on almost every operating system.

Run it with:

uptime
system has been up for about 5 minutes, on average the system hasn't been under any load.

Nload:

nload is a utility to see how much network traffic passes through your system in terms of uploaded and downloaded bytes.

Install it on:

Ubuntu, and Debian derivatives:

sudo apt install nload

Fedora, OpenSUSE, and other RedHat derivatives:

sudo dnf install nload

Manjaro, and other Arch derivatives:

sudo pacman -S nload

Run it with:

nload

(P.S pressing tab switches between network devices like ethernet and wifi to see how much traffic passed through each one)

nload viewing throughput of upload and download data.

Other Utilities:

If you are looking for a more overall system view, you might want to consider using glances.

Install it on:

Ubuntu, and Debian derivatives:

sudo apt install glances

Fedora, OpenSUSE, and other RedHat derivatives:

sudo dnf install glances

Manjaro, and other Arch derivatives:

sudo pacman -S glances

Run it with:

glances
Overall system view with glances.

What to concur from these diagnostic tests ?

Knowing these various parameters is all well and good, But one must know how to make use of them to analyze and troubleshoot issues with their webserver.

For example:


Wrap-up:

There are a lot of simple diagnostic tools for checking the server status. If you are looking for a graphical dashboard, consider using the cockpit-project.

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