Networking and meeting new people is exhilarating.  Later I’ll pick up where I left off.

This weekend I have six web design projects to choose from.  I might get two done.  One per day? Ambitious.  Better get going.

It is easy for me to forget that being online is normal now.  And stuff that is normal off the web, is now normal on the web. Like meeting people and making a living.

One may associate social networks with time-wasting gibberish. But saying that is missing an opportunity.  People who need money are on their too.  You know, like everyone.

Of course the “easy money” people have made it to Twitter.  Spam is everywhere.  That’s not what I’m thinking about.

I am talking about networking, and earning a living.

One must make connections to make income.  Question is, can you make connections via social networks online that will lead to income?  Many are doing that.  To a small extent, I am one of them.

I mean, I have a web site that advertises web design and programming services.  Those are skills I put to use full-time for a company not associated with my websites.

My website does not put food on the table simply because I haven’t given it enough exposure.

From time to time, however, someone does find it, and I make a little money in the moonlight hours.  That’s cool, right?  May as well.

Twitter and Facebook have led to more frequent “business” interactions.  People wanting me to review their site; people asking for estimates; people asking for quick consultations.

Going on Twitter, friending thousands of people, and being somewhat “active” has done wonders for my web traffic.  I will admit that this pleasantly surprised me.  Not like it’s crazy traffic, but it is 4x what it was before, some days far more, depending on how “active” I am.

What do I mean by “active”?  That means finding and posting interesting links, and commenting or replying to others’ postings.

Don’t expect business success if you get a Twitter account and never use it.  That is what I think happens often, and spammers would love you to believe.

There is no easy money.  At least that’s not my perspective.  It is work to network, and it is work to get paid.  No matter where it is, online or offline.

It really is old fashioned networking. You meet a bunch of people. You make it known what you do. And at some point one of them asks for help with something.

It is fun to engage with people on Twitter. You never know who you’re going to run into.  It’s just like the real world. Except more efficient.

Two biggest tips:

1. Make sure to follow the instructions when updating.
2. Always backup first, especially now that you’re dealing with *2* OS’s!

Okay now for glimpse into my situation, stupidity included.  If this helps anyone, cool.

Because I started toggling the network settings on the Parallels Mac side around the time of my update to Parallels v3 build 5608, sometimes Windows couldn’t get on the web.  I switched between “en0″, “en1″, “host-only networking”, and “shared networking”. Eventually I took whatever brought the Internet back.

That kinda worked, but then my FTP started having trouble.  I could connect to the FTP server, but when I tried to GET or PUT files, I got the “Illegal PORT command” error from the FTP client.  This was the big mystery.  “Illegal PORT command”?!  Huh?  I latched on to the “port” part and even tried dropping my firewalls.  That surely did more harm than good.

Ultimately the correct settings (for me) were “bridged ethernet” “default adapter” (not “shared networking”).  Now it ALL WORKS!  Yay!  (Your mileage may vary. See Parallels for details.)

Now it all works again and I promise not to touch anything until the next update.

Networking without a map is anything but simple, especially with all this virtual sharing bridging NAT stuff mixed in.  I’d say Parallels does a great job of making it as easy as possible and their help pages are pretty thorough (although a forum might be cool).

Here’s a shot of where I set “bridged ethernet”.

If you have questions, don’t ask me.