When Hurricane Katrina and Wilma struck the U.S., lives were lost, property and businesses destroyed, resulting in billions of dollars in losses. Among the many people affected was home business owners who saw their life's work washed away in the torrent. However, there was one home business that the hurricanes could not destroy. While Katrina and Wilma raged on, ONLINE BUSINESSES were still running and making money!

Online business owners did lose their equipment and belongings in the hurricanes, but they DID NOT lose their source of income, unlike so many other home business owners. Since their businesses were operating in cyberspace, they were safe from the ravaging hurricanes. In a worst-case scenario, even if the owner did perish in the hurricane, their online businesses could still carry on, bringing in passive and residual income to their family.

When I started my websites a few years ago, I didn't really consider this aspect (since there are no hurricanes where I live). I basically wanted a business that would make money even while I was sleeping, but when Katrina and Wilma raced across Louisiana and Florida, I suddenly realized my websites were Hurricane-proof Money Making Machines! Not only were they hurricane-proof, they were earthquake, SARS, bird-flu and natural-disaster-proof! Now that's what I call FANTASTIC! It took some effort in the early stages and money was nowhere to be found at first, but as I continued to plug on, I began to see results and I believe, so can you! So if you want a home business that will keep on making money despite human and natural disasters, consider starting an online business.

Here's a short list of the types of online businesses you could set up :

• Sell your own physical product. This is probably the most difficult to get off the ground. Unless you already have an established customer base and your online presence is there to add value to your business, it could take years to build such an online business, but having an online store brings you business from all over the world, something a small physical store can't possibly do.

• Sell your own electronic products. Being an Infopreneur (Information Entrepreneur) is really easy these days. There are millions of people promoting their e-books, software and training programs online. You don't have to be an Internet genius to sell your stuff online. All you need is to be knowledgeable in a specific niche and build your products around that niche. There is BIG money to be made in this!

• Sell an online service. People will pay a subscription fee to be allowed into the subscribers section of your website to use these services. The types of services you could offer are limited only by your imagination and technical know-how.

• Sell other people's products. This is called affiliate marketing. It's the most popular because you don't incur development costs. There are literally millions of products to choose from, and the beauty of this online business is that you can sell to anyone, anywhere in the world - there are NO borders!

• Selling advertisement space on your website. This has always been a good money maker. One of the easiest ways to make money this way is the Google Adsense program. You need to paste a small snippet of code in your web pages which will then display advertisements based on your content. Every time a visitor clicks on one of these ads, you earn anywhere from a few cents to a few dollars (depending on how competitive the ads are).

The list above doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of the thousands of ways to make money online. How you make your money is really up to you.

I love having an online business! It's like having a sales representative in every home or office around the world (that's billions of homes and offices, mind you) and they never need a vacation, never fall sick, never ask for a raise, never complain and always do what I want them to do! I don't have to worry about visitors not coming to my store because of bad weather or because their car broke down or any other physical reason. I'm with my customers as soon as they click their mouse!

Sure, there are millions of websites raking in the big bucks and my sites could be considered small fry, but the online business pie is BIG and it's growing everyday. There's lots of room for everyone to make money! Depending on where you live, just a small slice of this pie (or even a few crumbs) could allow you to live comfortably! An example would be if you were an online business owner living in Malaysia (where I am) where every 1000 US dollars equals 4000 Malaysian Ringgit, and that's a lot! And remember, you won't have to pay a single cent of what you earn to board up your store windows, repair the roof, pump out the water and clean out the mud from your online business when a storm or hurricane comes. Isn't that reason enough to consider starting your own online business?