Learn CSS and Website Authoring

The Clicking Job

2007-02-05T14:38:00.000+08:00

I just founded a job that is related to websites and blog. Beginning next month, I will be on a new path of becoming a full time web administrator cum blog master. I really hope it would be an exciting career path for me with a better pay. Plus, the office that I'm going to be stationed is located 5 minutes drive nearby my house. I can't wait for the one month resignation notice I sent last week to be over.

Here's an awesome video done by Michael Wesch, an assistant professor of Cultural Antropology of Kansas State University. In his short less than 5 minutes video, you'll learned something about the progress and the development of Web 2.0 and what it can do to and for us. I wish I could make a video like this. He must have spend countless of hours to create this video:

The web is so awesome!

Using Google Page Creator To Host CSS File

2007-01-06T00:25:00.000+08:00

It's January 2007 and a whole new year for this blog. I've lost count of how many times I've change my main blog layout (Ashrufzz Reality Adventure). Each changes normally takes me a couple of hours and then I wouldn't touch them for a couple of months except for doing some minor changes. I don't do blog designs because I don't think I have the creativity. However, I do love to tinker and customize it to my own preferences.

Google Page Creator (GPC) is simply a remarkable tool to use. It gives you 100MB of free spaces and you can also host other types of file there. By the way, don't host files that is questionable such as MP3 or some video files for people to do heavy downloading eventhough there is no written limit to the bandwitdh that GPC provide.

Normally, if you use blogger blog, the CSS is embedded directly on top the Head section of the blogger template. Looking at the source file, it will make your eyes squinting to see all those CSS codes. Plus, it will take another second to download the whole HTML along with the embedded CSS. If you want to make your blog a little bit quicker, here a few simple step you can take:

Copy the entire CSS codes and paste it onto a notepad file.
Name the file whatever you want and end it with dot css
Upload the file somewhere if you have a webhost or alternatively use GPC
Edit the style type area and link your CSS file with your blogger blog

Here's a few snapshots for a better understanding of what I'm talking about.

Since that is done, now I can save time not having to scroll down like crazy just to edit a simple script on my blogger blog. Hope this piece of information would be useful to you.

Re-Introduction To Google Content Network

2006-12-28T13:47:00.000+08:00

The Google Content Network is another name for the Google Adsense. It is basically a contextual advertising solution to web publishers. When I first used Google Adwords 3 years ago to promote affiliate products, I had no idea what Google Content Network is. If you have used Google Adwords before, you will notice this list of options:

I first started out with the content network ticked. I then saw I'm having a lot of ad impressions. However, the conversion was poor and I lost some money over the process. As I said, I was still new at it, I made a mistake but I learned through it. Eventhough I don't use pay per click advertising anymore, I wish I can play around with it again once I've regain what I've lost over the years.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, then you should better watch this 7 minutes Webinar. If you already know about it, it doesn't hurt to re-learn what you have know. Maybe you've missed out a point or two. Anyway, enjoy the show:

How To Add Adsense On A Single Post For Blogger Blog

2006-12-20T08:44:00.000+08:00

The thing I like about self hosted Wordpress Blog is the ability to edit the source code for its presentation. Below is a visual form of how to add Adsense into a single. Just find:

Using Blogger Blogs however is not as straight forward as your self hosted Wordpress blog. Still, there are ways to do it and it is just a matter or trial and error plus some further testing that we can achieve it. I like to do things visually so this is a screenshot of this blog on a single post before adding Adsense:

Moving ahead with modifying our Blogger template, this is where you should add your Adsense code into your Blogger template for your single post display (warning: make sure you save your current template somewhere just in case if something goes wrong):

Normally you could not preview the end result, anyway just Save Template Changes and click on the View Blog tab. So, the end result would look more or less like this:

In summary, the key thing to search for is to put the Adsense code in between <BlogItemCommentsEnabled>..</BlogItemCommentsEnabled> . Test, test and test your blog display. By the way, if you numerously test your Adsense display, make sure you control the amount of impression the page make and don't click on your own ads or you'll get in trouble. Just a friendly reminder there.

Interesting Questions About The Web

2006-12-08T17:28:00.000+08:00

YvoSchaap came out with an interesting questions and answers after doing some quantitative data analysis from a raw data obtained from Alexa. Some interesting questions that catched my interest is:

Is porn dominating the web?
Is China taking over the web?
Is it true that Yahoo and MSN are more used than Google?
Why do I always see 'ads by Gooooogle'?

To Read more about it head over to '8 questions about the web you always wanted answers to'.

CSS Cheat Sheet

2006-12-03T21:39:00.000+08:00

If you love CSS and use it every single day for your web designing or authoring, this piece of sheet would be very useful and should be printed out and be hanged on the wall. I would certainly have it on my wall once I can find a wall of course.

Code well my friends..

PHPNET.US Free Webhosting Revive

2006-11-24T01:27:00.000+08:00

Back in June 2006, I registered an account with PHPNET.US and things weren't that pretty back then. The free web hosting has received numerous complaint, downtime and bad reviews if you've done some Google search over them. Hopefully, this time they will have some compliments and some praise for doing a nice job of providing free bannerless webhosting.

Let's look at some of the new features, alright let's look at the old phpnet.us and the new phpnet.us:

Here's the new layout of phpnet.us:

So, they've redesigned their page. That's not a big deal. Let's move on:

Now they have a Cpanel for internal use and with a web-based file manager. Check it out:

The most interesting features they have is they are now providing Automatic Script Installer for those who don't like to fiddle around with manual installation of PHP packages.

Next is the MySQL Administration. I hope they don't change their database server again. It's quite a tedious process to change some of the PHP scripting to point to a new database server. I would prefer a much straight forward process.

Anyway, I hope PHPNET.US will keep on serving their services free of charge.

Google Page Creator Went Crazy

2006-11-18T22:34:00.000+08:00

Google for me is simply amazing. They've came out with or at least bought some great online tools and system apart from the search engine arena they have dominate. Online tool and webpages certainly use up a lot of bandwitdh and with Google donating bandwitdh and servers to Wikipedia, you can imagine how much capable and powerful Google is. With the recent YouTube acquired by Google for $1.65 Billion in Stock, Google doesn't really bother about bandwitdh, they most probably going to build an online world with infinite storage, bandwidth and CPU power or piggy back on other people using their amount of cash they have right now.

Alright, let's forget about the Google drama. Recently, I've been building a number of pages using Google Page Creator. I like the Googlepages features however, I stumbled upon this problem:

I guess only that template is giving me problem because after I changed into another template, there was no problem after that. Anyway, it was an interesting experiment. Here's an interesting Googlepage website on Adding Videos, Pictures and MP3 to your GooglePages.

An Attempt To Get Clients For My Services

2006-10-09T13:59:00.000+08:00

I just refined the layout of this blog. It's not an easy task to go through the CSS and HTML codes, however I somehow managed to do it. This month has been a very busy month. Recently, I got some lead to design a website for an established corporation.

Here is the situation that the company is facing from what was being told. All they want was a simple website with a simple contact form that will be forwarded to the right person in the company. They were approached by an IT web design company and the Purchase Order has been issued. However, after more than 6 months, the website is still not ready. So, my referer told me to send them a quotation for half the price of what the other company is offering.

So, I sent them my quotation. At the same time, I managed to search and collect for information that is available about the company on the web. I even had a sample of a customized website ready for them before I made the follow up call to the contact person at the company. The template was taken from OpenWebDesign and customized in just one hour.

I even uploaded the sample website on the web and it is now live on the web. The idea was to email the executive and ask him to try and access and then give me some feedback for further action.

Unfortunately for me, when I get hold of the executive, he told me that they are now proceeding with the company who offered the high priced quotation and did nothing. Well, they did something which was registering the domain name. Apart from that, nothing is moving yet. I wonder what's going on with the web design company.

The lesson here is to persist and try to find clients no matter what the outcome would be. It reminds me of my tele-marketing job quotes "The more 'NO' you get will get you closer to a 'YES'!".

technorati tags:getting, clients, web, design, customize

Manipulating Blogger's Template

2006-10-01T01:28:00.000+08:00

Blogger.com is recently undergoing it's Beta program. It is an update Google should have done years ago. I've tried the beta program but to manipulate the template requires a lot of tweaking and testing. You can read about Blogger Beta template's if you are a bit technical savvy kind of person. Anyway, Blogger is a great blogging system and a powerful tool to use. No wonder Rob Benwell could make a lot of profit just by using free blogging tools.

If you are interested to get Rob Benwell latest of Rob Benwell's Baby Blogging Bonanza there was another way you can get it around the salesletter straight to the thank you pages without paying. I tried it and it works, it bypasses the payment processor and went straight to the thank you/download page. All this just by using the search engine. I think Rob has fixed his website now. Personally, I think there is nothing special in his material. The only thing that is valuable is his strategy and if you've been blogging long enough, you'll know it better.

So, back to manipulating Blogger's template. Firstly, you should have been fiddling around with blogger's template and see how the code is structured. Then, if you require a more indepth knowledge, you can visit FreshBlog: Blogger Hacks, Catogeries, Tips & Trick. The site has an incredible amount of interesting stuff covering blogger hacks and loads of other stuff. Take a look at how this site (Music Thing) is created entirely utilizing the Blogger hosting. The site doesn't look like a blog at all and has a high PR rank of 6. The best part is, Blogger is free and they don't have to take care of any technical, bandwitdh issues and hardware stuff. Genius.

With that in mind, for a start. I think anyone can be successful in building websites using the already free available blogging system without costing you anything except an internet connection. The only problem is whether you can handle the technical and coding part and your willingness to step up to the plate. As for me, I need to work hard and focus on what I've been doing as it is very easy for me to get distracted with so many stuff dumped in my emails.

Learn CSS With YouTube Video

2006-09-13T22:48:00.000+08:00

I was being distracted from learning in depth about CSS. I'm still struggling to understand how to code CSS myself instead of stealing it from a template or someone's elses website or blog. Recently, I just got myself an opportunity to do freelance web building job for a small IT company. It surprised me eventhough they are an IT company, they still don't have a website and that's not really good for them.

The market for web building for small companies is huge, my only dissapointment is, I'm a one man show type of person. I have people under me but I don't really like how they are managing the job because it requires me to yell at them to get it done. So I prefer doing it myself. My journey to become a web entrepreneur is still a long way to go. I need to get out of the 'Self Employed' mentality if I want to grow.

Here's a video I found on Youtube about HTML/CSS. It's a great refresher if you've been out of the web programming scene for a while:

The video creator's website is not accessible from my place while I'm writing this post. I'm not really sure why, but my internet connection is quite problematic for quite some time now. Eitherway, the video should have been given a longer period for the viewer to take a glance on the contents. It's too quick! However, I can't blame the video because earlier it said "You may want to pause this video so you have time to read the slides".

Here's 2 links for a better reading exclusively about your CSS skills:

Good Designers Copy, Great Designers Steal
(I really love what the author wrote because I'm not really good at designing, I'm good at authoring and adding what has been done)

CSS tips and tricks, Part 1
CSS tips and tricks, Part 2
(The writer is a perfectionist when dealing with XHTML/CSS. He just don't get it why people don't use validator for their web codes. I simply don't understand why I should use a validator when my website is displayed nicely.)

The learning CSS and Website Authoring is a never-ending task for a webmaster. A lot have to be learned to survive in the fast paced of the internet world.

What is a Tableless Design?

2006-09-03T01:34:00.000+08:00

I just finished watching a presentation slide made out of Javascript and CSS. It's amazing to see a presentation could be made just by designing and modifying some codes. I think I need to learn and make one for myself. What you will learn in the presentation is, if you previously built your websites using tables which is very easy to do using software such as photoshop and dreamweaver, then you'll be glad to know that there are better ways to do that but it requires some new set of skills to learn. Well, we all need to adapt to changes somehow. Click on the image below to look at the presentation slide:

Hope you'll learn something today..

Why Compress Your CSS Codes?

2006-08-23T18:48:00.000+08:00

In a text file, there are lots of empty spaces between the codes, paragraph. Sometimes we write our CSS code by lines, sometimes we space our codes to provide a better readability. However, when the css files are saved, it takes a lot of kilobytes. A lot of kilobytes normally translate into longer loading time for the browser.

If you are using dial-up internet connection, it will take a while before you can see the webpages. In my country, you can also browse the internet using your mobile phone using GPRS connection. However, you will be charged based on how many kilobytes you are downloading. The more you download, the more you have to pay. If you are a thrifty person, I guess you will save and maximize most of your internet usage to cut down costs.

In a webpage or even your blog, you can cut down your CSS file for faster loading in a web browser. There are a number of online CSS tools to achieve this:

CSS Optimizer

Flumcake's CSS Cascading Style Sheet Optimiser

Icey's Projects- CSS Compressor

Clean CSS

Be faster loading and stay saved. :)

IE Hack? What Is That?

2006-07-28T07:29:00.000+08:00

I've been changing my blogger blogs layout using blog templates from Gecko and Fly. Their templates is derive from the Wordpress Theme and they look awesome which is I chose their templates. I wonder how many hours the designer took to design all those beautiful blog templates and giving it away for free.

CSS code before the IE Hack:

#page {
background: white;
text-align: left;
margin: 0 auto;
padding: 20px 0 10px;
position: relative;
/* The entire template's width is set in this class. */
width: 760px;
/*_width: 760px;*/ /* IE hack */
border: 1px solid #ddd;
border-top: none;
}

CSS Code After IE Hack:

#page {
background: white;
text-align: left;
margin: 0 auto;
padding: 20px 0 10px;
position: relative;
/* The entire template's width is set in this class. */
width: 760px;
_width: 760px; /* IE hack */ (/* Removed)
border: 1px solid #ddd;
border-top: none;
}

So, let's look what happen if you don't edit the necessary code as mentioned above in your template:

The CSS code works fine in Mozilla Firefox but the sidebar were pushed down when we use Internet Explorer. I don't like that to happen. Anyway, this blog's CSS is not hacked yet for Internet Explorer because the blog template creator didn't put a remark on this template. I need to find out for myself or get someone who can rewrite some CSS code for my blog. Eitherway, my blog is still accessible, that is what matter most at the moment.

Why Quality is Better Than Quantity in Web Authoring

2006-07-27T23:26:00.000+08:00

Recently, I've been introduced to a software that could generate pages as many keywords that we enter. Basically, the software would generate each keyword that has been entered a page with contents taken from RSS feeds and some other sources I'm not so sure. I've been testing out the software and it tends to CRASH especially when the software could find affiliate program regarding the keywords. It SUCKS!! ..If you insist on giving it a try, click on the image below:

A few months ago, I stumble upon an alternative to Traffic Equalizer. It's a PHP based software and it is installed on your own web hosting. Webmasters know that content is the most vital part in a webpage that they've created. Without content, it would just be a painting without any descriptions. What the software do is, it will generate website that has contents on it scrape from somewhere. Basically, the software is almost similar to the above image shown above but with a few twists. Still, it is software generated and people would know that the pages has no human touch. However, what should we expect right? We are not capable of producing hundreds or thousand hand coded webpages, that is where software take place to automate the process.

Personally, I think using content generating softwares is not a good idea because sooner or later, the search engine where the software targets the web traffic will come, eventually going to drop or probably omit the indexed website. The search engine will become smarter and smarter so producing such websites will just pisses the search engine spiders away one day. So, what do we do about it? I think you should read the below article (image is clickable):

Have a productive day ahead.

What Is Your Level of CSS Knowledge?

2006-07-18T09:05:00.000+08:00

I've been "off course" the purpose of this blog. This blog is supposed to be lesson and record ed thoughts and tips on learning CSS. It seems to me that a lot of my posts has been on testing and trying out new and available web toolsets. It is not a surprise for me because I love trying out new tools. Knowledge is a set of tools too.

If you are new to this blog, then I welcome you. I wish to emphasize that I'm not a designer, I can become one but that is not really who I am. I am practically a 'repairman'. I see things that other people I know don't understand. I understand how to fix certain problem but I'm not really a perfect person. What I normally do is, I copycat the design I like, seek out the source file, go through all the codes and try to understand what they really are and finally I tweak and personalize to my preferences. I then repeat what I've done on another design I like but this time I can do it faster. I also read a lot so I'm not spending enough time experimenting what I've read (I'm working to improve this at the moment).

Recently I read Emil Stenström blog and he writes amazing amount of 'codish' writing that I love reading:

Level Of CSS Knowledge
My level of CSS is probably at Level 5 but I'm not really sure I'm qualified to confirm this :)

Real Hacker DOn't Use CSS
I just love hackers, they are genius people who can understand how to crack open something just by using their mind and tools. They practically can have what they want in their life because they know how to engineer what they're working on. I envy them so much..

I should probably study more about CSS starting from now on. Have a nice day.

How To Point Your Domain Name To A Free Web Host

2006-07-15T14:28:00.000+08:00

If you are new to webhosting and domain registration, then it is okay. I never knew about this whole technical jargon of webhosting, domain, DNS and stuff. I just keep on being comfortable with it by reading and studied those stuff every now and then. I am always looking for the free or the lowest cost that I can find. I probably should change this attitude if I wanted to go into business but it could probably be my strength point. By the way, I just came back from my 1st Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) in one of Cisco Regional academy here. I learn quickly since I've been exposed to the networking arena for quite a while.

Last time, I told you about Is Free Web Hosting Reliable?- Part 2. One of the featured free webhosting was Awardspace. If you read my post carefully, I can only access Awardspace when I am at home. The network at my office doesn't allow me to access their website for some unknown reason. Their website is full of Google Ads, I can understand that because they give out free stuff and hope to gain something back in return somehow. Earlier, I removed one of my domain from Awardspace Free Webhosting because it was not working. Then I realized I missed something so I tried and putting the domain name again.

Let's see what did I do. After signing into Awardspace login area, I went to the Domain Manager area. There, I put my domain name on the top form and pressed the Add Domain.

You can click on the image above to enlarge it if your eyes can't see very well. The circle area is where the information of the Name Server (NS) where you should be putting in your domain management. Depending on where you bought your domain, mine looks like this:

Oh no..My domain here is expiring next month. Got to renew it by end of this month. I loved this domain name because it has a PR2 on Google. Unfortunately the domain name is not mine. So, after putting all the details on the domain management console. Now just let the thing resolves by its own. It should be online in probably 24 hours after you have pointing the new server. Now you know how to move your domain around but what is more exciting is, you have a 200MB of webspace with a 5GB of Bandwitdh. That is huge and it's FREE. I just love FREE stuff. So, what are you waiting for, sign up for an account at Awardspace while it is still free and available and utilize it smartly.

What is a Private Label Package?

2006-07-11T11:06:00.000+08:00

Before this, I have no idea what a private label package is. So, what is a private label package? I did a search on Google and found my answer on Wikipedia and it says that:

Private label products or services are typically those manufactured or provided by one company for offer under another company's brand. Private label goods and services are available in all industries from food to cosmetics to web hosting and are often positioned as lower cost alternatives to regional, national or international brands. Since the branding of private label consumer goods is often provided by the retailer, store brands are sometimes called private label brands.

Well, now that I've know and understand about it. What do I have to do about it? For me, I see it as a way for me to leverage my effort in doing my marketing. I don't have to spend time creating a new product or services from scratch. I now can focus on repackaging it to my own and profit on it. Of course there are pros and cons doing it but it outweighs the cons in my case.

What does have to do with my web authoring step? Recently, I found this package and best of all, it is free:

So, what do I do with it? I now have the resource to repackage it and make all the content package my own. Still, I need to do a little bit of work. Doing some work requires discipline and perseverance which I've been lacking all along. It's a battle within me and I assumed it is also for almost everybody else.

So, I think I'm going to get back to work on the things I've been working. Have a productive day.

Content..The Juice of Any Websites

2006-07-07T15:28:00.000+08:00

I've been installing, testing, designing, tweaking and adding features to a lot of my blogs and websites. As I do all this things, the more I do this kind of activities, the less learning curve that I have to endure and it has now become very easy for me to build blogs, tweaking it according to my preferences or customize it based on what I wanted.

However, apart from all the numbers of blogs and design, I lack one thing which is the most important thing in order to earn something from what I've built which is CONTENT or COPY. I have become too accustomed to install, tweak, customized and all kind of technical stuff that I neglect the very most important thing, WEBCOPY. Websites or blogs stores information and content. So content is the juice that people are seeking for, it's not the design, the eye catching flashy feature and all sort of stuff although it may help to attract people.

So, the skill I need right now is COPYWRITING. Wait a minute, there are tonnes of resources about honing copywriting skills on the internet. There are free resources but most of them are paid stuff. So, where do I start? I could spend more time searching and collecting all the information I need but that wouldn't be productive. I hate it that this time consuming learning process took away most of my time. It seems to me that I need to relearn my way of managing my time.

Recently, I read this free ebook which I obtained for free from one of my many subscribed newsletter:

(Right click and save the e-book above for your consumption)

I am so ashamed of myself after reading this e-book. Until today I still can't harness the knowledge that I've obtained. Follow through is my main weakness and I should work hard to overcome this obstacle. Let me know if you have the same problem as I am. In the mean time, read the e-book and try not to search for any short cuts ever again.

My New Layout Blog Layout

2006-06-29T16:53:00.000+08:00

I did a complete redesign customization for my blog. So, how do you like my blog now? My old and ugly default template is now transform and its look great now. I like this template. If you like this template for your Blogger blog, check it out:

Resource: Andreas04 Blogger Template

I spent less than two hours hand coding the templates with my details and adding some Google Adsense here. Okay, now I want to change my other blogs that I owned. I'll keep on updating my activities here.Come back soon enough. Cheers..

Installing Wordpress Video

2006-06-22T10:14:00.000+08:00

It's quite strange that I'm blogging about Wordpress blog on a Blogger blog. If you read carefully, wordpress initially is not about blog, it is a content management system (CMS) that simplifies the webpage or in a technical term, Dynamic Website. But what the heck, it's FREE so better make use of it to the max if you know how to.

I like reading manuals, some people don't. I don't like it either if I don't have the time for it. So, to save time, it is better to watch videos. It's like watching 'The Da Vinci Code' written by Dan Brown at the cinema instead in his thick novel. Here's the video: Installing Wordpress.

If you are looking for more details about the database connection. You can read My Wordpress Install Process. If there are any readers out there who wants to find a free webhost to install their own version of wordpress, do drop me a line. I'll give you a couple of links. Hope you'll enjoy the video.

Wordpress Flaw

2006-06-20T07:22:00.000+08:00

Beside being on Blogger, I also use Wordpress as well as one of my blog network that I own now. Last week, I've built one blog using Wordpress for one of my e-commerce website, the site is completely brand new and I haven't promoted it anywhere yet. So, what happen was, I search on Technorati my nickname just to get a glimpse on where my exposure level is. To my surprise, the wordpress blog for the e-commerce website I've created has been listed on Technorati. I wonder why that happen and most definitely I would like to know the answer.

After reading this page, now I know the answer. There's this feature in a blog called 'ping'. Before this, I normally use 'ping' on an MS-DOS environment to check my website or other website which I couldn't access but that maybe too technical to explain. However, here's a screenshot of how the wordpress blogs or other type of blogs get listed in web listing we never realized existed:

Now you know why and how blog can make your new website get listed on the search engine if it is done properly. I am not really an expert in internet marketing, however there are huge selection of products about this technique if you visit here. Just type the word 'blog' and there are a few products related to this technique.

I'm off again to build more blogs and website. I don't have any money to buy physical real estate yet, so blogs and websites is a virtual real estate if you ask me. I like watching 'Bob The Builder', so I think I should become a builder myself too..adios..

Is Free Web Hosting Reliable?- Part 2

2006-06-15T16:32:00.000+08:00

I registered for two new free webhosting last night. Both of them are good free webhosting but most importantly, it offers a bannerless page and supports PHP. However, one of them is not suitable for my use. Let's look at what I've done and what problem I encountered.

Award Space Beta

This website is a dream come true for me. Look at the size of the disk space with a 5GB bandwitdh. The best part is, if you own a domain name, you can put your domain name there for free. The NO BANNER ADS is the most valuable thing to look out for. So, what I did was, I transfered my one of my domain to Awardspace and waited for the DNS stuff to configure itself. The next day, I tried and access the webhosting but the connection refuses to connect. At first I thought my connection was the culprit. At last, after using Guardster, an anonymous web proxy connection my connection went through. So, my conclusion is, my network where I'm accessing their website is being blocked. So, no connection means no good so I think I have to think again upon building my website using this webhosting. I'm taking out my domain name out from there very soon.

PHPNET.US

Now this is an interesting webhosting. It offers a whopping 300MB, support PHP scripting an no file size restriction. The best part is, it's BANNERLESS. I've installed wordpress on the webhosting and the connection was lightning fast. The only setback for this website is it's domain name. Well dot US is not so commercial and popular unlike dot com. Still, for a webmaster like myself, as long as it is reliable and good for usage, it is definitely a priority choice to make. However, these sort of webhosting can start putting banner instantly whenever they are prepared to do so. I've experienced that with a couple of free webhosting before.

5 Gigs

I have an account during the early existence of this free webhosting. Infact, I have several of them, unfortunately a few of them expired all of a sudden and I eventually forgotten about them. At first they offered a bannerless page for the free webhosting. As expected, they started to put in their ads on the webpages I've created so I stopped using their webhosting. However, their page loads are fast and support quite a number of interesting features.

100Free

I've been using 100free account for almost 3 years already and the webhosting is still running like a charm. Let's take a closer look at the features:

The size they offer is not so big unlike the others but they provide an unlimited bandwitdh. There's also an FTP access for a quick file uploads. The only problem is, they put a small black ticker at the bottom of every page you have. You need to blend your page black to compliment with the black ticker. But hey, look at the brightside, there's no ugly banners on top of the page plus, it's been around for several years now. A good basic choice if you ask me.

That's wrapped up my review of the webhosting that I've been experimenting. I need to get back to work to build more pages as I'm building a network of free webhosting to try and earn free traffic from search engines. It's a skill to be learned to become a good webmaster. I'll write again very soon.

Is Free Web Hosting Reliable?- Part 1

2006-06-15T00:14:00.000+08:00

The past few weeks, I've been working around a couple of websites and blogs. I loved Wordpress because of its functionality and freedom to modify it and paste in a couple of ads in there, the only problem is, only self host blog has the ability to be modified. To look professional, I have a paid webhosting which is hosted by some technology company in US. Of course I bought it from a local reseller because I paid the webhost reseller in my local currency (Ringgit Malaysia). My price? Well, about RM60 per year or around USD15 per year. That is not a lot of money, isn't it?

Recently, my paid US webhosting had a couple of downtime and I don't like that since I sometimes constantly online with the webhosting using my FileZilla FTP. So, I tried to find free webhosting which can host php along with a free MySQL database and a subdomain feature. At first I did found a couple of them, I register to a few of them actually. Most of them went down in a couple of days but I find that one of them is http://www.php0h.com is quite reliable in term of uptime plus they give you a huge 200MB space. The downside is, they put an Adsense banner ad on top of each page that you load.

At first, I don't really mind the ads because you have to give credit to your free webhosting owner since they provide the infrastructure for your website. You just build the pages and eat up the bandwitdh. My first attempt was to install wordpress on the free webhosting. The installation went fine and the speed wasn't too bad after all. However, after a while I find it rather annoying the ad keeps seeping in even in my small windows. It penetrates the windows to edit HTML and I couldn't save what I've done. It's a shame..You can read and see what I've built at Ash Web Creation Blog. Oh well, I'm abandoning this page for a new one.

I now found a new webhosting which I'm still testing out. I'll give you the link and review for you to read and probably sign up for one for your Learning CSS and Web Authoring journey.

P/S: I created Ash City | All About Ashrufzz page. Tell me what do you think about it? ;-p

Using Google Video

2006-06-10T12:16:00.000+08:00

I had a Google Video account for quite some time but haven't really utilizing it. I've just created, edited and uploaded 2 videos on it, one is a home video and the other one using one of my company's video presentation. Check it out:

and my own:

Any comments?

Creating Websites Using Wordpress

2006-06-09T07:20:00.000+08:00

My recent project KL Bizz Tech Village had to be scrapped because the domain was sold. Anyway, the domain name is not mine so I didn't take it personally. I've been playing around with a couple of Content Management System (CMS) that is using PHP-MySQL platform. At the first attempt, I failed to understand how it works but sooner, it became comprehensible after spending some time learning the basics and trying out editing them myself.

The most easiest to manipulate around is Wordpress. Wordpress also provides free blogs same as what Blogger does. However, when I tried to change the design layout and add in some other hand coded stuff, there aren't any template editor like Blogger so basically the free wordpress blog is only for people who likes to blog without the webmastering skills of hand coding.

What I like is the self-host Wordpress where you download the entire package and host it yourself on your paid webhosting. If you don't have the money, you can do what I've been doing. Register for a free PHP hosting and host the wordpress blog there. I've been doing that using my WebTrafficVille blog. Of course there are downside of free hosting where they put a banner on top of your page but hey, the host needs some money to operate don't they? If you need a free PHP Hosting, I'm using an indian free webhost PHP0h.

If you use Dreamweaver as your HTML editor, you can read about "How to edit Wordpress theme using Dreamweaver". It describes what files need to be edited for your Wordpress theme. The best part about your own self host wordpress is, it utilizes CSS quite nicely. For affiliate marketer such as myself, I read about the advantages of Wordpress over Blogger and I find it's true there are elements that Blogger doesn't have that I want.

Nowadays I see there are people who are selling packages of predesigned wordpress and makes them as a functional website. I would love to build one of those, the only drawback I see is whenever the database hosting is down, the website is not accessible. The advantage however is the website loads much quicker since the files to download are smaller.

Here's some other interesting stuff that I've read:

How Much Should a Design Cost (If you are interested to make web design a living)
Daily Back Up for Wordpress using Gmail (Backing up is important if you build websites)
Interview with Problogger (Darren is a full time blogger making a living out of blogging..I myself aspire to be one hehe..)
Crazy Adsense Experiment (why didn't I think of this before?)

Okay..now it's back to work again. I need to sharpen my code reading and writing skills, I'll blog again soon enough.

Blogger was down for I don't know how long before I could post this. Blogger is getting unreliable these days. Reason to take control of your own blog. ;-)

Massive Giveway Internet Products

2006-05-21T16:47:00.000+08:00

One of the reason why I learn to create and build websites, blog and other sort of internet development is because I can theoretically capitalize to produce some sort of income. It is ashamed if I don't gear my skills I've earned to make more money as money is a resource that could improve our lives. So, basically I don't buy those internet marketing products. Over the years, I've seen a lot of them over time will eventually given away by some internet marketers. It's not that I'm a cheapscale person, however I do think that if you buy those internet marketing tools and you're not maximizing its use, then its too bad.

Anyway, here's the free giveaway if you've missed out on it:

Make use of these tools right away, shall we?

Free Wordpress vs Self Host Wordpress

2006-05-18T07:16:00.000+08:00

One of the blogging software that I've been testing was the famous Wordpress. I like wordpress because of it neat design and very simple to use and customize. Recently, I decided to register for a free account at Wordpress.com, it was a very straightforward process and my blog was created after I confirmed my e-mail.

The reason I registered a new blog was to test out on a niche that I've discovered and to monetize it using Google Adsense and Affiliate Marketing. Unfortunately, the free wordpress doesn't allow the users to play around with the design nevertheless looking at the source code. You can only select an array of template and edit your blog catogeries and that's it. If you just like blogging without making any stream of income, the free wordpress is not for you. I've read the forum to see why they don't allow such things, one of the reason is to not break the wordpress source code. I can see that wordpress is quite different than blogger in term of customization.

Nevertheless, you can always host your wordpress blog at your own web hosting and you should be able to customize it freely. If you don't have any webhosting, you can try and search for free php hosting somewhere. I'm sure you can try and Google it. I'll give you one the free php hosting, 110mb.

I like Wordpress blogging software and I'm going to explore all the possibilities of using it to build niche website and make money out of it. Here's a great article you should read if you want to monetize your blog:

Should Bloggers Forget Adsense (by Darren Rowse)

Development In Progress

2006-05-15T07:54:00.000+08:00

One of the project that I'm doing these days is KL Bizz TechVillage.

I bought the domain name for a friend of mine, however my friend is not a webmaster so he gave the domain name and hosting over to me to handle. Several months have passed by, I still couldn't figure out what kind of stuff to put into the website. 2 or more heads are better than 1, I delegated my technical team to further help me out to expand the website. They've built KL Bizz Portal Village using php software found from other resources. Eventhough language used there is Malay Language, I'm so proud to see them work so hard to build a portal of their own instead of using other people's portal/forum.

Since I've moved the recent webhost (Malaysia4Homes) has expired, I decided to add on the domain klbizz.com into my company's website since the resources is not being utilize. So, the earlier KL Bizz Forum that I've built is not available anymore. I'm not going to use it anyway. It's the thrill of installing that I'm enjoying after all.

Last Saturday, my webhosting was suddenly down. This was the longest time it had been offline for no reason:

Lucky I've subscribe to this InternetSeer service where they will inform you if your website is down so that you don't have to monitor your website yourself. This is the downside of outsourcing to a cheap web host. In the future, I'm going to buy a few other webspaces from different webhosting.

I was in the midst of designing a wordpress page using this newfound skin which is optimize for Adsense and I got pissed of the webhosting. I therefore search for a free webhosting that I can use to deploy wordpress on it. I stumbled upon phpOh. I guess the webhosting comes from India or someplace. I uploaded Wordpress there and designed the wordpress page on that free hosting and it worked perfectly. The only drawback was they inject their own adsense in each of the page. Oh well, free is not so free after all. Anyway, it's a win-win situation I think. Take a look at the page below:

I dislike the colour. Well, I can always play around with the colours later on. The main thing here is to get things going rather than a stagnant progress. Well, got to get back to work now. Next update will be..I don't know..but very..very soon...

Learn CSS by Watching Videos

2006-05-13T13:48:00.000+08:00

If you want to learn and experiment CSS, the fastest way to do it if you could see it using your own eyes. You can learn through reading a book or text but you'll learn much quicker by seeing it. It will save you a lot of time and effort. However, you still need to work yourself out with the websites that you are building. Anyway, this is an interesting product and I can guarantee it will benefit you:

Click on the image to check it out!

Putting Adsense in phpBB

2006-04-16T21:46:00.000+08:00

2 years ago, I have installed phpBB forum board in the company's website where I used to work. Not only I've installed, I've customized the forum board and put new images so that it looks good. Nevertheless, the forum became not active because there was no person administrating it plus myself was not active in it. I had nearly 30 people registered with the forum board.

Unfortunately, I left the company and the domain expired because the company didn't even bother to find a new webmaster or outsourced the job. Anyway, because of the installation I have done, it wasn't difficult to install a new forum board. Infact, it was almost the same task when I installed Wordpress for my blog.

Here's a screenshot of the forum board which I've created:

Quite long is it? So, how do you put in the adsense code into your phpBB Forum Board? Well, I'll let this forum (Google Adsense in phpBB) do the explaining job.

What advantage when we put the adsense code in phpBB forum board? If you used to browse into forum pages, you'll be sure to click all over the place inside the forum board. Next is, you'll tend to visit the forum board as often as you can especially if you have something interesting you are sharing it with others.

No wonder John Reese could make more than USD500,000 a year by applying one of his techniques that I'm currently testing. Check out his video here.

My Website PageRank

2006-04-11T15:45:00.000+08:00

On my last post, I forgot to put in a few more websites that I've built. It's basically my own personal page that I've built on Geocities. Some people doesn't realized this, but you put your personal website using Geocities for free and all you need to do is register using your Yahoo ID. I believe almost all people who goes online has at least a Yahoo ID. Geocities gives you 15MB of webspace and for me 15MB is a lot. However, your page will have a sidebar advertisement. Oh well, nothing is free nowadays without ads on it.

Moving on to my website PageRank. You can read all about PageRank here. I love reading about SEO and PageRank is a hot topic among webmasters and SEO Optimization Market. If you have a high PR, it's something awesome to brag about. However, you need to remember that the SEO industry fluctuates, one day you are on the top spot in the search engine, the next day maybe you are way down on the 20th page or so. Let's worry about that...I'm not. However, having a PR on your blog or website is pretty much an indicator of achievement you have done online. Let's just have fun building it, shall we?

I'm going to show a few screenshot of the websites that I have which have achieve some PageRank:

This is my main blog where I blog about my personal adventure in my career. My blog here achieved a PR 4. That's quite high if you asked anyone who are into SEO. The key to achieve a PR is basically depends on your age. You can find tonnes of resources about this by downloading SEO e-books whether free or buying it. Still, to know about this is something, putting it to the test is another task. Don't let the theory helding you back to just moving on doing it, ok? BTW, this blog achieved PR2. Not bad ehh??

KL Bizz is one of my hobby website I built. That website has a PR2. I haven't really structured the website properly yet it is receiving traffic once in a while from the search engines.

Now this is my personal website that I've built on Geocities. Basically the page contain little information to be proud of. Let look at an interesting thing that happen to another page of mine, also in Geocities.

Now this is a page I've created about one month ago which is linked to the main page above. This is actually my Resume page where I tell all about my details just like trying to get a job. What amazing is that this page got a PR2 just like the first page. The page got listed on google last 2 weeks though.

I just love doing experiment, it's amazing what you can do online, don't you think so? Oh, I nearly forgot. I got an invitation to register on Google Page Creator last 2 week. It's not open to public but you can put your e-mail in the waiting list. Took me a week the last time I subscribe with them. Here's a screenshot of the page I've created using the wizard that Google have prepared:

I haven't finish exploring this Google tool yet. However, it's even easier than Geocities and there's no ads on it. I guess, sooner or later, there will be ads. In the meantime, I'm going to use whatever I can get my hands on.

Alright, I'm going to build more pages while I still have the time. I'll write again when I have something interesting I've found. Have a nice day everyone..

New Websites

2006-04-10T11:56:00.000+08:00

It has been nearly 3 weeks I haven't write anything here. I've been very occupied with so many jobs as I'm wearing a lot of hats in my career and also in my personal life. It is sometimes very exciting more or less very exhausting at some times. However, we all have choices so this is the way of life that I have chosen.

So, the past several weeks. I've been working on a few websites as part of my CSS Learning. Most of my time is spent on the company's website since I'm still under employment and that is where I make most of my money. At the same time, I have to manage my time to do other stuff since the company doesn't have the resources to employ skilled, qualified staff. As we all know, when you are doing a lot of multitasking, your skill become average and that is not good if you want to be specialized in a specific area. Being specific can make you more money because you can become a professional in later days. The same goes to professors, they can take a lot of PHDs as that would look stupid or even worst, greedy.

So, I want to showcase screenshots of the website I've been working on. All of these websites are taken from templates obtain at Open Web Design and being edited hand coded using Dreamweaver and some of it using AlleyCode. Just click on the images below if you are interested to have a look of each and one of them:

I spent just a couple of hours to edit the template and put it a brand new text and feel. I'm interested to have my own company and solely focus on designing websites and SEO. However, because of my commitment to the employment, I had to do it part time. Still part time requires me to spend at least 20 hours a week. Didn't achieve that yet but I'm working on it.

This is an interesting website focusing on making money using Adsense. It's not perfect yet since I spent a few hours on it the last time I edited. I need to spend more time doing this website than any other or I'm not going to earn my Adsense impression.

Now this is my company website that I've been working on for weeks. It's still under development as it is develop solely by myself. Working in a corporation, a lot of things need to be approved first by my employer before it can be published. I have one practical student working together with me and I assigned her to do a flash intro for the company. I was surprised to know that eventhough she studied multimedia in college, she never knew how to design not even a simple flash application. I wonder why colleges here just taught their student only the theory and not the practical. So, what happen now is she needs to learn to design Flash pretty quickly as I have set a dateline to get the Flash presentation ready. Not that I'm pressuring her or something.

So, I have a lot of things in my hand right now. It's tough to multi-task so I need to be focused on one thing at a time. Update on my progress very soon.

CSS & Javascript Workshop

2006-03-30T13:33:00.000+08:00

I wish I can attend a seminar or workshop about CSS dan Javascript in my country. I can try and search for it here in Malaysia, however it would be expensive for a hobbyist such as myself to pay such money. If only learning could be fun and cheap. In Australia, there are workshops which is going to be held at various places. Maxdesign of Australia will be having as CSS & Javascript Workshop. Click on the link for more information.

Sams Publishing, one of the largest and one of the most successful computer book publishers in the world had published this book:

I wish I could buy this book. I think I'll try and find a cheap CSS Book somewhere at the Kuala Lumpur International Book Fair 2006 this weekend.

Installing Mambo Content Management System

2006-03-13T00:33:00.000+08:00

When I first tried to install web software on my bought linux hosting, I failed miserably. I have no idea what php stands for, I didn't even know SQL or PHP Admin. Over the past several month, having to work on the outline of database planning for the software my company is marketing, I've learn tremondous amount of knowledge but most of all, how to connect any database with its application.

Some people said, you need to have an extensive SQL knowledge. For all I know is, I utilize free tools which is available and deploy the application without having to vigorously study SQL language. Of course, having such knowledge would be an advantage but for me, I think practicality is more important as we all have an equal amount of time in a day. There are plenty of work to do in a days job, don't you think so?

Armed with FileZilla, Firefox Browser, my trusty laptop and a wireless internet connection installed at my home. I've installed Mambo Content management just by sitting down at my living room on my sofa set. I just love working with technology as it gets easier all the time. Well, I haven't really customized the page yet but I'm working on it as I'm writing this post.

Still under beta testing, you can take a look at how my Mambo page works. It's late already, by the way take a look at this amazing software I've just installed on my laptop:

Just ignore all the icons and look at the background wallpaper. It's a photograph view of earth taken from outer space by a NASA satellite. Isn't it amazing? My country is in the dark so you cannot see anything except for some lights probably torched to the sky. You can have this software installed for free by going to Desktop Earth 2.0 .

I really need to go to sleep now. Update to you later on my progress. Cheers...

Installing Wordpress 2.0 Without Fantastico

2006-02-21T07:13:00.000+08:00

My webhost uses Linux as it's platform. I tried Linux once about a year ago on a Pentium III Xeon server running on Virtual PC and find it confusing probably not getting used to it unlike Windows. The OS is not bad though, anyway I own 2 domain names each uses Linux webhost which the servers are situated physically half-across the globe where I live (amazing how technology works right?). The only bad thing I've experienced is the connection can take too long since the route to getting response is quite lengthy (yes, I did a tracert on that).

The most interesting thing about Linux Webhost is it's Cpanel and Fantastico. If you have used Fantastico, it provides a list long of useful tools. Most of them are free for your use. You only need to play around with it and spend time testing it. Technically, it is not that hard once you've passed the learning curve. Here's how my webhost cpanel looks like:

I run one blog using Wordpress 1.5 installed using Fantastico. The installation I did last time was simple, just click and follow the instruction there and that's it. Recently, Wordpress released their Wordpress 2.0 so I kind of curious to know what their new features will be. So, this time I tried to install Wordpress without the help of Fantastico to see how easy it is. So, armed with Filezilla and the extracted downloaded file of Wordpress 2.0, I uploaded the wordpress folder up on my webhost. My connection was a bit slow eventhough I've used a broadband connection so it took me a while for the 1.65MB of data to upload. After it was finished, I followed the instruction Using cPanel provided by Wordpress. If you have no idea of what is MySQL, now this is the time you can understand how it is configured. I was a bit surprised when the installation was done right after I've edited the php installation file. I was expecting more of the mumbo-jumbo php & MySQL script. So far, I'm happy with it (I previously installed wordpress before but failed to connect it to the database).

So, testing out my newly installed Wordpress on my webhost, here's the main login page comparison:

So, the above is Wordpress 1.5 login page. It looks a bit plain but what do you expect in a login page, right?

Now this is the new Wordpress 2.0 login page. Here you can notice the new Wordpress logo.

Okay, now we'll login and see the most important place which is the place where we type our content:

In Wordpress 1.5, the place where we normally type has all the basic things. However, I dislike the Quicktags shortcuts because I cannot preview how my entry will look like unlike blogger.

In Wordpress 2.0, new features has been added in addition to its good looking interface. There's also a lot of new tabs which I have yet to explore.

I'm going to customize the design by searching for a few template for my example use. Until then, go to Word Press website if you are interested to build one yourself.

Alleycode Free HTML Editor

2006-02-13T12:18:00.000+08:00

Hand coding are much better than designing your webpages using designer tools such as Frontpage or Dreamweaver especially when your webpage embeds CSS files. Though designers tool provide coding displays concurrently with how the design looks, sometimes it feel much more easier and comfortable doing it in a coding environment. Most of the time, we use Notepad to configure anything that is related to code, however notepad is too basic and lack other necessary tool.

Alternatively, there are a wide variety of choices available for us to download. One of my favourite which I'm using it personally is Alleycode. Alleycode HTML Editor is not only FREE, it has various features a web coding programmer need. Try it out for yourself:

Why Do You Need Tutorial?

2006-02-08T00:34:00.000+08:00

I prefer to do more tutorial instead of having to go to classes or starting to read another books for dummies. I'm not saying that reading is not important, it is equally important to start your 'action' and getting that 'learning mode' out of the way. Well, if you insist, here's another HTML tutorial:

What I love about the page is, it has a clean & neat layouts and I like clean pages instead of the cluttered one. I think I am blind over ads displayed on webpages, however I do click on some of the ads if they are attractive enough.

I'll recap a couple of things which I maybe blogging in my next post:

I learned how to make, edit and finished a 10 minutes video clip
I learned how to turn the video into a Flash Video and publish it online (Still under beta pages)
I got an online sale for a salesletter page I've created 3 weeks ago
I was forced to learn about Javascript, ActiveX and HTML form because of a project I was forced to coordinate.

I tonnes of stuff to look up to, however I will remember to keep this blog updated on the latest development.

CSS Tools That I Use

2006-01-31T15:43:00.000+08:00

Eventhough it has been a couple of weeks I've been studying about CSS, I am still hungry for more information to digest to better reinforce my total understanding towards CSS and web authoring. I finally settle for using Dreamweaver 8 by Macromedia. If you don't realized it yet, Adobe has bought over Macromedia so now all the product under Macromedia is now owned by Adobe, a pretty good move in their business merger I think.

I've been reading this tutorial on Understanding CSS Design written by Adrian Senior. In the article, there are lots of graphics and also some video tutorial which I love watching. By the way Dreamweaver is a recommended tool to use if you ask me. I don't have the money to buy it yet but I'm using the trial version. Dreamweaver is simply superb. I feel a bit akward if I ever use other tools such as NVU or any HTML editors after experience Dreamweaver. If you are looking for some tutorials or if you have the dough to go the extra miles, then I recommend you check out the product below:

The title of the webpage looks a bit exagerated, your grandma still need to sit down and read and practice Dreamweaver and some people have different learning curve period of their own. Anyway, the product is a good buy if you love seeking out more information for more understanding like myself.

Managing Your HTML and CSS

2006-01-29T01:09:00.000+08:00

I recently found this very insightful article. It is targeted for people who are in the business of making website especially especially CSS coder. If you are not really doing the business full time, it is not that useful but if you are intending to go further, then it is very valuable information. You can read it out using the link below:

Managing HTML and CSS to Keep Clients Happy and Avoid 'Disaster' - Part One

I really like the part when they say about authors. Guess I am an author now..hehe..

Do You Collect Resources?

2006-01-17T19:00:00.000+08:00

One of my habit is to collect a lot of resources. Unfortunately, most of the time I don't utilize the resources that I have collected and it is collecting digital dusk in my small pen-drive. If you like doing what I like doing, then I think this White Paper would be some eye opener if you haven't been reading about it for a while:

Heck I even finish reading it yet. I'm going to digest this information now. See ya..

Another Revision

2006-01-10T00:46:00.000+08:00

I have been busy building a few webpages. It is time consuming but I would rather think of it as an education time investment which will reward me in future time. As a normal person, I want to understand things I have not yet comprehend. Also, as a normal person I do forget what I have learn and that is what revisions are all about.

By the way, if you wanted to see what my recently built website looks like, click here. Well, again some more revisions before I can proceed on my further exercise:

Part of learning Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is understanding inheritance.

The above is an excerpt of the entire tutorial about HTML Hierarchy. I am a visual person, so I like to analyze and understand the things that I can see. If I can't see, at least I should be able to visualize. You know your own capability and limitation, so why not make use the most out of it. Still education and the right knowledge is to key towards any success in any field.

CSS Learning Revision

2006-01-04T11:49:00.000+08:00

Last 2005 was full of sweet, bitter, bad, salty & sour memories. Good things must come to an end eventually. Still, life must goes on. As a normal person, I sometimes tend to forget what I have learned. So, in order to reinforce what I have learned, I need to read and re-read what I have learned. So here is a useful site that I've been using for my revision:

Intro To CSS | Developers Digest

I wish all the readers here a Happy New Year 2006 and may this year's goal is achieved by end of the year.

Learn to Create Flash Video

2005-12-21T02:10:00.000+08:00

I am a tech savvy guy. Whenever I see something which is cool on a website, I will try my best to find out how it works and experiment it for myself. It is exhilirating when trying out new things most of all when it is cool and fun. So whenever I browse a website an I saw this image:

It intrigues me to make one for my own. Fair enough figuring out the thing without guidance is very, very time consuming. Therefore I would recommend anyone who really wants to learn the easy way is by buying a package deal like this one. Create flash video requires you to have a decent computer with lots of RAM if you don't want your computer to 'hang' each time you're encoding it. Again this How to Make Flash Video Package is something worth buying.

Web Design Videos

2005-12-20T00:52:00.000+08:00

Last weekend, I was busy doing something else instead of my website design studies. My CSS studies were also affected but I gather new knowledge on making videos. So, I spent almost 2 days doing a part time job converting the old fashion video tape into VCD. At first, I used a compact TV recorder which records into a .asf format. The quality of the video was terrible and it took long hours for the process.

Frustrated by the quality, I used my DVD recorder instead. It works wonderfully, however when I rip off the DVD format into VCD. Again, the quality suffers. So, as a conclusion if you have the budget, go and buy a DVD recorder/player. You'll have no regret getting one. The DVD/R+RW are also getting cheap these days. I'll show you what I have done later.

If you are lazy to read (I sometimes got lazy too), you can learn how to make a website using your favourite designing software by video. My all time favourite tool would definitely be Macromedia Dreamweaver 2004MX. I'm getting my hands on Macromedia Dreamweaver 8 very soon. Watch all the videos on how to fully utilize them. You'll be glad when you watch the videos because when you know all the tips and tricks, it will definitely amazes you.

I may sound like pitching a sale here but the importance of getting educated far outweigh uneducated situation. So get educated right now!!

My Profile Page

2005-12-12T00:50:00.000+08:00

I am working hard to get comfortable with my new hobby which is to build website. Human are habitual creature so I need to get used to open up my Web Design Application instead of browsing around with my browser. At the moment I am building my own 'pretty' personal profile page. Well, it didn't turned out well as it seems. Eventhough several hours are wasted in editing the page but it is worthwhile for my learning journey. Take a look at the screenshot below:

This is how my website that I've uploaded at Geocities looks like in Internet Explorer.

Now this is by using Mozilla Firefox. It uses a seperate CSS file for the layout optimized for Firefox and not Internet Explorer. Because of the distinctive difference, I am scrapping the page into a new one. Until then, a piece of reminder to myself and also to you, just keep on moving on...

Another CSS E-Book??

2005-12-09T16:01:00.000+08:00

My Monday blues has eaten up 2 of my Mondays. I have no one to blame except for myself, well I can blame my day job but a true honest and potential person always blame themselves instead of pointing fingers at someone else.

Eitherway, as usual I can't withhold my fingers in clicking on new information or freebies I found on the net. So I downloaded this e-book:

If you buy a hard copy version of it, it is 500 pages thick. Since I believe that if you just read but take no action, you'll understand very little, I took a glance of the entire book and stored the PDF file somewhere. If you think it is a good investment for you, then go ahead and buy it. It is your choice.

I have a 3 days off of my day job starting tomorrow. I'll build a few CSS website by that time. I'll display it here once it is finished or partially done.

A Good Looking Pop Up

2005-11-27T23:52:00.000+08:00

When I first encountered pop-ups, it's like watching a new commercial on TV. I kind of like it, but it gets bored after a few times watching it. These days, pop ups can make your PC go haywire if you don't take the necessary precaution. My PC alone has been infected with all sort of trojans, viruses, scripts etc before and reformatted dozens of time. Lucky I can do it all by my own, it is quite costly when you hand over your PC to be repaired at the computer shop. Maybe I should open one up later..hehe..

I've been playing around with Pop-Ups. It resembles a 'Post It' kind of note. As you can see, I have also installed the pop-up in this blog. It doesn't have anything to do with CSS. It's a javascript thing. I have also put it up on my personal blog, look:

The best part is, you can learn how to do this for free. However, putting it together is quite technical. It took me half an hour to edit the graphics and configure it out. Still, when you go to this website, it'll show you how to have your own beautiful pop-up with a video tutorial. The website owner by the way is a friend of mine. His name is Kidino I met the owner in a wealth seminar last year. He is an awesome guy, you can visit his blog about internet marketing, very informative.

The next lesson is that I am going to learn is, how to modify and style your web form so that it'll look attractive for people to fill them up. Awesome stuff. I can't wait to find a time to experiment it. Until then, Monday blues everyone..

Redesigned

2005-11-25T23:43:00.000+08:00

Working in a small company, I wear many hats in the organization. I am the office administrator, the receptionist, the secretary, the project coordinator, the office boy and also the webmaster. With my employment in the company, the company has saved tremendous amount of labour money by giving me a minimum wage while maximizing all my potentials. What a great benefit a small company can have yet it won't be long for me. I guess for those people who are smart enough, they'll know where is my direction really is.

Enough on my hidden agenda, let's move on to my website authoring stuff. After I selected a website template at Open Web Design. I then edited the template and giving it my touch. I haven't touch my company's website since September, the website is now indexed on Google. The best part is, the FM Blog that I have installed got a 3/10 Page Rank. I think I should blog there more often. So, here's the end result after almost 4-5 hours of authoring the HTML and CSS code:

It is not that pretty, I tend to keep it simple as I know I'm not getting paid doing this. However, there are ways to monetize this website but I'll do that later. My focus now is to get the website ready and get my CSS knowledge to the test. I also added a form page for some lead generation. I used a simple script I obtained from Hotscripts. No need to buy any fancy software to have a form on my website.

To tell you the truth, my cost for maintaining my company's website is less than USD 35/year. That would make out a cost of less than USD 3/month. Of course, converting it to my country's currency, that would be around RM13/month or RM0.45/day. My lunch cost me RM5.00/day so it is that cheap to create a website (of course that varies on your level of expertise though). That is the beauty of doing business online which I tend to build right now. Read my reason on why I am eager enough to learn about CSS.

I'm editing more websites after this. I'll be updating this blog again once I've finished or on progress for my next website project. Right again soon.

My Profile Website

2005-11-22T15:37:00.000+08:00

I just went crazy authoring my geocities page. I spent several hours playing around with it. I don't do design, I like to pick and customize website template and make it my own. It is easier that way. The fact is, why develop something from scratch when you are able to use a shortcut, right?

Firstly, 'Open Web Design' is a remarkable place to get a free website template. There are dozen more template websites but I think this one is the best. Just pick whatever template you like, preview it and then download it. Most of the templates use CSS and the design is quite impressive.

So, I download one already. I then used Dreamweaver, one of the most powerful website authoring tools (it is expensive though but I'm using the trial version just to have a feel of it). Dreamweaver has an extraordinary features but I don't think I am utilizing it properly, I need to learn more tips and tricks of it.

Well, enough of code scanning and crunching. Here what my website looks like when it has been edited the last couple of hours:

I'll be keeping track of all my future works. Do come back soon.

How To Pick Your Website Colour

2005-11-21T15:45:00.000+08:00

It has been more than a week since I've last posted here. I have a very limited amount of time to play around with CSS and also CSSVista which I've installed. However, I think CSSVista features is awesome. At first I didn't know how to use it because I am not really a fan of manual instructions, so I just began editing, didn't realized CSSVista could actually extract CSS style from a live website until I tried it myself.

The key to a successful learning is repetition and lots of practice. That is what all succesful athletes do and the principle also counts in each area of your life. So, I did my CSS practice (eventhough I could only learn it a couple of minutes for time constraint) using CSS examples. I think this is one of the best way to learn because during my schooling years, I just love experiments. Eventually, I have to find time to keep on Doing CSS Experiment.

Here's an article taken from SiteProNews: http://www.sitepronews.com

How To Choose Your Website Colors
By Jason OConnor (c) 2005

Color is often overlooked in the business of optimizing websites for better returns on investments. Website sales can be greatly affected by simply changing its colors. Ever come across a website that uses some funky combination of print and background
colors? If you ever want to experience an eye-twisting headache, try reading yellow print on a blue background. The reason you see black type on a white background so much is that it is the best color combination for reading, both on and offline.

And since it is even harder to read text on a monitor than it is on paper, we must all be especially careful with the colors we choose for our websites, or suffer less-than-optimal site traffic and repeat visitors.

Color choice should also be dictated by other, less obvious goals, when designing or re-vamping a website. It's important to realize that different colors invoke different emotions, are associated with specific concepts and say different things in each society. For instance, green often times is associated with freshness or money, which is fairly obvious if you think about it. But every color does this, and some of the emotions and concepts are more subtle. For example, white means pure, easy,
or goodness and purple can be associated with royalty or sophistication. What's more, each color carries with it both positive and negative ideas. The emotions and concepts that you associate with specific colors may differ from other people's
associations, but there are themes that run throughout each color. Here are some:

Red:
Positive: Sense of power, strength, action, passion, sexuality
Negative: Anger, forcefulness, impulsiveness, impatience, intimidation, conquest, violence and revenge

Yellow:
Positive: Caution, brightness, intelligence, joy, organization, Spring time
Negative: Criticism, laziness, or cynicism

Blue:
Positive: Tranquility, love, acceptance, patience, understanding, cooperation, comfort, loyalty and security
Negative: Fear, coldness, passivity and depression

Orange:
Positive: Steadfastness, courage, confidence, friendliness, and cheerfulness, warmth, excitement and energy
Negative: Ignorance, inferiority, sluggishness and superiority

Purple:
Positive: Royalty, sophistication, religion
Negative: Bruised or foreboding

Green:
Positive: Money, health, food, nature, hope, growth, freshness,soothing, sharing, and responsiveness
Negative: Envy, greed, constriction, guilt, jealousy and disorder

Black:
Positive: Dramatic, classy, committed, serious
Negative: Evil, death, ignorance, coldness

White:
Positive: Pure, fresh, easy, cleanliness or goodness
Negative: Blind, winter, cold, distant

A major goal of marketers is to invoke emotion in their audience.We know that if we can cause some kind of an emotional reaction in the people we are marketing to and communicating with, we have a better chance of compelling them to buy from us. The battle between logic and emotion that rages in each of is usually won by emotion most of the time. By choosing the colors of our websites and online media with deliberate care, we are purposefully trying to invoke a specific emotional response that
will increase sales. So pick your colors carefully.

Not only do colors evoke emotions, but they can communicate messages or concepts too. For example, look at http://www.clickitticket.com to see how color is used to
communicate the new affiliation between Oak Web Works, LLC and ClickitTicket.com. The blues of Oak Web Works's logo swirl into the reds of ClickitTicket.com's logo. This can be interpreted as a melding of the two organizations, which is what the words
underneath say, "in affiliation with". Also, the red of http://www.oakwebworks.com/tickets/ indicates action and passion, two essentials for people who want to attend theater, sporting events or concerts.

Another online ticket website, http://www.bestshowticketslasvegas.com/, has a different color approach. Its main colors are blue and purple, giving the site
a comforting, secure and sophisticated feel. The main header on each page has all the colors in the rainbow in it, a collage of images, with the word `Tickets' in large, white font. Much of the site is white too, which gives it a clean feel.

As a general rule of thumb, when Oak Web Works (http://www.oakwebworks.com) designs websites, one primary color and one secondary or complimentary color will be chosen. These colors are based on the specific audience and market of our client and the messages the client wants to communicate to the rest of the world. If more than two or three colors are used, things tend to look a little messy, and the power of any one color is diluted too much, so we most often stick with two colors.

When I am not sure exactly which colors or combinations to use, I often start trying different things, then take a step back and ask myself what my chosen colors are conveying to me. After designing many websites over the years I have realized that
going with my gut has often worked when I'm in doubt. You would be surprised at how creative and accurate your intuition can be.

However, if the client already has an established brand, we will always make sure to match the colors of the website with the original colors of the company. It is not wise to have print collateral material one color and the website a totally unrelated
color. All marketing channels need to remain consistent, with one face only.

Since website visitors all have different platforms, different monitors, and different settings for their screen resolutions, the colors you choose for your website may not always be rendered the exact same way on your site visitors' monitors. That's why there are "Web Safe" colors that have a much higher likelihood
of looking the exact same regardless of the user's computer, monitor or settings.

Many graphics programs, including Adobe Photoshop, have a feature that allows you to choose "Web Safe" colors only.

Keep in mind however, that the sophistication of technology today allows for Web designers to be able to stray from the "Web Safe" colors more and more. So don't be overly concerned if you choose to use "un-safe' Web colors, chances are that most of your audience has the computers necessary to view your site the exact way you intended.

Whether you are designing sites for clients or designing your own business website, your color choice is vital. Be sure to try different colors, different shades, and different combinations before you decide. It's a lot of fun playing with colors but
every choice you make comes with a set of pre-defined societal meanings and emotions, so choose with deliberate care.

=======================================
Jason OConnor owns and operates Oak Web Works, LLC (http://www.oakwebworks.com/) - The synthesis of Web marketing, design, and technology. Jason is an expert at Web design, programming, e-strategy, and e-marketing. Call or email (jason@oakwebworks.com) today for a free site consultation.

Las Vegas, Broadway Show & Concert Tour Tickets
(http://www.bestshowticketslasvegas.com/)
=======================================

P/S: I love clean light coloured websites..

An Agony Installation Process

2005-11-13T18:03:00.000+08:00

I spent more than an hour just to install CSSVista. Thanks to my broadband internet connection, it only took me less than 5 minutes to download the 6MB CSSVista installation file. After finished downloading the zip installation file, I then executed the setup file. Unfortunately, something else came up:

I have no idea what .Net Framework Version 2.0 is. So I searched for it: (I didn't realized on the download page, it has been noted that this program is needed to install CSSVista)

Another surprise for me to see that the additional program was nearly 23MB big. Having no other choices, it took me 10 minutes to download this file, again thanks to my broadband connection. Installing this file alone took about 45 minutes.

I haven't learned how to use this CSSVista program yet. I need a time out first as the installation process (especially .Net Framework Ver 2.0) took quite a while. BTW, I have no formal knowledge in any programming language, so I have to find a way to overcome this problem by using any tool that I can find to leverage my time in learning CSS without having to learn it from scratch. Write again soon..

There's A Free CSS Editor Software?

2005-11-11T15:41:00.000+08:00

I just came back from my festive vacation. Basically I came back for nearly a week now, got sidetracked from my lesson, so now it is time to resume.

I found a FREE CSS Editor while searching around for my CSS lesson. I wish I had found this software earlier. Oh well, it's better to start now than later. The downside here is, I am using Windows 2000 in my office and the software is only for Windows XP. So now I need to download it at home since I'm just using Windows XP at home.

Here's the link for your copy of CSSVista :

The CSS Learning Journey Continues

2005-10-31T13:55:00.000+08:00

I had some extra time and my momentum to learn suddenly built up. So I went on searching for some useful information about CSS. I then found this easy to understand FAQ. There's also a brief history of CSS explained there. Here the link again CSS 101. Now it is getting easier. I love pages that are not clogged with nonsense banners and ads. I am accustomed to all those flashy ads that I have become blind-ads.

Anyway, talking about ads. There is no better way to get exposure and to make money than the ever so used "ADVERTISING". Advertising is not so bad, it is good. Well everything has it owns pros and cons. I choose to look at it in a positive way. Recently I listen to a motivational interview by some NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) Practisioner, and he was telling about 'The Law of Universe'. It is said that 'What you focus on, expand'. Conclusion, don't focus on your problem, focus on the solution, it'll be easier eventually.

I got sidetracked there. I have put some text ads on my blog:

The process of putting it is simple. I just paste a code generated by the program similar to Google Adsense and it just appear when I republish my blog. The thing I need to know is the location of where should I put the code.

I have done this a couple of time with my other blog. I would have never thought of it being part of CSS. Maybe I am right, or maybe I am wrong. I need to learn more. Until next time..

My CSS First Lesson

2005-10-31T12:07:00.000+08:00

What I normally do when I want to search for information is the usual 'Google' search. I like free stuff and I'll do anything not to pay since I can allocate my time for this activity. However, doing search on search engine is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Lucky for me, last year I found this:

This website is built by a girl name Lissa. She's from the US but I don't know which state she's from. She started bulding website since she was 11. You can click on the graphic link above to visit the website. This website is actually for kids but what better ways for a 'no idea' like myself to learn from a kid website, right?

So here goes:

Section 1 for like 5 minutes. I got puzzled, I hate reading stuff that I don't understand. All I know is my blogspot page is using CSS. Look..

Glazed through and move on to next page. Again, I don't understand a word. So I glance through my Blogspot Template editor. Oh..now I understand something. Style sheet is just some hovering linked table on your webpage. On section 3, all the coding observed on my blogspot template now make sense to me. I can learn how to manipulate with the code now. It is all a trial and error effort of course, that is the basic of learning anything.

I think that's all for now. For this lesson alone, I have spent 1 hour just to really understand and also write this report. Until my next lesson.

My Reason To Learn CSS

2005-10-29T01:57:00.000+08:00

My motivation of learning about CSS and website authoring is very simple.

I WANT TO MAKE MONEY!!

Here is the main reason why I am eager to learn CSS and why you too should do the same thing.

Why a CSS website layout will make you money

I'm Learning CSS Here..

2005-10-29T01:18:00.000+08:00

Let me just get straight to the point here. This blog would be my journey learning about CSS. I haven't studied indepth yet about CSS. All I know right now is CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheet and it is function to add layers to your webpage so that it will look more nicer than just plain simple HTML format. This blog page has some CSS coding imbeded to it and I'll dig it out piece by pieces and document it here. This way, I learn much faster by doing instead of reading.

I am sick and tired of reading stuff on the internet. It became a habit to read long hours when you're hook on the internet. I want to change that by changing my actions. I know that the 'law of the universe' says "what you focus, expands". So, I will not 'try' but I will 'do'. Trying are for whiners which I am not.

I will write again tomorrow..