Suggested Web Design Resources

February 22, 2007 | 4 Comments

I am often asked which resources (books, etc.) that I recommend for people who want to create web sites.

Many web hosts, such as Powweb, provide basic templates for easy creation of a web site. These can be your base for your very first web site, or can function as a quick way to set up your personal blog, a photo gallery or even a forum.

Once you have your first site created by some type of script or template, you will want to play around with it and change it. Whether you create a site using FrontPage, DreamWeaver, a web host’s templates, or code it by hand, you will probably find that you want to do things that can not be done by the standard package. That’s where coding and tweaking the site by hand come in.

HTML for the World Wide Web with XHTML and CSS: Visual QuickStart Guide, Fifth Edition (Paperback)
– excellent structure, very readable and very understandable. Bite-size chunks of information and examples.

Open Source Web Development with LAMP Using Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl and PHP (the LAMP book will be hard to find).
My reviews of these two books.

If you’re using FrontPage, get FrontPage 2003 The Missing Manual.

Actually, all of the books at this link. I have but haven’t used the JavaScript one. The others are good. Start from the top, with Don’t Make Me Think.

Get one or the other versions (paperback / hardack) of the HTML for the World Wide Web, even if you have another HTML book. www.terryscomputertips.com/computers/web-design-books.php The CSS and PHP anthologies are not learning tools, but more reference / script libraries. The “Build your own database-driven website” book is a good example for getting going with PHP.

The Adsense Secrets” ebook by Joel Comm. Joel is “Dr. Adsense” — one of the first people to make over $10,000 per month from Google’s Adsense pay-per-click ads on his web sites. I found this book a BIG help in understanding how to create and display Adsense “pay per click” ads on my sites.
Get Adsense Secrets

Visibone.com’s “The Browser Book” is a 16-page quick-reference booklet that I use almost every day. It covers HTML, CSS, colors, fonts, special characters, JavaScript, DOM and Regular Expresions.
www.visibone.com

The Super Affiliates Handbook about selling other people’s products. Rosalind Gardner, formerly an air traffic controller, made over $478,000 in one year as an affiliate selling other people’s products on the web.

Notepad++ color-coded syntax programmers editor (free). Mostly, I use the EditPad Pro ($40, www.jgsoft.com). I reviewed Notepad++ in my November 28th issue of Terry’s Computer Tips.

Adsense Gold (Adsense Tracker script + 2 web-based PPC price lists + ebook). I waited and waited, convincing myself I didn’t need it. I finally bought it recently. It brings a whole new level of understanding web site stats and information on which pages get visited and which adsense ad formats — and ads — get clicked, without having to mess with Google’s limited “channels.”
Get Adsense Gold

SEO Elite Finally, one software package that I’m still considering — probably like my unwise delay in buying Adsense Gold. This package is all about fine-tuning your web site(s) to get high rankings in Google, MSN, Yahoo and similar search engines — and establishing incoming links from other web sites — because higher rankings mean more traffic! And more traffic means more earnings, whether you are selling stuff or have content with advertising. SEO Elite helps you get targeted traffic — traffic interested in your site’s subject.

Why get links? The more inbound links you have — links from other sites to yours — the higher you should rank in the search engines. Search engines also look at blogs for their rankings because blogs have become a major factor in Internet communications in the last year

You can sign up for Free Web Advertising via the ability to post entries to a blog designed specifically for advertising by members. Free members can post a 700 character ad once per week. Paid members can post much more often, with larger ads and HTML (fonts and images) that free members can not.

Pay attention, though — there is a special one-time offer for a paid upgrade that is not repeated. Although you can purchase a lesser upgrade later, you can not post nearly as often and you don’t get all the bonuses available if you go for the “Elite” upgrade. I wish I had…

One of the new services that I have found is LinkMetro. With LinkMetro, which is available in both a free membership and Advanced Membership modes, is a great way to identify potential web sites that you might want to link to you.

Why get links? The more inbound links you have — links from other sites to yours — the higher you should rank in the search engines.

LinkMetro’s free service helps you identify potential link partners. The Advanced Membership makes the tedious task of modifying and maintaining your web site’s link files into a virtually automatic activity. Just initiate a link request, or accept a link request from someone else, and pick where you want the link in your links directory — LinkMetro’s software will handle the rest.

LinkMetro will also allow you to easily view the pages on which your link partners have your links and make sure the links are still there.

Sign up for a free or Advanced Membership at LinkMetro. I recommend the free membership, not the advanced.

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Posted by Terry Stockdale | Filed Under Adsense, Affiliate Marketing, CSS, FrontPage, HTML, Internet Marketing, PHP Scripting, SEO, Scripts, Search Engine Optimization, Text Editors, Traffic & Linking, Usability, Visitor Experience, WYSIWYG Editors, Web design tools 

Windows Server 2003 Web Hosting

January 19, 2007 | Leave a Comment

My web sites are all hosted on at a web hosting company that uses BSD, Apache, PHP, Perl, MySQL and provides install wizards for lot of other free open-source packages. I have FrontPage Extensions 2002, the latest and final version that Microsoft has said they will release, available, too.

I code my web sites at the PHP, HTML and CSS levels, and I usually tweak the open-source packages like WordPress so that I can get just the visual presentation that I want.

But, if I wanted to use the latest version of FrontPage (FrontPage 2003, which has web site interactive features that aren’t available in FrontPage Extensions 2002 ) I would need to use a web host that provided Windows Server 2003 web hosting.

Similarly, if I wanted to program using Microsoft’s ASP script or Microsoft SQL Server, I would have to find Windows Server 2003 web hosting.

I recently found an option for Windows Server 2003 Web Hosting - priced at only $7.96/month! . I haven’t tried them yet, since I’m not currently doing ASP or FrontPage 20003, but what I’ve seen so far looks good.

Easy CGI Web Hosting - $7.96/month

Posted by Terry Stockdale | Filed Under ASP, FrontPage, Microsoft SQL Server, PHP Scripting, Web design tools, Windows Server 2003