Design Your Own Web

After nearly 3 years in the planning stage, I’ve just released a brand new web design course starting June 30, 2008. It’s a 6 month interactive and extremely thorough online video class which will teach web design, graphics design AND internet marketing.

Pretty much everything I know about what I have learned over the last 9 years will be included somehow in the course. People can sign up and take the course on their own time schedule and learn at their rate and pace. But we will be covering everything from the very basics to some pretty advanced stuff, like SEO and CSS and everything in between.

There will also be a special focus on utitilizing your new found web design skills to make money online. Either as a freelance web designer or making your own sites for the dozen or so ways of making money online. We’ll go over each in depth and as thoroughly as possible.

Considering I have made sites that made anywhere from 10k to 2 MILLION Dollars just in the last couple years, this course is going to be worth every penny I am going to charge (which in the scope of starting a new business and getting personalized training is actually cheap).

There will be a limited number of spots. If you ever wanted to learn web design, how to customize your blog, how to get traffic to your site, or how actually make money online, then this course is for you.

Checkout UpStart Network today and sign up for our early notification list.

According to Microsoft, they are ending their sales of Windows XP late June 2008. The product will be continued to be supported through April 14, 2009 and there will be extended support available until April 8, 2014. This includes all versions of windows XP.

Microsoft also has new operating system on the horizon, Windows 7. Considering the problems I had with installing Vista originally, I think I will wait a year or two before installing Windows 7. Let them work out the bugs. You would think that with each new version, they would have LESS problems. But apparently not the case.

Anyway, I am happy to report that as of late, I haven’t had any significant issues with Vista on either of my machines. In fact, I recently upgraded to a quad core with 4 gb and this thing smokes compared to my Pentium D. If you’re on a system that isn’t at least duo 2 core, then it’s time to start thinking about upgrading. I am SOOOO glad I did. The speed of the quad core is awesome.

A word of caution, however. For those of you upgrading memory and Vista. Since I use a lot of graphics design software and run many programs at the same time, I thought I would upgrade to at least 4 GB of RAM. Well that’s the max Vista can handle. And in fact, Vista can’t even handle ALL of the 4 GB because of the graphics card. So if you do upgrade go with a least 3 GB, anything more is pretty much a waste of time and money. Keep that in mind.

Good luck XP users, the end is near…

If you haven’t already heard, there is a new tool floating around called Sketchcast. It allows you to use your microphone and your mouse / or tablet to draw and record audio at the same time. The result is a very easy way to generate a video on pretty anything you want to make. Provided you have some artistic talent, or not, it’s fun and has some good business application potential.

Certainly worth looking into. I found the mouse on mine somewhat harder to control, but with a graphics tablet it was easier to draw. But that again depends on your comfort level with your graphics tablet. If you are interested in graphics design and you don’t have a graphics tablet, then I would recommend an Intuos by Wacom. Go with a bigger one if at all possible. At least a 6×8, but preferably even larger. Your graphics tablet would obviously work for other programs as well, like Photoshop.

But Sketchcast is cool, cranks out the video for you, you can then paste that your site and you got instant video. Give it some playtime!

John Reeses latest addition to the web is something called BlogRush. It’s a free tool that finds related content to your blog post and then in the BlogRush plugin suggests other blog posts to visit as well.

There is no cost for the service, it is an easy way to generate traffic to your site. It’s based on a credit system and I can’t see a downside to using it. In fact, I have found a few good blogs just in the last hour I have been playing around with it.

To sign up for BlogRush, you can click this link. Then your posts will be automatically added to other people’s blog. It’s that easy. There is also a video that explains all this stuff, and a good help section if you ever get stuck. But it quickly worked the first time I tried it and literally took me 2 minutes to set the thing up. Definitely recommended.

Kudos John!

For those of you upgrading to the latest version of Dreamweaver, their new pre-existing CSS layouts are much improved. The CSS panel, which allows you to make changes to the CSS almost visually, is also much better. I do recommend the latest version of Dreamweaver. Especially if you do anything with CSS. It makes life so much easier.

Now I know in earlier posts that I implied that I am not a big fan of CSS. And that’s not entirely true. What I said was that the biggest problem with CSS is that it’s not a visual, drag and drop sort of thing. You still have to code and know some code. But Dreamweaver CS3 at least is moving in the right direction.

Also I noticed that Eric Meyers has launched a new CSS plugin for Dreamweaver called CSS SCulptor and is released by webassist. Haven’t tried it yet, but it looked interesting.

Technorati Profile

What the heck is Free IQ?? It’s Brad Fallons latest baby. For those of you who don’t know who Brad Fallon is, he started a little ecommerce store about 3 1/2 years ago and turned it into a million dollar business in his first year. Only 3 years later he’s expanded and now is on track to do $30 million this year alone ONLINE. Not bad.

So Free IQ is probably something you want to check out. It’s a bunch of educational and training videos about a variety of business related ideas and products, most are completely free. Hence the ‘Free’ of the IQ part. If you have any interest in online marketing, making money online, or just want to check out a new educational tool, then I’d suggest that you visit Free IQ and sign up today. It’s free to join, free to watch. Some of the programs do cost money and those are mainly on the right hand side of the pages.

Oh yeah, and if you have a good idea for a product, then you can post your product on their yourself and start making money and getting traffic to your site from this business YouTube-like site of his.

Increase your IQ with Free IQ.

Today, I randomly checked the ‘order page’ from one of my websites and up came a box saying that this is a ’suspicious website’ and that Microsoft does not recommend trusting this website. Huh?? My beloved site that is several years old, has tons of customers and is ranked #1 in the search engines for numerous keywords??

Who the hell is Microsoft to tell the general public on my ‘order page’ (not my home page, or my free lesson page, but my ‘order page’ of all places) that this is a suspicious website?? What right do they have to do that?? In the United States, we are innocent until proven guilty. And putting fear into people about an innocent site is CRAZY!!!

Now to put fear into people about a suspicious website (with absolutely no f#@cking reason or proof) on my order page BEFORE they go to pay money - That’s COSTING ME MONEY!!! Microsoft is in all liklihood costing me sales. Because of a filter on their new Internet Explorer 7.0 that checks each website to see if it’s safe according to their rules.

I have NOTHING on my ‘order page’ that is suspicious, or phishes for personal information of any kind. The only thing I have on my order page is a link to Paypal and a Paypal buy now button.

So I checked my other sites, and my clients’ sites that use Paypal. And guess what?? They all came back as suspcious according to Microsoft. On the ‘order’ and ‘checkout’ pages of NUMEROUS websites using the Paypal ‘add to cart’ button, a POP-UP box built into Microsoft Internet Explorer ver 7.0 says that these are suspicious websites and you should not trust them, because we don’t.

SHAME! SHAME on Microsoft. They are causing undue fear and a potential loss of renenue. In fact I have had ZERO U.S. sales since I saw that filter pop up. And God only knows how long it’s been there. I don’t check my order now pages all that often. I could have lost TONS of money because of Microsoft’s wreckless paranoia.

They think they are doing a public service? Give me a break. Personally I don’t need Microsoft to be a police for the internet. It’s a company, not a ruling body. And to tell the general public NOT to trust my site is f#cking INSANE! My site doesn’t have any viruses, any spyware, any phishing bullsh%it, nothing. It’s clean and safe and I want people to know that.

So there is a link on that pop up from Microsoft saying don’t trust this site and if you click on that link you can fill out a form saying that you are the owner and that this is NOT a phishing website. So I did that. I had to fill out a f#cking form giving Microsoft PERSONAL INFORMATION and then had to explain to them why my site is NOT a phishing site. As if it were any of their f#cking business. How unbelievably hypocritical is that. And it gets worse. I called Microsoft customer support, they wanted to charge me $35 to talk to a customer service rep. UNBELIEVABLE.

About an hour later, I get an email from Microsoft telling me that they have changed the status of my website and AGREE IT’S NOT a phishing site. Well no f#cking sh$t. But, to make matters worse, that changes could take up to 24 hours to take effect.

24 HOURS??? That could cost me A LOT OF MONEY!!!! Waiting 24 hours and losing sales because Microsoft is telling each visitor who actually clicks through to my order page that this is a SUSPICIOUS site is, to me, bordering or way past the border of libel. If only I was an attorney. The damage they have caused is wreckless and really pisses me off, in case you couldn’t tell.

Now I have actually always liked and used Microsoft products, but not now. This whole thing is just a HUGE waste of time and my money.

This new bullshit Microsoft Phishing filter gets an ‘F’ in my book. ANd in 24 hours it had better NOT be telling the general public that my site is “SUSPICIOUS”!!!!!!

FOR THE RECORD - January 10, 2007: Microsoft has ammended my site’s rating and is no longer saying that it is suspicious. I am in the clear on that one. Having said that, Microsofts new tool has been upgraded to a D- in my book. Because, another friends site using Paypal is still being called suspicious on their checkout page. NOT good!

About a year and half ago, I starting absorbing anything I could from these 2 guys making MILLIONS online with very simple websites and a very simple strategy. Their names are Brad Fallon and Andy Jenkins. Since then I recently finished my second course with Brad Fallon and after consulting with him privately, I have literally started making THOUSANDS online. It’s crazy really. I can probably at this point quit my day job if I wanted to.

And it gets better. I was hired to create a web site about a year ago by a small start up company, they wanted an ecommerce site. That site is now doing a ridiculous amount in sales each month. All in less than a year, and thanks to the fundamental internet marketing principles I learned from Brad and Andy. That small company has since put me on retainer to continue optimizing their site and continuing to increase their sales. Since hiring me on retainer (using some very simple techniques) I have practically DOUBLED their income. They are very happy to say the least.

So what’s the simple strategies? What are the secrets to my and their success? Well Brad and Andy made a FREE video (doesn’t cost a dime) that shows you some things you can use on your own site to improve sales. These guys are so methodical and knowledgable in their approach to making money online, ANYONE can and should learn from them. And if you want to make money online, then you MUST know what these guys are up to. The video was released last week and since then 50,000 people have already seen the video.

And there is an update to that this week. There are now 2 videos available. This one talks about latent semantic indexing. OR in english, how search engines ‘read’ your webpages. Very worthwhile and some gems in there if pay attention.

Best of all, they are both very good and very FREE. Check it out here.

A lot of people have wanted to know how to add audio to a website. And recently I ran across a great tool that makes that process ridiculously easy. It’s called Impact Web Audio by Gary Ambrose. In just 5 minutes you can be adding audio to your site. With this easy to use software, which sells for only $37 (and includes resale rights), all you need is a microphone.

To add audio to your site, simply record the audio, pick whether or not you want to add a sound loop (sound at the beginning and end of your audio), choose what color and style you want your audio buttons to be and it creates the audio and the button for you. All you have to do at that point is copy and paste it to your site.

It literally will take you about 5 minutes to add audio to your website. You can add it to a web page, a blog or wherever. All you do is copy and paste the files to make it work. It creates all the buttons and code for you. This software makes adding audio so simple, it’s a heck of a deal. And for only $37, you also get resale rights, which means you have the right to resell the software and keep the profits should you decide to sell it yourself. There are no hidden fees and never any monthly or yearly fees. You can create as many audio recordings as you want. No catches, no gimmicks, just a good, affordable, quality product.

Check it out today! Impact Web Audio

I own a bunch of websites. Seems to be a fun hobby, building more sites. On one of my sites I sell a certain item and it’s really good, high quality and actually pretty cheap. But I couldn’t figure out why I was hardly getting any sales. I was getting tons of traffic. The people who bought the thing loved it, I didn’t know what the deal was. So I started looking at my traffic logs.

Now, I am visually oriented person, I like to SEE things conceptually, get the big picture. Sure numbers are helpful, I use Google Analytics as my traffic logs as well. But about year ago, I ran across something called VisitorVille. It’s a visual representation of your web sites traffic. It’s very cool. It shows your website metaphorically and graphically as a city. And it uses buses (to haul people from specific search engines) to show you which people are visiting which pages. And what page they go to next. What literally happens is wehn someone comes to your site from Google, for example, then VisitorVille shows them as riding a ‘Google’ bus to their destination web page or ‘landing page’. This page is shown as a city building. The person literally gets out of the bus and walks into the building. If they go to another page, then they are shown leaving that building and walking or taking a cab to the next webpage on your site. You can easily see the entire flow of traffic on your site and get one big picture.

After a few hours of watching this entertaining flow of traffic, it dawned on me something was really wrong with my site. Lots of people and little sales. So I redesigned my site, improving flow and changed the text and reduced the columns to just one column and my sales literally doubled almost instantly. I tweaked it some more based on some of the stuff VisitorVille was showing me and sales went up even more. Amazing to think, if I had only done that months ago, I could have made more money in the meantime. Live and learn.

The moral of this blog is that it’s helpful to ’see’ what people are doing at your site. How long are they staying on each page, which pages do they like to go to, etc. VisitorVille has lots of other tools, besides just the map. It has tons of statistics, logs, live chat on your site, and much more. Now, it is a monthly service, but pretty affordable. I truly like it and use it regularly. In fact, it’s already paid for itself many times over. Check it out for yourself.