Design Your Own Web

Ok, so it’s been a while since I last posted. I have been swamped. Have created numerous sites that are doing extremely well and have had me working more than I wanted to. Which ain’t a bad thing.

But on a more fun note, Google released some fun FREE drawing software last week. After downloading and playing around with it for 5 minutes I was able to draw this:

Check it out yourself at Google SketchUp. There is a lot more potential that what I have done in just beginning how to learn how to use the software.

It’s truly amazing how the computer makes drawing ridiciulously simple, even for those who didn’t think they could ever draw.

I am going to be adding some new tutorials coming soon…finally!

I downloaded the new Microsoft Internet Exlorer 7.0 Beta 2 Preview. And overall I gotta say I like it. I like the tabs, I am getting used to where they moved the home page icon to, I like the new RSS ding, etc.

All this, despite the fact that when I first installed it & restarted my computer – they very first time I ran IE 7.0 – it froze up my computer. So I had to reboot. However, since then I haven’t had any problems whatsoever.

EXCEPT….

There are a few web page display issues. And this is going to affect ALL of us. Even just casual web surfers. Why? Because the old Internet Explorer 6 displayed things a little differently, it fudged to make things look ok. Enough to now make designers have to go back and change their layout to accomodate the new IE 7 interpretation (which is technically more accurate – which is really good in the long run). Gotta start somewhere with standardization I guess.

So here’s an example of what I suspect will be a UNIVERSAL experience in the months to come:

After designing a layout for a paying client yesterday, I used the new IE 7 and Firefox to ‘test’ the page, as all competent designers are supposed to do. Obviously, it’s a good idea to see what it looks like before uploading, so I previewed it in those browsers.

Wow – it looked GREAT!! Pure table-less CSS 3 column layout. Looked very smooth and professional. Took me a few hours to get it at that point. So, proudly, I sent it to the company late last night. I felt good. Mission accomplished.

But as any new designer will figure out, things don’t always go as planned. Early this morning, on a whim, I tested it on my other computer, an old eMachines with 800 x 600 browser size still using Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 and guess what?? Yup, it didn’t look right. In fact it looked bad. And guess what browser the company I sent it to is using? Yup, IE 6.

So I scrambled to make changes. How long did it take to me to change the CSS code? 2 minutes. It was easy. I had a margin issue and IE 6 didn’t like my transparent .png file, which rendered ok in FireFox and Internet Explorer 7.0.

The real question is… Did I save it in time? Has the client even looked at the page yet?? I don’t know. But I can only image what the cost of a first impression is. So I don’t know if I ’saved’ it just in time or not. We’ll find out. I do know that won’t happen again next time

I’m confident this will be the first of many stories to be heard ‘world wide’ about the switch over that’s coming soon. I do think it’s for the better in the long run. Things should look the same in all the different browsers ideally. But for the time being, just imagine all the man hours and the expense that it’s going to take to make the pages have universal appeal.

Just little things, like my GoDaddy account not displaying the drop down menus I am used to. OR text being mis-aligned and overlapping onto other text. You’ll start seeing it, if you haven’t already.

For now I gotta go check out all my other sites!! Nothing like checking in 6 different browsers to see what the effect is going to look like to the rest of the world…oh well, just another step in the design process.

It’s a great metaphor though, since my map of the world is not the territory, it’s not even the same as other people’s map of the world. Not yet at least.

MySQL is an open source database that you can install and use for FREE on your computer OR more than likely it’s already installed on your web hosting company’s server. And you can access it through your web hosting company.

If you’re not familiar with what a database is, it’s just a way to save and organize information. SQL stands for Structured Query Language. And it’s a great tool for you to easily store and read data you’ve put into the database.

So what are some of the common applications involving the use of a MySQL database?

There are tons. One common one is a recipe database. If you’ve ever gone to a site and searched for recipes, those recipes are stored in a database. Another example is user registration for membership sites. If you’ve ever belonged to a site that required you to enter your username and password, then more than likely they had a database set up. How else would the compute remember your password for your particular username?

Databases are used to save information for future use. Now there are numerous databases out there. MySQL is the most popular because it’s reliable, high quality and it’s free. Others include Microsoft Access, and Microsoft SQL.

On the web, it’s pretty common to see MySQL paired with PHP (see our last post). MySQL is the database and PHP is the web language used to access the database and provide custom searches and custom results.

A database is made up of tables. Inside the tables are rows and columns containing the data. PHP can be used to access a specific row and / or column of data for a particular request. For example, if you were looking for a chicken recipe with lima beans, then a PHP script can be written to ‘read’ the database and retrieve those specific results.

If you think about it, that’s what search engines really are. Just giant databases. They have all these websites stored in gigantic databases and when type in a keyword, the search engine goes through their database and pulls out what they think you are looking for.

Now it’s important when you sign up for web hosting to look to see how many MySQL databases they give you. The more the merrier. Hopefully at least 1. Also check whether or not you’ll be using PHP with it. This is most common on Linux web servers. For Microsoft servers, the preferred database is either Access or SQL. And the language used to interact with the database is .Asp (Active Server Pages). So keep that in mind.

To learn more about MySQL here’s some helpful resources.

MySQL – This is the home page for MySQL
myPHPAdmin – This is a php program used by many web hosts that allows you an easy way to create and edit your MySQL databases & tables.
MySQL Front – This is a windows based open source way to edit and create tables on your home computer.

PHP is a computer language used pretty extensively on the internet. It too is “open source” and stands for ‘Hypertext Preprocessor’. But it’s just known as PHP.

Typically .php pages are used when more advanced web pages than just HTML are needed. With php you can easily hook up with a database (like MySql, which we’ll cover in the next post) and display information within that database.

PHP can be used in conjunction with HTML. Or it can used all by itself. Notice the next time you’re at a website what the file extension is of the website you are visiting. This can be seen in the address bar of your favorite browser. Is it .html or .htm (both are HTML files) or is it .php? Other files types are .asp (Microsofts internet language) or .csf (Cold fusion) or .jsp (Java).

PHP is used to create ‘dynamic’ web pages. Dyanmic means that the content is created each time you access the web page. It can change with each refresh. In contrast, ’static’ web pages like HTML pages will display the same information each time you refresh the screen.

For example, if a car dealer has lots of cars in their database, a php page can be written to access that information and display the contents in a easy to read and easy to use format.

Another advnatage (besides connecting to databases) is that it can also be used to dynamically change the content. For example, each time you loaded that car website, they could have a different featured car be shown on the .php page. If it were just HTML (no php & no javascript), then you’d simply see the same cars each time and you couldn’t access the database.

But there are many other uses for PHP. In fact there are thousands of scripts written in php that are available for you to use on your own website, many of them are free. I’d recommend checking out www.hotscripts.com. to see all the php scripts.

Ever wanted to have your own blog, polls, user registration, or online store on your own site? Well, that’s what PHP is for. And because there are so many scripts out there, you don’t really need to know PHP to use PHP. Many of the instructions for installing those scripts are easy to follow AND you can install them on your own website.

BUT, you do need to have PHP available on your web server (or your web host). Your hosting company at the time you signed up, gave you the option of picking ‘linux / PHP’ or ‘Windows / ASP’ or occasionally both. So you’ll have to check to see which one you have to see which scripts you can use. Essentially .asp and .php are very similiar and used for similiar purposes. But your web hosting company (like Optimal Web Hosting) MUST have them on their computers to be available to you. So check your web host first.

Now, just like in our last ‘What the heck’ about HTML. If you go to a .php page and goto View > Source. This time, as opposed to HTML, you will NOT see the php source code. It’s run on the web hosting computer, not in the browser, so you will NOT see it. You might see whatever HTML is on the page, but the PHP code remains hidden.

So keep an eye out, if you need a special function for your website, like being able to take poll, look into using a php script to do just that. There are also sevreral tutorials available online to explain further about php. And many good books available.

Ok, hopefully you have a better idea of what PHP is and why you should begin thinking about using php in your own websites. For more goto www.php.net.

HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language. It’s the computer language that most web pages are written in.

Even when using a web editor like Nvu or DreamWeaver, those easy drag and drop web page design editors, they all still just create HTML code behind the scenes. They’re specifically designed to save you the time and effort of writing HTML code by hand.

To view HTML code, go to a web page that ends in .htm or .html. It will be shown in your browsers address bar. To see the code, click on View > then Source. This will show you the HTML code. Now some pages are written in .php or .asp or .csf and we’ll cover those later. For now it’s important to look at HTML.

HTML has gone through many changes and updates since it first came out YEARS ago. And to spare you the gory details, there is a major push to standardize the code so that everyone is using the same language, so to speak.

And actually that’s what your web browser, like FireFox or Internet Explorer is for. To display the HTML code into a more enjoyable and simplified web site presentation. Which would you rather look at the source code or the web page in your favorite browser?

Now you could write an entire web page just using HTML. There are several online resources to help you do that (we are currently finishing our HTML tutorial as well). But why would you do that?

Personally, I recommend starting off with a program like the free Nvu (and our free Nvu tutorial lessons) or the more advanced Dreamweaver for all your web site needs.

Open source is software that has been contributed to the online community. Open source usually means that the source code is available and can be used, changed and edited.

So what does this all mean to you?

The open source community has some great programs available for you to use for FREE.

For example, Nvu and the GIMP are both FREE open source programs. And so anyone who wants to create a website or design some graphics can use these programs for FREE. There is no charge. That’s one of the beauties of open source. And that’s why we support open source with our free tutorials. To help contribue to the community.

Besides, Nvu and the GIMP, there are some other great open source programs. One of the most recent I’ve stumbled across was OpenOffice.org by Sun Microsystems. Open Office is a complete office suite that allows you to create speadsheets, word processing documents, presentations, databases, etc.

And after using it for a few days, I have to say it is awesome. I mean I didn’t own the other popular brand names, mostly because they are expensive, but Open Office is truly compatible with the major office suites brands and it’s free. You can’t beat that.

Need a spreadsheet? Or to create a pdf? Try Open Office. Easy to download, install and use, I am thoroughly impressed with Sun’s contribution to the community. Thank you very much to all those who made that project possible.

So, probably in the not so distant, there might just be some Open Office tutorials coming soon!! Also I want to thank my friend Glenn and his biofeedback site for telling me about Open Office.

Just last night, I was talking to a friend who wanted a web site, but didn’t know what web hosting was and thought it was too complicated to do her self. And she isn’t the only one.

Actually creating your own web site is ridiculously easy to do. And we help by giving you free video tutorials and free software to make your web pages. If you have ever used a word processor or sat at a typewriter, then you can create your own website. I promise.

Ok, so just what is web hosting? Web hosting is simply a place where you can store your web pages. It’s like one of those big storage unit rental places, where you can store all your stuff when you’re moving. You rent a space, which you can lock, and you can store, add, remove or swap out your stuff anytime you want. If you have a BIG website then you’ll need lots of space, if not go with the smallest possible. That’s really all a web host is, a storage facility.

When you sign up for a web host, you pay a small monthly or yearly fee, and they give you a place to store your web pages so that the world can come visit. They’ll ask you to create a username and password and then you enter that information into your web page editor and you can store (also called uploading, or sending) your web pages to that space.

It’s also a good idea when you’re getting web hosting space, to buy a domain name at the same time with the same company. And typically you’d do that first. The domain name tells you and other people where to find your website. It’s your unique address.

For web hosting and domain names, we personally use and recommend…

Optimal Web Hosting

But we suggest and recommend others as well. Check out our web hosting page at www.designyourownweb.com for more detailed information.

Creating your website is not complicated. There are some steps you have to follow, yes, but it’s actually very easy. Anyone can do it.

A podcast is just an audio recording stored on someone’s website that you can listen to online. You can also download it to your computer or iPod (or mp3 player) and listen to the podcast later. It’s called a podcast, because people can listen to the recorded audio on their iPods. But you don’t need an iPod to listen to a podcast. If you have speakers on your computer, you can listen to a podcast.

And anyone can create their own podcast, all you really need is a microphone and some software. In fact, some of the software out there is FREE. So you just need to buy a good microphone and your in business.

There are tons of podcasts now available. And of course, pod casting directories have compiled huge lists of this recent trend. All of these podcasts relay information via a talk format. As I write this post, I am listening to an interview as well.

That ability to multitask to me is one of the major advantages of podcasts versus just reading websites. For me, I can listen to a podcast and work on the computer at the same time. It’s a way I use to multitask. I have yet to develop the skill to read multiple websites at the same time. The other major advantage of podcasts is that you get to hear the creator of the podcast. You can tell alot about listening to someone’s voice. Communication is 45% tone and words. The best option is video, where you get to see the other 55%. By the way there are video casts, those are called vlogs.

So podcasts are usually just mp3 recordings. mp3 is a way to compress the audio into a smaller file size without losing tons of quality. You’ll need special software to compress your recording into a mp3 file format. One free program out there is the open source program audacity. You can use audacity to record and save your recording in an mp3 format.

Once you have a saved recording in mp3 format you can upload that to your site. Now many people also include that mp3 recording in an RSS feed. We talked about RSS a couple posts ago. That way, people can subscribe to your podcast. Whenever you release a new podcast, you can have subscription based audience to podcast to.

For example, after creating your podcast and the relevant RSS information, you can submit this information to various podcasting directories. So you can literally, today, start your own talk show and your own podcast.

Now, you just need something interesting to talk about…

Recently I ran across an ad for Yahoo! Widgets. I’d actually never heard of them and was apparently in the dark. Not too hard to do considering the billions of web pages out there. So I clicked on the ad. I love a great mystery!

Anyway, I bravely downloaded and installed Yahoo! Widgets on my desktop. And I gotta say I like them. Widgets are little applications you can run on your desktop. For example, right now I have the weather (a very cool, 5 day weather forecasting tool with moon information), a small desktop picture frame with my pictures (with a new picture every 5 minutes), and a seasonal college basketball schedule / score reporter (letting me know what games are on and when.). So it’s pretty cool stuff.

There’s no charge for widgets and there are 1,000 to choose from. Others I have running are pictures of the beach to see what the surf is like (I live in Virginia Beach) and some monitors for internet access, computer resources, etc. I ahd the Homer Simpson widget, but after a few minutes of Homer’s audible antics, he got removed. Just don’t like being insulted every couple minutes by a cartoon character.

So, if you get a chance, I’d recommend checking it out… just search for Yahoo! Widgets…

Web Hosting is getting cheaper these days. Long gone are the days you’d have to pay $20 per month for a decent web host. In fact, for most websites, all you need is a basic web hosting account. And if you’re paying more than $10 per month, I’d say you’re getting robbed.

And believe me, I have re-created numerous sites for clients who were paying upwards to $100 per month for their business website by some major companies out to simply take advantage of people. One company I was hired to redo their website was paying $1200 per year for a 5 page website, got no traffic and couldn’t be found in the search engines. They received no phone calls, no emails in over a year.

So they hired me. I immediately switched them over to Optimal Web Hosting to a basic account ($3.95) and re-did their site. They can now be found in the search engines and are actually getting traffic now. $1200 per year for a 5 page site should be criminal.

Optimal Web Hosting, for example, starts their basic web hosting at only $3.95 per month. This includes some great perks, like 250 Gig of bandwidth. That’s alot of bandwidth. It would be pretty hard to use that much in a month, but I am going to try with this site.

So some things to consider when choosing a web host…

Bandwidth – How much data transfer each month, the more the better
Php / mysql – Offers MySQL Databases and PHP, a programming language where you can eaily install tons of scripts (like forums, online chat, etc).
Email accounts – Does it include email accounts like yourname@yourwebsite.com?
Disk space – How much storage you have, do you have enough to store pictures and videos, etc?
Advertising banners – Does you web host put ads on your site? Most, if not all, FREE ones put ads on your site.
Techincal Support – Does your web host offer 24 hour telephone tech support?
Uptime Guarantee – Is your site actually going to be up and running when you visit it?

There are numerous things to consider when picking a web hosting company. We use Optimal Web Hosting for a number of our sites, including this one and it works great for us. It offers 24 hour tech support, 99.9% uptime guarantee, huge data storage and bandwidth capabilites, unique IP addresses for each site, no advertising banners, tons of email accounts and overall we’ve been quite happy with it and keep returning for more sites.

Now, if you’re technically inclined then you can use your computer to host your own web site, but you’d have to leave your computer on 24 hours and you’d have to have a heck of hi speed connection to pull it off. I have a number of friends who host at home and most of their sites are slow and you can tell. But if you don’t have lots of graphics and video then you could get away with it.

Anyway, things to consider when choosing a web hosting company…