Web Design - Do It Yourself

Posted on April 23, 2008
Categories: Other News.

Have you seen the hoards of websites that attempt to be like a television network? With over-the-top graphics and awesome sounds on the web page it is somewhat detrimental to these networks in that no one is actually watching television.

This works well for those with broadband high speed connections. The fact is, most are viewing web site on a screen that is mostly between 15 and 19 inches wide, can only see 216 colors, and can only download at 28.8 kb per second. Professional web designers always have a design checklist of elements that make up those in the category of good websites. They are visual appeal, content, speed, graphics and layout, readability and navigation.

When designing a web page, there are certain web design steps you should follow. First, a 28.8 connection in the URL for your homepage is essential. If you have to wait more than 10 seconds to fully download the page, you must cut down on the size of the page. When you finally get to the web design stage, it should be no longer than 50K. Less than 30K is highly recommended. It is well known in the web design industry that web site home pages with fewer than 21k are most optimal for you and your visitors.

During web design, it’s important to keep all of your graphic images as small as possible. Make sure they are smaller then 4k, though having images up to 6k is ok too. Be sure to keep in mind the number of colors used when designing web site graphics too. There are 216 colors available on the color pallet. Be sure to always use solid colors when designing your images.

Concentrate more on user-friendliness rather than on designing your visuals. To make your target audience want to use your site, it should download fast and be attractive. Use an appealing color palette rather than all sorts of graphics and photographs. Use cell colors for borders, and be creative in the utilization of blank areas on your website. What is absent can have as much impact as what is present. Keep in mind that less can actually be more.

Web site design can make or break your website. Users want certain things. If the design of you site can meet or exceed those needs, users will come back again and again. Perhaps they are interested in the visual aspects. Other might be focusing of the information offered only. Knowing your audience means your design will be better tailored for them. Trying to make your site meet the needs of every person surfing the net will only result in a page that is slow and takes a long time to download since it will contain many needless components.

Professional designers who do web site design have a design checklist of elements that make up those in the category of good websites. They are visual appeal, content, speed, graphics and layout, readability and navigation. When you are undertaking web design, you should follow certain conventions. Make sure that your connection is at least 28.8. Then, type in the web page URL, hit enter, and hold your breath. If you need to breathe again before the page has finished loading, then you have too much on the page and should consider cutting the size of the page down a bit.

- jason ciment

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Bangkok Nightlife Guide: Read All The Tips And Advice

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Bangkok was named the best place in Asia, and ranked fourth in the world by a leading travel magazine. Some of the best hotels are located in Bangkok, with six of the top 100 residing in the city. There is a wealth of history, culture and attractions waiting for visitors young and old.

A Bangkok nightlife guide will help you appreciate everything the city has to offer. This guide can help you find a lot of clubs and attractions, but remember no guide can cover all of Bangkok. It can help you plan out your trip in the little time that you have to visit the city. A Bangkok nightlife guide also guides you to places with great deals such as hotels or restaurants.

Bangkok Thailand nightlife is wild, colorful and vibrant. The city is alive at night, and visitor will thrill at the exotic entertainment available. However, tourist must use caution and avoid areas known for illicit activities. A Bangkok nightlife guide can suggest well managed clubs and bars that are safe for tourist wanting a cleaner taste of Bangkok.

Getting around the city can be difficult if a visitor is not well versed in the language or transportation options. But a good guide will list the public transportation options and help you with a few phrases that will help navigate the city. Although taxis are plentiful, be aware that taxi drivers are very competitive to get a fare. You travel guide might inform you on how to get the best deal for transportation.

Restrictions on tourists in Bangkok have tightened recently, due to Thailand’s unstable political situation. Keep all your travel papers in a safe place, and make sure all are certified as genuine. If your travel documents are stolen or misplaced, call your country’s embassy using the phone number in your guide. Most embassies can quickly replace your missing documents.

Both new and experienced tourists can benefit from a guide to Bangkok. By carefully reading the advice given in guidebooks, the tourist will be better prepared for the trip of the lifetime which will produce many memories to be cherished forever.

Although Thailand has many lovely cities, if you are a social night owl, you must check out the bangkok Thailand nightilfe. Since there are so many nightclubs in Bangkok, a Bangkok nightlife guide can be helpful. The variety, style, glamor, and affordable high energy of Bangkok’s many nightclubs, bars, and discotheques await your discovery.

- Larry Willis

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Credit Cards

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To start with, the less you know about credit cards, the lots more likely you’re to fall into credit card debts; it’s easy to protect yourself against this by being knowledgeable when it comes to credit cards.

A tactic made use of by most credit card companies who supply credit cards to students to certify that payment of credit card bills is to get the parents of the student to co-sign the credit card application form as a safety measure. If you’re not convinced about how or what to fill in the online form of a selected credit card company, it’s easy to download the form, study it and ask solutions to pressing questions with a view to obtain clarification.

Credit card processing machines are simply those machines that are equipped with verification and also validification software that makes them to confirm the secret information on a credit card once it is passed through them!they’re getting to be a stable feature everywhere at the present, specifically in commercial centers. The beauty about the credit card procedure is that it is achievable for every person known to me, even you, regardless of wage or condition; so do not panic when applying for a credit card.

It’s easy to acquire items you need from the Internet shopping hunts with your credit card and get them brought at your home at no extra charge at all; can it be lots more convenient than this? If you’re a business owner, it is advantageous that you get a business credit card to pay money for all your transactions associated with your business, as this will make it trouble-free for you to trace your expenses.

Delays in the obtainance of your credit card may perhaps come from factors such as, illegible handwriting on the application paper, or failure on the part of an agent to deposit the form appropriately. There’s no such thing as the best credit offer; however, there’s such a thing as which credit offer will certainly suite your needs; determining this will give you access to a credit card you’ll totally get the best of.

To draw an inference, it is unimportant what your situation is in the society; whether you’re a student, worker, economic institution, one man business firm or a celebrity, credit cards are available that match your exact needs.

For more information on credit cardsCards For Good Credit

- Dan Farrell

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The early days of Apple Computer, Inc

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On April Fool’s Day back in 1976, 3 entreprenurial young men founded Apple Computer, Inc., with the intention of creating & distributing truly personal computers. Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, & Ronald Wayne began with a dream of creating computers smaller & readily available to the general population. They built their computers in Jobs’ parent’s garage and debuted the Apple I personal computer kit in 1976, the same year they started Apple. Eventually, two hundred of these computer kits would be built.

Steve Jobs approached a local computer store, The Byte Shop, which ordered fifty units & paid five hundred dollars for each unit after much persuasion from Jobs, whose persuasive techniques have since become known as “the reality-distortion field”. Jobs then ordered components from Cramer Electronics, a national electronics parts distributor. Using a number of methods, including borrowing space from friends & family & selling various items (including a Volkswagen Bus), Jobs managed to acquire the parts needed while Wozniak & Wayne put together the Apple I kits.

In 1977, the Apple II was introduced & quickly became much more popular than its major competition, the TRS-80 (which used cassette tapes for storage, & was known derisively as the TRasH-80) & the Commodore 64, even though the price of the Apple was higher. One of the big benefits of Apple’s computer was the development of the floppy disk drive & software.

The Apple II was selected by programmers to be the desktop platform for the first “killer app” of the business world. This was a spreadsheet program called VisCalc. This created a substantial market for the Apple. The corporate market brought in many more software & hardware developers to the machine, and it also attracted home users in an effort to be compatible with their workplace computers.

Over the years, Apple Computer would release many more designs, with each one just a little better than the previous one. In 1984, Steve Jobs was on hand to introduce the Mac as the “Computer for the rest of us“. In 1989, Apple introduced the Macintosh Portable. However, this computer was actually quite bulky & cumbersome & was met with mixed reviews. At this point, Apple hired industrial designers to develop a better, more portable personal computer.

In 1991, the Apple PowerBook was introduced. The PowerBook would provide the basic structure and form-factor for the portable computers we know today. This solidified Apple’s reputation as a quality manufacturer of both desktop & portable machines. The success of this portable led to increased revenues & growing popularity of Apple in the computer market, and was followed up by the addition of the Apple iMac to their line of personal computers, in 1998. They also branched out into the music arena with the development of the iPod personal music player, which went on to grab an 80% market share.

Reflecting this expansion into other markets, on January 9, 2007, they changed their name from Apple Computer, Inc. to simply Apple, Incorporated. While this company has had their ups & downs over the years, Apple has continued to be a solid presence in the desktop computer & notebook market. Their products have continued to evolve to meet the needs of both the corporate and individual user.

Visit SaleMac.com for lots more Mac-related information, as well as the best prices on Macintosh hardware and software, including Vintage Macs, MacBooks, iPods, iMacs, Mac Pros, and Macintosh related-items. Check out our Mac Videos while you’re there!

- Steve Jay

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Getting More Web Traffic Through Press Releases

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As more and more people learn the ins and outs of advertising, both online and off, you will soon realize how important a press release can be to your company. You’ll find that when you issue a press release that is both informative and appealing that you will be able to bring more people to your site and to your business than with any other form of marketing. Whether you are a new business that is struggling with getting enough clients, oar you are comfortable but feel that you could be doing better, you’ll find that a good press release might be exactly what you need.

A press release is a piece of copy that you will give to various media about your business. It might be about a new product that you have that you feel will revolutionize your industry, or it might simply be about something newsworthy that you think they are willing to run. If your press release interests them enough, they will run it, and you might even find that you will get a chance to be interested about it. The key is to make sure that your press release is something that they feel will get them viewers or readers as well.

There is a wide range of media outlets to whom you can pitch your press releases; newspapers, radio, television stations, magazines and of course websites. You will need to properly format your press release. There is a format to which press releases are expected to conform, and yours must follow this. Don’t be shy about asking the people to whom you will submit your press release about what kind of format is expected by their organization. An improperly formatted press release will often be discarded - hardly the result you want from your hard work.

When you are putting together a press release, remember that this is not an advertisement; you need to give them a compelling reason to run the story. If you send them something that they consider an advertisement, it will simply not run. For instance, if your business is sponsoring some sort of event or entertainment, this might be considered newsworthy. Your press release might focus on fundraisers and donations that you have taken part in, or major awards or accomplishments that have been achieved by your company.

Remember that your press release should instruct the media venue in question when you want it to run, the headline, your contact information and a two sentence summary. This is usually followed by the content, and your content should start by putting the most important information at the very top, with corroborating information below. This format makes it easier for the news team to cut it if they are running short on time.

Take advantage of the news media in your area and make sure that your community is aware of what you are doing and what you can do for them; many businesses have found that this is an excellent way to build links throughout the community and to better their client base, and you can use this to your advantage as well!

Learn tips for marketing an online business, or how to start a home based internet business. Visit the website marketing tips blog at http://www.nitromarketing.com/blog

- Kale McClelland

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Online University - A Dream Come True

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There are numerous universities that are available today, but the latest craze is the virtual way of learning, that is popular amongst youngsters. Student population can be from any part of the world, and the amount of information that is shared is also huge. Online University is not a dream anymore, but a vision that has come true.

Online conferences and discussions, an extension of online methods are a great help when it comes to creating virtual classmates and teachers. This kind of virtual interaction is useful in ascertaining the attitude of each of the students involved in these sites. Apart from all these, the huge amount of knowledge and information online university shares with its users is something worth mentioning.

The thrust for online education is very broad and perhaps a better avenue for thousands of teachers to venture into. Educators not only gain freedom of choosing subjects to teach, but also apply the teaching methods they prefer. For the students, it is a whole new experience of being provided with various information that they can base their study upon.

For the University administration, online education promises quality education for a much lower price. And when the students obtain their online degree it is like a passport to their success in all spheres. There are numerous online programs in offer. One can go in for teaching, legal or other professional degrees through online education system.

If you discover it is a challenge to deal with all of the data coming at you at once, then you would probably not want to use this system, despite its incredible advantages. Taking classes on the Internet can be seen as a truly wonderful opportunity, but upon further examination, it is full of challenges to deal with. One big challenge in dealing with such a huge site is the danger of hackers.

All in all, the benefits of getting a degree through the Internet pretty much outweigh any negatives. If you can afford it, you can get on the Internet and start taking an accredited class at home right now. Taking classes through the Internet is definitely an option. Also, a lot of the colleges offer financial aid to Internet students, as well.

Manging an online discussion group is not an easy task because of privacy concerns. For this reason, rules and regulations must be defined early on by the online instructor. While the online instructor owes it to the students to protect them from hacking, he or she can also join the students in on the process. In fact, it would be a good idea for students to throw around ideas with one another on suggestions to protect their privacy.

The <a href=”http://www.degree.com/” target=”_blank”>online university offers several options to increase and share information and connections for and between students and their instructors. Internet schooling is having a widespread effect on the educational process. For the many hundreds of teachers involved there is no more desirable teaching approach. To the administrators who are running the universities, online education means they can offer a high level of teaching at decreased cost. You can become a teacher or a lawyer or enter another fine profession once you get your degree by following this route. Because of online education system people can avoid distant learning.

- sheila danzig

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A List of Business Angels: The First Part of Finding Business Funding.

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Are you prepared to take the plunge? Do you want to finally open the doors to your own small business? If your answer is yes, then you should not neglect to investigate places that you can get funding for small business. This is the most vital step in starting off your business. Without the cash, your plans will stay on the paper only.

venture capital seed money is one of the most popular ways to finance your new business. These funds come fromso-called business angels, who provide sound business advice along with much-needed capital. These angels can help you get the ball rolling with your business. Furthermore, business angels can help you stay out of the traps that await the novice in business.

When you hunt for business angels, you should seek out a list of business angels. They may be difficult to find in the beginning, but once you have discovered one, you have probably found a bunch. Generally, business angels have some sort of group in your area. Contacting the neighboring chamber of commerce or small business office can often set you in the right direction.

To find people who can help you get your business off the ground, you need a list of business angels. It is preferable to choose more than just one investor in this way, so that you can get advice and money from more than one investor. When a business angel invests in your company, you can expect that they will want a hand in the design of the business itself. This has its advantages and disadvantages.

Having the input of somone who has ‘been there, done that’ can be very valuable. You can get information from them that you would not find from any other source. Business angels are successful business people who simply want to help other people like them get underway while making a profit. The only disadvantage is that these angels may turn down some of your ideas for your business saying that they will not work.

Finding a business angel is the best start you can make, no matter what sort of business you are starting. People starting their own businesses have enough other hurdles to face. Making sure the financing is taken care of can help get past the biggest hurdle that you will face in the journey to your new business.

Using Edge Venture to attract investors to your business is highly effective. Find the business funding you need from a database of hundreds of Angel Investors and Venture Capitalists. Visit Edge Venture now to learn more.

- Simon Murray

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What Is Web 2.0, Anyway?

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At the O’Reilly Media Conference back in 2004 the Web 2.0 rumble began. For years later, it is going full swing, confusing the masses and being flung around with little to no understanding about what it actually stands for. Often used to describe social bookmarking sites, blogs and interactive forums, this explanation only covers half of the truth. Like the World Wide Web when it first appeared, Web 2.0 is like an amorphous entity that is ever changing.

In essence, Web 2.0 is the use of the web as a 2-way communication tool, a way for the readers or consumers of a site to contribute to the site. The best example I’ve seen is the comparison of Britannica Online and Wikipedia. Britannica is a static resource, viewed as both comprehensive and authoritative because it is written by authorities and is unchangeable. Wikipedia, on the other hand, is the opposite of static. It must be manually stopped to prevent changes, and not only is it user-generated, it is also user-changed. One would anticipate this makes Wikipedia a lesser reference source.

In actuality, Wikipedia is a better reference source than its auspicious opposite because while the articles may not be more accurate, they direct the reader to a variety of other resources which offer a diversity of viewpoints rather than one single author. The multitude of resources is extremely powerful.

You can look at Web 2.0 as the evolution of that idea, harnessing the knowledge of the users to create a more comprehensive repository than a single writer alone could create. Blogs have comments, social networks have links and conversations, Google AdSense targets ads to user preferences while the old DoubleClick system displayed ads without consideration of the viewer or the context of the page.

But how can these concepts help you, the online marketing professional?

Primarily by showing you that you must change the way you think about the Internet. No longer is it a place where you can trap an audience on a website and proselytize to them. Instead, the new way to capture and retain a potential customer is by engaging them with your content, your tools, and your media. Allow customers to have a voice on your site, and you begin to create community.

This can be as simple as implementing a blog with comments that you the writer reply to, or as complex as creating your own new application - interactive games, uploadable media, public customer tips. Don’t make the mistake of looking at this as user-generated content; instead, create compelling content that your users want to add to. Ideally, you want the Mona Lisa on your site - with watercolors and markers available so your customers can make their own doodles to finish it out.

If your small business doesn’t possess the resources to create this level of complexity, there are other options. Join an existing community in your niche and lend your expertise to the group. Add a compelling signature to your profile that will be posted on every comment and bit of advice you give. Then participate - answer questions, give tips and advice but don’t advertise. If people like you, respect you and you add genuine value to the conversation, they will naturally find their way to your website. Web 2.0 has created a give and take on the Internet which has forever changed what is expected for business success. It is new, different and most of all, a lot of fun.

Learn tips for marketing an online business, or how to start a home based internet business. Visit the website marketing tips blog at http://www.nitromarketing.com/blog

- Kale McClelland

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Picking The Right Best Mortgage Lead

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If you are in the market for online mortgage leads, you will have a huge selection of leads and lead companies to choose from. There are several different kinds of leads to choose from.

You can choose from live transfer leads, leads delivered to you by way of a filter, cherry picking leads, and real time leads. All of the above-mentioned kinds of leads are not a bad choice depending on the kind of lead you are the most comfortable with.

However, before you go ahead and make an investment with a mortgage lead company, consider finding a cheap mortgage lead that sells their leads in real time. With real time trigger leads you will be purchasing leads that are fresh or hot off the press and the customer will be waiting on your phone call.

With real time leads, you can generally assume that the quality of the lead is better than some of the other types of leads. Though real time leads are typically more costly, they tend to generate more interested applicants. These are the type of applicants that are actively and seriously searching for a mortgage and would be willing to talk to you on the phone to submit their application.

If you find a lead company that is ready to sell you their leads for a dollar or less you can guarantee that they have been recycled a dozen times and are six months to a year old. Of course the option is yours, but before you make a choice on your lead source, examine and consider real time quality mortgage leads.

If you have found yourself being aggravated with mortgage lead companies in the past, it may have been because you were getting recycled mortgage leads. A lot of call centers produce live and internet mortgage leads for mortgage bankers and brokers. With the credit crunch and falling house prices comes a big test for mortgage lead generation companies. If you are dealing with a good trustworthy mortgage lead company that delivers good quality mortgage leads, than you are off to a grand start.

When you’re looking for a mortgage lead, keep in mind that there are quite a few different types: live transfer leads, cherry picking leads, and real time leads. A lot of leads telemarketed mortgage leads. Buying real time leads is usually your best option because they are guaranteed to be fresh. These customers will be waiting for you to call them. They are typically more costly, but also generate more interested applicants. They are actively and seriously searching for a mortgage and would be willing to apply by phone. Leads costing less than a dollar each are probably going to be recycled and at least six months old.

- Ben Pate

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Web Traffic - 8 Ways To Get More Of It

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“If you build it, they will come.” In the hit movie, Field of Dreams, this was the litany that played through the weaving of the film. It was magical, the happening like something phenomenal and ethereal. At times, getting website traffic can seem like that movie. Put up a website, and magically visitors will appear.

Can you say Hogwash! That magic only works in the movies, and no matter how wonderful your website, if you don’t take a few basic steps, it will just sit there and gather virtual dust. The only way to get traffic to your site is by learning the basics of website promotion. Online promotion is totally different that traditional promotion, but if you can grasp and use the secrets, a line of virtual headlights will be heading towards your field.

1. Start with SEO - search engine optimization. This is the core of any good website promotion plan. SEO involves using keywords and the words they are associated with (look up LSI for information on this), as well as inbound links, to create relevance and importance with spider-based search engines. Something like 75% of all traffic to websites comes from a person searching on Google and clicking a link. You do not want to miss out on that traffic.

2. Create relationships at social networking sites. A huge part of your promotion will be involved in getting inbound links, which build your reputation with search engines. Many people use public social networks like Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, or community forums to get those links. The trick is including your inbound link with appropriate anchor text on every post you make. However, never post just to get that link out there; every person reading your comment is a potential customer, and your job is to make them like you. How do you feel when someone barges into a conversation and tries to sell you a vacuum cleaner? Same thing.

3. Article marketing has long been the mainstay of any good promotion campaign. Give them away. Put them in article directories where others can read and use them. Each article picked up has a backlink or inbound link to your site. If somebody on some other site reads your article, likes it and wants to learn more, they will click on the link at the bottom. You, in turn, will receive traffic and potential customers.

4. Write ebooks and give them away. The power of giving away ebooks was one of the first things discovered by online viral marketers. You won’t get inbound links in most cases, as search engines don’t normally spider ebooks; however, a good book will be shared over and over. On every page, insert your website address in a discrete part of the header or footer. Readers will know where to come for more information.

5. Get other sites to link to you. This is usually done with the free article trick, but you can offer hordes of other free goodies: ebooks, online tools, free software downloads. You may also be able to guest blog for someone with good traffic, or just pay them to run your link somewhere on their site. Just make sure their Google rank is high before you spend all that time and money.

6. Offer free services. Recipes, calorie counters, and exercise charts are perfect content for a weight loss site because people will keep coming back to use the tools. Automated tarot reading and astrology charts work well for paranormal sites. What can you offer?

7. Create an affiliate program. Affiliate marketers are like a freelance sales force - you don’t pay them until they make a sale. Not only do you sell product, but they include a well-formatted link back to your site on their own sites.

8. Contests and games are real winners. There are tons of contest clearing sites. If you let them know you have a contest, they will link back to you. Come up with a prize related to your niche so that the traffic that arrives to sign up, will be interested in what you have to sell.

While there are plenty of ways to get traffic flowing for our site, these are just a few to get you started. While Field of Dreams was content to just build it, you need to take the saying a bit further: “If you build it AND promote it correctly, the will definitely come. And come. And come.”

Marketing on the internet is not as difficult as you may think. Find legitimate ways to make money online, or how to increase your website traffic at http://www.nitromarketing.com/blog

- Kale McClelland

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