I have found, though, that often, the time I take being sidetracked to an interesting website, or looking at something fun that a friend or colleague has sent me, has a great benefit to my productivity and work. Why? Because creativity, like fire, needs oxygen from the surrounding environment. The stimulation and things that we discover by looking up and around can add to the quality of our work.

Here is an example: I just reprogrammed an artist’s website, Beldan K. Radcliffe (beldankradcliffe.com). We were keeping the graphic design pretty much the same as her original site, but programming it with SEO friendly code, and adding a shopping cart and tile section. The last thing on my “to do” list for Beldan was to figure out how to create a page where shoppers could “play” with her tiles and arrange them to figure out which ones they want to purchase. She sells a set of four tiles at a discounted rate, and she commented that at her artisan shows, people spend hours picking out tiles and arranging them together to decide which they want to purchase. I had absolutely no idea how I would program that for her. So this final task stuck in the back of my brain as something I needed to get done, but wasn’t sure how to tackle.

One day soon after I was busy working on numerous things, and my friend and colleague, Kathleen Forsythe, shot me an email with a link to a website that she thought was inspired.  The subject of the email was “how cool is this..” and the link was to this page: http://www.curiousgenerationgroup.com/

I went to the link, and finding it inspiring, I looked at the source code to see if I could figure out how it was created. I noticed that one of the scripts that they use was located in a folder named scriptaculous, and doing a google search on that, I found this site: http://wiki.github.com/madrobby/scriptaculous/. The site explains that  script.aculo.us is a set of JavaScript libraries to enhance the user interface of web sites. (TRANSLATION:  free javascript code that, once installed on your server, lets you do all sorts of cool things)  AND one of those very cool functions was the ability to drag and drop items on a page. Suddenly I had a solution to my tile task for Beldan, and with the scriptaculous files, was able to get her new page up in under 1/2 hour.

I was rewarded for my exploration. Exploring is a way to self educate, to stimulate our creativity.

Not all distraction is bad. If I hadn’t taken 10 minutes to open that email, click on the link and look at the source code, I would still be stumped on how to create a page where customers can re-arrange items, and that unfinished task would still be rattling in the back of my brain.

Have you had similar experiences? Let me know by commenting below.

I am not talking about visual differences, though there are some – websites are designed for a higher screen resolution today than they were five years ago, for example. I am talking about the nuts and bolts programming of the site. The code that makes it work.

Today’s programming is designed to load faster, be easier to maintain and to be search engine friendly. Although each of my website projects  are programmed to the website standards and SEO standards of the time that they were built, and I take classes every year to stay at the top of the programming curve, I have been programming websites since 1997 and my portfolio contains some sites that are old school programming, because of their age.

I am mentioning this for several reasons, the first is that I had one of my favorite clients come to me, whose site I designed back in 2003 with a custom content management system, and they had hired an SEO consultant to look at it and give them suggestions. When the consultant looked at my code, I was embarrassed, and I felt like saying – wait, don’t judge my present skills on what I was programming seven years ago! It is like comparing the mud pies I was making at 10 to the apple pie that I cooked at 17.

I did agree with my client and the consultant that it was time to gut their site and reprogram it. It looks the same as before, but now it has SEO friendly code and URL’s, and the content management system has more SEO functionality programmed into it. The renovation was quickly done, because I knew the site inside and out and had programmed the custom content management system so was familiar with how to transition it for today’s needs.

This is a somewhat defensive and personal rant. I don’t want to eliminate my older sites from my portfolio, but the second reason I am writing about this topic, is that I’ve had them (my older sites) held up by my competition as examples of how I program today, and that is vastly unfair. I hope that when a potential client looks at examples of a web programmer’s work, they would ask to see the most current work that a programmer is doing. I want to reassure my clients and potential future clients that I do program as search engine friendly as any programmer available for hire.

I have gone back and re-programmed a handful of client sites this year, bringing the code up to date with today’s standards, and hopefully the majority of my clients will revisit my services so that we can renovate their sites as well.

After 5 years, it is really time to look at a site’s code and decide if it needs to be gutted, to look at the design and decide if it needs freshening up. To evaluate what was working and what isn’t working anymore. There is no reason why you can’t work with the original designer and programmer of your site to do this. They can probably do a more efficient renovation for you (translating to less money), because they already are familiar with your site and content management system (if you have one).

By the way, in my website portfolio, my most recent projects are at the top. : )

Are you a website programmer? Do you recommend removing old sites from one’s portfolio? Have you had old work held up by your competition as a reason not to hire you? Please share your experiences by commenting on this post.

For security reasons (to prevent “PHP include” hacker attacks),  some servers set the allow_url_fopen and allow_url_include PHP directives to off. If you see errors similar to the following on your website, then your website (or software you have installed on your website) uses insecure PHP calls.

Common Errors

Warning: fopen() [function.fopen]: URL file-access is disabled in the server configuration in /……../ on line (..)

Warning: file_get_contents() [function.file-get-contents]: URL file-access is disabled in the server configuration in in /……../ on line (..)

Warning: include() [function.include]: URL file-access is disabled in the server configuration in /……../ on line (..)

Warning: getimagesize() [function.getimagesize]: URL file-access is disabled in the server configuration in in /……../ on line (..)

Warning: readfile() [function.readfile]: URL file-access is disabled in the server configuration in in /……../ on line (..)

Solution

WordPress / Joomla / Drupal Software: These applications do not use functions that require allow_url_fopen or allow_url_include to be turned on. However, certain third party plugins may require changes. If you see any of the errors above, try to isolate which plugin is causing the issue and replace it with an alternative plugin. You should also consider reporting the issue to the plugin developer so that they may fix it in an upcoming release. Alternatively, you can check out some of the examples below and attempt to fix the errors yourself.

Note: Do not attempt to fix issues yourself if you do not have prior software development experience. If the below does not make sense, you should consult with your web professional.

The errors above manifest themselves when your website is attempting to retrieve outside web URLs. The solution is to use the PHP Curl library to do so instead, which is more secure. How you use PHP ‘s Curl library to circumvent this issue depends on which warning you’ve received.

Example 1: Warning: fopen() [function.fopen]:

$file = “http://news.google.com/news?ned=us&topic=h&output=rss”;

$xml_parser = xml_parser_create();
xml_set_element_handler($xml_parser, “startElement”, “endElement”);
xml_set_character_data_handler($xml_parser, “characterData”);

if (!($fp = fopen($file, “r”))) {
die(“could not open XML input”);
}

while ($data = fread($fp, 4096)) {
if (!xml_parse($xml_parser, $data, feof($fp))) {
die(sprintf(“XML error: %s at line %d”,
xml_error_string(xml_get_error_code($xml_parser)),
xml_get_current_line_number($xml_parser)));
}
}

In the above example, an attempt to open a Google RSS feed is being made. The fopen() call will fail because $file is an outside web site, and the rest of the code will not be executed. To properly load the RSS feed and parse, this snipit of code would need to be rewritten as follows:

$xml_parser = xml_parser_create();
xml_set_element_handler($xml_parser, “startElement”, “endElement”);
xml_set_character_data_handler($xml_parser, “characterData”);

$file = “http://news.google.com/news?ned=us&topic=h&output=rss”;

$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $file);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
$xmldata = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);

$xmldata = split(“\n”,$xmldata);

foreach ($xmldata as $data) {
if (!xml_parse($xml_parser, $data)) {
die(sprintf(“XML error: %s at line %d”,
xml_error_string(xml_get_error_code($xml_parser)),
xml_get_current_line_number($xml_parser)));
}
}

Example 2: Warning: file_get_contents() [function.file-get-contents]:

<?php

$contents = file_get_contents(‘http://www.cnn.com/’);

echo $contents;

?>

In the above example, the file_get_contents function is used to retrieve the content of the CNN website. You can accomplish the same thing safely using CURL as follows:

<?php

$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_URL, ‘http://www.cnn.com’);
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
$contents = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);

// display file
echo $contents;
?>

Example 3: Warning: include() [function.include]:

Including files from web hosts is not allowed.

<? php include(“http://www.example.com/new.php”); ?>

If the file that you are trying to include is local, use relative paths instead , not the web URL. Otherwise, use the following:

<?php

$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_URL, ‘http://www.example.com/mew.php’);
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
$contents = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);

// display file
echo $file_contents;
?>

Example 4: Warning: getimagesize() [function.getimagesize]:

getimagesize() allows you to get the height, width and size of an image file. To use getimagesize() safely, CURL can be used to get the remote file, the data can be saved to a local temporary image file and getimagesize() can be used on the local version.

<php

$filename = “http://www.example.com/example.jpg”;

$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $filename);
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);

$contents = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);

$new_image = ImageCreateFromString($contents);
imagejpeg($new_image, “temp.jpg”,100);

$size = getimagesize(“temp.jpg”);

// width and height

$width = $size[0];
$height = $size[1];

Example 5: Warning: readfile() [function.readfile]:

<?php

$contents = readfile(‘http://www.example.com/some.txt’);

echo $contents;

?>

In the above example, the readfile function is used to retrieve the content of a remote text file. You can accomplish the same thing safely using CURL as follows:

<?php

$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_URL, ‘http://www.example.com/some.txt’);
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
$contents = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);

// display file
echo $contents;
?>

The above examples are not guaranteed to run without changes, they are strictly guidance to illustrate how to safely retrieve off-site content.

LINKING TO A PDF FROM WITHIN A BLOG POST

To Link to a PDF from within a blog post, click on the add image icon.

Select the PDF file and upload.

Once it is uploaded, click on the “Insert into post” button to insert a link to it directly into your post.

LINKING TO A PDF FILE FROM A LINK OR FROM AN IMAGE IN A POST

If you want to create a link to it from an image, or from within your LINKS, then, instead of clicking on the “insert into post” button,  copy the LINK URL and then hit the “Save all changes” button.

You can then paste that URL into the web address of a link that you’ve created (see image below)..

Or, if you want to link to the PDF file from an image in a post, click on the image that you want to link the PDF to, and click on the insert link icon..

and add the LINK URL in the LINK URL field, clicking “Update” when you’re done.

ADDING A PDF FILE TO YOUR MEDIA LIBRARY

You can also add the PDF file directly to your media library by clicking on the “Add New” link under Media in your left hand navigation.

Select the PDF file from your computer.

Then click on the save changes.

Once a PDF file is in your library, to find out its URL so that you can link to it, click on the Library link under media.

Then click on the “View” link under the file that you want to get the URL of.

That will pull up the name of the PDF file, linked to the PDF file. Right click (if you don’t have a right click on your mouse, hold down the control key when you click) on the link and choose “Copy Link Location” from the contextual menu.

There are probably a slew of other ways to add PDF files to your blog posts. If you have your own version, please share by commenting on this post. Thanks!

The first thing to do is to upload the image to your blog media library.

Make sure that the dimensions of the image will fit within your blog’s side bar dimensions. I would suggest keeping the image under 200 pixels wide. The image needs to be a png, jpg or gif image.
Click on the “Add New” under the Media bar in your wordpress dashboards left navigation (see image)

Once on the upload media page, click on the button to choose the files to upload, browsing for the image on your computer.

Once you’ve selected the file and upload it, copy the FILE URL. This is important. Select it, copy it, and paste it into a sticky note or a document so that you can retrieve it later. (see image below)

Now that you have the location of the image on the server, Save all changes and go to the Widgets area of your wordpress admin (under Appearance)

Then select the side bar that you want to place the image with link into – the left side bar (Sidebar 1), or the right side bar (Sidebar 2).

Find the text widget in your widget selections. click on the text widget, hold it down and drag it onto the side bar where you want the image to go.

Once you’ve dragged the widget to the side bar, click on the down arrow to open it up so that you can edit it.

Here is what you want to type:

(NOTE: When I say “image-location”, I am referring to the location of the image that you uploaded to your media library. You copied that location and saved it. When I say “link-url”, I am referring to the website address that you want to link to, be it a page on your blog or another website.)

<a href=”link-url“><img src=”image-location” border=”0″ /></a>

Tip 1: if you want the link to open in a new window, include  target=”_blank”   in the <a> tag.

For example, <a href=”link-url“  target=”_blank”><img src=”image-location” border=”0″ /></a>

Tip 2: Make sure to include the http:// at the beginning of your link-url. (see image below)

When you are done, hit the Save button.

Make sure to check it out on your blog to make sure it worked.

Let’s say you create a business page, and now you want to have someone else help you edit it. To avoid having them logging into your personal facebook account to do the editing, you need to add them as another administrator to the page.

Many of my clients have set up facebook business pages, and they then approach me to help them customize them – adding custom boxes, photos and banners. On other occasions, a client might ask me to set up a business page for them, and then I need to add them as an additional administrator, so that they can log in and make changes.

Here is the illustrated version of how to add additional administrators to your business page.

I am using my business page as an example.

Step 1: Go to facebook.com and, logged in as the person who created the page, browse to the business page.

Step 2. Click on the edit page link, found under the image on the left. (see image below)

Step 3: Once you get to the next page, in the right hand column, about halfway down, it lists the administrators of the page, and there is a link for adding a new administrator. Click on that link. (see image below)

Step 4: If the new administrator is already a facebook friend of yours, just type in their name and select them. If they are not your facebook friend, or don’t have a facebook account, then enter their email address in the field provided “Add Admins Via Email”.

Then click on the blue “Add Admins” button. (see image below)

The person you have chosen will receive an email notifying them that they have been selected to help administrate the facebook page.

The subject of the email will look like the picture below (but with their name instead of mine and the name of the business page they’ve been added to):

The body of the email will look similar to the one below (but with different names), and they should click on the link to view the page.

If they are not already a member of facebook, they will be prompted at that point to create a facebook account. They need to have a personal facebook account in order to administrate the business page. If your chosen administrator already has a facebook account, they can just log in to proceed. If they don’t have a facebook account, then they can click on the link provided to sign up for one.

And that concludes how to add additional administrators to your facebook business page.

Generating passive income is a must for the self employed and creative people in this world. There are only so many billable hours in the day, and it is hard to make a living if you are just billing billable hours.

I decided to experiment with a digital product and adding it to my blog to see how easy the process would be.

Creating A Digital Product

E-books: If you are going to be selling any form of e-book, it is generally delivered as a pdf file. The best software to use to generate the pdf files, in my opinion, is adobe acrobat professional. However, there are free pdf writers available for creative people on a budget. Cute Pdf is an example of a free pdf writing software.

Audio Files: If you are going to be selling mp3 or audio files there are a number of great software options available for recording and generating mp3 files. One free software that I recommend to clients who want to generate vocal audio and not professional music quality is Audacity.

My Journey – bundling audio and pdf: I happened to purchase finale print music software several weeks back and spent a euphoric couple of days experimenting with writing beginner/intermediate piano scores. I was able to save these scores as pdf files by using adobe acrobat professional. Now I have a handful of piano scores suitable for the beginner/intermediate player and so thought to myself, why not bundle a score with mp3 file to sell digitally for this blog example?

First of all, I want people to be able to hear what it sounds like when played. Finale Print Music can generate a digitally produced  audio mp3 file of the music score. I needed to insert the mp3 file in this blog post so that people can hear a sample of the song.  Supplying a sample listen is a great idea for musicians selling mp3 files, or for experts selling audio files. If you are thinking of selling an audio file, I recommend installing the plugin below so that visitors to your site can easily listen to a sample.

WORDPRESS PLUGIN TIP: I installed the following plugin into my wordpress blog so that my audio links would be playable with an audio player.

http://wpaudioplayer.com/download

It generates an audio player just like the one here. Click on it to listen to my Simple Song 1 for the piano.
Simple Song 1

If you want to play audio on your blog, I highly recommend wpaudioplayer.

3 Examples of Digital Delivery/E-commerce Options

1. Option 1: free and the least passive:
   The first option for selling digital products would be to use paypal and then manually email people the product. Setting up a business paypal account is free, and then you can sell products and services online and paypal takes a small percentage of sales. This is the least passive option as you have to manually email people the digital product, but it is free. You can use the steps that I illustrate in this tutorial on adding e-commerce to your blog: http://goffgrafix.com/blog/index.php/2009/04/adding-e-commerce-to-your-blog/ to generate the code for your buy now button and copy and paste it into your blog post. You would then have to manually email the digital product to the customer once you receive notice of the purchase.
2. Option 2: e-junkie.com
   With e-junkie.com you can sell up to 10 products for only $5/month, and it ties into paypal. Click here to view the complete list of features that e-junkie offers. With e-junkie the process is automated. When a customer clicks the buy now code that e-junkie supplies you, e-junkie will automatically send your customer to a page to download the product when the payment goes through. They will also email the customer a time sensitive link to the product download page.
3. Option 3: 1shoppingcart.com/marketerschoice.com
   1shoppingcart.com/marketerschoice.com is a robust and comprehensive shopping cart service that offers digital products options, autoresponder capabilities, recurring billing and much more. I use them for my hosting/web design business, so they were the obvious choice, for me, for selling digital products. After I upload my product, the cart generates a buy now link that I can just paste into this blog post below. Voila!

Purchase Simple Song 1 Piano Score for the beginner /intermediate piano player.
$2.75
Score comes bundled with mp3 file.

Listen to the score below:

Simple Song 1

Your Experience with selling digital products

Please share your experience with selling digital products. What e-commerce system do you use? Do you sell pdf files? audio files? Is there a software that you have found useful in generating digital products? Please comment below. I look forward to your input.

If you found this tutorial useful, feel free to test the button below and make a donation.

I have just discovered slide.com. With a slide.com account you can

After a slide show is created you can edit it, remove pictures and re-arrange them by dragging them into the order that you want.

After you’ve created and saved the slide show – slide.com gives you an embed code that you can copy and paste into your blog.

Make sure your text editor in your blog is set to HTML tab and not the visual tab, and paste the code in where you want the slide show.

My initial slide show looked like this:

If you don’t want all of the tabs under your slide show, you need to alter the embed code slightly.

The slide show code itself is inbetween <object></object> tags. Look at the code, highlight everything that comes after the closing </object> tag and before the final closing </p> tag, and delete it.

It won’t get rid of the review and star links at the top of the slide show, but it will remove all the black buttons under the slide show.

One thing about slide.com, is that it does not yet have a way to protect your images from having other people download them. My suggestion is to use this tool only on images that you don’t mind having people review and download. This is a social media slide show tool, and is meant for blog posts that invite discussion.

I want to share them with you.

FREE SERVICES (with upgrades)

1. yousendit.com
   Need to send a file that is too large to e-mail? With yousendit.com you can send unlimited 2GB files and folders.
2. altertra.com
   Alertra is a website monitoring service. I use its spot check to see if a website is being connected to globally. It will show you the connectivity of your website from locations around the world and how long it took them to connect to your site.
3. ipchicken.com
   Go to ipchicken.com and it will show you your current IP address.
4. domaintools.com
   I use domaintools.com to look up where a website is registered and hosted. Often my clients don’t remember where they registered their domain names, and domaintools.com is an easy way to look up the information.
5. tweetlater.com
   I have set up tweetlater to email me replies to my tweets and also tweets with keywords that interest me. On days where I don’t have time to log into twitter, I can still stay somewhat connected.

SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES

1. browsercam.com
   I use browsercam’s remote access to test websites that I am developing on different platforms and browsers.
2. lynda.com
   lynda.com offers tutorials on every software that you can imagine. This is the best source for software tutorials that I have found.

Is there an online service that you use? that helps your productivity and that you swear by? Please share in the comments area.

My work can be like that too. I have had projects given to me that at first glance seem tedious, but once completed I realize that they have been a vehicle for an incredible journey. They end up teaching me new things, introducing me to new people, challenging me to learn. Each website that I design and/or program has brought me gifts. I am very grateful for the work that I do.

Have you had experiences where something that you dragged your heals at, or dreaded, ended up being a blessing?

Flickr slide shows are not the most elegant, but with the ability to add video, what a great addition this can be to your blog or website!

• on a travel site or real estate site, to show a montage of photographs and  videos of a featured location
• on a cooking site, to intersperse “how to” video and photos of the final products
• start a photo slide show with a video introduction.
• piece together a slide show of multiple videos – to create a full length tutorial or demo.

In three easy steps you can create a set of photos and videos on flickr, and then embed that set into your blog or web page.

1. Log into flickr, go to upload photos and videos (under the “You” menu in the top navigation). Upload your photos and videos. Make sure you have selected that anyone can see your photos.
2. Once your photos and videos are uploaded, click on the “Organize” link in the top navigation, and then click on “Sets and Collection”.  In the top left click on “Create a new set”, and drag your photos and videos from your photo stream at the bottom of the page onto your set. Your screen should look like this:
   

   Once you’ve dragged all the photos and videos into your set, hit the save link at the bottom of the left column to save your new set.

3. Click in the top right the link that says, “Your photostream” to return to your photos. In the right column you should see your sets. Click on the image representing the set that you want to share, and then click the “slide show” link in the top right. When the slide show loads, click the “Share” link in the top right. This will give you embed code to add it to your blog or website. Make sure you switch to the html view in your blog editor before pasting in the code.

I created a set of images of our puppy, and included a quick video that I shot this morning – just to test how it would work.

View my slide show of our miniature schnauzer, Rosco, below.

If you don’t want people to be able to download your flickr photos, when you log into flickr, in the top navigation under ‘You’, choose ‘Your account’ and then click on the ‘privacy and permissions’ tab. The first setting is “Who can download your pictures” and there is an ‘edit’ link to the far right of it. Click on that link to adjust the settings.

If you don’t want people to be able to download your flickr photos, when you log into flickr, in the top navigation under ‘You’, choose ‘Your account’ and then click on the ‘privacy and permissions’ tab. The first setting is “Who can download your pictures” and there is an ‘edit’ link to the far right of it. Click on that link to adjust the settings.

What is your experience using flickr?

Here is what I have come up with.

1. Using twitter to broadcast and promote your business & brand.

2. Using twitter as a source of incredible resources in your field – for education (I love this about twitter).

3. Using twitter to network with professionals in your field.

4. Using twitter to socialize with people who share similar interests.

Some people who twitter, sign up for multiple twitter accounts – each one geared towards a different type of interaction.

Why? Because different interactions attract and repulse different followers.

Example: If I am using twitter to promote my business – linking to blog posts and helpful resources, twitting about special offers and classes, I will get followers that are interested in what I offer, and that is what they expect. If suddenly I start chatting with someone who watches American Idol, and we start chatting back and forth about our favorite contenders, the people who are following me for business information may get annoyed and unfollow quickly. Then, when I do have a great idea or product to broadcast – my potential clients aren’t with me anymore.

It makes sense, then, to have one twitter account for socializing, and one for business.

*************

ADVISE (from the mom in me)

Keep it clean -  What you twitter about is public domain, you don’t know who is listening in. It is easy to feel insulated when chatting with friends and colleagues – but keep in mind that potential clients and referrals may be reading what you write. If you don’t want to potentially damage your professional reputation, be polite, be respectful and don’t cuss.

Don’t take it personally -  It is okay if the people you follow don’t follow you back. Remember that twitter is a wonderful resource for information. Keep focused on WHY you followed them in the first place, and don’t get hung up on the popularity contest.

Expand your wardrobe – If you are going to use twitter to both promote your business, and to socialize, create more than one account – just like having your work clothes for the office and your casual clothes for the coffee shop. First impressions are important.

************

AND BACK TO MY QUESTION…

Can twitter hurt my business? I would like some feedback on this. My take is that it won’t hurt, but it might not help if you’re not clear what you’re using it for. Right now the only draw back that I see, is that it can be addicting – and can really cut into productivity if you’re not careful.

What do you think? How does twitter effect your business? And do you have some good twitter resources to recommend? Please comment.

1. FUNCTION
The first step to developing a web site is to figure out exactly what the function of that web site is going to be. By function, I mean what do you want your website to do for you, and how effortlessly or intuitively will it do it. You need to have thought out what role you want your web site to play in your business in order to have a good design developed.

For example: Is it to sell a product? Is it an on-line catalog? Does it tell a story? Is it an educational tool? Are you using it to support a cause? Is it entertainment? Do you just want it to answer a bunch of those questions that people are calling and pestering you with: hours you’re open, contact info etc.

A web site can have more than one function, however it’s critical to have a clear idea of what those are before you meet with your web designer.

2. WHO IS YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE?
It is important to start researching who your target audience is, how they are going to find your site, what will make them stay on your site, and what you want them to do when they arrive at your site. The answers to these questions effect every step of the web design process.

3. SEO and INFRASTRUCTURE
Search engine optimization plays a critical role in how the website will be designed and programmed. The names of files, the type of coding, the directory structure all add to that mysterious algorithm of how well your site will be indexed by the search engines.

Before programming a website, some research needs to be done on the keywords you would optimize with to attract your target audience.

I always design my content management systems so that my clients can update their content and meta tags, but beyond this, I can name the very files and directories that make up the site with keywords.

There are different options in how to code a website, and these will need to be discussed in relationship to search engine traffic (css, flash, html). Even if you opt to use a blog platform for your website,  the research you do on keywords will help you when you create your categories, tags and name your posts.

4. USABILITY
Marketing and usability should play a role in the website design and structure.

The graphic design isn’t just pretty, it’s usability. It is important to be clear about what you want visitors to do when they get to your site. There is lots of research on what parts of a web page people look at the most, how colors effect behavior, how to write effective content for your target audience. The graphic design and layout of content is a balance between visual branding and persuasion. Here are some good resources on usability.

If you plan on working with an SEO specialist and/or marketing specialist, my advise is to have them meet with you and the website programmer/development team so that everyone is on the same page.

The last thing you want to do is build a website and after it is built, have an SEO person or marketing person tell you it needs to be redone in order to attract and keep visitors.

Everybody is tightening their budgets right now, and where to place your online advertising dollars is a big question. Not only does google analytics let you see which websites are sending traffic to your website, it lets you search those statistics.

Today one of my online advertising links was up for renewal. I thought to myself, before I spend this money, I want to see if this site is actually directing visitors to me. I logged into google analytics. I clicked on the date range and set it from January 1st, 2008 until the present. I clicked on “Traffic Source” then clicked on “Referring Sites”, and it pulled up a graph with the site usage starting with the sites that refer the most traffic – but here is the secret weapon – at the bottom of that graph is a search field.

I typed in the name of the website that was selling me the link to see exactly how much traffic they had sent me last year. I found out the exact number of visits to my website in one year resulted from that advertising. What a powerful tool this is! Now, with the help of google analytics, I can make really informed decisions, very easily, about what sites are sending me clients and which aren’t. Being able to search the data for the specific website address is an incredible feature. It saved me so much time. With just two clicks, I could see exactly how much traffic a given site was sending me within a specific date range.

If you don’t have a google analytics account, and you run a blog or website, I encourage you to sign up for one today. Being able to view referring sites is the tiniest fraction of the useful information that it will supply to you concerning the visitors to your website, where they come from, how they navigate your site, which pages they land on and how long they stay. Even if you’re not going to look at the data right now – sign up and start compiling the data. Just go to http://google.com/analytics

Ever wonder why images or photographs sometimes appear next to people’s comments on blogs?  Those images are called avatars, and it is really easy to create an avatar image for yourself. You, too, can have a photograph or icon that will follow your comments around the internet.

Why would you want to do that? For branding, and to call attention to your comments. You don’t need to use a portrait. You could use your logo, for example.

Below, I am going to walk you through, step by step, how to create your custom avatar image using gravatar.com.

1. The first thing to do is to have an image on your computer that you want to use. I used a photograph taken of me by Lynn Christoffers – a Martha’s Vineyard Photographer.It doesn’t have to be square. Gravatar will let you crop it once you upload it.
   
2. Step two: Go to http://www.gravatar.com
3. Step 3: Click on the “Sign up now” link. (view image below)

4. Step 4: Enter the email address that you want your avatar image associated with. (see image below)
5. Step 5: They will send you a confirmation email.
   Click on the link in the confirmation email to activate your account. (see images below)
   

   

6. You will then be directed to a page that will ask you where the image is that you want to upload.

7. Choose where it is. Search for the image and upload it.

8. You will then be able to crop it to be the perfect avatar image.

   

9. When you’re done cropping, you will be asked to rate it based on the image content.

10. The final step is to assign the image to your email address. Just check the box next to the email address that you want to associate with the avatar, and click on the “use for selected address” button. Then you’re done. It is that easy.
    

You can log into gravatar at any time to update your avatar images or add new email addresses.

• Adobe Photoshop Elements for Windows – My image editing tutorial use adobe photoshop elements. This is a relatively inexpensive software that allows you to prepare images for the web. It is a paired down version of Adobe Photoshop (which costs over $600) adobe photoshop elements runs around $80 depending where you purchase it.
• Adobe Photoshop Elements for Mac – My image editing tutorial use adobe photoshop elements. This is a relatively inexpensive software that allows you to prepare images for the web. It is a paired down version of Adobe Photoshop (which costs over $600) adobe photoshop elements runs arounc $80 depending where you purchase it, and is cross platform.
• Resizing and Cropping Images – This tutorial walks you through how to resize and crop images in adobe photoshop elements – to prepare them for your content management interface.
  Click here to view the embedded video.
• Selecting and changing line images – This tutorial shows you how to remove a line image from its background in Photoshop Elements. This is useful if you have a line drawing or signature that you want to upload to your website and have it match your website’s color.
  Click here to view the embedded video.
• Preparing Graphics for the web – An article with tips on preparing your graphics for the web. It addresses the issue of why photographs uploaded to the web might appear less vibrant than on your computer, how to compose portraits and tips on taking product shots.
• Quick color correction using levels – Do your photos need a little color enhancement before you post them to the web? Here is a quick tutorial on how to easily polish up those images, bringing up or down the lights, the darks and adjusting colors.
  Click here to view the embedded video.
• Cutting the background away from an image – This Tutorial takes you through removing the background from an image in photoshop elements, leaving you with the object in the image surrounded by a transparent field.
  Click here to view the embedded video.

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I am always fired up when I learn about a new tool, and slideshowpro is really exciting. I immediately purchased it so that I could play with it.

I purchased the slideshowpro for flash ($39), and the CMS slideshowpro director ($39). My server will work with slideshowpro director, if any of my clients are interested, however, if you are going to be making tons of video slide shows, I recommend the slideshowpro hosting for the CMS, because you won’t have to worry about bandwidth, and it is really reasonable.

1. Step one in getting slideshowpro up and running on my wordpress blog was to install the director on my website server. This was pretty straight forward.  You ftp the files to the server, and then browse to them. The installation process through the web browser walks  you through any permissions that you need to update. It will prompt you to manually create a .xml file called crossdomain.xml, it will tell you exactly what to copy and paste into that file,  and upload that to your root directory, which I did with bbedit.
2. Step two was to create an album in the director and upload photos to it. I uploaded pictures from a walk I took on a landbank trail in Chilmark, just two days ago. I then copied the path generated to that albums .xml file to paste into the flash file parameters.
3. Step three was to install the slideshowpro extension into my flash cs3 and then create a new flash file.
4. Step four was to plug in the path to the album’s .xml file generated by the album, and also to choose that the .xml file is a director generated file, publish the .swf file and ftp it to my server.
5. Step five was to install the plug-in Kimili flash embed tag generator into my wordpress blog, and click on its icon to add the new .swf files path, size etc.   I made sure to add the base=”.” parameter to the embed tag. I found the instructions here.
6. The results of my efforts are at the top of the page.

I am pretty excited to learn more about the slideshowpro customization and parameters.