Learn CSS and Website Authoring

The Clicking Job

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 06:38:00 +0000

I just founded a job that is related to websites and blog. Beginning next month, I will be on a new path of becoming a full time web administrator cum blog master. I really hope it would be an exciting career path for me with a better pay. Plus, the office that I'm going to be stationed is located 5 minutes drive nearby my house. I can't wait for the one month resignation notice I sent last week to be over.

Here's an awesome video done by Michael Wesch, an assistant professor of Cultural Antropology of Kansas State University. In his short less than 5 minutes video, you'll learned something about the progress and the development of Web 2.0 and what it can do to and for us. I wish I could make a video like this. He must have spend countless of hours to create this video:

The web is so awesome!

Using Google Page Creator To Host CSS File

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 16:25:00 +0000

It's January 2007 and a whole new year for this blog. I've lost count of how many times I've change my main blog layout (Ashrufzz Reality Adventure). Each changes normally takes me a couple of hours and then I wouldn't touch them for a couple of months except for doing some minor changes. I don't do blog designs because I don't think I have the creativity. However, I do love to tinker and customize it to my own preferences.

Google Page Creator (GPC) is simply a remarkable tool to use. It gives you 100MB of free spaces and you can also host other types of file there. By the way, don't host files that is questionable such as MP3 or some video files for people to do heavy downloading eventhough there is no written limit to the bandwitdh that GPC provide.

Normally, if you use blogger blog, the CSS is embedded directly on top the Head section of the blogger template. Looking at the source file, it will make your eyes squinting to see all those CSS codes. Plus, it will take another second to download the whole HTML along with the embedded CSS. If you want to make your blog a little bit quicker, here a few simple step you can take:

Copy the entire CSS codes and paste it onto a notepad file.
Name the file whatever you want and end it with dot css
Upload the file somewhere if you have a webhost or alternatively use GPC
Edit the style type area and link your CSS file with your blogger blog

Here's a few snapshots for a better understanding of what I'm talking about.

Since that is done, now I can save time not having to scroll down like crazy just to edit a simple script on my blogger blog. Hope this piece of information would be useful to you.

Re-Introduction To Google Content Network

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 05:47:00 +0000

The Google Content Network is another name for the Google Adsense. It is basically a contextual advertising solution to web publishers. When I first used Google Adwords 3 years ago to promote affiliate products, I had no idea what Google Content Network is. If you have used Google Adwords before, you will notice this list of options:

I first started out with the content network ticked. I then saw I'm having a lot of ad impressions. However, the conversion was poor and I lost some money over the process. As I said, I was still new at it, I made a mistake but I learned through it. Eventhough I don't use pay per click advertising anymore, I wish I can play around with it again once I've regain what I've lost over the years.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, then you should better watch this 7 minutes Webinar. If you already know about it, it doesn't hurt to re-learn what you have know. Maybe you've missed out a point or two. Anyway, enjoy the show:

How To Add Adsense On A Single Post For Blogger Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 00:44:00 +0000

The thing I like about self hosted Wordpress Blog is the ability to edit the source code for its presentation. Below is a visual form of how to add Adsense into a single. Just find:

Using Blogger Blogs however is not as straight forward as your self hosted Wordpress blog. Still, there are ways to do it and it is just a matter or trial and error plus some further testing that we can achieve it. I like to do things visually so this is a screenshot of this blog on a single post before adding Adsense:

Moving ahead with modifying our Blogger template, this is where you should add your Adsense code into your Blogger template for your single post display (warning: make sure you save your current template somewhere just in case if something goes wrong):

Normally you could not preview the end result, anyway just Save Template Changes and click on the View Blog tab. So, the end result would look more or less like this:

In summary, the key thing to search for is to put the Adsense code in between <BlogItemCommentsEnabled>..</BlogItemCommentsEnabled> . Test, test and test your blog display. By the way, if you numerously test your Adsense display, make sure you control the amount of impression the page make and don't click on your own ads or you'll get in trouble. Just a friendly reminder there.

Interesting Questions About The Web

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 09:28:00 +0000

YvoSchaap came out with an interesting questions and answers after doing some quantitative data analysis from a raw data obtained from Alexa. Some interesting questions that catched my interest is:

Is porn dominating the web?
Is China taking over the web?
Is it true that Yahoo and MSN are more used than Google?
Why do I always see 'ads by Gooooogle'?

To Read more about it head over to '8 questions about the web you always wanted answers to'.

CSS Cheat Sheet

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 03 Dec 2006 13:39:00 +0000

If you love CSS and use it every single day for your web designing or authoring, this piece of sheet would be very useful and should be printed out and be hanged on the wall. I would certainly have it on my wall once I can find a wall of course.

Code well my friends..

PHPNET.US Free Webhosting Revive

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 23 Nov 2006 17:27:00 +0000

Back in June 2006, I registered an account with PHPNET.US and things weren't that pretty back then. The free web hosting has received numerous complaint, downtime and bad reviews if you've done some Google search over them. Hopefully, this time they will have some compliments and some praise for doing a nice job of providing free bannerless webhosting.

Let's look at some of the new features, alright let's look at the old phpnet.us and the new phpnet.us:

Here's the new layout of phpnet.us:

So, they've redesigned their page. That's not a big deal. Let's move on:

Now they have a Cpanel for internal use and with a web-based file manager. Check it out:

The most interesting features they have is they are now providing Automatic Script Installer for those who don't like to fiddle around with manual installation of PHP packages.

Next is the MySQL Administration. I hope they don't change their database server again. It's quite a tedious process to change some of the PHP scripting to point to a new database server. I would prefer a much straight forward process.

Anyway, I hope PHPNET.US will keep on serving their services free of charge.

Google Page Creator Went Crazy

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 18 Nov 2006 14:34:00 +0000

Google for me is simply amazing. They've came out with or at least bought some great online tools and system apart from the search engine arena they have dominate. Online tool and webpages certainly use up a lot of bandwitdh and with Google donating bandwitdh and servers to Wikipedia, you can imagine how much capable and powerful Google is. With the recent YouTube acquired by Google for $1.65 Billion in Stock, Google doesn't really bother about bandwitdh, they most probably going to build an online world with infinite storage, bandwidth and CPU power or piggy back on other people using their amount of cash they have right now.

Alright, let's forget about the Google drama. Recently, I've been building a number of pages using Google Page Creator. I like the Googlepages features however, I stumbled upon this problem:

I guess only that template is giving me problem because after I changed into another template, there was no problem after that. Anyway, it was an interesting experiment. Here's an interesting Googlepage website on Adding Videos, Pictures and MP3 to your GooglePages.

An Attempt To Get Clients For My Services

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 05:59:00 +0000

I just refined the layout of this blog. It's not an easy task to go through the CSS and HTML codes, however I somehow managed to do it. This month has been a very busy month. Recently, I got some lead to design a website for an established corporation.

Here is the situation that the company is facing from what was being told. All they want was a simple website with a simple contact form that will be forwarded to the right person in the company. They were approached by an IT web design company and the Purchase Order has been issued. However, after more than 6 months, the website is still not ready. So, my referer told me to send them a quotation for half the price of what the other company is offering.

So, I sent them my quotation. At the same time, I managed to search and collect for information that is available about the company on the web. I even had a sample of a customized website ready for them before I made the follow up call to the contact person at the company. The template was taken from OpenWebDesign and customized in just one hour.

I even uploaded the sample website on the web and it is now live on the web. The idea was to email the executive and ask him to try and access and then give me some feedback for further action.

Unfortunately for me, when I get hold of the executive, he told me that they are now proceeding with the company who offered the high priced quotation and did nothing. Well, they did something which was registering the domain name. Apart from that, nothing is moving yet. I wonder what's going on with the web design company.

The lesson here is to persist and try to find clients no matter what the outcome would be. It reminds me of my tele-marketing job quotes "The more 'NO' you get will get you closer to a 'YES'!".

technorati tags:getting, clients, web, design, customize

Manipulating Blogger's Template

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 30 Sep 2006 17:28:00 +0000

Blogger.com is recently undergoing it's Beta program. It is an update Google should have done years ago. I've tried the beta program but to manipulate the template requires a lot of tweaking and testing. You can read about Blogger Beta template's if you are a bit technical savvy kind of person. Anyway, Blogger is a great blogging system and a powerful tool to use. No wonder Rob Benwell could make a lot of profit just by using free blogging tools.

If you are interested to get Rob Benwell latest of Rob Benwell's Baby Blogging Bonanza there was another way you can get it around the salesletter straight to the thank you pages without paying. I tried it and it works, it bypasses the payment processor and went straight to the thank you/download page. All this just by using the search engine. I think Rob has fixed his website now. Personally, I think there is nothing special in his material. The only thing that is valuable is his strategy and if you've been blogging long enough, you'll know it better.

So, back to manipulating Blogger's template. Firstly, you should have been fiddling around with blogger's template and see how the code is structured. Then, if you require a more indepth knowledge, you can visit FreshBlog: Blogger Hacks, Catogeries, Tips & Trick. The site has an incredible amount of interesting stuff covering blogger hacks and loads of other stuff. Take a look at how this site (Music Thing) is created entirely utilizing the Blogger hosting. The site doesn't look like a blog at all and has a high PR rank of 6. The best part is, Blogger is free and they don't have to take care of any technical, bandwitdh issues and hardware stuff. Genius.

With that in mind, for a start. I think anyone can be successful in building websites using the already free available blogging system without costing you anything except an internet connection. The only problem is whether you can handle the technical and coding part and your willingness to step up to the plate. As for me, I need to work hard and focus on what I've been doing as it is very easy for me to get distracted with so many stuff dumped in my emails.

Learn CSS With YouTube Video

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 14:48:00 +0000

I was being distracted from learning in depth about CSS. I'm still struggling to understand how to code CSS myself instead of stealing it from a template or someone's elses website or blog. Recently, I just got myself an opportunity to do freelance web building job for a small IT company. It surprised me eventhough they are an IT company, they still don't have a website and that's not really good for them.

The market for web building for small companies is huge, my only dissapointment is, I'm a one man show type of person. I have people under me but I don't really like how they are managing the job because it requires me to yell at them to get it done. So I prefer doing it myself. My journey to become a web entrepreneur is still a long way to go. I need to get out of the 'Self Employed' mentality if I want to grow.

Here's a video I found on Youtube about HTML/CSS. It's a great refresher if you've been out of the web programming scene for a while:

The video creator's website is not accessible from my place while I'm writing this post. I'm not really sure why, but my internet connection is quite problematic for quite some time now. Eitherway, the video should have been given a longer period for the viewer to take a glance on the contents. It's too quick! However, I can't blame the video because earlier it said "You may want to pause this video so you have time to read the slides".

Here's 2 links for a better reading exclusively about your CSS skills:

Good Designers Copy, Great Designers Steal
(I really love what the author wrote because I'm not really good at designing, I'm good at authoring and adding what has been done)

CSS tips and tricks, Part 1
CSS tips and tricks, Part 2
(The writer is a perfectionist when dealing with XHTML/CSS. He just don't get it why people don't use validator for their web codes. I simply don't understand why I should use a validator when my website is displayed nicely.)

The learning CSS and Website Authoring is a never-ending task for a webmaster. A lot have to be learned to survive in the fast paced of the internet world.

What is a Tableless Design?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 17:34:00 +0000

I just finished watching a presentation slide made out of Javascript and CSS. It's amazing to see a presentation could be made just by designing and modifying some codes. I think I need to learn and make one for myself. What you will learn in the presentation is, if you previously built your websites using tables which is very easy to do using software such as photoshop and dreamweaver, then you'll be glad to know that there are better ways to do that but it requires some new set of skills to learn. Well, we all need to adapt to changes somehow. Click on the image below to look at the presentation slide:

Hope you'll learn something today..

Why Compress Your CSS Codes?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 10:48:00 +0000

In a text file, there are lots of empty spaces between the codes, paragraph. Sometimes we write our CSS code by lines, sometimes we space our codes to provide a better readability. However, when the css files are saved, it takes a lot of kilobytes. A lot of kilobytes normally translate into longer loading time for the browser.

If you are using dial-up internet connection, it will take a while before you can see the webpages. In my country, you can also browse the internet using your mobile phone using GPRS connection. However, you will be charged based on how many kilobytes you are downloading. The more you download, the more you have to pay. If you are a thrifty person, I guess you will save and maximize most of your internet usage to cut down costs.

In a webpage or even your blog, you can cut down your CSS file for faster loading in a web browser. There are a number of online CSS tools to achieve this:

CSS Optimizer

Flumcake's CSS Cascading Style Sheet Optimiser

Icey's Projects- CSS Compressor

Clean CSS

Be faster loading and stay saved. :)

IE Hack? What Is That?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 23:29:00 +0000

I've been changing my blogger blogs layout using blog templates from Gecko and Fly. Their templates is derive from the Wordpress Theme and they look awesome which is I chose their templates. I wonder how many hours the designer took to design all those beautiful blog templates and giving it away for free.

CSS code before the IE Hack:

#page {
background: white;
text-align: left;
margin: 0 auto;
padding: 20px 0 10px;
position: relative;
/* The entire template's width is set in this class. */
width: 760px;
/*_width: 760px;*/ /* IE hack */
border: 1px solid #ddd;
border-top: none;
}

CSS Code After IE Hack:

#page {
background: white;
text-align: left;
margin: 0 auto;
padding: 20px 0 10px;
position: relative;
/* The entire template's width is set in this class. */
width: 760px;
_width: 760px; /* IE hack */ (/* Removed)
border: 1px solid #ddd;
border-top: none;
}

So, let's look what happen if you don't edit the necessary code as mentioned above in your template:

The CSS code works fine in Mozilla Firefox but the sidebar were pushed down when we use Internet Explorer. I don't like that to happen. Anyway, this blog's CSS is not hacked yet for Internet Explorer because the blog template creator didn't put a remark on this template. I need to find out for myself or get someone who can rewrite some CSS code for my blog. Eitherway, my blog is still accessible, that is what matter most at the moment.

Why Quality is Better Than Quantity in Web Authoring

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 15:26:00 +0000

Recently, I've been introduced to a software that could generate pages as many keywords that we enter. Basically, the software would generate each keyword that has been entered a page with contents taken from RSS feeds and some other sources I'm not so sure. I've been testing out the software and it tends to CRASH especially when the software could find affiliate program regarding the keywords. It SUCKS!! ..If you insist on giving it a try, click on the image below:

A few months ago, I stumble upon an alternative to Traffic Equalizer. It's a PHP based software and it is installed on your own web hosting. Webmasters know that content is the most vital part in a webpage that they've created. Without content, it would just be a painting without any descriptions. What the software do is, it will generate website that has contents on it scrape from somewhere. Basically, the software is almost similar to the above image shown above but with a few twists. Still, it is software generated and people would know that the pages has no human touch. However, what should we expect right? We are not capable of producing hundreds or thousand hand coded webpages, that is where software take place to automate the process.

Personally, I think using content generating softwares is not a good idea because sooner or later, the search engine where the software targets the web traffic will come, eventually going to drop or probably omit the indexed website. The search engine will become smarter and smarter so producing such websites will just pisses the search engine spiders away one day. So, what do we do about it? I think you should read the below article (image is clickable):

Have a productive day ahead.

What Is Your Level of CSS Knowledge?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 01:05:00 +0000

I've been "off course" the purpose of this blog. This blog is supposed to be lesson and record ed thoughts and tips on learning CSS. It seems to me that a lot of my posts has been on testing and trying out new and available web toolsets. It is not a surprise for me because I love trying out new tools. Knowledge is a set of tools too.

If you are new to this blog, then I welcome you. I wish to emphasize that I'm not a designer, I can become one but that is not really who I am. I am practically a 'repairman'. I see things that other people I know don't understand. I understand how to fix certain problem but I'm not really a perfect person. What I normally do is, I copycat the design I like, seek out the source file, go through all the codes and try to understand what they really are and finally I tweak and personalize to my preferences. I then repeat what I've done on another design I like but this time I can do it faster. I also read a lot so I'm not spending enough time experimenting what I've read (I'm working to improve this at the moment).

Recently I read Emil Stenström blog and he writes amazing amount of 'codish' writing that I love reading:

Level Of CSS Knowledge
My level of CSS is probably at Level 5 but I'm not really sure I'm qualified to confirm this :)

Real Hacker DOn't Use CSS
I just love hackers, they are genius people who can understand how to crack open something just by using their mind and tools. They practically can have what they want in their life because they know how to engineer what they're working on. I envy them so much..

I should probably study more about CSS starting from now on. Have a nice day.

How To Point Your Domain Name To A Free Web Host

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 06:28:00 +0000

If you are new to webhosting and domain registration, then it is okay. I never knew about this whole technical jargon of webhosting, domain, DNS and stuff. I just keep on being comfortable with it by reading and studied those stuff every now and then. I am always looking for the free or the lowest cost that I can find. I probably should change this attitude if I wanted to go into business but it could probably be my strength point. By the way, I just came back from my 1st Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) in one of Cisco Regional academy here. I learn quickly since I've been exposed to the networking arena for quite a while.

Last time, I told you about Is Free Web Hosting Reliable?- Part 2. One of the featured free webhosting was Awardspace. If you read my post carefully, I can only access Awardspace when I am at home. The network at my office doesn't allow me to access their website for some unknown reason. Their website is full of Google Ads, I can understand that because they give out free stuff and hope to gain something back in return somehow. Earlier, I removed one of my domain from Awardspace Free Webhosting because it was not working. Then I realized I missed something so I tried and putting the domain name again.

Let's see what did I do. After signing into Awardspace login area, I went to the Domain Manager area. There, I put my domain name on the top form and pressed the Add Domain.

You can click on the image above to enlarge it if your eyes can't see very well. The circle area is where the information of the Name Server (NS) where you should be putting in your domain management. Depending on where you bought your domain, mine looks like this:

Oh no..My domain here is expiring next month. Got to renew it by end of this month. I loved this domain name because it has a PR2 on Google. Unfortunately the domain name is not mine. So, after putting all the details on the domain management console. Now just let the thing resolves by its own. It should be online in probably 24 hours after you have pointing the new server. Now you know how to move your domain around but what is more exciting is, you have a 200MB of webspace with a 5GB of Bandwitdh. That is huge and it's FREE. I just love FREE stuff. So, what are you waiting for, sign up for an account at Awardspace while it is still free and available and utilize it smartly.

What is a Private Label Package?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 03:06:00 +0000

Before this, I have no idea what a private label package is. So, what is a private label package? I did a search on Google and found my answer on Wikipedia and it says that:

Private label products or services are typically those manufactured or provided by one company for offer under another company's brand. Private label goods and services are available in all industries from food to cosmetics to web hosting and are often positioned as lower cost alternatives to regional, national or international brands. Since the branding of private label consumer goods is often provided by the retailer, store brands are sometimes called private label brands.

Well, now that I've know and understand about it. What do I have to do about it? For me, I see it as a way for me to leverage my effort in doing my marketing. I don't have to spend time creating a new product or services from scratch. I now can focus on repackaging it to my own and profit on it. Of course there are pros and cons doing it but it outweighs the cons in my case.

What does have to do with my web authoring step? Recently, I found this package and best of all, it is free:

So, what do I do with it? I now have the resource to repackage it and make all the content package my own. Still, I need to do a little bit of work. Doing some work requires discipline and perseverance which I've been lacking all along. It's a battle within me and I assumed it is also for almost everybody else.

So, I think I'm going to get back to work on the things I've been working. Have a productive day.

Content..The Juice of Any Websites

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 07:28:00 +0000

I've been installing, testing, designing, tweaking and adding features to a lot of my blogs and websites. As I do all this things, the more I do this kind of activities, the less learning curve that I have to endure and it has now become very easy for me to build blogs, tweaking it according to my preferences or customize it based on what I wanted.

However, apart from all the numbers of blogs and design, I lack one thing which is the most important thing in order to earn something from what I've built which is CONTENT or COPY. I have become too accustomed to install, tweak, customized and all kind of technical stuff that I neglect the very most important thing, WEBCOPY. Websites or blogs stores information and content. So content is the juice that people are seeking for, it's not the design, the eye catching flashy feature and all sort of stuff although it may help to attract people.

So, the skill I need right now is COPYWRITING. Wait a minute, there are tonnes of resources about honing copywriting skills on the internet. There are free resources but most of them are paid stuff. So, where do I start? I could spend more time searching and collecting all the information I need but that wouldn't be productive. I hate it that this time consuming learning process took away most of my time. It seems to me that I need to relearn my way of managing my time.

Recently, I read this free ebook which I obtained for free from one of my many subscribed newsletter:

(Right click and save the e-book above for your consumption)

I am so ashamed of myself after reading this e-book. Until today I still can't harness the knowledge that I've obtained. Follow through is my main weakness and I should work hard to overcome this obstacle. Let me know if you have the same problem as I am. In the mean time, read the e-book and try not to search for any short cuts ever again.

My New Layout Blog Layout

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 08:53:00 +0000

I did a complete redesign customization for my blog. So, how do you like my blog now? My old and ugly default template is now transform and its look great now. I like this template. If you like this template for your Blogger blog, check it out:

Resource: Andreas04 Blogger Template

I spent less than two hours hand coding the templates with my details and adding some Google Adsense here. Okay, now I want to change my other blogs that I owned. I'll keep on updating my activities here.Come back soon enough. Cheers..

Installing Wordpress Video

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 02:14:00 +0000

It's quite strange that I'm blogging about Wordpress blog on a Blogger blog. If you read carefully, wordpress initially is not about blog, it is a content management system (CMS) that simplifies the webpage or in a technical term, Dynamic Website. But what the heck, it's FREE so better make use of it to the max if you know how to.

I like reading manuals, some people don't. I don't like it either if I don't have the time for it. So, to save time, it is better to watch videos. It's like watching 'The Da Vinci Code' written by Dan Brown at the cinema instead in his thick novel. Here's the video: Installing Wordpress.

If you are looking for more details about the database connection. You can read My Wordpress Install Process. If there are any readers out there who wants to find a free webhost to install their own version of wordpress, do drop me a line. I'll give you a couple of links. Hope you'll enjoy the video.

Wordpress Flaw

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 23:22:00 +0000

Beside being on Blogger, I also use Wordpress as well as one of my blog network that I own now. Last week, I've built one blog using Wordpress for one of my e-commerce website, the site is completely brand new and I haven't promoted it anywhere yet. So, what happen was, I search on Technorati my nickname just to get a glimpse on where my exposure level is. To my surprise, the wordpress blog for the e-commerce website I've created has been listed on Technorati. I wonder why that happen and most definitely I would like to know the answer.

After reading this page, now I know the answer. There's this feature in a blog called 'ping'. Before this, I normally use 'ping' on an MS-DOS environment to check my website or other website which I couldn't access but that maybe too technical to explain. However, here's a screenshot of how the wordpress blogs or other type of blogs get listed in web listing we never realized existed:

Now you know why and how blog can make your new website get listed on the search engine if it is done properly. I am not really an expert in internet marketing, however there are huge selection of products about this technique if you visit here. Just type the word 'blog' and there are a few products related to this technique.

I'm off again to build more blogs and website. I don't have any money to buy physical real estate yet, so blogs and websites is a virtual real estate if you ask me. I like watching 'Bob The Builder', so I think I should become a builder myself too..adios..

Is Free Web Hosting Reliable?- Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 08:32:00 +0000

I registered for two new free webhosting last night. Both of them are good free webhosting but most importantly, it offers a bannerless page and supports PHP. However, one of them is not suitable for my use. Let's look at what I've done and what problem I encountered.

Award Space Beta

This website is a dream come true for me. Look at the size of the disk space with a 5GB bandwitdh. The best part is, if you own a domain name, you can put your domain name there for free. The NO BANNER ADS is the most valuable thing to look out for. So, what I did was, I transfered my one of my domain to Awardspace and waited for the DNS stuff to configure itself. The next day, I tried and access the webhosting but the connection refuses to connect. At first I thought my connection was the culprit. At last, after using Guardster, an anonymous web proxy connection my connection went through. So, my conclusion is, my network where I'm accessing their website is being blocked. So, no connection means no good so I think I have to think again upon building my website using this webhosting. I'm taking out my domain name out from there very soon.

PHPNET.US

Now this is an interesting webhosting. It offers a whopping 300MB, support PHP scripting an no file size restriction. The best part is, it's BANNERLESS. I've installed wordpress on the webhosting and the connection was lightning fast. The only setback for this website is it's domain name. Well dot US is not so commercial and popular unlike dot com. Still, for a webmaster like myself, as long as it is reliable and good for usage, it is definitely a priority choice to make. However, these sort of webhosting can start putting banner instantly whenever they are prepared to do so. I've experienced that with a couple of free webhosting before.

5 Gigs

I have an account during the early existence of this free webhosting. Infact, I have several of them, unfortunately a few of them expired all of a sudden and I eventually forgotten about them. At first they offered a bannerless page for the free webhosting. As expected, they started to put in their ads on the webpages I've created so I stopped using their webhosting. However, their page loads are fast and support quite a number of interesting features.

100Free

I've been using 100free account for almost 3 years already and the webhosting is still running like a charm. Let's take a closer look at the features:

The size they offer is not so big unlike the others but they provide an unlimited bandwitdh. There's also an FTP access for a quick file uploads. The only problem is, they put a small black ticker at the bottom of every page you have. You need to blend your page black to compliment with the black ticker. But hey, look at the brightside, there's no ugly banners on top of the page plus, it's been around for several years now. A good basic choice if you ask me.

That's wrapped up my review of the webhosting that I've been experimenting. I need to get back to work to build more pages as I'm building a network of free webhosting to try and earn free traffic from search engines. It's a skill to be learned to become a good webmaster. I'll write again very soon.

Is Free Web Hosting Reliable?- Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 16:14:00 +0000

The past few weeks, I've been working around a couple of websites and blogs. I loved Wordpress because of its functionality and freedom to modify it and paste in a couple of ads in there, the only problem is, only self host blog has the ability to be modified. To look professional, I have a paid webhosting which is hosted by some technology company in US. Of course I bought it from a local reseller because I paid the webhost reseller in my local currency (Ringgit Malaysia). My price? Well, about RM60 per year or around USD15 per year. That is not a lot of money, isn't it?

Recently, my paid US webhosting had a couple of downtime and I don't like that since I sometimes constantly online with the webhosting using my FileZilla FTP. So, I tried to find free webhosting which can host php along with a free MySQL database and a subdomain feature. At first I did found a couple of them, I register to a few of them actually. Most of them went down in a couple of days but I find that one of them is http://www.php0h.com is quite reliable in term of uptime plus they give you a huge 200MB space. The downside is, they put an Adsense banner ad on top of each page that you load.

At first, I don't really mind the ads because you have to give credit to your free webhosting owner since they provide the infrastructure for your website. You just build the pages and eat up the bandwitdh. My first attempt was to install wordpress on the free webhosting. The installation went fine and the speed wasn't too bad after all. However, after a while I find it rather annoying the ad keeps seeping in even in my small windows. It penetrates the windows to edit HTML and I couldn't save what I've done. It's a shame..You can read and see what I've built at Ash Web Creation Blog. Oh well, I'm abandoning this page for a new one.

I now found a new webhosting which I'm still testing out. I'll give you the link and review for you to read and probably sign up for one for your Learning CSS and Web Authoring journey.

P/S: I created Ash City | All About Ashrufzz page. Tell me what do you think about it? ;-p

Using Google Video

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 10 Jun 2006 04:16:00 +0000

I had a Google Video account for quite some time but haven't really utilizing it. I've just created, edited and uploaded 2 videos on it, one is a home video and the other one using one of my company's video presentation. Check it out:

and my own:

Any comments?