Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category

Templates Express Makes Creating a Site in FrontPage Even Easier

Wednesday, April 14th, 2010

Let’s say you have an idea for a web site and you are looking for a way to get it up quickly, but you also need it to look good. Maybe you have been thinking about trying a CMS (Content Management System) the style that so many people are using for their sites these days, but once you see the learning curve you lose interest. Don’t worry because you are certainly not alone. A lot of people turn to solutions like sohotemplates because they simply want their site up quickly without a huge amount of hassle. Not everyone needs all the bells and whistles of a CMS or even a blog. Plenty of websites have something to say, something to offer, and they don’t need to be updated daily or any of that. Those who run these sites want to be able to make a good looking design and let the page do what it is supposed to do, not monitor a digital community. With soho templates, you can create a site, get it online and let it start working the way you wanted it to.

A lot of times, sites like these are simply designed to be an information resource or even something like an online resume or portfolio. Other times, it is the sharing of data like a library 3D Powerpoint templates or other tools and resources that you wanted to make available for people. There is no one size fits all solution when it comes to web site design. The important thing is to choose the design solution that actually suits the needs of both yourself and the site you intend to create. For those of us willing to lay out our sites, templates can be an amazing time saver that will let us use what we know about basic site layout and customize the template to look more how we wanted it to.

In order to use FrontPage to edit Template Express templates to your custom specifications, all you have to do is use the Template Express script which you have installed through Fantastico de Luxe.

Follow these steps so that you can edit the templates of your choosing with FrontPage:

Uninstall any previously installed extensions for FrontPage because you don’t want these in the way, usually this is ‘Clean’ button

Clear the files from your public html folder, generally this is your root directory

Now, install the templates you want through Templates Express and then reinstall your extensions for FrontPage

Use Publish to a folder on your own computer

This way you will be able to fully edit the files so that you can totally customize the templates with any graphics, text or other additions to the pages that you want. You will no longer be tied to the specific template’s design, but at the same time you can alter things to your own desires without having to code everything by hand. Once you are done, all you need to do is upload the files from your computer to your web hosting server and then they will go live. You can do this from within FrontPage itself, as well.

Using Templates Express and FrontPage together definitely creates an easy to use way to get the sites you want live fast!

Popularity: 3% [?]

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Creating Categories for Coppermine Photo Gallery

Saturday, April 10th, 2010

Web surfers love to look at images, this is a proven fact when it comes to web site design. If you are considering offering your own image gallery, why not consider Coppermine Photo Gallery for the job? At the time of this article’s writing, Coppermine Photo Gallery 1.4 is the latest version and you will find it rich in a lot of great features that have helped Coppermine become a dominant force in the open source (read: free for you to use) gallery script market. You can run a Coppermine install in minutes and have a great way to display any photos or pictures on your site without having to be any kind of expert at web site designing or coding.

Since it is so simple to set up, many have chosen Coppermine to give their site a very easy way to display photos that visitors can navigate, leave comments on and more. There are Coppermine Photo Gallery themes available for free so you can expect to be able to customize your site to present the visual look and feel you hope for. You can even grab a Coppermine template, if you like, in order to provide a very comprehensive customization that affects your gallery, making it easier to connect with any other existing parts of your site that have a certain design style they use.

When you want to create categories in Coppermine, all you need to know are the basics and the rest is as easy as pie. First, in Coppermine there are ‘Albums’, but there are no sub albums. All Albums can contain as many images as you like, but if you want to have subdivisions within your site, you need to set up categories. Within the Coppermine categories, you can set up Albums, which for our purposes in this article, act as ‘sub categories. Once you know this, you will understand the process in a much simpler way than some documents attempt to explain.

All categories and albums in Coppermine can only be altered through the admin panel so you do not need to worry about users messing things up for your site. Inside this menu, you will see the following sections and this is how they work:

Sort Categories Alphabetically – This top box is fairly self explanatory. It merely allows you to set up how your categories are displayed so that you can navigate the categories and albums in a more logical fashion. It is nothing more complex than that.

Manage Categories – This middle box has three icons – a pencil, a red X and two blue arrows, one pointing up and the other, down. With the pencil icon you can change the description, parent category and title of a given category. When you are finished making changes, simply click Update/Create Category.

Update/Create Category – This bottom box lets you take control over exactly how all the categories for your albums are displayed. You can choose parent categories or you can leave this option blank to make the category you are editing become, itself, a parent category under which other categories can be created. Beyond changing the category’s title and description, you may also set the permissions at which various groups of your Coppermine user base can view or edit albums within this category.

As you can see, Coppermine gives you plenty of very simple options to change and configure your image galleries to however you would like them to look.

Popularity: 4% [?]

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Add a Link Directory to Your Site By Installing Dew-NewPHPLinks

Thursday, April 8th, 2010

The web is based on very simple concepts despite how complicated the different types of media on it are today. One of the core concepts that fuels the web is that we all find where we want to go by using links. These links are a very crucial aspect of web navigation and sites today need them just as much as they ever have. That’s part of why Dew-NewPHPLinks is such a great addition to any site. Google, Yahoo and other search engines rate a web site’s value based on how many links are headed towards it, but they also weigh those values through special formulas called algorithms that are designed to figure out why sites are linking to each other. While it might be true that in the past sites would give links for no good reason, with scripts like Dew NewPHPLinks available, you can now create links with discretion and give props to those sites that truly deserve them. Well thought out links are still a true gold mine for any website worth its salt so if you don’t have a great link directory for your own website, you might want to consider building one. It gets the good will of your fellow webmasters flowing your way and users appreciate it, too.

With the NewPHPLinks script you are going to be able to create an extremely useful resource for your visitors and it doesn’t take too much to get your site established as a good one if you know what you are doing. Simply be selective about who you are linking to and you will be fine. Don’t create links to try and score brownie points hoping you will get links back. You might, but those links won’t count as much. Keep your users in mind whenever you are using a phplinks solution because they are the ones you should be pointing out links for. If you do things right, then it won’t be difficult to create a great directory that your users will put to good use and might even thank you for, too.

Remember, with Dew-NewPHPLinks you can actually have site reviews to offer opinions of other sites. Even banner advertisements are possible with this script so it really is more of a powerful tool than simply another way to list links to sites you like. Installing this script is a piece of cake, too. Just follow these easy instructions:

The first thing you need to do is log into your web host as you normally would and navigate to Fantastico. Along the left hand side of your screen there will be a column of scripts to install so just pick out Dew-NewPHPLinks from that list and click on it. Then you’ll be taken to a screen that tells a little bit about the script and you want to click on the New Installation link there to get started.

Next, you simply choose which domain you want your link directory to be placed onto. Then, you’ll see a box below that asks you type in the directory you want Dew-NewPHPLinks installed within. If you are hosting your links directory as the only thing on your domain then leave this blank, otherwise tell Fantastico which directory you’d like to place the installation inside.

Now all you need to do is fill in a user name, password, site name and finally an e-mail address. Once you have this completed, click Finish Installation and that’s it.

Now you can enjoy the full benefits of this open source solution for a full featured link directory your users will adore.

Popularity: 2% [?]

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You Can Easily Install FAQMasterFlex

Sunday, April 4th, 2010

No one likes getting confused and frustrated. This is exactly why the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) format was invented to give quick help to those in need. These days, if a site does not have plenty of help for any of its more complex features, it is likely to cause more irritation than it will pleasure. The fact of the matter is, almost every site could benefit from an FAQ section, but this is especially true if you are running a site that is designed to retain users. Online shops, bulletin boards, social networks, wiki’s, and any site that expects user participation is going to want to have a solid offering of a FAQs to help those who are new. Even long time users are liable to run up against a problem from time to time, so instead of having to wait for a response by email, why not make use of the FAQMasterFlex script from Lethal Penguin?

FAQMasterFlex is a full service open source (meaning it costs you nothing to install and run) solution to your FAQ needs that is going to give you a terrific value and keep your customers more than pleased with your site. The folks behind LethalPenguin have created the script to make the process of building help sections on your web site that much easier. By using this script you don’t have to worry about accidentally creating a clumsy and difficult to navigate FAQ section because the program handles everything for you to the point that all you need to do is insert the questions and the answers that solve the problems your visitors may end up facing. This is the perfect way to keep your site relevant and easy to use. That means you can expect the absolute gold standard of web traffic: repeat visitors. This is a major part of establishing a site that has not only longevity on the web, but actually provides what your users are seeking to gain by visiting it in the first place.

In order to install FAQMasterFlex, the first thing you are going to need to do is long onto your server, through your web host, and access your MySQL database. Inside there, you will create a table just for this script which you might want to title ‘faqmasterflex’ for easy recognition later. You can use phpAdmin or whatever SQL tool your host offers and paste in the information from faqmasterflex.sql into this table.

Next, open the FAQMasterFlex download package on your computer and find the faq_config.php file. Alter its MySQL variables such as MySQL server name, user name, password to match those from your own MySQL database on your web host. Save and close this file. Then, upload the entire contents of the FAQMasterFlex package to your server.

Now, all you need to do is login to the script using ‘admin’ as both your user name and password. Once inside the script, customize to your heart’s content. Once you’re finished, be sure to alter your user name and password so that they are both no longer admin. This is for security reasons so it is a crucial step you do not want to skip.

That’s all you need to do to have a robust FAQ section with unlimited topics and categories working on your website!

Popularity: 2% [?]

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You Can Create Your Own Template for Open-Realty

Thursday, April 1st, 2010

There are few tools more potent in a realtor’s arsenal than the right website. More and more home buyers are skipping the tours on houses they’re not sure of and using the web to get the results they want. Whether its a Joomla Open Realty site or a straight up installation of this powerful tool, realtors around the world have come to see the internet as a perfect place to show people potential homes. It’s such an easy way to shop because more information than ever before can be shown and full photo tours can be provided with complete details that make home buyers happy. These visits lead to calls and with the Open Realty addons fleshing out the incredible features the package comes with, it is easy to see why this is quickly becoming the number one way to sell real estate online.

Since there are so many Open Realty template possibilities, it is totally possible to have a site that looks precisely the way you want it to and this is a strong way to differentiate yourself from the competition. There’s nothing better than a solid site and if you aren’t working with a massive budget because you are still a budding realtor then free Open Realty templates will allow you to build an excellent foundation of a site which you can customize to your heart’s desire. It’s incredibly easy to build a site that lists homes far better than the typical realty company and all you need to get started is the free Open Realty download which includes everything you will need to get started.

The features go far beyond extremely advanced searching capabilities, offering any realtor the ability to create a site that is easily competitive with those designed by top firms within the real estate industry. The addition of purchased addons can give a site extra features such as advanced Google Maps integration so visitors can locate the house of their dreams and get a real sense of the neighborhood. Both IDX and RETS data importers are available, as well. As you can see, Open-Realty is a truly revolutionary product that is not only free, but breaks down all barriers and levels the playing field for those looking to make their living in real estate.

If you or someone you know is fluent in the basics of web design, creating your own Open-Realty templates is decidedly simple. All you will need are the following tools:

Dreamweaver 4 or newer – This is the basic html and CSS editor that is going to do the majority of your site building. Those who know of an existing alternative can feel free to utilize it, but the basics are a program that will edit both forms of code which are the backbone of your Open-Realty site.

Photoshop 7 or newer – Image manipulation software is key and if you aren’t comfortable with the price tag that comes with Photoshop, why not try GIMP? It’s a Graphical Image Manipulation Program that allows you to do most of what Photoshop can do but it’s open source – that means it’s free to you!

SwishMax – Flash and ActionScript coding can be difficult to master, but SwishMax makes the process far less difficult. You can use it to create not only Dynamic Header Content, but buttons for your site, as well.

Fireworks 4 or newer – Buttons, gradients and different, non-standard shapes are all part of great visual web design. With Fireworks you get the tool you need to do the job right.

You will find that once you start downloading and taking a look through the free Open-Realty templates available online, it isn’t difficult to see how to either customize them for your own purposes or simply create your own from scratch. With these tools, you can create an amazing realty web site that is going to earn you a very tidy living and drive business your way for years to come

Popularity: 8% [?]

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