Understanding HTML
Anyone who is considering creating their own website will need to learn at least some basic HTML coding. There are many tools available that can help you design and create your own website, but without a good understanding of at least some basic HTML, even a basic webpage can quickly get out of hand. Understanding web page layout and the underlying HTML codes that make it work will greatly benefit you in modifying and maintaining your web pages.
PHP is the Hypertext Preprocessor extensively used Open Source general-purpose scripting language which is particularly appropriate for Web development and can be used in HTML. The PHP syntax is based on C, Java, and Perl and is easily learnable. With the help of PHP, web developers can swiftly write webpages that are generated dynamically and so much more.
As PHP runs on major operating systems as like Unix and Windows servers, it is easily available. PHP also supports most of the web servers. In case of most of the servers, the PHP contains a module while for others supporting CGI standard, it works as a CGI processor.
If you are a website designer, there’s little doubt that you’ve heard about Joomla templates. But do you really know what’s exactly a Joomla template?
A Joomla template is actually a series of files within the Joomla Content Management System (CMS) that control the presentation of the content. So, for all those uninitiated, a Joomla template is not a website in itself nor it represents a complete website design. It’s simply a template, i.e., a basic foundation design that’ll help you preview your Joomla website. In order to produce the effect of a ‘complete website’, the Joomla template works in tandem with the content stored in the Joomla databases.
What are the contents of Joomla template? Basically, any Joomla template contains design information, like stylesheets, images, JavaScript, etc. Simply put, Joomla template is a theme or a skin of your Joomla system. However, there can be only one Joomla template per page. (more…)
I will take you through a step by step process of creating a website using the open source content management system, Joomla. A Content Management System (CMS) is basically a software package which gives you a way separating the content from the view giving you more flexibility and ease of operation and maintenance. It also provides an easy to use framework to add and publish content to your site. In some ways it is similar to Wordpress but is more advanced and gives a lot more options both for view and content management.
If you need more information on what a CMS is, you check out the Wikipedia.
You can find a lot of information at the Joomla home page for the more advanced settings and features but I’ll do my best to give you as much information as possible.
Here’s what you will need to get started:
For now lets start with a basic local installation of Joomla on your PC. To fully implement Joomla, you will need a file system, a database and a web server. Instead of installing and configuring each of them separately, we will a package which includes all of them.
You can find these packages at Joomla Extension directory which by the way is where all the extensions for Joomla are published. Extensions are a way of customizing you site with Joomla. We will go extensions a bit later in this tutorial.
Basics of Joomla
There a few major components that Joomla uses to accomplish the task and lets go through each of them one by one. As with any CMS, any Joomla site has 2 faces, first one is what the world sees’. Its all fancy and beautiful and all your work behind the scenes is paid off here. We will refer to this part of the site as the frontend from now on. The other side of the web-site is the administration site where you spend a major chunk of your time adding content to you site and setting up how its displayed on the frontend. This is the back end of the site. The backend for Joomla is a very important part of your website. Everything you see on the front end is added and configured in the backend. To get to the administration page of your Joomla site, just add “/administrator” to the end of your page url.
Eg. localhost/Joomla/administrator/
The default username/pswd for these standalone servers is admin/admin. If that doesn’t work, you might want to check the Read Me notes that came with it. Static content in Joomla is created as Articles. These articles can be placed in different Categories which in-turn are in Sections. If the article is a stand alone page and does not belong in any of these Sections, it can be left out as a “Uncategorized” which means it’s a static page by itself.
Creating an Article
To create an article simply click on the “Add new Article” icon on the dashboard or select Content à Article Manager
Click on the button New to create a new article.
You can start adding content to the text area similar to MS Word and add formatting to it. Once done you can save by clicking the Save button on the top right.
Lets create a new article called “Hello World” and make it a static page by selecting the Section as Uncategorized.
And if you want to see how your article looks on your site, click the Preview button on your top right corner.
There you go, you have created an article in Joomla which is also a static page if you want it to be.
Ganesh Madireddy is an IT professional who specializes in creating small to medium scale web solutions using open source Content Management Systems and configuring them for Search Engine Optimization. He is also the webmaster for a few high profile web-sites.
You can visit his web-site at http://www.3rdrockit.com to find more tutorials on Joomla (including this one with images) as well as other open source software packages.
After designing a website, it’s time to start thinking about promoting it. Search Engine and Directory Submission are important ways to generate traffic to your website. Search engine and directory submission is the act of getting your web site listed with search engines and directories. (more…)
Web Analytics tools such as Web Trends and Core Metrics have been around for some time. Smaller companies and individual site owners were excused for not making use of these tools, given the lack of a necessary budget. However, ever since Google purchased Urchin’s tool, and repackaged and rebranded it as a free tool known as Google Analytics, site users have had no excuse to not make use of Web Analytics. Not only is Google Analytics free, but installing Analytics can take as little as 5 minutes, and it can be done in 3 easy steps.
Installing Google Analytics is quick and easy. Simply create a Google account if you don’t already have one, then visit the Google Analytics website and sign up using your Google account. Follow the simple sign up process and copy paste the code to your website.
Here are the steps for installing Google Analytics, explained more in depth.
1. Create a Google account if you don’t already have one.
If you have a Gmail or some other account with a Google service, then you technically already have a Google account. You can skip to step 2. If you don’t, you’ll have to create a Google account (which is quick and easy, just Google “create Google account”). If you have a Google AdWords account and you want to use the same login for Analytics, simply login to your AdWords account and click the Analytics tab at the very top.
2. Visit the Google Analytics website, click the Sign Up Now button, and follow the easy sign up process
The Sign Up involves 4 simple steps. The first 3 steps involve simply filling out your website and contact information, and signing a user agreement. The last step involves adding the Google Analytics tracking code to your website.
3. Copy paste the code you are given, just above the closing body tag.
The tracking code is how Google Analytics tracks user behavior on your site. This is why it’s important to have the code on every page (just before the closing body tag). Ideally you’ll have a template or a master page where you can add the code in one spot. If your pages are completely independent of one another, you’ll need to make sure you add the code to every page.
You’ll be given the option of using either New Tracking Code or the Legacy Tracking Code. Many of Google Analytic’s new features will only be supported with the New Tracking Code so there is little or no reason to use the Legacy Tracking Code at this point.
Once you’ve pasted Analytics tracking code to your website, upload the changes, and click “Check Status” in the Analytics Settings window. Google will verify that the Analytics tracking code is running on the website you entered. Once Google has verified that the code is running, expect to see Google Analytics metrics within hours.
Chris Casarez works in the field of internet marketing and is the owner of SEOracle.com, a website with SEO tutorials for small online business owners and website designers. SEOracle.com also has tutorials on using and Installing Google Analytics.
Analytic is a webmaster tool which helps you understand how many visitors have visited your website. It is a great tool for online marketers as it helps us understand where our traffic is coming and its fluctuations.It gives a clear summary on the ratio of changes that occurs. At first you go to Analytic main page and sign up . On signing up you will be able to add your website to analytic.Once the website is added you need to at first verify your website . Now, There are Two ways of verifying your website. They can be verified by :-
Adding HTML :
Adding META TAG :
Now when you have verified your website you start receiving important data giving you the knowledge about traffic to your website. With analytic you can also set your goals by optimizing your content on your website. As for example if there is a particular article that you have with which you want to attract readers.you can actually know how many hits your article receives on a given day. Just by following the simple methods and the huge network and support that Google boasts off. It becomes relevantly easy for a newbie to make the most with webmaster tools.Especially Google Analytic .
Abhijit – http://we-key.com
If you don’t already know about Google Analytics you and your company are missing out on a great resource and a vast amount of business potential. Google analytics give you more information and guidance on the performance of your web site than just about any other tool available today!
Since I began using the Google Analytics program my eyes have been opened to all sorts of information that I previously took for granted. Many of the site statistics packages that I had used in the past offered a lot of valuable tools and information and gave me great insight into which of my pages were being hit, how many times, and other typical bits of data. The Google program takes these principles and accelerates them beyond anything that I’ve seen to date!
Google’s analytics tell me all kinds of things down to what screen resolution my customers have on their computers, what color space they’re using all the way to what ISP they’re using and beyond. They have graphs, pie charts, and lists all built around your site and how its performing. The best part is you can juxtapose almost any of the graphical data with any other set of graphical data that is provided. You can see, for example, how many hits you’ve received in the last week, compared to how many of those hits were new visitors!
But it goes a lot further than that! The Google analytics program also shows you an impressive interactive world map that shows you which countries, states, and cities have been view your site, when, and how they got there. The program also includes search engine statistics; what keywords are being typed in to search engines to get to your site. It tells you which pages are getting hit the most, how they’re searching for it, and what their internet connection speed is! The Google Analytics program is absolutely phenomenal!
Since I’ve run my sites through Google Analytics, I’ve been able to see what my customers have been searching for, and if I don’t have it, I now have the edge to go get it! I run a video and music production company, and one of our product lines is a long list of sound effects. The Google program has, upon several occasions, turned me on to products (sound fx) that my customers were looking for that I never would have thought about recording. And most of the time I can have those sounds recorded and uploaded in just a few hours. The Analytics update daily, so its like getting custom requests from customers each day!
Another fascinating thing that I’ve seen on here in relation to traffic is its ability to show you how people are getting to your site. The reason this is helpful is that it shows me what percentage of my customers are reaching me from search engines, which search engines, what percentage of customers are reaching me through referrals, what or where they were referred from, and lastly, what percentage of my customers were direct traffic and what they were typing in to become direct traffic. The information that I’m getting from the referral data is showing me which of my marketing campaigns are working and which ones aren’t doing so hot. This daily influx of information allows me to make quick, easy changes to my marketing strategies and track how they’re doing on an almost daily basis!
When used in conjunction with Google’s other tools, Google AdWords, Google AdSense, Google Base, and Google Business Solutions among others, Google Analytics is a powerful and infinitely useful resource for any smart business owner. If you aren’t using this tool you’re behind the times and behind your competitors! Google Analytics has more power in its little pinky than just about anything else you’ll find on the web. And the best part is… It’s Free!
Adam Benson is the CEO and head engineer of Sleep Deprived Productions. SDP specializes in Video and Audio Effects and Post-Production. To learn more check them out at http://www.sleepdeprivedproductions.com
Part 1 ( Installing wamp and creating a database )
1. Go to wampserver.com and click on download the latest version of wamp.This will redirect you to sourceforge.net and you will be asked ” to run or save the file ? ” Click on save the file.This process will take about 20 minutes.
2. When the download is complete click on run and you will be asked ” are you sure you want to run this software ? ” and just click again on run.You will then see ” welcome to the WampServer set up ” and just click on next.Click on ” I accept agreement and click on next.
3. You will then see ” set up will install WampServer in the following folder c:wamp ” and just click on next.The next question that appears is additional icons ? (a) create a quick launch icon (b) create a desktop icon and just tick both boxes and click on next. (more…)
Thinking about CSS, but want to learn what you need to know, or need to learn before jumping onto the CSS bandwagon? Let me begin by saying that CSS can reduce your time at the computer. But knowledge do you need to learn and is CSS compatible with the search engines and your browsers? These are some of the questions I’ll try to answer,as well as, explain a little about what CSS is all about.
CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets. CSS is a set of formatting instructions that controls the looks of a web page or pages. Some of the browsers that support CSS is: (Firefox,IE3 or later, NN4 or later). You may be saying, great this will definitely save me some time. Not so fast, you also need to know that though, the majority of the browsers understand CSS, they do not fully support all of it’s capabilities. (more…)
When you are trying to learn a new programming language like PHP, it can get a bit intimidating, especially if you have never had experience with other programming languages before. But trust me, the toughest hurdle is really the starting point. Once you have gotten over that, it is really just a matter of keeping your focus and practicing. Be patient and learn the steps one at a time and you will get there. Here are some tips to help you learn simple PHP:
Learn the basics.
To learn a new language, specifically a programming language, you will need to have basic computer skills. Before you can learn PHP, you need to have a basic background on HTML. This is necessary to make PHP easier to grasp. Plus, you can alternate between the two later on using the same document.
PHP is a language that uses scripting and often used with HTML to supplement functions that HTML lacks. With PHP, you can collect and process data, make comparisons and calculations things that you can not do with HTML. Using this skill, you can create other functions to produce data that is more specialized. (more…)
HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language. It is just one of hundreds of thousands markup languages ever created by computer geeks, also the most popular one by far. Its most current version is 4.01, or HTML 4.01. A future version of 5.0 is being spun out though at W3C. It has a cousin who’s also been playing around for a while, XHTML (eXtensible Hyper Text Markup Language), an XML reimplementation of HTML.
As human language creators and users, we know naturally what the subject, predicate and object is and how they are used in speeches. However to an electronic computer made of circuits and its programs, this seems to be a little beyond their capabilities. (more…)
,nice tactic ...