Finally a Seamonkey that’s real!

June 3rd, 2010 No Comments

When I was a kid I begged my mom to buy me this pack of sea monkeys. I don’t know what I was expecting but needless to say I was disappointed. However with my latest discovery my interest in sea monkeys has restored and I’m going to tell you why.

My customers are always asking me for an easy way to update their websites without having to know html or having to use ftp programs. More importantly they do not wish to spend the money on a program like Contribute or Dreamweaver. One day while browsing online I came across SeaMonkey.

SeaMonkey is powered by Mozilla and comes as entire browser package but I was interested in the option to edit your website right in the browser. It is a relatively small download at 10MB and seems to be a great option for anyone looking for a cheap web editor. By cheap I mean FREE!!!!!

To edit the page you just browse to the page you wish to edit, click “file” then “edit page.” This will open the page in a new window with a simple tool bar. You can edit the text or add pictures and hit publish. It is that easy! The first time you do this you will have to enter the ftp user name and password but other than that there is not much you need to know.

While not the greatest program in the world it is a great option and I do recommend it. To learn more about SeaMonkey click here.

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Updating your content

March 30th, 2010 No Comments

Let’s assume that you have Joomla installed, with content in place, and you want to update or edit your content. Here is a quick tutorial on how to make those changes.

Making changes from the front-end.

  1. The first thing you have to do is log in to the website. It is important to note that if you do not have at least an “Editor” access level you may not be able to make changes to the content. You site log in module will look something like this:
  2. Once you are logged in, navigate to the content you wish to edit or change. In the top right corner of your content area you should see an icon with a paper and pencil. The icon should look something like this:
    To edit the content click on this icon.
  3. After you click this icon you will be taken to the editor page which will look something like this:

    This WYSIWYG editor should allow you to make any changes you want to your content. Once you make the desired changes click save to go live with your changes. NOTE: With a content management system, once you click save there is no undo feature. Save automatically overwrites the previous file. My suggestion is to keep a hard copy of your changes on your computer.

Adding or editing images

To add an image to your content look for the image button below the main text box in your content editor. The button should look something like this.

Once you click that button a lightbox window should open giving you the option to upload and insert images.

To upload an image from your computer click “browse” and select your file. Next click “start upload.” Once your upload is complete click “insert” and your image should be inserted into your content.

To make changes to your image once it is loaded into your content simply click on the image you wish to edit then look for the image icon in your editor menu:

This will open the image editor box allowing you to change the size and alignment of the image as well as give it a border, a margin, and title.

I hope you found this tutorial helpful, as always if you have any questions please feel free to ask by commenting on this article. Thanks and good luck.

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What is Joomla?

March 30th, 2010 No Comments

There are many content management systems available but Joomla is by far my favorite.  I know what you are thinking, if you like Joomla so much why are you using WordPress for your blog? WordPress is like a good steak knife, it does a great job for basic stuff but Joomla is like a Swiss Army Knife. There are so many components, modules, and plug-ins you can do just about anything. AND IT’S FREE!!!

Here is a little more information on what Joomla is and how it works. The following information was taken from Joomla’s website: http://www.joomla.org/about-joomla.html

Joomla is an award-winning content management system (CMS), which enables you to build Web sites and powerful online applications. Many aspects, including its ease-of-use and extensibility, have made Joomla the most popular Web site software available. Best of all, Joomla is an open source solution that is freely available to everyone.

What are some real world examples of what Joomla! can do?

Joomla is used all over the world to power Web sites of all shapes and sizes. For example:

  • Corporate Web sites or portals
  • Corporate intranets and extranets
  • Online magazines, newspapers, and publications
  • E-commerce and online reservations
  • Government applications
  • Small business Web sites
  • Non-profit and organizational Web sites
  • Community-based portals
  • School and church Web sites
  • Personal or family homepages
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What is CMS?

March 22nd, 2010 No Comments

I found this information a while ago on Wikipedia and thought it was useful in describing CMS.

A Web content management system (WCMS or Web CMS) is content management system (CMS) software, usually implemented as a Web application, for creating and managing HTML content. It is used to manage and control a large, dynamic collection of Web material (HTML documents and their associated images). A WCMS facilitates content creation, content control, editing, and many essential Web maintenance functions.

Usually the software provides authoring (and other) tools designed to allow users with little or no knowledge of programming languages or markup languages to create and manage content with relative ease of use.

Most systems use a database to store content, metadata, and/or artifacts that might be needed by the system. Content is frequently, but not universally, stored as XML, to facilitate reuse and enable flexible presentation options. A presentation layer displays the content to regular Web-site visitors based on a set of templates. The templates are sometimes XSLT files.

Administration is typically done through browser-based interfaces, but some systems require the use of a fat client.

Unlike Web-site builders like Microsoft FrontPage or Adobe Dreamweaver, a WCMS allows non-technical users to make changes to an existing website with little or no training. A WCMS typically requires an experienced coder to set up and add features, but is primarily a Web-site maintenance tool for non-technical administrators.

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A look into every window!

March 19th, 2010 No Comments

If you are planning on creating your own website or are interested in purchasing a template you need to take into consideration the size of your layout, the browser it is viewed in and  the operating system of the computer. Remember that people viewing your site may have a Mac, they may have a PC, they may be running Mac OS, Linux, or a number of windows versions including XP, Vista, or 7. I even came across a person still running Windows ’98. Your visitors may be viewing your site through a 10″ netbook or a 28″ HD monitor. The resolution can vary from 800 X 600 to 1920 X 1080. Now you don not have to layout your site for every single senario but you should try to account for as many as possible.

Most new computers are coming with monitors with higher resolution. This means that your website that may have filled the screen 2 years ago will now just be a strip down the middle of the screen. Never fear, while this is the case with most new computers, many people aren’t buying right now due to our economy.

I know Mac users think that Mac’s are the best and the Mac guy is on TV every 10 seconds telling you how great Macs are, they are still less than 10% of the entire marketplace.

I know this is a lot of information and may seem confusing but it is not that bad, here is something to make things a little easier. Currently (3/2010) the most popular resolution and browser is 1024 X 768 and Internet Explorer running on a PC with Windows. If you design with this information in mind you should be OK.

A great tip I have is to preview your site in IE, Firefox and Safari at 1024 X 768 and a size above and below just to get an idea of how you site looks.

As always please contact us with any questions you may have.

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SEO, SEO, SEO, SEO

March 19th, 2010 No Comments

All I hear all day long is SEO, SEO, SEO.

SEO is an acronym for Search Engine Optimization and is quickly becoming more important than the actual design of your website. The process of optimizing your website for search engines is involved and should be ongoing, utilizing an array of techniques. There are many tools out there for tracking and analyzing your data and we will try to give you as much information as possible about these tools.

Do I need SEO?

Only if you want people to be able to find you through internet search engines. An ad in your local yellow pages can cost over $1000 and will only reach a local market. A website is worldwide and should be much less of an expense. There is no real way of tracking how much business is done online, but is guestimated at being over $150 billion per year. I think that is a piece of pie you want a piece of.

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What is FTP?

March 19th, 2010 No Comments

If you have been working with web sites and/or files on the internet you may have come across the term FTP.  No, this is not a federal organization for training pidgeons, it is a File Transfer Protocol.

FTP programs allows users to upload and download files from your computer to your web server and vice-versa. These secure areas are protected by a username and password and are extremely useful in making changes to your website. Before you go out and spend money on an ftp program you should look into some free options.

FileZilla

Core FTP

Coffee Cup

All of these programs will allow you to connect to your server to transfer files. Once downloaded you just need to enter your server address, user name, and password. If you are having trouble please don’t hesitate to contact us, we will try to assist you.

GOOD LUCK!

We are not affiliated with any one  software and do not recommend one over the other.

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Hello world!

February 22nd, 2010 No Comments

Thanks for checking out our do it yourself tips. At epu web solutions we hate paying for things we can get with a little time and/or effort. There are many things you can do yourself without having to be a computer genius or incredibly creative. With that being said there are many things that you do need experienced professionals to handle, otherwise we would be out of a job. We hope you find this site informative and helpful, if you have any questions please feel free to contact us.

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