Webmaster Tips
Here you'll find an assortment of web development topics that
don't fit elsewhere.
Beginning Web Developer Course: Advanced Email Configuration In the previous article in this series, we explored the basics of configuring email for your domain using cPanel and learning how to set up spam blocking and an autoresponder. Before we leave the subject of mail, though, there are a few more useful things to learn that will allow mastery of mail on our shared server.
Beginning Web Developer Course: Configuring Your Domain Email Previously in this series, we started getting familiar with the cPanel interface for your shared hosting account, and learned how to work with multiple domains. This time we'll show you how to set up email accounts to work with your domain.
How Do I Use .htaccess for Password Protecting Directories and Files? In our last article, we told you what the .htaccess file was used for, and showed you how to use it for custom error pages and index pages. This time we're going to show you how to use it to password protect directories and files.
What is the .htaccess File, and What Can I Do With It? You may have been working on a website, or reading an article about web development, and heard about the .htaccess file, but wondered what it was, or what, if anything, you can do with it. This tutorial will tell you the basics about .htaccess, and show you a few ways you can use it on your website.
A Web Developer Looks at Drupal Views: Power and Flexibility In the last Drupal module review, I discussed the contributed module CCK. This time, I focus on Views – a module that puts real power and flexibility into your Drupal websites. Considered an advanced module, Views still offers opportunity for beginner/intermediate Drupalers.
Beginning Web Developer Course: Setting Up Your Domains Previously in this series, we got familiar with the cPanel interface for your shared hosting account, and learned how to redirect secondary domains to your primary account. Now we'll explore the ways to set up additional domains and subdomains for maximum flexibility--and savings in money as well.
Top 10 Social Networks You Should Care About As a Web Developer Social networking is pervasive, and most smart businesses have embraced the phenomenon as a way to attract potential customers and interact with their current customers. In this article we'll look at the top 10 social networking sites that you should be aware of as a developer who cares about your clients' businesses.
5 Web Development Tips for Increasing Online Sales Some merchants might not realize it, but the design of their online storefronts-from the landing page to the shopping cart-has a direct effect on sales. This tutorial will tell you five things you can do as a web developer to increase online sales.
Beginning Web Developer Course: Getting Started With cPanel In our last episode, we learned how to register your new domain name, and how to find the best web hosting service. Before we sign up and start setting up our server, there's just one more big decision you have to make, and that's what operating system you want your server to run on.
Web-based Mobile Apps of the Future Using HTML 5, CSS and JavaScript The rise in the use of mobile devices has led many a developer to throw up their hands in frustration. Should a business require both a website and a mobile application? This report discusses why the future may be lie in HTML 5, CSS and JavaScript applications that work equally well on all mobile platforms.
iPhone Special Developer Report The iPhone's popularity is exponential, and developers are jumping on board to create apps for both the iPhone and its sister tablet, the iPad. In this report, we're going to look at the iPhone, its features, developer tools and support, costs, demographics, and how the iPhone shapes the future of mobile web development.
Beginning Web Developer Course: Domain and Hosting Basics The previous article in this series gave you some useful tips and information about choosing a domain name for your new site. Now we'll learn how to register and protect that domain name, and how to find the best hosting value for your money while hopefully not getting stuck with the wrong provider.
Beginning Web Developer Course: How To Get Your Business Online This course is intended for people who have outgrown their "free" web hosting. If that describes you, and you want to learn everything you need to get started, read on in this tutorial for beginning web developers.
Using iPhone User Interface Framework (iUI) To Create "Native" Websites for the iPhone We've learned how to detect the iPhone's user agent, use Safari for testing, detect and set the viewport orientation, use CSS and meta tags for iPhone and iPad layouts. This week we'll learn about the iPhone User Interface Framework (iUI), which consists of a JavaScript library, CSS and images for developing websites which appear and function like native iPhone apps.
iPhone Website Development: Meta Tags, Images and More In our last tutorial we showed you how to use CSS for iPhone and iPad layouts. This week we're going to show you a few more HTML tags you can use in your iDevice web development arsenal: iPhone meta tags, splash screens and icons.
iPad and iPhone Development: Using CSS Layouts We've learned how to detect the iPhone and iPad user agent, how to test and set orientation and how to test our iDevice-ready websites using Safari. This week we're going to show you how to start putting all of the pieces together, and use CSS layouts for the disply of our iPad-ready website.
Top 10 Questions to Ask Before Starting a Website Project These questions are primarily intended for the web developer who is stepping into a new role at an organization that is already established. If you are involved with business web site development and enhancement, you should be asking yourself these questions before you even begin!
Web Developer Class: The Minimalist Approach to Building a Menu There is nothing worse than a web site that looks like it was built 10 years ago. One of the first give-aways is your site's menu. In this article we'll look at several popular menu systems and show you how you can bring your site up to today's standards!
Using Safari for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch Website Testing Last week we showed you how to detect the iPhone & iPad's user agent. This week we'll show you how to use Apple's Safari web browser for testing your iDevice-ready website by simulating an HTTP request from Safari on the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch.
How Can I Detect the iPhone & iPad's User Agent? So you've decided to create a mobile website for iPhone and iPad users, rather than creating a web applications. Where do you start? This tutorial will show you how to detect the popular mobile devices using JavaScript, PHP and your site's .htaccess file!
I Want To Build A Website. Do I Need a Content Management System (CMS)? Since everyone has blogs and profile pages these days, you may want to create a website of your very own. Do you need a content management system (CMS) to make life easier, or is the old system of updating a file manually and uploading it to your server good enough for today's web developer?
Web Developer Class: Fighting Spam on Your vBulletin Discussion Forum With so many websites providing discussion forums, new users join in the discussion every day. This tutorial for web developers will show you how to effectively reduce the number of spammers that get through, before they've even completed the registration process.
Drupal for the Web Developer: Configuring Your Drupal Website In the first installment of this series, we learned some of the reasons why Drupal has become a favorite Content Management System (CMS) for discerning web developers. Now we'll learn how to tweak the configuration options for best results, focusing as usual on the practical aspects and settings before the esoteric ones.
Web Developer Tutorial: Building Your Community Page Last week I wrote an article about how to use BBcode in forums and how adding a forum to your site can help foster a community, increase return visits and develop a loyal audience. This tutorial will give you some more ideas to help develop a thriving community for your site.
Web Developer Tutorial: Learn How To Use BBcode Since the web began, online communities have evolved from basic bulletin board systems (BBS) to become discussion forums with many advanced features. Learn how to use Bulletin Board Code (BBcode) to make your discussion forum more appealing and professional in this tutorial for web developers.
Drupal for the Web Developer: An Introduction and Overview Drupal is an open source content management system (CMS) that has gotten a great deal of attention recently, based not only on its powerful set of features but also its use on some extremely high-profile websites. In this series we're going to teach you what Drupal has to offer, and how to use it to create top notch, professional websites.
Targeted Search Engine Marketing for Web Developers Analysis has shown that search engines bring more traffic to your site than any other mechanism. Targeted search engine marketing can be a very effective way to bring visitors to your website, as this tutorial will show.
FeedBurner Offers Rich RSS Features for Developers If your web site is currently up and running, chances are you already have some type of RSS feed running, especially if you have a content site with daily updates. It's time to revisit FeedBurner and discover a brand new set of resources!
WordPress For the Web Developer: Writing Plugins--Actions and Filters The previous article in this series explained the basics of writing WordPress plugins: how to create the header, and write some simple PHP code that can operate as an action or a filter (and possibly both). In this tutorial for the web developer, we'll explore actions and filters in more depth.
Web Developer Class: Installing and Setting Up a Free Discussion Forum--SMF Many web developers would like their site to feature a discussion forum, but can't afford the purchase price. Enter Simple Machines Forum (SMF), a free, professional discussion forum software package. In this tutorial, we'll walk you through the installation process and show you how to set it up and get it running on your site--for free.
Web Developer 101: Buying and Setting Up a Domain Name If you're like most web developers, you have spent a considerable amount of time developing your website, but how much time have you taken to consider your site's domain name? In this tutorial, we're going to teach you how to purchase an effective domain name and assign it to your web host.
WordPress For the Web Developer: How To Write Your Own Plugins Previously in this series, we've covered simple ways of modifying the look, feel, and functionality of your WordPress website by using plugins and selecting and modifying themes. Now you'll be getting deeper into the internals of WordPress by learning how to write your own plugins and integrate them into WordPress.
Web Developer's Guide: How to Speed Up Your Website There was a time way back in this author's career when making web sites as fast as possible was almost as high a priority as making them look good. Google recently announced that site speed will affect page ranking, but what can cause speed problems and how do you fix them? That is what we hope to answer in this article.
Flash Tutorial for Web Developers: Create a Flash & PHP-Based Discussion Forum While there are many discussion forum scripts available, often web developers are interested in creating their forum using Flash and the PHP scripting language. This tutorial will show you how to create your own Flash and PHP-based forum, and free source code is included!
Flash Tutorial for Web Developers: Save/Load Info Using Cookies Have you ever made a huge Flash game and knew that there was no way a person could beat it in one day? Well, now you can save and load information via cookies so the game can resume when they're ready with this tutorial from the FlashKit community!
Web Developer's Guide to Selecting Domain Names Finding an available domain name is getting harder and harder these days as domains are being registered by the millions. In this tutorial for the web developer I'll tell you some tips to help you find that valuable domain that hasn't been thought of--yet.
The World of Windows 7 Phone for Web Developers Recently Microsoft released some details on their new and improved mobile operating system which has been so eloquently named Windows 7 Phone. In this tutorial, we'll discuss its features and show you how to get started with Windows 7 Phone development.
WordPress For the Web Developer: Working With Theme Templates Once you've set up a WordPress website, your first instinct as a web developer will probably be to modify it extensively. Many WordPress themes allow you to change the look, feel, and even function of your site relatively easily--this tutorial will show you how to use them on your site!
Using Amazon Web Services to Host Your Video In my last article, How to Embed Video Into Your Web Site, I left off with how to use Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a means to host and distribute your video. This tutorial discusses AWS and how you can get your video online using the service.
Web Developer 101: Embedding Video into Your Web Site Video is an integral part of our lives, and its use online is pervasive. At some point every web developer wants to add some video to their site. This tutorial will show you how to do just that--now let's add some video to your site!
Web Developer Class: Getting Your Video On The Web Many sites you visit have videos covering everything from how to properly tie a knot to, well, how to make a video. This tutorial for web developers will get you started and tell you how you can get your own video online.
WordPress For the Web Developer: Top 10 Plugins In the introduction to this series, I promised to show you some of the plugins that can help make your WordPress site extremely functional right away. This article will detail the top 10 essential free plugins that are useful for the web developer.
Twitter Feed Tutorial for Web Developers By now, even everyone's grandmother has probably used or at least heard of Twitter. Twitter is an amazing resource, but just sitting on
Twitter all day is bad for your productivity elsewhere, such as your own
website. So wouldn't it be good to be able to make use of Twitter with your own site?
Expression Web 3: A Developer's Overview Recently, I took a look at one of the premier web design software packages available today, Dreamweaver CS4. In this article I'll begin to explore another popular web design suite, Expression Web 3 from Microsoft. I'll cover some of the best features of Expression Web 3 as well as point out a few shortfalls.
The Buzz About The Buzz About Google Buzz Just recently Google released yet another new service called Google Buzz. In this article we’ll take a look at not just the product itself but the
conversation surrounding it as well.
Flash Development on the Fly: Moving Grass Flash development doesn't always require an Integrated Development Environment (IDE). Find out how a long plane ride led to the development of a slick "moving grass" animation--using the free Flex SDK 3 and the Windows command line!
SEO Class for Web Developers: Linking, Tags, Navigation and Caffeine Last week we showed you how to determine what your site's focus is, which keywords you will be using and how to effectively create titles. In this session, we will teach you how to use those keywords within your site's content, how to effectively use links and tags, and why your site's navigation should be carefully considered for SEO.
Really Simple Syndication: A Web Developer's Class on RSS Now that we have blogs, Twitter and live content on the web, it's critical for sites to have fresh content available for their visitors. This class will teach developers about RSS and show them how they can have "real time" content on their sites with just a few lines of JavaScript.
Search Engine Otimization Class for Web Developers: Where To Start Google's new Caffeine search engine mechanism is alive and well, and web developers have to remain vigilant to keep up with the latest Search Engine Optimization techniques. This class on SEO for web developers will teach you the basics and help you put some Caffeine in your website.
Web Development Class: Traffic Analysis Using Alexa Web developers often use website analysis as an important tool for search engine optimization (SEO), as well as a method of finding out which content is generating interest on their sites. This tutorial will show you how to use Alexa.com to gain a broader picture of your website to see how it stacks up against similar sites.
Best Coding Practices In this article I will attempt to advise you on three simple things that should help you to become a better developer, regardless of your language of choice. This article will show you things that you probably already have thought of, and if you have, and have not implemented them, perhaps it's now time to start wondering why you haven't.
Blogging with WordPress Just about everyone has heard the term blog, which is basically an online diary which allows the blogger a medium to post thoughts on everything from recipes to politics to technical subjects. In this article we’ll take a look at one of the most popular free blogging tools on the web today, WordPress.
Trends of the Mobile Internet Just this month Morgan Stanley released their most recent epic, “The Mobile Internet Report”. They predict that the adoption of mobile browsing will eclipse growth rates seen in the last major tech boom with the PC. What does this mean for developers? This article will catch you up to speed and save you a lot of reading.
Top 10 Facebook Apps Recently we did an article on the top 10 Twitter apps. Well,
in order to be fair to all you Facebook addicts, we thought we would offer up
the top 10 Facebook apps which we decided to break up into two categories,
Entertainment and Utilities. In this article we’ll also explore how to go about creating your
own Facebook application.
Really Simple Syndication -- Really Ever wanted to add RSS to your website but never really understood how RSS feeds worked or how to implement them? In this article we’ll give you a simple RSS generator that is made from HTML and JavaScript. We’ll show you how to use it to generate a feed, save that feed as an RSS XML file, and link your new feed to any website page.
Website Tips: Getting Affiliated Affiliate programs have been around since the internet big bang, however, today's affiliate programs are quite different than the original incarnations. While you won't be making $5.00 per click any more, you can still generate a decent income from affiliate programs using the tips in this article!
Getting Started with Silverlight Despite the options available with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, accommodating their differences can be maddening. Enter Silverlight, a plug-in for multiple Web browsers on multiple platforms that makes it easier to create rich content.
Giving Caches a Chance Though it tends to get treated poorly, HTTP isn't a dumb file-transfer protocol. It allows you to specify an intention with your requests (GET/POST, with PUT and DELETE available) and offers authentication. The focus of this article, however, is about caching.
Script GUI for PHP If you've been writing PHP scripts on the Windows operating system, you know about the hassle that's involved when you want to test it on a Web site. That can get old - fast. Fortunately, there's an alternative.
Web Hosting Control Panels Web hosting is a highly competitive field. Extra features, such as free domain names, site builder and pricing vary widely, but the control panel makes a difference and you have to pick the service which suits your requirements.
Work on Computers or in the Computer Industry? Texas Law May Affect You! A Texas law passed in 2007 has computer repair shops statewide up in arms. Seemingly pressured by the Private Investigator lobby, lawmakers enacted House Bill 2833, which seems to require computer repair personnel to obtain a Private Investigator license before being allowed to work on customers' computers.
New Life for Old Drives If you're looking to upgrade to a larger hard drive, add an external hard drive, CD drive or give additional life to a switched-out drive, this system is as simple as it gets.
An introduction to Autoresponders If you've reached the point of exhaustion trying to keep up with answering mountains of email, you're ready to learn about autoresponders. Using them properly can make a huge difference to your bottom line.
Top Online Marketing Techniques In this article you'll learn about several effective online marketing techniques (such as article writing for ezines, blogging, joint ventures, etc.) and how to implement them.
Opening The Source On Your Host In this article you'll learn how to configure Apache to allow your visitors to learn from (or offer advice on) your source code through browsing it in much the same way that they would browse your ordinary Web pages.
Email Marketing for MySpace Artists The competition for attention on MySpace is intense. Many artists want to stand out from the crowd, but it can be difficult to break through the clutter. Enter email marketing, which gives artists the ability to send out newsletters, targeted email campaigns and more.
Firefox Web Developer Extension is Pederrifick Remember when cross-browser compatibility was mostly wishful thinking? We were spending hours debugging a Web page, only to learn the culprit was something simple like CSS padding. This week we look at Chris Pederick's Web Developer Extension for Firefox, and you'll wonder how we ever lived without it!!
Adding Images to Your MySpace Profile One of the most popular things for people to do on MySpace is posting images on their profile page. Unfortunately, like many things on MySpace, this is not always easy to figure out. In order to help eliminate some of that pain, this article will take a look at how to go about posting images and pictures on a personal MySpace page.
Partial Page Rendering Using Hidden IFrame Partial page rendering removes the need for the entire Web page to be refreshed as the result of a postback. Instead, only regions that have changed are updated, speeding up user interaction with the Web site.
Software Review: A1 Sitemap Generator Sitemaps are now being used by search engines to index Web sites, which can help improve your site's rankings. To quickly generate a sitemap, you need a script or a program. One of these is the A1 Sitemap Generator, the subject of this review.
Cost Effective Web Marketing When promoting your Web site you want to make sure visitors will want to return again. To make that happen, you need to address many aspects of promotion, such as page layout, site preparation, optimization, seo strategies, etc., which are covered in this article.
How to Get Great Search Engine Rankings Once you've chosen your business and purchased a domain name the next step is to find useful and relevant keywords. This article gives you ten useful tips on how to optimize your Web pages.
Must Have: Internet Explorer Web Developer Toolbar Pucker up, Web developers. You will want to kiss Bill Gates on the lips for this one. In this article, new author Tyme shows us why we won't want to miss this web development tool from Microsoft!
How to Build a Web Design Business - Part 2 This week we discuss the skills and knowledge needed to succeed as a Web designer, such as knowledge of HTML, CSS, browser issues, programming knowledge, e-commerce shopping carts and more.
How to Build a Web Design Business With all the HTML editors available, you too can build Web sites for profit. Time to start a small business? No! While it's easy to publish Web pages, a lot of planning is necessary to create a viable business. In this article you'll learn how.
How to Write and Publish Articles for the Internet Want to generate more traffic? Write articles. Articles are a great way answer client questions, drive traffic to your Web site and be seen as an expert in your field.
A Web Development Primer In this article, Ahmad Permessur examines a wide variety of Web technologies, beginning with HTML, it's limitations and how to go beyond it. Other topics covered are client- and server-side technologies, networks, JavaScript, DHTML, CGI. and more.
Domain Name Basics: An Introduction Most people know what domain names are but few understand what having one entails. In this article, you will learn about the various types of domain names, formatting, registration issues, domain pointing and more.
How to Build a Web Design Business With all the HTML editors available, you too can build Web sites for profit. Time to start a small business? No! While it's easy to publish Web pages, a lot of planning is necessary to create a viable business. In this article you'll learn how.
Web-Related Careers A common misconception among many people is that Web development and Web design are synonymous. This article explores the distinctions between the two careers, including some of the skills you need to pursue them.
Book Review: The Designer's Apprentice One of the great challenges facing computer artists is productivity, especially with repetitive tasks. Fortunately, automation can ease the drudgery of these tasks and that is the subject of this book.
Review: Ajax Starter Kit The term Ajax is often referred to as a new type of technology, but is actually several technologies that work together. This review looks at how to get started using Ajax and the different technologies involved.
Partial Page Rendering Using Hidden IFrame Partial page rendering removes the need for the entire Web page to be refreshed as the result of a postback. Instead, only regions that have changed are updated, speeding up user interaction with the Web site.
Facts You Never Knew About Yahoo, Google, Ask Jeeves, and AllTheWeb Nearly 85% of all knowledge obtained online starts with somebody doing research on one or more search engines. This week you'll learn about the history of some popular search engines and the importance of using search engines to grow your business.
Getting in on the 'Mobile' Internet Looking for opportunities to reach new visitors? Check out the explosion of mobile phone users which offers the largest distribution platform on earth. With a registration process that began in 2006, over 500,000 .mobi domain names have been registered.
MySpace Profile Page Resources With the recent popularity of social networking sites, there has been a need for free graphics, CSS generators, background images and sources for videos. In this listing, we will provide you with links to many of those resources, all in one convenient location!
A Technology Roadmap - The Basic Map To some, the selection of language or programming tool might be obvious, to others it's a complete roadblock. We present.... The Goodies Roadmap! In Part one, we examine the Basic Roadmap
10 Tips for the Beginning Internet Entrepreneur For the beginning Internet business entrepreneur, here are 10 unwritten rules that may well prevent you from 'skidding into the ditch'. Make a point of reading through them regularly to remain focused on the road ahead!
Choosing Sides Do you know whether you are processing on the 'client-side' or the 'server-side'? Do you know the difference? Do you know how to determine which side you want to be on? Read this piece and you will!
The Red X Dilemma 'Why am I getting a box with a red X in it instead of my pictures?' It's one of the most frequently asked questions as folks study the fine art of web page creation, so here, in one convenient place, is the comprehensive answer!
Tips & Tricks - A Picture Upload in PHP You can learn the basics of PHP by following our tutorial series (see the index to the left) but once you have a solid foundation, there's nothing quite like a start to finish example, explained as you go, to help you see the language in action. That's what our Tips & Tricks series is all about. Here's a useful example of file uploads accomplished in PHP - in this instance enhanced with some special handling for picture files.
A Home Server So you want to run a server at home, huh? What a shame your ISP is making life impossible! Is there any hope? Yes! Read on!
Patchworking Once you have your computer set just the way you like it, you should follow the rule 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' and keep it like it is; right? -- Noooo... 'bout as wrong as it gets!
