Kentucky Web Designer – RB Design Studio

Archive for the ‘Internet’ Category

You have a shiny new blog, right?

You are writing posts and maybe even some pages!

But something is lacking… what is it? Pictures!

I thought it might be helpful if you know a thing or two about uploading images (aka pictures or photos) to your blog.

1) You should NEVER just upload photos straight from your digital camera. Why?

Have you ever been to a website where a photo just creeps downloading? That’s because they didn’t resize the image before uploading it to their website.

Well they may “look” smaller on the screen, but that file size is still huge! Some of the newer digital camers put out photos with as large a file size as 3 or 4 Mb per Picture! Whoa! That will fill up a 50 Mb webspace very quickly!

Save your photos to your computer (Desktop, My Pictures – wherever you can find them again).

2) Resize the images in a graphics editor (No, Word is NOT a graphics editor!)

If you don’t have Photoshop or PaintShopPro or some image editing program on your computer, never fear! The Gimp is here! Just go on over to http://www.gimp.org, download the program and install it. It is pretty self explanatory, but basically you want to open the file, click Edit and resize that image. Save the newly resized image with a name similar to your original (i.e., yourphoto-small.jpg). If you need more help using The Gimp just go back over to their website and read. To make things easier on you, here is a link to The Gimp’s documentation. If you are going to blog, you really need to know how to do this!

Then if you are using WordPress for your blog, when the editor is open, click Add Media and upload y our image. You can put the original size image or a thumbnail sized image that when clicked on, will open the original (full-size) image.

There you go! It’s not hard. But image resizing is very important to your overall website. Not only do large images eat up web space quickly, you do not want to make your web visitors sit and wait forever for a photo to download.

Until next time….
Rhonda

Well, what a dumb question, right? Everyone “Google’s” these days. The name has changed from a proper noun to a verb!

I thought it might be interesting to note some of the top Google features I use most:

Google Web Search

I, like the vast majority of the world, use the classic Google search as my main web search tool. It goes without saying that search is critical to business in many capacities. It is an invaluable tool for finding information and for getting others to find information about me and my company.

Gmail

Probably Gmail runs a close second. Many times my clients need to send large file attachments and Gmail can handle it. Some ISP’s also accept Gmail when my other email addresses are blocked for some reason (although I never knowingly send spam). The spam filter in Gmail is one of the best I have seen in the free email accounts. Messages are stored in the spam folder so I can go there periodically and check to make sure a “real” email hasn’t slipped though marked as spam. If that does happen, I just check the email and mark it as Not Spam and it is back in my Inbox where it belongs. And for a chuckle, I click on the Spam recipes that Google posts on the Spam Folder page.

Maps

I use the Google Maps feature frequently. This feature cannot only be of use to potential customers looking for your business, but also another time saver for when you need to find other businesses. I also use it when driving to unknown locations to get correct driving directions. It has been, in my opinion, the most up-to-date of the mapping sites online.

iGoogle

What can I say? I Love iGoogle. It can be customized with all sorts of widgets and everything I want to read is right there on one page. I love being able to customize it and change the theme so that it has a different look anytime I want it to.

There are many other features that Google offers like the image search (which I use sometimes for web design inspiration or just to see what some image looks like). I never take images from that section of Google because since they are already on the internet on a web page somewhere, they are copywritten to that site’s owner.

If you haven’t used Google for anything besides their classic search feature, you might want to look into the many other areas that this fine company has to offer.

Internet: A global network of millions of computers. It is the fastest growing business marketplace in the world. No one owns the internet and the computers are “connected” by way of phone lines. The internet consists of sub networks. The three most popular sub networks are 1) the world wide web, 2) e-mail, and 3) the Usenet. To use the internet you must have a computer (or TV in the case of web tv), a phone modem (most new computers come with a modem built in), and an internet service provider.

World Wide Web: You can use the internet to find free information or products and services. This is most often done by accessing the World Wide Web (also known as simply the web or www). The web is the most popular part of the internet. This is where you place your website.

Email: This is the part of the internet where people send private electronic messages. It’s fast and free. You can send a message across town or to the other side of the globe. Email is often the way customers place an order with you or request additional information about your products or services.

Usenet: The Usenet is also known as News Groups or User Groups. This is like a giant electronic bulletin board where anyone can post a message and anyone else on the internet can read it. Depending on your “product,” you may want to post information for people to read that may generate interest in your product and get them to visit your website. However, blatant advertising is not permitted or accepted on the Usenet. Certain guidelines must be followed. Each group posts the guidelines for you to follow.

Internet Service Provider: Also known as an ISP, these companies are connected 24 hours a day to the internet and charge a monthly fee to provide internet access to others. Everyone must have an internet service provider. An example of a service provider is America On Line (referred to as AOL).

We recommend you use a national service provider such as Earthlink (Sprint), MCI, or AT&T. Always choose a service provider that provides a local number or you will be charged long distance rates for the time you are on the internet. Except for in remote locations, generally the rate for monthly internet access is $19.95 in the U.S.

Mail Box: When you sign up with your service provider, they will give you a “mail box” that you will use to have your customers communicate with you via the internet. This is where email is sent. Once a message is sent to your email address, it stays in “storage” until you read it. Once read, you discard the message or print a hard copy of it before discarding it. Some service providers have a limit on how much email one account can have. If you believe your business will have a lot of email messages, check with your ISP and ask about their email limitations. You can purchase extra space for your email if needed.

Browser: A browser is software that allows you to view the information on the internet. The two most popular and efficient browsers are Netscape Navigator and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. We recommend you use only one of these two browsers. Usually they are free when you sign up with your service provider. Technology is always changing, so upgrade to the newest version of your browser when it becomes available. Generally, you can upgrade your browser right off the web.

Search Engines: These are sites (or web directories) that allow you to search (via keywords) for any subject. They are free of charge and keep the internet “organized” into subject groups. The most popular search engine is Yahoo. We will register your business with the major search engines to provide more traffic to your website.

Banner Ads: Banners are like billboards, only on the internet. They make your website stand out and offer the viewer the opportunity to go immediately to your website. Though you may have to pay to have a professional banner created, it’s the actual impressions (or how many times your ad is displayed) that makes up the majority of banner advertising costs.

Website: A website is an electronic store. It functions just like a retail store, only customers come to your “web” storefront by way of the internet. Because of the nature of the web, your “electronic store” is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Customers can come to your site from all over the world. Because of these factors, the internet creates a greater market for your product or service.

Home Page: This is the first page of your website and often leads to other pages. The words Home Page and Storefront are often used interchangeably. Your home page is the first impression you leave with your potential customer. It’s imperative your home page loads quickly, is easy to navigate, creates a professional image, and gets the customer to look further into your website.

HTML & Programming Languages: This stands for hypertext markup language. It is a special programming language used to make information available for viewing on the internet.

Website Hosting: Hosting is the act of putting a website on a larger computer system called a server. These servers store the website information for anyone on the internet to view. The cost of the equipment needed to host a website and the required maintenance personnel generally makes hosting your own website cost prohibitive. Depending on the nature of a business, the cost for hosting varies.

Autoresponder: An autoresponder is special programming used to get the email address of customers visiting your website. Generally, some type of free information is offered that relates to your business. If requested by your visitor, the free information is automatically sent to their email address. You’ll receive notice of their request and their email address. This allows you a second chance to market your product by sending them (via email) an additional offer.

Internet Logos & Home Page Graphics: If you do not presently have a logo, or your logo doesn’t look good on the internet, we can help. The key to a good internet logo is the quality it displays on less expensive monitors. Since your customer may be viewing your website on a low quality monitor, you’ll want your logo to look the best possible. At RB Design Studio, we create attractive internet logos that look good on most any quality monitor. Below is a sample logo created by RB Design Studio.