Webmasters' Blog

Often you would find that you are not able to connect to the internet but there is nothing wrong with the system on your ISP’s side(INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER).

Before you start becoming agitated, try using the “PING” (PACKET INTERNET GROPER) method to see if you have a connection established with the internet. Now this is done remotely using the secure shell access or Telnet. Most people are usually not too familiar with these because you only use it when you want to troubleshoot a problem remotely or make use of some functions remotely.

There are so many commands that can be used remotely but for this particular lesson let us concentrate on the PING command.

This is how to use the PING command in windows:

If you are using windows XP then follow these procedures but if you are using Vista then the procedure is the same but with slight differences on where you will find the navigation links to run remote process.

Using XP on your desktop select Start then Run and then type CMD in the command prompt box. A command window with dark background will appear.

In the command window type ping www.anysite.com and press enter You should recieve some response text starting with ;

Reply From IP blah blah blah.

This will appear in up to 4 lines of the text. If you get that response then that means you have a connection to the internet . If you are still experencing a problem not connecting to the internet, i would suggest you shut don your modem/Router, leave it for some 10 mins and the start it up again. Sometimes a slight change from the ISP might  have reset your router configuration and it will need to be started again in other to pick up the new configuration.

Bookmark to:

HOW TO EQUIP A BASIC WEBSITE TO MAKE MONEY AND RUN ITSELF.

These days it’s easy to read different articles concerning the relationship between websites appearance and how it can make money. Actually the proponents of such ideas are right and believe it or not they are right with that school of thought. But another school of thought is of the view that instead of making a website look too flashy or using sophisticated programmings to achieve nothing in a website, a simple website that is focused and well equipped can generate traffic and make money for its owner.

BASIC WEBSITE:

A basic website can comprise of one or many pages of focused contents and other relevant materials that contributes in positive ways to its image as a web page.

It is now a frequent occurrence that when you open some websites these days you are taken through a series of flash images which makes sense and sometimes does not make sense to the viewer. Infact some viewers find too many flash ridden websites too annoying and tend to leave the site immediately. The saying goes that a greater number of the internet public are fast aligning themselves to flash ridden websites these days but also the truth is the fact that people like to be very traditional about things. No matter how they tend to adapt to new innovations , they also usually want to carry along their old traditions.

Most people commend flashy looking websites positively but would rather go straight to a web page that is content rich and sends the message immediately it is opened by the viewer. People and not only people but search engines also still prefer  content rich websites and tend to index and present them to search results easily.

The view of many but not all is that a basic website should have the following characteristics.

• A well focused contents
• Very easy to navigate
• Connected to a database if need be
• Validated HTML/CSS
• Meet accessibility standards

Then other minor issues should be taken care of also (i.e removing dead links etc etc)

EQUIPPING YOUR SIMPLE WEBSITE TO MAKE MONEY.

If you have got a website that meets the standards lined up above then making money with your website is sort of easy. It all depends on what your site offers or what purpose is your site meant for.

Some sites are built to make money directly while some are built to make money indirectly, If you offer direct goods and services to people on your site then your income can be considered as direct and when you sell goods and services or publish advertisements for third parties then your income is indirect because you will be paid by the third parties according to your agreement with them.

Your site can also be equipped to make both direct and indirect money. It’s common these days to see sites that offer direct goods and services and then at the same time offer third party materials on their sites.

No matter what everything points down to the word “TRAFFIC”. The number of genuine visitors that come to your site matters a lot if your site income is direct or indirect. This is the major thing every site owner should work on and continue to work on for as long as the site lives. It’s not a thing to relax about.

Another issue is the fact that when your site income is mostly from third party sources, then it’s better to  know where to place the third party materials on your site. Visitors tend to get annoyed with pages ridden with affiliate links or banners and this alone can make them leave your site without spending time .

Try to place those materials in sections of your site that are visible but also makes the content visible and relevant to each other. Google and other advertising companies does this automatically. Their advertisings displayed on your site somehow matches the contents of your site. Also try as much as possible to have a good and brief review of any third party material you are posting on your web page if your source of income is through third party marketing usually known as “affiliate marketing”.

If you offer direct services, let your best products and services appear clear and well explained to the visitors and the issue of “EXCELLENT CUSTOMER SERVICE” is something to watch out for.

So let us summarise the issue of equiiping a basic website to make money here below

• Make your site simple and straight to point
• Look into the issue of maintaning a good genuine traffic to your site
• Make sure your third party materials meant for income are posted at strategic places on your site but you must be careful not to disturb visitors easy navigation of the site.
• A brief and good review of third party materials posted on your site is very good for sales.
• Be ready to provide a great customer service assistance.

SUMMARY

The issue of making money with a simple website is possible and had always been possible as websites are judged mostly by the messages it sends across and not how flashy they are. A flashy looking site can attract but may not deliver if the sites message is not in order or designed to reach any visitor easily.

Bookmark to:

BEGINNING ONLINE

(This article is focused basically on how to start online as an entrepreneur and the possible tools you should carry with you..)

No matter how we look at the number of people participating online today , the issue remains that we have a lot of people online still looking for directions or looking for where to belong online. There are the normal net browsers and there are also net browsers with the intention of making a living out of the net. There are  lots of people both in the online world and outside the online world wondering about this phenomenon of making money online or being an online enterprenuer. But I would tell those people not to worry as I have made out a little time to answer some little questions that might be disturbing them .

WHERE DO I START ONLINE?

Well for most novices , the most important thing to recognise here is the fact that since the 90s the internet  exploded and have quietly been added as part of our everyday life. Please note that it did not actually destroy other communication models but it actually complimented them in full. It gave them an alternative to expand their services and as such the internet is now seen as a necessity in communication but nonetheless, I still respect the people who have no knowledge of how it works and words like ‘I don’t need it’ are very much associated with them. I believe it’s a free world and every man is entitled to an opinion and why not, these days we  are living in a world where animal pets have their opinion too and must be respected. That shows the high level of human development being achieved today.

If you are a complete novice with computer and the internet, I will suggest you to just take some few hours in a day and get somebody to teach you how it works. If you don’t like it after a week of practicing then I would think you are a rare type. Once again I wish to consider and understand those that have their different reasons of not liking it . You are solely entitled to your own opinion.

Now lets assume you have practiced enough to help your way around the internet very well, it is better to start looking at the area of the net you like most and then try to discover more about it. Why I wrote the above was to call you back to the question “Where do I start online ? ”. Discovering an area of interest on the internet is the key to avoid being unnecessarily confused on how you can set yourself up online as an enterprenuer.

Please note that this article is not portraying the idea that you should confine yourself to one particular area of  interest online but rather it is a  stepping stone to pass you through discipline in an area of interest to you and will prepare you on how to handle other areas of interest.

WHAT IS THIS DISCIPLINARY PERIOD?

This is a period that involves full dedication, patience, serious research, consistency, decisiveness etc. It is also the period that would arm you with the right tools to handle your area of interest. You might be lost and asking why you have to go through all these huddles?, but don’t forget that anything that leads to anything good requires that you go through some bumpy roads unless you played a lottery once and won then you are really the lucky type. This is a period of apprenticeship and would mark your success or failure online as an entreprenuer so it’s better to have the experience first hand. The most important thing about this period of time you should understand is to “FIND YOURSELF A MENTOR”. Find some success stories in your area of interest and don’t worry about what people say, as long as there are some success stories in that field then it’s worth trying.

HOW DO I START MAKING MONEY ONLINE?

One of the biggest problems in this world of making money online is the fact that most online entreprenuers who fail are not really seasoned in their area of expertise and did not really go through this period of apprenticeship . Over and over again I have seen people who jumped into different aspects of making money online without really understanding the bottlenecks. If you are somebody used to forums or other communities online, it’s easy to see people spelling out their anger on not making money as an affiliate marketer or as an ad publisher or not recording any sales in their online stores. Majority of these problems come from the fact that they just jumped into the business model online without arming themselves very well. “If you visit a site that generates money does not mean that if you open that type of site immediately it will start generating money”. Infact, you may be really surprised that most sites you see looking flashy and well designed might not be generating anything compared to a one page of simple html design by an entreprenuer who did his homework very well.

Let us call you back to this line “how do I start making money online?”, it’s almost natural that you become a master of anything you have put in time and energy on. During your disciplinary period, there are usually two things most people do and that’s either quit or see the end of it. If you decided to see the end of it you would notice that there are some simple tricks not known to any novice in that area that you can easily work around your fingers and this can only be known by going through the process.

You must have heard of 16 yr olds that made thousands selling on ebay  etc. Do not be deceived, these little kids have identified their area of interest right from time, and had gone through the huddles earlier also. For some people it comes very easy and before you know it they are already in the game and for some people the huddles takes more longer but the truth is the fact that you must pass through it.

Passing through huddles in your chosen area would shape your way and give you the basic idea you need to guide you through and most of all it will give you the patience which is very vital in your success.

SUMMARY

It’s obvious that most online enterprenuers have jumped into some business models online without adequate research and have failed, rarely succeeded or strugging to keep up. Discovering an area of interest and passing through the disciplinary period would normally open your head up on the best possible ways to survive and manage an area of interest online.

Bookmark to:

Actually HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) is one of the easiest design languages and the foundation of designing on the web, though different websites are designed with different languages , but most of them cannot escape using html to structure or present some part of their sites if not all parts of their sites. The wonderful thing about this language is the fact that it can be integrated with other programming languages or other languages to be integrated into it. In most cases you will find that the latter is usually the case.

The truth about all these is that having a good working knowledge of html is enough to establish you on the web and even give you the ability to be independent of paying people to help you out with web pages etc . Then later, learning other languages like php, javascript are also very essential but thats going to the advanced stage which e will treat in other forthcoming lectures but for now let us look at html and tell you (the novice) how to get up a web page using html. Please pay attention to this very part. It will determine how you will fare with the language if you follow these procedures and gets it correct.

HOW TO START THE DESIGN WITH HTML:

Now simply follow these steps.

Open notepad on your computer screen ( For the novice, please go to START then click RUN , in the little prompt box that will appear, type “notepad” and click “OK” then a notepad should open up for you)

In the notepad type this;

<html>

<body>

<h1> MY NAME IS HTML NOVICE </h1>

</body>

</html>

( i will explain the above soon but just go ahead and follow up the process)

Then go to FILE on your browser menu, choose SAVE AS and then give the file the name “novice.html”, please save this file in your desktop for easy accessibility or in any other folder you think you can easily find it.

Okay now open that saved file and you will see that it reads something like this below. We will come to the explainations of the syntax later and how you can play about more with html. If you did not get the result below then go back and check your syntax to make sure that you have typed the correct syntax.

MY NAME IS HTML NOVICE

Now let us explain your the syntax:

<html> = Every html page starts with this tag

<html>= Every html page closes with this tag

<body> = Every content or body of the page is started with this tag and it comes inside the <html> and </html>

</body>= Every <body> tag ends with a </body>

Please refer to this syntax again

<html>

<body>

<h1> MY NAME IS HTML NOVICE </h1>

</body>

</html>

Alright we are back again. I know you must have tried out the above syntax but lets take you even further than that. In a complete html page you will need to include the basic html tags that will present your web page in a solid format. Now let us see the basic structure of a html page ( Note this is my own structure), an good html coder can build their own html structures the way they want but one thing is very clear, they must begin with a <html><body> and end with a </body></html>. Any other thing that comes inside it will be at the descretion of the coder, let me now show you how i will build a basic html code.

See here below and explainations will also follow up the codes used.

NOTE: Before we move ahead, please note that for you to make a comment in your html page you can use this characters like this <!– Your comment here –> . This particular expression that comes inside the <!– and –> will not be displayed on the browser. You will get to see these in the coming examples.

Bookmark to:

Now this might not have happened to a lot of people but i’m very sure that it must have happened to most people developing sites using CSS and HTML. Okay let us identify the problem first, when you have used images as links to certia urls or any url you would find out that it will appear very well just like you want it in FF but in IE the images would be surronded by borders which makes it look ugly or odd in the page.

To remove these just go back to your CSS file or your CSS syntax and add this;

img

{

border:0;

}

and thats it, your borders IE browser will dissappear.

For further clarifications you can comment .

NOTE: You can also get around these by using the class attribute in CSS, you can create different psuedo classes and assign them to different links.

Bookmark to:

<LOVE OF WEB DESIGNING=”determination” Determination=”skills” Skills=”money”>

LOVE OF WEB DESIGN = You will need to have a passion for it if you want to succeed as a web design professional. There is a lot of patience and challenges involved in web designing .

DETERMINATION = Your passion for the profession will lead to determination , with determination you will be well positioned to face the challenges

SKILLS = Determination means you will train and gather up all the relevant experiences in the web design profession

MONEY = High degree of experience in any professional field in life means you will be highly respected and reccommended. High degree of experience means high pay also.

Bookmark to:

PHP is a server side programming language and runs mostly on all platforms. The server just needs to have a php interpreter installed that can interprete all php scripts installed in it. PHP also interacts with databases like MYSQL. Most servers have MYSQL because its free and open source.

Okay lets take you down the road straight away but before we do that let us talk about the things you will need in order to go through this tutorial very smoothly. I will base this tutorial using a server with a CPANEL platform. I think you will need the following my freinds.

• A php script of your choice depending on the program you want to run .ie forum script, dating site script etc .
• An ftp program in which to upload your files your server and an ftp access to your server.
• A server running on any platform but preferably a Cpanel platform
• A MYSQL database access directly through your server or through the MYSQL site itself.
• A good documentation of the installation process you want to run , this can be found in the READ ME .txt file of the script you want to install or through the script vendor home page .

Alright thats about it, take a cup of tea and lets get down to business:

Now open your folder containing the php script you want to install and take a look at the file structure, after that you can close it or leave it open if you want.

If you already have an FTP (file transfer protocol) program, then you can connect to your server using your ftp program. Please contact me if you do not understand these or search more in our blog database for how to use an ftp tutorial. They are all basically the same procedure but some interface differ and may confuse you.

Lets assume you already know how to use an FTP program, then the next step to take is to quietly log into your server using your ftp and then upload all the files in the php script folder on your computer to the folder you want to install it in your web server. It is either in the “public_html” folder ( /root/) which is the root directory in your server or any other sub folder ( /root/your sub folder/ ) within the root that you would like to install the script.

After you have finished doing that then lets log into your cpanel.

NOW WE ARE INSIDE YOUR CPANEL

Okay the first thing we are going to do is embark on creating a MYSQL database for your new php script. please take note that not all php scripts needs a database but we are assuming that this one is a database driven php script.

In your CPANEL please find the icon that says “MYSQL, mysql databases” and then click on it to create your database for the php script you want to install. In the new window that opened do the following

• Create a database ( that can be any name you like but relate it to your script if you like)
• Create a username and password
• Assign the username and password to the database created
• Assign “ALL PRIVILEDGES” to the user

NOTE: Your database can also be managed through PHPMYADMIN ( we will get to that in the following lessons but let us install your script now. Please remember to write down or take note of your database name , user and password. you will need that for the installation process.

LET US INSTALL

Different php scripts have different installation process, most of the scripts will take you through an installation wizard but some will require you to manually do the installation and that will involve mainly manually creating tables and inserting values into tables created but dont worry about that , you will get to learn how to do that when we treat the MYSQL database section.

Also take note that some php scripts will either come with a folder named “INSTALL” or a single file called “install.php”. If it comes in a folder, you wil usually find the “install.php” file in the “INSTALL” folder. So its either (/root/install.php) or (/root/INSTALL FOLDER/install.php) .

NOTE: Please consult the script documentation for full instructions on how to install as it might differ from this tutorial.

TO GET YOUR SITE UP AND RUNNING LET US DO THESE:

• Find the install.php file and point your mouse to it or simply type (http://www.yoursite.com/install.php or http://www.yoursite.com/INSTALL/install.php) to the browser just as it applies to the file structure in your web server.
• After you have done that usually an installation wizard will appear asking for your database name, username, password.

Note: Please use this format if you are using a CPANEL server platform. when you create your database, user and password in the cpanel, it will usually look like this yourcpanelusername_databasename. Use this format to fil up your info. it goes like this;

DatabaseName = yourcpanelusername_databasename

DatabaseUsername = yourcpanelusername_username

DatabasePassword = your data base password

DatabaseHost = localhost

Once you have filled up all these informations and clicked on install button , it will be checked by the system and a form will appear to fill up your site administration information(informations used to administer your site please remember these)

Follow up all the procedures and then your site should be available to you. it wouldnt take more than 10 mins to do all these if you have a fast computer and have followed all the necessary installation procedures.

We will cover how to install manually in the next tutorial. (COMING SOON)

meanwhile have a nice time and enjoy your new php script. If you need further tutorial or help with your installation please let me know by using our contact information.

Bookmark to: