How Are You Doing?

If you want to improve your attitude on a bad day (as well as the attitude of others),  or if you just want a good conversation starter, here’s a quick and easy thing to do.  Simply come up with an unexpected answer to the question, "How are you?"

As a general rule, people usually respond to that question by saying, "fine" or "I’m OK."  How boring is that? In fact, those type of answers have become so common that the person asking how you are isn’t even listening to your reply.  Let’s shake that up a bit.

Whenever someone asks me how I’m doing, I say something like, "I feel pretty."  Sometimes, I even break out in song about it.  Now, coming from a nearly 300 pound man, that answer gets a reaction.

Other answers I use often are "I’m squishy" (and I say that as I pat my belly).

If I’m not feeling particularly funny at the moment, I simply say, "I’m blessed" or "I’m blessed beyond all possible comprehension."  That usually kick starts a conversation, but it is true.  I am a very blessed individual.  I’m betting you are too.

The trick is to stand out.  Don’t get buried in the "sea of sameness."

Be blessed, y’all.

Tim

A Guarantee Is Only As Good As The Person (Company) Behind it.

I seriously dislike bad customer service.  More than that, I really dislike people who do not stand behind products that they sell – especially when they say in their ads that they do stand behind them. Read more

Review: CoffeeCup Software: HTML Editor

Although I use WordPress for most of my websites these days, there are still times when a simple HTML page works best.  This is especially true if you are a new webmaster and are trying to learn HTML, or if you’re a busy webmaster and don’t want to hassle with remembering all of the tags and syntax.

When it comes to HTML editors, you have lots of choices.  Some are quite expensive and others are actually free.  With the free ones, you usually get what you pay for.  Most of the lower end editors tend to be “buggy” at best.  On the other end of the spectrum, you can get a robust and reliable application with a hefty price tag.  Wouldn’t it be nice if you could get the best of both worlds?  Well, you can.

For several years now, CoffeeCup HTML editor has been my editor of choice.  It’s quick, full-featured and works like a champ.  Seriously, I’ve tried a lot of HTML editors (and I do mean a lot) and only one of them impressed me more than CoffeeCup HTML editor.  That was Adobe Dreamweaver (with a hefty $300+ price tag).  When I did a head-to-head comparison of the two applications, I didn’t find Dreamweavers advantages to be worth the huge price difference.  That’s why I chose to stick with CoffeeCup.

Here are a few things I really like about CoffeeCup HTML Editor:

• It incorporates both a plain text and a WYSIWYG editor.  Using the WYSIWYG editor to do something and then looking at the plain text editor to see how it really was done, is a great way for new webmasters to learn HTML.
• It is very intuitive.  There are lots of “one-click” options to add elements to your website.
• CoffeeCup HTML editor includes tons of included code snippets that you can incorporate into your website quickly and easilly.
• It also includes website templates that you can modify, thus saving you lots of time.
• They offer a free, light version of the software and offer a free trial of the full version.  You get two ways to “try before you buy.”
• Upgrades are included.  Whenever I sign in to my CoffeeCup account, I can see updates to the software that I’ve purchased and I can download them for free.  How cool is that? 
• Their customer service is the best! 

Folks, I’m really quite impressed by this software and I believe that, once you try it, you’ll be impressed too.

Head on over to the CoffeeCup website  to see their HTML editor and full line of excellent web design and management software.

Ipswitch Releases New, More Secure WS_FTP

If you are working on the web, you know how important it is to have good, reliable FTP software.  After all, FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is how your data gets from your PC to your webhost’s server.  Quite frankly, as far as I’m concerned, WS_FTP is the best.  Period.  That’s why I was pleased to see the improvements they’ve made in the newly released version 12.  Here are the upgrades that they mention in their e-mail release:

– Improve productivity by scheduling a post transfer action such as deleting, moving or renaming a file after it has been transferred.
– Complete security with Local OpenPGP file encryption, FIPS 140-2 Validated Cryptography, enhanced SSH and SSL capabilities, and more.
– Improve performance thanks to faster navigation through large directory trees.
– Support for Networked UNC Paths: Ability to access UNC shared drives in your local folder by either IP address or machine name.
– Support for Microsoft IIS and Apache Web Servers: Connect to and transfer files over HTTP/S connections with Microsoft IIS and Apache web servers with full file/folder listings and navigation.
– Support for Microsoft Windows 2008, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Vista

In the past, security wasn’t the huge concern that it is today.  Now, securing your data is vital, even if you’re just uploading to your website.  I’m glad to see that the new version of WS_FTP takes that on.

We’ll be doing a review of this product in the coming weeks.  If it’s as good as all the previous versions I’ve used over the years, I have no doubt it will be great.  Right now, I just wanted to let you loyal WS_FTP users (and prospective users) know that the new version is officially available.

For more information on the new release, click here.

Happy Easter, Everyone.

I just wanted to take a break from business to wish everyone a very safe and happy Easter – or, as we say around my house, “Happy Resurrection Day.”  

We had a lovely day of going to church, having a nice lunch and playing games on the Wii.  It’s always nice to do things as a family. 

Take care and God bless.

Man, I REALLY Love WordPress.

In case you couldn’t tell from this website, I REALLY love WordPress.  It’s easy to setup, easy to use and, as I’ve come to find out, it’s also loved by the search engines.  Over the years, I’ve built tons of website using HTML and I’ve also built many sites using various CMS platforms.  Never had I had the quick indexing that I’m getting with this site now. Read more

The Truth About Traffic Exchanges

Once you have your new website up and running, it’s only natural that you want to get traffic to it.  After all, it’s no fun if you’re the only person who ever sees your site.  If your site is business-related, a lack of traffic can be deadly to your business goals.  With that in mind, it is easy to see why so many people are attracted to “traffic exchanges.”   Sure, the premise looks good.  You look at other people’s websites and, in return, they visit yours.  What could be wrong with that?  Well, actually, there is plenty wrong with that. Read more

Installing WordPress In 5 Minutes Or Less

As astonishing as it may seem, you can actually go from having an empty web hosting account to having a site that is ready to accept content in under ten minutes.  Actually, come to think of it, it’s closer to five.  In this video, I’ll walk you through setting up WordPress (my favorite blog platform)  and updating it to the latest version in just a few minutes. Read more

Spammers Hijack Popular Promotion Technique

Have you ever been to a great website and noticed a link asking you to share the site with a friend?  Odds are that you have.  It is a very popular way of using word-of-mouth advertising for the site.  After all, we’re much more likely to trust the recommendation of a friend than we are to trust hype and ads from strangers.  It’s that friend-to-friend approach that makes this technique so appealing. Read more

Why You Really Need To Know Basic HTML

No doubt the title of this article will shock, or at least confuse some people.  After all, I am very outspoken on my view that we need not “reinvent the wheel” when building a website.  Heck, I even titled another article with that very phrase – “don’t reinvent the wheel.”  Yes, I am also the person who advocates using modified templates if it means getting your site up and looking good in less time and with less hassle.  Those viewpoints still hold true.  Why then, would I tell you that you need to know basic HTML?  Well, the answer is really quite simple.   It’s all about control. 

If you rely totally on someone else to do every little upgrade to your website, you’re at their mercy.  If they’re out of town, or otherwise unavailable, your site updates don’t get done.  This could mean missing an important update or promotional item.  Worse yet, it could mean leaving a potentially embarrassing mistake or outdated information on your site for an extended time.

Even if you are using a CMS or blogging platform, you should still know basic HTML.  It comes in quite handy for adding or editing links and other items not automatically incorporated into your platform.  For example, this site is built using the WordPress platform.  When I wanted to put the welcome box on the front page (that’s the box with my photo in it), I started with a text “widget” (WordPress term) and used some simple HTML commands to add the photo, align it to the left and format the text the way I wanted.  Had I not known about the simple “tags” to set this up the way I wanted, and had I been forced to wait for a web designer to do it for me, I would have been stuck.

Now, how exactly do you go about learning basic HTML?  Well, there are a few ways.  Perhaps the easiest would be to download an HTML editor that offers both a WYSIWYG view as well as a plain text code view.  The one I highly recommend is CoffeeCup’s HTML Editor.  Once you have the editor downloaded, use the WYSIWYG editor to create a simple webpage.  Then, click over to the plain text version to see how it is rendered.  At first, it may look very confusing until you come to realize that HTML is really made up mostly of command tags.  Most commands contain an “open” tag and a “close” tag.  For example, if you want to center some text, the HTML command would be: 

<center>”This text is centered.”</center>

and the result would be:

“This text is centered.”

In the example, <center> is the start tag and tells the HTML browser where to start the command.  The close tag, </center> is basically the same command again with a “/” between the left bracket and the command.  It’s not really that hard at all.

Let’s try another quick example.  This time, we want to put some text in bold type.  To do that, the command would be:

 <b>”This type is in bold.” </b>

and the result would be: “This type is in bold.”  In this example, you could also use the <strong></strong> tags instead of the <b> and </b> tags.  There are reasons why they are different, but that is beyond the scope of this article.  My personal preference is to use the <b> tags.  This is due, at least in part, to the fact that it requires less typing.

If you want to get into it a little further, I highly recommend a great book by Dr. Nicholas Longo (Founder and CEO of CoffeeCup Software).  It’s called “My Website Is Better Than Yours.“  This book may go a little too in-depth for most readers, but you will definitely learn the basics.  When reading it, take the “grocery store” approach.  That is to take what you can use and leave the rest on the shelf.   As of this writing, the e-book version is still available for $19 from the online store section of the CoffeeCup website.

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