Web Hosting Show » design

Modify the HTML Body Tag

Mitch — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 12:32:38 +0000

There are several HTML tags that can act as modifiers to how the web page looks visually.

First, let us re-visit the body tags. The body tags are there to tell the browser what part of the document is going to be visible to the end user when viewing the web page. This is marked up in your HTML code by putting a where your web page’s content begins and a tags where it ends.

How to Modify the Body Tag

So, any time you modify the body tags, you will be changing the way the web site is seen. There are several body tag modifiers you can use.

Change the Web Page’s Background Color

You can add bgcolor=”VALUE” (replacing VALUE with the name of the color or the HEX number) to change the background color for a web page.

Code: (this would make the background all white)

Change the Web Page’s Text Color

You can add text=”VALUE” (replacing VALUE with the name of the color or the HEX number) to change the background color for a web page.

Code: (this would make the text all black)

Change the Web Page’s Link Color

You can add link=”VALUE” (replacing VALUE with the name of the color or the HEX number) to change the color of links on a web page.

Code: (this would make the links all blue)

Change the Web Page’s Visited Link Color

You can add vlink=”VALUE” (replacing VALUE with the name of the color or the HEX number) to change the color of link that have already been visited on a web page.

Code: (this would make the visited links red)

Change the Web Page’s Active Link Color

You can add alink=”VALUE” (replacing VALUE with the name of the color or the HEX number) to change the color of an active link.

Code: (this would make the active link purple)

More Helpful Body Tag Tips

You can use more than one of these at a time. If you wanted to, you could use more than one of these body modifiers at a time. you would just need to remember to put a space in between each body modifier. For example:

This is how you would link more than one together, this would tell the browser to make the background of the web page black and the text on the web page white. There is no limit to the number of these modifiers you can use on the body tag, as long as everything is formatted correctly, the web page should come out the way you want it to.

Only add these modifiers to the opening body tag. It is important to note that you only add these modifiers to the opening tag and not the closing tag .

Where can I find the HTML color or HEX values? You can find these many places. One of the best examples, is on w3school.com’s HTML colors page here:

http://www.w3schools.com/Html/html_colors.asp

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© Mitch Keeler 2011 | Check out my firefox help site and my tech blog too!

Hosting News Facelift

Mitch — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 13:25:09 +0000

It is not often that I highlight other sources of hosting information here, but I do feel like something should be said for the hard work and dedication that has gone into turning The Hosting News website around. For years, the Hosting News was a good source for finding hosting information – but the website interface was badly designed, ugly and hard to navigate through.

For many of us, we remember The Hosting News website looking like this:

However, since the ownership situation has been shifted around and they have headed in a new direction, the layout and design today looks more like this:

Isn’t it amazing what a new layout can do to breath new life into a website project? While I might not be the guru of website style and design, I can point out that example B is a lot better than example A.

So if you haven’t visited The Hosting News lately, go give them a shot. I think you will agree with me that the better designed website has really turned this website around into a resource we can all learn something from.

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© Mitch Keeler 2011 | Check out my firefox help site and my tech blog too!

3 Free Photo Gallery Tools

Mitch — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 10:00:51 +0000

It might be easy to find a free photo gallery script you can get up and running on your website. However, not all scripts are created equal. Sometimes you might want a simple page dedicated to photos, and other times you might need an entire domain dedicated to the idea of showcasing your images. I have searched the Web high and low to bring you the best free image gallery tools for big projects, medium sized projects and lightweight projects.

Here are the three best free image gallery scripts, depending on the job you need them for.

An Advanced Free Image Gallery Script

Zenphoto is a great gallery tool that also comes with some CMS (content management system) options to make it a great tool to use to run your entire website. It doesn’t try to do too much though, when it comes to features. it keeps things simple by just delivering one of the best web media gallery management tools out there. Once installed, the administrator interface is pretty easy to pick up and with the online template system they have – you can create a beautiful website in no time at all. Zenphoto can also handle audio and video too – which makes it an all in one multimedia gallery tool too.

A Middle of the Road Free Image Gallery Script

Minishowcase is another good gallery script that keeps things really simple. With just a little PHP and JavaScript, you can put together an online gallery of photography, artwork or anything else without the need of configuring databases or customizing the code. You can literally get this script up and running in just a few minutes. All you need to do is bring the content to showcase. If you need a gallery tool that is on the simple side (but still looks good) there is no better choice than Minishowcase.

A Very Lightweight Free Image Gallery Script

SmoothGallery is the last album script I have to share with you today. Using mootools, this fantastic JavaScript gallery and slideshow system lets you setup a simple image gallery, slideshow or showcase anywhere on your pre-existing website. While you could not use this tool to run your entire website, it does make for a great way to showcase your work on the website you already have set up. So if you would rather just showcase your images on one section of your page, rather than dedicating an entire website on it – SmoothGallery is a great script to use to get that job done.

There are plenty of more scripts out there, but these three of the best for the occasions you need them. Zenphoto makes for a great tool to base your entire website off of. Minishowcase is a nice lightweight gallery tool that could maybe be put in just one section of your website. Then, last but not least, you have SmoothGallery. It would let you display your images on a single page, just to quickly show them off to your website visitors.

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© Mitch Keeler 2011 | Check out my firefox help site and my tech blog too!

Mitchelaneous Redesigned (Need More Mitch?)

Mitch — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 16:48:56 +0000

Now I do not plug my other projects very often, however I think this is an important enough update to share with the rest of my fans (even my wonderful podcast subscribers)! I just finished up with a brand new redesign of my layout over at Mitchelaneous.com – and I would love your feedback on it.

What is Mitchelaneous? It is my personal blog, with tutorials helping with tech tips, web development and geeky entertainment. Pretty much everything else I want to post about is posted here, that does not fit under the web hosting category of WebHostingShow.com and the Mozilla category or FirefoxFacts.com.

Here are a few of the popular posts to check out too:

As you can see, I go all over the place with this blog. For the most part though, I try to keep the madness focused on helping you get more out of what you want to do, and provide you with the best advice I can on a number of different topics. From wallpaper downloads, to free custom desktop icons, to the best of the video game world. There is something for everybody’s inner-geek to enjoy.

How can you subscribe for free?

You can also get updates via e-mail of new posts, or from your favorite feed reader:

Subscribe in a Reader! | Subscribe to Mitchelaneous by E-mail

You can also just copy and paste this into your feed reader of choice too:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/mitchelaneous

Go check it out at Mitchelaneous.com and let me know what you think!

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© Mitch Keeler 2011 | Check out my firefox help site and my tech blog too!

Take Better Web Site Screenshots

Mitch — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 10:00:12 +0000

Need to take a screen shot of a web site to show off to somebody? By far, one of my favorite programs to take screenshots is WebShot. It is almost the perfect screenshot and web page thumbnail generator utility. How do you use it? You put the web site address you want to get the capture of in the URL text box, and then hit the button labeled, “Start”.

Diving deeper into the download you can also set it up to capture multiple URLs, a specific size image, edit the default browser sizes and more. For most people the free version should get the job done – however if you want even more features you might look into getting the personal or server edition.

To pick it up, or get more help on how to use it – go visit WebSiteScreenshots.com.

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© Mitch Keeler 2011 | Check out my firefox help site and my tech blog too!

Squarespace is an All in One Hosting Package

Mitch — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 09:45:41 +0000

I have heard about Squarespace from a number of different sources the past few weeks, so I thought I would give it a look. For those of you who may be new to the service, it is a fully hosted, completely managed environment for creating and hosting a web site.

The service really does a great job a breaking down the parts of your web site down into bricks. You kind shift and move the bricks around, make make your web site look the way you want. The designs to choose from are great too, and you can customize them to suit your needs.

Along with hosting, and design – they also provide you with real time visitor analytics and stats about all of your pages. That way you can work on marketing yourself better too.

Squarespace Tour Video from Squarespace on Vimeo.

At $8 a month, the service really has a lot going for it, if you are looking for a mix of hosting, plus a quality content management system. Try them out for free, at Squarespace.com.

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© Mitch Keeler 2011 | Check out my firefox help site and my tech blog too!

Easter Break and New Segment Archives

Mitch — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 11:04:07 +0000

Well this most recent Easter break kicked my butt as far as time goes, so afraid my time to do a podcast this week was cut a little short. However I was able to go through the segment archive for all the past segments we have done on this show and organize them a ‘bit more.

This is one complaint out of many I hope to give worked on this next week or so. As you can see on WebHostingShow.com I have things divided up into:

If you have any other suggestions for the podcast or the podcast web site, please feel free to let me know.

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© Mitch Keeler 2011 | Check out my firefox help site and my tech blog too!

10 SEO Tips for Anybody to Use

Mitch — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 10:00:57 +0000

Search engine optimization (otherwise known as SEO) is not as difficult as some may make you think. Honestly, if you use a little common sense, and you learn the basics then you should have no problem at all at making the search engines fall head over heels for you. Here are 10 tips I think anybody could use to make the search engines give you a little more love.

1. Don’t overuse or “spam” the meta keywords or description with content that is not related to what is on your actual page.

2. Contact other webmasters that deliver content much like your own and get them to link back to you. The social aspect of Web popularity can not be forgotten about. Chances are if somebody like something you do – they will link to it to share with others.

3. Make sure your title tag changes depending on the page you are viewing.

4. Make good use of your headlines, and keep them in order. Your main headline should be h1, then go to h2, and then to h3. Also toss a couple (one or two) keywords in your headlines.

5. Use common sense. If you hear about an awesome SEO tip online somewhere, and it sounds kind of fishy – don’t do it. I’ve never met anybody who made it to the top of Google and said it was all thanks to his free 101 SEO dirty tricks handbook he bought of a page that looks like it was designed in 1995.

6. Create a XML sitemap and learn to keep it updated. Many content management systems offer plugins for creating them too. The best one for WordPress is Google XML Sitemaps.

7. Use relevant keywords in the content of your web page, but do not go overboard. If you try to go over the top with the keyword usage – you are often labeled by the search engines as a “keyword stuffer” and that can hurt more than help in the long run.

8. Use Google’s webmaster tools and also submit yourself to Yahoo’s site explorer. Both offer ways to submit and watch your status in those two search engines.

9. Keep tabs on the search for your web site’s name. I often search for “web hosting show” just to keep tabs on who else is showing up for that search phrase.

10. Get use out of title tags for links and anchor text for images. Use them to describe where they go and what they are though.

Be patient, your search engine rankings are not going to change in a day. As long as you are delivering good content that is relevant to your topic of choice the search engines should love you.

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© Mitch Keeler 2011 | Check out my firefox help site and my tech blog too!

All in 1 Free Hosting with Webnode

Mitch — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 10:00:19 +0000

Looking to put up a simple site for free? One new service that caught my attention is Webnode. They promise that you can use your own domain, create an awesome personal page or blog, and that you can do this from anywhere.

In their pitch from the front page, that do make it sound worth looking into deeper for sure:

Webnode brings you a brand new innovative way of creating and editing advanced websites by just using a web browser. The system is very easy to use and is fully interactive. Real-time fast editing as you see it in the browser. By using Drag-and-Drop from the toolbar you can add new content such as polls, forums, articles, catalogues, widgets such as PayPal and much more.

Here are only a few of the many features they provide:

Real Time Editing
Drag and Drop Technology
Gadgets and Widgets
40+ Design Templates
Polls, FAQ’s, RSS, and Webmail

So where is the catch? I have yet to find one yet – but to monitize the service, I can bet they will be adding down the road higher disk space and bandwidth limits for a fee or other services to get you to fork over your cash. If your low on cash and want to build yourself a simple/yet pretty web site, Webnode is worth checking into.

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© Mitch Keeler 2011 | Check out my firefox help site and my tech blog too!

Rules for Any Web Host’s Front Page

Mitch — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 10:00:20 +0000

Web design is a mysterious art that some can do and not many have mastered. When it comes to a Web hosting web site – people expect to see certain things as customers and if your lacking in these areas it could hurt you down the road. Sure fancy flash and really hot pictures of server racks are nice, but they won’t win you any clients.

Keep it Simple

Some web hosts out there like to fit as much content, flashing banners and overdone graphics on the front page as they can fit. This is not the best way to go. Personally, I like it when web hosts keep it simple.

Give me the Basics

I do not need to know every single detail about every single plan. Here is a basic forumula for what I want to see on your front page:

Company Name
Little Information About You
Plans (Disk Space/Bandwidth at Least)
Links to Other Pages for More Information

Finding the right balance between hype and helpful details is hard to do. Once you have done it though, I promise your current and potential clients will really thank you.

Sell Yourself in a Few Words

If you doing something great it shouldn’t take that long to convey the message to others. As much as having paragraph after paragraph about how good plan number one is or how great you are in general might look, keeping things short and sweet will go a long way.

Here are a few examples of web hosts who do follow all my rules:

Hostgator.com | Lunarpages.com | HostMonster.com | StartLogic.com

It might take a while before you find the layout or design that is just right for your particular business. The basics you need to remember though are to make sure you are different from the rest, touch base with everything that you cover and don’t be afraid to try something a little different.

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© Mitch Keeler 2011 | Check out my firefox help site and my tech blog too!