Tag Archives | design

Free WordPress Themeage

Nov/13 in All Posts

Simpblue Theme for WordPressSince I am taking the week off from the podcast (and yes, I’ll be back next week!) I figured I could take a little time to share with you another project of mine. A few weeks back I developed and launched my own free WordPress theme – Simpblue.

You can now take it for a test drive over at WPThemesFree.com so there is no reason for you not to give it a shot and check it out. I also need your help making sure we get a few good votes over there as well. Under “Rate” on the WPThemesFree.com web site, if you like it – make sure you give us a five WordPress “W’s” out of five.

Simpblue is a simple (and blue!) theme free for anybody to use. Only thing I ask is that you keep my designer credit in tact. Other than that, have fun with it – and if you do end up using it in one way, shape or form drop me an e-mail and let me know.

+ Download Simpblue Theme for WordPress! (.zip)

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What Does a Web Host’s Site Need?

Oct/16 in All Posts, Web Hosting Tutorials

I got an e-mail from a Web Hosting Show listener last week who wanted to know if I had any points or tips for web hosts as far as their web site content and layout goes? Looking out there at the market today from web host to web host a lot of the web sites are starting to look the same.

To keep things simple, I thought I’d break this up into two topics. There are the things that web hosts need to do and then you have the things I’d like to see web hosts do as far as their web site layouts go.

Layout Tips Web Hosts Must Do

  • Comparison Between Web Hosting Plans
  • A History of Your Company and Details About Your Server Locations
  • Reviews of Your Web Hosting from Your Clients

Layout Tips Web Hosts Could Do

  • Better Support Pages (Maybe Use a CMS like Joomla or WordPress)
  • Notifications (via RSS) of Recent Changes, Downtime or Upgrades
  • Easy Way to Access Support from the Front Page

All in all hopefully once a web host is done with their web site they can say it stands out from the rest and doesn’t look like “just another template”. Web hosts, if your looking for something different you can do – just try mixing things up a little ‘bit. Look at the competition and don’t do what they are doing. Individuality is an important key to running a web hosting business because without that your just another generic choice to the consumer.

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DivShare: King of Free Hosts? – Episode 127

Oct/15 in All Posts, Web Hosting Podcasts

Web Hosting RadioThere are a thousands different podcasts out there, why should you listen to this one? Well on today’s show we’ll deliver what the web hosts want, and what the hosting clients need. The Web Hosting Show is on the air.

Download the Web Hosting Show, Episode 127!
Running Time: 12 minutes | File Size: 5.28 MB

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Here are just a few topics from this week’s episode of the Web Hosting Show.

  • Moving Day for One of My Projects!
  • Gmail Increases Space for Free and Paid Accounts!
  • What Does Your Web Host’s Web Site Need?
  • Is DivShare the Free Hosting King of Kings?
  • Online Generators for All Your Design Needs!

I’m back from the web hosting support trenches to give you my weekly report on all things web hosting and web development related. Join me in the mess hall and we’ll do the web hosting two step one more time.

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Resource Spotlight – DavidAirey.com

Jun/15 in All Posts, Web Design, Web Hosting Tutorials

David AireyIf you only read the top blogs or resources out there on the Web, you are missing out on so much information and interesting personalities. I always have folks asking me to suggest a few good resources or feeds to subscribe to so they can learn more about the web development world.

This is a new one I just found out about – and I am more than happy to share it with all of you.

DavidAirey.com is the blog of – you guessed it – David Airey, an Edinburgh graphic designer. He caught my eye after linking back to my story about taboo topics in hosting from last week’s episode.

Here are a few of his past articles that I think you’ll find more than interesting:

Have another Web site, blog or resource that I should be keeping my eye on? Let me know about it.

Related Podcast Link: Listen to Episode 110!

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HostingCon, Globat and Hosting Deals – Episode 110

Jun/11 in All Posts, Interviews, Web Hosting Podcasts

It is that time of the year yet again. The biggest event of the year for Web hosts is about to take place, and I have the man behind the magic on today’s show. That’s right, HostingCon 2007 is coming soon and I’ll let you know why you should be there and what it is all about. The Web Hosting Show is now on the air.

Download the Web Hosting Show, Episode 110!
Running Time: 26 minutes | File Size: 11.6 MB

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Here are just a few topics that we discussed on this week’s episode of the Web Hosting Show.

  • George Roberts Interview on HostingCon 2007
  • A New Digg Clone for Hosting Deals
  • New Segment – Social Review of Globat Web Hosting
  • Web Development Resource Review – DavidAirey.com
  • My Thoughts on Hosting Reviews and This Podcast

Do we have any web developers in the house? How about web hosts? web hosting customers? If you have raised your hand at least once in the last five second I want you to stick around because this podcast is just for you.

Now for the rest of you – you might want to hang out for a while as well, because each and every week on this show I do my best to help make you into one (or make you a better one) of those three selections as well.

Link of the Week: Build Your Own Server!

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7 Ad Design Tips and Tricks

May/17 in All Posts, Commentary, Web Hosting Tutorials

Running a successful ad campaign isn’t an easy thing to do. You have to do a lot of experimenting and a lot of trial and error before you find something that works best for you. Both Web hosts and any other person on the Web today can run an advertisement so here are my top 7 ad design tips and tricks.

Seven Ad Design Tips to Learn From and Try Out

1. Decide if you want to keep it serious or make it a little zany. Serious ads hold a lot of respect, but funny or creative ads might lead to more clicks.

2. If your not a well known name inside of the business that you are advertising to, include your domain name on your ad somewhere so at least if the people don’t click on your ad they now have that domain in the back of their head.

3. Try something different. Most Web hosting ads have a picture with a server on it and the world “unlimited” plastered all over it. You could go down that route, but try something new as well.

4. Experiment with four or five different ads and see how they do. You might even want to try more than that if you have the cash to do so. This way you can see which one works best.

5. Talk to and target your audience. If you are running and ad on a Web development forum for a Web hosting company, you could focus the user on the fact that after they learn the basics, they can come to you for the hosting. Now the only hard part is to figure out a way to put that into a 160 x 600 ad space.

6. Put up some text link ads as well and try them out. Graphical ads are highly ignored these days because people are used to them and tune them out on Web pages. Text link ads give you yet another alternative and space to try to capture somebody’s attention.

7. Don’t ask me to punch a monkey, midget, baby, Paris Hilton or George Bush.

Related Podcast Link: Listen to Episode 107!

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The Best in Server Monitoring – Episode 105

Apr/30 in All Posts, Interviews, Web Hosting Podcasts

Server UptimeWhen it comes to watching your server, who do you trust? I’ve got the founder of the Wormly uptime monitoring service on today’s show to talk about it.

Also tune in for some Web development help, a Firefox extension that will knock your socks off and the regular ol’ Web Hosting Show antics. The Web Hosting Show, episode 105 is on the air.

Download the Web Hosting Show, Episode 105!
Running Time: 15 minutes | File Size: 6.83 MB

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Here are just a few topics that we discussed on this week’s episode of the Web Hosting Show.

  • An Interview with Julien Szemere of Wormly.com!
  • Five Web Development Tools of the Trade!
  • Lori – a Firefox Extension for Hosting Gurus!
  • A Link to Resize your Web Site to Any Size at All!
  • Wild and Wacky Web Hosting Edu-tainment!

Always an innovator and never a duplicator the Web Hosting Show is back on the air again and I am happy to hear you have joined us yet again for another trip down the confusing crooked road we call the Web hosting industry. I can’t promise to make it all work for you – but week after week, I try my best job at trying to explain it, one overly hyped feature at a time.

Link of the Week: Ping! Zine Magazine, Movie Makers?

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Watching Referrals and Changing Content

Apr/26 in All Posts, Web Hosting Tutorials, Web Hosting Tutorials

Server StatsWhen you are slaving away at your Web site, sometimes it is hard to figure out which section of your Web site is the most popular and which bring you in the most hits.

Now actual help on content writing is something I am not going to cover here – that is a sweet science that will have to be saved for another day.

What I want to talk to you about is learning how to watch where your links are coming from and what’s popular to decide on which direction your Web site should go in the future.

For an example, lets say you are running a blog and you write about a whole bunch of tech related material. Now after watching your Web site stats for a while you start to notice that your articles you wrote about Google Reader are really starting to pick up in popularity. It is bringing in a lot of people via the search engines and the blogosphere just loves that post to death.

What would you do? Now I wouldn’t stop writing about other things and focus on creating a Google Reader blog by itself. What that does tell you though is that there is a demand for that kind of post. You might experiment and write a couple of more, maybe one a week to see if you can keep getting those folks interested in that one topic coming back for more.

Most Web site statistics packages will let you know which Web pages or posts are the most popular. Learn to read that information, take into consideration how long it is popular and decide if you should post more or less about that topic in the future.

There is no basic ten step program to success here – so if that is what you are looking for you’ll never get it. You have to learn to watch trends and what your visitors want and enjoy if you want to becoming a success Online. You don’t give people what they want, they will go elsewhere to get it.

Related Podcast Link: Listen to Episode 104!

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Classic HTML vs CSS – Who Wins?

Apr/05 in All Posts, Web Design, Web Hosting Tutorials

When it comes to Web design, there is one battle that seems to have gone on for ages. Which is better, using tables and classic code in your HTML code to design things or use cascading style sheets (otherwise known as CSS)?

Some people can get really fanatical when it comes to this topic but I am going to call it right down the middle and let you know why both can be good for you.

Why Should You Design With Tables and Classic Code in Mind?

Many people that got started coding Web pages when the Web was still young learned to do it with tables. For that reason alone, some people don’t want to change because designing with tables is what they know. Once you know the table basics, it is pretty easy to jot down some HTML and make a pretty basic layout.

The problem is that can be very limiting when you want to do certain things that tables just can not do. When you want things in an exact spot or you want to change around some font sizes or colors. Then we get in a little ‘bit of trouble.

Why Should You Design With CSS in Mind?

There is no secret that CSS does have its advantages. For one, it makes changing between layouts a breeze. All you need to do is edit one external CSS file, and you can go from having a blue background to a red one without touching any other file on your server.

You have much more control as well over the layout. Just change a few lines here or there and you have your navigation bar move from the left to the right.

Who Wins This Battle of Designing Ways?

I might make a few people mad, but in my mind CSS wins hands down. It allows you to write much cleaner looking code for your Web sites and is just more efficient in the long run. For those of you scared to make the transition over you can mix some old school elements with CSS as well.

I have several Web sites that have a basic table backbone and then everything else is designed with CSS. Which side of the fence are you on? If you have an argument for or against either side – leave it in the comments because I’d love to hear it.

Related Podcast Link: Listen to Episode 101!

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New Year, New Theme

Feb/11 in All Posts

Well with all of this talk about the Web Hosting Show about to begin it’s third year of bringing audio content to the Web hosting industry – I figured it was about time to give the Web Hosting Show’s Web site a new look and theme. Yes, we are saying goodbye to year two and hello to year three with an entire new design on WebHostingShow.com.

If you still see a few new things creeping up, don’t mind me – I am just putting the finishing touches on the layout. I do have to say though that this one is so far my favorite of all the “looks” the Web Hosting Show has had. I guess you could say this might be the replacement for the podcast this week since I am a little short on time and will have a big busy week next week. (Got to go to jury duty Monday morning)

New WebHostingShow.com

So let me know what you think, and if there is anything you would like to see added – please be my guest and suggest. This Web site is as much yours as it is mine, so if you want to see something here please let me know. Opinions, suggestions, ideas and complaints are always welcome.

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