All About Cookies – the Computer Kind

Posted by Denise Griffitts on Oct 18, 2010 in Web Development | 0 comments

“What is a cookie and why do I need to know about them?” As a web developer this is a question that I hear from clients all the time. And if they don’t ask the question, I answer it anyway.

Cookies are a small text file composed of alphanumeric characters, which is created on your computer when your browser accesses a website that uses cookies. The name cookie derives from UNIX objects called magic cookies. These are tokens that are attached to a user or program and change depending on the areas entered by the user or program.

There are two types of computer cookies: temporary and permanent. Temporary cookies, also called session cookies, are stored temporarily in your browser’s memory and are deleted as soon as you end the session by closing the browser. Permanent cookies, also called persistent cookies, are stored permanently on your computer’s hard drive and, if deleted, will be recreated the next time you visit the sites that placed them there.

Both temporary and permanent computer cookies can be used for many helpful purposes. Automatic registration logon, preserving website preferences, and saving items to a shopping cart are all examples of cookies put to good use. But permanent cookies also resulted in unanticipated uses, such as Web profiling.

A terrific resource for all things cookies is All About Cookies.org which is a free resource designed to help marketers and consumers understand cookies and the issues surround the use of cookies.

If you want to create cookies on your website there are many javascript sources that you can use. Just Google the words “Javascript Cookie Script” .

Here are several resources for you:

TechPatterns.com – Javascript Cookie Script

The JavaScript Source - Cookie Scripts

CookieCentral.com

Make Money Helping Local Businesses Start a Blog

Posted by Denise Griffitts on Sep 10, 2010 in Entrepreneurism, Web Development | 0 comments

I read a timely and brilliant article this morning on Rosalind Gardner’s Net Profits Today blog and wanted to share it with all of you who are skilled in WordPress and are looking for additional sources of business.

by Rosalind Gardner

You already know how to install a blog.

You also know which plugins to use to make it functional and how to make it look great with a pretty professional WordPress theme.

You know which pages are must-haves on any blog.

AND you understand the benefits of blogging in terms of getting free traffic, as well as how to use PPC at the local level to reduce advertising costs.

So, why not make money using your knowledge to help businesses in your local area either set up a new blog, or improve an existing web site?

Surely, you’ve come across a few local businesses that could benefit greatly from your blogging knowledge.

I run across awful local business sites all the time.

For example, most of the small resort, motel and private RV park/campground sites I find when doing travel research are just downright ugly. Most of them look like they were designed in 1997 and haven’t been updated since.

Read the rest of the article here: Rosalind Gardner’s Net Profits Today

If you want to brush up on your WordPress skills and be able to increase the professional fees you command take a look at these two programs.

Go For Your Dream WordPress Training. The next live WordPress Website Workshop begins next month, October, 2010. Be sure to register for the case study replays from their last workshop and get on the list to be notified when the new course starts. I work closely with Ben Cope and Kimberly Bohannan on many projects and highly recommendtheir WordPress trainings!

WordPress Mastery. They offer 3 free brief, but powerful videos that will let you find out more about the complete, step-by-step, multi-video training series. This course is perfect for people who are fairly new to WordPress and need to get the basics down pat.

My web development company, Your Office On The Web builds WordPress sites for clients each month. In fact, we may have as many as 8 -11 in production at any given time. Once you are confident that your WordPress skills can be considered “expert” I would love to see your portfolio!

Free Resource – Picnik Online Image Editing

Posted by Denise Griffitts on Jul 19, 2010 in Entrepreneurism, Web Development | 1 comment

Weekly Recommended Resources

Do you need to clean up or manipulate images quickly and easily? Unless you are a whiz in Photoshop or Picasa, reworking images may be something that you don’t even try to tackle on your own.

Picnik is an online image editing tool that provides a variety of textual and visual embellishments such as themed graphics to personalize photographs and even provide scrapbook-like polishes.

You can crop and resize images, sharpen or soften lines, adjust layers for optimal contrast and saturation and implement other everyday polishes.

Users can also learn tips, tricks and discuss finished photos in the forums, find information about tools and features in the topically-organized in-depth FAQ section and even give feedback to the site developers using the contact sub-portal in the Help menu.

While this is a free resource, I do recommend that you go with Picnik Premium. For as little as $2 a month you get more features and content:

• More effects
• Beauty tools
• More collages
• More fonts and stickers
• Advanced editing tools
• Unlimited history
• Unlimited connections
• Priority feedback
• Ad-free and full screen
• Layering and more…

Be sure to come back here and share some of your new images!

We Are Hiring!

Posted by Denise Griffitts on Jun 25, 2010 in Web Development | 0 comments

We are looking for Virtual Assistants or other virtual service providers who are proficient in ClickBank and PayDotCom.com.

If you have worked in one or both of these systems and are confident that your skill sets are proficient to expert, please email me at info @ virtualassistantindustry.com, subject line “Click Bank”.

Please feel free to send this information to someone you know who is expert in these systems.

Thank you!

Denise Griffitts

Quick and Simple HTML Tips

Posted by Denise Griffitts on Apr 28, 2010 in Internet Mastery, Web Development | 0 comments

Making text bold
To make text appear bold, use <b> and </b> around the text.

For example:

Make <b>this bold</b>will look like:

Make this bold

Making text italic
To make text appear italic, use <i> and </i>around the text.

For example:

Make <i>this italic</i>will look like:

Make this italic

Making text underlined
To make text appear underlined (without being an actual link), use <u> and </u>around the text.

For example:

Make <u>this underlined</u>will look like:

Make this underlined

Creating line breaks
There are two basic line breaks in HTML. Use <br> to break to the next line or <p>to skip a line.

For example:

1<br>2<p>3will look like:

1
2

3

Changing the size of text
To change the size of text, use <font size="+1"> to look bigger, or <font size="-1"> to look smaller. End with </font>. You can also change the number value if you want to.

For example:

Make text <font size="+2">bigger</font> or <font size="-2">smaller</font>will look like:

Make text bigger or smaller

Changing the type of font
There are a few different fonts you can use, and the most common are:

Times New Roman: (this is the default for all browsers)Arial or Helvetica: use <font face="arial, helvetica"> and </font>

Verdana: use <font face="verdana"> and </font>

Garamond: use <font face="garamond"> and </font>

For example:

Make <font face="garamond">this font garamond</font>

will look like:

Make this font garamond

Changing the font color
There are many different Web-safe colors that you can use in your HTML. View the HTML Color Codes Chart.

To make text appear in a certain color, use the color codes like this: <font color="#FF0000">.

For example:

Make <font color="#FF0000">this font red</font>will look like:

Make this font red

To set default font colors for the entire page, use color codes in the <body> command. For example, if you want:

font = black

link = blue

‘visited’ link = red

‘while being clicked’ link = pink

use:

<body text="#000000" link="#FFFF00" vlink="#FF0000" alink="#FF00CC">

Including a graphic
To include a graphic in your HTML page, use <img src="URL">.  Be sure to include the entire URL of the graphic, starting with http://.

Including a numbered or bulleted list
To include a list in your HTML page, use <ol> and </ol> at the beginning and end of the list, and use <li>to create the individual lines.

For example:

<ol>
<li>This is line one
<li>This is line two
</ol>will look like:

1. This is line one
2. This is line two

If you want to use a bulleted list instead of a numbered list, use <ul> and </ul> instead of <ol> and </ol>.