Written on 6:27 PM by Unknown
Is your slow computer driving you nuts?
Speed up your computer
and prevent it from crashing,
with no technical knowledge what so ever.
PC boot times that drag, getting stuck at login, programs that crash, web pages that take forever to load up ... the list goes on. It gets so frustrating that you just want to kick your stupid slow machine and vow to never touch computers again! Especially if you've lost valuable data, not to mention wasted time.
I actually broke my computer monitor once. Yup, it was 2 AM and I had just lost an English essay I was writing for class. I had a buggy Windows 98 system that constantly crashed, and though I was saving every couple minutes, when I rebooted after it crashed, the document was completely gone. Forever. I shambled into class a couple hours later with no essay and a sore fist.
My next computer was a gleaming, brand new Windows XP machine. Guess what? After a year, it was slowing to a crawl, and began crashing. Gee, thanks Mr. Gates! By then I had started my own web design business, so my time was extremely valuable. I did this part-time after work. One productive hour a night turned into three frustrating wasted hours, and I found it took twice as long to load up my email than actually reading them! I had to always backup my work to CD, fearing that my system would crash at any moment. I constantly went to bed angry and frustrated, which is certainly NOT a good way to get a good night sleep.
What a nightmare!
I constantly checked online looking for solutions to my slow computer. Forums, newsboards, I tried figuring out why I always seemed to buy computers that sucked.
More hours were spent every night reading little bits of information and trying them out. Some worked, some made things worse. Here's what I found:
* Most websites that offer free information offer only specific advice - "try this, if it doesn't work, try this." My evenings quickly turned into a scavenger hunt, and sometimes the information screwed my computer up even more.
* Other websites say it's the registry. The problem is that it's not ONLY the registry. That's only one specific problem (see the point above). Even worse, I did try a registry cleaner once, and my computer would no longer start. THAT WAS SCARY, and I had to take it to a technican.
* Too much techno jargon - I've come across way too many sites where the support staff ask me to do stuff that makes me go "Huh?" Then I look stupid to them, and their responses are either chiding or abusive. I didn't need that, I just wanted my freakin' computer to work, and I needed it in easy steps!
Because I am a web designer, I have crossed paths with many computer experts. A old computer repair friend's story blew me away when he said that he charged $150 to tune up people's slow computers on site. And it only took him 17 minutes to fix each one!
Before moving to another city, I begged him to teach me his techniques, as I still had constant headaches with my own computer. He agreed, teaching me the step-by-step checklist he uses to fix people's computers. I couldn't believe how easy it was!
With his list, and another two years collecting all the tips and advice I found, I revised, refined and simplified my own techniques to keep my computer in optimum shape.
I have a notoriously bad memory (just ask my wife), so if some computer problem again happened down the road (which it did), all I had to do is go back to all the notes I collected. Viola, problem fixed!
Then one night I got a call from one of my clients complaining about his slow computer. Since I was his web designer, he figured I was the "computer guy" to call. I fished out my notes and took him step by step through the techniques that worked for me, in the exact order that from experience I knew worked best. The phone call lasted twenty minutes. And guess what?
He emailed me the next morning thanking me and offering to buy lunch. His computer was completely error-free and blazing fast, just like new!
Posted in
Slow Computer Emergency Repair Kit.
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Written on 6:10 PM by Unknown
Have you ever felt like your web site design skills were lacking in someway?
Do you feel mystified when you see sites that look stunning and wonder just how they created those amazing roll-over buttons, colorful templates, all while having a nice rank in the major search engines?
Well, you don't have to be in awe anymore!
A new and unique website design training program called "Dreamweaver Exposed" promises to reveal how anyone can learn to make beautiful, highly search engine optimized websites in just hours.
So how exactly does it work?
Well, the product consists of a member's only training area with training videos, links to resources, and helpful scripts, templates, and graphics packs you can download.
The site is divided into 5 major areas and cover topics of Dreamweaver web design that are important for internet marketers.
Area 1: Shows people who are new to Dreamweaver all of the basics of getting aquainted with the software and setting up their site for building.
Review: This area was definitely thorough, and has links to tons of great resources to help the beginner get over the initial learning process. For people who need help with the basics of Dreamweaver, this section is going to be an absolute goldmine and save them hours of time.
On the downside, people who have already used Dreamweaver for months or years may find that they already know a few of these things, and might want to skip over it.
Area 2: Is about building content sites from scratch. This video is really amazing in that over the course of 1 hour, Jesse does a case study of a web site, and builds it into a nice looking, highly optimized web site with dozens of keyword-rich pages.
I really liked this area, because it covered all of the most important topics in creating a profitable web site. It includes how to use Dreamweaver template files, a keyword based navigation system, fancy CSS rollover buttons, and also the use of separate files for the major navigation elements of the site (which makes the site much easier to update in the future).
Also, I found answers to all my questions about HTML tables. Before I saw these tutorials, I used to get very frustrated when I would create a table in Dreamweaver, but when I uploaded it, it looked much different! However, once I got just 2 or 3 tips, I had an 'Aha' moment, and now I finally understand how to make any HTML tables and cells look exactly how I want them to, in all of the major browsers.
In addition, there were plenty of resources for things like testing your site in all the major web browsers, as well as links to places where you can copy and paste in code for CSS buttons.
Area 3: This is for direct-response marketers. Not everyone is a fan of direct-response style sales letters. However, internet copywriters will absolutely love the plethora of tools and techniques they are given in this area.
Jesse has included several thousand professional looking graphic elements to use in sales letters, and also provides instruction on how anyone can use Dreamweaver's built in CSS editor to mimic any style in any sales letter on the internet.
I really felt like this one area would be extremely helpful when creating a powerful direct-response style sales letter to market my products. I'm sure I will refer back to the videos and resources listed in the future.
Area 4: This is a set of resources and explanations that will be useful to all online marketers and web site designers.
Although this page is only a set of links along with notes, I consider it one of the most valuable parts of the site. The list includes amazing resources (many of which are free) that I doubt I would have ever found on my own...let alone have them all compiled together in one place!
Some examples of the resource topics are: Outsourcing, keyword research, web site publicity, backlinks, info product creation, web site monetization programs, CSS resources, email marketing tips, and even various browser plugins you can use to help in your everyday marketing activities. I felt this list was very valuable, and I was happy to see that Jesse is going to add more resources to it as he find them.
Area 5: Bonuses downloads. In this area of the site, members can download many megabytes of useful odds and ends.
Here is just a sampler of what is offered:
Premade sales letter CSS style sheets - Just attach one of these to your sales letter and follow the directions. Random content & Rotating content PHP scripts - Very useful for banner ads or adding quotes to a web site
Send mail PHP script - Allows Dreamweaver users to quickly create feedback forms and have form results sent to any email account.
Other web site graphics: Web page backgrounds, blank banners, and blank logos.
Overall presentation:
I liked how the course provided over 2 hours of video tutorials...They are really easy to follow, and I find it much, much easier to absorb the information than reading long textbooks. In addition, it was useful to have resources links right there underneath the videos so that I could immediately check out and make use of any resources mentioned.
Price:
This isn't the cheapest set of Dreamweaver Tutorials around, but at under 100 bucks for over 120 minutes of video tutorials (not to mention additional resources worth many times more that) I think it is definitely a very fair deal. For online marketers looking to get up to speed and over the learning curve, this course does deliver dramatic results as promised.
Check out the Dreamweaver Exposed site for more information.
Posted in
Unique Dreamweaver Web Design Tutorials
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Written on 6:45 AM by Unknown
How much is traffic worth to your business? And reputation, how much is that worth? How about your search rankings? I'm just going to assume that money is pretty important to you.
Did you know that you can get all of that with a blog? I'm not talking about a spam blog, or a crappy AdSense site. Those things haven't earned more than nickels and dimes in years.
I'm talking about the real, long-term, respected blogs that are driving mounds of cash-in-hand, eager readers.
You probably think that there's no way that you could duplicate the success of those power blogs, right? But suppose you could. Suppose you could tap into the same resources that the pros use and suppose you could quickly take the exact same steps that made other blogs the HUGE successes they are.
Sound too good to be true? I assure you, it's not – provided you have the right knowledge.
Think about it. A blog is the easiest and most powerful way for you earn Google's respect, attract targeted customers, build a community, promote a product, and more.
But creating that blog the RIGHT WAY is the hard part.
It could take you years and can cost you a small fortune to figure out just the right combinations that make some blogs work while others fall flat on their faces.
But instead of knocking yourself out trying to come up with just the right system, you can now have it inside a new package called "Blogging in Action."
I've heard of the author before, and his advice has been the secret resource behind a number of successes over the past few years. And let me tell you, this package delivers. It's filled with the same advice that until recently was only available to those with very fat wallets.
Just listen to what one reader had to say:
"In the last three months I have read Blogging for Dummies and a couple other books on the subject and to be honest with you, all they did was give me a whopping headache; your BLOGGING IN ACTION BIBLE is possibly the DEFINITIVE BOOK ON THE SUBJECT!!!
You will forgive me for referring to your treatise as the B.I.A. Bible, for my intent is not meant to be irreverent, after all, the word bible means book and my intent is to show nothing but respect for a well thought out endeavor.
I believe the word TREATISE is an apt descriptive, for my buddy, Noah Webster tells us that a treatise is, "a formal written account treating a subject systematically and in detail." This is exactly what you have done.
Thanks for the labor of love, for it is obvious this is not some slipshod bit of info garbage."
Charles Towne
Apopka, FL
This package is a steal at the current price, but I've heard that it's going up very soon. Heck, even the freebie that is being offered is pretty solid!
Posted in
Blogging to make money
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