Webmaster Tips – Webmaster Tips

Seven Joomla Extensions you must have

May 18, 2023March 22, 2021 by Webmaster Tips

1. JCE:

JCE is another popular extension of Joomla. JCE is a free content editor that provides the web designers with a set of WYSIWYG editing tools. The JCE is free, extendable and can also be customized according to the requirement of the designer. It makes writing articles for Joomla web design and related things a tad bit easier.

2. Xmap:

Xmap is based on the hugely popular Joomap extension. It allows you to create a map of the site you are designing based on the structure of your menus. It also fixes several bugs that had been reported by many Joomap users in the past.

3. JoomlaXplorer:

JoomlaXplorer is the File and FTP manager. It allows you to edit, copy, delete, rename and archive files directly on the server. Using the JoomlaXplorer is easy and that is probably the reason why it is so popular with web developer these days.

Essential Business Tips for Graphic Designers

May 18, 2023December 12, 2020 by Webmaster Tips

Keep Portfolios Current

Graphic design changes according to trends over time just like any other industry. It is important to keep a design portfolio current. This means adding new work to the portfolio and removing redundant or dated work. New portfolio pieces should be created that address the most current trends. Detecting these emerging trends involves staying engaged with clients and the industry. A current and changing portfolio can draw in new business while also bringing back older clients.

Incorporate New Tools and Techniques

New technology affects graphic design in many different ways. Graphic designers should always strive to incorporate the newest tools and techniques when performing work. New software tools can provide unique effects that make work distinctive. They can also increase efficiency by making composition, layout and publication easier. Incorporating new tools and techniques will keep the business prepared for the demands of the future.

Get As Much Exposure as Possible

Graphic designers must get as much exposure as possible through advertising and marketing in order to attract work consistently. This means getting the name of the designer and some of the portfolio into many different websites and publications. Even small freelance job websites or local venues can help to generate business over time. Additionally, designers should take part in events and competitions whenever possible to increase the profile of the business. Marketing efforts should include both online and offline print strategies. The amount of exposure a graphic designer gets will directly affect the number of clients and leads generated each year.

Best Open Source E-Commerce Shopping Carts

April 16, 2024July 17, 2020 by Webmaster Tips

It may be that you have thought about using any particular software as the basis for your complete e-commerce website and you are not even considering changing it by near future. Thus, it is extremely important and significant that you have enough idea about which one is the best for you as you will not be able to change it later.

Following are some of the best open-sourced free shopping carts that are available and easily accessible over the Internet. You should be checking them out, testing them, and if the functionality they offer suits you then you can just initiate your business right away.

OsCommerce:

This is an Online Merchant open source for shopping online which is licensed under GNU General Public License and also for free. It simply holds a rich and well-to-do set of features that are the best while you are shopping online and enables the owners to properly set it up, run and then maintain their online stores with inputting minimum efforts that require no fees, costs or any other sort of limitations. This is supported by SQL/ PHP servers.

Visit OsCommerce: http://www.oscommerce.com/solutions/oscommerce

Zen Cart:

Tthis is a true art. It supports MySQL and PHP. This is an open source shopping cart application that is user-friendly and moreover free to use. Like-minded consultants, designers, programmers, developed this design and shop owners who thought that web designing for e-commerce should be done in a different manner than usual.

SEO Tools – Get the Facts on How to Get Started

May 18, 2023June 13, 2020 by Webmaster Tips

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a process a certain web master or administrator would want his/her site to undergo in order to increase the site’s ranking on various search engines. Website ranking is very important since the higher your website is ranked, the more frequent it will get visited. An indication for a high-ranked site is every time you search for a certain keyword phrase (for instance, the keyword is “casinos”), the results found in the first page are the one that comes from the web page of that particular site.

But optimizing a web site does not seem as easy as it sounds. In fact, it is a very long process and does not have a very good success rate when done for a short time. Aside from being knowledgeable about SEO Techniques, you must also be adept in using various SEO Tools.

Below are common SEO Tools being utilized during Search Engine Optimization:

1. Personal Computer or Laptop
It all starts here. No one is capable of doing computer-related stuff without owning a computer or at least have access to using it on a regular basis. It is like trying to watch a DVD without a DVD player. It’s as simple as that.

2. A Web Site to Optimize
You can’t get started either if you do not have a target website. This will serve as the baseline to the succeeding things you will be doing on the project. In other words, it dictates everything.

Website Performance and Speed Checking Tools

May 18, 2023May 18, 2020 by Webmaster Tips

In other words, if your website is extremely slow to load, then you will be losing many visitors. Having Visitors are useful in grabbing traffic, and if you have less traffic, it will have a great impact on your reputation, and you will be unable to generate the potential revenue.

Therefore, the slow-loading effect should not be ignored at all. You should know about what your website is built up with instead of jumping into the web coding and then trying on your own to speed up things; this is because it just cannot be done without knowing about the issues that are causing your website to load slowly.

Following are some of the useful and significant web tools and services that would be extremely helpful in diagnosing and analysing your website. Some of the prominent web services are:

Pingdom:

This is useful in testing your website object’s loading time, such as iframes, CSS, Javascript, images, HTML, and others. You can easily analyze how speedily each of these elements are loading and you can work out for those which have slow loading. A report will be generated telling about the time website takes to load, each elements loading time, the number of elements and their sizes.

Visit Pingdom: http://tools.pingdom.com/

GTmetrix:

This is an extremely useful service that provides with your significant suggestions about what you should be improving on your website. You can use it with all the browsers.

Make online forms with Jotform

May 18, 2023April 29, 2020 by Webmaster Tips

After making a form, you can integrate it into your website and collect submissions from your users for free. You have two choices to receive form submissions: receive them instantly by email, or you can log into your JotForm account and view form submissions.

JotForm also integrates with PayPal, Google Checkout, WorldPay, 2CheckOut, ClickBank and OneBip payment gateways, so you can even collect payments from your website visitors and customers.

JotForm can check if the form is submitted by a real browser or bot. They also support CAPTCHA verification on the forms you make.

If you open free account, you can make unlimited forms, run reports in Email, Excel, CSV or Web, get 100 form submissions per month, make 3 secure SSL forms per month, receive 3 payments per month and get online forum support.

Webmaster Tools

May 18, 2023February 2, 2020 by Webmaster Tips

Online CSS optimizer tool

When you decide to optimize your CSS file, you can choose “Optimize CSS via URI” (online file), “Optimize CSS via File Upload” (CSS from your computer) or “Optimize CSS via Direct Input” (by copy/paste file into an online form). You can also choose if you want a CSS optimizer to remove line breaks in your file or not.

Firebug-webmasters a must tool

With a click on an element, you will see the CSS source, and you can edit and preview it. Very useful is that Firebug gives you info on what line is that particular CSS element. Imagine working with more than 1.000 lines of CSS code. This can save lots of time searching for mistakes. Firebug also includes a powerful JavaScript debugger. It lets you pause execution at any time and have a look at the code.

Seomoz SEO tools collection

TermExtractor analyzes the content of a given page and extracts the terms that seem to be targeted at search engines. CrawlTest discovers the problems search engine bots run into while crawling your website. The HTTP response codes your page return, cache dates, title tags and much more. GeoTarget determines how well a site is targeted to region-specific search engines.

Icons

November 16, 2021January 23, 2020 by Webmaster Tips

Icon Factory – thousands of free icons

You’ll find packs named “Somatic Rebirth Extras”, “Hello Kitty”, “Star Trek”, “WALL•E + EVE”, “Inauguration Day pack”, “The Nightmare Before Christmas”, “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” and many other interesting packs. Icon packs are free only for personal, desktop use.

For commercial works, development projects and websites Iconfactory have royalty-free, stock icon collections in bitmap and scalable vector formats. Website have one more interesting feature for visitors – Preference Settings.

That page allows visitors to configure viewing Iconfactory with their own settings – List Sorting, Preview Size, Page Length. Each setting is stored in a cookie that’s maintained by browser.

Visit Iconfactory.com

Free Icons Web – over 15.000 free icons

Navigation, Icons, Folder, Network, People, Objects, Database, Document, Character icons, Computer, Button Icons and Gif Animation Icons).

5 Joomla Language Extensions

May 18, 2023December 22, 2019 by Webmaster Tips

Joom!Fish:

The Joom!Fish is a language extension module that allows you to exert total control over the translation of the Website’s Joomla content. The Web Developer can translate any content to and from any language with the free extension available and with Joom! Fish 2.1, the Web developer, can also exercise control over third-party extensions.

GTranslate: URL:

The GTranslate module is a must-have for all web developers with its extensive list of languages to translate into. With over fifty-eight languages, it has a reach to over 98% of the internet users. The GTranlate has various versions compatible with all versions of Joomla, like Joomla 1.5 and Joomla 1.7and it makes the content of the website known worldwide with a large language base. The GTranslate uses Google Power to translate and then hides tabs and suggestions over foreign words that prove a hindrance to many users.

Translations manager:

The Translations Manager is compatible only with Joomla 1.5, but despite this limitation, it is a powerful extension every Web Developer must be aware of. Once the Translations Manager is downloaded to your website, it manages all language-related content. The Translations Manager will not translate the language but checks the translations for correct usage and proper grammar and makes it an easy and must-have tool for websites.

30 Beautiful Holiday Desktop Wallpapers

May 18, 2023November 15, 2019 by Webmaster Tips

The 2013 Christmas and New Year’s holiday season is quickly approaching us and will be here before you know it. For many people, it’s their favourite time of year, filled with lots of festivities and quality time spent with friends and family. If you’re someone who loves holiday cheer and decorations, you’re in luck as there are many free wonderful holiday graphics and wallpapers on the web.

To get you started, we’ve compiled a list of 30 beautiful holiday desktop wallpapers that will not only help to get you into the holiday spirit but will also brighten up your computer desktop.

Merry Christmas Bear

This holiday bear is adorned by a holiday wreath with pine cones and flowers.

Merry Christmas Snowman

You can’t help but think of Frosty the Snowman when looking at this wallpaper, although it looks a little mischievous.

Merry Christmas Ornament

A simple Christmas ornament stocking with a tiny little snowman.

5 Simple and Impressive Content Management Systems For Web Designers

April 21, 2023September 13, 2019 by Webmaster Tips

PageLime

With PageLime, you can create multiple sites and assign different users and permissions to each. Your content is edited using a real-time live preview, so you can see updates to your site right away. It also stores versions of your site in case you want to revert back to an older rendition. It also has integrated SEO fields so that you can edit your metadata right from within the editor. Other features include photo editing and resizing, saving pages as templates, and the ability to brand your site with your logo and custom colours.

Surreal CMS

Surreal CMS lets you manage multiple websites with its customizable rich-text editor or connect your already-made websites (via FTP) to edit from within their interface. There are SEO fields that let you edit the page title, description, and keywords, and you can also integrate with Google Analytics in order to track your traffic and views. It also keeps a page history so that you can remove individual revisions if needed. Managing your files and folders is easy with their File Manager; plus, you can edit and resize images using their Image Editor. An impressive feature is the built-in Tidy tool that lets you validate your markup and fix any issues found.

CushyCMS

CushyCMS lets you have unlimited sites, pages, and editors. You won’t need to know any advanced coding or programming – just basic HTML only. It’s extremely customizable with a lot of different possibilities. It offers many branding features, such as a custom logo, custom domain, custom colours, built-in schemes, and custom welcome emails. It also includes a customizable WYSIWYG editor and the ability to add your own custom styles and classes.

The Top 8 Color Palette Sources for Web Designers

May 18, 2023June 2, 2019 by Webmaster Tips

Luckily, there are quite a few sources for finding beautiful colour palettes or even creating your own using various methods like 3D, blending, uploading images, randomizing and more. So let’s take a look at 8 of the top colour palette sources for web designers and see how each one can inspire you to create brilliant, vibrant designs.

ColoRotate

ColoRotate is a beautifully designed site that lets you browse colour palettes and create your own in 3D. You can spin and tilt the diamond to get different views and create palettes with up to 16 colours each. They also offer a Photoshop plugin that lets you edit colours within a 3D widget and share your palettes online.

COLOURlovers

COLOURlovers is a personal favourite because it’s not just a source for colour palettes and patterns; it’s also a great community for designers and other colour lovers. You can browse and create your own colours, palettes, palette templates, and patterns. They also offer several tools to help you build colour palettes, colour schemes, Twitter themes, and patterns.

ColorSchemer

ColorSchemer has a huge collection of colour schemes for download. You can also connect with others in the colour forums. If you want to create your own colour palettes and access over a million pre-made colour schemes, you can download ColorSchemer Studio 2 on your PC or Mac for $49.99. They also have an iPhone/iPod Touch app, Mac dashboard widget and Windows colour picker desktop tool.

Image manipulation tools – Alternatives

May 18, 2023March 22, 2019 by Webmaster Tips

Photobie
(http://www.photobie.com/):
is a very user-friendly tool for both new bees and also professionals for image editing. This software is absolutely free to use, and you don’t have to pay for anything, even if you have to upgrade.

Photo! Editor
(http://pho.to/editor/): This software comes up with a wide variety of image editing features. If you have a digital camera and you frequently correct the photos you take, this software is an ultimate need for those as it provides great convenience. Like many other image editing tools, you can use the red eye removal features, but the differentiating thing in this software is that you can add different kinds of effects or even funny caricatures. Also, you can enhance the quality of the image by minimizing the blur feature so that you can make a portrait for your home if you want to.

Photoscape
(http://www.photoscape.org/ps/main/index.php): This software is one of the most widely use applications for image editing. The interface is very user-friendly, and there are pre-defined effects that you can use to resize images, add brightness or even apply different filters to the software. Also, Photoscape allows you to current images like colour adjustment or light correction so that you can get the optimized image you want.

Smartly Designed Free Fonts For Your Design Needs

April 8, 2023November 29, 2018 by Webmaster Tips

Every last detail of our design has an impact on the user. Fonts, however, play a crucial role in this matter. The fonts we use may raise our designs to a whole new level or drop them to negative zero. Hence, we need to choose the fonts for our designs with utmost care. Paying for high-quality and crisp fonts may not always be an option.

For this reason, many generous designers have designed fonts that not only look sleek and professional but also do not cost us a single penny. This is not the case for only crisp, smooth fonts. There are fonts for every occasion and event. Not only do they decrease the cost of the design, they also enhance its look.

Presented below are a few of the best fonts that are available for free on the web for everyone’s usage:

1. Streetwear:

2. Helsinki:

3. Sant Joan Despi:

4. Mink:

5. Rambla Alt STD:

Elegant & Responsive Portfolios for your Inspiration

May 18, 2023October 9, 2018 by Webmaster Tips

Responsive, minimalistic and flat designs reign supreme. Straight lines, fewer elements, distinct colour combinations and unique content should be the focus while designing these kinds of sites.

Leading these designs are simple colour palettes and typography. Displayed below are some of the best portfolios that were launched recently. They are simple. They are responsive. They inspire.

1. GlossRey:

2. Thomas Ciszewski:

3. We are the Swan:

4. Guy Moorehouse:

5. Mike Kus: