Building a website used to take a lot of effort and technical skills. Now, even a computer newbie can set up a webpage easily. Below are some useful resources for getting started.
----- Explanations -----
- The Basics of a Website
- What is a domain vs. a subdomain
----- Useful Services -----
Disclaimer: I do not receive any commission or revenue by introducing these services.
- Domain Names: Dynadot
Most computer newbies make the mistake of buying a domain name through their web host. Not only will it cost much more, but the web host may also hold the domain name "hostage", making it difficult to transfer to another hosting company.
Wiser users use an independent domain name reseller. Dynadot provides domain names at only US$8.99 (SGD$13) per year. If you buy a .info domain name, you can pay even lesser. (But be aware that .info names are associated with spammers because they are so cheap that the crooks often buy them in bulk.)
- Email & Simple Web Hosting - Google Apps
If you wish to have 100 free email accounts with 7GB of storage each, superb spam protection, free webpages etc, check out Google Apps. [Unless you are very rich or running an organization with 10 or more staff, the free edition is good enough.] Likewise, there is no need to pay for ineffective spam protection or stingy email accounts from your ISP.
- Blogging Service: Blogger
If you do not want to go through the trouble of designing and maintaining a website just to post some simple text or pictures, you can use a blogging service.
- Discussion Groups (Google Groups)
You can also start your own discussion groups and newsletters without any computer programming knowledge.
- Hosting Videos - Google Videos
You can use Google Videos to host your video files. Unlike its popular cousin YouTube, you can post video files longer than 15 minutes and retain their copyrights.
- Hosting Large Files - MediaFire
MediaFire hosts files as large as 100MB for free. Registration is optional. You can embed the files on your website as if you are hosting it.
- Free Web Host
If you just want a no-frills free web host, try out 0fees.net. It is pretty good and totally ad-free! It is perfect for newbies to get a taste of what it is like to run a website.
If you are still designing your website, it is best to just register the domain name (to prevent it from being taken away) but not subscribe to any paid web hosting plans until it is almost completed. In this way, you will save much money. One of my friends subscribed to a year's web hosting plan without thinking and ended up never even touching it at all.
- Reliable Web Host
I was using PolurNet Communications as my web host. They were rather good until one of their servers was hacked. I have switched to Vriends Hosting (which has a 100% uptime guarantee) with 0fees.net as my backup server.
If you are just building a new, simple website, the cheapest plan is usually good enough. One of my established websites (which has over 12000 visitors a month) does very fine with that plan.
----- Internet Marketing -----
- What is Internet Marketing?
If you do not know how to do marketing on the Internet, read this first.
- Advertising
You can earn money from putting advertisements on your website, or start your own advertisement campaign.
- Google Zeitgeist
This is a good starting place to know what people are interested in, so that you can make advertisements, websites and blogs to take advantage of the market trend.
- Google Trends
If you want to know what to call your website, product or service, you can try this free service from Google. You can input a few possible names and pick the most popular terms.
Showing posts with label useful stuff. Show all posts
Showing posts with label useful stuff. Show all posts
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Compress PowerPoint files (by up to 90%)
Huge PowerPoint files are often a nightmare to send by email. Fortunately, I know a few ways to reduce their size to manageable limits. [Mac users click here]
1) Use "Insert Picture"
Go to Insert > Picture > From File and select the picture you want to add. Never copy and paste the picture from elsewhere. This will cut as much as 90% off the file size.
2) Use JPEG format instead of BMP
If you encounter a BMP picture file that you need to insert into your presentation, go to Start > Programs > Accessories > Paint. Open the file in question, and select "save as". Click on the "save as type" and select JPEG. This should greatly reduce the file size and result in a smaller PowerPoint file.
3) Compress Pictures
Go to File > Save As > Tools > Compress Pictures, tick "compress pictures" and "delete cropped areas of pictures".
Unless you intend to make high resolution copies of the document, go to "Change Resolution" and select "Web / Screen".
Press OK and save the document. This has a huge effect on the file size if you are using very high resolution photos or illustrations.
4) Turn off "Fast Save"
Under Tools > Options > Save > Save Options, untick "Allow fast saves".
5) Use compressed folders (a.k.a ZIP files)
Right click on the PowerPoint file and select "Send To" > "Compressed (zipped) Folder".
I have seen a 1 megabyte Word document shrink by 70% of its size using this simple tip. This difference is very significant to the around 20% to 30% of the people still using dial-up access.
6) Remove preview picture
Under File > Properties > Summary, untick "Save Preview Picture". This saves a small amount of space.
6) Save in the latest PowerPoint format
If your PowerPoint file is made from an old computer, you can open it up and then save it as "Presentation (*.ppt)" format. This should help reduce the file size significantly when used in conjunction with the tips above.
1) Use "Insert Picture"
Go to Insert > Picture > From File and select the picture you want to add. Never copy and paste the picture from elsewhere. This will cut as much as 90% off the file size.
2) Use JPEG format instead of BMP
If you encounter a BMP picture file that you need to insert into your presentation, go to Start > Programs > Accessories > Paint. Open the file in question, and select "save as". Click on the "save as type" and select JPEG. This should greatly reduce the file size and result in a smaller PowerPoint file.
3) Compress Pictures
Go to File > Save As > Tools > Compress Pictures, tick "compress pictures" and "delete cropped areas of pictures".
Unless you intend to make high resolution copies of the document, go to "Change Resolution" and select "Web / Screen".
Press OK and save the document. This has a huge effect on the file size if you are using very high resolution photos or illustrations.
4) Turn off "Fast Save"
Under Tools > Options > Save > Save Options, untick "Allow fast saves".
5) Use compressed folders (a.k.a ZIP files)
Right click on the PowerPoint file and select "Send To" > "Compressed (zipped) Folder".
I have seen a 1 megabyte Word document shrink by 70% of its size using this simple tip. This difference is very significant to the around 20% to 30% of the people still using dial-up access.
6) Remove preview picture
Under File > Properties > Summary, untick "Save Preview Picture". This saves a small amount of space.
6) Save in the latest PowerPoint format
If your PowerPoint file is made from an old computer, you can open it up and then save it as "Presentation (*.ppt)" format. This should help reduce the file size significantly when used in conjunction with the tips above.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Compress Word Files (by up to 70%)
If you are going to send many large Word files by email, I have some tips to share with you to cut down on their file size.
1) Use "Insert Picture"
Go to Insert > Picture > From File and select the picture you want to add. Never copy and paste the picture from elsewhere. This will cut as much as 90% off the file size.
2) Use JPEG format instead of BMP
If you encounter a BMP picture file that you need to insert into your presentation, go to Start > Programs > Accessories > Paint. Open the file in question, and select "save as". Click on the "save as type" and select JPEG. This should greatly reduce the file size and result in a smaller PowerPoint file.
3) Compress Pictures
Go to File > Save As > Tools > Compress Pictures, tick "compress pictures" and "delete cropped areas of pictures".
Unless you intend to make high resolution copies of the document, go to "Change Resolution" and select "Web / Screen".
Press OK and save the document. This has a huge effect on the file size if you are using very high resolution photos or illustrations.
4) Turn off "Fast Save"
Under Tools > Options > Save > Save Options, untick "Allow fast saves".
5) Use compressed folders (a.k.a ZIP files)
Right click on the Word file and select "Send To" > "Compressed (zipped) Folder".
I have seen a 1 megabyte Word document shrink by 70% of its size. This difference is very significant to the around 20% to 30% of the people still using dial-up access.
6) Remove preview picture
Under File > Properties > Summary, untick "Save Preview Picture". This saves a small amount of space.
7) Save in Microsoft Word 95 format
If you have only a plain English Word document without any pictures or advanced features, you can reduce the file size by half if you use this advice.
Under the Save As option, select "Word 6.0/95 (*.doc)". You may get a security warning but it is generally safe to save the file.
Warning: This format will create gibberish with non-English documents, will cause any unsupported features to be lost and greatly increase the file size if you have pictures.
It is best to save another copy in Word 95 format, close Word, and then open the document again to see if it has any adverse effects.
1) Use "Insert Picture"
Go to Insert > Picture > From File and select the picture you want to add. Never copy and paste the picture from elsewhere. This will cut as much as 90% off the file size.
2) Use JPEG format instead of BMP
If you encounter a BMP picture file that you need to insert into your presentation, go to Start > Programs > Accessories > Paint. Open the file in question, and select "save as". Click on the "save as type" and select JPEG. This should greatly reduce the file size and result in a smaller PowerPoint file.
3) Compress Pictures
Go to File > Save As > Tools > Compress Pictures, tick "compress pictures" and "delete cropped areas of pictures".
Unless you intend to make high resolution copies of the document, go to "Change Resolution" and select "Web / Screen".
Press OK and save the document. This has a huge effect on the file size if you are using very high resolution photos or illustrations.
4) Turn off "Fast Save"
Under Tools > Options > Save > Save Options, untick "Allow fast saves".
5) Use compressed folders (a.k.a ZIP files)
Right click on the Word file and select "Send To" > "Compressed (zipped) Folder".
I have seen a 1 megabyte Word document shrink by 70% of its size. This difference is very significant to the around 20% to 30% of the people still using dial-up access.
6) Remove preview picture
Under File > Properties > Summary, untick "Save Preview Picture". This saves a small amount of space.
7) Save in Microsoft Word 95 format
If you have only a plain English Word document without any pictures or advanced features, you can reduce the file size by half if you use this advice.
Under the Save As option, select "Word 6.0/95 (*.doc)". You may get a security warning but it is generally safe to save the file.
Warning: This format will create gibberish with non-English documents, will cause any unsupported features to be lost and greatly increase the file size if you have pictures.
It is best to save another copy in Word 95 format, close Word, and then open the document again to see if it has any adverse effects.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Hard Disk Backup Tips
1) You can use the same casing for multiple portable hard disks, if you don't mind taking them in and out. That would save quite some money, especially if you are backing up data to many 3.5" drives.
2) You can copy data from one hard disk to another, even ensuring that you make the exact copy of Windows and everything. The process is called cloning. Those in the know always do this so that every time they get a different computer they don't have to reinstall everything.
Symantec Ghost is a popular program. There are also freeware cloning programs and a tutorial available here.
3) For the more expert among you, try this wonderful program to guard against corruption of your cloning image files.
2) You can copy data from one hard disk to another, even ensuring that you make the exact copy of Windows and everything. The process is called cloning. Those in the know always do this so that every time they get a different computer they don't have to reinstall everything.
Symantec Ghost is a popular program. There are also freeware cloning programs and a tutorial available here.
3) For the more expert among you, try this wonderful program to guard against corruption of your cloning image files.
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