Catching Up With Online Business

Graphic design is an intimidating subject for many Internet entrepreneurs. However, most of us must learn some basic design techniques to avoid the high costs of hiring a professional graphics designer.

You can create your own graphics that can look just as nice as some of the professionally created graphics for a fraction of the cost.

In order to create your graphics, you will need to invest in a good graphics program. You don’t have to spend hundreds of dollars on a fancy graphics design software. Paint Shop
Pro is a wonderful graphics program and is the only program you’ll need to design professional looking graphics. You can download a free 30-day trial and register the software for only $99. http://www.jasc.com

The first and probably most important graphic technique we’re going to discuss is text. This is probably what you will use the most. Not just any text, but text to be used with your logo, banners or page titles.

When you’re ready to begin, open Paint Shop Pro and click on “File” then “New” and type in a width and height for your image. Make sure your “Image Type” is set to 24-bit and select your background color. You can leave the other settings at their defaults. Make sure you give yourself a large enough space to work with, as you can reduce it later.

Your first step will be to select a good font. Depending upon the effect I want to achieve, I use one of three different fonts; Impact, Verdana, or Arial Black. If you don’t have these fonts installed on your computer, you can find them here:
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/fontpack/default.htm

The first text effect we will be creating will display your text in a large font size with a drop shadow effect. This drop shadow effect can also be used with any other images you create.

Your first step will be to select your text color. To change the foreground and background colors, double click on the top and bottom color squares on the right. Your text will be
displayed in the color within the top box, which is the foreground color. For this example, I will be using a light color as my foreground color.

Once you’ve selected your text color, click on the text tool on the left side (It looks like a capital “A”). This will launch your text window. Select your font and text size from the drop down menu and type in your text. I will be using “Impact” bold, size 24. Make sure you select “Antialias” and “Floating” then click “OK.”

Antialias will smooth out all of the rough edges of your text and blend it in with your background color. You will use the Antialias setting with various graphic tools when designing
your graphics, so it is important to remember its function.

You will now see your text with, what looks like, marching ants around it. If you’d like to move your text, click and hold your left mouse button to drag your text to your desired position.

With your text still selected (with marching ants), at the top of the screen, go to “Image” then “Effects” then “Drop Shadow.” This will launch the “Drop Shadow” window. Your image will be viewable with the drop shadow in the little window at the right. You can try different settings until you achieve the shadow effect you desire.

Another text effect that is popular will display your text in a graduated color effect. Your text can be displayed with a dark color at the top and gradually get lighter or just the opposite.

To achieve this effect, the foreground (top box) color must first be set to white. Next, click on the text tool and follow the same procedure for displaying your text. You should now see your text displayed as “marching ants,” only with no color. Now you’ll need to select a dark color for your foreground color and a light color for your background color.

Once you’ve selected your colors, click on the “Flood Fill” icon on the left. To change the effects of the Flood Fill tool, locate the little box on your screen that says, “Controls” then click on “Tool Controls.” Under “Fill Style” select “Linear Gradient” and then click on “Options” at the bottom. The “Blend Mode” should be set to normal. In order to select which color will be at the top of your text, where it says, “Degrees” type in either 0 or 180 depending on your desired effect, then click OK. Now place your mouse over each letter and fill it by clicking on your mouse.

After you’ve filled your text, you can either create the shadow effect or “right click” on your mouse to deselect your text.

If you’d like to decrease your graphics window size, click on the “Selection tool” on the left (dotted rectangle) and select the portion of your graphic that you’d like to display within
your new sized image. Click on “Edit” then “Copy” then “Edit” - “Paste as a new image.”

After you’ve completed your graphic, go to “File” then “Save As” and select a folder. Type in a name for your graphic and save your new file in the .GIF format. The program will prompt you and ask you if it’s all right to reduce your file to 256 colors. Click on yes. Your new graphic is now saved.

Now that you’ve mastered these new techniques, try them with some of your other images. The drop shadow effect can be used with photographs or just about any image you’d like. Try the graduated color effect with your banners or image backgrounds and give your graphics a professional look.

Copyright © Shelley Lowery

About the Author:

Shelley Lowery is the author of the acclaimed web design course, “Web Design Mastery” (www.webdesignmastery.com) and “eBook Starter - Give Your eBooks the look and feel of a REAL book” (www.ebookstarter.com)

Visit www.Web-Source.net to sign up for a complimentary subscription to eTips and receive a copy of Shelley’s acclaimed ebook, “Killer Internet Marketing Strategies.”

You have permission to publish this article electronically, in print, in your ebook, or on your web site, free of charge, as long as the author bylines are included.

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Just like spring cleaning a house, the html code of your web pages should get periodic cleaning as well. Over time, as changes and updates are made to a web page, the code can become littered with unnecessary clutter, slowing down page load times and hurting the efficiency of your web page. Cluttered html can also seriously impact your search engine ranking.

This is especially true if you are using a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) web design package such as FrontPage or Dreamweaver. These programs will speed up your web site creation, but they are not that efficient at writing clean html code.

We will be focusing this discussion on the actual html coding, ignoring other programming languages that may be used in a page such as JavaScript. In the code examples I will be using ( and ) characters instead of correct html so that the code examples will display properly in this newsletter.

Up until recently when coding a page in HTML we would be using tags such as the (font) tag and (p) paragraph tags. Between these tags would be our page content, text, images and links. Each time a formatting change was made on the page new tags were needed with complete formatting for the new section. More recently we have gained the ability to use Cascading Style Sheets, allowing us to write the formatting once and then refer to that formatting several times within a web page.

In order to speed up page load times we need to have fewer characters on the page when viewed in an html editor. Since we really do not want to remove any of our visible content we need to look to the html code. By cleaning up this code we can remove characters, thereby creating a smaller web page that will load more quickly.

Over time HTML has changed and we now have many different ways to do the same thing. An example would be the code used to show a bold type face. In HTML we have two main choices, the (strong) tag and the (b) tag. As you can see the (strong) tag uses 5 more characters than the (b) tag, and if we consider the closing tags as well we see that using the (strong)(/strong) tag pair uses 10 more characters than the cleaner (b)(/b) tag pair.

This is our First Principle of clean HTML code: Use the simplest coding method available.

HTML has the ability of nesting code within other code. For instance we could have a line with three words where the middle word was in bold. This could be accomplished by changing the formatting completely each time the visible formatting changes. Consider this code: (font face=”times”)This(/font) (font face=”times”)(strong)BOLD(/strong)(/font) (font face=”times”)Word(/font) This takes up 90 characters.

This is very poorly written html and is what you occasionally will get when using a WYSIWYG editor. Since the (font) tags are repeating the same information we can simply nest the (strong) tags inside the (font) tags, and better yet use the (b) tag instead of the (strong) tag. This would give us this code (font face=”times)This (b)BOLD(/b) Word(/font), taking up only 46 characters.

This is our Second Principle of clean HTML code: Use nested tags when possible. Be aware that WYSIWYG editors will frequently update formatting by adding layer after layer of nested code. So while you are cleaning up the code look for redundant nested code placed there by your WYSIWYG editing program.

A big problem with using HTML tags is that we need to repeat the tag coding whenever we change the formatting. The advent of CSS allows us a great advantage in clean coding by allowing us to layout the formatting once in a document, then simply refer to it over and over again.

If we had six paragraphs in a page that switch between two different types of formatting, such as headings in Blue, Bold, Ariel, size 4 and paragraph text in Black, Times, size 2, using tags we would need to list that complete formatting each time we make a change.

(font face=”Ariel” color=”blue” size=”4″)(b)Our heading(/b)(/font) (font face=”Times color=”black” size=”2″)Our paragraph(/font) (font face=”Ariel” color=”blue” size=”4″)(b)Our next heading(/b)(/font) (font face=”Times color=”black” size=”2″)Our next paragraph(/font)

We would then repeat this for each heading and paragraph, lots of html code.

With CSS we could create CSS Styles for each formatting type, list the Styles once in the Header of the page, and then simply refer to the Style each time we make a change.

(head) (style type=”text/css”) (!– .style1 { font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold; font-size: 24px; } .style2 { font-family: “Times New Roman”, Times, serif; font-size: 12px; } –) (/style) (/head) (body) (p class=”style1″)Heading(/p) (p class=”style2″)Paragraph Text(/p) (/body)

Notice that the Styles are created in the Head section of the page and then simply referenced in the Body section. As we add more formatting we would simply continue to refer to the previously created Styles.

This is our Third Principle of Clean HTML Code: Use CSS styles when ever possible. CSS has several other benefits, such as being able to place the CSS styles in an external file, thereby reducing the page size even more, and the ability to quickly update formatting site-wide by simply updating the external CSS Style file.

So with some simple cleaning of your HTML code you can easily reduce the file size and make a fast loading, lean and mean web page.

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Buying a house can be an intimidating and overwhelming experience. Here are some key questions to ask yourself and sellers before plopping down a down payment.

What To Ask When Looking At Potential Homes

Following is a list of general questions you should always ask when considering making a real estate purchase. Keep in mind, however, you are unique.

You have particular dislikes and likes as well as factors in your life that are different than other people. The point I am trying to make is that you shouldn’t stick to just these questions. You are making an important choice, so give some thought to your situation.

1. Don’t rush into things. The first question to ask should be directed at yourself. What type of home do you want? How big should it be? What amenities do you want? Are you planning for a family in the next three to five years and will the home be able to accommodate a new bundle of joy? Make a definitive list and stick to it. If you stray from it, you could end up with a house that doesn’t really fit you and suffer buyer’s remorse.

2. The next question is what area do you want to live in? Pick a few. You may find the prices to be excessive or the selection not so hot, but make sure you exhaust those areas before moving on. Again, you want to avoid buyer’s remorse.

3. Once you start looking at homes, a key question to ask is how long the house has been on the market. The amount of time will give you an idea of how flexible the owner is on price. If the house has been on the market for a month, the owner isn’t going to be very flexible. If it has been on the market for six months, flexibility will definitely exist.

4. Has the house previously been in escrow, but fell out? If so, find out why? Was it a problem with the buyer getting financing or did the buyer find out there was something wrong with the home?

5. What kind of condition is the house in and how old is it? Remember that a seller has typically done everything reasonably possible to spruce up the home. If you can see wear and tear on the house, it may be a red flag. In such a situation, you need to get a home inspection to make sure there aren’t problems in areas you can’t see such as mold, rust and water leaks.

6. If you have children or are planning on it, you must investigate the school district. Are the schools good? Are there gangs or crime in the area?

7. In addition to the home price, you should ask whether there are any additional fees such association fees.

8. What are the property taxes and what will they be when you buy? Many people are shocked to find out how much they have to kick out in property taxes. Don’t get surprised.

9. Zoning and easement issues are often overlooked when buying a home. If you are buying in a neighborhood with many homes, zoning is undoubtedly going to be for residential living. Easements, however, can be nasty surprises. Find out if there are any easements on the property. An easement gives a third party the right to use of part of the property. This can include giving the neighbor the right to do something or a utility company to place structures on your prospective property.

10. Noise is another big issue to consider. If you are serious about the property, make sure to drive buy on weekdays and weekends. If the property shares a wall with another residence, such as a duplex or condo, make sure you view it while the neighbors are home to get an idea of how loud it is.

11. In the euphoria of buying a property, practical issues can be missed. A big one is traffic. Specifically, what is the commute like between the house and your place of work? You don’t want to buy the house only to find out it takes three hours to get to and from work each day.

Obviously, you should be asking many additional questions before making a purchase. These 11 questions, however, will help you get started.

Raynor James is with the FSBO site - FSBOAmerica.org - homes for sale by owner. Visit our home buying page to buy homes and read relocation articles.

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If you have used a computer for any amount of time, you might have experienced the inevitable. You know, the system crashes or freezes before you can save your work. You sit there with a disgusted look on your face, and profanity running through your mind trying to escape. You think briefly about putting your fist through the monitor. We have all been there. Now, you can finally be a part of a “Smashing” without losing your job or wasting two thousand dollars. I have a website at http://www.smashmycomputer. com where I am offering pixel ads to internet users and webmasters. Why? I am raising enough money to buy a new computer, so I can smash this one! I will be making videos and pictures of the smashing for everyone to cherish!

So, help me Smash My Computer today.

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Many times we get lost or caught up in the minutia of lifethe push and pull, the yin and yangwith a negative outcome, feeling stressed or rushed with little control, no power and no peace.

Sometimes the minutia of life is more turbulent than others, however, we can be in controlit is a matter of choice. Remember that feelings follow thoughts. What are you saying to yourself about what you are experiencing? We create what we experience with every thought.

You can choose serenity and feel the delightful pleasure of peace flowing through you like a gentle breeze. If you are still and quiet you will come to a place where you feel safe. You can use this place of safety to create and imagine the limitless possibilities of your experiences.

As the gardener, you can choose which thoughts need to be weeded out and which thoughts you want to stay which will nurture the inner beauty of your mind. As the gardener of your mind you have the responsibility of choosing to weed out the thoughts that can wreck havoc and chaos to your inner and outer experience. If you plant and nurture negative thoughts, they will grow bigger and bigger. Before you realize it your garden is overgrown with weeds that strangle the lovely flowers that were your birthright. If you plant and nurture positive thoughts, they will grow bigger and bigger. Which do you want in your garden?

Pay attention to which thoughts you put in your mental garden as you awaken each day. Listen. Listen. Listen carefully. Do you hear yourself bemoan having to get up, go to work or simply get out of bed? Do you run all of yesterday’s travail over and over in your mind? Are you focused on thoughts of resentment toward anyone or anything, or are you focused on thoughts which will create a day of magnificence?

You create your reality through your thoughts.

Tune into your mental garden and nurture the positive thoughts and tune out the negative thoughts. Nurture your mental garden with thoughts of love, joy and peace. Breathe in deeply and allow the oxygen to flow through your body. Fill your mental garden with hope and happiness. Keep your mind tuned to endless possibilities. You will be surprised to notice your life on the inside creates your life on the outside.

You have all the gardening tools you need to tend and nurture your mental garden. Remember feelings follow thoughts. Your thoughts are a choicechoose wisely.

Dorothy M. Neddermeyer, PhD, author, international speaker, and inspirational leader empowers people to view life’s challenges as an opportunity for Personal/Professional Growth and Spiritual Awakening. http://www.drdorothy.net

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