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WordPress Themes: Making Your Website Stand Out

May 8, 2010 By Jon Leave a Comment

Creating a website may take a lot of hard work – no matter what content management system you use to facilitate the process. But when you know the shortcuts available to you, there is a lot you can do to make the process pain-free.

An increasing number of people are using WordPress to build their websites, and as this continues, there will be more people who know that by making it easier to create a good WordPress site, there is money to be made. The most obvious example of this is in the responses you will get if you type WordPress themes into a search engine.

A basic WordPress site will be functional. If you wish to create a blog that will be easy to read and simple to navigate, then you really need do no more than register on WordPress and start writing. However, if you wish to define a specific identity, WordPress on its own will only take you so far. There are a few themes you can choose from, and these can be selected as simply as making a few clicks of a mouse. However, these are designed for non-specific mass appeal and by that logic they are limited in terms of real identity. If you want to be more innovative and stand out more, you may need to look elsewhere.

There are many people who create WordPress themes specifically to give wider options to users who have a specific need. Some of these people make their creations available for free, hosting them on their own sites which, due to their popularity, can then be hives for advertisement space. Others will design WordPress themes to a specific brief. So if, for example, you want to run a site which deals with a particular sports team, you can define the look you want to a person who will then design a WordPress theme that is identifiably influenced by that sports team.

You yourself can create WordPress themes, if you have enough knowledge of CSS and HTML coding. Because of WordPress’ ease of customization, you need only make a few changes to the coding it provides and tailor the look of your new site to a specific need. This is one of the major selling points of the software. It does a job for those who would not be able to operate without it, but also supports the more defined needs of those with a little more knowledge. Those who cannot write code at all will enjoy the fact that they are free to concentrate on content, while those who can are grateful for the framework.

These days, people are aware that there is a lot of competition for attention, and therefore it is valuable to be able to stand out from the crowd. Using the right WordPress theme will make this a whole lot easier, and finding the right theme is only going to get easier as skilled designers realize the potential to showcase their work and make money that WordPress provides.

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Ongoing Maintenance To Your Website Using Joomla

February 22, 2010 By Jon Leave a Comment

There have been services and systems designed to make it easier to create and maintain a website for almost as long as there has been an Internet to put them on. This is a system that has evolved over the years and will continue to evolve, too. Without a doubt, there is no shortage of software packages that you can use to make website creation easier – so why choose Joomla?

To answer that question, it is worth looking at what the other sites provide, and how Joomla stacks up when compared to them. Perhaps the most notable reason for using Joomla is the fact that, as a newer service than the others, it has come from a position of seeing how the other sites work and improving upon what is already available. Early efforts like Microsoft Frontpage – packaged with some versions of Windows – and Adobe Dreamweaver, certainly made website creation easier for the novice. They were, however, still aimed at people with a more than basic understanding of web design.

Joomla has benefited from the increase in popularity of “widgets”. This means that you can add to your Joomla package as and when you want by downloading a widget – or, to translate the jargon, a secondary service – that is aimed at making a specific element of the maintenance easier. If, for example, you want to add more features to your site, it often fell to you to either write the code for it, or find it elsewhere. Now, widgets exist for a vast range of maintenance aspects. There are as many as three and a half thousand add-ons that can be used to make Joomla more effective.

As Joomla is open source software, it is also free of charge, and so for the most part are its add-ons. Instead of spending what can amount to hundreds of pounds on dedicated software, using open-source software is the most sensible option for anyone who is using the software to build and maintain a site without absolute knowledge of how to design websites. Not only that, but the number of Joomla users has led to a strong online community which ensures that, even if you don’t know how to correct a problem, someone else will have faced it before and be able to enlighten you.

Perhaps the major advantage of Joomla is the versatility of the software – both the primary Joomla package and any add-ons you may download allow you to create anything from a basic blog site to a macro-site packed with different features, and to add and take away as you see fit without damaging the integral usability of the site. You can make changes when you want and see how those changes will affect the look and the quality of your site, allowing you to get it right without having to spend all day honing one niggling factor. As your site becomes more established you can turn it into almost anything you want to, and without needing to gain a diploma in software engineering.

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Flash Can Improve Your Website if Used Correctly

December 1, 2009 By Jon Leave a Comment

Before we can understand the advantages of Flash web design, we need to know exactly what Flash is. Flash is a multimedia format developed by Adobe (previously Macromedia), which has come a long way since its inception. The current version of Flash is a powerful design and animation authoring tool with an object-oriented dynamic scripting engine, bitmap rendering anti-aliasing precision and advanced audio and video playback. This multimedia format actually comprises of three components: a player, a file format, and an authoring tool.

Flash allows web designers to create and develop animations and interactive movies or images that can be embedded into a web page. In its early stages, Flash was mostly used in the development of vector based animations, which meant that Flash movies could have small file sizes, so they could downloaded and rapidly played over the internet. Initially Flash became popular with web developers as a means of producing animated ‘splash screens’ or presentations, to make a web site seem more fun and attractive. However unfortunately this technique was over used and diminished the value of this amazing multimedia tool.

More recently, Flash technology has become more powerful, and developers have now begun to truly appreciate its potential to create more sophisticated web-based applications. Flash is now used to create small tutorials complete with interactive animations and self-testing exercises. It is a great e-learning tool.

Uses of Flash
Flash can be used as a in the following to make them more attractive and interesting:

  • Advertising banners
  • Online presentations
  • Offline presentations
  • Websites
  • Internet animations
  • Multimedia online movies
  • CD-ROMs
  • Screensavers
  • Software applications
  • Games

Advantages of Flash Web Design
So what are the main advantages of Flash web design? If implemented properly, flash can provide a number of useful advantages over traditional web designs:

  • Flash can make a web site more attractive, interactive and dynamic.
  • Within a 30-second period, Flash can show a whole company presentation or profile on a website.
  • As Flash movies are displayed by a Adobe Flash Player plug-in, Flash-based work is likely to be rendered the same on all browsers and computer platforms, therefore allowing designers to escape from the constraints of more traditional XHTML-based design interfaces.
  • Flash has now become a very well-recognized format on the internet, and it is estimated that over 90% of web users now have the Flash Player installed on their computers.
  • In addition to being embedded within a web page, Flash movies can also be exported to construct stand-alone executable applications, which are ideal for CD-ROMs.
  • Flash movies can be stored in very small file sizes, so they can be downloaded rapidly.
  • It is now possible to import external information from say a database into a Flash movie. This facilitates the construction of more sophisticated Flash-based applications that can automatically update themselves. What this means is that one can use the same Flash interface by simply editing the external XML file.
  • Flash can also be used to create innovative advertisements, games and movies that can be displayed a web site.

Flash Facts

  • The fact is that Flash is a flexible software package that can be programmed to run comprehensive applications and online multimedia movies.
  • Flash is the most efficient means of animation on the web at the moment. It is primarily used for Vector based for animation.
  • Flash is a multi-platform application that will appear the same on all browsers and platforms as long as its plug-in has be downloaded.

Flash Myths

  • Flash is slow to download. This is the biggest myth about Flash. Flash is designed to be both quick and effective; however it is only as good as the person using it, as it is an application based software.
  • Flash is only a gimmick. This is not true as a Flash presentation can be very effective in marketing a product. It is important to use Flash only when necessary, overusing it can hinder your objectives as some people are only interested in quick information not a presentation.
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