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Everyone is excited!! You’re getting a new website! The developer comes up with some really cool ideas and everyone knows it’s going to make a big difference and provide some great solutions for your organization. The website project starts, everyone loves the new design drafts and then things take a different turn … the developer starts asking for things like … quality photos. Text for certain pages. What items you want to ask on a form. Which ones need to be required? What section does this paragraph go in? Wow! There are so many things you still have to do to get this website off the ground — and you don’t see how you can get it all done before the site is supposed to launch. Who knew it would be so much WORK?

Well, don’t be too hard on yourself. From my experience over the years, I’ve found gathering content to be the most time-consuming and underestimated task for most clients. (more…)

Have you ever excitedly sat down to view your new design for your website and when you get that draft from your designer and it looks great, but it has some text on it that isn’t any language you’ve ever seen? You think to yourself that maybe it’s Spanish, or … it could be Latin, but you’re just not sure?

Well, all in all, its not Spanish or Latin or any other “real language,” it is actually called Lorem Ipsum. Finding it’s roots in the Latin language, Lorem Ipsum provides a believable block or blocks of text for designers to use in the early stages of the design approval process.

Using Lorem Ipsum a common technique designers use, because it mirrors what real text would look like (except of course it reads like gibberish). It is basically “dummy text” for the printing industry. Another bonus for designers is that many times, in the design phase, we don’t really have the content yet - and so we take liberties with the content we do have, just for design purposes. So, Lorem Ipsum helps our clients to stay focused on the design rather than the content which will come later.

It is an outstanding practice to include this kind of text in designs, because design flaws can be seen more easily when there is “content” even if it is not real content. Something as simple as text wrapping to the next line can cause a myriad of problematic issues, so from a designer’s perspective, it really helps to plug in text blocks up front so we can see what we’re dealing with.

There is a lovely site where you can read more and even generate some Lorem Ipsum for your own purposes at Lipsum.com. And, if you’re a word nerd like me, you can even purchase your own Lorem Ipsum mugs or t-shirts which help support the site.

Lipsum.com also has an excellent explanation and description of how it is created and how that process makes it seem like a real language.

So next time you look at a design with Lorem Ipsum, know that it is not actually Spanish or any other real language, but just your designers dotting their i’s and crossing their t’s to make sure you are getting a good project outcome and to help you stay focused on the task at hand, viewing the lovely and effective design created for your project.

Just my 2¢ anyway!

© 2009 XPRT Creative

Why Move?

Bad Neighborhood Links are Bad News
It is no secret that linking to and from a bad Internet neighborhood can seriously slow, halt or even reverse your SEO progress. However, now, I have first hand knowledge of what can happen when even a single source has cross links with a site in a good neighborhood.

We recently moved my personal blog to my company site - which is where you are reading this. Initially, we thought it might be a great way to get some inbound links with linking text being exactly what we wanted it to be.

We soon found that in actuality, cross links from XPRT Creative to http://jpoyer.wordpress.com began a slow descent of XPRT Creative ranking in Google, Yahoo and MSN SERPs. (more…)

I have been selling DVDs on Ebay. I have found my experiences to be very thought-provoking and somewhat frustrating at times. I have so far mostly enjoyed the work, and I will probably continue this for a while if possible. I have learned things and also had some of my ideas about how I am running my business reinforced; things that will benefit me down the road.

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Pretty much every web page you look at falls into one of two very broad categories: Dynamic or Static.

What is a dynamic web page?

Dynamic refers to a page being created “on the fly.” This means that the content from that page doesn’t actually come together until someone clicks on a link to that page. When someone views a dynamic page, some or all of the information on that page is pulled into the page from another location, like a database. (more…)

Have you ever attempted to transfer your domain and it seems like there are so many hoops to jump through that it’s not even worth the effort? Does it seem like it’s a confusing ball of knotted string that you just can’t unravel? As a member of a web development team, I have had the opportunity to transfer many domains (and as a result have taken my fair share of Ibuprofin). When you are transferring your domain, having a good checklist will help tremendously to take the knots out of the process.

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This is the third part in a short series about how to make sure you are master of your domain.

Take Control of Your Domain - Part I

Take Control of Your Domain - Part II

Your e-mail addresses associated with your domain (address@whatever.com) can be “hosted” wherever. Many people use their host provider to also provide e-mail services. It’s probably the easiest way. Some people use an outside service. Although your e-mail is tied to your domain name, it is not required to go through the same server for the host or domain.

Remember “back in the day” when everyone was circulating those e-mails about how people were trying to pass laws that would make e-mail not be free anymore? Well, that really happened … sort of.

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If you didn’t read Take Control of Your Domain Part I, it has important information you need to understand regarding your domain. Go read that first and then come back to this one. This post, Take Control of Your Domain Part II deals specifically with the hosting aspect of your website owner experience. Some of this can get pretty technical (so put your nerd cap on and pay attention - heh heh), but it is important to understand when taking control of your domain and your website. (more…)

When you have a website, there are actually three different major parts that you need to know about and understand. Especially if you are working with an awesome creative firm like XPRT Creative to develop a superb, problem solving, useful, effective and aesthetically pleasing website. (plug? what plug?) Your web developer will need you to understand these things, so if you are considering getting a new domain, or hiring a new company to host or build your site, this is important stuff. Read on, read on. (more…)

Have you lost months or even worse, years worth of blog in a server crash and you don’t have a back up? There are many ways to back up your site, but if you’re like me, and life gets in the way of intentions at times, it’s nice to have a BACK UP PLAN to your BACK UP PLAN.

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