Jeff Smith is the managing director of Karma Technologies, a company that specialises in building quality websites, ecommerce sites, desktop applications and company Intranets. Jeff feels strongly about implementing ways to be green into their business practices, to a point they are almost a paper-free company. At Karma they feel strongly about green issues.
Posts Tagged ‘Using’
Designing Using Css, Cascading Style Sheet Website Designs
Many website development companies, in earlier times used simple HTML to design websites. However, when certain design needed to be changed, it became very tedious to carry out those changes across all the pages of the website. Cascading Style Sheets, also popularly known as CSS, solved this tiresome task of making changes to every web page or the HTML document
Website development companies started using CSS to make their work easy of formatting the HTML document. Before CSS was introduced HTML tags were used to characterize fonts, tables, headers, paragraphs, and so on. The browser would then read these tags and present a formatted HTML page to the user. Tags for various formatting structures were embedded within the HTML and the content of the website. With more HTML tags getting introduced it became a little difficult for the website development company to manage the content and the presentation of the website. Introduction of cascading style sheets made it possible to separate content from the style of the website. One of the significant advantages of CSS was that it allowed the developers to organize the formatting and content of more than one page at one time

CSS has been evolving for quite some time now and web development companies have been adapting to the latest versions. After scaling out CSS1 and CSS2 versions, CSS3 is currently being developed and is being modularized. There are various ways in which the CSS can be sourced for the HTML page in the browser.
The web page designer/developer can define style sheets that can be referenced from an external file or embedded into the HTML page itself.
The user can have styles defined for the browser that will override the styles applied to the webpage. Such a CSS file is stored on the local computer of the user.

Though CSS has simplified things for designers and website development companies, there are still some limitations that must be certainly considered when using cascading style sheets.
The browser support for CSS is not standardized yet and older versions of some browser cannot decipher the style tags. Thus the desired layout of a webpage is not completely obtained.
Designers at times need to compromise on the visual effect of the webpage, as it is not possible to have different backgrounds for every graphic element.
CSS does not support any shapes other than a perfect rectangle thus putting a limitation on use of aesthetics for various shapes.
CSS does not allow full control on the vertical placement of the layout as much as it does for the horizontal placing of elements on the webpage.

There are few other drawbacks that might limit the use of CSS. However, these are being worked on in current version CSS3 and certainly with the advantages and the ease that CSS offer, it is unlikely that website development companies stop using CSS.
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Using Perl and Regular Expressions to Process Html Files – Part 2
In this article we will discuss how to change the contents of an HTML file by running a Perl script on it.
The file we are going to process is called file1.htm:
Note: To ensure that the code is displayed correctly, in the example code shown in this article, square brackets ‘[..]‘ are used in HTML tags instead of angle brackets ”.
[html]
[head][title]Sample HTML File[/title]
[link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" onClick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/article_exit_link');" href="style.css"]
[/head]
[body]
[h1]Introduction[/h1]
[p]Welcome to the world of Perl and regular expressions[/p]
[h2]Programming Languages[/h2]
[table border="1" width="400"]
[tr][th colspan="2"]Programming Languages[/th][/tr]
[tr][td]Language[/td][td]Typical use[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]JavaScript[/td][td]Client-side scripts[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Perl[/td][td]Processing HTML files[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]PHP[/td][td]Server-side scripts[/td][/tr]
[/table]
[h1]Summary[/h1]
[p]JavaScript, Perl, and PHP are all interpreted programming languages.[/p]
[/body]
[/html]
Imagine that we need to change both occurrences of [h1]heading[/h1] to [h1 class="big"]heading[/h1]. Not a big change and something that could be easily done manually or by doing a simple search and replace. But we’re just getting started here.
To do this, we could use the following Perl script (script1.pl):
1 open (IN, “file1.htm”);
2 open (OUT, “>new_file1.htm”);
3 while ($line = [IN]) {
4 $line =~ s/[h1]/[h1 class="big"]/;
5 (print OUT $line);
6 }
7 close (IN);
8 close (OUT);
Note: You don’t need to enter the line numbers. I’ve included them simply so that I can reference individual lines in the script.
Let’s look at each line of the script.
Line 1
In this line file1.htm is opened so that it can be processed by the script. In order to process the file, Perl uses something called a filehandle, which provides a kind of link between the script and the operating system, containing information about the file that is being processed. I’ve called this “opening” filehandle ‘IN’, but I could have used anything within reason. Filehandles are normally in capitals.
Line 2
This line creates a new file called ‘new_file1.htm’, which is written to by using another filehandle, OUT. The ‘>’ just before the filename indicates that the file will be written to.
Line 3
This line sets up a loop in which each line in file1.htm will be examined individually.
Line 4
This is the regular expression. It searches for one occurrence of [h1] on each line of file1.htm and, if it finds it, changes it to [h1 class="big"].
Looking at Line 4 in more detail:
$line – This is a variable that contains a line of text. It gets modified if the substitution is successful.
=~ is called the comparison operator.
s is the substitution operator.
[h1] is what needs to be substituted (replaced).
[h1 class="big"] is what [h1] has to be changed to.
Line 5
This line takes the contents of the $line variable and, via the OUT file handle, writes the line to new_file1.htm.
Line 6
This line closes the ‘while’ loop. The loop is repeated until all the lines in file1.htm have been examined.
Lines 7 and 8
These two lines close the two file handles that have been used in the script. If you missed off these two lines the script would still work, but it’s good programming practice to close file handles, thus freeing up the file handle names so they can be used, for example, by another file.
Running the Script
As the purpose of this article is to explain how to use regular expressions to process HTML files, and not necessarily how to use Perl, I don’t want to spend too long describing how to run Perl scripts. Suffice to say that you can run them in various ways, for example, from within a text editor such as TextPad, by double-clicking the perl script (script1.pl), or by running the script from an MS-DOS window.
(The location of the Perl interpreter will need to be in your PATH statement so that you can run Perl scripts from any location on your computer and not just from within the directory where the interpreter (perl.exe) itself is installed.)
So, to run our script we could open an MS-DOS window and navigate to the location where the script and the HTML file are located. To keep life simple I’ve assumed that these two files are in the same folder (or directory). The command to run the script is:
C:>perl script1.pl
If the script does work (and hopefully it will), a new file (new_file1.htm) is created in the same folder as file1.htm. If you open the file you’ll see the the two lines that contained [h1] tags have been modified so that they now read [h1 class="big"].
In Part 3 we’ll look at how to handle multiple files.
John is a web developer working for My Health Questions Matter, a company dedicated to helping patients to get the most out of their interaction with health care professionals such as doctors, midwives, and consultants by generating a set of health questions a patient can ask at an appointment.
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CSS Layout for Websites — Why Using CSS in Web Design Layout is Better than Table-based Layout
Technology is constantly evolving and advancing and nothing shows this more than the (short) history of the web. Just a few years ago, the internet was full of websites with blinking, animated icons and background midi music and lots of people thought it was really great. Advance a few years forward and, although you still see those things from time to time, the web now contains much more sophisticated elements like video clips, rss feeds, detailed flash animations, and more.
As the “ideas” about what a website is and what it should, or could, do for a company have also evolved, designers have strived to streamline the process of developing websites and to make them more efficient and predictable. Because different browsers interpret code differently, it hasn’t always been easy to make more complex websites look the same (or even good in some cases) across browsers and systems. What used to work in the early days of the web was no longer working the way web designers wanted or needed it to.
Cascading Style Sheets to the Rescue
Cascading Style Sheets, also known as CSS, were introduced to improve the capabilities of web presentation. Prior to CSS, almost all of the html attributes that made up the “look and feel” of a web page were contained within the html directly. This made web page code heavy and often quite clunky. By using Cascading Style Sheets, designers could separate the design elements from the content of a web page and thereby make the pages more efficient, more streamlined, and easier to maintain.
Not all designers jumped on the CSS bandwagon, and even today, many designers still prefer to layout their web pages using html table-based design, the way just about everyone used to do it. Using CSS to layout a webpage is quite different from the “old fashioned” table layout. However, the advantages to using a CSS layout for a web page heavily outweigh any argument given for using html tables.
Although I wouldn’t expect clients to know the intricate details of Cascading Style Sheets (and let’s face it, most clients don’t really want to know much if anything about it!), I do think that clients should be aware of the advantages of using CSS layouts and how they can enhance their websites both now and in the future.
Advantages to Using CSS for Web Layout
Web pages will load faster
No one likes waiting for web pages to load and if a page takes too long to load, many users will often simply leave. Generally speaking, CSS based page layouts require much less html coding than table-based layouts. This usually results in the pages loading more quickly. Moreover, an externally linked CSS file, once loaded the first time, does not have to be reloaded and re-read on every page. When using CSS for layout, browsers can cache (keep in memory) all the formatting and stylizing for your pages instead of having to read and interpret each style tag on every page. This can also result in much faster page loading times.
Visual consistency across pages
One of the strengths of using Cascading Style Sheets in a website layout is that design elements can be defined in a single place (the css file) and will automatically be applied to those elements on the website. No longer does each individual page have to be updated to reflect the new style. This makes for much greater consistency throughout the site. With CSS, you do not have to re-code every element on every page (and check and double check that you didn’t miss some pages!), styling updates are automatic and site-wide.
Accessibility and usability
CSS allows for more interactive style elements, including font size and line heights, which can make web pages more usable for people with disabilities. Web pages that use CSS layouts are also often more compatible with more browsers. What’s more, designers can create specific css files specifically for printing, or mobile devices, as well as the standard computer screen, thereby making websites truly multimedia applications.
CSS is better for SEO
Since pages load faster with CSS Layouts, search engines can more easily crawl through the site. Also, since there is often less coding on the pages and because CSS separates the design elements from the content, it is easier for search engines to determine what a page is about and to index it appropriately. Finally, search engine spiders rely heavily on structural organization (heading (h1, h2, h3, etc) tags) and CSS allows designers to design those elements as needed and to place them within the page layout in a way that is most beneficial for search engine optimization.
Future redesigns will be more efficient (read, less expensive!)
Since CSS layouts separate design elements from content, once a site has been designed using Cascading Style Sheets, making changes to the design is often easier because fewer files need to be updated (often only the css files rather than every page on the website!) This makes for faster and less expensive design changes in the future. Set your site up using CSS now and you can have easier, more efficient and quicker updates in the future.
Caryl A. Clippinger is a web designer & developer and a founder of Charlotte’s Web Studios, L.L.C., a Virginia web design company. For more information about Charlotte’s Web Studios and additional web design tips and resources, please visit http://www.CharlottesWebStudios.com.
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How to Avoid Inevitable Frustrations When Using the Free Html Editor Kompozer
YOU know what’s really amazing? You see a website that’s pretty basic, but you know it’s making its owners bucket loads of money. Then you start thinking, ‘how can I do that too?’ Well you’re going to get some tips here that’ll show you how to use a free html editor such as Kompozer to head right in that direction, and save you from getting frustrated, so read on…
Before we do though, I’m sure you understand that using html editors can sometimes be slippery ride. You don’t always get the results you want. Sometimes your website turns into a forest of unexplainable and uncontrollable mush. And more often than not, this is not the fault of the html editor either.
So the first tip is simply to use the helpful Kompozer forums as much as possible. Don’t be afraid to ask incredibly basic questions. You’d be surprised how many other people are thinking the same thing and who would like to know the answer too! If you don’t understand why your html is not behaving like good html should, then all you need to do is ask. 
To find the Kompozer forums just search for forums of that name. Honestly, I couldn’t have done without these forums to get me started. I’d ask a question, get a helpful reply, and then ask another question, get a reply, and so on… Until finally it clicked and I’d be one step closer to creating my perfect website again!
And here’s another tip you can take to the bank. Whenever you find a nice looking website that you like the look of, then ‘open the hood’ and look at the source code of that website. You’ll learn a LOT from doing this… Right at the start you might not be able to make sense of what you see. But as you progress you’ll start to see how the ‘engine’ works. It’ll become clearer as you go, believe me.
So, in a nutshell, to avoid the inevitable frustrations that come with playing around with free html editors, utilize the expert help at the Kompozer forums, learn from looking at how other websites do it, and make sure you keep well rested. Good luck.
Martin Hurley helps Kompozer newbies become instant experts at http://kompozervideosclub.com Visit now to start building great looking websites using a brand new range of Kompozer how to videos and get a 5 lesson quick start coaching session thrown in!
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Using Perl and Regular Expressions to Process Html Files – Part 1
Like many web content authors, over the past few years I’ve had many occasions when I’ve needed to clean up a bunch of HTML files that have been generated by a word processor or publishing package. Initially, I used to clean up the files manually, opening each one in turn, and making the same set of updates to each one. This works fine when you only have a few files to fix, but when you have hundreds or even thousands to do, you can very quickly be looking at weeks or even months of work. A few years ago someone put me on to the idea of using Perl and regular expressions to perform this ‘cleaning up’ process.
Why write an article about Perl and regular expressions I hear you say. Well, that’s a good point. After all the web is full of tutorials on Perl and regular expressions. What I found though, was that when I was trying to find out how I could process HTML files, I found it difficult to find tutorials that met my criteria. I’m not saying they don’t exist, I just couldn’t find them. Sure, I could find tutorials that explained everything I needed to know about regular expressions, and I could find plenty of tutorials about how to program in Perl, and even how to use regular expressions within Perl scripts. What I couldn’t find though, was a tutorial that explained how to open one or more HTML or text files, make updates to those files using regular expressions, and then save and close the files.
The Goal
When converting documents into HTML the goal is always to achieve a seamless conversion from the source document (for example, a word processor document) to HTML. The last thing you need is for your content authors to be spending hours, or even days, fixing untidy HTML code after it has been converted.
Many applications offer excellent tools for converting documents to HTML and, in combination with a well designed cascading style sheet (CSS), can often produce perfect results. Sometimes though, there are little bits of HTML code that are a bit messy, normally caused by authors not applying paragraph tags or styles correctly in the source document.
Why Perl?
The reason why Perl is such a good language to use for this task is because it is excellent at processing text files, which let’s face it, is all HTML files are. Perl is also the de facto standard for the use of regular expressions, which you can use to search for, and replace/change, bits of text or code in a file.
What is Perl?
Perl (Practical Extraction and Report Language) is a general purpose programming language, which means it can be used to do anything that any other programming language can do. Having said that, Perl is very good at doing certain things, and not so good at others. Although you could do it, you wouldn’t normally develop a user interface in Perl as it would be much easier to use a language like Visual Basic to do this. What Perl is really good at, is processing text. This makes it a great choice for manipulating HTML files.
What is a Regular Expression?
A regular expression is a string that describes or matches a set of strings, according to certain syntax rules. Regular expressions are not unique to Perl – many languages, including JavaScript and PHP can use them – but Perl handles them better than any other language.
In part 2, we’ll look at our first example Perl script
John Dixon is a web developer working through his own company John Dixon Technology. As well as providing web development services, John’s company also provides free open source accounting software written in PHP and MySQL.
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10 Tips For Using Private Label Resell Rights
A popular way to earn online today is by using private label resell rights programs. They can help people of all business levels from newbies to advanced online Internet marketers leap ahead with successful businesses. Here are 10 tips for using private label resell rights to benefit your business:

1) Go through all of your training materials and / or private label resell rights guides that come with your products. And go back over them regularly. You want to get THE most out of your program.

2) Go through every item you are given and make use of it. Let nothing go untouched. Put everything to work for your business.

3) If you don’t understand something, ask! And remember, there are no dumb questions. Learn more, earn more.

4) Give your private label resell rights content a unique selling position. Make it stand out by revising it, adding your own special content like digital photos, graphics, additional textual content, quotes, stats, etc.

5) Do a little ’something’ every day to use and promote your products. Don’t let getting busy get in your way.

6) Get help! No need to go it alone. You want to grow your business, so reach out! If you’re afraid to hire help or don’t have the available funds, think about teaming up with a fellow business associate and do a joint venture together. One of you assembles everything online, for example, while the other focuses on marketing.

7) Find a mentor or coach who has been there, done that. Seek advice and follow it. A good place to start is with your private label program operator. See if he or she can point you to successful members using the system.

8) Package bonuses with your products. Shoppers love a good deal, so give them one. Entice them with a bundled report, audio and video.

9) Add freebies to your marketing campaigns. Many people still shop online for freebies. So entice them to opt-in to your autoresponder article series by offering a free report, ebook or other electronic download made from your private label resell rights materials.

10) Automate! Let your computer and Internet marketing systems do all the work – or at least as much as possible. Dig in and learn all the components of your autoresponder, for instance, and learn how to set up forms to automatically capture leads. Learn how to set up a forum to grow your sites and a branded thank-you page to sell back end items with enticing sales copy and great shopping cart navigation and buttons, even an affiliate program to recruit your own sales team… and a whole lot more.

There are a lot more tips to using private label resell rights. To stay informed, sign up for more here: http://www.espired.com/i10/automaticnicheprofits.html

Tips plus the training provided by your private label resell rights program and your other auxiliary marketing tools can help you put everything together – fast and easy- so that you can start or jumpstart your online business…and run it!
Paul Kleinmeulman is the foremost private label rights (PLR)expert. Learn more about via his Automatic Niche Profits and save a fortune & a heck of a lot of time creating your own product & marketing materials!
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Using HTML Codes in Your Articles: Stage Your Articles to Attract Readers
Have you ever been frustrated by the appearance of your article when you submit them to an article directory? Have you felt lost as you tried to figure out how to format your text so your article is easier to read? HTML code will help you format your articles to get the look you want. Using HTML codes will make your articles attractive, easy to read, and gain the credibility and readership to draw prospects to your message.
Why Staging Your Article Is Important
Staging is an important activity when selling a home. Staging helps prospective buyers see the potential of a house and leads them to seriously consider buying. If the house is cluttered and messy, most buyers will walk away, even if the home is the best deal on the market. For most buyers, it’s too hard to look past the clutter and see the gem in the rough.
Similarly your article should be “staged” so readers will want to read it. Just like a cluttered or sloppy house, if you article appears sloppy and difficult to read, readers won’t take time to read it, even if it’s full of great, valuable content. If your article appears neat and easy to read, you’ve made great strides in getting readership.
What Readers Want
Readers want articles that are easy to read and informative. They don’t want to work to get the information out of your article, just like home buyers don’t want to look past the clutter to see the potential in a home. You get one shot at enticing someone to read your article. They don’t want to reread your article (and they won’t) if they don’t get it, so it’s imperative to make a good impression the first time.
The reason your article is being read is because it’s relevant to the reader’s problem. Your job, as the writer, is to lead the reader through your thought process and influence them. Most readers don’t expect a Pulitzer Prize winning article, but they do expect to get answers and value from reading your article. After all, they’re reading your article to get informed about their problem. Don’t lose your credibility by causing your reader to say “huh?” as they’re reading.
HTML Code, Your Staging Tool
Just as furniture and cleanliness are the tools of staging a house, HTML code is the tool to stage your articles. For articles, all you’ll need are basic HTML codes to “design” your article so it’s attractive and easy to read. You can learn more advanced HTML coding by goggling HTML code. You’ll find plenty of tutorials that step you the why and how of HTML, which is very much like computer programming. However, unless you’re into designing your own web page, simple HTML codes should be all you need.
The basic codes you need to know are paragraph, bold, underline, italics, paragraph, and line break. The basic format for these codes (except for line break) is <code> and </code>, where “code” is the type of formatting you want to use. You place the “start” code at the beginning of the text you want to format, and place the “end” code at the end of the text. For example, if I want to bold some text, I would place <b>, the start code, in front of the text I want bolded and put </b>, the end code, at the end of the text.
Simple HTML Codes To Get You Started
Bold Text: <b>you text</b>
Underline Text: <u>your text</u>
Italicize Text: <i>your text</i>
Paragraph: <p>your text</p>: This code places a blank line between your paragraphs. Some HTML coders argue that you don’t need the end code, but some consider it good practice to use.
Line Break: your text</br>: This code will allow you to create a line break without starting a new paragraph. This is a simple code to use when you have a numbered or bulleted list.
The Use of HTML in Article Directories
Most article directories allow some simple HTML coding. Some directories only allow the use of a few, and others allow more. For example, one of the directories I use does not allow the use of underline or line break, but they do allow bold and paragraph. Unfortunately, this makes using HTML a little tricky to figure out when you submit your articles. You’ll have to preview your article in each directory to see how the coding affects your article.
There are some article directories that use a feature called “what you see is what your get” (WYSIWYG). With this feature, your article is formatted as if you had typed it in MS Word. But fair warning-WYSISYG isn’t always what you get. You still must preview your articles to make sure they appear like you want.
Another point to keep in mind is that HTML doesn’t care if all your text runs together. If you submit your article, preview it, and don’t like what you see, you can edit it, but you may return to an article that looks like one big paragraph. You’ll have to reformat your article so you can edit it more easily.
Recommended Approach for Using HTML
In order to help you format you article, I recommend you write your article and format it the way you want to look. Use this format for directories that use WYSIWYG. Then copy your article, paste it below this version, and add the HTML codes that represent the formatting that you want, i.e., add the codes you need to get the formatting you want. Use this version for article directories that don’t use WYSIWYG. You’ll end up with two versions of your article.
Summary
Staging is an important aspect of your article marketing, along with providing valuable content. Staging makes it easy for your reader to read your message and understand it. Although there are some challenges with using simple HTML code, the challenges are more tedious than technical. Don’t be afraid to use HTML to draw more readers and potential customers.
Happy Business Building
Yoli
Yolanda Allen is a home based business expert specializing in a financial services and education product and marketing system, where you learn to be a master marketer. Learn how Yolanda’s business partner made over $140K in one month using this system. Yolanda’s on her way and now you can be too. http://YBAMarketing.com/?t=abhtm.
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In A Webpage Browser, What Syntax Will I Use To Automatically Open Or Display A Php File Using The Index.html?
I programmed a php file but I need to be be opened or to be displayed automatically without copying the content of the php to the index.html….
What syntax will I insert to the index.html because most index.html upn opening a browser to that directory it automatically read the index.html not the desired file.php.
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Learn Photoshop by Using Free Photoshop Tutorials
The birth of Photoshop has meant a great thing for a lot of people around the globe. Having a special software that can help people into improving the aspect of their digital photographs was all they ever dreamed about. Due to the fact that it has a lot of tools and options and that it is easy to use, a lot of people have become fans of this program and have rejected the idea of using other programs that have the same main purpose: working with digital photographs.
For those who don’t know how to use Photoshop and want to learn working with it, free Photoshop tutorials have been made available, first on the mother site of Photoshop, the Adobe site, and then step by step on other profile sites. These sites offer only for Photoshop fans special tutorials that teach them new tricks and techniques for adjusting photos.
These free Photoshop tutorials are easy to use and everybody loves them. It’s much more easier to use them instead of reading a complicated thick book written about how to use this software. Getting free Photoshop tutorials is a great deal as you will be able to understand better how this program works and how you can correct the flaws from your photos, highlight the good parts in it and hide what you don’t want other to see. With the help of Photoshop many stars have their photos corrected and then published in the most wanted magazines. The easiest way for your photos to become the way you want is to invest a little bit of time in consulting the free Photoshop tutorials.
Depending on what you want to learn, you can select a few of the tutorials you can find on the net and start learning about Photoshop. In the basic free Photoshop tutorials you will find detailed explanations about the tools used in Photoshop, the functions of all the buttons, the basic changes that can be made on a photo, certain special commands and other stuff you will definitely be interested in if you want to have a perfect photo.
Photoshop it’s not used only for modifying photos, you can also create very sofisticated images by yourself. It also works with high printing resolutions that will satisfy all you need.
A good news, only for Photoshop fans is that every time a new version of this program appears on the market, the company that has launched the program will automatically update its site with free Photoshop tutorials concerning the last versions released. This is a great thing as you can learn a lot about your favorite software updates and changes and the best part is that you can do it for free. Dont’t forget to check all the sites you found great free tutorials because the photoshop fans will surely place their on tutorials after each update.
Nowadays there are even forums that have their main theme focused on free Photoshop tutorials and these are not only for Photoshop fans. If you have just started using this program you should register on such a forum and have great discussions with it’s members. You can find out new tricks and get some answers regarding Photoshop, all for free. Not to mention that you get to make new friends there and you share the same passion which is the greatest image editing software, Photoshop.
If you are looking for a large variety of free photoshop tutorials made only for photoshop fans please visit http://www.psfanatic.com
If you are looking for a large variety of free photoshop tutorials made only for photoshop fans please visit http://www.psfanatic.com