The Official Wall of Mark Keeler » Website building tips http://www.markkeeler.com A Place To Find Ways to Create what you want through Social Networking Mon, 15 Mar 2010 04:04:39 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 Create a Free Website in Less Than 5 Minutes http://www.markkeeler.com/create-a-free-website-in-less-than-5-minutes/ http://www.markkeeler.com/create-a-free-website-in-less-than-5-minutes/#comments Tue, 07 Apr 2009 18:30:31 +0000 Mark Keeler http://www.markkeeler.com/?p=401 A friend of mine informed me of a great free website building tool.  Weebly!  It will host the site and help you build a real functioning website with no programming skills.

Click on this on screen video to see how I made a simple website in approximately 4 minutes.

Here are the steps:

Website building video

  1. Go to Weebly.com
  2. Create an account
  3. Create your website

It’s really this simple.  You can make a blog, landing page, start a small business, etc.  It’s a great tool to learn how to design a website without knowing how to program.  It’s a great site to use as inbound links to your main business site for ‘SEO.  A link is a link!  Make sure the link is relevant.

]]> http://www.markkeeler.com/create-a-free-website-in-less-than-5-minutes/feed/ 0 How To Add a Custom WordPress Template http://www.markkeeler.com/how-to-add-a-custom-wordpress-template/ http://www.markkeeler.com/how-to-add-a-custom-wordpress-template/#comments Mon, 06 Apr 2009 18:15:12 +0000 Mark Keeler http://www.markkeeler.com/?p=381 I was doing some searching on Google trying to figure out how to make a custom WordPress template without doing a whole lot of coding.  I came across this simple peice of coding that works like magic.

The first step is to create your desired page in HTML, I use Kompozer an HTML editor since I am somewhat geek impaired and can’t actually write any code,  I use a free editor called Kompozer.  In this case we are not going to add content to this page from within the dashboard so add all your meta tags for SEO.   It will need a title, description, keywords, basically everything a regular static HTML page would need. After you create your new page you need to create a new WordPress page template. This can be done either in a text editor and FTP uploaded to your site or, since it is a small simple file you can create it directly in your hosting account’s control panel.

To create the new page template paste your HTML code into a text editor like Notepad, then paste the following PHP code directly above it like this:

<?php /* Template Name: New Template Name
*/ ?>

<html>
Your HTML Code Here

Copy just the 2 lines of code above the <html> tag and paste it into your new template and change New Template Name to a name of your choosing.   Save the new page template as a .php file.   Something like test.php, and upload it to your hosting account in the template folder of your current WordPress theme.   Don’t call your new template page.php!   There is already one called that.   Double check the name so you do not over write any existing templates or pages.

You can look at your current page.php template to get clues as to what you may want to include in your custom page template like the header and footer or possibly the sidebar.  The idea of a template is to make it look unique.  I highly reccomend staying away from sidebars and headers unless they are uique to this page.

The directory to place the new page template in is blog/wp-content/themes/default. Where default is the currently active theme.

Since you are placing this new WordPress page template into a specific themes folder it will only be available when that specific theme is active. If you change themes you will need to place a copy of it into the currently active theme.

To create a new page template within your hosting accounts control panel. Browse to your blogs main directory, wp-content, themes, then click on your currently active theme. Create a new PHP file, call it whatever you wish, like above front.php, paste your HTML code and then the PHP code directly above it and save.

Creating Your New Custom Page

Login to your WordPress Dashboard, click Write then Write Page. Since we didn’t specify in the custom page template to get the content, or any other information for that matter, all we need to do here is create a new page and specify the page template to use.

Type a title in the title box, then look over to the right and click the Page Template drop down box, choose your new WordPress page template and click publish

Squeeze Page

This custom page is a great starting point to make a landing or squeeze page.

Kompozer is an excellent WYSIWYG editor.  I don’t know code.  I really on my uncanny ability to copy what other people have created!  You can add your own sales copy in the normal mode and it will code it for you.  Just cut and paste the auto repsonder code where you desire it and now you have a custom landing page.

]]> http://www.markkeeler.com/how-to-add-a-custom-wordpress-template/feed/ 0 Gimp for photo editing http://www.markkeeler.com/gimp-for-photo-editing/ http://www.markkeeler.com/gimp-for-photo-editing/#comments Sun, 01 Mar 2009 07:12:55 +0000 Mark Keeler http://www.markkeeler.com/?p=213 What is Gimp?  GNU Image Manipulation Program.  In less than 5 minutes I had created a crude custom header for my Word Press blog.  I have never used a photo editing tool before other than free ones like Picassa!  I found this easy to pick up after viewing a few online tutorials.

Gimp is an open source photo editing tool similar to Photo Shop without the price tag.  There are currently over 20 individuals working and up dating the software.  I found it fairly easy to use.  I have never used Photo Shop.  I have no way to compare it.  I did a few searches on the web for tutorials.  The tutorials were awesome.

Give this software a try!  http://www.gimp.org/ This is the official GIMP web site. It contains information about downloading, installing, using, and enhancing it. This site also serves as a distribution point for the latest releases.  Grab a properly chilled beverage and enjoy.

]]> http://www.markkeeler.com/gimp-for-photo-editing/feed/ 0 GIMPSHOP http://www.markkeeler.com/gimpshop/ http://www.markkeeler.com/gimpshop/#comments Sat, 28 Feb 2009 05:45:29 +0000 Mark Keeler http://www.markkeeler.com/?p=203 I just down loaded GIMPSHOP for photo editing and web design.  I am in the business of learning as much as I can in the shortest amount of time.  Now comes the hard part, the steep learning curve.

]]> http://www.markkeeler.com/gimpshop/feed/ 0 How to add a JING PROJECT screen capture presentation to your blog http://www.markkeeler.com/how-to-add-a-jing-project-screen-capture-presentation-to-your-blog/ http://www.markkeeler.com/how-to-add-a-jing-project-screen-capture-presentation-to-your-blog/#comments Fri, 27 Feb 2009 05:10:14 +0000 Mark Keeler http://www.markkeeler.com/?p=188 I came across another cool tool for spicing your blog.  It’s called JING.  http://help.jingproject.com

Click on the URL and see a sneak preview on how Jing works.  This is an actual JING video with audio.

JING VIDEO

The website goes into the specifics on how to record and play.  It takes less than 5 minutes to be up and running with your first screen capture.

JING works great for making online tutorials and prentations.  The free version has a 5 minute record limitation.   But hey, it’s FREE!

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