How I continually build and work on marshu.com web site


	Computer tips, tricks and fixes - anything from fixing your browser, to your office programs Content Management - how to manage a website and it's content Website Redesign History - redesign history of marshu.com Image Hotlinking - funny hotlinking pranks! Website milestones - thousands of visitors found marshu.com, see the stats here

Introduction: I think it's important to keep any web site fresh and interesting. This site and it's navigation periodically go through changes - from color, to looks, to the buttons.

Different is always better: Anybody can use the standard buttons - that's not design and never will be. Using a template which came with a program of your choice is not going to cut it if you want a striking web design - it has to be unique.

First, you need to be aware that without a working knowledge of a programming language, you probably will be stuck with a WYSIWYG, Short for what you see is what you get type editor. Visual HTML editors are usually good for beginners, but you'll do a lot of maintenance on a web site of this type.

How to organize a site like this: Best way to work this out is to have a clear menu. Position it so that the user can clearly navigate it. I suggest the left hand side. If you feel the menu is getting too long (and for marshu.com, it already is!), it's wise to either remove some of the unimportant links and move them inside a header page for each division OR create a top section bar from which a user can navigate into each section. The top of the page should always be your header. The bottom should always contain important info about your web site and site map.

Web Design & Graphic Programs: Content Management is another, fancy way to describe a way a website could be managed. I have an interesting write-up on this topic, since i work in this field and can share my thoughts with you. Getting it down to a science. I use a graphic program for all images on this site. Either Jasc PaintShopPro or Adobe Photoshop is a must. You will not get away with a simpler program, invest time in getting to know one of these giants. A program like that will compress images and help keep down bandwidth usage and get help for personal website hosting . I personally like PaintShopPro better, it's easier to use than Photoshop and does about 90% of what PS can do.

How marshu.com works: The foundation of this site is a set of include files which control the look of all pages. Stylesheets use is a must. The language behind this site is PHP, it's great for beginners because of it's ease of use and flexibility. If you know ASP/VB/JAVA, using PHP is painless. Tracking/counter software should be used as well, you always want to know who visits the site, which pages are the most favorite, bandwidth used, keywords searched and referrers.

Lastly, because of all the work done beforehand, I can easily change the look and feel of the site with a change to just a few lines of code. You can always contact me for more info.

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