Keeping track of all your web design and development web sites can be annoying and time consuming. Personally I have a hard time remembering more than a few, and going through my own links no matter what tool I use is is still a hassle.
I found one link, that has links to the best sites for learning and keeping up to date on the web:
The Smashing Network:
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/the-smashing-network/
One of the criticisms of Drupal is that it has a steep learning curve. Some of the terminology used to describe elements of Drupal can be a bit off putting and confusing to newcomers, so lets look at some of the Drupal ‘language’.
Core
Often you will come across the term ‘Core’ or ‘Drupal Core’. These terms are referring to the basic Drupal software set that was originally downloaded. This software includes a number of core modules and themes.
Modules
Modules are the building blocks of your Drupal site. I like to think of Drupal as a giant Lego set. The modules would be the various parts and bricks you put together to build your model, or in our case the web system we want. Modules extend and add extra functionality to Drupal.
There are thousands of modules available . These modules add functionality in areas such as e-commerce, user management, media, content and web 2.0 features, to name but a few. You can view all the modules that are available for download on the Drupal web site: http://drupal.org/project/modules
Nodes
For Nodes read ‘content’. A node can be a blog entry, a page or a piece of content and its associated elements that you define. All nodes have some common properties, such as an author, a title, a type of node (i.e. a page or blog post), a creation date and body content. Also, nodes can take advantage of the inner workings and functions of Drupal and other added modules to trigger other actions or displays.
read more…
Remove the style sheet from your blog’s layout and design and you will see what search engines see when they visit.
What do they see first? What is left when you remove all the pretty? That’s what search engines see.
Things you need to know about search engines when they visit your blog:
It is critical to ensure all such errors and road blocks are fixed. Search engines are now sophisticated enough to verify if your design and structure meets web standards. A poorly coded blog can lower your page rank score. And a poorly designed, error-filled blog can lead the robot or spider in a wrong direction, confuse it, or stop it in its tracks. If it has difficulty moving through your pages, it will stop.
Well-designed and web standard code allows the crawler to move easily through your site, which tells the search engine the site is designed with care and attention to detail and web standards.
The term Search Engine Optimization (SEO) describes a diverse set of activities that you can perform to increase the amount of targeted traffic that comes to your website from search engines (you may also have heard these activities called Search Engine Marketing or Search Marketing). This includes things you do to your site itself, such as making changes to your text and HTML code.
It also includes communicating directly with the search engines, or pursuing other sources of traffic by making requests for listings or links. Tracking, research, and competitive review are also part of the SEO package.
SEO is not advertising, although it may include an advertising component. It is not public relations, although it includes communication tasks similar to PR. As a continually evolving area of online marketing, SEO may sound complicated, but it is very simple in its fundamental goal: gaining targeted visitors.
There are thousands of professionals all over the world who earn their living by providing SEO services to website owners. The good SEO pros spend large amounts of time and resources learning the skills of effective optimization. This goes to show that you could easily spend years learning SEO since there is so much to learn.
Here are 10 top tips that I found from various resources on the internet that are sure to help you:
read more…
Writing with keyword-rich content helps your blog be found and readers to fully understand what you are writing about. Write consistent and purposeful content.
The more inline your content is with your blog’s purpose, the more concentrated your use of keywords will be throughout the entire blog, not just on a per-post basis. The more diverse your blog’s content, the more diffused your keyword usage will be across all of your blog.
Make a plan for your content. Make lists of the topics you will write about in keeping with your blog’s purpose. Stick to those subjects as much as possible to build your blog’s reputation as the place to come for answers on those subjects.
In web application development, a local development environment is built for programmers to develop and test their code before it goes ‘live’. This step is done to make sure everything is working properly before any visitor can see it as to avoid any unforeseen issues or errors.
Drupal runs on an AMP (Apache + MySQL + PHP) stack and has sometimes given newbies fits in trying to get all those pieces installed correctly with various installer packages such as MAMP, WAMP, or even XAMPP.
A new AMP stack installer called DAMP by Acquia has proven to be more stable and overall better than the others.
The main advantages of DAMP:
1. DAMP is much smaller (32MB) than MAMP/WAMP (160MB).
2. Hosts multiple sites.
3. Easier to access configuration and log files.
4. Good online documentation.
I wrote up a lesson (.pdf) on how to download, install and setup the Aquia DAMP on your PC.
Many Drupal sites do not allow visitors to login and administrators normally will disable the user login block.
So when the administrator needs to login, they just go here:
The same goes if you need to logout of your site without a logout link:
These courses are offered through this website and can be considered “self-study” which includes email support from the instructor.
Introduction to Drupal: ($25) Six lessons guiding you step-by-step through all of the basic aspects of Drupal development. The materials that are used are the same as the class taught at eClasses.org.
View the complete first lesson (.pdf) to give you an idea of how topics are covered.
