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January 2007 Archives

January 2, 2007

Internet History

The start of a new year has seen many people looking back through their diaries and reminiscing on a year gone by. This got a few of us here at Hypergurl chatting about some of the most memorable times in the history of the Internet that has made web design possible. WWW started in 1991 with browsers that only supported text. Not long after in 1993 a browser called Mosaic started to gain popularity due to its support of images. Netscape 1 followed in 1994. Netscape was the first browser to support the "center" tag. In 1996 Netscape 2 supported...

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January 3, 2007

Google Spider

Google possibly spiders website pages separately on different dates, instead of spidering a website as a whole block all on the same date. Web designers for months now have been using Google Webmaster Tools to check the dates that Google last spidered their website. From this date it is usually presumed that their website as a whole had been updated in the Google index for all to see. We've recently noticed this isn't always the case as pages seem to be spidered and indexed on different dates as I'll illustrate below. A few days back I checked what pages were...

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January 6, 2007

Free HTML Editors

Free WYSIWYG website editors Not all HTML editors are expensive. Listed below are free HTML editors we recommend in helping you create and edit your website easily, yet efficiently. These editors have been chosen for a number of reasons: (1) Firstly, they are FREE website creators. There aren’t as many around nowadays as there was six years ago, but it’s still possible to find a few good quality editors that you can legally download for free. (2) Secondly, being a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor, they are easy to use for the beginner webmaster. WYSIWYG editors...

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January 7, 2007

What is Supplemental Result in Google search?

While using Google search to check website rankings, many webmasters find their pages are listed as being ‘Supplemental Result’. Supplemental listings is not good news for webmasters as it usually means that specific webpage won’t be seen in the normal Google index unless there aren’t many other quality sites for them to list. Supplemental pages are ones that Google considers to be low quality. Reasons for this vary and are listed below: (1) Not enough text (content) on the page. (2) Pages that you don’t link to yourself within your own website, will be listed as supplemental. In other words...

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Can you make money online with a website or blog

Making money online with a website or blog Chances are by now most Internet surfers have heard of Google adsense or in the least seen their advertisements while browsing through websites. For those that haven’t, Google Adsense is an advertising solution where website and weblog publishers are starting to earn some serious dollars. In short, Google finds advertisers that are willing to pay webmasters for advertising space on their websites. A webmaster or weblog publisher simply needs to add a block of code to their webpages, which in turn will display relevant textual or image advertisements suited to the specific...

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HTML Tags for MySpace

Editing MySpace I was recently listening in on a teenage conversation concerning MySpace and in particular the trouble they had formatting text on their pages. I found one specific remark interesting as they all agreed on the same issue: “I’ve learned more about HTML tags from editing my MySpace page than I have in high school technology courses.” Are they still teaching basic HTML to students in technology courses at high school level or is it simply not interesting enough until it becomes a useful tool for editing popular MySpace? Either way, it seems MySpace is becoming a positive teaching...

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January 8, 2007

Webmaster Skills

What skills does a webmaster need? Ok, so you know how to make a website. But, does this make you a webmaster? For some people the term webmaster refers to a person who can make a website. For others it’s someone who creates original website graphics and doesn’t search for them using Google images. Let’s say your client asks you for a SQL database or an easy method of updating their pages themselves though a user-interface. Would you know how to create such a site? If you are thinking of making a career from being a webmaster, it’s important to...

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Transaction Processing in Large Database Systems

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 This article was written by Tanya Puntti for Database Application Development - Central Queensland University. Introduction The purpose of this report is to discuss transaction processing in large database systems and specifically the role of transaction processing monitors. Firstly the report discusses what a database transaction is. It then goes on to discuss what properties transactions should follow to ensure reliability. Transaction processing monitors are examined including the purpose they serve and the architecture of such a system. Additionally, it studies three popular monitor products; Tuxedo from...

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Two-phase commit protocol vs Three-phase commit

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 This article was written by Tanya Puntti for Database Application Development - Central Queensland University. Two-phase commit protocol Two-phase commit is a standard protocol in distributed transactions for achieving ACID properties. Each transaction has a coordinator who initiates and coordinates the transaction (Begg & Connolly 2002, p.749). In the two-phase commit the coordinator sends a prepare message to all participants (nodes) and waits for their answers. The coordinator then sends their answers to all other sites. Every participant waits for these answers from the coordinator before committing...

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TP Monitor

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 This article was written by Tanya Puntti for Database Application Development - Central Queensland University. What is a transaction processing (TP) monitor? Transaction processing monitors are defined as acting like an operating system for transaction processing. In other words, it is a program that monitors a transaction as it passes from one stage in a process to another. Nancy (1997) states that transaction processing monitors are part of a software category commonly referred to as middleware. Krakowiak (2003) defines middleware as ‘the software layer that lies between...

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Architecture of a TP Monitor

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 This article was written by Tanya Puntti for Database Application Development - Central Queensland University. Architecture of an application system that uses a TP monitor Application architectures that use a transaction processing monitor consists of three parts (Begg & Connolly 2002) as shown in figure 1. (1) Firstly there is a graphic interface layer that resides on the client’s computer. (2) Secondly there is an application layer that could reside on numerous separate application servers. (3) And lastly there is a data layer that resides on separate...

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TP Monitors in large database systems

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 This article was written by Tanya Puntti for Database Application Development - Central Queensland University. Who uses a transaction processing monitors and how are they useful in large database systems? Transaction processing monitors are typically used in environments with a very high volume of transactions. For example, airline reservations, security systems, customer service and order/delivery process systems. A transaction monitor helps to manage these high volume transactions and allows the systems to be more scalable than a two tier architecture with direct client to server connection. If...

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Tuxedo, BEA Systems, Microsoft Transaction Server MTS

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 This article was written by Tanya Puntti for Database Application Development - Central Queensland University. Popular TP monitor products Popular transaction processing monitors include Tuxedo from BEA Systems, MTS (Microsoft Transaction Server) from Microsoft and CICS from IBM. While each monitor has their own unique features, they all provide similar fundamental capabilities needed in a transaction processing system. Micromax Information Services (1999) lists these capabilities as being: • Transaction and data integrity • Workload management • Communication services • Enhanced security • Scalability • On-line administration •...

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How to choose a transaction processing TP monitor

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 This article was written by Tanya Puntti for Database Application Development - Central Queensland University. Criteria enterprise should use when choosing a transaction processing monitor There are a number of different criteria enterprise should take into account when choosing a transaction processing monitor. These include the following: • Costs: As with many business products, the prices vary. • Resource compatibility: Enterprise should check to make sure the resources they already have are compatible with the transaction processing monitor they choose. • Platform support: It needs to be...

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January 9, 2007

Free Graphic Editors

Free Graphic Editors Buying all the software needed to develop a website can be expensive, especially when you’re first learning and experimenting with a family or hobby site. Downloading a hacked version of Photoshop with a keygen is never a good idea and forking out a thousand dollars just isn’t an option for most people. What most don’t realize however is that there are many free graphic editors around with similar features to more professional programs like Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro. Listed below are free image, graphic and photograph editors I’ve found to be of such a high quality...

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January 11, 2007

What is web 2.0, is it important?

Web 2.0 is it important? Anyone who has been around the internet the last couple of years has most likely come across the term Web 2.0 and are most likely confused as to what it means exactly. Web 2.0 is considered by many to be the second phase of the World Wide Web. The term was first introduced by Tim O’Reilly in 2004. For those that don’t know, Tim’s company, O’Reilly Media produces technological texts both online and in print. In the companies own words they have an: “unshakeable belief in the power of information to spur innovation” So what...

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January 12, 2007

What makes a website successful

Making a successful website One of the most important ingredients for a successful website isn’t anything to do with the design itself. It’s passion! By passion, I’m referring to the passion the owner has for the website content. Take Bill Gates for example, it’s clear to see he is passionate about technology. In every photograph taken of him or on every publicized speaking engagement he does, you can see the excitement in his face and in his eyes. Passion is what will keep you working on your website when your receiving less than a hundred visitors a day, or when...

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January 13, 2007

Social bookmarks, del.icio.us digg technorati

Promote your website through social bookmarks Social bookmarking is a popular new Internet tool where visitors use services that allow them to share sites they’ve bookmarked. In other words they share websites they’ve found useful or interesting with other members. Examples of popular social bookmarking websites include: del.icio.us http://del.icio.us/popular/ digg http://www.digg.com/ technorati.com (for bloggers) http://technorati.com/pop/ If you’re lucky enough to get your website bookmarked by a couple of hundred members it could add up to some serious traffic. Alexa statistics are showing social bookmarking services to be extremely popular. Del.icio.us is currently 119th most popular website on the Internet http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?url=http://del.icio.us...

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January 18, 2007

Online tool for resizing images

I came across a handy tool today called ResizR, perfect for quickly resizing an image. This online webtool is easy to use and very efficient. ResizR allows you to browse a photograph or image stored on your computer or you can type in the url to the graphic. After choosing an image width you can then rotate it if needed before resizing and saving the finished picture to your hard drive. Click here to try ResizR On the news page, they mention on September 6th they had 4000 images resized overnight. Such a simple tool, yet so popular. This is...

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how to change black white photographs to color

Photoshop Video Tutorial Here is a terrific Photoshop video tutorial that shows you how to easily change a black and white photograph to color. The video demonstrates how you firstly create and name a layer within photoshop. Next you select the pen tool and outline the image, specifically the skin areas. As the photoshop video tutorial shows, you need to trace the eyes and mouth to exclude them before adding a color to the layer. Photoshop lasso tool and layers are also used to color the eyes. The after photograph in this example does seem like the original, however the...

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January 20, 2007

Photoshop CS tutorial change eye color, reduce red eye

Video Tutorial - How to change eye color in Photoshop CS Have you ever wanted to see how you would look with blue, green or brown eyes? Here is a tutorial on how to easily change a photos eye color using Photoshop . This Photoshop CS tutorial is also great for reducing red eye in photographs. Firstly, use the lasso tool to select the iris. Next you need to feather and select hue saturation. Choose colorize and you can then adjust the colours. It's good to choose a colour that looks nice and natural. Press the arrow on the video...

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remove photo background image

Photoshop Video Tutorial - How to remove an image background from a photo. Removing a background from an image isn't as hard as you might think with Photoshop . This video tutorial shows you a beginners (easy) method, as well as one that requires a bit more skill. The advanced way shows you how utilises a filter to extract the main part of the photo from the background. As demonstrated, the easy way of removing an image background is to use Photoshop eraser tool. Holding down this eraser tool you'll see different types of erasers. One of these is a...

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January 22, 2007

How google spider crawls the web

How Googlebot crawls the Internet Here is an excellent video from Matt Cutts (head of Googles webspam team). In this video he uses colored candy to help describe how the Google spider crawls the web to find new website pages. Matt also goes on to illustrate how they find pages that are already listed and have been updated since the last spider. Note: Red candy is a 404 page Purple candy is a 200 (OK) page Green candy is a 304 status code (page has not changed)...

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Learn how to use Photoshop

Learn how to use Photoshop by following tutorials One of the best ways to learn how to use Adobe Photoshop is to find a couple of online tutorials that you'd enjoy following. Here are two popular Photoshop tutorials that you'll have fun with while your learning. The first tutorial takes a normal photograph and turns it into a popout image like the examples below. You can find this tutorial online at http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2288434 where you will learn how to use Photoshop layers, paint brush, feathering, selection and erasor tools. You will also pick up a few handy keyboard shortcuts along the...

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January 23, 2007

Make money online affiliate programs and Adsense

You don’t need your own product to make money online What many people don’t realize is you don’t necessarily need your own product to make a successful living online. Here are a few ideas and examples of how other home business owners started making Internet income without having a product of their own. Two of the most popular income generators for Internet business owners at the moment are affiliate programs and Google Adsense. Affiliate Programs Affiliate programming is where you promote someone else’s product on your website and for every lead that ends up in a sale you are paid...

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January 24, 2007

Keyword suggestion tool SEO

SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool Enter a keyword search into the tool found at: http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword/ and you will be given a list of related word suggestions based on current trends in Google, Yahoo and MSN. For example, if I put in 'website tools' it tells me that on Google the top search terms for similar keywords are: website building tool, website traffic tool etc. It also tells me how much traffic I could expect to receive if I were to be listed on the first page of Google search. Numerous other features include: (1) A link to Google Adwords telling...

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January 25, 2007

Photo change facial features, remove wrinkles blemishes with Photoshop

How to improve your facial features in photos This video tutorial will show you how to use Photoshop tools to air brush your facial blemishes, blotches and skin marks in photos or remove your wrinkles. Just like graphic artists do for magazine models. It also shows you how to add hair to bald heads or give yourself a nose job. After following this Photoshop tutorial you will be able to remove double chins or lift your eye brows. Note: The software used in this tutorial is Adobe Photoshop. To start the Photoshop tutorial click on the arrow....

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vanishing point tool Photoshop

Video Tutorial - How to use vanishing point tool in Photoshop In this photoshop tutorial you'll learn how to use the vanishing point tool found in Photoshop CS2 (Photoshop 9). Using Photoshop vanishing point tool is a two step process that lets you clone, paint and transform image objects while at the same time keeping visual perspective. What does this mean? It means you can have a photograph of a few different objects sitting on the ground and with the vanishing point tool, you can easily take two of them out of the picture. No one will ever know the...

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website architecture domains, url parameters, keywords

In the video shown below Matt Cutts, SEO from Google.com answers some FAQ's concerning website architecture and what is considered suitable for Google databases. Here is a quick run down on what Matt has to say for those not lucky enough to have broadband to easily view the video. Is it ok to merge acquired domains with 301s? It is ok to merge acquired domains with 301s as long as the content of the new website is related to the content of the last site that owned the domain. For example, it's ok to purchase an already existing domain that...

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January 26, 2007

web site promotion tool

Web site promotion tools Many of you may have already read our website promotion page where we discussed ideas for attracting more visitors to your web site. In this article we discussed search engines, newsletters, message boards, guestbooks, banner exchanges, webrings as well as offline advertising. Since then a whole new range of web site promotion tools have come online. Here we will discuss a few of them that are handy to have in your webmaster toolbox: Back Link Analyzer Reciprocal linking between similar web sites is one of the best ways to to promote your site. Back Link Analyzer...

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January 27, 2007

how to make gif animation Adobe ImageReady

Video Tutorial - Adobe ImageReady, gif animation Here is a great video tutorial to help you learn the basics of using ImageReady to create gif animations. The tutorial uses a simple stick person and turns him into an animation that is bouncing a ball. I agree, stick people aren't usually the most interesting of animations, but it's what you learn when you follow the steps that is important. For example, you will learn how to use layers, frames and the move tool. Layers and frames especially are the two most important Photoshop elements to grasp if you want to create...

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Google sandbox, - + penalty

Google Legends - Myth or Fact? If you’ve been around any SEO message forums lately you would have come across a couple of Google terms including sandbox and + or -30 penalties and wondered what exactly they are referring to. Google Sandbox Google sandbox is a term used by many webmasters to help explain why new domains take longer to be listed on Google than on other search engines like Yahoo or MSN. Some argue that it seems as if Google places them into a sandbox to go and play on their own until they have proven themselves worthy of...

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How to design an Internet web site with Dreamweaver 8

Video Tutorial - How to use Dreamweaver 8 If you've just purchased Dreamweaver and not yet sure how to go about designing and Internet web site with it, then this is the tutorial to watch. This tutorial is recommended for beginners wanting to learn the basics of putting together their first web site. This Dreamweaver tutorial covers the following steps: 1. setting up your first webpage and giving it a title. 2. setting your page properties including background images or color, default text font and link colors etc. 3. adding images to your first Internet web site design. 4. adding...

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January 29, 2007

Free software for your web design toolbox

Icon creators, desktop capture software, web album generators and syntax highlighting notepads Here are 4 free downloads that are handy to keep in your web design toolbox. @icon sushi @icon sushi is a free icon generator that comes in handy when you want to make your own favicons. This software helps you to import an image, edit it if needed then convert it to an icon. You can also make an icon from scratch if you don't have an image you want to use. Download @icon sushi Wink Wink is a free desktop capture software that helps you to create...

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About January 2007

This page contains all entries posted to Website Design Tips - Hypergurl in January 2007. They are listed from oldest to newest.

February 2007 is the next archive.

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