25 Free online college writing courses that teach web designers & bloggers how to be better writers online…
Here are some great free online college courses for business writing, getting loans, and marketing your services. Also Sign up on News University for a great course on how to target you’re audience and develop a marketing niche.
Running a Profitable Company:
Writers who are unfamiliar with business techniques may have a hard time making a profit. Learn how to do so in this course.
Online Marketing Tips:
The Internet is a valuable branding tool for independent writers. Learn how to make the most of its marketing possibilities here.
HP Learning Center:
Learn about designing a logo, writing your own marketing copy and creating your own marketing materials here.
Introduction to Accounting:
The U.S. Small Business Administration offers a free introductory accounting class here.
Maintaining an Agile Company:
Get tips on being flexible and and learning how to reinvent your brand so that it always attracts an audience.
My Own Business:
The SBA’s class helps new entrepreneurs create a business plan and organize their new business.
Competitive Decision-Making and Negotiation:
Learn about different bargaining and negotiation techniques and that can help you secure higher rates and attract more clients in this class.
The Dynamic World: Textuality and Technology:
Discover the many ways that technology now affects literature. You’ll also get an introduction to digital media and writing for different media.
Digital Poetry:
Learn about factors like animation, hypertext and more in this evolving poetry form.
Evaluating Sources of Information:
This course is dual-purpose: you can get tips on finding quality research materials and discover ways to design your own blog so that others will notice its authority.
Introduction to Web Writing:
Wikiversity’s introductory class can help writers who are unfamiliar with web writing catch up.
Web Page Authoring:
Here is another course that teaches HTML format, design and more.
Quick Ways to Clean Up Your Writing:
Web writers aren’t exempt from grammar and typo mistakes. Learn fast tips for making your writing easy-to-read and error free.
How to know if you are a hard core graphic designer Is it evident that you are a hardcore designer? check out this funny list of creative and humorous ways of checking your hardcore meter as a Graphic artist or designer.
You think you have found a really great Graphic design resource right? Wrong again! Certain sites have designers fooled, displaying hot looking graphics, only later to find out that the file is either password protected, or worse it doesn’t exist at all…
This is very frustrating for Graphic artist, web designers, or bloggers looking to get some great resources for their designs. I want to personally send a message to those who link up their downloads, we are not going to click on your links anymore than we would if you hadn’t hid your download link. So don’t post free resources for graphic designer if you don’t plan on following through with it. So what can designers do about these phony sites that are not following through with what they are promoting? Well for starters you could blog about them in a negative way as I’m doing so.
But if you want direct action report these sites to the major search engines. Another thing that irritates the hell out of me are sites that hide malicious content or ads in their download links, and again you don’t get Free graphic design resources you get a solicitation or a pop up add, these sites are so scripted it sometimes causes you’re computer to crash. If you hate sites like these as I do them you should download Firefox and install the plug-in No SCRIPTS. This will kill all ads and scripts so you will no longer be forced to look at trash ads. If you want to check what you are downloading before you actually download it – highlight the text (right click) then save as target.
A window should pop up you can see the file ext, if it’s a web page extension than it’s not the actually file it’s a redirect. This is an evil way of deep linking, you click the download button – it takes you to another page that says download– if you click it again you are led to yet another page, same thing– the sad part is; you help the site owner link deep –but you don’t get any downloads, free downloads is just the bait to reel you in. These site owners have no pride in their content and should be exposed for what they are “a fraud”. I am starting a list of these sites so that as a design community we can black list them once and for all. Every site owner has an obligation to its users, Cheating users by lying and posting fraudulent articles, and downloads is wrong. We always offer 100% free content and all of our downloads are 100% accessible. So if you need a good resource website for graphic design, or web design materials please join our community.
Please leave a comment on your experiences if you can list some sites that have either redirected you – or if you have downloaded a password protected file, or if there was no download at all; just endless links. We will review all the sites that you report and display them on a “wall of shame”- so in the future you can avoid being disappointed all together. There is nothing more disappointing than finding perfect design resources only later to find out it was a spoof.
Posted by Charlotte | Posted in Hot design topics | Posted on 29-09-2009
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Finding Keywords — For Adwords Publishers
By: Andrew Hansen
If you advertise with adwords you have probably realised that with recent changes to their system, the crowd at google have made it very difficult to maintain a profitable adwords campaign. This applies to those promoting other peoples products or their own.
The way I used to create a keyword list for my campaigns was to use the adwords sandbox to enter a bunch of keywords that were relevant to my market and just add whatever words it spat out at me.
It took me a while but I realized eventually that this wasn’t the best way to go about it. Many of my keywords would become inactive and the ones that remained were ranked 17.2 and not seeing a lot of action at all.
It annoyed me because as you probably know, on the adwords traffic estimate screen you always seem to get a number of clicks that excites you but when you actually put up the campaign the results you see are much different. Also I was always limited by the number of related keywords I could think up in my own head. I knew about the power of ‘backdoor’ keywords but couldn’t think up enough of them up to create a profitable campaign!
The point it changed is when I found a piece of software that could I could use to see the bid results for large numbers of keywords at once so I could tell immediately which keywords were going to be the most profitable to use in my campaigns and which ones I shouldn’t bother with.
Not only that but this same piece of software will actually find for me the backdoor keywords that are generally less competitive and super valuable for an adwords advertiser.
With this software I first find a market and a product I want to promote then find a website about this product… I then insert this URL into the software and it will scan all the words on the page and use certain technologies to tell me all other keywords related to that keyword that I would never have thought of!
The result? More keywords, more backdoor and hence more profitable keywords and a lower cost, potentially higher conversion ad campaign!
The software is called Brainstorm Generator and can be seen via the link in this biography box. I highly recommend it as it is a very powerful tool.
Author Bio
Andrew Hansen is the apprentice to an online marketing guru and has learnt in just a few months how to make a full time income from his online ventures. He endorses www.brainstormgenerator.com as the easiest way to find highly profitable niche markets and explode your online profits.
September 30, 2009 Smashing magazine site crashed! Individuals who have not been identified yet were caught snooping around smashing magazinesmain servers, Smashing magazines spokes person stated that they infiltrated tried to alter some html data but that’s all they managed to manipulate no other data was harmed. Smashing magazines site went downwhen they noticed that a single server was compromised this was the server and the site server that supports the popular Word Press blog.
Smashing magazine hasn’t given details of how long their site is going to be down, they have some problems on their hand as their site got severely backed up in only a couple of days. Smashing magazine doesn’t know why or who or what the attack was for or where it came from – the investigation is ongoing rumors have speculated across the web that it may be due to a faulty plug-in.
We’ve experienced are own set of security issue and had to shut down for major site for repairs. We only hope that the ever popular site Smashing magazine gets up and running again.
Until then I’m sure all the designers out there can find many repost of the popular blogs posts from smashing magazine. I wonder with such high profile web sites getting hacked, it made me think about security a little more even my own site. Some really popular blogging tools and CMS software offerings have a less than outstanding record on security. The problem is no doubt exacerbated by the vast installed base of software like Word Press and Joomla on the Web. Being so popular makes these packages a prime target for hackers. No one safe i guess when it comes to security.
Posted by Charlotte | Posted in Hot design topics | Posted on 30-09-2009
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Graphic Design Price List - How to Negotiate the Best Price For Your Web Site
Graphic design price list is something that you are going to find all over the internet and to be quite frank with you, these price lists are quite unreliable! These people are really going to try to screw you out of your hard earned money and I want to let you know that you are making the right decision by doing your due diligence by researching the topic and looking online. I was in your position before and I can assure you that if you are not careful you are going to get burned!
The first thing that you want to do when you are looking at a graphic design price list is compare this list to other lists that are out there. Don’t ever assume that the first price that you see is the best price! Another thing that you want to know is that it is almost like car shopping. You want to make sure that when you are looking at graphic design prices that the web designer will show you samples of their work and that they are up to your specifications! Don’t ever settle with a mediocre graphic designer because if you have a mediocre site, your customers will look at your product as mediocre even if it is the best product in the world!
Another very vital thing that you must do when it comes to a graphic design price list is that you need to talk to at least five to ten web designers and compare the quotes. You must understand that the design of your website is like the face of your company or your “virtual building.” If you were to buy a brick and mortar company, would you buy a crappy looking store? No, because no one would want to come in! So why would you slack when it comes to your storefront online? I am here to tell you that this will greatly affect your bottom line if you don’t take care of this at the beginning! Look at it this way too, it costs over two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to buy a physical location for a physical store, however online it may only cost you a few hundred or a few thousand dollars depending on the type of site that you are doing.
Now that we are armed with the above information, how can we use it? Look at your graphic design price list and now that you have compared the prices of other designers you’ll have a pretty good feel for what it will cost you for your site! Another thing that I want you to be aware of is if the site needs to be changed, what kind of changes is the web designer going to be willing to do without charging you extra or charging you an arm and a leg? You want to make sure also that you like the graphic designer that you are working with because it can be a living hell if you are stuck with someone who is unprofessional or worse, a bad designer! Also make sure that they give you the source code of the design, do not let them hold this from you and get everything in writing especially the graphic design price list!
Free Podcast “Graphic Design & Web design related info
Posted by Charlotte | Posted in Hot design topics | Posted on 05-10-2009
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Useful websites that offer free web design tips & tricks, that will help a “non” developer create better web site design.
Here is a list of useful websites that offer free web design tips & tricks Web design tricks can be hard to find if you don’t know exactly where to look for them. That is why I decided to create a list of websites or blogs that offer free advice, learning, how tos, or tutorials –related to web design tips and tricks. If you are a graphic designer, graphic artist or web designer and have come across any other resourceful websites that offer tips and tricks for web designers or web developers, please leave a comment or a suggestion and we will consider the site into our article inclusion. As always we thank you for stopping by and hope you enjoy this great list.
Sitepoint
site point topped are list as number one because they offer an extreme amount of resourceful information for web designers – they also have many books out that we definitely recommend purchasing. Site point’s books are very easy to use and understand great for the visual learner.
Smashing magazine
I can’t get enough of smashing magazine, in fact I use their site just as much as Google, I love their articles and if it wasn’t for the fact that it is not just a “web designer’s site” they would have topped out at number one. They have just released a new book, I’m sure it’s worth taking a look at.
CSS Play
I started designing sites way before CSS came along and couldn’t believe the things that the site owner was delving out, he is a lot older than I had anticipated – he has a great deal of knowledge and is always helping others learn the code, he is a very nice man, this is one of my all time resources for web design.
Dynamic Drive Dynamic drive is a one stop shop for all your JavaScript needs, lately however they have expanded off into “CSS” and Ajax as well as a lot of other web design mediums. They are must for any web designer and a fantastic resource for beginners to pros.
JavaScript Kit JavaScript kit is a small library of useful scripts that aid designers in learning the technique, they don’t update their site very often, but the stuff they do have on their site is worth taking a look at, especially if you’re new to designing web pages.
Dhtml goodies Ajax is the new kid on the block and lately I have been fascinated with AJAX, I have included DHTML goodies because I think they provide a great resource for web designers looking to learn about the code they even offer free scripts.
Mini Ajax Mini Ajax I think offers the best Ajax scripts around they even have pictures and detailed demos of how to construct the Ajax scripts yourself, this is perfect for new web designers, right on down to the professionals.
Scripts
Scripts.com you can’t get more scripts than this, it’s a very useful resource as far as scripts go, most designers learn from experimenting and manipulating code, this is a great place to get pre-made code to study or learn from it.
Free byte
Free byte offers a wide variety of resourceful tools for web designers and developers they also have a huge library of scripts ranging from html to PHP. Our own site has a list of very resourceful CSS tips and tricks and websites that offer great free tutorials if you haven’t checked out already you can link to it click here.
Posted by Charlotte | Posted in Hot design topics | Posted on 06-10-2009
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“E-books that expire like the meat in youre fridge whats next”?
To pay or not to pay for a DRM copyright protected e-book, that is the question today. I decided to buy a couple of e-books today, instead of buying paper back like I usually do, in an effort to save the freaking trees and some money as well “ you know we are in a recession”. Well, it’s safe to say my little e-book purchase didn’t go as planned. I did do quite a bit of comparing, before I decided on whom to buy from; however the mistake I made, was forgetting to read the fine print and more importantly the F.A.Q’s. Most websites, list many of their traps right in their FAQS, if you can’t stand reading their tiny little policies that they bury somewhere in there webpage’s, make sure you read their stupid F.A.Q’s.
I purchased the E-books from MBS Direct, I thought they were kind of expensive, however I thought they were the best choice; as I am severely weary of purchasing used online books at fly by night e– stores that are unknown, or sites such as Amazon that re-sell others crap. For some reason I don’t quite trust Amazon, and I will never ever buy anything off of E-bay, let’s just say I know some people who sell stuff on e-bay and Amazon and they aren’t exactly customer service type driven entrepreneurs. They are there to sell you there junk and you are there to pay 3 times the amount of what it originally cost, when they first obtained or bought the junk.
So you can see my dilemma here. I bought the books for a reliable source so I thought; I have been purchasing paperback books from them for over a year. It is safe to say that I was a very happy customer, other than the fact that I felt they over charged for shipping– but that was cool with me, we know everybody does It, “you know who you are”. So I didn’t think my experience with purchasing an e-book would be any different. I was actually kind of excited because I wouldn’t have to pay the overpriced shipping any longer. I was surprised to learn that the hardcover books and the e-books were practical the same price, this came as a shock to me. You would think since there is not cost in producing an e-book or distributing it that it would likely be less expensive. But sadly this was not the case. I shrugged and decided to go on with my purchase anyways. After making my purchase I did not receive an instant download as expected.
I became extremely frustrated at this point, nodding my head in discontent. I decided to find out what the hell was going on with my freaking e-books. I called customer service and spoke with a lovely operator named Shelly, who told me that I needed to download a special software to review the e-book. I was not too happy to hear, that I could not use the e-books directly that I paid $180.00 for. I think that’s absolutely ridiculous, to pay that much money for an e-book and not be able to use it as you please. You wouldn’t buy a hard book that was locked in a case attached to your bookshelf that only you could access via finger print scan software. Your hard book library isn’t under tight lock and key and you can lend, sell, or copy your hard books as you see fit. So why give consumers the hassles of high security measures and downloading stupid software to run their e-books? After all there’s absolutely no cost in reproducing an e-book — is my sarcasm painting the picture for you? If you have any imagination at all you can see that I’m slowly running out of patience, becoming less concerned about the environment and questioning whether or not how this is legal and wondering why some smarty pants up on capitol hill hasn’t started some bill or petition to prevent the DRM from having this much control over materials consumers legalally purchased. You want my opinion! I think it’s completely unethical, it evades our privacy and is a direct violation of our rights as consumers.
Now to tell you the worse part… After being forced to download some crappy software, that is good for nothing –its only use is to hog a good portion of my memory just so I can read 2 e-books. That is absolutely the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of. As I’m getting the software loaded up and know it tells me the book is only valid for 180 days. I’m floored WTF!!!! I JUSTPAID 180.00 FOR 2 E-BOOKS THAT I CANONLYUSEFOR 180.00 DAYS! AREYOUFUCKINGKIDDINGME? I don’t think so, I called customer service and gave them a piece of my mind and told them that I would never order a damn thing from them again. I also asked the rep who the hell would be stupid enough to pay 180.00 for 2 e-books that they can’t even keep. The hard covered books were about the same price in fact they sold them cheaper on Amazon, even some new books that haven’t even been opened. I understand why people devote their time to cracking software and pirating media. It’s not the consumers who are screwing the media companies. It’s the media companies screwing the consumers. I have decided to borrow the e-books I was going to purchase from someone else. I am not going to pay 180.00 for something I can’t keep, so just put that in your back pocket. I think the DRM thinks were stupid or something, you’d have to be, to pay that much money for a couple of e-books that expire like meat in your fridge.
I found an awesome tutorial online on how to convert celsius into fahrenhiet using Netbeans, Converting celsius into fahrenheit is so easy using this video tutorial that even the most basic amature can learn how to conver celsius into fahrenheit using this great video tutorial that I found scrubbing the Youtube. If you are taking Java and need to learn how to create a simple java program that can convert celsius into fahrenhiet than this is the perfect video tutorial that teaches you how to easily convert celsius into fahrenheit using javas netbeans.
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iscover how digital media can open up your narrative techniques in this course.
