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Tuesday, August 28, 2012

To domain or to sub-domain?


In years past sub-domain names were more readily found since server space was left to the pros with free site space being attractive and domain forwarding not as accessible to an average non-tech user.  You would have your page name, the server name and the extension; usually .com at that time.

A standard domain might look similar to: www.mydomain.com  your web server would go into the mydomain area and your extension could be something other than .com (.net, .org. edu to name a few).
Today you might find sub-domains used for the free blogs like blogger.com or on a larger scale you could have a company site that has sub-domain pages for various departments. 

A sub-domain might look similar to: mypage.mydomain.com  your specific page would go into the mypage field is the only difference from the domain.

A pro to using the sub-domain is if the server name is a large company that is well marketed your page will might come up sooner on searches by having that association.  What I personally do is keep the sub-domain name, and forward an easy to remember domain name of my own.

This way I have the benefit of the association with the larger server name as well as an easy to remember name that will take my visitors directly to my page.

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

How do I purchase hosting for my website?


I read an excellent article on how to purchase hosting for your website http://www.netmagazine.com/opinions/how-buy-hosting and wanted to expand a little on it for anyone new to the biz.

If your site is already built then you need to find out how much space you need.  For example a small five page brochure site could probably fit into a smaller 10 meg hosting plan.  If you have an ecommerce store, or your site built in a content management system you will probably want more storage space, and a database.  Packages usually start around 10 megs and go as far up as a designated remote server.  So the sky is the limit.

Different hosts support different types of programming.  So if you have a form, credit card processing, really any interactive features you probably have programming beyond standard html.  So you need to find out if you are using php, .net, or what type of programming and make sure you purchase hosting that supports it.
Those are the two big things, beyond that check out the article for assistance in purchasing hosting for your site.  I might add my favorite resource is Winhost they offer affordable, robust hosting supporting a wide range of needs.

Ok, now that we got the nitty gritty hosting out of the way what about your site?  For anyone not ready to dive into a site from scratch check out some great templates or a great starting point might be a free template you could customize.


Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Free Illustrator Pattern!


Found another cool freebee I had to share.  Free Illustrator pattern swatches at http://wegraphics.net/downloads/50-free-herringbone-illustrator-pattern-swatches/.  All herringbone patterns in different colors and line patterns.  Click the green free download button to the right and there you go.  You should be able to find your Illustrator Patterns folder to dump it in for use.  If you have Illustrator open you need to close it and relaunch to see them.