Building a Better Blog Part 2: Design and Usability
If you read my quick article on what to expect from this four part (three parts of actually doing something) series on a better blog, you probably just couldn’t wait for the next part. Well, wait no more because it’s here. In this tutorial you’ll learn just how to create an amazing looking fixed width, two column blog complete with gradients, all CSS, and how to optimize it for both your users and search engines.
Building a Better Blog From Design To Code: Part 1 - Planning And Needs
There comes a time in everyone’s life when they decide to put up a blog. I’ve covered different designs before, I’ve covered some different coding approaches, but I’ve always left it to you to put together. It’s time to solve the problem. I will teach you and ask you questions about what you want in a blog, how to do it, and when to do it. You’ll learn various CSS, PHP, HTML, and AJAX techniques in this 4 part tutorial.
Create Dynamic URLs With Mod_Rewrite and PHP Functions
A while ago I wrote an article on how to use mod_rewrite for search engine friendly URLs, but have since found the uses lacking. For one thing, you can’t pass variables well without adding more commands to mod_rewrite. So here you’ll learn to add unlimited parameters to your links with only one simple PHP function.
How To Hide And Show Elements To Create A One-Off Page
Frequently you will need to create a quick website to organize your information. Whether it’s for a quick page advertising a software you’re selling, or just to give some information, static HTML will most likely will be used. But instead of a long boring HTML page, or more complicated and time consuming multiple HTML pages, you can easily organize your information using javascript. This tutorial will show you how to create information and then, using the Document Object Model, hide and display different pages for a unique organisation technique. This is all fully compatible for people who do not have javascript enabled as well. If you still don’t understand, look at the example.
HOWTO: Make Your Own Stylish Dark Blog Layout
Blogs have, in the past few years, become a standard of internet marketing, reputation building, or a place to get thoughts out. Whatever your goal of having a blog, (or weblog or online journal) is, one thing it needs is a stylish layout. That’s exactly what this tutorial serves to teach: how to create a stylish blog layout. This tutorial doesn’t serve to teach new concepts, just to show how to go about creating a very simplistic, very nice looking blog layout and some new tricks to put in your XHMTL/CSS grab bag.
Web 2.0 Layout Mark 2 - More Gradients
The first Web 2.0 Layout designed by me was primitive at best. With no gradients, annoying colors, and boring design, it left a lot to be desired. That’s where this layout steps in. It brings more to the table in the terms of design and the usability. Overall, when you are done reading the tutorial, you will have yet another easy and good looking layout under your belt.
How To Make Your Own Image Gallery With An Administration
One thing everyone searches for is a great image gallery. Whether it’s to show off your work as a web designer or some pictures of your kid’s birthday, an easy way to upload and identify your images is always great. This tutorial will teach you how to create an image gallery: the administration comes complete with a login check, an upload form, a system for describing your images in a database, and the front end has everything including showing thumbnails of all your images, how to use the very great Script.aculo.us library for some great effects, and a javascript slideshow.
Creating a Full Statistics Suite With Administration
The most important part of your website is your visitors. You should know where they come from, what they use, where they go. There are various statistics software that can tell you all these things, but why use a pre-made one when you can build one yourself? Here, you’ll learn how to track where your visitor goes, where they come from, what browser they use, and how many total hits and unique hits you get complete with a login check.
Creating A Scaffold-like Class in PHP or An Automatic CMS For a Table
If you’ve ever seen the Creating a Weblog In 15 Minutes movie, you were undoubtedly startled at how useful and quick the scaffold command could be. But if you’re still using PHP, and you love that command, then you could have a problem. Luckily, through the use of Object Oriented Programming, an equivalent solution is available, creating a full create, read, update, and delete CMS for a single table through one command.
Creating a Templating System Using Object Oriented Programming
When building a website, things can get a bit complicated with code written inside the template. A templating system serves to separate the structure (HTML) from the style (CSS) from the code/content (PHP and database) with PHP’s object oriented programming functions.
Building Content By Parsing RSS Feeds With PHP
If you run a content driven web site, even a blog, one problem you might find is getting content. A great free source of content is RSS Feeds. Instead of manually adding each item in the feed into the database, you’ll set up a script to parse the feed and automatically add each item into the database.
Automatically Saving Drafts Using Periodically_Call_Remote
If you write for a large article-driven web site, you will invariably accidentally lose a whole post. You then have a two basic options: you can write in a word processor software, or you could build your own system to automatically save drafts when writing. That’s what you’ll do here, using periodically_call_remote().
Designing Your Very Own Web 2.0 Layout
Web 2.0 is probably a term you’ve heard before many times. With it comes ideas of AJAX, rounded corners and badges. And whitespace. Lots of that. It usually favors the minimalist approach, so we’re going to try to capture this essence in a tutorial here. (Note: No AJAX, No Gradients, or badges. I’m working on that. But does include gigantic footer.)
Making a Two Column Fluid Layout With Rounded Corners
Taking apart the two column blue layout of the Shadow Fox Network. Learn how to build a full two column layout with rounded corners.
3 Column All CSS Layout With Fluid Center and Two Columns
A response to the amount of 3 column css fluid width layout tutorials. This will make a 3 column layout with a fluid center and two fixed width sidebars. Uses only 3 divs for the columns and shows how to accurately use the float technique.
Beginning DOM Manipulation Part 3
The third and final part to starting to manipulate the Document Object Model with Javascript. This covers using the innerHTML property, creating nodes, and deleting nodes.
Beginning DOM Manipulation Part 2
Part two of how to begin manipulating elements on a page on-the-fly using the Document Object Model with Javascript. Covers getting and setting attributes and values.
Beginning DOM Manipulation
A beginning perspective into how to use the Document Object Model using Javascript to manipulate page elements on the fly. Covers getElementById, getElementsByTagName, childNodes, firstChild, lastChild, and nodeValue.
Increasing Your Adsense Income
One of the major players, perhaps the major player in contextual advertising is Google’s Adsense program. This article will cover various ways to add more money onto your current paycheck from them.
Writing Articles That Capture The Audience
You have probably read hundreds if not thousands of articles on how to write, how to keep your readers’ attention, etc. This serves to conglomerate all those ideas into one article.
Using Mod_Rewrite for Search Engine Friendly URLs
A common solution to making search-engine-friendly URIs using the Apache module mod_rewrite.
Generating RSS Feeds on the Fly With PHP
This article serves to augment the previous article. Instead of writing to a file to make an RSS feed, php code is included that makes the output of RSS without writing to a separate file.
Building an RSS Feed From a Database
Learn how to take information in a MySQL database table and export it to RSS using the file writing capabilities of PHP.
Building a BBCode Function
How to construct a function to build the useful BBCode that are used in most forums.
Introduction to Functions
An introduction to how to make simple functions using PHP.
Building Yet Another PHP Navigation
How to build another PHP navigation using the switch() statements. Includes an explanation of GET variables.
Caching PHP Operations
How to use output buffers to cache code in PHP to make your applications run faster.
Building a MySQL Class Using OOP
How to use object oriented programming in php to create a class to make interacting with MySQL databases much easier.
An Introduction to Object Oriented Programming
How to use PHP’s object oriented capabilities and build more sophisticated applications.
Javascript Degradation
Javascript can be a very useful tool, Unfortunately, not all browsers have equal support for it. Here I’ll discuss a few methods for making sure your scripts don’t mess up your page in browsers without support.
XSLT: An Introduction to Styling XML
Another detailed explanation of XSLT, or eXtensible Stylesheet Language Transformations, or a styling language for XML.
XML: The Definitive Introduction
A very detailed introduction to XML, or eXtendable Markup Language.
Introduction to RSS Feeds
An introduction to the trend sweeping the web, RSS Feeds, or Really Simple Syndication (or Rich Site Summary).
Easy Way to Get Banned From Adsense
A problem or two with people trying to extort money out of Google.
Being Generic
Being just like everyone else is a problem that abounds in today’s websites…
Advantages of RSS
An article that outlines the advantages of RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds.
Getting Into The Yahoo Directory
An almost-backhanded way to get into the yahoo directory.
Should You Use Forums
If you just started a site, chances are you’re a hopeful young lad/lass that has forums. Well, good luck. Unless you can really put some dedication into your site and your forums, I don’t think that they are ready to open right when your site does.
Blogging as an Alternative
What is a blog? Well, it’s basically short for a web log, an online journal of sorts. Blogs have been popping up all over, and are now becoming so popular it has been added to the dictionary. This will illustrate the ins and outs of the pros and cons of blogging.
Generic Tips on Starting a Website
A few points that you could probably find anywhere else consolidated into one layout. Hence the name generic.
Why Use CSS
There are quite a few reasons to use just CSS and no tables in styling your websites. This article goes over a few of them.
How to Center a Layout in CSS
A very basic tutorial on how to center layouts in CSS. A very useful technique for many layouts.
Basics of Cascading Style Sheets
This article discusses the very basics of Cascading Style Sheets, or CSS, which are used to style your webpages.
Editing Rows in MySQL
This tutorial teaches the very basics of editing rows in MySQL databases, very useful for mistakes made.
Hit Counter
Statistics is something that can be very useful to any website, telling how many visits you have, how many are different people, and so on. This tutorial will tell how to do all of that with a MySQL database.
Your First MySQL Database
MySQL Databases are a pretty crucial part to expanding your knowledge of PHP. They can be used to store data much easier than in flat files, and are used for most big-time applications like forums or blogs.
PHP Includes
One of the most basic and useful things in PHP is includes. You can use them for just about anything, and they carry many uses.