Published August 9, 2010 | 
These are the areas of training that are the focus of my concentration recently. Dreamweaver CS4 is what I am using, the 10th version of this software. Dreamweaver is becoming a very capable tool for Web Design and Development. Every time I write that web design and development, I realize that many folks that are served or could potentially be served by Future Wave Designs, do not realize that there is a difference between web design and web development. For the sake of simplicity here, I’ll just say that web design is dealing more with ascetics, appearance, as it were. Web development is more technical and perhaps more related to programming and connecting databases with a website. So, what I was saying was that Dreamweaver is becoming very capable for both the layout, presentation and ascetics work and for the programmer as well… providing tools that aid in coding, or programming… not to mention automating tasks that would have required programming if done manually.
Dreamweaver has been my tool in learning about and developing the Web 2.0 type applications that can be developed with the aid of Javascript libraries. I’ve found some valuable training courses, or video titles on both Lynda.com and vtc.com — the virtual training company. These tools, these Javascript Libraries simplify or make possible the creation of rich internet applications, also known as Web 2.0 type applications. We are talking about web sites that improve upon or enrich the user interaction with a website. The challenge is to market these skills and help potential clients see how these tools, these features added to a website can benefit them.
This blog is published by Bruce Whealton, more information about Bruce Whealton is here… Bruce Whealton is the owner of Future Wave Designs, a North Carolina Company providing Web Design and Web Development. Visit:
NC Web Design:Future Wave Designs
Published July 26, 2010 | I found this great tool for social media marketing. While the social media landscape is large and wild, there are sites that stand out and are most popular and useful. In fact, as a web designer/developer, it is facebook that stands out the most. My clients want to announce their sites on facebook and connect their listing on facebook with their website. One of the things I tell my clients is that what will help them rank higher on Google and other search engines is “fresh content.”
What is fresh content? Well, it’s the kind of content that you find on blogs. Obviously the more good content you have the better. The content that gets posted on blogs is usually fresher, that is newer, than the content that was put on your website 6 months ago. Of course, that puts a burden on the business owner or organization, to create some kind of valuable information on a blog on some kind of frequent basis. You cannot put an advertisement out there and wait for the calls to come in to you.
Social networks offer you another way of getting noticed. If you have a blog, there are ways to broadcast, automatically, what you are posting on the blog, to the social networks. WordPress using plug-ins for this.
A plug-in extends the functionality of the WordPress software application. One in particular, that I’m thinking of for this posting, is called Network Publisher. If you use WordPress for blogging, you can go to Plugins from the menu, in the admin area, and select Add New. Then just put into the search box, Network Publisher. This will find the plug-in with that name and allow you to install it but just clicking on a link/button.
Once installed, it will refer you to a site called LinksAlpha.com There you can get API keys for each of the Social Networks, including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. An API key will connect a particular blog with a particular account on the social networks. You can have multiple blogs and on Twitter, you can have multiple accounts. So, you just input that API key into the appropriate field from your blog’s administrative area and then whenever you post something new on your blog it will be broadcast to the various networks you have setup through LinksAlpha.com
There are more steps involved in this but hopefully it is clear from what I wrote. For example, from within LinksAlpha, you must select to have your specified blog post to the particular social network. In addition, with regard to facebook, you can even specify that Network Publisher post your blog postings on a particular facebook page, in addition to, or as opposed to posting to your profile.
This blog is published by Bruce Whealton, more information about Bruce Whealton is here… Bruce Whealton is the owner of Future Wave Designs, a North Carolina Company providing Web Design and Web Development. Visit:
NC Web Design:Future Wave Designs
Published July 23, 2010 | I wanted to highlight and describe the things I’ve done with Word Salad Online, over the years, especially most recently. On my other blog, Bruce Whealton’s Blog, I mention that I recently installed and setup the Community Builder software which is an extension for Joomla — the software that is used to create Word Salad Online. Joomla is a Content Management System, a dynamic, database-driven application.
Before talking about Community Builder and Joomla, I should talk about the difference between a static site and a dynamic database-driven site. I’ll use the Word Salad Publication as an example. In a static website, which is how I did websites years ago, I’d have to recreate Word Salad with each issue that we publish. I’d have to create a new website, 4 times per year, because we publish 4 times per year. Sure, it might look very similar in design but each issue is an entirely new website creation and publication. With Joomla, I created one website years ago. The content, the articles, the poems, the images, everything, is stored in a database (actually a reference to the image is stored in the database).
In a static website, it’s easy to lose content, or lose track of where it is. It is rather cumbersome to have 4 different websites with images and other design elements for each publication that comes out — again, this happens 4 times per year. Joomla makes this so much easier. The poems, the images, the design elements, are kept in one place, in one location. The software organizes this complexity quite well. When we come out with a new edition of the magazine, we just change the menu to display the links to the new set of poems that are part of the new edition, as it is released.
The overall look and feel, of the site in Joomla is controlled by Templates. This helps to create a very consistent look to the entire site. In the next article/posting, I’ll talk about how the templates are created and then move on to talk about Community Builder software.
This blog is published by Bruce Whealton, more information about Bruce Whealton is here… Bruce Whealton is the owner of Future Wave Designs, a North Carolina Company providing Web Design and Web Development. Visit:
NC Web Design:Future Wave Designs
Published June 25, 2010 | On the top left you will see a field where you can enter your email address for updates when we post to this blog.
Whenever Future Wave Designs posts a new blog post we will email you an update containing the contents of the post. We will try to post valuable, stimulating and informative information about web technology, computer technology, social networking, marketing and more. We are excited about the web and it’s potential. We want to share with you our knowledge and experience. We are constantly learning and trying to keep up with the changing web and the changes in technology.
Thanks,
Bruce Whealton,
Owner, Future Wave Designs
This blog is published by Bruce Whealton, more information about Bruce Whealton is here… Bruce Whealton is the owner of Future Wave Designs, a North Carolina Company providing Web Design and Web Development. Visit:
NC Web Design:Future Wave Designs