Mailing Lists
A couple of days back I finished setting up a mailing list database for two of my clients. I searched a lot on Google for one that is free and easy to use. Not many free ones out there. There are many mailing list providers which are free if you are sending out few emails like 25 or 30. Anything more than that, you will have to pay a monthly fee. Of course, the monthly fee under $10.00 per month is not so bad. But, you can do without it. I looked at many PHP scripts and other sources.
I finally ended up installing Dada Mail. The free version is available through simple scripts through your hosting account. if you do not have access through your hosting account, you can download and install it from their website. It is very simple. There are instructions for basic and advanced installation. If you are overwhelmed with all the instructions, they offer a semi automatic installation which works with many hosting services.
Here are some others that I found in the process of my search:
Bravenet Web Services
You can choose a free version and an upgraded pro version. The pro version costs $99.95 per year.
The free version offers a few templates that can be used for your newsletters. You can edit the colors and layout of the templates and just edit the main content to add your information. Very simple for new users. If you are planning to start a newsletter without outside help, this is a good start.
If you wish to add background images to your newsletters, you need to have the pro version.
The free version has ads but the pro version is add free.
I have used this mailing list provider to send out monthly newsletters for a client. I liked it. It is very simple to use but is not free. If you wish to send up to 25 emails per month, then you can use the free version. There are 3 different payments starting from around $3.50 per month. I now switched the client to Dada mail as it is free.
You can find many other mailing list providers here.
CSS Tips and Tricks
When I am coding the web pages, I frequently run into problems with CSS rendering properly on Internet Explorer. So, the first place I go to for a solution is my best friend Google. Over the time, I have collected some CSS tips from the many forums and other websites and I save them for a quick reference. Here are some of them.
Margins in IE:
Margins are rendered differently in FF and IE – especially IE6. To correct the double margin showed by IE6 add the following:
display:inline
Margins for <ul> Tags:
<ul> tags have some standard margins. It determines how far the element wants to be from the elements above and below it.
If, the <ul> tag is rendering extra space above or below it, then add this to the style sheet:
Margin: 0em;
}
a:hover in IE:
I was surprised to learn that a:hover properties do not work properly in IE. When I was designing a menu for a client, I had a simple CSS for hovering over the links. This did not show up in IE. For the hover properties to work in IE add position:relative property.
#menu li a:hover{
border-bottom-color:#C30;
border-bottom-style:solid;
position:relative; /* This was added for the hover to work in IE */
}
Writing IE Specific hacks:
This is one of my favorites. If you wish to write a property specific for IE, just add ‘//’ in front of the property.
#menu li a{
color:#FFF;
text-decoration:none;
padding-left:10px; /*This will work for Firefox and other browsers*/
//padding-left:8px; /*This will work for IE*/.
padding-right:10px;
//padding-right:8px;
}
The most important thing to remember for this hack to work is that you have to write the general rule first and then the hack for IE. The first rule is seen by FF and other browsers. The next property is ignored all browsers except IE.
Feel free to add to the list and come back for some more CSS tips or better yet subscribe to my feed.
SEO
Whether you are a novice in the field of web designing or an expert, we are always looking for ways to improve search engine optimization. As we get further advanced into this topic, we might overlook the most basic but very important SEO techniques. This article here gives us a really simple understanding of SEO. If you are a beginner, this teaches you the basics of SEO to get you started.
How to add transliteration plugin to word press
There are many plugins that offer transliteration support to your word press blogs. I maintain another blog and wanted to blog in Telugu. So, I searched for those plugin’s and here are the two plugins that I really like. It feels good to be able to blog in your language.
Google transliteration: This allows visitors to your blog to comment in any of the supported languages. It supports many Indian languages too.
WPGoogleLangTransliteration: This allows you to blog in any of the supported languages. There are many Indian languages supported by this plugin.
You can install these plugins from your word press blog. Click on plugins-> add new and search for transliteration. Click install and you are ready to blog in any of the supported languages.
Toodle Do
I am always looking for easier ways to remember things. I always make lists for the items that I need to buy or things that need to get done by a certain date etc.. But, the main problem for me was I always forget to take the list I made along with me. I even need to share things with my husband. I tried the Google calender. It is very good but I cannot guarantee an internet connection everyplace I go.
When I got the iPhone, I started looking for applications that would help me do this. I tried a few before I found Toodle Do. It’s free and a really nice app. It lets you create an account online. You will download the app into your iphone and sync with your online account. You can either create lists on the iphone or online. Sometimes during work, I suddenly remember the things I need to get from the store, I immediately write it in my Toodle Do online. The next time I open my app on the iphone, it automatically sync’s it. I love this app.
Me and my husband share one account for Toodle Do online. This way, I can add things that will show up on his phone and vice versa. This really came in handy when I went on a vacation to India. I would just put it online and he would get it on his phone. A really great app.
Valentines day wordpress theme
I just finished working on a new wordpress theme. Valentines day is coming up in a couple of weeks. So, I decided to design a theme with beautiful hearts. It is a three column theme with widget ready sidebar.
So, here is the theme.
Download the theme.
35 Best Icon Sets for Web Designing
Here is a link to some really cool, free icon sets that every web designer needs.
My Blog!
Finally I added a blog to my portfolio page. I could have done it long back with any wordpress template. But, I wanted my blog to look the same as my website. I really like this design with black background. I always like the combination of black and orange as they seem to go together.
So, I searched online and found many blogs and tutorials that talked about designing your own wordpress blog but they did not give me all the details I needed. So, when I searched more, I found this tutorial. Here is the link to that one. http://themetation.com/2008/07/14/how-to-create-wordpress-themes-from-scratch-part-1/
With this tutorial it just took me one day to design my blog and get all the components working.
Well! I just wrote my very first post in my web design blog. I plan to write a lot about my work, some tips for good web designing and some cool photoshop tutorials. Check back soon for more.
