Theft on the web and Brand awareness

Recently I found The Markup Dude changed his portfolio design. Then I came to know that someone (a front-end developer from 2006) stolen the design and put it on his portfolio. This worried Deb (the dude) and he changes his portfolio design. See this image for the original and copycat.



Deb tried to put that design off from that site. So he emailed that guy and some of his clients about this theft. And it worked! That guy changed his portfolio design. So it became a winning story for Deb.

Now come to the second part - the brand awareness. Your design is popular, this means you have the potential for a brand. A in case of Deb, his design is already featured in many css and design showsites (I coin showsites = showcases + websites). That guy who copied it must have got this from any of those showsites. This implies that the design is good and popular. When I think about markupdue.com, that particular design comes into my mind and when I think about The Mobile Store, that red color poly-bag comes into my mind.

There are few blogs who provide their theme for free download, so that admirers of that blog design can use this on their blogs (wordpress or blogger). This helps them to build their brand. Anyways, the design of your website affects your brand in a big way. So what do you think about the "Worry of Deb on design theft"? Does anyone can share the brand value or add more importance to the it by coping the design? Anywhere on the web you will see any bird, do you think about twitter? And what comes to your mind, when you see a whale (of course failed!)?

Marketing Lessons from IPL

IPL fever is on again. And this brings many organic search visitors to the posts I made last year. Well this is not the lesson I am going to tell!

When you want to know a players name, where will you look at? As the trend of designing a sports jersey says, look at the back of the player, below his neck and above the jersey number. But while watching IPL matched today, I was looking at that area for the players name, but I only able to see the sponsors' name/logo. Not just one team, all 4 teams have the same design. And the name of the player goes down to the jersey number.

Have a look at a photo of last year IPL and notice where is the players' name written.




Now look at the some photos collected today and find players' name.















It's all about visibility. We all are habituated to look at one place. So when we look at that place, we can see the name/logo of the sponsoring company. So this makes that name/logo more visible. The problem is that in the TV screen the name of the player not visible always.

What lesson we can learn from it?
When we design a website, we can use this idea. Now don't follow the trend. Figure out where people used to look from years and put the stuff there, which you want to be get more attention.

Images are taken from Times of India Cricket - IPL

How to Use Syntax Highlighter in Blogger

You can use this tutorial not only with Blogger, but also in your other websites and blogs.

What is Syntax Highlighter?
SyntaxHighlighter is a combination of some JavaScript, CSS (and of course, a flash (.swf) file for copy to clip board function), which we can use in any of our websites, to give an illustrative look to any code example.
As in this blog, I mostly talk about technology, which also includes some codding part (I need to give some example codes), I decided to use this here.

Where to get SyntaxHighlighter?
SyntaxHighlighter is a donationware. This means you need to donate to get latest release. However little old but good version is available for free. I am using Version 1.5.1 here.

I downloaded those files, now what to do?
I hope you have extracted the files already. Now you can see there 3 folders: Scripts, Styles and Uncompressed. Scripts contains JavaScript and Flash file, Styles contains CSS files and Uncompressed contains uncompressed JavaScript which you can have a look and modify, if you need. Now you need to upload the files in Scripts and Styles folders to your server. If you are using blogger, then you need to host files somewhere else on the Internet, I would recommend to use XtreemHost.

For non Blogger websites and blogs
Now if you have a website/blog other than blogger, then the following code at the bottom of the web page. I would recommend to place this code just before closing body element.

<link href='[RELATIVE PATH TO THIS FILE]/SyntaxHighlighter.css' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'/> 
<script src='[RELATIVE PATH TO THIS FILE]/shCore.js' type='text/javascript'/>    
<script src='[RELATIVE PATH TO THIS FILE]/shBrushCpp.js' type='text/javascript'/> 
<script src='[RELATIVE PATH TO THIS FILE]/shBrushCSharp.js' type='text/javascript'/> 
<script src='[RELATIVE PATH TO THIS FILE]/shBrushCss.js' type='text/javascript'/> 
<script src='[RELATIVE PATH TO THIS FILE]/shBrushJava.js' type='text/javascript'/> 
<script src='[RELATIVE PATH TO THIS FILE]/shBrushJScript.js' type='text/javascript'/> 
<script src='[RELATIVE PATH TO THIS FILE]/shBrushSql.js' type='text/javascript'/> 
<script src='[RELATIVE PATH TO THIS FILE]/shBrushXml.js' type='text/javascript'/>
<script language="javascript">
dp.SyntaxHighlighter.ClipboardSwf = '[RELATIVE PATH TO THIS FILE]/clipboard.swf';
dp.SyntaxHighlighter.HighlightAll('code');
</script>

Remember to replace the code [RELATIVE PATH TO THIS FILE] with the actual relative path.

How to place code blocks or code examples?
This is the part, which going to be displayed as your code examples with SyntaxHighlighter. You can write your code either inside a <pre> tag or <textarea> tag. If you are using pre tag, then you need to replace < with &lt; inside the code block. In case textarea no need to care this. You have to Set name attribute to code and class attribute to one of the language aliases you wish to use. See example below:

<pre name="code" class="html">
... some code here ...
</pre>

For Blogger will be Updated Soon

Rs 700 investment worths Rs 1.5 Lacs

I got one online tool Stimator some days back, which estimates the value of your website. In curiosity I checked Love Orkut value there. Then it showed me some value just above to $3000 (approximately 1.5 lacs in INR) [now it shows $411 - market crashed down :( ].

Well let me tell you about Love Orkut, I started it in the early 2008. Registered domain name for Rs 295 and opted for a free hosting at xtreemhost. Selected a free template for the design from Open Source Web Design and started coding (in PHP and MySQL) for the website. Collected scraps, testimonials from my old collection and searched some good photos from Flickr, Loving Hugs, Photo Bucket etc. to add the most popular section, Photo Scraps. I have not counted the time spent on it. If I could have a track of this, then I could tell you better, if I am in profit or in loss. I added many things to this, which does not cost anyone: love, passion, knowledge, experience etc. It took time for me to earn money from this site, but I got increase in it's visibility. The number of page loads, unique visitors, direct visitors and returning visitors increasing day by day (Still I can manage this in free hosting).

In last one year the money I able to make is just above INR 10,000. I spend another 400 rupees for renewing the domain name. In this way I invested Rs 700. Let me justify its value for INR 1.5 Lac. If you deposit INR 1.5 Lac in Post Office Monthly Income Scheme (8% interest rate per yer, calculated and credited each month and goes for 6 years, after maturity pays 15% bonus with the face deposit), you can earn INR 1000 each month. I am earning more than that (not for doing anything, what I do for this site is not for today, for future) each month! In this way it worth INR 1.5 lac.

Till when I can run and earn from it:

• When Orkut will be shut down or banned (in India, I got most of the visitors from India)
• When people stop using Orkut
• When people will be get bored with the old contents
• When I will not renew the domain name
• And some unknown reason

And then I will lost all of 1.5 lac or more, which never happens when you invest money in other places. So this is my 700 Bucks story. If you have any idea to execute (don't worry, if it's a small one), please execute and you will be happy and successful in future. Let me know, if you need any kind of help.

How to use PDT Eclipse for a PHP project

Free online screencasting tool

Here I have explained how to create a workspace and a php project using PDT Eclipse. PDT Eclipse can be downloaded here. If you have any queries, please feel free to ask me.

HTML and CSS Reference in Mozilla Firefox - FireScope

Suppose you are designing a web page and stuck some where and then you need to refer a good resource: it may be a good book or any good reference on the web. Think, if you can get it in your browser (Mozilla Firefox - Browser boleto Firefox). It is possible now by FireScope. FireScope is a Firefox addon which works together with FireBug and provides reference material for HTML and CSS. This tool FireScope is developed by SitePoint, which provides high quality books and reference materials on web development. SitePoint also provides good reference materials for free at SitePoint Reference
Thanks Shayne Tilley.

Get FireFox here:

High Quality Free Web Reference - New SitePoint Reference

SitePoint, the popular resource for web related knowledge and skill has release their newly designed Reference site. Their you can get high quality reference for HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Now web development and learning will be more easier.
Thanks Shayne Tilley

Getting Real - Good Book About Building Web Apps

Looking for smarter, faster and easier ways to build a good web application? Here it is: Getting Real. This is the business, design, programming, and marketing philosophies of 37signals — a developer of web-based software used by over 1 million people and businesses in 70 countries. 37 signals used unconventional methods to launch five successful web-based applications (Basecamp, Campfire, Backpack, Writeboard, Ta-da List), and Ruby on Rails, an open-source web application framework, in just two years with no funding, no debt, and only 7 people. You can find these methodology in this book. This book is available in paperback @ $25 and in pdf @ $19. And the good news is you can read this book online for free.

XRAY : Xray any webpage

XRAY is a JavaScript tool, which is provided by westciv for free, is an useful tool for web designers, web developers and some adventurous people who like the web. Using this tool you can get all the information about page elements and their properties at a ease, without looking at the source code. The data which you can get from this tool are, name of the element, id, class, inheritance hierarchy, position, border, margin and padding. In inheritance hierarchy you can get the the path to that element from the body tag of html. This is like: html > body > div > div > ul > li > a (example). In position you can get top, left, width, height and float values. In border and padding, you can get top, left, width, height values too. Please see this picture to know how it looks.


You can get this tool here. In that page you will get one gray box with XRAY written on it, just drag that to the bookmarks bar of your browser, if you are using mozilla firefox. If you are using Internet explorer, the write click on that box and choose "Add to favorites..." from the menu and save it in your favorite folder. In Opera, you can drag or just choose the regular bookmark option.

How to use XRAY
It is quite simple, just open any website and click on the XRAY bookmark or link. It will load the tool and you can click on any element on the web page to know its properties. You can also navigate through the inheritance hierarchy. To close this just click on the close link of the tool or reload the page.
------
Referral: Get Firefox with Google Toolbar

How to Create a Website For Free

To create a website you need two most important things excluding your pages (may html or with some scripts) are domain name and web hosting. Do get a top level domain name for free is not possible, but you can get a Country Code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) name for absolutely free. To get a CO.CC (Referral link) domain name click here (Referral link). Search for the name if it is available or not. If it is available register for free. And there is no hidden cost.

And to get a host, it is very simple, just search in google or any free web hosting directory. I am afraid to suggest some, as if you choose free web hosting, you need to be careful and take your backups daily. From my last experiences, I will suggest you Xtreem Host. They provide a very nice support, but no cPanel.

And the CO.CC (Referral link) also provides DNS management such as CNAME, A, MX, NS records management, and these are also for free.



Now domain name is ready and web hosting is also ready. Start making your pages and if you have any queries then please contact me.

Need One Free Domain?

It may be a website or you need to have a blog, you need a domain name first. It is the address using which your visitors will come to you. You can buy it and you have to spend around USD 10 per year. If there is any special offer, then you can get in at some cheaper price. Most of the people want a domain name for free. In this case, you can use sub domains for free. I have also started with sub domains and still using sub domains for all my blogs. If you need a free domain, you can use some sort sub domains which will forward to your sub domain. But there is one free service which will provide you a free domain (if you need more, you can also get for free). This domain is like a country code top level domain (ccTLD), but for free. To get your free domain got ot co.cc (Referral link)

In addition to this it also offers some other services (these all are also free) as CNAME, A, MX, NS records management, I mean many DNS sevices.

Domain Mapping and CO.CC

Domain Mapping is the process of pointing a registered domain name to a blog or photo album. Domain mapping is more than domain forwarding, because your permalinks and URL contain the address of your domain (www.you.co.cc), and not a sub-domain (example.blogspot.com).

You can map a CO.CC domain to your blog or photo album. In order to use domain mapping, you must create and modify A, MX, and CNAME records.
CO.CC supports free DNS services. This means that CO.CC gives you
control over the DNS records that describe your domain.



You can now use your own custom domain with your blog or customized services and you can create customized email accounts.
e.g.) you@example.co.cc, me@example.co.cc

You can also configure these services
Google Apps with co.cc
Window live with co.cc
Blogger with co.cc
WordPress with co.cc
Zetaboards with co.cc
Tistory with co.cc

If you need any assistance, please post here.

My Website For Web Development

I have created my website for Web Developement service and solutions. Have a look there.

SmartIcon India (http://smarticon.in/).

Note: Due to some technical problem you may not find this site instead some error. Please let me know about this. Thank you.