Get out your trusty copy of the GIMP (I’m using version 2.4, but all the functions I use are in 2.2 as well), and let’s get started!

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For this tutorial, we’ll run through how to make a cool button background image. Using this principle, you can extend it to link bars, text and other things. For the purpose of this tutorial, however, we’ll stick to buttons.

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Standards are not just about good markup and good content. It’s also about making a site usable to everyone who visits your site. In this day and age of multiple devices, we’re starting to use cellphones and PDAs to surf the net. Just a few weeks ago I was browsing some forums from my phone, while sitting on the train, for a solution to a problem I was having at work.

Thanks to Opera Mini, I can browse most normal sites using my cellphone. However, that doesn’t mean that all websites display nicely, or work even. As far as I know, there’s no JavaScript support, and there’s certainly no support for things like Flash. Opera Mini runs through an intermediate server however, that optimises content for the mobile device. My built in browser on my phone is pathetic compared to Opera Mini, and how many people use the built in browser? Most do, I reckon.

Just as a good example, take a look at this blog post from Jonathan Endersby. He makes a good point.

By simply sticking to XHTML and CSS standards, and making sure that your site works without plugins and JavaScript, you make it not only future-proof, since most devices will start with those standards, but also available to a wider audience. Think of blind people, other visually impaired folks, and people on cellphones and PDAs, to name a few.

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If you’re running a site of any decent size, you know that one of the many concerns you have is that your site is fast and smooth to navigate. Below I’d like to detail a few tips on how to make your PHP scripts run faster.

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Ever since I saw a guy do a presentation on usability of web sites, I’ve wanted to see a layout that was correct in it’s coding, took minimal hacks of code, and used as little code as possible (i.e. no unecessary DIVs). A few weeks back I found an article on A List Apart just like this. I immediately implemented it in the template for www.websitewriters.co.za.

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A great way to save on hosting costs but not so great when search results are filtered by location.

Would you rather pay less for hosting internationally but be removed from a localized Google search result? If your site is meant to target user by a specific location or area I have found that the cost of hositng your site in that area and being included in that location’s Google search results far outweighs hosting your site on cheaper, international, servers.

Example: The search term ‘mxit’ on Google South Africa returns 19,500 results when searching of the web. When filtering the same MXit search for South African pages only (593 results),the top 10 results change slightly. If your site is hosted outside of South Africa it would be removed from the South African Google Search Engine Result pages, no matter how relevant to South Africa your site is.

Any user wishing to find a South African website about the product or service your site offers will not find you on a local google search if your site is not hosted locally or does not have a .co.za (South African) domain name.
Something to consider before deciding on where to host your site and the use of a domain name.
Thank you Jason Bagley for your contribution.

A: Everything.

What are pronouns & synonyms? According to wikipedia…

In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun phrase. The replaced phrase is normally the antecedent of the pronoun, but can also be precedent.

Synonyms (in ancient Greek syn ‘συν’ = plus and onoma ‘όνομα’ = name) are different words with similar or identical meanings and are interchangable.

To demonstrate:

Apples have long been considered healthy, as indicated by the proverb thats states that one of them a day keeps the keeps the doctor away. Research suggests that they may reduce the risk of colon cancer, prostate cancer and lung cancer. Like many fruits, these fruit contain Vitamin C as well as a host of other antioxidant compounds, which explains the reduced risk of cancer (with the free radical explanation of reduced cancer risk to due prevented DNA damage). The fibre in the fruit (while less than most other fruits) helps keep the bowels healthy, which may be a factor in the reduced risk of colon cancer. They may also help with heart disease, weight loss and controlling cholesterol, as they do not have any cholesterol, have fibre (which reduces cholesterol by preventing reabsorption), and are bulky for their caloric content like most fruits and vegetables.

Lets drop the pronouns and add a few synonyms.

Apples have long been considered healthy, as indicated by the proverb thats states that an apple a day keeps the keeps the doctor away. Research suggests that apples may reduce the risk of colon cancer, prostate cancer and lung cancer. Like many fruits, apples contain Vitamin C as well as a host of other antioxidant compounds, which explains the reduced risk of cancer (with the free radical explanation of reduced cancer risk to due prevented DNA damage). The fibre in apples (while less than most other fruits) helps keep the bowels healthy, which may be a factor in the reduced risk of colon cancer. They may also help with heart disease, weight loss and controlling cholesterol, as apples do not have any cholesterol, have fibre (which reduces cholesterol by preventing reabsorption), and are bulky for their caloric content like most fruits and vegetables.

I enjoy eating apples

We could have also added more synonyms to the text but in the case of apples there aren’t many. This simple, yet effective method might decrease the quality of the read but will increase your rank on Search Engine Result Pages (SERP’s).

Proof available here.

For every site you visit using Firefox or Mozilla, SearchStatus lets you view its Google PageRank, Google Category, Alexa popularity ranking, Alexa incoming links, Alexa related links and backward links from Google, Yahoo! and MSN - all in one place. This combined search-related information means you can view not only the link importance of a site (according to Google), but also its traffic importance (according to Alexa), so providing a balanced view of site efficacy.

FTP from Firefox.

FireFTP is a free, secure, cross-platform FTP client for Mozilla Firefox which provides easy and intuitive access to FTP servers.

Get SearchStatus here and FTP from Firefox with FireFTP here. My other personal favourites can be found on my blog here.