Designing with vectors can enhance an image and make it cartoon like. The time to use vector graphics best is when you are creating an image that is going to be resized, because vector images do not lose their resolution or detail when resized. What is a vector? Vectors are the use of geometric tools like lines, points, shapes, and curves that are all based on mathematical equations. Vectors use a mathematical formula to create your image. This mathematical formula can make your image to any size, and the quality is determined by the resolution of the display and what type of file you save you vector graphic as. Some beginners might not even have a clue to what a vector is, because they are so use to drawing with rasters, also called bitmaps. Vector graphics are the direct opposite to raster graphics. Raster graphics use pixels to create images, and vectors are used more when representing photographic images. When you create using pixels the image will look choppy and jagged when the size is changed. The quality will also be affected.

The closer the pixels are together the better quality your graphic will have. Vector images are smooth on all parts at all times. If you didn’t know your computer is made up of pixels and a vector might not look ask clean as it is made out to be. Try printing out a copy of your image to see how clean a vector really is. When it comes to saving be cautious, because saving a vector as a raster file will lower the quality of the image. SVG, VML, SWF are some file types that you should use when saving a vector image.

The advantages to using vectors are endless. The file size is much smaller with vector graphics than with raster graphics. Another advantage is when you zoom into a vector graphic it remains the same quality and it is the same if you zoomed out of the graphic. With a raster graphic, if you zoom in you will notice the tiny square dots that make up your image and give it the smooth look when viewed at normal resolution. Also with vector graphics, the parameters of you graphic are kept to keep for you to modify when you want. So now when you scale, fill, move, rotate, etc., it will not cause a drop in the quality of the graphic.
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If you have been on the internet for any length of time, surely you have heard of WordPress Thesis versions 1.5 and 1.6. Although there are many WordPress themes available, Thesis seems to be the theme that is all the rave. It is marketed as “do-it-yourself, no-need-to-learn-code, easy-as-pie” site building, which couldn’t be further from the truth.

Don’t misunderstand me; in fact, Thesis is a great theme. However, I wish to put the correct perspective on the marketing that is all abuzz with misconceptions about how “easy” it is to build a website with Thesis.

It is true that you don’t need to learn HTML, CSS or PHP in order to use Thesis or any WordPress theme, for that matter. That is, if you don’t mind having a minimalist look with rudimentary colors. However, if you want a dynamically beautiful site with functionality and interactivity, it is imperative that you learn code.

Thesis may be marketed for the niche of a technically-challenge newbie. However, an accurate assessment is that Thesis is designed for those who have a higher aptitude for learning things of technical nature.

The user has to be somewhat technically savvy even to go to the support forums for help with using Thesis. Chances are that the user will encounter in support from other Thesis members who all have 1001 opinions for how to implement even the slightest of functions such as inserting a header logo image or a background image using Thesis.

Thesis is wonderful for web developers because this do-it-yourself theme is made to make inserting code easier and highly customizable. Since there are various layers of coding organized in separate folders, this ingenious structure allows for building beautiful sites with higher SEO ranking. For this (and other) reasons, much of the guesswork and heavy lifting is taken out of the equation. Web developers and those who are apt to learn the coding process save a lot of time in building their sites.

I am an advanced user of Thesis and other technically-related matters, and it has taken two months of hardcore learning to completely understand Thesis. In other words, Thesis is not for the faint of heart.

The accurate depiction here is that you have to “man up,” “step up to the chalk line” and execute due diligence and research before deciding on using Thesis as your site builder. Although WordPress claims that sites constructed with Thesis is “future proofed” against overwriting customizations, upgrades to newer versions of Thesis will require rebuilding your site either in whole or in part.

Otherwise, Dreamweaver is a much better alternative for the newcomer to site design because of its what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) function that makes it easy for anyone to build a website. Additionally, online site builders such as GoDaddy’s Website Tonight or Smart Space, makes it even easier for the newbie to build a site truly without learning code.

If by chance you see a beautiful site built with Thesis, it was done by a web developer or someone with a technical background of some degree, whether self-taught or educated institutionally. Thesis is great if you don’t need or want a lot of aesthetics appeal or again, if you are a web developer. If you are not adverse to learning code or researching code in the support forums to create the effect you want in your web design, then by all means, dive in full-throttle, roll up your sleeves and put on a full carafe of espresso. You will definitely need it for working late nights.
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Traditional Websites only work if you are prepared to throw money at them. Lots of money. Continuously.

This is because your website only works if people see it. You need traffic. This comes either from paid advertising or a strong SEO strategy or both. A key part of SEO is having new content added to your site on a regular basis. The cost of paying web developers to update your content is prohibitive and inefficient. It is a duplication of effort because you have to write it first anyway.

This is where Content Management Systems come into their own.

* You can make changes to your website content any time and with no technical skills at all. Better still, you can authorise any one of your employees to do it for you.
* You can update your website from anywhere in the world.
* You can update your website any time, from anywhere AT NO COST.
* You can change the keywords in your site metatags as easily as changing the content – (If that last one was a bit too technical just take my word for it – it is a very good thing.)

Imagine you are sitting in an airport lounge late one Friday afternoon. You have just had a very positive business meeting with a client who has given you the best testimonial you have ever heard. You have 20 minutes to boarding time. You fire up your notebook, log onto your website and paste the testimonial into the front page and click PUBLISH. Now you have a problem. What are you going to do with the remaining 15 minutes until you board the plane?

With a traditional website you would have sent an email to your web development company asking for a quote to upgrade the front page, waited until Monday to get the quote, sent off an approval including detailed instructions on what you want done. Then you wait. And wait. And….no, actually you probably wouldn’t have even bothered because it was just too much hassle.

Traditionally Content Management Systems have been seen as very SEO unfriendly. In the case of Joomla! that is no longer the case for a number of reasons.

1. Open Source projects like Joomla! have an army of supporters constantly developing the core system as well as extentions that can improve the system. One of the areas where Joomla! at least has seen huge advancements is in the SEO tools available to users. And like Joomla! Many of these tools are free.

2. Joomla Template designers are now producing templates that are more and more search engine friendly. The number and quality of template designers around the world continues to rise and they compete intensely to have their product at the leading edge of technology and usability.

3. Blogs. Like CMS, many blogs have dynamically generated pages which search engines have traditionally disliked. But the popularity of blogs seams to have lead search engines to develop much better ways of handling dynamic pages.

One of the key advantages offered by Open Source CMS’s like Joomla! is that anyone can quickly learn to develop a website. That’s all very well if you have the time to learn. For most businesses it makes more sense to pay a professional to develop the initial site, but you should always make sure the developer gives you sufficient training and access permissions so that you can take control of your content once the initial project is completed.

Remember:

* Most Computer Programmers know zip about marketing * No-one knows your business like you do * Your website is POTENTIALLY the most influential and profitable marketing document your company owns

You can’t afford to risk leaving control of your website content in the hands of a programmer. Let them do the technical stuff – you control the content.

To numerous individuals, internet advertising and marketing may be the best solution to earn a living. No customer support. No merchant accounts. No dealing with items. You’re simply shifting persons from one particular site to another. Just directing people who are looking to buy something to somewhere they can purchase it – and getting a fee as a thank you.

Likewise WordPress is actually one of the single most famous ways to run a site whether that internet site happens to be a blog or a static article site. The wide range of addons and themes means that WordPress can now do just about whatever you like and even more impressively WordPress websites often rank incredibly highly in the search engines. The mixture of usability, zero costs to make use of the software as well as the way WordPress sites attract numerous readers makes it the perfect solution for affiliate marketers.

The fundamental concept of WordPress internet promoting is as follows. You produce a internet site based around a particular area of interest or phrase. Once you have chosen your market the next task is always to develop content about that theme. Luckily adding articles to WordPress websites is incredibly uncomplicated.

By publishing an abundance of posts in your web page this provides the search engines plenty to go through on your own internet site. And also the more articles you may have, the more possible visitors you might have coming your way.

Guests get to your site having discovered it in the search engines like Google and you then use a wide variety of techniques to encourage them to buy something. When they do you get your fee.

WordPress is simple enough to get started with – as well as being cost-free. The real trick in terms of WordPress associate marketing is figuring out tips on how to attract adequate readers to make a healthy profit, and tips on how to turn these visitors into buyers.
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Looking for an alternative CMS solution that is affordable? WordPress is an open source blog publishing program that is installed on the user’s Web server. Many companies have discovered the benefits of utilizing WordPress, while using its vast resources to create a custom blog or employing its content management system abilities to update and manage an affordable website. WordPress provides dynamic and user friendly input with functions that also allow easy additions and overall customization. Moreover, WordPress also allows for:

Search SuccessWordPress naturally provides a platform for creating structured content, which can be easily indexed by search engines. Custom URLsPutting keywords in your URL increases relevance in search engines. WordPress allows customization of URLs, therefore allowing one to choose the influential key words. ApplicationsApplications built for WordPress provide further opportunity to tailor one’s site towards their specific needs. Plug-InsWordPress offers a large selection of plug-ins that provides links to social media sites or ways to optimize one’s search. Plug-ins offer benefits for SEO, overall usability, or speed up back end administrative use. AffordabilityWith access to plug-ins that create customization without a fee as well as applications that can be created to fit a budget, affordability reigns.

Ready to jump on the WordPress wagon? Ask yourself these questions:
Does your company need to create additional sites to facilitate multiple dealers? Will you need to make frequent modifications to your site? Are you a small business owner that needs an affordable CMS system? Do you want to enhance and act upon natural search to define your website better?

So you’ve built a WordPress website or blog and you’re now wondering how to make money from it. The question is how do you put adverts on WordPress as quickly and easily as possible?

Fortunately there are numerous ways to do this but in this article I’d like to look at just a handful that I think are worth you considering.

Firstly of course you can manually enter the HTML for the adverts on WordPress. This involves going into your admin area, finding the place that you want the advert to appear and then pasting in the code.

However there are weaknesses to this technique. Firstly, it is a very manual and so time-consuming task that will take quite some time to achieve. Also many of us aren’t experts at the coding behind WordPress so getting your adverts just where you want them can be a real challenge. Lastly, if you ever want to change your adverts then you need to go through the whole process all over again.

Luckily there are some WordPress plugins that are available to help place adverts on WordPress sites though the best option will depend on what you are actually trying to achieve.

For example if you would like to sell advertising on your site and let other companies place their ads on your site then the best option is arguably the OIO Publisher plugin which is specifically designed with this in mind.

On the other hand if we are talking about adding affiliate adverts then you are going to want to use a different plugin, of which WpSplitTester is currently the most powerful of all.

You will find many advantages of using WordPress – from unlimited themes, plugins, widgets, open source software, and the incredible knowledge of forum members on the internet. The most exciting feature of WordPress? NO HTML!

You heard me right – no HTML coding. If you are not familiar with HTML coding but more familiar with MS Word or My Space, you will find WordPress a dream.

Your website with WordPress is controlled by the administrative panel. Here you have two options (tabs) for entering information – HTML or WYSIWYG.

WYSIWYG stands for “What You See Is What You Get” and it truly is that. In the original days of word processing, what you saw on the screen was not always what you got when you published or printed. But today it really is WYSIWYG.

On the posting page, WordPress has a tab for Visual and one for HTML. Using the Visual tab for entering your post shows you what you will get when you actually post your article.

The HTML tab is useful if you are familiar with HTML and wish to enter information that way. HTML is also useful for embedding a code you may have from a picture, an advertisement, or even a link. But then you can switch back to the Visual tab and just keep going.

In the Visual mode, you can use the icons for changing your text to bold or italic. You can change the size and color of your text. You can even add lists in bulleted or numbered format.

WordPress has taken all the mystery out of entering information to your website. You can easily post in the Visual or WYSIWYG mode or switch to the HTML mode for embedding HTML code. Either way, WordPress has made this super simple to use.
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Wether you design your business brochures, flyers, web page, or ads there are some things that you need to know. There are some basic graphic design principles that those of us trained in the commercial art/graphic design field don’t always share. Here’s a short list of elements of graphic design that you can use today.

Color

This is the first and most important. Color is everything. It’s why we buy HDTV sets to get better color. You want to consider your product first. Is there a color that fits the item? Are you selling beach items, chose a sand color. Are you selling electronics, chose a metallic color. Next make sure the color is eye-catching but possible to look at. If you can’t stare at the color for at least the minimum amount of time that you’d want your customer’s attention, then don’t use it.

Line

And I don’t mean “a line” I mean the line of the elements in your project. Stand back and squint at your creation. Notice the line of the text and the images. Where are the lines moving? They should all direct your customer’s attention from the top of your page to the bottom in a seamless movement. If you notice an out of place line the directs your eyes back to the top of the page or stops it all together then you need to rearrange a few items.

Form

Related to line. Squint again and notice the text as a block, or rectangular form, instead of individual lines. Notice the images or art as shapes. And notice the entire piece as a form. All of the forms should flow from one to another. Each form should direct your eye to the next form on the page from top to bottom, again in a seamless flowing line.

Movement

I’ve already touched on this but this is very important. You want your customer to start at the top left corner and end in the bottom right corner. The traditional form of movement is a “Z” meaning the eye should start in the top left, go to the top right, make a diagonal to the bottom left, and end up in the bottom right. This form is ideal for advertizing and web pages with a lot of graphics or images. The exception would be a page with all text, where you would want the reader’s eye to move left to right on each line.

Space (Negative space)

We all pay attention to the amount of space that we use on our projects. What about the space that you don’t use? Do you notice that? Well it’s just as important. Stand back and squint again. Notice the percentage of items filling up your project, what is the percentage of negative, unused space? While you want to make the most of your space available, you don’t want all of it used up either. Using too much makes an ad look busy too little it looks empty. An appropriate percentage can be anywhere from 60% to 80% used space and 40% to 20% negative or unused space. Keep your percentages in that range and you’ll have a nicely balanced ad, web page, or project.

Texture

This is becoming important again with web design. All of the really cool and interesting textures that you can use for anything from backgrounds to text is amazing. Remember one thing that a texture carries almost as much weight to the eye as a photo. Just as you would not place a lot of photos on your page don’t use too many textures. Also watch your placement of these they can pull the eye away from where you want it to move.

Remember one thing, when it doubt simplify.
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If you’re in the market for a website, and you haven’t heard about blog engines and Content Management Systems (CMS), you haven’t been in the market for long. The main issue people have with websites in general is maintaining them. People feel intimidated by learning “HTML” or “programming.”

These days, there are hundreds of solutions to that problem, but in the interest of time I’m only going to talk about my favorites.

WordPress started out as a blog engine some years ago. The idea was simple. Make it so that non-coders could run a decent blog without doing a ton of work keeping things uniform. It has evolved onto a full fledged content management system with e-commerce capability and so many free plugins (software to perform a specific function) you’d be hard pressed to find that what you need doesn’t already exist.

So how does that translate to helping the aspiring website owner? Well, these days, WordPress has gotten so easy to use, it’s on par with figuring out how to send an e-mail. If you can do that, you can use WordPress effectively.

It can update itself, it can let you know when it needs something and it can take the guesswork out of owning a site. So what’s the catch? Well, quite frankly, there isn’t one. It can be got for the bargain price of $0.00 and comes as an option on every Linux hosting plan under the sun. There are so many themes (essentially templates) available for free that the enterprising individual can get himself up and running with a cool look in minutes. Setting it up is so easy I taught a 60 year old client to do it in about two minutes. Did I mention, it’s free?

The next great CMS that I recommend is Joomla. It has come a long way from the old days, and can do some amazing things out of the box. It is not quite as easy to learn or manage as WordPress, but it’s still pretty easy. I recommend Joomla to clients who have complex requirements and want to grow beyond just a commerce or marketing site, or that have a team of people who will be managing the site. Like WordPress, it tells you when it needs updating, and won’t let you do the wrong thing when editing files.

Joomla is also completely free, though more of the premium plugins that you may want you’ll have to pay for. There are hundreds of them, and for most of the things you want to do there is a plugin readily available.

Next is a CMS that might just replace Joomla as a favorite. It’s called Drupal, and it has also matured quite nicely. It’s so good, in fact ,that several sites you probably visit on a regular basis are powered by it. It gets easier to use on a daily basis, and once again, it’s free. There are a host of free themes and plugins for this as well.

With so many great CMS systems, there is no excuse not to use one and in the process, make your life as a website owner easier.

Even though the title of this article says that Drupal is a content management system, it goes way beyond the typical features of a standard CMS. Drupal is so incredibly flexible that the title content management framework is more fitting. Since I’ll be doing a series of articles on Drupal, I’ll focus on one aspect starting off with nodes – core pieces of a content base.

Nodes

At first reading about a node, just the name might sound vague and confusing. Don’t let that fool you, nodes are your best friend when using Drupal. Think of a node as a grouping of data pieces such as news items, blog posts, pictures or songs. A node without any extensions has a few basic things – creation date, title, text body and author. You can assign taxonomy or categories as well by default.

Content Types

When understanding Drupal, it’s very important to grasp the idea of generalized foundations in which many different types of applications can be built on. This is why at the core of a node, it’s very simple and basic. But when you add on more fields such as file uploads, date fields, link fields, you can see how nodes suddenly become much more. Content types are more like ‘node types’ – this is where you define what makes these nodes special, and what fields and attributes they have.

Extending Nodes

This can be as easy as downloading CCK modules, copying them into the modules folder and checking the box so Drupal recognizes them. CCK stands for content creation kit, and pretty much any field you will need has already been created. Fields are not limited to only one item, you can customize the field in your Content Type settings and do things like require the field to be filled in, or allow the end user to upload as many images as they like.

Display

Displaying the data that nodes contain is incredibly easy using the built in features of Drupal. The default install will list items on the home page that have been marked as ‘promoted to the front page’. Using Views, you can build pages simply by clicking a few things to choose which nodes you’d like displayed. Choose layout, items to show, paging controls, filter and order. Set a page path and Drupal does the rest.

What if don’t like how that is displayed? You can do theme overrides and template files to show the data in alternative formats. Since Drupal is open-source and the community is so large and helpful, building your own custom module to display the data is not far out of reach for mid level php programmers.