Designing and editing websites and blogs can be much easier with the right tools. Here is a list of my top 5 website building tools:
Smultron: A free text editor for the Mac which is both easy to use and powerful. It is designed to not confuse newcomers nor disappoint advanced user. I have been using Smultron for well over a year, and it has become my default text editor of choice for .txt, .html to .php
Website: Smultron by Peter Borg. Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4.9 Tiger or later. Price: Free!
CSSEdit: This little application is quick, clean and offers superb CSS styling of absolutely any web page. It is the fastest, easiest CSS editing application I have used, and find using anything else a real pain in the …
Website: MacRabbit. Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4 or higher. Price: $29.95.
Adobe Photoshop: Possible slightly over the top, in price terms, for most web-designers, and can be a bit daunting to use for the first time. But I’ve been using Photoshop for fifteen years now and know it like the back of my hand - so I never start a new design project or website without mocking it up in Photoshop first. It is always running on my Mac and allows me to edit any image instantly.
Website: Adobe. Requirements: PS CS3 Mac OS X v.10.4.8 or higher. Price: from $649.
Transmit 3: If you design your site locally like I do, then you need a way to get it from your desktop to your server! For pure simplicity I have used Transmit for years now, as it does just that. It is the FTP app of choice for a lot of Mac user, allowing perfect Synchronisation between Your Stuff and Theirs (local and server).
Website: Panic. Requirements: Mac OS X 10.3.9 or higher. Price: $29.95.
Parallels: If you build it you really (really) should make sure it works in every browser! I must confess I am slightly cynical on the whole browser testing thing because I use Safari for most of my browsing these days, and generally it seems to work with 99.9% of every website I visit. Firefox does come a close second, and I do use it for writing and editing posts on my Wordpress sites as this is one thing that Safari doesn’t like (sigh!).
After yesterdays stats overdose, I’m back on track - well I’m only checking stats every two hours and feel I can get myself back to only checking them twice a day again by the end of the week… I hope!
Anyway, just tweaked a few things here on Davinian:
OK, not a bad few hours this morning - especially as I’m a little hung-over!
I seem to be obsessively checking my website stats all the time at the moment!
I normally check them first thing in the morning as part of my, what has happened while I’ve been sleeping routine (more on my daily routine soon), and then I usually check them again before I go to bed. This way I can get a good feel of the effects I am having on new and returning traffic to my sites form using different types of advert campaign’s and social networking tools/websites (i.e Bla.st, Twitter, StumbleUpon etc.,)
But as the volume of new (unique) visitors goes up, which is great, I have been finding I spend more and more of my time analysing my stats than writing new content, which is not so great - detrimental to the cause in fact!
I guess a way around this is to try and find the information I want in a more efficient way. Currently I tend to find my built in hosted AwStats cross referenced with Googles Analytics gives me the most accurate figures, but this can be time consuming. So I’m wondering if there is a better way or an additional traffic monitoring service that is quicker and more accurate? Thus saving me time!
So, does anybody have any suggestions? What do yo use for site traffic monitoring? And how many hours a day do you spend checking your stats?
The resent Tumbr problems with the Thirty Day Challenge (see We have been Tumbld…) has caused a lot of people to have a re-think on what is really being taught in the challenge — is it genuine or a bit of a get rich quick thingy?
I’ve managed to escape having my account suspended on Tumbr, but that’s probably because I haven’t been using it for an TDC activities, in fact I’ve hardly use it at all…
So it it time for a switcheroo? No not at all — I’m still following and ultimately still taking part in the Thirty Day Challenge, as I have learnt some interesting tips, tricks and techniques — but I think it is good to keep your options open — especially when it come to trying to make money online.
That is why I am going to play catch up on the 31 Days to Building a better blog. When I say catch up what I really mean is I’m going to read everything as it has technically ended. If you not sure who Darren Rowser is, then head over to ProBlogger and check out the mountain of valuable information on making money from your blog — you should have already be reading it if you want to make money online anyway!
And if you are questioning the TDC, my advise is to stick with it as you will probable learn something out of it in the long run.
I’ve been playing around with Bla.st cards for a few months now, well longer that that really - and have found it can bring in some extra traffic.
What is Bla.st? Put simply it’s an alternative form of online advertising that anybody can use. You can promote almost anything and pay as little (only pay if you want to) or as much as you like. The more you do pay means the higher up the page your advert(s) will go and the more likely it is to appear on other peoples websites, yes, they have a publishers program in the form of a widget (great for Wordpress sites) which doubles as a kind of referral program where you can earn credits for your own cards as well as 50% of the sale on any paid ads taken out by the referral.
Traffic from my ads haven’t been that fantastic so far, but I have noticed that as Bla.st has grown, there has been an increase in visitors, so I am optimistic it will continue to be a valuable source of extra traffic over time.
Summary: If you are looking for an alternative way to advertise your product then I think Bla.st is a good idea, it’s not the only free option, but it does allow you to design and redesign your own ads as many times as you like, and if you place cards on your own website, you could earn credits to promote your own cards to the top slot, and maybe a few extra dollars along the way!
