HatchLLC

My friend’s mother recently got online and he has been spending a lot of time with her helping her with this “new fangled thing” called the internet. One thing she didn’t understand at first was the difference between what was on her PC and what was on the internet. It took her a while to understand her AOL emails were not stored on her local PC and she needed a connection to the internet to see them.

This can be an important concept for web site developers to understand. If you are using a web page builder tool that you installed on your computer, then the web pages you design are usually stored on your local machine. For everyone else to see your pages you will need to transfer the files to the server that is hosting your website.

This is where FTP comes in. FTP stands for “File Transfer Protocol”. It’s just a fancy name for a way to move files from one computer (yours) to another (the server where your website is). You might be wondering what a “protocol” is. A protocol is a set of rules that, in this case, helps the internet work across all the computers in the world. Have you ever wondered why the internet works,even though the computers that use it are not all the same? Your website might run on a Linux server but you view it on a Windows PC. You can’t install programs for Windows onto Linux so why can you view your web pages on your PC even though the actual files are on a Linux computer? The answer is that all the computers follow the internet’s set of rules known as TCP/IP. Just like HTTP, which moves web pages from the server to your computer, FTP is just a part of these rules.

You can invoke FTP through a command line window (”cmd” on Windows machines). However you will need to learn a few of the basic commands to open a connection and “get” and “put” files. It’s not hard, but since most webpage editors have FTP built, you may never have to learn the commands at all. For example, in Dreamweaver, you set up a “site” to handle the file transfer to the server. In the site definition wizard you select “FTP” for sharing files and you give it the hostname of the site, the folder on the site where your files go, and of course your username and password. Once you have entered the information, you can point and click to move your files. However even if you never learn the actual FTP commands, it is helpful to understand the purpose and concept.

With the advent of blogging, and other site generation tools, you may be able to completely avoid the need to transfer files altogether. With the explosion of social networking, there are many ways to build an online presence without having to learn technologies like FTP. For example, you can create a page on myspace or squidoo, a blog on wordpress or blogger. Or you can even create a website that looks just like one created the “old one” way using site builder tools like Yahoo! Sitebuilder or Smart Money Websites.

What these technologies all have in common is that the user is building or generating web pages right on the server without having to first create the files on their computer and transfer them using FTP. This is a great boon to the non technical user as it eliminates a layer of confusion and complexity. In fact, it is quite likely that the concept and mechanics of file transfer will become less important to know over time.

Choosing the right “sitebuilder” really depends on what you want to do. Blogs are best if you are committed to writing frequently. A page on myspace or one of the other social networking sites is great for profiles of yourself or a hobbie that you have. While you have a lot of flexibility on choosing the theme or template of your page or blog and adding content (written, audio or video) is very easy, they are not complete substitutes for a full website, especially if you want to sell a product online or sign people up for an email list. In fact a good way to think of blogs and social networking site pages is as potential marketing tools for your or your partner’s websites.

Website builders are a great way to get started on building your own websites without having to master technologies such as HTML and FTP. They often come with additional built in tools that you will need to make your online business a success. But it is important to pick the right one that is aligned with your online business. What do you want to do online? Do you want a site that promotes your business? Are you a Internet Marketer selling ebooks on Clickbank? Do you want to sell your products online? Make a list of the features you will need and compare them to what is offered. With a little planning you can fast track your way to online success.

Whats a hardlink? Simply put, It’s a link from another site to your site in plain ol’ html. Something like this…

<a href=”www.yoursite.com”>Targeted keyword here</a>

The anchor text in the above example would be “Targeted keyword here”

This is an example of what you do NOT want….

http://www.linkpartner.com?x=id13

Thats bad, The search engines have no idea where that is going. They don’t speak server side and prefer just plain html. Links in any kind of server side language do NOT count as hardlinks.

Often times our clients will hear us talk about hardlinks or reciprocal link exchanges. As far as I am concerned this is the best way and the only way to establish a website.

You can pay for traffic or advertising, but once its gone, its gone. By establishing your website with the search engines and targeting a keyword its permanent.

So you want the secret on how to “Target” a keyword or term and make your website ranked for it? Its all about the hardlink to your site. Think headings about your articles, Search engines like to see heading tags above the article. Use the heading tags with your keywords for the title of your posts and then put your post in a paragraph tag. Then of course, make sure the url to that article is search engine friendly. Here is an example

http://www.somepost.com/targeting-traffic-tutorial/ <- The url to your article

<h1>Targeting traffic tutorial</h1>
<p>This is markup language for the hardlink targeting traffic tutorial</p>
<p>Second paragraph could go here</p>

I am willing to bet my good name on the fact that if you got hardlinks to that url with the anchor text “Targeting traffic tutorial” You would eventually (It does take awhile to get their attention) get ranked well for that article in the search engines.

Its VERY important to know that it does take a long time to get ranked for search terms. The more general the term you target and the shorter the term you target will greatly increase the difficulty of your chances for getting ranked with that term.

Most common would be getting a hardlink to the index page (front page) of your site with the desired keyword you are targeting. Your site has to have content on it that is relevant to the term you are going after or it will not rank well for it.

When trading hardlinks with other webmasters, keep it relevant! For example, if you owned a pet store, getting a hardlink from an auto parts store would not do you much good these days. The more links you can get from relevant sites, the better!

The above article is theory for the most part, but it’s theory that we have been using for years. Even after all of the changes that Google has made, these simple steps will keep em coming back for more and more! This is part one of the hardlink, Look for more on this later!

phpBB is a PHP/MySQL Based Bulletin Board. To learn more about phpBB, visit http://phpbb.com/.

Installation

NOTE: Before you attempt to install the phpBB, make sure you read the License Terms shown on the page.

Steps

1. Set the following information:
   • Admin User - Enter the username you want to use for the administrator’s username.
   • Admin Pass - Enter the password you want to use for the administrator’s password.
   • Email - Enter the email address you want to use for the administrator’s contact information.
   • Installation URL - Select the domain you want to install the E107 on from the drop down menu. By default, the directory it will be installed in is pre-populated. You can change the directory to meet your specific needs.
2. Click on the Install button.
3. You should see the following statement:
   • “Done! You can access your new addon at URL_LOCATION”

NOTE: After you have successfully installed your script, the system will tell you how many you have installed on the main page of your cPaddons scripts listing page.

Managing

After you have installed phpBB on your account, it will show the version number you have installed.

Steps

1. Located to the right of the listed installation URL is a “Rearrange” link. If you click on the Rearrange link, it will allow you to move or copy the installation to another domain and directory of your choice.
2. To move or copy the installation, select the domain you want to install phpBB on from the drop down menu. By default, the directory it will be installed in is pre-populated. You can change the directory to meet your specific needs.
3. Click on either the Move or Copy radio button.
4. Next, click on the Perform Move/Copy button.

Uninstall

If you have installed phpBB on your account, you can uninstall the software at anytime.

Steps

1. Select the install you want to remove from the drop down menu.
2. Click on the Uninstall button.

You can set any of your subdomains to point to a different location on your web site or server. For example, if we want support.cpx3demo.com to point to our sales page, we can setup a subdomain redirection and have it point to www.cpx3demo.com/sales.html or any url that’s specific to our needs.

Managing Subdomain Redirection

Steps

1. Assuming you have created a subdomain, view the “Subdomains” table as described in Step 5 of the Subdomains document.
2. Find the subdomain you want to manage (setup) a redirection for in the table.
3. Click on the Manage Redirection link in the Actions column.
4. The subdomain you are using will be listed. You will see “http://” entered by default in the text box. Enter the domain or location you want the subdomain to be redirected to when visitors go to the subdomain you are using.

NOTE: You do not have to include the “http://” in your redirection url.

5. Click on the Save button.
6. The next page will state “YOUR_SUBDOMAIN is currently being redirect to: THE_LOCATION_YOU_ENTERED.”
7. Click on the Go Back button.
8. When the page loads, find the subdomain you are using and you should see “redirected to THE_LOCATION_YOU_ENTERED” displayed in the “Redirection” column.

Disable Subdomain

Steps

1. Assuming you have created a subdomain, view the “Subdomains” table as described in Step 6 of the Subdomains document.
2. Find the Subdomain you want to manage (setup) a redirection for in the table.
3. Click on the Manage Redirection link in the Actions column.
4. The redirect you previously created the Subdomain should be entered by default in the text box. Click on the Disable Redirection button.
5. The next screen will state “Redirection has been disabled on “YOUR_SUBDOMAIN!”
6. Click on the Go Back link to view details on your SubDomain.

A subdomain is a domain using your main domain and a prefix name. As an example, let’s say our main domain is cpx3demo.com. We want to create a domain for our support department and direct visitors to a separate area on our web site. Our subdomain would use “support” as the prefix and “cpx3demo.com” as the main domain. The example of putting these two together are shown below:

EXAMPLE: support.cpx3demo.com

Consider a subdomain a url for any area on your web site. You can create the prefix as any name you want based on your own personal preferences.

Creating A Subdomain

Steps

1. Enter the prefix you want to use for the subdomain in the “Subdomain” text box. Based on our example above (support.cpx3demo.com), we would enter “support” as the “Subdomain” prefix.
2. Once you place your cursor in the “Document Root” text box, it will automatically fill in the location of your subdomain. cPanel will use the prefix you chose in Step 1 above and add it to the root path, ie. “public_html/PREFIX” or in our example, it would be “public_html/support.”If you want to specify a particular location other than what cPanel automatically enters for you, modify the path according to your specific needs.
3. Once you have completed the above, click on the Create button.
4. The next screen will indicate if your subdomain was created successfully. Click on the Go Back button to return to the previous page.
5. When the page loads, you will see a table with your newly created subdomain containing the following information, split into five columns:
   • Subdomains - This entry will be the “Prefix” you chose in Step 1 above.
   • Root Domain - This entry will be the domain used when creating your subdomain.
   • Document Root - This entry will be the “Document Root” path created in Step 2 above.
   • Redirection - If you have setup a redirection on the subdomain you are viewing, the “Redirection” column will state “redirected to PATH YOU ENTERED.” To learn how to setup redirection on your subdomain, view the Manage (Setup) Subdomain Redirection document.
   • Actions - You have two choices:
     • Manage Redirection - Click on this option to manage the redirection for the subdomain.
     • Remove - Click on this option to remove the subdomain from the system completely.

The goal of this article is to debate whether or not it’s better to have dashes in your domain name, Google was used for our testing

Click to see a bigger image

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WS_FTP Home

We are pleased to introduced the new Ipswitch WS_FTP Home product — the best FTP client for your auction, digital photo, personal web site, music and video needs. WS_FTP Home was designed based on feedback from a sampling of the 40 million WS_FTP users around the world and is the ideal product for at home file transferring.

WS_FTP Home is designed to be the easiest, most straight-forward FTP client on the market and is perfect for:

Posting your digital pictures Publishing your Web site Adding images to your online auctions Updating your blog Uploading and downloading music or videoFeatures of WS_FTP Home include:

Try WS_FTP Home free for 30 days (from Ipswitch.com)

Thumbnails: Perfect for auction users and digital photography enthusiasts, the thumbnails view in WS_FTP makes finding and transferring your images and photos a snap.

Active Edit: WS_FTP Home’s Active Edit feature allows you to edit files on a remote server with your favorite programs. For example, you can update your Web pages at your Web host using Microsoft FrontPage (or the program of your choice). WS_FTP Home eliminates the need to download files, edit them on your computer and then re-upload them.

Easy-to-Use Interface: Take a look at the screenshot to the left (click the image for a larger version) and see for yourself how clean and friendly WS_FTP Home’s interface is.

HotDrop: With this feature, you don’t even need to running WS_FTP Home to transfer files. Simply dragging and dropping files into the special HotDrop folders will take care of everything for you.

WS_FTP Home includes all of the features you would expect from an FTP client that has the WS_FTP name: easy transfer, easy sorting options, fast load time, multiple transfers at one time, transfer manager, upload and download history, drag-and-drop transfers and so much more.

Don’t forget, FTPplanet.com is your best resource for everything FTP, including WS_FTP Home.

View the new WS_FTP Getting Started Guide for a tour.

Visit the Ipswitch Web site for more information.

Downloading WS_FTP

What is an FTP Client?
An FTP Client is software that is designed to transfer files back-and-forth between two computers over the Internet. It needs to be installed on your computer and can only be used with a live connection to the Internet.

One of the most popular FTP Clients for Windows is WS_FTP, from Ipswitch, Inc. — the sponsors of FTPplanet.com.

Two different versions of WS_FTP are available, the WS_FTP Home version and the Professional (Pro) version. WS_FTP Home was designed based on feedback from a sampling of the 40 million WS_FTP users around the world and is the ideal product for at home file transferring. WS_FTP Home is designed to be the easiest, most straight-forward FTP client on the market and is perfect for:

Posting your digital pictures Publishing your Web site Adding images to your online auctions Updating your blog Uploading and downloading music or video

Click here for features

WS_FTP Professional is available in English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese and Korean. It has many advanced features including: multiple file transfer; Auto Resume; Thumbnail view; Active Edit; HotDrop; Transfer Manager; SSL support; scheduling; synchronize; scripting; advanced security features and much more, which make it the most powerful Windows file transfer client available.

New in WS_FTP Professional 2007!
The latest version includes new security enhancements, compression mode, HTTP and HTTPS transfers, workspaces, e-mail notifications more!

In order to be able to write good HTML, you must first understand exactly what HTML is. The most obvious place to look for this information is in its name: HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language. If this doesn’t make much sense to you, don’t worry, because that’s what I’m here to explain. Let’s take those initials apart one by one, starting from the right:

HTML is a language, but not the kind you tell your kids to watch. It’s a computer language, and as such it has some specific rules that must be followed. In other words, it has a defined syntax, a strict way in which it must be written, and, when the time comes, read. But we’ll get to that later.

Now HTML is also a markup language. What this means is that it takes a document and marks specific parts of it, giving them special meaning. Why does it do this? Well, let me give you an example.

Take the following piece of text:

Acme Computer Corp.

Acme Computer Corporation is a technology-based
company that seeks to offer its customers the
latest in technological innovation. Our products
are created using the latest breakthroughs in
computers and are designed by a team of top-notch
experts.

We are based in Acmetown, USA, and have offices in
most major cities around the world. Our goal is to
have a global approach to the future of computing.
Have a look at our product catalog for some
examples of our innovative approach.

What you, as a human, see in the above text is a heading (”Acme Computer Corp.”) and two paragraphs of text. However, if a computer were to see the above text, all it would see is a bunch of characters, perhaps arranged in a certain way. We have an active interest in letting the computer know that the above is a heading and two paragraphs. I’m sure you can guess some of the reasons. In a larger document, we’d like to be able to have the computer produce an outline of the document containing only the headings; or we might want to display the headings in a different style. However, the computer can’t do any of these things unless it can see each part of the document for what it is. Thus, we introduce markup to show the computer what is what.

HTML is also a hypertext markup. Hypertext is text, in any format, with an added feature: parts of the text is linked to other parts of the text, making it easy to jump from one part of the text to another. For instance, in the Acme example above, the phrase “Have a look at our product catalog” hints that such a catalog exists, but the reader doesn’t know where to find it. With hypertext, you can link this phrase with the catalog itself, giving the reader an easy way to get to it if he’s interested.

But hypertext links aren’t just shortcuts. Just like markup, they mean something. HTML is all about document semantics. A document by itself may be informative, but to be truly useful, you must have a way to get to its meaning. Once you have a way of encoding the document’s semantics, you can manipulate it in many interesting ways (don’t get any ideas… this isn’t that kind of Web site!). By defining the links from a document to a table of contents that lists it, to the next or previous documents if it is part of a series, to a glossary or copyright notice, we give the document itself more meaning, and hence, more value. The primary purpose of any document is to convey information, and by specifying the semantics of a document we supply even more information, which can only be a good thing. That is, if it’s done right.

But of course, I can’t tell you how to do it right unless I tell you how to do it in the first place, can I? So let’s talk briefly about how you can author an HTML document.

You might have noticed that I’ve been using the term “HTML document” instead of “HTML file.” There’s a reason for this; HTML documents aren’t necessarily files on a computer. An HTML document is a series of characters that, through its special syntax, defines a document. These characters may be stored in a single disk file, but this is not necessary. They may be created on the fly by a program, or may (as is most often the case) be received over a network.

HTML was designed primarily as a language to be used for creating World Wide Web pages. You’re probably learning HTML in order to create Web page. People have started to use it for other uses, but it might be useful to note (one of my rants, you’ll get plenty of these) that it’s not a very good language for other uses. There are fine document formats for all kinds of uses, but HTML was created for the Web, and is most suitable for the Web.

So how do you publish a Web page? Well, to do this you need a Web server. A Web server is a program that runs on a computer connected to the Internet, that serves out Web pages. This tutorial will not cover the topic of setting up a Web server or publishing your HTML documents on one. Instead we’re going to talk about how to create an HTML document; we’ll worry about publishing it later.

Now, how are you going to create your HTML document? The easiest way is to create an HTML file using a text editor. Note that a text editor is not a word processor. A word processor is a program that creates a document ready for printing, and stores it in its own format. Recent times have seen word processors that try to store their documents as HTML, but they usually do a terrible job of doing this. What you need is a program that edits simple text files. An example would be the Windows Notepad, or SimpleText for the Macintosh. It doesn’t matter which program you use, as long as it is a simple text editor. In the future, we’ll have a look at some of the text editors that you can use, and even some that are specially made for creating HTML documents and can do some of the work for you. Try to avoid these for now - they might confuse you with HTML features we haven’t discussed yet. So pick something really, really simple, like the Windows Notepad, SimpleText for the Macintosh, or one of the hundreds of text editors available on Unix systems.

Now create a file, and call it anything you want. On some systems such as Windows, you’ll need to give it an extension of .html or .htm to indicate that it’s an HTML document. For instance, you might want to call it tutorial.html. As you read through this tutorial, you’ll be told to type things into your text file, and by the end of the tutorial you’ll have a complete HTML document. In fact, you can stop worrying about typing anything into your file until the end of the tutorial, where we have the complete document listed, so concentrate on reading the tutorial and you can create your HTML file later on if you want to.

In order to view your HTML file, you’ll need a program that can do this. The technical term for this is an HTML User Agent. A User Agent is a program that can understand HTML documents and process them is some way. One type of user agent is a Web Browser, or just browser for short. You’re probably using one to read this tutorial, so I won’t bother with telling you how to get one. After you’ve created your HTML document, you can open it with your browser and view it. If you can’t be bothered to do even that, we’ve included a link to a copy of the document we’re going to create at the end of this tutorial.

Well, here we go. It’s time to create our first HTML document. We’ll start with the most basic concept: Elements.