Thursday, June 26, 2008

Templates to Make the Myspace Page Attractive


By: Shant | Posted: 17-12-2007

The Internet can be an effective source to tap all the resources to make the Myspace page attractive. The templates and layouts are offered for free by the Internet sites. Some of the layouts are also available in paid versions. Download the instructions to build the web page of Myspace using the layout as the base.

However, there are chances that the new features could spoil your profile or cause much damage to the way you planned to create the web page. Under those circumstances, it is imperative for the Myspace account holder retains the original identity. Begin with the starter layout of the myspace page. Maintain the profile for at least two weeks and study what additional features can be added to it. To make an assessment of the additions to the layout, visit other sites and study the profiles carefully. The profiles are created on the basis of the character and the attitude of the individual. Some wish to let out their desires float in the form of the web page of the Myspace account. You decide what is best for you, whether to identify your individual identity or present the inside by streaming information on the layout.

For Myspace account holders to mask identity, the best way to create is a disguised profile. Most people these days use a disguised profile to keep their identity protected. Such people can bank on a variety of layouts that are of optimum use. The layout appears high tech in nature and futuristic. If the user wants to be a bit adventurous, then the photo can be masked to provide only a glimpse of the member. The masking should be carried out in such a manner that the entire image is not sent to the layout. For instance, only the eyes or certain key parts of the face can be highlighted while the rest are hidden for view from the public visitors. However, some people carry images that are not original. They present themselves in the form of others. For instances, people loving beauty, normally have images of Hollywood stars on the web page. Though it is illegal for Myspace users to have the images of renowned personalities on the web page layout, some follow it. However, it is advised that people do not post the images of well known personalities on the layout. The best way to mask one's identity is to keep the page free from any image. This will ensure that the identity is fully protected. Besides, there is no curiosity from the visitor to identify the user.

The layouts can also have images of their younger days. It is not necessary that the images should be latest, taken in the near time. Such images can be pasted on the default layout bearing the theme of your choice. There is no restriction for experimentation on the layout. The account holder has the liberty to add as many programs as possible. However, the duplication of the programs has to be avoided. You can also go in for preset model of layouts called standardized layouts

Thursday, June 19, 2008

How To Choose Professional Web Site Templates

By: Hassan Sayed | Posted: 09-12-2007

After you have decided to buy a website template, now you are scrambled with all the websites offering these website templates. Some are free, some are packaged into tens or maybe hundreds but all of them share the various sales pitches that is marketing these professional website templates and pushing you to buy. All this is offered to you without the hints on how to choose from these templates the template that will create your niche website that you have always dreamt of.

The beautiful designs of website templates does not necessary make them professional website templates. At this point of your web design search, you should by now know that the looks of the website is a major thing but it is not everything. The looks of the website will become a minor concern when it comes to the other factors that are going to affect your website existence, such as functionality, readability, content and search engine optimization.

When shopping for professional website templates, you should look to see if the website templates are really professional! In other words, you should look to see if the website template takes into consideration all other factors of a professional website design.

The first major thing to look for is the theme of the template. Most of the website templates that are sold on the internet are of a general theme. These kinds of templates usually look very attractive to you but you would want to know if it is attractive to your targeted clients. professional website templates do not only look beautiful but also have a theme!

Do not over look a website template theme, the theme of this template is going to present your website theme. The theme should match your business or ideas that are going to be presented in your website. If you are still confused, dedicate a couple of hours to research color representations, for example, red says stop and green says go. What does the website template that you have chosen say? Does that match or approach your websites theme?

Colors are good, but too many colors are annoying. professional website templates will have fewer colors and a professional use of colors. Colors can distinct separate areas in your website and can emphasis the difference and level of importance of your websites content. A professional website template designer knows this fact and uses it wisely. If colors are only used for decoration, then the template in hand is not a professional website template.

Colors are not only found in text and bars, colors are found also in pictures, that also differentiates professional website templates from just website templates. The colors of the images inside your website should also reflect the theme of your website and they should also flow with the colors of it. Not only that, pictures in professional website templates are enhanced for users and search engines. Web surfers will run away from your website if it takes forever to load not to mention that your website has lesser chances to appear in search engine results if the whole website is made of images.

professional website templates do not necessary need to be search engine optimized simply because this is not the web designers' job to optimize a website for search engines, but professional website templates surly must take search engine optimization into consideration; especially if the websites theme is informative or intended for content. To make this point clearer, when it comes to search engine optimization, it makes a big difference whether you have chosen your template to have buttons as links or images to act like buttons. Search engines prefer words over pictures, so again it comes to your theme and your priorities.

Readability, or in other words layout of a website template, is also a major factor when distinguishing professional website templates. When choosing your website template, you would want to avoid getting glasses to read text; you also do not want to get dizzy trying to find an important section that does not stand out in the layout of the website. Professional website templates takes the layout of a website very seriously and usually offers you few pages to put your content without damaging the flow of the design. You will usually find in addition to the main page, a content page and maybe some other pages depending on the theme.

Also, a website template does not have to be so complicated to be professional. Choose usability over complexity. Your client should be able to identify the theme of your website theme at the first glance and then easily find what he is looking for at the second. He must not feel at any point that he is lost, otherwise bye bye! See if the website template you are buying takes this method into consideration seriously. If you can't see what you want from the template, your client most likely will not.

Choose a website template with familiar internet navigation system. That is, from your browsing experience on the net, where do you see the buttons? Most likely buttons are at top, left or right. As mentioned complicated templates are not necessary professional.

Make sure that your template will serve its purpose especially when buying a template for a system. For example: if you are buying a template for a shopping cart, you would want to make sure that all instructions of installation are available and error free. Functionality becomes a frustrating issue if you did not plan for it right. For this purpose, try to look for samples of the website templates you are buying, take the time to install the sample and see how it works. If errors shows up, see how easy it is to deal with them, then go for the purchase phase.

One more thing that should be mentioned is that some work will be required from your side after purchasing a website template. You will need to replace texts, images and information on the template to match your website theme. professional website templates will come with all sources and software requirements to make the necessary modifications to the template. After all, you do not want to end up with a template that you don't know how to use. Also, you might not be able to find a template for the exact theme of your website, but something close. You should look at the things that you are going to replace in the template and how that affect the design of the template. For instance, if you are going to replace major images in the template, check to see if your images can fit into the color scheme of the template.

Do not over look a website template and since this is a one time investment, I think it is ok to spend few extra dollars to buy professional website templates instead of buying cheap website templates, then ending up with a cheap website and hence paying multiples of the price on the long run.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Build Websites Easier With Premade Templates

By: G.Entp6 | Posted: 15-03-2008

To most people the process of building a web site remains somewhat of a mystery. This confusion probably stems from the fact that there is a cornucopia of web sites on the Internet. Even with wide variety of sites, every single one can be divided into two sections: front-end and back-end.

The front-end is the first thing that it is designed. It encompasses the look and feel of a web site. This is probably the most established part of the web site production process. Design has been around since Guttenberg printed his first bible. Much of what has been used in print media (especially art magazines) has transferred to the web.

Most well thought out web sites start off with sketches on paper. We like using the big huge box of crayons, the one with the crayon sharpener built in. Most of the colors in the "big box" are pleasing to the eye and are web friendly. If you use begin paying attention to sites you'll notice that only a few colors are actually used, 256 to be exact. Only about 100 of those won't give you a headache when you look at them. On request we will give these early designs to a client that wants to control the look and feel of their site. The site, of course, never ends up looking like the early designs. The same idea and concept is there but because of restrictions colors and whole images are lost.

This brings us to the next part of the front-end, the actual site creation. This is what many people view as the most important, which is what separates a professional looking site from an amateur one.

The images are created using products from across the board. Mainly, designers stick to industry standards like Photoshop and Illustrator. After getting the basic image in terms of proportions and size the designer should create the static HTML page.

This is the basic page you would see if you viewed the page source. This is one of the most rewarding, most hated and most tedious parts of the web design process. Each browser displays a page differently. Since most users either use Internet Explorer 4+ or Netscape 4.5 we cater to those two. Sometimes we build a different site for each, trying to maintain the same layout.

That concludes the front-end section. Personal sites and some small business sites stop here. While this may be acceptable today, tomorrow any web site hoping to attract and keep visitors is going to have a strong back-end.

There are many sites and website designers that offer premade templates; these have the entire graphical layout that a page needs.

For those with little or no experience with website design software, templates have quickly become a practical solution to professional website design. Most of the top end sites offer a huge selection of very impressive, easy-to-edit website templates. All you have to do is check your email containing the link to download the .zip file. The html in these templates is compatible with Adobe GoLive, Macromedia Dreamweaver and Microsoft Frontpage. The major advantage is the price, they run anywhere from $20 to $70. Another great advantage is you don't have to hire a web designer, who usually takes 1 to 2 weeks to produce a page of such high quality. Webmasters, either novice or expert, can easily save thousands of dollars on design fees by using website templates.

Monday, June 2, 2008

Website templates: A web designer's secret weapon

Website templates can be an excellent tool when building a new web site; a tool that can speed up the production schedule, improve the quality of the final web site and just make the whole process of building a web site much easier.

A fast way to build quality web sites
Now that the web has matured, the experts have discovered what works and what doesn't work when it comes to web site design. Out of this experience come web templates; web site designs that have been tried and tested.

As with building a house, there is no longer a need to reinvent the wheel with every project - today you can select a web design template and get your website online fast!

Don't reinvent the wheel!
As a software architect and programmer, I can tell you that a core rule in that field is to not reinvent the wheel. This basically means that if someone else has built it already, you should use it! You are wasting your time and money trying to recreate things from scratch.

Fortunately you can now select from a huge collection of proven web site styles that you can use 'out of the box' or use the web site template as the foundation to your own creation.

In the early years we would create all our web sites from scratch; this was a slow, tedious and expensive process. Besides trying to make the web pages look good, you had to figure out how to make it work with the entire browser and within the limits of your potential visitors' computers:
o Will the web site end up being fast enough for people on slow modems?
o Will it work with Netscape and Internet Explorer?
o Can we fit all the required sections so it works in an 800x600 screen resolution?

The web site designer's point of view
If you try hard enough, you can probably come up with some funky style for a page with for example, a new wacky navigational menu. The problem is that everybody expects to see a web page layout follow certain basic rules; navigation sections have to be arranged in a certain way, links have to look a certain way ... being consistent makes the web site easier for the visitor to use.

No worries, you can still be original within the context of a template; people do it all the time. The web site template serves as the framework for designers, where it eliminates the grueling structural work and frees you to develop the subtlety of the web site's style.

With so many website templates to choose from these days, you are almost guaranteed to find the basic style and layout you are looking for. You can then build off of that, speeding up the process - makes good sense for you and your clients!

The business point of view
Website templates save you time and money; the production cycle of a web site project is at least cut in half when you use a web site template. Another advantage of using templates is that you can show the web site designers what you want rather than trying to describe it to them. The reverse is also true where the designer can show the client several templates that he/she can choose from - this alone will always be a great tool!

I have also found over the years that most people don't really know what they want until they actually see it. Templates allows the business owner to identify what they really want in a web site and actually buy it right there and then. They can hand the template off to the web designer for the personalized touches.

Even the great artists develop a 'template' of their own
This is just a side note, but it may be worth considering:
Artists typically become known for their style, this style is consistently applied in their work and it defines their careers. Picasso is one such artist; if you look at any of his paintings, you can clearly see that it's a Picasso.

Other examples are found in the music of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones; you may have never heard a particular song, but their styles are so well defined you instantly know whose song it is.
An artist's style is really just a template of what works for them. In a sense, an accomplished artist creates his or her own design template and then applies it to their work.

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