10 tips and resources for creating a stunning web presentation

Posted on December 13, 2011 by Portsmouth Media in Blog Leave a comment

An article I was reading about photoshop

href=”http://netdna.webdesignerdepot.com/uploads/2011/10/thumb5.jpg”> class=”alignleft size-full wp-image-26621″ title=”thumb” src=”http://netdna.webdesignerdepot.com/uploads/2011/10/thumb5.jpg” alt=”" width=”200″ height=”160″ />A visually stunning presentation is sure to leave a positive impression on your audience, whether you are using it to market a product, introduce your services or communicate information.

Today, the web offers us a myriad of solutions and methods for delivering information to a wide audience on demand.

Options include Flash, PDF, video, photo slideshows and jQuery. No matter which format you choose, the presentation itself needs to be compelling, easy to follow and compatible with multiple devices to have the most impact.

A web presentation designed using modern techniques offers a high level of interaction, fast loading times and responsiveness that a desktop presentation cannot provide. However, the format you choose for your presentation matters little if the presentation itself is not effective. Here are some guidelines to follow to ensure your presentation is memorable and conveys the message you want it to: id=”more-26620″>

1. Keep it short and sweet

Strip the fluff out of your presentation, and get down to the stuff that matters. If you will be speaking or narrating, the majority of what you want to communicate should come from you personally. Use your presentation slides to highlight key messages and topics using as little text as possible.

2. Style tastefully

A pleasing design and focused layout can help define the overall purpose of your presentation. You have the power to direct the visitor’s eyes where you want them to go as you design each slide. Choose backgrounds that provide sufficient contrast and do not interfere with text. Maintain a consistent color palette and stick to colors that are not hard on the eyes.

3. Use bold typography and proper hierarchy

Your presentation must be readable on a variety of devices. Use a small number of complimentary fonts for their weight and style, and use effects such as gradients or shadows to help set them apart from the background.

4. Illustrate your point

Charts, infographics, photography and art can demonstrate what you don’t have room to say with text, or add emphasis to the topic. Don’t be afraid to inject a little humor here and there if appropriate to your subject.

5. Give your reader control

Always allow your readers to move between slides or pause your presentation. Slide-show style solutions usually include a set of controls – build similar controls into your HTML presentations or any format that does not use an embedded player.

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Making it happen

You have several options for creating and displaying the presentation on your website. You could use your web design skills to create a presentation in Photoshop, and then upload it to Flickr or Picasa to create an image slideshow, but your presentation will lack any interactivity. You could create a basic presentation in Keynote or PowerPoint and upload it to a sharing service, but then you limit your viewership to those with the right browser plugins.

Another option is to create your slides using HTML and CSS, then present them through individual web pages, a PDF or jQuery slideshow. HTML presentations designed with accessibility and responsive techniques excel over any other option by virtue of being truly scalable and available to anyone, anywhere, on any device. Enhance this option by offering a download version for viewing offline.

Below are a handful of free resources for creating stunning presentations in a variety of formats.

Prezi

href=”http://prezi.com/”>Prezi is a truly unique presentation editor for creating dynamic and multi-dimensional slides using text, images, videos or documents. Viewers can zoom in and out to inspect each high-resolution element in a very intuitive interface. The drawback? Prezi is a Flash solution that will not benefit viewers on iOS devices.

href=”http://prezi.com/”> class=”image-border” title=”prezi” src=”http://netdna.webdesignerdepot.com/uploads/2011/10/prezi.jpg” alt=”" width=”615″ height=”369″ />

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Google Docs

href=”https://docs.google.com/”>Google Docs provides a clean and simple interface for creating slideshows and presentations with features similar to what you find in Keynote or PowerPoint. Presentations can be shared with individuals, specific groups, or sent to Google+ .Google’s Publish feature allows you to embed the presentation into any webpage via an iframe, and uses the browser’s native capabilities for displaying slides. The downside is not having access to Google’s font library, forcing you to use images for a majority of the slide design.

href=”https://docs.google.com/”> class=”image-border” title=”google” src=”http://netdna.webdesignerdepot.com/uploads/2011/10/google.jpg” alt=”" width=”615″ height=”390″ />

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Empressr

href=”http://www.empressr.com/”>Empressr is a rich media presentation tool that allows you to include video, text, images or audio for a fully featured experience. Empressr hosts your presentation free and offers direct sharing to a number of platforms or embedding for your website. As an added benefit, Empressr provides analytics for tracking presentation views. Empressr files are created in Flash and there is no option for downloading.

href=”http://www.empressr.com/”> class=”image-border” title=”empressr” src=”http://netdna.webdesignerdepot.com/uploads/2011/10/empressr.jpg” alt=”" width=”615″ height=”326″ />

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280 Slides

href=”http://280slides.com/”>280 Slides can create presentations from a number of existing file types, or offers a user-friendly interface for creating one from scratch. Images and video from services like Flickr and YouTube can be included through the built-in media search, or you can add your own. The font selection is a little broader than Google Docs, but you will still find yourself limited to designing slides locally and then uploading them for the best results. Presentations are converted to PowerPoint format on download or shared directly to SlideShare, another Flash slideshow option.

href=”http://280slides.com/”> class=”image-border” title=”280″ src=”http://netdna.webdesignerdepot.com/uploads/2011/10/280.jpg” alt=”" width=”615″ height=”322″ />

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PreZentit

href=”http://prezentit.com/”>PreZentit is a fantastic solution for creating cross-browser compatible HTML presentations. Team members can be invited to collaborate on the presentation with you in real-time and you choose if your presentation is public or private. Each presentation gets its own URL and can be shared or embedded anywhere, or you can download to edit offline and upload to your own server.

href=”http://prezentit.com/”> class=”image-border” title=”prezentit” src=”http://netdna.webdesignerdepot.com/uploads/2011/10/prezentit.jpg” alt=”" width=”615″ height=”411″ />

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Create Your Own

If you really want to show off your skills and stun your audience, create your own presentation using your web design skills. title=”Posts by Jeffrey Way” href=”http://net.tutsplus.com/author/jeffreyway/”>Jeffrey Way provides an excellent tutorial for building slides from HTML and CSS in href=”http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/html-css-techniques/how-to-create-presentation-slides-with-html-and-css-2/”>this Nettuts article. He builds each page with HTML, embedded fonts and images, and then uses a combination of Ajax, jQuery and CSS3 techniques to produce elegant and interactive slides that are compatible with any browser or screen size. This technique is a sure winner if you are comfortable with using JavaScript.

href=”http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/html-css-techniques/how-to-create-presentation-slides-with-html-and-css-2/”> class=”image-border” title=”tut” src=”http://netdna.webdesignerdepot.com/uploads/2011/10/tut.jpg” alt=”" width=”615″ height=”298″ />

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Written exclusively for Webdesigner Depot by href=”http://plusya.com/vailjoy”>Vail Joy. She is a freelance designer and tech blogger with a deep interest in all things web-related. She also enjoys writing for WIX, the free rel=”follow” href=”http://www.wix.com/free/website-builder?utm_campaign=se_gb_webdesignerdepot.com/&experiment_id=WB”>website builder.

What online slideshow and presentation software do you use? Let us know in the comments! />

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25 Google+ tips and tricks

Posted on November 22, 2011 by Portsmouth Media in Blog Leave a comment

An article I was reading about photoshop

href=”http://netdna.webdesignerdepot.com/uploads/2011/10/thumb4.jpg”> class=”alignleft size-full wp-image-26601″ title=”thumb” src=”http://netdna.webdesignerdepot.com/uploads/2011/10/thumb4.jpg” alt=”25 Google Plus Tips and Tricks” width=”200″ height=”160″ />Google+ unveiled itself to the public amidst a chorus of praise and adulation from techies all over the globe. Unfortunately, it also earned a good amount of scorn from individuals who were not ready to grasp the unique philosophy Google+ was promoting. That philosophy is one of openness.

Unlike Facebook, Google+ is designed to connect strangers, and inspire collaboration and contribution. It has proven to be an amazing platform for promoting ideas, brands and people.

Since its early rollout, Google+ has forced competitors to begin evolving, inspiring platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to develop new ways of thinking about social media and the functionality they offer.

When used correctly, Google+ is a unique and powerful opportunity to widen your reach, professionally or personally. From making your profile pop to mastering your stream, I’ll share 25 of the most useful Google+ Tips and Tricks to get you going. id=”more-26600″>

Your Profile

The first thing to do when joining any new community, is create a provocative profile that inspires viewers to follow you. Your Google+ profile offers several ways for you to tailor your first impression and communicate your personal brand.

1. Keep your “Current” employer unchecked. This allows you to use the “Occupation” field to describe what you do and like. When others hover over your name on their streams or notifications, they will see a “Google Card” containing your profile photo, name and the contents of this field.

href=”http://netdna.webdesignerdepot.com/uploads/2011/10/occupation.jpg”> class=”alignnone size-full wp-image-26602″ title=”occupation” src=”http://netdna.webdesignerdepot.com/uploads/2011/10/occupation.jpg” alt=”" width=”615″ height=”380″ />

2. If you want to set a quote or tagline, click the space under your name instead. Keeping your “Occupation” text concise and descriptive increases the chance someone will circle you and share content you find interesting.

3. Your Profile Photo is linked to a special album in Picasa, the photo management component of Google’s extensive application suite. Curious visitors can click your photo directly from your profile to cycle through the album. This presents a unique opportunity for creating a short visual story about yourself, a flipbook type animation, or hiding a humorous “Easter egg” at the end of a long series of snapshots.

4. Create a mini-portfolio to show off your work or use your “Scrapbook” to devise a clever header graphic. Enter Edit Profile mode click the header area to manage images directly, or use Picasa to upload them to your “Scrapbook.” The order in which they appear is controlled by clicking “Organize” from the album view in Picasa.

href=”https://plus.google.com/114622017260969484821/”> class=”image-border” title=”profile” src=”http://netdna.webdesignerdepot.com/uploads/2011/10/profile.jpg” alt=”" width=”615″ height=”159″ />

href=”https://plus.google.com/photos/104914829730501706316/albums/5636597658831566657/5636597661676508674″> class=”alignnone size-full wp-image-26604″ title=”organize” src=”http://netdna.webdesignerdepot.com/uploads/2011/10/organize.jpg” alt=”" width=”615″ height=”438″ />

5. Add links to your services and contact pages, in addition to linking to your portfolio and social profiles. Google+ is teeming with industry professionals and prospects, and adding these links will make them visible in search results.

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Circles

6. Create a set of circles specific to your interests. Think of these as RSS feeds of people you find the most interesting. Your following can grow rapidly, making it difficult to manage your stream and keep up with everything, so this trick will keep you from getting overwhelmed. Drag these to the beginning of the list so they show up first in the stream list on the Home page.

7. Create another set of circles for topics you wish to target to specific groups of people. Use these circles to share content, whereas your first set is only for managing your stream. As you gain new followers, “subscribe” them to topic circles that match their interests. If you can’t tell, check your “Incoming” stream often to see what people are posting.

href=”http://netdna.webdesignerdepot.com/uploads/2011/10/circles.jpg”> class=”alignnone size-full wp-image-26605″ title=”circles” src=”http://netdna.webdesignerdepot.com/uploads/2011/10/circles.jpg” alt=”" width=”615″ height=”410″ />

8. While publishing content to specific circles will help target certain audiences, †consider posting most of your content publicly. Public content encourages new people to follow you, and lets the world know you are active. It will also show up on Google+ stream services you add your profile to, or plugins you install on your website, increasing your ranking and viability.

9. Create specialized circles for bookmarking or sharing content to services such as Evernote or RPC-enabled blogs. Add yourself to the circle, then click “Add a new person” to add your Evernote or RPC email address. When sharing to this circle, don’t forget to click the “notify” box to email the post.

href=”http://netdna.webdesignerdepot.com/uploads/2011/10/evernote.jpg”> class=”image-border” title=”evernote” src=”http://netdna.webdesignerdepot.com/uploads/2011/10/evernote.jpg” alt=”" width=”615″ height=”194″ />

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Home Page

The Home page is where you will spend the most time on Google+, unless you are sucked into the new Game feature. From here, you can filter your stream by clicking specific circle links on the left, and use keyboard controls to move around quickly.

10. J will jump from one post to the next, while K will scroll you back up.

11. If your Chat widget is looking a bit lonely, check out href=”http://webtrickz.com/how-to-chat-with-people-in-your-google-circle/” target=”_blank”>How to Chat with People in your Google+ Circle Post like a pro.

12. Click the “Mute this Post” option in the post menu to stop notifications on any post where you have added comments.

href=”http://netdna.webdesignerdepot.com/uploads/2011/10/mute.jpg”> class=”alignnone size-full wp-image-26607″ title=”mute” src=”http://netdna.webdesignerdepot.com/uploads/2011/10/mute.jpg” alt=”" width=”615″ height=”400″ />

13. Click the timestamp to get a quick permalink to a single post.

href=”http://netdna.webdesignerdepot.com/uploads/2011/10/timestamp.jpg”> class=”alignnone size-full wp-image-26608″ title=”timestamp” src=”http://netdna.webdesignerdepot.com/uploads/2011/10/timestamp.jpg” alt=”" width=”615″ height=”170″ />

14. Add a “+” to the beginning of a name to generate a hotlink to their profile in your posts or comments. This will also notify the person that they were mentioned.

15. Format your posts by adding special symbols before and after a word or line of text. For example: /> *bold* /> _italic_ /> – style=”text-decoration: line-through;”>strikethrough -

16. Add a poll to a published post by instructing your readers to +1 to vote, and then quickly add comments containing the choices. Afterwards, select “Disable Comments” from your post menu to encourage voting.

href=”http://goo.gl/UUOxv”> class=”image-border” title=”poll” src=”http://netdna.webdesignerdepot.com/uploads/2011/10/poll.jpg” alt=”" width=”615″ height=”272″ />

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Google+ Photos vs. Picasa

This is a feature of Google+ still undergoing major changes and fine-tuning, and if you are not a veteran Picasa user, things may seem a bit disjointed.

17. Drag and drop content from your desktop or the web into the post box for faster sharing.

18. Click the “Create an Album” option when adding images directly to a post. By default, images will be added to a general album otherwise.

href=”http://netdna.webdesignerdepot.com/uploads/2011/10/albums.jpg”> class=”alignnone size-full wp-image-26610″ title=”albums” src=”http://netdna.webdesignerdepot.com/uploads/2011/10/albums.jpg” alt=”" width=”615″ height=”208″ />

19. Share entire albums to Google+ from Picasa by clicking “Share” in the right sidebar. When creating albums, always go into Picasa to uncheck the “Notify” box in the right sidebar, or your circles will be notified every time you add an image.

href=”http://netdna.webdesignerdepot.com/uploads/2011/10/sharealbum.jpg”> class=”alignnone size-full wp-image-26611″ title=”sharealbum” src=”http://netdna.webdesignerdepot.com/uploads/2011/10/sharealbum.jpg” alt=”" width=”615″ height=”266″ />

20. If you don’t like how your albums are appearing on your Photo page, click the album and select “Actions > Album Properties.” Change the album date to manipulate the order in which it appears.

21. If you only want to rename an album, you can do so easily from your Photo page in Google Plus by clicking the album title at the top of the page to edit it. You may also change permissions by clicking the “Visible to” link.

href=”http://netdna.webdesignerdepot.com/uploads/2011/10/editalbum.jpg”> class=”alignnone size-full wp-image-26612″ title=”editalbum” src=”http://netdna.webdesignerdepot.com/uploads/2011/10/editalbum.jpg” alt=”" width=”615″ height=”266″ />

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RSS Feeds

22. Grab your RSS feed URL by appending your Google+ profile ID to the end of this URL: href=”http://plusfeed.appspot.com/” target=”_blank”>http://plusfeed.appspot.com/

href=”https://plus.google.com/photos/104914829730501706316/albums/5635237957587182945/5635237955601576242″> class=”alignnone size-full wp-image-26613″ title=”feed” src=”http://netdna.webdesignerdepot.com/uploads/2011/10/feed.jpg” alt=”" width=”615″ height=”305″ />

23. If you use WordPress, check out href=”http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/lifestream/” target=”_blank”>Lifestream or the href=”http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-plus-stream-for-wordpress/” target=”_blank”>Google+ Social Stream widget.

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Your Vanity URL

24. Now that you’ve gotten the hang of Google+, are generating content and gaining a decent following, you probably want to start promoting your profile.

The default profile URL is long and ugly, and while any URL shortener will do, href=”http://gplus.to” target=”_blank”> gplus.to and href=”http://plusya.com” target=”_blank”>plusya.com offer Google+ specific vanity URL services that may be a better choice.

Plusya provides the added benefit of analytics to give you a detailed view of how your link is used.

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Addons & Extensions

25. A host of Google+ add-ons are available for Firefox and Google Chrome that will enhance your Google+ experience. Check out designer Graham Smith’s href=”http://googleplusapps.tumblr.com/” target=”_blank”> Google+ Apps collection for a head start.

A few recommendations include the Facebook and Twitter feed extensions (available for both Firefox and Chrome) and the href=”https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kcglanoaanmpjcajbkpeajcaimokahpd?hl=en-US” target=”_blank”>Publish Sync extension for chrome, which allows you share Google+ posts directly to Twitter or Facebook.

To learn more or contribute your own tips, artistic talent or translations, head over to the href=”https://plus.google.com/114831291174925522786/posts/58Lqvj1HgzP” target=”_blank”>Google+ Guide Project, a knowledge collaboration made possible by readers like you.

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Written exclusively for Webdesigner Depot by href=”http://plusya.com/vailjoy”>Vail Joy. She is a freelance designer and tech blogger with a deep interest in all things web-related. She also enjoys writing for WIX, the free href=”http://www.wix.com/free/website-builder?utm_campaign=se_gb_webdesignerdepot.com/&experiment_id=WB”>website builder.

Feel free to leave your own tips in the comments!

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Tips for Photographing a Wedding as a Guest

Posted on September 3, 2011 by Portsmouth Media in Blog Leave a comment

An article I was reading about jquery

This article is for the guests at weddings (Royal wedding or otherwise) who may want to remember this occasion by looking at pictures, and giving some of their shots as gifts to the married couple.

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Vineyard Photography Tips and Techniques

Posted on August 31, 2011 by Portsmouth Media in Blog Leave a comment

An article I was reading about jquery

Taking great vineyard images can be challenging. Pictures can turn out blurry, have sunspots and lighting issues or just have nothing to distinguish them from a million other vineyard shots.

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jQuery Proven Performance Tips & Tricks (Slides) from jQuery London

Posted on July 9, 2011 by Portsmouth Media in Blog Leave a comment

An article I was reading about plugins

Understanding the factors that impact performance is essential for the development of memory and data-intensive apps, especially those relying on JavaScript and DOM-manipulation libraries like jQuery. In this talk, I present ten useful tips and tricks that can help you write better jQuery code as well jsPerf tests that prove each of the approaches presented [...]
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Chefs Tips — York Harbor Inn – Pan Seared Scallops

Posted on February 7, 2011 by Portsmouth Media in Blog 2 Comments

Pan Seared Scallops Cooking Tip. Chef Bonsey shows the 30 second tip on how to prepare Pan Seared Scallops and purchase the right scallops for success. Pay attention — this is fast! Executive Chef Bonsey CEC, AEC has been recognized as one of the top chefs in Maine by Portland Magazine and one of only a few hundred Chefs accredited by the American Culinary Federation to the American Academy of Chefs.

101 Top Tips For Creating Wealth After Divorce.

Posted on June 30, 2010 by Portsmouth Media in Blog Leave a comment

Check out these after effects products:

101 Top Tips For Creating Wealth After Divorce.
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Basic SEO tips

Posted on June 15, 2010 by Portsmouth Media in Tips & Techniques Leave a comment

Feeding The Spiders-Basic SEO – Getting Found By The Search Engines

What’s the difference between a lonely, ignored website and a popular, well visited website? A website that can be found.

Search engines are constantly updating their databases in order to keep on top of the game with search results that are up-to-date and relevant. There are a great many websites that are added each day, hundreds of thousands, as well as dropped.

With all this activity, how do the search engines possible keep up? It’s easy-they use “spiders”, which is a common term for the mathematical algorithms search engines use to calculate and rank your website. In order to be indexed by the search engines, their spiders have to

– Know your website exists
– Find your website “tasty”

I know how to make this happen for you. Through trial and error over the years, I’ve discovered what type of “food” the spiders like, and how to lead them to it.

This is not something that I’m going to charge you extra for, but an integral part of the methods employed in creating each page of your website. There are many web design companies who will charge you extra for this, but why? You’re being ripped off by being charged extra. But that’s just my humble opinion and in any event, not the way I work. You can rest assured, your website will be indexed quickly. I can’t guarantee you a top ten placement, (although it’s happened) but then, neither can the huge SEO firms, regardless of what they may promise you.

What is Spam?

Posted on June 15, 2010 by Portsmouth Media in Tips & Techniques Leave a comment

What is Spam?

(This information is from and more can be found at the Spambot Beware site)

Spam is another term for unsolicited commercial email (UCE). Most people with an account on the Internet are familiar with spam – it usually is advertising “spamware” (software for spammers), pornography, shady MLM (multi-level marketing) deals, and other scams. Spam was originally used to describe unwanted, off-topic, excessive posting on usenet, but has come to include email as well. For the purposes of this site, spam is email that is sent to other people without being requested. Note that this does not have to be a commercial message – the content of the spam is irrelevant. Here are some other sites that explain the spam problem in much more detail:

What is a spammer?

A spammer, simply, is a person who sends spam. Usually, these are people who think that they are going to get rich on the Internet by flooding it with messages and hoping for a response. They often do get a response. However, the response is from outraged people who receive the spam and complain to the ISP of the spammer, which usually gets the spammers dial-in accounts, email addresses, and/or web pages cancelled.

How do spammers get email addresses?

Spammers generally gather email addresses in the following ways:
Using spambots to scour web pages
This is the main focus of this page. Spambots basically follow links and grab email addresses from “mailto” links, storing them as they go along. See the section on spambots below.

Using spambots that scour usenet

If you’ve been on usenet (aka newsgroups) you know the deal: you have to hide your email address or you will be swamped with spam. Not only do you have to disguise it in the body of your post, but in your newsreader client settings as well. Spambots love to grab those email messages. Some of the techniques described here can be used, or adapted to, usenet posting.

Specialized spambots

Some spambots are more specifically designed to scour certain places, such as a local bulletin boards, chatrooms on AOL, etc. These will not really be discussed as they are really too specialized to worry about. Usually it is up to the company running a service to discourage or prevent use, not the users.

Buying lists from other spammers or companies

You may have seen the spam – “Over 1 million email addresses on a CD!” Not just CDs but on ftp sites, web pages, etc. Once your email is harvested, it may get copied around for years. The only good news is that they want to charge other people for their hard work, so it does usually cost them some money to buy the addresses. This site will help prevent your email from ever getting on a CD in the first place.

From a mailing list

This is a particularly despicable way. Spammers join a mailing list, then gather the email addresses of the members, either from a list of the members provided by the mailing list software, or from people as they post. It’s hard to avoid this, short of not joining the list. On some mailing lists, you can “lurk”, that is, hide your existence so that nobody knows that you are on the list. Until you decide to post, that is.

By people themselves

Commonly seen as part of a spam message: “To stop any future mailings, just reply to this message with a subject of REMOVE”.
Yeah, right. If you reply to the spammer, you accomplish three things:
– You verify an email address for the spammer as valid.
– You verify to the spammer that you actually read the mail, and took the time to reply to it.
– You demonstrate your lack of anti-spam knowledge to the spammer, by falling for this trick.

All of this means that you are more likely to receive more spam by replying. This scheme is also known as a opt-out mailing list and is a terrible alternative to opt-in.

Other ways

There are probably some other ways, but this list covers most of the common ones. Web pages and usenet are the main ways.

What is a spambot?

A Spambot is a piece of software, a program that someone has written. Which language it was written in does not matter, but most are probably written in C for speed and portability reasons. A spambot should not be confused with regular robots, also known as spiders or web-crawlers.
A spambot starts out on a web page. It scans the page for two things: hyperlinks and email addresses. It stores the email addresses to use as targets for spam, and follows each hyperlink to a new page, starting the process all over. Spambots also usually do not follow the guidelines in the robots.txt file, like civilized robots are supposed to. Most spambots are a part of a larger program, allowing them to send out the spam to email addresses as it find them. Others merely store the email addresses for later use.

Spambots vary in their intelligence and sophistication, but even the smartest can be fairly easily fooled by the tricks on this site. The simplest spambot would simply find mailto links, and follow each hyperlink as it comes up, until it reaches a dead end. The smartest ones can recognize email addresses in many forms, recognize dead links, avoid certain types of email addresses (such as *.edu and *.gov) and track many pages at once.

Registering a Domain Name

Posted on June 15, 2010 by Portsmouth Media in Tips & Techniques Leave a comment

Getting Started ~ Registering Your Domain Name

Registering Your Domain Name A domain name is a name which you select that people will use to find you on the internet, such as “uppervalley.biz”. You can search for the availability of the domain name you have in mind, and if it is not available, you will be offered available alternatives, or you can try another domain name.

Cost to Register a Domain Name

Domain names can be registered for under $10.00 per year and more. For example, you can usually register your domain name with us for $9.95 per year. There is really no need to pay $35.00 per year for a domain name registration. And here’s something really cool…if you also need web hosting (or you just want BETTER web hosting), you can get your domain name free! Already have a domain name? Well, that’s ok, because if you sign up with Seacoast Media Partners for hosting, just tell us that you’d like us to transfer your domain name – we’ll update it for you for free as long as your website is hosted with us!

Technically Speaking

The Domain Name System (DNS) associates various sorts of information with so-called domain names; most importantly, it serves as the “phone book” for the Internet: it translates human-readable computer hostnames, e.g. angelsaffordablewebdesign.com, into the IP addresses that networking equipment needs for delivering information. It also stores other information such as the list of mail exchange servers that accept e-mail for a given domain. In providing a worldwide keyword-based redirection service, DNS is an essential component of contemporary Internet use.

The most basic use of DNS is to translate hostnames to IP addresses. It is in very simple terms like a phone book. For example, if you want to know the internet address of angelsaffordablewebdesign.com, DNS can be used to tell you it’s 66.225.201.223. DNS also has other important uses.

Pre-eminently, the DNS makes it possible to assign Internet destinations to the human organization or concern they represent, independently of the physical routing hierarchy represented by the numerical IP address. Because of this, hyperlinks and Internet contact information can remain the same, whatever the current IP routing arrangements may be, and can take a human-readable form (such as “angelsaffordablewebdesign.com”) which is rather easier to remember than an IP address (such as 66.225.201.223). People take advantage of this when they recite meaningful URLs and e-mail addresses without caring how the machine will actually locate them.

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