|
|
| Web Design Information |
|
|
|
|
Open Source Free Software De-MystifiedJared Alberghini Did you know that the most powerful software and web applications are all free Yes thats right, just about every commercial software or web application you know of is most likely available as a free Open Source project/clone. "Why havent I heard of this Open Source stuff" There is good reason for not seeing advertising for open source software in ppc search engines, if you had a free product, you would not be likely to pay for top advertising spots, or even worry about your search engine placement. Open Source projects rely on word of mouth and the fact that its free, well you all know that FREE is the most viral form of advertising. Also, the open source community is a tight group of developers and programmers who often exchange links, so if you dont know the right places to look, you can spend days and weeks searching out the top open source applications. Dont worry though, this article has a list of the top open source applications, as well as links to the top open source search engines. "But I always thought you had to be a techno-geek to install or use these applications" This is the way it used to be just a few years ago, but times have rapidly changed in the Open Source world, and the focus is now on more userfriendly, step by step installations and control panels, so you dont need to know much of anything to get these apps up and running. Now, the only downfall of an Open Source application compared to a Commercial application... NO DIRECT SUPPORT. However, as in all web based communities, there are hundreds of thousands of people using these applications, and there are always community support forums where you can get help from veteran users. Community Support can often be ten times better than the commercial support a Commercial company may offer. "So how do I find these Open Source Applications" Luckily for you, I have been working in this field for several years now, and would like to save you the time of searching to find the best places to look. The following list is also available at http://www.webdesignhq.com/portal/ as well as many other links/resources dealing with the Open Source Community. The mother of all open source application search engines is SourceForge.net where most if not all of the top projects are located: Here is a list of the top Open Source Web Applications: CMS - Portals
CMS - Blogs
CMS - e-Commerce
CMS - Groupware
CMS - Forums
CMS - e-Learning
CMS - Photo Albums
CMS - KnowledgeBase CMS - Customer Support
As you can see, there are many choices so the thing to do next is a bit of research by taking a look through a few and finding one that suits your exact needs. There is really no wrong choice, its all a matter of preferences and the features that you are looking for. Happy Open Sourcing! Copyright 2004 by Jared Alberghini - http://www.WebDesignHQ.com
| | | | RELATED ARTICLES All About Google If you read The Search Engine Showdown at www.abalone.ca/resources/searchenginetest.html, you know Google is my favourite search engine. Why Google always offers the most results for any given search they currently have over 8 billion pages indexed, its faster than the Audi Quattro we test drove this morning, and 9 times out of ten, in my experience, all the front page results are relevant to my search. In fact, I usually find what Im looking for within the first few sites listed. I also really respect the fact that two college kids started it kinda like Abalone! and that those two college kids seem not to have forgotten where they came from. If you check out the images at Googles press center http://www.google.com/press/images.html and scroll down to the Everyday Life Inside Google section, youll get a feeling that life at Google is fun. Be Creative before you Purchase or Create a Website Before you jump into spending coutnless hours on designing and publishing your website, or spending hundreds onhaving it done by anyone else you should plan out your full design or structure. This is very important so that whenit comes time to do this long-lasting project you will be well prepared. How Do I Submit My Site To Search Engines Youve built up a good site, put in a lot of content, but none ofthe search engines lists your site If youd like to know how togo ahead with Search Engine Submission the right way, read on. web page building for beginners 4 Page ranking by search engines such as Google are not only overrated but unusually explained by “experts” in the SEO field. SEO stands for search engine optimization and is needed to get your website placed at the top of a web search. I have no truck with someone wanting to get their pages placed in the number one or two spot from a search, but page ranking has nothing to do with that whatsoever and I can assure the reader that I can prove this to anyone with a computer. In fact, if you will just do a search for “writing critic” you will find www.homewriters.com near the top and since I own that site, I can explain to everyone how it got there and why. But at one time, I had four out of the top five spots on Google for this very same search. And by the way, my pages had no rank at all when they were first placed in the top positions by Google and Yahoo! Simple Steps to a Great Banner Ad Everyone is using them now and if you’re planning on creating your own banner ad then there are some things that you should know. Advantages for Using FrontPage... maybe this HTML editor has some hidden advantages Ever since Ive been doing SEO work, Ive always griped and complained about FrontPage and all the extraneous code it puts in thesection of the page, etc. A More Accessible Pop-Up Window More and more commercial websites are featuring pop-ups these days. In many instances, Im noticing more pop-ups being used for advertising, probably due to the harsh reality that is "banner blindness". In other cases, pop-ups are used to display supplemental content to the parent page. Unfortunately, many designers know little about how to make a proper pop-up window that will be accessible. E-Commerce Is Back On The Fast Track How much holiday shopping did you do on-line this year If you are reading this, then chances are good that you made at least one purchase on-line. Over 54% of all Americans did it [1]. A much higher percentage >80% of Internet users did it. 10 helpful tips to follow when switching web hosts Youve made your decision to move from your website from your current web host to a new web host. The following tips will help you make the transition easier and make you aware of some potential pitfalls to avoid. How to Boost Your Chances at Having a Successful Web Site New Web sites are springing up online by the millions. However, when they don’t reach a level of success, the Web site owners assume that they can’t make money off the Internet. How To Design A Search Engine Friendly Website There are many websites that fail to target their required traffic, even if they’ve had some search engine optimisation work done. One of the main causes for this is simply because the website isn’t search engine friendly. Ten Basic Steps For Building A Web Site That Works How to reach #1 in Yahoo! Part 2 KEI - Keyword Effectiveness Index. The value of a keyword or keyword phrase that helps a web site reach the #1 position in search engines by comparing how often the keyword or keyword phrase is used and comparing it to how many web sites are using that keyword or keyword phrase to market their site. Hexadecimal Color Notation on the Web When designing elements for your webpage, you will often be called upon to specify a color. For example, the code for a span shown below specifies that the color of the text within the span will be yellow. The Top 20 Web Mistakes Small Businesses Make My parents made a monster. Little did they know 30 years ago that they would get exactly what they wished for. Like W.W. Jacobs tale of "The Monkeys Paw", they got what they wanted, for better and maybe even for worse. Marketing Your Web Site Congratulations!Your Web Site is finished!Now whatYour first instinct is to submit to every search engine possible and leave it up to them to bring traffic to your site.Despite what you may have been told, it doesn’t happen quite that way.Yes, you will need to submit to the search engines, and they will eventually bring traffic your site.It will take anywhere from 3 – 6 months for a search engine to even get you listed.After that another year or so to make it to the top of the listings, that is, if you are extremely diligent in promoting to them monthly and following all the different rules for each search engine. Link Popularity for a Successful Website: How Not to Go About Getting It A classic way of getting seen and noticed on the web is to make sure your site is linked to as many other sites as possible. The strategy of link-exchange has been so overused and abused that search engines are now wary of it and may penalize sites that are linking to "link farms", or to any other sites with non-relevant content. Web Hosting: Which Is The Host With The Most So you want to publish a web site do you Welcome to the club. These days it seems that almost everyone has a web site of some kind, and thousands more continue to be launched every day. Its challenging enough to design a site and fill it with interesting content, but when all is said and done another challenge still remains - where to host it Design Your Site For Traffic In 2005 What better way to start the new year than with more traffic to your web site. Web traffic is a critical part of your internet business and it is imperative that you design it to bring you the most amount of traffic possible. Colors for Your Website Oh Yes ..Colors! There are hot ones, cool ones, earthy colors, spiritual colors and every other shade in the rainbow! What colors should you use for your website |
| home | site map |
| © 2005 |