Following on from my post on customising web galleries for Light Blue, here is part two where I am going to show how to add templates, create web galleries, upload them and password protect your client’s galleries.
‘Website Advice’ Archives
Edit Websites Or Login To WordPress On A Temporary URL
When you sign up for a new web hosting package, you may have a situation where you need to get all the site files ready, in place before transferring an existing domain. Or, you may be adding the domain later and need to work on a temporary URL.
If you have a website that uses includes or with absolute paths in your page code, or run a database-driven CMS such as WordPress, you will ideally want to upload the files and not have to edit the URLs on the server.
Best Video Setting for YouTube
Settings used from After Effects for YouTube video
Having just uploaded a video to YouTube, I got a shock over the quality and the time it took to upload. My original file was a .mov Quicktime movie (YouTube suggest .mov and .avi files) that came out at 384MB for 5 minutes! The quality was pretty blurry.
This morning, I opened up After Effects to re-render the video. This time I chose H.264 as my format, scaled to 640 x 480px. For the audio I selected 44.1KHz Mono.
Not only did this reduce my file size down to 21.8MB but the video quality and sound were better.
Why?
YouTube seem to compress the uploaded videos using various methods that all affect your final output.
If you have iMovie, After Effects, Windows Movie Maker, Final Cut, Premier Pro or another video editing application, play around with the output settings. I know iMovie has an export directly to YouTube option built in.
These settings worked for me – hope they help you.
One last thing, and this is a quality-improvement hack that I picked up from here.YouTube has added HD playback options if an HD version has been uploaded. If not, try adding this &fmt=18 to the end of the url in the address bar…
Domain Renewal Group
If you have a website domain name and get a letter from a company called the Domain Renewal Group, read this…
A website analogy
Many people seem to be confused by the various parts of what is involved in having a website…
No wonder – if you are new to concept of having a site you may not know where to start, so here is my advice:
- Get yourself a domain name. This is like a plaque or a sign that you would put on the front of your house and it is the address that you give to your customers and friends to show off your business. You can move it around, so if you move home you can take the name with you. There are lots of places where you can get your domain name, and it is a good idea to register a name that reflects you or your business.
- Once you have your domain name, get a web designer to help you plan and prepare your website. If you need a designer, I can help. Contact me or see here for examples of some of the websites I have produced.
- If you have a website designed you need to buy some web space so you can get the site online to show to people. There are many web hosting companies, all with different plus and minus points so shop around! Your web designer may be able to advise or have a favourite host that they like to use. The web space is like the building you put your name on. The size of the space you need will depend on several factors, mainly the kinds of things you want to put in your rooms…
- The ‘rooms’ are actually folders or directories and the contents will be things like the images used to make up the visuals used on your site, the styling information files, any video or music you want to have, Flash files and of course, the pages themselves. In most cases, the website will have an entrance hall – some kind of navigation telling you what rooms there are. Some of the rooms will have cupboards inside them, containing goodies of their own.
- Generally, each room or cupboard should have a map on the wall somewhere, giving you quick access to the other rooms.
- Some websites will need a database to help them run efficiently. This is like having a personal assistant who knows and remembers everything that you need and gives it to you when you want. Pages can be built on-the-fly and customised to suit the visitor. This is a dynamic website.
Transparent PNG Files in Fireworks and Photoshop
Just a little post today concerning the creation and export of transparent png files from your favourite image editors.
Colour Formats and CSS3
Having worked with HEX colours and RGB in web design for some time now, I am intrigued by how successful the new HSLA format will be. As of yet, it is supported in most modern browsers, but have a guess which one does not support it?
Loading JavaScript into WordPress Themes
Recently, I was working on a theme that was based on a modified version of TwentyTen, the default WP theme (www.corporate-chocolates.co.uk) and ran into an issue loading a jQuery file.
Hiding the Header Text in WordPress
If you have a banner graphic that incorporates your blog title, you may not want the header text showing up over your image.
To fix it, go to the Appearance tab on the left and set the option to Display Header Text to No.
Google Analytics
Just adding some Google Analytics to a client’s site, that needed the code pasting into the <head> before the closing tag. Note: if you have pages that are built using Dreamweaver templates, look out for the <!– InstanceEndEditable –> before the closing </head> tag.
Insert the Google script after <!– InstanceEndEditable –> to get it working. You may need to do this with a file editor outside of Dreamweaver.
