Showing posts with label websites. Show all posts
Showing posts with label websites. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Creating my own Website

A year ago I never would have dreamed I'd be poring over websites and books toward the purpose of creating my own website. I know of a woman who's been taking classes for at least months in order to learn website design. And I'm not artistic enough to think of myself as a website designer. Weirdly, I think of myself more as a website builder. I want to make a website; I'll think about "design" either as I go or after I get it made. I know it's not likely to be as pretty as some of the amazing blog websites I see, but still... 

The fun thing is, this is the era, now is the time to create a website. I found out that I don't have to learn the programming languages that I think all website designers used to have to learn before they could create. The tools are available and probably almost all of them are available for free. Which means that a person can create even their own family business on a very shoestring budget. What a time we live in! Not too many years ago, a person had to have a storefront to have a business. Okay, maybe more years ago than I think--I guess I'm getting old, and can remember things that most people today might not. 

It's an amazing time we live in, and when people complain that they're not in the top 1% of one of the richest nations in the world, I have some questions: 1) Why do you need to be in that top percentage? 2) How many people can expect to be in the top 1%? (Answer: Only 1%. And when you join that 1%, that means you shoved someone else way down into the 2% category, which is now part of the 99%. How uncharitable of you!) 3) Whose fault is it that you're in the percentage that you're in? (Answer: Only yours.) 

So in today's technology, if you have internet access, you basically have the resources you need to be as rich as you want. You don't even have to go to school to learn website design; just do your research on the internet. And the answers that the internet doesn't have for you, you can find in books that you can check out at your library. Learning doesn't have to cost you money! Starting a business hardly has to cost you anything. It just takes some initiative, time, willingness to learn, creativity, and...courage. I dare you, get to it. Bump someone else out of the top 1%. But be charitable in the process and help others along the way.

So here are some websites that are at the tip of the iceberg of what's out there on the internet for potential business owners: 

My Own Business – An international nonprofit organization helping people succeed in business since 1992. Offers a free training course for prospective business owners.
My Own Business, home-based business page

And here are some for (business) website building, starting with being an affiliate (this isn't what I'm aiming at, but I'm glad it's there in case I want an easy way to start) and I haven't personally checked these out, so beware: 

AFFILIATE, READY-MADE BUSINESS WEBSITES: 


MAKE YOUR OWN WEBSITE (though I'm not sure we need to know programmer tools and coding any more; still learning): 


Let me stress that this is only the tip of the iceberg. Look for articles on e-commerce, customer care, time management, boosting productivity, etc. If you don't find what you need online, go to the library and get books on creating a website or starting a business or e-commerce. No matter what you need to learn, the information is available for free.

I also want to share that in one book that I checked out of the library, Basic Website Creation, by Peter Cope, the author describes (to my amazement) how you can make a website (not hosted, just designed) on Microsoft Word. Really. If you have MS Word, you’re probably halfway there. Try it out, you have nothing to lose!
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Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Finding Tech Resources that Equip us When We're Stuck

If (or should I say, when) you should ever find that you can't figure out how to do something technological, you have a variety of resources, pretty literally at your fingertips, to help you, and I want to briefly guide you through what some of them are; you perhaps will come up with various resources that I missed, and I would love you to comment and share your favorites.
The first I would think of is Google. If you want to know how to do anything, google the name of that action/application/hardware, or even type in a particular short and well-phrased question. I find that there are people who have gone before me who had the same question and found answers. For example, just yesterday I was taken by surprise with the scribd application I ignorantly signed up for on my facebook, that many people were subscribing to my scribd account (well, "many" being about 16 in one afternoon...for me that was a lot for something I didn't even understand). So I googled it with the question, "What is scribd?" and found a variety of answers. I think it's originally intended for sharing pdf documents. It sounds like it can be used for blogging, perhaps...but I have to see it in action to see how it would be better or perhaps a good supplement to a blog. 
The next resource I'd recommend would be a library website such as we have. I hope your library is like mine, in that you can go online to find a resource and reserve it, and it will be waiting for you when you go in. Maybe your library is even better; I'm not sure I want to hear about it! Ha...anyway, secondarily, I hope that you know how to search for the books and reserve them. My library website is a great resource. I will search by subject, by author name, by book title...and when a list of books come up, if I don't find what I want, I'll search with any synonym I can think of; be as general or specific as is helpful. When the book comes up, I can usually look at some information about that book such as a summary, maybe the table of contents, excerpts, commentaries. These things can be informative in and of themselves! If necessary, I'll reserve the book. Usually I will get carried away and reserve armloads of them. But sometimes I only need to look at some of the internal information carried on the website and learn what I need.
Then there are video websites that can teach how to do things in a visual way, such as doityourself, howstuffworks, or YouTube. It's a strange medium in that when you find what you're looking for, supposedly related videos will likely be available at the side and usually they are foul or disturbing in some way. If you don't like foul and disturbing, be cautious clicking these...but I digress. These websites have how-to videos that can help you learn about many topics, some of which you never wanted to learn. Sometimes the video is inadequate or the teacher is intolerably boring, but keep trying with other videos or other websites and chances are a more gifted teacher will have posted something that will help you. Even googling will send you to these sites.
Computer websites are also a good resource for understanding certain software and whether it's one you want on your computer; cnet and pcmag are websites rich in computer information. Use their search to find videos or other information.
If you want to read part of a book without buying it or even going to the bookstore, you can often find it on books.google.com; you might find the first hundred pages or so of the book here, and if you have a list of books on the same topic, you can get a pretty good overview without even leaving your computer chair or spending a penny. 
This is probably a good list...to start. After a day or two, I'll probably have another bunch that I think of to share. 
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