Part Time Webmaster Blog

I typically try to block out time to write all of my posts. It just doesn’t seem feasible to sit down every couple of hours and write a blog post. So, one of my favorite features of Wordpress is scheduling blog posts.

So, what I’ll do, is block out an hour or two for the posts. I’ll write one, then publish it immediately. On the next post, I’ll use Wordpress’s publish option to choose another time. In order to do this, I look down to the bottom right where it states “Publish Immediately Edit” I’ll click on the edit button and schedule a time in the future. I typically try to have at least 2 blog posts a day, so, I just add 12 hours to the current time. Once that’s complete, hit ok, then hit the schedule button, and voila! Wordpress will publish your article when you want.

What does this do for me? Well, right now, I’m still experimenting. But, it does allow me to show users that this blog is updated often, and it makes me look like I’m working all of the time. My favorite thing about this is that if I’m blog happy, I can write blog posts for several days out. Heck, maybe I’ll take a break.

Javascript, it’s been around for a long time, but we always seem to come back and use them in our code. Because a lot of us code in multiple languages, we tend (or I tend) to get mixed up sometimes. So, here’s a quick reference.

We typically use javascript arrays because we want to loop through some data for posting, whether it’s for a drop down box, or error checking.

Here’s one way to create a simple javascript array.

var myArray=new Array(); //Here, we are creating an empty array called myArray

Here’s how to add some values to that array, remember they are 0 based:

var myArray=new Array();
myArray[0]=”part”;
myArray[1]=”time”;
myArray[2]=”webmaster”;

What if we want to put this all on one line?

var myArray=new Array(“part”,”time”,”webmaster”);

How do we access a particular array item? Using the text below, you will get the first item.

myArray[0];

How many items are in an array?

myArray.length;

How to loop through an array. Note, the x will be used as our index.

for (x in myArray)
{
document.write(myArray[x] + “<br />”);
}

How do we merge 2 javascript arrays? Note, you can use a count of the number of values in an array as shown below.

var myArray1 = new Array(3);
myArray1[0] = “part”;
myArray1[1] = “time”;
myArray1[2] = “webmaster”;

var myArray2= new Array(3);
myArray2[0] = “javascript”;
myArray2[1] = “array”;
myArray2[2] = “example”;

document.write(myArray1.concat(myArray2));

How do we easily write all of the elements in the array?

document.write(myArray.join() + “<br />”);

If you have any other examples, feel free to post them here. Happy coding!

Well, what are you thinking about right now. At this moment, I was wondering, “What do people want to know about their website?” So, I thought, where can I go to find this information. I sat for a moment, then thought, what about Google Trends (http://www.google.com/trends).

So, off to Google Trends. I sat there for a couple of moments and analyzed the topics. They all seemed to focus on current events. For example, there was news of someone dying, latest lottery numbers, what actresses had babies, and tv shows. Ah, so, off to write an article about how an actresses baby is being named after your website. Sounds pretty cool, but pretty sketchy. Then it dawned on me, my next posting topic may not be about an actress, but about Google Trends.

So, my next topic is on Google Trends. So, what do I write about Google Trends, after all, that’s pretty generic. So, off to Google’s keyword tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal). So, I typed in Google Trends. I looked at some of the topics, and since we talk about websites here “google trends for websites” caught my eye especially with 3600 searches per month.

Next, I opened up another tab in my browser and searched for the specific title “google trends for websites”. There are 74,200 search results as of today. That’s a lot with a lot of competition, but I figured I’d check it out. It just so happens that Google has set up something special for Googling trends for websites found at http://www.google.com/intl/en/trends/websites/help/index.html.

Here’s a summary of Google trends for websites from Google:

With Google Trends for Websites, you can get insights into the traffic and geographic visitation patterns of your favorite websites. You can compare data for up to five websites and view related sites and top searches for each one.

Aha, which website trends would I like to see? Well, I’d like to see my competition, see what they’re talking about. So, I went back to another browser and typed in webmaster. Pulled a couple of common links and typed them into Google Trends. My first set of attempts resulted in zero results. Ugh, so, tried again a couple of times. Finally, I had some hits. As it turns out, the top two searches after webmaster are “authorize net down” and “javascript array”. Because the first topic is pretty generic, javascript array seems like an easy win. So, that’s my next topic.

So, in summary, here’s the process on how to choose your next blog post.

1. Find a generic keyword of your interest.
2. Find the top sites listed in the search engines
3. Go to Google Trends and type in the top websites
4. Look for the most common trend
5. Write your article

We’ll see how it goes, off to the next topic!

How do I change hosting companies?

This is a very high level overview! Feel free to print this page out and use it as a checklist. It is very important to track all of the information listed below for your old site and new site. First, before we begin. If you have a friend that knows how to change hosting companies, then I’d suggest you’d ask them for help. There are a lot of small steps required to move your site over to a new hosting company, but, it can be done and is done every day. And, even though that sounds dramatic, it’s not that bad. Small sites can be done within an hour, others may take a day or even longer.

Here is your checklist of items to change hosting companies:

• Domain Name: What is your domain name username and password? You’ll need this to point your domain name to the new hosting company. Please note, it takes about 24-48 hours for the entire
  internet to be updated with the new information.
• Hosting operating system: What operating system are you using now? Make sure you purchase hosting with the same operating system! If you don’t use the same operating system, your code may not run.
• Programming language: What programming language does your site use? ASP, PHP, .NET, etc. Make sure your new hosting supports it.
• FTP Information: Do you have your old and new ftp address, username and password? You’ll need to have this get a backup copy of your files and to add them to the new site.
• Database information: Do you have access to your old and new databases? What is the type and version? If you want to keep everything in there, you’ll need to create a backup for the new site. Note, you’ll have to create a new database on the new hosting environment where you’ll import your data.
• Email Information: Make sure you keep a list of all the email addresses. Dependent upon your main task, you may need to obtain the usernames and passwords for all email addresses. Also, you’ll need to create a set of instructions for all of your users. If you don’t, everyone is going to call you in a panic looking to get their email!

Effort level
Moving hosting companies is typically not that big of a deal. A lot of the difficulties come from
gathering the information listed above as many people don’t have easy access to this information.
IMPORTANT: Make a list of all the things you change, and create a checklist. Remember, you can use this page as a checklist.

Timing
DO NOT cancel your hosting until your new site is up and running. Make sure you can view your new site before you cancel the old hosting. Why? Well, if you cancel hosting and you’ve forgotten something, you may lose part of your site, or encounter extra costs. Plus, you want to switch hosting when no one is on the site, preferably at night or really early in the morning. This way, if the something goes wrong, you can switch hosting back to the old company until you make any fixes, and no one will know. If you need help changing hosting companies, feel free to let us know!

Easy answer. If you want a free website setup, you should look to use open source software. A lot of the hosting companies now offer free and automatic setup for website software. And, as far as I’ve seen this software is always free because it’s open source. Here’s a link to see examples of software that has free website setups: Joe’s Webshack website software

Here’s how it works, you purchase a domain name (less than $10) and get monthly hosting (less than $5). If you want to get more software options, you’ll choose the Linux hosting for your account. Once in, you can choose from a list of software to install. Then, just follow the online directions. Installations feel like you’re installing with a CD. It doesn’t require you moving files and configuring servers.

An example hosting company that does free setups is joeswebshack.com