I have generally been able to find free software for pretty much any function. If I can't find it it takes some real convincing from the people in my head to actually spend money on it.

But my greatest quest - to find a good WYSIWYG web authoring program. Currently I use FrontPage, and I like it. But my quest continues. This software must exist!

Yes, I know there are several freeware editors out there - but I have yet to find one that allows the user to edit a page in WYSIYG, then switch to code & preview mode - without opening a browser window.

I know within moments if I like the software. I can't tell you how many I've downloaded, tried for 2 minutes, then uninstalled. So why not keep a geek-journal about it? Here goes!

The following recommendations are from TuDogs, my favorite gratis directory.

AlleyCode - http://www.alleycode.com/
This is a great software if you really want to truly LEARN html. And I do suggest that people actually try and LEARN the code. It's very simple actually. Anyway, this is a good solid program. What I like about it is that it also supports php.

Easy HTML - http://www.javascript-page.com/easyhtml/
Another great program, but no WYSIWYG. Sorry, I must have it!! Again, super software if you want to LEARN html. Oh - and it doesn't have an uninstall thingy. That I don't like. Now I have go ask Kim Komando how to remove software that doesn't have the thingy!!

HTML Kit - http://www.chami.com/html-kit/
I've used this one before - lots of bells & whistles, but no WYSIWYG. Maaan!! Someone invent this! I'm not smart enough!! :( SO, this is a good program for, again, those who want to learn HTML. I think it's a bit complicated. Not for beginners...too much goin' on here.

GIVE ME THE WYSIWYG ALREADY!!

Okay, now I'm googling for "free wysiwyg web authoring software" and I've come up FreeCountry.com ... give me a moment to compose myself. I just had a flashback of a moment when I actually DID find the program I was after, and here's alink. Nvu.

People, I'm writing this in real-time. Downloading, running, then popping over here to blog. You're experiencing a moment with me, lol. We may have found our winner! Off to download....

oooh...its a slow download...this is gonna be good, I can feel it....well, slow meaning we're at 54% in about 8 seconds, LOL. What did I do before DSL? You don't wanna know...

DRUMROLL PLEASE.....

Ladies & gentlemen, we have a winner!

Nvu - http://nvu.com/

So, you don't want to spend the money on FrontPage or DreamWeaver, hey, I hear ya! I bought a used copy off of eBay. I mean really, software should NOT cost that much. CRAZY TALK! So here's your answer...maybe I'll gripe it later, but it's all hype today people!

Go check it out and tell me what you think.

It's been a long journey on the trail today....

So you just found out that Google hasn't indexed your site, and you're upset. There, there.

Hey - why didn't you pick me up from the airport last Thursday? I know I didn't ask you to pick me up...but still! I was waiting & waiting!

Same concept. If you don't tell Google that your site exists then how the heck is it supposed to index you?

Simple solution...go tell them:

http://www.google.com/addurl.html

...then do some link exchanges for Pete's sake!

This is a super simple quick lesson. For those of us who are familiar with HTML, it's easy to forget how difficult this little code used to be!

How should I know?

So, so, SO many people ask "how can I create my own banner to promote my business?"

My answer is easy. Just buy them from me! But if you're dead-set on making your own, let me help!

Here are some sites that help you build one online - I've rated them (not in order). There aren't a LOT on this list, but it's a place to start! If you have some good ones, comment me!

˜˜˜˜˜
BannerBreak.com
http://www.bannerbreak.com/

---

˜˜
BannerCreator.nu
http://www.bannercreator.nu/banner-maker.html

Pros: Lots of options.

Cons: It was extremely difficult to figure out what setting did what. I had a hard time making a decent banner so the one above is the one generated by their default settings.

---

˜˜˜
MyBannerMaker.com
http://www.mybannermaker.com/

Pros: Extra effects to choose from. Provides source code and image hosting for link-exchanges. Overall a decent service!

Cons: Lots of settings. You really need to take some time to tinker with things to get exactly what you want. Not for those who need instant gratification. Banner also displays the MBB logo.

---

CLICK TO SEE THIS BANNER

˜˜˜
123-Banner
http://www.123-banner.com/

Pros: Provides flash animation banner. Lots of options. Easy to use

Cons: Not everyone accepts flash. I can't even upload it here. It displays their logo on the bottom.

So overall there ARE some options, but for a few bucks you can get something nice. And custom. And fancy schmancy. Check out my portfolio and see whatcha think. And the prices are so amazing you may just fall right over in your chair from the sheer excitement of it all.

Oh - and if you're wondering what YOUR IP address is, here you go: http://www.whatismyipaddress.com/

Check 'em out, you'll do the "ooh ahh" thing if you're new to the net. :)

Don't hotlink, it steals bandwidth.

First of all, the problem with hotlinking is that the people doing it are generally not aware that they're doing it and don't know what it is. If they saw the term "hotlinking" they wouldn't think twice about it.

Are you one of those people? If so, I'm going to break this into very simple terms.

Bandwidth is the amount of web traffic that a site is allowed. Each time you visit a site, you use bandwidth. And that's great - websites are there because they want visitors.

Bandwidth is purchased by websites, therefore, sites are alotted a certain amount of bandwidth. If they go over that amount, the site could crash (be unavailable -- blank screen).

Hotlinking. We've all done it, we just didn't know it was wrong. What is it?

Hotlinking is when you copy a picture from another website and paste it into your own site, your online posts, or send it in an email. The picture is hosted (stored) on a site that does not belong to you. If you were to right-click an image, click Properties, then look at the location you can tell if it's hotlinked.

If you're on www.mommyhaven.com and the picture location says http://www.mommyhaven.com/ then it's NOT hotlinked.

If you're on http://www.mommyhaven.com/ and the picture location reads http://www.msn.com/ then the photo IS hotlinked.

Why is this a problem? Well, each time that picture is viewed it uses bandwidth and costs these sites money. Small sites have crashed because of this. Imagine copying a funny picture into an email, then sending it to 10 people, then they forward it to 10 people, and so on...and so on....

Solution? Make sure the image isn't protected by copyright first. That's the ethical thing to do. Then, right click image, save it to your PC, open an account with http://www.villagephotos.com/ or http://www.photobucket.com/ and upload it there. These are sites that allow you to hotlink. That's their gig...so...

Don't hotlink, it steals bandwidth.

rec·ip·ro·cal link, noun
When your link is placed on the websites of the links that are placed on your website.

Huh?

A reciprocal link is a fancy way of saying "I'll show everyone yours if you show everyone mine." Links, that is.

Well, I happen to have a gazillion links on my websites. Do I really want to go and click each one of them just to make sure that they're returning the favor? Isn't there a better way??

Yes. Not as time consuming as the option above, but considerably less tedious.

This is how I do it. I'm open to better ways, but I'd hate for my method to die with me when I go.

How Amber Checks Reciprocal Links 1.0

1. Download LinkAdage

   - 'Tis free. I wouldn't have it ANY other way! This is a Reciprocal Link Checker. Slick, eh?

2. It's pretty easy to use. Basically where it says "Find links to this website" you type YOUR website (without the http://www/.) - so, "example.com" - that makes it a little more thorough as there are people who drop the www for some reason beyond my grasp.

3. Where it says "Check these sites for links" - that's where you type the names of the sites that should have your link on them. Keyword: should.

I know what you're thinking. "I, too, have a bazillion links to check. I'm supposed to type ALL of them in??"

Well, yes and no. If you have one page with tons of links on it, you can use a Link Extractor. Did you even know there WAS such a thing? Yes indeedy. Here's my favorite:

http://www.webmaster-toolkit.com/link-extractor.shtml

Just type in the page where links are displayed on YOUR webpage and it'll extract them and will look a little sumpin' like this:

http://www.hbwm.com
http://www.hello.com/
http://www.sassaymoms.com/
http://www.wittychicks.com/
http://www.wittymom.com/

..but your page may be muuuuuch longer. If it's short, just do the old cut & paste. If it's long, then paste all of the URLs into a text file, then use he "Automation" function on LinkAdage to import the list. Easy as Kool-Aid. (Pie is not easy.)

Once you have your list locked &loaded, click "Start". The program will run down the list - it may take awhile so go have a glass of milk or something - maybe some pancakes. With peanut butter & maple syrup....I digress.

In the list you'll see who does and doesn't link back. If you're seeing a whole lotta red text, meaning your link wasn't found, I'd recommend checking those sites manually just to be sure before you send a nastygram. Some link programs are run dynamically and...blah blah blah...spare you the techie jargon...this program can't see them.

That's it. Not super easy, but relatively doable if you have your mind set to it. Yeah? Now, GO CHECK THOSE LINKS!!

I'm the go-to-girl with my family and friends when it comes to computers. I certainly don't know everything, but I generally know where to start.

But technology is running rampant. I admit it, I can no longer keep up. So from time to time we're going to learn something together. And this is the first thing.

Photo Blogging.

For those of you who aren't familiar with blogging, its a word derived from "Web Log". A web log is an online journal. Pretty simple. So a photo blog is just an online journal with pictures. Easy, right? Well, until today this is something I'd never done. I'd maintained simple blogs in the past, so I knew where to start.

Is photo blogging for you? Well, if you want to share pictures with family and friends, and you want to add a story to each photo, then yes, it IS for you.

Is it easy? Once you get the hang of it, it really is easy. It took me quite awhile to figure out...but luckily I've documented my steps and posted them here for you, so there's no guesswork. Now wasn't that nice?

You may want to print this out.

So lets go....here's your step-by-step tutorial. Everything you'll be doing is completely FREE. You WILL need to download a program, but we'll get there. On dial up it should only take about 10-20 minutes, but its essential. I have mid-speed DSL and it took about 5 minutes.

1. GET A BLOG ACCOUNT

** Now don't get fancy on my by trying to use a different blog service. It won't work with the following steps...just do what I tell you...GOT IT??

- Goto www.Blogger.com (look, you're already there!)

- Click "Create Your Blog Now"

- Follow the steps until your account is created. (Make a note of the url for your blog)

2. DOWNLOAD THE PHOTO UPLOAD SOFTWARE

Hello is a software that lets you share pictures with your friends and family. It's also used to add photos to your blog.

- Goto www.Hello.com

- Click Download Now

- Create an account (you'll get a confirmation email as well)

- Download & install the software

3. RUN THE SOFTWARE

** You have to be connected to the internet to do this

- You'll see a welcome screen, click it and it will go away.

- You'll see a sign-in screen. Enter your username and password (remember, you just created it)

- Now you're at the interface, this is the fun part!

4. ADD BLOGGERBOT AS A FRIEND

This is the step that will allow you to add pictures and comments directly from Hello into your Blog.

- From the Friends menu, choose Add.

- Enter “BloggerBot” as the friend Hello login name.

- Click Add. The BloggerBot tab opens. This tab shows the Blogger login screen. Log on to Blogger using your Blogger user name and password.

- Click Sign In. The Settings page appears.

5. IMPORT & PUBLISH PICTURES/BLOG

This is the step to repeat each time you'd like to make a blog entry.

- If there isn't a tab above called BloggerBot, then double-click BloggerBot in your list. It will create the tab. Click the BloggerBot tab.

- Click "Send Pictures"

- You may be asked if you want to use Picasa or Explorer. If you have Picasa (another free download) then choose that. If not, Explorer is fine.

- Find the picture(s) you want to add to your blog

- A box will pop up asking you to select the friends to send the picture to. Click the "Add pictures to Recent" option.

- When you have added all of the pictures to Hello, click "Send Recent"

- Use the Ctrl key to select multiple pictures, or right-click your mouse and choose Select All if you'd like to add all of them.

- Click "Send to Friend"

- If you haven't set preferences already, it will ask you to do so here. You can leave everything at the default setting if you'd like (I did). Click Save.

- Now you'll see a little reel of your photos at the bottom. They'll be grayed out. Choose the first photo you'd like to comment on and send. It will appear
in the window above.

- To the bottom-right you'll see the comment box. Here you can write about the photo. You have to write something or it won't let you send. When you're done,
click "Publish"

- Move on to the next photo until you're done.

** If you just want to add a journal entry without a picture, choose the photo from the reel with the header "Blogger". Type your comments, and click
"Publish"

6. VIEW YOUR BLOG

- Now that you've published your photos and journal, you probably want to see it. Choose the photo from the reel with the header "Blogger", then click the flashing "Web Link" button. It will take you to your blog.

Tada!!

We all hate SPAM! No, not the canned meat (which isn't all that bad!) but the unsolicited emails. Junk.

I just wanted to pass this on...if you want to help the fight against SPAM, forward it to the Federal Trade Commission:

spam@uce.gov

PLEASE REMEMBER...the definition of SPAM is an UNSOLICITED email. Don't forward emails that you subscribed to, but are sick of. This could cause the sender much inconvenience. If you remember subscribing to it, and you don't want it anymore, then follow the instructions to unsubscribe. It's the responsible thing to do.

BEWARE...often SPAM will be addressed to "Subscriber" and/or will contain instructions on how to unsubscribe. By following these instructions, you're actually just verifying that your address is valid.

So the moral of the story...don't report emails as SPAM if you subscribed to them, and secondly, don't unsubscribe to SPAM if you know you didn't subscribe in the first place.

As mentioned before, I use an email client called Mozilla Thunderbird. It has a great anti-SPAM feature, it's incredibly accurate at filtering SPAM. So, if you use an email client, but want one with more efficiency, give T-Bird a try (www.Mozilla.org). It's free.

If TuDogs lets me down, I'm off to Download.com, TuCows, SourceForge....then Lady Google, here I come! Keyword will always contain the words free or freeware. Yeah, they'll try and trick you by calling it a free download--then charge you after 30 days of use. But you gotta be savvy about the whole enterprise.

My favorite freebies?

Tech Support - protonic.com
What? Really? FREE tech support? You know it! Over 400 volunteer techs (I'm one of them...though haven't logged on in awhile) and they're all sweet as pie, ready to help you out.

AntiVirus - AVG Antivirus
This company believes that the internet should be virus-free, and that should include offering a free anti-virus program to make it so. Makes sense!

Anti-Keylogger - Amic Tools
It's sad that we'd even NEED something like this but, alas, we do. You MySpacers listen up! Get an anti-keylogger ASAP!

Anti-Spyware - Spybot Search & Destroy
I won't get into what spyware, malware, etc. is, but here's an overview. They're bad. Your antivirus won't catch spyware, this will. And it's free. Did I say that already?

Office Software - OpenOffice
Now, I gotta say I haven't had the best of luck with this one, but I've used it briefly and if you MUST have something compatible with MS Office but can't shell out the gazillion dollars that Mr. Gates apparently thinks its worth, go download OpenOffice. All the bells & whistles of MS without the price tag.

Techie Newsletters - Kim Komando
Komando.com - make sure that if you tell someone about this site verbally, you mention it's spelled with a 'K' and one 'M'. Made that mistake once. My poor, poor friend...scarred for life! Kim Komando, aka The Digital Goddess, is just that. She's a fancy, schmanchy computer whiz, she knows her stuff inside & out. She also has her own radio talk show.

The list goes on and on. Oh....I have SO many more faves, but will save them for another post. In the meantime, if you're looking for a good program to do some "x" project - check for freeware!

"Wasting somebody else's time strikes me as the height of rudeness. We have only so many hours, and none to waste."
Bill Gates, On Spam: Wasting time on the Internet (3/25/98)

Well, I just couldn't agree more! I do a fine job wasting my own time, I don't need anyone's help. My gripe of choice is junk email. Now, my ISP does a pretty good job of filtering SPAM for me. And the majority of my friends know not to send me stuff unless they're sure I'll enjoy it on some level. But there are those handful of people, apparently still somewhat new to the internet (as we all once were) that insist on sending me a wide array of junk mail, and it can always be identified quickly as the subject line begins with FW:FW:FW:FW:FW:

I don't mind when people send me a funny joke, a truly neat, inspiring or uplifting story, a prayer request for someone that they know...things like that. Here's a list of the junk mail I despise, and why:

Legend Has It
"Ladies, beware of this latest method of sexual predators....tell all of your friends."

Urban Legends. I admit that when I first read the story about the guy who was slipped a mickey and taken to a hotel room only to have his kidneys removed from his body by a group of money-hungry med students, I forwarded that all over the place. I mean, how could I never have heard of this horrific crime?? Well, I'll tell you why. It's a little thing that we generally refer to as fiction. I know what some of you are thinking...better safe than sorry? Okay, let me just tell you this. If the $5-rapist or Dr Kidney-Thief is at large in your community, you'll hear it on the news. And that's good enough for me. How many times have you heard a horrific news story and thought, "Oooh...I saw an email about that! I guess no one forwarded it to that poor sap!"

Okay, if you really think the email is true, check it out before you send it on. It's quick and free to do. www.Snopes.com -- type in a few keywords and you're on your way to truthville.

Your Riches Await
"This email is being tracked and if you forward it to at least 10 people, Bill Gates will pay you $1,000."

Now, come ON! We all KNOW that this isn't going to pan out. Common sense tells you that Bill Gates wouldn't be one of the richest men in the world if he was just tossing money away like this. And most importantly, there is no way to track who forwarded what to whom and how many times. Sure, you can often find out where an email has been if you want to take the time to pull the IP address and look it up, but then you'd have to find the name and mailing address of the person at that IP address. The man hours would be innumerable. But still, there's a little voice inside that says "but what if?" -- we all want free money. But please, next time you see one of these, do your friends a favor...DELETE!

Fear Factor
"If you don't forward this to at least 10 people, you'll have bad luck for 7 years."

Anyone who forwards an email simply for the fact that it told them to has issues. If there is something in the message that I like and want to forward, I'll delete that stupid threat and send it on. And who exactly is this higher power that sits all day and casts bad luck to anti-forwarders? She needs to see the paragraph above, because if she can track email like that, there'd be some money for her in the software development field. And it would likely pay more and be more rewarding than the punishing of innocent email users.

Shame Sham
"Send this email [about God] to everyone in your address book...unless you're ashamed."

Okay, this one really ticks me off. You want to know why? Because it tries to guilt you into sending a stupid email to everyone you know on the basis that if you don't, you're ashamed of God. What?? Excuse me, that's...well...WRONG!! When I see these, I delete them straight away, and I'll explain why. How important do my best-email-friends feel when I send them someone else's religious beliefs, thoughts, theories, whatever through email, with the stupid tag line of guilt at the bottom?? I mean, REALLY?? If you LOVE what the message represents, DELETE THE SENTENCE OF GUILT (no pun intended). I'm sure St. Peter won't be shaking his finger at me saying, "Tsk tsk, you didn't forward your emails about God!"

Right Back Atcha!
"Send this back to the person who sent it to you."

I'm sorry, but why?? I might not delete the email, but I certainly won't send it back to who sent it to me. That's just dumb. I mean, there are exceptions, like the one I got today about making your Captain Underpants code name. That one is cute and fun and quick, and sending it back to the person who sent it is also cute and fun and quick.

Special Delivery
"Send this to all of special people in your life."

You all know these ones. They're jam-packed with cutsie quotes, pictures of Precious Moments and puppy dogs, and little animated graphics of butterflies and fairies sprinkling their love-dust all over cyberopolis. Yes, some of them are really cute. The ones I like generally have a sarcastic spin and have a picture of the lady from Shoebox Greetings. Those make me laugh, and I'm always up for a laugh. But, for my sake, if you think I'm special, just write me an email that says, "Hey, I think you're special!" Don't send me that canned lovey-dovey cutsie crap. I can't hit the DEL key fast enough!!!

I admit that I'm not guiltless, I've forwarded junk email in my time. I've sent pictures that were too large to download. I've typed all caps. We're all constantly learning about the ever-growing and ever-changing web-world, what is and isn't acceptable. If you want to be Captain Netiquette, that's great, but for now I'll just settle for email that contains none of the above.