One of the hardest challenges I have had with getting websites online is the web design.  I am no programming guru, so I have tried to stumble through creating a website, only for it to look like a three year old made it - yes, it was that primitive.

But, I know that if I am to succeed online, I need to make a site that both looks good and takes advantages of such things as a DHTML menu for navigation.  Now, I don’t know the first thing about stuff like that, so I need something that will make it easier for me.

So, I purchased some quick and easy web design software that takes care of all the coding for me.  Now, I can just lay things out how I see fit, and the software takes care of all the coding mumbo jumbo for me.  Creating websites has never been easier.

The church that I attend asked me if I would not mind helping them get a web page together. They figured it was a good way to advertise different activities and events that were going on in the life of the church. I said that I would help, not realizing at all what I was getting myself into.

When we met for the first time, I realized how little the people working on it actually knew. They had no idea about hosting and I suggested that they get an account with asp.net web hosting before we move on to anything else. After all, what good is a web page without hosting?

Once we got that done, we started to work on the layout and design of the page. It started to be one headache after another working with people who do not know what they are doing. I eventually said that I would take care of the web page myself and they agreed that this was the best thing to do. It is finally online and I am finally sane again.

For every subject on earth, there is probably a blog out there somewhere, and some language. There are blogs with such a tight focus that their creators are in danger of running out of topics to write about. Conversely, there are blogs with such a broad focus that they’re about everything, but they are in danger of being about nothing.

As my grandmother loved to say, “Everything in moderation.”

My interests tend to be widely scattered. I like to use the word eclectic. It sounds so much better than scatter-brained.

Just today I was researching Indian food and that sent me to Indian recipes, which, in turn, led to chicken recipes, which took me to slow cooker recipes. Did you know you can bake a cake in a slow cooker — in theory? Blows my mind.

Anyway, one thing led to another and the next thing I knew, I was looking at Memorial Day party suggestions. The Internet is perfect for people with “eclectic interests,” like me.

I have always thought that the design of your website was the way that your e-business makes their first impression to your customer.  If your website looks like it was made by a 12-year old, then you probably won’t sell a $2,000 product.

That is why I had this site designed by a professional web design firm.  Honestly, I tried to make my own website design, but after hours of frustrations, I realized maybe I wasn’t the best artist.  When I showed my design to my wife, she started to cry because she was laughing so much.

So, for me, it makes more sense to outsource the design to another firm and let them do what they do best.  This way, I can have beautiful websites and spend my time focusing on making the money instead of fooling around.  This has increased our bottom line and has allowed us to focus on more projects - and make more money.

I have often wondered if a reader that doesn’t speak English would enjoy reading my blog.  I am sure that some of the stories I share here would honestly be of no interest to them, but there are other nuggets that may make it worth the read.

Now, I only know two languages, and honestly, my French is not as good as it used to be.  So, that would mean that I am in the position that I would either have to hire someone to translate each post on the site (there is a lot), or just find some sort of free website translation service.

I know that the computer generated translations are not as good as a human doing it, but they are close.  At least they work well enough so that another human can read it - and really that is my goal.

When I finally do get something in place, I am going to keep an eye to see if people do really find the other languages available on the site to be useful, or if I am just wasting my time.

I have been spending a lot of time looking for information on diabetes. It runs in my family and when I had to study a disease in one of my college classes, this is the one I chose to research. I thought it would be good to know as much about it as I could since it affects so many people in my family and my chances of having it one day are pretty high.

I logged on to a health forum on the topic and I found it to be a very useful tool for doing research. There were questions on there that I would have never thought to ask or even thought to find information on.

I think the forum helped me to do more in-depth research and in turn helped me to write a much better paper than I would have without it. I will never again count out forums when I am doing research for a class. It has proven to be one of the most useful tools that I have ever come across.

I can remember about a year ago when I was reading in the paper about the companies online that would sell you a fake degree for around $100.  They were talking about the dire consequences of people that have fake degrees getting into life critical jobs under the fraudulent application process.

So when it was time for me to go back to school, I knew I had to make sure that I was studying am going to receive an accredited online college degree.  This requires a little bit or research to find but I didn’t want to get scammed.

I was able to find an accredited school that offered online bachelors degree as well as health care degrees online.  From what I’ve read, they offer pretty much everything that a regular school does but they don’t require you to go classes at a particular time during the day.

I have sent a request for more information and am looking forward to hear back from them.

I have been looking for some reliable ecommerce shopping cart software for the website that I will be setting up to sell the sweaters that my wife makes.  We have been selling them at flea markets in town, but I figured that it would do much better if we had a bigger audience like a website provides.

It was going to be the first online store software that I would ever use, so I wanted to find a package that would be easy to install and customize to our needs.  I was going to make a custom template for the site so that our site would stand out.

But, we didn’t have a lot of money on hand to start the project.  Thankfully, I was able to find an aspdotnetstorefront coupon that allowed me to save some money when I went to purchase the script.

Now that I have fooled around with it a bit, I am very happy with my shopping cart software choice.  It looks like it will work perfectly for us.

I have created and launched many websites over the past seven years of being an entrepreneur.  I have owned everything from search engines, to content sites, as well as online stores, but I never bore of launching and promoting a new site.  To me, it is like watching a baby grow up into an adult, and I find it truly amazing.

For my site launches, I have created a system (and checklist) of steps I need to take before and after launching the site.  Currently, I am working on the last part of my new site: website marketing.

The marketing aspect of a website is very important because if no one can find your site, you can really expect little to no income from that web property.  I even have a checklist for this step that includes directory submissions, article writing, forum posting, and social bookmarking.

I usually can promote a new site in a day or two, so I expect revenue to start coming in by the end of the week.  Man, do I love making websites – it is a job that I am very passionate about.

Out of the many books that I have read in my life, there are only a few, really great ones.  Those ones have touched my heart and my soul, and have changed my life forever. 

But, most of those books were written by one, or maybe two people.  Sometimes, I wonder what a novel would be like if it was written by a number of writers, each contributing their spin on one cohesive, interactive novel.

Well, the wait is over.  I came across a "work in progress", creative writing project today, title End of this World.  What they are doing is writing a novel where many authors can contribute.  In fact, if you are into creative writing, you can submit a chapter for review.

So far, the story is good - I just want to know what happens next.  But, with a month in between new chapters, there will be a little wait - though the final product will be worth it.