What happened to Mister Linker?

Does anyone know what happened to Mister Linker? One minute they were there the next they're gone. I thought it was just the usual internet gremlins and it would be back but its been down for a couple of weeks at least.

I thought I would have a go at recreating the site, partly because I liked the site but mainly because I wanted to see how well I had progressed with my knowledge of php and MySQL. The layout is virtually identical as I took it from the original although the internal pages are different. I tried a few different ways to count clicks in & out and most in the end used javascript, the one I have finally settled on allows the site to work with javascript off (although it won't count the outgoing clicks) and creates a proper link to your site so will count as a backlink.

Please take a look Links247.co.uk.

Apologies

Apologies for the lack of updates lately. I've been ill and its amazing how far you can fall behind when a little illness hits you. So what's happened since I last posted. I've came up with a way to speed up my arcade site http://247mgf.co.uk and reduce (or hopefully stop the internal server 500 errors). I did this by reducing the number of mySQL queries to create a page (currently the homepage), I plan to reduce the number even further and extend it to other pages once I am sure it is working well.

What else? I tested my php & mySQL skills by recreating the Mister Linker site but more about this in another post.

What about income, well as expected I haven't done so great! This is the totals for the month to date (22-11-2007).

Widgetbucks: $12.84 + $0.17 referral income
Last month I made a whopping $0.33. Plus I have my $25.00 signup bonus. So this month is certainly an improvement. 2 referrals so far also. This has been doing quite well for a low traffic site like I have however there have been concerns over the logging of impressions and clicks.

Adbrite: $0.25 this month, last month was $0.42.

Bidvertiser: $0.21. I'll never get this though as I have stopped using them on my site as my stats disagreed with there's.

BigFish: $6.27. I have had 6 referrals sign up and 1 which has gone on to purchase a game / pack which earned me $6.27. I have created a site using the free software supplied by BigFish at 247freegamesdownloads.co.uk which seems to be picking up traffic all on its own.

Ciao: £0.51 (not a mistake it is added up in sterling). I haven't done much with this apart from completed a couple of surveys but you spent the time doing reviews and surveys etc. I think it would certainly add up.

Blogsvertise: $2. Only been offered the one task which was paid at a reduced price of $2.

Money4banners: £5. These continue to pay the £5 per month for the 3 banners ads placed on my always24-7.co.uk site.

As yet I haven't been paid out for any of these as and when I do I will post.

My New Arcade Layout

Uploaded it about an hour ago, still not happy with the colour but happier with the page as a whole. Will start adding more games over the next few weeks. Then I need to start on my new project. More to follow.

Widget Bucks

Forgot to add. I have had one concern recently with regard to Widget Bucks, they seem to be messing about with the reporting of money earned. Some days you may show no clicks / no impressions and 0 earned. Other days it may appear. When it does appear it may make you smile but the next day new figures could appear which will make you frown. All in all not a good omen for the future but lets hope it is simply teething problems and things improve very rapidly or they will lose the momentum they built up on there excellent launch.

Updated 247mgf.co.uk

I've been busy working on a new layout for 247mgf. I've added a few mouseover effects to give more information to the visitors and I've added more games to the front page while taking up less space. This is mainly using thumbnails and text links while putting the descriptions in the mouseovers. Seems to work well. I still need to work on colour as i'm still not happy about them. Also new logo, Jim of JM Directory offered his services and came up with the new movie reel and gamepad logo. What do you think?

WidgetBucks: One Month Old

WidgetBucks is one month old and aren't they doing well! Since launching on the 2nd October they have over 30,000 publishers and served over 200 million impressions. To find out more check out

It's a great start, as long as they pay out widgetbucks.com. Still early days and they are still yet to pay out but early indications do look good and the ads seem to be working well on my arcade site at 247mgf.co.uk. I have now added them to my always24-7.co.uk. I receive double the traffic here so hopefully it will provide a better response. The only problem I have with WidgetBucks at the moment is the time it takes for the ad to be served, I am almost sure this is why the WidgetBucks stats show a much lower impression rate than I am getting. My visitors are moving on before the ads even load. Hopefully this is something that is improved.

Free tooltip script

I've added tooltips to popup over url's on my arcade site which work well using scripts from dynamicdrive.com. However someone pointed this tooltip script out to me prototip. Looks really good and a lot more versatile than what I am currently using.

Hope it helps someone.

All the best,
Michael.

Some Free Script Sites

I've found my 2 javascript scripts I wrote for rotating ads, text, banners etc. have been added to some more free script sites. I submitted my scripts to "Script Dungeon" and they were accepted the other site "only free scripts" I only know about because I they came up in my logs. Nice to know that the scripts are out there helping people though.

http://scriptdungeon.com/

onlyfreescripts.com/

Other great script sites are:

http://www.dynamicdrive.com/

http://hotscripts.com/

and another great work are the scripts at http://www.phpjunkyard.com/. However I have never had the chance to actually use them but I always want to!

All have lots of great ideas.

Mojopac: Take your PC where ever you go

Heard about this site on one of the forums I regularly visit but its worth repeating it as it is an excellent piece of kit. Mojopac allows you to take you PC where ever you go. I'll let the people behind you tell you what it is, see the quote from their site below:

MojoPac is a technology that transforms your iPod or USB Hard Drive or Flash drive into a portable and private PC. Just install MojoPac on any USB 2.0 compliant storage device, upload your applications and files, modify your user settings and environment preferences, and take it with you everywhere.

Every time you plug your MojoPac-enabled device into any Windows XP PC , MojoPac automatically launches your environment on the host PC. Your communications, music, games, applications, and files are all local and accessible. And when you unplug the MojoPac device, no trace is left behind – your information is not cached on the host PC.

Check them out at http://www.mojopac.com/. There's even a free version for individuals. I like free ;).

Big Fish Games Principal Network

Earn by offering free games to your visitors.




I've only recently signed up for this affiliate program but already it seems very promising. I checked today and I already have my first referral to the affiliate program so hopefully they will do fantastically and earn me a nice bonus. However I'm also promoting the business directly and have set up my own site Free Game Downloads 24/7. Take a look, not bad? This is all done with free affiliate software available from Big Fish when you sign up. It's easy, all you require is hosting with php enabled (see post below for more on this).

You don't need to have a whole website dedicated to them though, you have RSS & XML feeds and all the usual banners and text links. Joining the affiliate program is FREE so check it out, what have you got to lose? Big Fish Affiliate Program.

PHP: PHPInfo: Your first PHP Script

Now i'm no expert when it comes to PHP or HTML for that matter but I have learnt a thing or 2 along the way. I do have problems remembering it all, maybe that's my old age! So maybe it will help me if I add as much of it here as I can and if it helps you along the way then fantastic.

First of all what does PHP stand for?

Well originally Rasmus Lerdorf devised PHP sometime in 1994 for creating his 'Personal Home Page' so that's what it stood for. It eventually grew into what it is today and was then renamed PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor.

PHP pages are created in the same way that you would create any other webpage, using your favourite text editor. This can be something as power hungry as Dreamweaver or even Notepad. Just remember to save your work with the extension .php. You can use other extensions but it involves additional work and this is meant to be basic, easy babysteps so let's not complicate things to much yet.

Ok, our first script. I assume you have webhosting already sorted out and it is PHP enabled? Don't know, well let's use our first script to find out.

PHP files can also carry standard HTML, XHTML and the like therefore you need to let your server know that what follows is PHP coding so that it can be treated as such. PHP does this by using the to finish, like so:

HTML

<?php

YOUR PHP CODE GOES HERE.

?>

HTML again

Easy. Our first script will we write will output the phpinfo file which will tell you everything about the version of php running on your server. If it doesn't produce anything then you don't have php enabled on your server.

Ok here we go, open a new document and enter the following:

<?php
phpinfo();
exit();
?>

Save the file as index.php and upload to your server. Now using your favourite browser navigate to your domain and you should see something like the pic below:



IF you don't see anything then you probably haven't got php installed on your server. If you do see something like the above then congratulations you have just written and executed your very first php script.

Would you like a Top Ten Search Engine Placement?

DiscountClick Online Marketing Services

We all came across the internet in different ways, then we create our very own place on the world wide web. Maybe you have a blog like this or a website. Lovingly put together by you. We then sit back and wait and wait and then wait some more and hope that someone will come along and visit us.

Its even more important if you are a business and you are trying to earn money from your site. If only we could obtain a top ten position for our chosen keywords on the major search engines. You can but its hard work and most of us simply haven't got the time to do both our jobs / run our business and learn all there is to know about Search Engine Optimisation. This is where companies like discountclick come in. They work tirelessly on your behalf to put you in the best position for top positions. Results are obtainable in as little as 2-4 weeks and typically takes 2-4 months to get to the top of the search engines.

DiscountClick have a range of options for all budgets ranging from $500 USD for their entry level Search Engine Optimization Website Service, which is an affordable solution for businesses just getting started on internet marketing. All the way up to $3000 USD for high end sites who want high rankings for high competitions keywords. Monthly services, no long term contracts.

Take a look at discountclick.com for more information.

Weekend....

Weekends are always busy for me. 9 Children makes it so, so I don't get very much work done. However I was up until 2:30am working on some amendments to my arcade sites scripts. I added a list of links below each of the game thumbnails in the category lists on the front of the site.

My arcade site is based on the GSS (gamesitescripts) and phpBB forum, although very heavily modified during integration. If anyone is interested in what I have done and how leave me a message and I will give full details. Take a look at the site if you like something let me know and I'll tell you how I did it.

Weekends are also very bad for traffic. Schools are out and no one seems to want to waste time playing games online. A bigger problem this week as its also half-term here in the UK so it'll be a week of low traffic :(.

My first attempt at turning my text to gold

Well I had a go at the tutorial for making your text look like gold and here are the results:


What do you think?

Update

The arcade banner advertising seems to be working and visitors are starting to arrive at 247mgf.co.uk. We even had a couple of new members sign up to the members, that's not so unusual but these actually made some posts! Unless you run a forum you will not understand how amazing a feat this is. Its one thing to get visitors and then to have them sign up but to actually post is the difficult part.

It's difficult to know what's best when it comes to advertising on your site, do you want to keep your visitors or let them go which obviously advertising is trying to do. With arcade banners you're not even earning from your visitors leaving. I've got about 14 different banners, from about 10 different banner networks all trying to grab my visitors attention and whisk them away, and I know its working as I checked the banner networks logs today and I have quite a good rate of clicks for all of them. Most are getting around 2%-4% hit rate from me but then they are also bringing a lot of the traffic to me. I will keep monitoring it but as long as there bringing in traffic I will keep them but remove the non-performing networks as time goes on. I will of course keep you all posted.

Always24-7.co.uk also did well this week, although there is no advertising on there at the moment so no income but some of the traffic did filter over to 247mgf.co.uk so it wasn't a total waste.

As I am still working out how to spend the huge amounts of money I made a couple of days ago I haven't checked if I made any more but I will try and have an update over the weekend.

I'm working on another idea to enable me to promote some of the more adult affiliate programs that are unsuitable for this blog and my current sites. These should bring more income in. Again I'll keep you posted.

Free Software

Free software Serif the people who created Pageplus.

The software is 3DPlus and this is what Serif say

"3DPlus is the amazing 3D design software that enables you to create stunning 3D graphics for your home, school or business - no experience required!

With 3DPlus you can create outstanding 3D designs in just a few minutes - with no need for any complicated VRML or other programming! And best of all, you can download our amazing 3D software, 3DPlus 2, completely free!"

If you're interested you can download it here: FREE SERIF SOFTWARE

Added Info: Just discovered that Serif do a number of free software offers: Check'em out Free Serif Software

The 100 oldest domains on the internet

Ever wondered who were the first to get there domains:

Top 10 oldest domains are:
1. 15-Mar-1985 SYMBOLICS.COM
2. 24-Apr-1985 BBN.COM
3. 24-May-1985 THINK.COM
4. 11-Jul-1985 MCC.COM
5. 30-Sep-1985 DEC.COM
6. 07-Nov-1985 NORTHROP.COM
7. 09-Jan-1986 XEROX.COM
8. 17-Jan-1986 SRI.COM
9. 03-Mar-1986 HP.COM
10. 05-Mar-1986 BELLCORE.COM

The full list can be found at: The 100 oldest domains on the internet

Making your text look like gold

Someone has asked me to build them a website, now I tried very hard to convince them that this was a terrible idea as a) I am useless at designing websites and b) see number 1. However they insisted, obviously this because they are either mad or more likely that I'm not charging (yet!).

I decided that it would be nice to have the heading in gold writing on a black background but I wanted it to look like gold rather than just be coloured gold. A little bit special, in the end I found a few sites, the first 2 sites are colour chart sites which helped with getting the colours I was looking for although in the end I didn't require them:

http://halflife.ukrpack.net/csfiles/help/colors.shtml
http://www.computerhope.com/htmcolor.htm

The next 2 sites were more helpful as in they showed how to make your text look like gold. The latter of the 2 sites being the best of the 2. However it is a long winded process but does look good at the end.

http://www.wowwebdesigns.com/power_guides/gold_text/
http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/photoshoptutorialstextfx/Creating_Text_Effects_with_Photoshop.htm

http://www.designvitality.com/blog/2007/09/photoshop-text-effect-tutorial/

http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photoshop-text/text-effects/gold/

I did follow the instructions on the last site and although it did look good it took a while and it didn't look exactly the same as the sites example but I think that it because I didn't shape the text correctly at the beginning as the sites example seemed thicker. However it did look good. I will be giving this a go with a different font later but that I feel will be a little more difficult.

Money 4 banners

I gave a brief mention regarding "earnings" so far yesterday but I forgot to mention that I also received my monthly £5 payment into my paypal account yesterday from money4banners. If you haven't joined these yet and you have a website take a look. £10 joining up payment and £5 per month for placing 3 banner ads on your site.

money4banners

Flash, Actionscript, flash game creation

As a few of you by now will know one of my sites is a flash game site. Now I hate not knowing how something is done so I have decided to learn a little of how flash games are created and hopefully be able to create my own game albeit it probably very simple. Here are a free sites I have found that will hopefully help me figure it all out:

http://www.cartoonsmart.com/

http://www.flashkit.com/

http://www.actionscript.org/resources/categories/Tutorials/

If you know of any other good sites then please let me know. Thank you.

A couple of great CSS resource sites

Came across these late last night:

cssvault.com
cssbeauty.com

Also joined a couple more arcade banner exchange sites (starting to become an addiction). Later I will put up the full list of arcade banner sites I have joined and links, also how well they are doing. Overall I think it is working albeit on a small scale.

Dictionary.com another helpful web resource

Another web site to add to the web resource list: http://dictionary.reference.com/

Oh yes! Finally in the money! :)

Oh Yes! On my way to being a internet millionaire! Noticed today that Adbrite had placed an ad on my site so I thought I would check them out (I'd forgotten that I had placed adspace with them). Anyhow I discovered I had made...... wait for it.............. $0.03 YES!!! Not quite enough to retire :) but did you think that was exciting? Well I thought while i'm checking out Adbrite I would have a look at my BidVertiser account and that was a whopping $0.08. So to recap:

Adbrite: $0.03
Bidvertiser: $0.06

This time next year i'll be a millionaire ;)

Free photo resource site

Came across this excellent free photo resource site. If you need any photo's for your blogs or web sites then take a look at http://www.sxc.hu/index.phtml

New Web Resource Site

Just came across this after checking out a new site for someone. Dreamweaver tutorials, programming, web design, htaccess, everything and anything to do with publishing a website.

http://www.thesitewizard.com/

More arcade banner exchange sites

Been very busy today but unfortunately personal rather than webmastering. However I was able to sign up to another couple of arcade banner exchange sites.

Arcade Change: Another arcade banner exchange but this one gives you 10,000 credits for joining and a further 45,000 credits if you keep your banner on your site for over a week.

The other one I am awaiting an email from as its not easy to get working, so I will await that before posting details. I will add this one to the list though: Promoting your site or blog.

Colour Scheme's

Another interesting site mentioned by Seth (http://www.grooming-health.com/) regarding Psychological Properties of Colours. Take a look:

http://www.colour-affects.co.uk/psyprop.html

Not how this will change the colours for my sites. Yesterday I changed to pale blue and now I am thinking of a darker blue in places and the burnt orange colours (thank you John (jwjonline)) from my original logo (thank you Sharron (design by atfb)).

Site update

Well this blog is meant to be about being a webmaster so I should tell you what I have done today. I signed up for a new arcade banner exchange programme, here's the url for anyone who has an online arcade site and is interested:

Arcade Affiliate

I've also been trying out new colours for my game arcade site at 247mgf.co.uk. I was never keen on the dark red it was before but as it was the colour of the theme chosen for the original forum I stuck with it on the new homepage. Today I tried a pink colour and a blue colour, in the end I preferred the blue but still not entirely happy with it. My friend John from statcounter has had a little look and his come up with an idea or 2 and i'm hoping to have a go at them later.

I've also done a little updating on the parenting forum and football forum but they still need a lot more work. Oh and updated this blog, added statcounter code, added more friends links, other links.

My first comments...

I've had my first visitors and they left me a couple of comments. Isn't that nice :).

Actually I don't know if they were my first visitors as I had no way of tracking visitors to my site until today but these were the first 2 to leave comments so thank you.

Adding statcounter code to your blog

Thought it would be nice to know if anyone is actually reading my daily ramblings plus that and my friend John one of the mods at statcounter pointed out I hadn't installed it. Thank you John. So I thought right, statcounter installation on a blog. Now installing statcounter on my sites is easy all you do is open up your page in your favourite editor and plonk the code generated on your project (provided free at www.statcounter.com) within the body tags and away you go but with a blog I have no idea.

First thing I did was click customise and would you believe it you can edit the html. So that was that, first I threw in the code from my site to check it works and it did. So of I went to start a new project at statcounter, and while going through the simple procedure to get my code for my new project. Would you believe it statcounter has a tutorial on adding statcounter your blog and its even easier than what I did, no html editing needed HA! Anyway to save anyone going through what I did here is the tutorial:

Blogger (New Blogger) - StatCounter Code Installation Instructions

1. With your mouse, highlight ALL the code in the box above
2. Press and hold down the ctrl key, keeping the key held down press the 'c' key. (this will (c)opy the highlighted text into memory)
3. Log in to your Blogger account.
4. On the first "New Post" click "Layout".
5. Click "Add a Page Element".
6. Choose the "HTML/JavaScript" then click, "Add To Blog".
7. Paste the StatCounter code into the space provided. (ctrl v)
8. Click "Save Changes".

Blogger (Old Blogger) - StatCounter Code Installation Instructions

1. With your mouse, highlight ALL the code in the box above
2. Press and hold down the ctrl key, keeping the key held down press the 'c' key. (this will (c)opy the highlighted text into memory)
3. Log in to your Blogger account and then
4. Click "Change Settings"
5. Click "Template"
6. Scroll down until you find the "Powered by Blogger" line (you'll see the "bloggerbutton1.gif")
7. Paste the StatCounter Code (ctrl v)
8. Click "Save Template Changes"
9. Publish Site

Getting more users

Just reading the Yahoo publishers blog and its got an interesting article on getting more users, worth a read.

http://ypnblog.com/

The whats and what nots to do with creating a new site

Some more bookmarks I have, i'm almost certain these came from a members or members on the statcounter forum:

http://www.josiahcole.com/2007/02/14/a-webmasters-19-commandments/: Somewhat amusing comments but nevertheless true.

http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html: This deals more with speeding up your site than what not to do but equally interesting to read.

Writing a Privacy Policy

I thought I should write one of these for my sites, in my search to figure out what should go into one I came across this site, maybe it will help you to:

http://www.burstmedia.com/isl/index.asp?page=create_privacy

Promoting your site or blog

The age old question of how to get your site noticed. Well I don't have the answers yet but i'm trying my best to find out. Here are a few sites that I know about that may help. Some are for game sites only (maybe soon I will separate the lists):

Link Exchange Directory for the Professional SEO
Quality directory of webmasters actively seeking link exchange. Improve your search engine rankings and link popularity the easy way. Work clever not hard.

Promote your eBay auctions with BidVertiser. Get $20 in FREE clicks.

Place your ad on thousands of sites with BidVertiser. Get $20 in FREE clicks.

Add your URL to Google: For submitting your site to the Google search engine.

Arcade Banners: If you have a gaming website then this is a great banner exchange site. Claims to have the best ratio's in the industry and a great referral program.

More Gamers: Another banner exchange service for gaming websites.

$100 in FREE Links

Links Exchange!: Yet another banner exchange service for gaming websites. Can you ever join to many?

Mister Linker:

Arcade Affiliate:

Do you know the answer? If you do share it with us.

Monetizing your site / blog - Affiliate programmes

Well I did entitle this blog webmaster's money making mission. So how exactly am I planning on making money? Well I've done the google adsense, don't we all start there? and more recently I have joined up with the following affiliate and advertising programmes:

Money4Banners: You get paid £5 every month for having a banner on 3 of your pages. I've been paid the £5 per month every month into my paypal account since starting with this about 6 months ago. You also receive £10 just for signing up! And £10 for every new member you refer!

Show text-ads on your Website or Blog with BidVertiser: Not heard of Bidvertiser? Do I need to explain? Ok Bidvertiser place adverts on your site and when your visitors click on the ads you receive money! Simple, and it works. They also have a nice referral program to ;).

Paid On Results: I was recommended to this by an friend from many years ago. Looks good and I will be incorporating it into my site over the next few weeks.

Big Fish Games - Principal Network Partner: I'm in the process of setting up a site dedicated to this. They even help with this. A free game download site, all you need is the hosting. Although you don't have to promote it this way, there are the usual banners and text links and RSS feeds, XML Data streams. Take a look.

Convergence Inc: Adult only products (over 18's only). They provide a free website - providing you can find a way to market it. Not suitable, for example, on this website.

AuctionAds: Not sure about this one yet. Basically they advertise auctions listings on your site. Not sure where to fit them in.

DIY-Dating: These also offer there own free dating website with choice of designs templates etc. Has possibilities.

Friendfinder: A well run affiliate program. Over 20 websites to promote ranging from Christian and Jewish friendship to Adults and Bondage! Caters for most interests.

Monetize Your Site



make money

Text Link Ads
Know of any more? Which ones are working for you? Don't keep it to yourself, get in touch and let us all know. Look forward to hearing from you.

Press Releases

I read somewhere recently that Press Releases are great way to promote your business, although I have in the past used press releases. I have never used one for promoting a web business. Anyhow the article I read mentioned a couple of helpful sites which I bookmarked. Maybe you would like to visit them to:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/actionnetwork/A4288944
http://www.prweb.com/prfeatures_default.php

Web Resources

I've amassed loads of links to some excellent sites while learning to create always24-7 and the forums. I started listing them on my site but I kept forgetting to update the list. Hopefully this will not happen with this blog.

If you have any useful links then please post them and I will add them to this list when I next update it.

All the best.
Michael.

Books:

Dreamweaver for Dummies
Excellent book, highly recommended by me
PHP and MySQL for Dynamic Web Sites
Another book I highly recommend. Also Larry Ullman has a website where he updates the scripts and will give you full help and support personally. I know his helped me a few times :).

Webmaster Tools:

http://www.isapirewrite.com/
Apache-style URL Rewriting for IIS
http://www.w3schools.com/
I use this a lot, not only because you can find out everything about coding but because you can also test your scripts here.
http://www.marketleap.com/publinkpop/default.htm
http://livepr.raketforskning.com/
http://www.iwebtool.com/
http://www.javascriptkit.com/howto/htaccess.shtml
Great introduction into using .htaccess
http://oy-oy.eu/page/jscode/
http://www.webmaster-toolkit.com/
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/
http://forum.statcounter.com/vb/showthread.php?t=22675
List of SEO tools on Statcounter forum - well worth a look
http://www.auditmypc.com/free-sitemap-generator.asp
Sitemap Generator
http://gsitecrawler.com/
Free Google and Yahoo sitemap generator software.
http://www.copyscape.com/
Check if anyone is copying your site.
http://uitest.com/en/check/

ALL Programming: PHP, Javascript - the lot:
Some sites cater for everything so there here.
http://www.devarticles.com/
http://www.w3schools.com/
I use this a lot, not only because you can find out everything about coding but because you can also test your scripts here.
http://www.pageresource.com/
http://www.kirupa.com/
PHP, .NET, Flash, Photoshop

HTML / CSS:

http://www.html.net/
http://www.yourhtmlsource.com/
http://www.htmlgoodies.com/
http://stilleye.com/temp/marginfix.html
http://www.saila.com/usage/layouts/saila_layout.html
http://www.cssplay.co.uk/menu/gallery.html#nogo
Shows what can be achieved with CSS
http://www.cssplay.co.uk/menu/magnify.html#nogo
http://www.w3schools.com/
I use this a lot, not only because you can find out everything about coding but because you can also test your scripts here.
http://www.csszengarden.com/
http://www.fulloffacts.com/lessons/css/
http://www.tizag.com/

PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor
http://www.php.net/
http://www.phphacks.com/
http://www.tizag.com/
http://www.phpjunkyard.com/
Unfortunately found this far to late as I could have used some of these PHP scripts but who knows I might in the future.

Javascript:
http://www.javascriptkit.com/
http://www.w3schools.com/js/js_examples.asp
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Station/4320/index.htm
http://oy-oy.eu/page/jscode/
http://247mgf.co.uk/forum/viewforum.php?f=32
Come on I had to include the 2 scripts I wrote!

Flash:
http://www.learnflash.com/
http://www.cartoonsmart.com/
http://www.webwasp.co.uk/
http://www.flashkit.com/
http://www.actionscript.org/resources/categories/Tutorials/
Flash and Actionscript
http://www.webado.net/tutorials-embedding-flash.php
Embedding Flash etc with valid code.

Photoshop:
http://www.watchandlearnphotoshop.com/
http://www.dwphotoshop.com/photoshop/
http://www.good-tutorials.com/tutorials/photoshop/basics
http://chami.com/
Not really photoshop but does help you create favicon's for your website.

Colour Schemes:
http://wellstyled.com/tools/colorscheme2/index-en.html
http://www.colorschemer.com/online.html
http://www.siteprocentral.com/html_color_code.html
http://websitetips.com/color/
http://colormixers.com/mixers/cmr/

Clipart etc:
http://www.flamingtext.com/

Dreamweaver:
http://www.learnthat.com/computers/learn-362-dreamweaver_mx_2004.htm

Fireworks:
http://www.smartwebby.com/web_site_design/swap_images.asp
Creating swap images in fireworks.
http://www.smartwebby.com/web_site_design/rollover_images.asp#fireworks
Creating rollover images in fireworks or Dreamweaver.

Desktop Publishing:
http://desktoppublishing.com/

Free and Open Source Software:
http://www.nonags.com/
http://www.littlebitsmultimedia.com/
http://www.freeware-guide.com/index.html
http://www.context.cx/
Free programmers editor as used by yours truly, excellent
http://www.imagemagick.org/script/index.php
Allows you to Convert, Edit, and Compose Images from a command line. Can be used on a server to automate the procedure using many programming languages including PHP.
http://gsitecrawler.com/
Free Google and Yahoo sitemap generator software.

Forums:
http://www.forum-software.org/
A good site for showing details of all or most forum packages. However there are some inaccuracies but a good starting point.
http://www.phpbb.com/
The home of the excellent phpBB Forum package as used by always24-7.co.uk

Earning Resources for your website can be found here:
http://247mgf/forum/viewtopic.php?t=204
These can now be found at http://247mgf.co.uk/index.php/webmasters/

Web Promotion / Advertising Resources can be found here:
http://247mgf/forum/viewtopic.php?t=203
These can now be found at http://247mgf.co.uk/index.php/webmasters/

Miscellenous:
http://www.auditmypc.com/
Tools for web security, port scanning, viruses, internet speed tests etc etc

Creating Favicon

Back in January 2007 I didn't even know what a favicon was. If you look on the tab for this blog you will see the little white B with the Orange background (assuming I haven't changed it by the time you read this). These neat little logo's are known as favicon's and they can be set to anything you want on your blog or website. Check out a few of my other pages to see the different favicon's I have created:

www.always24-7.co.uk

BEST FREE GAMES 24/7

www.247parenting.co.uk

www.addicted2football.com

These favicon's are also used when a visitor bookmarks your site. To create a favicon for your site or blog you need to create a little logo 32x32 and place it into your root directory. Then add the following bit of code in the head section of your website or blog:

<link rel="shortcut icon" href="favicon.ico" >

Javascript

Towards the end of 2006 one of my friends on statcounter forum asked if someone could write a bit of code that would rotate ads on his website pagez.co.uk. Although I had never written in Javascript before from what I had seen I thought it would be fairly easy and it was. In the end I wrote 2 ad rotation scripts as Neil changed his mind and instead of having the ad change on page load he wished it to change after a preset time interval. I was quite pleased to be able to get this working. Although I have never returned to javascript, I now concentrate on PHP and MySQL.

I offered the 2 javascripts to anyone to freely use although to be fair I now know that there are many similar scripts around but if you still want them you'll find all the details here:

http://247mgf.co.uk/forum/viewforum.php?f=32

I've also put up demo's here:

http://www.always24-7.co.uk/test/scriptsdemo.php

Did you know PayPal had a developers sandbox?

You did? Well I never, I always feel like the last to know but just in case i'm not and you want to know where you can go to test your PayPal integration with your website or blog see here https://developer.paypal.com/

Learnt some more

Instead of adding a photo to your blog you can simply update your profile and this adds a photo to your about me. Looks much tidier.

And assuming i've done it right this post should have labels attached to it (i've just noticed that in the bottom right hand corner of the post editing box there is a box called Labels for this post Duh!

Where was I?

I've just learnt a few things with blogging. How to edit a post in my blog, add links and new page elements. So now you all have a photo of me (yuck! sorry about that) and I have added a favourite links list (i've added one at the moment but now I know how to do it!). Also added a labels page element this doesn't seemed to have done anything but so we'll have to wait and see.

Anyway where was I? One of the first places I found once I had my site up and running was statcounter.com (see its a link, getting the hang of this now). Great free stats site, excellent stats and although I didn't find it at the time a few months later I discovered the statcounter forum which is excellent with an excellent group of people. I class them as friends now although i'm sure none of them even know me. Sharron a mod on the site is responsible for the logo's on my site which are fantastic. Check out her website at http://www.designbyatfb.com/ her work is always excellent.

Ok another interruption, this is the problem with trying to keep up a blog on a weekend when you have all 9 of your children at home. I will come back to this later and mention a few more of my friends on Statcounter.

Be lucky.

Day Two

I was going to title this my second post but I thought how unoriginal, so I went for the much more original "Day Two" :). I'm afraid if anyone reads through my blog they will soon discover that I have no flair for writing and therefore most of the time I might just put in the information I have to hand without any great writing insight. You get the information and I don't have the headache of it looking good or sounding good.

So now that i've told you that, straight to the facts. You may have wondered why I called my blog "webmasters money making mission". Well when I first set it up I was going to list all the idea's I had for monetizing my site but I also wanted a place to ramble on about what I had done with my site and jot down idea's for the future. So I am going to combine them all here. I'm a very messy worker as my darling wife Paula will willingly testify. I have sheets of papers and pads all over the place. I jot down idea's and then never remember where i've put them or simply don't find the time to go through all my notes again. This is hopefully where this blog will help me even if no one ever reads it. I'm sure Paula is also hoping it will tidy up my organised chaos.

The first domain name I brought was www.always24-7.co.uk along with www.always247.co.uk. I soon learnt how to throw a page up on the world wide web and then went on to learn about php. It's not pretty but it worked. I then went on to learn about forums and settled on phpBB2 which I now use for 3 different forums. There was only ever supposed to be one forum, www.247parenting.co.uk which Paula and I wanted to start to have somewhere to moan about our difficult lives as the parents of 9 horrible children :). In fact we have 9 of the best children in the world, although as I write this i've just heard Paula telling one of them off so maybe I will have to edit this later :).

The other 2 forums were set up for my children and looked after by my children although just like children's pets I ended up doing most of the work! These were our movie and gaming forum at www.247movieandgaming.co.uk and football forum at www.addicted2football.com (or addicted2football.co.uk). Both of these were running on always 24-7 but recently the movie and gaming forum has moved onto its own domain at 247mgf.co.uk. Its a much bigger gaming site now but with the forum still in place.

Have to go eat so will come back and add more later.

Be lucky.

Welcome to my very own blog!

Isn't this exciting, its like the first time you open your text book at school. You want to keep it all neat and tidy but then if you're anything like I was it never really stayed that way :(. There you go already I've spoilt it.

So why have I created a blog, well i'm hoping to have a place to jot down all my many daily thoughts regarding my new life as a webmaster. I brought my first site sometime towards the end of 2006 the idea being that I would have somewhere to learn about designing websites and in particular the behind the scenes work of programming a website using PHP and MySQL. With the help of a book called PHP and MySQL for Dynamic Web Sites (2nd Edition) by Larry Ullman and Dreamweaver 8 for Dummies. The latter book was ok but I didn't really look at it again after reading it once, Larry's book though I have read over and over again and keep it near by always. Excellent book.

Every day I will try and post to say what I have done to my sites along with details of any new revenue streams I have joined and promotional tools / sites I have come across.

First post over.

All the best.
Michael.