GDrive Opens For Business – Well Maybe Not

The fabled GDrive, basically a cloud-based web drive rumored to be in the Google plans for the future, is now operational as part of the Google Docs web application. It is NOT GDrive, as TechCrunch is quick to point out, but basically is the same thing. Users can upload any kind of files (images, movies, etc) to Google Docs, up to 1GB max. More storage can be purchased for $0.25/GB. Sweet! Be interesting to see what developers do with this – I myself plan to use it as a file sharing system for my family, as we usually use GMail, FTP and flash drives to move large files around.

5 Free Business Applications You Need To Do Business On The Web

1. Wordpress - It’s almost impossible, and very inadvisable to have any kind of public business without a blog. Wordpress is the easiest blogging/CMS there is, and also the most feature-packed. The plugins directory is huge, and with the number of developers working on plugins, themes, and improvements to the Wordpress base, you need to use Wordpress.

2. Google Analytics – You’ll never know how much traffic you’re getting, where they are coming from, where they are going, without an traffic analytics tool. Google Analytics is free and has tons of features – the interface can be a bit puzzling at first, but my advice is to figure out one report/feature at a time (say, 1 per week). Pretty soon you’ll be a Google Analytics pro and can actually use the information to make more traffic (and more money).

3. Freshbooks – I use this for all my freelance invoicing – it really is a snap to set up and use, I promise. And I hate invoicing!

4. Twitter – Use Twitter. And a blog. Combine. Repeat. USE TWITTER.

5. Google Webmaster Tools – Can’t tell you how many times this has answered many questions about Google Page Rank algorithms, and where to improve my SEO.  Invaluable.

6. Delicious – I work on several different computers, and I am always using google to search for solutions to tricky programming problems, or graphics resources for projects, etc – so Delicious is one of my most used applications – being able to store bookmarks on the web and access them from anywhere is beyond useful – it’s necessary.

Building A Web Framework To Do Anything On The Web Part 2

In my earlier post, Building A Web Framework To Do Anything On The Web Tech Part 1 , I talked about the CSS-Boilerplate CSS Framework. There is a really good implementation example/proof of concept example included in the framework that should show you all the elements you’ll need for building complete web pages. Wehn I start to design the UI for a web application/site, the first thing I do is load up the example that comes with CSS-Boilerplate, and make changes based on what I need. How do I know what I need? With a design checklist!

Once again, proving that the internet is my best web development tool, I found an exhaustive checklist of web design elements that every site needs to be complete. The checklist comes from Digital Garde. I made modifications to my list, as most web design or site building I do is geared less towards clients and more toward simple functionality.

Main Pages (shown on Home page)

Home page
Signup/Login pages
FAQ/Help Docs
About page
Contact page
404 page (usually I redirect users to the main site)
Portfolio/Case studies/Testimonials
Services
Company Information

Main Visuals for Each Page

Header area
Navigation area
Content area
News/Latest Updates etc
Columns
Footer area

Read the rest of this entry »

Building A Web Framework To Do Anything On The Web Tech Part 1

Welcome to our series: Building A Web Framework To Do Anything On The Web! I’m going to show you what tools, methodologies and technologies I use (and that you should use) to build your own web applications/programs/sites. I’m going to divide this up into multiple parts and also multiple sub-sections: Technology, Design and 3rd party tools.
Step 1 in the Technology sub-section; I will be discussing the tools I use to build a site from scratch. Not a wordpress affiliate marketing site, but an actual website.
From the ground up – first we need a solid base upon which to build. CSS – can’t make a site without CSS. Here’s the framework I use:


CSS-Boilerplate: This is, IMO, the best CSS framework out there – it’s not the most complete framework, or the most scalable, etc – but pound for pound, it is clean, simple to use, and has an example file that gives you ever single thing you need to have to use the framework. I always sites with this framework. Love it!

 

For web functionality these days, Javascript can do everything you need for making a rich interface – IMO, Javascript is quickly eclipsing Flash, Flex, and the DOA Microsoft technology Silverlight, for building feature rich, attractive and dynamic UI for websites.
JQuery: Yes, the most popular javascript framework on the web. There’s a reason for that. The best combination of usability, power, and flashy gadgets. If you want to do something with JavaScript, chances are excellent that someone has written a plugin to do it already.