Reviews of The Art Institute Online of Pittsburgh | Tips for Designing Websites

Many of you may have seen the Rocky Top Leather website that I created in one of my classes. It is an actual store ran by a close friend of mine, Toby Miller, that features some great deals on all sorts of leather products. One of the most popular lines is Harley Davidson sandals for women. He has a ton of sandals in stock and ready to ship. Toby is a great guy running an honest business and will take great care of you and treat you like a person rather than just an order number like many of the larger leather stores. So if you’re looking for leather products, visit his site at http://www.rockytopleather.com

Those of you that know me, trust that I would not feed you a bunch of junk to waste your time and money. So please trust me as I checked this out thoroughly before posting it. Having gone through the bachelor program of Interactive Media Design at The Art Institute Online, I felt like they left one key ingredient out of their curriculum: Marketing. Some classes may have an assignment or two that touch on it, but there just was not enough information to really create successful websites. I’ve somewhat learned on my own through the years with the help of websites, books, forums, friends, etc, but there was always a lack of one really good source of information it seemed. I came across something this week that I wish I had seen years ago. It’s called the Website Marketing Bible and was created by Michael Cheney (a wiry, British guy who knows his stuff). I’m one of the biggest skeptics in the world (especially when it comes to products online), but I have to give this guy and his products a hand…they contain a lot of killer information…if you can ignore the design of his loooooong home pages.

The best part of it is, a lot of it is free! He has seven free videos that you can watch online and all of them are worth your time if you’re serious about creating successful websites. He even has AdSense videos available if you’re into that as well!

I’m not the “know-it-all” type of guy, but I really thought I knew most of the basics for website marketing. I watched his videos, though, and walked away humbled and energized about the possibilities of what I’ve been missing out on. I’ve immediately applied some of the information he offers to the websites for my employer and have already seen an increase in traffic. This is simply something that should be included in a class at The Art Institute Online, because this is arguably some of the most valuable information for any successful website.

Here are some topics that are covered:

• Search Engine Optimization (Keywords, Content, etc)
• Reciprocal Links (The importance of having websites link to you)
• Monetizing Your Website
• Marketing Trends

As basic as those sound, they have tons of small details in each that you probably don’t know about (I didn’t). The free videos are a taste of his Website Marketing Bible that he sells for $97. That’s less than 10% of a single Art Institute Online class and it has a ton of much more useful information about marketing! Believe me…I’ve experienced both! If you’re creating any website, you really can’t afford to not watch the free videos. It’s the perfect compliment to the Interactive Media Design program…and is a perfect tool for anyone working with website marketing.

Pete Freitag has put together an awesome list of cheat sheets for just about anything dealing with web development. Some of the lists are:

• CSS
• HTML
• XHTML
• Javascript
• MySQL

There are a lot more listed, so check out his site to see the list and grab the cheat sheets.

Sometimes the most difficult part of writing a paper is citing the sources properly in the end. First you have to decide whether it’s MLA or APA citations and then try and remember what format goes with which. You may have written the best essay in the world only to get docked points for incorrectly citing sources. Luckily the internet has once again come to the rescue. There are two great cites that will help you generate proper citations for both MLA and APA formats. All you have to do is put the info of your source into some form fields and it spits out the proper citation in an instant…for free!

Citation Machine provides an easy way to quickly create both MLA and APA citations. They have updated the generator and dubbed it “Son of Citation Machine” and it now includes support for multiple authors. This is my personal recommendation for MLA and APA citation generators as it is easy, accurate, and FREE!

EasyBib helps you create a bibliography in MLA format and allows you to add multiple authors, which is a plus. They have a “pro” version that provides more features and even does APA style citations. It’s only $7.99 a year, so it may be worth it to those you that have to write a lot of papers.

Both sites are great for taking the drag out creating citations. They provide both MLA and APA citation formats for citing books, magazines, movies, websites, interviews, and so much more. If you know of any others, share them in the comments below!

The new eCollege platform provides a nifty little spell check tool to use when creating posts, but many of you have said that it is weak a bit lacking. Well, fortunately there is a better tool available! Google’s toolbar available for Firefox and Internet Explorer provides an excellent way to spell check your posts. I created a simple video demonstration of how it works, which you can check out below. You basically type up your post, click the little “ABC” button on the Google toolbar and it will “highlight” all of the words that it thinks is spelled wrong. You then click on the word and it has a dropdown menu of suggestions. You can either select a word from the list or tell it that the word is actually spelled correctly so that it doesn’t highlight it any more. It’s the best and fastest way (that I have found) to spell check posts.
–> Continue reading ‘Ultimate Spell Check Tool for Classes’

Apple has released a beta application dubbed “Boot Camp” that will officially allow owners of the new Intel-powered Macs to boot Windows XP. This opens up a whole new market for Apple as their hardware will now run Windows XP and Windows-based applications. As a developer/designer I am often switching between my Mac and PC to test out designs, scripts, etc to make certain they look and work the same on both platforms. I also use applications that either run on just a Mac or a PC, but now I can have the best of both worlds…on one computer!

This is a huge move by Apple that is certain to appeal to many people that haven’t gotten their feet wet with Macs yet. The word on the street is extremely positive as well as Apple stock is currently up 9% today as of this writing with almost double the volume that it normally has in a single day.

Here are some links to other articles about Boot Camp:

• http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=1650
• http://www.tuaw.com/2006/04/05/apple-to-pc-manufacturers-and-windows-its-on/
• http://www.tuaw.com/2006/04/05/the-real-reason-behind-apples-boot-camp/

Apple also mentions this on the Boot Camp page about running Windows XP on a Mac:

Word to the Wise
Windows running on a Mac is like Windows running on a PC. That means it’ll be subject to the same attacks that plague the Windows world. So be sure to keep it updated with the latest Microsoft Windows security fixes.

In other words…Apple isn’t going to help you deal with the junk that infects Windows computers…you’re on your own! Enjoy!

Have you ever needed to create a Word Document or PDF, but were on a computer that didn’t have Word or Acrobat? Well, if you have an internet connection, you’re in luck! AjaxWrite is a website that allows you to create a Word Document with practically all of the same types of formatting and tools that is available in Word. It’s quite amazing what is possible using Web 2.0 code and a little imagination. I played around with the website for a bit and saved both a Word Document and a PDF and they opened up perfectly on another computer with all of the proper formatting! That’s pretty impressive and incredibly useful if you find yourself without Word or Acrobat.

Check it out at http://www.ajaxwrite.com .

Another aleternative for creating Word documents, PDFs, and others for free is Zoho Writer. Either one will do the job.

A few years ago I played a computer game called “Unreal Tournament” regularly and ended up playing a match against someone at a LAN ( www.lanwar.com ) that ended up being a fairly big deal. In order to make the match more interesting to show people, I took the highlights from it and turned then into a music video. I wasn’t the first person to do this, but I had a ton of people asking how I created a music video out of computer game clips, so I created tutorial on how to do it back in 2003. The tutorial became very popular around the world and led to many incredible videos being made out of games. This gave me an idea for my final project in Interactive Authoring II at The Art Institute Online.

–> Continue reading ‘Create Music Videos from Computer Games’

Many of you are either running websites or about to get started as you move closer to graduation. More than likely, you will come across a point in your career where you will look to utilize some form of advertisement on your websites. It could be for the extra revenue or the added value that targeted ads bring to your viewers…either way, this article will tell you exactly what and what not to do when getting started in website advertisements.

Most of you know that this site has been somewhat a labor of love for me since January of 2004 with little-to-no compensation to keep it up and running. In order to continue to provide this source for the students I had to implement some form of advertising and/or affiliate marketing. I chose to go with Google AdSense as they seemed to provide the best and most relevant ads for content, which would create a win/win situation as users would get quality, related content while also helping to keep this site alive. I was completely new to the world of AdSense, but in a month’s time I learned so much…and you’re about to dramatically benefit from it. So let’s assume you’ve just setup an AdSense account and are ready to roll. Let’s break down the tips to help you succeed.

–> Continue reading ‘The Best Tips for Getting Started with Google AdSense’