Web Concepts

By Mitch “THE April Fool” Keeler

I have to say there have been a lot of “creative” stories Online today.  Here are some of the best (or maybe the worst depending on how many you have seen) April Fools 2008 stories so far.

• Betamax to HD-DVD Converter
• Gmail Custom Time?
• Google Bedroom?
• TechCrunch acquires Tiger Beat?
• Wales Resigns from Wikipedia to Become a Monk?
• Firefox Facts Goes to the Dark Side?
• Opera Scores 106 on Acid 3 Test!
• Wi-Fi Makes Teacher’s Head Explode?
• Lance Ulanoff (PC Mag) still Uses Windows 3.1?
• All YouTube Front Page Videos Go Here?

I love April Fools Day!  Seen any other good ones?

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Original post by Mitch

By Mitch "Finding Freebies" Keeler

I am always happy to help when we get a question in here to the Lunartics blog to answer.  This time around we were asked if we knew of any free background resources?  Here are a few of the best ones I have found.

• DinPattern
• Squidfingers
• Pattern4U
• Citrus Moon Patterns
• Photoshop Support
• Tile Machine
• Kaliber10000

Backgrounds can often add flair and class to a usually boring and mundane web site.  Know of another great place to find your tiled or large web site backgrounds?

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Original post by Mitch

By Mitch “Has Cascading Style Too!” Keeler

If your in the need for a style sheet creator that does a ‘bit of everything well and says “Free!” in big blog letter on the price tag, then you might be the perfect candidate to try out Cascade DTP. This free program allows you to visually layout and design a CSS powered web site with little to no effort at all.

Cascade DTP pushes itself as a composition tool for the web that harnesses both the powerfulness of cascading style sheets with the ease of use that any other WYSIWYG or HTML editor would provide. It also has addons that can help you extend the usefulness and flexability of it even further.

Cascade DTP Pro: Easy to use, lightweight and free!

Cascade DTP Con: Might need to know some about CSS before you get started.

Download Cascade DTP! | Visit Cascade DTP’s Web Site

With full control over the design, a live preview feature and the ability to save designs without publishing them (to work on a project in private) Cascade DTP is an impressive freeware CSS editing application. If you need an example of the type of site you can build with this tool check out Cascade DTP’s official home on the Web.

+ Check Out More Freeware and Open Source Applications!

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Original post by Mitch

By Mitch “Galleries are my Thing” Keeler

Lets say you have a folder of images on your desktop and you are just dying to get them on the Web. Now you could just upload them to your Lunarpages hosting account, but where is the fun in that? You want to create a neat gallery that your friends and family members can view right? Web Picture Creator allows you to create easy to publish albums of your own.

Point the program at your pictures, and it will help you with the messy side of resizing, coding and HTML generation. You can add descriptions to each image, edit the thumbnail sizes and output a web site worth checking into.

Web Picture Creator Pro: Very easy to use, perfect for beginners.

Web Picture Creator Con: Wish there were more options for editing the final gallery created.

Download Web Picture Creator! | Visit WPC’s Web Site

If you need an absolutely free way to create a gallery of images for the Web, the Web Picture Creator is worth trying out. You can create a very simple photo or image album, and your friends will think you spent hours on generating your final project. Don’t tell them your secret though, let them think your an HTML guru for a day or so.

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Original post by Mitch

By Mitch “M2K” Keeler

I remember Y2K just like it was yesterday. Computers were suppose to stop working, cows were going to produce cheese instead of milk and other oddities were suppose to happen. None of them did of course, and everything was just fine and dandy. Speaking of fine and dandy, that is also how I would describe the HTML editor - Matrix Y2K.

The free download offers all the usual features such as: HTML Tidy, Documents manager, Tag Library for PHP and HTML, quick access to commonly used tags, completion proposal, multi-document interface, syntax highlighting (highlighters can be adjusted and personalized), search/replace, character map.

Matrix Y2K Pro: Quick, Lightweight, and the 3 pane interface is nice.
Matrix Y2K Con: Wish there was more support documentation on the web site for it.

Download Matrix Y2K! | Visit Matrix Y2K’s Web Site

Over all this download might not be my top favorite HTML editor, but it does offer a nice alternative if you are not happy with some of the other more popular solutions out there. It gets the job done and it will not cost you a single cent. What else could you want from a piece of software?

+ Check Out More Freeware and Open Source Applications!

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Original post by Mitch

By Mitch “++” Keeler

It might have an odd name (what is wrong with just Notepad +?) but don’t let the name fool you. Notepad++ is an excellent replacement for Notepad and will help you with your HTML coding issues. It supports WYSIWYG editing, syntax highlighting, auto-completion, multiple documents, drag and drop and more!

Notepad++ Pro: If you can figure out how to use it, one of the best notepad replacements out there.

Notepad++ Con: Not for the faint of heart, might confuses new people more than help them.

Download Notepad++! | Visit Notepad++’s Web Site

An open source jewel in a treasure trove of un-found freeware chest, this application is one you should at least try to see if it is something you would like using full time. There will be no need for Windows Notepad any longer. Notepad ++ is here to save the day.

+ Check Out More Freeware and Open Source Applications!

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Original post by Mitch

By Mitch “Trellian Lover” Keeler

Another fabulous freeware tool that will help you get your web site out of your head and onto the Web is Trellian WebPage. This freeware download features an intuitive interface, importing, color highlighted HTML editor, meta tag editor, drag and drop editing, a built in spell checker and more.

It does all of this pretty much in the same window. No need to switch back and forth between windows or getting overwhelmed by design clutter on your desktop.

WebPage Pro: Seems to do a little ‘bit of everything!

WebPage Con: Top toolbars are a little busy and might seem intimidating.

Download Trellian WebPage! | Visit Trellian’s Web Site

With tons of features, and the ease of use definitely in its checkmark box I think Trellian WebPage is a great alternative for those looking for an simple WYSIWYG web page editor.

+ Check Out More Freeware and Open Source Applications!

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Original post by Mitch

By Mitch “Photographer, I’m Not” Keeler

We all like putting up galleries of our images on our web sites, but the act of creating the gallery is a big pain in the server for some. Creating the thumbnails and getting everything organized can be more trouble than it is worth without a program like Web Album Generator.

What Web Album Generator does is it takes a series of photos or images you have, allows you to fill in a few titles and descriptions and then export that work to something you can upload to your Lunarpages web hosting account.

Web Album Generator Pro: Simple interface goes a long way.

Web Album Generator Con: Wish there were more customization features.

Download Web Album Generator! | Visit WAG’s Web Site

This product does what it sets out to do and does it very well. If you are in the need of a quick and easy way to create your own image gallery for the online world, Web Album Generator can make a painful task of all this work that needs to be done, and almost makes it fun to do. It does all the image editing, HTML generating and CSS coding so you can get back to the more “creative” side of web design.

+ Check Out More Freeware and Open Source Applications!

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Original post by Mitch

By Mitch “WYSIWYG” Keeler

Need help creating a new form for your web site that both is functional and looks pretty too? pForm is one resource I just happened to stumble across that I really like.

All you have to do is pick the design you like and then walk through the steps designing how you exactly want the form to look. You have all kinds of different options from radio boxes to text fields. There is just about every option you could ask for.

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Original post by Mitch

By Mitch “Forum Plugger” Keeler??

We are in the middle of bringing back an old favorite that many seemed to enjoy the Web Site of the Month. The Web site of the month forum is back open and running over at Lunarforums.com and now all we need is your vote. Here are the stipulations and rules:

1. You can submit your entries in for the web site of the month to me, via a PM here on the forums.
2. The web site in question must be hosted here at Lunarpages, either as a primary, subdomain or addon domain.
3. The final week of the month, I will put up a poll where you can vote out of 5 randomly drawn submissions.
4. Whoever has the most votes at the end of that week, will be our winner for that month!

Remember, if you submit one month - and don’t win, you can submit again the next month! Also, once you have won you won’t be able to re-submit yourself so you can win again. We want to have as many winners as we can!

Winners will get a special badge to display on their site, the honor of being our choice for a month and also a mention in our Lunarpages Newsletter.

Read more about it on the Lunarforums thread about it, and be sure to submit your own Lunarpages hosted site to me via the board’s personal message system or drop me an e-mail.

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Original post by Mitch