When I started coding in PHP, it drove me batty. It was the first errorless coding language I had used. I could have 300 lines of perfectly working code, but one extra semicolon would turn the whole thing into a blank white screen with no indication why. Talk about maddening.
I turned to Google for a free PHP editor, and I ran into the usual sea of keyword flotsam and jetsam. Spam sites, malware, the whole nine yards. But a few entries down, I found some software that changed my life and helped me get into a coding career: RapidPHP.
I know we all have to make a sale at some point, but Blumentals Software, the maker of RapidPHP, did something I haven't seen before: offer a full version free with absolutely no payment information needed. No gotchas, no bounced checking accounts in 30 days when you forget about your free trial. You get a quality editor, not just for PHP, but for CSS, HTML, and JavaScript too.
The extras are way too many to list, but if you want enough worry-free time to build up a web project, I cannot say enough praise for RapidPHP. I revisited the site tonight and in a few clicks I was requesting one of my free lifetime upgrades. I had forgotten my email and product key but was still able to get a product key. If that isn't friendly automated customer service, I don't know what is.
Check it out at http://www.blumentals.net/rapidphp/. This isn't an affiliate link that will compensate me a single cent. Like many resources I will be covering, I'll be mentioning it because it's just that helpful. Let me know what you think!
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Friday, April 10, 2009
An awesome free web builder: Yola
On the web, free things can suck badly. They can be outdated. They may contain malware, may not be at all useful until you shell out $49.95 for the full version, may not even work.
Since 1999 I've dealt with a lot of horrible free things. I think the worst was GeoCities, at the time. You couldn't post commercial links, the text overlapped in these awful draggable text squares, and you had about as much flexibility as a frozen Arctic explorer. Aside from my ex-girlfriend, it was the biggest, most non-productive time sink of my life.
Around the time I left a human-shaped exit hole in Geocities, drag-and-drop builders were just drags. You had to sacrifice any sort of professional aspirations. If you could put up pretty graphics, you couldn't add metatags. If you could add metatags, you couldn't use Javascript or PHP. Use a special language, and you couldn't post links or affiliate ads.
So when I ran into Synthasite, the culmination of years and years of people rejecting crappy free web builders, I was in heaven.
Synthasite provided everything: any content I wanted to put up, in any basic format. Video, photo galleries, file downloads for visitors. They even encouraged me to put AdSense ads on my site that paid me, and now they offer GenBook Appointments! Whether they used some tricky Javascript to serve their own ads part of the time, I don't know, but I made some decent coin off a few basic sites for the 5 minutes of work I put in.
And the flexibility of the content options is finally matched by the interface's ease of use. Just follow your options down the menus till you get something you planned to put in, and you're golden. I have never had any hassle from Synthasite, as it was known, from signing in to publishing the site.
The only real problem I had with SS was the long domain names. Blablabla.synthasite.com. Try mentioning that at a busy party where you have three seconds to get your site across and the sibilant S's are all but lost. In the fight? Plinth and bite? Never mind.
So after a few months away from this web builder, I was pleasantly surprised by Sythasite's new name: Yola. Vaguely exotic, like that Yola girl down the street I never asked out. Still not too viral a name, but a lot shorter and a good step for an otherwise excellent free web building tool.
Upsides: If you know how to mash buttons till you get something pretty, that's what Yola is all about. Add your own content, especially with Cooltext, and you can have a site that fits your needs. If you're in a hurry, I can't think of anything that works faster and more efficiently: I made this site in about an hour: The Catered Event
Downsides: Now that the venture capitalists are demanding their returns on Yola, the site nags you every time you publish, on a level with grandmotherly and mid-life crisis guilt. Still, unless you're a total freeloader, you won't mind getting a .com for $15 a year. Considering the ridiculous prices I've paid elsewhere for a company that dropped 90210411.com into an Internet no-man's-land, that's very sweet. Skip a couple big loads of laundry over the year and you're a webpreneur.
Also, a few of the templates are obvious freebies from elsewhere. But you still have a ton of templates to choose from, and best of all you can switch themes after you start putting content in.
The bottom line: Unless you're a CSS-huffing freak that needs every image, font and page element done to pixel perfection, I think you'll love Yola. "You'll Love Yola". Hm, wondering if I can get any royalties....
Come back soon to learn how to get 30 days of an awesome PHP/CSS/JS/HTML/XHTML builder absolutely free -- with NO payment information needed -- and learn why I bought it!
Follow The Tools I Use on Twitter.
Since 1999 I've dealt with a lot of horrible free things. I think the worst was GeoCities, at the time. You couldn't post commercial links, the text overlapped in these awful draggable text squares, and you had about as much flexibility as a frozen Arctic explorer. Aside from my ex-girlfriend, it was the biggest, most non-productive time sink of my life.
Around the time I left a human-shaped exit hole in Geocities, drag-and-drop builders were just drags. You had to sacrifice any sort of professional aspirations. If you could put up pretty graphics, you couldn't add metatags. If you could add metatags, you couldn't use Javascript or PHP. Use a special language, and you couldn't post links or affiliate ads.
So when I ran into Synthasite, the culmination of years and years of people rejecting crappy free web builders, I was in heaven.
Synthasite provided everything: any content I wanted to put up, in any basic format. Video, photo galleries, file downloads for visitors. They even encouraged me to put AdSense ads on my site that paid me, and now they offer GenBook Appointments! Whether they used some tricky Javascript to serve their own ads part of the time, I don't know, but I made some decent coin off a few basic sites for the 5 minutes of work I put in.
And the flexibility of the content options is finally matched by the interface's ease of use. Just follow your options down the menus till you get something you planned to put in, and you're golden. I have never had any hassle from Synthasite, as it was known, from signing in to publishing the site.
The only real problem I had with SS was the long domain names. Blablabla.synthasite.com. Try mentioning that at a busy party where you have three seconds to get your site across and the sibilant S's are all but lost. In the fight? Plinth and bite? Never mind.
So after a few months away from this web builder, I was pleasantly surprised by Sythasite's new name: Yola. Vaguely exotic, like that Yola girl down the street I never asked out. Still not too viral a name, but a lot shorter and a good step for an otherwise excellent free web building tool.
Upsides: If you know how to mash buttons till you get something pretty, that's what Yola is all about. Add your own content, especially with Cooltext, and you can have a site that fits your needs. If you're in a hurry, I can't think of anything that works faster and more efficiently: I made this site in about an hour: The Catered Event
Downsides: Now that the venture capitalists are demanding their returns on Yola, the site nags you every time you publish, on a level with grandmotherly and mid-life crisis guilt. Still, unless you're a total freeloader, you won't mind getting a .com for $15 a year. Considering the ridiculous prices I've paid elsewhere for a company that dropped 90210411.com into an Internet no-man's-land, that's very sweet. Skip a couple big loads of laundry over the year and you're a webpreneur.
Also, a few of the templates are obvious freebies from elsewhere. But you still have a ton of templates to choose from, and best of all you can switch themes after you start putting content in.
The bottom line: Unless you're a CSS-huffing freak that needs every image, font and page element done to pixel perfection, I think you'll love Yola. "You'll Love Yola". Hm, wondering if I can get any royalties....
Come back soon to learn how to get 30 days of an awesome PHP/CSS/JS/HTML/XHTML builder absolutely free -- with NO payment information needed -- and learn why I bought it!
Follow The Tools I Use on Twitter.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
The Biggest Non-Secret In Web Tools
Cooltext.com If you've done a decent job hammering and patching your website together but you just need that little bit of extra cred so people don't know you're running your corporate .com from a coffee shop, your basement or a solar-powered tarpaper shack, then you need Cooltext. It's totally free, always has been, has great sponsors for doing more with your websites, and all they ask is that you provide a link back.
Welcome to The Tools I Use!
Hello! This blog is dedicated to one thing: web tools that have worked for me. Not tools that work only in theory or demand a staff of thousands and a PhD to run, but good, solid applications.
I will evaluate other web products for $5. Just hit the button on the side. There are only 10 spots available so I don't get overwhelmed with people beating my door down. Thanks for reading and come back soon. :D
I will evaluate other web products for $5. Just hit the button on the side. There are only 10 spots available so I don't get overwhelmed with people beating my door down. Thanks for reading and come back soon. :D
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