Hook Me Up!

When talking about the internet you can hardly use the word tradition due to the fact that just about every other day technology, more specifically web technology is advancing and changing. Keeping up with each and every one these advances is like the cartoon coyote trying to keep up with the roadrunner (they’re still at it to this day!). Well, for all you “web design coyotes” out there, especially small businesses in desperate need of a presence on the internet your “ACME” subscription may have finally paid off.

Weebly Inc., has launched a site that can possibly change the tradition of relying on a web guy to create, update, and maintain your website. If you’re a small business owner with a tight budget you might want to listen up before you write that next check to your site’s webmaster. On the other hand, if you are a web designer, developer, or webmaster it might be time to “step your game up” if you haven’t been keeping up with new web design trends. Weebly.com offers web design, web hosting, and the ability to register a top level (.com, .net, or .org) domain name or one of their subdomains (www.yoursite.Weebly.com) of your choice as long as its not already taken. More importantly did I mention its free if you either already own your own domain name or use one of theirs!

From the look of the website, the Wee prefix in the name, and the overall workings I’m guessing that Weebly.com is by the same bunch responsible for Weeworld, a MySpace-like community website for friends where you join by creating a cartoon version of yourself called a… Weeme. Cute huh? Just like Weeworld, assuming its related, Weebly.com focuses clearly on being easy to use and simplicity, making the whole process of creating a website as quick and easy as ABC123. Even the initial sign up is only three lines long and you’re off creating your website.

After you’ve signed up and logged in you get an easy to follow step-by-step walk through in putting together your site. Designing a website at Weebly is made easy through the usage of a drag and drop W.Y.S.I.W.Y.G. ( What You See Is What You Get) page editor as opposed to having to write lines and lines of code, then checking to make sure everything looks the way you intended. For an example, right-click on an empty spot along the edges of this page and select “view source code” or “view page source”. That is what a web page looks like to a web designer/developer . Before WYSIWYG and even still sometimes with it, you had to know a little something about code whether it be html, php, aspx etc. to create a website. With Weebly…forget about it! You simply locate the item you want at the top of the screen and drag it to where you want it to be displayed on your page below. Once your item is in place you’ll have some tweaking and customizing to do. If you placed an item that requires text you’ll have to type what you want in that section or if you placed an image on your page you can resize it to your liking.

Weebly makes it very seamless when it comes to adding new pages and even a blog to your site. You can even put YouTube videos on your website with just a click and drag of a mouse (finger if you’re on laptop). Being a part-time web developer myself I decided to give Weebly.com a test drive. As I mentioned before, the sign up takes almost no time at all. I only had to come up with a user name, password, and my email address and I was already being guided through the home web page design process by their friendly little pop up boxes telling me what to do and how to do it. If you do get lost in the whole process somewhere it is not at all difficult to figure out what to click to get you back where you were. If I made a mistake in designing my pages, errors were easily one click away from being fixed which in my opinion will also be true for a person new to web design.

To choose the overall theme/look of your website Weebly provides a variety of different templates(layouts) to chose from. They try to suit every need from personal to hobby to business looking. They also make it a point to mention you can “design on the fly” meaning you don’t have to finish one thing before moving on to designing something else. For example if I were to have gotten only mid way through designing the first page and changed my mind from creating a website dedicated to my exotic stamp collection to the greatest 2Pac Shakur songs of all time I would simply click on a new layout from the top of the screen and presto change-o, my stamp collection is history and 2Pac lives again inside the pages of my website! I’m only kidding. I didn’t get that in depth with my test run. What I did do was go through the Weebly.com process from beginning to end as if I were new to the world of creating a website from the ground up. You can see my quick design here.

Overall I believe anyone will find Weebly very easy and possibly fun to use because it allows for a lot of experimentation, trial, and error. Small businesses will find it cost effective. Webmasters may not find themselves out of a job just yet(Weebly doesn’t write website content. I was worried that the site looks so basic and simple that they didn’t include SEO(Search Engine Optimization) or Ad options but they got that covered too. These are vital to a business website.

The site does have some minor drawbacks that could become major if not addressed. First off downtime, when I first tried to sign up, the site was down for maintenance and again the next day just after I had completed my test site. Hopefully I just caught them at a bad time. Secondly the support is by ticket (email) only. Theres no phone number, no company address on the site period for clients to reach a Weebly representative. If the service is geared toward web novices theres bound to questions too complicated for emails. In the desgn section I ran into a problem that occurred when switching layouts. My text would disappear and my resized photos would go back to original size. Add to that if I wasn’t extra careful where I clicked, the layout would change, erasing my progress. The price is debatable. While I’m a supporter of just about anything free the price can’t be beat at $24.95 per year with great discounts for purchasing multiple years. Like I said before this is only if you choose to buy a domain name from them. If you have your own domain already or use a www.You.Weebly.com subdomain name its free.

I feel there’s a lot of potential for growth and success for whoever invented Weebly so kudos to them and happy free, easy web designing to Weebly users.

Go ahead and post your blogs in the comments section free*

(*=subject to review for spam, must register first)

Now that you’ve got your completely free domain name you probably want… Oh you don’t have a domain name yet? Well go get a free one here and if you have any questions refer to my post on how to do it here. Go ahead just come on back when you’re done to get your free we hosting with no ads.

Moving right along, there are many choices as far as free web hosting goes. The thing is that they all differ from one to the next and if you don’t know what you’re looking for you could get lost in the sea of free web hosts. As far as I know free web hosting is available because the hosting company is backed by advertising or they have paid hosting as well. Of the two I’d prefer the latter not that I’m against advertising but if you’re going to have advertising on your site why not it be something that pays you?

000Webhost.com offers service that’s better than most paid hosting sites. They give you lots of disk space, lots of bandwidth, scripts, and most of all its free web hosting with no ads. Most free web hosts force you to put their ads on your site or don’t offer what 000Webhost offers. Give a look around and see what I mean.

Not possible you say? If you were to stop right now and Google, Yahoo, or MSN search for “completely free domain names” you’d probably take a look at the results and say this guy is full of it. For my committed readers that are still here what you’ll find are sites that offer a free domain with the purchase of one of their web hosting packages or a completely free domain name like .be.uk, .co.cc., .ne.ub., or something way out. Do any of the websites you visit regularly end in .bc.bg?

If you’re willing to settle for a great deal on a domain name, GoDaddy.com $1.99 Domain Names can’t be beat. But the title of this is not great deal on a domain name its completely free domain name! Believe you me I was obsessed in finding this information and how I did it or how I came across it I don’t remember to this day. The important thing is that I investigated it, used it, proofed it, and can personally testify that it does exist!

The website:DomainLagoon.com. How it works: You get points for signing up for offers and free trials. When you get enough points you cash them in for a .com, .net, .org name of your choice (as long as its not taken). I can assure you that it doesn’t take long to rack up enough points to register your domain…and yes you own the domain. If you’re willing to dedicate one 30min to an hour session, a completely free domain name can be yours. Did I mention its free to sign up?

When I joined it was just a simple sign up form and boom you were on your way. Now they have a phone verification system so you’ll need a phone (home or cell) handy when you do sign up. You’ll have to call a number and leave your sign up info after you’ve registered online. So if spending a little time typing your name, address and phone isn’t for you then you can stop now…

If you’re still with me its time to kick this puppy into high gear! Okay, in the gaming world this is whats called a “cheat” or a “walk through”. I’m going to go over a basic breakdown of the system and the quickest way to get your completely free domain name.

It costs $9.95 per year to register a domain with them. For the domain name that you get, you pay nothing for one year once you earn 9.95 points. Under the available offers section you’ll find surveys and opinion poles that won’t cost you a dime and are worth anywhere from .05 to .50 points each. There are plenty of these offers to get you up to 9.95 points. If you want a wham bam thank you ma’am, look into the trial offers that require a credit card. You need a credit card/check card because those offers are worth 7-15 points alone and is credited to your points account the fastest. The only secret to that is canceling the offers before you get billed.

I’ve been a member for 2 years, started six sites, and so far have paid $0! Once you get your domain you’ll be charged $9.95 a year. You can dodge that by racking up enough points (you can do it as many times as you like) and instead of registering another domain name, use it toward renewing your domain!

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I’ve told myself I would take time out to do a credit repair 101 write up and give some free credit repair advice. First we must define what credit repair is. When one repairs one’s credit one obtains a copy of their credit report from all 3 Credit Reporting Agencies, examines them for any inaccuracies or questionable items, and formally requests that the Credit Reporting Agencies investigate and remove such items. You can get them at AnnualCreditReport.com (you’re entitled one free a year) without your score. At myFICO you can obtain your FICO® Score & Credit Report combined.
There are still a great many errors still being found on a large percentage of consumer credit reports. Enough so that even if you feel your credit score is high enough it would benefit you to have a look at your reports if you haven’t done so lately.

A couple things to remember…
_Credit repair and debt repair(management/settlement…etc.) are not the same. This is not going to take away any debts you rightfully owe. What this can do is remove negative items from your credit reports.
_When doing credit repair it is essential that you deal with each of the three Credit Reporting Agencies (Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion) separately but at the same time. Meaning that you must get your credit report from ALL 3 because you will most likely discover that each one has different information and needs to be addressed individually.
_Do repair on ALL 3 credit reports at the same time. If you’re going to contact the 3 credit reporting agencies by mail(best method) send all 3 letters the same day. If you’re doing it by phone make all 3 calls the same day. If you’re doing it online(Not recommended) visit all 3 websites one after the other. This gives you the best results in the best time.
_Don’t give up. Keep it up until you get every negative or derogatory mark you feel is inaccurate or questionable taken off your credit reports.

Addresses:
TransUnion
PO Box 2000 Chester, PA 19022-2000

Experian(NCAC) PO Box 9556 Allen, TX 75013

Equifax Info Svcs LLC PO Box 740256 Atlanta, GA 30374

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