It could be the particular theme that I chose as my foundation, but it seemed like no matter what I did, I couldn’t make a simple unordered list of images and links line up correctly. They kept nesting in a big ugly diagonal line running down the page. It’s my first time developing something according to a graphic designer’s mock-up and, while I love a challenge, I was starting to pop a sweat as I threw all sorts of html at the page, trying to make those damn images and blurbs line up obediently.

Finally, I stumbled upon one of those “eureka” moments when I found out that a Definition List, designated with a specific class, could be molded to my specifications. After switching to the HTML mode of writing, I added a

tag then I put the img tags into dt wrappers like so:

And then enclose the text link and description in

tags. Then, I added some appropriate CSS in the Design>Theme Editor>style.css section of the Dashboard:
dl.welcome {
width: 85%;
margin: 15px 0;
padding: 15px;
}

dl.welcome dt {
margin-top: 20px;
margin-bottom: 0px;
}

dl.welcome dt img {
float: left;
margin: 0px 5px 0 0;
}

dl.welcome dd {
margin-left: 5px;
margin-bottom: 20px;
font-size: 90%;
line-height: 1.5em;
}

and Voila! a list that managed to maintain the same layout that the designer intended.

But the idea of using multiple blogs on one site was interesting and I thought it might work for another client who wanted to build a web site around the idea of one umbrella corporation and three companies under that corporation. It seemed like the best way to avoid paying for hosting 4 separate web sites was to install Wordpress MU and use it to generate subdomains off the main site. After checking into the hosting requirements, I emailed the client’s hosting company and asked about their policy regarding access to Wildcard DNS and the CHMOD rewrites.

After waiting a couple of days, I called the company and it turned into one of those conversations every web designer dreads. It seemed like every question I had was answered with “That’s a question for ’so and so’ and they’re not here now. Can they call you back?” Granted Wordpress MU is a new idea for a lot of people, including me, but shouldn’t a hosting company know what its plans are about?
And of course, the host company’s admin interface was in Plesk, so the instructions I had found for installing WP MU with CPanel were bound to be extra tricky.

Long story short, I got all the way to the last step in the instructions, only to be told that the system admin at the hosting company was trying to decide if it OK to modify the httpd.conf file. After being told by one employee that access to that file was up to me (for the record, I was able to find it in the Plesk panel and it clearly stated that I did not have access), I mentally threw up my hands and said “OK, just let me install Wordpress on each of the subdomains then.”

After getting the ftp file path straightened out, Eureka! Three separate WP installs on three subdomains! So, for anyone else out there in the same predicament, here’s some advice to save you some blood, sweat and tears.

1) Wordpress MU is really designed to work for people who wish to offer their site’s users the option f setting up their own blog through their site.

2) Really try to nail down the hosting company involved as to what they can and can’t do for you. Make sure you talk to someone who can give you definite answers.

3) If you really want to set up a site with subdomains in Wordpress, try to determine if your client wants subdomains that look different than the main one or similar. It was a happy accident when I realized that the theme I had already altered for the main site could be “recycled”, uploaded and activated for the three subdomains without having to tweak the template again.

4) One pitfall for subdomains in Wordpress installs is that the Permalinks feature actually generates Error 404’s when you try to go to a page. Others have had this issue, and I have to confess that I was experiencing “Plesk Fatigue” when try to troubleshoot this, so I took the lazy girl route and simply went back to the default in permalinks (i.e. “http://trackcon.ictrfid.com/?page_id=3″ instead of “http://trackcon.ictrfid.com/service-and-repair”)

Stay tuned!

I have had a few clients whose initial contact with me is along the lines of, “I’ve reserved a name with a hosting company, and now I have no idea where to go from here.” Since I’ve been there myself, and have spent a lot of time on the phone with clients answering questions about C-Panels and bandwidth, I thought it would be a good idea to write something like a field guide to hosting companies.

What does a hosting company actually do?

At its core, a hosting company owns space on the physical server where your web site’s files will reside. When you sign up for a hosting plan, you are renting that space. The other basic service that hosting companies provide is reserving the domain name you have decided on for your site. You are renting a stake on your claim to that name through the company. These claims can be held for a designated amount of time, in most cases a year to 2 years, and after that if the claim is not renewed, your claim on the domain name is released. Hosting companies also handle email accounts and a vast majority also offer some variety of shopping cart software and template options for your website.

What will my costs be?

That question can be a tricky one. I have seen hosting companies charge anywhere from $0 to $24 per month to host sites. This is one area where you really have to “kick the tires” to make sure you are getting the best deal. If the hosting company says they can host your site for $0 per month, chances are you are going to get a very basic package with no real options. If you want your site to be more than an online brochure with a simple email link, then expect to pay around $8 a month for hosting. That’s a reasonable rate for hosting a large site with dynamic scripting. (see below for more explanation)

All these companies offer all sorts of “packages”. Which one is right for me?

I know, I know. If there is one thing I wish I could change about the hosting industry, it would be to standardize all the different offerings out there into three categories; Basic, Dynamic and Unlimited. Then again, that would put their marketing staff out of work because there would be no need to come up with plan names like “hatchling” and “ultimate gold”. Take a close look at what is offered in the cheapest plan. Don’t know what all those acronyms and weird names mean? Neither did I when I first started out. Here’s a guide to get you started:

Anonymous FTP: Your site’s users will have the ability to upload and download files without having to sign in with a user name and password.

Apache: An open-source program developed to run web servers. Its popularity with hosting companies is due to the fact that it is reliable, secure and free.

Auto Responder: A service offered by which users receive an automatic response when they email you via your site. If you are planning to offer products on your site, or, you anticipate getting lots of emails that you won’t be answering right away, this is a good thing to have.

Bandwidth: The amount of traffic that your site will be able to handle. Technically, it’s calculated as the range of kilobits your site’s server can process per second. For example, a full page of text is about 16 kilobits. Therefore, a 56k (kilobits per second) modem could process it in less than a second. Most hosting companies offer you more than enough bandwidth so it’s not a real issue unless you are anticipating a large amount of users. Just aim for getting the most bandwidth you can for your dollar.

Blog: A blog is often defined as an online journal or diary. Hosting companies often offer one-click installation of blog software on your site. If your site is for your company and you plan to keep your customers up to date on new products and developments, then consider having a blog section on your site. It’s a low-overhead way to keep users informed about your site.

CGI: This stands for Common Gateway Interface. It’s a small script that can process the data users send to your site via forms. They are stored in a file on your site called a CGI-bin and should be offered as a component for even a basic site set-up.

CHMOD: A UNIX command for changing permission settings on your site’s files. You may encounter this when you try to install third party software on your site. It’s a good thing to ask a potential hosting company how you will be able to make changes to the CHMOD if necessary. Some hosting companies will simply do it for you and others may let you access it yourself.

CMS: A Content Management System is a method of managing your sites files online without having to know HTML code. A site is set up with a shell of template files and a database and you can access a GUI online to control everything and add and change your site’s content yourself. Some hosting companies offer “one-button install” of popular CMS tools like Wordpress and Drupal.

C-Panel: This is one option for how you will interact with your site. Some hosting companies use C-Panel to allow their clients access to their account and others use Plesk. Both offer a Graphical User Interface (GUI for short) that lets you check your site’s traffic, manage databases and access your email account. If it’s at all possible (and it should be!) you should ask a potential hosting company if you can take the C-Panel for a “test-drive”.

Data Transfer: Data Transfer is the total amount of outbound traffic from your site (not including email) that is usually measured in Gigabytes. One Gigabyte equals a billion bytes. How is this different than bandwidth? Bandwidth is the rate at which your site’s data is transferred and Data Transfer is thetotal amount of transferred data.

Dedicated Hosting: If you are planning to have a large number of websites, then dedicated hosting may be a cost-effective option. All your sites will be hosted on the same server, which makes maintaining them easier.

Dedicated IP: An IP (Internet Protocol) address dedicated to a single website. If your site will require a high level of security, then this is a good idea.

Dedicated Server: Sites that have a high rate of traffic, such as Amazon.com, take up a lot of the server’s processing power and other resources. Therefore, it’s beneficial for all involved to have a server that is configured to run just that site so nothing crashes.

DNS: Short for Domain Name System, it’s a database system that translates a computer’s IP address into a domain name. So, 123.45.678.90 becomes http://yourdomain.com.

DNS Server: A server that matches up a fully qualified domain with the right IP address.

Domain Name Forwarding: A service by which you can take a reserved domain name and ask the server to redirect a user’s request to another domain. Usually done to prevent competitive, copycat sites, this is also a good tactic to employ when you think potential users will try to find your site with a wide variety of keywords. So, if the site you want to fully develop has the domain name, http://awesomekitchengadgets.com, you could try to reserve domains like kitchengadget.com and mykitchengadget.com and greatkitchengadget.com and set them all to be forwarded to awesomekitchengadgets.com.

Domain Name Locking: A feature that allows you to secure your domain name and keep it from being “hijacked”. If a domain transfer is requested, it will automatically fail unless you unlock it via your site’s control panel.

Domain Parking: When a hosting company temporarily places your domain name on their servers until you purchase a hosting plan or forward the name to another site.

Email Forwarding: When incoming emails addressed to a POP email address on your hosting account are redirected to your own email address. If you are planning to have just an info@yourdomain.com address, it’s probably a good idea to simply forward emails to your “regular” email address so you don’t need to log into your account just to check on one address. Most people would rather keep their site’s email traffic separate though, and it’s simple to set your POP email account’s login page as your browser’s home page so you won’t forget to check.

Encryption: A method of providing security for exchanging data over the web.

File Manager: A tool many hosting companies provide on the control panel that lets you upload HTML or image files to your site.

Front Page Extensions: A set of scripts on the server that allows users of Microsoft’s Front Page program to utilize its special components.

FTP: Short for File Transfer Protocol, FTP is a method of moving files onto a server so they can be accessed via the web. Some programs, like Adobe’s Dreamweaver, have FTP built in. There are also stand-alone applications such as Fetch and CuteFTP. If you are considering a hosting company that doesn’t offer the File Manager feature, then do a little research in the Help section, or via phone, to see if they offer instructions for how to upload files to the server using your particular FTP application. You should also be able to find out what your site’s FTP address is and/or your IP address. You will need one or the other, or both, to upload files to the correct server.

GUI: Stands for Graphical User Interface. Whenever you are doing something on a computer and you are controlling things by clicking on various icons and buttons, you are using a GUI.

ICANN: The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers tracks and coordinates the usage of IP addresses and domain names across the web.

IP Address: An Internet Protocol Address is the unique numerical identifier that is used for every device that is connected to the internet. (example: 123.45.678.90)

ISP: Internet Service Provider. This is the company, such as AOL or Comcast, that provides your access to the internet.

Javascript: A simple (more than most anyway) programming language that is used on a web page to perform tasks such as checking over a form you’ve filled out.

LAN: Stands for Local Area Network, meaning a network of devices occupying a small area such as a building.

Linux: An operating system, similar to Unix, which is used by hosting companies.

Log File: A file on your hosting server that contains information about who is accessing the various pages of your web site.

Managed Web Hosting: When a dedicated server is accompanied by full technical support, maintenance and monitoring services.

Masking: A technique where the URL in your browser’s address bar remains the same no matter where you go on the web site.

MySQL: A popular open-source database application that is supported by many UNIX-based hosting companies.

Name Server: A variety of server that translates domain names and IP addresses.

ODBC: Open Database Connectivity, a Microsoft standard that allows database programs access to information regardless the file format.

Optimization: The art of developing your web site with an awareness of how search engines will be able to index it easily.

Page Views: The number of times users view specific pages on your site.

Parked Page: Usually means an “under construction” page that your hosting company provides until you upload your own page.

PERL: An open-source Common Gateway Interface (CGI) programming language.

PHP: Shorthand for Hypertext PreProcessor, PHP is an open-souce server side scripting language.

PhpMyAdmin: A free mySQL administration tool that lets you create a database-driven site without having to learn SQL programming.

PhpNeo and PhpNuke: Two free content management tools that are written in the PHP language.

Ping: 1) Stands for Packet Internet Groper. Not as scary as it sounds, this is a utility that senses when your computer is connected to the Internet. 2) A blogging tool that notifies a server when a blog has been updated.

Platform: In hosting terms, this means the operating system that your server runs on i.e. Linux or Windows.

Plesk: A server admin tool, similar to CPanel that you use to manage your web site.

Plone: A free CMS tool that was developed to run on Zope, an open-source server platform.

Plug-in: A software add-on that extends the software’s features.

POP: Post Office Protocol, how your e-mail program integrates with your hosted site’s webmail server.

PostgreSQL: An object-oriented database management system that lets you interact with a database via queries.

Raw Logs: Real time data about who is requesting what pages on your site.

Reseller: A lot of smaller hosting companies that don’t own the actual servers a site is hosted on, provide the actual administration of the site. This keeps their operating costs down and the company that actually owns the servers is freed up to concentrate on keeping the servers functioning.

Server: A computer connected to a network that handles requests for web pages.

Shared Server: A server that shares computer resources with other servers, which cuts the costs of hosting.

Shared Web Hosting: The cheapest hosting option, where one server handles numerous sites. The downside is that this type of hosting can’t handle large scale, high traffic sites.

SSH: Stands for Secure Shell, a standard for encrypted Internet connections.

SSI: This stands for Server Side Includes, which tell a web page to do something before it is sent to the browser requesting it. One example would be for the page to deliver the results of an online poll. Pages that include SSI should have the file extension .shtml to reduce the parsing load on the server.

SSL: Secure Sockets Layer, a protocol developed to protect sensitive data travelling over the web. Pages with SSL begin with “https”.

Static IP Address: Used for hosting name servers, these types of addresses are used for shared resources such as web servers and webcams.

Subdomain: A web address that is a part of a containing web site.

Support: The range of assistance that a hosting company agrees to provide according to the plan you purchase. This is one area that is worth comparing carefully to other plans to ensure that you are not being excessively charged for things like tech support over the phone.

Tape Backup: A way to back up a site’s content periodically on a cassette-like device.

TCP: This stands for Transmission Control Protocol and it allows host servers and users to connect and exchange data.

Terabyte or TB: One billion kilobytes. The average text email is about 3 or 4 kilobytes.

Third Level Domain: A url that contains three levels of a domain, for example, www.bbc.co.uk

Traffic: The transmission of data packets over the web is called traffic.

Trouble Ticket: A system your hosting company may use to track a troubleshooting request.

Unique Visitor: A way to measure your site’s traffic via recording the IP address of a visitor.

UNIX: A text-based operating system that your hosting company may use to run their servers.

UPS: Stands for Uninterruptible Power Supply, which is a hosting company’s promise that the server will be kept running on battery backup until it can be safely shut down in the event of a power outage. It also protects the server from voltage spikes and drops.

Uptime: The percentage of time that a hosting company’s servers are able to handle requests for pages. The gold industry standard is 99.9%.

URL: Uniform Resource Locater or, a web page’s address. (example: http://jennmearswebdesign.com)

VB Script: Microsoft’s Visual Basic is a language developed perform similar functions to Javascript.

Virtual Server: An inexpensive method for hosting a web site in which the site is hosted on a shared IP address. The two disadvantages are that response time for requested pages may be slower than that of a dedicated server and physical access to the machine will most likely not be allowed.

VPN: Virtual Private Network, a way of securely accessing a private network over the web.

VPS: Virtual Private Server, a way to have the features of a dedicated server on a machine shared by other sites, while maintaining the site’s privacy.

Web Site Builder: A feature some hosting companies provide in which they provide a template for your web site in order to get it up and running quickly.

Web Space: Not to be confused with bandwidth, which is the amount of data transferred, this is the amount of disk storage space you are allowe on your server.

Webalizer: A tool used to display your site’s traffic statistics.

Webmail: The interface you use to check email via the web. Some hosts wil let you access your webmail via the control panel, others use a URL such as http://webmail.yoursite.com.

WHOIS: A central domain name database that tracks all domain name/IP registrations in the world.

Zone Files: The range of your files on a name server including all the subdomains, IP addresses and your mail server.

Zope: An open-source web application server program.

If you don’t see a term you need to decipher, check here.

Some other things to consider

Let’s say that you’ve managed to narrow down your search for the right hosting company to three contestants. Contestant number 1 is that big name hosting company you come across on every web search. Contestant number 2 is the company that your kind-of-geeky friend recommended. Contestant number three is a company you’ve never heard of offering an amazingly low price for a year’s hosting. Here’s what to do:

1) Compare the middle range hosting plans of all three and read the fine print. That plan that boasts the amazingly cheap monthly rate may charge 9 dollars a minute for any phone assistance beyond a minimum amount of minutes.

2) Once you feel like you have a better idea of what your site’s hosting requirements are, cold call each place and ask about their services. If you are kept waiting on hold more than two minutes, reconsider your options. If the person your end up talking to keeps telling you that they’ll need to check with so and so when they get back from their lunch/meeting/trip to Jamaica and get back to you, then you probably will end up getting frustrated when an actual issue comes up and your are left hanging.

3) Check out their reviews on industry web sites. Like this one.

Once you have found a company you feel at ease with, then sign up for a year and see how it goes!

When you start to browse for a theme for your new Wordpress install, do you get curious about what exactly you are looking at and what it means for your site? Here’s a guide to deciphering a sample theme page:

Word Press Test Site: Once you have set up your site, this is what your site’s name will look like, i.e. Jenn Mears Web Design

Just Another Wordpress Weblog: This will be your site summary. For example, “A site to learn more about how web design actually works.”

Page 1, Page 2: This is what Page links on your site will look like. Pages are considered “permanent” content and are treated like the pages of a conventional web site.

Page Child: A sub-page of a Page. Example: Page-About Us, Page Child-Company History.

Categories: A listing of the types of Posts that your site contains. Posts are like magazine articles. They are archived by the database you create in your WP installation and can be arranged for browsing according to either Category or date.

Archives: A chronological listing of all your posts.

Blogroll: A list of links related to your site that you can edit. It’s called Blogroll as a standard, but can be changed to say something else, like, Our Partners or Other Great Design Sites.

An Image In A Post: This is what the title of a Page or Post will look like.

Meta: This can be a list of links to sites related to Wordpress and/or your link to log into the WP control panel.

I’m still “unpacking the boxes” and moving things around, but things should be in order soon.

Thanks for stopping by!

Delicious: Del.icio.us is at heart, an online service that lets you bookmark pages on the web under a user name. Whenever you save a page’s URL, Del.icio.us’s user interface asks you to tag the page with keywords. These keyword tags are used to index the page in a searchable database. Entering a keyword such as “design” in a search will reveal all pages tagged with that keyword. The fun comes when you start checking out who else has saved the same page as you have and you are able to browse their collection of links.

Digg: Responsible use of Digg’s services is like being your own publicist. Whenever you publish new content on your web site, you should submit the URL of the new information to Digg. There’s a few steps to go through, but once your submittal has been checked for its spam factor and approved, the URL you have posted goes into rotation on Digg’s site in the category you have chosen it to appear under. Also, if you run a blog and the posts are Digg-enabled, the posts appear in order of most Diggs when someone searches your posts.

Permalinks: If you run a site with Wordpress, you have the option of using Permalinks to make your posts’ and pages’ titles more visible to search engines. Log into your Wordpress site’s dashboard and under Options, choose Permalinks. If they have not been enabled, you will simply need to choose the format option and click Update Permalink Structure. Choosing the Date and Name based option will give transform the url of a Post or Page from http://jennmearswebdesign.com/p=23 into http://jennmearswebdesign.com/2008/03/jennswebs-excellent-SEO-glossary which is much more attractive title to a search engine that happens to be looking for SEO+glossary.

Pingbacks: Pingbacks are a way of knowing when someone has linked to a post on your blog. Imagine that everyone’s blog is a little submarine traveling through the vast ocean of the web. The clever submarine operator would want to know when another vessel is in the neighborhood so they make sure that they have enabled their sub with Pingbacks. They can tell when another sub has “pinged” them vice versa.

RSS:Basically, RSS was developed to let websites syndicate their content using XML. If you picture the world wide web as an actual spider web, then imagine that your site is an insect stuck in the web. If it struggles/publishes new rss-enabled content a lot, then search engine “spiders” will notice it much more than an insect just sitting there. Creating an RSS feed for your site makes it a lot more attractive to search engines and they will index you more frequently. Also, if a visitor uses RSS feeds to keep up with sites, they will be much more likely to keep coming back if you make it easier to find out when you have new content.

Search Engine Spider: These are automated scripts developed by search engine companies like Google, Lycos and Yahoo that “crawl” over the web checking for new content. Much like an actual spider, these programs don’t exactly have 20/20 vision. They react to things like page titles containing searched-for keywords and frequently updated content, “movement” on the web, if you will.

Technorati: The top ranked content syndication site out there. It’s like “Reader’s Digest” without the bad cartoons. If you resister your site with them, they will index your content via your post’s tags. The indexed tags become part of their database so that when a Technorati user searches for a term like “SEO” your post tagged with “SEO” will show up in the results along with other blogs’ posts tagged SEO.

Trackback: A trackback is notification that another blog has linked back to yours. Kind of like a “shout out”, it works when both sites have enabled trackbacks. This way, when you publish a post and have enabled the trackback function, blogs that have sent you a trackback “ping” will be displayed in the comments section. And as Oscar Wilde said, “The only thing worse than being talked about, is not being talked about.”

RSS is an acronym for several variations of the same idea. Some people take it to mean Rich Site Summary. Others like the meaning RDF Site Summary, but for the majority of users out there, it stands for Really Simple Syndication. What this all means is that sites that are RSS-enabled make it very easy for readers to check and see if a site has new content that they may want to read. If you find yourself constantly checking particular sites to see if they have anything new, then you’ll realize that it saves you a lot of time to be able to track all your favorite sites in one central location rather than having to remember a bunch of URLs.

How do I start?

In order to get started in the world of RSS feeds, you will need to get what is called a news reader. The three main types are down-loadable desktop applications, browser-based programs and web-based programs that you can set up an account with.

Here are some places to look to get started.

down-loadable reader programs

browser based readers

web-based readers

Now, I’ll show you a quick and easy example of how I keep track of a few sites via RSS.

I have the Firefox browser, which is the browser of choice for a LOT of designers and developers for reasons that I won’t go into here because they are numerous enough to merit their own post. For our purposes today, just take a look at the patch of pink fog in the top right corner.

That little orange chicklet appears next to the URL of any site that Firefox senses is RSS feed-enabled. And since ThirstyPony is a site that is all about SEO, the site’s creator has (very wisely) enabled a feed.

Since I am a big SEO geek, I want to keep checking in with TP to see if they have new stuff. So I want to click on the little orange chicklet in order to start subscribing to the site.

(As you can see from the dropdown list, there are several variations on the idea of syndicated feeds. When feeds became widely available around the turn of the century, there was a rush to create the best version and this gave rise to various “forks” in the road to RSS development.)

for extra credit read more here

Once you’ve chosen your RSS format, Firefox will ask where you would like to store your feed. I chose my bookmarks toolbar.

So from now on, whenever I want to keep track of what’s new on Thirsty Pony, I just go to my bookmarks toolbar in Firefox and hover over the link to bring up the newest items. (now my secret’s out. I’m an HP geek too)

Should my site be RSS enabled?

If you publish new content to your site with any frequency absolutely! To a user that’s hip to RSS, it will make your site much more attractive since they will appreciate the fact that you have taken the effort to make your content RSS friendly.

If you want to give it a go, you can get started here

(psst! they also have RSS graphics!)

Is there anything else I should do after my site is RSS enabled?

I recommend using Feedburner to re-publish your feed to a wider audience and Marshall Kirkpatrick has written an excellent article about why.

Can I display other sites’ feeds on my site?
It’s not a bad idea, if you want to be a good resource for your loyal visitors. (It’s considered polite to ask the other sites before you do it though.)

I also recommend using a browsing program that allows you to open up multiple tabs since you will need to click back and forth between tabs.

The Google Picasa/Map method:

Step 1: In your image editing program, create an image that is at least 144 pixels wide.

Save on your computer as a jpg image. Make a note of its measurements in pixels for Step 8.

Step 2: On the web, go to your Google account and on the home page, go to More>Photos. On your Picasa page, select New Album on the right.

Step 3: Upload your jpg image. Then go back to your album and click on the image. After the image loads into its own page, you will see a link entitled “link to this image” in the 4th box down on the right. Click on it.

Step 4: Choose the “HTML to embed in website” option by clicking in the text box. This will highlight the code. Go to the top toolbar in your browser and under Edit click Copy.

Step 5: Now open a new tab in your browser (File>New Tab), and go to your Google homepage again. Click on Maps in the upper left corner of the page. Once that page opens, go to My Maps and select the map that you have created and saved.

Step 6: Once the map you want to work on is loaded into the window on the right, Click on the Edit button. This will enable you to make changes to your map. With your map in Edit mode, click on an area or marker to edit its contents.(see image below for example)

Step 7: Here’s the fun part! Switch to edit HTML and click at the top of the window to place the cursor there. Then, go to the top toolbar again and hit Edit > Paste. This will paste the URL that you copied from your Picasa page. You actually only need part of the pasted code. You will need to find the part that says img src= and delete the code that comes before it.(see the example code below for this and the next step)

Step 8: After you have deleted the a href tag, go to the end of the pasted code and delete the closing tag. (). Then, directly after the URL of the image in the remaining code, but before the closing bracket (>), type: width=(width in pixels)px height=(height in pixels)px. (see image below)

Step 9: Click Save on the left, and then click on the marker or area again. Check to make sure everything is OK by switching to the Rich Text choice in the pop-up window.

If everything looks OK, click Done.
Note: if it doesn’t look right at first, make sure the code for the image reads img src=”url for image” and then the width and height.

It seems like it should be easy enough. Your client wants to put a few ads for local businesses into the sidebar of their site. So you upload an image for the ad into your “images” folder, open up your “sidebar.php” file, find out where you want the ad to show up, write some html and Voila! Hey, wait a minute, there’s no image, just the “alt” tag showing through. What up?

After spending some time wading through the Wordpress forums, I found out that I should put a text widget into my sidebar. Okay, simple enough, wait! Now my entire sidebar disappeared!
I took the text1 widget out and tried looking for another solution.

If Wordpress has a weak link, it’s the fact that its administrators tend to shunt most of the technical support into the forums arena. Its a nice gesture to let the community solve its own problems and it frees up their time to keep developing, but, as we all know, these online forums run the risk of being rife with misinformation and posters who forget to play nice. Long story short, after much Googling, I found a very simple solution that doesn’t involve messy widgets or plugins. (Muchos gracias Lorelle and Wendy!)

Jennsweb recipe for easy Wordpress Ads
(author’s note: these are simply advertising text, image and link. Therefore, they don’t count clicks, or generate themselves dynamically via keywords. That is a plugin thing.)

Step 1: Create a small rectangular image to use for your ad. Save it at dimensions that will fit into your theme’s sidebar. I created the image at the top of this article to be 100 pixels wide by 124 high. For consistency’s sake, I save the optimized image in the “images” folder of the theme.

Step 2: Go to your site’s Admin panel (dashboard) and choose Write>Post. Just write a quick title in the Title area so you will be able to find it later.

Step 3: Go down to the Upload area and browse to where you saved the image and upload it. Make sure it uploads at the full size.

Step 4: Save the post, but don’t publish it.

Step 5: Go to Manage>Uploads to find the image you just uploaded. Click on the image to load its URL into the address bar.

Step 6: Highlight the image’s URL and then copy it.

Step 7: Go to Presentation>Theme Editor, and select your sidebar file for editing. Find the place in the code where you would like the ad to appear. For example, I chose a place down at the end, just in front of the closing tag.

Step 8: Type in the HTML for your ad’s copy and hyperlink. For the image, type in something like this:

Step 9: Now place your cursor in between the two quotation marks and paste the image’s URL there.

Step 10: Click “update file” and then view your site to test the result. You may want to tweak the copy or placement a little, and that should be possible with the theme’s stylesheet file.