Newcastle

Web Design

Resources/FAQ

Below are our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) that we are often asked by our clients. If you cannot find the answer to your query here, please use the contact form for a quick response.

Viruses and Email

What anti-virus software do you recommend?
How do I set up an email account so I can send and recieve from my new domain?
What is, and how do I add a signature to my emails?
I do I filter emails into different folders?

Browsers

Which Internet browser do you recommend?
How do I clear my Browser's cache to speed up my Internet experience?

Domains and Hosting

What are the benefits of hosting my site with you or on free space?
(More FAQ about domain names at getonline.co.uk ...)

Search Engine Optimisation

What search engine optimisation (SEO) services do you offer?
How can I encourage more visitors to my site?
Can I have a counter on my site?
Can I submit my site to free SEs?
Which SE directories can I submit to?
Do you recommend any paid submissions?

Useful Free Web Design Tools and Applications

What other useful tools do you use for the development of web pages?

Virus software

Free Virus protection

Protecting your home computer against viruses is extremely important, especially if you use Internet banking - some banks will even expect you to have it. And virus protection from Norton or McAfee typically costs around £40 per year. However, there is some very good, anti-virus protection software available, for absolutely nothing! Check out AVG and avast for excellent, free anti-virus protection. You should set it to run regularly to check your system and download regular updates.

Free Firewall

If you're a broadband user, along with virus protection you'll need a good firewall. But don't worry; you don't have to spend a fortune buying an off-the-shelf package. Download a free version from ZoneAlarm or Sygate and protect your PC against hackers, for nothing.

Free Anti-Spyware programs

Protect your home PC from fraudsters by downloading one of the free, anti-spyware programs available. Check out Ad-Aware and Spyware Blaster 3.4 for their free downloads.

We also recommend that you never ever open attachments with double extensions, e.g. filename.exe.src or attachments you are not expecting, or from an unknown source. Please be aware that .exe files are 'executable' and run a program, often sent via email as a virus.

Along with installing the above and setting it up to make regular checks and updates, we recommend you run HouseCall: "Ease your mind and scan your PC for viruses".

Setting up an Email Account

The following gives a simple step-by-step guide on setting up an email account in Outlook or Outlook Express.

You will need to know just three things. Firstly the domain name (in this example we will use "mydomain.com"), the UserID that you setup in the Mail Manager (for this example we will pretend we set up "bob" as the UserID. Lastly you will need to know the password (we will use "password" in this example)

Open Outlook
Click on Tools on the menu bar
Go down to "Account.."
On the window that POPs up click on "Add >"
Select "Mail..." and a wizard will start...
Type in your Full Name or any name you want and click Next
In the email box, type in the email address that you want people to write to you on. e.g. bob@mydomain.com
Click next
In the incoming box type in "mail.mydomain.com"
In the outgoing box type in the SMTP server that your ISP provides (you will need to consult them if you are unsure what this is). If you are using AOL or another provider that do not offer this facility, or your ISP's service isn't up to scratch, then you can download a free tool from http://www.postcastserver.com. This will have the SMTP service on your own machine.
For the account name type in the FULL email address of the mail account you had set up in the mail manager e.g. bob@mydomain.com
For the password type in the password you specified when creating the account e.g. "password".
Click Next, then Finish
Click Close on the account window

And you're done!! :-) You will have to do all of the above for each email address you wish to use. Don't forget to use the FULL email address as the username -- this is a common mistake.

Setting up a Signature

A signature is some text that is automatically inserted into outgoing emails, such as your name and website address.

In Mozilla:
Edit > Mail & Newsgroup Account Settings >
Tick 'Attach this signature file' and choose a text file you've saved with your desired signature.

In MS Outlook/Express:
Tools > Options > Signatures
The follw the instructions on this screen.

Setting up Email Filters and Folders

It can be frustrating and confusing when all your email messages go directly into your Inbox. It is possible to make new folders and 'filter' certain keywords, email addresSEs, subject fields, etc. into these folders.

In Mozilla:
Creating new folders: With your mouse clicked on the Inbox, right-click and choose 'New Folder...'
Setting up rules/filters: Tools > Message Filters >

In MS Outlook/Express:
Creating new folders: With your mouse clicked on the Inbox, right-click and choose 'New Folder...'
Setting up rules/filters: Tools > Message Rules > Mail

Choosing a Browser

We recommend you use version 5+ browsers for a better web experience (click Help > About to see which version you're using now). There shouldn't be any excuse to be using deprecated software as they are all available for free download. We build websites which support current technology and web standards and so although they may not look as 'beautiful' in older browsers, the content will still be accessible by all!

You are currently using: CCBot/1.0 (+http://www.commoncrawl.org/bot.html)

Clearing the Cache

When you surf the Internet, your computer will "save" a copy of each page that you visit on your hard drive. This can amount to a lot of files! If your hard drive hasn't been defragged in awhile, your computer may not have as many big chunks of space it needs to work smoothly.

When our client did this, he noticed that his computer was quite busy deleting these files; in fact, he had so many files to delete that he almost thought that he had crashed! When he was done he saw an immediate improvement and planned to defrag that very weekend.

So, if you haven't done this in a while, please take a few moments to do it now! The following instructions tell you how to delete these files, and if you see a check box to delete files stored on your computer, please check it!

Clearing Cache on Microsoft® Internet Explorer 4.0 and 5.0
Click View and select Internet Options on the Internet Explorer menu bar.
Click the General tab.
Click Delete Files.
Click OK on the Delete Files dialog box.
Click OK
NOTE: If these steps fail to resolve your problem, close all open browser windows and open the Internet Options window from the Windows Control Panel.

Clearing Cache on Microsoft® Internet Explorer 6.0
Click Tools , and select Internet Options on the Internet Explorer menu bar.
Click the General tab.
Click Delete Files.
NOTE: Be careful not to select Delete Cookies instead of Delete Files as this will remove all the cookies stored on the computer.
Click OK on the Delete Files dialog box.
Click OK
NOTE: If these steps fail to resolve your problem, close all open browser windows and open the Internet Options window from the Windows Control Panel.

Clearing Cache on Netscape® Communicator / Navigator 6.0
Click Edit, and select Preferences on the Netscape menu bar.
Click Advanced.
Click Cache.
Click the Clear Memory Cache button.
Click the Clear Disk Cache button.
Click OK
NOTE: If these steps fail to resolve your problem, close all open browser windows and open the Internet Options window from the Windows Control Panel.

[Tip: Courtesy of SpiralXdesign]

Domains and Hosting

The benefits of having your own domain name, e.g. www.yourname.co.uk and hosting package are many:

Not having to remember a long winded web address (such as home.freeserve.co.uk/~yourname/yoursite.htm)
Your website address will never change, no matter where you host your site
It looks more professional on business cards, stationery and advertising to have email addresSEs which correspond with your website, e.g. you@yourname.co.uk
Paid hosting is more reliable than free webspace -- you may lose visitors if your site is down for any length of time. If you rely on your website for business or contacts, that could cost you more money than a basic domain name and hosting package
It holds more weight in Search Engines as freespace is believed to be temporary, and is often ranked lower because of that. If your domain name is keyword specific, this can particularly help your ranking
There are no annoying advertisements, banners or popup windows, of the type that free webspace often suffers from. These cannot be tweaked with your site's specific description, meaning it is less likely to be found in the SEs.

Useful Cheap/Free Web Design Tools

Metapad (versatile notepad replacement -- I do most of my html/css with this)
http://www.liquidninja.com/metapad/

colour pixie
http://www.nattyware.com/pixie.html

type it in (store code snippets, form info etc)
http://www.wavget.com/typeitin.html

cool ruler
http://www.fabsoft.com/products/ruler/ruler.html

HandyFile Find and Replace
http://www.silveragesoftware.com/hffr.html

Font View
http://www.groan-zone.net/delphi/font.html

Icon studio
http://www.html-helper.com/viewapp.asp?program=iconstud

Irfan view (lightweight but very useful image app)
http://www.irfanview.com/

The Font Thing (managing TrueType fonts in Windows)
http://www.5star-shareware.com/Desktop/FontTools/font-thing.html

jpeg optimiser
http://www.xat.com/jpegopt/index.html

RoboForm (saves passwords and form submit details)
http://www.roboform.com/

About time (atomic accuracy for your pc clock )
http://www.arachnoid.com/abouttime/index.html

FreeMem (increases your PC's performance by optimizing memory management)
http://www.meikel.com/en/products/freemem/

Xitami web server (test php on your local machine)
http://www.xitami.com/

Time Tool (a punch clock, invoice generator, and timesheet generator)
http://home.cfl.rr.com/computingedge/timetracker/

Plugin Commander (manage and preview your PS compatible plugins)
http://thepluginsite.com/products/picopro/index.htm

Image converter
http://www.ggcomputer.com/icae.htm

Booru Webcam -- easy to use and free
http://www.booru.net/

Conquercam (alternative webcam app)
http://www.theill.com/conquercam/download.asp

Goldwave (audio editor -- free trial)
http://www.goldwave.com/release.html

...and to keep the whole thing from collapsing in a heap, of course we have:

AVG anti virus
http://www.grisoft.com/

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