Wednesday 28 August 2013

What Does “Great Website Architecture” Mean?

Getting a good amount of traffic for a website is something that everyone strives for, but what does one have to offer when people stumble upon a website? It is important to address several key points that make up a good website: it needs to be visually stimulating, it needs to have a comprehensive layout, it needs to allow people to get to the pages that they need without too much hassle, it needs to provide information about the blogger/artist/company and their work, showcase all that they have to offer, provide social media sharing capabilities, as well as have plenty of useful information about the niche that the blogger/artist/company is operating in.

source: documentation.ektron.com

Wow, that does sound like a lot, but it doesn’t have to be all that complicated. In fact the key is incorporating all these elements in your website design, but still managing to keep it concise and having a home page that allows quick navigation through the rest of the website. A good website is a perfect balance between utility and flashiness, with a big emphasis on content and media that provides the viewer with something to actually view. Let’s go into a bit more detail on the more important elements of effective website architecture.

The Great Homepage And Linking To Other Pages:

The homepage is you base of operations, so to speak. You will want to have links directly to your most popular pages and news of new offers, deals or events. This is where aesthetics meet functionality and where you have the opportunity to cram in colorful images and information using sliders, as well as have drop boxes that are effectively categorized to allow the viewers to find what they need. Now, a very important point is to avoid going link-crazy and having the viewer click through layers and layers of pages – everything they need should be within 2-3 clicks from the homepage.

Categorizing And Crosslinking Pages:

Being able to find what you need quickly is the most important thing for a person visiting your website, and this is where so often the designer drops the ball. Certain pages that can fit into multiple categories should be accessible through several different paths, and the categories themselves need to be effectively broken down depending on what you have to offer. For example, if you are selling cars you are hardly going to categorize them by color. In that case, you would have categories like hatchbacks, sedans, sports cars, minivans and so on. You could also have several categories based on secondary features that people are interested in - high mileage per gallon, good family cars and cars with the highest safety rating. A nice little Renault would fit into several of these categories and people would be able to get to that particular page through several different paths. Then on that Renault model page you mention that Renaults are some of the safest cars and you link to the page with all the other Renault models and the page that features the cars with the highest safety ratings. This way you make an interconnected web of relevant pages throughout the website.

The Layout Of A Good, Informative Page:

An informative page will feature all that a viewer needs – no less, no more. It is important to focus on elements that will allow the greatest usability of a page – how is it linked internally, does it link to other pages on the website are you cross-linking to other websites from the page? Within the page itself, navigation bars can help tremendously, particularly for e-commerce websites that might have several pages of products within a category and the subcategories help users find what they want without having to click through ten pages and scroll down each one. A blog page is essential for providing useful content and additional information, so that you don’t have to clutter up other pages – having access to recent and relevant posts enhances usability as well.

When looking at website architecture you need to be constantly thinking about the average user; what will they be looking for and how easy they will find it to navigate the website? Testing your website can help provide you with useful clues about optimizing your design features, but you will need a good base to begin with. So put yourself in the average Joe’s shoes and take another look at how your website is structured.

Author Author - Mark Taylor is a full time employee with Melbourne based web development company - Leading Edge Web - as a UX specialist and digital producer . Working closely with well-known brands and leading Australian companies , he helps define the optimum digital solution for their online presence. Mark also liaises with internal developers and creative teams in managing project scope
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Monday 19 August 2013

How To Post Your Twitter Tweets On Your Facebook Page

Updating multiple social networks at same time is a huge headache. We all use dlvr.it and other websites to automatically publish our blog's feed to social netoworks, but sometimes we just want to post more than just blog feed.

I run a pro-wrestling news website, with a live play-by-play Twitter and Facebook coverage of the shows and pay-per-views. I don't have enough time to most on various social media platforms at the same time, so I use Twitter's build-in feature to automatically publish my tweets on my blog's Facebook Page.

Yup, there is an option on Twitter to publish your tweets on your Facebook page, without any external plugins. It's very easy. Here we go:

Automatically Publish Your Twitter Tweets On Your Facebook Page:

Login to your Twitter account, and visit on Profile Settings. On the bottom of the page, click on Login to Facebook

After logging in, mark Post to my Facebook page option, and choose your Facebook page.

That's it. Replies and direct messages will not be posted on your page. You can also mark post retweets option as well.

Tuesday 13 August 2013

How To Use Custom Post Thumbnail In Blogger


If you ever used self-hosted WordPress, then you might know about post thumbnail (featured post) feature. By using that feature, you can pick a custom image for your post's thumbnail, which is a great feature. I also use this feature on my wwefansnation.com.

I searched around the internet (just Google'd it) and found nothing like this for Blogger blogs. So I discover my own way to pick custom post thumbnail for Blogger. For this trick, we don't need any heavy JavaScript or CSS codes. It's a very little trick, even a newbie can easily use it.

By default, Blogger automatically uses first image of the article as post's thumbnail. So we'll add our thumbnail image to the top of our article, and we'll make it invisible with some CSS. Just add following html code to your post's top (in post editor's html editor):

<img src="Image-Link" style="display:none;"/>

Replace Image-Link with your image's link. Now your image will only appear as your post's thumbnail, and not in the post. This article is an example of this trick. You can visit archive pages to see this trick in action. Don't forget to post your comments.

Friday 9 August 2013

How To Screen Capture Your PSP


Many PSP gamers wants to capture screenshots of their PSP games to share them with their friends and on tutorials. Even the above picture is a screenshot of my PSP. I used screen capture for almost every PSP tutorial (two posts yet) on this blog.

Taking screenshots of your PSP screen is not a hard task, but finding and installing a perfect plugin is pretty hard for new users. Don't worry, I'm here to solve this problem.

Requirements:

  • PSP USB Cable (To transfer files)
  • Laptop/Computer (To download & transfer files)

Installing ScreenVideo Capture Module:

Download ScreenVideo Capture Module from this link. It's .zip file, so extract it to a new folder of your computer. We just need following two files from this archive - capture.prx and capture.ini.

Connect your PSP to your computer via USB cable. Copy and paste capture.prx and capture.ini in the seplugins folder on the root of your PSP's Memory Stick. If your PSP doesn't have any seplugins folder then just create one on the root of your Memory Stick.

Now add following code to your GAME.txt, VSH.txt and POPS.txt files in seplugins folder. You can also create these three files in a simple notepad document if they're not already in your PSP.

ms0:/seplugins/capture.prx 1

Now switch off your PSP. Now turn on your PSP with the R button held to go into configuration mode. Go to plugins and activate all "capture.prx" plugins. That's it.

How To Take Screenshots:

To take screenshots press note button (the music note) to take a screenshot (saved in BMP format). Don't forget to run FastRecovery file before taking screenshots. Hold R and then note to start taking a video (your game will lag a lot in while capturing videos) and press note again to stop taking the video. This will be saved in GIF format.

Additional Settings:

You can also change the location on the PSP where screenshots will be saved by editing the capture.ini file.

The default is ms0:/PSP/PHOTO

DO NOT USE flash0:/ OR flash1:/ AS THIS MAY "BRICK" YOUR PSP

Wednesday 7 August 2013

How To Play ISO Games On PSP Without Custom Firmware


Earlier this week, I wrote about installing CFW on your PSP to do some extra-ordinary PSP stuff. Playing ISO and CSO games in one of it. However, you can also play ISO/CSO games on your PSP without doing any modification in PSP.

Any Limits? - Yea, you can only play PSP games under 720MBs without hacking it. There are lot of games under 720 MBs, such as Call of Duty, God of War, Hero of Sparta, NFS Most Wanted, Burnout Legend and more.

Requirements:

  • PSP (Any model)
  • PSP USB Cable
  • Laptop/Computer (For transferring and converting files)
  • iso2eboot convertor (For converting ISO/CSO files to EBOOT - Download Here)

How To Play ISO/CSO Games On PSP Without CFW:

Everyone wants to play games on their PSP, but some of those are not always able to afford their favorite PSP UMD. UMDs are very costly for teenagers like us. Some guys like me just install CFW to play those pirated ISO/CSO games on their PSP, but some of them just afraid to install CFW, possibly because of the risk of bricking their PSP.

This way is very easy & there is no chances of bricking your PSP with this trick. So let's just start this tutorial.

So for playing ISO/CSO games on your PlayStation Portable you need to convert your ISO/CSO files to EBOOT.PBP files. That's so easy, we just need a convertor to do that.

Converting ISO/CSO Files TO EBOOT:

For ISO/CSO files, you need to download iso2eboot convertor from this link. Extract all files to a new folder. Converting to EBOOT is a bit complicated for new users, but don't worry, I'm here to help you with this picture tutorial.

  • First put your ISO/CSO file to iso2eboot convertor folder:


  • Now open the convertor icon and click on convert isos to eboot button:

It takes a bit time to convertor ISO to EBOOT. Sometimes more than you could ever expect, so don't worry about the loading.

After loading/converting, you'll see two new folders in your iso2eboot folder - PSP and ISO folder. The converter has stored your ISO file into ISO folder, and your EBOOT.PBP file on PSP folder.

  • Open iso2eboot's PSP folder and copy your game's folder (complete folder, not just EBOOT.PBP file) to your PSP's game folder.

That's it! Now you can easily play your favorite game without paying for it (Not Cool). So if you got enough money in your pocket, then paying for a game is a better idea. And if you don't have, then you can proudly use this trick.

Monday 5 August 2013

Installing Pro CFW On Sony PSP 1000/2000/3000/GO


BWidgets is a blogsite about blogging, but why we're sharing PSP tutorials here? The answer is very simple. I recently bought a PSP 1000 model so I wanted to share some cool PSP tricks & tutorials with you all.

Before we start this tutorial, here are some simple FAQ about this tutorial:

FAQ:

Q. Can we play ISO/CSO games on PSP with this hack?
A. YES! YES! YES.

Q. Can we play ISO/CSO games on PSP without installing CFW?
A. Yes, but only games under 720MBs. Tutorials is available here.

Q. Do we need Pandora Battery to install Pro CFW?
A. NO! NO! NO!

Q. Any damage or chances of bricking my PSP?
A. Not much. Installing CFW is way too much easy these days, so don't worry about that.

Supported PSP Models:

  • PSP 1000 Series
  • PSP 2000 Series
  • PSP 3000 Series
  • PSP GO

Requirements:

  • A charged PSP 1000/2000/3000/GO with official Sony Firmware 6.6 (which, at the time of this writing, is the latest firmware released by Sony)
  • PSP USB Cable (To transfer files)
  • Laptop/Computer (To download & transfer files)
  • Pro CFW (Direct Download Link - Repository Link)

Update Your PSP To Firmware 6.60:

Skip this step if you already have Firmware 6.60 installed on your PSP.

In order to install Pro CFW on your PSP, you will need to first update your PSP to the 6.60 Official Sony Firmware. As of writing, 6.60 is the latest firmware released by Sony. If you have older version installed on your PSP. Then there are versions of Pro CFW that will run on older firmwares as well.

To install the latest 6.60 firmware, just visit Sony PlayStation's official website, or on your PSP (Settings > System Update > Update via Internet)

Installing Pro CFW:

This step is very easy, and usually takes less than five minutes. Don't worry, you can easily do this.

Download Pro CFW 6.60 from this link. The archive contains subfolders in the "PSP/GAME" folder. There are several files in the GAME folder, but we just need two for this hack: the FastRecovery and the PROUPDATE folders. Copy those two folders to your Memory Stick's game folder "PSP/GAME".

After adding the FastRecovery and the PROUPDATE folders to your PSP's memory stick, you'll see a few new applications in your PSP's game menu. The one you will want to run in order to install Pro CFW is "Pro Update". This scary screen will appear (but with different options as my PSP is already hacked):

Press X key in your PSP to install Pro CFW. After clicking on X button, screen will load several files, then it will ask you to press X key again in order to launch Pro CFW. That's it!

You can erase the "ProUpdate" folder from your PSP, but keep the "FastRecovery" folder.

Using CFW In Daily Use:

In order to use CFW in your daily use, you'll need to run FastRecovery file every time you reboot your PSP. It takes less than 10 seconds and doesn't requires any actions. That's IT! Welcome to the world of Pro PSP Users!

What's Next?

Thanks for reading this tutorial. I'll write more PSP articles soon on BWidgets. So if you're new to this blog, then don't forget to subscribe to our Feed with your favorite Feed reader or Email Updates. Don't forget to leave your comments, suggestions, or problems.

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