Google Pocket Guide
By Tara Calishain, Rael Dornfest, and DJ Adams
Publisher: O’Reilly Media
Pages: 129
Price: $9.95 at Amazon.com or O’Reilly
Beyond just going to Google website and performing a search like I normally do, the book itself delves a lot deeper in what Google has to offer and what types tips and tricks can be used to make an effective search on the Internet. The book itself was divided into four parts.
I decided to go another avenue and speak on behalf of web site design and itself…..
After you have registered your domain name, choose a web hosting provider, and have your website visible on the web, what do you do next? The next thing is website maintenance. But how? One way I like to maintain my website or others I work with is using a web content management system. First let’s take a look at what a content management system is, the benefits of using one, and look at some content management systems that can be used for personal or business.
What is a Content Management System?
A Content Management Systems is a way to create, manage, distribute, publish, and update your website information.
Benefits to a Content Management System
Even though there are other ways of updating your website, you might decide to choose and use a content management system. What are the benefits of using a content management system? Below are the following benefits to using a content management system:
Content Management Systems to Use
Where can you find a content management system to use? For starters, most web hosting providers will have a content management system for you to use. For example, the web hosting provider I have has Drupal, Mambo, and Joomla as part of my content management systems. Of course, these are some popular ones to use to make updates as I find anyone of these to be a great tool to use.
On another note, if you would like to use a hosted content management system just to simply update content and do the minimum for other things, I find that CushyCMS which can be found at www.cushycms.com (You can watch the demo on the site and Sign up for free), will allow web designers or content editors to edit content as well as not to install software on their machine. With CushyCMS, there is a free version which I have used and there is one where you can pay which provides more services.
Conclusion
A content management system can be a great tool to use for either personal or business use. A content management system allows you to capability to update your site and have multiple authors take authorship of sections of your site as your site continues to grow.
Sep 10
Many immigrants here in the DC-area dream of sending computers back to their family, friends and neighbors in their home country. A friend of mine here in Takoma Park, Yacouba Sanogo, asked me for help in sending 10 computers back to his home country of Burkina Faso. For less than half the price of a single new iMac computer, I helped this person buy 10 Windows XP computers to send back home. The total cost? Less than $500 from PCRetro.
Not only that. When I went to the PCRetro store in Beltsville, each one of those 10 computers was booted up to make sure it was in excellent working condition. Laura Ambrusko, the store manager, could not have been more helpful. These computers came complete with keyboard, mice and power cords, too.
What worked especially well for my friend is that these computers are all fairly small and light (sometimes called “small form factor”), so the shipping charges he’ll incur will be less burdensome. He won’t be shipping monitors to Africa. The recipients of this donation of computers will need to find monitors themselves.
All in all, I’m very grateful that PCRetro does the work they do. Somewhere in Africa some family that I will never meet will be using a computer that I picked up from the PCRetro store in Beltsville. If I had the time and money I would accompany these computers to Africa and sit down beside the recipients to give them a tour of their computers. I don’t have the time and money to do so, but I can imagine making that trip. For me, that’s reward enough.
(The blogger works as the public geek at the Takoma Park Maryland Library and is an adjunct professor of education at American University, where he teaches a graduate class in educational technology. He can be reached at pshapiro@his.com)
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