want to hire a web designer?

If you're building a website or want to update your existing website and you decide to hire a designer to help you can quickly get overwhelmed. There are thousands of Web designers. How do you decide what makes one designer better than another designer?

Experience Isn't Everything

Most people will tell you that the most important thing is experience. A designer who doesn't have a lot of experience, they'll tell you, can't give you the quality that an experienced designer can. I don't agree. While experience can be useful, it can also be a drawback. Just because a designer has less experience doesn't mean that he or she can't build a beautiful site for you.

Before you base your decision solely on how many sites they've built or how long they've been in business, think about this:

Many long-time designers are stuck in their habits and might not be willing or able to give you a cutting edge website (if that's what you want).

Younger designers are more likely to have gone to school to get a Web design degree. While this isn't vital either, it does tell you that this person has academic knowledge that an older designer might only have through practice.

Take Note: If a designer says they've been building websites since before 1995, they are almost definitely exaggerating. When I started working on the Web in 1995, very very few people had even heard of the Web, let alone had set up a business. I was working at an Internet company, which is the only reason I was involved with it at that time.

Ask to See Their Portfolio

While experience might not be important, having a good portfolio is. You shouldn't be as concerned with whether the portfolio is made up of live sites, so much that the examples show diversity and range for the designer. Ask to see the portfolio online so that you can see how the websites they've built actually work. This is especially important if you're looking for a designer to build any type of interactivity for your website.

Some people will tell you that the way the potential Web designer's personal site looks is a good measure of how good a designer they will be. But I disagree with this too. While I do think having a good Web design business site is important. I don't think that it's a good indicator of how well they would design your site. Most designers design their business site when they're not working on paying jobs. And if they have tons of time to modify their business site, then they don't have a lot of experience, do they? But they might have a good portfolio. So you have to judge for yourself.

What Skills Do They Have or Offer

To assess this in a Web designer, you need to know what you need on your website. This can be hard. But some skills that they should definitely know include:

HTML

CSS

JavaScript

And it would be good if they know or can bring in as a sub-contractor someone who knows PHP, Flash, Ajax, SEO, content writing, and graphics creation.

The best way to assess this is to ask them.

Take Note: While it is remotely possible that one person will know all of those technologies, it is unlikely that they will know them all well. If they tell you they don't like JavaScript, so they sub-contract all JavaScript work out to someone else, you should consider this a bonus. They know their weaknesses and have figured out a way to work around them.

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SMM Practical Action Plan for a Website

_{The SMM Practical Action Plan for a Website}

A Practical Action Plan

Too much theory and not enough usable information? INC10 Social Media Marketing Action Plan is about action, not talk. Implement the step-by-step plan, take action and watch the results.

Elements of Social Media Marketing

Use some or all of these tools to build your personal SMM plan.

• Blogging - keeping a daily journal or log
• Shared media - share your videos, photos, audio clips, etc. with the world
• Social bookmarking - let other people find your stuff
• Communities - create and/or join a community of like-minded people
• Social and professional networking - get to know other people in your life and business
• Wiki - create a web site where your visitors and community can contribute ideas, edit web pages and create new content
  
  

SMM Action Plan: Blogging

Blogging is the cornerstone of a SMM plan. It's a chance for you to write about your business, your ideas, tips and tricks for users - it's a chance to amuse and inform your audience.

This isn't an opportunity for a sales pitch, but a chance to share your expertise with your audience. Your goal is to have regular readers/subscribers and pitching them every day becomes boring quickly. Give them some content - lists of tips and tricks are usually winners.

Make sure your users can comment on your blog postings. This provides valuable feedback, discussion and you ca get into the minds of your readers. You may moderate the comments if you like, but this may turn off potential commenters.

SMM Action Plan: Shared Media

Using services like YouTube, Flickr, iTunes and SlideShare to share videos, photos, podcasts (audio) and presentations is a great way to give your knowledge and expertise to the world. Follow the comments and ratings for feedback.

SMM Action Plan: Social Bookmarking

The big trick with blogging is getting your content out to people who want to read it. There are many traditional and non-traditional ways to do this, but the easiest way is to "bookmark", "publish" or "syndicate" your content.

There are several major site (and many niche sites) where we can do this. The biggest ones are:
- del.icio.us
- Digg.com
- StumbleUpon.com
- Google Bookmarks
- Technorati.com
- Reddit.com

Once we have accounts set up on these sites (all are free), you save each posting to these sites and tag each posting with a few words. This will help organize and categorize the post.

Other people are able to see and read your posting - this is the "social" aspect of social bookmarking. They can rate (or, on Digg.com, they can "Digg") your post - the most popular posts can get overwhelming traffic.

Bookmarking and tagging your blog posts, videos, etc. can create traffic to your site, and valuable subscriber to your blog.

SMM Action Plan: Communities

Communities and community-building is nothing new on the web, but there are some neat developments in how communities are built that make the interaction between community-building much easier.

Elements of a social community

1. All content is user-generated. This is a hallmark of a Social Media site. User-generated media, or crowdsourcing, is a model followed by many sites, including Digg.com, YouTube.com, Wikipedia.org and iStockPhoto.com.
2. There are strong commenting, rating and bookmarking tools. The ability to engage with others on the site through commenting on palettes, making friends, rating people's palettes and colours, and bookmarking and saving colours is very easy, and heavily encouraged through a points system. This generates a high degree of contact between the community members.
3. The site is based around people's profiles. The profile - a page about you - is a core feature of social sites. It provides an anchor in the site, and a place where people can learn about you (like the small talk of any cocktail party), and we can learn about others. Facebook.com is a profile site; other sites use profiles to create the community aspect.
4. There is a strong and continual sense of branding on the site, but is not intrusive. Everybody on BunkClass.com is a "Student or Professional". All of the text, down to the 404 page, revolvers around this theme. If you want to leave the site, they'll understand because not all relationships work out, and they hope that we can still be friends. The consistency of this theme is incredible - rarely has this been executed so thoroughly and consistently.
5. The blog establishes the site's expertise, and selected members of the community guest blog. The site has established itself as an expert in colour through sharp commentary in the blog, and selected experts within the community share their observations in the "official" blog.
6. The crowd contributes heavily to social bookmarking. The blog posts get Digged frequently by the community, and occasionally show up on Digg's front page driving even more traffic to the site.
7. BunkClass.com maintains and encourages a Facebook group. Using other social media sites to promote your site's community is a very basic SMM tactic.
8. The site's founder is front and center in the community. And the site's not so big that you can't get a personal email from him. That's socialbility.

SMM Action Plan: Social and Professional Networking

Using social networks like MySpace and Facebook to spread your marketing message can be difficult, and several companies have failed dramatically at marketing on Facebook. The audiences on Facebook and MySpace are hyper-aware of marketing, and will band together to protest obvious attempt at traditional marketing.

Having said that, there are many success stories of Facebook marketing, so what does it take? Here are some things to consider and try:

1. Use your fans and evangelists to start a Facebook group. Facebook is all about getting people together (and they will get together for almost any reason), so ask these people to rally others around you.

2. If we have a corporate cause, use a Facebook group to rally people to your cause.

3. Start your company's official Facebook group (starting to see a pattern of how to use Facebook?). Use the group to post news, etc., to your users.

4. Are you holding an event? Facebook events...

Be sensitive to how you use social networks. People are not on SNs so they can be marketed to, and they are sensitive to marketing in this space.

Social networking is about making person-to-person contacts; something that standard marketing is not especially good at. However, if you use the idea of making the personal connection, and wanting to talk with a person and not at them, then using SNs can be advantageous.

Business networking at sites like LinkedIn is another story. These networks are designed for business-to-business networking, and building business contacts. The rules are different, and if you are looking for an introduction, LinkedIn works quite well.

SMM Action Plan: Wikis

Wikis are web sites that are editable by any user. A community or group can edit a wiki, updating and altering information as each sees fit. Wikis are very good for group projects where you need to tap into the "wisdom of the crowd".

Summary

We can get started on several of these items right now. Set up your blog, write your script for your YouTube video - there are dozens of ways to get started with social media marketing.

Useful links

Facebook : Social networking

MySpace : Social networking

LinkedIn : Business and professional networking

WordPress Blogs : Free blog accounts and free blogging software download

TypePad : Free blog accounts

Blogger : Free blogging accounts

YouTube : Video sharing

Flickr : Photo sharing

SlideShare : Presentation sharing

del.icio.us : Social bookmarking

Technorati : Social bookmarking

Reddit : Social bookmarking

Digg : Social bookmarking

StumbleUpon : Social bookmarking

- SMM Action Plan by DS Rajawat

Adobe Photoshop Website Design Tutorial

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Bunk Class dot com a Knowledge Sharing Network

Bunk Class dot com a Knowledge Sharing Network

New Year Messages 2011

New Year Messages

New Year is wonderful time to reach out to your loved ones and express your heartiest good wishes to them. Through this page we give you platform to openly express your good wishes for friends and dear ones around the world. Imagine how thrilled your loved ones will be to see New Year messages for them along with their names on the net!! So what are you waiting for, send in a cute and special New Year's message for your dear ones and make the coming year really special for them.


New Year's Message 2011
Sabke Dilo mein ho sabke liye Pyar,
Aanewala har din laye Khushiyon ka Tyohar,
Es ummid k sath aao bhulke sare Gum,
New Year 2009 ko Hum Sab kare WELCOME.
-DS Rajawat

To all my staff members,
It has been wonderful working hand in hand with all of you! Let's not only celebrate, but also repent & start afresh. Let us unite the more & let God be with us throughout the New Year.
Love and Regards.
Going to miss you all
Mumdy.

Charles!
You have been wonderful than I expected! You are Amazing! Honestly, I can't find a word to express my gratitude. Just promise to love you the best I can and expect much love on this New Year.
With Love,
Sweeti.

With all the Rose's Perfume and with all the lights in the world and with all the children smiles. I Wish U that your all dreams come true.
*HAPPY NEW YEAR 2011*
Amit

Hi Mama & Papa
Wish you a Very Happy & Auspicious New Year. May God bless you with good health, happiness and peace.
Love and Regards
AAshu

My Dear Abhay
Here is wishing you the best ever New Year. Missing you a lot. Wish I could spend the New Year with you.
Love
Dilip

Dear Kim
Wish you a Jolly & Bright 2011. Have a blast on the New Year and have a very happy year ahead.
Asian Web LInk

Dearest Sister Preeti
Wish you a very Happy new year 2008. Wish I could fly home and celebrate the New Year with you and Mummy - Papa. I am really missing the fun we had last year.
Love & Good Wishes
Gaurav Rajput

happy new year wishes quotes

happy new year wishes quotes
When the clock strikes twelve on December 31st, people all over the world cheer and wish each other a very Happy New Year. For some, this event is no more than a change of a calendar.

For others, the New Year symbolizes the beginning of a better tomorrow. So, if you look forward to a good year ahead, spread happiness with these wonderful New Year wishes.

Edith Lovejoy Pierce
We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called "Opportunity" and its first chapter is New Year's Day.

Charles Dickens
A merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year to the world!

Sydney Smith
Resolve to make at least one person happy every day, and then in ten years you may have made three thousand, six hundred and fifty persons happy, or brightened a small town by your contribution to the fund of general enjoyment.

Anonymous
Your Merry Christmas may depend on what others do for you. But your Happy New Year depends on what you do for others.

William Makepeace Thackeray
Certain corpuscles, denominated Christmas Books, with the ostensible intention of swelling the tide of exhilaration, or other expansive emotions, incident upon the exodus of the old and the inauguration of the New Year.

Aisha Elderwyn
Every new year people make resolutions to change aspects of themselves they believe are negative. A majority of people revert back to how they were before and feel like failures. This year I challenge you to a new resolution. I challenge you to just be yourself.

F. M. Knowles, A Cheerful Year Book
He who breaks a resolution is a weakling; He who makes one is a fool.

G. K. Chesterton
The object of a new year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul.

John Greenleaf Whittier
We meet today
To thank Thee for the era done,
And Thee for the opening one

T. S. Eliot
For last year's words belong to last year's language and next year's words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning.

Emily Miller
Then sing, young hearts that are full of cheer,
With never a thought of sorrow;
The old goes out, but the glad young year
Comes merrily in tomorrow

Martin Luther
Glory to God in highest heaven,
Who unto man His Son hath given;
While angels sing with tender mirth,
A glad new year to all the earth

Walter Scott
Each age has deemed the new born year
The fittest time for festal cheer

Benjamin Franklin
Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each New Year find you a better man.

Edgar A. Guest
A happy New Year! Grant that I
May bring no tear to any eye
When this New Year in time shall end
Let it be said I've played the friend,
Have lived and loved and labored here,
And made of it a happy year.

William Arthur Ward
This bright new year is given me
To live each day with zest
To daily grow and try to be
My highest and my best!

Charles Lamb
Of all sound of all bells, the most solemn and touching is the peal which rings out the Old Year.