The Greatest Toolbox for Blogging

Some of the tools I use in my blogging to do things more efficiently.
Please note: a few of these links are affiliates which means I will earn a small commission if you buy the item at no extra cost to you. These small sales are how I keep the site up and running and so your support is appreciated.

Blog hosting

• BlueHost – My favorite host for one click WordPress installs, 24/7 support and an anytime money-back guarantee. This was the host I first got started on. Read my blog hosting reviews about them or follow my step-by-step guide to getting started.
  **Note: BlueHost is my recommendation for new bloggers. They have very kindly given Blog Tyrant readers a discounted rate of $3.49 per month for the first year!**
• JustHost – One of the more popular shared hosting options for new bloggers. They do have 24/7 support but not in a live chat window like BlueHost does (which is really helpful).
• KnownHost – I have used these guys for a few projects where I wanted a VPS environment. It’s a lot more complicated to set up than BlueHost but the support team are absolutely incredible.

Security

• StrongVPN – The best way to use public WiFi and ensure that no one looks at your work or passwords. Change your IP location, be secure and anonymous.

SEO Tools

• SEOmoz – The best SEO tool on the net. SEO recommendations, social media monitoring, much more.
• Market Samurai – Keyword research, SEO analysis, back link finder.
• Google Traffic Estimator – A great way to get a feel of how much traffic is available.
• Backlink Checker – Find out who is linking to your blog.

Email marketing and subscriber management

• Aweber – Email subscriber service for bloggers. Find out why I switched.

Plugins

• Wishlist Member – the best software for building memberships sites.
• Pop Up Domination – Plugin to radically increase email subscribers.
• Google Sitemap Generator – Make sitemaps for better SEO.

Photos and design

• Killer eCover Scripts – Beautiful and easy eBook covers like mine.
• Dreamstime – Beautiful royalty free images cheap.
• Photodropper – Insert Flickr photos into your posts automatically.
• Cassette – These guys did the new Blog Tyrant logo text. Amazing!

WordPress themes

• Thesis Theme – Easy to use beautiful WordPress themes.
• Studiopress Themes – Super customizable theme framework by Copyblogger that will change how you think about WordPress templates.
• Tyrant Themes – Yep, this is happening.

Podcasting and videos

• Audacity – Easy to use podcast/music editor.
• Audio Technica USB Mic – A beautiful mic that plugs right into your PC.
• Camtasia – Record your screen and edit the videos.
• BRS Screen Recorder – A cheaper and easier to use screen recording software.

Surveys and Statistics

• Survey Monkey – My favorite way to survey my email subscribers.
• Google Analytics – Massive stats all for free.
• Clicky – Better statistics and heat maps.

Related Posts:

- SEO for Idiots: The 10 Basics of Blogging Search Engine Optimization

-20 Free SEO Tools Every Blogger Should Know

-Create a Drop Down Menu In Blogger

-How to add Blogger Contact Form in Side Bar and inside Contact us page

-No One Reads My Blog. 9 Tricks to Change Things

Create a Drop Down Menu In Blogger Blogspot

 

Update: We have published almost 9 more menus like this one. To get them all just use the search box and type drop down menu. If you wish to add the same menu to Blogger Template Designer templates then read this post -> Custom Drop Down menu

---

Why do you run after scripts such as jquery while you can use simple CSS and HTML to create beautiful drop down menus for your blog. I already shared a list of 30 Navigation menus and now you need to learn how to create a drop down menu in a navigation. I am sharing a simple code here that can be fully customize to make your preferred changes. So lets get to work!

Live Demo

How To Create a Drop Down Menu?

A drop down menu is needed when you have too much content on your blog or you love keeping things organized. To add a drop down menu to your blogger blogs do this:

1. Go To Blogger > Design > Page Elements
2. Select a HTML/JavaScript Widget just under the header and paste the following code inside it,

     

       
• 
            Home
         

       

          About
      

       

          Contact
       

 

           Sitemap
           

               
• Sub Page #1

               
• Sub Page #2

               
• Sub Page #3

             

       

     
    Replace # with your Page Links and the bolded text with relevant page names. The yellow highlighted code is responsible for the drop down menu. You can copy and paste it under any tab you want just before
To add another tab just paste this code above

          Tab Name
       

            3.   Now Go to Design > Edit HTML
    4.   Backup your template and search for ,

]]>

     3.   Just above it paste the code below,

/*----- MBT Drop Down Menu ----*/

#mbtnavbar {
    background: #060505;
    width: 960px;
    color: #FFF;
        margin: 0px;
        padding: 0;
        position: relative;
        border-top:0px solid #960100;
        height:35px;
}

#mbtnav {
    margin: 0;
    padding: 0;
}
#mbtnav ul {
    float: left;
    list-style: none;
    margin: 0;
    padding: 0;
}
#mbtnav li {
    list-style: none;
    margin: 0;
    padding: 0;
        border-left:1px solid #333;
        border-right:1px solid #333;
        height:35px;
}
#mbtnav li a, #mbtnav li a:link, #mbtnav li a:visited {
    color: #FFF;
    display: block;
   font:normal 12px Helvetica, sans-serif;    margin: 0;
    padding: 9px 12px 10px 12px;
        text-decoration: none;
       
}
#mbtnav li a:hover, #mbtnav li a:active {
    background: #BF0100;
    color: #FFF;
    display: block;
    text-decoration: none;
        margin: 0;
    padding: 9px 12px 10px 12px;
       
   
       
}
#mbtnav li {
    float: left;
    padding: 0;
}
#mbtnav li ul {
    z-index: 9999;
    position: absolute;
    left: -999em;
    height: auto;
    width: 160px;
    margin: 0;
    padding: 0;
}
#mbtnav li ul a {
    width: 140px;
}
#mbtnav li ul ul {
    margin: -25px 0 0 161px;
}
#mbtnav li:hover ul ul, #mbtnav li:hover ul ul ul, #mbtnav li.sfhover ul ul, #mbtnav li.sfhover ul ul ul {
    left: -999em;
}
#mbtnav li:hover ul, #mbtnav li li:hover ul, #mbtnav li li li:hover ul, #mbtnav li.sfhover ul, #mbtnav li li.sfhover ul, #mbtnav li li li.sfhover ul {
    left: auto;
}
#mbtnav li:hover, #mbtnav li.sfhover {
    position: static;
}
#mbtnav li li a, #mbtnav li li a:link, #mbtnav li li a:visited {
    background: #BF0100;
    width: 120px;
    color: #FFF;
    display: block;
    font:normal 12px Helvetica, sans-serif;
    margin: 0;
    padding: 9px 12px 10px 12px;
        text-decoration: none;
z-index:9999;
border-bottom:1px dotted #333;
   
}
#mbtnav li li a:hover, #mbtnavli li a:active {
    background: #060505;
    color: #FFF;
    display: block;     margin: 0;
    padding: 9px 12px 10px 12px;
        text-decoration: none;
}

Make these changes:

• Change #060505 to change background color of the Main menu
• Change  the yellow highlighted text to change font color, size and family
• Change #BF0100 to change the background of a tab on mouse hover
• Change #BF0100 to change the background color of the drop down menu
• Change #060505 to change the background color of drop down menu on mouse hover

      4.    Save your template and you are done!

Visit your Blogs to see a beautiful Navigation menu just below Header. Have Fun! :)
If you have any questions feel free to post them.

Source from: Mohammad Mustafa Ahmedzai

20 Useful Free SEO Tools for Blogger

Aside from a nice-looking website with interesting and regularly updated content, SEO is essential to bloggers. While it’s entirely possible to do SEO on your own, due to the complexity of SEO rules to adhere to, it’s probably a lot more efficient to fall back on tools out there that are primed for helping your site rank higher.

Whether it’s full-featured toolsets, keyword suggestion engines or very specific site crawlers and link checkers, there’s a huge number of tools and services out there that can help you improve your blog’s SEO.
In this post, we are listing our 5 favorite SEO tools you can use for free, and if that is not doing it for you, there is a second list of 15 more tools to try out at the second part of the post.

Recommended Reading: 10 SEO Mistakes Bloggers Should Avoid

Our Favourite 5

1. Majestic SEO

Majestic SEO is one of the most advanced and complete SEO services on the market, focusing specifically on link intelligence and domain-based metrics. The tools it has to offer include the Site Explorer, Backlink History tool, Keyword Checker, Comparator and a Clique Hunter. The comparative tools require a paid subscription, but the free account is enough if you’re only interested in your own blog(s).

2. IIS SEO Toolkit

The IIS SEO Toolkit has Site Analysis, Robots Exclusion, Sitemaps and Site Index modules. The Site Analysis module has a full-featured crawler engine as well as a Query Builder interface to generate custom reports. The Robots Exclusion module shows robots’ content and lets you set "allow" and "disallow" paths, while the Sitemaps and Site Index module lets you view, edit and delete sitemap and site index files.

3. Screaming Frog SEO Spider

Screaming Frog’s SEO Spider is an extensive website crawling tool that will help you analyze and audit your website for maximum search engine optimization. The SEO Spider checks your website’s links, CSS, scripts, images and apps to identify problems such as duplicate pages, broken links, URI issues and redirect errors.

4. Google Keyword Planner

Since most of your traffic is probably going to come from Google searches, you’ll definitely want to take a look at Google’s new Keyword Planner. Google’s Keyword Planner provides a wealth of information on currently popular keywords that you can further fine tune with advanced filtering options. Keyword Planner also has a historical view, letting you see the popularity of keywords over a twelve-month period.

5. Virante SEO Tools

Virante offers a number of on-site and off-site SEO tools for free on their website. On-site tools include a Duplicate Content Tool, an LDA Content Optimizer and a Density of Keyword Tool. Amongst the off-site tools are a Competitive Analysis Tool, a Link Atrophy Tool and a PageRank Recovery Tool. Virante also offer miscellaneous tools like a Clean IP Tool and a HTTP Header Check Tool.

More SEO Tools

It’s always good to have more choices. Here are 15 more SEO tools that bloggers can use for free. Let us know your favorite in the comments.

Web CEO

Web CEO is a complete SEO tool that comes in both online and offline versions. Like most SEO tools of this type, Web CEO has features such as rank checking, link management and analysis as well as on-site opitmization tools such as a Site Auditor that can scan your blog for broken links and other SEO-damaging errors. Web CEO operates on a freemium model.

SEO Book Tools

SEO Book has a number of free SEO tools available on their website. Just register a free account and you’ll be able to use tools such as their Keyword List Generator, Meta Tag Generator, Server Header Checker and Link Suggestion Checker, all for free. You can also download Firefox extensions such as their SEO Toolbar that provides competitive and search data directly in Firefox.

SEOgadget Tools

SEOgadget provides a number of free SEO tools to help you with your SEO efforts. Some of the tools SEOgadget provide include a Link Categorization Tool for Excel, a Content Strategy Generator, Anchor Text Tool as well as a SEOgadget for Excel tool that allows you to interpret data from services such as Majestic SEO in Excel.

SEER’s SEO Toolbox

SEER’s SEO Toolbox is an all-in-one spreadsheet-based SEO toolbox that can be used to analyse data from sources such as Google Analytics, Majestic SEO and Twitter. It also has some on-page analysis tools and scraping abilities as well. Since it’s an online spreadsheet, your whole team (if you have one) can work on and analyse the data together.

Internet Marketing Ninjas SEO Tools

The Internet Marketing Ninjas have more than a few free SEO, Webmaster and Social Tools on their website. Some of the SEO Tools include a Page Speed Tool, a Robots Text Generator Tool, a Meta Tag Generator Tool and a Search Combination Tool.

SEO Tools For Excel

Niels Bosma’s SEO Tools For Excel is an Excel add-on that adds a number of SEO-centric features. Some of the functions added by SEO Tools For Excel include the ability to find duplicated content, check backlinks and obtain WhoIs data. SEO Tools For Excel can also analyse information such as the number of links and the meta keywords on your site.

SEO Site Tools (Chrome Extension)

This is a Google Chrome extension that adds on-page SEO data drawn from various websites and services. It provides aggregated data from Google PageRank, Alexa traffic details, Quancast rank and Dmoz domain presence. It also provides information on meta tags, social media reactions and can even make suggestions to improve your site’s SEO.

SEOquake

SEOquake is an SEO plugin for Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and Apple Safari. SEOquake provides a wealth of information essential to any blogger looking to improve their site’s ranking, including information on Yahoo! Backlinks, Google page rank, Google and Bing indexing, WhoIs data and keyword density reports. It can also generate full page reports for any site you wish.

Moz SEO Toolbar

The Moz SEO Toolbar is available for both Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome. It gives you access to typical SEO metrics in real-time as you browse the Internet. It can also highlight links and keywords on websites, as well as show all the page elements on a given website. It also has a detailed search engine results page (SERP) overlay that lets you compare Google, Bing and Yahoo! metrics.

Open Site Explorer

Open Site Explorer is a tool that you can use to investigate backlinks (both dofollow and nofollow links) on both your blog as well as competitor’s blogs. Open Site Explorer also provides domain and page authority rankings. The free version limits you to 200 backlinks per report, with detailed information is only available for the first five backlinks, but that should be enough for a basic overview.

Ubersuggest

Ubersuggest is a keyword suggestion tool that suggests common sense keyword phrases based on Google’s own suggestion engine. Simply key in a query or keyword and Ubersuggest will provide a list of suggested keyword phrases based on your initial input. Ubersuggest can also be told to base suggestions on specific Google services such as Google Images, Google Video and Google News.

Google SERP Snippet Optimization Tool

This tool helps you optimize your pages’ title and meta description tags in order to maximise the appeal of your websites when seen in Google search result listings. It’s a simple tool that generates a preview of the Google SERP so that you can make sure that your and meta description tags don’t exceed the optimal length.

Browseo

Browseo is a quick and simple web app that lets you look at websites as a search engine would. This lets you view your blog purely from an SEO perspective quickly, without having to dig into the code. The best thing is that there are also Android and iOS versions, so you can check your blog’s SEO optimization on the go.

Anchor Text Over Optimization Report

This simple web service checks your site for any over optimized anchor text that may result in your site falling foul of Google’s search algorithms. Just input your site’s URL and the service will generate a list of keywords and keyword phrases with measurements on how optimized or over optimized these keywords are.

Xenu’s Link Sleuth

Xenu’s Link Sleuth is an essential tool to check for broken links on your website, including partial checking of FTP, Gopher and e-mail links. The app also supports re-checking of links, SSL websites and can also detect and report redirected URLs. Xenu’s Link Sleuth can generate a simple report of all the issues it finds as well as generate a sitemap.

Source from: http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/seo-tools-bloggers/

Related Posts:
-The Blogging Toolbox

- SEO for Idiots: The 10 Basics of Blogging Search Engine Optimization

-20 Free SEO Tools Every Blogger Should Know

-Create a Drop Down Menu In Blogger

-How to add Blogger Contact Form in Side Bar and inside Contact us page

-No One Reads My Blog. 9 Tricks to Change Things

No One Reads My Blog. 9 Tricks to Change Things.

13 Intelligent Opinions, Leave Yours.

No one reads my blog.

That is one of the most common complaints I’ve heard since starting Blog Tyrant.

Even when you do all the right things (like long-form content that rocks) it still seems to amount to only small bits of traffic.

Why is that?

In this post I’m going to talk a little bit about why no one reads your blog and some tricks you can use to completely change things no matter what niche you’re in or how old your blog is.

Ready?

Why doesn’t anyone read my blog?

If no one is reading your blog the first thing you need to do is ask yourself a big fat question.

Would I share this stuff on Facebook?

If “no” is your answer then chances are you aren’t producing anything worth reading.

Remember, people are bombarded with dozens of excellent, viral pieces of content every day.

You see Charlie biting his brother’s finger, Bored Panda and BuzzFeed showing you nostalgic funnies from the 90’s, and a million other articles borrowed from the front page of Reddit and imgur.

Think what you will about these sites, the content is compelling.

There wouldn’t be a single person reading this article now who could hold their hand to their heart and swear that they’ve never clicked on one of those shareable posts on Facebook.

We all do it.

So now we need to look at our own blogs and ask ourselves deeply and honestly about how well we are competing for peoples’ attention.

Do our blogs cut it?

Why it might not matter

The interesting thing to note at this point is that creating content that “cuts it” is often not enough.

It still doesn’t get noticed.

That is when things start to get really frustrating for bloggers – you do all the right things as far as content production goes but still nothing happens.

Depressing.

So what can we do about it?

9 tricks to get people to read your blog

If no one is reading your blog then there might be a few things that you’ve failed to consider.

Here are a bunch of tricks that aren’t always directly related to good writing, but will help to get you read.

1. Check your site speed right now

The number one reason that I click the back button is when a site isn’t loading fast enough – especially if I’m in “research mode” and have 40 other tabs open to investigate. The stats always seem different but the generally accepted figure is that you’ll lose 20% of visitors for every second that you site takes to load over 1.5 seconds.

Tip: A fast blog is achieved by using fast servers and minimising objects that need to be loaded. Use Pingdom Tools to analyse what’s causing yours to lag and start your research on an item-by-item basis. For example: firstly, how do I shrink big images.

2. Change your blog photos to engage humans

Photos are often the first thing that you notice on a blog. Humans have evolved to recognise faces and this carries over to our online lives as well. This means you have to pay careful attention to the imagery that you use on your blog, and make sure any photos that you have of yourself are professional and of good quality. Don’t ever use clip art imagery, or photos that have a stale white background from a cheap stock photography site. Make sure every photo fits the brand.

Tip: Taking your own photos is often the best option. It gives you complete ownership of the rights and is another piece of original content that Google will identify. Failing that, check the downloads number on each photo before using it. If it’s been used by heaps of people it’s basically like lots of duplicate content.

3. Get a mobile responsive design that collapses well

A time will come when we won’t have to keep recommending this to bloggers! But, alas, that day is not here yet. So many of the websites I visit through the comments here on Blog Tyrant are designs that are not mobile friendly. Not only is it bad for user experience, it is now a negative ranking factor for your blog’s SEO. But before you go and grab just any theme, make sure it “collapses” so that the content is at the top and not menus, sidebars and other distractions.

Tip: Get on WordPress already. There are hundreds of free mobile responsive themes including the new default theme which is beautifully simple and easy to customize. If you have an existing theme you want to keep contact my buddy Viktor who can code it to make it responsive.

4. Link out way, way more

A lot of bloggers think that linking out to other websites will cause you to lose page rank. Personally, I think that is total rubbish. The more you link out to other (quality) blogs the more value you will provide your readers. Not only that, the people that you link to will notice you and often give you a shout out or help to promote the post. A lot of SEOs have been predicting that putting well-trusted links around your own will also help your ranks.

Tip: In a 1,000-word post you’ll want to have at least 10 links to other websites. Try and imagine you’re back at college and you need quality references.

5. Make your font a lot bigger

I recently updated the font here on Blog Tyrant to a larger size and a less harsh color. I also used a Google Font instead of a self hosted one and saw significant speed improvements. But, the studies all show that bigger fonts are important because there are a lot of older people reading your blog, a lot of people reading on small phones and a lot of older people reading on small phones! A large well spaced font makes a huge difference to how appealing your writing appears.

Tip: Make sure your font matches your brand. Try to use fonts that are familiar to people as they appear less confronting to new readers. The best bet is to find a website you like and ask your coder to copy the typography.

6. Get really good at sneaky research

It doesn’t matter how good your articles are if they’re pitched at, and promoted to, the entirely wrong group of people. You need to know what your audience wants, what problems they’re having and then where you can reach them best. You also need to know what your competitors are doing and how you can improve on that. A lot of it comes down to clever Google searches but you can also use tools like SEMRush and Google estimator to get some good details.

Tip: Find out the top 10 most successful posts on your main competitors’ websites. Figure out where they got their links and shares from and then try to imitate it with a better article or tool.

7. Focus on reach, not loyalty

This is something that a lot of people find upsetting but is so important to business. It has really helped me grow a lot over the last two years and is an idea I wish more people understood. You need to get in front of more people, not make your existing readers more loyalty. Loyalty is a by-product of reach. So if you get more traffic you will get more loyal readers. In fact, Brian Sharp showed in his book that if you focus on loyalty you’re actually losing money.

Tip: If you read one book this year make it How Brands Grow which talks about why loyalty is not as important as everyone thinks. Every marketer needs this.

8. Do one test a week – every week

Last year a few big bloggers talked about how split testing is not all its cracked up to be. In fact, a lot of tests, they argued, were a waste of time and caused you to get the wrong kind of results. Well, the thing I feel that is missed from this argument is what split testing itself teaches you. And it’s often not about one particular goal.

By split testing on my blog and with adverts I’ve learned so much about the people who visit my blog, branding, conversions and even the tech behind my set up. Testing is how we learn.

Tip: Start by using AWeber (or your equivalent) to work on increasing sign ups on your blog by 1% only. Then figure out how to get 1% more email opens. Then try to get 1% more clicks. Repeat.

9. Stop doing the same thing that’s brought zero results

I think it was the motivational speaker, Tony Robbins, who has the famous quote: “If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.” I’m not a big one for TV self-help stuff, but that is really true when it comes to blogging. Sometimes you see bloggers writing the same kinds of articles month in, month out, and hoping for some big break. Unfortunately it doesn’t often work like that.

Tip: Get your writing out there. Guest blog, approach newspapers, buy adverts, etc. And then experiment with different formats and even different writers. Try videos. Try podcasting. Add value and solve problems in radically different new ways. Keep trying.

What would you tell someone who told you that no one reads their blog?

I am really curious to hear what all the Tyrant Troops would advise to someone who said that no one reads their blog. Do you agree with the tips above or do you think there is something else major that they should be working on?

Please leave one of your amazing comments!

Source from: www.blogtyrant.com/

Related Posts:

-The Blogging Toolbox
-SEO for Idiots: The 10 Basics of Blogging Search Engine Optimization

-20 Free SEO Tools Every Blogger Should Know

-Create a Drop Down Menu In Blogger

-How to add Blogger Contact Form in Side Bar and inside Contact us page

video test

Free Online Web Courses

Web Development

Why Take This Course?

In this project-based course your knowledge will be evaluated as you learn to build your own blog application! Learn everything Steve Huffman wished he would have known when he broke into the startup world. Read more about Huffman and the course here.

Prerequisites and Requirements

A moderate amount of programming and computer science experience is necessary for this course.

See the Technology Requirements for using Udacity

What Will I Learn? Projects

Make a webpage that anyone can add to and edit.

Syllabus

How the Web Works

Introduction to HTTP and Web Applications

How to Have Users

Getting and processing user input

How to Manage State

Databases and persistent data

Whom to Trust

User authentication and access control

How to Connect

Web applications as services, using APIs

How to Serve Millions

Scaling, caching, optimizations

Changing the World

Building a successful web application, project

Go To Class

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In this course, you will learn the fundamentals of Semantic Web technologies. You will learn how to represent knowledge and how to access and benefit from semantic data on the Web.

Syllabus

• Week 1: Introduction to the Semantic Web
• Week 2: Identifying Things with URI and RDF
• Week 3: Querying RDF(S) with SPARQL
• Excursus: Semantic (Meta) Data and the Web
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• Week 5: Knowledge Representation II
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• Final Exams: Final Exams

Go To Class

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What Will I Learn? Projects

Design and build a mobile app that takes advantage of touch screen functionality.

Syllabus

In this course, you will learn how to build web experiences that adapt to the different screen sizes and capabilities that mobile devices offer, and how to scalably optimize media for mobile and desktop. We will cover programming touch interaction, as well as how to optimize form field input for mobile devices and use APIs like geolocation and the accelerometer, and ensuring your web experiences work great when network conditions are sub-optimal. Finally, you’ll gain the tools to investigate performance in mobile applications, with a strong understanding of mobile networking, battery usage patterns and optimizing paint techniques to build smooth animations on mobile.

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Designing for the mobile web is all about a smooth user experience. This lesson will get you thinking about how to achieve that on mobile, and we’ll introduce the first of many tools you need to achieve this: the viewport.

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Mobile means lots of different devices and form factors. We’ll discuss how to make your site responsive, clean, and user-friendly on multiple devices and layouts.

Lesson 05: Media Queries

Sometimes different devices call for fundamentally different layouts. This lesson will teach you how to achieve this using media queries.

Lesson 06: Responsive Images

Media requirements are different in mobile - network constraints and very high resolution screens set up a conflict that can be challenging. We’ll talk about how best to integrate media into your mobile web applications, and adaptively scaling images based on the environment.

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Using a keyboard on mobile is awful. We’ll discuss ways to improve it, using semantic input for form data, and other user input options on mobile.

Lesson 10: Device Access

Mobile devices have a full array of sensors typically unavailable on desktop. We’ll talk about camera access, geolocation, and other sensors and feedback you have access to on mobile.

Lesson 11: Offline and Storage

It’s an unfortunate reality that mobile users aren’t always online. We’ll go over using the local cache as well as local storage APIs to give your users a great offline (and partially-online) experience as well.

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We’ll finish up the class by talking briefly about other topics to consider, such as app experience, monetization, deployment and distribution. We’ll also point you to other resources to look at moving forward in your career.

Go To Class

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What will I learn?

• The characteristics of user experience design, usability, and user centred design
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This course requires approximately 2 - 4 hours of study per week, but can vary depending on the student. This includes watching videos, and taking quizzes and assessments.

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Where could this lead me?

If you're wondering what your future could look like in this area, here are some potential careers you could head towards.

• Social media manager
• Web designer
• Web developer
• Web publisher
• Webmaster
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• Technical writer
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Knowledge Engineering with Semantic Web Technologies

In this course, you will learn the fundamentals of Semantic Web technologies and how they are applied for knowledge representation in the World Wide Web. You will learn how to represent knowledge with ontologies and how to access and benefit from semantic data on the Web. Furthermore, you will also learn how to make use of Linked Data and the Web of Data, currently the most popular applications based on Semantic Web technologies.

Requirements for this course:

• a basic knowledge of the foundations of mathematical logics, i.e. propositional logics and first order logics
• a basic understanding of web technologies, such as URL, http, HTML, and XML-based technologies
• a basic knowledge of database technology, esp. relational databases
  and SQL query language

Syllabus

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• Week 1: Knowledge Engineering and the Web of Data
• Week 2: Semantic Web Technologies - Part 1
• Week 3: Semantic Web Technologies - Part 2
• Week 4: Knowledge Representation - Part 1
• Week 5: Knowledge Representation - Part 2
• Week 6: Knowledge Engineering
• Final examination: Final examination

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Intro to HTML and CSS

Why Take This Course?

Front-end Web Developers must have a fundamental understanding of HTML and CSS which we’ll accomplish in this course by converting digital design mockups into static web pages. To build the web pages you will use HTML, CSS, and take advantage of the Bootstrap, the popular Twitter framework.

After completing this course you will be able to build a responsive portfolio site, with your own CSS framework, with the functionality to add your future projects to it. Most importantly, you will have an understanding of the DOM and how HTML, CSS, and JavaScript all relate to each other.

This course's project is part of our Front-End Web Developer Nanodegree.

Projects

Take a design mockup as a PDF-file and replicate that design in HTML and CSS.

Syllabus

Lesson 1 - From Design to Code

Diligently employ a code/test/refine strategy as you precisely and deliberately translate initial design documents into static web pages. You'll also investigate the Document Object Model (DOM) and its implications for web development.

Lesson 2 - Your Own Framework

Take pride in creating and personalising your own multi-platform, responsive CSS framework for publishing your professional portfolio projects to the web.

Lesson 3 - Learning and Using Bootstrap

Strategically investigate an existing professional CSS framework as you use it to build a website using responsive design principles while maintaining code readability.

                https://www.class-central.com/mooc/2659/udacity-intro-to-html-and-css

Object-Oriented JavaScript

Why Take This Course?

As a Front-End Web Developer, JavaScript is one of the most important languages in your toolbox. A strong foundation in the language’s features empowers you to write efficient and performant web applications. In this course you’ll explore a variety of ways to write object-oriented code in JavaScript.

You’ll build a variety of JavaScript objects and explore how their different inheritance models affect your code’s execution and in-memory model. You’ll use these features to write memory efficient code and seek simplicity and modularity in your own code.

Projects

Use your object-oriented JavaScript skills to develop a performant, organized and easily maintainable version of the classic arcade game, Frogger.

Syllabus

Lesson 1: Scopes and Closures

Lesson 2: The Keyword “this”

Lesson 3: Prototype Delegation

Lesson 4: Code Reuse

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