New iFroggy Network Design
June 11, 2004
I have just finished off the new look over at the iFroggy Network homepage. It may look similar to what we already have, but I started over and that is what I came up with. I guess you could say I liked some of what we already had and I wanted to improve some aspects of the page. So, maybe instead of a new design, it is an improved design.
I have added a lot of new products to the Merchandise shop, as well.
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I like it but it breaks in Firefox .8 =(
Tell me how it breaks (and why, if you know) and I’ll try to get it fixed.
Thanks for the note.
Actually, I am going to go download Firefox (that should take an hour) and test it out myself, see if I can’t figure it out.
Total mess in firefox, and opera.
Also make merchandise.php show the items from cafepress.
A PHP coder like you can do that.
Not a PHP coder, but I don’t really mind the CafePress shop.
Hey Stephan,
The only thing that breaks for me in Firefox 0.8 is the network bar. Is that all that was breaking for you?
Thanks.
Your not a PHP Coder? You own all these PHP sites and don’t know it?
That seems a little weird to me.
Not really. I mean, I don’t really own any sites directly and specifically related to the PHP programming language (my sites are often powered by PHP, but that goes for anyone who uses phpBB as well). But, there is plans for one and even then, it isn’t really important.
You see, knowing PHP will not help you in managing a successful or active website or community and it certainly won’t help you in managing people and your assets. It is a skill and everyone has different skills and you have to take advantage of individual strengths in order to be the best that you can be.
Learning to program well would take the time that I don’t have to dedicated to it. I have tried to learn, in off moments, but it hasn’t stuck and that is tied, in part, to the fact that I’m not all that interested and I may never be and in turn may never want to learn.
For right now, I like to and have to leave the programming to the programmers.
So you claim that knowing PHP will not make money?
I am a PHP programmer, and I earn a great amount of money from my programming skills.
I do not know how much owning a few websites, run by you makes you I have seen your advertising page, and compared it to the very little people interested in advertising on sites with a PR of around 6.
To be charging what you are charging you should offer them something other that a PR of 6 and a few thousand hits.
You seem to rely on pay per click advertisers, and they slow your sites down.
I assume the few cents made by these advertisers, are worth alienating a few user on dial up connections?
I have large business assests with myself and the team of employed programmers under me.
I just thought you knew PHP and now I know you don’t and that supprised me.
Knowledge is power, and power is money.
No, I didn’t claim that. Knowing PHP can and does make you money. Knowing other various things can also help you make money. There are other skills that relate to what I do. Knowing PHP is not a requirement, it is an extra and a valuable one, if you know it.
At the same time, my desire to sit at a PC plugging away in a text editor for hours on end to make some money is very little. That is not something that I would enjoy doing, so the money the comes from it really doesn’t appeal to me, at this time.
I sell competitive advertising packages and people who are interested in advertising on my sites contact me. If someone feels that they are not a good value, they do not have to advertise with me.
No one is alienated. I am a dial-up user myself. I will always sympathize with dial-up users and will try to present the quickest site that I am able to. People have individual computer problems that exist with their computer, or their ISP or my site that might cause it to slow down and we do what we can.
But, the overall content of a page is what slows it down. Every little bit slows it down. Take out all of the content, just display advertisers and it’s quicker. Take out all of the advertisers and just display content and it’s quicker. Advertisements are part of a site and as long as they do not slow it down tremendously – which the ones on my sites do not – it isn’t a problem.
We allow advertising in tasteful ways. We don’t serve popups, invues, interstitials and what have you. If you view and appreciate a website or community, you should view and appreciate the advertisements that are being displayed on it or you might consider not visiting at all. A lot of work and time goes into a successful website or community and advertisements are part of the offering. Similar to television shows, which take a lot of work and money, you should watch the commercials (and buy things, if you are so inclined). You shouldn’t use TiVo, etc. to cut out commercials because it is disrespectful to the effort given, in my opinion.
I care as much for my users as any other webmaster that I have ever met, more than pretty much everyone. This is one of the reasons that I have been as successful as I have been.
I think you have seen my point in the wrong light.
I was simply saying that advertising will never earn you as much as you can through owning a programming service.
I own a company called Programming Poole based in the United Kingdom.
We specialise in C++ and similar languages and we are currently working on a PHP section and when searching for articles I found you, and that is why I had posted here.
I am sorry for any agrivation this has caused.
No aggravation… don’t worry about it. Stay away from accusations, that’s all.
Advertising is not the only way that I make money, of course. But, there are more important things than money. If money was all I cared about, my sites would be very different. But, money is but one goal that I have.
As far as how much you can make, it depends. Yahoo! makes more on advertising than almost (all?) any individual programmer makes in the world. It depends on size, popularity and how much you’re paid with the time that you have.
Granted, that is an extreme example and it is may be easier for a good programmer to make money. The key thing here is… if you can be successful and achieve what you wish to achieve as a programmer and that is what you want to be – that’s awesome. However, if you don’t want be a programmer, you don’t enjoy it… well, that is another thing to consider. Money is important, but so is enjoying what you are doing. Life is short.
You are correct.
I may enjoy earning the money, I make but I would much rather stay at home with my family.
I see the iFroggy Network as a great source of income and services to the people who visit your sites.
Can you give any advice to myself who will soon be starting a corporate site?
Nothing too specific besides do things in the rightest way that you can because doing so now puts you in the best spot for your next step.
Any specific questions, feel free to ask.
(I am not all that "corporate" as I don’t really make that much money, but I’m glad to offer my input).
I’ve been mainly weighing up PHP vs ASP.
ASP seems to only run on windows servers, and is a little bit unreliable.
PHP seems to be the more common and platform dependant language.
I want to have booking/contact/sales/support features.
We will be offering a number of scripts that can be purchased, these should be available instantly and we are planning a download database intergrated with PayPal IPN.
I’ll let you know when we are finished if you like.
Yeah, if you want, you can e-mail me.
I don’t have much to say about programming languages, sorry, don’t know much about them.