Design for Twitter 101

Your business needs to stay social. So you decided that you will create a twitter page and you will start posting news there. You have taken couple of steps in the right direction. But is it sufficient to just have a presence on twitter ? Twitter represents your company. And it should have your corporate identity on it. Here is how you can achieve that effect on Twitter. Start by changing the background color to match your main corporate identity color.  (via settings -> design -> change design colors) Hint: Darker colors in the background image will blend better with the white content area of twitter.   I also suggest that you use a custom background image rather than using default images on Twitter. The best way of making sure people get to know your company is if you place a company logo on the top left hand side of your background image.  Additionally, you may want to write down your contact info in the background image.  There are two available spots right hand side of the content area or the left hand side of the content area.  The main challenge is to know where the content are will be to better position your logo and your contact information on the Twitter page. The content area takes up about 1000px on your screen. This may help you to prepare a simple template for you to prepare a better background image for your Twitter account. Last but not the least you will want to upload a profile picture. (via settings ->profile )This will most likely be your company logo. Beware! The image needs to be a square. Otherwise, it will not look very well. You also need to make sure the image you are uploading is very simple to understand when it is tiny. As these images get displayed right next to your Tweets.

Need help with the design of the background image or help with the rest of your social efforts. Let I.T. Montreal Web Design help out. So you can concentrate on your business.

This article as been written as a means of helping others learn more about Twitter. Twitter is a trademark of Twitter, Inc.

How to incorporate your recent tweets into your web page?

I was recently given the mandate of integrating a web design concept that required me to have “recent tweets” into the home page of a website.  I initially thought that it would be easy given how popular twitter is these days. But it turned out to be a small challenge. First, I tried using the twitter badge. For those of you who are not familiar with this badge:  It is a small javascript , a badge that displays the recent tweets. It looked to straight forward but I quickly ran into a  problem.  The design on the badge was not even close to the design that I was given by the web designer. The design was to be integrated into WordPress platform. I first decided to use the “simple tweet”  plugin. Unfortunately, this didn’t work either. There were to major issues “the simple tweet plugin” only imported the tweets that took place after its installation. Where as all the tweets I needed the plugin to import was in the past. The plugin also didn’t have the ability of displaying the date and time .  I continued searching but majority of the other plugins were for designed as widgets. Except one: HL tweet . It sounded too good to be true! I clicked on install but the plugin refused to work out of the box. There was a weird error message I couldn’t understand. I made a Google search and I realized that there were many others who ran into the same problem. To my horror there were no solutions . I made more search and I found out that this plugin was using an open source program. The programmer partially explained what to do to resolve the issue. But it wasn’t sufficient. I read his notes many times but it wasn’t clear. I finally decided to delete the crt file that was in there. Since he wrote that he made this optional at the latest version of his code I thought it could solve the issue. I was a happy camper.  It worked like charm. After making couple of css changes it matched the design layout perfectly. It took me about 5 hours to make this functionality work. But it was well worth the effort.  Everyone, including the client and the designers were happy with the final result.

Integration of web design work could take a quite a bit of time. We are I.T. Montreal Web Design. And we are here to make your dreams come true. Contact us today for more info!

Are you a web designer?

It is a tough question! There are so many people who claim they are web designers out there but in my professional opinion only a handful of them are qualified web designers. Are you a qualified designer yourself?

In North America we like doing everything by ourselves.  Sometimes, it is worth doing it yourself if you are capable of doing it. But when it comes to web design it isn’t as easy as it may sound. Say you are gifted and capable of hand drawing nice designs. Does that make you a good web designer? I am afraid not. It isn’t only about knowing how to use “Photoshop” either. There is much more to it. Like knowing to translate the design into a functional website. Any idea what I am talking about? In order to create a website you need to have some basic programming knowledge. i.e. You need to know HTML and CSS to create a simple static website. What if you need animations in your web design ? You will most likely need to learn about javascript / ajax or Flash.  Ok let’s say you learn fast and you quickly learned HTML & CSS & AJAX can you now prepare a website that has contact forms and is connected to a database. I already hear you saying I used WordPress once. All I need is to integrate my own very beautiful design into WordPress?  But wait how do you actually do that ? Now it is getting even more complicated . You need some knowledge of a how a content managed system works, how databases work and how to program in PHP.

Perhaps, you could start by purchasing a template and slightly modifyto match your needs? Yes, that might actually be easier but will you actually get 100% of what you need? Is your time worth spending on customizing the template? Be warned you can’t easily customize everything. It may take quite a bit of time.

Maybe, you don’t mind learning everything I have written above and combining it with you talent as a designer.  But, remember that it will take time to learn about all these technologies. In other words you will become a web designer as soon as you learn everything I mentioned above and even more. Will you be a qualified web designer? That depends on your talent as a designer combined with your ability to convert it into a website.

The aim of this article isn’t to discourage anyone trying to learn how to become a web designer. It is mainly to emphasize that it isn’t a straight forward process. And that it requires quite a bit of effort and knowledge.

You need a website? Let I.T. Montreal web design professionals help you.

Google Plus One

Google introduced a new service called “Google Plus One” in June 2011. This social media button closely resembles to the “Like” button from Facebook that we know and use since long time now.  But it has the added advantage of being a Google product.  Meaning: The “+1″ results gets showed right next to Google Adwords Campaigns and next to other organic search results!

In order to use “Google Plus One” you need to have a Google account , Google public profile visible to the world and need to be signed into your account and need to be opt-in to use this service (By default you are opt-in but you may have selected to opt out of this service). When you make searches on the web or when you are on a page that has a Google Plus Button you can click on the “Google +1″ icon.  If you selected to share your +1′s with all your friends that you are connected via Google they will see a message such as “John Smith +1 ‘ed this page”.   As a matter of fact if you choose you can even go completely public and share your +1′s with everyone. This provides an easy way for you to share your favorite places or urls with friends and even with people you don’t know. For businesses the more +1′s they have the more credible they will look.

This new feature seems to complement the Google Buzz really well. The main difference being +1 provides an overall summary and Google Buzz provides much more details.

More information about this service could be found on http://www.google.com/+1/button/

So don’t stay behind! Start +1 ing today. Like this article click on the Google +1 Button below

P.s : Don’t you worry there are already multiple plugin is already available for WordPress, Drupal , for this new service

Facebook is a trademark of Facebook Inc. and Google , Google Adwords , Google Buzz and  Google Plus  One (+1) are all  trademarks of Google Inc  This article has been written to provide insights about the new service of Google Inc. namely Google Plus One. 

Facebook Profile For Your Business

Let’s get started by answering the question “How do I create a business account?” on Facebook. Do you already have a personal Facebook account ? If you do the answer is you CAN’T create a separate account for your business as per FAQ section of Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=12839) This basically means that if you have a personal account you will need to associate your business profile with your personal account on Facebook.

In order to create a Facebook profile for your business go to http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php and click on the type of business you have, fill out the information requested by Facebook and click on the get started button. At this point if you were already logged in to your personal account you will be asked more questions about your business. Facebook  will guide you by asking you to add an image , asking you to invite your friends, etc. I strongly suggest that you click on “Edit Page” button and to fill out all the information about your business that you would like to show on your Facebook Profile Page before inviting your friends. I also suggest to start inviting only those friends who have an high chance of accepting your invitation. I would begin by inviting the employees of your business . The reason is simple nobody wants to be the first follower of your business. But if they do see that some other people are already following you they won’t mind joining in. Another issue is when you invite someone they don’t necessarily know what this. There are all types of invitations on Facebook. To play poker, to play farmville, etc. Your friends may think that it is something silly. Mentioning about this invitation verbally before sending it out will increase your chances of having more followers.

I suggest that you go through the same route of creating a Facebook page for your business even if you create a business account on Facebook. This will protect the people who will be your followers. On Facebook most people still leave their wall and pictures visible to those who are friends of a friend. And if you don’t create a Facebook Page as soon as you invite them they will become friends of your business. In other words you may unwillingly  expose personal details of a friend , associate , etc. to an outsider if you don’t create a Facebook page. You wouldn’t want that right?

Facebook is a trademark of Facebook Inc. This article has been written to provide insights on how to create a Business Profile on Facebook.

Advanced Searching Technique Using Google

Have you ever realized that when you type google.com you are automatically redirected to google.ca in Canada?

From time to time you may wish to make a search and see how your website is doing at another part of the world. Google makes this possible via parameters. The concept could be best explained via an example. Let’s say I would like to know how our site http://www.itmontreal.com is doing in U.S. for the key words “web design”.  Since, we are located in Canada when we make a search by default we always see the results for Canada on Google.  In other words, the geological location you are located in effects the display of search results at Google. Google makes it possible for us to see how a website is doing for a specific keyword at another location or for another language via the use of parameters.

In other words if I wanted to see how our company website was doing in U.S. I would need to type a URL such as this one http://www.google.com/?q=web+design+montreal&gl=us

The gl parameter stands for “Geographical Location” . Alternatively, I could have also use the cr parameter to further specify a country (see http://www.google.com/cse/docs/resultsxml.html#countryCollections for country codes) Or could have used the hl tag to specify the interface language. (A list of supported codes could be found here http://www.google.com/cse/docs/resultsxml.html#interfaceLanguages)

See http://www.google.com/cse/docs/resultsxml.html for more information on this subject.  Google is a trademark of Google Inc. The article has been written to make it easier for people who like learning things on their own.

Manually Upgrading an Old Version of WordPress to the Latest Version

Ever since version 2.7  WordPress is capable of upgrading itself with the click of a button.  However, If you have an older version of WordPress you will have no choice but to do the update manually. It is also possible to do the manual upgrade even if you are running a new version of WordPress. In any we suggest strongly that you take a backup of your WordPress  files and database before proceeding with such an upgrade. You wouldn’t want to loose everything you have written so far would you ?

The manual update process is simple.  Short  instructions during the writing of this post could be found here http://codex.wordpress.org/Updating_WordPress . (The URL that explains the upgrade process in a more detailed manner is http://codex.wordpress.org/Upgrading_WordPress_Extended )

As a quick note we suggest that you put your site into maintenance mode before doing such an upgrade. You can find the details of how you could achieve this at http://sivel.net/2009/06/wordpress-maintenance-mode-without-a-plugin/ . If this looks complicated don’t panic just yet! As almost always is the case there is also a word press plugin that you can install for this job. The plugin could be found right here: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/maintenance-mode/ .

Upgrading your WordPress to the latest version is important. The new versions are more secure . As a general rule of thumb they are easier to use and have many more plugins and themes that you can use. If you don’t have the time or if you don’t feel like doing it yourself  we can take care of this upgrade for you for a small fee. You can contact us by filling the contact us form of our company.

Drupal : Path Error

My name is Heidy Galvez and during training at work, I came across Joomla and Drupal. Both of these are content management systems which you can get free online. These are excellent tools for you to use if you are not a web guru. Joomla and Drupal make it easy to create a websites for everyone. It is just a matter of getting used to it and playing around with it, in order to understand its many functions. For my first adventure with a CMS I chose Drupal. The installation instructions given on the drupal website are pretty easy. You just have to download the zip folder, unzip it and then upload the folder onto your local server. If you’re local server is up and running and you have installed Drupal then type in your browser’s URL: localhost/install.php You should get a Drupal installation screen.This means that everything was installed properly but there are still more configurations to be done.

Otherwise if you are using wampserver 2.0 version, this comes with PHP version 5.3.0, this will not work with Drupal . The necessary version for you to download and install on your wampserver 2.0 is PHP 5.2.9 or any other PHP5.2.X. After you have installed the correct version of PHP to use, make sure that you change the version being used. This is done as follows:

1. Click on your wampserver icon

2. Click on PHP

3. Click on Version and Select the one you’ve just installed, in my case it was 5.2.9

This should make your wampserver and drupal work together.

After this, go back to your browser and type in your URL: localhost/install.php. In this page you will be asked to choose your language of preference and then it will verify if the all necessary requirement to run Drupal are properly made. This is where I got the following error:

Requirements problem

The following error must be resolved before you can continue the installation process: The Drupal installer requires that you create a settings file as part of the installation process.

Copy the ./sites/default/default.settings.php file to ./sites/default/file/settings.php. Changes file permissions so that it is writable by the web server. If you are unsure how to grant file permissions, please consult the on-line handbook. More details about installing Drupal are available in INSTALL.txt.

So I did as instructed, the problem with this is that it is the file that has to be copied, is being set at the wrong path of the settings file. The error must say copy ./sites/default/default.settings.php to ./sites/default/settings.php and had to make sure that i had changed the permissions of the files. Et voila! This should make your requirements problem disappear.

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http://www.itmontreal.com

Drupal 6.12 and 5.18 released

On May 13th Drupal announced a “maintanance release” for both it’s main branches. The latest releases are Drupal 6.12 and 5.18 . Although , there are no new features in these maintenance releases upgrade to these versions is highly recommended given it contains a security fix , SA-CORE-2009-006 – Drupal core – Cross site scripting , and and multiple bug fixes.

For a complete list of all the bug fixes of on the 6.12 version please visit :

http://drupal.org/project/cvs/3060/?branch=DRUPAL-6

The complete article could be found on:  http://drupal.org/drupal-6.12

Load Testing a Website

When we are building a complex site such as a social networking site often we would like to know how many consecutive users the system we have built can support. What we mean to say by “support” is basically the amount of time it takes for server to respond to a requested page reasonably fast manner. The wait time is usually indicated in milliseconds (1 second = 1000 milliseconds) . The tolerance of every web user is different. But clearly in the world of high speed internet we we would like to know that when we click on a link we get a response from the site at least within the first 1000 ms. Waiting more than 1000 ms ‘s without seeing anything on the screen usually pushes people to try to either refresh their screen or worst to leave your site.

Load testing is usually done before going live in order to get prepared for a scenario where many people try to make queries on your site at the same time. The findings of the load testing could indicate that one needs to use some advanced mechanisms to improve their site performance (i.e.  caching, database pooling, compression,etc.)

Here are the most common ways to do load testing:

Apache AB tool is perhaps the easiest tool to get some useful metrics .

Here is an example:  ab -n 100 -c 30 http://www.yourtesturl.com/projects.php

JMETER is a java based tool that you could use to do really complex tests. It has the capability to show you a graph of the results.

Online Testing Tools: In our tests the most useful free tool we have found  online was “Load Impact”

Another site that we thought was really impresive and promising was

“Browser Mobster” using this tool one can record a test scenario using

“Selenium“  run this scenario consequently on many different computers/browsers

to provide you with a realistic report.