Fun and Free

Well, here’s another Trunk Monkey Post. This time I embedded the movie in the post (sucessfully I hope!). It contains the first few I’ve already posted, plus 3 more. My favorite is the car thief and anti-theft device one. I had a car stolen out my yard and wrecked a few years ago, and the commercial is right, “sometimes just getting your car back isn’t good enough!”. Any way, these are fun to watch and free, so here they are.

I’ll post some more on the water fueled cars in the next few days.
Enjoy,
Freebie Jack

Sorry about the big gap between posts, but I found out my auto post to this blog wasn’t working! Anyway, it appears to be fixed now, so all I have to do is find all of my posts in My Documents and send them here. Here’s the first one.

Next, lets talk about adding a Wordpress blog to your website. It isn’t exactly easy, but it isn’t really difficult either. You just have to follow the (excellent) instructions at the Wordpress site. Now, you can just start your own blog on the Wordpress website, but you can’t customize it very easily or as much, and the content isn’t on your website, where you want it to be!
Your easiest solution is to use one of the web hosts that have “one-click” install of Wordpress. Some of them are listed here: Wordpress Affiliate Hosts . There are many others, and to find out if you are using one that does, simply go to your sites control panel and look for a Wordpress button on the main screen. Click it and follow the easy instructions, and you’ll be all set to blog in under 5 minutes. Unfortunately, my favorite cheap host, HostRoute, doesn’t yet have one-click available, but I have sent them a request to install it. However, they are capable of supporting your own installation of Wordpress. If your host doesn’t have Wordpress already set up to do one-click install, you need to go to the Wordpress website to download it (Make sure to get the zip version since you should already have the software to unzip it from when you got Filezilla). First, create a new file under “My Documents” called Wordpress to download it to. Then go get the software by clicking here: Wordpress Download. Make sure you also go to “installation instructions” on the same page, and download and print out the quick and the long instructions. Before you start, decide what you want to call your new blog area in general, i.e. blog, wordpress, rssnews, etc., and then think up a name and a description for your blog. For instance, if your website is about cats, you could call your blog “Small Cat Diary”, and your description could be ” The day to day antics of five nearly wild cats.” You might also pick a user name and password, although Wordpress will walk you through and give you your random password during set-up (Make sure to write it down exactly as it is on the screen!). Now, simply follow the instructions, step by step, and you will be up and blogging in less than 30 minutes.
When you first go to your log-in screen, save it in “Favorites” for future log-ins. If you lose it, the format is simply www.yourwebsitename.com/blog (or weblog, or rssnews or whatever you chose)/wp-login.php.
After you are set up, go back to Wordpress to download a new template and instructions for installing it, if you’d like. Check out the further instructions for modifying existing templates, and visit the forums to find out more info and research any problems you might have. I’ve installed Wordpress on two different websites, and so far (knock on wood) I haven’t had the first problem. If I can do this, so can you. So get started, start blogging for free, and remember to have fun with it!

Freebie Jack

Well, I think I solved the problem with embedding the trunk monkey in here. Let’s see if it works! Just press “Play” to start the movie clip.

Well, I finally got this to work! Look for my later post, Trunk Monkey - The Compilation. i’ll also try to embed it in the post. Should work, now that I’ve figured out the correct code to use.
Thanks,
Freebie

Trying something new here.  I’m putting the next Trunk Monkey video right into the blog.  Hopefully this will work.  If you have any problems viewing it, please email me or leave a comment.  This is even funnier than the last one.  I don’t know if these guys sold many cars with this ad, but I bet they could sell quite a few of these Trunk Monkeys!

 Trunk Monkey 3

Well, I tried, but the plug-in that was supposed to let me do this is not working!  There was some discussion on the blog that hosted it about problems with Wordpress 2.0 versions not working well with this.  I tried all of the fixes they listed, but no luck.  Anyway, to see the next Trunk Monkey video, just click on the link above.  Enjoy.

Freebie

If you’ve been working just a little on your website, and you’ve registerred a domain name and signed up for your free or cheap webhosting at Hostroute or 1&1, now all you need is a way to get your brand new site from your computer to your new online home.  The FTP utility I use is a freeware version that is reliable and really easy to use.  It’s called Filezilla, and you can download the latest version 2.2.25 by using the link below.  Make sure you remember where you downloaded the file!  I created a new folder under My Received Files and called it “Filezilla”.

Filezilla Download Link

Once you download the file, just unzip it (using WinZip, or download it here, if you don’t already have it), and follow the install instructions.  Then just open Filezilla by clicking on the desktop icon, click File, and choose Site Manager… from the menu.  In the Site Manager box input all of your sites info, name (www.yoursite.com), and the user name and password for your site.  This is usually set up by the web site provider, and you can then change your password to anything you’d like.  For Servertype, use FTP and under Logontype choose Normal.  The Port is usually 21, but Filezilla should find it for you.

Next, click the Connect button at the bottom of the box, and Filezilla will log you on to your website.  Find the file with your website in it in the left hand  top pane of the Filezilla screen (should be saved under My Documents/website or website name, whatever you chose) and open it by clicking on it.  The contents will be shown in the bottom left pane.  Now click on the public_html file in the right hand pane to open it.  Highlight all of the files in your website folder (click on top one and use down arrow while holding the shift key down to highlight all of them), then right click on the highlighted files and choose Upload from the menu.  All of your files will be automatically uploaded to your website.  Just make sure that your file for your main first page is named index.html, (hightlight it and rightclick on it to rename it, if necessary), and then disconnect (under File button on top row) and close Filezilla. 

Your new site should be up and running, and you can visit it by opening IE and typing in the address.  Make sure to check all of your links and buttons, to make sure they’re working, and start sending people to your new site!

Come back and visit, and we’ll talk about adding a Wordpress weblog (blog) to your new site, as well as some free ways to promote it.

Freebie

Where can you host your new site for Free or Cheap?

If you’ve been reading this blog, you now have a cheap registered domain name, plus you’ve downloaded some free software and begun to build your website. But now you need a cheap place to host it. One that might actually be free for you, if you play your cards right, would also be a good idea. I have 2 suggestions for you, and they are both good options.

1. This one requires a little more work, but it is the cheapest deal that might also lead to your hosting being free. First, go to GreenZap using the special link below, and sign up. For more on this, see this post. They’re a new payment processor (similar to the “Pal” one), but they want new members, so they’ll give you $50 in free webcash, if you sign up through the special page you can reach by using the GreenZap link below. Next, go to their “Storez” listing, pick the electronics category, and get your hosting from 1&1 Internet Web hosting. They’ll charge you $9.99 a month for a 3 website (3 different domain names) package with all the features you’ll need to make a really cool site. Plus, they’ll convert $40 of your webcash over to real cash, so a year only costs you less than $80. I chose this option myself, since I had 2 websites I wanted to host. See below, after option 2, to see what you can do with the other 2 sites. Even if you decide to use option 2, go to GreenZap and sign up now, anyway. You can use your free $50 to get rebates on all sorts of things, from hundreds of different merchants, like Starbucks, Circuit City, PetCo, etc.

GreenZap Link, Click Here.

Unfortunately, GreenZap has “gone under”, and is no longer doing business, but the option below is still a really great deal!

2. If you haven’t already got your web hosting set-up, go to link below and get it now. If you already have hosting, go here and transfer your account as soon as possible and you’ll save a lot of money and time. I recommend a fabulous service that gives you a FREE domain name - FREE web tools - FREE e-mail - and hosts 3 separate websites, when sign up for their smallest hosting package for only $9.00 a month! This is the ultimate web package to tell family, friends and business associates the latest happenings. They will show you how building a web site is fun and easy. Get your own Web Address now with a low price and satisfaction guarantee at this Site. I know you will find the service to be excellent, and while you’re there, check out their more advanced web hosting packages. And the cost for their HUGE package with unlimited domains is only $19.00 a month!. With any plan you also get access to an suite of web site building tools, including FREE templates, that you can use to supplement the pages you built using the free version of Web Weaver.

Now, to make this really cheap site free, all you have to do is sign up for the medium sized or large package, and “sell” a few of your extra sites to friends or relatives that may want or need them, for a really, really cheap price. Or advertise them for a good price on a few bulletin boards, and you should have no problem getting rid of the extras. Setting up your new clients is really easy in your control panel. You could easily sell these extras for $25-$50 a year. The cheapest price I’ve seen for one site with all of these extras anyplace besides this site is about $120 a year. You might even sell the space for more than 5 sites, and make money on the deal. I set up a few sites of my own, and then “gave away” my space for a site to my neighborhood civic association. I looked like a hero, and it still costs me less for my sites as it would have by registering them separately somewhere else!

So get going, get your website name registered, get your hosting and build your site, all in one place at this link. Click Here Very soon you’ll be live with a beautiful, cheap website of your own.

Freebie Jack

I told you a few days ago how you can register a domain name for a really cheap price (see http://www.upaas.com/blog/index.php/2006/05/28/free-emailand-a-dirt-cheap-domain-name/).  Now that you have your name, and probably a “keeper page”, you want to build your website.  We’ll talk about getting some cheap (or free!) hosting, later. 

Of course, you could just install WordPress on your site, once you have a good, reliable, cheap host set up, and make your website strictly a blog.  The host I’ll suggest later, also includes email service and a forum message board in your site, along with other fun tools, so you’d have a fully functional site, without building any other html pages.  There are hundreds of cool themes for WordPress here, and more on the WordPress site, so your site can be somewhat unique.

But, building your own site from scratch makes it truly unique, and using some good, free software can make it fun, as well.  Now there are plenty of free ways to build your site using plain html (the Notepad software you probably already have on your computer is one of them) but learning to write html can be a bit of a chore, and we’re trying to make this easy and fun.  You probably will want to use something like Notepad once your pages are built, just to add little things like a title, keywords, and other meta tags, or to check out how some of the code looks, or tweak a few things.  Still to build your pages easily, nothing beats a good WYSIWYG software package.  WYSIWYG stands for “What You See Is What You Get”, and this kind of software lets you drag and drop images onto your pages, insert text boxes and reply forms, put in text links and menu items, all without writing any code.  You also get to see what your page looks like, while you’re building it.  I tried several of these free website builders, both online versions and downloads, and they all had major problems, except one.

My suggestion is called Web Weaver EZ.  You can download a free 30 day trial of it here.  The best part about this trial offer is that after 30 days you can still continue to use Web Weaver EZ to change and update your pages, just some of the more advanced features are unavailable.  You can also buy it after 30 days, if you’d like, and its dirt cheap at only $14.95.  It has a tutorial, quick tips, and an easy to use menu system.  You can learn to use it really well after just a few hours (at most).  And it builds fairly “clean html”, well written pages. 

You can build all of your pages from scratch, or use a free “template” (a pre-designed layout that you modify) to get started, if looking at the empty page intimidates you a little.  A good source for a lot of free, cool templates is My Free Web Templates.  You can find hundreds of free templates on their site here.  Try to stick to the html section of the free templates when you’re picking one out.  Some of the high tech and flash ones look good, but you usually need more software programs (not free) to change them properly, and its not easy or fun.

A few tips to remember when using Web Weaver EZ;

• Try to put the bulk of your text in one central area, unless you use a template and it has several areas for text.  If you break it up into a lot of different boxes, it can look jumbled on some browsers
• Create a new file in your Documents (called “website” or something) and save all of your pages in that one folder 
• Choose the option to save your images with your pages, when Web Weaver asks you if you want to
• Make one page first, without any big text fields or special items (like forms, or other javascript) and call it “template” when you save it.  You can use it to build your other pages.  Just make sure to pick “Save As” when you first modify it, and call it something different for each page
• Name your first real page (the “home page” that you want to show up first when people visit your website) index
• Click on every element (area or picture) on your page, and use the “Position” then “Lock Element” menu choices to freeze the elemet in place, once its exactly where you want it.  Some elements in templates will already be frozen in place, and clicking on it and using Lock Element will unlock them.  You can tell which ones are frozen because the frame around the element when you click on it will be a solid line.  Play around with locking and unlocking one, and you’ll see what I mean.

 Those are the important points.  Use the tutorials, play around with it, and have fun.  Make your pages whatever you want them to be, not necessarily what the template says they should be.  Hobbies, Pictures, etc. are generic but OK.  But you could make the titles something like Golf, Tennis, Sailing, or Wedding, Key West Trip, etc.  Don’t worry about everything being perfect.  Your site will hopefully be changing and evolving as you go, and remember, its supposed to be fun, so enjoy it.

Freebie Jack

Well, I realized that when I was plugging Wordpress (http://wordpress.org/) in a previous post, that I was maybe getting a little ahead of myself. You do need a website in order to use the software version of Wordpress, although you can use the online version at http://wordpress.com instead. But if you’ve always thought it would be fun to have your own website, there is a nearly free way to get one.

This site will register your domain name AND give you free website space with up to 100 free email addresses…all for less than 2 bucks a month!

I recommend this fabulous service that gives you a FREE web site - FREE web tools - FREE web hosting - FREE e-mail when you register a Web Address (i.e. domain name) of your choice. This is the ultimate web package to tell family, friends and business associates the latest happenings. They will show you how building a web site - and it’s fun and easy. Get your own Web Address now with a low price and satisfaction guarantee at DomainNameSanity.com. I know you will find the service to be excellent, since I used this for my first web site, and still use it for my personal site.

I’m still waiting for an email with some more info on that free $50 deal from one website, but I’ll post something as soon as I receive a reply.

Enjoy,

Freebie Jack

 Well, I’m always on the lookout for free (or cheap) stuff online, especially if it’s fun, easy to do, and there’s no “catch” to doing it.  So this blog is to fill everyone in on all of this stuff, as I find it.