Web Hosting Blog | Lunarpages Lunartics » Design

E-Commerce Hosting with Zen Cart

Mitch — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:45:09 +0000

The free, user-friendly and open source shopping cart software, Zen Cart is perfect for any e-commerce web site hosted at Lunarpages. With the thoughts of shop owners, programmers, designers and more in mind, Zen Cart is one of the best third-party shopping cart scripts out there.

You can easily install Zen Cart one of three ways. We give the option to install manually, through LPCP’s WebApps page or cPanel’s Fantastico page. The process is simple, straight forward and to the point.

If you need to see example of Zen Cart powered web sites, you can check out Zen Cart’s showcase page. OpenSourceCMS.com also has a hosted demo of the shopping cart script on it’s web site.

Here are a few more Zen Cart tutorials that should come in handy:

You can find more how-to articles in our web hosting wiki. The third-party scripts and services section of the Lunarforums should also come in handy if you run into a problem.

November is Lunarpages Script Month!

Keep watching the Lunartics blog all throughout the month on November for even more third-party script suggestions, tutorials, tips and more. You can also get tons of information and details about just a handful of the third-party scripts we support on the web hosting wiki. We also have a special forum dedicated to third-party script discussions over at the Lunarforums. Subscribe today to the Lunartics RSS feed for instant updates when we release a new script suggestion!

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Vanilla Web Forum Hosting at Lunarpages

Mitch — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:29:26 +0000

Lunarpages fully supports the lightweight and simple Vanilla forum script. What is Vanilla? It is an open-source, standards-compliant, multi-lingual, fully extensible discussion forum for the Web.

While it is not supported via the cPanel’s Fantastico or LPCP’s WebApps manager, the script is simple enough for anybody to download, setup and install in minutes. For more help on the install process, check out this quick guide I wrote up for the Lunarpages web hosting wiki.

Addons Galore – One of Vanilla’s big strengths is the fact that is supports a number of awesome addons to extend the script even further. Via their addon page, you can check out a number of themes, plugins and applications available for your own Vanilla message board installation.

Browse Through the Most Popular Addons for Vanilla!

Want to take the script out for a test drive? Check out the demo features on OpenSourceCMS to take a look at both the front end and the back-end of this fantastic forum script.

For more Vanilla support and help – be sure to check out:

Vanilla Help, Tutorials and More on the Web Hosting Wiki

November is Lunarpages Script Month!

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Free Flash Template Designs from Lunarpages

Mitch — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:29:33 +0000

Want to get a free flash design template with your next web hosting plan? The team over at Flash Template Designs and Lunarpages have teamed up to deliver you an out of this world deal.

If you use the coupon code FTD30 when you purchase a 12 or 24 month NEW hosting plan with Lunarpages and get a $30 discount on your web hosting. What type of template will you get? You can browse around the Flash Template Design web site to get an idea of the type of free flash layouts you will have to choose from. How do you get started?

Simply click here to purchase your web hosting, use the coupon code FTD30 when you purchase a 12 or 24 month Lunarpages Hosting plan.
After your account is active with Lunarpages for 30 days, email them (select the “info” category) and quote the domain name on the new account we are hosting for you.
They will email you your download link for the template of your choice (Up to $60 value) for FREE!

This is by far one of the best web hosting deals you can get your hands on.

Please Note: This promotion is only for NEW 12+ month Lunarpages web hosting plans and excludes Email, Domain and Starter Plans.

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Save Bandwidth, Shrink That Style Sheet!

Mitch — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:51:28 +0000

Depending on how many notes or messy modifications you make to your cascading style sheets, you might be about due for a little compression. By shrinking you external CSS files, you can save the bandwidth it takes to download them, each time somebody visits your web site.

Now how much optimization should you do? Well, the CSS files should be small enough to load quickly, however readable enough to where you know what does what where, and why. You have to balance size with readability.

Here are my three favorite online tools to help optimize and shrink my CSS files:

By using any of these three solutions, you can reduce the CSS code size and make your web pages load faster. They all allow you to choose from multiple degrees of compression, and they are all very quick too.

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Simple 3 Step Web Site Publishing

Mitch — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:57:08 +0000

It has been a while since we had a look at the LPQuicksite hosting plan, so I thought I would show you how you can get your website built in 2 hours or less with our fantastic publishing tools. A lot of you might think the simple three step process is more of a sales slogan than a way of how things are done, and that could not be any further from the truth. Let me show you the three steps it takes to get your web site up and running with the fantastic LPQuicksite hosting plan.

It all starts here. Once you login, you are given a very simple menu that gives you the three steps so you can simply get the job done. Step number one, is to choose from one of the 500+ templates we provide. Step number two, is to edit your web site content, and decide what you want to have displayed there. Step three, and the final step, is to simply publish. No tool out there makes it easier.

Start things off by choosing the web site design you wish to use. As mentioned before, we offer well over 500 different ones to choose from. You can also search through them by keyword, or by categories.

Edit your content. This is the step where all the magic happens, and your web site really starts to come together. Click on, “Manage Pages” setup your first page, and save it. Publishing the pages are as simple of an act as working with any word processor program out there today. We give you a fully functional WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) interface to design each page to meet your needs.

Publish your web site. You are done, and by publishing – you can push the changes you have made out there to the “live” version of your web site on the Web. Now your clients, visitors, family members and whomever else might be browsing your site can see your perfectly managed and well organized content.

Do you see how simple that was? Making things simpler is far from just a slogan with Lunarpages, it is a way of life. If you want to try out the demo of LPQuicksite yourself, you can do so here. With Lunarpages, even your quick and simple web site publishing solutions reside here.

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Create or Find Color Palettes from Images

Mitch — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 13:26:51 +0000

Ever looked at a picture and wish you could grab the HTML color codes for the specific picture in question? Perhaps it has a really interesting orange or red you would really like to use in your layout. Maybe you should try Color Hunter.

This web site allows you to search for pictures, color palettes, or upload your own photos so you can find the hidden color codes within. Once you find one you like, you can toggle it between vibrant bold colors or dull softer colors.

Where do the images come from?

When you search for color palettes by tag, ColorHunter.com searches Flickr.com via Flickr’s API for images labeled with the tag you entered. The thumbnails of the Flickr images are used to create a color palette. ColorHunter.com uses the Flickr API but is not endorsed or certified by Flickr.

If you sign up, via ColorHunter.com you can also keep a running list of your favorite color palettes. This is a really great and unique way to hunt down the color codes you need for your next web site redesign.

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Basic Web Design from Lunarpages

Mitch — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 15:51:25 +0000

You can get started affordably with a five page web site professionally designed by Lunarpages. Within the web design plans we offer, Website Package 1 will provide you with your web hosting, domain registration and web site design are all placed in the hands of Lunarpages. It is the ideal hosting plan for small personal, business and informational web sites.

Here are the core features of the Website Package 1:

5 page static website (ie: home, about, services, contact, etc..)
Custom Design**
CSS Style Sheets
Includes 5 stock photos from Fotolia.com to use in your design

It is also hosted on our Basic hosting plan, which provides to you:

1 Free Domain Registration (for a year)
Unlimited Storage and Bandwidth
$700 Worth of Free Bonuses
Much Much More!

To see a demo site that was designed under these specifications, check out this link. Let Lunarpages become not only your web host, but your web site partner, to make sure your introduction into the world of Online is greeted with open arms.

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60+ Links to Help You Learn CSS Web Design

Mitch — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 16:28:18 +0000

I have had many people ask me what resources do I learn from, when it comes to being a modern day webmaster. Now, there are many resources out there – but here are 60 of the best links (taken from my own bookmarks to your browser) to assist you in mastering the art of CSS in web design.

Know of another great CSS tutorial or resource that you would like to share? Don’t be shy! Leave a comment, and add it on the list as pick number 66, pick number 67, pick number 68, and so on.

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Basics of CSS in Web Design

Mitch — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:51:29 +0000

Adding a Cascading Style Sheet to your current web site layout and save you time and make your web site look a lot more professional in the process. Cascading Style Sheets, or sometimes referred to as CSS, is a style sheet language used to describe how a web page should be formatted.

For example, if you wanted to make some text on a web page look bold, you might use this snippet of HTML code:

this will be some bold text!

Which seems simple enough. However, what if you want to chance the color, font, and how this text is shown in that spot across all of your web pages? Well then your HTML in your pages becomes a rambling mess. That is where Cascading Style Sheets come in handy.

Cascading Style Sheets allow you to, in a much more organized way, sort out how your web site design looks in a totally separate file, or chunk of code in between the head tags. For example, let say you wanted the title of your page to be bold, green, and a different font style than the rest of the page. In your HTML code, you would use something like this:

this is my page title

That tells the browser that everything within this paragraph or

tags will follow the design setup class I have defined as “mycooltitle”. Now, in between the head tags ( ) I want you to add this:

This CSS code tells the web browser to apply these design settings to the class marked, “mycooltitle”. It does three things. It says it will use the Verdana font, the font will be bolded, and it will be colored green (#336633 is the HTML color code for a shade of green).

That is how you apply Cascading Style Sheets to your web design and layout of your own web pages. One of the major benefits of using CSS is that it helps to separate your web site code with your design. This way, you can change one aspect very easily in the CSS file (when or if you start to master external style sheets). I’ll save that lesson for another day.

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Speed Up Pages by Combining External CSS

Mitch — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 15:00:33 +0000

Tell me, which of these would be easier to do? Carry ten pieces of luggage with you on your trip, or put everything into one piece of luggage? The second, of course. The same thing could be said for CSS files in your web site’s code.

The use of multiple external CSS files, can slowdown the loading of a web page. Instead of telling it, “OK, load this file now” you are telling the browser, “load this file. Done? OK, now load this one, and this one and this one”. The general rule of thumb when it comes to web design is to try to use three (or less) external CSS style sheets.

Here are some rules of thumb for combining your CSS files in production from the Google Code site:

Partition the CSS into 2 files each: one CSS file containing the minimal code needed to render the page at startup; and one CSS file containing the code that isn’t needed until the page load has completed.
Serve CSS of a rarely visited component in its own file. Serve the file only when that component is requested by a user.
For CSS that shouldn’t be cached, consider inlining it.
Don’t use the CSS @import rule from a CSS file. If possible, inline the imported CSS content in the main CSS file, or load the imported CSS from the main HTML document instead.

Also worth mentioning is the fact that you should make sure in your head tags, the link to the CSS files should go before any links to any scripts. To put it in a way that everybody can understand – when your browser loads a page, it takes its time with JavaScript, because JavaScript can alter how the page looks, or the content inside the web page. So, you should always call for your .css files before you call for the JavaScript files in your web page’s head code.

I hope this helps as a pretty good guide to shave some of the loading time from your web pages. We might be talking about milliseconds here a lot of the time, but when it comes to delivering the fastest loading pages, every second does count, in true web site optimization.

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Web Icons Perfect for Any Layout or Design

Mitch — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 14:44:29 +0000

Are you in need of a few good icons for you next big web design project? None get any better than those featured over on iconBin. Quickly becoming one of my favorite hunting grounds for icons, this web site has tons of free icons you can use on your own layouts and designs.

Here are just some of the many popular icons sets featured there:

Xiao Icons

Web Development Icons #1

Web Design Icons

There are plenty more to be found, over at iconBin.net. Check ‘em out and let us know which set is your favorite!

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Free e-Commerce Theme for WordPress

Mitch — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 13:22:41 +0000

I am always searching for the best free WordPress themes, and this one might be one of the most unique I have found in a while. The Crafty Cart theme is a free e-commerce theme for WordPress.

As you can see, it is great looking and you can test out the demo to see how usable it really is. Color me impressed by this fantastically free WordPress theme. Now how can you turn WordPress into a shopping cart? Well, that is trick number two which is pulled out of the proverbial magic hat with the thanks of the WordPress e-Commerce plugin.

To download Crafty Cart and try it out yourself, go pick it up for free on TheKingCart.com. You will find full support for widgets, gravatars and more in this e-commerce theme for your WordPress installation.

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New Web Site Design Solutions from Lunarpages

Mitch — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 10:49:44 +0000

In need of a professionally designed web site, but lacking the time to do it yourself or hunt down a designer? Better yet, do you want to skip having to cross you fingers and hope for the best when it comes to finding a new designer for your hosting plan? Lunarpages as you covered with not one, but three web hosting and design layout packages.

Design Package 1: Personal, Professional…Perfect!

5 Page Static Website
Custom Design
CSS Style Sheets
Includes 5 stock photos from fotolia.com
Includes 1 year of Basic Hosting
Includes 1 Free Domain Name
Free website submission to Google

Design Package 2: Take your business to the next level.

5 Page Database Driven Website
Custom Design
CSS Style Sheets
Take control with the ability to add, edit, and remove pages
Includes 5 stock photos from fotolia.com
Includes 1 hour of training on administration of website
Additional options and features are available upon request and are an additional fee (ie: forums, blogs, photo galleries, video galleries, etc…)
1 year of Basic Hosting
1 Free Domain Name

Design Package 3: The dynamic ecommerce solution.

5 Page Database Driven Ecommerce Website
Custom Design
CSS Style Sheets
Take control with the ability to add, edit, and remove pages
Includes 5 stock photos from fotolia.com
Shopping Cart included
Includes 5 initial products (additional products cost $25.00 per product)
Includes the ability to add, edit, and remove products (unlimited products and product categories)
Accept Visa, Mastercard, Discover, American Express, and PayPal
Additional options and features are available upon request and are an additional fee (ie: forums, blogs, photo galleries, video galleries, etc…)
Includes 1 hour of training on administration of website
1 year of Business Hosting
1 Free Domain Name

All that, plus the quality web hosting you have grown to love from the crew at Lunarpages. If you are ready to get started, be sure to check out each web design package, at Lunarpages.com, to find the one that best suits your needs.

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Over 100+ Best Fonts on the Web for Designers

Mitch — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 13:33:56 +0000

Finding the right font for your next logo or your next web site re-design is not the easiest thing to do. So with that in mind, I thought I would make your web designing day by giving you a plethora of great “best of” font lists to get your search for the next greatest font for your design started.

I have scrapped the Web for the best collections of fonts out there for you, the web designer looking for some new inspiration.

Best Font Resources on the Web

Have another “best of” fonts list you would like to share? What is your favorite font to rule them all? Be sure to leave your thoughts in the comments!

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Keep Lindsay Lohan Away from Site Title Tags

Mitch — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 12:57:21 +0000

The title tag is by far the most important part of your web site. It is the first thing people see, and it tells people what they are about to check out. If your looking for a way to get your web site traffic up, just by doing a little touch up work to your title tags you can see a little boost from the search engines.

Since the title tags is one of the big things the search engines look at when indexing your content, you should make sure you are doing all you can to make them the best.

What Should My Title Tag Do?

This is an easy question to answer. What should you title tag be doing? It should be answering who you are and what you do. For example – lets take a look at the title tag here:

Web Hosting Blog | Lunarpages Lunartics

From that, you know you are on a blog about web hosting, it is called Lunartics and it is from Lunarpages. Be sure to always include your web site or company name, and a few keywords about what you do.

Can you over do it? Yes, you can. I would say try to keep the keywords under five at the most. Also, make sure your keywords in your title tags are relevant to the content on that specific page or web site. For example, this would be a bad execution in title tag writing 101:

My Blog Paris Hilton Cute Puppies Lindsay Lohan

See, that might seem like you are going to get more people in because you are using popular phrases, but search engines will bump you down because your web site doesn’t have anything to do with those keywords.

So to sum things up:

make sure that your title tags are relevant to your web site content
make sure you give your company or web site name
don’t include keywords that are not related to the web site’s content

Some might say that search engine optimization is a confusing art, that they do not understand. However, as the years have gone by, a lot of it comes down to common sense.

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Find Free Icons Faster

Mitch — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 11:37:18 +0000

Out searching for a new icon or set of icons to use on your web site? While there are more than a few ways to get this job done yourself, (hire somebody to do it, do it yourself, etc) one way I bet you didn’t know about was the icon search engine, Icon Finder.

Now this isn’t a free for all site where you can steal all the icons you can, rather you type in a phrase and you search depending on the keyword, license agreement, and size.

For example, this picture of a home I found is free for commercial use:

If you like the “style” of a certain theme, you can see other icons in that specific set too. Both the .png and .ico versions of the icon is available too.

So if you need some new icons or your just looking for some design inspiration, I would highly suggest you bookmark IconFinder.net.

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Come Join the Lunar Community

Mitch — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 11:26:16 +0000

So your stuck with your web site, you’ve run out of webmasters to ask about your project and you need somewhere to go? One of the often forgotten about jewels of the web hosting web can be found at one easy to remember domain name, lunarforums.com.

The Lunarforums are home to many of the web hosting clients of Lunarpages – so in turn makes a perfect place to ask for help. We work hard at keeping it a family friendly place, so no worries about anybody getting rude, or calling you names. We are all there to learn from each other and to help each other out.

Here are a few of the most popular boards on the Lunarforums that I would suggest you check out first:

Showcase Your Web Site
Show off the web site you have created or get others to review your layout.
Web Hosting Help and Troubleshooting
Get help with your web site problems from your fellow Lunarpages customers. Remember if you are having a server side support issue contact the support team directly.
Lunarpages Beginner Assistance
Sometimes web hosting and design can be a daunting experience for those who are new to the internet. This forum is our way of assuring you a smooth transition.
Web Designer’s Help and Resources
Get some feedback from your peers on web site design, HTML, CSS and all things related!
Lunar Chit Chat
Join us in the "town square" of the Lunarforums to discuss anything and everything!

Come be apart of our web hosting forums today. Once you sign up, be sure to visit the Introduce Yourself board so that we can be formerly introduced too. I’ll see you there!

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A Dedicated Design Resource for Web Designers

Mitch — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 19:30:15 +0000

Who would have ever thought to look for web designer resources at a place called forwebdesigners.com? It is so simple, its brilliant. Here you will find some of the most popular resources for (you guessed it) web designers. From fonts, to CSS resources to everything in between – it has something everybody can get something out of. No matter if you are a web designer just getting started, or an old pro – this is a resource to bookmark.

Just to give you a little taste of what is in store, here are some of the great sites I found looking under the “inspiration” category:

Check out the rest, and be sure to let us know about some of the great resources you find.

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10 More Free Online Image Editors

Mitch — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 10:00:00 +0000

Due to high demand, I have been asked to give you all ten more free online image editors from the world of web design. These ten online photo tools will have you looking like a professional graphic creator in no time at all. Well, if not that – then at least they provide an online alternative, that won’t eat up disk space or cash.

Keep those suggestions rolling in, would really love to see more free online image editors that you know of or really enjoy using.

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10 Fantastic Free Online Image Editors

Mitch — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 16:54:13 +0000

When it comes to cutting costs, why not drop your expensive image editor? There are many free alternatives from around the Web that you can use for your simple web site design needs, photo touch-ups and so much more.

Have another favorite online image editor that didn’t make it onto the list? Be sure to leave it in the comments – and it might make our next free online image editor round up.