Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Freelance Fest - Forum For Freelancers

Few days ago we have setup a new forum for all kind of online freelancers - Freelance Fest. Join the forum now and build up your community with world wide freelancers.

Site address: http://www.freelancefest.com


Before start, let's have a look into freelancer, freelancing & freelance marketplace. According to wikipedia,
A freelancer, freelance worker, or freelance is a person who pursues a profession without a long-term commitment to any one employer.

Fields where freelancing is especially common include journalism and other forms of writing, copywriting, computer programming and graphic design, consulting, and many other professional and creative services.

Freelance marketplaces (or outsourcing marketplaces) are websites that match buyers and sellers of internet-provided services. Buyers and sellers of these services each setup profiles on the marketplace website. Seller profiles provide a description of the range of services offered, sample materials, rates, and details about the provider. Buyer profiles include descriptions and specifications of the work sought. Buyers and sellers are able to rate each other and provide positive and negative references/feedback.
How to start:
At first browse different freelance marketplaces and try to understand their system, rules and project types. Then choose 2 or 3 sites and place your bids. Once you win a project, continue with that freelancing site and focus on improving your ranking and rating on that site.

Freelance marketplaces or sites are almost similar to each other. But everyone has their own features. In my experience, once you will feel comfort in a freelancing site and will get good amount of projects then you will not able to get projects from different freelancing site. So at the very beginning of your freelancing career browse as many sites as you can and then focus on one site.

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Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Alternative solution for scandir() function in PHP 4

In PHP 5 there is a new function scandir() which lists files and directories inside a path. In this case if you install your script, in a PHP 4 server, which uses scandir() function, then you will notice following error message:

Call to undefined function: scandir()

To solve this problem just add following code in your function page. This will make your script available in both PHP 4 & PHP 5 server.

if(!function_exists('scandir')) {
function scandir($folder) {
$handle = opendir($folder);
while (false !== ($filename = readdir($handle))) {
$files[] = $filename;
}
return $files;
}
}

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Wednesday, April 30, 2008

How to install Drupal 6.2

Installing Drupal is very easy. But if you can't understand how to install it then let me show you. In this tutorial I am using Drupal 6.2 version. Before installation make sure your have all recommended system requirements.

System Requirements are:


Now follow these steps:
  1. First of all download latest copy of Drupal from this link: http://drupal.org/download
  2. Uncompress & put the it into your server's root directory. In my case I put it into /htdocs/ directory and renamed it as 'mydrupal'.
  3. Now visit it from your browser: http://localhost/mydrupal
  4. Choose your desire language, I chose: Install Drupal in English
  5. In this step Drupal will verify your system requirement. If your system requirements are correct then you have nothing to do, just move next.
  6. Now setup database: go to http://localhost/phpmyadmin & create a database something like 'mydrupal_db'
  7. Back to Drupal & enter database information. In my case I entered following:
    • Database type: mysqli
    • Database name: mydrupal_db
    • Database username: root
    • Database passowrd: [password of my database server]
  8. Now configure your site:
    • Enter site name: 'My Drupal'
    • Site email address: 'admin@localhost.com'
    • Administrator Username: 'admin'
    • Administrator Email: 'admin@localhost.com'
    • Administrator Password: '123456'
    • Save & Continue
That's it, now visit this url to see your new Drupal site: http://localhost/mydrupal


As you are the administrator of your site, do the following tasks to enjoy full control of it:
  1. Create Administrator Role:
    • Go to: Administer > User Management > Roles
    • Add Role with a name something like 'Administrator'
    • Go to: Administer > User Management > Users
    • Here you will find a user with name 'admin'. Now click "Edit" link.
    • In the next page check on "Administrator" role & Save
  2. Assign Administrator Permissions:
    • Go to: Administer > User Management > Permissions
    • Check on all checkboxes found under 'Administrator' column. This will allow 'admin' user to access all functions of all installed modules.

Congratulations, you have successfully installed Drupal. For more information about how to administer Drupal read this article: http://drupal.org/getting-started/6/admin

If you think this post helps you, then don't forget to Digg it. Thanks a lot!

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Friday, April 11, 2008

Drupal - Best CMS I have ever seen

Drupal is an open source Content Management System (CMS). Few weeks ago I discovered Drupal and have started loving it. Most of the time I use my own framework to develop sites. I made that framework with Smarty Template and ADODB library. But this does not satisfy my all needs as I have to develop a site from the scratch with it. I was looking for a better framework or CMS. I tried Joomla, it is also a very good CMS. But I have found that I need to do lots of work to customize it. I think Joomla is very good if you want it only for CMS solution. But I need a system to use it both as CMS & a framework.

In this case I have found, Drupal is the best. At the first sight I love it for it's simplicity but powerful environment. Another great thing I like about Drupal is it's community support, which is very large and strong. Thousands of Module are available in Drupal site contributed by the community. Most of the time you do not need to develop a functionality by yourself, just download a module from Drupal website, uncompress it and put it in your Drupal's module directory. You will find lots of tutorial & help about creating modules & theme in Drupal.org.

Here are few links & resources of Drupal:


Lots of great sites have developed using Drupal. One of them is Ubuntu.com. It is also used by new Sun HPC portal. Watch the following interview of Scott Mattoon, Chief Architect, US Western Region, Sun Microsystem, INC about their experience of using Drupal.

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Saturday, March 15, 2008

PHP Email Attachment Script

I was searching for an easy php email attachment script over net. I found a few scripts but none them able to meet my need. Most of those scripts can send one attachment. But I need to send multiple files. Then I thought to develop a script by myself. To write this function I took help from few examples that I found by searching Google.

I've checked this script with Gmail, Yahoo & Outlook. Hope it will work with other email clients.

Here is the email function which can able to send multiple attachment:

function send_email($to, $from, $from_name, $subject, $message, $attachments=false)
{
$headers = "From: ".$from_name."<".$from.">\n";
$headers .= "Reply-To: ".$from_name."<".$from.">\n";
$headers .= "Return-Path: ".$from_name."<".$from.">\n";
$headers .= "Message-ID: <".time()."-".$from.">\n";
$headers .= "X-Mailer: PHP v".phpversion();

$msg_txt="";
$email_txt = $message;

$semi_rand = md5(time());
$mime_boundary = "==Multipart_Boundary_x{$semi_rand}x";

$headers .= "\nMIME-Version: 1.0\n" .
"Content-Type: multipart/mixed;\n" .
" boundary=\"{$mime_boundary}\"";

$email_txt .= $msg_txt;

$email_message .= "This is a multi-part message in MIME format.\n\n" .
"--{$mime_boundary}\n" .
"Content-Type:text/html; charset=\"iso-8859-1\"\n" .
"Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit\n\n" .
$email_txt . "\n\n";


if ($attachments !== false)
{
for($i=0; $i < count($attachments); $i++)
{
if (is_file($attachments[$i]))
{
$fileatt = $attachments[$i];
$fileatt_type = "application/octet-stream";
$start= strrpos($attachments[$i], '/') == -1 ? strrpos($attachments[$i], '//') : strrpos($attachments[$i], '/')+1;
$fileatt_name = substr($attachments[$i], $start, strlen($attachments[$i]));

$file = fopen($fileatt,'rb');
$data = fread($file,filesize($fileatt));
fclose($file);

$data = chunk_split(base64_encode($data));

$email_message .= "--{$mime_boundary}\n" .
"Content-Type: {$fileatt_type};\n" .
" name=\"{$fileatt_name}\"\n" .
"Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64\n\n" .
$data . "\n\n";

}
}
}

$email_message .= "--{$mime_boundary}--\n";

return mail($to, $subject, $email_message, $headers);
}


Here is an example to send this script:
$to = "test@localhost.com";
$from = "admin@localhost.com";
$from_name = "Administrator";

$subject = "This is a test email";
$message = "Here is my message...Text or <b>HTML</b>.";

$attachments = array();
$attachments[]="C:/Program Files/xampp/htdocs/images/my_image.jpg"; // absolute file path here
$attachments[]="C:/Program Files/xampp/htdocs/images/my_music.mp3";

send_email($to, $from, $from_name, $subject, $message, $attachments);


Let me know your thoughts and also if you face any problem.

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Thursday, March 6, 2008

Free Tools for Web Developers

Today I have found a nice article in a blog name Jatecblog about free tools for web development. The article name is - Links for Making Your First Web Site Without Paying a Dime. In this article the author listed all necessary free tutorial website links, Graphics Softwares, Templates, Text Editors, WYSIWYG creators, Testing Sites, Free Hosting sites, Free Domain links & FTP clients software links.

I think you will find that article very helpful & you may want to bookmark it for future reference.

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Thursday, February 7, 2008

How to write & colorize html code inside post

Well, you probably have noticed that when you write a html code in your post, blogger does not show it in html format, rather it execute your html. I was facing the same problem while trying to write a html code example. Let's see how we can write html inside a blogger post. In this tutorial I will also show you how to colorize or highlight your html, Java or other syntax in a very nice format.

Way to write code inside a post
Just one thing you need to do, convert < to &lt; and > to &gt; from your html code.

How to convert code & colorize it automatically?
The above manual process is very time consuming. You can do this conversion automatically with CodeHTMLer. Simply paste your C#, C++, Java, JScript, VB.net, XML, Powershell and F# code into the available text box and click "Htmlify Code" button. The page will refresh and you will find your converted code at the bottom of the page. Copy them and paste it into your blog post.

Try it yourself
Let's see the process with the following html code:

<html>
<body>
    <h1>Hello World</h1>
</body>
</html>


Got to this link, paste the above html code, choose code language as XML & press "Htmlify Code" button. It will return you following output:

<pre><span style=' color: Blue;'>&lt;</span><span style=' color: Maroon;'>html</span><span style=' color: Blue;'>&gt;</span>
<span style=' color: Blue;'>&lt;</span><span style=' color: Maroon;'>body</span><span style=' color: Blue;'>&gt;</span>
<span style=' color: Blue;'>&lt;</span><span style=' color: Maroon;'>h1</span><span style=' color: Blue;'>&gt;</span>Hello World<span style=' color: Blue;'>&lt;</span>/<span style=' color: Maroon;'>h1</span><span style=' color: Blue;'>&gt;</span>
<span style=' color: Blue;'>&lt;</span>/<span style=' color: Maroon;'>body</span><span style=' color: Blue;'>&gt;</span>
<span style=' color: Blue;'>&lt;</span>/<span style=' color: Maroon;'>html</span><span style=' color: Blue;'>&gt;</span></pre>


Copy & paste these codes into your blog post. Publish your post and finally you will find following output:

<html>
<body>
<h1>Hello World</h1>
</body>
</html>


Isn't it cool? This process is very good and fast. But there is a limitation of this method. It can colorize only few languages.

Now let me know how do you write code inside your post?

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Tuesday, February 5, 2008

GraPHPite - Open Source PHP Graph

Creating graph in PHP is not so easy. You need to know lots of things, specially image manipulation by php. But there is a very easy solution for creating graph in PHP. It is GraPHPite. It is a free and open source graph rendering utility. Just download this script, place into your web directory and create your graph with the help of tutorial & documentation. You can create several types of graphs with it. You can create layouts with legends, fill using image or can create gradient smooth area. Another important feature of it is you can create multiple plot into a single graph. Types of graphs it can generates are:

  • Line Graph
  • Area Graph
  • Bar Graph
  • Stacked Bar Graph
  • Stacked Area Graph
  • Pie Graph
  • Radar Chart
  • Vector Function Graph
  • Step Chart
  • Impulse Chart
  • Dot Chart
  • Map Chart
  • Logarithmic axis & more...
Requirements
PHP4 or PHP5 with GD 2 support for optimal performance. I think this is very common to most of the servers.

Download
Download the latest version 1.2 from sourceforge.

Documentation
Full documentation is available from the site. Click here to view it.

Samples & Tutorials
Here are few excellent samples available in this link. You will find few good tutorial from here.


I think this graph utility will meet your all kind of needs for creating graph in php. You will also find that, creating graph with it is also a kind of fun. Hope you will like it.

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Monday, February 4, 2008

Absolute Color Picker

Absolute Color Picker is a freeware product by Eltima Software. If you are a html designer then you must need this software. You can choose varieties of colors & get color codes easily from it to design your website. It is the one of my favorite web development tools & softwares in my Quick Launch list. So why should you need this as you can get color code from photoshop, paint or other image editing software? Well, the most important part of this ActiveX Control is, you can select color from anywhere in you screen, desktop or even from another webpage instantly & get hexadecimal or 256 color codes. To copy a color from screen click & hold down your mouse pointer on the white rectangle part above Apply button and release it above your desire location. Here is a screenshot of this software:


There are 9 color choosing options or palettes available in this software. These are - HSB brightness, HSB radial, HSB hue, RGB 3D, Sphere, HSB Hue 2, Pens, Hexagons, Palettes. Full features listed in the Eltima.com are:

  • History of selected colors – up to 12 slots to save the color in
  • Screen eye-dropper – pick any color directly from screen
  • HTML color conversion
  • Customizable color selection dialogs: select only hose color models that are convenient for you
  • Many predefined color palettes
  • Compare current and previous color
  • Customize brightness, hue, saturation and other parameters separately to match your exact selection

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Saturday, February 2, 2008

RentACoder - Work From Your Home

Rent A Coder or RAC is a great way to complete projects & earn money from your home. More than 200,000 coders have been registered here. Everyday more than 2,500 projects are available to get done. The slogan of the site "How Software Gets Done". They also call it, "Home of the worlds' largest number of completed software projects". You will find varieties of projects - web development, design, data entry, game development, content writing or even providing suggestions ranges from $5 to $50,000 or more. I have been working here since 2005 & have completed 63 jobs. My current rating is 9.97 out of 10 and ranking is below 600 out of 200,000 coders. From this site I have got few permanent buyers who are providing me projects one after another.



Let's see what are the basic steps to complete a project in RAC:
  1. Registration: If you have not registered yet click here. On the sign up process give your personal informations, your preferred payment method, areas of expertise & your resume. Take your time to design your resume so that you can impress a buyer. You can put html codes here. Be careful, do not put your email address or any other contact information in Resume.
  2. Browse Projects: After successful registration login the site & browse projects one after another until you get a suitable one. You can filter projects to reduce the list. You will find this filter option while registering or from the left side column after login. I have selected only PHP, MySQL & Web related projects. Also choose these project types - Personal Projects, Very Small (under $100) & Small (above $100).
  3. Place a Bid: Now visit a project details page and check it carefully. There are few things you will notice. For now look around these - Project Type, Maximum Accepted Bid, Deadline, Project Description, Platform, Deliverables, Number of posted bids. Read the description in details & keep in mind the deadline. If you think you are confident then reply the buyer by message. If you are not clear then ask them questions. Do not provide your contact information or email address. In the message portion you will find a text box to place your bid. Try to put lower amount at the beginning. In my case I placed several bids over $50 or $100. But no one responded. Then one day I reduced it to $20 and got my first project, though it was a $100 job.
  4. Complete the Project: Once you will have won a project ask buyer to give you all necessary files & informations. Then start your work as soon as possible. After starting the project if you find that you did wrong and will not able to do this project then you can cancel it within first 24 hours. It will not affect your rating. My suggestion is clear everything before placing your bid to avoid unnecessary problems. Once you will complete your job, click "Report Work Complete" button & upload your work into a zip file. Always be careful about the deadline time & complete project before it expires by clicking that button.
  5. Buyer Approves Project: Now wait until buyer approve your project. If the buyer like your work then they will approve it, rate you between 1 to 10 and leave a comment. Before the buyer approve my work I ask them whether they are fully satisfied or not. I request them to let me know if they are not willing to rate my work as 10. If not then I ask them & fix anything I miss from the requirements. You will not view the rating until you also rate them. Buyer rating and comment is very much important to get more projects from RAC.
  6. Receive Payment: Once they will approve your work all money will be added into your RAC account from the escrow fund. You can withdraw all money when your RAC account will be $100 or more. There are several payment methods. Choose which one is suitable for you. Available methods are: Paypal, Payonner Debit Card, Western Union, Bank to Bank Wire Transfer, International Priority Mail, Snail Mail Check.

I hope this guide will help you to start work in RAC. In future I will post few tips & tricks about how to win a project. For more information visit How Does It Work for Coders? page.

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Friday, February 1, 2008

Website Links

Link2Me Link Exchange Directory - The Best Link Exchange for SEO Professionals
Quality directory of webmasters actively seeking link exchange. Improve your search engine rankings and link popularity the easy way. Work clever not hard.

Site Spider - Web Testing and Checking
Like the spider, we will crawl over every page of your web site. We can perform a one off check, or we can monitor your site on an ongoing basis. We dont rely on programs - we have testers do it.

Chime Cottage Music - specialist online CD shop.
Online CD/MP3 shop for progressive rock, synth rock, electronica, ambient and New Age sounds.

Discount Mens Jewelry, Mens Rings, Gifts For Him, Mens Bracelets
Shop for great jewelry and gifts for men, including stainless rings, earrings, bracelets, and pendants, at incredibly low prices with free shipment.

Designer Reading Glasses
Designer Reading Glasses and Sunglasses: luxury optical frames, safety lenses: Chanel Christian Dior Dolce & Gabbana Gucci Fendi Prada Oakley.. Newest 08, most popular 2007, populold fashioned models. SMART EYEGLASSES SHOPPING-add lenses online.

Eyeglasses
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Website development, web design, static and dynamic sites, generate online Php scripts
Website design. Generate Custom ASP Access PhpMySQL databases scripts, Perl CGI CSV (flat text files) database script. Check reciprocal links. Access Chat, Matrimonial Advertisements.

Web Design Romania
ZenytLabs a web design and web development team of freelancers from Romania which is capable of providing to your business the best chances in gaining the supremacy in virtual business world.

Pharmaceutical companies
Pharmaceutical databases online, over 100,000 approved prescription drugs, OTC drugs and health products. Include medications, nutritions, supplements, veterinary products, pet meds, cosmetics, drugs active ingredients, pharmaceutical companies.

Freelance web designer and freelance graphic designer in Sydney,Miryam Aubert, a Sydney based freelance web designer
On line portfolio of Miryam Aubert, a Sydney based freelance web designer from Sydney,Freelance graphic designer and freelance web designer in Sydney.Miryam Aubert is a Graphic designer that produces logotypes, catalogues, branding, magazine design.

O sitio do Quintas
Videos de travestis e transformistas,nacionais e internacionais. O melhor de cada familia no sitio do quintas.Video,music and fun for all.

Cheap Web Design and Website Development Company Nepal
The widest range of services offered by Vuju Design is cheap website design, web development, web hosting, logo design, joomla cms, graphic design, search engine optimization and promotion and a lot more solutions under one roof.

Disenador web freelance, Disenador Web Madrid, Diseno web Madrid, Disenador grafico Freelance Madrid, Disenador autonomo en Madrid
Diseñador web Freelance y Diseñador grafico Freelance (autonomo) en Madrid Miryam Aubert.Diseño grafico en Madrid, maquetacion de revistas, logotipos, Diseñador web autonomo Freelance en Madrid .Diseño, fotografía, asesoramiento, hosting, dominios,

www.VinceGutierrezMortgages.com
Texas Home Equity Loans | Texas Mortgage Loans Find the best deals for Texas home loans and Texas home equity loans here. Texas mortgage rates are still low, contact us now to refinance and to get a Texas mortgage loans.

Website Design and Programming
Offshore outsourcing site, offers IT outsourcing services, include web design, graphic design, software development,application development.outsourcing china, outsourcing india.Freelance programmers bid on outsourced projects.

Affordable Website Design
Affordable Website Design and Affordable Search Engine Optimization Services for businesses and individuals nationwide.

About the natural Earth
Answers to all your questions about the natural Earth

web design seo services visitor traffic
Web Design-LOWEST PRICES ON THE WEB, SEO Services, DBA/LLC EID Filing, Visitor Traffic. Starting a new business or improving an old one?Let us help.

Alcohol Liquor and Beer Delivery Phone Service
We deliver alcohol, beer & other liquor to Newmarket, Aurora, Bradford, Queensville, Gwillimbury & Holland Landing.

Visigraphic is Surabaya Top Freelance Graphic Designer, Web Developer, and Photo Editing
We are Freelance Indonesian graphic designers based in Surabaya with specialising in a range of graphic design, photo editing and web development. The success of your online and offline branding, and marketing strategy is, and always be, our goal

Mobile Broadband
Compare mobile broadband available in the uk. Compare these packages to standard broadband packages and see the advantages and disadvantages of mobile broadband.

Services Optimization
Services optimization | Jumpstart you website exposure effectively and immediately

Greece Web Design - Web Hosting - SEO Services - Ikaros Design
Ikaros Design Web Services offers web design, web hosting, domain registration, website promotion, seo services, and travel services.

Add Your Website To The Best Web Directory Network.
Add your website to our network, your website will be accessed by more than 10,000 user everyday.

HB-WebDesign-Cost Effective Web Solutions
Specialising in user-friendly design for easy viewing and simple navigation, we can design, create and publish any site from a single page advertisement up to an unlimited multi-page shop with full online shopping & payment facilities.

ASP.net Computer Programming
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Designer Sunglasses at Discount. Christian Dior Sunglasses, Bvlgari Sunglasses, Gucci Sunglasses and more.
Discount Sun Glasses. Designer Glasses Online. Chanel, Gucci, Prada... 2006 2007 New Authentic Shades & Eyewear. Define your style with great buys on the hottest trends in mens & womens fashion.

SEO Services, Link building campaign, Building Link Popularity with SEO friendly build link technique is our motto
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Linux plus DVD
Linux plus DVD is a leading magazine about Linux and open source solutions for beginners and experienced users.

PSD MAGAZINE
Photoshop Solutions for Designers, the best source to learn step by step.

2lex
2lex for all new software , news , islamic , story , tutorials and video . you can fined all you want . great programe and tutorials

Web design Lincoln, Lincolnshire
Based in Lincoln, Lincolnshire, UK, Cathedral Web Design offers affordable services for web design, graphic design, photo restoration and retouching, web hosting, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and ecommerce.

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Freelang Dictionary - Helps Me to Get More Projects

Last night I got a new project invitation from RentACoder. It is a template integration project into osCommerce. Template screenshot was attached with the bid. It is for a French e-commerce site. I noticed that no one bid on this as it is not in English though the amount was good enough. Then I place my bid and have got it immediately, although I do not know French. The only two languages I know are Bengali & English, but I completed several French language sites as well as other languages sites before with the help of online dictionary. Today I searched for a free desktop tool and I've just got a nice one - Freelang Dictionary. I like to share it with you which may help you to get more projects in different languages.

In the site there are 115 dictionaries available. The software can convert other languages to and from English. You need to download two files - one is the dictionary itself and other is for your preferred language word list. Download them and install into same directory. Available versions are for Windows 98, xp & vista.

After installing the software I am quite impressed. Interface is very simple & works fast. You can search words, phrases & also can add new words into the dictionary. Search works instantly whatever you type and show nearest words list. So you will find your word and also other words similar with it.

Let me know what you think about it. If you have any other better dictionaries then also let me know by leaving a comment here.

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Thursday, January 31, 2008

Create Expandable Post Summary in Blogger

I posted this same tutorial into my itsafun.blogspot.com. I am posting it again to let you know about this nice trick. Here you go -

I have setup several blog site using blogger or blogspot. I like it very much. But one most obvious thing I was missing is the option to create expandable post summaries. By default blogger shows full story in the first page and all comments in the own page of the post when you click the post's title. The main problem is most of the time people leave after reading the article. They do not view the comments and hence can't participate on the discussion about that post. Moreover, the first page become longer and longer with full stories. I was seeking for a solution where only few lines will display in the first page as introduction and people will read the full story & comments after clicking "Read More..." link. In help.blogger.com I have found a solution. But it has few disadvantages. Main problem is - you have to write a css code manually with your each post. It will be the worst situation if you already have posted lots of articles. Then I have developed a solution with javascript where you do not need to worry about creating post summary. It automatically hides the rest of the post. Here you go -

In this method first paragraph will be used as post summary. You will view the full post after clicking "Read More..." link. Note, you must enable post pages in order to using this feature. Also backup your template html before editing it.

Now follow these instructions:

1. Go to your blogger setting panel -> Template -> Edit HTML

2. Check on "Expand Widget Templates"

3. Search for </head> & replace it with following javascript code:


<script type='text/javascript'>
function truncate_body (postid) {
var id = document.getElementById(postid);
var postbody = id.innerHTML;
var len = postbody.toLowerCase().indexOf(&quot;&lt;br&quot;);

if(len&gt;0)
postbody = postbody.substring(0, len);

id.innerHTML = &quot;<p>&quot; + postbody + &quot;</p>&quot;;
id.style.display=&quot;block&quot;;
}
</script>
</head>

4. Search for <p><data:post.body/></p> & replace it with following code:

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType != "item"'>
<div expr:id='"postid_" + data:post.id'>
<data:post.body/>
</div>
<script type='text/javascript'> truncate_body(&quot;postid_<data:post.id/>&quot;); </script>
<p>
<a class='read_more' expr:href='data:post.url'><b>Read More...</b></a>
</p>
<b:else/>
<p><data:post.body/></p>
</b:if>



That's it. Now let me describe the code. It is not necessary to understand the code. You may skip it if the above procedure works for you.

In the 4th step I have created a div with an unique id. Then a javascript function truncate_body is called which is declared between the head of the html. In the function call it passes the id of that div.

The truncate_body function loads the full post into a varible name postbody. Then it search for the index of the fist occurance of html &lt;br from the post. I searched &lt;br instead of <br /> in order to avoid errors. If the &lt;br is found in the body, it creates a sub string from the post's beginning to &lt;br position & replaces the postbody to that substring.

If in your blog that code do not find &lt;br then search for &lt;p or check the html source for solution.

Hope this will work for you. But If it does not work then just post a comment here with your blog url. I will try to solve it.

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Wednesday, January 30, 2008

My Web Developments

I have been working with PHP/MySQL since 2005. I worked in a web development company for 1 year. On June 2006 I left that company and tried to become as a freelancer web developer. I registered in RentACoder and started bidding. But it was not so easy to get the first project. I remember, I posted bids almost 2 weeks in RAC before getting the first one.

It is very much difficult to get first project in RAC as there are more than 200,000 registered coders. I was little bit disappointed at the beginning. But I was determine to become successful here. After completing 3 small projects successfully one day I met with a buyer who asked me to show how fast I can develop a ecommerce site. On that project I impressed him so much that since that day he is sending me still now project one after another.

In RAC I have completed more than 60 projects and my current ranking is below 650 among 200,000 coders which is impressive position for most of the buyers. I got 10 out of 10 rating in all projects except one. On that project I got 9 out of 10 rating. My average rating is now 9.96 which also help me to get projects easily.

On May 2007 I have setup a small web development team Webcraft Bangladesh with 3 more programmers. The site is under construction and we are planning to make this site as much powerful as RAC.

In this blog I will try to help beginners to become a successful & professional freelancer web developers. I will post tips & tricks in my point of view. My next plan is to create a reader's forum where you can discuss with each other to get more help. Hope you will enjoy it. So keep in touch, lots of posts & new topics are coming shortly.

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Wanna be a web developer?

I posted this into my another blog It's a fun !!! I think you will find it helpful. Let me describe myself, I am a web developer working with php/mysql from last few years. My friends often ask me, how to start and become professional. I give them following guideline which may take more or less 10 weeks. I hope this will help you too. Here you go:

  1. Week 1: You need a book name "Beginning PHP 5" by Wrox publication. It's a good book to start. Read chapter 2, 3, 4 to learn php & also read chapter 9, 10, 11 for mysql.
  2. Week 2: After reading these 6 chapters now practice all examples found in these chapters. Type the same code in the editor & see how it works in the browser.
  3. Week 3: Build a simple content management site where people register, login & post articles. Also create an admin panel where administrator can add/edit/delete users & their articles.
  4. Week 4: Build a photo submission & rating site like www.hotornot.com, www.ivotethis.com or www.whosthebitch.com
  5. Week 5: You need to understand an ecommerce site. Here is an open source solution name "osCommerce". Download it from www.oscommerce.com, setup & try to understand how it works. Also download the documentation & read it.
  6. Week 6: Now try to build a simple ecommerce site.
  7. Week 7: Learn Smarty template. It helps to organize your code by separating php from html. You will find help from here: http://smarty.php.net/crashcourse.php
  8. Week 8: To become professional you need to have basic idea about the followings:
  9. Week 9 & 10 (Optional): Now try to understand a script name "Joomla" - www.joomla.org . It's a Content Management Script (CMS). With this open source script you can build any website in the world :) & can deliver to your client fast. It's a great script I have ever found.
Let me know what you think. Have fun :)

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