Joomla is a very popular content management system that is popular amongst websites and can usually be automatically installed using Fantastico (Joomla web hosting is available on our web hosting plans) however the question comes often that if this very popular software is what you exactly need.

While Joomla is very expandable and can have a lot of modules to accomplish anything, sometimes it would be considered an overkill, as per example, using Joomla for a blog is usually an overkill unless you have a very advanced blog, however a great alternative for Joomla if you want to create your blog would be WordPress (which can be installed using Fantastico too).

However, if you have a site with a couple of pages but require a forum and other type of scripts where creating a theme for each would take a long time, Joomla is a good option however if you only have a couple of pages without the the need of theming, the best option might just be to stick with plain HTML.

So there are no wrong choices in this case however there are better in cases, if you’re going to use Joomla’s full capacities then it’s suggested however if you’ll be only using part of it, then maybe you’re looking at the wrong script.

Generating PDF’s is an easy method to make a very nice printable and/or savable version of an article. This could be helpful in a WordPress blog or any articles website. This method utilizes the popular FPDF class.

First of all, I suggest you get the latest FPDF version from here. I suggest creating a directory such as “pdf” on your web hosting space. You will need to place the fpdf.php into that directory, you will only need it.

Let’s make our first “Hello World” example. Place the following in a file called test.php:

<?php
require('fpdf.php');
$pdf=new FPDF();
$pdf->AddPage();
$pdf->SetFont('Arial','B',16);
$pdf->Cell(40,10,'Hello World!');
$pdf->Output();
?>

Now let’s see that code line by line…

require('fpdf.php');
This line includes our FPDF class that we need to create the PDF file.

$pdf=new FPDF();
This line creates a new instance of the FPDF class which will be binded to $pdf

$pdf->AddPage();
This line tells FPDF to add a new page to the PDF file; obviously we need one page so we will call this function once.

$pdf->SetFont('Arial','B',16);
This line tells the FPDF class to change the font to Arial, bold, 16 pt.

$pdf->Cell(40,10,'Hello World!');
This line is just like the “echo” of PHP, the text fields in PDF files are just sort of rectangles with text in them, so we want the width of 40 pt. and a height of 10 pt., the third value is the text to be written in that rectangular box.

$pdf->Output();
Our final line, which pretty much means: “we’re done, show us our PDF!”

That’s a very simple FPDF usage, however, here is a bit of more advanced version of FPDF usage:

<?php
require('fpdf.php');
$pdf=new FPDF("L", "mm", "A4");
$pdf->AddPage();
$pdf->SetFont('Arial','BIU',30);
$pdf->SetTextColor(0,0,255);
$pdf->Cell(60,20,'PDF+PHP Test',1,1,C,0);
$pdf->Output();
?>

Now let’s do a quick review of that more advanced code:

$pdf=new FPDF("L", "mm", "A4");
This will create a new instance but instead will default to creating landscape pages because of the first L, P can be used instead to default to portrait pages. The second value is the default measurement unit, a choice of point (pt), millimeter (mm), centimeter (cm) and inch (in) is given. The last value is the size of the page, the choice of A3, A4, A5, Letter & Legal is given.

$pdf->AddPage();
Simple function, just add the page, you can tell the function to create either a portrait (P) or landscape (L) by giving it as a first value (ex: $pdf->AddPage("L"), $pdf->AddPage("P")).

$pdf->SetFont('Arial','BIU',38);
This required function again says that we want an Arial, 30 mm in size (because of the default size unit), the 'BIU' simply tells that we want it to be Bold, Italic & Underlined.

$pdf->SetTextColor(0,0,255);
This sets the default text color for the text we will be writing, I’ve chosen blue here, the first value is red (r), the second is green (g) & blue (b).

$pdf->Cell(60,20,'PDF+PHP Test',0,1,C,0);
This makes the so famous rectangle with 60 mm of width & 20 mm of height, we wrote ‘PDF+PHP Test’ and the first 0 means we do not want a border. The 1 next to it means that once it’s done the cell, it will go to the beginning of the next line, if 0 is provided, then it will be to the right of it, if 2 is provided then it will go below. The C is just the alignment which is center of the text inside the box, possible values are left (L), center (C), right (R).

$pdf->Output();
Output our brand new colorful PDF file!

Thanks for reading!

If you have never heard of SEO, it’s an acronym for Search Engine Optimization and according to wikipedia.org

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a set of methods aimed at improving the ranking of a website in search engine listings, and could be considered a subset of search engine marketing. The term SEO also refers to “search engine optimizers,” an industry of consultants who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients’ sites. Some commentators, and even some SEOs, break down methods used by practitioners into categories such as “white hat SEO” (methods generally approved by search engines, such as building content and improving site quality)

Hidden links are a great way to boost your rank on a specific keyword. They are usually in a paragraph, then the keyword would have a link to the page you’re looking to boost it’s rank, but without an underline and the same color as the text.

As an example, I’ll take SEO. I would write a paragraph in my site about SEO and a link to my SEO page, though when you’ll read the text, you won’t notice SEO as a link because it’s the exact same color. The search engines consider that no problem as it’s a link with specific keywords to a page and we all know search engines love it!

If you have any questions about this — Just post a comment and I’ll help you!

There have been recent changes with Google AdWords that effects many customers by increasing there bid amounts on a certain keywords. These changes accord when Google changed its algorithm last month.

Advertisers who were paying 5 cents are now paying 50 cents or even more to keep their positions, others are paying the same amount but their places changes two or three pages back.

However, this have not been effected all advertisers as some stay not effected.

This summarise the type of site that have been affected.

• One page sales letter websites.
• Squeeze pages.
• AdSense sites (particularly those involved in AdSense arbitrage).
• Affiliate sites.

The algorithm gives a quality score to the landing page of AdWords.
Here are 3 general methods that will help advertisers who have been affected by the recent updates.

1. Provide quality unique content.
2. Put your AdWord link on the best page that describes your products.
3. Make links from other page of your website to the AdWord page so its not look like a one page website.

Also you got to remove all AdSense ads from the AdWord landing page and make sure that it contain more than 500 words and there is no form to fill in.
As you can see Google is getting smarter everyday so must not trick the search engines but to have truly valuable info to our visitors.

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Google recently made many changes to its search engine algorithm. These changes will surely affect your website ranking, so I want to take the time to show webmasters an overview of these changes.

Google was crawl and indexing pages on monthly bases, which means we see changes in ranking monthly. But now this is done continuously one daily bases, which means your ranking can change from day to day but you can see bigger changes when Google change its algorithm.

Last month there was a big change within the Google algorithm, if your website ranking was hurt because of these changes then you should update your website and make it follow the new guidelines for a better ranking.

1. Create a better linking campaign: By RSS feeds, article syndication and submitting to directories and press release.
2. Google sitemap: create a sitemap is vital to increase the pages that indexed by Google.
3. Navigation system: make sure all of your pages are reachable from at least one static link.
4. Manipulative or deceptive behaviour: Never link to linking schemes, don’t use any form of cloaking and never use hidden links or hidden text.

vexxhost WebHosting Team
Quality, affordable web hosting.
As low as $2.55, As much as 10GB space, 300GB transfer
With Free domains and Free setup fees