5 Web Pages Every Site Needs

You already know that blogging is a great way to connect with your audience.  Your content is specific to your niche, interesting and relevant to your readers, and is a key part of your marketing strategy. In addition to making your site look good, and your articles well-polished, there are five pages that should be included on every website.


These pages lend to credibility, professionalism, establishing trust, AND search engines expect legitimate websites to have them.


Every website should include the following 5 pages :

1)  The About Page

This page is your chance to tell visitors who you are, what this site is about, and any other relative information.  Obviously, what you put on this page depends on your site’s purpose. .
You might want to include:

• - an Introduction/Welcome
• - Site purpose/philosophy
• - Short Bio (especially if you are branding your self), or a link to your bio
• - How to get Started (call to action) – help your new visitors know what to do next to make the most of your site and what you are offering.

This page should give readers a sense of who they are dealing with.  The About page is typically named “About” and located in the main navigation bar.

2) The Contact Page

You are not anonymous.

Your ability to respond to customer needs, is a vital part of doing business.  Being online increases your market reach, but should not make your customers feel far away.  A contact page helps close the distance, and shows your visitors the best way to get help.

Your contact page should make sense to the type of website and business you are running.  The information should always be up-to-date, and reflect what your typical user is looking for.  It may include a simple paragraph and contact form, or provide a variety of ways that they can reach you.
At the very least, you should include an email address they can use.   You might also address specific types of questions, or establish response expectations.  You may also use this page to send your customers useful directions, such as to your FAQ page, how to get support, where they can find your Media Pages, how to contribute an article, or get an interview with you.

Keep it straight-forward, current, and useful to your customers.

The Contact page is typically named “Contact” or “Contact Us” and located in the main navigation bar.

3) Terms of Use

If you use your website for business, it is a good idea to include a Terms of Use page.  This page can be as complex or as simple as you want it. The purpose of this page is to provide information about the website, its content, restrictions, copyright information, and more.

I like to name this page “Terms” or “Terms of Service”. It is simple, direct, and familiar to visitors as well as search engines.  Some sites choose “Legal”, “Disclaimer”, “TOS”.  This page is typically located in the footer section of your websites.

4) Privacy Policy

In today’s world of technology, people have a heightened concern for privacy.  Before people hand over their information, they want to know what you are going to do with it.  Your privacy page should include information on :

• how you respect your visitor’s privacy;
• what information you collect;
• what you will do with that information; and
• what you do to keep it secure.

This page is typically titled “Privacy” or “Privacy Policy” and located in the footer of your website.

5) Archives and Sitemap Page

Your Archives and Sitemap page has two purposes.  First, to make it easy for your website users to find the content they are interested in and a look at what has been published in the past.  Second, it is used by search engines to index your site.

On WordPress, we typically use the a plugin called Dagon Design Sitemap Generator (available in the WordPress Plugin Directory or http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/sitemap-generator/.)  It is easy to install and customizable.

In addition to your posts and pages, you can use your sitemap to connect your visitors to specific types of posts, or relevant pages off-site.  For example, you might sections like:

• Corporate website pages – this is handy if your blog is separate from your business site.

• Other Websites by – links to other sites you own
• Social Media Pages
• New.  How to Get Started
• Most Popular Posts
• Guest Authors

You are building a legitimate business.  Make sure the pages on your website reflect that.  If you don’t have these on your website blueprint, add them today.

How to Make an Iphone App

Here is the question I get all the time from people who want to get into making iPhone and iPad apps: where do I start? Luckily, it is very easy (and fun!) to start exploring iOS app development. Apple has made the experience of developing software as exciting as using their products.


Today I’m going to map out seven easy steps that you can follow to start developing apps for yourself.
Check it out!

Step 1: Get a Mac

The first thing that you need to do is get your hands on a Mac. This is one area where iOS development is different than other things you may be doing online: you absolutely need to have access to a Mac to get into this (sorry Windows and Linux fans).

Step 2: Download XCode 4

XCode 4 is a special program that you can use to make iOS apps. Just like you use Photoshop to make cool graphics, you use XCode 4 to make cool apps.

What is really nice today is that you can get a copy of XCode for only $5 on the Mac app store (software like this usually costs hundreds of dollars).

Step 3: Make Your Hello World! App

Hello World is the time honored way for programmers to get their feet wet. The idea is that you can create a simple app that just shouts “Hello World” to the universe.

With XCode 4, making a Hello World app is brain dead simple. In fact, you could actually do this yourself without writing one line of computer code.

Step 4: Do Some Programming

Web guys use HTML, JavaScript & PHP to power the web. iOS app developers use the Objective-C programming language to power iOS apps. Objective-C is an innovative object-oriented programming language.

This programming language was one of the first things that made me fall in love with iOS app development. If you are used to other more clunky programming languages, the time that you spend with Objective-C will be like a breath of fresh air.

As a developer you will want to get comfortable with this programming language. Trust me here, it’s worth the investment.

Step 5: Spend Some Quality Time With iOS SDK

Take a look at any iOS app and you will see many powerful and yet common features: tables, buttons, Google maps, location based services and the list goes on. All of this is available to you through the iOS SDK.

What you get with this SDK for free to implement is honestly amazing.
What is truly great about iOS SDK is the consistency in how everything works. Everything follows the same pattern so once you’ve learned how to use a table you will know how to do XML parsing or how to use the camera. All the stuff in iOS follows the same rules.

Step 6: Cook Up Your First App Idea

The key to mastering anything is to have a real world goal in mind. With iOS it is natural to have an app in mind that you would like to bring into the world. Think of this as your muse.
Having an app muse will give you some focus and motivation to go through this process. My advice is to think of a simple app idea that you can get behind and then make it happen by any means necessary.

Step 7: Make Your First iOS App

At some point you’ll be familiar with XCode 4 and iOS SDK and you have a simple yet compelling app in mind. Now is the time to put your head down and make your app work.
Building your first app is a truly exciting and engrossing experience. If you’ve ever played an immersive video game or got lost in a great book that you couldn’t put down then you have some idea of what it’s like to be in the zone when building an app.

This is the mindset that I work on helping my readers get into with Mobile App Mastery Institue – once you are here, building apps becomes almost effortless.

As an added bonus, something that sets iOS app development apart from other online business is that once you have the app complete you will have an audience of buyers. This is a huge advantage to iOS app development, you can really spend much more time focusing on getting the widget right instead of scrambling to set up a sales system, attracting website visitors and worrying about SEO.

To wrap this up – if you are at all interested in making apps what I recommend is to simply start playing around with the tools that I mentioned above. iOS development is really a fun thing to do and it will will even help pay some of your bills if you let it!

Botanical Print Size options from Cafe Press

Imagekind Print Container Sizes

Size	Max Size in Inches	Min Pixel Dimensions
Petite	8x10	800 pixels
Small	11x16	1100 pixels
Medium	16x24	2400 pixels
Large	24x32	3200 pixels
Grande	36x48	3600 pixels
Massive	44x60	6000 pixels

Source:  http://www.imagekind.com/printing.aspx

Recommended Marker Colors

Recommended AD Markers and PrismaColor

  

Green

1. Apple Green
2. Celery
3. Dark Mint
4. Dark olive
5. Emerald green
6. Evergreen
7. Forest green
8. Grass green
9. Leaf green
10. Light Olive
11. Mint
12. Moss green
13. Nile green
14. Olive
15. Palm green
16. Slate green
17. Spruce green
18. Willow green
19. Yellow green

Blue

1. Azure
2. Ice blue
3. Sky blue

 

 

Red/Pink/Purple

1. Brick red
2. Buff
3. Deep Salmon
4. Red/pink/purple
5. Lilac
6. Maroon
7. Mauve
8. Orange
9. Peach
10. Pink
11. Purple sage
12. Redwood
13. Salmon
14. Scarlet
15. Sunset pink

 

Gray

1. Cool Gray # 4
2. Cool Gray # 6
3. Cool Gray #2
4. Warm Gray # 3
5. Warm Gray # 5
6. Warm Gray #1

Texas A&M MLA Reading List

Suggested Readings - LAUP
Students should be familiar with some of the following publications before entering the MLA program. They are essential to landscape architecture and the MLA program dealing with values, perceptions, and techniques.

1.Booth NK 1983. Basic Elements of Landscape Architectural Design. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, Inc.

2.Davis, D. and Walker, T. 1999. Plan Graphics, 5th Edition. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

3.Doyle, M. 2006. Color Drawing. 3rd edition. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

4.Motloch JL 2001. Introduction to Landscape Design, 2nd Edition. New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.

5.Petrie, F. 1992. Drawing Landscapes In Pencil. New York, NY: Watson-Guptill Publications.

6.Reid GW 1993. From Concept to Form in Landscape Design, New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.

7.Sullivan, C. 2004. Drawing The Landscape. 3rd edition. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

University of Georgia MLA Reading List

MLA Reading List

 

This is the recommended reading list for the MLA program at the University of Georgia.

 

 

Books

• American Landscape Architecture, edited by William Tishler
• Architecture: Form, Space & Order, Francis D.K. Ching
• Bounded People, Boundless Lands, Eric Frey Fogle
• Celebrating Third Place, edited by Ray Oldenburg
• Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs
• Design with Nature, Ian L. McHarg
• Earth in Mind, David Orr
• Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, Janisse Ray
• Experience of Place, Tony Hiss
• Genus Loci: Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture, Christian Norberg-Schultz
• The Geography of Nowhere, James Howard Kunstler
• God, Dr. Buzzard and the Bolito Man, Cornelia Walker Bailey
• Great Streets, Allan B. Jacobs
• The Granite Garden, Urban Nature, and Human Design, Ann Whiston Spirn
• The Image of the City, Kevin Lynch
• Keeping Time, William Murtaugh
• Landscape Architecture: An Illustrated History, William Mann
• Landscape Journal: Eco-Revelatory Design, Special Issue 1998
• Landscape Planning – Environmental Applications, William Marsh
• Placing Nature, Culture, and Landscape Ecology, edited by Joan Nassaver
• The Meaning of Gardens, edited by Mark Francis and Randolph T. Hester
• A Moment on the Earth, Gregg Easterbrook
• A Natural History of the Senses, Diane Ackerman
• A Pattern Language, Christopher Alexander
• The Necessity for Ruins, John Brinckerhoff Jackson
• Reading the Landscape of America, May Theilgaard Watts
• Rural by Design, Randall Arendt
• A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold
• Second Nature, Michael Pollan
• The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces, William H. Whyte
• Trees in Urban Design, Henry F. Arnold
• Uncommon Ground: Toward Reinventing Nature, edited by William Cronon

Journals

• American Forests
• Architectural Record
• Environment and Behavior
• Historic Preservation
• Landscape Architecture
• Landscape Journal
• Places
• Restoration and Management Notes
• Urban Land

VA Pays for LEED Exam

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), in accordance with the G.I. Bill, has agreed to reimburse Veterans, eligible dependents and reservists for the cost of any of the LEED Professional Exams' administered by the Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI).

Individuals planning to take a LEED Professional Exam must apply directly to the VA for reimbursement. Under this agreement, the VA will cover up to $2,000 per exam. Anyone who took a LEED Professional Exam after December 3, 2008 is eligible for reimbursement. Those interested in applying and learning more about the program and related certification benefits should visit http://tinyurl.com/gibillVA.

''We are honored to be a part of the VA's aggressive effort to help Veterans gain the skills and credentials required for full participation in the new, green economy,'' said Peter Templeton, President, GBCI. ''For those veterans who are pursuing a career in green building or a related field, this support for attaining LEED credentials can go a long way in helping them achieve their professional goals, and GBCI is proud to play a part in their future success.''

GBCI administers exams for professionals wishing to earn a LEED Green Associate or LEED AP credential, which support the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED green building rating systems. The LEED Green Associate credential is ideal for professionals who want to demonstrate green building expertise in non-technical fields of practice.

The five LEED AP credentials distinguish green building practitioners who have demonstrated proficiency and specialization in the LEED rating systems for Building Design + Construction (BD+C), Interior Design + Construction (ID+C), Operations + Maintenance (O+M), Homes, or Neighborhood Development (ND).

For more information on the LEED Professional Exams and Credentials, visit www.gbci.org.

Source: http://www.landscapeonline.com/research/article/12891