If you’re having trouble with mysql crashing when starting WAMP read on….

This problem happened to me recently and I had a really hard time figuring it out.    Eventually, after some troubleshooting I determined the problem was caused by having two different version of mysql installed.  Apparently, this was caused by installing wamp over an old version.

To determine if this is the problem open Windows Explorer and navigate over to the mysql directory c:\wamp\bin\mysql. Under this directory you should only have one MySQL directory, for example mysql5.1.32. If you have more than one directory MySQL is probably crashing because WAMP is loading the wrong MySQL version. So, the best way to fix this is to completely remove your c:\wamp directory and reinstall WAMP. Don’t forget to backup your c:\wamp\www directory first!

Hope this helps!

I hate to post a negative review like this, but this company is selling a product that is causing people a lot of frustration.  I purchased this product almost 3 months ago to use on Windows.  My goal was to sync up with FreshBooks.  After I purchased it I realized it didn’t work at all with FreshBooks. I contacted there support department at http://getsatisfaction.com/colovo/products/colovo_timepost_windows and they admitted that the Windows version had a lot of problems. They promised a working version “soon”.  I even received an email saying a new version was being released “today”.  That was over a month ago. I have asked for a refund and they have not complied. I am currently working with PayPal to dispute this purchase.  If you purchased TimePost2 for Windows and feel like you didn’t get what you paid for, you may want to do as I did an raise a dispute with PayPal.  They have been promising a new version for months on Windows and in my opinion a company should not be charging people for a non-working product. At the very least they should refund your money if you ask for it.

Feel free to post your comments, but please only post factual information to help educate other freelancers on the issues with TimePost for Windows.

Web Design in Massachusetts

If you are using paypal to implement a shopping cart and are getting this error please read on…..

You are probably trying to create shopping cart buttons for items that have weight specified in ounces.

You realized that paypal weights are specified in pounds so you specified a fraction i.e. .0625

When you try to add an item to your shopping cart you get the following error:

A weight value must be an integer greater than or equal to one

This error is quite misleading!  Paypal is very fussy about the format of decimals.

To specify one ounce you must specify the weight as follows

0.06

It’s important that you have the zero before the decimal point and no more than two digits after the decimal point.

Here is a table you might find useful for ounce->pound paypal conversions

1 oz = 0.06

2 oz = 0.13

3 oz = 0.19

4 oz = 0.25

5 oz = 0.31

6 oz = 0.38

7 oz = 0.44

8 oz = 0.5

9 oz = 0.56

10 oz = 0.63

11 oz = 0.69

12 oz = 0.75

13 oz = 0.81

14 oz = 0.88

15 oz = 0.94

Be sure to type the numbers in EXACTLY as they are above.

Hope this helps all those struggling with this error message.

If you don’t understand what page rank is be sure to read the article “What is Page Rank?”.

If you want your site to rank higher in the search results for a given set of keywords you may need to improve your page rank. If you have a page rank of zero it won’t be too hard to get your page rank up to 1 or 2. Increasing your page rank will greatly improve how the search engines prioritize your site’s pages in the search results for a given keyword phrase.

Before we attempt to improve our page rank, it’s important to understand how Google determines your page rank. The actual algorithm is not disclosed by google (for a detailed explanation of the page rank algorithm try this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank) but research has shown that Google uses the following factors:

1. The number of “important” web pages linking back to your site. The definition of an “important page” is a page with a high page rank.
2. Page titles that include keywords

So, to improve your page rank you need to optimize your page titles and get quality back links to your landing pages.

Studies have also shown that google assigns a higher page rank to pages where backlinks include keyword rich anchor text that is relevant to the content on the page. For example, Professional Web Site Designers links back to a web design company that provides professional web site designs. When the googlebot crawls this site it will associate the keywords Professional Web Site Designers with this Web Design Companies web site.

So, the quickest way to improve your page rank is to get links on high quality web sites back to your web pages. There are several techniques you can use to do this including link exchanges, posting on forums, posting in blogs and getting listed in high quality web directories. The most important thing is to make sure you don’t SPAM the search engines. Don’t do anything to try to fool the search engines. They are not as stupid as you think. If it was easy to optimize your site every site would be optimized and if you’re not careful you can get your web site removed from the index or delegated to the supplemental index.

Tips for finding a web designer

If you’re looking to find a web designer here are some tips to help you find a professional web designer that can help you build a professional web site.

Find someone local

If this is your first time having someone design a website professionally, you will probably feel more comfortable if you find someone local that you can meet with one-on-one

• Use Google to search for a web designer in your home town or in the neighboring towns. Searches with keywords like “Web Designer Boston” or “Web Design Boston”, for example.
• Check your local Chamber of Commerce to find a reputable web designer.

Once you find a web designer

• Make sure the web designer has a professional web site. If the web designer can’t take the time to develop a professional web site you may want to ask your self if they are qualified enough to develop a website for your business.
• Ask the web designer how many years they have been developing web sites. It takes several years to learn to be proficient in HTML, CSS, Javascript, Flash, MySQL, etc. It doesn’t happen overnight and they shouldn’t be learning on your account.
• Does the web designer use a site builder or hand code the HTML and CSS? These days, in order to develop a web site that is optimized for searching it’s almost essential to develop the web site by hand using HTML and CSS and a text editor. If you’re in a non-competitive market you may be able to get away with someone who uses a site builder such as DreamWeaver, which happens to be one of the best.

It’s not easy to develop web sites anymore. Web designer’s these days need to be equally proficient at the technical aspect as well as the design aspects of web design.

Someone who is good with computers is probably not qualified enough to design a website that looks professional and is easy to navigate. And vice versa….Someone who is a graphic designer or illustrator will generally not have the technical know how to create a website that has all the modern functionality of todays websites.

The moral of the story is to take your time and find a web designer that can design a professional looking website that is optimized for searching and is coded using all the latest HTML and CSS standards.

Google page rank is a numeric value from 1-10 that Google assigns to every web page. This value is indicative of how important Google thinks a web page is to potential web surfers. A values of 10 is the best possible ranking and zero is the worst. To determine a web pages page rank you can use the Google toolbar which works with Internet Explorer and Firefox.
Page rank is one of the determining factors in how well your page ranks in search results. Besides performing search engine optimization, it is also important to improve your page rank in order for your website to display on the first page of the search results for key words related to your business.

Optimize your Page Titles

Optimizing your page titles is probably the single most important thing you can do to optimize your site for search engines.

What is a Page Title?

A page title is the text that displays at the top of the window when you navigate to a web page. It is also the text used when you save a book mark. Most important of all, it is the text a Search Engine uses to determine what type of content you have on your web page.

The page title is defined by HTML in the page source between the tags in the section of the web page. To see your page title in the source code of your web page right click with your mouse in your web browser and select the “View Source” option.

To optimize your page titles, make sure you use keywords related to your business in your page titles. We see too many websites out there that use the same title on every page. This is a big mistake and is usually the result of a web design company that doesn’t have the expertise to optimize a site for search engines or doesn’t care. There are too many web design companies out there that put out an inferior product. It is the uneducated customer who pays the price.

To edit your page titles you will have to edit a copy of your web page and upload the new page to your web hosting provider. You can do this using FTP or your web hosting control panel. If this all sounds like greek to you then you should contact a reputable web design company to help you with this all-important task.