What is Artisteer?
Artisteer is a completely revolutionary design program because it takes the familiar WYSIWYG approach of many web design programs such as Dreamweaver, and applies it to building Wordpress, Joomla, and Drupal themes. This once again gives do-it-yourselfers power in the web design world, but is  it really worth the investment?

Artisteer Options
The program comes in the following editions:

Home and Academic: This version of the program is $49.95. This is the perfect solution for those who only need to work with standard HTML templates and WordPress themes.

Standard: This version of the program is $129.95. In addition to support for Wordpress themes and standard HTML templates, it also has support for building templates for Joomla 1.5 templates, Drupal version 5 and 6 themes, ASP.NET applications and allows to export to ColorCharge Studio. This edition is more suitable for an experienced web designer who wants to make jobs a bit easier.

The Artisteer Trial
The free trial is fully functional, even allowing you to export themes for use, but the catch is they are watermarked until you purchase a program license. When we used the program trial to take a closer look at its features, we were impressed by this fact. After developing a few WordPress themes, we purchased the Student license and were immediately pleased to see the watermarks had been removed and the theme could be used on any website we wished. The only catch? You are not legally allowed to use the photos in the stock library in the program if you intend to sell the theme. You can download trials for both editions and make the purchase directly within the program.

Artisteer Pros
•    Free updates for a year after purchase.
•    Users who want to upgrade between editions can do so for the price difference between the two programs, currently $80.
•    The program interface is designed to mimic Microsoft Office 2007 and Windows 7. If you have experience with these programs, you’re one step ahead of the rest of the game.
•    There are many suggestions, color schemes, graphics and other options to help you build your very own themes.

Artisteer Cons
•    The program doesn’t allow you to upload custom backgrounds or headers which makes it difficult to truly customize a theme or template.
•    The resulting theme may need some tweaks by a professional designer to complete customizations.

Our Final Thoughts
Since Artisteer is available for both Windows and Mac based platforms, nearly anyone can enjoy the program. It’s incredibly easy to use, and is a cost effective solution, especially when compared to the costs of professional design. It can even help professionals cut their design time because they can make necessary changes to the code to provide a complete customization. For those who need to design Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal or ASP.NET templates and applications, this is a decent investment. There is certainly room for improvement, but overall, the program is definitely worth it.

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Hooters girls are great, there is no doubt. But if Hooters food and service absolutely sucked, they’d be out of business regardless of the ‘hotness factor.’

The same is true for a webhosting service. In my line of work, I have had the unfortunate experience of building sites and blogs on more web hosting services than I care to remember. Of these, GoDaddy was probably one of the worst. The basic layout of their webhosting site is not easy to navigate and is definitely not designed for the beginner. It has always taken what seemed an endless amount of time to locate the correct files, and even to find the c-panel in the first place. Calling customer service will get you where you need to be, but be prepared to call back again and again. Like I said, there is no ‘common sense’ approach to the layout of this site.

On the other hand, all of my 30+ websites are hosted neatly on an easy to navigate hosting site called Hostmonster. Singing the praises of Hostmonster is pretty easy, since they’ve got everything going for them. Here’s a few of their strong points:

• Ease of use – The site is laid out with a super simple c-panel, easy to find files, Simple Scripts for uploading Wordpress, and a short tutorial for newbies.
• Cost – For anyone worried about hidden charges from web hosting companies, look no further. Hostmonster has one low flat yearly rate for your main domain and then (drum roll please) you can host as many additional sites as you want for no extra charge! For someone like me with over 30 websites, that is music to my ears.
• Reliability – With Hostmonster I’ve never experienced down time or problems. They are just that good.
• Tech Support – Now here is where the real deal lies. I’ve called customer service lines for numerous web hosting companies and some were better than others, but Hostmonster goes the extra mile. In the early days of blog building, I’d occasionally try something new that didn’t quite work out so well. Once I wiped out my entire blog with a single keystroke. I’m still not sure what I did wrong, but all I know is that when I called Hostmonster for help, they quickly and politely restored my site to the last full backup (which was less than 24 hours prior) so I lost nothing. Kind of gives you peace of mind when you are just starting out, doesn’t it?

I am sure I could go on touting the praises of Hostmonster, but I encourage you to check them out for yourself.  Check out Hostmonster now. You’ll be glad you did. In my book they are the most reliable, stable web hosting company out there.

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Stumbling around aimlessly online, as I often do, I found the tool that generates that tiny little icon that sits next to the title of your website. It is used in the site tabs and also for sites you bookmark.

This little branding image makes your site look official and ultra-professional. That tiny icon, by the way, is called a favicon (or a favorites icon).

Official and professional sounding definition: A favicon is a small, 16×16 image that is shown inside the browser’s location bar and bookmark menu when your site is called up. It is a good way to brand your site and increase it’s prominence in your visitor’s bookmark menu.

Dynamic Drive has a plethora of cool and useful tools like this one, for your web and blog designing success. The favicon generator can be used right online. In seconds you’ll have your tiny favicon code. The website also tells you the proper place to put the code to get everything working properly.

This is another no brainer, no reason not to use, easy decision.

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