My dot com!

Reboot?

2011-10-16T01:03:00.000-07:00

I created my dotcom a couple of years ago as a project to teach myself how to make a simple, yet effective website

However at the time, I was pretty unhappy at my job, so it was also a diversion to take my mind off things - I kept it up for a few months, but then I got made redundant at the end of March 2010

I haven't touched the site or my blog ever since...and here we are, a year and a half later, and my URL is up for renewal (or I could let it lapse)

So I have to come to a decision...do I keep the site up (even though I've lost interest in changing it any further), take it down, or change it???

I have another site – markcastrogarcia.co.uk – which is also about to lapse...this was my online cv/portfolio (or supposed to be) but I never finished it (I'm good at that!)

After I got made redundant, I went freelance and have been SOOOOO busy ever since, that I haven't had the time or the energy to play around with websites (barely had time to look at my portfolio, but have managed it once or twice)...after a year, I became a sole trader (trading as yewhew)...and my business bank account is in the name yewhew as well...

Maybe I should keep the yewhew.com for my professional site, and do what I never finished with my markcastrogarcia.co.uk site (far quicker for people to type yewhew.com as well!)

But I wonder if I will keep the yewhew.com site as it is, and make my personal bit a sub-site of it, or vice versa...

Either way, I don't think I'll keep blogging about it...I feel I've got the site out of my system, and beat the crisis of confidence I felt when I was an unhappy full-time employee

On the other hand, I may start blogging about my freelancing, as I am very into it (almost obsessive) as you kinda need to be, to keep the momentum going and motivate oneself

Diversification

2010-03-15T16:04:00.000-07:00

I've now gotten around to creating a UK subpage, with equivalent .co.uk links instead (where appropriate)

I've also made the core .com page more relevant, so less UK-only sites feature on there

Another important thing I've incorporated is that now, the links open in a new window, so yewhew.com is still loaded in the background...

handy for people to keep coming back and using it

One last thing I thought of was to add a section to show our newest link, under "welcome" - I've been rather proactive tonight and gotten on with things, rather than just think and plan

A makeover at last!

2010-03-12T15:13:00.000-08:00

At last, a better thought out look and feel, as well as a twitter feed (which in turn also posts onto facebook) - maybe the site can now hold it's head up with the sites it's advertising!

The template came courtesy of http://www.freecsstemplates.org/ and now makes use of css for the first time.

I think the next thing that would add a little polish is tidying up the rounded corners of some of the icons - I think some of them look a little jagged...maybe Google Adsense will start to give me a chance now?

I've also rewritten the strapline to read "an icon-based portal to all your favourite web-based homepages" - I think it makes more sense and is a more precise description than before.

Contact!

2010-03-11T15:14:00.000-08:00

I wrote a review of my favourite real ale pubs in the area, which was posted on http://www.bohoboxmoor.com/boho_boxmoor/2010/03/the-best-real-ale-pubs-in-and-around-hemel-hempstead.html and a couple of people have since contacted me, asking to be linked to my site, or had nice feedback to give :)

Good exposure and unexpected! It was nice to be contacted through my official webmaster@yewhew.com address for a change, and not yahoo or facebook. As well as the requests, I keep thinking up more and more online-based sites to add! It's also nice that some people are actually starting to read my blog...even if I don't have any official "followers".

Phase 2 - progress

2010-03-07T11:37:00.000-08:00

I managed to create all the new icons in one evening, have downloaded Cyberduck for Mac, and discovered a free, online html editor called http://www.online-html-editor.de/index_en.php

As I went to upload my new files, I discovered my FTP access wouldn't work - I put it down to my 3 months away from the site, but it turns out the hosts have implemented a lock, and you have to manually unlock it for an hour at a time!

I also decided to optimise the size of my icons, converting them to .png instead of jpegs - saving two-thirds of the filesize and therefore, increasing page load speeds :)

Phase 2

2010-03-02T15:07:00.000-08:00

Well! It's been 3 months to the day since my last entry and lots has been going on!

First off, my laptop broke and had to go in for repairs in December. Then January was pretty hard work, with all the snow and extra hours commuting - not to mention longer hours than usual spent at work. February was spent catching up and recovering from January.

All the while, I didn't get a chance to touch the website, but it was constantly in my thoughts and now I've thought of a good 30+ sites to add - not to mention the fact that I want to add a UK subpage - pretty much the same as the normal homepage, but linking to .co.uk versions of the sites instead, and adding more UK-relevant sites as well.

Then I just want to tweak the site generally, and also add another subpage to do with checking ads - an idea I would like to expand upon and follow up, once the site is updated - trading under the yewhew name...more of that to come as it progresses...

Listings

2009-12-02T14:38:00.000-08:00

As well as moving up to 4th on Google, yewhew.com is now listed on Yahoo and Bing, plus my blog is featured on bloghub and readablog (in turn, listed on yahoo). I got turned down for adsense again - I think the inclusion of a sitemap will make my website appear more "finished" to them. I also plan on adding a "make this your homepage" button...

yewhew.com

2009-11-30T14:15:00.000-08:00

Ok, recently I think I've concentrated on the technical side of setting up this website. Now I feel like I need to talk about it from a personal point of view...

Why am I creating this site? It's not all about dreaming of becoming a dotcom millionaire! The main thing I want to take away from this is that I really want to learn how to program and run a website, in order to future-proof my career.

If I do end up making any money from this, be it through selling adspace or selling my domain as a whole, I'd really like to donate a percentage of it to my local hospital's fundraising appeal for a replacement neonatal unit. My son was born premature at the Luton and Dunstable hospital in Bedfordshire, back in June this year. We were lucky to get a place there as they have to turn 20 babies away every month.

He was 10 weeks early and is fine now, but we still feel eternally grateful to the L&D for all their hard work and dedication, so it would be lovely to make a little cash from this and be able to add to their appeal (I think they need to raise £1.7m)...http://www.justgiving.com/nicuappeal

I've started trying to spread my blog around other bloglisting sites, and have also submitted yewhew.com to another internet directory call dmoz.org...apparently they share with lots of others, so will save me some work there. I've also shown a few of my friends and family...generally the consensus is that they like it, but are worried it's too easy for copycats to spring up.

I need to try and be the best and be different in order to stand out from the crowd...at the moment, my only competition seems to be tinyhomepage.com. Theirs is modifiable by the user and mine is not meant to be, so we have different approaches there. Also, mine is a straight link and click, whereas you have to register with theirs first.

Stepping things up gear

2009-11-29T10:38:00.000-08:00

Ok, I've finally started to think about a proper, thought out layout, and used Dreamweaver instead of just hand-coded html. I've also signed up to Google Analytics and resubmitted to Google Adsense.

My Google PageRank is also up to 4th and 5th (from 5th and 6th) for "icon-based portal/website"

I'm now starting to consider actively promoting my site using facebook and some sort of press release :)

Progess! :)

2009-11-25T15:41:00.000-08:00

I've discovered Google/Yahoo/Bing webmaster tools, which allows me to submit a site by way of embedding some code in my site, and allowing them to verify it...my site then appeared in a Google search within seconds!

My site is placed top if you search for yewhew.com (naturally), 2nd if you search yewhew, 5th if you key in icon-based portal, and 6th if you search for icon-based homepage :)

Getting to grips

2009-11-23T13:28:00.000-08:00

Ok, now I feel confident getting around the site...I've added some new links/icons, alphabeticised them for ease of use and updating, replaced and amended a few, and am ready to take this to the next level - to come up with a better, more thought out layout, and to give the site more of a "designed" feel...a proper logo for a start wouldn't go amiss!

I got turned down for Google adspace at this stage, as the site is under construction. And nothing's yet appeared in any search engines. Once the site's looking better, I'lll start to put word about myself :)

http://www.yewhew.com

Running before I can walk?

2009-11-19T23:11:00.000-08:00

I'm in two minds as to whether I should have gone live with the site as it is, or carried on testing it offline...however, I know that maybe if I hadn't have uploaded it then, I might never have as I would have spent ages perfecting things, and my motivation has been to do a little bit every day, having jumped in at the deep end...

I guess it's a great achievement to have the site up and running in the state it's in within 4 days of starting my blog...now I need to concentrate on adding loads more icons, and need to start to "design" the site; giving it a logo, banner, a better layout, and more thought to fonts and colours, etc

I've submitted the site to Google, Yahoo and Bing, so hopefully it will start to appear in search results. We had a guy come into work and give a seminar about search engine optimisation (SEO)...one of the things he talked about was giving your page a title, including some keywords, so I've done that and will continue to incorporate his ideas from the notes I made

Getting started

2009-11-19T12:18:00.000-08:00

After a couple of days off, I've found some time to get going again, properly! I've uploaded some test icons to the site, and the links all work :)

I've even regsitered with Google AdSense in the hope that I'll start to place some ads and make some cash? Or at least start to get some notice for the site

And I've downloaded FileZilla, so I don't have to keep switching between my PC laptop for the html editing and my Mac Mini for the uploading...

Well, I guess that the cat is out of the bag and the purpose of my site is now visible for all to see...it is an icon-based portal to (at the moment only some of) all the popular websites! Hopefully it will catch on and people will set it as their homepage eventually...

I've noticed that one of MSN's robots has visited my site...I wonder if it will end up in Bing search results soon?

Bare bones

2009-11-15T04:36:00.000-08:00

I've figured out how to link my blog to my site, plus I've managed to upload my placeholder page so the site is technically live now! Not that I'm about to show it to many people at this stage! Here is a very early screengrab of the site!

I've also managed to make the favicon work so that yewhew is automatically set to my homepage - very handy for testing! I've already found differences between IE, Safari and Firefox, just on simple things like displaying the favicon or copyright symbol :(

I would like to figure out how to have a page counter...even if it isn't on view - just for my purposes...

Genesis

2009-11-15T02:02:00.000-08:00

I've bought my own dot com! I've been meaning to make my own proper website for ages, and haven't programmed in html for like 10 years

I've been watching a lot of Dragon's Den lately, and reading a "how to get rich" book...nothing specific in them made me do this - I just finally motivated myself to get started...after all, I am over 30 now!

First of all, I figured that my bookmarks are all over the place...on my Mac Mini, on my wife's laptop, on our MacBook, on my Mac at work...and in many browsers - Safari, Firefox and IE! I've even saved them into emails from my previous job, just in case! What I decided was I needed a website which meant you could take your bookmarks with you...like what hotmail did for email...

I had a look to see if there was anything out there like it already, and it turns out some site called delicious has beaten me to it! Damn, the best ideas are already taken AND it sold to Yahoo! for $15-30m!!!

So then I had a go on delicious and it inspired me to come up with something similar, but different...simpler...I've had a look at what's out there, and without disclosing my idea at this early stage, I can't see one which does my new adapted idea better :)

On the train home from work, I had a flurry of ideas for the name of the site...got home, and nearly all of them were already taken! I ended up registering www.yewhew.com

To me, this sounds like yahoo, youtube and google all rolled into one! That's not to say I'm launching a search engine or video site!!

I had a play around with some icons at work, and now, on my Sunday morning off, I've figured out a bit of html code, and for the first time, taught myself how to create a favicon.ico !

Oh, and finally got round to starting a blog! My future ones won't be this long, it's just because it's the beginning! I'll have to put my time into the site more, and spend less time on facebook!! Plus I'll need to figure out how to post this to my site as well!

As well as Dragon's Den and "Think Yourself Rich", my internet inspirations/role models over the years have been Sabeer Bhatia (creater of hotmail, sold it for $400m to Microsoft), Alex Tew (milliondollarhomepage, a 21 year old student), Mark Zuckerberg (facebook), Joshua Schachter (del.icio.us) and Adam Croft (a 23 year old SEO who runs his own business and hosts my site!)

I can't wait for yewhew.com to take shape, so I can disclose what my idea is! I don't want to give it away at this stage in case there are any copycats who beat me to it...!