Ceruleah

I say go with Paint Shop Pro and enjoy it! You're saving money and using an excellent product. I have won contests on Worth1000.com using PSP against folks using PhotoShop. It's all in YOUR talent and ability to use YOUR program.

I can't wait to see what you come up with!

I'm chiming in a bit late and you've had some extensive suggestions so I'm going to sit back and pretend I'm your average small company thinking they want something on the web ... and I happen upon your page. Put the darker background behind the following text to grab my attention: That is the text that really needs to POP out at your visitors. Grab them from the first moment. You've done a great job of showing you can work on a unique site. I wouldn't expect that my site would be an out-of-the-box template you've already used two dozen times. Use the same dark background behind: I want to cut to the chase. I don't have time to read a lot of text to get to the information I'm really looking for. Tell me what you do and tell me where to find more information. Now you may have already reworked these details in your mind since you're planning a redesign. Keep the unique "cold" feel of the site. It's perfect. Make sure folks in a hurry can easily find the pertinent info. Offer links to the "I'm in the news" and "liven up your desktop" so I can do that if I want, but I'm not bogged down by that stuff if I don't want to be.

I searched quite extensively the other day before replying and couldn't find anything in their ToS. Have you emailed them? Perhaps you could try to initiate a transfer and see if they block it? At least then they would give you a reason.

I really enjoy a good old-fashioned barter. Services for services or services for product. In other cases, I default to PayPal. It's my preference.

They should submit a press release to all area newspapers and radio stations and ask for free advertising spots. Place a copy on local internet bulletin boards. Put printed fliers in the windows of downtown businesses as well as in the library. See if City Hall will allow them to put posters anywhere, as many communities have a special spot for these. Grocery stores and laundromats are other good spots for fliers. Besides the local internet forums, put a press release on PRWeb.com and any similar sites. See if the Chamber of Commerce has a mailing list to which they can send announcements. You can also include fliers and ask the Chamber members to post the flier in their business window. If there are area tourism websites, they will often post events in their Area Happenings section for free.

I use Firefox but I installed Opera recently and may give it a fling. A loooong time ago I used Netscape when it was the only alternative to IE.

Always using the same colors, if you design sites for others, is going to place you in a rut. Your portfolio will start to look like variations on a theme with nothing fresh and new to offer. Eskymo pointed out that you can't always create a completely new look. People need brand identity. If every piece of letterhead and business card and signage for a business is red and black, your standard green on green sitework won't mesh. For sites that I design from scratch I tend toward a darker border with a lighter color background so the text can pop out. My theory is that the dark border will force their focus into the lighter area of the webpage. I did break that mold with one site and went for the "soothing and airy" look. I think it's working and should appeal to some but it isn't my favorite. But then, it isn't all about me, is it?

Andrew is spot on! Blog comments are the best *free* way to advertise your site. It is perfectly acceptable and even encouraged to place your site link in your blog comment. And as kconnections said, don't spam or post silly things like "Hey, nice post". Show that you actually read the post, understood it and might have something intelligent to share about it. No one is going to visit the "Hey, nice post" guy's blog.

I like Paint Shop Pro. I'm running version 8 on my system. You can start out with very simple procedures including One Step Photo Fix and such. It can handle a lot more than that, though. It's the poor man's version of PhotoShop. LOL

I am currently running Firefox and Opera. When the new IE is out of beta and it's security issues are out of the news headlines I might download it, since the older version completely tanked on my computer. I like to view my new webpages in different browsers to make sure everyone is seeing things as I intended. Do you double-check your pages this way? What browsers do you use to do it? How many browsers are on your computer right now?

We've been talking in another thread about submitting sitemaps or using the Google Sitemaps tool to increase crawls and, therefore, traffic. What if you created a blog just for your sitemap? Each time you add an article, blog about it or at least point people to the link but republish your entire blog each time, including the sitemap? Or is there a reason Google would spit this back at you?

My IE completely tanked recently so once the new version is released I might try downloading it overtop. I won't mess with beta versions because IE is buggy enough to start with, without inviting trouble. I only use IE for reviewing webpages so that those poor folks who have yet to discover Firefox can see them properly.

We have a desktop with two monitors and two laptops running every day, plus two more desktops as needed. The two monitors were a brainstorm one day when I got tired of tweaking webpages and flipping between windows and it has worked great! We also homeschool, so the children's software is on separate computers from ours.

Have you ever been tempted to send someone a critique or offer a redesign, though? LOL I get the same way with sloppy newsletters received in postal mail, too. I've never DONE it, but I am oh so tempted.

I've learned to sort of blame myself, HoosierHunter. I'm not great with original ideas, but I love to tweak things. When I see a site that has a good general idea but loses itself in sloppy detail work, it drives me nutty. I also know that what *I* see isn't necessarily the way others want to see it. I have a friend who does great site design work. She and I critique each others' work. Sometimes I nitpick too much, I'm afraid, but together the two of us really make the sites shine!

If you want to get backlinks from a few well-known sites, consider checking to see if they run a blog on the site. Don't reply unless you have something useful to contribute ... otherwise it's just spam and they'll delete you. Sometimes those comments count as backlinks and sometimes they don't. It all depends upon the settings the blog author is using. Even if they aren't counted as backlinks, reading their blog and commenting when appropriate might possibly help you establish a relationship with them which, in turn, could afford you the opportunity to request reciprocal linking.

I don't know what it might do that others can't. It is very easy to use, but you can delve deeper as your familiarity grows. I started out doing basic stuff and trying new functions just to see how they worked. I am mostly self-taught though I learned alot from fiddling around at Worth1000.com.

I work best with a basic framework in place. Raw code with a WYSIWYG option (like Trellian supports) helps me click back and forth to see the end result of my wild typing. LOL

My original ideas usually come while randomly browsing the internet. I'll see a site that is poorly done and say "I can do that so much better!" or I'll see a really unique design and try tweaking it on my own ... not cloning, but somewhat similar. Mostly to test my own mettle to see if *I* can do what they did. When I'm working on an assigned site, I tend to stagnate. I have to walk away from it for a time and return to the duties of "real life". When inspiration strikes, though, the dishes go undone and hopefully supper is in the crockpot because I am holed up in my office clicking away!

GoDaddy requires 60 days and then they make it difficult to carry through with the transfer. What does Yahoo's Terms of Service say about this? I can't find the information in a brief search, but it should be readily available to you since you purchased through them.

I think it probably takes a certain type of person to be successful at this, just as it takes a certain type of person to make money in real estate speculation. I have one domain name that I've watched for the last 2.5 years hoping they'll forget to renew by their annual date. They haven't forgotten yet. If they renew next year and *still* haven't done anything with that URL, I'm going to offer to buy it from them. I have specific plans for it, though. Beyond that, I'm just not comfortable expending money in this direction because I wouldn't have a clue what I was doing. I think it would turn into a money pit for me.

I really like using Paint Shop Pro. I am currently running 8 on this system. I tried PhotoShop and found it to be cumbersome. PSP is much cleaner and easier to work with. I imagine there are things that PhotoShop can do that PSP can't, but thus far I haven't needed those things or I've found a creative way around them.