The method you use to buy images on istockphoto.com is through the purchase of credits.  Credit costs depend on the volume of credits you purchase.  Buying a batch of 50 credits or less will cost you about $1.50-$1.60 per credit.

To get started, navigate to istockphoto.com and create a free account and then login.  Next, begin searching for your images by using istockphoto.com’s search tool

Once the results appear for your search term, you’ll be presented with advanced search options in the left sidebar of the page for you to optionally fine tune your search.  There are a multitude of options here, however if you’re looking specifically for images and photos for your website, you can check the “Photos” box under “Narrow Your Results” to instruct istockphoto.com to only show photos in your search results, excluding vector illustrations, video, audio, and flash.

If you’d like to further refine your search results, scroll down to find the sidebar header that reads “Photos & Illustration Filters”.  Click on the small arrow on the right hand side to expand the Photo & Illustration Filters search options.

The new search filters will allow you to find images that are oriented in certain way (vertical, horizontal, or square) and/or contain a specific color that you choose (possibly to match your company logo and/or website branding).  I find the CopySpace filter to be of little use as I’ve found it to produce inconsistent results.

Once you begin browsing through your search results and find an image you like, click on the tiny light bulb icon below the image to save it to your lightbox.  If you haven’t created one yet, you’ll be provided a link to create a new lightbox after clicking on the icon.

You can also click on the image to view a larger version along with additional details about the image including cost.  On this page you’ll have another opportunity to add the image to your lightbox by clicking on the “Add to Lightbox” link below the image.   You can also right click on the image or click on “Download a comp” to copy the watermarked image to place on your website or print document to test to see how the image looks where you’re proposing to use it.  If it passes the test, you can then decide to purchase the image.

Smaller web ready images are usually 1 to 2 credits which comes out be about $1.50 to $3.00 per image.   Some of the higher-end photos and larger image sizes are 5 credits and up, so when browsing through the images and photos you’re considering for use on your website, pay attention to how many credits the image costs.  Although most images will be in the 1 to 2 credit range, many can be more expensive and if you require a lot of images for your site, the costs can begin to add up, especially if you’re on a tight budget.

For website images, I find that the “XSmall” image size is usually sufficiently large enough for effective use on a website, however sometimes the “Small” size is needed.  If you’re not familiar with pixel sizes, there is a handy tool you can use to enter the pixel dimensions provided by istockphoto.com for each of the available image sizes,  http://auctionrepair.com/pixels.html

Just enter the width (the first number) and height pixels in the fields and click on the link, “Show me an image this size”.  A new window or tab in your browser will open with a generic blue image showing you the size the istockphoto.com image would be.

When purchasing an istockphoto.com image, make sure you do indeed select the correct image size because by default, they have the “Large” size image selected.  In the example above, if you didn’t click on the smaller image size to purchase,  you’d be buying a 15 credit “Large” image instead of a 2 credit “XSmall” image which is difference of about $20!

If you’re looking for a large number of images and graphics for your website, it’s a good idea to perform a number of different searches and browse through images and simply add the ones you think you may use to your lightbox.  It’s best to save the images to your lightbox because then you can easily view them all in one place and share your lightbox with other istockphoto.com members.  Once you feel you have enough images to choose from, you can open your lightbox and begin narrowing down which images you like best.
 

Sharing Your Lightbox

If you’re working with a web designer, you’ll want to share your lightbox with them so they can either assist you in determining which images would work best in which locations on your site and/or you can show them which images you’ve already purchased.

To share a lightbox, you’ll need to first open your saved lightbox(s).  At the very bottom of your browser window on any istockphoto.com page (when you’re logged into the site), you’ll see a dark gray ribbon bar.  In the bottom left corner of the ribbon, click on “My Account”.  A popup menu will rise and then click on “Lightboxes”.

On the next screen you’ll see all of your lightboxes.  To the far right, next to lightbox name you’ve decided to share, under the “Actions” header, click on the link, “Admin”.

Next, click on the button, “Choose a Member”.  You can either type in the person’s member name to grant them access to your lightbox or do a member search.  My member name, for example, is skozyk.

Once you’ve finalized which images you want, you can begin purchasing them from within your lightbox and downloading the images individually to your hard drive.  It’s usually best to create a new folder on your computer to download the images to where you can later zip the folder to store or send the web designer.

After you’ve downloaded all of your images and have zipped your images folder, if the folder file size is 10mb or under you can email the folder to the web designer.  If it’s larger, you’ll need to use a free service like www.YouSendIt.com to transfer the files to them.

Istockphoto.com is an indispensible resource for finding stock images, photos, and other types of media for legal use on your website.   It helps give your website or print project a very professional  appearance using high quality images at an affordable price.

http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/
http://www.elegantthemes.com/
http://themeforest.net/category/wordpress
http://www.woothemes.com/
http://premium.wpmudev.org/wordpress-themes

WordPress Reading Settings

Next choose the “Front Page Displays” (your homepage) option that you’d like and click the save button and you’re all set!  If you haven’t yet created a homepage, add a new page named “Home”  and return to the Reading Settings and set your new “Home” page as your Front Page.

For ITegrity built websites, if you want to set one of your existing pages to be your homepage and don’t want it to appear in your website’s main navigation, first set the page as your Front Page.  Next go to pageMash in you “Pages” tab and hide the page.  This will prevent the page from appearing in your website navigation as a normal page, but will appear as your homepage and also when a user clicks on the “Home” link your navigation.

CSS is usually contained in a separate file from an HTML web page. This is why CSS files are frequently referred to as “external style sheets”. When an HTML page or other type of web page loads like .aspx, .php, or .cgi, the page calls the external CSS file and reads all of the presentation properties defined in the file. The CSS file tells the HTML page how to style the website’s content and in the case of tableless web design, where to place it. With CSS, a web designer can set rules for the presentation of individual web pages or an entire site.

Traditionally, web pages were built using HTML with tables to layout the page structure and content. These cell based tables are very similar in form to a table found in Microsoft Excel and Word. An advantage of using tables is when used properly, it closely mimics the standard page layout in print media such as newspapers or magazine articles. However, as web technology has advanced and become more dynamic, a new era of design with greater possibilities has emerged. A new approach to designing and laying out web pages was created to break the constraints of structured table layouts. This approach is called CSS tableless design.

It’s important to understand that traditional table based design and CSS are not mutually exclusive; CSS is frequently used by web developers using table based design to control the properties of tables and other items on their web pages. On the other hand, tableless design wouldn’t be possible without CSS. However, instead of using tables, a tableless designer uses what are known as “DIV”s, which is short for “division”. The name DIV is also derived from the HTML <div> tag that forms the DIV in the HTML code. A DIV is a box, or more accurately described as a container, where web content is housed. Similar to table based design where content is contained within the cells of the table, with DIVs the content is housed inside DIV containers.

A DIV’s properties are defined within the CSS file. CSS tells the DIV where to appear on a web page, its width and height dimensions, and its appearance i.e. if it should have a background color or image, a border, or whether it should even be visible. There are a wide variety of other CSS properties that can be applied to DIVs. Instead of being constrained by the rigid grid structure of tables, DIVs can be made any size and placed anywhere on a webpage including layered on top of each other. This is what makes CSS tableless DIV design so powerful. The layout and design possibilities are essentially endless.

Even though the use of tables for website page structure is deprecated, tables still play an important role in CSS tableless design. Tables should be used for structuring and presenting tabular data. An example of best practices for using a table in your design that many novice CSS tableless designers overlook is when building a web form, for example a company information request form. Sure, it may be obvious that using tables is best used to present data from a database or the results of a form submission, but when laying out the form itself, tables will save you a lot of time. Therefore, it is important for CSS tableless designers to understand how to use tables and when they are a better and more efficient solution than using strictly CSS tableless design.

It’s been a hot button issue for some web designers as to which method is better, table based layouts or CSS tableless layouts.

Let’s take a look at 9 reasons why CSS tableless design performs better than traditional table based web design and why it has become the preferred method of modern web design:

1. CSS tableless design allows web designers the possibility to make more complex layouts and designs when producing a website. With table based layouts, web designers are confined to creating layouts that can be rigid, inflexible, and based on grids. CSS tableless based layouts, on the other hand, allow the designer to be as creative as their imagination allows them to be.

2. If your intention is to improve search engine rankings for your website, then a CSS tableless design will help your cause. CSS tableless designs result in smaller web page file sizes, a reduction in the ratio of code to content, and the elimination of the extraneous “junk” HTML markup that many table based web editors use. This makes it easier for search engine spiders to crawl through your website and results in a more favorable ranking in search engines.

3. By using CSS style sheets it is extremely easy to maintain visual consistency throughout your website. When using table based layouts, it is easy to lose this consistency because each web page’s style, layout, and design are frequently hard-coded individually into every page. If you need to make a change to your website across all pages, you’ll have to change the code on each individual page. With CSS, all pages can use the same CSS document for their layout and styles. If you change a property in the CSS file, the changes will be instantaneously reflected across all pages of your website.

4. Updating a CSS tableless website is easier and less time consuming than compared to table based designs. For example, if you want to change font sizes and colors within your website, your external CSS file can be simply opened and the necessary changes made without making the change on each and every page of your website. To change the look of your website for special or seasonal promotions, the entire website “look and feel” can be completely altered simply by changing properties in the CSS file without touching the HTML code of the web page.

5. Redesigning a website using CSS tableless design is faster and less expensive than redesigning a website using table based design. This is because CSS tableless designs have separate files for content and visual data including web page structure whereas table based designs mix layout information with content in the same file. By separating the visual data and layout from the content, a web designer is able to quickly and easily make changes across the entire website.

6. Table web page designs rely heavily on the use of spacer .gifs, a transparent image used to control blank space within a table based web page. Having to create a series of custom sized transparent images to organize your web page layout creates messy code and a rigid page structure that can’t be easily changed. CSS tableless design eliminates this problem by using DIVs instead of tables which can be easily resized, positioned anywhere on a page, or even dynamically manipulated through the use of scripting languages.

7. A common advantage of using CSS tableless web design is a reduction in web page file size which equates to your web pages loading faster. When compared to a CSS tableless layout, a table based web page frequently takes twice as long to load. Also, the amount of bandwidth you will save using a CSS tableless based approach, especially as your website grows in size, can be vast resulting in a faster overall loading website while saving you money.

8. Using CSS tableless web design makes your website more accessible by making content consumption and site navigation easier for users. You’ll also do a much better job of accommodating those with visual impairments and other disabilities. Screen readers, Braille devices, and special browsers for the impaired have fewer problems with tableless designs because they can control the CSS file making font sizes larger, or even modify the web page structure to make it easier to read.

9. CSS enables the web designer to attach multiple style sheets for different media types. If a potential customer visits your site with her Blackberry or mobile phone, a different CSS style sheet is called which dictates a completely different layout and styling for your entire website formatting it for optimal viewing on the small screen of the device.
CSS tableless design is a great method for developing modern websites and offers many valuable advantages over traditional table based design. Using CSS tableless design will provide your website visitors better usability and accessibility, faster page load times with greater, more elegant design possibilities. For the web developer and website owner, CSS tableless websites are easier and less expensive to redesign, update and maintain. When given a choice, CSS tableless design will be the best option for most present day website designs.

When used correctly, your business website can be a very effective tool in marketing your business on the World Wide Web and converting visits to your website into sales for your business.

Going past just survival, if you want your business to thrive and establish itself as a market leader, be forward thinking and make your business stand out by building a presence on the Internet. Having a brick and mortar presence in your market is just not enough in today’s world. Each year a greater percentage of the population uses the Internet to make purchases and shop. They are also increasingly using the Internet to research and locate businesses. More people today are even discarding traditional hard copy phone books in favor of using online phone books to look up businesses. Is your business listed in the most popular online phone books like yellowpages.com and superpages.com?

Below is list of 9 critical reasons to have your business website on the internet.

1. Gain an Edge Over your Competitors.

The Internet is a necessity of modern business life. Businesses that have a website are already at a huge advantage over their competitors. They not only have a wider customer base but they are also considered more professional.

2. Cost Effective Marketing.

A business website has the potential of reaching millions of customers throughout the globe without spending or investing huge amounts of money. The number of potential customers contacted via your website and the costs involved puts the return on investment of a website on higher scale when compared to other marketing techniques, such as traditional advertising and on the road sales representatives.

3. Provides Complete Business Information.

A business website can easily provide complete business information including your business policies, terms and conditions, phone and fax numbers, business address, directions, maps and special offerings. People can get all the pertinent details about your business just by visiting your company website.

4. Eliminate Time Constraints.

A prospect can visit your website at their leisure without time pressure. This is one of the biggest advantages that web advertising has over other media. It allows unlimited time for a potential customer to explore your company and its products.

5. Continuous 24/7/365 Days Advertising.

A website can be viewed any time 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. To have a business website means 365 days continuous advertisement of your products and services. It helps to keep your existing and potential customers updated with latest information about your business.

6. Creates A Global Presence.

A website has no geographical boundaries which enables people from all over the world to look at your products. This gives your business a global presence and an ability to drive more sales and make more money.

7. Best Media to Showcase your Products.

A business website enables you to post photographs of all your products and services along with technical details such as pricing, quantity discounts, color, size availability, delivery, shipping, scope, etc. This will give your website visitors a general idea and a sense of your business and range of products and services you’re offerings.

8. Ability to Attract New Suppliers.

Your website will not only be visited by potential customers, but also by motivated suppliers who are looking for more customers who might approach you to sell their products at lower prices which gives your business the opportunity to expand. Adding new suppliers can help you to offer your customers a wider variety of products at lower prices.

9. Create a Professional Image of Your Business.

A website helps you to create a professional image of your business giving an impression that the company is credible and trustworthy. A professionally designed website can not only attract visitors (prospects) but can help convert them into buyers or paying customers.

Any one of these factors alone would help your business to expand and increase sales, but by having a website for your business you are acquiring the benefits of all for an exponentially lower cost than you could by traditional means. Creating an online presence for your business on the Internet can be easily achieved by a professionally designed business website. Many reputable web developers can be found online by doing a little research, for example using a Google web search for “web developers”. Best of luck with your new website and online business!

Steve Kozyk
CEO/Founder ITegrity
skozyk[at]itegritygroup.com
www.itegritygroup.com
Web Site For Your Business- 9 Critical Reasons to Build a Web Site

Also, the first machine I tried installing Captivate 4 on wouldn’t allow the audio Calibrate dialog to popup (winXP).  There was no way for me to calibrate any audio source (I tried three different sound cards)  After wasting almost a full day on this, I finally decided to give up and install it on a different machine.  Now I have the mono/stereo output problem.  I couldn’t function without Adobe software, so it pains me to mention anything negative about them, but this is buggy software and was obviously released from beta too soon.  Over ambitious feature enhancement for v4?  Maybe, but not what I expected from Adobe.  I’m disappointed with the product.

Note to Adobe:  I understand why your audio Calibrate tool is simplistic in it’s design; it needs to automatically calibrate sound levels for the 90% of Captivate users that don’t know anything about audio recording and use a generic $5 microphone.  For these users it probably functions just fine.  However for those of use who use (or are thinking about purchasing) Captivate for creating professional quality e-learning systems, this Calibration tool falls well short.  We need real-time audio monitoring for more fine tune control over our input levels.  To solve the stereo/mono issue, we also need a simple toggle for stereo input or mono, not automatic handling of the input signal type.  These two features could be added to an advanced tab in the Calibration tool.  It would solve a lot of problems and allow Adobe to market Captivate 4 as including upgraded tools for professional audio recording.