Website Designers and Webmasters

I thought I would share with you some of the blogs that I read for humor and education:

• Jere Matlock’s Blog – SEO Master
• Desi’s Two Cents
• IAS Freedom Medal Winners
• Ignatius Piazza and Front Sight Blog

Websites I use for business:

• Websites in a Flash.com (Of Course!)
• Ashton Sanders
• Phoenix Development

-That should tie you over,
-Ashton Sanders

I bought my fourth computer today.

Those first two words there are quite an accomplishment by themselves. I am one of the thriftiest guys you’ll ever meet. I never buy soda or fries or chips when I eat out because they don’t have a large enough quench-to-cost ratio. Jack-in-the-box Jumbo Jacks (back when they were $1) used to carry a great quench-to-cost ration. I could drop three whole dollars and fill up.

Those last two words are also quite an an accomplishment, like any growing boy, I never could really get full. Even after growing up and not exercising as much, I still am a bottomless pit.

That was a very random tangent… but back to the laptop.

Growing up, my father knew how to put old school computers together, so I always had a started learning young. My brother, Geoffrey Sanders, and I put three computers together (straight from parts that we bought from the Los Angeles Computer Fair), and they all are still in use and fully operational! I’m very proud of that. Come to think of it, the computer I’m typing on was first put together three years ago 2004, and it’s still the fastest computer that I own! I have two laptops; 1 HP Pavilion and one Compaq Presario.

Probably three or four years ago, a good friend of mine got a SWEET HP laptop for C++ Programming, and I fell in love with it. It was a 17 inch wide screen laptop, and it was so wide, that it has the number pad on it!!! That is one of those luxuries that you just about never see on a laptop.

And for you computer nerds reading this, here are the specs:

1.6Ghz AMD Turion 64 Dual-Core Mobile Technology TL-50
1Gig ram (up to 2 gigs)
128 MB shared video card by Nvidia
100GB hard Drive (5400)
LightScribe 8x DVD +-RW Double Layer
17″ Widescreen (1440×9900, which is also the same pixel depth as my 19″ Desktop Monitor
10/100 Ethernet LAn + Wireless b/g
Web Cam and Mic
A million input/outputs includeing 4 USB and a firewire
XP Media Cente

All of that costs $777! Thank goodness for wholesalers! I can’t believe that price. I was about to get a Dell laptop that they were having a huge sale on for $700, and that had a 15.4 inch display!

I totally can’t wait for it to arrive. (I’m going to have three computers on my desk, and four monitors/displays. HA!)

Nothing like living it up in the digital world!
-Ashton Sanders

Yet another reason why Google is awesome: Webmaster Tools

Webmaster tools is the greatest tool for anyone wanting to get their sites up in the search engines. Search Engine Optimizers who don’t know about this tool, aren’t really search engine optimizers.

You prove to them that you own your website in one of two ways: 1) uploading an .html document to the server with a certain name like Google2903ncvd90nk30.html or 2) add a meta tag to your home page with a similar random name. After that, Google will get you all the information that they have about your site!

The program will tell you all of the crawl errors that the Google bot has while crawling your site! So if your site has gone through a couple redesigns or upgrades, I guarantee there are pages that used to exist that Google can’t find. And everyone of those pages create a 404 error for the Google bot – which, by the way, is not good. But you’ll never know unless you get this tool and find out!

Its got endless tools like that. It has a robot.txt analysis page that will tell you if you have any problems with your robot.txt.

It will tell you how your pages are ranked by Google. It will tell you like 50% of your pages have medium page rank and the other 50% has low page rank. It will also tell you how many links you have directed to your website, and where they are coming from.

Google Webtools also has a place for you to submit your website’s site maps! (Get gsite crawler to create your sitemaps… It makes it as easy as pie.)

And I barely scratched the surface on all of the different tools available to you through webmaster tools.

Check it out
-Ashton Sanders

Disclaimer: I am a huge country music fan, and I love both of these artists. I have bough all of the CD’s from both of them and I recommend both.

I just went to my first live concert, and I went to see Rascal Flatts in Washington. I got to stand right in front of the stage!!! (See Rascal Flatts Concert!) The next day, I start watching the Garth Brooks Live DVD (one from 1995 or sometime very long ago), and being the analytical guy I am, I started analyzing all the differences. Here’s what I came up with:

1. How they perform:

***** Garth Brooks is really there performing and giving all he’s got to make his performance entertaining. He’s always running around and acting out the songs that he sings. He got down on his knees multiple times. After the third song, he was sweating up a storm.

*     Rascal Flatts doesn’t even compare. I think one guy ran once the entire show. Gary kept taking breaks and going backstage, leaving his other band members to perform. He acted link he was sick. (maybe he was…) Overall, there wasn’t a lot of excitement from the band members in comparison.

2. Why They Perform:

***** Garth Brooks is on stage to entertain his guests. Everyone in the audience paid good money to come and see him, and hes going to give them their money’s worth. Hes always very exciting to watch, cause you never know what hes going to do next.

**    Rascal Flatts seemed to be performing, because the had to. They barely ever look at any particular fans, or give it their all. They were fun to watch, but not when compared to Garth.

3. Stage Presence:

***** Garth Brooks has very good stage presence. Also his entire band had very good stage presence. They were comfortable on stage, and because of that, we’re very entertaining to watch.

****  Rascal Flatts had great stage presence. The three of them were very comfortable on stage, but they did have one young kid for a guitarist who had no stage presence. I don’t know how he got on the stage, but he never smiled, and they had him do a guitar solo, and he looked awkward as nuts. He was a good musician though.

4. Talking during the Concert:

***** Garth Brooks almost never talked, and when he did, he said what he had to say as fast as possible. After one song, he said like two sentences in 10 seconds and then said: “You didn’t wait all this time to hear me talk, lets get back to the music.”

**    Each member of Rascal Flatts had like 3 minute soliloquies….

Environment

***** Garth Brooks (10 years ago) Had the stage surrounded by fire, rain, thunder and Lightning in the show I watched. Very entertaining. And on the encore, he was lifted up into the air and flew around the football stadium on wires!

***** Rascal Flatts had some amazing affects! Besides making a globe out of digital screens around them and having parts of their music videos playing while they sang, they had a stage that fanned out into the audience, which was a cool idea. And the coolest thing they did was they all got on one part of their stage, and then they were lifted up into the air and moved to the other end of the arena. They were set down, they played a couple songs, and then came back. It was awesome!

Overall:

Garth wins. =]

-Enjoy
-Ashton Sanders

Who is Ashton Sanders? I realize that many of you have no idea who I am, so I thought I would do a quick post about my past.

I was born in Los Angeles, and joined cub scouts when my younger brother got into tiger cubs. We were both the goody-two-shoes of the school. When I finished 6th Grade, I went to Delphi Academy of Los Angeles.

I’ve always loved sports. I was on the soccer team my four high school years and was the captain of the Soccer Team the year we became undefeated League Champions; a school record to say the least. I got the League Most Valuable Player Award and the Team Spirit Award.

I also became very interested in computers (a computer nerd). We had a LAN Party every break, and I built a couple of my own computers. (I’m currently typing on one that I built two years ago, and it still running strong.) I love working on the computer, and am very good at it. I’ve picked up on a lot of tricks and shortcuts over the years, and consider myself a computer nerd in every aspect. I started working on websites with my brother at the age of 16, under the name Websites in a Flash.

I stayed in the Boy Scout of America Program since I joined in 3rd Grade. I got my Eagle Scout at the age of 17 and spent three summers working at Camp Cherry Valley, a Boy Scout camp on Catalina Island. They were the best summers of my life: teaching kids how to grow up and become a productive, helpful member of society, and having a blast doing it. I was the Head Commissioner for my last year there.

After my second year at Camp Cherry Valley, I moved to Montana with my fiance, and bought my first house at the age of 20. My website business has been growing and expanding since I graduated. I’ve been fortunate enough to work with some amazing website design and Search Engine Optimization professionals. I’m very proud of my website company, and have some very big plans for my website. (I’ll be posting my website updates as they are completed.)

I think that summarizes it pretty well.
-Ashton Sanders