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How To Start A Customized Web Presence – Part I

Dave Young — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 15:41:20 +0000

I would venture a guess that the average persons’ professional web presence is limited to a solid (or maybe not-so-solid) LinkedIN profile to keep in contact with current and past co-workers. This approach works great for those with a steady job that keeps them content, with a small level of security if their employment situation should need to change. After all, who would spend time marketing their time when it’s already tied up in a great job?

However once the time comes to make a career change, the LinkedIN profile all of the sudden seems like it doesn’t quite make the grade. Yes, the profile provides a means of posting all of the key information available for anyone to find you – but what if they don’t know you? The key then changes from getting the information up to getting the information found. In comes the customized web presence – in the form of a website.

It is always best to begin by simply getting something basic setup. Who knows? Maybe your site will thrive because it is basic (think google.com). All one needs to do is buy the domain, pay for some hosting, and put some information on a simple website builder.

Domains can be bought from places like GoDaddy.com for about $10/year. Simply use their search to find the best domain name for you, and purchase it. I have no idea what this money pays for since it isn’t like GoDaddy owns all domains that are unregistered, but this method is so simple and fast it is hard to argue.

Similarly, Web hosting space can be easily bought from a place like 1and1.com. You are paying these people to put your website on their server instead of having to keep a computer running at your house for people to be able to pull information from. While you can purchase web hosting from the same site that you register a domain with, there have been reports of those sites giving people a hard time when they want to move to another hosting company. So you buy another domain (a secondary one, maybe that you don’t like as much) along with web hosting at this site.

Finally, you round it off by signing into your hosting site to tool around. There are 3 basic things that must be done:

Make a website with their website builder. I started with a contact page, nothing more. This website will change (hopefully quickly), but you’ve gotta get SOMETHING up there, right?
Link the domain name and bought at GoDaddy to the domain name bought at 1and1. This allows people to type in the website purchased at GoDaddy and see the site you are hosting through 1and1. Sometimes this takes a while to do, as servers update only so often.
Test the webpage. Go to your site and make sure that it is what you expect!

I’m sure you’ve got lots of ideas floating around for making the website better (I sure did), but that’s no reason not to celebrate. As I’m sure we’ll be saying to each other in old age, at least you got it up!

First Step: Get Writers

Chris Gammell — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 03:01:25 +0000

Electricio.us is just in its infancy, but is capable of becoming a great resource to EEs (and non-EEs) the world over. We are looking for bright engineers with a knack for writing to contribute technical, useful articles for publication. Our hope is to become a central location for electrical engineering knowledge, in whatever form it might take. In the future we could see features on this site such as:

A message board (short term)
Networking capabilities (short term)
Link sharing (medium term)
Archiving of important articles based upon a ranking system (medium term)
Resume pool (medium term)
Collaborative projects (long term)
Consulting services (very long term)

If you are interested in joining the writing team for this site, please send an email to chris@electricio.us. Also please feel free to tell others about the opportunity presented here. While writing was never associated with the great EEs of the past, we live in changing times. Engineers need to be able to get their thoughts to others quickly and efficiently. Those that are best able to communicate will find that they are awarded with the most work and the best jobs in the coming years. This site will be a resource for many and a showcase for many other talented writers and engineers. If you would like to be a part of it, please send an email to the address listed above. If you have any other ideas you would like to see implemented on this site, please leave your thoughts in the comments.

PS. For any StumbleUpon members who happen to hit this site, if you are interested in contributing, please send an email to the above address with “StumbleUpon” in the title. Thanks!

What’s going on here?

Chris Gammell — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 02:18:06 +0000

Electricio.us is meant to be a platform for multiple industry professionals write about their experiences in Electrical Engineering. The knowledge contained within this site will be a reference point for many new and established engineers for both professional and hobby work. Please come back to see what articles have been added and to read the profiles of some of the top minds in Electrical Engineering today.