I thought I would post about what is going on behind the scenes here at DIY Tech Blog. I often read that people throw together websites in a matter of days. I just don’t see how? Anyway, I spending quite a bit of time building content. I like to write my own material, so that takes some time. I usually type up a page and convert the material into an article. I submit the article to a few Article Submission sites, so I get a little advertising.

I have also been looking for good sponsors for the site and tweaking the look. I will eventually get someone to design a logo, as graphics is not my strongest skill. I’m working with the forum page and the articles section to blend them with the rest of the site and I’m setting up the wordpress.

In keeping with the content theme, we are pleased to announce that the DIY Tech Blog Articles Section is now operational. As always I will give you the run down on it’s programming. The php script I used for the articles section is ArticlesMS. Currently, I have the default skin installed, but I plan to customize the application a bit so that it fits in with the DIY Tech look.

The code is great and once again it’s free. The code is available through Article Trader and they give you the option to have articels submitted directly from their site. They also have an affiliate program for those to wish to monitize their site.

I cannot imagine anyone developing a webiste that is not intended for visitors. In fact, I would venture to say that visitors are the primary reason for creating a website. Whether those visitors are customers, readers, researchers or business associates, they are the reason you took the time to put information on the web.

I will futher say that driving traffic to your website is the most difficult part of developing a successful site. So how important is good content in gathering traffic? What types of content work and what types of content do not?

We will explore these questions and more in our latest article written for DIY Tech Blog.com

The site is progressing nicely.  After setting up our Wordpress main page, we set up a forum for the site.  We discussed our work on the forum in an earlier post.  Next we selected a classified ads script.  The script we selected was phpBazar and the deciding factor was price.

Our intention with the classified section is to allow users to submit Do-It-Yourself related classified ads for little or no cost.  phpBazar has been a little tough to work with so far.  I like the look of the program, but the admin side is less than spectacular.  However, for the price, I suppose I can’t complain.

At this point we have set up the classified section and will likely move on to the articles tab.  We will discuss any further progress with the classified in a later post.

As we develop the site our first order of business was the forum.  phpBB version 3.0.2 was successfully installed and the forum is ready for users.  I promised to keep you informed during our progess, so here are a few of the steps we used to get the forum to it’s current state.

First, we installed a v2 version of phpBB.  We added some administrative settings and created some catagories and forums (all basic stuff).  Then we started playing with the style and the new style we downloaded needed a newer version of phpBB.  So we decided to convert to version 3.0.2.  At first the conversion (upgrade) made me a little nervous but it went soothly and all is well.  phpBB has always been an excellent php program.  Both the installation and upgrades are near fully automated.

Once the conversion was complete, we added our new style and finished up the administrative settings.  Our next steps will be to create a logo and a header for the site.  Then we will add those to the blog, forum and the rest of our pages.

The bottom line is the forum is up and running, so have at it.

These are the early days of DIY TECH BLOG.com, and there are many things going on behind the scenes.  I want the site to have many ways for Do-It-Yourselfers to share and learn.  At the moment, we will be creating a blog, a forum, a classifieds section and perhaps even a store front.  We hope to include articles, guides, downloads and much, much more.  Please visit often as the site should be growing rapidly in the months ahead.

For the webiste DIYers out there; the blog is in Wordpress, the forum is phpBB and the classifieds are in phpBazar.  We will try to keep everyone posted on our progress and the tools that we use to create the site.  After all that’s the whole idea, isn’t it?

At the moment I will be building content for the site.  I plan to write much of the content myself, so it may be slow going early on.  For my early readers, this is a great time for you to give suggestions for content you would like to see on the website.

You guessed it this is the first post for DIY Tech Blog. My Name is Glenn Hodges and I wanted to create a website that will be a resource for anyone who enjoys tackling those technical issues at home and around the house. If you have ever wanted to set up a home wireless network, install a home security camera system, build your own website or program the DVR, this is your website. As you can imagine these will be the areas of focus for DIY Tech Blog.com.

I plan to provide tutorial, guides, manufacturer’s manuals, downloads and more for the areas of computer maintenance, website creation, home security and home entertainment. Basically anything that you might need to successfully complete any of the do-it-yourself technical problems, should be on DIY Tech Blog.

Please feel free to contact me with any suggestions for information you would like to see on this website. I will do all that I can to provide you the answers you need. Visit our help pages, forum or articles directory and search for your topic, but always remember your not alone, we are here to help.