As I was making amendments to my blog, it comes to my mind about the people out there who wanted to start blogging for business…
How is a computer “idiot” – who wishes to make money online – able to make amendments to his website when it is already done for him by a computer programmer (or a seasoned computer user)? You might have helped him to install WordPress, or Joomla, or PHPNuke, or even a customized website… And all he needs to do, is to use the content management backend software (either web-based or console) to add, edit or delete his contents in the website…
There are a lot of times when a computer “idiot” (I put inverted commas because they are not idiots, just don’t know computer technical stuff.) needs to make amendments to the source code behind to activate some external web programs such as Google Analytics, Feedburner stats, MyBlogLog stats, etc… Or to activate a widget or something cool…
And many times, these programs only know how to give a tracking code but they might not be able to let the computer “idiots” understand that they don’t know the lingual! Some sites like FeedBurner even gives full instructions on where to add the code… That’s cool.. But these computer idiots hope they didn’t mess up the code inside by a space or a return character or anything!
That’s why I come up with a short tutorial on how to “learn” to learn!
Step 1: Learn How To Access Your Source Files of Your Website
Every website consists a set of files behind. And these files reside in the hard disk of the server computer just like your hard disk. And they are stored in the directories just like how your hard disk stores the files.
To access the directories and files at the server remotely, you can use a FTP program, or the Internet Browser directly. Try Core FTP which is free as a FTP program. However, I am going to teach you the universal way of accessing your server. Simply type the following url in your web browser:
ftp://youruserid@www.yourserver.com
You will be prompted with userid and password. Your userid should be filled up already. Then, type in your password there and enter.
If you want to go directly to the server without a password prompt, use the following url:
ftp://youruserid:yourpassword@www.yourserver.com
***But this is not recommended as the password might be saved as part of the url which is possible for hacking if anyone accesses your computer one day… ***
Look for the correct directory corresponding to your web directory… And look for your source files there… They should be in the extension of .htm or .html or .php
Then, copy the file and paste to your computer to edit. Once you are done editing, then copy and paste it back to the directory to overwrite the file in the server.
Step 1 done.
Step 2: Learn how to add in the programming codes that your provider has given you:
This programming code could be the tracking code that you get from the various web statistic companies… Or it could be a code to add a picture with a link to their company… Or just the picture or the link… Or some code to enhance your site such as embedding a video or a music or a visitor counter…
To add in the code, read carefully what the site is telling you about where to edit the file. Follow step-by-step how to put in the code correctly:
- Look for the correct file to be edited.
- See the instruction of where to place the code.
Example 1: if they will say it is before the tag </body>,Look for </body> in the file. Then keep pressing <enter> key to move the </body> tag down to make space for your new code. Put in your code anywhere there. You are done!Example 2: if they ask you to place the code after <body>,
Look for <body>, you will usually see this tag with a lot of code like this <body bgcolor=”#FFFFFF” …….>
Look for the whole tag of <body ………………>, then put your text cursor behind “>”, and keep pressing <enter> key to make space for your code. Put your code anywhere there. You are done!
- Save the file.
- Upload the file to your server.
Step 2 done!
Sometimes, you can edit the file in different situations:
- Edit in a FTP program
- Edit in WordPress => Presentation => Theme Editor => Your file
- Edit in a text box of a content management program (just like WordPress)
- Copy the file out and use external text editor, pasting it back to the server (using Internet Explorer)
I think that’s all the possible ways in editing a file… There might be more ways.. Depending on how your server functions with your webpages…
Ok that’s all folks! Have fun! My first try of tutorial… Sunny, how is it? 
