Like a lot of web developers, I'm not always that disciplined when it comes to the file naming convention I use and I sometimes end up with a situation whereby I have some files that are in lowercase, some that begin with a capital, and some that are a bit of a mixture.

One web site I maintain contains about 2000 web pages and has about 20,000 hyperlinks. As you can imagine, I had one of those sinking feelings when I was told that in order to migrate the web site to a new content management system, all the file names and hyperlinks would need to be changed to lowercase.

Whenever I am presented with a problem like this, my instinct is always to write a Perl script using one or more regular expressions to solve the problem. This particular situation was no exception.

Change a string to lowercase

The following regular expression changes all the characters in a string to lowercase. The first part of the regular expression finds a hyperlink, and the second part converts the string. (Just in case this article is not displayed correctly, there should be a single backslash in front of the 'L$1').

Change a filename to lowercase

Likewise, changing a filename itself is very simple. The following two lines perform the task quite nicely:

(Again, there should be a single backslash in front of the 'L$name'.)

If you need more information on how to incorporate the above code snippets into a complete script, feel free to contact me directly.

The very fact that you are reading this article indicates that you have something in mind that you wish to achieve. Your goal more than likely right now is to connect the dots. When it comes to inventing anything it begins with an idea and then you seek out ways to make it happen.

I do not know exactly what your ideas are but whatever they are you need to put them on paper. This will help you to stay focused. So for example let's say you love dogs. So you have decided you want to build a site all about dogs however right now you do not know how to go about it.

The first place I recommend you start is with article directories. Punch in the keyword dogs and see what people are writing about. Then pick an article and see how many page views it gets.

Then look for articles in this category that get the most page views. This will tell you that a lot of people are reading about these topics and as a result are seeking information which is what the internet is all about.

Once you find a topic that you like that generates a lot of page views then head over to google and type in the keyword associated with this content and along with the keyword type forum. On the forums look for relative topics that receive a lot of page views and see what people are looking for.

Then take the keywords and go to wordtracker and use their free trial. What you are looking for are keywords that have a high KEI that is at least above ten. Once you find the right combination you now have the foundation upon which to build your site.

Next up get a domain and you can if you want include the keyword in it but you do not have to. Then get a hosting company that is reputable that provides good customer support.

Finally you need a html editor so that you can structure the pages properly so that the search engines can understand the content. Once all this is in place you will now be ready to build your site. You will also have lots of information to help you write articles and get traffic to your site immediately.

To learn how to build a site that works select any of the following links.

Before you actually begin your website you have to put a lot of consideration into things such as the domain name itself and the hosting company you sign up with. These decisions can have a major affect on the end result so ensure you do your research to get the best outcome.

Once you have found the desired domain name you have to get it registered, there are a number of companies that offer the registration of domains so how do you decide which to use? The first thing you should look for is their reputation, you would hate to deal with a dishonest company that doesn't offer the customer service you deserve. In order to find a reliable company you can ask for recommendations from friends and family or other webmasters to see who they use. The next factor you should look at is the price, don't be fooled for the cheapest companies out there. Just because they can offer a cheap service doesn't mean that it's the best choice, check for renewal prices and any other disadvantages you may be faced with so that you can be confident you are receiving the best deal.

When you have your domain name the next step is to choose hosting, you cannot afford to rush this decision as it will determine the results of your website. Put the time and effort in to check which hosts are reliable and offer great customer service. Never accept anything below 99.99% up time as you will be loosing money every time your website goes down. You then have to spend the time in order to get it back up and running as intended, loosing even more money. Browse through each of the different hosting companies, checking the additional features, benefits and mainly the price in order to get the best deal based on your requirements.

You can find various companies such as name cheap, triple and go daddy who can be the solution to all your problems. You can register your domains with them and buy hosting at the same time, this takes a lot of the hassle out of the equation as everything is in the one place. There are some advantages to doing this, you can often get a reduced price if you buy them both together. It will give you more time to focusing on your website and if you ever have a problem you only have to contact the one company. Ensure that you check out the hosting package before you buy it to make sure that it has the features you require.

With the benefits it does have it's disadvantages, depending on the company the hosting may not be the best option out there and you can often get various coupon codes to make things cheaper and by shopping around you can always save a great deal of money.