Ok, guys, remember this post we’ve published earlier today? About how bad things are in the field of customizing the websites for Halloween. Well, we were serious when we said that we’re going to do something about it. Right now we’re working on the design part of this ‘awareness’ campaign that will help website owners get prepared for holiday customizations.

And today we start the most awesome part (that by the way will be something that will bring you the killing treats from TemplateMonster and our lovely hosting partner JustHost.com). We know that there are websites that ARE customized for Halloween and that we were unable to find (sadly). So please go ahead and suggest websites that in your opinion have a good Halloween customization and enter your chance to win the freebies.

So here’s the deal. In case you’ve seen a website that was decorated with Halloween customization (that’s supposed to be a non-Halloween-related website, just decorated with Halloween elements) please let us know its URL in the comments section on this page. Based on what you all suggest we will arrange a rating of Top 20 Halloween website customizations and publish it all on our blog this Friday. And here’s how you get these presents from us and JustHost.com:

1. Submit the website URL in the comments section (please note that only websites that ARE NOT directly connected to Halloween are eligible; the ones that have the permanent Halloween topic are not allowed).
Plus, be sure to use an active email while posting the comment. That’s the email we’ll be using to contact you when you win.

2. In case the website you have suggested makes it to the Top 5 of our list you will receive a FREE Website Template from TemplateMonster and one year of FREE Hosting (free domain included) from JustHost.com

3. In case the website you have suggested eventually takes the position 6 to 10 you will get one year of FREE Hosting (free domain included) from JustHost.com and a 50% discount for any product from TemplateMonster.

4. In case the website you have suggested eventually takes the position 11 to 15 you will get a 50% discount for ordering one year of hosting from JustHost.com and a 35% discount for any of TemplateMonster products.

5. In case the website you have suggested eventually takes the position 16 to 20 you will get a 50% discount for ordering one year of hosting from JustHost.com and a 25% discount for any of TemplateMonster products.

6. In case the website you have suggested doesn’t make it to the Top 20 but it does have Halloween decorations and you were the first to suggest it you will receive a 20% discount for ordering one year of hosting from JustHost.com and a 10% discount for any of TemplateMonster products.

Disclaimer:

The results will be published on Friday, October 30th and all of the prizes info will also be delivered on Friday. Off to the comments everyone! Good luck!

Halloween Customizations, guys, is a useful experience we should say. In fact it brings lots of benefits to the site owners attracting the greater customer pool and consequently the amount of profits. If you take care about wonderful foundation to your site visual look, someone will surely notice you.

But as previously, in case of hosting sites, we have encountered with the absence of good Halloween customization examples in a sufficient number. Or else, we may suppose that they do exist, but are thoroughly hidden.
Update: Ok, we assume you might have seen some decent halloween website design customizations. So let us know of those and enter your chance to win the killing Halloween treats from TemplateMonster.com and JustHost.com including free website templates and free unlimited hosting packages. Please see more details in the promo post.

And what we have as a result? The great mass of websites does not have enough serious approach towards customization issue. And in the long run, we see Halloween customizations that, in terms of design execution, leave much to be desired. Many thanks for them even! At least someone undertakes the festive actions for the holiday. By the way, TM home page Halloween customization design is upcoming, shortly (or maybe it’s there as you are reading this).

Have a look at the rest of the bravehearts:

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Enom.com

By the way, this particular customization made by Enom is the best we’ve seen while searching. The elements of customization perfectly fit the design. Way to go, Enom!
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Many times in your life you have probably seen these petrifying 404 error pages which meant nothing but that you’ve lost your way surfing the web in your pursuance of certain objectives. The 404 error declares that the user’s request was able to communicate with the server, but the server couldn’t find what was requested. And that is probably the only useful information you would find reaching the “zero between fours” dead-end default pages.

TemplateMonster.com shares the point of view that it’s not always supposed to be that way. The 404 error pages must be your light out of the trouble but surely not a common state of “welcome, you’re in Deadlock”. 404 pages should contain helpful information for example Main Page or Site Map links or what’s better - widgets that endeavor to find the correct web page the user required. The visual representation of 404 pages is a question of substantial importance. It’s essential that when someone is looking for something for relatively long period of time without any success he gets rather annoyed with 404s but smart appealing visual elements might cheer him up.

Here are some more useful advices for you to think over your four-Oh!-fours:

• Set up your navigation system.

  As it was mentioned above, you should provide alternatives for navigating user’s way out of a 404 error page. These could be widgets that find the correct web page, links to your home page, site map, help info, search tabs, assumption lists(e.g. “Perhaps you’ve meant”, “Maybe you would like to …” ), etc.

• The Medium is the Message.

  Do not forget that even through 404 error page you are communicating with your visitors. Think over the message you would display.

1. Be careful! Linguistic tips.

   Displaying the list of probable errors never put misspelling error or any other assumptions, accusing the user of being sloppy or inattentive, first. Leave them to end your list and better present them in a rather smooth way.

2. Brevi manu! (latin for ‘Brevity is the soul of wit’ ).

   Stay informative and at the same time do not provide too much information. Give the users appropriate amount of suggestions to help them find their way out.

• Be user-friendly.

  Spread some friendly mood on your ‘route 404′. Cross out sever “Error 404. Page Not Found” and change it for more amicable “Ooops!…” or “Sorry…” or else.

• Creativity is the key.

  Think different! Find unconventional ideas to present your 404 error page. Thus you’ll make your visitors remember your page.

In case you’ve got really excited with this topic we recommend you to visit SmashingMagazine.com 404 error pages review (as well as part I of their best 404 pages review and part II which also rocks). Plus there’s a similar review of 60 best 404 error pages made by hongkiat.com - all these guys have done a great job of collecting these pages and popularising the “404 Error pages” topic. Here are some excellent examples of creative 404 error pages:

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Ok, so you have purchased one of our Flash CMS templates (or maybe you’re just planning to do so) and you are probably afraid of how difficult it seems to install the template. Well, here we are to ruin this illusion and to show you how easy it is to install it all. Please read the instructions below and you’ll see that you can do it even if you’re not a Flash professional.

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I. Delivery E-mail: Flash Moto account

After you have purchased our Flash Moto template you will receive an email under “Flash Moto
Accounts” telling you as follows (example):

Dear Customer,

II. Account Registration

You should register your product in order to use it on ONE server and for ONE domain name. To do
this, please go to your Flash Moto account at http://account.flashmoto.com and enter your access details provided over the email (example):

E-mail: customer@gmail.com

Password: temp123

III. Account Activation

1. Using this form please fill in your hosting information i.e. your website IP and a website
domain name. To edit your information, please use the “Edit” function as on the preview
below:

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There was some ambiguity concerning FlashMoto CMS preorder purchase and FlashMoto CMS in general (judging from the comments on FlashMoto blog entry). So, we and FlashMoto team decided to clarify some points to sound more intelligible to our customers.

What is important to know is that FlashMoto CMS standalone version does not include any design at all. It is oriented towards web developers who will attach the design on their own, certainly if they have all necessary Flash skills. And by the way, it could be whatever design or Flash template they like, not even necessarily the one from Template Monster.

Another thing to mention is that FlashMoto CMS standalone version currently works with PC platform. At present there are some complications with the Mac, but FlashMoto team is about to settle them up.

If someone cares about the costs, the price for FlashMoto license for one website (domain) will be $199, however in case you use the preorder purchase option you may buy it for $159 (you save $40). So, that is the license for one site (domain) that you buy by preorder.

For Flash CMS Templates, Template Monster declared the sale prices (about $250) that are based on the cost of the license on FlashMoto ($199) for one domain plus the price for the design and its integration. So the design and its integration costs are in fact about $50.

Considering the stated items, for those who are not familiar with Flash we do not recommend buying FlashMoto CMS. It’s meant for professional developers only. We suggest that end users who are not very good with Flash purchase our Flash CMS Templates that are optimized for easier installation and configuration.

The last, but not the least - the release date of FlashMoto CMS standalone version is the 4th of November. That’s the final date and the launch is not to be rescheduled.

Hopefully, you’ll find this information helpful!