In this section of the P2L Help Guide you will find answers to some of the most common questions we receive from our users on various aspects of the site. The FAQ area is broken down in to several sections to make it easier to find the right topic:
- Tutorials and Source Sites
- The Design of P2L
- Staff Application
- Miscellaneous
Questions about Tutorials and Source Sites
Q. How do I get a tutorial featured as a Tutorial of the Week?
A. Every week P2L Staff choose a well written tutorial that has been recently submitted to the Pixel2life index database and feature it as a "Tutorial of the Week". The tutorial is selected at our discretion based simply on it''s quality and originality. If you would like to purchase a weekly feature, this can also be done for $100 per feature, please contact us for details.
Q. How do I add a new tutorial category?
A. We''re always looking to improve the index by adding tutorials that our visitors want to see, and that goes for new categories as well! If you think you''ve got a category that should be on here, we want you to let us know! Just drop us a line from the contact page.
Q. How does the Rating System work?
A. The rating system is very simple. We allow all our visitors to rate tutorials as they see fit. The overall rating is determined by the overall content, accuracy, and learning experience of the tutorial. This is out of 5 stars (5 stars is the highest rating).
1 Star: Poor Rating
2 Stars: Below Average
3 Stars: Average
4 Stars: Above Average
5 Stars: Excellent!
Q. What do I do if a tutorial link isn''t working?
A. If a tutorial link doesn''t work, there''s nothing we can really do about it because we don''t host most of the tutorials found in the index. You can help us though by clicking on the Dead Link shortcut located in each individual tutorial record box to automatically send us notice that this particular tutorial is dead. We try to keep our listing as accurate as possible, so we encourage everyone to rate tutorials and report dead links!
Q. What kind of tutorials are people looking for?
A. We currently offer a couple of useful areas for webmasters that are wondering what kind of tutorials people are looking for. The first great spot to look is our submission stats page, which displays some general information about popular categories and tutorial submissions. You can check out the submission stats at www.pixel2life.com/stats/
The second fantastic resource our tutorial request forum! This forum allows members to request specific tutorials they are looking for and it''s a great place to get writing ideas. One of the biggest complaints we hear from tutorial writers is that they don''t know what to write about... this forum has hundreds of ideas!
Check out at the tutorial request forum at www.pixel2life.com/forums/index.php?showforum=21
Q. Why don''t the tutorial category totals match?
A. You may notice that some categories have totals slightly higher than the actual number of records within that category. This is because the category total number INCLUDES tutorials awaiting approval or are in the posting queue, but are NOT displayed in the live listings yet. This is completely normal.
Q. My tutorials disappeared from the index! Help!
A. Did you have tutorials listed with P2L and they seem to have completely vanished? Chances are your site has been de-activated due to downtime we detected through dead link reports, or your site was caught with ripped material. You can easily check to see if you''re site is active or not by using the Source Site Search Tool at www.pixel2life.com/sourcesite/.
Simply use this tool to look up your domain and at a glance you can see if your site is active or inactive by the red or green status orb. If you see a red status, then your site has been tagged inactive and you need to contact us from the contact page at www.pixel2life.com/contact/.
If you see a green status, click on the View All Tutorials link and that will display all the tutorials listed for that source site under all available categories. If you click view all no tutorials come up, you should contact us to investigate at www.pixel2life.com/contact/.
Q. My site is "Inactive" What does that mean?
A. If your site is showing up as inactive in the site search or on your webmaster page, it is because you have no approved tutorials in the index OR your site has been tagged inactive by an admin because your site was down when reviewed by an admin.
If you have submitted tutorials for the first time, and your site is inactive, this means that your tutorials are still pending review, or were declined. If your tutorials are not approved within 7 days, they have been declined.
Q. How can I check a domain to see if it''s listed?
A. If you have a site you would like to check and see if it''s listed in the index, simply use the Source Site Search Tool at www.pixel2life.com/sourcesite/.
The tool will show you any matching domain names listed in our index, broken down by category. From there you can view the listed tutorials for each matching record.
Questions about the Design of P2L
Q. What CMS software do you use? Where can I get it?
A. Sorry folks, but the CMS (Content Management System) for Pixel2life.com is built completely from scratch and is not available for download.
Q. Where did you get the tutorial management system?
A. Pixel2life''s tutorial CMS is completely custom made and is not a packaged script you can download or purchase. Our forums are IPB powered, available at www.invisionpower.com/.
Q. How did you design *insert feature* and code it?, And can I have the code?
A. We have spent HUNDREDS if not thousands of hours on this site at this point and we do not give out scripts made for P2L. We can tell you that pretty much every script that runs here is covered in it''s basic form in the PHP tutorial section at:
http://www.pixel2life.com/tutorials/php_coding/
We''ve tweaked them to our needs and every script here runs off a database. Nothing on P2L is a matter of copy/pasting a few lines of code. If there something on the site you can''t find in the tutorial index, you can post a message on the forums about it in the coding section. (Located at http://pixel2life.com/forums/index.php?showforum=10)
Questions about Joining the P2L Staff
Q. Who should I talk to about joining staff?
A. If you would like to volunteer your time and help us out at P2L, please contact us by using the contact form at at www.pixel2life.com/contact/ (select contact webmaster and your email will be sent directly to Dan Richard).
Q. What kind of people are you looking for?
A. We''re always looking for people that want to get involved and genuinely want to help. If you offer your time, we WILL give you something to do, so don''t think you''ll stand on the staff listing all pretty without getting your hands dirty.
As far as skills, we''re always looking for people with the following skills:
- Moderate to advanced PHP/MySQL programming
- Article writing and contributing
- News Hunters for Community Buzz
- Tutorial Writers and Hunters
- Community Developpers (Contests, expanding awareness etc...)
- Exotic Dancing (Male or Female)
If you would like to help out and volunteer some time to the site, please contact us by using the contact form at at www.pixel2life.com/contact/ (select contact webmaster and your email will be sent directly to Dan Richard).
Q. What do you offer your staff members?
A. We don''t have a set list of volunteer benefits, however we try to do what we can to compensate you for your time. If you have a non-monetary exchange in mind such as graphics for coding etc... just ask. Otherwise, you get to be involved in a fun project that is always growing and is a challenge for even the most skilled programmers (I''ve already killed off a few).
Q. Are staff members paid?
A. P2L is run completely on a voluntary basis... we can''t afford to pay people, nor are we equipped or have the time involved with running a payroll. Being on staff *may* open you up to paying jobs contracted through other staff for outside projects, but there''s no guarantee. We are working towards becoming a site that generates enough revenue to pay our staff a monthly bonus, but we can''t promise anything just yet.
We also offer our staff certain hosting resources and other inside pirks available, but those are secret for staff only mwahaha!
Q. Can I use P2L in my portfolio if I am on Staff?
A. One of the benefits we do offer to our staff members is the right to use P2L on their C.V., Resume and/or portfolio and can request an official letter of recommendation based on work performed at any time.
Miscellaneous Site Questions
Q. When are updates performed on the site?
A. Pixel2life.com maintains a fairly regular schedule to it''s major updates, and minor ones are scattered between different times. Major updates and submissions such as tutorial website submissions or site maintenance is performed Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights from 9PM to 2AM Est. Minor submissions such as single tutorial submissions, Community Buzz updates and posted articles are done as we have time throughout the day, 7 days a week. Tutorials are added as they are received and approved... P2L does not use a daily set limit to posted tutorials. If you submit 100 at a time, all 100 will be approved in one batch.
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Q. Do you share emails or the tutorial index database with anyone?
A. Absolutely NOT! We do not share any of the emails submitted to us through the forums and community based system, nor do we sell or share our index database in any way, shape or form. You can find our Privacy Policy at http://www.pixel2life.com/privacy/ for further details.
If you still require assistance or have any additional questions, please don''t hesitate to contact us at any time!
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