Image by Igi's TV Network via Flickr As I've mentioned before, I teach web technologies at a local college part time. Recently I was interviewed for an article on the use of Social Media in the classroom. Specifically I spoke about using Facebook for my classes, and why I do it. The reason was simple, it is where my class already was (I only had one student who wasn't on Facebook at the time.) I went to where they where. This should be something all small businesses should do; know where … [Read more...]
Moving Web Hosts – What you need to know!
April 30, 2010 By
Recently I was helping a client move from one host to another. After going through this experience a couple of times with various clients, I thought I would write down my experiences so one might know the steps to move a site from one hosting company to another. You will need to get copies of your existing files. This is best done my getting them from your existing host. This may be done via FTP. In some cases you can download the files from the site, but more modern sites will run Content … [Read more...]
Google Using Page Speed as a Ranking Factor in Search Results
April 10, 2010 By
Google announced this week that the speed of a page is now being considered as part of how they rank pages on a web site. This has some people happy, others scrambling. There are a couple of things which need to be considered with this news. Google uses over 200 factors to "grade" a site, determining where it should be placed in the search engine rankings. Adding 1 additional factor, unless it is a large factor should have little effect on the search results. "All things being equal I … [Read more...]
Today is Data Privacy Day
January 28, 2010 By
I don't know about you, but I'm always a bit paranoid with how much information is out there about me. Whether it comes from Credit Card receipts, or data stored on other people's servers. Whether it is your information, or your customer's, you should always mindful of how personal information is being used. This is the idea behind Data Privacy Day (http://dataprivacyday2010.org/). Personal identifiable information (PII) while necessary to have in many businesses needs to be handled with … [Read more...]
Happy Birthday Firefox!
November 9, 2009 By
Firefox turns five today. For some, they remember what the Web was like in 2004 - Internet Explorer 6 was the dominant browser, and had not been updates in 3 years, web technology was stagnating because of it. Now, browsers are faster, and doing more - new standards are coming out (HTML5, CSS3, AJAX libraries, and more) - and while the techno-babble means little to many, it also means everything. It means websites that can do more, and do it faster. It has also heralded other browsers … [Read more...]
More Browser Updates – Google’s Chrome
September 18, 2009 By
About a year ago, Google release their own browser, Chrome. They been hard at work updating it, wanting to take more of the browser market share. They built a good browser for power users, if you didn't mind not having the extensions you've come to love and expect in Firefox. Well now they are adding some of those extensions as well as other improvements. Read the official release here. … [Read more...]
How Many People Use Other Browsers?
September 17, 2009 By
Recently I wrote about a company who designed their website solely for users of Internet Explorer. Most research shows that on a typical day 20% to 25% of all web visits occur with another browser (Firefox, Chrome, or Safari for example). And not allowing your site to be viewable in other browsers, is just like it not allowing a customer in your store because of the type of car they drive. Interesting research is being shown, that more and more users have multiple browsers installed on their … [Read more...]
Would you send away 1 in 5 customers?
September 16, 2009 By
What would you do if you found out one of your best sales people was randomly turning away 1 out of every 5 people? People who might have bought from you, but the salesperson turned them away because of their own prejudices. Recently I was on a conference call with a client, and one of the services he was using. We were trying to work through some issues and during the discussion one of the issues that came up was that the services site was designed to run in Internet Explorer … [Read more...]
New finished project
September 2, 2009 By
This summer I've been working on several projects with two of them being very large. Well I just finished the first large project, Our Wedding Circle. Built using an existing framework, so it should be easier to maintain, there is also large sections of custom code and several key updates. The updates, allow for, as all websites should: easier administration to add/update/and disable users, faster searching for users than before, more optimized database structure, and improved … [Read more...]
