August 2010
1 post
Dumbing down with Google
Google may return the most accurate search results, thus its dominance in this sector, but what is not so well know is the dumbing down it creates on the web due to its extensive dominance. Here goes. Ever tried a search with and without an ‘s’? With and without an apostrophe? If yes, that’s because you already know that the results will be different. Unless you are searching for this...
July 2010
1 post
1 tag
Sites with ads that pass the test
The previous post discussed ads annoying readers. Here is the other side of the coin: how some sites manage to display ads without being intrusive.
Instead of tricking their readers into clicking on them or forcing them to jump a flashing banner in the middle of a post, savvy bloggers dedicate a column for ads, paid links and banners. At least if you are interested in some commercial products, you...
June 2010
1 post
4 tags
Impact on users of sites with ads
The last post about sites that have very annoying features mentioned excessive ads as one of them. Ads take up such a large real estate on the world wide web, has such an impact on users and owners (financially in that case if it works well!), that it deserves a more in-depth discussion here. After all, there are so many resources and information out there for site owners who want to place ads on...
May 2010
2 posts
3 tags
5 pet hates about websites
We all use the internet everyday or nearly so and visit a large number of websites. Some sites provide a good user experience, others not so good, and yet others want to make you get the hell outta there asap. Here is what I hate the most in sites.
1) Sites that pop up a window when you try to close them
Usually the option in the pop-up windows is confusing – click cancel if you want to stay on...
3 tags
Using Twitter to create a network around you
Twitter has been much maligned and is said to be full of garbage. ‘I am eating a sandwich now’, ‘I love Mariah Carey’, ‘iPods are cool’ etc are just too common on the micro-blogging site. But one way you can utilise it to your advantage is to expand your network on a topic.
If you have a blog and want to get more traffic, go onto twitter, start following like-minded individuals and upload your...
April 2010
3 posts
Tumblr: 'We're pretty opposed to advertising' →
drumby:
Mark Milian:
Tumblr is drawing up all kinds of off-the-wall methods to make money from its micro-blogging and social-networking website. Founder David Karp and his 11-person team hasn’t quite struck gold yet, but they refuse to venture down the traditional route of plastering advertisements on the site.
(via Mark’s tweet)
I, for one, applaud this. There are a couple of themes I plan to...
6 tags
Example of using a blog-style site, part 3
This is part 3 of the topic on blog-type sites.
Read Part 1 about Sites powered by Wordpress and Part 2: how easy it is to create blog-type sites.
As an illustration of how you could use a blog as a site, consider a gym business.
Many gyms have websites but they can provide little service over the web, except to provide information about what is happening in the gym, where all the interesting...
5 tags
The ease of creating blog-style sites, Part 2
This is Part 2 of sites powered by Wordpress.
It is easy to understand how these so-called new blog-style sites came about. Wordpress is the dominant blog software and is free and highly flexible. You don’t need a single penny to get such a site launched. Your domain name can be a sub-domain of Wordpress so you won’t even have to buy one; the blog will be powered by Wordpress of course and the...
March 2010
2 posts
3 tags
Sites powered by Wordpress, blog-style, part 1
There seems to be a proliferation of sites driven by Wordpress. While traditionally, such sites were blogs, and still are in a strict sense, the newer sites are mostly informative or even provide a service with the added possibility of commenting on the articles.
Static web pages
Many of us will remember the good old days of the web when a static html page will be displayed with text content on...
4 tags
Wrong permalinks?
I recently stumbled across an old blog post detailing how SEO experts were handing out wrong advice regarding Wordpress permalinks.
Usual SEO-friendly URL
The conventional practice is to write an SEO-friendly URL that features your keywords and the structure of the URL would be your category structure. More often than not, the keyword part is simply the post title. We all know about this and...
February 2010
2 posts
4 tags
Amazon vs Play.com
We all know Amazon as the number one ecommerce website year in year out. Yet it is not number one for everyone, least of all me.
It has a great range of products and plenty of product information. Due to its popularity, it also has lots of reviews. Whether these reviews are genuine or not is a different matter!
Out with Amazon
I turned my back on Amazon a few years ago because it did not...
7 tags
Internet Explorer vs Firefox
Browser wars
This comparison is going to be very biased. After MS erroneously told me that my copy of XP was fake, I started to dislike everything associated with it. So I decided I didn’t like Internet Explorer. I was using IE version 6 at that time and version 7 just came out if I remember correctly. I was v7 at work and quite liked the new tab feature. At home, I was frustrated that I could...
January 2010
3 posts
6 tags
Linux vs Microsoft
Oh no, not another of this, I hear you say! It might well be another, but this one is from my experience and unlike most others, I love neither operating system.
Leaving Mircrosoft
I first deserted Microsoft when it wrongly diagnosed a fake copy of XP running on my PC. I just happened to read about the increasing popularity of Ubuntu and that its latest version was out. So I thought, there is...
“Myślę, więc jestem.”
– Descartes, French philospher and mathematician
6 tags
What is the greatest challenge facing ecommerce?
Is it internet viruses? Is it customers fearing to enter their credit card details or submitting their personal details and getting spammed? Is it because they can’t see what they are buying and fear a dishonest seller?
Customer satisfaction
It is the hassle of the order delivery that will hurt the reputation of online selling. For virtual goods, ecommerce is the perfect solution. But when the...