Wikileaks is a very interesting little web site that came to my attention because of some sensitive documents that were leaked in/by South African affairs recently. Some very interesting cartoons, names and documents, from some the most ?unlikely? people and countries I would not have guessed at.
Saturday 27 December 2008
Wednesday 17 December 2008
Disk Defragmentation Tool
Thank you Jaksa (my colleague) for this invaluable tip for a great Disk Defragmentation Tool! I've been a believer in defragmenting my hard disk drive on an annual or bi-annual basis (or major file system upheaval event) for many years.
The problem I started experiencing over the past 5 odd years, is that as my hard drives became bigger, "defragging" took longer and longer. Worse, the tool provided with Windows only works properly when 30% of the hard drive is available! Now 30% of 120MB is only 36MB and is not such a bad temporary sacrifice. 30% of 100GB is a huge sacrifice that I just cannot afford! Not on my development workstation, nor on my personal home machine(s)!!
Jaksa pointed in in the direction of independent evaluations listed on Donn Edwards' web site. Or you can simply download the winning defragmentation tool (JkDefrag) here.
The problem I started experiencing over the past 5 odd years, is that as my hard drives became bigger, "defragging" took longer and longer. Worse, the tool provided with Windows only works properly when 30% of the hard drive is available! Now 30% of 120MB is only 36MB and is not such a bad temporary sacrifice. 30% of 100GB is a huge sacrifice that I just cannot afford! Not on my development workstation, nor on my personal home machine(s)!!
Jaksa pointed in in the direction of independent evaluations listed on Donn Edwards' web site. Or you can simply download the winning defragmentation tool (JkDefrag) here.
Tuesday 18 November 2008
Brain Rules
Brain Rules is quite a fun little web site that gives one possibly plausible explanation for how the human brain evolved over time and how it works for humans today. A collection of short entertaining videos and some writings.
Monday 8 September 2008
Basics of Web Site Optimisation - Rule 12
This post is mainly aimed at small to medium businesses that are just starting out and are keen to get something going, or have just gone live. I can't tell you how many times I have taught people over the past few years just a handful of strategically important things. So...here goes again, this time in a way that I can now simply refer to. As for my credibility - I would rather not divulge that here, read my Web Site Optimisation Rules and you decide. They are, after all, common sense, and common knowledge....like most things I blog about!
My number 12 rule: Test your own site with multiple web browsers!
These days it takes just a few minutes to download and install different web browsing possilibities and I recommend you do it to test your own site. Nothing compares to a quick visual check that your web site still looks okay, or better, than doing so in a browser that you maybe do not often use.
Analyse your web traffic analysis reports to check which browsers account for 90-95% of your traffic and then make sure that 90-95% of the time your site renders/displays as you wish it to.
Also using your traffic analysis reports, you can verify which of your visitors turned into form submitters and became potential customers. Make sure your forms work correctly in their browsers before you publish changes!!
Reasoning:
1. It is just so darn tricky to know for sure that even if you are following the standards perfectly, the web browsers may not be. Best to check it out visually, using the tools that your clients use.
2. It is very quick and simple to do - so do it. You will also see your site in new ways that might lead to further design benefits.
And that is my Rule 12. I will be uploading the others as time allows!
My number 12 rule: Test your own site with multiple web browsers!
These days it takes just a few minutes to download and install different web browsing possilibities and I recommend you do it to test your own site. Nothing compares to a quick visual check that your web site still looks okay, or better, than doing so in a browser that you maybe do not often use.
Analyse your web traffic analysis reports to check which browsers account for 90-95% of your traffic and then make sure that 90-95% of the time your site renders/displays as you wish it to.
Also using your traffic analysis reports, you can verify which of your visitors turned into form submitters and became potential customers. Make sure your forms work correctly in their browsers before you publish changes!!
Reasoning:
1. It is just so darn tricky to know for sure that even if you are following the standards perfectly, the web browsers may not be. Best to check it out visually, using the tools that your clients use.
2. It is very quick and simple to do - so do it. You will also see your site in new ways that might lead to further design benefits.
And that is my Rule 12. I will be uploading the others as time allows!
Tuesday 2 September 2008
Basics of Web Site Optimisation - Rule 11
This post is mainly aimed at small to medium businesses that are just starting out and are keen to get something going, or have just gone live. I can't tell you how many times I have taught people over the past few years just a handful of strategically important things. So...here goes again, this time in a way that I can now simply refer to. As for my credibility - I would rather not divulge that here, read my Web Site Optimisation Rules and you decide. They are, after all, common sense, and common knowledge....like most things I blog about!
My number 11 rule: Do not use JavaScript for navigation effects, especially not dynamic menus
JavaScript is a small very powerful programming language for programming web sites in order to give them more functionality than is available in straight static HTML. It is a fantastic language from many perspectives that I will not go into on this entry. People use it to do form validations, image manipulation, dynamic menus and other miscellaneous bits that need to respond to whatever the visitor is doing, or where the visitor comes from in order for the visitor to have an interactive experience with the web site.
Read more about JavaScript at wikipedia.
I follow the mantra "Use as little JavaScript as possible, whilst still making the web site look good, and work well." I use CSS as much as possible to make it look good, and as little JavaScript as possible to provide a little tasteful motion, and to do some form validation in order to partially constrict the flood of the requests that could otherwise be submitted via the contact forms.
Reasoning:
1. Search engines can not follow dynamic Java Script menus, thus large parts of your site will go unindexed.
2. Your site will appear smaller and less important to the search engines when they rank you against your competitors.
3. Your site will appear badly organised and less usable to the search engines when they rank you against your competitors.
4. Different versions of browsers treat JavaScript differently, meaning even more testing and "fiddling" in order to get your JavaScript to work correctly and consistently across all your targetted browsers.
And that is my Rule 11. I will be uploading the others as time allows!
My number 11 rule: Do not use JavaScript for navigation effects, especially not dynamic menus
JavaScript is a small very powerful programming language for programming web sites in order to give them more functionality than is available in straight static HTML. It is a fantastic language from many perspectives that I will not go into on this entry. People use it to do form validations, image manipulation, dynamic menus and other miscellaneous bits that need to respond to whatever the visitor is doing, or where the visitor comes from in order for the visitor to have an interactive experience with the web site.
Read more about JavaScript at wikipedia.
I follow the mantra "Use as little JavaScript as possible, whilst still making the web site look good, and work well." I use CSS as much as possible to make it look good, and as little JavaScript as possible to provide a little tasteful motion, and to do some form validation in order to partially constrict the flood of the requests that could otherwise be submitted via the contact forms.
Reasoning:
1. Search engines can not follow dynamic Java Script menus, thus large parts of your site will go unindexed.
2. Your site will appear smaller and less important to the search engines when they rank you against your competitors.
3. Your site will appear badly organised and less usable to the search engines when they rank you against your competitors.
4. Different versions of browsers treat JavaScript differently, meaning even more testing and "fiddling" in order to get your JavaScript to work correctly and consistently across all your targetted browsers.
And that is my Rule 11. I will be uploading the others as time allows!
Getting around in a "locked down" environment
I probably should not really be blogging this little entry, but I just can't help myself! Please continue reading or using these little details at your own peril.
Recently I discovered myself in a "locked down" environment, yet I still had a tonne of software to install, and I desperately needed it installed "today" rather than after 1 month. (the contract in this case was for this primary purpose - installations, configurations and support) (something completely different to what I've been doing for many years now, but not so different from what I was doing 10 odd years ago, so I had the skills)
My first step in any new site is to meet as many people as I can, and then to make friends with those that I desperately need, in the order that I need them. It is a hard cold fact, and they know it, and I know it. I am ... for want of a better word ... using them. By doing this though, I suddenly start avoiding official processes, official documents filled out in triplicate, and actually get things done rather quickly. Which makes me look good, compared to the rule followers.
So with enough friends on my side, around day 2, I learned 1 useful tidbit about the so-called "locked down environment".... it is not so locked down as made out to be. Thanks to XP's security model, the thing that really enforces lockdown policies is done via LDAP ... when you login or logout of the domain.
And again, with enough friends on my side, I managed to secure just a slightly better than completely useless level of workstation usage. And here comes the fun bit. Many of the GUI widgets for changing a workstation are stripped out of your view, and some that could not be stripped throw you an error message if you try to access them.
So ... you find the command line equivalent and use that instead. No security to stop you. Thank goodness for XP! I have no idea what I'll do if I find myself in a Vista or better security modelled domain with the same deadlines - probably make even more friends instead, and take them to the pub every other lunch!
Here are the 4 that I am using frequently:
regedit - reg.exe
Data Sources (ODBC) - odbcad32.exe
RemoteDesktop - mstsc.exe
Add/Remove programs - MSIexec
I am sure there are others, but fortunately I have not needed more than these so far!
Recently I discovered myself in a "locked down" environment, yet I still had a tonne of software to install, and I desperately needed it installed "today" rather than after 1 month. (the contract in this case was for this primary purpose - installations, configurations and support) (something completely different to what I've been doing for many years now, but not so different from what I was doing 10 odd years ago, so I had the skills)
My first step in any new site is to meet as many people as I can, and then to make friends with those that I desperately need, in the order that I need them. It is a hard cold fact, and they know it, and I know it. I am ... for want of a better word ... using them. By doing this though, I suddenly start avoiding official processes, official documents filled out in triplicate, and actually get things done rather quickly. Which makes me look good, compared to the rule followers.
So with enough friends on my side, around day 2, I learned 1 useful tidbit about the so-called "locked down environment".... it is not so locked down as made out to be. Thanks to XP's security model, the thing that really enforces lockdown policies is done via LDAP ... when you login or logout of the domain.
And again, with enough friends on my side, I managed to secure just a slightly better than completely useless level of workstation usage. And here comes the fun bit. Many of the GUI widgets for changing a workstation are stripped out of your view, and some that could not be stripped throw you an error message if you try to access them.
So ... you find the command line equivalent and use that instead. No security to stop you. Thank goodness for XP! I have no idea what I'll do if I find myself in a Vista or better security modelled domain with the same deadlines - probably make even more friends instead, and take them to the pub every other lunch!
Here are the 4 that I am using frequently:
regedit - reg.exe
Data Sources (ODBC) - odbcad32.exe
RemoteDesktop - mstsc.exe
Add/Remove programs - MSIexec
I am sure there are others, but fortunately I have not needed more than these so far!
Monday 25 August 2008
Basics of Web Site Optimisation - Rule 10
This post is mainly aimed at small to medium businesses that are just starting out and are keen to get something going, or have just gone live. I can't tell you how many times I have taught people over the past few years just a handful of strategically important things. So...here goes again, this time in a way that I can now simply refer to. As for my credibility - I would rather not divulge that here, read my Web Site Optimisation Rules and you decide. They are, after all, common sense, and common knowledge....like most things I blog about!
My number 10 rule: Create a web site/shortcut icon
This is one of the simplest and most overlooked goodies in a web site's "bag of tricks"!
Ever wonder why some web sites have a little icon in the address bar? For instance the little white-on-orange background "B" in the address bar right now? It is because they have created a "favicon.ico" in the root of their web directory. Not only is it displayed by the browser in the address bar when your visitor visits, but if the visitor bookmarks it, it is displayed in the bookmark view as well - which makes your site stand out from all the others without favicon.ico's! (and vice-versa, makes your site stand out stand out negatively, if all the others do)
The favicon.ico's that I have created were all based on the old specification of 16x16 pixels in the icon format. These days it is possible to use bigger images, with different formats, but I am still preferring the older specification as it is a very small overhead for your visitor and whatever old browser they may be using 5 years from now. Read more on wikipedia's Favicon entry!
Reasoning:
1. This is more a marketing and branding tool/optimisation than a search engine optimisation. It is extremely subtle in the world of too many messages and by using it, you have an opportunity to reinforce your company/site's brand in the visitor's mind - a very good thing. In the world of marketing, brand awareness is key - no one is going to buy "you" if they don't even "know you" - so first seek to build awareness, then start your "trust campaign".
2. It looks professional and is becoming expected these days
3. And a reminder waiting for each bookmarker is a great place to be
And that is my Rule 10. I will be uploading the others as time allows!
My number 10 rule: Create a web site/shortcut icon
This is one of the simplest and most overlooked goodies in a web site's "bag of tricks"!
Ever wonder why some web sites have a little icon in the address bar? For instance the little white-on-orange background "B" in the address bar right now? It is because they have created a "favicon.ico" in the root of their web directory. Not only is it displayed by the browser in the address bar when your visitor visits, but if the visitor bookmarks it, it is displayed in the bookmark view as well - which makes your site stand out from all the others without favicon.ico's! (and vice-versa, makes your site stand out stand out negatively, if all the others do)
The favicon.ico's that I have created were all based on the old specification of 16x16 pixels in the icon format. These days it is possible to use bigger images, with different formats, but I am still preferring the older specification as it is a very small overhead for your visitor and whatever old browser they may be using 5 years from now. Read more on wikipedia's Favicon entry!
Reasoning:
1. This is more a marketing and branding tool/optimisation than a search engine optimisation. It is extremely subtle in the world of too many messages and by using it, you have an opportunity to reinforce your company/site's brand in the visitor's mind - a very good thing. In the world of marketing, brand awareness is key - no one is going to buy "you" if they don't even "know you" - so first seek to build awareness, then start your "trust campaign".
2. It looks professional and is becoming expected these days
3. And a reminder waiting for each bookmarker is a great place to be
And that is my Rule 10. I will be uploading the others as time allows!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
