This whole business of letting ppl use old browsers, mainly IE 6 is just really distressing. Why can’t Microsoft just automatically disable the old browsers, once the new ones come in effect. I hear IE 8 is out already. Meanwhile, we have ppl using IE6, STILL! There has got to be a better way of getting people to upgrade and keeping up with the times. It would make the web designers life so much easier, not to spend hours trying to figure out how to get it to show perfectly in IE 6 (all for that random 3 or 4 visitors that will visit the site using IE 6, or better yet the owner themselves).
Recently I came across great new, on Jonathan Hedley’s site.
Starting on or about the third week of April, users still running IE6 or IE7 on Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003, or Windows Server 2008 will get will get a notification through Automatic Update about IE8. This rollout will start with a narrow audience and expand over time to the entire user base. On Windows XP and Server 2003, the update will be High-Priority.
Users can decline the update, and Corporate IT groups can block it, but this is a promising move to bring users up to date, and so to increase web-development efficiency.
I also came across “Grow up already and throw IE6 away!”. Fantastic article, with show and tell pictures, by Janko Jovanovic (my inspiring title is one of his quotes).
If you are reading this and haven’t updated your browser, please do that. No good can come of using old browsers that don’t support half all the graphic savvy stuff we can do online these days. You’re missing the good stuff. Get that upgrade. Click here
Interesting SEO factbits
April 21, 2009
I’ve been extremly busy lately and keep thinking to myself, ”I really should post some of my interesting findings!’. Been getting a lot of questions about SEO, and incidentally I came across a great article that breaks it down it simple words. Excellent read for clients who don’t have much understanding of web works.
The article below is by Kurt D. Lynn, founder, cofounder, or senior executive of half a dozen enterprises in both the U.S. and Canada.
________***SEO***________
So Why All The Hubbub?
The excitement seems to be around the notion that SEO means “free advertising”, that it means, if you do it right, millions of people will be clicking through to your site willy-nilly having found you on some search engine and then will immediately do business with you. And behind all that excitement are thousands of overnight SEO “experts” that, variously, all claim to … (pick one):
- Have SEO secrets that will help you get an unfair advantage over the next guy;
- Guarantee you a first-page listing for an incredibly low monthly rate;
- Provide hundreds of high page rank sites that will link to your site;
- Give you 5/10/20 quick tips to immediately improve your rankings;
- Tell you what Google/MSN/Yahoo doesn’t want you to know about SEO;
- Tell you that whatever SEO you’re doing is all wrong; or
- Some other variant of the above.
To some extent, this notion of “free advertising” is not altogether inaccurate. SEO can result in your site being found – free of charge – and it can result in traffic to your site that may, in fact, result in new business. But the reality of SEO is not quite that simple.
SEO Is Far From “FREE”
SEO takes work… often, hard work. For those that aren’t familiar with what’s involved in SEO, below is a líst of some of the typical activities that (as the CREST commercials used to say) “when applied in a conscientious program of regular professional care” will result in higher search engine rankings.
- Researching and selecting keywords that are truly relevant to your desired audience;
- Researching competition for desired keywords;
- Researching and analyzing competitive websites;
- Re-writing and restructuring your website to address desired keywords, to be more accessible by search engine “crawlers”, to have appropriate label meta tags, headings, and inter-page links;
- Create a program to build links to your site from other sites (directories, exchanged links,article marketing, etc.)
- Create a program to keep content on your site regularly refreshed and synchronized with all the above.
- Regularly (daily or weekly) monitor all the search engines and your competitors positions
SEO Is Not Easy
Doesn’t quite sound as easy as some people suggest does it? That’s because it’s not. And it’s all the more complicated when you realize that every site on that first page, and on the second and third, is trying to do the same thing – but against you! You boost your rank above them. They go to work and boost their site back above yours. And so on and so on… It’s a war and the SEO “experts” are the arms dealers.
Your Goals And Those Of The Search Engine May Be Different
If you’re going to pay good money for SEO, it may also be worthwhile to keep in mind that search engines don’t necessarily have a goal of making you the most findable site on the web. The bottom line for them is making sure that their users find what they are looking for. Satisfying that requirement may mean that you don’t and should not come up first. Google is the number one search engine for a reason: Google users get results they want. Those may not be the results you want.
Short Term and Long Term
In the short run, there may be some serious benefits from investing in SEO to boost your search engine rankings. In the long run, however, there’s probably not much you can do beyond a certain point. Frankly, if you have a finite budget, altering the basic nature of your site and trying to boost how valuable your site is to others (as represented by links to your site) can only be taken so far. After a point, the perfect market characteristics of the search engine will prevail.
Balance SEO With Other Forms Of Traffic Generation
What this means is: yes, do make sure you do the essential SEO necessary to optimize your rankings in search engines. But do it in the context of an overall marketing program. Definitely use SEO to ensure that you get a fair and accurate appraisal by search engines. But also invest in other non-SEO lead-generation methods to bring traffic to your site and business to your table.
Above all, measure the results of your SEO and non-SEO activities carefully and frequently. When SEO reaches the point of diminishing returns, cut the rate in which you invest in it and boost your reliance on non-SEO marketing to reach your goals. In the long run, traditional non-SEO marketing may just be the most reliable and consistent way to boost traffíc to your site.
For those who haven’t read my previous postings about Canaca, heres my opinion about them in a nutshell They are by far the worst business I have ever had the displeasure of working with and will rob you blind! And when you catch them, they will turn around and tell you to look into their ‘policy’ (that would be the tiny words at the very bottom of the site that say “we have the right to rob you” lol [Read their sorry excuse of a contract right here], well not those exact words, but if you see my previous posting you’ll know.)
I had signed up for web hosting with them on a clients behalf for ONE YEAR. Little did I know they’ve been charging my credit card every year since, without sending an invoice to me (they call it an automatic renewal, so customers aren’t bothered to renew or something like that). When you contact them about it, they tell you to read the fine print at the bottom!
Anyways this morning, I got an INVOICE! YES, that tells me I am ‘OVERDUE’ in my payment. So they wont send an invoice to say they are charging you, but they will send you an invoice to let you know you are ‘OVERDUE’ in your payments. So once again people of the world, STAY AWAY THIS COMPANY! Their office is located down the street from me and they are charging in US dollars! Jokers!
As you can tell, I have had an extremely bitter experience with these people and am doing everything in my ability to warn other non suspecting people out there who might want to use them!
CSS Tools that’ll make life easy!
February 18, 2009
Sometimes, CSS can be such a complicated thing, making sure it works on different browsers, fixing that darn IE bug, and just generally making sure it all works properly. This can be especially annoying if you are a newbie to CSS. But give it a chance, you will love it!
Below are a few tools I came across that will be easier on you and your time!
1. CSS Template Generator – with Source Code
2. YAML Builder
5. CSS Tidy
6. CSS Compressor- Use this utility to compress your CSS to increase loading speed and save on bandwidth as well.
7. Firebug- If you aren’t using this, now would be a good time to start 
8. Aardvark- This is by far one of my faves from Firefox, because it enables you to fix template problems by combing through the layout.
9. CSS Layouts
10. Collaborative Javascript Debugging
There’s more where this came from! Check out 60 CSS Tools.
YUI Grids CSS, makes web easier?
December 2, 2008
I was assigned to redo a certain section of a certain site today (from scratch) and so I proceeded to look up with is the best and easiest way to get this done in little time. So I used Stumbleupon and came across this…YUI Grids CSS
For those of you not aware of what this is, it makes all layouts look the same in different browsers. It fixes the margin issues between browsers and it also makes the fonts look the same (gasp!), making things look consistent.
To get a feel for it, I downloaded a free layout online that was built on these guidelines, so I could examine the layout more closely. When I first looked at the CSS files, I was like…”what the!?!?”. It made so much more sense (unlike me who thought I could just ‘figure it out’ and wasted half a day, scratching my head..eeeep). I suggest you read about YUI here before you venture using it. I like how theres code for various screen sizes etc. If you have time watch the 42 minute video on it as well. Play around with the YUI Grids Builder.
Some pretty neat stuff happening here, esp for people with little to no experience with CSS. The verdict about this? I am not fully sold on it yet, it all sounds great and all, but it involves so many numbers and its all in “em”s as opposed to pixels. I think I might try it out on one site and go from there. It certainly has a lot to offer. Also check out the YUI blog. It has a bunch of cool stuff you can do with YUI. Yay Yahooo!
