Tuesday 11 November 2008 16:02
Independent software vendors (ISVs) are often pressured into linking back to download sites that list their software. Some sites won't list a software product unless you provide a backlink. Others tempt you with awards you can display on your product page with a link to the download site listing. I don't think there is much benefit to software developers in linking to listing sites. But there is one big potential disadvantage. Download sites list thousands of downloads and there is a good chance that one or two will cause a malware alert in McAfee SiteAdvisor. This could lead to the software developer site getting a cautionary or even a danger warning from Site Advisor, just by linking to it. Read more...
Web development no trackbacks § ¶
Wednesday 03 September 2008 12:09
Shortly after I finished writing about my first impressions of Google's new browser, Chrome, I discovered a gem of a feature. Chrome has much of the functionality of Firefox's Firebug built into it. This is a great addition, which may make Google Chrome a lot more popular with webmasters than I at first supposed. However, I still think it needs support for extensions before it will become the browser of choice for power users. Read more...
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Wednesday 03 September 2008 10:26
Last night I fired up a Windows XP VM and installed Google's shiny new web browser, Chrome. My quick impression: it looks good, it's fast, and I didn't detect any rendering problems on the pages I tried. Nice job. But what does Google Chrome bring to the table that other web browsers don't? Do we need yet another web browser? Read more...
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Monday 11 August 2008 12:15
I love Firefox, and spend most of my day working in it. So I did not rush to download the latest Firefox 3.0. I don't like being an early adopter of anything - computers throw me enough problems to solve without having to deal with brand new software releases that probably still contain some bugs. And some of the Firefox extensions I have come to depend on haven't been updated to work with 3.0 yet. Read more...
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Tuesday 29 July 2008 13:07
I'm a firm believer in backing up websites. Of course, we use good quality web hosts that back up their servers. But it is not unknown for web hosts to go out of business leaving users with no way to get at their site content in order to move it to a new server. It's also useful to be able to restore files from your own backups instead of having to trouble your web host's tech support (and possibly pay for it.) So I like to keep my own backups. Read more...
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Friday 13 June 2008 09:56
We run a small web directory site Tech-Directory. I started it because we had a number of static html links pages on Tech-Pro.net that were created to provide lists of useful resources related to various topics such as data recovery or anti-virus. I was constantly receiving requests to add links to these pages, which was a hassle as I always have 101 more important things to do. So I set up Tech-Directory.net using the free directory script IndexScript so that people could add their own links to the directory. Read more...
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Monday 26 May 2008 18:09
The holy grail of web development for me has been to find a system that puts paid to the business of hand coding and uploading individual pages without losing the flexibility and control over search engine optimization (SEO) that hand coding gives you. Content management systems (CMS) have been around a long time, but they always seemed to have a steep learning curve. It was hard to figure out how to make the pages look how I wanted, or incorporate features that were not built into the package. And it seemed impossible, if the aim was to convert an existing site, to keep the page URLs the same as the originals, something that is essential to retain any page rank the pages have already earned. I think I have finally found the holy grail, and it's name is CMS Made Simple. Read more...
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Wednesday 21 May 2008 12:51
Recently, the contact forms on my websites have begun attracting the attention of idiots who use them to send me spam. Why they bother, I do not know. The emails consist of HTML text containing links to sites with gobbledygook names. Whether these sites exist I have no idea. I have no intention of trying to visit them even if the names looked real. It is a complete waste of their time and mine. So to eliminate the need to look at, and then delete these emails, I have implemented a captcha check on all of my contact forms. Read more...
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