Computer and Web Articles

I’d wager that a solid 60% of new clients that approach us here at timeforcake (remember: we don’t fix computers; we’re a web design and development company) walk in thinking that they definitely want a blog in their new website. Problem is, when we ask why they’d like a blog, the new client often raises her eyebrows and shrugs or gives a reply along the lines of “Well, that’s what XYZ company is doing,” or “Don’t you need to have one of those in your site these days?”

Integrating a blog into your website without knowing why you’re doing so–without having a plan or strategy detailing how the blog will help your business reach its goals–is a surefire recipe for a whole lotta nothing. There’s a horrifying glut of abandoned blogs around the Internet. Over the past decade, I’d estimate we’ve seen 85% - 90% of these enthusiastic companies drop their blogs. Within the first four months.

Why? Because blogs simply aren’t for everyone. Keeping a truly effective blogs is not easy.

Blogs are not magic. They take time, effort, love, maintenance, and strategy. If your site has a blog, you *must* have a strategy; you must know why your site has a blog, what you’re going to do with the blog, and what you’re hoping to achieve with the blog.  How else will you measure its success (or lack thereof) over time? How will you know if you need to change tactics, keep moving forward, or scrap the blog altogether?

Confused? I’ve got a suggestion that might help: I recommend reading social media expert Mack Collier’s excellent article, Ten Questions Your Company Should Ask Before it Starts Blogging, which can be found right here: http://tinyurl.com/ycy6d9d.

1. http://tinyurl.com/32yo5 - Five grammatical mistakes you don’t want to make when you’re sending emails to your clients. Seriously.
2. http://tinyurl.com/ye2uvnz - Ever wondered what happens to people’s Facebook pages when they die?
3. http://www.trackle.com – A comprehensive online tracking and research tool that allows businesses to keep an eye on their competitors and monitor their brands.
4. http://tinyurl.com/9nf6cf - The “social media conversion scale”. On which end of the spectrum do you fall? Or perhaps you’re smack dab in the middle?
5. http://tinyurl.com/ybv33ga - Low-tech, but oh so cool. A Rubik’s Cube . . . for the blind.

I’ve recently made a dear friend who runs an amazing raw food blog-based website. Each of her creative recipes is entirely unique. Her food photography is absolutely stunning. Her writing is clear and purposeful. The site receives many, MANY thousands of visitors each month, and her posts see a high volume of comments and questions from visitors wanting to interact with and learn from her.

In other words, she’s kicking some serious butt.

There was just one little problem I noticed the first time I visited her site: the design is a bit on the . . . wide side. I myself had no problem viewing it on my laptop, and I knew the majority of her visitors were not experiencing any display problems either. Upon reviewing her site’s analytics, though, I discovered that upon arriving at her website, 1 in 10 of her visitors was seeing a site in which the right-hand portion was essentially chopped off.

The visitors making up this 10% were not abnormal by any stretch. They simply had lower monitor resolutions that didn’t let them see the entire width of the wiiiiiide design of my friend’s site. (Remember that monitor resolution is not the same as monitor size.)

This experience has pushed me to encourage you to review your own site’s analytics with your webmaster and understand what your visitors’ resolutions are. Make sure you understand the difference between monitor resolution and monitor size. Have your webmaster show you what your site looks like to visitors using different monitor resolutions.

In sum, do your best to understand if you’re keeping a substantial percentage of visitors from viewing or using your website.

Firefox user?
Yes?
Are you also a bad typist/do you make lots of typos?
Yes?

Then you very well might like the URL Fixer Firefox add-on. The developer’s description of the Firefox URL Fixer add-on states that his tool “corrects typos in URLs that you enter in the address bar. For example, if you type google.com, it will correct it to google.com (asking first, if you enable confirmation)…”

Interested? To learn more or download this add-on, visit http://tinyurl.com/35v6m9.

1. http://tinyurl.com/39vg78 - Seven very, very common grammatical mistakes. If your job requires you to regularly communicate via email, letters, Facebook, etc., I suggest you take at least a cursory glance at this post.
2. www.pachube.com – Straight from the site summary description at the top of Pachube’s homepage, Pachube allows you to “store, share & discover realtime sensor, energy and environment data from objects, devices & buildings around the world. Pachube is a convenient, secure & scalable platform that helps you connect to & build the ‘internet of things’.”
3. http://tinyurl.com/y9qn4l3 - This blog post offers ten suggestions for decluttering your digital life, from clearing out your email contacts list to cleaning up your hard drive.
4. www.couchsurfing.org – A website dedicated to lowering the financial cost of exploration and giving more people the chance to become travelers. How does couchsurfing.com accomplish these hefty goals? By building and nurturing a “worldwide network for making connections between travelers and the local communities they visit.” You so very much *want* to call this a website for people looking to mooch free accommodations . . . but as you look around you’ll find there is so, so much more depth to this non-profit than initially meets the eye.
5. http://tinyurl.com/yejxqha - If you’re looking for a chuckle, visit this link. You’ll find a great list of actual statements made by … children. Things like “I like those lines on your face,” “When I die I want to live with Jesus in his apartment,” and “Boy, your house smells funny. You should buy some air fresheners.”

Yes, yes, people debate the usefulness of social media. Yes, I know that many people struggle to see the point of Twitter. I’m really not interested in discussing any of that right now.

I would simply like to thank Twitter for introducing me to what has to be one of the most gripping, impactful, influential, can’t-stop-thinking-about-it-weeks-later articles I’ve ever read.

After growing up in the traffic Bay Area, after living in Denver and dealing with the constant life-force drain that is I-70 skier traffic, and after living in Summit County where I’ve witnessed and (unfortunately) experienced harrowing winter driving situations first-hand, I’ve found myself wishing this article could somehow be made mandatory reading for all people allowed to drive motor vehicles.

There is no lengthy bulleted list of dry facts here. There is no preaching about what one should and should not do while driving. There is only an amazingly well-written, critically-acclaimed, 2009 National Magazine Award Finalist story that I wish people would read. It’s not a quick read, so if you’re open to giving it a chance, set aside at least ten or so minutes. I would love for you to have a look and then share your thoughts with me.  And others.

Though it can take a good deal of manual effort to sort the dregs from the cream while online, I find myself constantly, infinitely thankful that the internet has allowed for far-reaching dissemination of valuable information such as that which I found in the Dead Man Driving article—which you can find here: http://tinyurl.com/yaw5eak.

I recently came across an article that consolidated a good deal of research into one concise, illuminating summary of the Internet in 2009.

Here are few highlights I found quite interesting:

• 90 trillion: The number of emails sent on the Internet in 2009
• 81% - The percentage of all emails that were spam
• 126 million - The number of blogs on the Internet
• 84% - The number if social networking sites with more women than men
• 350 million - The number of people on Facebook
• 50% - The percentage of Facebook users that log in every day
• 2.5 billion - The number of photos uploaded each month to Facebook
• 1 billion - The number of videos YouTube serves every single day
• 3.9% - The percentage of world’s Internet users located in Africa

To read the additional findings, check out the original Royal Pingdom article here: http://tinyurl.com/yej8686.

1. http://tinyurl.com/y8by576 - Very, very funny video that provides you with the step-by-step secrete recipe for reporting news stories. Love it.
2. http://tinyurl.com/yf35ztl - What if your company has done nothing? No website? No social media? Is it too late to catch up?
3. http://tinyurl.com/yzx3sqv - Blog post: “Find a Way to Unplug from Technology, or, How to Escape the Cubicle in Your Pocket.”
4. http://tinyurl.com/akcq35 - Can you prevent competitors from seeing your Adword ads?
5. http://tinyurl.com/4blkz6 - Points to consider when buying a digital camera.

Yes, Google provides a million and one services. Google conducts web searches for you, lets you send emails via Gmail, tracks your website’s analytics, and lets you create, edit, and store documents online. Were you aware that Google is also more than happy to serve as your … calculator?

There’s no Google Calculator application. There’s no Google Calculator page. Just drop your math equations right into the Google search box and hit the Search button. Can’t figure out the answer to 5 times 10? Just type “5*10” into Google, hit the Search button, and the Google Calculator answer will appear in bold at the top of your results page. (Wait – did you really not know what 5 times 10 was? Really?)

The Google Calculator even knows quite a few things that the normal, everyday calculator could only wish it knew. Type the following math questions into the Google search box (and then hit the Search button, of course) to see what I mean…

• How many seconds in a decade?
• How much is a Googol?
• What is the loneliest number?
• What is once in a blue moon?
• How many feet are in a smoot?