Archive for University Of Webbing
February 5, 2010 at 4:04 am · Filed under Technology Stuff, University Of Webbing
Oracle is looking into expanding its virtualization of managed hosting offerings through a number of applications that it obtained when it acquired Sun Microsystems. This is according to the company’s chief architect Edward Screven.
Screven was one of the many speakers in a recent webcast. He explained how the technology development and customer support of Sun will be incorporated into the current Oracle operations. He said that they expect to provide the most comprehensive set of solutions for virtualization. Screven adds that Oracle is going to deliver integrated management of the whole stack so that when problem strikes, they will be able to provide resolutions efficiently.
The new unified offering also has the potential to allow for easier virtualization administration for shops that are running or that are looking to run the Solaris operating system of the Spac processor-based servers that Oracle has just recently acquired.
The said plans also manifest the intent of Oracle to continue development support for Sun’s Solaris as well as for its Sparc multithreaded processors.
Before it acquired the new virtualization tools, Oracle has already taken over a few platforms of the same kind. One of them is Oracle VM, a reworked version of the open-source Xen for x86 servers. It also features the Oracle Enterprise Manager suite that provides virtualization management.
When it acquired Sun Microsystems, Oracle managed to gain a couple of virtualization technologies which Sun has designed for its own hardware and software.
December 5, 2009 at 6:30 am · Filed under Car Transport, Technology Stuff, University Of Webbing
We should acknowledge, that we were greatly imprinted after visting Zippy.com.au site and couldn’t wait to see what we would find in their insurance quoting section. One of our favourite highlights on this site was their simpleness. It’s not very difficult to find various car insurance quote rates here, as this internet site permits you to fill out an form and allows you to equate a variety of rates from sevenfold providers.
Our reviewing squad appreciated the easy to sail site that didn’t take ages to load, a huge plus.
Zippy.com.au is owned and operated by:
Zippy.com.au Pty Ltd ABN: 281 3833 9429 www.zippy.com.au Tel: fax: 3036 6860 Suite 163, 192 Ann Street Brisbane QLD 4000 Australia
Zippy.com.au minted the motto, Fast, Easy, Zippy’ and they mean it! In One Case the quotation form is Fulfilled, our telephone within five mins and found oursleves talking with Real Insurance and they beat my current insurance policy premium.
We really liked that Zippy.com.au keeps elements easy while holding a pro and educational insurance web site.
As well as Car insurance you may utilize Zippy.com.au to obtain House, Life and Business Insurance but in our opinion Car insurance appears to be their focus.
Although survising all of Australia the site focuses on QLD, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth
The index page of this web site is specific but is organised asymptomaticly. It consists of a big image and paragraph and underneath are 2 sections.
On the right of the page are fast hyperlinks to some great little tools. The tool include a couple of estimators, the best of which forecasts a car price.
Colours for the web site are blue, money green on a white background uniform with the Zippy logo.
Zippy.com.aus logo is modern, simple and smart I thought the colours presented the character of business enterprise well and looked pro. The layout of the pages is neatly organized and pages are coherent with the two column design with contact details in the top area.
The Zippy.com.au website adequately satisfies client needs and offers a wide range of insurance companies to select from in OZ. With the same technology, it is in all likelihood that Zippy can extend their services to include other counties too.
Zippy is well worth bookmarking.
November 9, 2009 at 1:21 pm · Filed under University Of Webbing
If you are a fervent developing young author, natural writer or perhaps a rather company looking to communicate your good thoughts or maybe bring your impression upon today’s peculiar world then the more traditional publishing might oftentimes be an unwelcome stumbling block to releasing your lovingly crafted innermost ideas and concerns out and about, into the public eye. Take heed you who may be crestfallen, there are intelligent digital and novel online choices to be had that might well take the bothersome headaches burning sadness and certain of the exasperating difficulty out of publishing one’s textual endeavours. There is no surprise you might be extremely please to find out that one might well sidestep the editors, sub-editors and publishers by undertaking your own positive actions toward broadcasting your very own works.
So you have a brilliant tale which you have been working very hard on for many years, or valuable information that you just know users would sell their pets to have. You might well have enthralling data from a research review, or perhaps even an assortment of creative photographs, conceptual pictures or other breakthrough artwork that you’d like to have compiled as a specialised compilation of creative works to show off your artistic competence or to get exposure to the quality services you provide and get your specialised products respect. What about only having your say with regard to the things that really vex you; bothersome people, arranged politics, vacillating society, pop culture and disseminating you own judgement with other concurring folks.
And now you could find yourself in a magnificent place where you might have put in the especially gruelling effort and have got the goods; a terrific piece of inventive work that is extraordinarily beneficial, in spite of this it is possible that you will still need to bargain with a publisher and persuade them that you own handiwork is worthy to be forever immortalised in print. Sadly this may regularly be the ending of the line for tonnes of ingenious authors, wordsmiths, poets, scribes, reporters and biographers. Even if the publisher has been able to be convinced another annoying stumbling post will often be brought to light. All of the great costs of all the extras; editors, designers and other resources essential to convert an unbelievable plan into an accomplished fruition might fall outside of what it is likely that you feel is affordable or it is possible that you may not be able to justify the financial outlay.
The money needed in broadcasting is not the only prevention or testing stumbling post, for many compilers the turn around times for traditional publishing are far too long. This is often the case in the instance of stories, data or facts that are also greatly fresh, concerning hot trends or subject matter and may generally devalue as time passes and the limited window of opportunity for effect starts to disappear.
Modern technology comes to the rescue once again, offering you a fast track alternate option. In our fast-paced, technologically advanced crazy world an enormous array of services that have traditionally been offered offline are also fast making the mass migration into the insubstantial original online world, making these services far more obtainable to any who wants to use them and often at a much lower cost to the user too. Clever digital publishing is just one of these services and it provides you, the budding young writer, with the capability to publish your carefully crafted works yourself with none of the wait and growing costs associated with the more “historical” mediums.
Digital publishing will also offer you the flexibility you could be looking for in terms of the effortlessness of modernising information, data or even adding entire sub-sections to an already published works. Then there is the increasing benefit of rich media such as; interactive applications, animations, videos and widgets. With an online or digitally published inventive work this adaptability is fully conceivable and a large array of extras and rich media are simply integrated into the magazine, article, or e-book. Digital newpaper as well as online magazine owners have found that the digital format has proven extremely successful with readers of all ages.
In summary, a developing writer, small research inspired enterprise or photographic studio no longer needs to kiss up to publishers or hold up a small bank to see their handiwork out and about in the real world. We live in today’s intelligent digital age and this of clever digital has come to rescue to help you realise you own publishing dreams.
September 15, 2009 at 10:56 pm · Filed under Misc, Technology Stuff, University Of Webbing
The initial decision when you’re building a web site is choosing the right domain and choosing the best suited Web registration for your specific market. Mind you, this is not ordinarily a simple decision making process. All things considered the most reliable way to make sure that your needs are fulfilled is to spend time on some pain-staking research of domain hosting suppliers by available customer feedback. When you are going through domain hosting reviews, how to find out what is useful information and what isn’t? Just like any other business decision, you should find out which details are most significant for your web site. Some businesses prefer to have their web site hosted by the same provider that they have chosen to register their domain name. Do remember that months after your web site was set up, matters such as service will probably become exceedingly important.
Any customer feedback found on a provider’s web site isn’t sufficient to base your decision on. In order to define the best suited Web registration for you, you need to get an unprejudiced assessment. Find the time to research into a variety domain hosting review sites and take on board the reviewers’ feedback. Just what seem to be the common complaints? What do existing clients believe the company’s strengths are? Is the feedback mostly good or bad?
Expect to see positive and negative reviews for each provider. It’s generally wise to study all the reviews with objectivity and take everything into consideration. Naturally, the importance of cost should not be overlooked, but don’t forget to look at what services are included in the price. Here are a few questions to ponder over when looking for the most appropriate hosting for your requirements.
During what hours do the company offer customer support? Do they have a free number, can you see if they come back speedily to any issues or queries? What sort of system uptime will they guarantee? How much bandwidth will be accessible to you? You can negotiate a deal featuring unlimited hosting and bandwidth, along with perks like computer software to help in running your web site, coupons redeemable for Google AdWords, even discounts on further domain names. How is the payment plan implemented? Must every payment be approved on an individual basis or do they offer an automatic alternative, and are yearly payments an option? What will they do assuming the server goes off-line? In the long run, only you will choose the right hosting for the needs of your business, however do exercise caution: check out the reviews. Studying several domain hosting reviews will give you the opportunity to save time and money at some later point.
July 6, 2008 at 12:35 am · Filed under University Of Webbing
Where is this Going?
Good question. If you are referring to this article, I am somewhat disappointed but if you’re referring to the Internet, we can do business. Most of us have an approximate knowledge of the history behind how and why the Internet was conceived but what we have an even less of an idea about is where is it going. If you haven’t managed to catch one of those documentaries examining the Internet’s past, I won’t waste you’re time by telling you about it when there are probably thousands of websites that can do it more justice than I can in a few lines of text here.
Anyway, back to our question. Where is the Internet going? If we can just continue the analogy of the Internet being a child, it was born in the autumn of 1969 and is now a 36 year old man with more money, more fame, more attention and more admirers than any other person that ever lived. Thankfully the Internet is not a man otherwise it would have an ego even bigger than that of Arnold Schwarzenegger. By the way, he was once asked a serious question “What do you think of gay marriages,” and his answer was “that’s between a man and a woman.”
But jokes aside, we have in fact created a monster that Dr Frankenstein would have been proud of. The Internet touches a very large percentage of the human race. It makes the job of communicating opinions, products, services and a great deal else besides so often so seamless that we cannot help but fall head-over-heals for its mesmerising charm. And yet, behind the faade of colourful pages containing banners, links, images, animations and words, lies an uneasy, almost eerie feeling that we have in fact lost control of this thing we call the Internet.
Have we Lost Control?
Consider this. If, say in five year’s time, it was found that the Internet was causing some serious detriment to human life, could we put a stop to it. I think not. The only precedent that I can think of is the attempt by the Chinese government to sanitise the content to which their people may have access. But, let’s be realistic. It’s almost like trying to stem the Pacific ocean. As long as people use the Internet, it will grow and the more people that use it the faster it will grow. Yes, but grow into what?
Do we Envisage a Happy Ending to the Internet
If we treat it as an invention we can try to predict its future by looking at other inventions that large numbers of people use. Say for example the motor car. The very first one was steam driven and came into being around 1723. That makes it 282 years old. Nowadays, they are everywhere and we couldn’t imagine being without them. As it turns out, it’s not so much the motor car itself that causes us problems (aside from the road accidents) but the exhaust fumes it leaves behind. The trouble with the car is that eventually there will be so many of them, as world population increases, that we shall run out of road space to such an extent that there will be a premium on road usage as opposed to car usage. So I think we can see that the future of the motor car isn’t really that bright.
But there is a great difference between the motor car and the Internet. Like all good inventions, the motor car has one well defined purpose and that is transportation. The Internet, intentionally or otherwise, serves many purposes. E-commerce is but one example. Browsing for information is another function. Entertainment is huge. These purposes in themselves are very large generic entities that branch into a multitude of different facets, all of them purporting to serve the end user.
What I’m trying to get across is that the Internet is not like any other invention. Its purposes are many and each one is a tiny branch upon the countless tentacles emanating from a central mass of major websites that attract the most traffic. If you haven’t already guessed, these are the “good” sides to the internet. What about the sides to it that nobody wants to talk about.
Pornography
There is a statistic that says 90% of all browsing or searching has a connection to or affinity with pornography of one sort or another. We all know this but we don’t really like to talk about it. There is no limit to the depravity that webmasters won’t stoop to in order to feed yet another base desire which is greed. But you may argue that pornography has been with us for a very long time, so why should it worry us now? It’s the method of delivery. If a country wanted to control or censor images of this sort via conventional means, the possible sources could easily be identified, approached and stopped. Television companies, mainstream newspapers and magazines are three examples. It is even possible to curb the purchase of publications by those not of adult age. In addition, there is also the embarrassment factor which may sometimes prevent the prospect from approaching a counter or a till and coming face-to-face with another human being or speaking on the phone to order some illicit cable channel.
I am thinking primarily of the children who make up a large segment of the online population and it is nothing to enter sites that display the most appalling images. And as we all know, the depravity does not stop there. It goes far beyond that for those wishing to pay for services.
Hatred
There are many sites that incite racial, cultural and religious hatred. These do nothing more than fuel people’s prejudices about other people. They are not in the same league as opinion or freedom of speech. If the written word or picture causes tempers to flare and anger to inflame, it has no beneficial effect. On the other hand, if it depicts truth (and we have to be very careful about the facts that led to the truth) it should never be suppressed. These checks and balances, alas, cannot be guaranteed on the Internet. It does not recognise boundaries, taboos and sensitivities because no one can predict the age and background of the visitor.
Illegal Activity
There is of course a plethora of websites and schemes all wanting to scam us out of some amount in return for some idea. No doubt, many thousands fall for these things every day, especially if they are newcomers. Chain letters, pyramid schemes and unsolicited emails are just three examples. Every single aspect of fraudulent activity may be found on the Internet. Happily, we can write articles and visit conscientious websites that genuinely warn people to be aware of such things.
Conclusion
Where is the Internet going? Simple extrapolation shows that the negative sides will grow much faster than the positive ones because there is a lot more of it. This means that come another decade, we could start to see technologies being created to control the Internet perhaps using the United Nations as a means to implement or police the International Internet Community. It will be a pity because, as it is always the case, whenever you take blanket measures to do away with negative activity, there is always damage to the good side as well. It might mean waiting months or years for the vetting process to be finalised before anyone is allowed to start a website. It could be that entire nations maybe disenfranchised from the Internet because they are deemed to be “unsuitable”. These are just some examples of how the Internet might go.
However, we, the users of the Internet can do something about it now. The only way to kill a website is to starve it of visitors. If people were to change their habits and avoid sites that they knew had any of the negative things mentioned above, we could effectively police the Internet ourselves. I have to be honest though and say that given our human nautre, I don’t really hold out much hope of this happening any time soon.
In the meantime, here is a website dedicated to a new book of mine which is a supernatural come science-fiction novel. Please click on http://www.willofdreams.com to visit and learn more about the author and the book. Thank you for your attention.
June 14, 2008 at 10:27 pm · Filed under University Of Webbing
There is a new fad in the web hosting market. Reseller hosting. Where individuals like you and I can become web hosts (sell web hosting) without having to buy all the infrastructure and do-hickeys that go along with setting up such a business.
Becoming a web hosting reseller for a web hosting company is becoming a very profitable past time for a lot of Internet marketers. Being able to earn a monthly on going income selling a service every webmaster needs with out huge setup costs is a hard business model to ignore.
So what exactly is reseller hosting and how can you get started?
Reseller hosting allows you to sell a web hosting companies services as your own. This is called private labelling. Basically they offer you a discount rate on their web hosting services and you sell it off as your own at any price you want.
Reseller hosting can start for as little as $20 a month. That means you can have a full featured web hosting business without any major start up costs.
The great thing about some companies offering reseller web hosting is that they do all the technical work for you as well. They provide around the clock support for you, they manage your servers and they can even bill your customers for you, so all you have to sell is focus on selling their products.
There is more to it but you can find out more about a web hosting companies reseller program by asking them directly. In this article, I want to focus on how to make money by selling web hosting.
So how can you make money selling web hosting? Here are my favorite methods.
#1 - Create And Sell Businesses On Ebay
This is my favorite method of generating sales for my web hosting services. In a nut shell, what I do is I create turnkey businesses (businesses built just to be resold to other people) on Ebay and charge people a flat monthly fee to host the site they just brought on my web hosting service.
If you go to Ebay and have a look in the website/businesses for sale section, you will see people doing just this. It might look strange seeing a website sell for a few dollars. I never use to understand exactly how they made any money, then I realized, they were not making money from the sale of the business, but on the back end. They would create good clean website site, sell it on Ebay for a few dollars and then charge the buyer to host this site on their hosting service.
This is perfectly legal, as long as you tell them up front that they must continue to host their website on your web hosting services for a certain period of time.
You could easily sell 100 small websites a week on Ebay. On average, you could sell hosting for $10 a month. So every week, you could be making $1000 a week. But that’s not the best thing, since web hosting is paid monthly, you get paid monthly for as long as they stay with your web hosting service. This is as close as a steady pay check as you are going to get with Internet marketing.
You get paid every month whether or not you actually even work.
#2 - Become A Dedicated Hosting Service Just For Blogs
Blogging is hot right now. Very hot. There are an estimated 40,000 new blogs started every day. EVERY DAY. Can you imagine that? Sure, most of them are hosted for free, but there are a lot of blogs and bloggers who want the control of having a domain name and their own web hosting for their blogs.
The great thing about blogs is that they take up very little disk space and transfer (bandwidth) allowance. You can host many, many blogs with very little resources and you can charge a good price for your services.
Another great thing about blogs and bloggers is that most successful bloggers have more then one blog. This is great because blogs take very little technical assistance on your part which means you can grow your business quicker and have more paying customers without the need for costly and time sapping technical support.
So how can you market your blogging web hosting service? Good question! Here’s an even better answer.
Forums! And not just forums about blogging. Any forum, any topic could be perfect for a blog, and there are a lot of people in forums looking for a way to express their interest in their hobby or passion.
You could easily position yourself as the service to go to for niche blogs. You could target forums that talk about any subject. Fishing, gardening, dog training, pie eating, you name it.
Posting in forums with helpful answers will no doubt bring you a lot of qualified business. Just make sure you answer with helpful posts and not just blatant plugs for your business.
The way to really make an impact with this type of service is to offer something no one else is doing. Maybe you could get an ebook written about the secrets to niche blogging and give that away with every hosting sale, or maybe you could give away free unique content that they could use every month on their blogs when they sign up for 6 or 12 months of hosting.
There are many ways to make money reselling hosting, and as you can tell, it is quite the lucrative business model.
To your success.
Bedrich Omacka is responsible for maintaining web hosting reviews site which is full of customers experience with big web hosts.
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May 29, 2008 at 6:55 am · Filed under University Of Webbing
With the billions of sales posted by e-commerce Websites every year, it’s no wonder that many entrepreneurs are putting their money into building, improving, and maintaining e-commerce Websites. The profitability of a Web venture is obvious, but one contention remains - is there a best way to build an e-commerce Website?
E-commerce site owners who understand basic html and have background in Web development tend to build their Websites by themselves, but experts question whether this is optimum. Creating an e-commerce Website from scratch takes a long time - time which, according to some studies, is better used managing and implementing reforms to advance the business.
Why does it take so long? Remember that e-commerce Websites are generally more complex than a regular site, primarily because of the additional functionality and security features it requires. One such added functionality is a “shopping cart,” which is the lifeblood of e-commerce transactions. The shopping cart keeps tabs on the products a buyer picks out from your inventory (with descriptions, images and prices, among others). It quickly calculates taxes, shipping charges and total payables in one click. After a buyer “checks out,” the shopping cart manages the payment transaction by “coordinating” with a clearing house using an encrypted connection. Finally, it sends confirmation messages (usually through e-mail) to your buyers, and records the sale to your dispatch department.
With such complexities, it is obvious why some e-commerce entrepreneurs (even those with backgrounds in programming) choose to outsource Web development. If your business can afford to spend money on Internet commerce, then you should consider hiring Web development companies, even small ones - they usually work as a team, so you can be assured of timely delivery and after-sales support.
If you want lower costs, though, then it might be best to hire a freelance Web professional, who can usually do the job for a smaller price. Be sure to check his experience and background, though, because not all ‘cheap’ services are quality services. You need to spend a lot of time explaining the details of your project to your Web developer. It is best to prepare a comprehensive outline of how you want your site to work, perhaps give sample sites that you would like to imitate, and set clear project timeframes to minimize misunderstandings and delays.
Build A Web Site provides detailed information on Build A Web Site, Build an Auction Web Site, Build an Ecommerce Web Site, Build a School Web Site and more. Build A Web Site is affiliated with Affordable Web Site Design Companies.
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May 20, 2008 at 9:42 am · Filed under University Of Webbing
If you are anything like me, you’d probably like to have a website on the Internet but you just have no idea how to go about it. All this talk of web hosting, bandwidth, disc space, and other jargon can cause one to say, “This is too complicated and technical, I just wanted to have a place to put all of my favorite skateboarding photos, cool information on ramp designs, and the best places to skate!” To get a website on the Web you have to go through a web host. The question is how do you find the web host for you?
If you type ‘web host’ into your search engine like Google you will get thousands of sites. Hit on one of these and like any product on the market you will see all sorts of persuasive propaganda to incite you to use their company; that is if you can decipher any of the technical jargon that only computer-heads can comprehend. Some web hosts offer free business cards with an account; some probably offer free watches…like all consumer industries you the buyer must beware.
I’m a writer so I’ll use the analogy of a writer’s journal. The journal I like must not be too big or small in book size. It also must have a good amount of space allocated to each day, again not a whole page but not just a few lines. Of course I also want it to be cheap but of a good quality that won’t fall apart while I’m using it, and I hope it would last for posterity. I just want the diary, some nice pictures in it are O.K. but unnecessary especially if it adds to the price.
It’s the same with a web host and web site scenario. You want to get the right deal for you, enough space and enough access to the public that you wish to associate with. As a novice who doesn’t understand all the jargon this can pose a problem. Are you an individual, small business, blog, or a big time corporation? What do you need and how do you get it?
As far as I can tell the web hosting business is a lot like the fast food business. The big corporations have strict guidelines, will offer you special deals, and have monthly ‘cheeseburger specials’. But, I’ve always been more interested in the ‘Mom and Pop’ small time diners who have that real caring human approach. You know you are a customer and a person, not just a number on a sales receipt. I believe the hosting companies are the same.
A smaller hosting company will probably treat its users with more honest integrity as well as having more flexibility in dealing with your individual situation. They can often tailor web site packages to accommodate exactly what you are looking for as well as the ability to update them quickly when your needs change.
My advice is to contact a few of the smaller companies. Look for ones with good reputations or just arbitrarily email them and compare results from different places. Which one do you feel most comfortable with? Go for it; ask as many questions as you can, see how the different hosts differ in their answers. Try one; if it doesn’t work out try another, it’s really easy to move around. Don’t be afraid, you’ve got nothing to lose except the fear itself!
Jesse S. Somer
M6.Net
www.m6.net
Jesse S. Somer is a novice in the computer world hoping to inform others like him that the Internet is nothing to fear.
May 16, 2008 at 5:51 am · Filed under University Of Webbing
Have you ever walked pass a shop that, for some reason, you just
felt that you had to go in? Maybe it was the décor, or the
window display, or the pretty girl, or a combination of all
those but something in the shop called out to you, “Come in” and
you just had to obey.
In the online world, won’t it be nice to have a site that buyers
just had to buy from, despite themselves? Surfers will be drawn
to the “Add to Cart” button that squealed, “Click me!” to them.
They found that they just had to click the button and buy the
item.
While I can assure you I can’t design such a site, and I
certainly am not going to reveal how to design it in a free
article even if I can, there are many ways to make your site
more friendly to your visitor.
The following tips will make your site load more faster, easier
to use and more pleasing to your visitor. While they won’t
guarantee you a sale, a happier and more satisfied surfer should
greatly increase your chances of a sale.
DON’T REINVENT THE WHEEL
Probably the first thing you want to do is to visit some of your
competitor’s sites. It will give you an idea of what your site
could look like, what features you want for your own site and
serve as a starting point for the design of your own site.
Perhaps the best advice I can give you here is to look at the
sites from a customer’s point of view. As a customer, what do
you like or dislike about the sites? Would you buy from them,
and why? Are you going to revisit again, and why?
EASE OF NAVIGATION
In many cases, you don’t read a web site like you would a novel.
You don’t start from page 1, continue to page 2, and so on.
You would probably “read” a site like you would a reference
book. Maybe you will read the introduction to get an idea of
what the book is about, and then you will skip to the table of
contents to look for the location of the information that you
need. In some cases, you may turn to the index at the back of
the book to see what on what pages the information you want is
referred to.
Notice the navigation aids - the table of contents and the
index. The first will be found at the beginning while the
second, if available, at the end of the book. This is a standard
observed by all books.
Your site should be as easy to navigate.
- Main Menu. You should have a menu, located either at the top,
left or right, that directs users to the various sections of
your site. This menu should be available from every page of your
site, and at the same location.
- Site Map. If your site is relatively large, and you feel that
users may have a problem locating the information they want even
with a main menu, consider including a site map. Site maps give
much more detail than the main menu and users will have an
easier time locating the information they want.
- Search Engine. If your site is a very large site, including a
search engine is a good idea. FAST LOADING PAGES
Many webmasters will have broadband or cable connections and
they tend to forget about the poor souls still struggling with
dialup.
It is best that you keep the size of your pages as small as
possible to accommodate users with slow connections. A general
guideline is to keep the size of your pages below 100k.
GRAPHICS
Pretty graphics are nice to look at. But unless your site is
about graphics, it’s probably best to keep it to a minimum. It
distracts users the information you want to convey, and
increases the load time for your pages.
Don’t forget to optimize the graphics that you use. The jpeg
graphic format is a compressed format. You can choose to
compress it as much or as little as you want. The more you
compress it, the smaller it becomes, but the image is of a lower
quality.
To optimize your jpeg’s, start with a jpeg of acceptable
quality. Save the jpeg with more compression and view it. If you
find the quality acceptable, save it again with even more
compression. Keep doing it until you get an image with
unacceptable quality. The image before that will be your
optimized image.
Note that you cannot go from a low quality image back to a high
quality image. So remember to save your high quality images into
a separate directory before trying any optimization.
CONSISTENCY
We discussed consistency regarding the location of your main
menu. This consistency should extend to all areas of your site.
In other words, your fonts, color scheme, buttons, etc, should
be the same for all pages of your site.
TESTING
The computer on your desk is called a PC, or personal computer.
Whenever I am asked why a particular computer behaves in a
strange way, I will invariably remark that the computer is
called a “personal computer”, and thus will exhibit its own
personality. 
Similarly, surfers viewing your site will also have their own
personal computer, with their own particular combination of
software and hardware. Therefore, it is best to test your site
under as many different types and versions of hardware and
software as possible.
- Browsers. Although IE is the dominant browser, some of your
users may be running other browsers like Netscape or Firefox.
Test your site in as many different browsers as you can. Also,
don’t forget to test it under different versions of the same
browser.
- Screen Resolutions. Don’t forget to test your site under
different screen resolutions.
- Java and ActiveX. Many sites depend on Java or ActiveX to
display properly. If your site needs a Java enabled browser, try
it with Java disabled and see how it looks. If possible, it is
best that your site will function correctly even if the users
have Java or ActiveX disabled.
April 30, 2008 at 7:15 am · Filed under University Of Webbing
Monday morning first thing and the phone rings. It’s a typical
call, since the previous Thursday a small business has noticed
that some of the images on it’s’ website are starting to appear
on other sites. They know enough to understand that once these
images are out, they will be unable to prevent their spread.
What they’re after now is advice on how to stop them from being
stolen in the first place.
Everyone is always wiser after the event and there is a certain
complacency in all of us that says it’s not going to happen to
me but when it does we need to know what we can do about it. In
this case the damage has been done. Someone had hacked into
their site and downloaded approximately 20,000 images. Some of
these were licensed from image suppliers and some were taken by
themselves at great expense. The cost to the company is easy to
work out in terms of what they paid for the images in the first
place, but what is more difficult to ascertain is the ongoing
revenue loss that will occur.
Ongoing loss because the nature of these images means that the
more exposure they get, the smaller their value becomes. In this
case the law of supply and demand applies to intellectual
property just as much as anything else. By the time the web
server logs were checked and the perpetrators identified, six
days had elapsed. In that time these images were identified on
twenty eight different websites and that number was growing by
the day. By then it was a practical impossibility to have them
removed.
Even worse was that the images appeared on an image brokers site
and were actively being sold with a license for use by other
people. The fact that this site was in Russia meant that there
was nothing the company could do to prevent it. In short they
simply had to swallow the loss and try to prevent it happening
again.
What we all need to understand is that it is very difficult, if
not entirely impossible, to prevent your data being stolen. If
they want it badly enough, they will get it. Your job is to make
sure that you make it so difficult, they give up and try
elsewhere. For most of us, the basic security of our website is
handled by the site’s hosts. Being certain of your hosts
capabilities is a good start to securing your data. Have you
ever asked them how they secure your web server? Perhaps now is
a good time to do it.
Web hosting is like any other business. They concentrate
generally on the “bits” you can see in order to get your
business. What they can cut costs on, they will and, although
any good host will have security firmly at the top of their
list, some of the cheaper ones may look at ways of reducing
their spending. One very security conscious host is
www.serverwise.com. I’ve used them for a number of years and
always found them to be good when it comes to protecting your
web site.
After securing your server the next thing to look at has to be
ways of protecting the data. Most theft occurs directly from the
web site itself and if you’re trying to protect images, there
are plenty of watermarking programs that can apply a watermark
to your images. Take a look at www.hotscripts.com for example
and search for watermarking. You can also find hints and tips on
preventing people from saving your files to their local pc on
many sites, http://javascript.internet.com is a good source for
free scripts and searching on Google for javascripts will reveal
more sources.
The company in the example I used earlier had watermarking
protection for all their images but, unfortunately for them, the
watermarking was dynamic meaning that the images themselves were
unwatermarked and the watermarking was applied when the browser
displayed the images. What this meant was that by stealing the
images from the server, the thieves were able to take
unwatermarked images.
There is a way around this and something like Strong Arm from
www.liquidfrog.com can help by taking invisible watermarks or
copyright information and embedding it directly into the image.
Being able to positively identify a file on someone else’s
website as belonging to you can be a strong persuader in making
them remove your content from their site even if they feel
they’ve bought it legitimately. By proving ownership of a file
you can bring a large amount of pressure to bear and save
yourself the legal costs of issuing a cease and desist notice.
So far we’ve looked mainly at ways of preventing image theft.
What if your site contains document files or exe files that you
make available for download perhaps? How do you prevent them
from being stolen? Including a copyright in a text document is
something that everyone should be doing but it’s very easy to
remove that and claim the work as your own. Given the fact that
you are allowing people to take these files from your site, you
should be including a way of identifying them so that, if you
see them on another site, you can prove ownership. Again
something like Strong Arm can help.
Finally, having done what you can to prevent the theft of your
data, you need to check regularly that your web site is still
secure and that your file protection systems are working. You
also need to check what the current trends are for data security
by making sure you understand where the latest threats are
coming from. At the moment China and Russia are the two major
culprits but this will probably change over time as less
advanced countries come up to speed. New ways of stealing data
are always just around the corner and you need to be one step
ahead the whole time. It’s only by keeping on top of it that you
can effectively prevent the data you’ve bought and paid for
being stolen!
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