I like to develop and enable good websites.  I do it simply, cost effective, but with a sense of solid quality, using the tools and capabilities that are making the web so exciting, but sensibly so….

I urge you to think about what constitutes a good website and use those thoughts to help you in your purchasing decision or next steps.

What makes a good website?

It is easy to find:

• a good, obvious, memorable domain name, not confused with competitors or unrelated sites
• the content uses the terms and keywords that you would be expecting to search on, and the content is presented in a search engine friendly way so one can find it via searching appropriately. For example: location dependent services should ensure that the location is described in pages with the service descriptions for meaningful appearance in search engines.

It is there!

• it is up! – a reliable host is necessary, and one that assists in providing tools and statistics to understand your visitors behavior.

It is easy to read

• the website is viewable in the user’s browser. The website must be tested on a range of browser and ideally consider users who may be using aural browser.
• the style is easy on the eye and pleasant to read. It should not distract you from the content.
  the navigation is obvious, what the user expects and it is easy to find your way around.
• there is a site map and/or search facilities for large sites

One can find what one is looking for, it has meaningful, helpful content:

• provide as much information as possible to your users. This will also reduce time required to respond to phone calls and may also retain a potential client, as they may feel more comfortable about your product or service.
• the content should enhance the appearance of the organisation. It should appear professional and should present a human, approachable front.

It is easy to maintain and update

• It is a simple effective editing system.
• It is flexible – bulletproof . The style used should cope well with any content changes you may make and with specifications or limitations of the user’s browser (eg: large text, no images, dial up connection etc). Therefore unless absolutely necessary I avoid embellishments like flash, javascript – there is much that one can do with good HTML markup and CSS.

A good book to help with this approach is Bulletproof Web Design: Improving flexibility and protecting against worst-case scenarios with XHTML and CSS (2nd Edition) (Voices That Matter)

OVERVIEW

* Cannot "upgrade" from Windows XP– only from Vista. XP users will have to do a full-package clean install
* To upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7 with XP-compatibility will cost users $299
* Significant incompatibility with Windows XP
* Only the pricier versions offer an XP-compatible mode
* Twelve confusing releases to choose from, with hidden "gotchas" in eight of them
* Doesn’t really bring anything new to the table, nor give users a reason for upgrading from Windows XP– especially at a $299 price tag

Questions of the day:
* Is Micro$oft trying to force loyal XP users to upgrade to a package they neither want nor need– and charging them through the gills to do so?
* What makes Micro$oft think that an operating system is worth the price of a new computer?

WINDOWS 7
The top topic in the computer world this week is Windows 7.

The following information is gained from tech reports and manuals. As far as I am aware, the following information is reliably accurate.

TYPICAL MICRO$OFT CONFUSION
As with past releases, instead of releasing one version that applies to everyone, Micro$oft has once again seen fit to put out SIX releases (12 if you count the OEM release. More about these later).

Of course, this causes considerable headache for the customer trying to figure out which version to buy– and for the salesman who have to repeat the same information over and over. Thus this article.

The six primary versions:

Home Premium: Upgrade and full
Professional: Upgrade and full
Ultimate: Upgrade and full

The OEM version is available only in FULL… but comes in separate 32 bit and 64 bit versions (the retail packages contain both).

So that’s right… twelve confusing versions. Enjoy!

TYPICAL MICRO$OFT PRICING
The price of Windows 7 ranges from $119.99 for the "Home Premium Upgrade" version to $319.99 for the Ultimate Full Version. This is about DOUBLE what Apple charges for a similarly-configured OS X Snow Leopard package. It’s pretty obvious that the company continues to fail to recognize the financial status of the typical Windows user… or the needs of the public in general.

BEWARE THE PR
Despite Micro$oft’s much promoted "can run XP programs!" propaganda… no, you really can’t. Well, you can, but…

Only the Professional and Ultimate versions have the ability to run XP. The Home versions do not.

In order to get the P/U versions to run XP items, you have to download an XP virtual system which ties in to the W7 version. The operating speed of this virtual system as well as disadvantages haven’t been reported yet (beta testers are largely sworn to silence)… but one can only imagine.

W7 is an entirely new concept, reportedly highly XP-incompatible. This is unfortunate, especially considering that for most people… XP works just fine (well, as fine as Windows has ever worked, anyway).

An OS that isn’t XP-friendly right out of the box might be considered by some as an excellent opportunity to consider migrating to Linux, especially with the recently-announced IBM-adoption of Ubuntu and the professional support this predicts. Others are migrating to Apple, which sales have reportedly increased dramatically.

BEWARE THE VERSIONS
Right out of the box, Windows 7 is an upgrader’s nightmare.

1. You cannot upgrade from Windows XP. Only Vista installations will upgrade.
2. The FULL version costs almost twice as much as the upgrade.
3. Installing a FULL version requires wiping your entire Windows system (as well as existing utilities and program settings) and installing W7 from scratch.

This is not exactly endearing to Micro$oft customers. A Micro$oft OS that can’t upgrade their most popular OS in history? Major blundering mistake. Predicted results:

1. People will just stick with XP
2. People will migrate to Linux– which is FREE (simple download)

In truth, the only real reason these days to not upgrade to Linux is gaming. When it comes to business, just about anything one could want is available in Linux– online– FOR FREE.

(Yes, I know I’m mentioning Linux quite a bit here. Interesting, isn’t it… that Micro$oft’s latest wonder toy is becoming Linux’ strongest argument.)

BEWARE THE OEM VERSIONS
Highly touted are the OEM versions, which can cost considerably less than the "retail" versions. While attractive up-front, what most people don’t know is:

1. The retail versions are licensed for up to 3 computers (which does reduce the cost-per-computer a bit and is a smart marketing move)
2. The OEM versions work on only one computer. Once that serial number is registered, it cannot be used on another computer.

And yes, this means that if you change your motherboard or purchase another computer that doesn’t include an OS, you are up a creek without a paddle. Your OEM W7 will not work. Yes, if you blow out or replace a motherboard, you can pick up the phone and contact Micro$oft and they will issue you a new key. But if you have a desktop and a laptop and you need to use Windows 7 on both… you can’t do so. You’ll need to purchase the retail version anyway.

So in short, the OEM version is a really, really bad deal. In the long run, you probably won’t save money going with the OEM version. And good luck EVER finding the retail version on sale… at all.

NOT ALL THAT IMPRESSIVE
To learn more about W7, I purchased a book that shows all the ins and outs of Windows 7 and has a nifty chapter on all the "new features". As I read through the list of supposed goodies– despite the fact that most would call me a serious "power user"– all I got was "don’t need that… don’t need that… for SURE don’t need that… no value… not enough… too little too late…" etc etc etc. In truth, there wasn’t a single new "feature" in Windows 7 that impressed me all that much. Most importantly, there wasn’t a single feature that will change the way I use my comptuer. My guess: most XP users will feel the same way. In the end, I think the major impression will be the same that has existed with Vista, namely: "Why should I spend $300 to upgrade when XP works just fine?"

The next question of course will be, "If my XP stuff is going to be incompatible YET AGAIN with Micro$oft’s own OS… why not switch to a new OS entirely and put an end to this run-around?"

BOTTOM LINE
The bottom line is that if you update to Windows 7 from Windows XP, you are going to wind up spending $300+ for the privilege. I don’t know what marketing genius ever came up with the idea that an OPERATING SYSTEM is worth $300… but that may be one of the reasons so much software piracy goes on these days, and why many people take the opportunity to just upgrade to a new computer that comes with the OS already installed (thus bypassing Micro$oft entirely).

Some day, in a Utopian world where people actually have common sense, Micro$oft is going to realize that an operating system is worth $49.95 for a 3-user version (uh… like Apple)… that they only need sell ONE version that meets all needs (uh… like Apple)… with their OS being backward-compatible for prior software (uh… like Apple). If they ever do so, they may be amazed to discover that their sales significantly increase (uh… like Apple. Hmmm, are we seeing a pattern? WAKE UP MICRO$OFT!!!).

Until that day, Micro$oft seems doomed to keep making the same ME / Vista blunder, trying to sell overpriced, badly-behaved, incompatible OS updates that few people actually want or need. As long as M$ continues to make these OS blunders, they will continue to get bad reviews, people will resist upgrading– and more and more people will convert to Linux or Apple just because they’re tired of the incompatibility and runaround of a product line that hasn’t really expanded our computing horizons in the last five years.

SUMMATION
Considering the historically bad M$ OS releases (ME and Vista) as well as serious backward-incompatibility, Windows 7 probably should not be considered a good investment at this time. In truth, it is probably time for businesses and even hobbyists to strongly consider whether they can switch to Linux for less cost and considerably less headache. Linux has remained stable, virtually virus-free and backward-compatible since its inception. Maybe Micro$oft needs to learn a thing or two from the Linux / Apple playbook. I doubt that will happen… so it will be interesting to see what the market does over the next five years, when people finally start realizing that they’re tired of being bent over the Windows barrel.

To Micro$oft: you’re stuck in a rut, you’re charging too much for your product, and we’re tired of having our software outdated with each release. The company needs to start thinking about actually improving the product (not just adding needless bells and whistles), working smarter, and striving toward a product that actually increases our computing ability while retaining compatibility with past products.

So with Neatx, users can log in to a remote Linux desktop. Moreover, the session can be suspended and resumed later from another computer, resembling the functionality that GNU screen offers for console sessions. But, unlike screen, a Neatx user has access to the GUI of the remote machine, just as if they were sitting in front of it.

The NX protocol, using SSH as a transport and for authentication, was developed by the Italian company NoMachine, which released the source code of the core NX technology in 2003 under the GPL. NoMachine offers free (as in beer) client and server software for various operating systems, including Linux. It wasn’t very long before free-as-in-speech NX clients emerged, then, in 2004, Fabian Franz implemented FreeNX, a GPL implementation of an NX server.

more…

That said, I can confirm that simply by downloading the 2.47GB Windows 7 Release Code version direct from Microsoft from May 5th through July, you will be entitled to run it without charge until June 2010. To put it into some perspective, that is more than 400 days worth of Windows 7 without breaking the law and without spending any money. It is also likely to mean that you will be able to enjoy a free Windows 7 experience for around six months or so after the product actually goes on sale later this year. It’s not even that you are getting stuck with some wobbly early version of the OS either, word is that this is pretty much the most stable and solid Windows RC build ever.

What is more, there appears to be no limits to the numbers of downloads you can make so it will be possible to load up Windows 7 on your desktop, notebook and netbook (drivers allowing) all without charge until June 2010.

The minimum specs have been revealed as a 1GHz processor, 1GB RAM and 16GB of hard drive space, not forgetting the DirectX 9 supporting graphics. Oh, and throw in another 2GB RAM and 15GB drive space if you want to run in XP Mode. Of course, all this supposes that, unlike 84 percent of those asked, you actually want a copy of Windows 7.

Am I right? Google (or Yahoo for that matter) aims to provide users with the most relevant information associated with the keywords provided.  This symbiotic relationship is the vehicle which drives the internet and provides the valuable information that we have grown to rely upon.  It is also essential to the revenue stream relied upon by a vast majority of businesses.

Unfortunately, the attention span of an average Internet user is clearly not as expansive as a search engine’s listing. Studies show an average person conducting a search on the Internet will probably just browse through the top 3 to 5 SERPs (search engine results pages) and stop there. Website that get buried in the 10th page and onwards will probably not get too much attention if certain measures are not undertaken.

As you might have guessed, there is a huge interest in any method available (ethical or not) that promotes a site’s ranking in the results of a search.  The effort to make this happen is referred to as “Search Engine Optimization” or “SEO” and is, in its self, an enormous business these days. Experts in this field perform certain procedures which may be seen a “website boot camp” to get your website into fighting form that will compete in the top rankings of a search engine. However, as it is with almost everything else, some shortcuts exist that are able to “cheat” search engines into placing a particular website at a high ranking, despite the fact that it offers no real information. These sets of shortcuts are called “spamming”.

SEO spam (spamming the search engine index or spamdexing) is a set of ‘BlackHat’ SEO techniques that manipulate a website for the purpose of creating an unrealistic boost in its rankings on SERPs. The following are just some examples of black-hat SEO techniques used to spam the living heck out of the search engines:

BlackHat SEO Technique 1. Blog and Forum Spams
Online blogs and forums are a great source of information since it these formats are built to be updated within short intervals. This, in itself, what makes it a good reference for information, which is why search engines like to visit these sites and rank it well for the quality of information it holds. However, spammers have taken advantage of this by flooding blogs and forums with irrelevant links to the websites they want to generate artificial ranking for. Not only are they cheating the search engine company by misleading a user to irrelevant information, they also interrupt the bloggers and the forum participants, which is downright rude.

BlackHat SEO Technique 2. Artificially Networked Sites

There is really nothing wrong with creating links between one site to another so long as the links are relevant and serve to connect useful information. However, spammers who perform this BlackHat SEO technique set up several web sites and link them together even the sites contain no real and useful information. The purpose for doing so is simply to create the illusion of a highly referenced site because of its density of links. If this is the case, then it can be considered spamming.

BlackHat SEO Technique 3. Cloaking

When a website presents a set of information to a search engine different from a set the user is seeing, then cloaking has been done. What usually happens is that the web page’s code is relevant to the user’s search keywords, but when the user visits that particular web page, he user sees a document that has little or nothing to do with his search.

BlackHat SEO Technique 4. Hidden Text.

Similar to cloaking, hidden texts are meant to make search engines think that a page is about one thing, while it is actually about another. But it fools the search engine this way: the text that the search engine is able to reads is camouflaged by making the text font color the same as the background. What happens is that the user is unable to read what the search engine saw, and therefore may be looking at a document that is not related to the user’s search.

There are other BlackHat techniques, too, but I don’t want to give you any wrong impression.  Some other techniques are to create small, imperceptible links that a user can accidentally click on, thus generating more hits for a website even if the user had no intentions of visiting that site at all.

Anyway, by this time, you probably already know why people are spamming. It is basically a shortcut used by some “unscrupulous” website owners to make their website rank high on SERPs (with a high potential of getting their sites BANNED in the future by the search engines), or by some self-proclaimed SEO experts who use these unethical SEO techniques to get the arms and legs of their customers for doing little to no work .

Now that you know who they are, and how they do it, here’s why you should not be tempted to the dark side and use these BlackHat techniques for the purposes of spamming:

1. The whole point of the Internet was to create a wealth of information that everyone can access and add to. The whole idea was to be able to create a place where information can be created and shared with others so that it can foster understanding without any physical boundary. Other results of this information have led to the development e-commerce and online businesses, which in itself is not necessarily a bad thing. It still contributes to a community of information and sharing.
2. Spamming is fundamentally profiting at someone else’s expense. A spammer profits by using other people to make his website rank higher than others without taking the necessary time and effort to make his website useful and relevant as what others have done.
3. It speaks poorly of website owners who see nothing but their own bottom lines in using the Internet. It is basically exploiting the trust and the willingness to share, which made the Internet such a promising venue for everyone.
4. Finally, it demeans honest ‘WhiteHat’ SEO practitioners who take the time and effort to produce quality websites and make it a point to follow the rules. Search engine marketing is helping to level the playing field so it can allow businesses of any to advertise right along side each other. And that is a commendable thing, which everyone should gladly support.
5. .*Note to the spammers/blackhat SEOers: search engines, with billions of dollars at their disposal, are ALWAYS developing smarter technologies to detect spamming and BlackHat SEO techniques in order to give users the best list of information from the Internet. Eventually, the BlackHat spamming techniques mentioned above may be eliminated. (Unfortunately, it is very likely other more sophisticated ones will come up).

On your part, you can report spammers to these search engines when you encounter them. The more people like you who do this, the easier it will be to apprehend these cheaters and make it more difficult for spammers to ‘perform’ their BlackHat SEO rituals.

2) Claim your blog on technorati..whenever you add a new post go to www.technorati.com sign in to your free account and ping your blog…

3) Tags — Select your tags wisely; and there is no limit on tags so write all the possible tags related to your post.

4) Make your blog attractive! Choose a good theme and also the blog should be user friendly.

5) Sign up on www.blogged.com.  It can help your blog to get a good rating and visibility.

6) Edit the layouts of your blog and add ‘meta tags’ to it. Use Google ‘meta tags generator’ and paste these tags into your layout.

7) Subscribe to www.sphere.com. It classifies related news and blog articles.

Write comments wherever you get a chance! (LOL)

10) Submit your ‘Url’ to top search engines. (Duh)

Scanning and Browsing Your Collection
Are you going to be pulling out that digital camera during Spring Break, taking a mass amount of pictures and putting them in your unorganized pictures folder?  If you find some time for yourself before the break is over, you ought to start cleaning up your photos. Get rid of those red-eyes and pimples, brighten them up, and then organize them to share with friends and family.  If you haven’t already settled on a photo management and editor program, consider Picasa. Then you can make more use of the tips we’ll discuss in this piece.  Picasa is developed by Google, available for free on both Linux and Windows.

Here are a few tips to help while  fumbling through your photos:

• Stop a run-away image scan: The first time I ran Picasa, I was prompted for what folders/drives to scan, so it can populate with photos. Mistakenly, I choose to scan an entire drive, the one that I keep all my personal documents and files on. I found out the scan isn’t instant, it was taking forever. Plus it was popping up images I didn’t want to browse through, like screen shots for my articles and miscellaneous images for applications. I closed the application, thinking I could stop the scanning that way. I was wrong, it resumed after reopening the application. Finally, I figured out how to modify the folders to scan. Click Tools > Folder Manager. Then you can deselect the folders/drives you don’t want to scan anymore, plus select those you know will contain the beloved family snapshots.
• Browse through only headshot photos: This is one feature I’ve found pretty neat. In the Filters area on the toolbar, click Show only photos with faces. Now you should only see photos that, apparently, have a headshot. I use this filter when I want to quickly find a photo to send or print to family and friends.
• Tag favorites with a star: Like most other photo apps, you can tag your favorites with a star. Select a photo, or select many by holding down the Ctrl key, and hit the Start button on the lower portion of the application. Now you can hit the Show starred photos only filter button on the top toolbar. Now you can show off your memories using the pictures you deem shareable–don’t star those early morning or other embarrassing shots.

Editing and Enhancing for the Finishing Touches

When it comes time to clean up your photos, here are several ways you can make yourself look 20 pounds lighter: (just kidding)

• Carefully apply fixes and effects: When clicking the icons to apply fixes and effects to a selected image, keep in mind, many are only undoable in the order applied using the undo button. For example, if you realized you sharpened the image too much after you spent a lot of time cropping and fixing, you’ll have to undo everything you did after the sharpening. To prevent wasted time, apply these fixes and effects cautiously before moving to a new one.
• Undo is available even after saving: One great thing about Picasa’s undo scheme is that even after saving or applying changes, you can usually still undo them. Just reopen the image and hit the undo button. This is great if you cut too much out of the picture or made changes you want to now reverse.
• Level-out with the straightening tool: Did you have too much to drink? Did a little one get a hold of the camera? In any case, Picasa lets you straighten out lopsided snapshots–another feature I’m a fan of. Just double-click a picture, click the Straighten icon, and use the slider bar to tint left or right. You can also use this to unstraighten select photos, to give them a professional or artist look.

• Retouch to remove blemishes: Want to cherish your memories without remembering the acne, blemishes, or shaving cut? You can use the Retouch feature to remove these unwanted spots. It’s pretty nifty. Open a photo to edit, click the Retouch icon, select the problem area, and then move to an area of the face that’s similar, but acceptable, and click. The good area you mark is copied over the problem area. You can adjust the brush size and/or the zoom, with a mouse scroll or keyboard arrows, for best results. You can also use this tool to make some goofy edits, add a third eye ball

• Make batch changes to save time: Picasa has some great batch editing tools that can make changes across multiple images at once–what a time saver. Select photos by choosing folders or albums, clicking and dragging to box in the ones you want, or holding the Ctrl key down while clicking individual images. Then click Picture > Batch Edit and choose want to want to do. Fix all the devil looking red-eyes, rotate images, rename images, and so on.

Showcasing Your Photos

Whether you want to craft a last-minute Christmas gift for a loved one or just have fun, Picasa includes a few cool ways you can showcase your best smiles:

• Piece together a collage: Picasa has a really neat collage feature. The final product can be set as your desktop background, printed as a poster, or posted on your website. To get started, select a folder or pictures and click Create > Picture Collage. The selected images are thrown up on the collage editor. The Clips tab lets you add and remove photos. The Settings tab is where all the magic is. There you can pick different layouts, picture borders, the background, and more. On the bottom of the collage workspace is two useful buttons. The Scramble Collage button moves the pictures around, keeping them in the same picture frame. The Shuffle Pictures button keeps the picture frames in place while switching around the actual photos; great if you want to change the collage but already have a nice layout. If you save the collage, you can return later to make edits by double clicking it in the Projects\Collages folder and clicking the Edit Collage button in the upper left area of the screen.
• Direct your own movie: Picasa even includes a movie editor where you create a slide show of your photos with background music and transitions. It saves to a Windows Media Video (.wmv) format. You can upload videos to the Picasa Web Albums, email them to friends, upload directly to YouTube, or burn them onto a CD to be played in DVD players that support the format.
• Create a gift disc: This puts selected pictures onto a CD or DVD, which can also include a automatically created slideshow. If you want your family member or friend to see the edits you’ve made to your photos, opt to include Picasa on the disc. Plus this gives them no excuse to why they don’t have an online gallery for you to see their photos.
• Upload to a web album: Creating shareable online galleries of your photos and videos is easy with Picasa. Plus you get 1GB of space on Picasa Web Albums for free. All you have to do is right-click on the photos or video clips you want to share and select Upload to Web Albums. The first time you’ll have to signup for an account. Then you can send the link to your friends. They can even download the images, link to them, or order prints.
• Export as HTML: There’s yet another creative feature; you can export a folder or selected photos to HTML. You pick from several templates, where Picasa automatically creates the photo gallery web pages. Select templates include both a thumbnail page and a larger preview page. This feature is great if you already have a web site.

Getting further assistance

If you need more help, check out Picasa’s online documentation. Plus you can visit the site for Picasa Web Albums. Have fun with your editing and sharing!