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When Wikis Go Bad
Over the last few years the use of wikis has become really popular. For every wiki evangelist I have met, I have also come across as many who hate wikis. I’ve used them extensively and I too have gone through a love-hate relationship with the wiki.
Having recently done some work on the evolt.org wiki, I decided to write down some of my thoughts about why sometimes wikis are phenomenally successful, and others just never seem to work. Like a lot of similar issues, none of this is rocket science.
Read More »De top-10 leugens die klanten vertellen
Oorspronkelijke titel/original title: Top 10 Lies told by Clients
Als je commercieel aan de slag gaat, dan is zorgen dat je je werk goed doet maar een klein deel van je taak. Regelmatig zie ik treurige voorbeelden van mensen die met goede bedoelingen aan een opdracht beginnen, en vervolgens verschrikkelijk voor de gek worden gehouden, omdat wat zij zien als een uitdaging en als iets dat ze met liefde doen, door de tegenpartij wordt gezien als iets heel anders, helemaal niet romantisch of geïdealiseerd, maar rauw en simpel.
Read More »CMS Trench Warfare: An Introduction
I have been working with large organizations to create or move web and intranet sites from static HTML pages to the company's chosen CMS. My role is that of liaison between the IT department (or whoever manages the project) and end user. By default, my clients tend to be in clerical roles: the folks in the trenches. My job is to evangelize the product, explain the process, present, instruct, coach, and guide clients in web architecture basics and design best-practices, and in use of the chosen software.
Read More »Design for iPhone: a device that thinks different
One Saturday afternoon, I agreed to take my daughter to the AT&T store, just to LOOK at an iPhone... touch one... explore a little. MISTAKE. I should have duct-taped myself to the mast — and my wallet to my ass — because next thing I knew (after daughter demoed it as expertly as if she'd been using it all her life) we were walking out of the store with a brand new iPhone 3G. You'll love our coverage,
the AT&T salesman assured as he packed the phone into a bag, only for us to discover upon arriving home that we had no reception within a quarter mile of our house.
Dang!
I thought, now we have to move.
Simulating Apache asis feature with very simple CGI
Apache's asis feature, provided by mod-asis, is a very simple way of sending static HTTP headers along with static content. Many installations of Apache have this disabled (the default) and those of us not on Apache are out of luck. This combination has led to this simple and useful feature being overlooked by most web developers.
Read More »Search Engine Friendly URLs with IIS and Classic ASP
A few years ago, I needed a Content Management System (CMS) for my site Voor Beginners and its English counterpart For Beginners. One of the requirements was, that the CMS should use "search engine friendly" URLs. This is fairly easy to accomplish with Linux and Apache; however, another requirement was that the CMS should run on the Windows platform... In this article, I will show how you can "simulate" the effects of .htaccess and mod_rewrite using Microsoft's Internet Information Server (IIS) and classic ASP.
Read More »Google Algorithm Update Analysis
Anybody who monitors their rankings with the same vigor that we in the SEO community do will have noticed some fairly dramatic shifts in the algorithm starting last Thursday (July 5th) and continuing through the weekend. Many sites are rocketing into the top 10 which, of course, means that many sites are being dropped at the same time. We were fortunate not to have any clients on the losing end of that equation however we have called and emailed the clients who saw sudden jumps into the top positions to warn them that further adjustments are coming. After a weekend of analysis there are some curiosities in the results that simply require further tweaks in the ranking system.
Read More »How to Get Listed in the DMOZ Directory
I'm a little confused. As an internet consultant specializing in search engine optimization, I believe that it is a good idea to submit your site to DMOZ (a.k.a. ODP or the Open Directory Project) --in fact, Google even encourages you to do so! However, being an ODP editor myself, I can tell you from personal experience that perhaps only 10-20% of all the site suggestions we receive actually follow our guidelines...
Read More »How Visual Design Can Impact your Bottom Line
Making websites: what's your target audience ?
