Category: Technologies & Tools

Happy 2006, everyone! I’ve just finished switching my blog’s underlying technology from Blogger to WordPress. It’s been an interesting challenge — one that’ll inspire a few posts in future days. The reason for the switch? Blogger is a fine tool, and when I started this thing a couple of years ago, it was an...

I just helped a client of mine switch from their old Web hosting company to a new one. Not that the old host was bad, but… for a lot less money, here’s what they gained: More everything: more bandwidth, more server space, and more e-mail accounts, more publishing options. Better metrics: The new Web...

‘Way back in the day, we lost the City of Minneapolis Web site when a hard disk crashed. “Not to worry,” sez the IT guys. “We’ll drop in a new hard disk and restore from the latest backup.” New disk goes in, fine. Backup tapes are located… no data. Yep, the night crew had...

Here’s a secret: making basic Web sites ain’t exactly rocket science, and it’s getting easier. For a couple of hundred dollars, you can buy the editing software (or use free or cheap versions), get one or more of the “…for Dummies” books for background info, use a free or inexpensive design template, and voila!...

While on the phone recently with a Web host, I mentioned wanting to create a second domain to be used as a dev space, and was surprised that this was the first time they had heard the idea. Here’s the deal: once your site is launched to the public, you can’t make changes to...

Maybe you didn’t even know it, but your Web server probably has a wealth of visitor traffic info waiting for you to delve into it. Most commercial Web hosts keep log files, which record interesting information about each visitor and page visited on your site. (Privacy hounds, don’t worry: it doesn’t usually include any...

If you’ve never looked at your site with another Web browser, you might be in for a big surprise. Many Web designs (even if a professional graphic designer or Web programmer created it) were created and tested only in Internet Explorer. Viewed through another browser, some of them fail miserably. If you’re not checking...

Let’s start out bluntly: Web stats, good — hit counters, bad. So there. You might have thought it was a great idea, but hit counters are among the things that make you look like an amateur. (Also in this category: anything that looks like a FrontPage template, and clip art….) Why? As a visitor,...