Dear Web Site Managers at Pepsi: after 30 seconds on a high-speed DSL connection, this is what I see. Pathetic. (This is for the Old School or New School promotion. Basically, I just chugged a Mountain Dew and now I want to find out if I won something cool. But I can’t… because… the…...
Free Web Site Advice
I Want a Web Site — How Much Will It Cost?
I get a lot of initial calls and emails from people asking “what’s the price tag?” Problem is, we’re not buying paper towels here — for an effective Web site, the answer is, “it depends.” Every Web site project I’ve ever worked on is unique, and as a result, the price for each is...
Redesigning Outside the Box
In a social networking world, where your presence on MySpace and Facebook is almost as important as your own Web site, any redesign project needs to think outside the box. Granted, offsite factors have always been part of the business marketing mix. In case you can’t afford a few Super Bowl ads, online advertising...
Don't let your domain name expire!
In the past few months, I’ve been working with a few clients whose domain names have expired — that is, the period of time they registered the name for ran out. If your domain expires: Your Web site goes dark (or more likely, is replaced with a page full of ads). The HTML files...
Live Streaming Video (Part Three): Tech Settings
Okay, if you’ve read Part One and Part Two, you know what the story is. Below are the technical details. (Warning: if your eyes glaze over at tech stuff, stop reading now…) Upstream connection (from the church where the choir is singing): DSL about 722 kb/s (note for any newbies:Â upload and download speeds...
Live Streaming Video (Part Two): End User Experience
Note: If you haven’t read Part One yet, you might check it out. So, as schedules happened, I was in San Francisco during the event — which meant I wasn’t going to be in Brentwood to handle the encoding and/or troubleshoot any problems that might arise (and arise they did…). But it’s a Webcast,...
Live Streaming Video (or, how I aged ten years in a few weeks!)
I just finished helping out a nonprofit client of mine to broadcast live streaming video of a concert, and in the process am stumbling into some video expertise. Since it’s the season for sharing… here goes. First, some background: Every year, The Angel City Chorale takes its holiday concert on the road — to...
Busy Lately
I’ve been really busy lately (a big thank you to all my clients!). Over the past few months, I’ve started a half-dozen drafts that never got finished. I’m going to finish them (eventually), and each one will show up as from the day the draft was started, rather than the day it was finished....
HTML Editing Basics
I got an email recently from someone asking for (free) advice on how to manage their Web site that someone had built for them. Here’s my response: I’ll try to offer some basics to get you started — of course, this is an overview, and you’ll have to do some studying… An important caveat:...
Usable Checklist — Ten Ways to Fix Your Web Site
When people visit your site, they need to know where am I, what can I do here, and what’s in it for me? These tips can help. 1. Branding Your logo and tagline should be easily found on your site. Just from looking at the logo and tagline, I should have a clue what...