7Wonders, a web development blog by Kessler Freedman, Inc.

Testing out ClixTrac

2010-06-14T21:09:57Z

I need a banner management system. Well see how ClixTrac works out...

LegalZoom

2010-05-24T19:54:45Z

My wife and I did our wills a few days ago on LegalZoom. Pretty darn easy - which impresses me.

Creating a Business Facebook Page

2010-03-31T11:30:16Z

Apparently Facebook should make it a bit easier to figure out how to create such a page, since I do get asked about this by small business owners pretty regularly. Do a little prep to start out with... you should have the following items at the ready so you can provide the content when creating the account:

Two small paragraphs of description of the organization

Address, phone number, and web site URL of organization

Hours of operation

Names of Facebook users you want to invite to page.

If you want to add your organizational logo, I'd probably recommend something more like 250 pixels wide by 180 high, if you can fit it in that size comfortably.

To create the page, log in under your Facebook account. Then go to this URL:

http://www.facebook.com/help/search.php?hq=business+page&ref=hq#/pages/create.php

and you can get started. You can also use FBML (Facebook Markup Language) to customize the page a bit more.

We're Sponsoring a Youth Softball Team This Year

2010-03-03T12:08:43Z

And in this league, every player gets a uniform shirt with the sponsor's logo or text on it. Our family has participated in this league for several years now, and I have not seen a team go with simply a company URL as the sponsor logo (unless that was the company name as well). I thought about it this year, but decided not to, mostly because after 14 years we're upgrading our logo and I wanted to use that. However, we may consider using only a URL for sponsorship logo graphic next year - I'm just curious to the "local" linkage after games.

Death of Personal Blogs?

2010-02-24T16:30:56Z

I don't think it's the death, but there's definitely a continuation of the evolution. In the end, it comes down to the relationship of the content to the content management system and content delivery system a person wishes to use to express themselves on the web. I don't think social media networks reduce the desire for a blog for a person that has lots to say and says a lot quite often, because the storage and scroll rates will impact both content and visibility. But they serve as enhanced ways to expand notice of such blog posts to potentially interested readers, and you see this all the time.

On the other hand, personal blogs that serve as primarily link providers are probably on the way out, even the most popular ones, unless they provide a compelling voice in providing those links. Context.

The lines of "blogging" are so blurry now with the variety of social media networks and content management systems available that at some point the term is probably going to just become synonymous with "writing for a web audience" with little nuance for location, software or distribution options. Can you blog on Facebook? What's the difference between writing an expanded Note on Facebook every day and posting the same daily on Blogger? Not enough to make a distinction.

Really, You're A Search Engine Optimization Specialist?

2010-02-22T12:36:05Z

If what you are doing is clogging bulletin boards and blog comments with your supposedly valuable links, then you're pretty much just a spammer.

I Wonder How Much GoDaddy.com Paid Danica Patrick

2010-02-17T19:04:37Z

Whatever it was, I doubt it was enough. Going through life with the very public perception that you'll sell out to even the most pathetic companies/campaigns known to humanity is tough when you're that young and were likely have options of at least equal value available in the future. I suspect she cost herself long-term money. I guess there's always Enzyte to pitch when Bob eventually croaks.

Yeah, I'm a GoDaddy.com despiser.

Hey, Some Dumb-Ass Probably Just Sent You An Attempt To Give You A Virus

2010-02-03T18:03:38Z

and it starts with "Hey, some jerk has posted your pictures (u understand what kind of pictures are there)"...

Don't click the email link.

The Internet Archive Wayback Machine

2010-02-03T16:20:34Z

If you haven't seen this site, you should check it out, bookmark it and hope that it is continued. It's an actual web page library of the history of the appearance (and content) of the iterations of web sites, large and small, through the time of the web. It is, in short, astounding.

The Potential Power of a Facebook Comment

2010-01-25T20:55:01Z

Last Wednesday, I made a snide remark about the 15-minute fame of "Pants on the Ground" as an update on Facebook. I make snide or silly remarks on Facebook all the time, no big deal.

At about the same time a reporter for the Patriot-News was given the assignment to write a story about Pants on the Ground. She reached out to friends and acquaintances about the song and to whether kids were adopting the chant, and it just so happened that one of her friends is also one of mine.

He gave her my information. She contacted me. She asked a few questions for the story she was writing. I answered them.

Saturday morning the story was in the front section of the Patriot.

I literally did nothing but come up with some half-clever comment on my Facebook account, and some less-clever-but-true responses to her questions, and now we're getting contacts from friends about the story. Just goes to show the power of using Facebook at a useful moment, even if by accident.

It's very surprising how many domains accidentally expire...

2010-01-21T13:38:18Z

Each registrar has different procedures, but the basic premise is, if the domain registration isn't paid up, the domain will go back on the market, and if you still need it after it is expired for a short period of time, will likely cost you more than it should to retain. Registrars will email you an invoice, but they can't find you if you've changed your email address or the person that registered the domain no longer works for you. Organizations need to keep track of their domain renewal dates in house as well, just in case.

I'm sorry, but...

2010-01-18T21:34:31Z

No, being 1 of 100,000 businesses to make Google's Favorite Places is not newsworthy. Being one of those businesses, I understand that. Very surprising to me that any news publication would consider it newsworthy. It is Google marketing.

Portrait of a Discontinued Blog

2010-01-14T14:02:59Z

I stopped a previous, 5 year blogging effort about politics and society over a year ago, on December 31, 2008 - however, the hosting still remained (although it appears to finally have disappeared into the netherworld now). Interesting to see the dropoff in traffic:

One thing I should mention about these diminishing traffic patterns - the domain was given to another blog to help their traffic, leaving my original blog with just the hosting address. Still, there were links to that address out there as well, plus Google had picked it up, so some traffic remained, although I'm sure most of it was quite accidental.

Even Google Makes Administrative Mistakes

2010-01-08T13:19:20Z

Human error is ubiquitous:

We recently sent you a version of your monthly Local Business Center newsletter that may have contained some incorrect business listing statistics -- our apologies. Shortly after sending out the email, we realized that there was a human error when putting together the content. We're sorry about this mistake. Here you'll find the updated, accurate statistics for your business.

Dead Government Links

2010-01-07T11:34:42Z

Redesigns can be a pain, especially when taking all the old addresses on the site and establishing new addresses, providing browser relocations, etc. But government entities - especially state and higher level agency web sites - ought to realize that various organizations link to the pages and documents on their site as resources for their visitors. If the agency web site is a function of providing value to the public, and those links are ways to facilitate the right kind of public to the right kind of content for the agency, why crap all over those existing links by not providing some real reference assistance to those who have an old and defunct link? Why not at least provide an overall transition sitemap document for all bad links, showing the URL where the old link and where it is now? Stuff like this:

The page you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable.

Please try the following:

Make sure that the Web site address displayed in the address bar of your browser is spelled and formatted correctly.
If you reached this page by clicking a link, contact the Enterprise Portal Team to alert them that the link is incorrectly formatted.
Click the Back button to try another link.

HTTP Error 404 - File or directory not found.
Internet Information Services (IIS)

System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. at cwopa.portal.utilities.KeywordRedirect.Page_Load(Object sender, EventArgs e) --- End of inner exception stack trace --- at cwopa.portal.utilities.KeywordRedirect.Page_Load(Object sender, EventArgs e)-->

seems to me to be very counterintuitive to a basic goal of a government web site - which is to inform.