I’m not on the lookout for “new” sites, but bumped into the perfect site for thsoe of us who like surveys, personalized suggestions and polls that never end comparing us to strangers around the globe. It’s Hunch.com and the model they seem to use is a positively A+ 100% money-maker that’s discreet, perfectly tailored to each visitor and is only there when I want it. Hunch.com could teach every last Web 2.0 site a thing or two…
23 September 2010
Facebook should take a lesson from Hunch.com Link
8 August 2008
Browser-safe Fonts That Install With Windows Internet
After installing hundreds of fonts that didn’t come with Windows XP, I find myself wondering what fonts I can use on a website that are mostly guaranteed to be viewable by almost all who visit: Browser-safe fonts. Which fonts come with Windows? What are their MAC equivalents? It is niether an extensive list nor one that will add a new, attractive style to your pages, but it’s good to remember what fonts are browser-safe and are those that everyone is likely to see.
More... 1 August 2008
SiteMeter Crashes Site in IE 6 and 7 For-Webmasters
Internet Explorer cannot open the Internet site http://www.anysite.com/. Operation aborted was the cute little message greeting me tonight after a few days of noticing that something was fishy with SiteMeter.
Say Something [2]
28 July 2008
Can 960.gs Save The Day? Intelligent-Interest
The GRID system in CSS is almost everywhere. Most large sites use it to squeeze advertising into blocks that run for miles up the sides. The Grid system was actually a way to harmonize creative site design as the missing connection between website design in Photoshop and other graphic programs and code like CSS and Forms used by Blog software like Textpattern and WordPress.
But can it help a first-time user in a pinch?
More...21 July 2008
Good MP3: Web 2.0 WTF? Audio-Podcasts
I’ve even spoken with experts and experienced computer users who fear the Social Network driven Web 2.0 “stuff” out there. Good news! Before I got to busy with Ruby on Rails to update the site everyday, I bounced around with Web 2.0 services like Facebook, MyBlogLog, Flock, friendfeed, Flickr, PodCastAlley, MySpace, Seesmic, Ma.Gnolia and OpenID and received absolutely stunning results without more effort. I expect that this won’t fully sway skeptics, but you should hear what benefits came from my work of several days in plumbing the depths on your behalf.
GoodMP3web20WTF.mp3
2 July 2008
Dinarius Cancels Kontera For-Webmasters
To say Kontera’s contextual advertising is a scam is not accurate. It’s is a thorough disappointment. If you’re considering placing script that manages contextual advertising or already do, please consider the following, balanced arguments against Kontera Technologies service.
1 July 2008
Review Widgetbox: Making Your Own Blog Widget For-Webmasters
Little widget blog and news boxes that update you on everything that’s going on in the world seem to rule the day. Well how could this author stay away?
More... Say Something [1]
1 July 2008
Good MP3: Website 101 - Learning to Build Audio-Podcasts
How do I take control of my own webpage? What do I do with a domain name? What’s hosting? It’s high time that anyone in the civilized world should be able to answer these questions. This GoodMP3 provides the answers to the first THREE things anyone needs to know.
GoodMP3website101.mp3
30 June 2008
Facebook Game, TextTwirl Cheats For-Computer-Users
It must be popular if there’s a site that helps you cheat. How many words can you make using the letters: C H E A T S That’s the idea behind the popular game TextTwirl on the social site, Facebook. It’s not useful unless adding words like CESTA and ETHS to your vocabulary make you feel stronger.
27 June 2008
MyBlogLog Geek-Goes-Pop
Funny thing about being told to join all the Web 2.0 services… Undergoing MyBlogLog Verification …and then some.
More...25 June 2008
Irish Language Widget Daily Website Fun Intelligent-Interest
I’m a huge fan of Transparent Languages and the CD’s that they make to help you learn and understand different languages around the World. My first experience was in FEB 1999 when I purchased “51 Languages of the World” and heard, for the first time, Farsi, Urdu, Lativian, Tagalog and a slew of others. After reinstalling the set nine years later to polish up on Danish and French, I checked out the Transparent.com website…
What to my wandering eyes should appear in the Press Release section?
More...23 June 2008
Too Much Space Under H1 in CSS For-Webmasters
Cascading Style Sheets are the lovely way to help design websites and no one has made a satisfactory answer-all book to help with the little details. In encountering a little problem with the H1 Header, I found the simple solution that controls the space above and below the Header text. Below is the code for the default appearance of a Header between two lines of regular text.
More...17 June 2008
Reviewing Movie Review Websites Intelligent-Interest
Frankly, I have decided to review websites that review movies since I had an thought in mind to start my own! I wanted to see what top-ranked movie review sites offer visitors since movie reviews are really just opinions. What I found did not discourage me from still wanting to create a website that honestly and carefully reviews a movie.
More...27 May 2008
Opening Up A No-Brainer. Special-Section
IMHO, a path for certain disaster was clearly laid out. Don’t allow data portability, maintain a closed, mono-culture and victimize your subscribers with advertisments designed for print media. In short, do what AOL did. Today’s report of Facebook making their platform an open source project does surprise me somewhat after all this talk about data portibility.
More...
19 May 2008
Starting A Start-up. Terminology. For-Webmasters
Any search for information begins with knowing the right terminology. When trying to start a start-up and attract investors so they provide Seed Money, Venture Capital or VC, you have to show them a few things too. A good idea just isn’t enough when dealing with people who deal with numbers. In walking slowly through this briar patch of trials and errors, we’ve stumbled on to Brent Collins who is more than willing to share advice about starting a start-up that’s nearly one-on-one.
More...
31 August 2006
Nifty Little Pics Articles-About-This-Site
EDIT It’s a year later and here I am revamping the entire site once again. I’m using a blogging software called Textpattern which has a very shallow learning curve and is easy for anyone already familiar with HTML code.
The funny thing is that I find myself revamping the site in 2007 trying very hard to approach a design I made up in the beginning of 2006. The icons below were actually designed for a blog-like Dinarius.com at the beginning of 2006 when the first CSS-like design turned out to be too tough for me to keep up in HTML.
So whatever the outcome (this is the first transferred article) the info may still pertain to what you’re searching for and if you too are a graphic designer turned webmaster, I feel your pain. All “Articles About This Site” may interest you; so check that category! – BryanA.
8.31 – In a new attempt to not type too much and conserve some energy for fixing computers and getting stuck in traffic, brevity is paramount. “Favicon” That’s the little thing that appears when a page is, “Added To Favorites.” With the arrival of Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) many file types will be valid. Currently, the file extension is .ico
In refurbishing our own icons, we got a surprise. DIGG.com is the foremost authority on popular recommendations. A search in ‘All Digg’ for ‘favicon’ revealed one tiny result. Ironically, searching for icons revealed a DIGG competitor still in BETA. Oddly, BlinkList acts a lot like your Favorites list. You can save sites you’ve seen in the blink of an eye but have no time for.
Searching favicons at Google turned up Joe’s BlinkList. Go figure. More popular gets more blinks: An HTML kit gets top rank – we saw it, but didn’t bite; No.2 is HTMLbasix delivering generic information and mean-spirited popups hence, no link; No.3 actually just refers to FavIcon.co.UK which turns out to add another goodie.
Favicons can be 16×16 pixels and 32×32 pixels depending on their use. The Header Tag will contain two “link ref” elements as follows:
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="http://example.com/favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon"><link rel="icon" href="http://example.com/favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon">Drum roll… Best icon maker at the push of a button. Could it be that easy? Sure; Dynamic Drive even allows you to put the maker on your site. Good idea, eh? ;) Thanks for reading while we revamped our catagories.
22 August 2006
Online To Nowhere For-Computer-Users
8.22 – A reprieve has finally arrived for Travel Agents. Even though it seems to have taken ages for it to happen, the Internet watering hole of Travel Planning websites has been invaded by scoundrels. The highest profile bust to date came over the weekend in London. A thirty-something female with brains but no morals, is alleged to have conned more than three thousand people out of money by offering planned vacations (holidays) and running with the money.
HolidayDaysForUnder200Pounds.com was re-registered today as were the fraudulent sister-sites: UnbeatableHolidays.com, SunMedResorts.com, and HolidayRez.com. HolidayEZ.com, however, is still active as of this posting. It resembles one of those crappy search pages that have been known to appear on the displays of high-jacked computers. It comes complete with a pop-up that our machines blocked and we recommend you not explore.
“The Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA) has warned people to be careful about buying trips online. The organisation [sic] advises people to check it own Web site or that of other affiliated organisations [sic once more] like ATOL – (Air Travel Organisers’ [sic – it’s the British spelling, okay?] Licensing to make sure any holiday firm is bona fide.” – This is quoted from Reuters.
The simple request, “find online travel agency,” delivers “about 99,100,000” results in 0.23 seconds. You may agree that this is a disgusting number of results. Interestingly, Travelocity.com comes in at number one over Expedia although it’s Internet rating is 303 against Expedia’s better rating of 212. Before Google lists Expedia in the results, FunJet and AppleVacations appear to the searching surfer.
On travel scams, CruiseCritic.com and HomeBasedTravelAgent.com and TravelSense.org offer further stories and advise about avoiding and identifying scams. The main theme is that if it seems too good to be true, it often is.
But then there are sites offering trips to New York and Las Vegas starting at $70. There are combination packages at unheard of low prices. What’s a traveler to do? You can verify most anything on the Internet with a quick visit to any number of sites including www.dot.gov for air travel, www.ahma.com for the American Hotel and Motel Association, www.arda.org for time-share stuff per the American Resort Development Association, www.fmc.gov for the Federal Maritime Commission to do with cruise ships and www.ASTAnet.com for the American Society of Travel Agents.
Protect yourself as you would protect several hundred of your hard-earned dollars. If Google search results are any indication, other online travel services are coming up loudly to compete with Expedia and Travelocity quickly. Scams are either mixed in or not far behind. By the way, ASTA (like ASTAnet.com above) also happens to be the old name of a favorite resort of ours in Barbados. We got great rates to it; if you’re interested, blindly send $1237 to Dinarius.com and we’ll get back to you. We’ll tell Elvis (really) to make you a cozy table on the patio.
7 August 2006
Seen This Site? Articles-About-This-Site
The term ‘viral’ isn’t new but it’s been coming up in terms of videos online. ‘Viral’ advertising (WIKI) has been around for a long time on the Internet; once a communication method is understood, some folks take advantage of it to advertise virally. Trying to stop this irritation has inspired pop-up blockers, spam e-mail catchers and other content filters.
One source of viral advertsing that can’t really be stopped is bugging your buddies to death and posting advert-like comments on sites of similar content. It’s like driving down the road and seeing a bumper sticker that says someone would rather be fishing. For a split second, you reconsider how interesting driving really is. Maybe I’d rather be fishing too!
Then you remember that you actually are driving and, hopefully, concentrate on the road again. But what if going fishing were just a click away? What if: Driving [click, click] fishing; “Hmmm,” you think, “this fishing thing is kind of [boring/interesting] now that I’m trying it.”
Statistics say that advertising will stick you with only 3% of those to whom you advertised. I have 18 friends on MySpace. Mathematics says I should try something else (promoting Dinarius online is my job). MySpace would produce just over half a person if I advertised through the bulletin board. So how about something else…
Last month saw a gigantic jump in hits and visits when I left a kind comment on a site that gets 100,000 unique visits per day. The statistic of 3% held true. Each day for a few days, visits to Dinarius.com were raised by three to five thousand. Amazing. Now, why did it die off?
Dinarius only has a base audience of about a couple of thousand people around the world (Germany is still a close number 2 visitor after the USA). The nice comment caught the eyeballs of 100,000 new visitors a day until it vanished into the ages. The Comments section grew in volume and got outdated. Simply: The gentle comment got buried.
Interestingly, (though it’s early to tell) of the extra three to five thousand visits, it looks like only about 30% of them are returning for more – Thanks, by the way. So the base looks to have grown by about one and-a-half thousand peeps. Advantage? Viral advertising. Improvement? More of it from more sources.
Dinarius posts on imeem.com, rocketboom.com, youtube.com, podcastingnews.com, selfcasttv.com and, pathetically, myspace.com It’s a full day when it comes time to compliment and comment. What to learn from this? Nice comments won’t be filtered out by any authority, ever. 3% of your efforts will yield 30% of something or another (that’s a little confusing). On the whole, that’s better growth than any other advertising can offer….
| DINARIUS Bryan's old Digital Interest blog |
