Archive for April 2003

See B-Day Blog for details.

Headings in Web pages—marked up with h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, or h6 elements—help the reader determine the purpose of sections in content. It also does one other thing: it helps the reader judge if the material is something they want to read. And if your heading is visually stimulating, the odds are better that the section will capture your reader’s eye. So, with a dash of design, we can utilize CSS to stylize those Web page headings to catch the reader’s eye and encourage them to read on. See fifty headings designs and their variations.

Just learned that one of the few cousins I call a friend has died Wednesday night of Crohn’s Disease. I haven’t learned all the details yet, but my family and I will sorely miss him. Our thoughts are with his wife and two young sons.

According to the March 2003’s The Bandwidth Report, Canada has 30 percent more wired households at 64 percent opposed to the US’s measly 33.8 percent.

Telcos are struggling to sell broadband and continue to push their products. Part of the challenge is getting the technology in place and fast. Yet, cable outruns them.

In my household and other family member households, we all gave up on DSL and took cable when the telcos could never live up to an estimated date. My mom waited two years for hers to come and gave up. Her connection was so pitiful that my 9-year-old daughter complained about it. My daughter doesn’t even use the Internet much (probably more at school than at home)! Mom finally got cable last month and we’re all happier to hang out at her place since we can finish work faster.

You’re right. It may be the US customers just don’t want to pay for broadband. I’m sure that’s the case for many.

Reading these charts, they only speak of who is using broadband. It doesn’t tell whether or not those NOT using it have access to broadband. No access plus no can do broadband equals no penetration. Lots of ways to interpret the charts.

This month’s issue of eNewsletter Journal contains a review of Fox Racing’s e-newsletter. It was fun to review since I’m a fan of sports and not familiar with motocrossing.

It’s a shame more people don’t have the editor’s attitude. She wanted to see what can be done better next time. Yet, we’ve had people back away from a free e-newsletter review simply because they don’t want it published. Go figure. How do we get better at sports or anything without feedback? If you’d like to enter an e-newsletter for a free review, please do.

Even if sports and e-newsletters aren’t your thing, go to the article and see pictures of my cutie. Had to insert the proud Mom comment.

The dilemma for the month titled, “Help! We’re Flunking Sandbox 101″ asks for help on how to deal with a successful e-newsletter becoming a political hot potato. Can you help?

We also had a great opportunity to chat with Debbie Weil of WordBiz Report to get insight on what makes an e-newsletter successful.

Geek.com shares an experience of 1.3 hours of a mobile worker. No doubt, we’ll become more and more mobile with technology and Internet connections… but it’s not a perfect system… yet.

Gerry McGovern writes, “Over the years, I have often wondered why organizations place such little value on content. Many public websites are a mess; intranets are even worse. And organizations don’t really care, because deep down they don’t value content.” He has echoed my thoughts when it comes to Web content.

Words do drive action though managers think otherwise. When you go to eBay, do you bid on a product without reading the description? Many people are selling Mac computer boxes and nothing else. They’re a collector’s item, but I’m sure there are some who think they’re getting a Mac for cheap bucks… unless they closely read the content.

The article mentions that when the author writer points out grammatical errors, the manager responds with no sense of urgency. Heck, many of you have caught me with errors. What do I do? Immediately fix them. I often catch typos, but don’t bother saving them for the Gotchas since they’re a symptom of fast typing, lack of proofreading, and simply not interesting. We read fast when reading online and a typo can send a message to the brain something is funky. It’s happened to me and I scramble back to see what happened to find it’s a typo. Distracting.

If you send e-newsletters or emails to get visitors to your Web site, a picture or a link isn’t going to make them come. Words do. Words matter. Content is serious and as important as programming the backend of a Web site maybe even more so. If customers don’t take action based on the convincing words, then the backend programming is useless.

You can’t simply take all your printed materials and slap them on a Web site. People read online and printed content differently. When I read the newspaper, my eyes go up and down along with the column. But, do that on a Web site and it frustrates the heck out of me because of the scrolling involved.

Sure, I’m motivated to sell content as an important factor of a Web site because of the work I do. But, I wouldn’t have chosen such work if I didn’t think it was purposeful.

Added 04/17/03: Ha, I goofed and James Roberts brought it to my attention. I accidentally typed George McGovern instead of Gerry. How did that ever happen especially since I enjoy Gerry’s stuff?? Thanks, James.

Apple has released Safari Public Beta 2 with the following:

• tabbed browsing
• autofill forms and password
• privacy reset
• English, Japanese, French, and German
• import Netscape and Mozilla bookmarks
• increased standards compatibility
• improved AppleScript support

OS X users are already reporting they’re happy with this version especially thanks to tabbed browsing. Want more Safari news? Surfin’ Safari is the place to be.

Aw, it’s Friday… take a load off. Give yourself a break. Read a geeky story from Geek.com PDAGeek Feature: DRAG.NET Episode 1–The Faltese Malcon(tent):, a geektective fiction story. Agent Meryl back to the case at hand, the incomplete InformIT.com chapters.

No, this isn’t another Internet scam. Yes, you can take Westciv’s Self-paced CSS Level 2 course at no cost. The catch? You have to stick with the schedule. When the next lesson appears, the previous disappears. Not a bad deal. Yes, there is an option for self-paced and it ain’t a free lunch. [from WaSP]