Gatorpeeps Logo
Afrigator has become a big player in the internet market globally never mind on our dark continent. They have a few 2 very successful products that are starting to pick up a lot of momentum.
When we heard the news on Saturday we were quite literally blown away by how quietly and effeciently the new product was launched.
Gatorpeeps is the latest product from the Gator Pen and is quite simply a micro-blogging platform. Think Twitter. It has the same 140 character fit-as-much-as-you-can updates that is required for any micro-blogging platform.
It is hard to say if it will be taken on as Twitter is so popular and so powerful. However it has been made to perfection and boasts the many cool features that Twitter has as well as a few that Twitter does not have and most likely will never have.
These features to me are key to the success of the platform however Afrigator have told me that this is only the beginning and that we should all be expecting a bit more in the not so distant future.
We will have to see later today if Gatorpeeps is taken in by the community as any results over the weekend would have been poor because a majority of the internet users in Africa use the internet during working hours.
The Pirate Bay Logo
The founders of the very popular torrent website Pirate Bay have been found guilty. Peter Sunde, Frederik Neij, Gottfried Svartholm, and Carl Lundstrom were each found guilty and sentenced to one year in prison and fined a healthy $3.6 million.
This is quite a hefty fine for a service that does not actually provided the illegal data. This long awaited verdict came as a shock to the founders who still believe that they cannot be held responsible for the files that were shared via torrents because they do not actually provide the files but rather the torrents.
This is a huge verdict for both the “file sharing” world and the entertainment industries. The founders have appealed the case but if that is unsuccessful then surely for consistency Google would have to be fined for indexing all the sites the provide “file sharing”, that is how obscure I think the verdict is.
WordPress Logo
WordPress has always been great because of how easily you can extend the free software. With the large community backing this Open Source project there are now a fair number of plugins that will do an array of things to be both a benefit to you, your visitors and of course those potential visitors we all desperately seek.
Here is a list of WordPress plugins we recommend that you use on your blog.
Headspace 2 is one of the best and definintely one of the most important WordPress plugins around. It sorts out a lot of the simple SEO functions as well as giving you a lot of extra functionality with built in page and site wide modules.
Page specific features:
Site wide features:
There is also a cool feature to import data from many of the other plugins used to improve on SEO such as UTW (Ultimate Tag Warrior), SEO Title tags, All-in-one SEO, Jerome’s Keywords and Simple Tagging to name but a few.
This is a highly recommended plugin to anyone who cares about SEO, who doesn’t?
Sitemaps should be used on every site which is this plugins core functionality. Having to update your websites sitemap everytime you publish a post will literally become a pain in the ass and that is what Google (XML) Sitemaps Generator for WordPress removes entirely (the pain that is).
Apart from having to create the sitemap.xml once there is no actual work required from you and the sitemap is updated every time a new post is created.
Another cool feature is that is ties into the Popularity Contest plugin and will assign the relevant priority to popular posts.
This Redirection plugin is perfect for managing 301 redirects, 404 error pages and generally neaten up any loose ends.
It is also great if you need to redirect posts from an old site or have changed your WordPress directory.
Features:
.htaccess files.htacces filesSEO Slugs plugin strips common words like “what”, “you” or “can” out of your post slug to make it more search engine friendly. This make sure that the important keywords in the URL are kept and the unimportant words removed.
Cross linking posts has quickly become very popular with in blogosphere and SEO Smart Links is a plugin that automates this for you. You have a few options to use that allows you to decide on which posts are linked to each other.
Features:
These are definately some of the most important WordPress SEO plugins and it would be beneficial to have them installed from the outset. However it is still not to late to optimize your blog and install all of these plugins giving older posts a slightly better optimization and making all the new posts optimized for best success.
Please note: this does not mean that your website will jump to the top of the SERPs (Search Engine Ranking Pages) but it definately make a difference.
There has been a lot of hype around the recent exploitation of Twitter in the last couple of weeks. The micro-blogging giant discovered first hand of how powerful their own software is when a script quickly spread around their user’s profiles, delivering messages to thousands of Twitter users almost instantly.
There were two so called worms that made their way across the “Twitesphere” spreading like a wild fire and creating a huge discussion on the net about topics such as security, validation and of course user data privacy.
This worm hit Twitter with a bang and quickly spread around whilst promoting a website called Stalk Daily, an apparent competitor to Twitter.
This type of exploitation is known as a XSS (Cross-Site Scripting) Attack which means that malicous code is injected into fields that users have the ability to enter data to. This meant that every time someone visited the infected profile it was able to run whatever the script wanted it to do.
This specific worm spread messages to Twitter follows telling them to visit a competitors sites as well as spread the worm on to the profile.
The Mikeyy worm was a bit less “destructive” and more of an irritation. It used the same attack as the StalkerDaily worm which led to critism of Twitter and if they had really fixed the hole found by the previous worm.
The Mikeyy worm updated profiles with messages like “This worm is getting out of hand Twitter. – Mikeyy” and “Twitter, your community is going to be mad at you… – Mikeyy”.
The reason that this happened is pretty simple. All the fields that could have information entered in by Twitter users was not getting validated and which allowed the creators of the worms to enter harmful script which would run everytime their profile was viewed. Both the worms exploited this hole to great effect.
This hole is very commom with start ups and usually ends up with this exact case before the whole is patched up. Apparently Twitter has fixed the proplem entirely but with much difficulty. Twitter assures that no user data was exposed and that all private personal details remained that way which was a main concern for many Twitter users.
TechCrunch info on Mikeyy and StalkerDaily worms
Who you gonna call?
So its been a while since you last completed your hip hop website or you are in the process of planning a website, and the question has arisen who shall I get to create or upgrade my website. “Who you gonna call” springs to mind and somewhere along the lines you find yourself lost in some dialog between Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd in the 1984 Blockbuster…. Ghostbusters. The question still remains who is going to take my website to the level I expect.
Clients are generally non the wiser when it comes to the development of a website due to the misconceptions they hear from friends and family. Some of these being, anyone can design/develop a website, website development is easy, you can get the number one spot in google, website design is always cheap. These are the questions I am faced with everyday in trying to convert people with these mindsets into valued clients. Its my task my passion and the reason why I get up for work everyday, its the ability to know you made a difference in the development of that persons website, the work you did being displayed across the globe.
There are some truths in some misconceptions yes anyone can make a website (open up word type text save as html), yes it is easy to make websites (for the people who know what they are doing, you try and get a website to look the same across all major browsers taking into account the various ways search engines cache the website), yes it is possible to get the number one spot in google (search engine ranking is NOT a science, hence it cannot be guarenteed), however it is highly unlikely (very dependent on too many variables). So based on the above descriptions when you choose to create or develop a website, by all means feel free to open up word save as html submit your domain to google have your website only work in Internet explorer (assumed to work, after all you did use MS word…..) and watch your ranking drop from page 5 to page 10000 in google over the coming months.
Its time to face the truths you need help and you need it fast, here are some guidlelines I can provide when choosing a development company. These are based on the experience I have had as a lead developer working in the industry for over four years:
Portfolio
The sure way to prove a website development company can do what they cliam. This allows you to start formulating ideas and help you get accross the opinions you have for your website. example (I like what you did here).
Cost
Website development is two fold, design work and functiomality are you getting both for the cost you are paying. This is one of the most importent factors for clients it seems like a double edged sword, most companies (bad ones) only offer one and not the other. This leads to the explanation of why joe soap charges R1,000 and his competitor charges R5,000. Use the cost to help you eliminate the unwanted hastles a 5 to 10 page website should cost you anywhere between R4,000 and R12,000.
Size of company
This has no bearing in my expecience do not let it deter you. It comes down to skill set. it only takes three people to make a website correctly, a graphic designer, a programmer, and a Search engine marketer. If the company you choose has these three people you are a for a way.
Personality
Its important for you and the website design company to get along. You are interested in building a relationship with the company you choose not producing a once off job. Website search engine optimization and marketing will continue with your website till the end of time, this helps you get those clients and is the reason you develop or enhance your domain. I guess what im trying to say is if the website design company is not valuing you or your opinions its time to move on.
In the future if you decide to make that website you have always wanted, or you want to upgrade your current site ask yourself the following questions is the price right, do i know what I need (not neciserally what I want), do they have the skills I require and is this someone I can rely on.
Doing business with the family
This is a mistake that people have made for decades, using family members for business that is and it has leaked into the technology realm. Yes using your sisters younger brother or your wifes uncle may be a great idea and it might win you a few “browny” points with the family but it is definately not good for business.
Most people use family members just because they are doing a favour or trying to get a cheaper price. It is very rare that you find this business relationship to be sound and actually have the family IT genius pull off the job correctly.
For many reasons this kind of relationship will fail:
As with many things, web design and development is left up to the professionals, the guys who spend their lifes on the internet and continously better what is there already and create new and exciting features which get passed down to the work they do.
Google have just revealed their real time search suggestions to their international users. It was released to the American audience a few weeks back and has now been released to the rest of us to use.
Googles Search Suggestions
Straight off the bat the system does not come across as very impressive. The way it displays and lists the suggestions is great but the implementation of it has let it down.
Twitter Logo
Twitter is a social networking and microblogging service that allows you to send short text messages 140 characters in length, called “tweets”, to your friends, or “followers.”
There is a lot of confusion about what Twitter is as well as what you can use it for and how it will benefit you.
For a lot of people Twitter is just another way where people can share everything from what they are eating to how they slept. For many people it is just that, a way to share more of you life with totally random people. However for the new smart users it is a great marketing and networking tool.
Yes, these 140 character “tweets” can make a blog post go from 10 unique reads to 1000′s and 1000′s. How you ask? Well that is easy, it is based on a few basic functions that Twitter has created.
Twitter allows you to bind two very important functions of a business for free. Imagine reaching 1000′s of people for free and then having the ability to interact with them. It is like having a TV commercial where you can pause and talk to the voice over, ask questions and give suggestions – for FREE!
Along with that there are very influential people that have joined the Twitter parade, a few of which can change your great idea into a great business.
Signing up to Twitter is free and easy and you can start “tweeting” instantly through the web interface. However, there are many 3rd party tools out there that allow you to connect to Twitter giving you more features. Some of them are Tweetie, Twitterrific, Twitterfon, TweetDeck and feedalizr.
Twitter also have a mobile interface and give you the ability to “tweet” with an sms which makes “Twittering” a breaze in South Africa and even Africa.
So get started now and follow myself (@seagyn) and Tx Solutions (@txsolutions) on Twitter.
Ask any web designer about IE (Internet Explorer) specifically IE 6 and you will most likely hear a cringe followed by a grunt and then a few words that we cannot mention on here. Internet Explorer is Microsoft’s web browser (if you didn’t know, you may be that lucky) and it has caused head aches to many web designers and developers including myself.
The biggest problem with IE and maybe with Microsoft as well is that they would rather set some sort of standard even though the rest of the World is using another one that is working very well. In IE 6 this is very apparent and when you design a website, 99% of the time, it will not display the same as any other one of the famous browsers out there such as Chrome, Firefox, Safari and funnily enough its replacement IE 7 (get that for a joke).
So now when you design a site you have to split it into 3 phases.
As you can see Microsoft has made a balls up with the versions and as with their operating systems they seems to lack the consistency of building up from a platform and would rather try to create “cool” new features that try and blow their consumers away (fail).
With the release of so many competitve web browsers with faster engines, enhanced features and with some even having the ability to extend the capabilities to allow for more features through plugins, Microsoft are loosing many users and are frantically trying to plug the leak up.
I must admit, they have done a good job with the latest release and I was very happy to find out the emulation feature which allows you to force IE 8 to behave like an older version, brilliant! Make it behave like IE 7, design a website for IE 7 and display messages to the users who are so far behind times that they are still using IE 6.
IE 8 also features a far more standards compliant engine, not totally but still much closer.
As soon as I heard news of Microsoft developing an all new web browser it struck me that they had done it again. They had repeated the mess up in the Vista Operation System and were looking to pull a Windows 7 out of the bag which would get the world talking and maybe bring a few people back to the software Giant.
These are only rumours and I cannot even give you a name for it but at least it is good news especially because there is talk of them using the same engine that Chrome and Safari run on. That would be awesome!
jQuery Logo
Tx Solutions and Tx Daily both support and use the jQuery Library. This allows Tx Solutions to easily deploy cool new functionality on any of the websites we push out.
jQuery is a JavaScript Library with many features so that creating feature rich websites becomes a breeze and can be deployed quickly and easily.
jQuery simplifies HTML document traversing, event handling, animating, and Ajax interactions which were all considered tedious tasks which sometimes took days to complete.
It is pretty easy to see why it is a good idea to use jQuery. It allows us to easily deploy awesome functionality quickly and effectly. With today’s competitive market in the web design and development field having a library like this allows us to launch improved functionality without loosing design and development time which is key to staying ahead of the competition.
jQuery contains many features as well as conforms and sets many standards. It also boasts to be one of the most effecient and one of the faster JavaScript libraries which makes it one of the best out there.
Some of the features found in the jQuery library:
Using jQuery is very simple and is just a matter of downloading the library and including into all the pages you wish to use the library.
Once you have downloaded, move it to a location on there server (I like to make a folder in my website’s directory called ‘js’ and I put all my JavaScript files in there).
Add this line into the ‘<head>’ section of your web page:
[html]
[/html]
Now you have the ability to use the full power of jQuery.
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