I am taking the plunge and offering Web Portals using the DotNetNuke framework. After years of working on DNN portals for others I want to help my clients build value on the web to become more successful. I know I can take care of clients the way they deserve and not the way some boss or marketing rep thinks they should be treated. Check it out here http://www.codemypantsoff.com/WebPortals.aspx

I am taking the plunge and offering service plans for supporting DotNetNuke and other types of web sites. Many levels of support available. After years of helping people out and working for others looking at moving forward into building my own business where I can take care of those clients the way they deserve and not the way some boss or marketing rep thinks they deserve to be treated. Check it out here http://www.codemypantsoff.com/ServicePlans.aspx.

Usually I stay away from posts like this because I end up with my foot in my mouth but its starting to get to me more and more. Many people and sites try to gauge how popular a site is by where its rank is on Alexa.com. If you haven’t used or looked at Alexa please do so you can see what I am talking about, I’ll wait for you.

Back? Okay!

‘What’s the problem?’ Alexa uses a browser toolbar to track what sites are visited and for how long. Supposedly they don’t collect personal information but that a different discussion. Using this information they rank your site against other sites.  Now the hilarious thing is computer technical sites rank consistently lower than comparable non technical sites. I suppose one reason is that computer techies and geeks don’t install these tool bars all that much (too many problems and increases load times for the browser). The main demographic for these type of sites is totally ignored and discounted or at least skewed to the low end.  So the ranking is totally unfounded....

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Since I have started doing more and more WordPress work (who would have thunk it :)). I have to start paying more attention to the things that make WordPress work the way people want it to work.

 

*For those WP people out there I don’t think WP is any easier than DNN to use or tweak to do things I want, it’s just different.

 

Here is a link to 40 WordPress Tricks and Hacks - http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/40-most-wanted-wordpress-tricks-and-hacks/

One thing I notice absent in a lot of these articles is reference to building a site map for Google and other engines to use to help crawl the site. So I am adding in my suggestion to always add the sitemap plug-in to your WordPress blog. The plug-in can be found at - http://www.arnebrachhold.de/projects/wordpress-plugins/google-xml-sitemaps-generator/.

UPDATE: If you are using WordPress.com and not hosting your own they already supply an xml site map for you. (Thought I should add that.)

...

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This last week I was looking at domains for a project and wouldn’t you know it some of the domain names were taken by cyber squatters, imagine that. After some looking around I found a few of the domain names I was looking for for sale on a variety of domain resellers. What these b******s were asking for these domain names is outrageous! No content, no traffic, no marketing  just a name. This exercise got me to thinking what sites, and to a lesser extent domains, are worth and how they are valued.

In my opinion a going concern of a site should be worth more than a domain name but looking around that doesn’t seem to be the case. If you are curious here are five of the better sites I found to value a going domain. Of course like all things in the business world what something is worth depends on if you can get someone to buy it.

Site Value Check – uses Google page rank, Alexa traffic ranking, back links depth, average popularity...

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Normally I would post aimed at developers and designers here but this issue really comes on both sides of the development world, the developers and the consumers or clients. Most developers and designers will hate this statement but its true and I really believe it, “Anyone can build a website or web application.”

*Okay before the flames start read on!

Well there goes my job right? Wrong! Just because I can do a thing doesn’t mean I should. Change that statement around for any other profession, “Anyone can do surgery or be a doctor.” Again this is a true statement but everyone realizes that to do this takes a lot of time and schooling to be a doctor. Hey, I know I can stitch up a big gash in my leg, I had to do that once, but I know if I went to a doctor not only would it not hurt but very possibly I wouldn’t have the hideous scar. I know all the developers and designers out there have seen sites that are a big scar.

The same applies to building a website, developing applications, or any other...

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Been working on a new project based on one little tweet (http://twitter.com/Salaro/statuses/1416775586) on Twitter.com from Solaro(http://twitter.com/Salaro). If you build DNN skins or are interested in skins and great designs you might want to follow him he’s good!

 

Anyway in the spirit of Download.com, one of the big successful commercial download sites on the web, I registered and have been working on DNNDownload.com (http://dnndownload.com). The site is built all on, you guessed it, DotNetNuke.  With a few hundred more hours of work and some custom modules hopefully it will be a good place for DNN module builders to share demo modules, skin builders to share free skins, and for site builders to find and evaluate modules without having to hunt down a thousand different sites. Hopefully the site will become big enough to make a difference but of course that will depend on the DNN community. If you want to see a feature, tell me! If you want to see...

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Okay if you are a reader, follower, or stumble upon this blog and actually read it, you would know I am a DotNetNuke and ASP.NET guy. Well it never hurts to learn new things right? So after my coworker installed Wordpress for his blog (http://zacuke.com) and showed me what it took I was impressed with how fast and easy it appeared. I asked him for a demo of the backend and the features and literally we learned a bunch of it together, neither of us had really touched Wordpress before that! I was impressed that with very little knowledge of PHP and mySQL he got it running on a Windows server in less than an hour and was blogging as soon as he was done.

Now, I still think DNN is a lot more flexible for applications and membership type of sites, but I will admit for a blog engine I couldn’t beat the time or simplicity of Wordpress. So after talking to him I emailed a few people I know who are Wordpress gurus (at least they say they are) and for the last 5 days I have been spending...

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A great tool for testing the look of your pages without spending the time installing and maintaining a bunch of different computers is Browser Shots (http://www.browsershots.org).  It not automated or as complete as Browser Cam (http://www.browsercam.com) but its free. I like using it for quick tests of pages. I say quick, but you sort of have to babysit the site if you pick more than a few browsers and the pictures are deleted about 30 minutes after being created so if you miss them you may have to resubmit them to see the screen shots.

I remember my Grandmother telling me this story with different animals but the parable was the same idea.  Just sort of rediscovered this in catching up on some reading last night. If have never thought that focus and knowledge were important you might want to read this short page and the pages from Chapter 5 of his book that Jim Collins makes available.

The Hedgehog Concept

Chapter 5, Pages 90-91 of Good to Great

I bring up the whole thing as I find myself distracted everyday from the things I know well (.NET) to the things I don’t know very well and don’t have lots of experience in (PHP, Perl). Simply because a client may hire me based on the right words. After rereading this parable of the Fox and the Hedgehog I am reinvigorated to not try and do PHP or Perl sites, I hate it anyways, and stick with what I know...

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