Twitter

 

I'm going to put these frauds as I get them on Twitter. My ID is VagueShot.

Moderating Groups on the Internet

 

I moderate several groups on Yahoo.

The rules are simple.

1. You have to write an introduction to be able to join.
2. You are moderated until you make a sensible post.
3. After a first sensible post you are unmoderated.

Since these rules were put in place, we've only had spammers join occasionally and they can't resist sending out junk on their first post.
They are immediately thrown out by one of five moderators.

Perhaps another rule is to have at least five moderators. That way, you don't get too much delay in approving joining and posts.

The main group I moderate on Yahoo is UK-Coeliac and you can look at that to see how it behaves pretty well. Incidentally, if you are someone who needs gluten-free diet, then feel free to join.

Hunky Dory Home

 

I heard the owner of this company having a right, Geordie go at Royal Mail. She sells all sorts of nice things for homes, including custom-made lampshades. I put that as a friend was looking for some a few weeks ago and couldn't find what she was looking for.

It would seem that she's suffering from poor service. At least I get a good one down here in Suffolk.

I've also put the link because I run Dory Previn's web site.

In my view her web site would benefit from a linked blog from something like WordPress.

Interesting I put this blog entry up as Hunky Dory Homes originally and if you searched for that you missed the real site. It shows you should probably put some misspellings in your web site. Wrong from a design point of view, but right if you want to find the site.

Peer-to-Peer Lending - Zopa

 

For the last few weeks, I've been looking into peer-to-peer lending.

One of the reasons is that banks, who for years have managed to make life difficult for those that want to borrow from them, have now done everything in their powers to hack off those that save with them. I want a good return on my money, but I don't want to have to keep moving it from bank to bank. Especially as now, there is a chance that banks may go bust. I don't think that the government would actually allow a bank to fail, but why should banks be any different to a company that employs a lot of people?

I also feel strongly that many jobs will go, because the banks will not lend to people, who need that money to keep businesses going. So perhaps by lending my money directly to those that need it, I can do my bit to help things to get straight.

Possibly the most respected web site of this type is Zopa. The company was setup in March 2005 and calls itself a Social Lender. A lot information is given here at carpetbagging.co.uk.

Here's what they say about the history of peer-to-peer lending.

Zopa (zone of possible agreement) was the first social lending operation launching in the UK in March 2005 and since has launched in the USA and Italy and has plans to launch in Japan. They are backed by the likes of Bessemer Venture Partners, Balderton Capital and Wellington Partners.

This was followed by the launch of Prosper in the USA in 2006 who were also backed by venture capital and have since gone onto have over 810,000 members and over $175,000,000 in loans. The last figure I saw suggested there are now over 30 peer to peer set up around the globe with more launches planned.

The total value of loans made by Zopa UK's site up to 30/09/2008 was just under £26.5 million with bad debts and collections running at less than 0.5%.(of late typically about just under £250,000 a week is being lent out) The average lender has lent out £1251 and the average borrower has borrowed £4184. (most popular loan purpose car and area of UK with most borrowers Birmingham)

And this is how they see the future.

A recent report by Celent Communcation suggested peer lending would reach $1.6 billion this year and then double in 2009 and reach near $6 billion in 2010.

An example of this growth can be seen from Zopa UK as week ending 02/10/2007 £147,120 was lent out but a year later week ending 02/10/2008 £245,200 was lent out so up by over 66%.

But that is what others think. So how does Zopa work?

Let's start with someone like me, who to get a reasonable return on money that normally, I would put on a long-term basis at a bank.

I signed up with Zopa and transferred my money using a debit card to a holding account. There was nothing too onerous and the holding account pays a small amount of interest. They did do a simple credit check on me, but there wasn't much else. I suspect they'd do more, if I was borrowing!

Let's say I have £5,000 to lend.

I decide the markets I want to be in. These are determined by either 36 or 60 month contracts and by credit ratings of A*, A, B and C, with the addition of a Youth market for those under 27. You just make the money available, name the interest you want and decide the maximum amount of money you'll lend to an individual.

As I write, I'm lending money at 7.6% in the A* market, which after a Zopa deduction of one percent and an allowance for bad debt means that I should get a return of 6.1%. Interestingly, this rate has not changed much over the last few weeks despite a cut in base rate of 1.5%. It just shows how useless the banks are in providing services to customers.

The question has to be asked is if Zopa is risky.

One things that has to be said about Zopa is that they are very open. So I can get pretty good statistics on things that matter as bad debt. I will not comment on the levels except to say that they appear to be below forecast.

Perhaps this is because there is an ethical dimension to Zopa. Lenders may tend to have a social responsibility and borrowers will suspect this, so perhaps your Zopa loan is the last thing you don't pay.

But what cuts down the risk with Zopa, is how they do business. If someone wants to borrow say £1,000, I would not lend them all they need, but just up to my maximum. So money is lent out in small packets to many individuals, which statiticians will tell you is the best way to spread risk.

I have not borrowed any money from Zopa, although there are individuals who have done both. But if you do borrow from the site, you will be charged a £100 arrangement fee.

So who should use Zopa.

You must be Internet-savvy and I think it helps if you want to be hands-on with your investments. Zopa is the complete opposite in this to something like an ISA, where you pay money in and hopefully get more back.

I sometimes think it's like Internet betting with a lot of the buzz, but without a lot of the risk.

Note that the links in this post, link to my referral page in Zopa. If you should join then I get a small fee. My user name is VagueShot.

Video CVs

 

I was thinking on holiday. I don't just enjoy the sites.

Suppose you want to work in an industry where such things as language skills and appearance are important.

Why not put together a small video and place it on YouTube?

Electricians, Labourers, Plumbers and Carpenters

 

You talk about a recession, but how many people are like me. Reasonably cash-rich and feel that they need to have a few small jobs done around the house. Or in my case, the stud. I’ve probably got about forty days of work that I need done, from digging holes and filling sand-bags to re-skinning a barn, installing a shower and wiring up new lights.

What is needed is a web site to tie all of these people needing jobs done, to those that can do it.

Sort of like a cross between eBay, Ryanair and B&Q.

A lot of the time we all have too much inertia to put that small job in the marketplace. But that may well be the difference between someone paying their mortgage or not!

How to be Tasteful

 

Prunella Servatius Hawke is an artist, who paints houses. Not two coats inside and out, but as watercolours for your enjoyment, business or publicity.

Prunella can also create images that are ideal for blog and letter headings.

Don't be Afraid of Voip

 

I made a daliance into Voip some months ago and it all went a bit pear shaped.

But I do spend a lot of money on phone calls and Voip does look to be a sensible way to cut those costs.

1. I used to have three BT lines into the house and these cost about £120 each. But since Celia died, I don't really have a need for Fax now, so that line went to save money. I could probably get rid of one of those lines in the future, but at the moment I need both, as broadband round here is so slow and the two lines give me about 2Mb, which has to sustain not only myself but Lyndsey in the Stud.

2. Calls on Voip are much cheaper. For instance, typically you will pay about a pence a minute for calls to places like the USA and Germany and about half BT's rates for those to mobiles.

So I have installed four Voip 'lines' into the stud. These cost £2.99 each and act just like normal phone lines. I've also chosen numbers slightly out of area in Newmarket, as this is so much better for a stud than Haverhill.

So what advantages do I get?

1. Obviously, there is a cost saving. I have cut one line and calls look to be about half what I was paying before.

2. I used to divert my main number 01440-783789 to my mobile, but now I've diverted it permanently to my main Voip number 01638-778586. I do pay a bit for the diversion, but a lot less than I did.

3. When I get a messaage to the Voicemail, I have arranged Outlook to send a text message to my phone. And of course I can access my Voicemail from any phone in the world.

4. All Voicemail is delivered as files that I can play in my Windows Media Player. This means that if you are in a business, where sometimes you need to keep these files for legal purposes, you've already got them.

5. Celia was a family barrister and a lot of her clients were abused over the phone by ex-partners. Go to Voip and everything is there for the Courts.

And what happens if the Internet goes down?

1. I still have my standard BT line, which is permanently diverted to the Voip number. If you have a power or Internet failure, all of your calls will still get recorded on the Voicemail system for later recovery.

2. You can still dial out on the BT number and of course cancel the diversion.

Not the greatest of inconveniences and probably much less than losing power or broadband.

So try it and remember that if you spend a lot of money on lines, calls to mobiles or abroard, you will get a quick saving.

You Don't Have to be Serious

 

One of my clients, The Warranty Co, uses an integrated blog to add life to a serious web site.

Go and enjoy.

Changing Broadband Suppliers

 

Over the last few months the performance from my broadband supplier, Pipex, has gone from good through bad to worse. I used to get a full 1 Mbs connection, but I'm lucky now to get 200 Kbs. It also has great gaps where there is no connection at all.

When I complained to them, they wanted me to run a special connection for six hours, which meant that I couldn't do any work for that period of time. That is probably some of the worst service ideas, that I've heard in a long time.

So I have swapped to BT.

Luckily, I have two phone lines, so I just got BT to put broadband on the other one and all I did was plug my modem/router in and put in a new user name.

I'm now up to 1.5 Mbs and it was so easy.

Speaking to various people who know more about ISPs than I do, I get the impression that since Pipex have been taken over by Tiscali, there has been a lot of technical dumbing down.

But the important lesson here, is that getting a new broadband supplier is not as difficult as you think.

Unsubscribing From Web Sites

 

As you may or may not know, my wife, Celia, died in December. She was always signing up for various newsletters from reputable companies and over the last few weeks, I've been trying to unsubscribe from them.

With most companies there are two simple methods :-

1. You click a link in the e-mail and this takes you to an unsubscribe page where you type in the e-mail address and then click unsubscribe. This works well.

2. The second and better method is where the e-mail address is built into the link that is clicked. This works even better.

One of the problems, is that I can't send e-mails from her e-mail address and I've just diverted her e-mails to mine. So some companies, like Tesco, want an e-mail sent from the e-mail address to be unsubscribed.

I can't do that. (Well I could, but I'm playing the bereaved person here, who knows little of the Internet.) So in Tesco's case, to cancel her messages, it took me a couple of e-mails.

So their system, which is probably designed to make it difficult to unsubscribe, actually costs them money, as it is not a fully automated system, that can be used by the person who received the e-mails.

Other companies require a login to unsubscribe. As Celia never wrote her passwords down, I can't do that. So those companies that continue to send me unwanted e-mails are now on my never-buy-from list.

So when you design an unsubscribe system, do it properly.

Testing Your Internet Speed

 

Sometimes you want to find out the performance of your broadband or Internet speed.

There is a simple web site called SpeedTest.net, that tests both your download and upload speeds.

Go to this web site and you get a map of the world showing a whole raft of servers with which you can check your speed. The best for you is marked as a yellow pyramid.


The web site then does a download and upload test and then displays the results as a web page.


Note that this site also has good links to help you to choose a better ISP, if yours is rather slow.

Note too, that I have used the Daisy Presentation Browser to create the images for this post. This program allows you to set the dialog to any size you require, so that in this topic for display I have chosen 1024 x 768. You can also remove all of the tool, status and address bars to get a cleaner web page.

I Hate Laptops

 

I do, as they get dropped and stolen.

But, now that I am alone and I have two dogs to look after, I like to spend more time in the kitchen. As we have a wireless network here on the stud, a laptop was a sensible solution.

I bought an affordable HP from eBuyer on the recommendation of my son, George, and it works well. All I did was type in the network password.

But as with all laptops the pointing device is awful.

So in PC-World, I bought a Logitech LX7 Cordless Optical Mouse.

It works well and improves the experience no end.

Closing an eBay Account

 

My wife, Celia, died on the 11th December 2007 and I had to close her eBay account.

Interestingly, I had to do it in writing, for security reasons. Apparently, there are people who close them maliciously.

But their people in Dublin, were sypathetic and professional. You'd be surprised that not everyone is like that.

Wireless Phone Extension

 

This is not specifically an Internet problem, but it is one of those nice bits of technology that comes along occasionally, that is so simple you wonder why it wasn't developed years ago.


Look at the phone above, which appears to be plugged directly into the mains.

It isn't, the device that is, is one end of a small wireless link that can reach for about fifty metres. Two of these devices add an extension to a typical phone or fax line, so that you can have a fixed phone in another room or office.

The cost is just under £40 from EBuyer for a pair of devices. This cost is typically a lot less than getting an electrician in, who'll probably charge at least £75 for an extension. It's also safer than all of those trailing wires, which you can trip over.

You can also link up to three extensions to the same base station and up to three sets should work together in the same range.

So what would you use them for?

1. Providing a temporary extension in an bedroom for visitors or someone who is confined to their bed. You could use a traditional wireless phone, but few of these are friendly to the disabled or the elderly.

2. Moving the location of a fax machine in an office.

3. Typically on a building site there is power but no phone lines, except in the site office. You could use these devices to put a movable line anywhere on site with a fixed phone, that can't be taken away and lost. If it gets smashed, Argos do a phone for under a fiver!

Think!

One thing they can't do is provide a link for broadband.

Creating a Video

 

A few posts ago, I showed how with a very simple camera you could upload a video to YouTube and add it to a blog.

I've now added titles and credits with a standard piece of software called Movie Maker that comes with Windows. It is very easy to use and creates smaller files for uploading to YouTube.

Adding Video to a Blog

 

This is Anna playing and enjoying herself in the front garden with Lizzie the basset hound.


Note that this video was taken on a Fuji S5700, which is not the most sophisticated of cameras, but it can take about thirty minutes of video on a 2Gb SD card. The video was then uploaded to YouTube, cutting and pasting the code into this blog.

It's that's simple.

Nuisance Calls From 07975-825284

 

This idiot rings me twice a day. I've not caught him yet and I only know because my phone tells me someone has rung. So I've no idea whether it's a silent call or someone trying to sell me something.

So I tried to report it to BT's nuisance call bureau on 0800-6614413, but they said I must report it to Orange. Guess what, every number I could find needed an Orange mobile phone to report the problem.

But I'm happy with mine and think it a bit rich to have to change my mobile to Orange to report one of their idiot customers.

Eventually I found an e-mail form and sent this. I doubt I'll get a reply.

The Orange number 07975-825284 rings me twice a day. As yet I've not managed to catch it, but my phone says I've been called. I've tried to ring it back, but I get an answerphone with a full voicemail box.

Can you please sort it?

My landline is 01440-783789

I should also say that I couldn't find an address to write to on the Orange web site.

That is a disgrace and it should be the law.

As a follow up to this, I caught the call this morning. It was a company called Financial Connections, ringing despite the number was registered with the Telephone Preference Service.

Let's hope that stops it.

A Sensible Opt-In

 

I've just had an e-mail from Opinion World.

Whether it should be classed as spam or not, I will not say, but it has probably turned up in my InBox because someone has passed on my e-mail address legitimately.

But this is the interesting bit.

We are sorry if your e-mail address has been used for this offer by mistake and we apologize for any inconvenience caused. If you do not respond to this mail we shall not contact you any further.

I suspect I will not hear anything more from this company.

What a civilised way of sending out a direct mail, with an automatic destruct.

Fixing Washing Machines

 

I have a feeling that many household appliances these days are now made to be easy to manufacture. These days most machines seem to be easy to take apart, which is probably because they're easy to put together.

Twenty years ago, they were often glued together and difficult to repair. Many a time, I tried to repair a tumbler drier and ended up with a load of parts on the floor.

But things have changed now.

I've recently repaired a tumbler dryer and a washing machine by purchasing parts off the Internet. The sites were helpful too.

Just use Google to search for the make and model number.

Second Hand Car Parts

 

This is probably an obvious application, but it wasn't to me until someone suggested it.

But there does seem to be several sites where decent parts can be obtained.

The Great Storm

 

On the 16th October 1987, we experienced one of the worst storms in the UK. Contrary to popular belief, it was not a hurricane, but it caused more damage than any storm for 300 years.

At the time we lived at Debach, north of Ipswich and we were without electricity for nearly two weeks. Luckily we cooked on a gas AGA and surprisingly the phones kept going.

It is also the time, when I had the narrowest escape of my life.

I’ve always got up early in the morning to work, as it is the best time, when you don’t get interrupted by phone calls or family. But that morning although I was up, I wasn’t in the office as luckily there was no power. At about six-thirty the chimney blew over, came through the roof and went right through where I normally sat.

We’d also turned out two horses in the field that night for the first time. One was an old racehorse, who’d been confined to his box for two years with leg problems and the other was a newly-weaned foal.

They had no problems, as instinct kept them to the safe place in the middle of the field, with their backsides to the wind.

So would the Internet help?

Hopefully the warnings and the weather forecasts would be better. But I suspect that the chaos might actually be worse, as many people would be unable to connect and would be suffering from severe withdrawal symptoms.

Watch Your Text Messages

 

Today, in an important case at the Old Bailey, text messages between parties involved in the case were read out.

I think that if you are using text messages for business purposes, then it is important you keep a record of every message sent.

LiquidDrop sends text messages from the desktop and every message is saved in your e-mail program. Any replies are also saved too.

How to Test a Page is Indexed

 

The web site has been submitted to Google and the other search engines, but you don't seem to be getting any traffic.

Sometimes, this is because the pages have not been indexed yet, as search engines do sometimes take up to thirty or so days to get around to looking at your pages.

At other times, this may be because the page that is not getting indexed is not connected to the index page of the web site. This can be down to a coding mistake, but it can also be because the menu system you are using is not readable by one of the search robots.

There is a simple way to check if a page has been indexed.

Take a phrase of about eighty to a hundred characters in the page, that you feel may be fairly unique, add quotes to it and put it in the search box of the search engine. If I was searching for this message, I might use.

"At other times, this may be because the page that is not getting indexed"

Note the quotes, as these make sure that the phrase will be searched for in exactly the way it was entered.

If you don't find the page, then it has not been indexed.

It is also a good idea to set up a Google Alert for a new web site or page. this way you'll know when it has been indexed.

Ryanair, easyJet and LastMinute.com

 

We don't need a holiday, but we'll be trying to get away this weekend before the winter closes in.

So I spent an hour or so looking for cheap flights on Ryanair, easyJet and LastMinute.com.

You type in the dates, select a starter airport and then go through a load of suitable destinations.

easyJet were excellent in that every time you went back to the start page, all you had to do was change the destination and click search.

This sort of worked with LastMinute.com, but they kept going from September to October on occasions. How annoying!

But with Ryanair you have to start again with everything. Grrr!

Online Voter Registration

 

Just renewed the Voter Registration online.

Excellent!

Senior Railcard

 

I've just turned 60, so I've bought my first Senior Railcard, which gives me discounts on train travel.

I did it online and got the card the next day in the post.

WikiScanner

 

WikiScanner is a concept that lets you see who edits the entries on WikiPedia.

Michael Linehan of Marketing-Alchemy.com has posted this in the LED Digest.

It's fun to play with WikiScanner, and you can find this search engine here: http://wikiscanner.virgil.gr

That's the basic. Now for some points I have not verified.
Supposedly, among many revelations, some of the more interesting (and funny) ones are:

MSN Search is "a major competitor to Google". That's what MSN added to their page

Microsoft edits Apple entries, adding more negative comments about its rival

In the 9/11 Wikipedia article, the NRA added that "Iraq was involved in 9/11"

Exxon Mobil edits spillages and eco-system destruction from oil spillages article

FBI edits Guantanamo Bay, removing numerous pictures

Dell Computers deletes negative comments on customer services and removes a passage how the company outsources work to third world countries

Microsoft tried to cover up the XBOX 360 failure rate

DieBold, the company that controversially supplied computerised polling stations in the US elections, removes numerous paragraphs with negative comments

FeedBlitz

 

I've added a link to FeedBlitz, so that you can get a nightly e-mail about what I'm posting.

Join using the box in the left column under Subscribe.

Sydney Car Centre and Monster.com

 

Accusations have been made by people who post comments on this list, that some of the spam from Sydney Car Centre comes in some way from Monster.com.

I strongly suspect that Monster is a completely innocent party in all this. Could it be that addresses are being harvested in some robotic way from the site, by someone posing as an employer?

I'm going to be putting my CV on monster.com and see what happens. I shall be using a new e-mail address that will not be posted anywhere else.

Perhaps, if anyone else does this, they might like to tell me what happens.

Managing Yahoo Groups

 

I manage two Yahoo groups.

One of the problems is that people join and then attempt to polute them with large amounts of spam. This has resulted in several worthwhile groups having to be shut down.

So how can this problem be minimised.

1. Tell all new members that they can't post until they've posted one sensible post and set them on moderation until they do so.

2. If that first post is spam, just delete it.

3. If they send another spam message, then remove them from the list.

The two lists that I manage have not had any problems with spammers.

Odd Spam

 

The web site, I wrote for Nicholas Comfort, got some really weird spam last night. In fact it got about a hundred copies of similar messages entered into the contact form on the site.

Below is the result of your feedback form. It was submitted by
(OrZS3l@"websitename") on Tuesday, July 31, 2007 at 23:00:31
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

email: OrZS3l@"websitename"

subject: im3gp@"websitename"

name: 2aS7yR@"websitename"

company: Rm1N403@"websitename"

message: eW0vghy@"websitename"

formname:
To: tCA5@dSk.com
From: PUSZ@ftg.com
Subject: mfst***I290phU0
Bcc: onehundredmbits@aol.com

I290phU0

Reset: Clear

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

HTTP_USER_AGENT: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0)
REMOTE_ADDR: 121.156.57.188
HTTP_REFERER: http://NICHOLASCOMFORT.com/contact.html

Note that "websitename" is nicholascomfort.com. I never put e-mail addresses real or otherwise in web sites, unless they are encoded in JavaScript.

I just can't see what the person (or robot) who sent this was up to.

I've since modified the form, so that you have to make a choice from a pull-down list. I've also put checks on e-mail addresses being added in the Subject and Name.

This should defeat robots.

Check out the contact page to see what the form now looks like.

Iran

 

I've just noticed from Google Analytics, that I'm getting a lot of visits to my web site from Iran. They are all going to the page on Search Engine Optimisation.

I hope the Yanks don't get the wrong idea about my dealings with the Iranians.

Royal Mail and Paypal

 

Sell something with PayPal and Royal Mail will print a label for you and knock it off your PayPal account.

An interesting connection.

Google Maps

 

I've just added Google Maps to two of the sites I'm working on.

This one is for a firm of solicitors called the Cambridge Family Law Practice. This one is for our stud, Freedom Farm Stud.

Once you get the hang of the Java, they are very easy to setup.

they are infinitely better than Multimap, which seem to have developed a horrible habit of resizing your browser if you print the map. With Google Maps, you don't have to have a separate print page.

Pictures

 

Sam Shaw is an artist and the wife of Martyn Downer.

I've used one of her paintings to show how few pixels can be used to display images in a blog.

Here's the painting at just 200 pixels.


Here's the same painting at 400 pixels, which can be clicked for a larger one at 800 pixels.


It always surprises me that highly detailed pictures like Sam's still look good at a very reduced level of pixels.

I just guess that the brain fills in the bits that the eyes can't see.

The Hidden Beauty of Numbers

 

The FT has an article with this title today and it’s about a Professor Rosling, who is revolutionising the way statistics are shown.

http://www.gapminder.org

He’s sold it to Google for a lot of money.

It might be worth investigating.

Charities and eBay

 

eBay has a very nice and simple web page, where you can collect money for your charity.

All you need to do is register and then people can nominate your charity when they sell.

The Power of Outlook 2003 and 2007

 

We all have the problem of keeping track of our contacts, the e-mails we write to them and the documents and letters we post to them.

Later versions of Outlook from 2003 onwards have a large Notes section in each contact.


Note how Word documents have been copied to the Notes. They are just double-clicked to open them.

You can copy any document or e-mail message to this folder to create a complete record about the contact.

No-Free-Phone Mobile Phone Contract

 

I've had my mobile phone for about six years now. It's a Nokia 6310i and at present I run it on an O2 contract, that is of course expensive because I pay for free phones that I don't want.

Incidentally, I had a problem with the phone a few months ago and I was able to get it repaired for £25 by a company in Cambridge. They told me that they repair lots of these phones as it does everything most people want.

So does any company offer a mobile phone contract, where I don't have to pay for other peoples' free phones?

Cleaning a Laser Printer

 

Improving the quality of printing on laser printers is often just about keeping it clean.


I'm changing a cartridge here on my HP 4500 Color Laserjet. Note the Dyson DC-16, which is an excellent portable vacuum cleaner.

Postcode Anywhere goes International

 

I've used Postcode Anywhere for some years. They've just gone international, so you can find and check addresses in US, UK, Canada and Europe.

Here is some information relevant to their international addressing software.

The developer page for the international product can be found at the following page. This page contains all technical information needed to set up the international address finder in your application.

A demo of the international product can be found here.

As far as the pricing goes, the size and cost of the per-click credit packs can be found at the following page. The credit usage for international addresses is 1 credit per request for UK, US and Canada, and 2 credits per request for everywhere else.

It soudns like technology worth checking out.

Ryanair's On-Line Check In

 

Just used it to check-in for a trip to Salzburg on Wednesday.

It seemed to work very well.

The Baker

 

This is a review of the film called The Baker, which has been produced by Dan Shepherd, who is a friend of our youngest son, George.

The film has just been signed by a distributor and recently it won an award at the Tremblant Film Festival in Canada.

I'm sixty next month, but I do go the cinema regularly with my wife of nearly forty years. So we're not particularly your young cinema goers.

We watched a courtesy copy of the film on our 17 inch non-widescreen television with a crap sound system. The film has faults, such as it doesn't play well on a small screen, but what film does. It also needs atmosphere in that I think it's one of those films where the bigger the audience the better the enjoyment applies.

It's a film that I want to see in a large cinema to get rid of those problems.

So is it a good film?

Yes.

The film is unusual with more than a touch of the surreal about it. Although, I only saw an early copy, it is very well made and doesn't suffer from the bad continuity, sets and acting, that befall so many low budget productions.

It also has one of the most innovating sex scenes, that I've seen in a film in a long time.

So if you are lucky enough to find this film in your local cinema go and see it. You won't see much violence or graphic action, but you will see a film that will make you smile and say that that was a very good effort.

Although very different, I think if you liked Sideways, you'll like this film.

It would be rather nice, if the readers of this blog could influence events and get this film shown to a wider audience.

But isn't that what the Internet is supposed to be about?

Bonusprint

 

I'm not a lover of digital cameras as I feel that real film gives a much better quality.

But to save weight on our recent holiday, I just took a small digital camera and then used the Bonusprint web site to print those I wanted.

It was simple to use and even survived a power cut in the middle.

Phones and the Internet

 

I have a Nokia 6310i mobile phone.

It is elderly and brilliant.

I can get a simple Internet news service on this phone and it was invaluable in checking that there were no problems for my flight home from holiday.

So make sure you know how to setup your phone so you can browse web pages.

A Preferred E-Mail Program

 

I collect spam and so that I get early identification of the various scams on the Internet.

As I get about 6,000 messages every day, I find that some e-mail programs just buckle under the strain. Thunderbird collapsed and just couldn’t cope. I would never touch it with a bargepole as extricating myself from the mess it left took about a week of concentrated work.

So although many here will find this heresy, I use Outlook 2003, which with it’s filters and rules, leaves me with about twenty messages a day to sort manually. There are issues, but most of the problems and how to avoid them are posted on the Internet.

Checking UK Charities

 

I'm a coeliac and the leading charity in the field is Coeliac-UK. There has been a lot of talk recently about the charity and whether it does a good job or not.

So I thought about looking at the accounts to see how much money it has to play with. I went to the Charity Commission web site and looked them up.

I won't say what I found here as it isn't appropriate, but if you ever want to look up a charity and check it out, it is very simple.

The Euro Symbol

 

In the last post I said that everybody knows how to put the Euro symbol (€) into a message. Someone e-mailed me to say they don't.

The symbol is on the 4 key, with the dollar ($) and alongside the 4.

To insert the symbol, just press Control and Alt and then the 4.

Lost Rankings

 

A lady called Peggy, who runs a company based on the website, www.kitchenartworks.com, is despairing as scraping sites are ruining her position in Google, by taking her content and advertising others.

In Peggy’s case there is one quick thing that she should do.

INTEGRATE THE BLOG FULLY WITH THE WEB SITE.

See my wife’s stud at www.freedomfarm.com, which has been designed this way. (It’s not finished yet, so don’t point this out.)

Having looked at both, what Peggy needs to do is move the blog to a sub-directory of her www.kitchenartworks.com domain and then cross link the two so that Google and the others can get the drift.

It may not be the total solution, but hopefully it will jack it up a bit. Remember now that Google updates the main search with what it finds in blogs, soon after they are posted, so a blog is a good place for special offers.

Outlook Keeps Failing

 

Recently, I've had a lot of problems with Outlook 2003 failing because of a message that said the following.

Microsoft Office Outlook has encountered a problem and needs to close.

It's very helpful isn't it.

I finally found what was causing this annoying problem and the solution was quite simple. This is after I reinstalled software, repaired Outlook files and checked everything against what Microsoft says. Or in this case doesn't.

1. I stopped Outlook from sending or receiving any e-mail automatically. You do this under Options and basically it's just a matter of unchecking several boxes.

2. I then did a Send and Receive on each of my accounts individually.

3. Finally, I found that one always failed.

4. I checked it using WebMail and it looked OK, so I reasoned that the problem must be in the local settings in Outlook.

5. I then removed the e-mail account and got Outlook working on all the other accounts, which proved to me that there was only one rogue account.

6. When I recreated the account everything worked normally.

So it was a simple fix in the end after several days of toil.

The problem could have been in the e-mail account or it could have been in a rule that worked specifically with this account.

Hope all this helps and it is the solution many have been looking for.

An Idea for Greetings Cards

 

Go to any decent computer shop and you can buy decent blank cards that you can put through your printer.

But why not use Google or Live Maps to create a nice picture of their house for the front.

You can either print direct on the card or on photographic paper, which can be stuck on with a Pritt stick.

Abuse

 

A good web site always receives mail on abuse@xxx.xxx.

FreeWebCards.com, who today have started showering me with spam, have just bounced my e-mail to abuse@freewebcards.com.

So in my book, they're spammers and crooks.

DON'T USE THEM.

Live Maps

 

This is the same view as for Google Maps on Microsoft Live Maps.


Note that the pitch is being relaid.

I will not say which is better, but look for yourself.

Google Maps

 

The image shows a satellite view of Portman Road from Google Maps.


Note that South is to the bottom of the map, which gives the time at perhaps eleven in the morning. The long shadows indicate that this picture was probably taken in the winter. the pitch is covered in plastic, which also happens during the winter.

This type of mapping is excellent for all sorts of purposes.

We've been trying to use it to locate the direction of the drains on a field on the stud. Not very successfully, I should say, as there isn't a high definition image of the farm on Google and what images there are were taken at the wrong time of year.

Contacting Your MP

 

This web site called WriteToThem.com is rather nice.

You can just put your message in a form and send it to your MP, Councillor or European MP.

How to Check Your Web Site is Available in China

 

If you go to Great Firewall of China you will be able to test if your web site is available in that country.

Gravitas

 

Both Celia and myself have our own domain names, although she uses her as an e-mail address and I don't.

I wonder if when she fills in a form on the Internet, she gets a better response because she looks more important.

Dyson

 

We just had to replace the extension tube on our Dyson vacuum cleaner.

I bought the spare on-line with no fuss at all.

I wish the buying of all spares was this easy.

Vehicle Excise Duty

 

I've just renewed the Vehicle Excise Duty on Celia's car in two minutes on-line.

Bang goes another job for the Post Office.

Forcing Someone To Read An E-Mail

 

This post was in response to someone, who wanted to force his addressees to read an e-mail announcing his conference.

Never, never, never force someone to read an e-mail.

I would do this.

1. Create a very simple e-mail, that is a concise message, that says where, when and what the conference is about. The only graphic might be a small picture or cartoon in the e-mail.

2. Have a link in the e-mail to the web site that describes the conference in detail.

3. Have a link to a printable poster, so they can advertise your conference in college.

4. I would also have a link, in which they can register their interest, so that you get the details right. Perhaps, you could have a draw for a small prize.

Then lastly, I'd send another e-mail a week later, with a humorous tone saying that you are sorry to intrude, but we're just checking that you heard about the conference.

But if you force a possible client, they'll go away.

Web Designers and Updating

 

This is my reply to a forum in which the owner said the following.

"His site could also have failed because he hired a designer. That was a problem because he never learned how to run his sites. A site that would be viable with a domain like this requires constant changes and maintenance."

Web designers on the whole do not know your business as well as you do and of course they design something that is complicated to update, so that they get the repeat business.

I would also add, that the more a site changes with valid material, the more likely it will be found by searches, as there are just that many more words available for hits. So you have a virtuous circle, in that the more you add to the site, the higher it will go up the search engines.

But adding large amounts of content with a designer doing it at arms length is a very expensive process.

So whether you like it or not, successful sites will be updated by someone who knows the business. And that person will work in house.

This is one of the reasons why I like to use blogs for news pages. Updating can be shared out and large amounts of copy can be quickly added to the site by Internet virgins. The designers job here, now becomes one of reading and editing the information and transferring the important bits to the real site.

The Prison Service

 

One of my ads today was advertising jobs in the Prison Service.

I wonder how successful that is.

Freecycle

 

We're building a new set of stables and offices here at the moment and we have lots of old curved bricks and roof timbers to get rid of.

So I put them on the Cambridge Freecycle site.

Quite a few of the bricks and wood has gone.

So if you want to get rid of something look up your local Freecycle Group on the Internet.

I also have been chatting to an interesting artist called Syrah Jade, who will be taking some of the offerings this Sunday.

Search Engine Optimisation

 

I've just added a document which tells how I do search engine optimisation.

This is very much an alternative approach, that doesn't require pots of money.

Checking UK Post Codes

 

Confirming UK addresses is very easy as UK post codes generally only cover about a dozen houses. Many legitimate businesses also have their own post code.

1. Go to www.royalmail.com and they have an almost free postcode finder, that you can use to check addresses. I say almost-free as you can only do so many free checks a day.
2. Go to www.google.co.uk and type the post code in quotes into Google searching the UK only. Try it with "CB8 9LU" which is my postcode.
3. Go to www.multimap.co.uk and type the post code in to get a map.

In most cases this will give you enough evidence to find a crook.

I had a scam supposedly from The National Lottery, PO Box 1010, Liverpool L70 1NL. I typed the postcode into the Royal Mail and they didn't know it. The Royal Mail post code finder is very up to date.

Also try out CB8 8NP, which is the post code of my bank. You will find that it not only gives the address, but the name of the Bank. Thus, if you have a business address, it often checks directly. I also think that the Royal Mail doesn't give out a post code without checking the building or company physically.

Marketing a Film

 

Perhaps I shouldn't say this, but now that Google, Blogger and YouTube are now united and will link their search strategies in the next few months, I think that you now have the perfect medium for viral marketing of anything. And that includes a film.

http://www.jamesmiller.com/mtmblog/blogger.html

This is the blog for my book, Making the Most of the Internet, and it shows how a blog can be fully integrated into a web site.

Note :-

1. The blog is fully indexed, so you can find anything you want quickly.
2. A blog is updated by just logging in and adding the name of the article and the text.
3. You can also add pictures and video clips quickly and easily.
4. Readers can add comments to the blog, which can be unmoderated, moderated or added by approved users only. I prefer the unmoderated, as you can always remove the offensive.
5. Anybody with the right permissions can add topics to the blog. So you, the director and the tea boy can all be empowered.
6. The blog is easily linked to YouTube and external web pages.

But I think the great thing about using an integrated blog is that you will get feedback and you might like to use this to change either the film or the way it is promoted and marketed.

Another Dropped Laptop

 

I've had a delay on a project because someone put all the pictures needed on a laptop and then dropped it.

Always back-up a laptop.

Where Are The Prisoners?

 

Every day we get some other Home Office cock-up about where prisoners are, how many of escaped, what they have done etc.

Here's a few thoughts.

There are about 100,000 people in prison in the UK and they are stored in about 135 prisons. I deliberately chose stored as nothing positive in either punishment or retraining is done with many of them, so that they might think about behaving when they are released back into society.

Let's also assume that the average time anyone spends in prison is six months. That may be rather low, but for the purpose of this analysis it is better to err on the low than the high side.

So that means we have 200,000 movements into the prisons every year and 200,000 out. If you add in the fact that each of those prisoners will move once, that gives 600,000 movements or an average of about 4,500 per prison per year.

To get an idea of how big or small this number is, easyJet carried 2.3 million passengers in January 2006. I would suspect that an airline passenger is about as complicated to manage as a prisoner when it comes to a database.

So when governments say they have trouble with databases, they must be talking to the wrong people. When did any reputable airline have troubles with the larger numbers it handles?

So if we go back to our prisoner database, we are talking about 4,500 per prison per year or about 18 on the average working day. In other words even if an individual prison has a lot more movements than 18 per day, the data entry requirements are well within the capabilities of one operator working part time on one PC connected to the Internet. Or an Internet like network. (Government spends fortunes on secure networks, whereas airlines and banks who handle just as sensitive data rely on the Internet with extra security. I suspect they are right.)

So there is no excuse for not creating a central database with details of everyone in UK prisons. I have lots of experience in this area and one that was fit for purpose could be created by two or three experts in a few months. Costs would be a few thousand for the central database computer and perhaps a quarter of a million for creating and loading the system. i.e. It would be peanuts compared to a system designed by one of the Governments preferred suppliers who copper-bottom and gold-plate everything and still get it wrong.

As a better idea, why not get two individual groups to create the system independently? Then choose the best and give that company a bonus of say £100,000 and the contract to run it for some years. No-one ever puts competition into computer contracts, which is one reason why they fail. You also know that the longer it takes the more money you make.

I would create a web based reporting system for the database, which could be examined by anybody who can work a browser, who has access to the system. I've done this in the past and it works spectacularly as senior managers no longer ask their subordinates to do the work they should be doing themselves. Perhaps though it is not a good idea as civil servants are in the job creation, rather than the job reduction business.

But also why not desensitise some of the database and allow the public to access it through the Internet? So therefore if you wanted to know how many were in jail for not paying council tax or murder, it would then be obvious. You would have to make sure that an individual was not identified, but that is a simple matter if a computer system is properly designed.

Will it happen?

Never.

Web Site Design Costs

 

I deal a lot at the low end and tend to emphasise costs from the start.

I always say that content is the most important thing in a web site and this is what gets you the search engine position, so you must start with content. I then say that we need a temporary navigation system, which we'll update and change in a couple of months, when the site is complete.

This approach shifts actually puts design behind content and often as content determines what pages need to be written, I find it a much better approach.

It may be easier for me in that most of the people I deal with are lawyers, journalists and writers, who are generally good at content.

Short of a Couple of Rolls of Wallpaper

 

We are currently wallpapering the hall and guess what. We may be a few rolls short.

So I just typed the name; Arbutus and the code; WR8466/3 into Google and found two people selling the paper. As we bought the paper a year or so ago, a quick e-mail will confirm if they have the correct batch number.

This just shows the power of Google.

Website Accessibility

 

There's actually more to this than you think. It's not just making sure that your web site is easily accessed, by the special software used by the visually impaired. for isntance, you should document images and avoid complicated Java.

I'm sixty next year and need glasses to read the screen, as do many people. But often your glasses are not as strong as they need to be to read some web sites. Dare I say it, but some because vanity don't wear the glasses they should!

So make sure that the text isn't too small.

I suspect that one of the problems is that most web designers are young and don't appreciate the problems of older and disabled users.

As an aside to this, my wife has several different shampoos and conditioners. When I run out of my shampoo, I then have to decipher which of hers are shampoo. Several times, I've tried to wash my hair in conditioner, as none seem to have large labels saying what they are!

So it's not just a web problem.

Confirm Messages

 

Many web sites send you a confirm message, which you have to action to get registered at a site. Many site owners complain that about seventy percent of registrants never finish the process.

This is not a problem to me, as I don't run that sort of site.

Perhaps the solution to confirm messages is not necessarily solved by computer technology, but by some good business sense.

Let's say that everybody who registers on your site is worth say $100 in orders in a year. In a normal business, you would probably be prepared to pay say 5-10 per cent on sales promotion, either in the form of adverts or a mail shot. So why not offer a discount of the first order, when someone registers or put their name into a free draw with either a cash price or free product.

A version of this technique was used by Waitrose to get their on-line shopping going here in the UK. They just gave out vouchers off a first on-line order in their supermarkets. Also the on-line bookmakers and betting exchanges here, also give you a free bet to start with.

So don't forget good old-fashioned business solutions!

The Affordable Web Site

 

Let's say you are starting a small business and want a web site. I'll assume you're providing some sort of goods and services locally, rather than be a company or individual who wants to sell lots of things on-line.

Your business could be something like a solicitors, a cafe or restaurant, a plumbers or any of the other small businesses that we all need and have tremendous difficulty in finding to suit our exact taste or requirements.

The information you put on a web site falls into one of two categories :-

• Fixed - Your profile, location and what you basically do.
  
• Variable - Special offers, new services and personnel, holiday arrangements and everything else that happens as you improve your business.
  

Depending on your business, the proportion of fixed and variable information is different. For instance, a solicitor or someone whose business doesn't change much, will have a higher share of fixed content. On the other hand, a restaurant will find that most content is variable and frequently changes. For example, how many restaurant web sites show a typical menu?

So why not split the fixed and the variable, with the fixed going into a traditional web site and the variable information going into a blog, that has been fully integrated into the web site.

Look at the Cambridge Law web site, which I have written as an example of how you can integrate a blog into a web site.

Refreshing Browser

 

I was asked by a client to provide a browser with no borders that refreshed. Not that easy, as you need to have some means of control, so that you can switch the program off and configure it. I solved that with a small control panel you can click in the corner.

His application sounds bizarre in that he wanted to display text messages on a screen in an entertainment venue, such as a bar, pub or club. Think about it though and your mind races as to what purposes you'd use such a system for. I will not speculate here. But as you can see he wants the maximum screen and he wants it to look like television rather than a web browser.

I succeeded and the result was an update to my Refreshing Browser.

The applications have since cracked on apace.

I have friends who use it to demo their product on the web as on a laptop the extra screen space is valuable.

The program can now be script driven, so that sequences of web pages, such as news, sport and adverts can be put together as simple displays for a shop, cafe or pub.

Thinking this through, you could have a company like Starbucks, that has a display in each cafe, that serves up a mixture of news, sports and adverts, silently to all their customers. It would only require a standard PC with a large plasma screen and an broadband Internet connection. All control would be central, with only a reboot required locally.

I ran this through with the manager of my local computer store which is part of a large UK chain and he was very enthusiastic for all sorts of reasons, but mainly the central control which would save his staff time.

I have received several enthusiastic reactions and feel it should be shared as many on this list, may have applications in their companies or clients.

Smilers

 

Smilers are an interesting innovation from the Royal Mail, that allows you to print your own stamps to go with their more legitimate ones.

I would think that they have some very interesting marketing applications, in that you could print a stamp showing your new team, product or whatever and add them to a promotion.

It's funny, but the Royal Mail is not thought to be an innovative company in an innovative industry. But actions speak otherwise.

Google's New Toolbar

 

I've recently installed the new Google toolbar. I wasn't sure about it at first but I'm beginning to like.

It does do some interesting things though.

Today, Tony Blair met Nursultan Nazarbayev, the President of Kazahstan. They appeared to have enjoyed themselves but what does Google know about Mr. Nazarbayev.

So I put Nazarbayev into the new Google toolbar, which always suggests words that you might like to use in the search. In this case Google only had one suggestion, corruption.

Perhaps you should always judge a man by the friends he keeps.

Google AdSense

 

Last night I added Google AdSense advertisement links to my three blogs.

I'm not really a lover of adverts on web pages, but I wanted to see how the links behaved and whether they were beneficial.

Perhaps, this was best answered by the first link that came up on my Coeliac Diary blog. It was for a company called Wiltshire Farm Foods that sell all sorts of ready meals over the Internet.

I'm not sure whether I will taste them or not, but it does show how Google can target the right sort of advertisement for your site.

I've also put a link in the sidebar so that you can sign up for Google AdSense.

I'll let the adverts run for a bit and see if they make any money. That is the real test.

Tax Discs On Line

 

In the last few days, I've just bought two tax discs on line.

Generally the system works well, but we had terrible problems today in that the site was very busy.

So does that mean that the general public is embracing Internet purchase of Vehicle Licences?

Vonage

 

I have cancelled my subscription to Vonage.

You may ask why.

The reason is that I found it impossible to get the system working with a standard NetGear router, when I changed it. Support was non-existent, so I felt the best thing to do would be to cut my losses.

And they had a cancellation charge of £23.99.

That stinks!

BT Digital Vault

 

BT Digital Vault appears to be a fully functional backup system for your PC for just £4.99 a month.

It seems that the Internet is growing fast in what it can do for you.

Text Messages From Web Pages

 

Look at my contact page.

Note how you can send me a text message by typing it into the page and then clicking send.

This is based on LiquidDrop technology. They are a Cambridge based E-Mail to SMS company.

Integrating Google

 

On the links page for my web site, I have placed a Google search box.

Use that and the results of the search will be shown in a similar format as my web site. All you have to do, is register with Google, update a few default settings and then copy the generated code into your web site.

Yet another case of Google providing a powerful engine for web developers.

How Not To Navigate a Web Site

 

We like to go to the cinema at the weekends. Often we go to Cineworld in either Bury. St. Edmunds or Cambridge. Rumours persist that we may also be getting one in Haverhill.

All this is good.

However, the same can't be said for the website.

Try finding out quickly what film is on and the navigation is crap. Well it's actually worse than that, but I can't use a suitable word in a decent web site. Their old site was so much better.

So I go say to the Guardian which has an excellent film finder.

News and the Integrated Blog

 

This blog or weblog is fully integrated with the Making the Most of the Internet web site. It also serves as a professional news page for the book :-

1. It has the same navigation bar and menu as the main site.
2. Colours and feel is the same.
3. The blog is updated using Blogger in the same way as any other blog.
4. It is stored on the Making the Most of the Internet web site.

So how was this achived?

The blog was originally created in the same way as a normal blog and it was stored in a sub-directory of the Making the Most of the Internet web site. One of the standard templates called Scribe was originally used, although it has since been extensively modified.

The main page of the blog was put in the menu of the site. This meant that the blog was called directly from any of the pages in the web site.

The template of the blog was then gradually changed. Typically changes were :-

1. The main site style sheet was used.
2. The background was changed to the same as the main site.
3. The header was modified so that it included the standard site header.
4. The site was then gradually adjusted until it resembled the one you see now.

Was it difficult?

Yes and no! If you don't know style sheets and html, then don't attempt it, but if you do with patience you should be able to do the integration in a few hours.

But I would make sure you save the template before modifying it.

E-Mails to Multiple Recipients

 

When you send an e-mail to lots of recipients, you should never put all of the names in the To or Copy fields.

It is a very bad idea to give all the recipients, all of the other e-mail addresses. One might be a spammer or more likely have a virus that distributes all of those addresses to one.


Use the Bcc or Blind Copy field for the multiple e-mail addresses and put yourself in the To field. This protects everybody’s e-mail address.

Note how the e-mail addresses are separated by semi-colons (;) in the figure above.

Note that if you are sending e-mails to the same set of recipients on a regular basis, then you can define a distribution list in e-mail programs such as Outlook.

Printing Postage On-Line

 

I have used this facility from Royal Mail several times and feel that in general it is a very good and professional system. There are a few issues though.

Good Features

1. The ability to print as many times as needed. I have a rather old laser, that isn’t too smart and sometimes jams with envelopes.

2. The e-mails that say you’ve posted. Not exactly a proof of posting, but good enough for many purposes. Did I actually post that letter? When did I send it?

3. The general structure of the site, which means you get the address right.

Bugs

1. Sometimes I have tried several times to submit a label/stamp and it tells me to try later. I’ve been persistent and not failed, but would put many off.

2. It did confuse my return address with a line in the recipient’s address. Not repeated since. Could have been finger trouble, but doubt it.

3. When you print a label/stamp to say Ireland, it returns to print another overseas stamp. Should return to the general print again.

4. I sent a letter to a company with their own postcode – Dyson Ltd. The system wanted me to put a house name, flat number etc. in. In the end I entered Dyson Ltd. as a building name.

5. There is no place when sending to a business to enter the job title.

Requested Features

1. A simpler interface so I don’t have to click so many times to print a First Class label/stamp. Look at Amazon’s One Click approach.

2. Saved recipients so if you send a lot of letters to the same person, you login and print.

3. The ability to cut and paste an address from Outlook, bypassing the address checker. I can understand that this might not be easy, but I have written a lot of software that decodes names and addresses and extracts the post code.

4. The ability to upload a list of names and addresses and then print them on labels. Why not allow people to update their Christmas card lists in this way? You shouldn’t lose them like we all do.

5. The timeout is too short. It should also remember you when you return.

6. A small point is that I always address letters to Ireland as Eire. This may be wrong, but I can’t change it.

Summary

I'll give it about eight out of ten for now.

Keywords in Web Pages

 

I think putting keywords in web pages using META tags is fairly pointless as I don't think it helps with the search engines or anything else at all.

The main trouble with keywords is that they promote your view of the site and what you think your customers should be. But how many of your customers use your products in a way it was not intended? One of my products was written for a bookmaker and I have just sold several copies to the US Army in Iraq.

Often setting up the list of keywords takes a great deal of management time, as everybody argues about what should be on the list and what shouldn't. I was in one meeting which reminded me of the discussions held in the Middle Ages about how many angels could dance on the head of a pin.

Keywords also make all of your pages appear the same to the search engines. Now if you have a variety of products, this might mean that someone looking for something you do sell, will end up on a totally unrelated and irrelevant page.

So if you do use keywords they should be relevant to the page. For instance the Contact page on the site, should only contain the keywords "XXX Company contact", if it contains any at all, as these words should be contained within the page.

I have always found that the best keyword pages are case studies, where you describe how your products are used. These are obviously linked to the actual product pages, and your home page. Again do they need keywords.

Google Spreadsheets

 

This is a very interesting development.

Watch it!

Checking Links with Outlook 2003

 

Outlook 2003 has a very useful feature for checking whether an e-mail is from the person you think it is.

Look at this fragment of an e-mail supposedly from HSBC.


Note how I've moved the mouse over the URL in the e-mail and Outlook 2003 shows what the real URL is. What has merlin.connectability.com got to do with HSBC?

Nothing! This e-mail is a phishing scam.

Who the hell is CACATUL anyway?

Spam Fighting with Outlook 2003

 

I have recently changed to Outlook 2003 in order to test out the spam filter.

As I learn more and more about Outlook 2003, I can honestly say that the program is an order of magnitude better than Outlook XP.

My method of working is as follows :-

• I have the Junk filter in Outlook 2003 set to Low. This seems to stop most of the spam, which it places in the Junk E-Mail folder.
• I have the Junk E-Mail folder ordered by From, so that I can do a quick scan to see if anybody there is a friend not a spammer.
• Every so often I move the contents of the Junk E-Mail folder to my spam store, where I hold every message I get. This may seem daft, but I analyse it for patterns.
• A normal sane person would delete the spam.
• If I find a message in the Junk E-Mail folder, which is not junk, I just mark it as such and Outlook 2003 can be set to remember the name.
• All of this means that Outlook 2003 has quickly learned who are friends and who are foe.

Excellent!

Publishing with Lulu

 

Making the Most of the Internet has been published on Lulu.

This is a simple system that allows you to take a document file, such as one created by Word and make it into a publishable book. The document is just uploaded, you set a few parameters and it is published.

There is only a small charge to get it into the various book indices.

When anybody wants a copy, they go the Making the Most of the Internet page, choose a download or a printed copy and then pay for it just as one would at Amazon.