Posts Tagged ‘impression’

Why do you still need Image Optimization then ?

Thursday, June 26th, 2008

- Accessibility
- Better end user experience
- Valid code
- Helps the overall impression on your site

Accessibility is one crucial factor many of us ignore while designing websites. And may be..it’s completely fair from our perspective. But coming back to design basics, if you are not taking care of it, you are not doing things right. It’s like leaving the html tags open, and you may still argue that your text is showing up on the browser, so why should you close it? You know that a good code must have the html tags closed.

Better user experience - Imagine you block all the images on the browser because you want to save some bandwidth and cut down your internet bill, and you visit cnn.com only to see that you can’t see the images in there. Instead everything appear all white. You won’t be able to even make out what the content or story is all about. Had the images carried an ALT tag, users could easily make out what the image is all about, even if didn’t load on the browser.

Valid code - As the first point said, valid code is essential for SE optimized pages. you have to follow a W3C compliant structure, in order to get the trust form search engines. Now for that to happen, there is no way you leave image optimization unattended.

Helps the overall look and impression of your site - You like flowers and colors, and everyone else does too. You like websites that has images to decorate it while a few others prefer to remain plain and pale. If you want to look good - be good.

Hands on Cpanel 11

Saturday, June 21st, 2008

I have had the opportunity to use Cpanel 11 from September, and my ranking of the Linux/Apache hosting control panel is quite high. I had to wait this long on the advice of my server management company, to upgrade to the most stable version of Cpanel 11.

The first and most striking impression is the new looks. The entire user interface of Cpanel has been overhauled and its now much more visually-appealing. The icons that link to the main controls have also been re-arranged into more relevant groups and same goes with a new Notice panel that displays on the top left corner of the Cpanel first screen. The Notice panel displays vital warnings about the hosting account in red, and also carries News from the web host or server administrator.

Some controls hitherto placed a few clicks into the panel have been brought to the homepage making such controls more accessible. Even better, cPanel shortcuts have been introduced. These links can be added to your desktop or your browser’s bookmarks toolbar. They are an easy way to access your cPanel.

What makes the several panels better is that they can actually be moved to suit the preference of the user. All a user has to do is drag-and-drop. The overall theme of Cpanel can be changed as well. Thats not new, but whats new are the several other more visually-appealing themes that have been added.

For a new Cpanel user, there are free Video Tutorials that would guide them through all the basics of using Cpanel 11. Similar videos have been made available before now by other companies, for a fee. Not to forget the “Getting Started Wizard”, a 7-page basic guide that takes new Cpanel users through the rudiments of setting-up their new hosting account.

The Cpanel interface loads faster as well. In some cases, processes are carried-out using AJAX thus the entire page needs not be re-loaded, to complete a process. Some back-end processes now run faster as well. Example? SpamAssasin. It now requires less server resources.

These are a few amongst the several CPanel improvements that make an upgrade a must. What has been your experience with using Cpanel 11? Share your thoughts here and now.

Advertising

Thursday, June 19th, 2008

I hate AdSense on blogs. Usually, I ignore it, but I also cast a sharp eye towards the quality of the posts and professionalism of the content when I see AdSense. That’s not to say that contextual advertising can’t work well in some blogs, but it needs to be well integrated into the design and layout to help defer criticism. Don’t get me wrong - it’s unfair to judge a blog by its cover (or, in this case, its ads), but spend a lot of time surfing blogs and you’ll have the same impression - low quality blogs run AdSense and many high quality ones don’t. I always recommend that whether personal or professional, you wait until your blog has achieved a level of success before you start advertising. Ads, whether they’re sponsorships, banners, contextual or other, tend to have a direct, negative impact on the number of readers who subscribe, add to favorites and link - you definitely don’t want that limitation while you’re still trying to get established.