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5 Tips For Making Your Website More User Friendly

By: SearchArticles.net, Sun Aug 20th, 2006

There are many things you can do to make your website as user friendly as possible. And, believe it or not, this should be your number one goal when it comes to designing a website because if it is not easy for visitors to navigate then they simply will not visit and your business will suffer. So, the following tips will help you significantly when trying to make your site as user friendly as possible.

Tip #1 Fast Loading One of the most important aspects of your website is making sure that it loads quickly. As long as your website loads fast then visitors will stick around to see what you have to offer. However, if your site takes longer than a few seconds to load then you can say goodbye to your visitors because they will exit out and find another site to visit that loads quicker. So, make sure your site loads fast and you will have part one of user friendliness down.

Tip #2 Layout Your site needs to have a layout that is very clear so that visitors can easily see where the information is located, any links you may have provided, and all information on your site. Having a confusing layout will send visitors straight to the search engines to find another site that is easy to maneuver. So, make sure your site is organized and laid out in a way that is extremely obvious to web users.

Tip #3 Colors Use colors on your website to keep visitors interested in what you have to say. Also, be sure to use bold colors that are easy to see like blacks, blues, reds, greens, purples, and the like. Yellows, oranges, and other colors, as well as small fonts, can be very difficult to see and make reading information very difficult. Review your site colors and see if they stand out and are easy to read. If so, then you have no worries. If not, then you need to do some work.

Tip #4 FAQs Believe it or not, but an FAQ page is one of the best user friendly things you can add to your website. This is because most visitors have a few questions and generally they are the same questions as other visitors before them. So, answer the most frequently asked questions on your website and make your job easier by not receiving tons of the same questions while informing web visitors. An FAQ page is a win/win situation.

Tip #5 Information Finally, make your site user friendly by providing information that is relevant and easy to understand. Remember that your web visitors are not geniuses and they don't know your website in and out like you do, so explain information so web visitors are completely aware of what services or products you offer.

Direct Link: WebsiteTips

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Internet Basics

By: Grant Pasay, Thu Aug 17th, 2006

Ever get a leftovers note when you came home late one night? It might have said something like:

"Went to bed. There's chicken in the fridge and pie in the freezer."

That's what a URL is like.

URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator, which is really a fancy way of saying it tells you where something is located on the Internet. Most of us only encounter URLs that tell us where a website or webpage is. For example:

·The URL http:// www . somedomain. com tells us where the somedomain.com website is located
·The URL http:// www .somedomain. com/product1.html tells us where the webpage is for product #1 on the somedomain.com website

But if you went to either of the URLs above (they're fictitious by the way) you'd encounter dozens, if not hundreds, of other URLs along the way, probably without even knowing it. How?

Well, every image that appears on any webpage is stored on a computer somewhere that's connected to the Internet (this computer is called a server). And when a webpage's URL is typed into a browser, the browser doesn't just receive the webpage file, it also receives all the individual image files that appear within that webpage. And each of those images has to be found in order to be sent along with the webpage file. And guess how each of those images are found - that's right, their own URL.

So while http:// www .somedomain. com/product1.htmlcould be the URL for a specific webpage, that webpage could include a URL like http:// www . somedomain. com/images/logo.gif which would mean there's a logo image file named "logo.gif" and it can be found in the "images" folder on the same server that the product1.html webpage file is located at.

And then there'd be a URL for the "Special Sale" image on the same page, and another URL for the "Product 1" image, and so on and so on. And there'd also be URLs for Flash content, or audio, or video, or whatever else ends up on that webpage.

And just like there's only one leftovers note that points out the location of multiple things (chicken here, pie over there), so too a webpage's URL can ultimately point out the location of multiple things using multiple URLs.
And that's why a URL is like a leftovers note.

Copyright (c) Grant Pasay 2005. All rights reserved. You may forward this article in its entirety to anyone you wish.

About the author: Grant Pasay is a writer, musician, moviemaker, and author of the new eBook, "The Internet Is Like A Refrigerator: And Other Weird Comparisons That Make it Easy to Understand Everything From AOL to Zip Files."

Check out Grant's free/brandable ebook at: GrantPasay/Refrigerator
Check out Grant at: GrantPasay

Direct Link: InternetBasics

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Mozilla Firefox 2 Released

Tuesday October 24th, 2006

The Mozilla Corporation has officially released Mozilla Firefox 2 for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. Coming just days after the launch of Microsoft Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 2 offers a refreshed user interface, anti-phishing protection, improvements to the built-in search feature, tabbed browsing changes, the ability to restore an interrupted session, better support for Web feeds, inline spell-checking, support for microsummaries and a number of other enhancements.

Upon starting Firefox 2 for the first time, most users will notice the updated default theme. This refines the design and usability of the theme used since Firefox 1.0 without making any jarring or radical alterations. Design proposals were solicited from three agencies: MetaDesign, Radiant Core and Raizlabs. Radiant Core's proposal was picked and developed for the finished product.

In addition to refining the look of the buttons and other visual elements, the new design tethers the Go button to the Location Bar and adds an equivalent action button to the Search Bar. Several clickable buttons (for example, the feed icon in the Location Bar and the search engine icon in the Search Bar) have been refined to make it more obvious that they are interactive.

Firefox 2's Phishing Protection feature was developed from the Google Safe Browsing feature of theGoogle Toolbar for Firefox using code donated by the search giant. By default, the Phishing Protection feature checks every page you visit against a local blacklist of known phishing sites and displays a warning if the site is fraudulent. This list is periodically updated by Firefox while the feature is enabled.

For more real-time protection, users can choose (from the Security panel of the Options/Preferences window) to send details of every site they visit to a remote service for checking (currently Google is the only service provider, though other phishing data providers can be supported). With this feature enabled, the URL of every page visited is sent to Google for checking over a secure connection. In addition, details of how users respond to phishing warnings are also sent. While real-time checking can offer greater protection, there are obvious privacy implications, which is why only the local list is enabled by default.

The rapid increase in the number of phishing attacks has led most major browser vendors to implement anti-phishing technologies. Internet Explorer 7 has a Phishing Filter and the forthcoming Opera 9.1 will include a similar Suspected Site Fraud feature. According to reports, Apple Safari 3 will have anti-phishing warnings, which will be powered by Google technology like the Firefox 2 Phishing Protection.

Firefox 2 enhances the search features built into the browser. The most striking addition is support for search suggestions: as text is entered into the Search Bar, the selected search engine can optionally send back a list of suggestions to be displayed in a menu, similar to the Web-based Google Suggest technology demo but built into the browser. Several search engines distributed with Firefox 2, including Google and Yahoo!, support this feature out of the box.

In addition to Apple's ageing Sherlock search engine plugin format, Firefox 2 also supports search engines defined in the OpenSearch plugin format developed by Amazon's A9.com search engine. OpenSearch is also backed by Microsoft, so OpenSearch plugins created for Firefox 2 will also work in Internet Explorer 7.
OpenSearch defines a mechanism to allow browsers to auto-discover search engine plugins. When visiting a site that advertises an OpenSearch plugin, the Search Bar icon will 'light up' and users can install the search plugin from the search engine selection menu. Firefox 2 also adds a feature for managing installed search engines, allowing engines to be easily reordered or removed.

Tabbed browsing has also been improved in Firefox 2. In response to usability testing of Firefox's tabbed browsing, the close button has been moved from the end of the tab bar to the actual tab. By default, all tabs have a close button but if many tabs are opened the close button is just shown on the current tab to save space. Any user who has closed a tab accidentally will appreciate the new Undo Close Tab option on the tab bar context menu and the Recently Closed Tabs submenu of the new History menu (which replaces the Go menu).

Changes have also been made to the way large numbers of tabs are handled. Each individual tab still gets smaller and smaller as more tabs are introduced but there is now a minimum size after which arrows appear at each end of the tab bar, allowing users to scroll through their tabs. A menu at the far end of the tab bar allows users to quickly switch to any open tab.

The new Session Restore feature aims to reduce the frustration caused by losing work due to a crash. When Firefox is restarted after being unexpectedly closed, a dialogue offers the user the option to restore their previous session: windows, tabs, text entered into forms and in-progress downloads are all brought back. The Session Restore feature is also activated for restarts required by application or extension updates.

Firefox 1.0 and 1.5 automatically detected Web feeds and allowed users to easily create Live Bookmarks from them. In Firefox 2, when a user clicks on the feed icon in the Location Bar (or visits a Web feed manually), Firefox shows a friendly view of the RSS or Atom data, reminiscent of the feed view offered by Safari and more recently Internet Explorer 7. From this view, users can subscribe to the feed using Live Bookmarks, an installed application that supports Web feeds (such as Mozilla Thunderbird) or a Web-based service (Bloglines, My Yahoo! and Google Reader are supported by default but other Web-based feed readers can easily be added to Firefox).

Firefox 2 adds a built-in spell checker to allow text entered into Web forms to be easily checked. This works much like the similar feature in Thunderbird (itself heavily influenced by Microsoft Word): potentially misspelt words are underlined in red and can be corrected by selecting an appropriate suggestion from the context menu. By default, only spell checking for multi-line text areas is enabled but checking can also be activated on single-line text fields. Using non-standard HTML attributes, websites have some limited control over which fields are checked by default. A variety of spell checking dictionaries for a number of languages are available, with the first run page shown after upgrading to Firefox 2 offering an appropriate dictionary for the localisation of Firefox installed.
Live Titles (also known as Microsummaries) allow bookmark titles to be more dynamic and useful. For example, rather than just displaying a static title, a bookmark for a news site could display the latest headline. This data is then periodically updated, providing a useful and non-intrusive summary of the current state of a bookmarked page. A number of sites support microsummaries and microsummary generators can be installed for sites that do not.
The Mozilla Developer Center has details about Firefox 2 for developers, including information about JavaScript 1.7 support, SVG in Firefox 2 and changes needed to make extensions compatible with Firefox 2.

Firefox 2 can be downloaded from the redesigned Firefox product page (now available in 27 languages). Localised versions of Firefox 2 are available for over thirty different locales. Existing users of Firefox will be offered the new version via the software update system over the next few days.

The Firefox 2 features page has details about some of the major features in the browser and the Firefox 2 Release Notes have more specific information.

The Mozilla Corporation has issued a press release extolling the virtues of Firefox 2 and CEO Mitchell Baker has written a statement on the importance of Firefox 2.

This weekend, several hundred parties will be held to celebrate the release of Firefox 2 across the globe. A gift has already arrived from an unexpected source: the Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 team sent a cake in a move that shows relations may have improved somewhat since the days of Microsoft dumping a giant IE logo on Netscape's front lawn to mark the release of IE4 in 1997.

Looking further ahead, Firefox 3 is currently scheduled for release in the second quarter of 2007. Developed under the code name Gran Paradiso, Firefox 3 will be based on Gecko 1.9 (Firefox 2 is based on Gecko 1.8.1) and will include a number of under-the-hood improvements.

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By: Richard Lowe, Thu Aug 17th, 2006

Perhaps one of the most important things to consider when determining how to get on the internet is choosing your ISP (Internet Service Provider). This is the company that connects you to the internet via the phone line, DSL, modem, T1 or whatever else you want to use. Generally they provide the following:

- A way to get to the internet. This can be a simple dial-up modem, a DSL line, a cable modem or even a satellite link.

- A software package (generally a customized browser such as Netscape or Internet explorer)

- A logon (username and password)

- An access phone number for dialup or ISDN connections.

- Free web space (AOL, for example, gives you 2mb per screen name).

- Access to a newsgroup server.

- One or more email accounts.

Nothing else will enhance or undermine your surfing experience as quickly or as totally as your choice of ISP. A good ISP is a joy to work with because basically after installation you never even worry about them. The phone lines are virtually never busy, the connection is robust, their technical services are always available and cheerful. In other words, a good ISP is like the proverbial Maytag repairman (remember those commercials) - you never need to worry about them because they always work well.
A bad ISP, on the other hand, makes your surfing experience miserable. Very little is as frustrating as when you need to access the web and you get constant busy signals. Lines that hang up mysteriously or newsgroup servers that don't work. Email that's lost or very late, and technical services people that never seem to be available or return phone calls. It's usually wise to take your time when choosing an ISP, because most of them require a multi-month contract. I would offer the following advice:

- Try and get a month-to-month contact if you can so you can cancel (at least at first, until you know how good they are).

- Do your research and don't be swayed by fancy ads and television commercials.

- If you can, check out their newsgroup (many ISPs have their own technical support newsgroups), message boards and chat rooms.

- Ask your friends and associates if they have any experience with them

- Before you make the decision get their technical support number and make a call. Pretend like you are a naive user and ask a few questions. See how long you wait on hold and how helpful the people are.

- Check out a history of the value of their stocks. Companies that are having trouble tend to have stock values which have declined in recent months.

- Make sure you get a flat rate for connection time. It's a good idea to never, ever get a per-hour charge as these can add up fast. Make sure the ISP has a local phone number. Long distance charges will also add up very quickly.

- Even if you can still find a free ISP, I would highly recommend against them. There is always a hidden cost to these places, and lately they have tended to be very unstable.

- Personally, I try not to mix apples and oranges. A good ISP does not necessarily make a good web host.

Once you've chosen an ISP and are set up, don't put up with anything. You wouldn't wait very long if your phone stopped working to get it fixed, would you? So don't wait to let someone know if your service is poor and be prepared to escalate it all the way up the corporate ladder if you need to. These guys are taking your money and providing a service, and you deserve good service.

Direct Link: WebSurfing

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By: Robert Palmer, Thu Jun 22nd, 2006

If someone entered your home, uninvited and installed numerous cameras and listening devices in order to monitor your activities, you would quite rightly be outraged. While such a situation, unless you are living in the Big Brother House, would be considered ridiculous, the same cannot be said for the humble home computer.

Recently released research alarmingly shows that home PC’s are increasingly likely to host software which can watch each and every keystroke the user inputs. According to the research compiled from an audit conducted jointly by the software firm, WebRoot and services provider, EarthLink, the average home PC hosts 28 so-called spyware programs.

Whilst the worst examples of spyware are written by virus writers to steal passwords and hijack computers to launch “denial of service” attacks against web-servers, the vast majority are used to collate marketing information and then target advertising according to the end-users web surfing habits.

The WebRoot/EarthLink audit surveyed more than 1.5 million PC’s during the last 12 months and discovered an amazing 41 million incidents of spyware; adware, Trojans, tracking cookies and other undesirable programs.

Most of these programs are loaded into the computer memory when the PC is started up. From here, the program will work silently, often giving no clues as to its existence. However, unexplained browser window pop-up’s, often advertising adult services and mysterious alterations to the browsers homepage setting are more often than not an indication that spyware is present and active on a computer. One particular piece of spyware, which is proving to be very expensive for many home users, is that of Trojan Diallers. Diallers, often without any warning to the end-user, hangs up the current net connection and then automatically reconnects using a Premium Rate telephone number, thus running up huge telephone bills. The activities of companies using this technology as a revenue stream are currently under investigation in the UK by government watchdogs.

A hard-disk and memory overflowing with spyware used to be one of the unfortunate consequences of visiting sex and adult orientated sites; a kind of eSTD. Like most Internet marketing technologies, from the pop-up to the pop-under and the first snowball of Spam, spyware began life serving the adult industry. Then, just like pop-up, spyware filtered through all aspects of ecommerce. In an interview to the BBC, David Moll, CEO of WebRoot, said that spyware has now become so common across the whole of the Internet, that it can be contracted from nearly anywhere.

So-called “drive-by downloads” are now responsible for most infections of spyware. The term “drive-by” refers to the casualness of the infection. By simply visiting an ordinary webpage a user can unwittingly initiate an automatic download of spyware onto their computer. There are no clues and no warnings.

In a recent, carefully controlled and closed demonstration, it took me less than 20 minutes to create a spyware program and embed it into a webpage. Using colleagues who had previously been made aware of the nature of the experiment, I invited them to take a look at this “special” but very ordinary looking webpage. Within seconds of visiting this webpage, the spyware went to work taking a snapshot of their hard disk, a snapshot of their Favourites folder and a copy of their browsing history. Before they had even finished reading the webpage, the spyware was already transferring their information to my server. It’s as easy as that! Equally that same code could be manipulated to perform a total trash of the hard disk or some other equally miserable and criminal act.

Speaking to the BBC, David Moll explained.

"Some (spyware programs) lurk on misspelled URLs and strike those that type faster than their fingers can carry them. As a result you do not end up where you expect to be."

Alarmingly, users do not even need to visit a website to contract spyware. The preview window in Microsoft’s Outlook Express allows emails containing HTML and any other code which can be placed on a normal webpage, to be loaded, without warning. Companies looking to implant spyware using the “drive-by” principal are regularly exploiting this glaringly obvious flaw in the design of Outlook Express.

"If you get one piece of spyware, you will get five because the business model says they pay each other to pass on information about victims," said Mr Moll.

Thankfully anti-spyware/adware programs such as Ad-Aware (free) and WebRoot’s own offering, Spy Sweeper can clean up a PC and even help prevent further infections, but just like anti-virus software, anti-spyware software needs to be kept up-to-date to remain effective.

In addition to providing software solutions to this problem, legislators too are seeking to end this electronic intrusion. In the USA an anti-spyware bill is moving towards approval in Congress. If successfully implemented, this bill will force firms who wish to use spyware to first receive permission from the end-user before it is installed. But even before any new laws come into place, spyware makers are already working on next generation coding which keep their programs intact and operational….perhaps even on your PC.

Related Links: WebRoot Spyware Audit Webroot Spy Audit Ad-Aware Ad-Aware @ Lavasoft - The Original Anti-Spyware Company WebRoot Spyware detection and removal software at Webroot.com

Direct Link: Who's watching what you type?