Lazytea Creations

Why hire someone to build your website?

A friend once joked with me, "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to build a web page." And he was right. In this day of $50 "Website Construction Kits" practically anyone with a little time and money can put together a web page. These packages work well enough for simple, personal web pages, but often lack the depth and attention to detail that is necessary for a business website. If these packages truly made it that simple the web would be filled with nothing but beautiful, professional sites, and I'd be out of business.

The truth is that creating an effective professional website is more complicated than simply putting some pictures and text on a page. Like creating a "bricks and mortar" business you need to consider an array of variables that affect the size, scope and style of the "site" your are creating. Who is your potential web market? What does your website add to your existing business? What is the most effective way of capturing their interest, and their loyalty? These are only a few of the questions you should ask yourself as you go about the business of creating your online presence.

A little different beat this week . . .

Things are a little different this week.  All around me are the Iditarod canine athletes preparing for their run from Anchorage to Nome.  My own dogs are howling at all hours and can’t seem to relax.  The children seem to pick up on the dog’s energy levels; but the weather is so cold and the roads so icy that there’s really little to do outdoors to burn off their energy.

I’m plugging away at the pile of work on my desk.  I have many new sites to build and and endless stream of updates.  I did take some time to refresh Lazytea.net.  While it may seem to have been a diversion, in fact it was more of a practicum or experiment in utilizing a content management system I hope to use to implement my next few websites.  While design is very important, a good part of that design is to be able to keep the site standardized and scalable.  I think to proceed without a complete package for the interface is denying the current trends in web development.  So, I laid my own website on the line and attempted to slay the dragon.

Made a few updates:

• ACDCA.org
• AkHoundGroup.com
• MatSu Valley Writer’s Alliance
• News Blogs: AKK9, Wasilla Web, ACD News
• helped a client with email

 

Who's Behind the Spam Surge?

Link: Who's Behind the Spam Surge?.

Several of you have asked me about Spam over the past few months.  Yes.  There has been an increase.  This article came to my attention today.  It is excellent.  Sorry to inundate you with so much geekery in one day.  I'll be good now and go bake some Christmas cookies with  Miss Maybelle.

As I discussed several weeks ago, everyone's seen that there has been a massive surge in spam over the last couple of months. More researchers are weighing in on what's behind it.

One point many sources make, and I made in my last column, is that there was a "Christmas Spike" last year too. Spam shot up roughly from November 2005 through January 2006 and then tailed off until the late '06 surge, yielding a bowl-shaped curve for the year.

Stride Alaska

Link: Stride Alaska.

 

Drafted letters to Melbourne IT for Administrative Contact Change - sent them via email to Criss K. for signatures and letterhead.

Also updated some page titles and copyright dates on the website.

Better File Rename for Windows - File Renamer - batch file renamer - renaming files

Link: Better File Rename for Windows - File Renamer - batch file renamer - renaming files, pictures, photos, folders, extensions.

This is an awesome utility - makes renaming files so much easier.  Saves me many hours of work.  Learned about it from Molly Holzsclag's books.  Try it!

Lots of Little Things....

Spent a good amount of time today working with various hosting and domain services to obtain access.  Ringsideacds.com, fairdinkumcattledogs.com, Kuawarri's old AOL account, gatehousealaska.com.  When it rains it pours.

Was 50% successful which is pretty good when dealing with unknowns such as passwords, logins, URLs, systems, configurations.  There is yet hope for the other 50%, I simply need more info.

Minor updates to australiancatledog.com, acdca.org, alaskaagility.org, and a few others. Billing moves up in priority as my server payment is due soon.  Apologies to my clients for being so behind in the billing.  I truly dislike that aspect of the business. 

Email Woes

Contacted support and Noel in Texas.  Still no result on the email problems; but apparently it can take up to 48 hours for changes to take effect.  At this point I may need to do something else since it has been more than that and the problem clearly exists.  If it is apparent in the morning then I will try a new avenue.  I just hate that this happened.  I sincerely apologize to those client affected.