There are certainly benefits to both social networking and networking in person. Is one really better than the other? Well, I guess my answer is that in order to really develop quality relationships, face-to-face is the best way. Is that always possible in today’s technological age of communicating online all over the world? Not always.
Social networking makes it very convenient for the non-socialites to stay cocooned in their own little world. Sure, they talk to people on the phone, over Skype, they Twitter and blog, but I would argue that the bulk of that interaction with the outside world only creates a “surface relationship.” Whereas an interpersonal relationship requires getting to know the other person more deeply.
The other day I was conducting a review of a new web site and came across my favourite usability failure.
Drop Down menus suck!!
Not the whole menu of course just the bad habit of site builders who add functionality to the top level link.
With every web browser on the planet rendering differently it's a constant battle ensuring that your beautifully and painstakingly designed web site looks just as gorgeous on all browsers.
Personally I build a site entirely using Firefox and only at the end of the build process do I look at it in other browsers, curse and swear and then start to fix issues.
But what is the best way to check your site on multiple browsers?
If there is one thing I am fairly confident of this year is that touch will become an even hotter topic.
The recent CES saw a plethora of new touch enabled computers, Apple is still promising to release the iSlate (maybe even this week) and more people are browsing the web every day on their mobile phone.
So have you checked to see if your web site is touchable?
Last night I was excited, honoured and suprised to win the ComputerWeekly.com Open Source Blog of the Year Award. But this isn't really an award for me it's an award for you.
I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who voted for the blog, everyone who has given me inspiration for an article, Marc Ozin from ReformJudaism for nominating me in the first place and two very special people.
The original idea for the blog came from Fotis Evangelou who pestered me to start writing until it was easier for me to start than it was to shut him up and Chris Marinou who is the brains and talent behind the template design. Without the two of them this blog this blog would never have happened.
Today after a very long time of waiting I've finally reached the age where I have the answer and I'm happy to say that Douglas Adams was correct it really is 42.
So for those of you that are still waiting I'd like to tell you that it really is true and life really is that simple.
In his now infamous book, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, Eric S Raymond wrote "Every good work of software starts by scratching a developer's personal itch."
- Once you've started scratching does the itch go away?
- Do you reach a point where the itch has gone but the software is not complete.
- If you do what happens next?
Writing a new piece of software can be hard work and time consuming. You slave away at it in your spare time for days, weeks, months and even years until it works the way you need it to.
A few months ago I joined the dark side and bought a Mac because I had an idea to build an iPhone app for one of my largest clients.
I'm not a programmer although I like to think I am quite good at reading code and hacking it, I just don't have the skills to start from scratch.
But my app was fairly basic, really not much more than an on-line book, so how hard could it be? Surely I would be able to re-use some of the skills I have learnt over the years with Joomla.
With my shiny new Mac I downloaded the iPhone SDK, bought a few books, installed the IDE and stared at the blank screen not knowing where to start.
As with so many things in life this looked destined to be one of those ideas that never came to fruition. So I put the iPhone development on the back-burner and moved on to other projects.
Where do I begin…
There are so many reasons to have quality content on your website and your reputation is #1. Without a clear and effective message, you will lose visitors.
Take a step back and really look at your website’s home page. Just the home page. What do you see? If you landed here inadvertently- would you know what the business or service is that the owner is providing. Are you the intended audience for such services? If you are a potential client, do you know what to do next?
