Issue# 0001 - March 09

The web is a big place with many advantages to be had, and many potholes to fall in. So we have started a monthly newletter to aid you in your venture, and have taken the liberty of sending you and all our clients a copy in the hope that the information it contains is of use to all. However if you do not wish to receive this newsletter in future then please click this unsubscribe link.

Please feel free to forward this newsletter to friends or colleagues that you think would find it useful or you can direct them to our searchable archive.

In This Issue

• Use the Recession to Your Advantage
• Why are Software Updates Important to me?
• How Social Networking Benefits Your Business
• Should I use 'www' or not?
• What's a Canonical & why I should specify it?

Use the Recession to Your Advantage

One of the things that constantly amazes me about the human race, is the capacity to dwell. History has shown us decades of repercussions from the masses dwelling. It's never solved anything, and it probably never will. So why are we so comfortable revelling in it?

The recession is like an old pair of slippers. You get home from work & you talk about the latest effects of it, and like an old pair of slippers the only thing you're left with is a foul odor. So why do it? Has the recession become a convenient scapegoat for all of life dramas? How many times have you heard someone blame it on the recession. Bad business practices and sad marketplaces seem to be old memories. Now it's the recessions fault. But guess what! It's going to get worse. Or so I am constantly reminded of in most conversations.

But worse from what?

Pre 9/11 I remember an economy about the same as now. Our exchange rate sucked. I remember travelling through the USA watching my nickels disappear down the sewer system with the exchange rate. I think I was getting about 66cents AUD to an American dollar. So about on par with now.

Then we had a war. War's are pretty notorious for boosting an economy. Things improved, we had a few bucks in our wallets... but what's this??? Fuel is nearly $2.00 per liter??? So much for those few extra bucks!!

So here we are. The media constantly telling us how bad it is. The Government sending our economy into debt because they feel a handout will boost the economy. TV shops & travel agencies are rubbing their hands together at the thought of a boost to their income. Outsourcing is still on the increase & the employment rate has risen. But let's not forget that fuel is cheaper!!

So where does that leave us now? Dwelling. You hear it in everyday conversation. "How's the weather?" "Isn't the economy getting worse?"

Read more »

Why are Software Updates Important to me?

The criminal element of the web are continuously probing websites looking for weaknesses where they can get a foothold, once they find a way into a site they can use the compromised site to launch attacks against visitors as they browse your site, for sending spam, attacking other sites or some other nefarious task.

Responsible software developers react to flaws that are found in their products and release updated version of their software. However if you are not keeping the scripts installed on your site up to date then you will not be benefiting from these security updates which may mean that your site is more at risk than it should be.

You should also remember that the likes of Google scan sites for some types of compromise and show a warning to a visitor trying to visit the site. Imagine a visitor to your online site seeing a message along the lines of "This site may harm your computer", it's not hard to imagine the visitor hitting the back button and going to a competitor's site.

Therefore an important part of maintaining an online presence is to perform maintenance to keep your software current.

Users running old versions of WordPress are strongly encouraged upgrade to the latest version, 2.7.1 at the time of writing, and to verify their site for hidden spam text and other hacks.

Where you are not confident to apply patches and updates then in many cases your provider can do this for you under a maintenance contract.

Read more »

How Social Networking Benefits Your Business

Social Networks focus on building online communities of people who share interests and/or activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others and can be a powerful professional ally to businesses allowing them to interact with the community at large. Social networks make it possible for people to network with their peers from anywhere and at anytime and translates into real benefits for you and your company. Time zones become irrelevant.

Many websites are tapping into the power of the social networking model. Most social networks are free so they become an ideal medium to promote your wares. Social networks are an excellent arena for advertising in the form of banners and text ads. Many social networks rely on advertising revenue to keep their social networks free to us. If you have faith in your services or product, how can it hurt to try?

Discover trends and popular items. There is no better place to find out the needs of the people than from the people themselves. Entertainers have built entire persona’s from blogging within social networks. Social networks can also provide you with the right people to hire and how to better market your product or by giving & receiving recommendations on the right manufacturers of products and professional services.

Entrepreneurs and small businesses looking to expand their contact base can do this with social networks without travelling or spending long periods away from home. These networks act as an excellent conduit into more productive customer relationships.

Read more »

Should I use 'www' or not?

The question of should you be using www or not in site names comes up repeatedly, however the answer is quite simple it doesn't matter which version you.

What does matter is that you consistently use your chosen form and that you correctly redirect visitors and search engines to your chosen form should they arrive on the alternate. That is if you choose webtalkmail.com then a visitor entering www.webtalkmail.com should be redirected to webtalkmail.com using a permanent redirect.

Why do you need this redirection? You need it to stop your site appearing on two different URLs. If your site does show for two URL then it could cause duplicate content issues with search engines and result in poor ranking.

Read more »

What's a Canonical & why I should specify it?

Google and other search engines now support a new <link> tag to deal with the problem of duplicate content caused by being able to access identical or near identical content via multiple URLs.

If we take an example URL of http://www.example.com/product.php?item=widget then it will show the widget product page. If now extra data is appended to the URL say for visitor tracking through the store then the URL may be http://www.example.com/product.php?item=widget&trackid=1234. As the tracking ID is always changing you have many pages with identical content but accessible via different URLs.

Read more »

Also This Month

WordPress 2.7.1 has been released you are encouraged to upgrade your blogs

vBulletin 2.7.1 3.8.1 PL1 / 3.7.5 PL1 have been released to correct an XSS flaw within the editor

PHP 5.2.9 has been released