Timely Notions

Log analysers are not accurate. They over-report visits and over-count some browsers while under-counting other browsers. They cannot accurately distinguish spiders and robots from human visitors and they do not use fool-proof techniques for counting visits and visitors.   more...

Twice I've been on mailing lists with other web professionals when the issue of rates has come up. The first time, it was me who caused a furore; I replied to a question from someone in Argentina with a suggested price for their proposed service. The subsequent events determined what I did the next time the subject of rates came up on another mailing list 20 months later.

I did a lot of reading and eventually changed my mind about discussions of rates. As they say, I Am Not A Lawyer, and this article is not legal advice, but I now believe that it is not safe to discuss rates on a mailing list with other professionals.

The nature of mailing lists and online discussions is that people will often try to change someone else's opinion through a reasoned debate. In the case of U.S. antitrust law I'm afraid that, unless you're in the legal profession, your opinion of how things should be or must be probably won't get you very far in a court room.

Given that there's a chance that just witnessing a discussion of rates is illegal, I'm making my notes available as a starting point for your own reading on the subject.   more...

Imagine calling the normal telephone number for a company. When the phone is answered, you hear this:

Thank you for calling the Foo Corporation. Before we connect you to the number you dialled, here's famous Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti singing our new company anthem:

'We are Foo! We're here to service you!
We take the time to hear what you say,
Then do what you want in the nicest way.

'We are Foo! We've goodness through and through!
Our prices are keen, and so are our wits,
Our products all work or we blow them to bits.

'We are Foo! To serve is what we do! ...'   more...

Don't you just hate it when "index.html" appears in the page location when you're exploring your own web site?

Most people now know that although their home page is called something like index.html, they can get to and advertise the home page by using the web address www.site.com. It's (thankfully) quite rare that web site addresses are advertised as www.site.com/index.html.

If you go to a site using www.site.com and then click back to the home page, the page location is often shown as www.site.com/index.html.

There is a very simple way to stop this from happening on your own sites.   more...

Why don't people date the informational content on their web sites?

When researching a subject, especially when it's to do with technology, you need to know how current an article is to figure out if it's still relevant and worth your time to read.

An archived magazine article at a publisher's site links to the Colour Selector. The page footer tells me that it "originally appeared in Issue Three of Internet Monthly" but I have no idea what month or year the article was published.

Un-dated content is just one of the many ways that developers of online content are ignoring decades of experience in print publishing.   more...