We Specilize In The Design And Set-Up Of Microsoft Active Channels
Subject:
Y2K Problem Verification?
Subject: Question
Subject: Keywords and Linking
Subject: Re: How Did They Find Me?
subject: Re: Big Pipes
Subject: Applications on the web!
Subject: suggestions for non-profit sites
Subject: Non-Profits and Goodwill
Subject: Non-Profit Web Sites
Subject: Taxes, Ecommerce
Subject: Re: Merchant Accounts
Subject: Credibility?
Credibility?
Like many other folks, the work that I do requires a good reputation
and a high level of credibility. I have been very reluctant to add
banner advertising to my site not only because of bandwidth issues but
also because banners (even nice ones) don't seem professional enough.
For example, a dentist's site would seem less professional and less
credible to me if it had banner advertising. Also, banner advertising
tends to be flashy and animated. Are static banners (versus dynamic)
more professional and more acceptable?
Finally, I was considering joining some affiliate programs. I could
then simply and discretely link to other sites and still make a small
bit of money (is it even worth it?). Do associate programs detract
from a site's professional image and credibility?
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Merchant Accounts
>For our business a shopping cart is not the answer...the difference
between ours and other businesses is that we have a catalogue of
potentially thousands of items but not all can be guaranteed as
available.<
The solution to your problem would be to have a "live" database on
your site that all orders could be automatically checked against
before the order is processed.
Additional benefits would be that it gives you an easy online method
to track the interest in certain products and perhaps give people the
opportunity to place an order for hard to find items. (Developing a
waiting list)
There is a list of programs, products and services, some of them free,
at <http://www.davecentral.com/cgi-bin/search.pl?query=Database>
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Taxes, Ecommerce
>..if the local bookstore closes down because it cannot fairly compete
with ebook stores that do not charge nor pay local/state sales
taxes...we might save a dollar or two on the books we buy, but the
real estate taxes are going to spiral out of control.<
Ecommerce will not replace the store down the street. If used
effectively, it will complement it. Most businesses now realize that
having a website will increase their business and offer their
customers more choice. Many customers will remain loyal to local
merchants although now, they can enjoy the convenience of purchasing
goods at their website.
How do mail order catalogs differ from email catalogs?
Taxes spiral out of control? this already happened in my home
state. With a two billion dollar surplus and second highest taxed
state in the U.S., an electron microscope couldn't find my concern for
this potential problem. What government needs are ways to spend less.
My observation has been that they will spend it if they have it.
ever heard of the government getting stung for a
$300 dollar hammer? I would speculate they may find a quality hammer
on the internet for far less!
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Non-Profit Web Sites
thoughts about Non-Profit web
sites.
My first non-profit web site was donated. I designed and hosted a site
for our local Animal Shelter. It is kept up to date with current pets
for adoption, so maintaining is time consuming.
Since then, I have worked on other non-profits. And I must say there
is a REAL reason they should be on the internet. Our company designs
and hosts with e-commerce for donations. We work a lot with political
web sites for donations as well, by using a product called Legal
Tender. It takes the political office through all the loop holes for
reporting to the government and it's easy to use.
Non-profits need donations, and their web sites can be used to accept
them correctly. As people rely more and more on the internet for
banking, shopping, research and more, I believe non-profit web sites
should be there to do their business as well.
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t: Non-Profits and Goodwill
I have been in the web site design business for three years and have
constructed at least 50 free sites for local non-profits, (Churches,
schools, girls club, etc). The goodwill generated by these in our
local region has contributed a very large percentage of our commercial
account referrals. In fact, we even wrote this strategy into our
business plan.
I agree with the person from CASA that it is best to have that
organization to update their own sites and we have trained non-profit
webmasters to update their webs themselves to relieve us of the time
burden for doing so. Of course, our "designed by" graphical link
remains on their pages. When it comes to marketing our services, we
have found no more effective way than generating goodwill in the
community. You would be surprised at how many business owners are
members of local non-profit boards like Rotary Clubs, Churches,
Homeless Shelters, etc. Do a good job for them and they will seek you
out when they are ready for their business site.
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suggestions for non-profit sites
Non-profit organizations fall into two basic categories:
1. The established non-profits with corporate sponsorship and/or
substantial donations by the general public. These organizations are
much like profit-oriented businesses except their objective is not to
make money, but to generate membership, instill
political/religious/social belief, protect wildlife, etc...They are
often competing with other non-profits and are usually willing and
able to hire a professional web designer to provide with a suitable
online presence.
2. The smaller non-profits with support from local
merchants/businesses and limited donations. These organizations do not
have much money to play around and must try to cut corners when it
comes to web design. I have a few suggestions for these organizations.
- If you can find a member/volunteer within your organization that has
good web design skills by all means ask him/her to set up a site for
you. Do make sure it's a person who knows design, not a person who
only knows how to use an HTML program. A non-professional web site
puts a negative image on your organization and does not help you at
all.
- There are numerous free graphics sites on the web and some of them
offer sets of graphics that you can use. Please exercise caution here,
as you should not choose the fanciest looking graphics, but the ones
that fit your organization's image.
- The safest bet is to find a professional web designer who is willing
to design for non-profits at discounted rates. Many designers don't
state those discounts on their sites, but will offer you a discount if
you ask them. My design site, for example, offers a 30% discount for
non-profits but you won't know until you ask.
- To save $ when hiring a professional web designer, hire him/her to
do the main page only. After you have a good template on your hand,
find a person who knows HTML (they are easy to find) and let him fill
in the other pages for you.
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: Applications on the web!
I am defintiely not an expert but being a
developer of software for the Web I do have some experience. Actually
I know of quite a few (legal) ways of getting a piece of code or a
program stored on a (Web) server to run on a client machine (ie.
browser).
Most browsers have the ability to run Java programs (these can be
embedded scripts, applets or programs), Basic programs (I think these
are limitted to embedded scripts) and downloaded precompiled
components (written in just about any language: C, C++, Java, Basic,
etc.). These downloaded precompiled components can be run as plugins
(usually browser specific) or as embedded objects (COM, OLE, etc.).
Downloaded precompiled components are a little trickier to implement
because of the various security considerations involved. These don't
affect scripts and downloaded non-compiled code as they usually run in
a "sandbox" or "safe zone" where they can't trash your machine too
badly ;-).
I have extensive experience with one method of having a program "run"
in the browser and that is what we use at our site. In our case what
we have is a number of custom applications written by yours truly that
actually run on our Web server but interact with you via your Web
browser.
Examples of this are our Classifieds and Shopping sections. These are
two applications that run on our server. All the Web pages that you
see while interacting with these programs are created on the fly by
the programs themselves. Actually our whole site is built for you on
the fly which is how we can support multiple languages and currencies
throughout. We can also run these programs on our server with a
regular Windows interface (or even a Telnet interface). This is cool
stuff! ;-)
We also have a hybrid of the two methods. Our chat program is a Java
applet running on your browser but it has very little smarts to it.
The intelligent piece of the chat service is a program running on our
server which basically just tells the chat applet what to display to
the user.
: How
Did They Find Me?
A good number of us design our own pages and imagine how
flattered we would be that a stranger would ask us to overhaul their
site. It is only natural that in an effort to prepare a proper
proposal we would have a look at their content. If it is a pay site,
we might even pay to go further in the site to truly evaluate it and
get a feel for the work involved. Any proposal that you would
eventually send would probably go straight to the trash directory -
the objective of getting you to visit the site having already been
met. I do have to admire their marketing creativity on this one...
We have been using a service that "sniffs" the
viewer's browser for info and even gives the keywords used on search
engines. The logs we analyze are great (a lot better than what our ISP
is capable of providing) and have permitted us to do a few site
modifications that have really helped improve traffic throughout.
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Keywords and Linking
A utility that I use is Extreme Tracking, which is a free utility that
gives reports on where people who visit your site came from, and which
keywords they used to find your site. As usual, I have no affiliation
with the company, other than being pleased with their product. The URL
is:
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Subject: Question
I really appreciate the detailed and informative information here on
so many different topics. I have a very general question about the
internet:
Is there any one "directory of directories" out there (here)? A
catalogue of directories, a central directory listing? Is any
government or large commercial entity undertaking this task? Or is the
task pretty much in the hands of large companies like Yahoo? Are
there any plans underway to create a centralized information
clearinghouse or some kind of internet library? I'm curious about the
direction things are headed.
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Y2K Problem Verification?
I just spent a lot of time building our new storefront using Yahoo's
template program. I am very happy with the results considering my
inexperience with the web. But, in asking if everything is compliant
with the Y2K problem I have received vague answers, although
affirmative. I am still concerned for two reasons.
First, I don't want all my work to be a waste. But second, we have an
affiliate program that has been very successful. It generates 90% of
our income. Even if yahoo is compliant, will I lose all of these
links, and will I lose all of the statistics?
My real question is, does anyone know of a way to find out if a third
party (Yahoo and our affiliates) is compliant? And, is there anything
I can send affiliates (a web address) that would let them check their
own sites for free or for a nominal charge?
Admittedly, I am a novice. Novices like myself are the ones that need
the most help. Is there anyone out there that can help?