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Mar
2010
Google Tracks User Actions on Gmail
Google is tracking some user actions on Gmail. Though this might seem obnoxious at first, it can prove to be a helpful for busy Gmail users when used appropriately. For example: Gmail can be set up to remind you to attach documents. This is triggered by the use of certain keyword combinations. See screenshot below.
(Click the image to expand)
Mar
2010
Beginners Guide to CSS, HTML and XHTML – Part I
This post is going to be the first of a series of posts on deconstructing CSS, HTML and XHTML for newbies.
HTML & CSS
HTML is a presentation language. Unlike programming languages like C# or JAVA, HTML is used to define the way content is presented in a web page. The primary tools for defining presentation characteristics of a web page are tags.
Ex: ‘<html> <title> <br> <p>’
There are open tags such as ‘<p>’ and ‘<l1>’ etc. But compared to the number of closed tags, these tags are comparatively very limited. All the other HTML tags need to be closed to make them meaningful and add the intended formatting.
However, HTML carries some basic limitations. One of them is that, styling has to be applied to individual tags. For example, though the H1 tags may appear the same in every page in a web site with 30 pages, the formatting has to be done individually. This is a tiresome and a time consuming task that can lead to many unforeseen problems. Also, this increases the size of the web page leading to much larger websites.
Cascading Style Sheets [CSS – a Style sheet language] was introduced to address this issue. CSS is intended to be used as a substitution for individual HTML style tags pertaining to attributes of HTML tags. For example, a single CSS script can be used to apply attributes for ‘<h3>’ tags throughout a website. These scripts can be called by a hyperlink or can be entered at the head of the web page or at the intended place of formatting.
Sample CSS script
CSS gives web developers much flexibility to address formatting issues. Also, a CSS can be altered and given the circumstances, [ex. Call the CSS via a hyperlink] the changes can be automatically applied to all HTML formatting done using that particular CSS script. This is considered to be a very important development in web developing.
HTML and XHTML
The introduction of Extensible Markup Language [XML] is considered to be one of better developments. It allows users to define their own tags and use them accordingly. XML needs an Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLT). Which is an XML-based language used for the transformation of XML documents into other XML or “human-readable” documents. The original document is not changed; rather, a new document is created based on the content of an existing one. The new document may be serialized (output) by the processor in standard XML syntax or in another format, such as HTML, .wmv, .avi or plain text.
Due to the ease of use provided by XML as well as the cohesion, orderliness and well-formedness, a new standard was adopted for web development as well. This is XHTML.
The Extensible Hyper Text Markup Language, or XHTML, is a markup language that has the same depth of expression as HTML, but also conforms to XML syntax.
Whereas HTML is an application of Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML), a very flexible markup language, XHTML is an application of XML, a more restrictive subset of SGML. Because they need to be well-formed, true XHTML documents allow for automated processing to be performed using standard XML tools—unlike HTML, which requires a relatively complex, lenient and generally custom parser. XHTML can be thought of as the intersection of HTML and XML in many respects, since it is a reformulation of HTML in XML. XHTML 1.0 became a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Recommendation on January 26, 2000. XHTML 1.1 became a W3C recommendation on May 31, 2001.
This is very important because most HTML validators use XHTML by default. To override this, specific script has to be added at the head of a HTML page.
Ex: ‘<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN”>’
‘<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd”>’
Most web development tools available in the market today such as Macromedia Dreamviewer have the ability to define the way web pages are presented as XHTML or HTML. The latest versions of such tools create web pages in XHTML by default.
The failure to define the presentation medium, [I.e. XHTML, HTML] can lead to an unprecedented number of errors when HTML coding is to be validated. Web developers need to take extra care to define the medium to prevent this problem.
Mar
2010
Features of Forums and Social Networks: A Comparison
Social Networks and Forums are two of the major interactive platforms on the web. While both have their strong points and large user bases, the two are vastly different. Forums are more or less evolved bulletin boards. They are meant for discussion of various subjects and subject based interpersonal interaction.
The Forum is structured like a tree. Each is made from many topics or threads and each topic is usually part of a group of topics which fall under a common generic topic. Each thread is made up of posts. A post is whatever an individual user publishes on the forum at that time. Forums are public domains which have administrators and moderators who maintain the site as well and the enforcement of rules and regulations. Rule breaking can result in one being banned from the forum. Repeat offenders are banned for increasing amounts of time till the use of a permanent ban. Forums are very much active with Japan far in the lead with over two million posts per day on 2channel which is their largest forum. China’s Tianya Club also has many millions of posts. Forums present a wealth of information for anyone willing to dig in.
Mar
2010
Online Customer Interaction, the Best Foot Forward…
One of the vital cogs in the online marketing mechanism is effective customer interaction. With the number of commercial websites rising with unprecedented rapidity and market niches diminishing into almost invisible blips, the key in effective online marketing lies in retaining the visitors and converting them into customers as much as in attracting new visitors.
Retaining a customer is by far a more difficult job since the audience keeps comparing your site to that of your competitors. If their product or service offering is better than yours, chances are that your customer may get disenchanted and eventually seek a better option. Bleak stories aside, let us see what you can do to improve the customer interaction.
Feb
2010
Three Tips to Get Your Site on Google
One of the first question we get from new clients is “How quickly can I get my site on page 1 of Google?” Some clients think this can happen overnight but new websites setup on a new domain name have to build credibility (page rank) with sites like Google. Search engines want to make sure that your site is not the latest Big Foot scam site. While search engines take time to index sites there are some tips you can implement to speed up the process.
Tip # 1 – Target Relevant Keywords
Keywords are the descriptors of your content. Be selective in the keywords you choose and try to use them throughout your website, links, meta tags etc. Just don’t overdo it 
Here’s a good article on selecting keywords.