Archive for the ‘Blogs’ Category

Blogs as examples of dynamic websites

Thursday, September 18th, 2008

Take this blog as an example- I did not need to hand code any html either by hand or in Dreamweaver to get it going. I just

  1. turned it on in my web hosting control panel
  2. choose a theme from one of the millions of wordpress theme sites
  3. uploaded the theme
  4. entered in some configuration settings such as the name of my blog “what I’ve learned today” as well as other configurations

And in under an hour I’m an official blogger- woohoo. No html coding from me as the wordpress blog software does everything for me and the millions like me who are using the software which is great because it is dynamic. When I ad a post it is added to the database backend from which all the content is generated dynamically . Which is great and convenient.

When I add a link to the blog roll it dynamically appears on every page I do not manuallly add it ot every page. which is all great.

But as an example of when this can be an issue- because it’s basically one size fits all is demonstrated up in my banner. If you are viewing this site in ie 7 the text “What did I learn today” has the word “today” going over the picture frame which it doesn’t in the browser firefox and which I don’t want it to!!

In Firefox the word today is on a new line which is the way I like it. Now those that know any html will go “just put in a <br /> tag ” which will give a nice single line break between learn and today. But because this is a dynamic site in the source code that creates the page dynamically there isn’t <h1> What I did i learn today <h1/> where I can just insert my <br /> into.

What there is in the code is <?php bloginfo(‘name’); ?> which dynamically gets out of the database my blog name. And no I can’t enter in the break tag in the configuration because it will render the <br /> literally as a <br />.

Yes there are other work arounds but I just thought this was a good example of a dynamic site and how something that you may think is a minor tweak with dynamic sites can actually be hidden iceberg waiting to suck you in and that free hour you thought you had has just gone down the tube.

Happy blogging :)

PS: just in case your wondering what is the solution I think the best option is to modify the style sheet to reflect the presentation you want. I could replace the dynamic php code with static html but this would mean I’d have to do it every time i wanted to change the name of the blog in the code rather than the back end of blog. And since I change the name of the blog as often as my proverbial undies I think leaving the name dynamic is a good option. :P

Why I hate blogs

Monday, September 15th, 2008

The problem is blog usability

bloggersOK I don’t hate blogs in themselves but I do really hate navigating them. Sometimes I think they were a search engine invention as a self serving tool. I mean have you ever gone back to a blog to try to find a great post or article only to not be able to find it which means you need to remember the original search term if you actually found it via search engine. Too bad if you just stumbled upon it following links from other sites.

Before blog evangelists starts commenting with a history of blog development I know the search engines didn’t invent them but blog navigation nightmares are an added bonus to search engines on top of the fresh content because very few people navigate them and most rely on google and co to find the content for them hense my conspiracy theory that blogs were invented by Google and co.

Blog usability problems are a well documented issue which Jacob Neilson has outlined in this great article at http://www.useit.com/alertbox/weblogs.html

So all you bloggers check your blog against Jacobs Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes (same article as above) and see if you’ve learnt anything since this article was written in 2005.

This article Twenty Usability Tips for Your Blog from “I’d rather be writing” also has some great blog usability improvement tips.

What is a blog

Wednesday, August 13th, 2008

A blog is a website that can be thought of as an online journal. The posts or journal entries generally appear in reverse chronological order so the oldest will be closest to the bottom and the newest at the top.

Another important aspect about blogs is that blog sites use particular software to run them which allows users to log in and maintain their posts/entries etc. There are many places that you can sign up for your own blog for free and begin such as wordpress and blogger. With many hosting accounts a wordpress blog is available as a free addon that can be installed but this is not something that I would recommend for a typical user or blogger.
So why blog?
Well it’s a really easy way to self publish and self promote. You sign up for an account and follow your nose- don’t be scared you can’t really break your blog on wordpress and blogger.

Another reason is the search engines absolutely love blogs so blogging can be a great way to increase your websites search engine optimization results. It’s not a magic wand but with a bit of a strategy your blog make act like fairy dust for your search engine optimizations rankings.
Strategies for blogs
Well that another post topic altogether so check back soon and we’ll look at some