Archive for December, 2006
Happy New Year!
Posted on December 31, 2006, under Development.
I want to wish everyone a happy and safe new years. 2006 has been a good year, and I am looking forward to seeing what 2007 brings. Stay safe, and be nice to one another. Blogging will begin on a norm a normal schedule Tuesday. See you then!
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The Microsoft Acer Ferrari Laptops, From Another Perspective
Posted on December 29, 2006, under Development.
So we have all heard about the Ferrari laptops that Microsoft sent out to big name bloggers, and then when their was an uproar from some people Microsoft said they wanted them back or given away. Now, this was definitely a unique approach from Microsoft to create some P.R. around the Vista release to consumers. Granted, it might not have been the reaction Microsoft was looking for, but they got a reaction and no press is bad press; the podcasts will be talking about this for weeks after the holiday break. On the other side of this I think there are two things that have not been pointed out here. First, yes they were review units and Microsoft sent them to big name people; some loyal Mac users. Yes, it was a great way to get Vista in the hands of people that might not otherwise take or have the time to install Vista, which in lies the problem. These laptops were “review units”, but how can a fair review be done when the users didn’t even have to install Vista, which can be argued a difficult task. With Vista you can only upgrade to certain versions of Vista from certain versions of XP, which makes it complicated for the end user. Sure, if everyone had a new PC show up on their door step loaded with Vista, they might have an easier time with it. Yes, most people will probably be purchasing a new PC to avoid upgrade hassles, but for a review I think the install process should be included. The second part here, is these were ridiculously powerful machines, if it were me I would send an older laptop loaded with Vista to show how it could be used with current hardware. To me sending Acer Ferrari laptops says “look you have to spend $3,000″ in hardware just to use Vista.
This is just my opinion, again I think it was good idea executed wrongly by Microsoft.
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Digg Raises $8.5 Million From Existing Backers
Posted on December 29, 2006, under Development.
Popular social bookmarking website, Digg, raises another $8.5 million form existing investors. This means someone believes in the sites future and well being, well into the near future. Digg claims they have 20 million in users, while other sources report a significantly less number. 
Either way, Digg is growing, and one of the last good services out there that has not been acquired yet. With this round of funding Kevin and the gang can continue to expand the service, which has recently seen a steady flow of new services and features including video and a site redesign as of late.
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Popular Alternatives to Merchant Accounts
Posted on December 28, 2006, under Development.
If you are going to do business online, you are going to need a way to collect payments from your customers. The easiest and simplest form is PayPal. Alternatively, if you want control of the order process you will need a Merchant Account. Merchant Accounts can be costly and time consuming to setup, in addition you will need a secure certificate for your web host provider, and a business bank account. For a small business, or a starting business that doesn’t know how many orders they will be handling this step might be intimidating at first. Fortunately for you, there are great alternatives out there, that allow you to have more control over the order process, present a professional looking check out process to your customers, and handle credit card transactions of all kinds.
Most of these services will charge a small or no start up fee in order to use their service. They make money by taking a small percent out of every transaction made. You might think this isn’t fair, well even if you had a merchant account of your own, you will still have a small percent taken out of every transaction; it would usually just be a smaller percent. These services handle the complete order process, and give you ways to track orders, refund orders, and handle the business side of things without worrying about the details. At the end of every month you get paid for the orders through check, or most of the time direct deposit. Some businesses prefer these services over merchant accounts for several reasons:
- Lost cost to startup: initial startup fee, and small percent out of every transaction.
- No software to buy or build, and no secure certificate needed: you use what the service already has.
- Many of these services have advanced fraud detection systems: and they are good because they process many orders daily so they stay on top of the latest fraud techniques.
- These services handle affiliate communities and payouts: Not having to worry about complicated affiliate software, and payouts.
- Automatic handling of printing, stamping, and mailing CDs for software sales.
- Easy to setup: no complicated installs or builds, just an online control panel.
Interested, Ok lets take a look at some of these services in detail.
RegNow
I have used RegNow in the past, and they are definitely in the top three, if not the best for selling goods online. They offer a low $19.95 startup fee, a great affiliate program, a low 6.9% + $1 order process fee, and an extensive control panel that gives you many options for your order process. The control panel is extensive, and once familiar you can control look and feel, confirmation emails, and more. RegNow also offers a CD service for businesses that sell software.
eSellerate
I currently use eSellerate for ComputerSmarts.net and BlueCrestStudios, as they are geared more toward software sales. They have a 10% service charge of all orders placed, and no sign up fee. eSellerate differs from the rest by offering a licensing SDK for software developers, which handles the registration process for your applications. This can save a lot of money and time in the long run, which is the reason for their higher service charge percent from others.
2Checkout
With a higher sign up fee at $49 dollars, 2Checkout will only take 5.5% plus $0.45 of every order. I have never used 2Checkout, but heard good things. The service claims you can be up and running in a matter of minutes, which can be good for some. 2Checkout offers a unique membership service, which allows you to handle selling memberships to customers. 2Checkout does not handle CD sales.
Other notable services are:
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Tailrank Adds Video Support
Posted on December 27, 2006, under Development.
The popular memetracker, Tailrank, pushed out a video feature which adds Tailrank to the list of social websites that are getting into the video market. Most recently, Digg also added a video feature for their very popular social bookmarking service. Along with the new video feature Tailrank also included a few small changes to its service in this release, including the ability to view river of news and breaking posts per category.
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Microsoft Extends XBox 360 Warranty
Posted on December 27, 2006, under Development.
This kind of slipped under my radar last Friday, but Microsoft extended the XBox 360 warranty from the previous 90 days to one year. This new warranty applies to current and future console owners. This warranty change matched what Sony and Nintendo already offer with their consoles. Microsoft said that is extended the warranty to consist with what is offered in other countries. Furthermore, those customers that have paid for repair fees within one year of the purchase of their XBox 360 will automatically receive refunds.
REDMOND, WASH. — Microsoft Corp. is extending its warranty on the Xbox 360 video game console to one year from the previous limit of 90 days. The change announced Friday applies to future and present owners.
I have been on the fence on if I am going to order the extended warranty on my XBox 360, I have heard of some problems with consoles that have resulted in costly repairs. At least now I have a year from my purchase date if anything goes wrong.
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The Holidays Hit Blogs and Websites of All Sizes
Posted on December 26, 2006, under Development.
Ahh.. the holidays: family, friends, food, wine, presents, and a dip in website traffic for all. Many users are away from their computers around the holidays, which means the drive of traffic to websites drops. Small blogs, like myself, especially get hurt. A look at Diggs’ recent page views traffic, courtesy of Alexa, shows that even the largest sites take somewhat of a hit. Not as many news stories have been going through Digg, and likewise news services have almost been stale the last couple days. I expect over the next week for traffic levels to level back off, and maybe even spike as people are getting back into their daily routine.
On a side note, I am in Wisconsin enjoying good beer and cheese for the next week. This is one of my few vacations I have over the year, so blogging might be a little slow for me. Hope everyone else is enjoying their holidays!
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Great Drinks for The Holidays
Posted on December 22, 2006, under Development.
It’s been a long year, and what better to close out the year with family and friends; exchanging gifts over some nice holiday beverages. Put the mobile devices down, close the RSS ticker, and put together some holiday beverages that can be enjoyed by all. Readers Digest has taken the guess work out White Sangria
- cup unsweetened pineapple juice
- 1/4 cup lemon juice
- 2 medium oranges, washed and sliced
- 1 medium lemon, washed and sliced
- 1 bottle (750 ml) Riesling or other sweet white wine
- 1 medium tart apple, cut into thin slices
- 1/4 cup triple sec
- 2 cups lemon-lime soda, chilled
- Ice cubes
1. In a large pitcher, combine the pineapple juice, lemon juice and orange and lemon slices; mash gently with a wooden spoon until fruit is partially crushed.
2. Add the wine, apple slices and triple sec. Refrigerate for 2-4 hours. Just before serving, add soda. Serve over ice.
Mocha Eggnog
- cups chocolate milk
- 4 cups eggnog
- 1 cup heavy whipping cream, divided
- 2 tablespoons instant coffee granules
- 2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- teaspoon rum extract
1. In a large saucepan, combine the chocolate milk, eggnog, 1/2 cup cream, and coffee granules; heat through.
2. Remove from the heat; stir in vanilla and rum extracts. In a small mixing bowl, beat the remaining cream until stiff peaks form. Garnish eggnog with the whipped cream.
Holiday Coffee Punch
- 2 cups coffee liqueur
- 6 cups espresso or strong black coffee, cooled
- 3 pints low-fat coffee ice cream, softened
1. Mix all ingredients in large bowl and whisk until smooth.
2. Refrigerate until ready to serve.
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Firefox 2.0.0.1
Posted on December 20, 2006, under Browsers, Development, Software.
Firefox rolls out a small browser update, making 2.0.0.1 that latest version of the browser. Small security updates and further Vista support seem to be the main changes to this minor release.
* Release Date: December 19, 2006
* Security Update: The following list of security issues have been fixed.
* Windows Vista Support: Windows Vista is generally supported with the following caveats.
* Firefox 2 What’s New: For an overview of new features in Firefox 2, see the Firefox 2 Release Notes.
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10 Things to Do Before Placing a Web Hosting Order
Posted on December 20, 2006, under Development.
I recently wrote about how to choose a web host, and received a lot of good feedback. As discussed, choosing a web host is a very important decision and should not be rushed into. After choosing what hosting provider you wish to go with, there are a series of tasks that are often over looked before pulling the trigger. Below is a list of 10 things to do before placing a web hosting order.
Check the Forums
Most hosting providers have a forum or community of discussions. These forums can be a very good source of information, and allow you to get a good look inside the host. Look for recent news from the hosting company, and make sure they post regular updates. A forum that has periodic news events from the company, shows that they are constantly improving their services. You can also use the forums to look for unhappy customers, and how the hosting company handles these customers. If you decide the go with a hosting company, become an active part of the community as making friends with someone else who is more familiar with the company is always good.
Call the Phone Number
Call the phone number listed for the hosting company. All hosting companies should have easy to find phone numbers, if not look else where. See how difficult it is to get a hold of a human, and how long the wait time is. Once you have a human on the other end, ask questions about the hosting plans and services. Answers to these question show how knowledgeable the staff is, and if they are willing to help out in a friendly manner.
Check NetCraft
NetCraft is a great utility and has a ton of information about web hosts, best of all it’s free. You can find uptime, list of servers, what type of hosting software is running, and more. This information allows you to get a better look at your hosting provider. Some hosting providers are just reselling other hosting companies servers. NetCraft tells you what IP blocks are owned by whom, and information about data centers. You can also search NetCrafts news site for your hosting companies name, and see what has been going on with the company.
Speed Test
Test your hosting providers website load speed. Chances are they are hosting their site on a server that will be more powerful than what you will get, so if you know of other sites they host test them out as well. There are a lot of variables to a websites load speed: size, graphics, whitespace, compression, etc. However, this will give you a general idea of what you are in for.
Data Center Location
A lot of hosting providers have multiple data centers, and some might even give you a choice of where your server will be at. Ideally, the closer the server is to you the better, as file transfers and interaction with the server will be at faster speeds. This might be a good question to ask the company on the phone call above.
Check Your Features
As covered briefly before, check and double check you features. Make sure you are not being under sold, or over sold. It also is good to check into how easy it is to add or subtract features.
Check What Others are Saying
Web hosting review sites are a dime a dozen, and some are better than others. The more you read, the better idea you will get on what other experiences with that host might be. Be on the lookout for the “cry babies”, the ones that are just posting negative comments because they were less prepared than what you will be.
Look for Coupons
Free setup, three months free, free domain name: hosting companies often have coupon codes floating around the Internet. A quick Google search for “Your Hosting company name” and the word “coupon” might bring back big savings.
Plan Ahead
Your new host will probably take a couple hours to setup your new hosting plan. Planning ahead is important, especially if you are moving sites to the new web host. DNS entries take 24-48 hours to propagate, and managing data on both hosts can be difficult. Chances are some web site down time will be needed, so preparing your visitors and moving everything over will take some planning. Create a checklist of things to do, database, files, DNS, and email accounts; are just some of the topics you might need to look into.
Read the Fine Print
I can not stress enough how important it is to read the fine print. Service level agreements, money back, overage charges, support agreements, and other VERY IMPORTANT topics will be covered in the fine print. The last thing you want is a hosting nightmare and be left with a bad experience like all of those “cry babies” you saw above. Reading the fine print can save time, money, and patience.
