From the category archives:

Website Development

Creating Smarter Websites

by Tim on April 20, 2010

I frequently come across websites that have a message that doesn't apply to me when I login. It's pretty funny actually because some of them threaten deleting your account or terrible things happening to you. Ok, maybe not terrible but you get the point.

So why not make your website smarter? If you are having trouble emailing Yahoo users maybe you should only show the login warning to people with Yahoo email addresses? (or better yet, fix the problem so your mail gets received..)

If you are going to show me an OTO, don't show it to me and then hide the buttons because I already bought it. That one really makes me laugh. The system is smart enough to hide the buttons, but not smart enough to not show me the page? Come on!

Same thing goes for offers on upgraded accounts that you receive when you are, get this, already upgraded! It seems really silly, and can add to confusion. Wait a minute, I thought I was already upgraded!? Oh no! I must contact support!

If you are running a website check out how everything works, and make it smart!

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I'm looking for you to critique me!

by Tim on March 26, 2009

Ok this is where the fun begins. You get to critique one of my websites! I want your opinions on the look, the layout, the functionality, etc of the website. What do you like and dislike, what would you like to see added, etc.

Now I know that some of you are thinking you aren't qualified to critique my site. I know because in surveys many have answered that they feel they are too new to reply in the forums or on my blog. Well guess what, your opinion does matter!

That's because I want the site to appeal to all users..  especially those who are new to the business. So your feedback can sometimes be even more important than the big wigs. Many times we don't notice things because we are used to the way things work, and these things can be very confusing to new users and easy to fix. So please, give me some feedback..  I expect to see 6000+ comments on this post =P

Here's the site..  www.trafficexchangelist.com

Edit: While design is important, I'm more interested in your thoughts on the content and value of the site overall. IE: do you not care what's there, is there information missing, etc.

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I'm using CloudFront, and it's great!

November 19, 2008

Amazon has officially released the CloudFront Public Beta! What is CloudFront? It's a Content Delivery Network (CDN). Essentially a CDN is a network of servers all around the world, so when you visit a site it grabs the content from the closest server to you. So what does this mean exactly? Well I've been using [...]

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Goodbye HackerSafe

July 31, 2008

Well it's finally time to say Goodbye to Hacker Safe, or McAfee Secure for that matter. Things just aren't the same anymore. I magically lost my affiliate account one day (and my emails regarding it nowhere to be seen), and the benefit of the branded "HackerSafe" icon is no longer there as they've changed the [...]

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NoScript or No NoScript

July 26, 2008

There was a recent report created by Sunny Suggs called "No More No Script" which brought up the point that many sites don't work when you have NoScript installed, and that for marketers they could be losing lots of money because of it. Then there are others who will argue that NoScript makes surfing secure [...]

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Starting the Media Temple Adventure

May 23, 2008

I recently purchased a Media Temple (dv) dedicated virtual server and have moved my blog over to it. So if you see this post, well you can access the new server! If not, you have no idea this post even exists. Reasons for the move from DreamHost: I plan on this blog becoming very popular, [...]

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How To: Create a Blog with DreamHost

April 25, 2008

I use DreamHost to host my blog. It is incredibly easy to setup a WordPress blog, and it is incredibly easy to upgrade them too. For this tutorial, you'll need an account with them. Use the coupon code TIMLINDEN to get $50 off a year! Step 1: Login to the Web Panel, Goto Goodies then [...]

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Snapnames vs NameJet vs Pool vs Godaddy

January 25, 2008

My friend and I decided to start RIFoto.com, a website where we sell the photos we take around Rhode Island. Sounded great, until we realized that nobody was remembering it was Photo with an F. You see RIPhoto.com was currently being used. So I did what any smart person who wants another domain would do. [...]

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45 Cache Hits Per Second

December 7, 2007

We all know that accessing the database can be resource intensive. But did you realize accessing the hard drive is intensive too? Every time you include a file in a script or write to a file, that is using the hard drive. Hard drives are fast, but when you multiply the number of includes, writes, [...]

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Preventing XSS Exploits

October 4, 2007

If you don't know what XSS is, and you are a web developer. Well, it's time to wake up. XSS or Cross Site Scripting is basically injecting code onto someone else's website. By doing it, you can do all sorts of nasty stuff. The good thing is, it's pretty simple to prevent this in PHP: [...]

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Test, Test, Test!

September 24, 2007

I decided the other day my goal would be 100 new members every day! I started tracking. Friday I had 54. Saturday 21. And Sunday 17. Yikes! I had been averaging 50 for about a month! So much for that goal. Today I check my email, and much to my surprise the new member emails [...]

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Connection: closed & PHP fsockopen

September 3, 2007

Wow. It's incredible the difference two words will make: "Connection: closed" with a PHP command fsockopen changed the website scanner's speed dramatically. I won't go into the details, I found them here. But the key thing is for me to post about it so later when I forget about it I can find it again [...]

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There's just something I love about DreamHost

August 11, 2007

Ok, so you all know I have my own dedicated server. Right? If not, it's a Dual Core Dual Processor (2.0Ghz X 4) with 2GB ram and 500GB space. So why in the world would I be paying a shared host money? Well for one, I happened to find out about them on 07/07/07, where [...]

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Developing a Website Scanner

July 26, 2007

I run a traffic exchange and a common occurance is for people to advertise sites that cause problems while surfing. Sometimes it's a mistake, and other times it's on purpose. Part of my job is to keep things in rotation clean. I'm doing this better by developing a website scanner in PHP. So far it's [...]

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Increasing Alexa Ranking

May 9, 2007

I heard a rumor that putting the Alexa Widget on your website could increase your alexa ranking. So I decided to give it a whirl, and put it on the StartXchange Splash Pages in February. There was a slight increase, but not significant enough to say that was the reason. Afterall, I also increased advertising [...]

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Mosso, I want a refund!

February 27, 2007

Well it's been a week since I tried out Mosso. It was very promising, but it didn't go the way I thought it would. I think all the publicity online has created too much interest in too short a period. The problems I encountered: A) Support - They are always there, but it seemed to [...]

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Trying Mosso Hosting

February 22, 2007

I decided to give Mosso a try. Mosso is an enterprise level cluster host. You get unlimited this and that. Your only limit is disk space and bandwidth. It's the latest fad in shared hosts. Instead of having one shared server, and packing a bunch of sites onto it, they have a bunch of servers [...]

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Quality not Quanity

February 15, 2007

I've been going through my feed reader just about all day. It seems most of the blogs are all about trying to have "fresh content" everyday. Even if that means the posts have nothing to do about anything. Well I'm different. If you notice sometimes it will be a long time in between posts. That's [...]

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Top Rated Lists

January 16, 2007

Well I've been noticing that StartXchange isn't always listed in the top exchange lists that users publish on their website. In fact, percentage wise most don't list StartXchange at all. I am trying to change that, but I'm not sure how. Do you think I should increase my advertising campaign? Is the site too hard [...]

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Analyzing with Google Analytics

January 12, 2007

Not too long ago I started using Google Analytics on my blog. Today I was browsing around the stats and came across some very useful information. If you click on "Content Optimization" then "Navigational Analysis" then "Site Overlay" you get your site with all these icons on the links. These icons represent people clicking them [...]

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