Archives for May 2007

Web Conferencing and it’s future developments

May 10, 2007 by Tricia

More and more companies are starting to use web conferencing technology as a way to conduct business meetings with clients, or other branches of their company. They’ve also been using web conferencing to conduct seminars, both for employees as in in educational sessions, and for customers too.

I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the online colleges started using web conferencing to begin teaching some of their classes. Wouldn’t that be a great idea. Take a course from home – but attend class on the web?

My husband was watching a documentary the other day about future technology. I believe the documentary was created in the late 80’s or very early 90’s. One of the “Future” technologies that they discussed was the ability for everyone to be able to partake in virtual conversations.

So instead of just talking on the phone you could sit yourself down in front of a screen, perhaps select a background for yourself and call up your family, friends or business associates and talk to them face to face in real time. Very much like what video conferencing is today – but with a little bit of extra flare added in.

I think we’re almost there.

Want more comments – make it easier!

May 9, 2007 by Tricia

There was a discussion going on, on one of the forums that I visit regularly about sites that only allow registered visitors/members to comment. I’m certain that at least 90% of the people that responded to the thread stated that if they encountered a site where they had to register just to leave a comment they closed the site and didn’t bother leaving a comment.

Oh, sometimes they’ll still visit the site and read the posts. It’s not that the posts aren’t good reads, it’s just that they don’t want to jump through hoops just to leave a simple comment.

I mean, with all the social networking going on, and different lists to join – just how many sites are you registered with already? Do we really need to sign up at even more sites and have to remember login info for all the different blogs we visit just so that we can leave a comment?

I have registered an account with the major free blogging sites like Blogspot, Xanga, WordPress.com, live Journal and Typepad, but I really didn’t want to get a membership to any of them. After all, I don’t have any of my blogs on those sites – why do I need a membership just to leave a comment?

The same goes for private blogs on their own domains. I’ve encountered several lately where you must register to leave a comment. At least with the larger blogging sites if you register you can leave comments at all the blogs within that service. With private blogs you have to register for each one separately.

If I really like a blog or a particular post I sometimes will sign up and leave a comment but I don’t like having to do so, and most people will not do this. It’s no wonder that the sites that only allow registered commenters have so few comments on their sites.

Here’s an example of a site I encountered the other day – One of the sites that registered for the do follow blogroll the other day didn’t have any comments that I could find, just a few trackbacks. People had to register to comment so when I spoke with the site owner I mentioned the registration for comments and he clued in and said “ah maybe that’s why no one leaves me comments”.

Perhaps you have a blog that requires registration and you’ve been wondering why you don’t get many if any comments? Well – it’s probably not that your blog is boring, it’s just that people don’t like jumping through hoops. Make it easier for them – open up your comments to all.

By all means put all your comments on moderation if you’d like – I don’t mind that at all, but don’t make it too hard to leave a comment or you’ll get far fewer than your site deserves.

If and when sites that have been registered members only do open up their comments I strongly advise that you either moderate your comments or get some kind of spam control for your comments – otherwise you’ll be dealing with a lot of spammers and that’s not pleasant either.

Getting organized

May 8, 2007 by Tricia

Like many of you, I have a small area of my home devoted to my computer area and I suppose office if you could call it that. In this area I spend the majority of time working directly on the computer – working on my sites, other peoples sites, checking out forums, answering email and paying bills.

I have a scanner and printer in this “office” area too. I don’t use my printer all that often, but I find it such a pain to have to go to one of the big box stores to buy printer ink, regular or photo paper. I find them much too pricey and I’d love to find a great place to get some discount office supplies. While I’m at it, I want to get some kind of file system to keep bills that need to be paid, and ones that have been paid in, as well as other important papers.

I think I could be even more productive if I was able to organize my work area better.

Speaking of which .. what does your computer area look like? Is it a cluttered mess or very tidy?

Remove the no follow tag and become an I follow Blog

May 1, 2007 by Tricia

I’ve always had some form of linkage on my sites that allowed my commenters to get a real link. By this I mean the links did not have the awful nofollow tag. Instead, the search engines were able to follow the link and index it.

Now, I’ve discovered that there’s a whole movement out there called the I follow movement. It’s caught on like wild lately and I actually started a blogroll on one of my other blogs for people who have removed the nofollow tags from their sites comment area. The blogroll is called the “Do follow blogroll” and anyone with a blog (not a website!) can join if they have removed the nofollow tags from their site, added the blogroll which I will supply the code for once I hear from interested parties, and preferably do not have their comments set to registered members only.

If you want to get rid of the nofollow tags from your blog you can use this WordPress plugin if you have a wordpress blog or this other do follow plugin. If your site is on blogger you can follow these easy step by step directions to remove the nofollow tags from your comment area.

Once you’ve removed those tags, and or comment on a site that has the nofollow tags removed you’ll find that the comment links left get indexed in the search engines, added to technorati thus raising the sites Technorati rank, and once all those links are counted by google as backlinks to your site you might even get higher PR.

Become a follower.

Web Conferencing and it’s future developments

Want more comments – make it easier!

Getting organized

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