Is your website getting out of date?

Anyone who has a website, especially one you have responsibility for, needs maintainance.
Why?
Even if your site has not changed, others have. Many sites have links that point to other useful and relevant ones. Over time, some will change while others will move or disappear completely. The reputation of your site often depends on whether visitors can find what they need there. If they can't they will try somewhere else.

Of course it is easier if you have another service host it for you. Each day you can look at it and upload changes or updates as required. On the other hand, if it is hosted in house, updating can be more difficult, often due to the fact that the only one who can't see what's going on is you. That may seem ironic, but a Linux server may not present you with a view of the real condition of your site. This is especially true if your server contains a text based server program like Debian (Linux). It's great software, known for its stability, but a demanding environment to work in. What can you do?
Being text based, and extremely stable, the server requires you to deal with it on a text level (no windows icons even if your website has them).

In this situation you may get help from a local Linux user group, often called a LUG. Many such groups exist, some providing voluntary free service. In the end though you yourself will need to learn the ropes to handle the system. Many user groups exist, so chances are you can contact one in your area.
My local one is found here: Wellington Linux User Group

How would you deal with these people?

I have a customer (Mr B. S.). This fellow is very keen to receive professional tech service for his computer. It is generally difficult, since he does not do any maintainance or follow any advice given to him. Consequently his system is plagued by infections and in poor condition. As if that is not enough, when he gets the bill, he gets the money from his partner or refuses to pay because he doesn't like spending money or paying bills. Meanwhile, his situation and reputation suffer. His system is due for service shortly.

Before I proceed, may I ask for your recommendations, as I am too close to this to be sure of acting objectively.

Blogs are for answering questions

In the past few months I have posted new topics and answered a number of member's questions. That is what they are for- a forum devoted to discussion with the aim of helping others. If you have a question, ask and someone answers. If you have news, share it with them. If you have insights, reveal them. If you want to correct something, don't let the matter go unnoticed! If you want to change something, start a discussion about it. Otherwise the blog fails in its purpose- to help people of all sorts. As my parents would have put it "What have you got to say for yourself?"

How trustworthy is your web site?

We know that there are good sites and bad ones on the web. They seem to come in ever more variety. How can you tell the good from the bad? One useful way is to use the web of trust (found at http://www.mywot.com/. This site is one place thousands of users have come to vote on their impression of the places they have visited. Over time, a steady stream of users have notched up strong impressions of many sites by voting on trustworthiness, usefulness, quality etc. I have used it frequently to assess what I can expect from various destinations on the web. Why not make it a regular stop, especially where the safety and security of your household are concerned? If you become a member, you too can influence the way the web is used!

Importing your blog to plaxo

It all started with this: Yesterday I was offered the option of importing my blog to facebook. That seemed a good way to increase link ranking, so I agreed. Today, when I click the original link, I get a blank screen!
http://pc-tech-upper-hutt.blogspot.com/
What do you folks get?
Has the blog been moved?
If so, I want it back!

Thankfully after the blog disappeared, facebook provided a solution to this problem.

Thank you for contacting Plaxo Customer Care.

Follow the steps to find the feed link of your blog which you added to Plaxo:

1. Signin to your account at https://www.plaxo.com/sinin
2. Click on "My Profile"
3. Click on "About Me"
4. Click on "Websites"
5. You will find the link of your blog http://pc-tech-upper-hutt.blogspot.com/

Please let me know if you have any further questions.

Even though the information was not perfect, it did provide a way to get the blog back. They deserve credit for that (name of respondent deleted).

Agressive email filtering?

Over the years I have made many friends on line. Some write to tell me their stories or to catch up with where others are. In that time contacts have been made with people world wide. Some, however have misused the email service by sending large numbers of useless messages to as many people as possible. Let's refer to them as the world of S-P-A-M. We have all had some annoyance from this practice and the misuse of legitimate services. In one case my own link page scripts were misused by people who submitted links and entered other people's email addresses with them I got blamed when their activity caused unwelcome mail from my services.


Now I have found there is a legacy that is causing a new problem for genuine users. A certain ISP (legitimate) in its attempt to prevent such problems has labeled several internet service providers in my country as sources of such mail. So instead of blocking the email addresses involved, they have blocked all mail that comes from those services.

I have just been informed that although my messages resulted in rejection errors, the intended recipients got their mail. This would surely require a weird set of circumstances involving malfunctions in the ISP systems.

As a result of this, thousands of innocent people believe they are being cut off from emailing friends who use those services just because somebody else did something bad, or because of a system error and these innocents may be punished for the wrong doing of others.

What would you think if your ISP behaved like this?

Do you have too many links in your email signiture?

A friend recently reminded me that I have too many links at the end of my emails. For those of us who have many different online interests this is a common thing. If there are too many, it can become a problem for them. For that reason I am adding them to my blog separately so everyone can benefit from a better way.
Contact me
Order my novel entitled [Return] here.
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