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Webmaster Elitism: Tableless Design
Ooooh! I actually SAID that! But really, tableless design is one of the most irrelevant things I’ve come across in a long time. As though by eliminating the use of table code, you prove yourself a superior designer, regardless of the annoyances and extra time that it takes, when it isn’t even detectible in any way to the site user.
For the average site, there are absolutely NO advantages to tableless design. None. I don’t know which designer decided it was superior, or why it caught on, but the only explanation I can find is ego. It is more difficult to code a tableless template for many structures, which makes those who do so feel superior. Silly, really.
Neither type of coding is better. Those who advocate tableless design say that it produces leaner code. Not true. Bloat is just as prevalent with tableless design, often MORE so, because you have to create so much more code to do what a table can do without even trying.
My biggest issue with the elitism on this issue though, is that common sense is being ignored. The fact is, tables can do some things faster, easier and more predictably. And a design coded in divs just CAN’T do it. The code can’t be FORCED to do it.
An example…
We created a design with a menu that had multiple blocks across. Four cells across on each level. My coder originally coded it tableless. And the results were disastrous.
About every third refresh, the divs would stack instead of laying side by side – they would stack in all sorts of arrangements. And you could not MAKE them go side by side. The code does not exist to make them do so. She tried everything to force them to predictably do so. No go. Because with divs, they are independent containers. And if the browser wants to load them wrong, it can, there is no way to require it to display four across.
Now, there are those that insist that if you MUST use table code, then code it into the CSS instead of in the HTML. Really a stupid idea, because doing so removes every advantage of using table code in the first place – the predictability. Being a progressive coder though, my coder tried this next. It still had the same problem. Because CSS tables have the same problem divs do – the cells are independent containers, which are not required to behave in relation to one another.
We replaced the div code with HTML table code. It has behaved predictably ever since. Because a table is a single entity, with containers that are part of the whole. If you specify four cells across, it HAS to display them all across, and CANNOT stack them inappropriately.
There are other times when divs simply do not behave themselves, and debugging them takes so much time that it is more fair to the client to just use table code and get on with life. Getting anal about this issue is pretty dumb, and is responsible for a LOT of wasted time and energy, with absolutely NO benefit to the client or the site visitor.
The claim is made that the ONLY reason that divs will refuse to go where you tell them is that the width numbers don’t add up right. Not true. There are all KINDS of bugs and conflicts that can cause this, and tracking them down can be a nightmare, especially when working with someone else’s code.
I just find that any claim that tableless design is superior is a pointless claim. That superior design is not arbitrated by whether you use one type of structure or the other, but by whether what you use WORKS, in the MOST EFFICIENT manner. If you have not gained BOTH predictability, AND efficiency, you’ve made the wrong choice! Statistically, tableless design holds no corner on that market – in fact, about 50% of the time, it will WASTE time, and result in a higher level of INEFFICIENCY, and UNPREDICTABILITY.
The end result is what matters – irrelevant fussing over whether you used tables or not is not an intelligent use of either time, or intellect.
A Bad Time to Realize Your Business is in Trouble
We’re noticing some trends lately. They indicate that people are scared. And it is hurting businesses all over. We deal primarily with startups and very small businesses. We’re seeing the impact first hand across a full spectrum of industries. A few are growing as they replace more costly options. Many are collapsing completely, most are just struggling to maintain. And it is very discouraging as a business consultant, to keep encountering those who are past the point of being able to help them, because they didn’t choose to act when change would have been simple, and now the issues are compounded so big, and the resources so drained that there isn’t anything to be done anymore.
I’m no alarmist, and I never try to look at the bad side of things. I try to honestly assess what is happening, to figure out why, and to figure out what to do about it. I can’t control the economy. I can’t make people buy my product. I can’t provide costly services to businesses that are in trouble so deep that they can’t afford even a $100 marketing consultation to get them turned around. But I can control my own actions in regards to my business, and I can develop an understanding of what is going on so I can help more than just myself, and so it does not have to become a crisis to us.
Over a year ago, we began advising businesses to pay attention to trends. If they experienced more than two months of non-seasonal down-trends, they should be ready with a plan in place to implement and take action to counteract the influence of external forces on their business, as far as possible.
But some have not noticed until it was too late – either they weren’t tracking, or they failed to measure this year’s returns against yearly norms. When they finally noticed, they were deep into a slump that was so bad, they had no resources left with which to respond.
I think it is normal to want to believe that things are going to turn any day. I think it is normal to not want to have to take action if the trends are not steep and dramatic. So a business can gradually lose ground and the owner doesn’t notice until it is really in trouble.
If your business is in trouble now, you are not alone. But it is also unquestionably worse to have a business in trouble now than it was a year ago. Resources are stretched tighter, credit is harder to get, and people are less responsive to changes to advertising – they’ve been seeing it for a year.
Last year, layoffs were starting, and people were on unemployment. Now, unemployment is running out, and more people are being layed off. That fact alone is enough to help us to know that the worst is not over at all. The worst hasn’t even hit yet. Again, I’m not an alarmist, nor am I a pessimist. In fact, I am an optimist, but I don’t approach things without a healthy dose of reality.
I think the real issue is this…
It is getting worse. And it is going to get MUCH worse. That isn’t speculation. That is based on very solid facts. The government can’t fix it. So far the efforts have made it worse, not better, and the only thing we are hearing is that they plan to do more of the same.
What are you going to do to survive it? How are you going to adjust your business, your life, and your plans, to cope with a world where hunger becomes your next door neighbor instead of just a distant rumor? How are you going to prepare yourself to be a giver instead of a taker in times of hardship?
If your business is in trouble, what can you do now? Don’t delay figuring that out or you won’t have a business. Act early, not late. Don’t feel like acting early is pessimism, it isn’t, it is wisdom.
The strategies are basic:
1. Reduce Debt.
2. Reduce Expenses.
3. Make sure the things you are paying for are paying you back.
4. Analyze your marketing and make sure your marketing dollars are effective.
5. Find out what you can do that doesn’t cost, that actually WORKS, to promote your business effectively.
6. Listen to your customers. They are changing. How are they changing, and how can you help to continue to meet their needs?
Don’t wait until it is too late to respond. The stupidity of corporate bungling on the part of big business may lead you to believe that there will be a bail out of some kind for you if your business crashes. There won’t be. And for the most part, the rest of the world won’t even know you are gone. It is your responsibility to act wisely, NOW, to respond before you are in a crisis so bad there is no more hope.
Please assess the health of your business, honestly and completely. Look for the problem areas that could torpedo you and get them in order. The ability to act early, and wisely, is going to separate those who survive from those who don’t.
The Soap Opera Continues
The continuing saga of the site system theft…
I’m not being vindictive or vengeful. I’m just informing the guy of real problems that he walked into without really thinking about it ahead of time.
Ok, so if someone steals a replicated site system, they are probably biting off more than they can chew. Their actions may come back to bite them in ways they never anticipated. These are the things that have been pointed out to the person who duplicated our site system:
1. Copyrighted material is recognizable. If you copy someone’s site, you are using copyrighted material.
2. You may not just be stealing one person’s copyrighted material. You may be using material created by another person, and used by permission by the person you stole from. You do NOT have permission to use it!
3. When you steal software, it may be highly complex. Copyrighted material may be woven into it in places that are difficult for you to detect. The original owner may be able to spot things you do not even know are there.
4. When you steal a website, it is very difficult to get all of the original ownership information out of it. Your site may in fact send mis-directed emails to the original owner without your knowledge.
5. When you steal software, you have no idea what someone else might have changed. If you steal a software site structure, it may have had custom alterations. If you update the software using standard update procedures, you may break something, and not even know where the problem is.
6. If custom alterations have been made to a software site structure, they may be insecure, or they may have introduced bugs that you will have to troubleshoot, and you won’t know where they are coming from in the code.
7. Images can be anywhere in a site, and identifying images may be dropped into places all through it where they can be accessed by direct URL. You will never be able to find them all. You are a sitting duck for a copyright lawsuit.
8. If you steal a website and use it for yourself, it can cause problems. If you steal a website and then use it as the backbone of your services, you are staking your entire reputation on someone else’s stuff. Not only can the original owner sue you, your clients can sue you also. And if the structure is unreliable or unsustainable, your clients will make you pay!
We didn’t have to do anything other than point these things out to the person who copied our system. They are his problem to deal with.
Frankly, I find it much faster and cleaner to just build my own stuff. Stealing other people’s stuff is just too much work!
Enjoying Myself Immensely!
One of my associates emailed me yesterday, informing me that someone had duplicated my entire vertical market site system for a particular market. Yes, I’m going to name names here.
We build websites for Norwex Consultants (the domain name when this article was written, was norwexwebsites.com – the domain name has since been removed due to changes in the Norwex policies). We have done so for about a year now. We were the original dynamic Norwex shopping cart provider, and we are the most experienced and successful at it.
One of our clients has taken the liberty of partnering with another technician. I think they thought there was an easy goldmine there (little do they know that anything good takes WORK).
Their site, located at http://www.norwex-websites.com (the hyphenated version of our domain name – this website is also no longer valid, though it was at the time this article was written) contained text straight from our site system, and cloned the shopping cart down to the typos. I saw this myself. I was told that he even used MY templates… Badly edited, according to a reliable source. I did not see these for myself, but this woman knows my work, and has seen the templates I created, and future actions of the site owner would tend to lend credibility to her claim.
My friend took the liberty of emailing him, and informing him that he was using copyrighted information, and that it was unethical. This is where it got fun!
Over the next few hours, we watched as parts of his site became unavailable, then came up again, totally different than what they were before.
His entire template gallery disappeared, and then reappeared one page at a time. It is pretty obvious that he thought if I was using Artisteer to create templates, that he could too. He clearly did not spend as much time learning the fine points of creating good templates with it, because the templates were so easily identified as having been created with a template generator, that you really have to feel sorry for the guy. Artisteer is a GREAT program, and the hands of a skilled designer who takes the time to learn how to use the hidden features and who takes the time to create great graphics in PhotoShop ahead of time, can make this program SING. He didn’t. His templates reuse the same images over and over, and they are all identical, with only some color changes. They aren’t even color coordinated, and they do not use the preferred colors of the target market. The layout and design does not change from one to the next, they have the appearance of having been created in a hurry.
Our templates are unique, color coordinated, and attractive, and we have taken great pains to make sure they reflect the mindset of the target market we are serving. We purchase high quality stock photos for each template, and make sure we are using them according to the terms of use – no shortcuts. We know our stuff, and we know what makes sites work. About half of the consultants want our templates as-is, without any changes other than asking for their site name to be added.
Other pages began to disappear and reappear also. Each time, with new content. Must have given him quite a bit of panic. I suggested to him that he might want to make sure that every bit was removed that was ours, whether he thought it was private or not, because if he failed to, he’d never be quite sure which client we sent to purchase a site and check it out for us.
I guess there are three lessons from this.
1. I don’t think there is a reason to feel threatened by competition. I mean, if someone honestly sets up competition against me, go for it. If they do a better job than I, they deserve the success.
This was different than that. We took action, notifying him that he needed to stop using our copyrighted items, because when you copy something of someone else’s it is THEFT, not innovation.
But I am still not worried about competition from this kind of person. I am not a lazy business woman. I did things right, and I took the time where it mattered. I need not fear anyone who takes shortcuts because they lack the understanding of what makes a website really work, and what makes it fail. There are so many points on which he simply cannot compete with us in quality, and where his site falls down on basic marketing messages that he does not pose any real threat to our business. His sales site is so unattractive (this was the first thing one of my students commented on) and so lacking in essential conversion points, that it is doubtful that he will be able to make a sale.
In this instance, he is actually going to do a LOT of marketing for us – because people remember domain names WITHOUT hypens (and search engines pay more attention to the original than to the knock off. Hyphenated names have absolutely NO higher weight with them, they provably parse both with equal accuracy). So a good deal of his marketing will benefit us, but NONE of ours will benefit him!
2. If you do something illegal (by intent, or by being mislead), you are likely to get caught. And when you do, you’ll spend your time running around trying to cover up the evidence, rather than being able to use the time in productive activities that move your business forward. Not only that, but someone may publish the truth of what happened, to which you will have no defense, and it will give your company a black eye, potentially costing you the time you already invested, or more.
3. When someone does something like this, there isn’t a reason to seek revenge. There are legal steps you can take, and the law can provide its own consequence. That is how it should be.
I’ve never had someone blatantly steal something from me in all my years doing business online. I’ve had clients who reported having their sites cloned by someone else, but it has never happened to me. Having it happen with an entire system was rather a surprise.
I’ve actually had a good evening, peeking in periodically to see what is being frantically replaced next. It has been rather amusing, sort of like pulling the strings on a puppet. I’m also writing a few other emails, informing a few other people who need to know, whose work was also involved in the system.
I really sort of feel sorry for the guy… To be so handicapped in business as to think this is a way to get ahead!
Beggars at Wal-Mart
Wyoming is beyond rural. About the only reason people come here when they have nothing, is on their way through. We’ve lived here 13 years, and have never seen a summer like this one.
We spent 3 years driving monthly to Denver for cancer treatment for our son. As we came off the freeway, there were sometimes people with signs standing at the end of the on-ramp where the light required the cars to stop. We were never prepared with more than the day’s needs, but we talked about what we might do if we could, and prayed for their wellbeing. They were an unusual sight to us, such a thing was extraordinarily rare in Wyoming.
A few years ago we began seeing the first people standing outside Wal-Mart in Laramie, where the driveway meets the street. It was still unusual enough we didn’t think about it much. We never saw it more than one or two times a year. But we thought about what we could do. Money wasn’t an option, we didn’t have it. Usually groceries were enough for the next week or so, and that was all. We don’t buy snack foods, or other quick fix, so there was rarely anything we could share that would help – I mean, an uncooked potato isn’t going to help you if you don’t have a stove.
This summer, it seemed they were everywhere. In every major town in Wyoming, there was a good chance you’d see someone standing on the corner, somewhere, holding a sign, or just standing there, hoping. I don’t like calling them “beggars”. Sometimes there just isn’t another single word that defines someone standing on the corner asking for help though.
LDS Doctrine teaches us that we should give as much as we are able, without judging. No matter what got them there, we are supposed to help. After all, everybody does stupid things that get them somewhere they didn’t expect to end up, and most of us need some help to pull ourselves out so we can change for the better.
We’ve always tried to be generous, but I don’t think we ever took it into the “give till it hurts” realm. We didn’t sacrifice to help. Sometime over the last year, we decided that we’d give EVERY time, if there was any way to do so. Most of the time, this summer, it has been easy. Squeezing out a bit more for someone else hasn’t even taken thought.
The last few weeks have been lean. We finally got a small paycheck today, with just enough money to pay a couple of obligations and get groceries for a few more days. We had the money budgeted and there was not room to add one more thing – in fact, we’d already scratched off some things we really could use. We have plenty of food in the house, we were just missing key items that we really needed.
As we neared Wal-Mart, we saw a figure on the corner. We didn’t bother to read the sign, that he was there was enough. I knew there was no money to do anything. Then I just said to the kids, “If we help him, we have to do without something. What are we going to scratch off our list?” We decided to eliminate the noodles – the kids were perfectly willing to do so, which was cool. We can do without noodles, since we have plenty of rice and potatoes, and we can make noodles if we really want them. That gave us just enough to get some crackers and cheese, and some hot chocolate mix. They went into a separate bag, and our daughter handed them out the window as we pulled up to the stop sign before leaving the parking lot.
I think this, more than anything, tells me we’ve entered a new era. One where we must not take certain things for granted. That people are on the corner begging in Wyoming is an alarming thing. That they are here in numbers high enough for us to notice, and feel that if we want to help each time we have the opportunity that we must always be prepared to do so, is significant.
And that is exactly what we’ve decided. We’ve decided that we want to be prepared to help, in whatever small way we can. That we never be unwilling to do SOMETHING, even if it is a tiny thing like cheese and crackers and hot chocolate mix. It has changed something in me. It has changed how I think about what I have, and what I need. It has made me want to be something more than I am.
The changing times hold much uncertainty. But I also think they hold many opportunities for us to better ourselves, and to help make our own corner of the world a little less selfish one.
If They Spammed You, They Can’t Help You!
Spam is unsolicited email. Spam is illegal. Therefore, we may conclude that any company that sends you unsolicited email advertisements for their services is breaking the law. We may further conclude that their primary aim is NOT to help your company to grow.
This little piece of logic seems to be set aside each time we receive spam email that contains something we are hoping might be true. That a company that is breaking the law really DOES want to help us get to the top of the search engines. That a company that is breaking the law will honor their word. That a company that is breaking the law somehow will give us what we want at a lower price and higher value than good companies that DON’T break the law.
Sometimes I think there is just a disconnect. We forget to think of it in those terms.
The rule is one you may depend upon to keep from getting ripped off by email scams. If it came through the email, and you did not ASK for it specifically, it is Spam, it is illegal, and the company that sent it is either too ignorant, or too dishonest for there to be any kind of good outcome if you risk it.
Some companies may be sending from outside the US, where it may not be illegal. But… consider…. Do you want a company to work for you, promoting your company worldwide, that is not aware of the laws of your own country? We have actually seen such companies do things on behalf of site owners that were huge legal risks in the US, and which are likely to come back and harm the site owners. If you pay them to do something, then you may also be held liable for any misrepresentation, false statements, or claims that they make on your behalf. If they are ethical, and want US business, they’ll take the time to learn, and RESPECT, the laws of the US.
SEO scams are one of the most rampant, we have businesses contacting us almost daily about this, asking us whether it works or not. Oh, some of them will do the tasks they say they will do. But they do them SO BADLY, that they don’t do you any good at all. You will be throwing money down a hole – and in some cases, the things they do can actually HURT your business. Many other scams are not just false on the end, they are false right from the get-go. They will take your financial information and abuse it with no pretense of delivery of anything.
It doesn’t matter WHO the business is. If they send you an ad, and you did not sign up for it FROM THEM, or if you did not ask a question on a forum that they replied to (and mentioned the forum), or if a friend did not introduce you, or something else that tracks them to a known source, it is illegal for them to send you the ad!
Webmaster Secret: It’s the Ping, Baby
Blog or Website? Which is better? There has long been controversy over whether one really is better for SEO, and if so, why.
I’ve heard reports that blogs do actually index faster, by a week or so, from a credible source. I’ve not heard any other compelling or believable information on long term SEO benefits that were specific to blogs. There was a time when SEs were indexing every blog and treating them like they were something special, but it was short lived – stopped about the time the spammers caught on and started abusing blogs left and right. There hasn’t been any preference for YEARS.
Faster indexing is the ONLY difference I’ve been able to isolate as having any validity, that isn’t attributable to other factors, which are independent of the structure. Most differences have to do with the quality and desirability of the content, the individual optimization efforts, and the promotional efforts of the site owner. Period. Potentials are equal between most good structures, whether it is WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, HTML, etc.
Speculation runs the gamut… I’ve heard all of these things touted as reasons why blogs or websites are “better”.
- Search engines like blogs better.
- Search engines like websites better because they are more stable.
- Search engines like blogs because they have changing content.
- Blogs optimize better.
- Websites build backlinks more stably.
Actually, these factors are all pretty irrelevant.
Search engines don’t really care whether it is a blog or a website. Blogs can behave like websites, websites can behave like blogs, and search engines don’t care. They care about UNIQUE CONTENT. Structure, aside from ability to optimize to a reasonable degree, is completely irrelevant.
We’ve noticed that website pages, or blog pages (posts), index and get traffic long term based on backlinks, and demand for the content. If they are referenced elsewhere, they get more traffic sent directly to them. And if you are the best source for a high demand, low availability topic, you’ll get traffic no matter what structure the site is in (this is, in fact, a great key to getting spontaneous traffic).
Changing content is also irrelevant to the structure. Search engines DO like new content, but ONLY if it is GOOD content. Doesn’t matter how often your content changes if it is trash, Search engines can recognize trash, and they treat it the same way people do. Ever seen those Splogs… You know, those tacky blogs responsible for 99% of comment spam, which consist of nothing but quoted blog posts? Search engines dislike them, and they are a waste of time, because they lack quality original content. The only people who create them are the ignorant, and the dishonest who are charging people for bogus “SEO” services.
Some blogs don’t have regular posts. Some websites have regular updates. So changing content isn’t the reason why some people feel that blogs index faster, either.
So what is it?
It is the ping.
The ONE significant difference in BEHAVIOR, aside from user actions, structure, or quality, is the PING. Potentials are completely equal in all other respects.
Blogs ping when you create a new post. New content has a brief appearance in the latest items index on some directories, then goes into the archives. You have to claim your blog at Technorati and list it with some directories. But as soon as you do, your new posts are announced to them, and fed through RSS.
Some of the blog directories are considered very high credibility links by Search Engines. It helps you get linked faster.
It is important to note though, that the power of the ping is MOSTLY transient. One brief moment in the spotlight, then your page disappears into oblivion unless it is highly desirable information, in which case it will regularly resurface.
So what is the real power information here?
You can make a website ping and feed. You can make pages behave like a blog, you can post regularly, and you can install an extension to make it ping when you update content. Many dynamic site structures have RSS capabilities which can be enabled and used.
The choice of whether you use this or that structure doesn’t depend primarily on indexing speed, or any assumptions of blog preference. It depends on what features are needed, and what the long term growth needs are.
Where SEO is concerned, the playing field can be completely leveled in all other respects.
Webmaster Elitism – Part 1 Hand Coding
I have some pet peeves about the elitist attitudes of some web designers. They seem to feel that the way they do it is the only way to do it, and that anyone who fails to do it their way, is somehow inferior. One of those issues, involves hand coding.
Their assertion is that hand coding is always superior to that created by a WYSIWYG HTML editor.
My assertion is that 99% of the time, a WYSIWYG editor will produce a superior result. Because 99% of the time, the site is being coded by someone who has an insufficient understanding of code to produce superior code.
The fact is that human error is responsible for more poor site performance than even bad WYSIWYG editors. And human error doesn’t just cause non-compliant or oddly coded sites. It causes major problems. Well, the one exception would be MicroSoft Word – there are people who think that it is an HTML editor, and it is NOT. It out classes the worst human errors. But as a rule, people are the source of the greatest mistakes, and the mistaken notion that hand coding is somehow superior is responsible for a large percentage of those mistakes.
There are three levels of skills:
1. Beginner. These people know nothing of code, they create a site in an HTML editor because they cannot create one any other way. Any attempt to edit code by hand will potentially cause more problems than it solves.
2. Intermediate. They understand code, can hand edit it to improve or alter some kinds of code, but do not hand write it, and SHOULD not. As much as possible, they should either start with an existing template and customize it, or, use a WYSIWYG editor to create the site code, then only make necessary alterations by hand.
3. Expert. This is someone who understands code so well they can write it from scratch. In this case, they should STILL start with an editor – why? Because it is, frankly, faster to use a WYSIWYG editor, and then tweak it, than it is to write it from scratch. This is more fair to the client who is paying for it. It is also more accurate. Editors are by nature more accurate, and less likely to make typo mistakes. A good one will consistently produce good code 90% of the time, with consistently known issues with the other 10%. A smart coder can easily improve that 10% in less time than it takes to write the other 90%.
It simply is not true that hand coding is superior. In most cases, it is a complete waste of time. It is a myth in itself too, because many people who are touting hand coding as the ultimate skill are using some kind of software to do half of the job anyway.
The key for most designers is to choose a good WYSIWYG editor, and then learn to use it well. Good tools IMPROVE the quality of work, they don’t compromise it, and there is no shame in depending on good tools. It is, in fact, smart strategy.
The myth that hand coding is somehow better than software coded pages is perpetuated by snobs who want to belittle those who don’t have a highly specialized understanding of code.
Lessons From the Mac
I bombed two weeks of computer classes in high school. Ok, it was really a math class, but the teacher took liberties and immersed us in command line for two weeks (TRS-80s). I wallowed. Could not figure it out, and HATED it. Swore at that point that I’d never touch another computer as long as I lived. I had no use for them AT ALL.
About 1994 my father-in-law gifted us a Mac Classic. Kevin was a teacher at the time, and he took right to it. To my utter shock, I did too. I began writing poetry and short stories. I sought out freeware and shareware games for my kids – educational stuff. After about six months, I reformatted the hard drive just to see if I could. I was hired as a computer aide at a local school, and within a few years, was buying, refurbishing, and reselling Macs (desktops and laptops). I could quote you the specs of any Mac model off the top of my head.
There was something about the Mac. I could actually USE it. And using a Mac early on in my computer business career taught me some valuable lessons, which have been part of shaping our business into something both original and successful.
1. Don’t make it harder than it has to be. Keep things simple on the surface, and leave the layers of complication for later.
2. Make it fun. The Mac was a lot of fun. There were hidden messages and games in many of the programs (nicknamed Easter Eggs). The computer greeted you with a smile. Mac instructions were written with a sense of humor (David Pogue’s were some of the best, in Macs for Dummies). You could change the desktop patterns and even make your own (remember, all of this was brand new concepts at the time, Bill Gates was still trying to mimic it).
3. Think Different. More than different – think about needs, and meet them, instead of being trapped by rigid standards arbitrated by those who really don’t get what the needs actually are.
4. Don’t be afraid to use what works, regardless of what everyone else is doing. I defended my position to use a Mac over and over, and it taught me to do what worked for MY business, and not be made to feel inadequate because I wasn’t doing it the way someone else thought I should.
5. Meet higher standards. The Mac had higher customer satisfaction standards than PCs had. They also had higher compatibility and performance standards. They met them too.
6. When you make changes to keep up with technology or growth, don’t lose what makes it work. The Mac fell apart when they made some decisions that lost many of the things users loved about it. It lost some of the humor, much of the reliability, and much of what made it unique. The end came for us when they released an operating system that was incompatible with the firmware (part of the built-in hardware coding) on our Mac, combined with a decrease in available software for our industry. We moved to the PC because the Mac no longer had what we needed – It did not matter that the iMac was cute and colored, the hard drive crashed repeatedly and had to be reformatted due to the incompatibility. It was unsustainable.
7. Just because you screw up once, or twice, or even a dozen times, doesn’t mean you can’t make a comeback. While we haven’t gone back to the Mac (it would be prohibitively expensive for us to do so now), an increasing number of our clients and students have done so.
The Mac was responsible for a huge learning process for me. It took all of my half-talents, and combined them together into a combination of skills which had value. And Mac instructions were so much clearer than PC instructions (which always seemed to assume you already KNEW what you were doing and only needed a reminder of a single concept). In fact, I learned more from Macs for Dummies, More Macs for Dummies, and Mac Secrets, about how to operate and diagnose a PC than I did from a huge combination of PC books. Because I learned more foundational computer concepts, and I learned more practical applied troubleshooting concepts, which I could then adapt to the PC.
I function using a PC. But it isn’t fun, and I miss my Mac. I don’t know if it will ever be feasible to go back. But I appreciate the lessons I learned from it. The whole philosophy of the Mac had a huge impact on how I thought about business, and has helped to take me someplace extraordinary.
Living Life in a Blur
The last few weeks have passed in a blur. Some good things, some hard ones, some absolutely unmanageable ones. I can blame it on my broken glasses – one of the absolutely unmanageable things. Everything is a blur, regardless of the speed at which it passes!
They are old glasses, ones I’ve been trying to get a few more months out of. No insurance, so they have to be budgeted for. Cleaning them one morning, the lens fell out. One minute I was circling the cloth on the lens, the next moment the lens lay in my hand. No pop, no resistance, it just lay there. I immediately thought to pop it back in (the logical impulse). The frame was broken, and no impulse was going to make that lens stick. It broke where the top of the frame connects to the nosepiece – it was not the nosepiece that broke, it was the top of the frame. Unrepairable.
My mother helpfully suggested tape… I love my mother, but I still can’t believe she seriously suggested this, even if the break HAD been in a place where the tape would conceivably hold the pieces together.
Ok, so I have no pride where some things are concerned, I’ll drive an old car and not feel bad about it. But taped glasses on a 40+ year old woman are completely incompatible with any SEMBLANCE of a professional image! She suggested this the day I was invited to present at the Idea Expo. Yeah, that’s just what I want… Show up with tape on my glasses, right between my eyes where it is sure to attract the maximum attention.
I wonder, which sort should I use?
- The classic surgical tape has a pristine white tackiness about it. It might be considered the all season look. It frays nicely also, and strings hang off the edges, adding to the overall pathetic-ness of the look.
- Perhaps I should go redneck and use duct tape. It would not only lend a festive silver gleam, it would be sure to be bulky and lumpy – so no one could miss it. The perfect touch to my segment on creative solutions for Shoestring Startups!
- Or maybe a contemporary look would be better – I could try red electrical tape. This is my 12 year old son’s favorite tape for repairing books, toys, or anything else that it will stand out nicely on. I’m sure it would also stand out nicely beside the bridge of my nose. Red is one of our company colors, so I’d then coordinate with our branding.
- How about pop-glitz? We have some faceted mylar tape – in silver or gold. Of course, someone might then mistake the sparkle for an inappropriate twinkle in my eye. Besides, I’m not sure I want to feel THAT young.
Maybe I can create an entire look around it. Worn vinyl velcro tennis shoes, a muu-muu style housedress, and a balaclava.
Think it will catch on?
There Must Be a Pony
We’ve all heard the story. “With all this manure, there must be a pony in here somewhere!”
I think that a lot of people blog or write articles with the same mentality. Not particularly caring about quality, but believing that if they produce enough manure, that somehow it will materialize into a pony.
Good writers try to write good quality every time. They understand that you write four or five articles, or maybe a dozen or two, for every one that someone else proclaims as “good”. Good article marketers and bloggers also realize that the really popular articles can’t always be predicted. So you write the best that is in you, try to make it good quality every time, and know that if you do that, you greatly enhance the odds that one of them will pay you back.
There are many “SEO” companies, a good many that are located in countries where English is not the native language, that produce “marketing articles” in something akin to an article mill. What boggles my mind is that anyone will actually PAY for these articles, but they do. And the writers are a plague on every article directory out there, the reason why you have a harder time submitting GOOD stuff.
The average article produced by them ranges from downright awful, to technically accurate and correct, but entirely colorless. Either one is purely a waste of time, money, and effort – and in some instances, we’ve even seen such companies create legal liability issues for their clients, because they wrote things that the FTC would consider to be misleading or dangerous statements. These articles do no good at all, search engines don’t really bother to COUNT most articles that are not linked outside the article directory itself.
A large number of business owners also crank out article after article, little caring about the quality, on the belief that if they wrote it, it MUST be good. They never check to see if their articles are linked, or even indexed in the search engines.
Article marketing works when it does, because people LIKE what is written. So the primary goal of a good article marketer is to create stuff that people WANT to read. Stuff that they enjoy, and then want to SHARE. Because the real power is in the sharing, not in the posting to the article directory.
In fact, posting articles to an article directory is a COMPLETE waste of time if they do not get picked up and linked, or reprinted. Seriously.
Blogging has similar requirements. Blogging works when people READ the blog. There are a gazillion blogs out there filled with nothing of value. If yours is just another of those, then people will forget it so fast that you’d get more mileage out of getting arrested and making the news. There is no distinction in owning a bad blog. 95% of blog posts are not read by more than one person – the person who wrote it. If you want others to read what you write, they’ve gotta LIKE it enough to take time out of their busy day to see what you have to say today.
An amazing number of people will pay for writing services though, without ever checking to see if the writing is even good! They think that somehow if they fertilize the web with enough manure, that something good will grow of it? There’s already enough manure on the web, and people universally ignore it. If people ignore it, search engines do too.
Quality, and enjoyability are the factors that make an article worth writing.
The Parable of the Donkey
A traveler bought a donkey to haul his belongings. He had a long way to go, and could not carry all of his belongings himself. He chose a fine, strong donkey, from a breeder who was known for breeding sturdy pack animals.
The man loaded his belongings onto the donkey, and set out upon his journey. After a number of days, he reached a city. He entered the marketplace, and there he saw many merchants, selling all sorts of wares. One merchant caught his eye. He sold hats, for donkeys. The traveler thought the hat so interesting he just had to have it. He bought it and put it upon his donkey. It covered the donkey’s ears, and made it harder for the donkey to hear, but the man liked the hat so much, he hardly considered it. He did wonder why his donkey was less responsive to his commands, but blamed it on the animal.
He traveled on. In the next city, his attention was taken by a merchant selling leg decorations for donkeys. This he had to have! He quickly bought a set of four and fastened them onto the donkey. He thought they looked very fetching. His donkey adopted a funny walk to keep from bashing the leggings into each other, and the man found himself criticizing the donkey for being awkward.
In the next city on his route, he discovered a decorative pack saddle. It was far heavier than the plain one he had been using, and it did not accommodate the burden as easily. But he liked it so well, he strapped it to his donkey, and loaded his goods onto the pack saddle. The load was somewhat unbalanced, and some items had to be tied to the side with ropes, where they dangled and beat upon the donkey’s legs. At the end of the day, some goods were damaged, and the man was angry with the donkey.
A city later, he found a full body blanket for his donkey. It was meant for night use, but he liked it so well that he unloaded the donkey, put the blanket on, and reloaded the animal. During the hot day, the poor beast overheated, and had to rest more frequently than usual. The man cursed his donkey for being slow and lazy.
Traveling on, the man found a merchant selling shoes for his donkey. Not the typical iron shoes, but full covering, lace up shoes. He thought them so clever that he immediately put them on his donkey and happily paid a high price for them. The donkey could no longer feel the earth beneath it’s feet. It stumbled and plodded instead of stepping lightly. The man found he needed to hit his donkey to keep him moving fast enough.
The man was angry that his donkey was no longer the sturdy and sure animal he had bought. It frustrated him. He beat the animal to make it go faster, and to punish it when it stumbled, and hollered and cursed it when it did not obey his commands.
Finally, he could take it no longer. Arriving in a small desert town, he determined to sell his donkey for what he could get, and purchase a new one. In a hurry, and frustrated with his animal, he sold it and only removed his original traveling packs, leaving the animal to the new owner with all the trappings in place, and set off with his new donkey (a quick and responsive beast), with his eye out for new accessories to bestow on this new and “better” animal.
The new owner of his old donkey patiently removed the blanket, the pack saddle, the hat, the shoes and leggings, and rubbed down the tired animal. He fed it a good meal and rested it for several days. Then he placed a plain and simple pack saddle on it, loaded it with a sizeable burden, and marveled at the strength and sure-footedness of this donkey that had been described as a weak and clumsy thing. He set out on the road, soon passing the first traveler, who was making his way with his new donkey, slower and slower, as he again loaded it with unnecessary trappings.
It seems so clear when it is choices someone else is making regarding a donkey. But when it is our own website, and we think the next new gadget is “really cool”, we have a harder time making wise choices.
The rule is simple… If it does not help achieve the primary goal, don’t do it.
If you want your website to SELL, then don’t put things on that get in the way of that. Otherwise, your website will be less responsive, slower, and will stumble and fail to perform effectively.
Gardening doesn't have to be that hard! No matter where you live, no matter how difficult your circumstances, you CAN grow a successful garden.
Life from the Garden: Grow Your Own Food Anywhere Practical and low cost options for container gardening, sprouting, small yards, edible landscaping, winter gardening, shady yards, and help for people who are getting started too late. Plenty of tips to simplify, save on work and expense.
