Hawaii Web Consulting

University of Hawaii, Manoa campus, has several non-credit web classes coming up for Spring 2009. These are usually great for beginners (and even those who think they know everything!). The schedule is online at: UHM Outreach PNM.
Just a couple of standouts include:

• Boost Your Traffic and Success Online with Social Media Optimization (SMO)
• Search Engine Optimization for Web Designers
• and ThinkTech Hawaii - The Social Web 2.0: Reaching New Markets.

Classes are generally on the Manoa campus or in their downtown location.

And don’t forget about the juried competition for digital images, “Survey of Digital Imagery in Hawaii “. Information about how to enter with your digital images is listed along with the dates and fees. Good luck!

If you are concerned about your online privacy, then you should already know about “cookies” — small files that are stored on your computer that websites write information to.   These cookies are largely used to help with the functionality of the website, maintaining your “session” as you move around the site.  They can also store your login information, so you don’t have to enter your username and password each time.   On the negative side of things, they can also be used to track you, recording what you choose each time you visit the site.   And there are “tracking site” cookies used mostly by advertising sites.   Because many websites have advertising on them, and many are from the same large advertising companies, those ad companies can “track” you on the websites that you visit, along with what you might have done on those “partner” sites.

There are multiple ways to handle cookies, but here is just one quick solution. If you use Firefox, you can still have the postive aspects of cookies, but have them deleted each time you close the browser — so, it’s like starting fresh each time with the website.   You can control your cookies in Firefox by going to Tools, Options, Privacy (in Mac it’s File, Preferences, Privacy), and “Keep Cookies Until I Close Firefox”.

So, you think you are free of cookies then, right?!   Not really.   You may be still being tracked using “Flash cookies” — cookies that Adobe’s Flash program uses.   Flash is what makes the videos on YouTube work, and are also some of the MOST ANNOYING ADS on the Internet.

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Today was Web Weavers Workshop with Lorelle VanFossen, part of Hawaii’s Geek Week.   Lorelle had a ton of great tips to go along with the basics of setting up a successful Wordpress blog site.   A large part of the information is in Lorelle’s book, but it was her discussions to student questions that often proved most helpful.  Some sample tips:

• watch using pronouns in blog articles. Readers might be confused on what “it” is, along with the SEO problem related to keywords.
• do “brain dumps” and THEN edit.   Unload your ideas completely and then go back and edit.   And edit, and edit, and edit some more.
• and if you are using more than 400 words from someone else’s web site, be prepared to hear copyright problems.   In other words, keep your quoting of someone else’s material under 200 words or ask that writer for permission to use more.

Being a power-blogger, Lorelle had several shortcuts using Firefox, GreaseMonkey, and Google Reader, she even had tips on a great mouse that will power through web site scrolling.

It was a good class for anyone interested in learning about blogging, from beginners to those already blogging! Check out Lorelle’s web site for lots more information also!

During the opening event of Mactoberfest for Hawaii’s Geek Week, Lorelle VanFossen asked the audience, “How has Wordpress changed your life?”   She showed some great videos of how lives have been changed by using Wordpress as a blogging software application for helping people express their lives.  For me, Wordpress has changed my life in two main ways, though not really because of blogging.

1) As a web developer looking to help clients solve their online needs, I’ve found one of the biggest requests I hear is, “How can I get a great looking website THAT’S EASY TO UPDATE for someone with no HTML skills.”   I’ve tried finding the perfect CMS solution for those kind of requests, but keep coming back to Wordpress.

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One thing I hear from clients is that they would like more interaction, more traffic, to their existing websites. There are lots of ways to do this, some are more complicated than others, some more expensive than others. In this article I want to discuss some simple, quick, FREE ways to build traffic.

What can you change right now that would build traffic to your website? A quick example is to make sure that the people you already know are aware of all the work and effort you do now on your website. You can promote the website.

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