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Web Host Rackspace Buys Webmail.us

September 30, 2007 By Leave a Comment

This doesn’t come as a huge surprise to me because I knew that Webmail.us has been a Rackspace client for a long time.  I have to commend Rackspace on picking up a fine company… Source: Web Host Industry News | Web Host Rackspace Buys Webmail.us

October 1, 2007 — (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Managed hosting provider Rackspace Managed Hosting (rackspace.com) announced on Monday it has acquired email hosting provider Webmail.us (webmail.us). The companies will work together to focus on providing a comprehensive mail platform and related services to companies of all sizes.

Filed Under: Web Hosting Tagged With: ,

Linking Dynamically to GoogleMaps…

September 28, 2007 By Leave a Comment

I learned a cool trick today while working on an upgrade to a clients real estate solution. I was looking for a way to dynamically link out to a Google Map for each property my client had listed in their database. I ran across a post that Jane at Xlinesoft had responded to a user with that demonstrated how to do this and gave it a shot and it worked. Since I was already capturing “address”, “city”, “state”, and “zip” when the client entered a new listing into their system I just went into the Visual Editor of PHPRunner and selected the Custom Format option and input an expression using those fields.

It seems to be working well, you can go to: http://www.cottonrohrscheib.com/projects/powersite_real_estate_demo/property_view.php?editid1=1 and click on the “View Google Map to Property” link to preview this in action. If you want to go and read Jane’s post, click here…

Filed Under: Current Projects, Real Estate Solutions, Web Development Tagged With: , ,

Using mod_rewrite in Apache

September 26, 2007 By Leave a Comment

I created a Real Estate solution for a client a while back in php and it has worked well for them but once the site launched we noticed that it wasn’t getting crawled by the search engines as well as we would have liked for it to so I did a little research.  I knew that typically data called in from a database dynamically presented a problem when it came to getting the best SEO performance. 

I asked a few developers this past year at HostingCon about this and they suggested I look into Mod Rewrite in apache and see if that wouldn’t help out.  I checked it out and so far the results have been phenomenal for the client.  Here’s what I did in case any of you run into a smilar situation.  I first created an .htaccess file to redirect to a “home page”, in this case it’s called index2.php.  Next I did a rewrite for the dynamically generated pages.  The .htaccess file looks like this:

Options +FollowSymLinksRewriteEngine OnRewriteRule ^index2.php  prime-listings/index_view.php?editid1=1RewriteRule ^prime-listings/lakefront_homes.php  prime-listings/prime_listings_list.php?a=search&value=1&SearchFor=Lakefront+Homes&SearchOption=Equals&SearchField=typeRewriteRule ^prime-listings/lakefront_lots.php  prime-listings/prime_listings_list.php?a=search&value=1&SearchFor=Lakefront+Lots&SearchOption=Equals&SearchField=typeRewriteRule ^prime-listings/lakeview_homes.php  prime-listings/prime_listings_list.php?a=search&value=1&SearchFor=Lakeview+Homes&SearchOption=Equals&SearchField=typeRewriteRule ^prime-listings/lakeview_lots.php  prime-listings/prime_listings_list.php?a=search&value=1&SearchFor=Lakeview+Lots&SearchOption=Equals&SearchField=typeRewriteRule ^prime-listings/river_properties.php  prime-listings/prime_listings_list.php?a=search&value=1&SearchFor=River&SearchOption=Equals&SearchField=typeRewriteRule ^prime-listings/residential_properties.php  prime-listings/prime_listings_list.php?a=search&value=1&SearchFor=Residential&SearchOption=Equals&SearchField=typeRewriteRule ^prime-listings/residential_lots.php  prime-listings/prime_listings_list.php?a=search&value=1&SearchFor=Residential+Lots&SearchOption=Equals&SearchField=RewriteRule ^prime-listings/commercial_properties.php  prime-listings/prime_listings_list.php?a=search&value=1&SearchFor=Commercial&SearchOption=Equals&SearchField=typeRewriteRule ^prime-listings/farm_land.php  prime-listings/prime_listings_list.php?a=search&value=1&SearchFor=acreage&SearchOption=Contains&SearchField=  

So now for example, instead of using http://www.greersferryrealestatecenter.com/prime-listings/prime_listings_list.php?a=search&value=1&SearchFor=Residential&SearchOption=Equals&SearchField=type as a link, I just use this: http://www.greersferryrealestatecenter.com/prime-listings/residential_properties.php. This is apparently more favorable to the search engines. 

Filed Under: Search Engines, Web Development Tagged With: ,

OutFront Webmaster Forum

September 25, 2007 By Leave a Comment

When I first got into this business I naturally had to do a whole lot of learning, most of which I was able to do on my own but I did find a few places on the web that were very helpful.  One of the first forum communities that I got involved in was Thomas Brunt’s Outfront Community.  I met a lot of helpful people there, a few of these people I have contracted work out to and have had long-standing business relationships with through the years.  If you are a developer and sometimes bump your head on things or maybe you are a newbie and just want to bounce some issues you are having off some people who won’t beat you up because you are new I would recommend this forum.  I have been absent for a while just because I have been busy on projects for clients but as of late I have returned and try to stay read up at least one afternoon a week or so.  Link to OutFront Webmaster Forum

Filed Under: Web Development Tagged With:

Helping Clients Understand Webalizer

September 24, 2007 By Leave a Comment

Granted Webalizer has lost favor since products like Urchin (now Google Analytics) have become available, but it has been around a long time and can still provide some useful information. Especially to a client who just wants to know what their most popular pages are, where their traffic comes from, or how many hits / pageviews they have had.  Explaining Webalizer to a client can however take all day long if you aren’t careful.  I wish I had a dollar for every minute I had spent doing just that though.  There is a good website though that we use now as an explanation of Webalizer, it is: http://www.mrunix.net/webalizer/webalizer_help.html. 

Filed Under: Web Hosting Tagged With:

SWSoft Purchases Ensim…

September 24, 2007 By 1 Comment

I just found out today that SWSoft (our current Control Panel and Virtualization Software Vendor) has purchased Ensim (our previous Control Panel Vendor).  I was a little surprised with this news because there weren’t a lot of rumors this year at HostingCon about this possibly happening, maybe there were and I just didn’t hear them. 

When we first started offering Managed Hosting at Pleth we utilized the Ensim Control Panel and really liked it but when relocating our servers to the Planet we decided to just go with what they supported, which at the time was only Plesk.  After having used Plesk for a few years I don’t think I would entertain going back to Ensim though, even with Sergey and the SWSoft team taking the software over, Plesk is just that good in my opinion. 

It is my understanding that the intention of SWSoft at this time is to keep both Control Panel providers as seperate entities, of course that could change down the road, but the primary goal I hear is that they are wanting to push their Open Fusion Initiative out to existing ISV’s.

Filed Under: Web Hosting Tagged With:

New WordPress is Nice!

September 24, 2007 By Leave a Comment

I am working from my Batesville office today and was just telling my partner Greg how nice the new WordPress Blog Software is, I am impressed. Definitely a lot better than it used to be. I am having a little trouble importing all of my other blogs from around the web but I expect that it’s some little something on my end that’s stopping that from happening correctly. One thing about it, WordPress software definitely has a cult following when it comes to finding support, etc.

Filed Under: Social Media / Web 2.0, Web Development, Wordpress™ Tagged With:

Important Site Notice…

September 21, 2007 By Leave a Comment

I have finally grown weary of bouncing around from blogging platform to blogging platform so I have opted to just install wordpress here and customize it along the way with whatever tweaks and hacks I will be needing. As you can see my entire website is under construction, but I hope to have it back on track very soon so stay tuned. I will be bringing in all of my old blog entries as time allows. In the meantime please be sure to visit my business websites, www.pleth.com, www.plethware.com, www.powersitedesign.com, and www.ezcya.com.

Filed Under: Press Releases, Wordpress™ Tagged With: ,

Hide Email Addresses from Spam Harvesters

September 20, 2007 By 1 Comment

I have a client that I do some IT Consulting for that has a long list of staff emails posted on their website. It’s no secret that spam spiders crawl sites and look for email addresses they can add to their database. I knew of a few ways to obfuscate emails so that harvesters couldn’t get them correctly but before I could actually script something up myself I ran across this site: Link to Mysterious Ways – Hide Email Addresses from Spam Harvesters. I added it to my tools list on delicious also: http://del.icio.us/powersitedesign/tools (which also contains some other cool tools). This is a cool generator that allows you to paste in an address and generate drop in code. I chose to use javascript but you can pick from a few different options.

Filed Under: Web Development Tagged With:

Blogging myths could be holding back your business

September 15, 2007 By Leave a Comment

I want to thank Daniel, the editor of Enom’s Blog, the Enom Register for writing this article on social networking.  It’s right on the money… If you think blogs are just for teens chatting about the latest pop princess meltdown, you could be missing out on more leads and better client relationships, according to Rich Brooks of flyte new media. Here’s a digest of how he identified these blogging myths:

1. My customers don’t read blogs – This is heard most often by business owners who don’t completely understand what a blog is. Your customers might not subscribe to any blogs, or read one daily. But since blogs often rank high on search engines, if your customers use the Internet, you can capture their attention with a blog.

2. Blogging is for teenagers – While teens certainly took to blogging quicker than businesses, these days companies of all sizes and shapes have realized the benefits of a business blog. You wouldn’t dismiss the telephone as a communication device just because your teenager spends hours each night on it, would you?

3. Blogging is just a fad – Didn’t some say that about the Internet back in 1997? While much of the hype about blogs is just that, blogs are a powerful, easy-to-use communication tool, and communicating with customers and prospects will never go out of style.

4. Blogging takes up too much time – As business owners we have limited time in the day to market our services; blogging provides great return on that investment. It helps establish your expertise, generates loads of search engine leads, and delivers your message through three distribution channels each time you write.

5. Blogs allow people to leave negative comments – The fact is consumers can vent their frustration most anywhere on the Web. It’s better to take on those comments where you have “home court” advantage. People are looking for transparency and authenticity from companies; the way your blog addresses negative feedback can actually help you win over new converts.

Brooks adds that blogging has proven to be an effective marketing tool for a wide range of businesses. “You can start a blog on your own through a (paid hosted) service like TypePad or by installing a blogging platform … on your own server.” In fact, all eNom hosting plans include your choice of free blogging platforms like WordPress, Simple PHP Blog, b2Evolution, geeklog and others.

Not a design whiz? Brooks advises hiring a professional Web design firm to develop and promote your blog and get you up to speed quickly. You can similarly engage a freelance copywriter to speak in “your” voice if writing doesn’t come easily to you.

Want to start a blog but don’t know where to begin? A great read is 21 Surefire Tips For a Successful Blog Launch

Filed Under: Social Media / Web 2.0 Tagged With:
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