Are FREE iPods REALLY FREE? - An impressed review
So what's the deal with this FREE iPod offer? A new web site, FreeiPods.com, has been offering these 20GB beauties, as well as the smaller mini iPods to anyone who completes a trial offer and gets just 5 friends to do the same.
The concept is simple: Offer a high ticket item for 'free', and have the companies who offer the free trials foot the bill. If you like their service, the small cost (to them) of an iPod is worth far less then a potential customer for life.
Plus, the offers are all from reputable companies, some of whom even PAY YOU! That's right, you read correctly. I completed a free trial offer with InFone.com, which has NO monthly fees (and only costs money if you use the service, which I have no intention of doing since my Nextel plan offers a similar service). THEY SENT ME A $10.00 AMAZON.COM GIFT CERTIFICATE! I just bought Mars Attacks on DVD and sent that cute girl in the pic with me a random Indie Rock CD (surprises make her smile) for an out-of-pocket expense of $0.80, including shipping... now that's what I call a good deal.
I initially read about the FreeiPods.com site on Wired.com or the CNN site. It seems that this site is actually legit, and people are actually GETTING these iPods. I am really happy that some marketing guy somewhere realized if you don't screw people, they might buy your product. Now alls I have to do is get three more friends to sign up and i'll be in MP3 heaven. Audible.com, here I come!
If anyone has actually GOTTEN a free iPod from this offer, drop me a line, I'd like to know how long you had to wait, and if it was in fact brand newlike they say.
Annoying Web Design ("THE NO MORE BACKGROUND MUSIC" RANT)
In this article, I will discuss one of the most annoying, amatuer, (and potentially illegal) mistakes people make when creating websites. Now, before you send me emails, I know lots of people use them on their personal sites, that's fine. People are free to enjoy bad taste in the privacy of their own web space.
This article is geared more towards the professional or commerce sites. Certainly there is a place for sound everywhere, including these sites; It's a fact that people respond better to sensory feedback. We are talking about what is most likely already driving you insane... THE BACKGOUND MIDI!
I have come accross several sites in my surfing, including a well-known boat manufacturer (who shall remain nameless becasuse they make a great boat) who uses Jimmy Buffet's Cheesburger In Paradise to annoy visitors into a buying frenzy. Not only are the computer-generated notes of a MIDI file slightly off-key, you may even open yourself up to intellectual property infringement, and, as recent events prove, the RIAA doesn NOT take this lightly.
The bottom line with background music is this: If your customer is busy nodding away to that MIDI file of 'Eye of the Tiger' you spent hours searching for, they may forget they are actually supposed to be buying something from you, and leave...I know I would.
There was originally a MIDI file playing in the background as an example, but it annoyed me when I visited my own blog, so it is no more.
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I, Robots.txt - They came, They saw, They Cataloged!
The robots.txt file is a file placed in your web server's root directory (meaing it should be accessible by typing www.yoursite.com/robots.txt) that contains specific details about your site, making a search engine's job much easier, as well as telling it what NOT to index. This is called the 'Robot Exclusion Standard".
The format for the robots.txt file is special. It consists of records. Each record consists of two fields : a User-agent line and one or more Disallow: lines. The format is:
[field] ":" [value]
The following tags are allowed in the robots.txt file, and examples are given for their usage:
- User-agent
The User-agent line specifies the robot. For example:
User-agent: googlebot OR User-agent: * (*=all)
You can find user agent names in your own logs by checking for requests to robots.txt. Most major search engines have short names for their spiders.
Disallow: email.htm OR Disallow: /cgi-bin/
If you leave the Disallow line blank, it indicates that ALL files may be retrieved. At least one disallow line must be present for each User-agent directive to be correct. A completely empty Robots.txt file is the same as if it were not present.
- Any line in the robots.txt that begins with # is considered to be a comment only. The standard allows for comments at the end of directive lines, but this is really bad style:
Disallow: bob #comment
EXAMPLE ROBOTS.TXT FILE:
#Allowing all robots everywhere:
User-agent: *
Disallow:
#This one keeps all those nosy robots out:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /
#The next one bars all robots from the illegal_documents and invoices directories:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /illegal_documents/
Disallow: /invoices/
#This one bans Google from poking around:
User-agent: Google
Disallow: /
#This one bans keeps googlebot from indexing the all_my_credit_card_numbers.html file:
User-agent: googlebot
Disallow: all_my_credit_card_numbers.html
Once you are finished banning and allowing robots, run your file through the
Robots.txt file validator. Let me know how you did!
Using Custom Favorites Icons
I was sitting at my desk earlier reseaching FreeBSD hosting control panels, when I noticed the icons in my favorites list. It occurred to me that this feature is neglected far too often by developers as well as Microsoft themselves.
If you are unfamilair with the favorites icon, it is eaxactly that: A webmaster selectable icon file (*.ico) that appears in the user's favorites list:
Thats an extremely powerful tool. Imagine the following scenario:
You attract Bob to your site through a means of advertising. Bob sees the product he wants at a price he likes, but he gets distracted. So he leaves.
But you, the savvy genuis you are, were waiting for Bob. Weeks earlier you came across this article and created a favorties icon. The icon is what brings Bob back. Every time he accesses his favorites list, he sees your full color icon in a list of colorless text!
Suddenly, Bob remebers! He has to buy that back hair remover for his mother's birthday! And he knows just where to find one... YOUR SITE.
Now that you see the potential, lets make one! Here's what you'll need:
The icon size must me set to exactly 16x16 pixels; IE will ignore any other size.
Save the file with the name Favicon.ico, then upload the icon to the root directory of your Web site. Whenever a visitor bookmarks a page, IE then automatically checks the site's root directory for the Favicon.ico file.
You may also specify an individual icon for each page, by using the following code in the head tag:
< href="http://www.yoursite.com/bookmark.ico" rel="SHORTCUT ICON">
A visitor to your site will see the shortcut icon when they add your home page to his Favorites menu. When he does, the icon will appear in the Favorites menu beside your site's name, and it will also appear in IE's Address bar when the visitor accesses your site via that menu.
Thats it!
A Word of Warning to All Web Site Owners
When you say "I need a hosting company.", do you know what you're actually saying? In a sense, you are saying you intend to entrust your entire online presence, your profits, and even your customers sensitive billing information to (in most cases) a complete stranger.
Think about that for a moment. As part owner of a hosting company, I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that any company you choose to host your web site has COMPLETE access to ANY information you place on their servers. In addition to the fact that they physically own them, they also occasionally have a need to perform various maintenence tasks that might put them face to face with your entire directory structure, which will list each and every file you have stored.
Unfortunately, most small business owners and indviduals fail to consider the potential ramifications fully.
I have a good friend who found a 'bargain' hosting company, who promised 99.9% uptime, as well as rock-bottom domain name pricing, for an amazingly low monthly cost of just $9.99/mo! To make a long story short, the 99.9% uptime garuntee was shot when 3 days after she signed up, she experienced hours of intermittent availability for over two weeks. She finally tired of this, and attempted to have her domain transfered to another host, only to find out her 'bargain' host would not release her domain name to her. As this host happened to be located internationally, and also stopped responding to e-mails, her domain name is tied up in arbitration with ICANN to this day
I have plenty of stories like this, and time and time again I ask how they came to choose such a disreputable company. They infallably state "Price.", with the sheepish look of remorse and a lesson well learned.
The bottom line is this: If you don't have any experience with the internet or web hosting, GET A REFERRAL! The chances are extremely great that someone you know has or knows someone who has a web site. Ask them what they think, how much they pay, and ask them about the relationship they have with their host. And ask what they charge to do maintenence and other tasks.
I know of one host who actually charges $85 an hour... and they charge $39.95 a month for a hosting plan WITHOUT a database. Do the math... If you need them to re-upload a SINGLE file (They do not pro-rate their fee), it will cost you more then what they charge you monthly to store those files online. It takes less than one minute to upload a static HTML file. If they do it for you, they have made $85 in approx. 2.7 seconds according to the test upload I just did. Wow.
I would be glad to give advice on choosing a good host to anyone who email's me, or, if you'll pardon the plug, consider Box35.com, Inc. for a great deal on hosting.(We even offer $8 domain names with the purchase of any hosting plan!)
BMK Media Web Design Blog Introductory Post
Welcome to my first blog post! My inspiration to create this blog is multi-dimensional. First and foremost, I enjoy teaching others. I get great joy out of watching someone perform a new skill for the first time. Secondly, I am a first-year Business major, and with that comes a large Gordon Rule requirement to fufill. Granted, this blog doesn't count towards it, but it's a great way to get back in the swing of things!
Ok, to give you a little background about myself, I am 22, I live in South Florida, and I own a web design company. I recently entered a partnership with some friends to start a web hosting company called Box35.com, Inc., founded on our slogan; "Simple. Reliable. Affordable". Basically, we are three web designers who found ourseves tired of being ripped off by large hosting companies. We scratched and scrounged money together for months, and we purchased our first server, a gorgeous FreeBSD machine. It is now living happily in a giant datacenter with 24hr armed security, redundant Tier 1 backbone internet connections, as well as backup generators and fire suppression systems. We are now proudly able to offer hosting plans starting at just $6/mo (Details..) including an SQL DB!
In my spare time, I can either be found at one of several computers at my desk, or out enjoying the Florida sunshine. I am an avid boater, I enjoy all water sports including wakeboarding, snorkling, fishing & SCUBA diving. I have recently combined those last two interests into a love of spearfishing. I also kayak regularly (I think a 5-mile kayak trip on the weekends is the only thing keeping me sane) and have started [mountain] biking again since fracturing a cheekbone and brusing my forearm a week before the start of my senior year of highschool.
This blog will serve to inform its readers of some of the gouging that I experience during my day-to-day business interactions, tips and tricks for creating your OWN professional-looking web pages quickly and easily, as well as a collection of links and info I find useful, interesting, or just funny. You, the reader, will also be the first to know about new products and services available from both BMK Media & Box35.com, Inc!
Welcome to YOUR place to discover web design!
