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Ozdachs

About Ozdachs

San Francisco Internet Marketer and web designer gets you on the Internet in a cost-effective, responsible way.

Borrow (or Buy) Functionality… Don’t Build it!

I am a fan of using third-party tools and pre-developed solutions instead of developing new features for clients.

Why?

  • You don’t want to be dependent on me.
  • You don’t want to pay for one-off development.

This month I found and used a free script from Yahoo! that allows people to click a button to hear a streamed sermon by Rev. Mary Moore, a minister for whom I just finished a web site.

Locating the tool, implementing on the client’s web site, and testing it took less than an hour. Spectacular!

Of course, with third-party products, especially those that are free, we’ll have to check periodically to make sure that they’re still working as we expect.  In the case of Rev. Moore’s web site, the critical period of it to be working is a two-week period every two years…   not a very stringent testing requirement.

I regularly use a third-party menu-building tool (see left-hand navigation on Rev. Moore’s site for an example of that feature). I also use a third-party form creator for displaying forms and emailingthe filled-in data to the appropriate person (see Rev. Moore’s contact page for a sample form from that tool).

It’s not that I cannot code.  I was an assembly language programmer in my early career.

But paying for the time spent coding custom applications is beyond the budget of most of my clients.  Plus, third parties who specialize in a particular function are likely to have designed and tested their product much more thoroughly than I could for a one-time use.

If you’re working with a web designer who wants to build a custom solution, call me first.  I’m happy to tell you what third-party application I’d use, where to look for already-created tools, or else applaud your designer for tackling a truly unique situation.

By |2011-04-28T18:10:46-07:00April 28th, 2011|Web Design|0 Comments
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Cisco is Killing the Flip Video Camera

Cisco announced today that it is discontinuing the Flip video camera. This is quite a turnaround from 2009 when Cisco bought the company that produced the super-cool device for $590 million. Some write-down!

Wired magazine suggests that the Flip is being killed because its sales have fallen and it’s past its moment of coolness. I think they’re on to something, but it’s not just about the Flip.  It’s about large corporations overpaying for something unique and cool, corporatizing the soul out of it, and then having to unload the non-performing asset at bargain prices.

The Flip is/was a smart idea.  But Cisco didn’t keep the brand on the edge of technology.  There’s no button to upload over the air to Facebook, or something like that.  The 2011 Flip is the 2009 Flip. There’s no Flip momentum in the Flip.

Yet, if Cisco had kept its hands off the camera, I’m betting we all would be wanting a Flip. But, a Cisco Flip just doesn’t have the spunk — rosy sale future — that corporate overlords require.

As it is, the Flip is in demand.  I tried to order two this afternoon from Amazon.com.  Amazon refused, saying that they were limiting Flips to one per client.

With that type of restriction, Flip doesn’t sound like a failure.

 

By |2011-04-12T16:56:26-07:00April 12th, 2011|Tips and Resources|0 Comments
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Google Isn’t Cheating … It’s Beating The Competition

Bing is DownYesterday’s news was sprinkled with references to Federal anti-trust regulators looking into various aspects of Google’s business.

Some arm of some agency was looking into Google’s purchase of another software company while the Feds elsewhere were pondering the fairness of Google’s search results.

I was listening to the almost gloating radio news reports about Google’s woes as I was trying to help a couple clients gain visibility on the Internet.

I had no problem adding my clients to Google’s places and on Yelp.  But, as I was listening to moaning from Google’s competitors who suspect Google of improper market control, I was having my own problems with Google’s most formidable search competitor, Bing.

Adding the first client to Bing seemed to be going well.  I spent several minutes going through screens adding location details on this page, opening hours on another page, and service details and firm history on following pages. I uploaded a couple of photographs and was getting pretty happy about what my client’s Bing business listing was looking like.

Then I hit the submit button to post the entry.  I expected to be told that I would have to verify ownership through a phone call or other method of providing my rights to speak for the business.

Instead I received a message from Bing that they were sorry.  Their database was down for maintenance.  After letting me go from screen to screen entering my client’s saga, Bing wasn’t going to let me save and publish what I’d done.

I worked on Bing for a while longer, resubmitting my last page in the hopes that Bing would come back to life while my work still existed. No luck.  In fact, when I accessed Bing in other browser tabs, I discovered that in addition to the business database’s lifelessness, Bing’s search customization program was also down. The search customization screens also let you enter your preferences, but when you attempted to update your account, you were told that the page you were looking for was not available (see graphic, above).

Throughout the Bing FAIL, the news radio talkers would hype the headline of the Google’s Federal troubles.

I just wanted to scream at the radio.  It’s not Google’s fault that they are dominant in the marketplace. Their stuff works!

By |2011-04-06T10:23:55-07:00April 6th, 2011|Google|0 Comments
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Leave Daddy

I am mystified why so many of my clients come to me having already bought web site hosting and domain name registration services from Go Daddy.

Go Daddy Girl

source: Go Daddy

You know Go Daddy.  They’re the company who advertises web services on the Super Bowl using large-breasted, pretty young women.  The commercials are cheesy bordering on the sleazy, and they seem to target hormone-crazed geeky teenage men of whatever age.  They are wildly successful.

The photo at right shows Go Daddy’s everyday sex-selling technique.  The image is from Go Daddy’s home page as configured this morning.  The picture shows that the company has even registered the term “Go Daddy Girl”.  Classy, eh?

Yet most of the clients who arrive on my doorstep having already purchased Go Daddy accounts are professional, liberated women — often attorneys. Others are female accountants and businesswomen who command respect.

I’m stumped. Do these women warriors secretly want a Daddy to take care of them? (They don’t seem to need big, strong male caretakers when I meet them, but who knows.)  Do the women think that using Go Daddy will make them look like the women in the ads? Maybe the commercials are so  effective that the women don’t know that there are better alternatives out there?  Or, are the rates for services so appealing that the wise women shoppers cannot resist.

Resistance is NOT Futile

There are two reasons to not select Go Daddy for any Internet services: professional and moral.

Why Go Daddy is Bad for Your Business

I have disliked Go Daddy for years for an amoral reason:  working on sites hosted at Go Daddy is a pain.  And, my pain means cost to my clients.

Go Daddy’s log on and control panel for services are simply confusing.  I suspect deliberately so.  Instead of a clear path to accomplish any task, you’re confronted with non-intuitive menu choices and endless options to buy add-on services.  I always feel like I’m just one errant click away from adding $100 a month to my client’s bill.

Even without mis-clicks, Go Daddy’s electronic maze of confusion is expensive to my clients.  I charge by the hour, and if I cannot get something done quickly, my clients pay for more of my time.

Just this week a client needed a different version of PHP installed on her site. There was no helpful PHP icon on the control panel, nor did a search of the help files reveal how to make the needed settings changes.  Twenty or more minutes later,  I gave up. I submitted a trouble ticket asking for help, emailed my client about the status, and waited for a response to the support request. Next morning, there was no response to the ticket, but my client had replied suggesting that I call Go Daddy’s telephone support because they were good.  They were. I waited only about 5 minutes on hold, spent only 2 minutes or so verifying my right to change things on the account, and then the knowledgeable rep showed me where the apparently undocumented  PHP settings lived in the control panel. I made the change I wanted, and then was told it would take 24 hours for my update to be effective. Because my client was on deadline, I checked periodically while working on other sites to see if the change had been applied. Finally, the right version of PHP appeared, and I was able to get on with site enhancements.

So, let’s say I spent 45 minutes for what should have been five minutes of work.  The cheap $5/month hosting plan isn’t such a bargain after adding in my hourly rate.  And, checking my notes, Go Daddy also cost the same client another hunk of my consulting time in the past 12 months when a Go Daddy bug got in the way of accomplishing what my client wanted.

Why Go Daddy is Bad for Your Karma
Go Daddy's CEO on an Elephant Kill

Go Daddy's CEO on an Elephant Kill. Source: Wired.com

Go Daddy and its CEO Bob Parsons uses sensitive topics to their commerical advantage. They play with moral issues to make money.

  • The over-the-top use of sexy women to sell Go Daddy’s services, at best, pokes fun at women’s equality issues.Is it good-spirited fun? Can you make fun of something while furthering the wrong?I don’t know, since I am not a female attorney, accountant, or designer.

    But there is something uncomfortable to me about financially rewarding sexism.

  • Making graphic videos of killing animals for publicity purposes makes me uncomfortable.Just yesterday Go Daddy’s CEO appeared on news shows talking about his kill.  He’s talking it up, justifying and glorifying it.

    I suspect the graphic video and even the shooting are beside the point.

    The point — just like the reason for producing juvenile sex-merrcials,  is publicity for Go Daddy.

Trading on other people’s struggle for equality is wrong.  Killing anything for your own aggrandizement is wrong.  I prefer to not trade with people who do wrong.

My Recommendation: Leave Your Abusive Daddy

If you haven’t yet signed up for web hosting or domain registrations services, pick one other than Go Daddy.

If you are a Go Daddy customer, find out when your services expire.  Move your domain registration to another registrar now — the new one normally extends the registration so the move will cost you nothing.  Sign up for a hosting service and move your web site a few weeks before it is supposed to renew.

Simple.

Ozdachs regularly uses five different web hosting and domain name registration services.
The service we use most frequently has live, US-based tech support. It’s Webmasters.com.

By |2011-04-02T11:59:10-07:00April 2nd, 2011|Product Recommendations|2 Comments
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Contact Galen

Please email Galen your comments or questions.

Telephone: 415.347.6479

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