Web Hosting News

As promised, here’s a look at what some of the exhibitors and attendees thought of this year’s Webhosting Day 2008 and the value they see in attending this annual event.

In the next few days, we’ll be bringing you a one-on-one with Michael Korbacher, the director of Web and application, Hosting Communications Sector, Microsoft International as he gives us some insight into Microsoft’s role at Webhosting Day 2008 as well as what kind of excitement Windows Server 2008 has been stirring up across the pond.

It is now almost two weeks since my last post. While quite a few people visited the blog and my site, no one made any suggestion regarding which design is better.

Truth be told, I am not happy with any of the proposed designs, but the closest one for me was the single table with everything in one page. So I am going to stick with a modification of it from now on.

If you are following the links from my last post, please note that the original index page can now be found at http://www.words2u.net/index.original.php - the rest of the links are unchanged for now.

So if you want to visit my new home page, check out this link

By the way, I am finding that 'twitter' style blogs are a lot easier to do than standard, long entries.  I can't promise to stick to the 140 characters length, but I will try as hard as I can.

See you soon!

While the WHIR’s editor-in-chief Liam Eagle has provided us with some fantastic up-to-the minute coverage from Webhosting Day, which you can still catch on his blog here, WHIRtv was also on location gathering event footage and interviews with some key players in the European hosting market. (Let’s also take a moment to note that as much as we try to describe the surreal atmosphere with the venue, there really is no better way to relay this to you than through images and video!)

To kick off our European coverage, here’s an interview with the event organizer, Thomas Strohe, who discusses the event’s rapid growth, some hot topics in the European hosting market and his overall vision for Webhosting Day.

In the following days and weeks we’ll be posting feedback from exhibitors and attendees as well as interviews with Microsoft, Parallels and other key European players that were attending the event.

Why doesn’t Google rank me higher? Well, not me exactly. A website that I work on. I set up a site for a friend of mine and helped get it groomed to rank well for its search terms in Google.

This content provided by HostMySite.com Website Hosting.

The maxim "You never get a second chance to make a first impression" (attributed to W. Triesthof), has been applied to the art of selling, to good posture, to well being, and, of course, to web design. Still, on the web, this adage is flat wrong. When trying to impress millions of individuals, two eyeballs at a time, there are millions of chances to make a first impression.

Which is why, several month into this blog, I am fixing my home page. It may be too late for the readers of this blog, but I probably still have a chance with the rest of humanity.

My original design had two pages - Home page, and About page. The Home page listed links to the main sections of the site. The About page added a little technical, personal and contact information, and a pitch for contributions.

This design has two problems. First, the home page is scrawny, making the page look empty and uninviting. Second, the contributions pitch, on the About page, is likely to be much less viewed, compared to the Home page. Considering the relative potential importance of contributions to the future development of the site, the pitch should be more visible.

So I tried a second design, combining the two original pages. This time, I only needed one column in the table, the page size is more appealing (IMHO), and there is more room for the contribution pitch (so I can explain the purpose, instead of just asking). I also moved that part higher up in the page. I like this design much better.

However, I ran into yet another web site, and adapted it for my needs as well. This one uses two columns in a table to direct the viewer to accomplish various desired action. It's a bit sparse, but gets all the information across in an organized fashion. This last design looked even better!

So, I decided to try and duplicate the last design with the markup tools of PmWiki, with a little bit of color thrown in as well.  And here it is. When I figure out how to set the font family and font size, I will improve the page even more.

Finally, I copied the page into an existing group, with its headers and footers, here - which resulted in a repetitive visual, since the footer and side bar already include the 'Donate' button.

Sadly, I have to say that the PmWiki page looks a lot better than any of my 'adopt, extend and modify' ones. It may be an indication that professional tools are superior to hand coding, or a testament to my web design prowess. Either way, I will probably stick with it in one way or another. The only problem is that PmWiki's PHP processing takes a few miliseconds more, making the site a bit more sluggish.

You are invited to check out the different designs, opine on their relative merits or lack thereof, or offer better ones. Bear in mind, though, that the focus should be on the design, not necessarily the text.

Here are the links again:

Home and About

Combined

Table view 

Table by PmWiki

PmWiki Table with header and footer