IE6 has been a subject of debate, some offensive, some defensive. However, this site goes way out to kill the poor browser. The site has been created by Alex Design Group who are a design company based out of Colorado.

The site has a page dedicated to memories. Here is mine

What is your most memorable experience with IE6?

The vulnerability exploits a new feature that has been introduced in Wordpress 2.9: the trash. The trash is a basic trashcan where deleted posts are placed so that they can be restored if they have been deleted by accident. This trash can be disabled but is activated by default on all Wordpress 2.9 and later blogs.

Every logged in user, even those with the subscriber role, can access all deleted articles and posts that have been moved to the trash. This might not affect the majority of blogs as there need to be at least two registered users and at least one user that is not trusted by the administrator of the site.

In theory though anyone with a user account at the website can access the trashed articles regardless of which user wrote them.

The Wordpress 2.9.2 patch fixes this exploit so that this is no longer possible. Wordpress 2.9.2. can be downloaded from the official Wordpress website. Users who have configured their blog for automatic updates can also update the blog from within the blog right away.

One way to clean up your WordPress Database, including old post revisions and items that are in trash, is to use WP-Optimize.  It does a great job at cleaning up bloated databases on busy WordPress sites and keeps them running fast.

I found this list on eHow and thought that it would serve as a good guideline when evaluating ones own Web site for credibility.

How to Determine Website Credibility

1. Look at the URL address of the website. The URL address starts with http://. Addresses ending in .gov, .us and .(STATE ABBREVIATION) are reliable. All other endings will require more investigation to know if they are credible or not.
2. URL address that contain tildes (~) usually mean that an individual published the site. Individual publishers unaffiliated with a credible corporation can have their own agendas. These sites may not have the most credible information.
3. Check the publishing date. Obviously, Internet pages that have been published more recently are more credible.
4. Figure out the site’s purpose. Sites that are selling you something or asking you to sign up for something may not be present you with neutral, unbiased information.
5. Check out the contact information and resources. Credible websites should list contact information and resources.
6. Decide if the article is describing facts or the author’s opinions. Statements that start with “I think” or “From my experience” aren’t as reliable as those that begin with “Experts recommend” or “Research proves.”
7. Ask yourself whether or not the article has answered all of your questions after you have finished reading it. If the article still leaves you with questions, it may not be the most credible source.

Please share your experiences with validating a Website in the comment section below.

According to the article, city officials seem to think “their website was stolen via ‘cyber squatting.’” I did a some research on the domain name, and according to a Whois search on the last archive date where the domain name was owned by the city, the domain name was set to expire on November 26, 2009. It appears to me as if the domain name was not renewed and someone else acquired it.

The business of drop catching expiring domain names is completely legitimate – and it’s the reason companies like Snapnames and Namejet are in business. It’s also the reason why several high profile domain name investors became very wealthy. It’s not necessarily from selling the expired names back to the previous owner, but by using those names for their businesses. Godaddy also allows people to place backorders on domain names, on the off-chance the name isn’t renewed.

The article quotes Jason England of Premier Quest ISP, the website’s host (according to the news article). England believes it’s a case of cybersquatting. He mentioned that when a domain name expires, there are people who will try to register it immediately, especially “folks typically from the same type of geography that the majority of the world’s spam and viruses come from.”

Incidentally, the Administrative Contact at the time the city owned the domain name was premierquest@pqisp.com. Had someone paid the annual renewal fee of somewhere around $10, the city would still presumably own the domain name. Based on my experience, Godaddy sends notices 90, 60, 30, and 15 days prior to a domain name’s expiration – and possibly even more frequently.

As far as I am aware, it’s perfectly legal to register domain names – especially geographic and non-trademarked domain names – after they expire. Just check out what a UDRP panelist said about geodomain names recently when he referenced “the general rule that geographic names are not subject to trademark protection.”

I will provide an example to equate this to physical real estate,. If someone in Morehead, Kentucky decides he doesn’t wish to pay property taxes this year, I am sure the city will go after his property, maybe file a lien, and perhaps even seize it. They may even put it up for auction for others to bid on it once it’s seized. Likewise, when someone doesn’t renew their domain name, the registrar can put the name up for auction.

If the City of Morehead wishes to have this domain name back so they don’t have to order hundreds of dollars worth of stationery, they should hope the owner would want to sell it to them. Otherwise, they will be forced to use new email addresses, change all inbound links, and probably spend in excess of the $10,000 figure they quoted in the article. They now also need to worry about confidential emails addressed to @cityofmorehead.com email addresses.

I really feel badly for the City and especially for the person who was responsible for renewing the domain name. This is a very good example of why domain owners need to be the Administrative Contact email on their domain names so they can be sure the bill is paid each year.

Both should take should take you to the same place. If not there is a problem! Personally, I don’t want to type in the ‘www’ and I don’t really see the need for it.  For example, when I go to SpiderSavvy.com or JamesMcWhorter.com I don’t type in www.

This brings me to an important SEO and usability tip that is often overlooked in sites with regards to those who find your site by typing ‘www’ before the domain name. Search engines may think spidersavvy.com and www.spidersavvy.com are two different sites. To avoid dillution of your Web site’s SEO you should set up a permanent redirect (technically called a “301 redirect”) between these sites. Once you do that, you will get full search engine credit for your work on these sites.

It works like this.  When you enter www.SpiderSavvy.com the redirect will automatically take you to http://SpiderSavvy.com.  This effectively funnels all traffic through one place instead of two or more.

This can be done by finding the .htaccess file, on your Web site, and entering:

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.(.*) [NC]

RewriteRule ^(.*) http://%1/$1 [R=301]

Usability is like cooking: everybody needs the results, anybody can do it reasonably well with a bit of training, and yet it takes a master to produce a gourmet outcome.

If your business owner you may be asking your self why usability is important and how it can help your business.  The answer is simple. ROI.

Nielsen states that if you’ve never done any testing, you can typically  double your conversion rate or other key business metrics.  With that kind of return how can a business afford not to do simple usability testing?

Timeline

It takes only 3 days to complete a small usability project:

• Day 1: Plan the study and write the test tasks.
• Day 2: Test 5 users for about 1 hour each (cleaning up between sessions).
• Day 3: Analyze the findings and write up the top recommended design improvements.

If you have any experiences in usability testing please share your experiences in the comment section below.