During the night a website I had been working on for a friend needed some hefty changes to the database, involving optimisation, security-related bug fixes and integration with new scripts. The problem was that this was early in the morning, coming up to the peak time that users would want to use the websites’ services. In ultimately naive fashion users were told that the website was ready to be used for this working day and the last thing my friend needed was his boss on the phone shouting obsenities at him.

We decided that the day was still young and that these changes would need to be done whilst the entire site was down. The morning was the best time for this as it would be when staff members would be coming into work, so at best an hour of downtime would be recognised. Many of the scripts being used by the website were easy to turn off, but an entire website wasn’t. There was no ability to press a button to take the website offline and to greet members with a downtime error, so it was up to me to work on this whilst my friend worked frantically with the Oracle console (for those wondering the website is powered by PHP and Oracle).

When taking down a website for maintenance there are a number of factors that need to be considered. For most websites today replacing an index file isn’t the way to go, as users will find their way in through alternative pages through bookmarks and Google. With this being the case we need a method of allowing only one person to view a website, whilst showing all other users a downtime message.

In my case on all of the pages a config.php file was included, making these lines of code sufficient for my needs.

/* Start Maintenance Code */
if($_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'] != "127.0.0.1") // Replace with own IP Address

{

header("Location: /maintenance.php"); // Replace with own maintenance page

}
/* End Maintenance Code */

This code firstly asks if you are 127.0.0.1. If you are then you can view the website as you please, and if not you are directed to the maintenance.php page.

Another method I had toyed with was using a .htaccess file to do the same thing, although I came across mixed results when using this method. For those who want to give it a go here’s the code anyway.

order deny,allow
deny from all
allow from 127.0.0.1
ErrorDocument 403 maintenance.php

This code is fairly straightforward for anyone to understand, although the last line could use some explaining. The 403 part represents the 403 forbidden HTTP status code, which tells users that they were able to communicate with the web server, but the website has restricted access for a given reason.

The Internet has struggled with everything its received. Domain names have become a hassle for many individuals, companies and countries, hosting companies come and go without telling their customers, millions of users use websites that take little to no security practices into consideration, and so on.

A group of people that have suffered the most are Web Designers and Web Developers. These people are the ones who have had to work on this unstable medium with even more unstable colleagues around the world offering to build websites for chump change. Whilst some will argue that Web Designers/Developers have very unchallenging jobs I believe that the way that the Internet has evolved has allowed these people to constantly be on their toes, awaiting the next news that’ll forever change how they work.

It seems that we’re now looking to one of the most drastic changes to the Web for some time.

For the past couple of years a small group of academics and professionals have been pondering the validity of a Semantic Web. In essence this could be called an ‘intelligent web’, allowing websites to understand the information given to them to help satisfy user requirements far better than before, perhaps even taking the sometimes tedious task of finding information on our own out of the picture and leaving it in the hands of a computer.

It all sounds too good to be true, especially to a cynic like myself. Being the naive bunch we web developers seem to be we cannot wait for real plans to be made, so we’ve jumped straight into it to try and make parts of the Internet ’smart’, tagging content in certain ways so that other websites can crawl the information themselves. Perhaps I just don’t understand enough about this Semantic Web thing?

All this talk about the web changing is true, but I’m not sure if it’ll go down the semantic route.

A struggle that millions of web users seem to be facing now is Net Neutrality. As of now the Internet is a neutral ground for anyone to compete on as the infrastructure is free of restrictions. However, Internet Service Providers are looking to take control of the Internet and very soon we could see the Internet almost being treated like TV, in the form of subscriptions based on what you want to view. This would be the first step in destroying small websites and could potentially kill off the next Google or MySpace just to make more money. There’s a lot more to it so I would strongly recommend reading the Wikipedia article on Net Neutrality before making a judgement on it.

My bleak point of view of the Semantic Web almost stems solely from Net Neutrality being an issue that people don’t wish to deal with until it’s too late. I simply do not understand how we can plan for the next revision of the Internet when for many of us there won’t even be a real Internet around that we can use and modify freely. The Internet needs to be neutral, even the inventor of the Internet Protocol agrees with me!

We are fighting two wars when we can barely handle one, and unless Network Neutrality is promised in some shape or form I cannot see a Semantic Web taking off.

When browsing the Internet today we’re accustomed to seeing the good ol’ “http://www” bit on the left side of our URL’s. However, it seems that a growing number of websites have decided that this is not good enough and have created rewrite rules to strip the “www” off of all their addresses, effectively turning http://www.example.com into http://example.com. One of the main culprits of this is our favourite Obama-loving, Microsoft-bashing social ‘news‘ website Digg.

There is next to no benefit to either of these URL formats apart from the size of the URL’s generated. Naturally the smaller one is quicker to write and keeps the address bar focused on the content and not the fact that it’s on the World Wide Web (an obvious fact).

The only benefit that can be achieved from this is to ensure that search engines pick up only one format of your URL’s. From what I can understand having backlinks to http://www.example.com/page.html and http://example.com/page.html will dilute your rankings. To help combat this I have provided some code that will force your website to work with the “www” attached to the URL at all times, even when it is removed.

First of all, create a file named .htaccess (yes, nothing on the left apart from a dot) and add this code with a text-editing program like Notepad. If you have trouble with doing this go to .htaccess Editor and use their free online tool.

RedirectMatch permanent index.html/(.*) http://example.com/$1
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.example.com%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]

RewriteBase /

RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /([^/]+/)*index\.(html|php)\ HTTP/
RewriteRule ^(([^/]+/)*)index\.(html|php)$ http://domain.tld/$1 [R=301,L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} /+[^\.]+$
RewriteRule ^(.+[^/])$ %{REQUEST_URI}/ [R=301,L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.html [L]

Once saved in the .htaccess file upload it to your website in the root (main) directory using an FTP program. Be sure to upload in ASCII format! If you don’t have a FTP program I strongly recommend FireFTP for Firefox users. If you come across any problems and cannot find the .htaccess file to remove then upload a blank one to cancel any changes made with the first.

Over the past couple of years I have kept a small backlog of clients happy by adding their websites to every relevant directory I could find under their niches. Any time I find myself with nothing to do I’ll drag out my old list of URL’s and descriptions and register a large number of websites.

As much as I’d love to claim that I am an expert on SEO I stand by the theory that no one possibly could be, no matter how many PhD’s they can throw around to claim so. Search Engine Optimisation hasn’t been around for long, and the SEO fad shorter than that! How can one claim to be an expert in something that constantly changes and is too young to extensively test unless they knew the algorithms behind the worlds most powerful search engines?

This being said I’ve had some minor successes with SEO implementation, having provided tips for a number of small businesses on how to keep up with their (sometimes huge) competitors. Often this involves compiling a list of what should be done by a Web Designer and leaving them to wage war on how ’some kid’ has come into their workplace to tell them how to do their job. My successes have allowed businesses to keep their foot in the door, often occupying a first page result in Google against some very strong competition and whilst a lot of businesses don’t appreciate this achievement it has made me happy.

Whilst I do use a small amount of my time adding websites to whatever directory I can find, I strongly believe that directory submission is a dead art and has no large SEO benefit other than to have a link where one person a year might think of clicking on it.

Just to clarify, the large directories like DMOZ and Yahoo have great benefits! I would definitely apply to get a place in both of them (only Yahoo if you have money to burn), even though more often than not DMOZ is full of corrupt editors and dying categories. My beef is with the average directory, perhaps peaking at PR3, whose only purpose is for webmasters to flock to the website to add their links and view their ads. The reason these directories never take off or provide substantial traffic/increases in ranking is because the only people who visit these directories are webmasters looking to add their websites to get more PR! It’s like having a window salesman come to an empty house full of other window salesmen. They’re all looking to sell windows, but the only ones that are listening are people trying to sell windows. It simply does not work and isn’t worth your time.

This isn’t to say that you should avoid submitting to a directory if you feel that it could benefit you, but that directory submission is a fish in the proverbial sea that is SEO. A pond with loads of fish but no water isn’t a pond, it’s a mass grave of fish.

The art of link building involves getting popular and relevant links to your website. A directory is often not relevant to your cause and is rarely ever popular with anyone but webmasters. If you’re looking to promote your website a bit more then I would highly recommend working on the content of your own website over anything else. This is the dominant area that Google recognises and with great content the links you require will come in no time at all.

As a final note, this is my 50th post on CodingFresh! If you’re reading this I hope you enjoy it and feel free to read more on this Blog. Thanks to all those who have visited and commented on this Blog. It’s your kindness that have kept this Blog going through some pretty tough times.

With online video taking the Internet to new levels in entertainment pleasure there is a massive grey area that seems to be swamping not only those who live outside of the United States, but those living in there who want access to our shows. This grey area is International Restriction.

International Restriction is a cancer, not only for the Internet but for many software and hardware products in the market today. For example, the iPhone was released in the United Kingdom months after America got its first taste of it, and thanks to the easy access to American media we now have the general public had heard enough about it to realise that the hype just wasn’t worth it. Even in the world we live in today it exists on websites. Online communities such as Newsvine show little to no attention to International users, with such simple things as the Champions League final, one of the most important sporting events in the entire world apparenting being played in America. This complete disregard for users doesn’t just bother those outside of America, as the fantastic BBC iPlayer allegedly no longer works for those in America. This problem is widespread, with websites like South Park Studios, Adult Swim and even YouTube showing no love to those across the pond.

Considering that websites like MySpace and Facebook can easily allow for media to be viewed by anyone across the world within seconds, along with BitTorrent being able to transfer huge files to anyone would the world just as fast, why do we have to wait for hardware, software or any other kind of media? Those that produce popular shows like Lost and Heroes already know the perils of International users downloading episodes before they come out in America, with their cries to stop and their attempts to limit it to a few days after only condensing the time users will download it to ensure that an International news website doesn’t leak any details.

Designers and Developer all over the world are crying out for Accessibility and Usability to be prime factors when creating a website or any other kind of application when we can’t even provide a simple 25 minute video to countries around the world. One of the main reasons for this is laws on who gets to play it and when, but even though I know very little about law (not suprising as I’m not a lawyer) it’s still an excuse with no real backing. Apple have already shot themselves in the foot with their tepid iPlayer launch in the UK and I’d be very surprised if this ordeal were to stop now.

All I can say on the matter is that Internationalisation is a part of Accessibility too, and if you’re discriminating users because of where they’re from you’re not much better than those who refuse to design to web standards. If you want to show a video then you should make sure that everyone can view it, whether they’re from Spain, Portugal, Kenya, England, America or Mars.

After browsing LinkedIn for a while to get the feel of the website and what it exactly offers I’ve noticed that a number of Web Designers have put “experienced in Web 2.0″ in their profiles/CV’s. For me, this is one of the worst moves you can make when adding things to any document detailing the work you’ve accomplished.

To make this worse I recently helped design and develop a website for some friends working on some coursework for university. In their Project Brief they outlined a desire to make the website like a Web 2.0 website, to which the lecturer asked what they meant, immediately leading to a load of bewildered faces. Again, they asked for my advice regarding how to explain Web 2.0 to whoever the work was for, to which I answered:

What’s the point?!

Loads of designers and developers are flaunting their ability to work on websites that somehow quality for this “Web 2.0″ thing, and clients are scratching their heads wondering why this is of any use to them. The average client that only wants their business to succeed won’t care about these buzzwords at all, and if you’re looking to lead them down this road without justification you’re taking an unprofessional amount of creative control for yourself.

Web 2.0 is just geeky web people talk, that’s all. Your Web 2.0 nonsense isn’t going to matter to anyone outside of the web circles because they’re not designers or developers!

As a Designer/Developer your sole job is to create a website for a user based to their specifications, utilising your experience to create the most suitable website for their needs. If you want to dress it up with rounded borders, flashy slogans without vowels and user-generated content then it’d better be in the Requirements Specification (or similar document), otherwise you’re just digging an almighty hole for yourself and your client.

If you really want to tell your client what Web 2.0 is then this is the best way to say it.

“Web 2.0 is just a marketing buzzword”

The people that are promoting this slogan for new websites with flashy bits that users contribute to are marketing types and news websites. Naturally, once the mainstream users start to get wind of these ideas developers and webmasters get all giddy with excitement and decide that the people have spoken and this is the best idea ever.

Please, do not bother coming up with a grand explanation of Web 2.0 to someone who wants a profitable business. These things are best left to those websites aiming to become the next big social media website.

There comes a time in some peoples’ lives when they come across a really great idea for a profitable website, one that no one has thought of or deployed successfully so far. These people have spent countless nights thinking about this idea and asked others to poke holes in the concept, but the idea is set in stone and a Business Plan is next to be unveiled.

In the days of Web 2.0 it’s ideal to get ideas out into the open as fast as possible, yet unlike with the previous bubble profits really do need to be made to make a business viable in today’s market. If one was able to get venture capital for starting up their online business then one of the most vital, yet difficult areas to analyse is how to earn money, or earn more than you’re spending. The worst part of this is the time-frame in which you are expected to make a profit, or when substantial profit is needed to keep your business afloat.

Writing an ironclad Business Plan for a business that operates solely online can be challenging enough, but a Cash Flow Projection that follows makes it look easy. Much of what goes on in the average CFP is guess-work, depending on traffic and how much you believe your methods of monetising your website will work. More often than not the person pitching will over-promote the effectiveness of online advertising to make their business plan seem more attractive, and actually getting the traffic you feel you deserve is easier said than done.

I don’t want to really go into how to create a website that scales well. It seems that at the moment we’re going through a phase where the collective community cannot decide on what really scales well, with alternatives like Haskell and Erlang being thrown into the mix as worthwhile languages to develop applications for the Internet. What I would like to focus on is the promotional side of things, and how SEO will not necessarily help. Search Engine Optimisation is very useful, but when you’re dealing with a large-scale website that’s about to launch your SEO strategy definitely comes second before a real promotional strategy for your business. Here are a few pointers you can take away and play with if you’re planning on launching a large-scale website anytime soon.

Online Advertising on large websites

As much as some webmasters love to praise AdWords I have yet to come across a situation where any webmaster I know has really been able to benefit from it. It seems that today a lot of users have wised up to the old ways and have this new ’skill’ we like to call “banner blindness”, meaning that we instinctively know not to look at banners or any kind of advertising on a web page. Admittedly, even the well-placed adverts on any website still stick out like a sore thumb.

That being said, advertiisng on large websites is known to work, and if you can find a cheap deal that guarantees direct traffic that is worth your money it may be worthwhile to persue it, only if you think the user being directed to your website would really want to be there.

Offline Advertising

Offline Advertising is probably the most underrated method of promoting a website, and for a large project like launching a website to hundreds of people within a month or two it really should be considered. Whilst this kind of advertising isn’t easily trackable like some online advertising tools allow it can be hugely beneficial to consider it. Well-placed advertising, whether it be on the TV or at a place where visitors would be interested could work wonders. Users will act on a need, and you have to provide a solution to that need.

Social Bookmarking

Previous readers (namely, myself) are well-aware that I am against the idea that Social Networks can help traffic that easily, but it’s a cheap way of advertising a brand, and if done tastefully a website can be promoted on a Social Network well. I’ve utilised these methods many a time and have received a few visitors here and there, but it’s not really worth a lot of hassle. Once your website is ready to be released just submit a few pages to a couple of Social Bookmarking websites and you should get roughly 20-30 visitors, which is better than nothing.

Press Release

There are news agencies all around the Internet and in your local area that wouldn’t mind putting a few good words of your choice around the place, so it’s always worth considering. If I were to launch a large-scale business venture I’d be sure to contact local news and radio stations to mark my availability for any interviews or scoops. A Press Release, if used correctly, can be very effective in getting the word out.

Whatever methods you decide on choosing the most important thing is to make a splash before you’ve opened your doors. The best websites didn’t just open their doors to thousands of users a day. They spent countless hours advertising and promoting their brands before they had even deployed the live website. A lot of companies choose to get the word out using as many different forms of media as possible, such as radio, TV, Internet, even trying to make their website content go viral on sites like YouTube. All of these methods require pushing all of your available channels extremely hard to squeeze every last drop of potential out of them.

Of course, all of these methods require funding, and in most cases excess funding to ensure that ones brand is stuck in peoples heads. Not everyone has the funding to launch a large marketing effort on loads of extremely popular websites, so more traditional methods will need to be utilised, meaning an effective SEM strategy and lots of free grassroots promoting wherever you can get the word out.

There are a number of success (and failure) stories out there, and it only takes a simple search on Google to see how some Web 2.0 companies found their feet. Perhaps a quick look on Wikipedia will answer some questions as well?

Occasionally a business may see the need to add some kind of social aspect to their website. For example, if you were selling software over the Internet and wanted to provide support in a community setting you may decide to install a forum script to handle this. If you were running a gaming website you may want the rich features that a social network could provide, such as profiles, instant messaging, etc.

As Social Networking has now become commonplace, with websites like MySpace, Facebook and YouTube taking the top spots in Alexa rankings it’s easy to see where the lowly forum has started to lose a bit of its appeal. Only a few years ago a Social Network would sound scary and a forum would be the epitome of interaction with others on the Internet, and way before then we were A/S/L-ing each other in chat rooms. In many ways I feel sorry for the creators of forums, as the shifting interests of users has led many forum scripts down the road to almost becoming secondary social networks. The latest vBulletin release gifted its users with user comments in profiles, user galleries and much more, which sounds like a great thing, but my original appeal with vBulletin back in its second version was that it was simple, yet extremely powerful at the same time. The hacking/modification community behind vBulletin was years ahead of its game, and if only vBulletin were to become open source software I’m sure every forum on earth would sport their disclaimer in their footers.

What a lot of people seem to forget is that a Forum is a Social Network, so in many ways they have existed for a while. Now that these tools are easier to create it seems everyone wants their own full-blown social network installed for no real business reason at all! I’ve tried a number of hosting companies that have tried this approach, and the popular helpdesk/live chat solutions have always won me over. All I’ll say is that if you wish to install something onto your web host then you should really come up with a good reason for needing it. About five years ago I spent countless days toying with and writing my own vBulletin hacks in PHP to run on my forums, yet as the number grew and the website became nothing but a big toy I couldn’t stop myself. In todays era of one-click installations in Cpanel and one-click plugin installations in WordPress and Firefox it’s easy to see how more is more.

A Forum and a Social Network have their own place, and it takes small efforts like Vanilla to really see what a forum can do for you without all the bells and whistles installed. If you feel that a full social network is needed for your website then go ahead and add one, but more often than not you’ll find that too many features put off users. We won’t admit it, but we like less features when compared to more. Just look at what happened to Digg when they allowed image submissions and you’ll see why the less-powerful tool is often the best.

If you’re a regular reader of this Blog (i.e. if you’re the author) you’ll know that I hate buzzwords and hype on the Internet. I’ve touched over the subject of Search Engine Optimisation a number of times, claiming it to not be the beginning and end of promotion on the Internet, and now I am looking to vent my annoyances with another little buzzword/acronym we all see thrown around by clients, users and developers far too much.

Asynchronous Javascript And XML - otherwise known as AJAX.

Maybe the issue is me? I’ve never taken the time to really learn AJAX and find out what it can really do for me. All I can really say is that I’ve seen it used on countless websites and very rarely does it ever impress me, especially considering that it’s been around for a good while now and developers and clients still demand its presence. I’ve known a few businesses completely throw away a good design to have a ‘minimalist’ design (code word for crap design) with some fancy all-singing, all-dancing layout that’ll throw data-driven tantrums all over your screen, and that’s if it’s working properly! Try viewing an AJAX powered website on a mobile device!

Believe it or not, but AJAX has been around in some shape or form for around ten years, so why has it only just started to take off now?

In many ways, the creation of AJAX as a dynamic technique seems like a good thing. We have the power to utilise HTML and CSS along with JavaScript, the DOM and others to create something out of what we currently already have. The functionality on paper sounds great, being able to request data without reloading the page, and in some ways it works brilliantly. Google is the only company that has been able to utilise AJAX in a way that genuinely works wonders, like with Google Suggest and Gmail.

Back in the day I remember JavaScript almost becoming a bad thing. What we wanted was grand websites containing lots of information and images to ponder over, and JavaScript was a nuisance that got in the way of browsing bliss. Now, it seems that with Web Applications becoming far more common in the browsing patterns of today AJAX is almost required at times, leaving a bad case of Accessibility issues and poor browsing experiences. The sheer lack of real alternatives to AJAX also presents a problem. With Browsers on mobile devices and desktops crashing due to heavy loading times with AJAX we seem to have hit a dead-end as some websites fight a losing battle to become better versions of desktop software .

AJAX is great when it’s core functionality is a requirement, and I can certainly see why it has taken off now with Web 2.0 in full swing and web applications becoming the new ‘website’, but with these great applications of a useful technique come the useless ones, where AJAX is used because it looks cool and makes your company look cutting-edge.

The rise of top-quality stat tracking software is a great thing for webmasters. Using websites like W3Counter, Google Analytics or self-hosted methods has become almost necessary for webmasters and I would be lying if I said that I hadn’t lost a large amount of time inside one of these scripts looking at what my users have been up to. Having a tool to collect, store and analyse this data is essential for those that own the website, but not so much for those that are viewing it.

Back in the old days fan websites and pre-hosted websites would flaunt their website statistics with little recognisable buttons, allowing any visitor to their web page to come in and see what the collective audience of that website has been up to. Much like the Internet back then this idea was unprofessional and not really intended for those wishing to bring their ideas to life.

Sadly, it seems that showing off statistics has made its way back onto websites.

Lurking on an ever-growing amount of web pages stat trackers like Feedburner and StatCounter.com, allowing users to publically show what users have subscribed to their RSS feeds and what their users like and dislike on their web page. It’s almost a rarity to see a Blog that doesn’t sport a FeedBurner button now!

The obvious reason behind this is to make their website look popular and to give themselves a motivational slap on the ass for a job well done. I’m sure there are a few visitors that’ll want to check certain stats to see if a Blog is popular enough to be recognised as a good source, but in general use it’s pretty much unnecessary. It adds very little to your web page, and nothing towards the content.

I honestly cannot see why people see the need to show off how many RSS subscriptions they have, or how many people have found their website through various terms we would never dream of choosing. I was always under the impression that the best websites are the ones that fulfil the users needs, not the ones that have twelve million visitors a second (or claim they do).