Merry Christmas

And A Happy New Year!

Online Music

Sam the Record Man recently shut its doors forever, leaving the building and the neon sign to Ryerson University. I used to buy my classical music CDs from there, for bargain prices of around $7. There were also knowledgeable salesmen who could advise me on the smallest details from the quality of the recording studio to the proficiency of the musician.

At another music store, this time a second-hand one, the owner was describing how he was losing customers due to online music stores for CDs and DVDs (Amazon.com is a well-stocked online store), as well as downloadable music (iTunes is a popular download program available for free).

Patrons can also find all kinds of help online, including a community of like-minded aficionados, where discussion boards, blogs, and other sources of information have replaced the music store salesman.

These digitized music sources are a great advantage for music on websites. Downloadable music from iTunes (or other web sources) are relatively easy to acquire since you can usually buy a single piece of music at at time, rather than whole CDs.

Once at iTunes, you can convert these songs into the appropriate files, which you can then incorporate into your website for whatever purpose you desire: either as samples of music, or as a background music for your website.

Or, if you have even the rudimentary software, you can convert your songs from your CDs into digital files, to use for your website.

Of course, you have to provide credit for the music, to avoid copyright issues.

Here is a good comprehensive web article which describes all the various facets of online music.

Website Navitation and Layout

This blogger provides the same kinds of tips that I do in my articles and blogging topics.

His main advice is:

A clean layout and neat navigation... enhances its looks.

Not only does a clean layout and neat navigation enhance the look of our website, it will also attract, and keep, your visitors since they will find it easy to get around your website the get the information they need.

Here is the rest of the post titled: "Give importance to layout and navigation", which I've posted in its entirety (with a few of my additions, in italic). You can read other tips and recommendations here.

Give importance to layout and navigation

· Prepare your site navigation before designing to prevent cluttering up the site with forgotten links.

· A clean-cut and uniform navigation system is a must.

· If you have too many links then you should use drop-down menus for your main topics.

· The navigation should be flexible enough to accommodate any amount of additional links since you probably will be adding pages periodically. For this using drop-down menus or section home pages is a must [Not necessarily a must, since you can add more links horizontally. But drop-down menus will accommodate a large number of links.]

· Keep your main links together as much as possible so that visitors can absorb them at one shot and know what your site conveys about your company. Check out how all our major links appear in our top navigation bar and all related section links are listed in the right hand side menu.

· There is no harm is showcasing important links (even repeated links) that you think might interest the visitor. Small boxes describing the link should look good.

· If you like a graphic intensive site and find there is not much space for accommodating all your links, you can have a separate home (splash) page and all other pages as content pages. Thus your home page can have visual appeal and your inner content pages can have elaborate navigation structures while focusing on the content.

· Use your navigation space efficiently. Use short, clear and precise words in your links so that your visitors know what the corresponding page will contain.

Background Colors Revisited

I am reposting this important blog entry on background colors.

The background color of your site affects how people read the information at hand, and is therefore extremely important.

News sites, which mostly on text almost always have a white, or very light, background. And most professional museums and galleries, whose main attraction are the images, also use white as their background.

My recommendation will always be: keep the background light. A little creativity (pale yellow or cream) may add to the uniqueness of your site, but for maximum clarity, keep the background light.

Addendum: Try the link at the end of the post to view different background colors with a multicolored of text.
------------------------------------------

Background Colors

One of the most difficult decisions to make with a website is the background. Text is usually best read when on a contrasting background. But, usually, it is much easier on the eyes if the background is light, and the text is dark. Even different colors are easier to read if the background is lighter.

Think about it, most of the time we're looking at things in daylight - a light background. At night, a dark background, even with as many lights as we shine on things, it is still more difficult to see our way around things than during the day.

See what you think (and see) by clicking on different background options at this very ingenious link.

Websites Can Counter the Economic Crunch

Websites catering to small and mid-sized businesses report increased demand for their services - some as high as 24% - as a result of the economic downturn.

Most savvy business owners have already realized that a website provides for exponential benefits if it is designed well, and advertises cleverly. But, especially during harder economic times, small and mid-sized businesses are beginning to realize the benefits of having websites.

The cost of designing and maintaining websites are minimal, compared to print and third party advertising venues. The web, like its name indicates, builds an endless network of contacts, attracting clients from far and wide, increasing its business base through low-cost and high visibility.

So, now more than ever, a website will definitely bring in those extra benefits, and the gains will certainly exceed the costs.

Reading Online

People read websites differently than they do books or other printed material.

One pattern of website reading resembles the letter F:

Reading the first few lines from all the way horizontally from left to right, with vertical scanning taking precedence going down the page.

Another online reading behavior is that people will look for outstanding cues like bulleted words, changes in color, type-face and font size variations and supporting graphics and images.

What is happening is that online readers want their information quickly, easily and fast.

Unless readers come to your website purely for the writing (and there are websites which are primarily there for reading long articles and essays), the reality is that they want a web version of writing.

I discuss this in my article: "How to make the most of your website", which is in fact written in the exact manner that I describe above, with bullets, font changes and color variations.

To obtain this article, both as an example of online writing (of a relatively long article) and to improve your website, you can purchase the article for only $5, and read a preview of it by logging into the membership section.

Here is an excerpt from "How to make the most of your website" which focuses on writing online:

How can you make your website a success?

• One of the most important things about a website is that you say everything you want to say in an organized manner, in a way that whoever is reading will easily remember by connecting with you.

How can you do this?

• Make sure your website address is easy-to-remember
  • Use your name or the name of your company for your address
  • That way your website address alone can become your publicity
• Most people scan online, they don’t really read
  • Don’t write too much
  • Make it easier for people by bulleting and highlighting your text
• Try to use some images in your website
  • Don’t rely only on text
  • Find the appropriate images. For example, people really like to see photos of the people involved in the website and the business
• Have an interactive space
  • Have a comment box for your email so people can write back to you on the website. That way they feel like they’re talking to you
  • Try to have slide shows and other galleries. By clicking buttons, people feel they’re participating in the show
• Make it easy to browse through your website
  • Have a simple design
  • Edit out as much as possible – text, images, buttons, etc…
  • Have clear links
• Finally, don’t forget your external links
  • People always want to know who you are associated with
  • Have carefully selected links to other websites in your Links section

---

Reference:
Online Literacy Is a Lesser Kind
Slow reading counterbalances Web skimming
By MARK BAUERLEIN
The Chronicle for Higher Education

To Flickr or to Youtube

There are many professionally designed methods to put photos and videos onto your main website. This is the recommended route if you want your website to look serious.

But, there is no reason why you cannot put in photos and videos onto your blog, using the many free or low-priced website sources.

The most popular, and the most user friendly are Flickr and Youtube.

Part of the charm of Flickr and Youtube is that they act like a type of a blog. Some people opt for purely a Flickr or Youtube presence, uploading their videos and photo and posting them with comments, to maintain a photo or video journal.

You can connect to your Flickr and Youtube posts by simply having a link on your blog, or by actually downloading a video onto your blog posting. Unfortunately, you can upload only from your Youtube account directly to your blog. Photos need to be uploaded from your files (from your hard drive, or other file sources, not from Flickr), or just linked to from a Flickr page.