Wisdump

Dumping wisdom on design and the web

Setup A Ubuntu VPS For Hosting Ruby On Rails Applications

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ruby-on-rails

One of the biggest problems when coding is how to deal with repetitive tasks. If you’re as patient as a saint, you’ll do this on your own while scrolling through thousands of lines of code. The better way to go, though, is to have all of these automated with Ruby on Rails. The only problem here is that you’ll have to find a place to host this application before going live.

What you’re probably going to do is go over all the different options and try to find the cheapest one out there. The problem with this is that even the cheapest of options (like Heroku) are fairly expensive. Along with that, Heroku doesn’t let you have any storage space at all, and it doesn’t give you full control over your data.

The far better option here is to use VPS hosting. It’s cost effective, simple to use, and has the features that you need. In this post, we’re going to go into how you would host using this smarter option.

What is VPS?

VPS stands for virtual private server. It’s essentially a totally virtual machine that’s set up by companies that host over the Internet. This virtual machine of yours will be included with other virtual machines on an actual, physical server. This machine can then run an OS, a server for the web, and other software for your database.

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Update Your IT Operations

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If your IT support consists of your secretary’s teenage son and a system tech who visits the office once a month, then it may be time to update your IT operations. If your business has IT staffers who do manual software updates and think a service level agreement means a paycheck every Friday, then it’s definitely time to update your IT operations.

Life moves fast in a web 2.0 world. You can’t wait to respond to technical issues. You plan for them. Ideally, when one of your servers fails, your business would experience little to no downtime. Your staff would have a spare system and a ghosted image of the failed machine ready to go live before you even knew it was down. In reality, servers and software are expensive and your staff might spend hours, if not days figuring out the failure and making repairs. [Read more…]

Weak titles a web site usability error

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Blogs and various content sites have proliferated all over the world wide web, giving the average user an wide range of articles, blog posts and content to read and enjoy. But even with the proliferation of content on the internet there is one glaring error that most of these sites commit – enabling their content to become more internet friendly and usable.

One of the biggest culprits when developing content for web sites and blogs is not making your content scannable. What does this mean? The tendency of web site readers is to scan to the left, where more information is located. In fact, the common movement of the eye is F-shaped. By employing a weak title, the first two to three words in the title won’t contain any kind of information or keywords that will compel the reader to click on the link. Even though scannability is something that is also important with the body text, it is of greater significance when thinking of a title for your post. Titles should always be within context.

Consider the title as microcontent – small bits of information that already give users a general idea of what the article or blog post will be. By treating your titles like this, users won’t have a problem determining what the article is about and won’t hesitate to click on the link to read it further. Treating titles like microcontent also has another use – it gives you a better representation when the links appear in search engines, RSS feeds and other venues that are link-generated

6 Important Considerations in Choosing a Good Domain Name

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When setting up your website one of the most important aspects will be to choose a domain name.  It’s that domain name that will stick with you for the lifetime of your site.  You can change the template, change the purpose of the site, fire a designer, hire  a designer, but you just cannot change that domain name (unless you scrap it and do a redirect).  Finding an available domain name that you like and that is appropriate for the purpose of your site is complicated.   Here are a few things to think about when choosing a domain name:

1. Match the domain name to actual name of your site

One of the easiest and best alternatives is to get a domain name that matches the actual name of your site.  It’s a duh statement but so many people forget to match the site.  You will increase your branding as well as make it easy for visitors to remember the name of your site.  The worst thing that can happen is if people fall head over heels for your site but can not find it again simply because the domain name is not the same as the name of your site.  For example if you have a bakery site, don’t call it StubbornNelly.com.  No one will have a clue what your theme is.  Call it, TastyPastry.com, or even Anne Cookies around the corner.com.

2. Keep it short – and Keep it Simple Stupid (KISS)

Keeping the domain name short is a challenge if you are looking for a .com domain as all three and four letter words are already taken.  Yep, and all standard English words are gone too (designer.com, awesome.com).   Coming up with a name that is short will be easier to remember and pass along by word of mouth.   But remember, a domain name should however not be kept short just for the sake of keeping it short.  Do not use acronyms as a url if they look bad as an acronym.  Think of all those failed websites because people did not see different words as one word.  Like don’t come up Patterns, Octogons and Other Pics and give it POOP.com.  That’s a failed domain name.

Some great short named domains:

  • IBM.com (why call it international business machines)
  • digg.com (i dig you, you dig me)
  • Match.com (find a matching partner)

3. Use keywords

Optimizing your domain name for search engines is a big help.  In using one or two of your single most important keywords you will have better chances of getting a higher rank on the search results, thus increasing traffic.  This will not be easy, as most “natural” names already are taken.  Combine an important keyword then with something secondary. These sites came up with great names:

  • GraphicDesignBlog.com
  • TutorialMagazine.com
  • Dev-Tips.com

4. Describe your site

Your domain name is an excellent way of describing what your site is all about.  Say for example that you manage a site about fishing. Your domain name should in some way describe that fishing is exactly what your visitors will find on the site. Again, fishing is a major keyword of your site, so exploit it with a well picked domain name.

5. Avoid confusion

In general, domain names are not expensive.  Register domains with misspellings of your original domain if you want to make sure you catch most type in domain traffic.   Redirect those misspelled domains to the main website.  This is a great for sites that use hard to spell words or need to protect their brand identity. Examples:

  • Google.com
  • Googel.com
  • Gogle.com

6. Consider alternative domain extensions

If it is impossible to find a good domain name with the prefix .com you might want to consider using an alternative domain extension. Many countries have opened up their country code top level domain for international registration.  This is perhaps your chance to create the perfect domain hack. Examples:

  • Del.icio.us
  • Ma.tt
  • Designm.ag

Picking a domain name will take time, energy and some creativity from your side but its worth it in the end. The last tip is to checkout recently expired domain names at snapnames.com – many names will be awful or cost a fortune, but once in a while you will be able find a real gem at a reasonable fee.  Good luck on finding the domain of your dreams!